Bleah…

April 25, 2022

A dreary, chilly rain day today. I got my groceries, produce, fruit and the like. The young feller at Carl’s Produce had an odd look today, his hair was like Don King’s. I can see he is a handsome cuss underneath that shock of hair. I like the way shock works in this sentence, it has two meanings. His hair (being like King’s) is a bit of a shock and it resembles corn shocks. He was in a chatty mood and made some fun small talk about me ‘not having too many wild parties’. My first instinct was to say, “Well, I am an old man and I have a limited number of orgasms left. I have to make sure each one counts. Do you want to have a wild party and share one with me?” I am almost of an age that I could get away with that but still a few years away. As I reflect on that, I am realizing that it would make a good line in something I was writing. Maybe I could work it into ‘Dead Batteries’ at some point?

Writing waits for me, the guitar waits for me, the piano waits for me. The instruments are lonely machines and long for human touch. I am a poor companion, having many more things to do than practice or play. My neurosis keep me from the typewriter keyboard, so writing and completed books are lonely for human touch as well. I am sure that other musician/writers feel as I do about their abilities and delay the exercise of same. There are some who have healthy egos and clear assessment skills. Those who do can accept their imperfections and promote the skill that they do have. We unhealthy ego kids just shrink back from the keys or the strings. Maybe the same goes for sports folk? I don’t know. I am wandering, lost, unfocused.

I am wandering from thought to thought like those who crossed the desert a few thousand years ago. Banished, lost in the desert, camel free? Nah. I bet they had camels for the journey—- I hear that their shoes did not wear out and neither did their clothing. They must have been riding camels, then. I guess their forty years were according to a variation on the calendar we use today. It was a lunar calendar, best I can determine and had 12 months but with an extra month thrown in every two or three years to sort of catch-up with the sun. The lunar calendar had months of approximately 29 and a half days so things went off a little from time to time. Hence, the ‘lunisolar’ calendar came into being but that wasn’t the one Moses and co. were using… it didn’t develop until a long time after the wandering. Anyway, they gave up the wandering on November 1, according to a bible study website I perused. Since November 1 could occur on different days, then when the hell did they come in outta the heat?” But, as I say, I am wandering a little.

Interesting.

I guess the wandering ones had some complaints to air whilst they were riding or walking. Mose-y probably had to listen to a lot of whining. I am whining today. It is a rainy day and I am not in the desert but I am whining anyway. I am whining because I had a chat with a city representative about the conditions next door. There is a rooming house being operated there and I am not happy. Folks come and go, cars block the laneway and there is a large trailer full of construction and other garbage that is just parked in front of the place. The guys don’t make a lot of noise, they don’t have record players or tvs, I guess. Thus far, no gunfire or unsavory women hanging around. Why am I complaining? I am complaining because it is illegal and I don’t like all the folks wandering out front or coming and going. That disturbs my peace. Too bad, I guess. The chat I had with the city guy was not encouraging. Basically, he said, “There is nothing we can do because when we knocked on the door or called the owner, no one responded”. So. There you have it. Rooming houses are illegal but it doesn’t matter, you can operate one as long as you don’t answer the door or the phone. I wish Moses were here to open his complaint department. He had connections. He could get things done.

It is a rainy day and stuff bothers me. The rain, I can deal with. There is nothing to do for rain but to carry an umbrella. No problem. The rooming house and garbage situations are insoluble, so I can ignore that. At least, I think I can. Maybe I can put up an illegal hedge that obscures the trailer? After all, it’s legal as long as I don’t answer the phone or the door. The wandering in the desert does trouble me though. I am off course and have been for a while. Divorce and getting fired from the church threw me a little. I lost my camel. My shoes are worn out and my clothes don’t fit anymore. Covid and the world’s governmental response to same have left me stranded, confused, lost. We were locked in, now we are unlocked but there was a heck of a lot of back and forth about how to proceed. No one wanted to commit to a plan and follow through because everyone was complaining. Even at this point I don’t have a clear idea what way is forward, what path is safe or if there even is a true safe.

and orgasms? Well, let me tell ya…

April 20, 2022

Government and Rights

Where does my front yard end and your front yard begin? Since there are two of us, at least, we must come to an agreement by some means. Shall we vote and elect a third party to oversee the question? In order for there to be an understanding or any sort of resolution to the question of where I end and you begin, we must both agree. We need to choose a government or negotiate between ourselves for mutual satisfaction.

Choosing a government has historically been the preferred option for human beings. All of our little groups, from the earliest days have had a government. We have had kings, emperors, queens, chiefs and leaders as far back as history goes and likely further. We choose a government because it is extremely difficult to get two folks who disagree to resolve, to each give a little, to each meet in the middle.

I choose government, too. I like rules for defining edges, it’s easier to see what the lines are and easier to have an assistant to settle any differences. Ok, you think your line is here and I think the rules say it is there – we get adjudication, a third person’s evaluation. That extra weight is then two against one, majority rules. Ok. Fine. All good. No war.

Now. When I ask the city to step in and have my neighbour remove the garbage from in front of our shared building, he does not do so. I call the city (government) and they attempt to enforce the agreed upon rules. Unfortunately, my neighbour does not accept the authority of government or rules. The garbage stays. I stay upset. The city can do nothing without getting yet another party involved, the courts. Then, the courts can do nothing without the police and that leaves violence alone that solves the problem.

Why. There are those among us humans who refuse to recognize any agreed upon or elected authority. There are those who just leave the garbage and that’s that. The rest of us are forced to either accept the garbage or go to war. Unfortunately, these same rule breaking types of folks often claw their way into an authority position. They do so without due process. They do so by not following rules in clever ways or using violence to circumvent rules. They force a violent solution. They assume the cloak of authority, whether it is mutually agreed they should have it or not. Vladimir Putin assumes for himself all authority. The Republican Party in the United States are in the process of assuming themselves to be the managers, the leaders of the rest of the country. They are going to do this by obfuscation, misinformation, deliberate breaking of the rules and violence. In many parts of the world, the idea of democracy and compromise for the good of all is disappearing. I think that is sad.

It is possible that a new era of compromise is on the horizon, that a true statesman or woman will step out and step up. It is possible for a reasonable and fair person to re-establish order. It is possible that peaceful resistance can force a change. It is possible, but I don’t see it happening any time soon, do you?

Where is Mahatma Gandhi as the garbage piles up next door and the illegal rooming house residents invade our little neighbourhood. Where is government as the owners of the house flout the law? I am mad as hell. Sigh.

April 19, 2021

Music and Musing

Y’see, the problem about staying away from Facebook is: I don’t have a place to put my random thoughts about things. I miss that. Today, I am sitting, thinking, superficially drinking a cup of tea and musing about playing music. How nice it would be if someone tied some tech to the keyboards of an organ. If you could see your toe, heading for a pedal…wow. That would make the learning so much faster. If the music were somewhat animated on the sheet, for a more interactive reading? Wow. For example, if a convenient fingering showed up as you played, a bar ahead perhaps, or the chord was identified above or even on the staff? Wow. Learning and putting it all together would be much faster. Still have to learn, still have to practice but the connections would be so much faster.

I could invent this very thing, I suppose but that would mean learning a whole lot of stuff I have no interest in any more. At the very least, I believe I have no interest. The truth is, I do have the interest but don’t feel that there is time enough left in living to be doing more stuff. Time. There is not time to make a thing faster anymore. At 72, the 10 years it takes to learn most stuff is something I may or may not have. Isn’t there something else more important to gain from the 10 years than an ability? A thing there would be no time to use? My remaining years might better be spent just living, connecting with folks, eating dinner, sleeping comfortably, cleaning up. That is life. The stuff and nonsense part is for the young. It is up to them to invent, change, experiment. After a while, it behooves to just live —- the way a pussycat does.

Or not. Maybe, the just living part I speak of IS the wasting of time by inventing airplanes and automobiles and telephones and organ pedal monitors. It could be that the way a human being ‘just lives’ is to move from one ‘invention’ to another in our quest to re-shape the world. It is illusion that the cow and the pussycat have reached peace, stability? They only eat, drink, reproduce and rest comfortably. They play, yes. They feel, yes. They do the things humans do but they are satisfied? No need to develop language, they can communicate. It’s good enough. The cows of a millenium ago communicated the same way. Good enough. Cow and/or pussycat Nirvana. For humans, our Nirvana is not a present thing, ever? Our state of being at peace is or can be almost alien. It is a goal for some, some reach it. Swami Watchamacallim, he did. The most of us always find dissatisfaction with something and make goals of changing, attaining, moving. The damn living room should be blue, not taupe. Let’s get to it.

March 14, 2022


I wrote a short poem about birds but it wasn’t about birds.  The poem was about perspectives and points of view.  How does a bird feel about flying? I know how flying looks from my point of view but how about the bird’s?  Isn’t flying a work-a-day thing for birds?  Typical diary entry: Got up.  Went looking for food all morning, then went to Liz’s.  She was busy with some other guy.  He was acting all macho and we had a little fight. Liz was unimpressed.  Flew up onto the wire and watched humans for a little while.

Yes. 

There are other perspectives.  Suppose, you were Vladimir Putin?  What would that be like?  Typical diary entry:  Got up.  Realized yet again how great I am. I fairly glow! Tried to imagine there was anyone else for a few moments. Nope.  Went to the mirror, still beautiful. Prostate unruly.  This will not happen.  Prostate will die! Send prostate to Ukraine!

Yes.

Point of view.

I got into a facebook fight with some knucklehead. I use the word knucklehead because that is what this guy is. I take knucklehead to mean, ‘a person more familiar with violence than reason’. Every statement he makes is couched in terms of violence or negatives. He lives and breathes fear. He made a sweeping statement about living conditions in Chicago or Baltimore or New York. I took exception, because spreading such a biased statement tends to promote the very conditions he decried. If you tell people that Chicago ‘hums at night with the warm sound of scattered gunfire’, then folks believe that and only warily travel to Chicago. I have been in and out of Chicago many, many times. I never once heard a single shot. Yeah, the papers are full of southside killings and shootings but the truth is: Chicago is a city of three million or so and there are 400 or so shootings in a month there. Yeah that is bad. The shootings are bad but Chicago does not equate to a violent cesspool exactly. Perspective. In a given month, two million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand and six hundred people were not shot.

We are being force-fed a steady diet of, ‘A little bit of everything-all of the time’. (Bo Burnham) The diet is shaped in all forms of fear with an occasional croissant of something hopeful.  I am not sure that is healthy.  Perspective. Our ablity to process and distribute information is incredible and incredibly off-balance. Yes, some facts are not good.  Trouble stalks the living in all areas of the globe.  The rainforest is dying and burning.  The ice caps are melting.  Plastic chokes the ocean. Greta Thunberg cries out and Donald Trump looms and overshadows the 2024 landscape. The evil rich pollute the air, the water, the culture.  Some take all and there is little left for the many. Every day, as more truth leaks out, things look worse.

Yeah.

All manner of doom awaits, pokes its head out from some darkened alley. Yet, look around you.  Mostly normal.  Mostly things go as they go.  Mostly, the birds fly quickly this way, then that.  There is a bit of single-use plastic clutter.  The weather is changing, I can feel it, see it.  Folks are more brusque, perhaps?  my ex-husband’s aunt died. (She was a dear woman). My ears are severely damaged from an upper respiratory infection that took some weeks to clear, and?  My Social Security cheque cleared the bank.  I am moving forward on my semi-autobiographical hodge podge book.  My dear music friends are returning to the scene.  There is, maybe for the time being, enough to eat. I made brownies last night.

Perspective.

Does the bird even consider how majestic his ability to fly is? No. He is on the way to get something to eat. Does a man (old man in this case) even consider how majestic walking on two feet or considering the rainbow or birds is? No. He is on his way to get something to eat.

Yeah.

It looks bad, is bad out there. Thus was it ever, thus shall it ever be. I need to know but I need to live as well. Cowering before the television and fearing the illusion of an OK Corral Chicago or a rogue Vladimir Putin or a lying Trump or the savings-draining cost of everything? Gotta let it go at some point and do what I can, enjoy the life that is. I am not a bird, I can’t know what a bird feels. A bird is not me, can’t know how I feel. Putin is not me, I am not he. The earth is turning, orbiting the sun, flying off together with planets and stuff toward some unknown destiny. We can think about it but we can’t fear it, we can’t know it. I guess fear is a useless piece of floating plastic junk. The best thing to do is pick up the junk, toss it in the can and carry on.

Chicken Feed

My birds have been busy,

are resting now.

Earlier,

there was buzzing of roof tops

in a fast game played

before the day got too hot.

The birds play,

I have work

and do not.

I call these my birds

and watch but don’t feed them.

They seem to flow

past the window

on whim,

in patterns undisturbed

by drudgery’s rythym.

I finish work,

they do not.

To wear feathered freedom

must be lovely,

don’t you think,

by magic to catch air

and rise slow

then sink

or swoop to

some puddle for

a gifted drop to drink?

Well.

You might say the bird

is at work

his life long,

chirruping and singing that

‘wake up world!’

song.

If you ask,

“It’s a living,”

he’d say with a yawn.

March 9, 2022

It is more than three years since I have had a cold or flu of any kind. I guess that social distancing and mask-wearing have made the difference? It almost has to be so. I used to have at least one cold in every season. My supposition is that those who are still protesting vaccines, masks and distancing haven’t noticed that..yeah..it works. It hasn’t worked for them and that might be because they didn’t distance and didn’t vax and didn’t mask-up?

The above having been said, I am now in the throes of a quite fierce head cold. This cold, I contracted whilst not social distancing very religiously. I grew weary of the bubbling ooze from the so-called news. I traveled to another land with friends and acted a bit like things were as they used to be in the not-so-distant past. I didn’t always have my mask on, I let someone kiss me on the cheek (bare lips, bare cheek) and I have the running around to crowded taverns, clubs and beaches to thank for the cold I am now suffering. I hope I learned something.

We are landing on the steps of the future as Covid fades to the background. It isn’t the killer it was. We have a choice to vaccinate and protect ourselves from major difficulties. No, I don’t think vaccines will keep us from getting Covid. Yes, I do think vaccines will keep us from being seriously ill. I trust the doctors, they were certainly right about masks and distancing. I saw the evidence with my own two, tv and Facebook watchin’ eyes.

The whole process of Covid and it’s mitigation gave me a good look at who we are, world-wide. What/how are we to each other? Is something different?

There are the smart-cookies and the bad-apples amongst us. Always will be, always have been. There are the ordinary folk, doing ordinary things and following the rules as best they can, minding their own damn business. There are the holier-than folk, doing self-proclaimed righteous work and impeding orderly progress as best they can. The holiers shout out! The holiers cry for relief from their woe some pain. That pain – a minor and probably temporary loss of freedom – is like a stepped-on-toe. Oh the inappropriate hollering of the holiers!

Yeah, the hollering of the holiers. Yeah, the minding of one’s own affairs. That is pretty human. Always a voice to lead us astray, always hearth and home to lure us back to fundamentals. What is different about now? About the days of world travel and its risks?

Yowser! It may be that the ultra-megaphone of ol’ devil technology has provided us an illusion. It may be that the holiers who holler only SEEM louder, that the ordinary minders of their own business only SEEM softer. We are looking at all of this through the lens of what passes for modern communication. We are seeing high definition, amplified, colour-corrected, back-lit, shades of the same rose ‘twas always there. Yeah.

I am going back to the life I was leading before the toilet overflowed and washed my heart to a dirty brown. Just about got the mess cleaned up and am getting ready for the next tragedy. It remains in my best interests to try to follow the rules a little, get upset a little, live a little, distress less, mind my own business. The holiers who holler are killing folks in Ukraine now and there is nothing much I can do about it. I will mind my own business and not listen to the holiers on every side. I will believe that it works out in the end and I will remain true to my own core. No, I don’t mean ‘look the other way’…I do mean ‘don’t let it destroy you’, if you get crazy and grab a weapon or holler like hell—- you will always go wrong. I let the upside down, shit-brown world get me crazy and I slipped from my containment bubble a moment. I got a cold again. That’s the truth and the proof.

Ai yi yi

whupsadaisy, uhoh, yikes.

I am back at the ranch for a new round of working the crowd (of exactly none-body) with my antic posts. I tried Facebook a while, looking for a better connection to people but it din’ work out. I keep making silly remarks and otherwise posting thoughts that folks misunderstand. My family (save one brother) really take issue with what I write for public view. Some think I reveal too much, some don’t like my style of humour a-tall. Not the tiniest bit. Ooooops. Being of a neurotic bent, I worry that others don’t like me. I want to be liked. I avoid conflict. I try to say what people want to hear and I am pretty good at it, except sometimes.

Once in a certain while, I will misread a person and mouth off in the wrong direction. This creates a cascade of bad feelings. First, those of the offended, then my own. “Oh my God! They are mad at me! Shit! This will cost me everything!”. Once the wheel gets rolling there is an awful inertia to overcome. ‘Merde’. (in a word)

Today, I will try to start staying away from social(?) media one final time. Wish me luck. I wrote earlier today on a music acquaintance’ page that his new profile picture made him look sexy as far as I was concerned. WhOA! Boy, that was the wrong thing to do. I got a personal message alerting me he had deleted the comment and that he thought it was more appropriate between lovers than between Facebook friends. Wow. My bad. My maxima bad. You just never know and I really didn’t know. The architecture of Facebook is designed to make strangers FEEL connected and I FELL for the FEELING. Again, ooops.

We are allowing bad things to surround us, garbage to overwhelm us, evil people to run amok in the halls of government. — 1) Facebook does not mean us well, it means to reap our data. It means to sell us at the highest bid. Facebook uses it’s little magical algorithms against us and for their profit. They profit handsomely and we suffer needlessly, we suffer sometimes without knowing we do. 2) There is cheapness and flimsy – not-worth-a-dime stuff masquerading as ‘top quality’ ‘new’ ‘super-strength’. We pay our money and get a broken piece of crap from some far-away manufacturer. We believe that Apple is the best. We buy into the latest multi-thousand dollar gadget that doesn’t work to it’s claim. We are hooked on an illusion that a brighter, prettier box holds a solution or is a fix for the last box that held nothing. 3) Politics is/was never a clean, green field. It now purely reeks of narcissistic effluent that calls itself a leader. Who? Putin? Trump? Boris Johnson? In the backroom, where deals always are made, there is no longer any need to hide the empty promises and nasty tricks. People almost expect to be stolen from, mislead, injured, enslaved.

Yow. Ai yi yi. …and…yet? There is a whole tomorrow and a WordPress website where I can speak and none respond. Ahhhhhhh, the peace. Ooooooh, the glorious days ahead. Sigh for the loneliest of bloggers, hurrah for things like snail mail!

Changes

November 13, 2021

I am trying to make changes. It’s hard for me to accomplish. When Earth changes, it’s a thing that looks to be done well, done easily. A simple tip in one direction or another and all else follows suit: All things change up their gear, putting away the speedos and bikinis for something more practical and warm. The fish head for the bottom of the lake, where the water is less turbulent and the temperature more reliable, their home more liquid. The Canadians head south. The sky darkens. The wind blows. Christmas music appears out of nowhere. Yes. Earth’s changes are more easily made? oh, I don’t know. This spinning ball must require enormous force to move, to tip, to be sent flying out around the sun. It must require a somewhat larger force to stop. Yeah.

The force needed to move earth is similar to the force it takes to move me.  The force that moves the earth and the force that keeps earth still are equal, until one or the other spikes a little. Earth moves or remains still when the ‘force’ becomes inequal. I am moved by a force a bit more than equal to my inertia, whatever that inertia is. (resting or moving) I am only changed by a force a bit more than equal to my inertia.

A body or an earth at rest is a powerful thing.  I am a power.  This ball of rock and slime I am drawn down upon is a powerful thing, it is more powerful than my simple urge to fly up and away.   No matter what, inertia must be overwhelmed if a thing is to change, to move from stillness, to improve or to decline, to come to rest.  If I want to fly, I need an inequal force to gravity.

I choose, for explication of my point, to understand and name this force that overwhelms inertia as God. God is equal to inertia but neither God nor inertia are perfect, greater than the other — always. It is a struggle for balance of the power and  balance is rare, my friends. Inertia can be right or wrong, God, right or wrong.  Inertia is not a bad thing, God is not a good thing. God assists everything, inertia gets in the way of everything.  Sometimes. You can’t stop, if you are moving.  You can’t start if you are stopped.  Sigh. A great force must be applied to change the way things are.  They say that God is the force.  Okay.  That works. Some folks use the ‘greater power’ of God to move away from a substance they are addicted to.  The substance is usually a thing that makes a tragedy out of living.  The substance, when over-used, when depended upon destroys more than it heals. Social media is such a substance.

Social media can be inertial, a habit. I have suffered the inertia of social media.  It will take great power (God?) to pull me away but I am willing to try, to keep trying.  Today, I received a rocket boost of power toward pushing me away from Facebook.  I saw evidence, physical and undeniable proof that Facebook is a dangerous thing.  A dark and deeply negative power accidently shows it’s raw edges from time to time.  I saw a tiny edge of the dark in my newsfeed this morning.

Today, a tiny bit of irritation pushed with the power it needed and I am moved.  One last, little insanity made my oyster soul cough out, not sugar-coat the grit.  Can you believe that (in this world of being aware of dark things) Facebook’s algorithms would ‘suggest’ as ‘friends’ a teen-ager and a much older person?  Two individuals who are basically strangers?  How could that not be an invitation to danger?  um…  Nossir.  That is going way too far.  I am at last moved to close the door, tip my world away from the fire, to cool off a while.  I have only my power to say “Enough,” and I shall.  I hope my power is greater than the algorithm of destruction.  Bye, Facebook.

Now, without Facebook to spread my words and delight my soul with the feedback of friends, I have an idea. I will continue posting my bloggys on the website: robertontheair.com If this pleases you as a reader, then I welcome you to attend the festival, you can climb aboard and receive regular notice of my postings but I won’t belabor this. I won’t inundate your newsfeed, I won’t keep sending emails or messages. Only this one note. If you like reading the mini-essays, the poems, the goofy crap…then it is all a mouse-click away at any time. The advantage is your privacy. Facebook won’t know you are reading or where you have gone. You won’t get any advertisements for weird things, either. Cheers!

A Bad Man and Worse Neighbour

Sunday

October 31, 2021

The Mayor is dead, long live the Mayor?  Yeah.  Now, I am filled with guilt that the two of us didn’t get off on a better foot.  I was a bad neighbour.  There you have it.  I was mostly okay.  I cut the grass, I didn’t have loud parties that stretched into the late evening, I didn’t park in her space, that sort of thing but I did make noise on purpose one night.   No excuse.  It was my fault that time.  It was the only time that I know of where I interfered with the quiet of the evenings here but I did do that one night on purpose.

The bad blood started right away after I moved in. She creeped me out by looking me up on Facebook, then sending me a message of complaint about how loud my TV was.  That was the first full night I spent at the townhouse and it was about 8 pm.  I was upset but I did send her a message back of apology and promised that I had considered the noise I might be making.  Further, I told her I was planning some renovation to the basement that would take sound transmission into account.   We closed our conversation but I blocked her because I did not like the idea of being ‘creeped’ on Facebook. So, that was the frosty beginning.

A few days or maybe a couple of weeks after our first conversation via Messenger, I was playing music with all of the equipment downstairs.  It WAS loud but I honestly hoped it wouldn’t travel that well because of the brick wall.  I was drinking and playing records at high volume.  I started playing music about 5 or 6, I am not sure.  Within an hour, I got some loud thumping on the basement wall.  I knew it was her, she is the only one who could possibly have heard me.  I don’t think I turned it down at all and I did get a little angry about her thumping.  At around 8 or so, I shut everything off and went by foot to the beer store for more supplies.  It was one of those nights of over the edge drinking that happen from time to time.  It is a thing I do that I am not in any way proud of or happy about or trying to excuse. It just happens.  I try not to drink but it just happens.  When I got home at close to 9, I turned it back on.  I don’t now remember whether she thumped again or not but I was angry and determined to go ahead and play music.  At 10 or maybe 10:30, I shut it off and went to bed.  I was tired and very nearly that crazy drunk where you just don’t think anymore.  A sad end to the evening.

In the morning, I was on my way out and discovered a hastily hand written note from her in my mail box.  It was a lengthy and very angry note where she expressed her disappoinment in my behaviour.  She was so angry that she got a little off base and went on a bit about having been living there for twenty years and that the noise is not something that was ever or would be acceptable.  She explained that her bedroom is right next to my living room and that she had to be in bed at 8:30 in order to get u for work in the morning.  She was upset that I had blocked her from messaging me and read me the act about what I had done the previous evening, that she had valiantly attempted to stop me by banging on the basement wall…etc.  That was the end of  our relationship.  I tried to write her an angry letter back but I threw it away instead.

Well, then.  Later, I noticed her giving instructions to the parcel delivery man about where, when and how to deliver packages to her neighbour to the east.  That was the day I decided she should be called The Mayor of Otton Lane.  So, Mayor she was and we grunted at each other in passing from that time forward.  I did change my music habits and shut it off early, turned it down, moved it to a further room…that sort of thing.  I had no more complaints but I am not sure she was totally satisfied, maybe she just gave up complaining.  

We lived together, neighbours with an unsolved border war, in detente.  I came and went, she came and went.  I did notice that she made no effort to maintain the area between our townhomes, half of which was her property.  I just accepted the role of staff and that was it.  About two years ago, I noticed that the Mayor was incommunicado for a period of about two months.  When she returned, her hair started disappearing and that told me she was suffering from cancer and it’s treatment.  She was in and out after that with several periods of more than a few weeks at a time where she was missing.  She was not working any longer so I figured she must be on a medical leave.  Then, about 8 weeks or so ago, I stopped seeing her move about.  There were caregivers in and out, I assumed she was declining.  Now, the last four days or so have seen a lot of activity at her place.  People I have not seen before in and out and packing up things.

Yup.  A check of obits revealed the Mayor’s death on the 28th.  Oooops.  Now, I have the guilt of yet another person who died without any form of resolution to my being a bitchy sort of person.  She behaved badly, I behaved worse…. This is not the first time.  I have been bad to people over the many years.  I was adamantly cruel to a friend who may have been inconsiderate of the changes I was making but did not deserve the cruelty I offered to him.  I was bad to my ex-wife during the time I was discovering my sexuality.  I never felt love for my Husband, not really, not in the thirty years we spent together. I separated my emotions and my physical love from him.  I could have been better but I knew we needed counseling.  He was not willing to do that.  As to my ex-wife, I was more than cavalier and did not fully understand the effect my sexuality changes were having on her.  These are things I cannot forgive myself for.

Finally,  I was mean to my mom (so much so that my brother asked me to stop) and was even callous to Ed’s Mom once.  I can be a cruel bitch.  I am capable.  Perhaps the worst of it is that I am intelligent and clever enough to be a real pain in the ass.  I can hurt a person.  I have hurt people, badly.  At least three people I have hurt emotionally have died.  The Mayor being one.  Boys and girls, Uncle can be a real shit at times.  Sorry.  Now, I have this additional sign from God (the death of the Mayor) to deal with.  Will I learn the lesson and thus climb to the next level in this Super Mario Game of living?  Tune in next week.