The Second Great Depression.

Just heard on the news that 29% of Americans believe we are in a depression, not a recession.  I'm one of the 29%.


When one cannot afford medications, even when one pays for very expensive private health insurance, it is a sign of depression. (I know I'm depressed!)

When one cannot afford the gas to propel one to work... yet another sign. (Depression.) (Large parts of the country do not have "rapid transit". The option only exists in some large cities, and not all.)

When clipping coupons becomes an important part of each day... we are facing depression.

When workers start traveling state to state (albeit via internet) looking for work, as many of my colleagues do, as I do... we are in fact in a "depression."

When friends, in their late 50's talk about re-inventing themselves, finding another line of work and there is nothing out there... and finally give up because it is just the wrong time for a "start-up" and no one wants to hire anyone over 40, experience be damned...

Regardless of upswings in employment elsewhere, when 30% of one's neighbors are out of work or under-employed, collectively we are struggling through another "Great Depression."

Have you seen the price of lettuce?

When oil companies post record breaking profits as the rest of the country suffers... well, you know.

Let's add natural disaster to the mix. How can one go to work when "work" has blown away?

I'm growing my own basil. It is so much cheaper.

On the other hand, spring is springing.

Politics be damned, we will not be beaten down.

Unbelievable Ice Plant

A Berry Flower

I'd like to call this a river, but it is "The Wash." Half a mile from home.

To Bob And All My Friends.

The other day I'd intended to write a blog about friends. I'd had a lovely lunch with an occasional good friend and I'd wanted to talk about how there are some people in one's life where time doesn't matter. We won't see each other for months or even years and yet... we can't stop talking. We still have so much in common. I had an entire treatise in my head.

Then, I heard about my old friend Bob. He died friday of a massive heart attack leaving his wife and his two daughters alone. He was 57.

I had not talked to Bob in a good 26 years or more. I know we went to his 30th birthday party. My husband, Phil, sang at his wedding. We were close, once.

I went to the funeral. I knew very few people there.. I knew three. His wife (who only remembered me after I told her Phil had sung at the wedding) and two good old friends I'm embarrassed to say I'd lost touch with.

I feel a bit devastated.

Bob was my friend and was good to me. Time came between us and I lost him long ago. Makes me think of a song at the time written by James Taylor.. "I've seen fire and I've seen rain... But I always thought that I'd see you again."

It never occurred to me that I'd lose him forever. He was part of a family of theatre I had once. It was at the beginning for all of us. Les Moonves was there then. Richard Chamberlain, Patty Duke Austin, Lily Tomlin,  Quintin Crisp, Heather Carson.

We were a family. We were 20 something years old. We had the world in our hands. We just didn't know it. I was there and Bob was there.

Out we leapt into the future. We never looked behind and we should have. We should have kept that initial family growing and going into the future together.

There are songs.

Pi or Pie?

Pi is an enigma. I feel I need to investigate the problem further. I'll keep you posted.

I did a field of vision test today. I failed. Apparently, that is a good thing.

We have new neighbors moving in next door. They are moving in really slowly. I can't seem to get their attention long enough to introduce myself. I feel like I am in an episode of As Time Goes By.

Netflix is good but not perfect. I want it to be perfect!

Remember "will work for food"? Well, I "will work for health insurance"!
(Yes, the placement of the punctuation marks is intentional.)

Oh, and I'm not proud. I will also work for money.

Sometimes one just has to relax.

Are you as annoyed by the Republicans as I am? I really just want them to grow the fuck up already.

Democrats need to find some balls. Ben-wa balls would work. Shit, at this point so would basketballs. Any balls out there looking for a home should contact the Democratic Party as soon as possible. Truly, I think there is employment opportunity here. (Just tell them you have cajones. They will be so impressed you speak Spanish!)

I'm scared to death of my upcoming surgery. I'm afraid it will change the shape of my face. I'm told I will see better, but will I look different to myself? (It is an eyelift. I don't know if I really want it, but, I have very little peripheral vision left. I walk into people I don't see.)

I want to look the way I look.

It is a little like the enigma I'm looking into.

Pi or pie. hmm.

Loganberry, please.

Algorithms That Don't Work.

Old men get passes. We can't help letting them. When they've been kind and good and generous all their lives, I guess we have to let them, with a disapproving eye, say to the 25 year old Hostess, "You have a beautiful bosom!" We (I)  have to point out the sexism, but then accept that someone 85 years old probably knows what he is doing. Especially when he is so solicitous later. (By the way, the 25 year old LOVES him, calls him by his first name.) He offers the disapproving daughter another margarita and wonders if she needs any financial help.  He says, "What? I' was giving her a compliment!"

By the way...

There are algorithms for smaller prime numbers, but not for really large ones. None that work. Apparently this is an age old math problem. Apparently, the lack of that algorithm is the basis for all firewalls.

Bohr's model of the atom is inaccurate. I'm just saying.

Einstein was right about many things. I have some suggestions for a nice cleansing shampoo and a cream rinse.

If you look just at my feet you might think I am twenty. I learned a lot from my grandmother. Mostly, by looking at her feet. Yeah. I don't actually wear shoes very often.

The cigarette you need is the one you wish you didn't have to duck out to have. It is the most isolating.

I once was a math major, then a theatre major, then a pre-med major, then a theatre major. Then I got a teaching credential in English. I now work in theatre and teach theatre. Go figure.

Why is my leather couch splitting after only 10 years? The leather chair is fine.

On the very few occasions when the lights go out we are disappointed when the lights come on again.
We enjoyed the challenge of living in the dark.

When are men going to wake up and realize that "women's issues" are not all about abortion?

Imagine.

We Are All Gypsies.

A friend of mine (dead now) once told me we are gypsies. Like it or not, to make money we have to keep moving. I didn't like what he said. I really thought I could stay in one place, do my art and come home each night, however late.

Well. He was beyond right. Without a theatrical home I am a gypsy. I spent last summer in Seattle and will spend this summer in D.C. Before that I spent 4 summers in San Diego. I've lived in New York and London. I've lived in Las Vegas for a bit off and on, and "on the road." I lived briefly in Denver.. kinda cool and kinda scary! Strange town. Especially at night.

You may think, "What an exciting way to live! You get to travel!" Yeah, I do. I get to mail small boxes of my life to new apartments, buy mustard and pepper and coffee and milk for another new place and figure out the landscape in a short amount of time while I spend 10 hours a day at work.  I don't get to go to Disneyland or the equivalent. (Hmm. What is the equivalent of Disneyland? Why am I using that as a basis of comparison?)

I DID get to Buckingham Palace, but, I'd been there before. Hadn't changed in 25 years. In Philadelphia I saw the beautiful train station.. and a strip club.  In Seattle, oh.. I love Seattle.. I walked and walked and took 3 boat rides in lakes and in the Sound. Yeah, that was nice. I've seen zoos in nearly every city and on one tour went to all the ballparks I could. But, it is not vacation. It is not what you may imagine.

I am in a new place, no base, no husband, no support and I am working. I try and want to eat at "home" because it is cheaper. (This isn't a party.) I make my lunch each day and try to eat what I can cook.

I don't get to spend my one day off wandering around the Statue of Liberty because I need to shop for the week, or see a friend, or just crawl off the bed long enough to get food and crawl back, under the covers.

I love working in my home town. I have my own bed and my own kitchen. I have my internet connection just the way I like it. I have the smells and I know what channel will bring me HGTV.  I have my husband.

Living as a gypsy is part of who I am. I know this. I embrace this. I LOVE the work. I hate the travel. To those of you who are jealous and wish your job took you out of town.. just remember, sometimes you end up in Fresno.

(And you won't have time to tour the almond farms!)

xo

random flowers.

m.