MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the lounge at work, eating my lunch with the day crew, watching something on TV.  I don’t have cable, so I generally don’t pay very much attention to what’s going on television.  If I need to know about it, I heard about it on Pacifica in the morning on the way to work.  If I want to watch it, it’ll be on Netflix eventually.  The shit they show on cable really has no effect on my day to day.  So, it’s usually just background noise.  But as I sat there, eating my leftover tuna casserole, I heard something that made me look up.  It was a $4000 coffee table.  I looked up and saw a $4000 dollar coffee table on the 60” plasma in the lounge.  Wow.  That’s nice.  I have no idea what I would do with a coffee table that cost more the value of everything I own, collectively.  Excessive, but nice.  Starting there, DIY network had my attention. 

The show is called Building House.  If you have been fortunate enough not to see it, it’s about a couple who are renovating their home.  He’s a contractor, she’s an interior designer.  They have three children and she is VERY pregnant with their fourth.  They are taking their “small” home and renovating it into the house of their dreams.  They are shacked up in some small apartment while the renovation is taking place.  They are WAY over budget, and, clearly, the $4000 coffee table is only part of the problem.  They want all of this shit that they can’t afford.  So, Chad, the man of the project, goes to his father to ask for a SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR “loan.”  First, who asks their parents for $75,000?  Second, if you already can’t afford to build the house on your own, you probably won’t be able to pay back the loan.  That should be the first indication that you want MORE than you can afford.  For that matter, more than you need.  Last year I had to replace my sliding glass door when a rogue rock from the weed wacker shattered the glass into one GAZILLION pieces.  It cost $600 dollars that I didn’t have, but I paid for it anyway and I didn’t call my daddy to ask him to help me pay for it.  That was $600.  I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to ask for 75K.  But he did it. 

Anyway, as television loves to do, it created all this drama with the couple asking for an exorbitant amount of money, and naturally, their guilty parents denied their request.  And we, as the viewing public, screamed “OH NO!!!!  WHAT WILL THEY DO NOW???”  Yeah.  What will poor Chad and Jen do now?  Of course, the show went on, and after multiple babysitters quit working because their kids were awful, uncontrolled little humans, and nobody could get any work done because the children needed to be cared for, they hired a nanny.  Who quit immediately.  Because they suck and so do their kids.  There was a lot of other stuff that happened in the 25 minutes that I was watching everything that is wrong with American culture transpire on this reality TV show.  But the point is this.  A DIY channel reality show about renovating a house is all about MORE.  It’s not about doing it yourself.  It’s about a family of five, expecting their sixth.  Those parents can’t even take care of the children they have, much less another one.  They couldn’t afford what they wanted without a “loan”, so they asked somebody to give them MORE of what they couldn’t afford.  They didn’t even realize that a $4000 coffee was MORE than excessive.  The entire premise of the show is MORE for ME. MORE.  MORE.  MORE.  ME.  ME.  ME.  There was no talk of WE at all.  Needless to say, these people are very unlikable.  But they keep us watching.  Because if they can have more, we can have more!!!

I realize that was a very long prelude to a very short message, but I do have a point here.  And it’s not just that I’m disgusted with the MORE culture.  I’m less concerned with what we think is MORE important, than what we forget when we want MORE.  We want more house.  More cars.  More money.   More dates on our calendar.  We want to be more affluent and more endowed and more important.   We want MORE of all that.  But in obtaining more, we give less to what is important.  When you work hard to get a big house and a fancy car and a lot of irrelevant friends, you don’t have time to work towards what you really need MORE of.  You don’t have any time to live more.

 

While I am in complete agreement that we all need more, we are working MORE so we can have MORE things.  We aren’t working toward what we actually need more of.  And, since you’ve made it this far, I don’t want to leave you without an answer.  So, I am now going to tell you what we need more of.  We need more sunny days.  Not so much that there aren’t enough sunny days.  But we need to enjoy more sunny days.  Florescent lights do not count as sunny days.  Sunny days where you wear shorts and flip flops and not enough sunscreen and when you take a shower, you regret not wearing more sunscreen.  We need more books.  Not books that you buy with your credit card on Amazon and read on an electronic device.  Books with actual pages that you have to turn.  Pages that you turn with anticipation, because you can’t wait to learn more about the story.  We need more bikes.  Not bikes that we have to ride to work to be better stewards of the environment.  While that’s a noble cause, we don’t need more of that.  What we need is more bikes that we ride with our children through a park on a Tuesday afternoon.  We need more orgasms.  Not sexy, sweet orgasms.  Hot, sticky orgasms.  Orgasms that come alone or with a partner.  We need orgasms that make us scream and don’t make us self-conscious.  We need more music.  Not the music that big labels tell us to listen to.  Music that touches our soul.  It doesn’t have to make us feel better.  It doesn’t have to make us feel worse.  We just need music that makes us feel something.  We need to feel MORE and WANT less. 

We deserve so much more than what we want.  It’s really easy to want a big house or a big car or a good job.  Those things are relative.  And what is making them relative is people like Chad and Jen from Building House.  Notice they didn’t call the show Building Home?  We all know the difference between a house and a home.  We also know the difference between what is good and what is shit.  So, why do we keep indulging in the shit, when what is good is so simple?  And, yes, I am aware that good is not a very intellectual adjective.  But maybe that’s another thing we don’t need MORE of.  Maybe we need less perceived intelligence and more actual smart.  Less bullshit, more reality.

 

-Inner Peas

Enough?

I’ve been thinking a lot about when enough is enough.  Do you know when enough is enough?  I’m not sure that I know. I mean, I’ve been at enough before, but I’m not sure that I know the warning signs.  Or when enough becomes ENOUGH!!!!  Until, one day, it hits me that I’m at my wit’s fucking end.  That’s usually when I realize that I’ve had enough.  It hasn’t happened to me many times in my life.  But when it does, it usually results in the end of something substantial.  And something is telling me, that I’m close to the end of something.  Most notably, the rope.  I’m at the end of the rope. 

So, you ask, how do you get to the end of your rope?  I’m glad you asked.  And I will be happy to tell you how I got here.  I got here by doing too much when I should have been doing less.  Much less.  I got here by stepping outside of the realm of my responsibility to be responsible for others.  Not just responsible for others, but owning their quality of life.  I got here four years ago, when I walked into this clinic and I saw the people who needed care, not getting what they needed.  When I saw the people who worked in this clinic being mistreated by those who sought care here, I took a vested interest in improving the quality of their professional existence.  I worked hard.  Really hard.  I committed myself to the patients who felt slighted by the treatment they were getting.  I invested in the men and women I worked with so I could help improve the way the community viewed them.  At the time I hoped that meant that patients would come here and appreciate the care we provided.  From start to finish.  I hoped that the people who provided the care would better enjoy their trade, and therefore feel more fulfilled.  That’s what I hopped would happen. 

It may not seem like an overwhelming task, but appeasing two opposing populations is A LOT of work.  The first day I worked at this job, I saw no less than ten people who walked into the building and had real ugly looks on their faces.  You know the kind of look that only comes from someone who either hates their life or hates being told “no.”  Or maybe they just hated that they had to go to the doctor.  I don’t know why those people had those repugnant looks on their faces, but I wanted to change that.  After years of working for Doctors in private practice who valued good patient care and laughter, I thought maybe I could change the perception of the community toward the treatment they were being given.  As an aside, many studies have shown that patients primarily judge their medical experience based on the first encounter they have when they walk through the door.  So, I was determined to make the first experience EVERY patient had, the best experience they had EVER had at a doctor’s office.  So, I did that.  I learned every patient by their first name.  I learned their kid’s names.  I learned their sports teams and their hobbies and their favorite foods.  I knew everything about my patients.  And I held all of that very close, so that I could make them feel less like they were going to the doctor and more like they were going to see some old friends.  I was really proud of that.  That we were changing the way our consumers viewed, not only our services, but us, as individuals. 

Then, there was this one day, a few months later, I witnessed a pretty hostile interaction between a patient and a corpsman.  Being the mediator that I am, I broke up the confrontation with my charm, wit, good looks and firm tone.  I felt like I was sending two kids into time out.  But that was when I realized that the corpsmen were being mistreated by patients, as much as patients felt they were being slighted by corpsmen.  So, there, without the responsibility or expectation of a uniform, I became the protector of all.  An advocate for the patients.  A guardian of my colleagues.  An activist for accountability.  I OWNED it.  Patient care was mine.  I created the standard.  Protecting my own was a necessity.  It’s a mama bear thing.  Accountability was expected.  From all parties involved.  I worked really hard to make everybody’s lives easier. 

And what did accommodating EVERYBODY get me?  It got me a lot of demands.  It got me a lot of expectations.  It got me a lot of pressure.  A lot of pressure that I shouldn't have to deal with.  I accommodate people so that they can more readily do their jobs.  I accommodate people so they feel more comfortable going to see the doctor.  I accommodate people to make their lives easier.  EASIER!  And easier for them, makes it harder for me.   Harder for me to do my job.  Harder for me to live my life.  Harder for me to raise my child.  Why?  Because every emergency is now my emergency. Most are not emergencies.  Most are a manipulation of friendship and kindness.  The call first thing in the morning that says “I can’t get a hold of dental, can you tell them to call me?”  Uh…no.  I can’t.  Or the instant message that says “Hey.  Can I get some band aids.” Or “What time is my appointment?”  NO!  NO!!  NO!!!!  I was nice to you and you complimented my shoes once. But you don’t get the privilege of stopping my entire FUCKING day because you are too cheap or too helpless to take care of yourself!!! You most certainly DO NOT have the entitlement to assume that I should take care of you.  DO IT YOURSELF!!!

I don’t want to wake my kid up before the sun rises anymore.  I don’t want to get to work to find out the rules have changed.  Again.   I don’t want to spend my lunch hour at my desk, trying to make up for all the work I didn’t do because I was doing something that wasn’t part of my job.  I don’t want to assume I can’t do any better because I’m being showered with false idol worship.  I don’t want to hear “you are the best at what you do.”  Or “You can work magic.”  I don’t want to come home and not be able to talk to my child, because I have already talked to so many needy grown “children” during the day that I can’t tolerate a real child.  I’m tired of it.  I’m so fucking tired.  I used to pride myself on the fact that I had only one boss.  Now I have 1,300 bosses.  And none of them have to be held accountable for themselves.  But I have to be accountable for all of them.  I think this is where enough become ENOUGH!!!! 

-Inner Peas 

Get Mad Now

My background has been pretty well documented here.  I was born, the illegitimate child of two hippie parents.  My dad, a haunted Vietnam veteran, the youngest son of a Methodist minister.  My mom, the “privileged” child of a wealthy diplomatic and wildly abusive home.  They were both looking for something different than the atrocities they had experienced in war and privilege.  And, in their search, they both associated themselves with a movement that, for all intents and purposes, was fighting the good fight against government control and manipulation.  My parents’ politics, clearly, shaped my social outlook.  I realize that as soon as I identify myself as a hippie, most people conjure images of me sitting in the forest, sucking on acid tabs, formulating drug induced plots to discredit the United States government, without running water or deodorant.  But, you all know better.  You know that I live on the outside of a small ag town in Northern California.  You know that I drive, every morning, to a job where I get paid, albeit indirectly, by the federal government.  AND, this part you may not know, but I shaved my legs, this very morning, while in the shower.  When I talk about being a hippie, I’m not talking about the stereotype that politicians attached to a generation of people who chose to live a counterculture existence in the hopes of creating a social utopia.  I’m not talking about the lunatic conspiracy theorists you think of, with long hair and glazed eyes.  I’m not talking about ungroomed tree huggers, living in communes.  Although, in all honestly, hugging trees and living in a commune are pretty fucking awesome.  I know we aren’t all in agreement on that. 

So, with all of this hippie upbringing I had, it seemed natural that I relate myself with the liberal ideology.  So, I did that.  I have voted for Democrats and/or Green party candidates in every election I have voted in since I was 18.  The first time I voted, it was in a California primary, one week after I turned 18.  I voted for Gray Davis.  He later became governor of California.  Later than that, even, he was recalled from office.  He was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I clearly did NOT cast my ballot for that guy.  AND, for what it’s worth, to this day, I will stand by my position that that was the MOST embarrassing demonstration of electoral decision making in this country’s history.   And then it happened again.  Even more embarrassing.  Actually, in that election, I voted for Arianna Huffington.  That’s neither here nor there, but if you do a little research, she may have been the best candidate out of the 135 names on the special election ballot.  Obviously, she did not win, nor did she capture enough votes to even be a notable mention in that election.  So, after that, I aligned myself even further with the perceived left. 

A few months before I left California to study Government at George Mason University, a large state school just outside the beltway I sat in my living room on a really hot summer night.  I had basic cable.  When basic cable still meant you got C-SPAN.  During the coverage of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the convention that would nominate John Kerry as the party’s Presidential candidate, I listened to a young lawyer from the State of Illinois speak.  He was the keynote speaker at the convention.  A man nobody had heard of until he threw his hat in the ring as a candidate for a senator’s seat in Illinois.  That’s what I thought at the time, anyway.  As he spoke, as he delivered a speech so inspirational and unprecedented, I began to cry.  I sobbed, uncontrollably, while I listened to him speak of the “Audacity of Hope.”  I watched how he commanded his audience, I listened to all of the talk about unity and equality.  I hung on every word as he explained “…There is no liberal America and no conservative America—there is the United States of America.  There is not a black America and a White America and a Latino America and and Asian America---there’s the United States of America.”  And I believed it all.  I KNEW that one day, he would be President of the United States.  The president who was going to save us. 

I was so convinced that he was going to be President of the United States, that I pretty much became a subject matter expert on the man who because the junior senator from the State of Illinois.  When I got to George Mason, I changed my major from Government to Political Communication.  Yes.  That’s a real major.  (By the bye, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds.  It gets you a job as a medical records clerk, so I don’t recommend it, kids.)  But, when I started studying communication, I had to take a lot of classes about politics and rhetoric.  Classes called Rhetorical Communication and The Rhetoric of Social Movements. You know, stuff like that.  So, as a result, I had to write papers about rhetoric.  I wrote a lot about Barack Obama.  That Audacity of Hope thing really stuck with me.  I wrote papers.  Lots of them.  Good papers.  One , even, won an award and got me nominated for a national something-or-other.  That was all in the 2005-06ish time frame.  I believed then.

Needless to say, I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and then again in 2012.  And I cried as I held my 11-month old that November evening in 2008.  I looked at him and I said “I have hope for your future now.  I have hope that you will grow up in a society that sees all people as equals.  I have FAITH that that hate and inequality won’t even be a part of your vocabulary.”  Of course, all mothers say that when they look in the innocent and hopeful faces of their children.  But in that moment, I believed with every fiber of my being that it was true.  Believe me, it wasn’t just me.  A lot of other people felt like that, too.  I knew people who had never, ever, EVER voted to the left of center, who voted for President Obama.  They felt the same way.  They felt the same hope and believed in humanity as much as I did in that very moment.  Election years do that to us.  Well, they don’t do it to me, anymore.  But they used to. 

I’m going to stop here with my discussion about the President.  While I do not agree with his policies, I do not agree with his ethics, I do know that he is as much a talking head as the guy before him, and they guy before that.  And the other five guys that came before.  It’s not our money that is paying their salaries.  We DO NOT have enough money as a WHOLE to pay politicians what they are being paid by individual interest groups.  Barack Obama is NOT the problem.  George W. Bush was NOT the problem.  All those guys since 1968, were NOT the problem.  The problem is greed.  The problem is the inequality that greed perpetuates.  The problem is the disinformation that greed propagandizes.  While I still believe in the Audacity of Hope, I’m having a hard time believing that there aren’t two different Americas.  In fact, there are more than that.  We are more ethnically divided than we should be.  We are more religiously divided than we should be.  We are more politically divided than we should be.  But why?  Why are we divided? 

We are divided because we are being fed social positions that are politically divisive about shit that DOES. NOT. HAVE.  MERIT.  No value.  No worth.  NOTHING.  For example.  God.  Why is this a political issue?  We all have the right to worship.  It’s a very private matter.  How you worship is your own.  You don’t’ like abortion or gays or stem cell research?  So be it.  Don’t participate.  But those are religious issues, not political issues.  Those are issues big money and big politics use to divide us.  And guess what?  People on both side of the aisle have faith.  Spirituality isn’t a party value.  It’s a human value.  You want to fight about guns?  Well, I kind of think that defeats the purpose, but here’s an anecdote about gun control.  It’s rights control.  And it’s not a conservative value, it’s a constitutional right.  Yes, we can talk all day about the context of the constitution.  But my own hippie mother pays dues to the NRA.   Yeah.  The self-identified pacifist.  The same woman who looked at me when I was born and said “No more wars.  That’s all done now.”  Do you know why she is a member of the NRA when she doesn’t own a gun?  I didn’t at first either.  But this is why.  It’s not about gun rights.  It’s about all the rights.  It’s about the Bill of Rights.  She couldn't fire a gun if she wanted to.  But she believes in the freedom to do so. 

How about that guy, Edward Snowden.  Do you know that name?  The NSA’s whistle blower who told the American people that their tax dollars were being spent to pay some pervert to read their emails and text messages?  The one, currently exiled to Russia, because Russia is a safer place for him than the United States?  I first learned about it on Democracy NOW!  But as I look around, it’s not just leftist hippies that are mad about it.  In fact, conservatives are more upset about it than anyone.  When I first heard the story, I thought “who cares?  I’ve got nothing to hide.”  But it’s not about that.  At all.  It’s about having your privacy infringed on without warrant.  That is also a constitutional right.  To have a conversation in your own home without the government coming to take you away and lock you up because they don’t like what you say, under the guise of national security. 

Back to my mom and this pink NRA shirt with a picture of an automatic rifle on it.  I think it goes without saying that I was astonished when she told me about this NRA thing.  But as she started talking about her reasoning, about how infringing on one right only leads to more violations.  Of course, she grew up fighting for her first amendment right to speak out against her government and to peacefully assemble.  As she has watched, through her 60 years of life, the foundation of our democracy crumble, she made a decision to affiliate herself with the only rights-based organization that has a voice on the Hill.  Say what you want about her decision, but it makes sense. She tells me all the time, what is it going to take to get people so mad, they find a voice again?  I always respond “I don’t know, mommy.  I really don’t know.” 

But I do now!  Californians are fixing to hand Sea World their ass over this Blackfish thing.  Most people have know how heinous it is to put an Orca in a tank and train it to do tricks.  But somebody made this movie about the disgusting truth about marine mammals in captivity.  And guess what.  No more Shamu show.  It was a documentary that some guy made when he wondered why people weren’t paying attention.  Then, they started paying attention. 

Time to get pissed, people.  Pay attention.  Get pissed.  It’s not a party problem.  It’s a greed problem.  We all want the same thing.  We all want to feel safe.  We all want to take care of our families.  We all want to live in a community that takes care of each other.  We’re not sheep.  We are smarter than what they are giving us credit for.  It’s not about God.  Or guns.  Or gays.  It’s about standing up for ourselves.  It’s about standing up for those around us.  It’s about standing up for our rights.  We still have rights.  Read the constitution.  And I’m not talking about the constitution the media tells you about.  The actual constitution. 

-Inner Peas

Silence

Words.  Stuff.  Things.  Thoughts.  Feelings.  More words.  I haven’t been able to write.  It’s what I do.  It’s how I keep myself from being committed.  It’s how I moderate the anger and the crazy.  It’s how I make sense of the senseless.  I.  WRITE.  I haven’t been able to write in a very long time.  For two weeks.  More than two weeks, actually.  Since I wrote my 101^st blog post.  You know, the one about how I write to keep my sanity?  So, guess what.  I can’t write.  Therefore, I have no outlet.  Thus making me talk like a crazy person.  Further, making me angry and hateful and resentful.  I can’t write.  And people have noticed.  They keep saying things like “why can’t you write?”  Or “Where’s Inner Peas been?”  Or “I know you aren’t out of material.”  Huh.  Then WHY CAN’T I WRITE?!?!?!!  WHY??????????

So, I guess, by now, you have figured out that I’m suffering from some sort of subconscious  roadblock that is keeping me from a bearing my soul in a profanity laced tirade.  It’s gotta be a confidence issue.  It’s been effecting my everything.  On Monday, I had lunch with my bestie.  It sucked.  It provided me with no insight or outlook or reprieve.  And our lunchtime is all about insight and outlook and reprieve.  All I walked away with is a feeling of self-loathing. Because I had nothing nice to say about anything.  Then, I made an “amazing person” post on Facebook that night.  I posted it.  I deleted it.  I posted it again.  I hid it from the world.  It’s an amazing person.  Amazing people don’t get deleted from my timeline.  Then I got hissed at.  Then I got yelled at.  Twice this week.  I’m a grown up.  Without a counterpart.  I don’t get yelled at anymore.  Especially for trying to help.  Then, yesterday morning, my six year old told me he’s too sick to go to school.  My kid is never too sick to go to school.  He fights with me when he is actually sick about going to school.  So, what’s going on there?  Why does he suddenly not want to go to school?  OMG!!!!!  WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!!!???!!!!  Why is my confidence evaporating, like water in a kettle?  Why is my child losing his confidence in his awesomeness like my self esteem rubbed off on him?  Why is nobody at peas with who they are.  What the fuck is going on in my house??? 

Well, this is what I came up with.  These are the answers to the burning questions in my soul…I’m stifled.  I’m stagnated.  I’m stunted.  I’m suffocated.  I know what you are thinking, “Oh…Poor Angela.  We all feel so sorry for you.”  But that’s not the point I’m trying to make.  I’m not looking for sympathy.  I’m not even looking for empathy.  Hell, apathy would be better than nothing.  And apathy IS nothing.  Anyway, the stifled, stagnated, stunted, suffocated feeling is something I did to myself.  It happened when I conceded to putting my head down and just towing the line.  The same shit that I hate in other people.  That’s what I did to myself.  Just to pay the bills.  Just to grow a healthy child.  Just to stop the bleeding wounds that came second to beating my head against a wall.  A wall that was never going to move. 

Two weeks, or so, ago.  I wrote my 101^st blog post.  About writing and how it frees me and how it saved me.  And right now, I have nothing.  Nothing positive or insightful to say.  Nothing that I can scream about publicly, without losing my job anyway.  But this is the point.  I always say what I feel. I always call out assholes.   I always reveal my deepest, darkest secrets here.  And I couldn’t for the last two weeks.  Yes.  I understand that two weeks of silence may be a solace to others.  But to me, two weeks of silence is a fucking prison.  A mental prison.  Only I didn’t kill, maim or rape anyone.  So, for the last two weeks, I’ve been locked up in my own mental SUPERMAX.  San Quentin.  Angola.  North Branch.  You aint got nothing on me.  I can punish myself for being a productive member of society, more than any hardened criminal could every do, while sitting amongst cinder block walls, making amends with their creator, while reading the bible. 

Well, then I remembered, I didn’t kill anyone.  I didn’t disfigure anyone.  I didn’t sexually assault anyone.  I don’t have human body parts in my freezer.  I don’t have innocent hostages tied up in my basement because I have been deprived of attention my whole life.   I realized the only reason that I have to be hateful to myself is myself.  So, I went outside and I looked to the sky.  I raised my arms above my head and said “it’s OK.”  As the tears rolled down my face, I laughed.  I couldn’t do anything else.  I can’t write.  I can’t smile.  I can’t talk shit.  So, what then?  You laugh.  A lot.  At all of that shit.  Then you pick yourself up, you  rub your cheeks when they hurt from smiling too much.  

Tomorrow night, we will discuss cubic zirconium.  I'm back, bitches.  Stay tuned...

-Inner Peas