Oneline Dating; Are You Kidding Me?

Every once in a while, something gives me the biggest chuckle.  I couldn't resist posting this bio spotted on an online dating site.  What is the FIRST thing you notice about this person?  If you haven't figured it out half way down, I've helped.  It is highlighted in red.  Please, tell me were you surprised?

Healthy, fit SWM 63 NS 5'9" 163#. I've earned my living for 40 yrs as a Timber Framer/ designer/hands-on builder. Business owner, learned from my successes and failures. I'm refocusing, ready for new commitments, more successes. From 1975 to ‘80, I worked 3 yrs as a HS/MS teacher&dorm parent in a residential school w an integrated psychotherapy program for all staff & students. Post-teaching, I was legal guardian for a former student - 34 yrs later we have love, friendship & respect. He's in LI, NY a good father to his 5 kids. While running my TF business, I own & care for a piece of farmland 1 hr N of NYC - raising native plants & trees & Australian Shepherds. I'm an adventurous gardener (vegs, herbs, flowers & ornamentals), cook & eater. Sometimes I dine (w thanks to my father). As a boy of 9 & 10 yrs old I lived w my family in the tropical rainforest on the island Sumatra, Indonesia. We traveled some in Asia & Europe. Back to the States, I had a "normal" white suburban HS education & loved being an Eagle Scout. Curious & rebellious, at 18 I worked my way trans-Pacific on a Danish freight ship to Australia to explore a new land. Back home, I burned my draft card in 1969, dropped out of U of Mich and joined Draft Resistance and Ann Arbor Newsreel Collective, worked to end the US war in Viet Nam. In my 20s & 30s I was hungry to learn, bold enough (& lucky) to find exceptional mentors - 3 men & 1 woman - in their 70s and 80s, wise & skilled, whom I spent as much time with as I could. Also in my 20s & 30s I traveled to Mexico, Russia, 4 Central Asian Soviet Republics, Oz (Austr.) 2 more times, & to Japan to visit a "Hiroshima Maiden" (A-bomb survivor) who had lived w our family for the year 1955, getting plastic surgery in NYC - my mother arranged this thru the Quakers. Also in Japan I visited gardens, temples, houses, palaces & museums, restorations in progress & a lumberyard. All trips so inspiring!! I like to travel light & simple - Hostels, BackPackers’ Inn, B&Bs, or stay with locals or friends. In 2004 I visited LaPocatierre Quebec (w dogs), & I took a Timber Frame tour of East Anglia, England - 2 more great countries w inspiring people! Awkward & enthusiastic dancer - the right partner helps smooth me out. I’m an experienced backpacker/camper, & I like cooking out. I love the huge variety of cultural & educational experiences available in NYC. For Kucinich in 2004, I continue to advocate for his/our progressive platform. 2008 we took control of Congress from Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Abramoff & their swindling corporate partners but they & Supreme Court came back w a vengeance in 2010. What important victories we won in 2012 - keep on pushin'! I have joys, sorrows, humor, patience, plus a life view/commitment to self awareness & personal growth. Ninteen yrs ago I concurred w a trusted, long-time therapist that I'm an ADD person. That perspective opened possibilities for understanding, acceptance, & to change some things in my life for the better - and so I grow. I've had some deep, loving, respectful, passionate relationships; often mixed w wishful thinking that I needed to learn from. I'm ready to find a special woman - my match. I’m committed to make our love grow stronger by everyday actions, & to keep learning & sharing. I've been an active volunteer in my community: riding & Board Member of our Vol Ambulance Corps, firefighter w Vol FD, garden volunteer & Bd Member of The Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden. I love this land I'm on, would love to share it with the one I love. Also, I'm willing to rent or sell it and move. I'm clearing out "stuff"! I would relocate for love & a better life - maybe Left Bank of the Hudson River, Virginia, VT, the Pioneer Valley, the West US, a great University town, Australia or.... whaddya got? I/we could travel & explore for a year, looking for & choosing a new home & community.
About You:	I'm longing to find an independent, attachable, expressive, humorous & sensuous woman who is kind and outgoing - single, divorced or widowed (w/w.o. children). "Separated" often isn't "available". Non-Smoking. Health conscious - not extreme. HWP. (Pls don't surrender to obesity as the new "national average" - for men, women or children). Little or no make-up and perfume, you have your own sense of style. If "vegan" is your primary self definition we prob aren't a good match. No fundamentalists of any religion - I try to stay grounded, in my body, on this earth, & deal straight, person to person. I'll respect you, try to understand you, protect & support you, but not convert you. You & I share some interests & a progressive political perspective. You've been rewarded by your own introspection, & by your commitments, struggles & accomplishments. You prob know & can do lots of things I can’t. You participate in community, & want a safe loving home. You got a world view, a tender soul & a sharp mind? ready for give and take, for commitment? Ah, yes!! for the sweetness and pompetous of love? marriage? Possibly relocate?
Of course, there is more but for your eyesight and mine, I'm not adding it.  Whew.

Red

Hunched over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the first thing you notice about Amy is her haircolor.  She's a woman with short, strawberry blonde hair with a heavy red sparkle to it.  Years in the sun with freckles unusual for a sixty something widow speak volumes about her former lifestyle.  Her husband was twenty years her senior, and passed some two decades ago.  She has to work.

Each morning she scurries to her first floor office hoping no one will see her.  Yet the door to her office is always open. She keeps her distance and stays in her office most of the day.  The only escape is outside the slider to smoke yet another cigarette.  More crows feet await her. Its two degrees outside.  She is covered with a chocolate buckskin coat lines with cream-colored fleece. Impeccably dressed. Frightened.  Afraid she will be fired.  Again.

One can't imagine the life this woman led.  Anything but privileged. She is well educated. From an Irish Catholic family.  The school of hard knocks and a lifetime with her anthropologist husband of twenty-five years complete her.  Rumors abound about her though few will tell the whole story about why the former owners fired her. Many are conflicted about her.  She is more like a clerk, typing problems with resident's apartments and handing them to the maintenance man.  She isn't effective and people are growing weary about her.

Shere comes to see her.  Her apartment has been broken into again. The second time, the things that were stolen were returned.  The same is true of her Chevy Impala.  Coins left in the cup holder disappeared.  She called the complex owner.  This time she didn't accuse anyone in the building.  Yet.  She doesn't accuse Amy.  Not this time.  Not yet. 

Both distant with family, especially her three children Liz has become more and more paranoid.  Amy won't do a thing about her.  She never does.  But today, the owners are more than happy to release her from the lease.  Everyone wants her gone.  They want the accusations to stop.

Liz scurries back to her office.  She sees Shere ambling down the hall.  

But I Can't Find Home

In the woods. Lost more than ever.  She can smell it.  Feel it.  She can't get there.

Beth wonders if there are two people.  One seems familiar.  The other scares her.  They are in the distance.  Somewhere. 

Childhood wasn't right.  Left for hours.  Outside sometimes.  In the dark.  No one. Her Dad is always late.  Always with another woman.  Not her Mom.  She knows this.  Maybe Mom does, too.  She doesn't tell anyone.  Afraid. Beth has learned silence.

He has a smirk on his face.  She never trusted him.  He always leaves.

The evening gets colder.  Strange sounds come from the woods.  She knows where she is.  With self.  Self never leaves her.  Ever.  But they do. The twins.

She likes Liz.  She is a loved by everyone.  Not so much by herself.  Amy is different.  Self-destructive. Angry.  Empty.

But she understands the two halves.  Falling.  Rising. Lost.Together.

The Thief

It began in middle school. The early 60s.  Maybe even earlier. The date doesn't matter as much as the anger.  Lots of it.  From the best I can recall, it started with abandonment.  And ego. 

It isn't fair, it isn't right became my mantra. A competition between two forces but whichever rationale is used, it doesn't matter.

Tony Robbins says each anger episode takes the body four hours to reset the immune system.  I should be unhealthier.  Maybe I am.

This, together with abundant joy could seem manic.  It is not.  It is lots of passion on both sides.  Mad.  Joy.  The latter feels like home.  The former is a thief.  It steals my piece of mine.

I like to live apart from people.  It has gotten more so as the years pass.  Since the 1990s.  People more than annoy me.  Mostly.  The total lack of consideration for others, even in the mountains.  That they don't speak out for causes, for the environment, for children, for one another.  That they are sheep.  Pawns.

Isn't that reason enough for anger?  Tell me one social movement that was achieved without it? Just one.

Customers

Bitter cold.  It was good to finally get inside.  The medium dark panelling, almost Manneristic in heaviness.  Suitable for a nautical theme, suitable for a coffee shop. And cozy for a January day.  Before the storm.

Coffee shops have a flavor as distinct as the coffee they brew.  But they all have the old guard in them.  Mostly.  The new ones take a while to define themselves.  Some are environmentalists, some are the older folks with no where to hang.  They find their own space if they are regulars.  In time they become like church pews.  Territorial.

Donnie Dark was spread out among three tables interviewing a potential hire this morning.  Both were in Mark Zuckerman attire - hoodies. Jeans.  Ryan was chafing at the bit.  Clearly wanting the job.  Donnie used just about every expletive I have ever heard.  The 'f' word was his favorite.  I stopped counting at 108 uses.  That was just twenty minutes into my vanilla latte.  I wondered why I got indigestion.

The fireplace pit hosted more business types.  Suits.  They growled when I reached for the Wall Street Journal on the round table in front of them.  No smiles, no apology, no come join us. I didn't realize being a customer once meant instant ownership.  I'll try not to remember that.  I was more than happy to sit elsewhere. 

Later the Bobbsey twins filled the pit. Ladies out for the morning chat. In their pit. As I was waiting to lunch with a friend, a high top nearby was more than sufficient.  Brilliant light came streaming through the drafty window beside me.  I had nearly forgotten it was 31 degrees below the freezing point.  My eyes kept finding the burning embers in the pit.  Longing to warm there.Wondering what the coffee shop had become. Wondering if I even wanted to go back.

Asberger's Syndrome

It was a spring evening when we first met.  My brother's college friend introduced us and then left.  We sat in the dining room in my mother's house.  Just the two of us.  He talked for three hours about his European year in college.  There was no inflection, not even a nod in my direction.  He was more than sweet and  I thought him odd.  I turned down the first blind date before that night.  It didn't feel right.  Then I decided, 'oh what the heck."  At nineteen you do that.

A week later he called and invited me to waterski. He took me to wonderful places.  He was a year and a half my senior.  He said we were 'puppydogs.'

That summer after his college graduation, we saw a lot of one another.  With him living one hour to the southeast and a part time job, I stayed at his parent's home so we could visit.  He worked every Sunday in a drug store.  I liked him instantly. But everything was always about his needs.  I loved him dearly.

My family wasn't much to talk about feelings, either.  Dad took off, Mom did the best she could to raise us on a science teacher's salary.  But even after we married, I couldn't understand his focus.  Law school just isn't that hard, especially for a smartie like him. 

Settling into my new job, a new apartment and a new life provided more than enough time alone.  So did the next twenty-eight years, though I didn't see it coming. But law school was just the beginning for him.  He was always in school. He felt more comfortable there.  And he was always busy.  He didn't sit.  He expected everyone else to be on the go, too.

When I couldn't take it anymore, I filed for divorce. But when all of the men in your family have a form of autism you just don't understand it.  People didn't talk about it back then. They do now.  While I  have come to terms with it, there is a blankness to all our family photographs.  He isn't there, not emotionally.  He is also separate from us.

Years later I spoke with a psychiatrist friend about him.  She confirmed the diagnosis based on my conversation with her.  He lacked "neuronal receptors," she said.  Without them he couldn't feel compassion.  He was quite adept dealing with children.  He had those skills.  Social interactions were frightening.  I never realized how scary they were.  He was pretty monotonic about it.  Always repetitive.  Same shirts, same lunch, same pants, same schedule.  The human component was missing.  He was an automaton.

Some thirty years later, after I was dying physically, I filed for divorce. He never asked why I was leaving.  He isn't involved with our children. Not anymore.  Not with me in the picture to balance him out.  He has Asberger's Syndrome.   I have never known how to talk about these past years.  There was a limited emotional connection.  He didn't have the hardware to get there.  Apparently I was missing a few spark plugs, too or I would have left.

Maybe. I still can't look at family photographs or speak his name.  I lost my innocence.  I gained some wonderful children.  After my exodus, in the hours, days and weeks, I found the missing part.  Myself.   While the journey gets muddled from time to time, my inner GPS seems to right me.  Eventually.

For more information:  

http://www.kmarshack.com/_blog/Kathy_Marshack_News/post/Divorce_and_Asperger_Syndrome/

Free Media

Beth is beyond intrigued/apalled at the tragic death of this young man.  Suicide?  No way!  And to all the heroes who continue to expose the truth from a grateful people.

Cyberactivist Aaron Swartz's Legacy of Open Government Efforts Survives

Jason Leopold

Jason Leopold is lead investigative reporter of Truthout. He is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, News Junkie, a memoir. Visit jasonleopold.com for a preview. His most recent investigative report, "From Hopeful Immigrant to FBI Informant: The Inside Story of the Other Abu Zubaidah," is now available as an ebook. Follow Jason on Twitter: @JasonLeopold.

Aaron Swartz at a 2008 Creative Commons panel. (Photo: dsearls)It looked like Aaron Swartz was up to something.
Two months before his death, the high-profile Internet activist filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Mint and asked for copies of its 2005 survey results which claimed, "147 million adults continued to collect the 50 State Quarters ... the most successful coin program in the nation's history."
The 50 State Quarters Program report Swartz cited in his November 24 FOIA request said the US Mint "shipped 34.3 billion quarter-dollar coins to the Federal Reserve Banks (FRB), generating $8.6 billion in revenue and nearly $6.3 billion in seigniorage, which helps finance the national debt."
"The United States Mint estimated it shipped 16.3 billion more coins to the FRB than it would have in the absence of the Program. Consequently, the Agency attributes $4.1 billion in revenue and $3.0 billion in seigniorage solely to the 50 State Quarters Program," according to the report. "The sale of 50 State Quarters numismatic products generated another $470.1 million in revenue and $136.2 million in earnings and seigniorage."
It's unknown what Swartz had hoped to do with the information if and when he received the types of records he was requesting. Swartz's request remains open, according to Muckrock, a transparency web site that streamlines the FOIA request process for journalists and the public and which Swartz used to request records.
Michael Morisy, the founder of Muckrock, who met Swartz in 2010 after Morisy launched the site, told Truthout they spoke regularly about a number of Swartz's FOIA requests "but not that one in particular."
Perhaps the boy genius who founded a software company that merged with the popular social networking web site Reddit was hoping to come up with a solution to the country's financial woes and use the statistics in the government report to show why an idea to mint a platinum trillion-dollar coin as a means of dealing with the federal debt ceiling could be even bigger than the 50 State Quarters Program. In one of his last tweets before he took his own life Friday, he urged his followers to "save the country" and "sign the platinum coin petition."
The idea was ultimately shot down on Saturday.
A day earlier, Swartz hanged himself with his belt in his Brooklyn, New York home. He was 26. He had battled depression and in years past had publicly written about thoughts of suicide. He did not leave a suicide note, according to police.
While his supporters, family and friends continue attempt to come to grips with the tragic loss of such a gifted computer programmer, who at 14, developed an early version of Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which allowed blogs and news web sites to easily share their content, a peek at the FOIA requests Swartz filed over the past two years sheds a little light on what he had been grappling with personally and professionally.
Although a majority of his FOIA requests were self-serving it is also clear that the information he sought, particularly in areas pertaining to government surveillance, would have greatly benefited the public. However, his efforts to pry loose materials from a highly secretive administration were mostly unsuccessful.
On the Government's Radar
Swartz filed his first FOIA request using Muckrock's service in December 2010, more than two years after he landed on the government's radar. He was seeking information about himself.
In 2008, Swartz's friend and fellow open government activist Carl Malamud, the founder of the nonprofit public.resource.org, wanted to make federal court documents housed on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system (PACER) available to the public for free. Using $600,000 he raised from supporters, Malamud purchased 50 years worth of appellate court documents and posted them on his website.
Then, the government started a pilot program in which access to federal court documents on PACER would be made available to users at no cost at 17 libraries around the country. Malamud urged activists like Swartz to visit the libraries, download the documents and send it over to him so he could make it availble to the public via his website. 
"So Aaron went to one of them and installed a small PERL script he had written that cycled sequentially through case numbers, requesting a new document from Pacer every three seconds, and uploading it to" Amazon's Elastic Compute (EC2) Cloud server, Wired reported. "Aaron pulled nearly 20 million pages of public court documents, which are now available for free on the Internet Archive." 
The court documents Swartz legally accessed were worth $1.5 million. The government shut down the PACER pilot program and the FBI launched an investigtation. 
On December 10, 2010, Swartz filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department's Criminal Division seeking "documents related to me, Aaron Swartz, as well as any documents related to any associated PACER investigation." The government responded by stating it could not locate any responsive records.
The same day he filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department he also filed one with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking "All clinical trial information, including the medical and statistical reviews of New Drug Applications." The FDA said his request was too broad. Swartz narrowed it and asked for "the list or log that includes all names of drugs which the FDA has already processed and prepared for public release all the submitted medical and statistical new drug reviews. [sic]" The FDA told Swartz he could find that information on the agency's website. It's unknown why Swartz was so interested in the data.
Two years ago, Swartz was indicted on federal wire and computer fraud charges for allegedly downloading illegally more than 4 million journal articles and documents from JSTOR, an electronic database of journal articles, by entering a wiring closet in the basement of a research building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), connecting a laptop to the university's network and uploading the articles to Amazon's cloud server. Swartz later returned to retrieve the computer, according to federal court documents.
This time the government aggressively pursued Swartz, even after he turned over hard drives containing the articles and JSTOR said it was not interested in pursuing the matter further. His trial was due to start in April. He faced $1 million in fines and decades in prison if convicted.
In March 2011, about two months after he was arrested by MIT and Cambridge, Massachusetts, police and a Secret Service agent and four months prior to his indictment, Swartz filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department, which appeared to be related to his PACER case, seeking:

Any records requests made to Amazon and any responses from Amazon in connection with any such requests. This includes subpoenas, warrants, 2703 orders, National Security Letters, etc.
In addition, I request any guidelines, policies, advice, or procedures related to using data stored by Amazon for investigations, data-collection, and surveillance. For example, any guides or advice to law enforcement akin to the "AOL Inc. Law Enforcement Manual" or "Facebook Law Enforcement Guidelines" would be included by this request.
In particular, I request the response from Amazon to a Grand Jury subpoena as included in an email from Eric Wenger dated Nov 4, 2008 and labeled "Amazon_GJS_Response.pdf". Since it pertains to me, I request this information under the Privacy Act as well as the Freedom of Information Act.

A week before he filed his FOIA, Swartz exchanged emails with Christopher Soghoian, a security and privacy researcher at the American Civil Liberties Union, asking him to provide feedback about a blog post he was considering publishing: "Is the Government Snooping On Your EC2 Instance?" While Swartz's post raised a number of important privacy and security questions, he was clearly concerned about how the government was obtaining information about him without his knowledge.

When I heard that the government had [ordered Twitter to turn over data about its users], I got real interested in the legal techniques for getting people's private data," Swartz wrote. "I've spent the past few months talking to lawyers, policy experts, and executives at online service providers about how the rules work and what protections they afford. What I've found is that ­­- incredibly -­­ anyone who's filed a lawsuit can order online service providers to turn over just about anything." In a message on the same email string, Soghoian questioned the accuracy of Swartz's finding that "anyone" could obtain such information, citing a provision in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that prohibits disclosure of content to anyone but the government. (And the government doesn't even need to file a lawsuit.) But most major online service providers warn you before they hand over your data and give you a chance to challenge the order in court. Google, Yahoo, and Twitter all send their users emails with a copy of the request and instructions on how to challenge it.

What are Amazon's policies? I've had several conversations with them about this, but they refuse to comment on the record. Still, I'm in the rare position of getting to experience them first­hand. A couple years ago the government sent Amazon a subpoena for information about an EC2 instance I'd purchased. Amazon handed it over without stopping to warn me. When I asked them about it specifically, they refused to comment. When I asked them about their general policy, they refused to comment. The only reason I found out about it was because I filed a FOIA request with the Department of Justice. The DOJ was more transparent about this than Amazon.

As best as I can tell, this is Amazon's policy: When the government asks, turn stuff over. Never tell the people affected. Don't give them a chance to object.

In his email to Soghoian, Swartz said he could not publish the article under his name "for personal reasons." He did not elaborate. Swartz's attorney did not return calls from Truthout seeking comment. Soghoian also did not respond to email requests for comment.

A week after his email exchange with Soghoian, Swartz filed a FOIA request with the FBI and Justice Department seeking records from the FBI and records related to a "raid" of Soghoian's Indiana home in 2006.

According to Muckrock, Swartz did not receive any documents pertaining to Soghoian at the time of his death.

Why the government was so determined to punish Swartz is a mystery. The Huffington Post reported that Swartz's attorney, Elliot Peters, said that the assistant US attorney in Massachusetts prosecuting the case, Stephen Heymann, was looking for "some juicy computer crime cases and Aaron's case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill." Peters believes Heymann thought he "was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper."

Over the weekend, Swartz's family issued a statement and said Swartz's death "is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death."

Rankled By ICE Domain Name Seizures
Morisy, the Muckrock founder, said Swartz was particularly disturbed by actions on the part of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that led to the seizure of dozens of Internet domain names. He filed a FOIA in December 2010 with the agency in hopes of prying loose documents about its actions.
"That really bothered him," Morisy said about the domain name seizures. "He felt it was politicized. He was just really upset that the government could come in and do this."

ICE turned over to Swartz last October about 100 pages of heavily redacted documents. But the materials do not help explain the government's actions.

Morisy said he was working on an appeal for Swartz to send to ICE, a draft of which was ready at the time of his death last week. He added that Swartz expressed some interest in working with advocacy organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), to "raise awareness about these issues and effect change."

"It wasn't just a curiosity for him," Morisy said about Swartz's FOIA requests. "He wanted to see something done differently."

Free Speech Advocate
Swartz also sought government records related to Pfc. Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and other documents to WikiLeaks. Specifically, Swartz's December 27, 2010 FOIA request asked the Marine Corps to "please process as quickly as possible a request for the government-curated audio tapes created in Quantico brig visitation room #2 on December 18 and December 19 2010 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm. 

"These tapes may also contain a recording of David M. House; I have permission from David House under the Privacy Act to request these records," Swartz wrote. He filed the same request with the Army Criminal Investigative Service on February 9, 2011.

House is a founding member of the Bradley Manning Support Network who helped raise awareness about the conditions of Manning's detention, which a military judge recently ruled was illegal. In June 2011, House was subpoeaned to appear before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, which is reportedly investigating Wikileaks and associations a group of Boston-area hackers may have had with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and/or Manning. 

House declined to comment on the record about Swartz's FOIA. 

Morisy said Swartz "was very interested in due process and the freedom of speech issues." That certainly appeared to be  the common thread in all of his FOIA requests.

But it was also deeply personal for Swartz.

Indeed, one of his FOIA requests sought from the United States Secret Service, "Any records on the procedures the Secret Service uses for reading encrypted hard disks." Swartz, who filed the records request on February 28, 2011, was still waiting for the Secret Service to produce responsive records at the time of his death.

In a blog post published Monday, investigative blogger Marcy Wheeler reported that two days before Swartz was arrested in January 2011, the Secret Service took over the investigation.
On Monday, in what is considered standard procedure when the defendant in a case has died, the Justice Department announced that it had dropped its criminal case against Swartz.
 http://truth-out.org/news/item/13945-cyberactivist-aaron-swartz-legacy-of-open-government-efforts-continues
 

A Woman Apart

Lush lawns.  Designer landscaping.  Perfect children.  All the trappings but an empty home.  A home where silence begins.  The silence of the heart.  But not with the children.

So many years have passed.  Somehow...some way...she found the courage to be honest.  Her heart had grown lonely since that September day.  The unmowed grass, a broken mower they said.  Half finished.  She wondered if it was a sign at the wedding place.

She remembers the house filled with love.  Of children, of pets of home.  She liked being busy, needed.  She liked working, grad school, house work, community involvement.  But children grow up.  She had to as well.  That is if she were to survive.

She remembers Jacqueline Kennedy alone, too.  She had Maurice.  Beth was of self.  Her innocence lost.  Of all that could be.  Everyone has disappointments.

The evenings grow cold.  Dark.  Empty.  She hoped.  Wondered if there was more.  She was a woman apart.

Limitation Omissions of Main Stream Media

 Some say "climate Change is more than just warming, and more than just human CO2."  Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcm9qsVaf0o&feature=youtu.be

Maine Man

Escribe!

Write!  Write yourself home.

Beth was home.  Coming to a new understanding of the world and herself. In an almost odd sort of way, Tex helped with that.  It wasn't the smell of smoke continuously on him, or the stank of cheap booze.  It was his sleaze.   Raw sleaze if sleaze can be raw.  A life spent medicating with the addictive.  In a way, we all do that.  Degree is what matters here.

But it was Maine who took my breath away.  He got all the elements.  Understood the Illuminati, UFOs, the Rockefeller funded feminist movement, the military industrial complex, the continual news distortions, disinformation.   He understood what men want.  What he wanted.  He even said that what most men want was RESPECT.  Who knew?

He could be raw, too.  Raw honesty.  Beth could handle it.  She admired it.  Admired his Thoreau experience.  That he could be so upfront with his pain.  His foibles.  She knew she had finally met a man her age who would teach her for a change.  Teach her about emotions.  Unfiltered emotions.  But she wasn't sure about the Jesus thing.  Or that he liked the Baptist church so much.  She'd ask him about gun control. 

Maine was a mix of contradictions. Or maybe not.  She wanted to see it played out. Beliefs.  Smarts beyond smarts. 

She liked when he admitted...knew even...that who we are at our core belief is also who we are in a relationship.  He wanted that relationship to discover how he could be.

Beth did, too. 

She wanted...had...to know more.  What would she be like if she could truly be intimate with someone who could truly be intimate with her.  It would be a first. Definitely for her.

Soon.

Cool Climate

There was a knock on her door.  A blond neighbor stopped by to invite her to a New Year's Party.  She was more than glad to be invited.  The woman lived next to Tex in an apartment on the first floor. She didn't much like him, either. Tex came on to her as well.  But she said Tex had left.  It was safe to join in with the rest of the partygoers.

The following morning on the first day of the new year, Beth went to her desk. Beth's fingers were frozen.  Her mind was worse. She couldn't bring herself to go this deep. Her New Year's INTENTION meant that she had to think less. She didn't want to put her tormented mind on paper.  Again. She was compelled to write about it.  Writing releases it.  Always. And she had to move her brokerage account instate. But that had to wait another day until the financial businesses opened.

Historically, she had more than a series of brokers. New, Inept, Moving, Lazy, Greedy, Passed Away, and Dumb and Dumber. She really liked Passed Away.  But he was gone. Finito.  To that great beyond.   She wouldn't have changed yet another broker. She had moved around a bunch.  Five states.  But she had to deal with what is.

That following morning, she had a meeting with the branch office administrator in a half hour.  It was cold outside. 5 degrees.  Beth was glad to be parked in a heated garage.  A lovely 55 degrees. Always.  Her new broker wasn't too far away and she loved the ride through the farmland.  As flat as the eye could see. And not too far from the ocean.  Just five miles west.

As she walked into the garage toward her car, she noticed something tucked firmly under her front window shield wiper blade.  It looked like a wedding invitation.  Thick.


An gold oriental note card was inside the envelope. 

"I AM SORRY"

Sorry?  She had an idea who it was from. 

Beth was late and there was ice everywhere on the road.  She would address the matter about the apology.  Later. She placed the note inside her briefcase.  What she wanted was to trash it.  Now.  There were other pressing matters.

The branch office administrator to the broker welcomed her and quickly closed the door.  The British administrator was always to the point.

"Beth, it isn't done.  Complete or even right.  I know you just moved here, but whoever did the last calculations was more than off.  Some areas are totally empty.  Nothing. Of course, adding a cost basis to your portfolio is a courtesy.  But even courtesies should be correct.  We'll fix that."

Beth could feel her blood curdle.  She had been through that twice before.  Each time took her hours.  Weeks even to sort through hundreds of documents.  And many trips over the mountain.  She was profusely apologetic to the branch office administrator for having to do this. 

Incompetence.  That is what it is.  No way to slide around this one.  A series of incompetent branch office administrators. She hoped she could trust this one. Beth couldn't understand how they could even be hired. She was more than worn.  She had had enough.  She would tell her last broker.  In time.  Gently.  She wondered if it was even worth it. She wondered if her former broker would even call her.

Beth returned home after a few errands. Decided to go downstairs later that night. Even went into the Community Room.  A rarity. 


She felt an uneasiness.  A presence.  Then she saw a shadow. Tex had been peering around the door looking to see if she was alone.  He wasn't a man of much emotional courage.

 Tex was lanky, well dressed, clean. He was also verbally crude, made sexual innuendos, smelled of smoke and booze.  She didn't even like him the first time they met.  She was silly not to listen to her gut. He cozied up to her and it was all too convenient.  It ended almost as fast as it began.

"You're not talking to me."

"YOU aren't talking to me. I've had hi and you just walked away."

His head was down.  Again.  Like she had seen him in the halls a few times.

"I thought you were mad at me."

He already lies.  What is this third grade?

"You and I are different.  We have different behaviors,"she said softly peering out from under her navy Donna Karan New York -  reading glasses.

He had guns and an assault rifle in his apartment.  She had no interest in angering him.

"Of course we are different," he said firmly.

"Well, I thought we had something nice," he whispered.

"I don't think so," Beth said.

Tex stood immediately and the shadow of a man vanished. She never even heard his apartment door close.

Beth returned to her apartment.  Structure.  That is what I am missing. And putting these inept people behind me.  That is what the Mayan's told us.  Collective consciousness.  We're not ending.  We're beginning!


Beth could feel a difference within her.  She had regained her stride.  Again. She looked outside. Snow began to fall.  A fresh landscape, more pure and pristine than she had seen in years. Hope.

There was a pound at the door.  Then a knock. 

The blond woman stood aside. Her face was gnarled.

"Watch your back.  He isn't well."