Business first. There's a new guestbook rule. Guestbook messages will only stay up IF:
a.) I know you, OR...
b.) You have posted a valid email address along with your name or screen-name, AND...
c.) Your message is not shitty, borderline shitty, potentially shitty, or of an ambiguously shitty nature.
This shouldn't be too hard, really. If you don't want the whole free world to see your email address, feel free to leave private posts, or to email me. But I'm tired of "Mentors" telling me how to live my life, and random monsters telling my ex to come "rescue" my baby from me, and "humans" expressing mockery and rudeness -- all without signing real names or offering contact information. If you're going to be a shit, you're not going to be allowed to do it anonymously. You're gonna leave an email address and a name, or you're going to get sent swirling off into the land of hidden guestbook posts.
Good?
Good.
We had just about six-fifty for groceries until October 1st. In the residence, as it was, there were some beans, some rice, some bread, a couple of tortilla shells, and some chicken thighs. Also, a few various condiments, some milk, and some baking supplies. Some of the condiments are rather questionable, and the ketchup comes in packets stolen from fast food joints.
Not bad. But we decided to get some food anyway. A place nearby was selling ten pound bags of potatoes for a buck and a half. A buck-fifty! Shit, for TEN POUNDS of food. That left enough for sour cream and margarine. A feast!
But when I got to the grocery store to buy the sour cream and stuff, I saw that they had ten pound bags of potatoes for FORTY-NINE CENTS. Ten pounds of food for half a dollar. That is so absurd. So there was enough money left over for a cheap package of bacon, and three tiny little cubes of cheddar cheese. It really was like a feast.
I was talking to my mom on the phone today, and she sounded rather concerned about whether or not I'm surviving. She didn't need to SAY it -- I could hear that MotherLook over the telephone. I told her that things aren't so great -- scraping by does literally mean scraping, toward the end of the the month. But I told her that I've still got it way better than a lot of people. Maybe even most people. I'm not entirely sure she believed me. But she's my mom, so I suppose she's got to worry.
But I DO have it better than most people. After all, how many people tonight, got to eat baked potatoes with sour cream and fresh chives (which mysteriously manifested in the refrigerator recently), and bacon crumbles, and cheddar cheese? REAL baked potatoes, not nuked ones. Not ones from Jack-in-the-Box, or Arby's, either. And how many people got to eat them in good health with people they cared for, after carrying the groceries home in a beautiful sunset? I've got working batteries in my CD player, a soda from the fast food joint, a full stomach, a soft sweater, and a warm place to sleep tonight. I've got friends who care about me, a couple of notebooks, bus fare anywhere in town, a couple of good books to read, and several pairs of clean underwear. And last but certainly not least, we have TWO-PLY TOILET PAPER HERE!!!
I also have the wisdom to know just exactly how blessed I am to have ANY of those things.
Which means, I think, that I've got it better than the vast majority of people in this world.
I had a dream the other night that I was standing in a kitchen with Neil and the baby. Neil and I were puttering around, minding our own business, kinda talking to each other. The baby, who was, in the dream, about three or four, was racing around the kitchen floor, making some sort of noise and having her own fun. All of a sudden, she raced up to my side and whacked me across the back of the knees, knocking me off-balance. I looked up -- I'd landed pretty much on my ass -- and saw her grinning this wicked, enormous grin. I looked up a bit higher, and saw Neil grinning an identical grin.
It was one of the most peaceful, happy dreams I've had in a long, long time. I'm not really sure it was a dream. I think maybe it was a premonition. Argh. My family's conspiring to kick my ass with a plastic sword. Heh!
I love my life.
My mother told me, when I was very young, that we didn't need to dry the dishes. In fact, we shouldn't dry them. We should leave them in the dish drainer and God would dry them for us. My mother knew there was a God, she said, because He dried her dishes.
This made perfect sense to me, really. Hell, even now it makes perfect sense. To the scientifically-minded, it might seem like something called evaporation is drying the dishes. But whatever. Evaporation, God... I don't see a whole lot of difference, really. Neil looked up "God" in the dictionary the other day, and it said something like, "infinite spirit of the universe," or something like that. "Spirit" somes from the Greek, and means soul, but also wind or breath -- as in reSPIRation. The Latin equivalent, "pneuma," means exactly the same thing. So, God is the infinite wind, or breath, or the universe. Evaporation itself is greatly assisted by air currents, but even in stagnant air, evaporation causes tiny wind-like movements to occur. I think.
Basically, God is evaporation.
Among, of course, many other things.
(Friends and acquaintances have occasionally said things to me, like, "but I thought you were a Pagan and didn't believe in God!" I should have replied: "No; being a Pagan allows me to believe in things like God being the same thing as evaporation and drying my dishes." I see divinity in many things.)
I have this problem, though, with the dishwasher. It's got a "drying" setting on it, which lasts for like, half an hour. Not only does it not ACTUALLY dry the damned dishes, but it seems to me an act of sacrilege to allow a machine to supposedly take over God's job. Fuck that crap. I have faith, man! I trust in God! I trust that God will dry my dishes! To utilize a machine that is supposed to dry my dishes is comparable, I think, to inventing and using an artificial sun, in case the sun decides not to come up. (In addition to being evaporation, God is also the sun... but that's another entry...) Here in western Washington, that sometimes seems like a very real possibility, but still... I mean, fuck, don't people have any faith anymore?
I mean, if you can't believe in evaporation, what the hell can you believe in?
......I was explaining all of this, rather sleepily and probably somewhat incoherently, to Neil the other night. He was happily amused by my rantings on the subject. To add to the discussion, he explained how dishwashers supposedly work to dry dishes. "If there were a panel on the top to let the steam out, or if there were a fan--" Neil is so smart. A good portion of the time, he's better with random facts than a good Yahoo search. But I interrupted him.
"But! But that's not true! Because in my dad's house, we HAD a dishwasher that had a panel on top! And the dishes STILL didn't get dry! Why? Because to use a dishwasher to dry your dishes is an act of faithless heathenism!"
Neil was still amused. I think he finds my weirdness charming.
Right. But in any case, the next time you go to dry your dishes, at least have the wisdom to know you're questioning the existence of God.
I'm going to go read or something.
~Helena*