Envy

I am almost 54 years old and sometimes I feel like a two and half year old saying, "I want, I want, its mine, I want it." When will I grow out of it, when will I mature, when will I be content, when will I learn?

The things I want aren't necessary and sometimes aren't even objects. I want decent affordable portable medical insurance so I'm not tied to my current job. I want a great backyard patio without mosquitos or overuse of chemicals, I want a canoe, I want more books, I want more time to read books, I want more people with whom to talk about books,I want new bedding, I want a new refrigerator with an ice-maker, I want to be debt free, I want, I want, I want.....

And then I start seeing what other people have and I want even more. This person's house is always clean and organized, this person has the library of my dreams, this person has a houseboat, this person got a huge bonus at work, this person has travelled so much more than me.. I want, I want, I want......

Aristotle says, "Envy is pain at the good fortune of others."

In the book, The Geography of Bliss, the writer, Joseph Epstein, is quoted from his writing on envy as saying, "Once unleashed, envy tends to diminish all in whom it takes possession."

And the Bible, in Proverbs 14:30, "A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh but envy makes the bones rot."

Strong words.

Envy. It is a beast that lurks within and must be guarded against. I know better. I have no excuse.

What the heck?

math word problems
magnets
economics
plucking eyebrows and then drawing them on again
daylight savings time
people who aren't passing in the passing lane
E=mc2
computers/cell phones etc.
why Johnny Cash's birthday isn't a national holiday

There are so many things in life I don't understand. I try to take advantage of the information available out there about some topics, some I remember trying to learn about in school (a long time ago), some I think about again and again to no avail---there is just no bright light of understanding coming forth on certain things.

But other than the Johnny Cash National Holiday (well, and the slow driver's in the passing lane-but don't get me started) I don't really have to worry about these issues much. That's one of the nice things about not being a student. I was reminded of this when my daughter, a college student, sent this quote from one of her readings for Art History,

"...'art' will be best understood in its fullest sense as the instrumentality
or metalanguage of the museum's historiographical and psychical confabulations, as well as that confabulated world of objects itself."

What the heck? No wonder college kids drink.

Pay for your pleasure

I was going to file this under personal preferences but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is a much bigger issue than that. The topic is one that divides communities with arguably good people on both sides, for or against. Some think its harmless or even good for people. Some think its a matter of choice and while they may or may not approve, declare that what people do in the privacy of their own home is nobody else's business.

Poppycock!! I probably used to be one of those people but the events of the past year have changed my mind. Now I think its time that laws are enacted and vigorously enforced. If you are going to be involved in this you have to suffer the consequences, you have to go into with full knowledge that it is not victimless, that someone will have to pay for your "pleasure".

I'm talking, of course, of wall paper. As I spend hours scraping wallpaper off the walls of the kitchen, I've been devising all sorts of legislation against wallpaper and the people who insist on putting it up. The fairest I can come up with is that if you put it up, you must agree to take it down. I don't care how cute it looks, how darling it is, how it "makes" the room---all wallpaper has to come down someday and usually the people who put it up are no where to be found. Ha, how convenient.

Alright, I'm done ranting--I obviously didn't give that up for Lent. If you're in town and bored, come on by and help out. I've got plenty of beer and vodka.

What's for Supper (or should I get a Fry Daddy)

If anything ever tips me over to the point that I just get in my car and keep on driving..with never a look back--it might just be having to decide what to make for supper every day.

Now, time for a disclaimer of sorts--I love Mr. Wonderful, I really do-- but if I ask him one more time for help in deciding what to make for dinner and he says, "Whatever" or "I don't care", I might just use all my food prep skills (limited though they are) on him. Chopping, dicing, filleting, slicing, pounding, searing or any number of violent kitchen tasks may be used a on someone a little closer to the top of the food chain.

At times, I am appalled at how bad the meals I make are, not in how they're cooked but in the choices of what I've cooked. I look at them and think there's not a gram of nutrition in the whole plateful. Though I think it would be nothing but fun--we haven't let a "Fry Daddy" into the house. Undoubtedly a "Fry Daddy" would make my horrible meals taste better but its a line I dare not cross. A person's got to make a stand somewhere.

Now, back to the original point of this blog entry, I don't know what to make for supper and my car's gassed up.....

One Issue Voter

After being out driving this week, I think I could become a one issue voter. If a candidate promised to ticket everyone who drove in the passing lane when they weren't passing anyone--I would donate money to that person's campaign, put their sign in my lawn, show up at their rally and put my "x" by their name on election day.

I'm embarrassed to say that this is how shallow I am.

Why don't people move over? One woman I know said she couldn't go back to the other lane because she drove a pick-up truck and it was too hard---hey, hey, hey--how about getting off the road if you can't handle the vehicle. Others say they are going the speed limit and have a right to be there--oh for pete sake, time to mosey on back to Mayberry RFD. And others, I'm sure, are just unaware or on their cell phone or are planning to pass someone or turn left at some point in the next 100 miles or so. Again, I know I'm a little bit on the ornery side about all this.

For several years, I've reminded the little darlings that when I die, it is their responsibility to tell their father to move out of the passing lane. Mr. Wonderful gets a little too comfortable in the left lane and is slow to put on his blinker, check over his right shoulder and slide back over to where he belongs. (I didn't pick up on this when we were dating--love is truly blind)

So, if you've been thinking about a political career but didn't really want to be bothered with foreign policy, recessions, depressions, global warming, crime, health care, mortgage meltdowns, poverty, energy resources and all those other big fancy issues--maybe this is the place to start. You can count on my vote.

The truth about politics

Only a month and we'll be done with the current cycle of campaigning. The advertising will go back to more benign topics and the TV news/talk shows will remember that there's a whole big world out there that doesn't need to be seen through the red and blue filters of the Democrat and Republican parties.

I was out walking today and listening to music (have I mentioned how much I love my Ipod?). A song came on by The Roches, called "Who Cares". Here are some of the lyrics:

I like to watch TV
listen to the news
hear what everybody is saying
there's a lot of talk about God
peace and safety and
war and fear and
there goes a girl in a bikini

This guy's saying that guy's an idiot and
she's on the right, he's on the left and
everybody's screaming and yelling at each other and
calling each other jerks
its a party

Who cares where the truth lies
Who cares where the truth lies

Guys dressed up in suits and ties
look you straight in the eyes
telling you lies
but I really wish I knew
what they were talking about

Meanwhile human beings
are being strung up on bridges and
little kids getting their legs blown off and
young soldiers are coming home no more

who cares
who cares

After listening to all the words being thrown back and forth by the politicians, their ads, their parties, the analysts, the newscasters, the comedians, and any of us, who've so charmingly been reduced to being "joe six pack" or "soccer mom"--its easy to see where the sentiment of the song comes from.

We can only guess our best at who is being truthful the most often and who has the most workable solutions to all of the complicated problems that face the US and the world. I have strong opinions about who is better suited to the job but I recognize that they are only opinions based on my biases, life experiences, likes and dislikes etc. There are precious few verifiable facts regarding any candidates past record (those records are so like Bible verses in that they change depending on who's doing the interpreting) and no mortal can tell us what will happen when one or the other is elected.

So....if you want to talk politics with me, don't be getting all high and mighty thinking you know the truth--because then I'll just have to start my own little delusional rant. And that'll just suck the fun right out of running into each other, don't you think?

I've been watching just a little bit of the news coverage of the Republican National Convention--well, actually, none of the convention, just the protester and police stuff, so far. It disturbs me.

In theory, I support protesting because I think its necessary. Obviously different levels of protesting have more or less effective and appropriate uses --letter writing, speaking out loud in public and private forums, directing money to groups that can protest on a larger more effective scale, art of any medium, and getting involved in processes to change whatever you're protesting. Where it gets a bit murkier for me is in the physical action phase---not so much marching or standing, carrying signs that respectfully but pointedly state a position, marching, or sitting down and refusing to move---but the dressing up, throwing things, dumping things, and destroying things just because they're in the way or belong to someone on the other side of the issue. And trying to hurt people is way beyond protesting and moving into vengeance, or some deeper issues.

The newscasts, I'm sure, are showing the more sensational of the protesting action--at least so far. They've shown the wild protesters being advanced upon by law enforcement and dragged off to presumable arrest. Unfortunately, the news has been so distracted by all that drama that the message of their protest was lost. And even more unfortunate is that the credible, thoughtful and mature --maybe not the right words (but I hope you know what I mean)--protest groups aren't getting the attention that would probably be more meaningful.

Maybe you should have to show you've been protesting for a certain length of time before your protest organization lets you show up for the big events. Put in your time so to speak.

In Red Wing, there have been a group of people protesting the war in Iraq since the start. They have protested in the park, by the highway every single Friday for the duration---and they are at the RNC to continue their protest---and it irks me that some protesters who haven't really thought it out are acting like idiots and diverting attention from the serious work some serious people have done to protest this war.

Back to that crabby middle-age again...

weather

Sunday night and thinking about the weekend we just finished.

The weather was perfect for my fickle internal thermometer. The weather is always somewhat of a mild surprise to me--mainly because I rarely watch weather reports on TV or pay attention to them on the radio. This is one of those differences that define people--as in you either pay attention to weather reports or you don't much care.

I happened to marry a man who comes from a family of serious weather watchers. I might even say they're a bit obsessive about watching weather reports especially when it inclement weather is on the horizon. This then becomes an ongoing topic of conversation--and if the particular weather issue lasts for days, so does the conversation, in person or over the phone lines. I understand that the weather watching habit hearkens back to their roots in farming but.....

...it makes me crazy sometimes. If the weather's going to be lousy its going to be lousy whether I know about it ahead of time or not. If I'm going to get hurt in two days, I'd just as soon not spend the next 48 hours hearing the predictions about it, having someone track it and talk on and on about it. Let it catch me by surprise. My thoughts are similar about weather watching. A quick sentence or two is all I want to know--"rain all day tomorrow", "nothing but sunny skies tomorrow", "its going to snow for three days-have fun and drive carefully" or something like that.

I don't know why I'm complaining about this--probably because I'm a crabby middle-aged woman but I'd like you to remember that I did start out saying that the weather was perfect this weekend--so I'm not all crabby all the time.