Addiction

I'm an addict. But then, I think most everyone else is as well.

It's 5:00 in the morning and I've been up since three. I think 3:00 AM is the darkest hour, the dark of night coupled with a darkness of spirit. The world is quiet and it seems you're the only one awake in it. (Which was scary as hell when I was a little girl of six or seven - suffering insomnia even then.)

Most of my addictions are benign, thankfully - work, computer, work, television, work, books, work. (Being a workaholic does have benefits - you get a lot done and you make your boss happy.)

I first realized my addictive nature during a lengthy and stressful period of unemployment. I spent 22 months on the dole during three years in the early '90's. (Fired twice by the same guy. To follow through on the adage - shame on me.)

To get away from the knot of fear in my stomach, I read books. I didn't just read them, I consumed them in giant gulps. (I read Jane Eyre one day and Wuthering Heights the next and wondered why I got eyestrain.) I'd finish one book and, as I closed it, would panic if there wasn't another to immediately pick up.

I much preferred being in 1800's England to 1990's Kansas City. The librarian got to know me by name.

Once I got a job, the desperation to read abated. I once again had my favorite addiction - work! There was always plenty to do - and it was so much better to skate on the surface than to drop into reality.

I find myself skating on the surface again, spending hours playing stupid computer games, watching mindless television, and smoking too much.

And THAT is my non-benign addiction. The one I really know is bad for me, but I do it anyway.

Dammit.

Courage

We took my youngest sister to the airport yesterday and now she's back at home in Fort Worth, Texas. We'd spent the last 10 days or so together - the longest stretch of time since I don't know when.

My sister is epileptic and her seizures aren't controlled. Her memory is virtually non-existent, she wears two hearing aids but often doesn't seem to be tracking. She has emphysema and got quickly winded as we walked together. She's lived in an assisted living center for the past 12 years. As one of the youngest residents, her friends continue to die on her.

The hand life has dealt her sucks big-time.

She makes the best of it, or tries to.

She's been befriended by the staff, and helps the activities director by making copies and other simple tasks. She gets a $10 per month deduction on her rent in return, and is very proud of her contribution to both the facility and to the cost of her care. She calls bingo twice a week and was president of the Residents Council for five years. She's recently started seeing a therapist.

And this week she rode a horse. While I was at work downtown, my good friend and neighbor took my sister to visit her horse. Beforehand, my sister told me, "Maybe I'll get to ride it! I mean, why not? I'm 53. I've never ridden a horse and when am I going to get the chance again?"

She loved it, though the horse was big and scary. An abused show horse who is known to be temperamental. She was scared, but she told me, "What the heck?" And it went beautifully.

I wish I'd been there, but Mr. D captured it on camera.

Oh, Just Grow Up...

Disgust is the best way to describe my feelings about this fading political summer. At least the health care reform debate is moving back into the halls of Congress and away from the frenzy of various town hall meetings.

Not that I expect much better from our representatives in Congress. Prime example: the performance of South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson. His apopletic shout of "You're a liar" during the President's address showed how much civility we can expect in the coming weeks.

All this sound and fury - signifying nothing.

Meanwhile, 47 million Americans are without health insurance. Other millions with pre-existing conditions are afraid of losing their jobs - or moving on - because of the fear of losing their health insurance. And then there are those who suddenly find themselves without insurance, their policy cancelled because of some fine print.

That's what happened with my mother. At the age of 60, her insurance was suddenly cancelled. The insurance company said the benign breast cyst she'd had in her 30's was too much of a risk. If she wanted insurance - and she did, desperately, widowed, alone, and scared to death of catastrophic expenses eating into her savings - she had to pay $1500 a month. In 1989 dollars. Luckily, she was able to afford it - but was greatly relieved when she hit 65 and Medicare kicked in.


Meanwhile, we've got the most expensive health care system in the world - but don't have the results to show for it. The system is broken and it's (literally) killing us.


Meanwhile, our politicians and pundits bloviate - and nothing happens. Sound and fury.

We need a national mother. (Sorry, mine's no longer available - but she would've been great.) We need someone to tell the politicians - and the rest of us - to be quiet, go to our respective corners, and to sit and think about what all this incivility - on both sides - is doing to our national culture and character.

Can't we all just shut up? Quit the ad hominem attacks, stop demonizing those with whom we disagree, and try to figure this out?

I'm sick of all the yelling. Sound and fury...

Good Morning, Government!

I stole the following from a comment on the Huffington Post; the comment was in reaction to the Republican jeering of the President during his health care reform speech:

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power utility regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.


Have a great day.

I'm HOW old???

The dawn of my 60th birthday has yet to break, but it's already been eventful. Had to break up a cat fight in the dark of 5 a.m. (The senior cat escaped indoors, but the junior cat took up a guardian perch on the railing of the back porch. He's a tough little shit - he was the one doing the fighting.)

Then I had a good cry, missing my longtime friend. She would have been all over this occasion, and I would have returned the favor next year.

She died in March and I guess I'm still not over it.

The tear fest was immediately followed by a 'happy birthday' call from my Dallas sister. From sadness to joy in three seconds flat.

I'm taking the day off.

Thank You!

At my brother's house, when my nieces were little, the dinnertime prayer/blessing was a round of 'thank you's' to anybody and anything that had something to do with the meal before us.

"Thank you, farmer." "Thank you, truck who took the food." "Thank you, grocery store." All stated sincerely in sweet little girl voices.

It did sometimes seem like a contest as to who could come up with the newest - and most creative - subject for gratitude. "Thank you, checkout lady...." "Thank you, company that made the bags..."

"Thank you, sunshine, for helping the plants grow." "Thank you, rain, for giving them water to drink."

A lovely anecdote to remember as this morning's sunlight touches the tops of the trees.

So thank you...for another day. (Even though there's a heat advisory and I plan to spend it looking at the world through glass today.)

Thank you, person who came up with air conditioning!