Just when you think it's safe...

...to count on life again you find it isn't.

The next two weeks are going to be very hectic for me, so hectic in fact that I was rather looking forward to the change of pace, but as usual the flies have mated and spawned in the ointment, and all on my birthday. What a wonderful gift.

Sound a little less cheerful than my usual mood? You're right.

In the past few weeks although some things have settled down and I have had good news it seems that the warm spell, like last year's non-existent summer, are short lived. The news I was expecting today that all would be well and the drought was over came with a huge surprise, that the drought continues unabated. So now what do I do? I keep on breathing and walking and taking chances and living. There are no other options.

Lately I have been described as intense and a little like looking directly at the sun, which can blind you. However, I wonder if that's really a bad thing. Isn't it better to know where you stand with someone than to constantly have to guess or to play mindless, childless, and often destructive relationship games only to find the person you thought you knew was a simulacrum, a construct, barely human? It could be that I am too basic, too clear, too honest, and too focused, that I look people directly in the eye when talking to them and I make my wishes, thoughts, and desires known, that I don't do ambiguity well and that what you see with me is exactly what you get. I always thought those were positive attributes, but I have been told they are not.

I understand how difficult it is to face up to what you feel and believe and think and tell people exactly that, especially when it isn't rewarded in any way, shape, or form, but what are the options, subterfuge, lies, dishonesty, hiding? Eventually the truth will come out and then you get to spend a lot of time shoveling raw sewage, which is seldom pleasant unless you have no sense of smell at all and don't mind wallowing in filth. I used to be the same way, ignoring things and hoping they would get better or go away, but they never did. Instead they presented me with bigger problems that grew exponentially out of control to the point that they became unmanageable. Ignorance is not bliss, especially when you have to wake up eventually and face life.

Okay, so I can be intense and I am focused, and I look people directly in the eye, and I am exactly who and what I appear to be, there are worse ways to be. Look around.

Truth has become an option instead of the rule of thumb. Honesty is something to bargain with, a tantalizing bit of bait to dangle and pull away when the mood strikes or when the fish/person is hooked and it's too late to spit out the hook because it's deeply embedded, not to mention costly when you wish to disentangle yourself. Lies have become disinformation and strategy. Evasion is commonplace; after all who wants to piss someone off or hurt their feelings when you can side step the issue and play free and easy with the facts?

It's not for me, this wholesale devaluation of honesty, truth, integrity, and motives, so I guess that means I will continue to be alone in my ever shrinking world of truth and justice, and that will have to do this time around. There are worse things than looking directly at the sun and blindness, apathy and fear are just a few of them.

As for me, I will continue to be bold, intense, forthright, and unstintingly honest whatever the cost because the only other option is more of the same halfway attitudes that passes for living.