A Damned Lie

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It seems strange for the new year to start at the beginning of the weekend. The holiday gets extended two weekends in a row. Lots of days off for the working people. Maybe that will allow the general populace in the countries affected to calm down and see things for what they are a little better.

For the peoples of the Earth that don't worship the Christian gods and worship their own gods and act like their own calendars are more correct than the Christian ones, then the roar of the greasepaint smells like a rat. It's a crazy, mad, mad, world, and no one part of it is gonna get it's way over all the other parts, and so we continue to live in a world full of wars and rumors of wars for better or worse.

More and more I'm discovering that not only do I not have much relevant stuff to say, I'm not even trying to say something that makes sense in a irrelevant way. In my better moments I arrange words in such a way as to belabor reason without calling it a damned lie. I got no good reason for it other than that doing such amuses me to no end.

Senility is a topic that sots itself in the specious present more frequently as the years pass. At my age every "senior moment" threatens the extinction of being able to make sense of my environment, and being found incompetent to handle my own affairs.

The fact that these moments have happened occasionally throughout my life seems less relevant than those stultifying moments do at the age of seventy. It's crazy, I guess, but I'll be glad to get to be seventy-one. The term "seventy years old" is a curse responsible people hurl around like epithets of the beginning of the end. The ring-pass-me-not. The event horizon of Doomsday.

When I turn seventy-one years old the most frequent epithet I expect to be abused with is "dirty". As in having my odd behavior passed off indifferently as "just another dirty ol' man. Ignore him! He got the-can't-help-its." My dream and life long goal is coming true. I'm becoming invisible.

I write about my remembering vision as if it were The Akashic Records because that's what I think that's what people called such experiences in the past. I feel compelled to reach for these experiences as my reference material for making decisions about what's happening in the here and now.

Back when I was working as a pipefitter/welder there were lots of formulas and rules of the road for erecting mechanical systems for huge industrial complexes that I used every day, and my ability to perform those crafts competently decided whether I could keep a job and make a living by doing that.

Those formulas and rules of the road for making a living in industrial construction haven't been a regular part of my vocabulary for a long time. I can't recall out-of-hand the tricks of the trade so readily anymore. If I went back to work practicing those skills daily for a while I wouldn't have much trouble picking them up again, but for now, any hesitancy I might display at remembering what I used to know can easily be taken for senility.

This has happened at the Wal-Mart a couple of times recently at the check-out counter. Both of the clerks were young white people, but it happened at different times. I punched in some numbers and was about to hit Enter when the clerks snatched the input device around as if I didn't have enough sense to operate it, and when they went to tell me my business the transaction went through, and they got mad at me because they had made an ass of themselves.

Old men do get cranky and hard to deal with. Me too. I'm no different just because like everybody else I kind of think I'm special, but in my dotage I'm discovering a new dynamic that requires caution, and for the most part, that's about all it does take to prevent most misunderstandings.

In this regard I feel like I need to take heed of one of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. The shortest one. Two words. "Be passerby." It appears to carry the same advise as one of the strong metaphors in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching. "The superior man lets many things pass without being duped."

That's the attitude that might serve me best with impatient young people I encounter for whatever reason here and there. To let their impatience and bad manners pass without being duped into getting cranky about their behavior and trying to correct them according to the dictates of my rules of conscience and morality. Fat chance... eh? "You young whippersnapper! I'll give you what for if you don't do right. Who are yo' people?"

The wind is blowing and nearly all the clouds are gone now. We're completely engulfed by the predicted huge cold front that so large the weathermen won't prophesy the end of the coldest weather of the year. It's supposed to get down to the teens every night for at least the next week, and more. That's about as cold as it gets in these parts, and it's gonna stay that way for a long, long time? What a drag, man.

All I got to stay warm with is a couple of space heaters, and my brother and his wife bought both of them for me outta pity for my stupidity. I know it's just because I'm a miser. The more I have reflected on this attribute the Enneagrams define as my "chief feature", the more I realize this is the God's own truth about me, and has been for as long as I can remember, but without me realizing how powerful avarice is with me.

All this cold weather means to me is that I have to concern myself with my water pipes freezing over. I always cut all the heat in the house off when I go to bed, but if the temperatures get down into the teens or single digits I just leave the space heater on all night.

I made a small discovery last night when I turned the lights back on and got outta bed to straighten up the covers and blankets on my bed. My tossing and turning at night for the past while had thrown them out of the best way for them to be to keep me toasty.

While I got busy doing this before I got a solid chill again, I remembered I had another blanket stashed away that had come from my parents house when my mother died. It was brand new and the packaging had never been opened.

I retrieved it, and found out when I removed the plastic packaging that it wasn't a blanket, but a piece of foam that was designed to be placed under the sheets on top of the mattress. I decided to put it on top of me between a comforter and a down coverlet. It was a soft, flexible foam. It has air bubbles that insulate. I was a little cool under my existing covers. What's not to like if it keeps me warm. It kept me warm. Much warmer. Huzza!

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