The Magic and Surprise of Unpacking Five Years After Moving In

In my case, many things have gone unsorted for a decade or two, at least.  Mostly things have been in the box for about five years.

It used to be that I'd start to sort, see an item that brought up something from the past and it would make me sad or remorseful to the point that I just couldn't face it, so I'd stop and leave it for another time.  That resulted in chaotic accumulation.  And I'd be all down because I couldn't make myself touch it.

I couldn't look at opportunities ignored or family sadness and insanity or the way I felt at some age like 15.  Just could not do it.  It seemed to get worse over the years.  And I never found the right person to help when it came to the minute details.  I had to have help to even touch the boxes or the clutter, which is probably another issue.

Poor Joel ended up getting me moved in and out of places in NC two or three times.  But those boxes went unsorted.  I needed a trusted woman who cared enough not to be too annoyed and that never happened.  Way it is when you have unusual defects that make no sense.

It may have been my own fear of letting them in that much, but I never felt I was in the presence of one who wouldn't be judging, even if trying to hide the fact.  Positions reversed, I don't know that I could deal with it. Positions aren't reversed so there it is. [update: I may have had such a woman friend but wasn't there yet, now that I reflect on it] I've been stuck with me, and it has been my--I don't know--Moby Dick or something. Damned swimming mammal that tried to eat me alive.

Well, I am happy to say that I have willed myself into a different mental mode.  It is a psychic change for sure.  I spent the day dealing with everything from very macabre last will and testament sort of papers, written by me and witnessed by me, to sentimental stuff of deceased loved ones, you name it.

Not a shred of fear, regret, pain, or nostalgia.  Actually, the scariest thing I found--really scary, macabre and worrisome sent me into almost uncontrollable laughter.  (Hey JT, it was my piece of corn under the fridge)

This is trivia to most people, and hopefully would not even compute, but it was like suddenly being able to walk after thirty years confined to a wheel chair to me.  All I felt was how lucky I am.  I did have a couple of trusted friends in the mix.  K and M.  K knew me when I was 16, and she even gets why I laughed at something which painted a very dark picture of where I was a year before arriving on this coast.

M gets it too and he's only known me since I arrived here.  No one else could possibly have helped, and had a blast doing it.  And they wanted to.  They've wanted to for maybe three or four years.  Is that crazy or what?  I'm way older and should be set in my ways and capable of whatever it is that high class neat people do.  I may be genetically predisposed to disorganization, but no one in my family ever approached my flat out, long term negligence.

There is more to be done and they're returning Sunday whether I like or not.  That will be good.  I was freaking out before they arrived today--a little.  I wanted to back out but had set it up so I couldn't.  Now I don't have that going on.

With me it is the most basic life maintenance and organization that throws me for a loop.  And it is the simplest of things that leaves me elated.  Maybe that is good because the simple stuff is not a strain on the bank account.

Who knew that I bought a jacket on my ill fated fiasco of a trip to New Zealand?  I did, and I had no idea.  Also I have a Live! From Sun Studios---the Memphis Snake Doctors tee shirt.  I didn't know that. And I did the art work.  You can bet I'll wear that next time I'm at a musical gathering.  "Oh, that? Yea, I recorded at Sun, same room where Elvis played".

That was cool, but I am so glad I got out of Memphis.  Few people know it is either a suburb of Hell, or else Purgatory.  But that isn't to say there aren't some cool people there.  Don't know how they do it.  And I did live in the best of all possible places in the best of all possible neighborhoods--in my book.  Wasn't enough.

I'd say the people out here, especially in Alpine and that region, have no idea how good they have it.  But even the lifers do seem to know.  Weird when people actually like it where they live.  Never experienced so much of that before.


====so far six Large garbage bags in dumpster, mostly from things culled out of boxes with helpful labels like "John" and "textiles".  No container has only one type of thing.  There were harmonicas, kitchen utensils, towels, tee shirts, and notebooks in one of the 'textiles' boxes.  No one named John is in the John bin.  It was time to trash that tax thing from 1996.  Really, I wasn't in love with that document even when it was timely, why keep it another 15 or 20 years?

People With Way More Credentials and Brains Than I

Often I write rants here.  I've been accused of making baseless assertions which contradict the view of people who have studied more, achieved great academic success, degrees etc.  Apparently I'm undaunted.

In the realm of energy production and the way that industry has evolved, my suggestions of how that would evolve over time have proven accurate.  That was back in the late seventies.

I won't belabor the specifics because I kind of enjoy being told I don't know anything, that people with far more experience and credentials know better.

Regarding the IRS, it's the same thing.  I re-read my last post and I kind of like it.  Except it is the kind of talk that can get one put on a list these days.  Freedom of expression ain't what it once was.  National security, you know.  I'm sure many people are aware that national security is an excuse against which you cannot argue.

Failing that, depending upon whom you criticize, it can be called hate speech or you're racist and talking in "dog whistles" to your secret racist buddies.  Hate speech is a great one.  Geez.  Some people are hateful.  Generally they fall of their own weight.  Sometimes the haters are the ones accusing the truthful of hate speech.  You never know.  Censorship is like that.

The national security catch all excuse can be used for illegal snooping, as in the AP phone records scandal, or any abuse of power.  And because it is national security which requires high level secrecy, you can't insist on the truth.  "You can't handle the truth!", and you won't get it.  Sorry.  Expect more of that, too.

When I created a method for controlling the harmful by-product of running cotton from the bale to the finished product, cotton dust, I was told my method would not work.

No one could get the levels down to a point which was unlikely to cause the deadly condition known as brown lung.  I guaranteed that I could, and in the very dirtiest, hardest to treat room in a cotton mill.  And it was proven by independent tests to not only meet the target levels, but to exceed it by over 10%.  When I say exceed, that is on the down side.  Levels averaged over 10% under the level they all said I couldn't hit.

By the way, I actually got a minor study run in NC State's textile lab.  I worked with a doctoral candidate.  End result--the head of the department wanted me to come there and get my doctorate in textile science.  I liked that guy.  At the time, NC State was the top, cutting edge school in the world in that field.  I think maybe Clemson was right up there too.

There were some very successful companies in that field who employed engineers and hotshots with far more experience, and much higher levels of education than I ever achieved.  I guess they knew better and I was irrational and arrogant to think I knew better.  They'd spent their lives doing this.  Who did I think I was?   I was only 26.  Young punk kid, wet behind the ears, blablabla.

Well, they did know things I didn't.  They knew about cronyism, government, and how to play the game and put on the show for public consumption.  I was innocent and naive.  But no one can change the fact that I was right.  And I have proof, and there were witnesses.

The point is, many a scientist, PhD, government "professional", whatever, can be wrong despite credentials and experience.  I respect what it takes to get those credentials, all the hard work.  All of that.  But those things do not necessarily prove a point.  Often those people do wonderful things, with the exception of the government professionals.

This is the USA.  Never were the terms professional and politician supposed to be linked together.  It is a sure recipe for destruction of a nation, and in our case, a culture.

No, I decided I do not care that these brilliant people should have a better idea of how it should be than I do.  If I strongly believe they don't, I'll trust myself.

You know who I'm talking to here, don't you homeboy?
hahahahahahahahahaha

I have to tell you, nothing was more satisfying than the mill president, who decided I may have something real, coming back from an industry wide conference on cotton dust control telling me how they all said my scheme was impossible nonsense,  and then to see the results of the independent testing prove I was right.

The case of a runaway state is different.  I would love to be wrong.  But I am not.  The trap for many bright people is that they think they can make it all work like a charm, if only they have the authority.  And the other smart people who back them somehow see themselves as part of the benevolent elite, too.  The inescapable truth, that when tax funded entities control choice and resources,  injustices and cronyism  will and do occur, is simply ignored.  They mean well, but they got it wrong.

I guess I just had to make a bit of a case for why telling me I'm arrogant to question and suggest the things I do does not go far in convincing me to back off.

I do love how that IRS guy got thrown under the bus, while the one who probably should be under the bus, other than the head of the executive branch, ended up a head of the IRS department that is supposed to enforce the health care system.  If nothing else, it is getting interesting, and it is a good study in how to get out of hot water even when you are caught red handed.

Who you gonna believe; me or your lying eyes?  (you know that reference right?  The guy gets caught in bed with another woman--or visa versa--and he says what woman, no woman here.  Who you gonna believe, etc)

Oh, and by the way, the reason the US does not manufacture textile and cotton goods like they used to is more the result of crony business-government doings than slave labor in China.  Certain corporations benefitted, others were crushed. That is how it is done. And the spin for the public sounds air tight logical, but it is not fabricated using truth.

But, hey.  A lot smarter people than me say different.


so there