Sign Of The Times?

Since I am retired, I have a lot of time to observe things. Most of my observation is of people as they are the most diverse beings on planet Earth.
Perhaps it has always been, this way, but I don't recall it. Maybe I was just too busy living my life, working and raising a child. I don't know. I seems that now women don't really care to raise children at all. They still give birth to them but they shuffle them off to anyone that will take them. I see plenty of single dads now. That never used to happen. It's almost as if some of those men are taking over mothering. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see men involved with their children. It's just not nice to see women turning into slackers. I can't help but wonder how these children will turn out. Maybe no different than the ones raised by just women.
Unfortunately what I observe is definitely limited in it's scope as I am surround by welfare folkin. That is to say, low income welfare recipients. It's section 8 housing.
It's the best deal around if a person doesn't want to work for a living.......all they need to do is qualify for the housing. Once they are accepted, they can even loose their welfare without loosing their apartment. Rent is based on 30 percent of the adjusted income. If the income is zero, so is the rent. Utilities will even be taken care of by the Feds so I am told.
How is that for taking all reasons for ambition away? I suspect that the original thought behind this housing was a good one but that it went the way of most good ideas and became something to abuse.
I wonder how much federal dollars are wasted on people that can work for a living but don't want to. Why should every ones tax dollars pay for programs that are so twisted out of shape that they make a bad situation worse?
It is painfully obvious that the welfare system in the state that I live in is in horrific need of reform. There are people that need help that can't get it and people that shouldn't get help sucking off the system.
I had thought that for awhile the welfare in this state had become workfare. Women or men asking for help needed to work a part time job if it were at all possible. As near as I can tell that isn't happening.
I am certainly in favor of people getting assistance with medical care and financial matters if they have exhausted their own means. Somehow someone sitting on their backside and chain smoking with their party pals doesn't fit that bill. I think it needs to be based on more than how many children you can produce in a lifetime.
Maybe these women could move to Canada. I think they still pay for the number of children you have. It used to be that way. I guess the government sent out monthly checks based on the number of children you had. Some of the Canadian families had 10 or 15 children. That was a long time ago and hopefully that changed. Somehow being paid to have children seems just wrong. It puts it on the level of animal husbandry.
I think this posting has taken me all the places it needs to for the day. I have seen enough signs of the times.

Another Day

Another day and another attempt at posting here. I wrote an entry yesterday but the save file failed and dumped the whole thing. Don't you just hate when that happens?
It may have been the muses way of telling me that I didn't have anything worth writing about. That is often the case, but I don't let it stop me.
Where is everyone? Has everyone escaped to Facebook? You can't blog there and most people don't care what you have to say anyway.
Over the years I have belonged to many blog spots. Most were useless. One of them was good until they went commercial. It split up communications horribly as the people you had followed may have joined the private blog. It was simply a disaster. One person I met there started his own blog site, Diary Monster. That was Dave. Nice fellow. His blog site was great and not too ridden with rules. Unfortunately, it became too costly and time consuming for him, I think and it went the way of many Internet sites.
I long since learned that the law of non attachment should always prevail in matters of the Internet. Much is here today and gone tomorrow. I have yet to make a true friend on the net and I shudder in total horror when I think about the net romances that develop. I've never heard of any of those working out. The net leaves you running around with your lantern searching for an honest man (or women).
I do like the net. It is useful for information in a hurry and for window shopping without leaving the house. I enjoy a rousing good chat too. Problem is, there aren't any good chats anymore. Most chat sites are about talking trash and getting cyber jollys. Yetch!!
Where was I? Oh, here, I am here. At least I think I am here even if I am not all there.
I've love to find an interesting blogger to follow but most people don't go anywhere to follow them.
As I said, another day and another posting later. I leave you to your world and thank you for stopping by mine to read.

By the Side of the Road

The title comes from a poem. I just don't remember who the author is. It goes, "I want to live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man." This came back to me today as I was sitting in my living room and listening to people gibbering on the sidewalk outside my window.
I live smack in the middle of a small city. The main street is just one block east of me, the police station is two buildings north from me and across the street. There is a municipal parking garage directly in back of my apartment. It is filled with cars during the day and skateboarding halfwits at night. The apartment is called a townhouse....it's nice enough....maintained well and cheap to rent.
The problems with adaption are no doubt my own. It would be a happy day for me if I could just pop a laser cannon out my upstairs window and simply open fire at random. It's not that anyone is doing something terrible to me. It is simply I am sick of hearing their retarded chatter night and day. No one is having an intelligent conversation with anyone else out there, but they are having them right outside my window. I consider pungy stakes and pits, also trip wires and landmines. All these would give me satisfaction.
Issues with anger? Not me. Why would anyone think I was angry? I always used to wonder why old people were so cranky. Now I am 63 I begin to understand. Oh, I am not newly grouchy. I have always been that way. It is just that now I am starting to understand it all.
All those people are given the precious gift of life and youth and they choose to waste it standing on a sidewalk talking trash. I wished I could say I was any different when I was young, but I don't remember that I was.
So, where was I? Yes, I was living in a house by the side of the road being a friend to man, wasn't I? LOL

Jan 1

It seems like the thing to do, making a blog entry on the first day of the new year. My mind is decidedly blank right now and to save my life, I don't think I could post anything of interest to everyone else.
I read Roving Jacks posting about what he did today....I must say, I have to wonder when he took the time to breath. All I did today was knit and play video games. All very dull.
Not too many moons ago I had my own business, making jewelry out of semi precious stones and precious metals, ie, silver and gold. I must say, some of them were quite nice. I also did some interesting wire wrapping too with silver, gold and copper wire. I simply can't afford to do that any more and most of my tools and stock were left behind when I became homeless. I miss it sometimes, Not my home, the jewelry making.
Just like in Gone With the Wind, "Tomorrow is another day"

I Am Positively Negative

I am positively negative at times and the gods know I have had enough reason to be so in the last year. It was, without a doubt, the worse year of my life. It was also the beginning of a new life as well. Life can begin at 62 or any age for that matter.
I never do anything the kind and gentle way. I blast through life or I sleep through it.There isn't anything in between those two extremes for me. I think I need the blast to wake me up and propel me forward. I am inherently lazy so I need to be blasted forward. I can easily turn into a veggie.
I don't even want to speculate upon what the coming year will bring. I don't dare too. That has been a consistently iffy thing for me over the years. I have learned to look forward to nothing in the coming year. If I don't place expectations then I don't suffer disappointment as much either.
The only plans I have are to keep on keeping on with one foot in front of the other until I get there.(where ever there is)
It must mean something that I've started blogging again. I haven't done that for months. Anyone that knows me well knows that I withdraw for long spans of time and don't take it personally. Maybe that's why so few people do know me well. I think I make it too much like work.
Okay, enough said for now. Happy New Year.

Maybe Not Too

Recently I posted an entry that suggested that perhaps a certain person was my friend for the last 25 years and I just hadn't noticed. I've given that some reconsideration. The only time she calls is when she wants someone to entertain her or go somewhere with her. The enthusiasm wore off quickly on her part and I must say, it did on mine too. She and I have some things in common but not enough to be too enthralled with each other. I think it is mutual.
In all my reconsiderations I'll decided once again that I am not cut out to be any ones friend. Maybe I don't know what the term friend encompasses....I will leave it at we still are speaking to each other now and then and if either one of us needs something in an emergency we can rely on each other.(at least I think that is true).
I can't get over the feeling of being a broken item, something that isn't quite usable but still recognizable as the item it is. I mean, I look like a normal person most of the time but that is as far as it goes. It has always been that way too, even when I was a child. It's sad to think of all the years that have passed and I have not changed in some ways that perhaps I should have. Eh, I don't know what I am talking about.

Alive and......

I am still alive and kicking....well....maybe not kicking. Maybe just twitching. Some days twitching is as good as it gets.
My life has such odd twists and turns. I've never been much of a social butterfly but I find I am getting more sociable. I don't know if I am willing or not, but that doesn't seem to matter. There are people in my life now that were not there before. I find that when I don't see them, I miss them. This has to mean something, does it not?
I've often been told that you don't get what you want, but you always get what you need. I'm not sold on that idea yet. I've only had a bit more than sixty years to ponder it. I wouldn't want to make any snap judgements on the subject.
I still maintain I am not fit to be any ones friend. I have grown so accustomed to being solitary that I find the company of others difficult. It leaves me tired. I have recently moved next door to a, for lack of a better word, friend of 24 years or more. She and I met at a nut bin. We were both working in the state hospital. I worked second shift and she was my relief on the third shift. Through many twists and turns, we became friends. Maybe she is my one true friend and it has taken me all these years to figure it out. I can not speak to her for a couple of years at a time, but when I run into her, it's just like we saw each other only a week ago. There is no resentment on the part of either of us for the absence. We simply pick up where we left off. I think she is a lot like I am in many ways. I think that the main difference is she likes more contact with people than I do. She is quite outgoing and sociable, at least on a superficial level. She is quite particular who her actual friends are. She does not tolerate idiots any more than I do.
When I speak of idiots, I am referring to the people that do stupid things and say stupid things that are bright enough to know better. Maybe I should refer to them as clowns or better yet, my daughters term, tool.
The last place I lived, in the penthouse, was full of clowns and tools and drunks and druggies, etc.
Where I am living now seems to just have ordinary people that aren't out to be the biggest asses on the planet. It's pretty nice here if I do say so. It is not perfect, but what is?
Now I am settling in again, I am starting to cycle through some things that I had to put aside temporarily. These are of course to do with the last 25 years or so of my life, maybe more. I am trying to set aside the abiding hatred I have for Geoff. I only wish to put it aside as it is a burden for me and it in some ways gives him power over me, or at least a piece of my head space. Even that thought causes new resentment.
I tried working these things out in therapy but it just wouldn't shake loose. I think I had too much other stuff getting in the way. I don't know where I will go from here. My life is, time wise, on the down side. I am a senior, not a middle aged person. I am not adjusting well to it either. Not that I mind being older, I don't. Mostly I keep looking at myself and saying, "why are you hanging out with people half your age?" I know the answer....most of the ones my age are old, boring and more than half dead or at least terminally dull witted. Somehow, my 30 something head space got caught up in a 62 year old body.
Who ever said that there is less confusion as you grow older? Who thinks that angst is only for teens? Who said that past 60 was the golden years? BULLSHIT is all I have to say to that.
I'm looking forward to seeing my younger set of friends in November. I missed seeing them this month.
Ah, yes, Halloween..Samhain or whatever else it's called is coming up. I'm not thinking I will be celebrating it much this year. I just don't have the energy to do it. We used to go all out with it. Decorate the whole house. Maybe sometime again...