ofREH

Rougher than I like but it made for decent toilet paper.

So,
I wish I’d asked my Grandmother, before she passed…well…alot of things, actually, but in particular, if she felt that, during the 40’s and 50’s, we, as a Nation, were worse off than when she was a child.
I’m sure she might have told me that life had become more complicated, harried and that things were just simpler for her as a small girl.
Of course, much of that impression might be attributed to her having become an adult. One with the pressures and responsibilities that generally come with adulthood. Back then.
I don’t think, were she pressed (at your peril), she would have said that the Country was a less attractive idea, a perceptibly failing experiment. I don’t think she would have thought that, during the 40’s and 50’s, we were less morally grounded or even civil, for that matter, then when she was reared.
Now…ask yourself the same question.
I ask, because recently I was in line at an airport behind a Father and his two Children and they were both shockingly beautiful kids. Most noticeably, was that they both, boy and girl, had the longest eyelashes I think I’ve ever seen. So long, that I recall thinking they must brush the lenses of any eyewear.
My first instinct was to comment to the Father, “Such beauties, these two!”. Already smiling in greeting and raising my hand, minutely, to point to them as I did so…then, letting it drop, my smile faded and I looking away, as the second instinct took hold.
The one that told me Dad would think me a predator, were I to remark, in any way, on his Children.
It at first disturbed me, then saddened me, then, made me angry. Because I would have felt the same, were they my kids and a strange Man had even noticed them. much less thought to make comment upon it.
I can’t help but wonder at what else has changed in these past several decades. What we as a society have lost, that we once took for granted.
The answer I keep giving is…no, we are not as well off as we were 60 years ago. We are not even as well off as recently as when I was a child, though I think the corruption of spirit had already a solid foundation by then.
If so, if that be a general consensus, shouldn’t the next questions be to why?
What has changed? What are the common denominators of our decline?
The obvious, at least for me, is apathy,  a sense of entitlement, coddling, drugs, Family, Education, Faith, and decadence, both moral and spiritual.
One can argue or highlight the many significance advances we have made in American society. The obvious ones, rooted in race and gender. Perhaps not as obvious, are those in technology and science. From reaching the Moon and beyond, to understanding and mapping the human genome. So many fantastic, inconceivable achievements…yet…what will they, or have they, contributed to our the hope of our future, that of our our youth.
Is your Child better off today, than you, at that age? I kinda doubt it.
Are they safer, smarter, more driven, more compassionate, considerate, hopeful, or…dare I say it, healthier?
I kinda doubt it. (well…except yours, of course)
Globally, Seven billion, this year. Less than a century ago we were half that number. Is THAT the promise of the future?…boundless humanity? This, the boon of our advance…or the price?
There are no truer words whispered to us than those of history.
If looking back, at every redrawn boundary, every calculated resignation to the impulse of society, there could be a bygone appreciation.
We could and have done worse than to savour it.
It may well be all we are left with.

You put that nasty butter salt on the popcorn??...shhh...it's starting

So,
Do you remember that time you thought I might care to hear about the dream you had the night before?
Yea. I’m having none of it.
Obviously dreams are an extention of our consciousness. Just as obviously, they only make sense to those that have them.
What makes perfect sense to you, is much like a rabbit hole to whoever you are trying to detail it to. Trust me.
“So then..then I was like walking around and Billy pops out of a meatloaf and wants to use my metal leg as a gearshift for her sewing machine…”
Who the fuck is Billy?
And so on…
Now though. I dream.
I didn’t used to. Or at least, remember any. Occasionally, I might wake suddenly from one horrible enough to pull me from a deep slumber and even those, I’d not recall in the morning.
That was before I caught allergies.
I shit you not, in the last several years, either because of the mild allergy medicine I take or because of the pressure on some portion of some lobe, from my sinuses, I dream like crazy. Vivid, close to the surface dreams. Tangible, almost. To the point where I can actually recall thinking to myself…in my dream.
Just last night, Petey, having just left Office as New Jersey Governor and was celebrating now being the “ex Governor” but still keeping the title…I recall thinking to myself, in the dream, “man, that fucker can do anything!!” but then my phone rang and Joelle insisted on describing her husbands (routine) colonoscopy to me. Seriously??
I’d almost rather have someone else tell me their dreams than have to recall my own now.
I hate it. No fucking dream journal for me.
I wanna go back to sleeping and remembering nothing.
What little attention I’ve given to analyses clearly shows a pattern. That I only dream of those I need recall, not those I have any day to day with.
In other words, two of my Ex’s haunt me like ghosts, except not as ethereal, but in my face, “I thought I was rid of you when I set you ass on the curb” payback.
Fuck me running.
Karma? Purgatory, more like.
There is some consolation though. Occasionally, my beloved Nana stops by. Sometimes even around dinnertime and I get to relive her unbelievable chicken and rice. Even that though, I’d forgo, if it meant I needn’t keep driving that damn yellow school bus (empty) over the barrier on the bridge….again and again. The sneezing and congestion is bad enough… must I saddle up for the only six hours I used to count on without you?

No…you still can’t tell me yours. I have enough on my hands.