Pay no attention….

Have you ever stepped back stage?

Even if all you’ve ever done is a grade school performance you should be aware of the concept that all things have a hidden aspect, something that’s outta sight

And outta sight is outta mind…

The most obvious example is the theater with its proscenium arch and curtain.  What you see in front of the curtain isn’t even half of what is going on in that space, at that moment.  I’ve been on the stage, behind the curtain, in the dressing room, in the light booth, and out front working the house.  While you are, hopefully, comfortably seated and enjoying the performance, people are scurrying all around you managing your encounter, and the ones you see aren’t all the people involved in crafting your experience.  People who are not even present at the moment, had influence and input into your perception.  What you see is just the first ripple of the moment.  This is even truer for film than stage.

Think of the cooking show that takes you into the kitchen, the ‘back stage’ of the restaurant, and then realize that has a whole nother back stage.

What you see is never all that is there.

When you look at another person, do you see their brain, heart, guts?

No, if the person is alive and healthy, you don’t see all that.  You just accept that’s all there, cuz you’d really rather not see all that, cuz if you do see all that, then there’s something wrong….

OK, back track from the wild tangent, and think about all the back stages there are in real life.

And then ask yourself why you think you know who is really running your life?

The republicans and the democrats and the rabid right nut jobs are all actors.  They are the show, what’s in front of the curtain.  Let’s think about the back stage.  Let’s consider how much time, energy, and money is being put into this show, and ask, who’s the director? Writer? Producer?

In theater and film you get a list of cast and crew.  Where’s the crew list for modern politics?

Just who is it that is running this show?

I’d like to know.  Cuz they are really screwing things up.

We, the people of the planet, have the resources and ability to provide a comfortable and sustainable life for most everybody on the planet.

So why aren’t we?

Why do we have people starving?  Why is anybody living homeless?  Why are people dying from treatable illness?  Why is money always the greatest public concern?

Do we really have to bomb people into the stoneage to be safe?

I'd be willing to bet that if most people had enough to eat and a comfortable place to live, they wouldn't be so interested in taking things away form someone else.

Why do some people get fifty rooms all to themselves while someone else is living in a card board box?

If we live in a free market economy, why are we subsidizing any business?  What, exactly, happened to survival of the fittest?  How did we get anything that's too big to fail in the first place?

It's time for average people around the world to wake up and start demanding answers.

It's time to demand to be allowed back stage.

Off Grid....

Originally meant to be off the power grid, independent of the commercial power supply.

I should probably clarify here and now that I am anti, modern corporate start.  There are some things that should be entirely divorced from the profit motivation.  I think that anything that affects the health and welfare of just about everybody in society should defiantly be divorced from the motive of profit.  Power, water, healthcare, sanitation, safety, none of these should be run by the bottom line.  There should be no such thing as a for profit prison.  That’s nothing but a recipe for oppression.  I am firmly convinced that the drive for profit does nothing but destroy the common good.  The drive for profit will kill the last animal, chop the last tree, and shit in the last puddle of clean water.

The question that we all need to answer individually is, do we really want to go there?

If you really don’t want to live in an industrial wasteland, it is time to change the style that we are accustomed to.

Which brings us back to Off Grid, and its meaning, and how that meaning has changed, and how it will continue to change, cuz now, when you say Off Grid, it conjures the notion of camping in the woods with the arsenal of a small army and a 100 year supply of toilette paper.

And I think it is so much more than that.

The Grid is the playing board, The Grid is the base of the game, and unless you are camping in the woods with the 100 year supply of toilette paper, getting your water from a well or stream, hunting your own food, making your own cloths from their skins, and burying your own shit, you are on the board to some degree or another.

So how do you get off that Grid and still maintain some semblance of the life you know and love?

 

I think that instead of getting off The Grid, we need to start changing The Grid.

Cuz we need some kind of Grid, some kind of structure to our society.

 

And we need to fully realize that we control The Grid, not the other way around.  Just because this is the only thing you know, doesn't mean that something else isn't possible, and even preferable.

Just as we can choose to go play Uno or Candy Land when the Risk and Monopoly games are drawing to a close, we can choose the structure of the next Grid.

At this moment in time we are facing a game changer on a world scale.  We can choose to remain slaves to the corporate state, and let them dictate where and how we live.  Or we can quit playing their game, and start our own game.

And, at this point, I'll ask you to pause and consider:  Think about who exactly it is that does play Monopoly and Risk to the bitter, one person controls everything, end.  In my personal experience it's never been my best friends, my most considerate friends.  It's generally been the most aggressive and selfish of our group.

One of the things that I like the least about the modern corporate state is that it rewards, praises, and encourages the most negative of human nature and behavior. 

I want to stop playing their game.

I want to get off the old Grid and find a new one.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this longing for a better way.

I have few clues how to achieve my aim.  But I’ve gotta at least try.

New world order….

It’s time for one. 

We’re a little past the first decade of a new century, which has the bonus feature of a new millennium.  Weather we see or admit it, things are changing, in big ways.

It is seriously time for the human race to start adapting.

It is time for us monkeys as a collective whole to realize that we are messing with things that we don’t fully understand.  It’s time for all of us to realize that if we push the planet too far out of balance, we die, and mother earth comes back with a shiny new set of inhabitants.

And they don’t have to be as smart as we, supposedly, are to be ‘successful’.

Most of us are very familiar with two models of the modern corporate state, Monopoly and Risk.  Monopoly was designed to be a model of Capitalism, and it is a perfect model.  Risk is, of course, the game of world domination.   Most of us know how these games end.

Now I ask you, when was the last time you played either of these games to the end?

How many times in your life have you played either of these games to the bitter end?

Most of us quit long before the end, when it stops being fun.

What is going on in the world around us, right now, are global games of Monopoly and Risk, reaching the end of the fun.

Do we all really want to play to the bitter end?

It really is time for all of us to start thinking about a new world order, a new game to play.

I’m kinda partial to Candy Land, myself…

But seriously, I’ve been considering my personal future.  It’s not a pretty sight.

I don’t make much money.  I don’t really see that changing any time soon.  I live alone and that’s not a good thing, it gets even less of a good thing with each passing year.  (The stats on old people living alone are not good.)  I’m getting older.

For any hope of a decent retirement I need to change something.

I don’t want to play Monopoly and Risk for the rest of my life.

I’ve talked with many people about getting off the grid and living a different kind of life.  It’s time to find a new game.

Slip sliding away....

Wow, for me, 2012 is going down as a lost year.  Looking back on it I didn't really do too much in 2012, only one post for the whole year and not many pictures....  Which is telling for me.  I play with my camera a lot,.  09, 10, & 11 have at least 2 uploads from the camera every month.  2012 there's only 8 uploads for the entire year.
What I did in 2012 was work.  I worked for 4 different companies in 2012, still work for 2 of them.  Just the thought of doing the taxes hurts my head.  I worked a lot of hours in 2012 and the best I can say for the year is, I survived.  It wasn't a good year, filled with all sorts of minor disasters that had to be dealt with.
Sitting here, now, I am awed how an entire year can slip away.
Back in the fall of '11 when M passed, I lost Anya and Bird so close together....
I lost ambition or motivation...  Not quite sure what.  I meant to keep blogging.  I had things I wanted to write about.  I had ideas that I wanted to work on and things I wanted to do.  But all that got lost in the daily shuffle.
Head down, with all its implications and metaphors intact, I plowed through each job, each accident and occurrence, each day...  And I made it to the end and onto the beginning of the next.
And the wheel turns....
Cuz what has brought me back to reflection is Asheron's passing.  Strange that death triggers the swing on both sides.
Sorting through the pictures, trying to find the last ones taken of him....

Taken in March 2012.  The weather outside was frightful and Ash spent sometime inside.

I realized how few there are for 2012.
Which made think about the year.
Which has made me think.....

Still too early to tell if 2013 will be any better.  We'll have to wait and see.

AWL- Absent With Leave...

 8 months and 18 days...

Not one of my longest dry spells, and this time I'm not going to beat myself up over it.
See I have dry spells, times when I don't feel like writing or, most often, when I just can't seem to wedge the time into the days.
This dry spell was a combo effect.  I had nothing good to say and then things got busy.
Last November when I lost Anya and then Bird I was more than a little bummed, things weren't going really well, and the thought of writing about it all just didn't appeal.
Then I got involved in making Christmas presents, then there was a full time job, then I was unemployed again, then spring came and I was working on the garden and working a job with sporadic hours, and then I was working 2 jobs with sporadic hours and now....
I feel the itch again...
A lot of things have changed in the last 8 months.
Hopefully things are starting to look up.

Fall...

Is starting.  I know it's the 7th of November, but fall is only now getting under way.  The 17th of October was the first day to really feel like fall and that was followed by some 80 degree days.
The first part of October was a beautiful Indian Summer around here.  Bright, breezy, and warm.  I've still got some flowers blooming in the garden.  The roses have really liked this part of the year, and seem to be doing OK, even now there are still some buds about to open.  Don't know how much longer they'll last though.  The weather is anything but stable right now.  The heater has kicked on here and there, but it's been off more than on.  Wasn't that long ago that I had the AC on.  
But, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy:  You might live in the middle of the U.S. if you've ever gone from the heater in the morning to the air conditioner in the afternoon, back to the heater at night...
October was that kind of month.  Though there have been quite a few days when I've had the windows open and nothing running.
It's been a productive few days.  I've made some progress on the window frames.  I started working on them a while back.  Cleaning, caulking, painting etc...  It's been a sporadic project.  I baked yesterday, corn bread in the morning and pork chops last night.  That's the last of the pork chops, they were good while they lasted.  I finished the living room move about a week ago.  The movie collection is organized and reduced in bulk.  I know where everything is and I can get to it all.  The couch is away from the front windows and I think that the curtains will be much safer now.  I'm happy with the relocation.  This arrangement leaves a lot more of the space open and is much more flexible.  I can throw up the table and just leave it with out having it out in the middle of everything.  There will still be room to move.
And, shades of Post Traumatic stress kicking in, I like the placement of the couch much better.  I now have a solid wall at my back and clear sight lines into the rest of the house.  Funny how I don't really notice that in myself until I correct something that makes me uncomfortable.  I'm much more relaxed sitting in the living room now.
And the animals seem to be happy with the move....

Been busy lately.  Worked about 33 hours last week, which was a very good thing.
I spent the 28th and 29th helping friends get ready for a Halloween party.  It was a fun party, had a good time.
On the 29th, that was a Saturday, Dusty took a powder.  I opened the back door to find a stray dog in the yard.  A big stray dog.  He'd knocked the back gate off the hinges.  When I opened the door he took off the way he came in, and of course, Dusty was right behind him.  I got out to the alley in time to see her disappearing into the distance.
Not a good feeling there.
Dusty is not a stupid dog, but she's a big goof.  I'm not sure she realizes that cars are really dangerous, and I don't know if she could find her way back home.
I was in the car a few minuets later and on the hunt.  Luckily she didn't get too far.  I found her about 4 blocks away, looking really lost.
Then, that afternoon, she ate one of my Moccasins and I really wondered why I had bothered to hunt her down...
She's been out of the cage for most of the last month, but I can't put it away yet.  She earned time in the cage last week when I came home and found paper Armageddon in the living room.  She pulled one of the files of owners manuals off the shelf under the desk.  She's really lucky it was an old file with manuals I didn't really need anymore.
Ah well, for all the grief my animals cause, I still love them.
I still miss Anya.
And this weekend I buried Bird.
His passing wasn't completely unexpected.  He had been sick for over a month.  I gave him 2 rounds of antibiotics, but they didn't do any good.  At least he's not suffering anymore.
I really miss his cheerful chatter.

RIP: Bird ?- Nov. 5, 2011

Early, but it ain't bright...

It's early and I'm already running out of time...
It was a busy weekend.
But, all the tomatoes have been washed and sorted.  Those that have a hope of turning red are in a box or a bag.  The rest are ready for processing into fried, roasted, or pickled treats.  This is the first year that I'm trying to use up the green tomatoes.  In prior years I've just given them away.  This year we're going to experiment and see what happens.
I made about $30 bucks off the yard sale, which isn't too good.  But it's very good considering that I had no traffic at all.  Only about 10 people stopped.  I got enough for a tank of gas, though.
Next week I'm gonna go out to the flea market.  If the stuff doesn't sell there it's going to Goodwill on the way home.  I am not bringing all that stuff back into the house.  It just ain't happening.  I like having space at the end of the bed.
It really sucks to be working and still unable to pay the bills or put gas in the car.
Well, my time is up for now.  I gotta get dressed and start moving....