Dear Blog,

Today is Election Day in the US, you might remember. I know I can’t get it out of my mind, dear Blog.
I find myself consumed with worry…AND I’M NOT EVEN AMERICAN. I can only imagine how all most some of them feel.

Did the world and German people feel this way when Hitler was on the rise to taking power?

Never have I seen a campaign like this. Never have I seen such hatred, bigotry, racism, sexism and fear unleashed. It’s like the human race took as step back a hundred or so years in time. The apparent rapidity of this devolution of human consciousness and learning is breathtaking to me.

Maybe I’ve just been naive in thinking that we had moved on from this type of thinking. That it was all behind us now.

Looks like it wasn’t behind us at all. It was just simmering under the surface of civility and political correctness. All it took was a brash, loud-mouthed person with no moral character to show people it was OK to let fear dominate your decisions and to quash compassion for others. That it is OK again to put up barriers to exclude other humans and to focus on differences instead of seeing that we are really all the same….this human race. That ignorance of the facts is acceptable. That instead of thinking for yourself, just follow the one that brays the loudest, the one that says what you want to hear, no matter what nonsense and lies pour out of his mouth.

There are two emotions that drive us. Fear breeds hatred. Love breeds compassion. Why do people choose fear? Like love, if that is what you choose, there is no end to it. There is always something to fear.

Right now I fear for us all. I want to get back to feeling love for humanity again, instead of fearing what people will can do if the wrong person gets enough power to make good on his hateful words. I want to feel compassion for this man. To try to understand what made him into the person he is. I think he is sick in his soul and his mind. Why throughout history have we been tricked into following madmen? Why do we not learn? It is because we don’t learn that we must keep repeating the lesson.

These thoughts roll round and round my mind as I inwardly clutch myself with worry. My brain and heart have been curled in the fetal position for days now.

Thanks for listening, dear Blog.

Hopefully tomorrow we can all rock on to a better future than the one I can’t stop worrying about,

The WB

Dear Blog,

Let’s talk about stuff.

Today I went to my stepdad’s to grab the last of my late mom’s stuff from their condo. The condo has sold and my stepdad is moving to a retirement community in a nearby town.

His family was there also, in full force, because this man has a lot of stuff…stuff that won’t fit in to his new abode. My mom had a lot of stuff too and most of the rest of it is sitting downstairs in the foyer. I don’t even want to bring it up into my place because, well…I have a lotta stuff too, again. Nice stuff. Useful stuff. Pretty stuff. But stuff all the same. So the few boxes left of Mom’s stuff sits downstairs for me to sort through. I can already tell you most of it is going to a donation centre.

Of course none of this accumulation of stuff holds a candle to the amount of stuff my late husband left behind him. It took me (and friends and family) almost a whole year – 7 full dumpsters, untold bags of recyclables, give-aways and donate-ables (think quadruple digits – good thing one of the items he hoarded was garbage bags)…and shameful amounts of trash left for curb-side pickup every week – before the first phase of purging his hoard was completed.

In the end, for all of us, our stuff gets left behind. We leave it for others to deal with, like JD ended up doing. Or we have to downsize, like my stepdad and my maternal grandmother, and our stuff ends up being what we can pack into a studio apartment in an assisted living community.

I like to joke that my plan is to die with only the clothes on my back and a bank account, to make things easy for my kids. But I know they will want some of my stuff, as I treasure having some of my mom’s stuff.

But the rest? Ugh.

George Carlin once riffed famously on our need to accumulate stuff and then places to hold our stuff. I don’t know how George lived, but I am pretty sure he owned stuff too. Stuff makes our lives easier and more comfortable. Let’s face it, we need stuff. There are people suffering in the world because they don’t have enough stuff to live a healthy, happy life.

But there’s enough stuff and way too much stuff. It is so damn easy in the Western World to have way too much stuff. And to get to the point where stuff owns you, instead of the other way around.

Constant vigilance is needed. Because stuff takes up valuable mental space as well as physical space.

So far, my stuff is well-purposed, I think dear Blog. I don’t begrudge the amount of mental energy and space my stuff takes to look after. I am enjoying having a fully-furnished home again.

I plan to enjoy it to the utmost, because I know that there may come a time when I too will have to pare down my stuff to fit into a single room.

Rock on,

The WB

Dear Long-Suffering Blog,

Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of you…and then went on to do something else. Oops, my bad.

I have been pretty damn busy actually, if you care to know dear Blog. For instance, I had what we think was ANOTHER mini-stroke, which necessitated a whole plethora of testing. On the night before my damn birthday in case you were interested. How sad is that? While I was waiting at the kitchen counter for some goodies that I had baked to cool, so I could pack them up to take in to my staff at work. Instead of delivering the goodies the next day I spent it in bed, recovering from the sleepless night spent on a cot in the Emergency Department. One of my shittier birthdays, if you want to know the truth of it, dear Blog.

So far all results are negative and the cardiologist has offered up a hypothesis that it could have been some weird, rare type of migraine instead. Really, Blog. I shit you not. Hemiplegic migraine. Google it.

I just finished all the scheduled testing last week and am waiting not very patiently for the results of my 2 – count ’em – 2 MRIs.

In between all of this medical merry-making, I have been travelling (The Netherlands, Chalk River, Montreal) and nesting like a MOTHER. Yep, renovations are now complete at Chez Badass, dear Blog, and I finally get to gettin’ to the fun stuff. Hanging shit on walls, buying (many, many) throw cushions, and putting up drapes. Woohoo! After 3 long, busy years I live in a place that looks like a real home instead of a temporary camp in a long- abandoned office building. And that means I can now catch up on my socializing which I am also way behind on because of various life-altering events such as becoming a widow AND orphan, moving, becoming a landlord, renovating every damn thing, and completing a post-graduate degree while holding down a full-time job  – all at the same effing time.

So now today I learned of this thing called NaBloPoMo 2016. How could I not know about this? I mean, I know all about NaNoWriMo or whatever the hell it’s called, and I have no intention of ever writing a novel. Yet it’s in my face every November. Huh.

Oh well, I have seen it now and it can’t be unseen. So here goes. I have some catching up to do and thankfully BlogHer has provided writing prompts for the weekdays, at least:

Nov. 1: When you’re having a bad day with your mental health, what do you do to help yourself?

Well, a big ol’ glass of Vitamin W usually helps my mental health considerably. It comes in 2 main colours but I prefer the red one.

Yep, a glass or 2 of this miracle elixir helps my attitude to adjust back to the correct, default setting of zero-fucks-to-be-given.

If for whatever reason I cannot or choose not to take my special vitamin, going for a brisk walk or doing yoga or even taking a luxurious nap can do the trick. Of course writing on you dear Blog, or in my journal – does this even need to be said? All of these actions help my mood and remind me that, for most things these days, I do or should have zero-fucks-to-give anymore.

Nov. 2: When was the last time you did something brave? What happened?

I try to do something brave whenever an opportunity comes up, which is way more frequently than one would imagine. Because when I wimp out on stuff, I feel way worse than if I had just done the thing I was scared to do. Being brave, for me, is way easier on my ever-present and very loud and annoying conscience. Almost always what happens is good stuff.

Like when I was a neophyte landlord and trying to negotiate my first all-by-myself lease. It was going south rapidly, due to some miscommunications, so I put my big girl panties on and circumvented the agent and talked to the prospective tenants directly and frankly about what I was expecting out of the deal. They did the same and we came to an agreement immediately. Now I consider them an asset – not only to my building, but also to my life. Knowing these people has enriched my life tremendously and I feel blessed by this experience.

Nov. 3: If you could be completely honest with no regrets, what would you say and to whom?

First of all I hate this “no regrets” shit. People who brag about having no regrets either live a totally fake, cotton-wrapped life, are sociopaths, or are as deep as a summer puddle. Anybody who has lived any kind of life and has the mental capacity to reflect on their life and their behaviour should have a boatload of regrets. We can always do better, people.

If I could be completely honest with no regrets (no such animal), I would choose to be kind no matter what I thought I wanted/needed to say to someone. You never really know what other people are dealing with. No one was ever born an asshole. And even if they were, are your words gonna change anything? Or just cause more suffering – both for yourself and the other person? Yeah. Dwell on that one for a bit before you shoot your mouth off.

Nov. 4: Which fall shows should totally be canceled already?

Can’t comment. Haven’t watched network television in a bazillion years. I think the last network show I got excited about was Northern Exposure. Cancel ’em all I say. Or just shove them onto Netflix so I can watch a whole bunch at a time and not have to try to remember who’s who or what is going on between episodes or have to schedule my life around when the damn thing airs. Yes, I know I can set the PVR but that is yet another DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY. Sigh.

Now dear Blog, I hear a glass of Vitamin W calling my name on this fine Friday night. See ya tomorrow, old chum.

Rock on,

The WB

The most extraordinary thing happened to me this week.

I received a poisoned pen letter regarding my late husband.

It’s not extraordinary that I received communication from someone angry with JD. He must have left wreckage and chaos in his wake throughout his adult life, given his mental health issues. He certainly left enough for me to deal with.

To be frank, what is extraordinary is that I have not gotten more of this kind of stuff.

What has me puzzled is WHY NOW? JD has been gone for almost 3 years. What has triggered someone to put (poisoned) pen to paper and snail-mail me this anonymous note after all this time?

The writer’s intent is also to upset me, I believe.

Sorry dear writer, you will have to do better than this meagre offering.

Instead of being upset, I find myself quite intrigued to know more.

I feel like the plucky protagonist in my very own mystery story. How cool is that?

I hope I can inspire the writer to reach out to me again. We really should talk.

Rock on,

The WB