Unintended Consequences

I’m not one to complain about the weather. Why would I? What difference would it make? It’s like when you ask someone…usually an older someone…and often a male someone…how he’s doing. Sometimes he’ll answer, “Can’t complain.”, and a voice inside my head adds, “And it wouldn’t do any good if you did.”

Despite my physical aversion to colder weather, I never complained when spring took her time getting here. I adapted instead. I looked upon the situation as an excuse to purchase a few more sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. I love sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. They are some of my favorite things. I especially love them if they are made from cashmere.

One of my friends was particularly irritated by people complaining about having to wear shoes in Atlanta in April. As it happens, she was born in South Dakota. I don’t think she’s lived in Georgia very long which would explain why she isn’t aware that, by April, most southerners are organizing their flip-flops according to outfit and/or occasion. She took to Facebook, warning anyone bemoaning cooler temperatures that they had better not complain about sweating in July or she’d be there to remind them they’d gotten just what they’d asked for. I’m guessing she hasn’t had to make good on that promise. Not because she’s a particularly scary person. And, not because people finally realized that complaining about the heat doesn’t cool things off.

My friend hasn’t had to remind anyone how they wished for Atlanta heat because Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet…not really hot…not Atlanta hot. Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet because during the month of June we received 9 1/2 inches of rain. And, since that time, it’s rained every day in July. So far this year we’ve accumulated almost 42 inches of rain which is more than we had for the entire year last year.

Sometime around the middle of June people began to complain. Often, mine was the lone voice of dissent. As the minder of a garden, I didn’t dare complain. For years I watched my garden literally burn to the ground because of lack of rain. There’s no way I would complain now…unless it is to bemoan missing melons. I planted melons, you see, and something ate them. I assumed the culprits to be rabbits until I spotted a pair of deer strolling casually through a neighbor’s yard. They stopped, on their way down the street, to nibble on roses.

Back then, in the middle of June, when only about 30 inches of rain had fallen, melons seemed like a good idea. Thirty inches of rain is enough water to fill lots of watermelons. Now though, some twelve inches later, I’ve begun to see that too much of a good thing really is too much. A melon, you see, begins as a blossom. A bee spies the blossom, and then he sees another one, and another one, and so on, and so on, and before you know it…mini-melons! But bees don’t like rain. Even in a light rain, a bee can’t leave its nest. And a blossom without a bee is just a flower.

So much water in such a short time changes things.

The chicken pen is under water. Seeing their ugly little toes disappear into the muck time after time as they rush to greet me reminded me of jungle rot, a podiatric malady soldiers in Vietnam often battled. Last weekend I put down boards for them to walk on. My chickens haven’t had as much as a sniffle in six years. Its bad enough they’ve had to learn to eat off a dinner plate. I can’t take a chance with jungle rot.

My flowers are drowning.

My floors are muddy.

My dogs are smelly.

And, don’t even get me started on my hair.

I’m willing to concede that, aside from the health of my hens, most of my worries are negligible.

And then I read about the snakes.

It makes perfect sense when you think it through, which I never would have done if I hadn’t read that a local newscaster was hospitalized with a snake bite. The sequence goes something like this: many bugs don’t do rain which means things that eat bugs are forced to forage. Foraging, as it happens, often requires travel outside of one’s usual hunting grounds and, thus, increased time outside of the nest. Guess what eats the things that would eat bugs but are now having to hunt?

Snakes.

And, here’s another twist. Just like my chickens who now spend ninety percent of their time inside the henhouse, snakes are tired of being wet. Only they don’t have a house of their own, so guess what? That’s right! They’re not picky! They’ll use yours. Right now, in Atlanta, the average wait time to have a pest control company out to your house to remove rain weary vermin is two weeks; two weeks of sharing your house with something that slithers. No. Way.

My seventh grade teacher, Mrs. White, marched with Martin Luther King. She played guitar and taught us folk songs and regaled us with stories from her past. One story involved a snake. It’s the one I remember.

She’d gotten up in the middle of the night to pee. For whatever reason, she didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom until after she’d done her business. That’s when she saw the snake, coiled around and around and around the inside of the toilet bowl. Having carried this image around in my head lo these many years, you can believe I toilet with the lights on, and only after careful inspection. And there’s no loitering. When I was a kid, my father’s bathroom always smelled like newsprint. He obviously hadn’t heard the story.

Yesterday the rain held off until rush hour. This is not unusual. In fact, yesterday was the second time I’ve sat in traffic and watched marble-sized hail gather on my windshield wipers before being swooshed off to ping the car in the lane next to mine.

By the time I arrived home, hail had given way to torrential rain and pounding thunder. My dogs don’t care for storms. Usually they’re too nervous to eat. But when it rains every day for weeks, something’s got to give. Murphy, my boxer, followed me into the sunroom willingly enough but minutes later, after I’d gone back inside, I heard his super-sized claws hit the industrial strength screen we installed to protect the French door from just that type of abuse. He gave a jerk of his head when I opened the door; our signal that he wanted company. I sank into one of the rocking chairs I’d drug in off the patio during an earlier storm, and immediately wished I’d grabbed my Iphone. For a few seconds, I considered going back in to get it. I could play a word, check in on Facebook, or read an email. The sound of rain hitting the roof called me back. I realized this was an opportunity to just be, and I don’t get enough of those.

I give the rocking chair a push and fold my arms over my lower abdomen, appreciating the softness of a little extra padding. Looking around, I realize I never really see this room. I’d forgotten, for example, about the funky wine bottles and vintage tin signs I sat on shelves next to the ceiling. I’ve downsized from a plethora of plants to a table covered in cactuses and hung, above them, twinkle lights encased in aluminum stars separated by wind chimes. I’ve left my mark here.

The sound of azalea branches scraping windowpanes turns my attention outside the room. The wind is blowing. The sky is unnaturally bright. Maybe the sun, too, has had to adjust; taking any opportunity to shine.

I wonder how the chickens are faring. It’s cooler now, after the hail.

When did my head tilt to one side…ever so slightly…the way it does just before a nap?

When did my eyes close?

The rocking has slowed.

Sleep could come.

Would he be disappointed if I slept through dinner?

Finally Determined: TBD, Facebook, and Girls Gone Mild

I’m not the most social animal you’ll ever meet.

Just ask…

Okay, there are a couple of people you could ask.

My oldest/dearest would regale you with stories of sardonic avoidance. While she’s talking though, remember she’s not exactly the life of the party herself. We met at work. I believe the ice-breaker was a question about fellatio. That kind of thing will bond a girl…

My “Spirit Mother”, a Native-American woman who tackled the job of growing me up within months of my thirtieth birthday, will tell you it’s a ruse. She’ll dub me magnanimous and explain, in great detail, the ways in which I’ve proven the depth of my caring, my intelligence, and the innate generosity of my nature.

And, they’d both be right…depending on the day, my level of self-confidence, and the number of days since I’ve been alone.

Really alone.

Because, I have to be.

Not all the time. Everyone knows doing anything all the time is unhealthy.

But I need it some of the time.

Strange as it may sound, being alone actually takes me outside myself. When forced to associate for days on end, my emotions become jumbled. Thinking becomes hard, and sleep, evasive.

Alone time, whether spent writing, reading, or inside the cocoon provided by nose-cancelling earbuds, allows my mind to rest, to find space for the tornadic detritus produced by the effort of showing up.

And, speaking of showing up…

Almost five years ago, I joined a social website on a whim. I’d been surfing the internet, for what I don’t remember. But, I came across an advertisement for a social website built for Boomers.

I’m a Boomer…barely. It gives me a modicum of comfort to be able to say that I qualify by just a few months.

I joined. I conjured a catchy screen-name and used, as an avatar, a photograph taken by my daughter.

Photogenic, I am not. My daughter caught me on an upswing…literally. The photograph was taken while I shared the porch swing with my eldest son. He always makes me smile. She clicked at just the right time.

Over several years, for several hours, several days a week, I forged relationships with people in exotic places like Goshen, New York, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Sydney, Australia.

And we shared. We learned about families, argued about politics, supported artistic effort, and congratulated achievement.

And we laughed. We told jokes, poked fun, and honed our already razor-sharp, sarcastic wits into instruments of cohesive amusement.

And we played…really played…like children play…with abandon, and the certainty that tomorrow, after the responsibilities of “real” life were met, the gang would be there, and we would play again.

And, speaking of real life…

Websites cost money, and ours wasn’t making any. Despite our founder’s best efforts, our playground closed. Seeing the handwriting on the “wall”, several of us joined Facebook in an effort to maintain contact. And then, a few more joined.

“And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…”

It’s not the same, but its okay. And, when I think about it, I’m amazed. We come from very different backgrounds, different demographics, and various socio-economic strata. We are African-American. We are Asian. We are Christian. We are Agnostic. We are musicians. We are Stay-At-Home-Moms. We are self-employed. We are grandfathers. We are disabled. We are yoga instructors. We love music, sports, and high-heels.

Well, not all of us love sports, but high-heels suffer no such prejudice.

We do all the things we did before, only now we do it under the watchful eye of “3D” family and friends, who read our walls in amazement at the bonds we’ve forged with people far-flung in so many ways.

A couple of years ago, one of our group suggested a meet-up. Meeting at the beach, combined with the aforementioned wit, suggested the title “Girls Gone Mild”. This year, regardless of social ineptitude, I’m one of the girls.

I’d tell you I’m excited, but the word isn’t big enough. I’d say I’m nervous, but that word suggests anxiety…

Okay, I’m anxious.

There are the pounds put on as a result of dying glands and overworked ovaries. And, there’s my hair. It’s long now. He likes it that way. But the color’s all wrong and, in this heat, it hangs.

And there are the shoes. We’re going to the beach. No one wears heels at the beach…but I’ve got this reputation.

For days now, sleep has been elusive. Last night, after what seemed like hours, I finally turned the clock around to see “4:15”, large, blue, and LCD. I’d been awake for a while. The alarm was set to go off in forty-five minutes. I gave up.

A double-click opened my home page. It had been hours since any of my friends posted. I scrolled and read, and didn’t think I’d given myself away, but a red “1” lurking over the message box said different.

“What’re you doing up?”

That’s when I realized that since joining “TBD”, I’ve never, really, been alone.

And, they’ve made all the difference.

>Net-Overworked

When it came to market, I was among the first in line for the IPOD. I had one of the early models, the one that looked like a space-age tic-tac dispenser. I later traded up to the Nano, which I rarely mentioned without thinking of Robin Williams, prompting the duplication pronunciation as in, Nano-Nano. My I-touch came soon after my son received one. Two years later, I’ve yet to meet a cooler gadget. Mine goes with me everywhere.

In all the time I’ve “podded”, I’d never downloaded a podcast, but that was before I ran out of treadmill diversions. Music doesn’t do it for me. Music provides a soundtrack. Rather than taking me to another place, it helps me focus on the task at hand. I don’t want to focus on the treadmill.

Television was an option for a while. Several years ago, I watched an entire season of American Idol on the treadmill. Since then though, I’ve moved it. I’ve taken over the Living Room, turning it into a Game/Workout room. It’s not carpeted, inviting every little noise to travel through a stoned foyer, down a similarly bare hallway, to the door of my son’s bedroom, and that’s a problem. Sometimes I use the treadmill before work. Waking my son at 4:30 AM would only mean trouble for us both.

After hearing someone on television discuss their favorite, a podcast seemed a viable solution; not to mention a reason to spend another hour or so poking around in I-tunes, which is for me, similar to shoe shopping in that I could do it until I run out of money or someone I’m related to shouts “Mom!”.

It took a few minutes to get acclimated, but after perusing “Staff Picks”, and “New and Noteworthy”, I chose a handful of podcasts to audition. I clicked on each icon, downloaded the latest entry, and it wasn’t long before I began to notice a pattern. Many podcasts are supported by websites, and those websites encourage participation in a social network of like-minded listeners.

Really?

Later that day, a friend sent me a link to a site dealing with Kabbalah. I know two things about Kabbalah. I know followers wear a cool, little, red, string bracelet, and I know Madonna is one.

You might say I’m a student of religion. I’ve studied and/or read the text of many religions, from Daoism, to Mormonism, to good old Southern Baptist theology. I even read “Dianetics” and, afterward, sent an email requesting information on becoming a Christian Scientist. I got no response. I never decided if that was a good thing or a bad thing…

I visited the site my friend suggested, and submitted the information required for a fourteen-day, free trial. Almost immediately came the email suggesting I join their social network for those new to Kabbalah.

Really?

Open Salon, too, has become something of a social network. The fact is, you can post all you want, but if you don’t take the time to read other’s posts, add them to your friend’s list, and message them when you add another post, your post probably won’t get read.

I joined Facebook. We all did, didn’t we? I mean, even if you didn’t join to catch up with old friends, or to cheat with old friends, or even just to lurk on old friends’ walls to live vicariously much as you did in high school, you joined to monitor your kid’s activity, right?

Facebook is THE social network of all social networks. All my “friends” are there. I put “friends” in parentheses because I have “friended” people I have never met or even conversed with, in any media, at any time, anywhere. These are people my “real” friends have suggested I “friend”. So, I did.

The fact is, I feel pressured. When a “friend” suggests a “friend”, I feel pressure to friend. When I post on Open Salon, I feel pressured to read. I am 4 days into my free, fourteen-day trial of Kabbalah Online and I feel pressured to rush through the videos so I’ll have something to offer the “group”.

Enough.

Are we this lonely? Where are our friends? Don’t we have anyone to talk to, to share air with?

Or, are we talking everything to death?

>The Huff, The Peas, and the Egghead

Like many before me, I write from angst. I haven’t had much lately…

Today, though, I feel need. It’s a nice place from which to write. I much prefer it to sitting in front of a monitor willing an idea to form in between the occasional guilty click on my facebook page, which mocks me from its shrunken state on the bottom of the screen.

I’ve got a few things stuck in my craw…

Arianna Huffington sold out. Despite the rather dismal projections offered by many who know much more than I about these things, I understand the motivation from a business point of view. But I didn’t see Arianna as a business. I saw Arianna as a pioneer, sort of a new age Annie Oakley with a sexy foreign accent. And, I ask you, would Annie Oakley have sold her gun? Even if it meant she could grow her audience? What if more people took her seriously? Would she have sold it then? I don’t think so.

For me, Arianna represented “The Total Package”. She is smart, beautiful, savvy, brave, maternal, and charming. She gave the appearance of having “It All”. Recently, I listened to an interview in which she was asked why she wasn’t “seeing” anyone. (The fact that this is considered a pertinent question in 2011 is something that could get stuck in my craw if I let it. For now, I’ve decided not to let it.) Paraphrased, her answer was that she just hadn’t found anyone who was worth it. She was busy. She loved her life. She was a self-fulfilling female. I suppose she still is…in a way.

Did I mention I actually like the “Black Eyed Peas”? I do. They opened for “No Doubt” about a million years ago in a lofty, former Baptist tabernacle-cum-tiny concert hall now called simply, “The Tabernacle”. My date hated them. I suffered them in anticipation of things to come. But, even so, I could see their appeal.

Will. I. Am., despite obvious identity issues inherent in the chosen spelling of his given name and the unfortunate choice of headgear, is a brilliant musician and businessman, which is precisely why Intel recently named him “Director of Creative Innovation”.

Let’s agree they were over-ambitious. And, given that, and Mr. .Am’s recent recognition, there was no room for mistakes. If your desire, Will. I. Am., is to be known to the world as a creative genius, then you’d better think before you take on a job of this magnitude. Before you decide to create a light-show the size of a football field, teeming with human bodies, you should be absolutely sure the mikes will work. It’s a small thing, but in the end when we’re watching, and Fergie is singing, only we can’t hear it because her mike is going in and out, over and over, that small thing becomes huge.

As she lay bleeding, the vultures wheeled. If I had a dime for every time I’ve read a headline that promised tantalizing details of the time Fergie wet her pants, I could buy a cup of coffee…and a biscotti. Okay, so Fergie wet her pants. Video evidence is unequivocal. And, so what? She didn’t wet her pants at Cowboys Stadium, but she did do a bitchin’ Axl Rose impression.

Why is it that, once the bleeding starts, that’s all we know? We smell the blood, and nothing else matters. Why do we work so hard to bring down those we worked so hard to elevate? What is wrong with this picture? Are we really that bored…jealous…unhappy…small? Well, I guess we are.

Sometimes I only read the headlines; case in point, the recent brouhaha over abortion rights.

When I was in college, our English teacher gave us a choice of essay subjects. We could write about abortion, or we could write our own “Bill of Rights”. Declaring abortion rights a dead issue since it’s particulars seemed to have been bandied about since the time of my birth, I chose to construct a “Bill of Rights”. The paper is one of few I socked away for future generations. In it, I addressed the quandary that is dishwashing and made what proved to be a convincing case. After all these years the A+, written in red ink, shines bright atop the cover page.

And yet, here we are some thirty years hence, and my inbox is deluged with emails from “Move-On” and “NARAL”, imploring me to take action against Republicans who, they insist, would rather a woman die than end an unwanted pregnancy.

Oh, how I have waffled.

On the one hand, I sincerely believe that a woman who doesn’t wish to be a mother should not be. On the other hand, I have trouble arguing the point that a human is not conceived at conception. I know it’s just a bunch of cells. But, it’s THE bunch of cells. It’s the only bunch of cells capable of human life. Doesn’t that, in and of itself, constitute life?

And, on the other hand, why are we legislating human anatomy and physiology?

I don’t have answers, but I am fascinated that we are still talking about it. And, by the way, whatever happened to those cool foil suits our professors said we’d all be wearing by now? Nobody talks about THAT anymore…

I can’t decide if it’s cool or scary. Facebook may have incited a war. The headline reads “Inspired by Tunisia, Egyptians Use Facebook to Set-up Protest”, and we all know what happened next.

According to “The Social Network”, Facebook is controlled by a 20-something, egg-headed cuckold. I have children older than he, with much more life-experience, and still, I wouldn’t be comfortable following them “as to war”.

Once again, I find myself torn. I’m awestruck by the way Facebook shrinks borders. My friend’s list, alone, covers several continents. I socialize with people living in other countries every single day. I’m not sure my mother ever met someone from another continent, and if she did, I’m sure they didn’t converse daily. Facebook has improved my life in many ways. I’m more intelligent. I’ve learned things from people I never knew I wanted to know. I’m more worldly. I ask questions of my international friends. From them, I’ve learned more about Ireland and South Africa than I ever learned in Social Studies class. I’ve broadened my horizons. I’ve found new music, read new authors, and picked up health tips. Through Facebook, I’ve cultivated my interest in photography and found a new audience for my blogs.

And, I waste lots of time. There’s just no two ways about it. At least half the time I spend on Facebook is empty, mindless, and most important, time I should be spending looking at, or into, someone else’s face.

Like it or not, though, I believe Facebook, or something like it, to be a permanent part of our culture. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to learn how to maximize the positive parts of the experience and still have plenty of face-time with our favorite faces.