Crackadaisical

Bitter today.

I'm so fucking tired of the way we've set things up. Why did we have to go and make it all about money? I don't get it. What made us think that unbridled capitalism was going to make us all happy? Didn't we notice the signs that told us that the biggest, slimiest thugs would rape the planet and stomp on the indigenous people and make their fortunes by squeezing the blood from the people beneath them on the totem pole? Didn't we realize that we were the people under them on that pole? Were we fooled by their insincere smiles and genial chuckling? Dazzled by their designer duds and expensive haircuts? Blinded by the glare off their perfect, bleached teeth?

I come from a family of artists, some of them very productive and somewhat successful. I also come from a family of hoarding pack-rats, some of them certifiable. I am blessed/saddled with the familial artistic temperament, tragically coupled with a crippling lack of self esteem that prevents me from sharing anything I create with anyone, even (especially) the people I love. I also carry the tragic and disgusting pack-rat gene, like my mother's aunt Mary. I have this idea that all this shit I've surrounded myself with, is somehow valuable. (Hint: It ain't.)

In order to survive in this capitalist paradise we have created, a person is required to have 'drive'. A person is required to be 'motivated to succeed'. A person is not supposed to be completely lackadaisical, to be content to spend hours watching the birds in the backyard, or thinking about the varieties of beans one might plant. If one had a garden. Which one doesn't. Because one has dogs, instead.

Rewards: today, as I sat on the porch in the unseasonably perfect weather, our resident flock of chickadees came visiting and sat close enough for me to touch, drinking from the rain bucket. The goldfinches were there too, at the niger seed feeder, singing their cheery song and a white breasted nuthatch dropped in for a while, too. I also saw Senor Chipmunk perched on the wisteria, surveying his kingdom. Later, I scratched Seamus's belly and saw his secret smile.

Now I'm going to roust myself out of this chair and make some dinner. Dinner is one of the few areas in which I demonstrate competence. I'm feeling pretty lackadaisical but there is no denying that it's time to move.