Conversations with Beth

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Beth is a tenant. She’s a very sweet 66 year old. But she’s dumber than a bag of hammers. From time to time I’ll share snippets of our conversations

Yesterday, out of the blue, she said “I’m glad you don’t live further west”

“Why?” We leave just east of Columbus Ohio. So I’m thinking Downtown? West side? Springfield?

“Because of all the snow.” Um, ok. But if I WAS living in Bimidji you PROBABLY wouldn’t be living WITH me.

“And I’m worried about Michelle.” Michelle was prior tenant, dear friend of Beth’s who moved …. to Glendale Arizona.

“It’s 78 degrees in Glendale and she lives in the dessert. Snow is not an issue.”

“But there’s other weird weather stuff happening out west in Montana and Michigan.” Again, we live in Ohio. Michigan is in no way “west.”

And, as Linda Ellerbee used to say, so it goes.

This is the stuff that’s swirling

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In the 60’s and 70’s someone else was in charge of my time. Parents. Schools. There was FREE time but the major events were handled by powers bigger than us. And there seemed to be a rhythm to them. Friday nights in football season involved several steps which were repeated 8-10 times every year. Thanksgiving and Christmas had (what I NOW view as) a satisfying sameness. Summer? 4-H. The rhythms of the farm. Feeding. Training. Showing. Selling. Interrupted by a brief respite of a few days at camp.

Then came the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s. Grad school. Practice. Adulthood. Marriage. Child rearing. Job loss. The flow was gone. The sameness was replaced with uncertainty. It happened so slowly that I didn’t even notice. But at SOME point I realized I was free falling. Or perhaps floating free. Untethered. I had not replaced the old consistencies with new ones. Or perhaps I had but just hadn’t noticed. The Boy might be a good source here. Which brings me to the 10’s. Career shift into education, returning to scholastic calendar rhythms. Divorce. Loss. And personal exploration. For security I tried to impose regularity. Wednesday is trivia night. Thursday is D&D. Sunday is poker. Friday and Saturday is to be spent with the significant other. Monday and Tuesday was Al Anon and laundry and recovery.

But I’m finding myself in a different place today on the doorstep of the roaring 20’s. This significant other is her own person and doesn’t HAVE to have me by her side Friday and Saturday. And she’d like an occasional week day, which is reasonable, although somehow discomforting. Trivia was originally almost an escape. Perhaps D&D was too. So do I give up the comfort of seeing those friends on Wednesday for the pleasure of seeing the SO that day? I’ve taken two months away from D&D to do a show. Do I return? Or call it a good one year experiment? Current SO seems a little more accepting of spur-of-the-moment schedule changes, especially those that redound to her advantage. Wonder how much of this is just NRE? How much of it is trying to fill holes in my life.

Or ARE they holes? Not holes in my life, but MY LIFE.

Life on the wire

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When you’re getting the same message from multiple sources, perhaps it’s important. A dear friend of mine had a poster in his apt during and after college – a ship is safe in it’s harbor but that is not why ships are built. Karl Wallenda was believed to have said “To be on the wire is life; the rest is just waiting.” I felt that way when I was racing. I was NEVER more alive than when at the starting line, crawling into the blocks, holding that starting stance until the gun fired. Been reading Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Rules fro Life. I really like most of his stuff. Sadly many people think he’s being normative when in fact he’s being perscriptive, and then only in a limited sense. But that’s another post for another day. Rule 11 is “Do not bother children while they are skateboarding.” Sounds silly, yes? His point is that we’ve managed to create a couple generations of non-adventourous children. The interwebs are FULL of posts about “remember the crazy things we did as kids that are frowned upon if not downright illegal today?”

Childhood used to be a time of adventure. Of rough play. Of limit testing. But we’ve taken that away. Play must now be organized and supervised and in a safe space. Playground equipment is removed as unsafe. Skateboarding is relegated to specific places and times. Risk taking in frowned upon. And we haven’t set foot on the moon since 1972! NINETEEN SEVENTY TWO!

You deserve a break today

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It’s fast. It’s simple. Burgers. Fries. Fish. Soda. Shakes. But they had to complicate it. Chicken. Bacon (which is NOT a bad thing.) Macchiatos. But it’s STILL basically burgers, fries and a beverage. DON’T MAKE IT HARDER.

I don’t hit Mickey D’s NEARLY as often as I used to. And that’s a good thing. There are two I hit regularly. Tussing and Grant. Tussing is suburban. Mixed bag of low end soccer moms and folks working hard to move up the ladder. Management appears competent and capable but haggard from dealing with irresponsible kids. Customer base goes in. Queues. Orders. Pays. Waits. You know the drill. It’s NOT that complicated, even WITH the over-extended menu. Inner city McD’s? Inner city arches? No two people speak the same language, on EITHER side of the counter. Management appears to be as rude and incompetent as the staff. All customers have to read the ENTIRE menu. And nobody wants what’s on it. Every order is customized in some way. And wrong. And has to be corrected. Thus tripling the wait time.

Wonder why this is?

Starting over

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My first blog post on the old site was January 5, 2009, right before President Obama took office. 5,842 posts later, at the urging of my one reader (!) I’ve relocated to WordPress. The site might undergo a few redesigns over the next few weeks as I tweek it to make it purty like I want it to be. And my approach will be somewhat different. I had devolved (?) into an aggregator who occasionally made snarky remarks. Over here I tend to post less. A LOT less. Maybe twice or thrice a week. Sometimes they’ll be coherent concrete thoughts. Other times they’ll be ephemeral ideas seeking input to grow to fruition, or to be die on the vine.