Time After Time

     Time travel. Something humans have dreamed about and tried to accomplish for centuries (I think). Everyone has a different idea of what they want to do if they could travel back in time. Meet pivotal people from our past. Change something from the past. Maybe prevent an assassination, or commit one. Be there for the writing of the Constitution. Change something in the Constitution. If I could change something, I would try to prevent the invention of firearms. The Japanese discovered gun powder (or was it the Chinese?). That would obviously lead to guns. If I could show them in a vision of what guns would do, maybe they would ditch the whole idea. Maybe it's inevitable. What would changing one thing mean? People have said it would have a ripple effect; even jus the smallest thing. If guns were never invented, that would be something huge. Would something worse than firearms be invented? Or would we just have bombs? Something we don't have now? It's hard to imagine something else. Imagine what the world would be like with no guns. Ever. What a thought. Imagine. Best song ever.

    Or go into the future. Why would a person want to go into the future? To just see what happens in the world? In his or her life? To see the effect of what happens today has on the future? To check out the cool toys? I guess I'm not anxious to see the future.

    If I could meet one person from the past, it would probably be Janis Joplin. I know, why meet Janis Joplin when I could meet Lincoln, or Washington, or da Vinci? She seems like someone who would be really awesome to meet. Someone real. Someone to connect with. Plus she's a kick-ass singer. Would I prevent her death? I don't know. I think she would be a legend no matter when she died. There's something about musicians and 27. What would she be like if she lived? Would she still be out there belting it out, or become a hermit and never come out of her apartment like Mae West? She'd turn 72 in 4 days. Her age inverted.

     Or would a person change something in their personal life? There are so many things I would change, that I just want to start from the age of about 5, and tell myself the right decision to make. Yes, even at 5. To do or not do something. I think I would be in a very different place, a better place. But I can't change the past, now can I? I can only move forward, change my future. If one dwells too much on what could have been, then you lose sight of what can be. This is what I think I no.

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." -Albert Einstein

Mom

     My mother fell, again, a few days ago. She said that she somehow twisted her foot, she thinks. Or twisted it when she fell. A few weeks ago she fell off the step stool. She doesn't know why that time either. She really hurt herself, and just yesterday she re-hurt herself. She refuses to see a doctor. She said that a few times when in the bathroom, she's almost fallen into the tub. Not in the tub, not taking a shower, but falling into it. Luckily, there's a bar we put outside of the tub for my grandmother when she lost her balance, so that saved her. Of course she didn't tell us when it happened. I knew she got dizzy every once in a while, but she was usually able to keep her balance. She just seems so fragile, walking around all hunched over, in obvious pain. If she can get up at all. She already takes oxycodone for her back. Bad days and good days seem to even out. Right now the bad weigh out the good. When she coughs, her whole body looks like it would shake apart. I'm not ready for my mother to be old and feeble, not that 70 is old, but she sometimes seems old. I'm only 31. Her mother was so strong at 70, and well into her 80s. Gramma met with friends at least once a week, wrote, went on trips, cleaned the house, went on walks, and read the paper from front to back every day. Healthy as a horse as the saying goes. Mom has so many health problems. More than I want to list. They prevent her from doing lots of things. She wasn't always like this. I actually envy her somewhat, of having a mother so strong and healthy at the same age, and she often seems, or is, weak and sick. Maybe I'm over exaggerating. It also makes a difference that her mother was 25 when she had her and my mother was 39 when she had me. When Gramma became really sick, mom was in her 60s. I don't want to feel like I have to take care of her, but sometimes I don't know what she would do if I wasn't here. She has dad of course. Mom thinks she's going to be around for a long time. I honestly don't know.

     I guess I've always been used to her taking care of me. Even taking care of me when I don't want to be taken care of. All children feel this way. I don't want the responsibility yet. Asking why children feel this way, not ready to take care of parents, is self-explanatory. The answer is in the question. It's because it's their parents. Maybe some kids feel like when their parents reach a certain age, they feel they have to take care of them. I remember this episode of "Golden Girls" when Rose's mother came to visit, and Rose treated her like she was a 5-year-old. Her mother was perfectly healthy with all of her mental and physical functions. So what makes children feel differently towards their parents? All people are different. That's the plainest answer. I suppose in a way, it makes me feel older. Older than 31. Perhaps it makes me feel my own mortality. This is what I think I no.
 

   

Qué sera, sera

Again, it's been too long since I last wrote. I actually wrote a few drafts, but never finished them so I deleted them. I'm listening to the rain pour outside my window. I can't sleep, thinking about the essays I need to finish, other things I need to take care of. I think of friends, and friends that don't seem so much like friends anymore, or friends I used to have. What constitutes a friend? Someone you can rely on? I don't have very many of those. Someone you feel that you can call and talk to when you feel down, or up? I probably have even fewer of those. Someone to call spontaneously to go out for a drink? No. Everyone has their own thing going on, whatever that thing is. Usually a spouse and/or kids. Or they're not interested. Listen to me. What a mope! I daydream of when I will build my house. What the foyer will look like. The living room. The media room. The kitchen. The gym with mirrors on opposite walls to check my form while doing yoga or dancing. My master bedroom with a walk-in closet and 5 piece bathroom. My tranquility room that overlooks a garden and floor-to-ceiling windows. A library filled with my books and my Gramma's books. Some people have a detached garage. I want a detached bar so the smoke doesn't permeate the rest of the house. I think of having Sarah, and Steven, Fransheila, and Frances with me. What their rooms would look like. What our lives would be like living together, me raising them. Getting Sarah into the very best schools. Going to Steven's soccer practices. Taking care of the babies. Cooking them healthy, wholesome meals everyday, instead of the crap they live on now. Teaching them all things they won't learn in school, like how to balance a checkbook. Although that is kind of becoming passe. How to pay bills online. Sarah and I doing yoga together. Steven and I throwing a football to each other. Or vice versa. I'll have special areas for my cats; inside and out. Maybe have two or three, or four dogs. Gardens. Maybe even an alpaca or two and make yarn from their wool, and blankets and scarves and sweaters and socks from the yarn. Just sittin' in my rocking chair on the front porch knittin' me some socks. Turn into a country granny by the time I'm 40. And then there's my practice. Despite my dreams of living in the country (but not too far in the country), I still want to be an abortion psychologist. Even though I'm far from starting a practice, it gives me a sense of...peace...to help people, or to think of helping people in the future. To help women who really need it. Then, of course, I want to become more involved in abortion rights. I want to work with politicians to secure rights for all women in the country. Make it a damn amendment. I've thought of becoming a politician myself, but I want to be a psychologist more, and I don't know if I have the fortitude to be a politician. I hope to god the political environment is better ten years from now than it is today. What nut jobs. And pansies. It's a house (and senate) full of nut jobs and pansies. I think it's worse now than the fifties. I know how I want my future to turn out, but will it be anything like that? I guess it's up to me.

Where is the love?

I just started to bitch to my friend about the stupidity of people, but instead I decided to save her from that and rant and rave on my blog. People have the right to their own opinions and beliefs. However, those opinions can be so ignorant, short-sighted, and narrow-minded. I recently signed a FB petition to designate the Arctic Refuge as a national monument. Being a lover of nature, I think it is highly important to save as much of it as possible before it's all mowed down by big stinky machines to make way for more box houses and strip malls. My cousin ridiculed me for it because he thinks it would be a waste of resources and jobs. Is he really that selfish? Oh god, what would we do without granite countertops? I don't even know if there's granite there; I'm assuming there is, but I think you get the point. Even if we tapped into that, the tap will run dry someday - whether it's oil, or stone to make counters and floors for the rich, or timber. There's not an unlimited supply of that. Haven't people learned yet? Climate change? Oh wait, that's a scam, a bogus theory, a lie. What about the oil spill, huh? What about the 11 human lives that were lost, the countless human lives that were affected, the loss of sea life and nature? What we do to nature we also do to ourselves. Don't forget that the Louisiana wetlands lose about the area of a football field a day because of human interference. I see humans in general as disgusting, despicable creatures. There are some beautiful humans I know; beautiful physically, intelligently, and/or spiritually. Unfortunately, they don't make up for the rest of the damage humans caused. I told my cousin that every animal has as much right to be on this earth than any human. He'll probably read that and think, "Tree-huggin' hippy." That is fine by me. I'd rather be that than a short-sighted, selfish destructor of life that only sees what nature has to offer for my benefit. I don't understand how people do not care. It's that lack of caring that got us here.

How do we get to Never Land?

For a long time I felt that people should have to take an aptitude test before becoming parents, but how to keep them from procreating in the mean time eluded me. I finally decided that at birth, all babies should undergo a procedure that can be reversed to inhibit them from procreating until they undergo such an aptitude test. Then, hopefully, only mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially stable and responsible, loving adults would bear children. Kind of like what people go through when they want to adopt. Maybe I'll call this place Neverland. I know someone already thought that one up, but I can't think up everything.

I volunteered for the first time for Volunteer Chore Services for my volunteer requirement for school. What is up with that anyway? I believe volunteering is a great service for oneself and the community, and teaches humility and compassion, but to require it of college students? To study as thoroughly as I need to, to retain at least a good part of what I read, and to spend as much time as I need to on writing assignments to produce my best work, I would need to spend at least 20 hours a week on homework, maybe more. I would like to read everything twice, but I just don't have that kind of time, despite that I don't have a job. And the students who do go to school full time and work? I did that once, but with my seizure disorder I don't know if I could do that again, not that I want to. As it is, I would like to take 4 classes a quarter, volunteer for gay rights, the elderly, planned parenthood or someplace similar to it, and someplace for animals, become more active such as exercising regularly and maybe take a yoga class, read books outside of school, spend time on a hobby, such as knitting, and still have a social life. Again, if I had the money, I would love to visit more museums and see all types of performing arts. Diego has 11 or 12 houses he needs to sell, but because he's so busy with his other companies, he doesn't actively market them. So, I was thinking of doing it for him, like posting them on craigslist and msn. If a house sells from my posting, then I would receive a fee of $500 or so. If I commute by bus everyday, then that adds on at least another 8 hours a week, and then the hours I actually spend in class....and they want to require us to volunteer? I have a hard enough time as it is right now just keeping up with school without all the other things I want to do. I thought we attended a university, not a high school. I also have my own ideas about what should be taught in high school, but I'll save that for another day. Maybe all universities are like that. Enough complaining.

So, we went to this lady's apartment, and it was...nothing like I've seen before. It was in dire condition. She lives in Section 8 housing, and the manager told her if she didn't get her apartment up to code that she will be evicted and will face permanent homelessness. She definitely had hoarder tendencies, but not like people on the show "Hoarders." Those are probably only extreme cases. I helped clean the kitchen. I have two things to say about that - old sour cream in the sink and chicken bones stuck to the counter. That is definitely not what I signed up for (and a selfish part of me thinks we should get double hours for that), but I felt good about myself that I helped a stranger who really needed it. To blow my own horn, I bet not many people are willing to spend their Saturday afternoons like that. If I knew how disgusting it was going to be, I'd do it again.

In my last entry, I wrote about the feeling of something always bearing down on me; making it impossible, or seem impossible, to move forward with life and do things that I want to do instead of taking care of "emergencies" that are part of life. As I read my psych book earlier, I came across this passage that gives little hope for a bright and happy future. I almost found it funny if it wasn't so sad. I actually have experienced all of these already.

"In later life, challenges arise: Income shrinks, work is often taken away, the body deteriorates, recall fades, energy wanes, family members and friends die or move away, and the great enemy, death, looms ever closer."