Well, I have an extra day off this weekend, not because of any sudden act of generosity on the part of Smallville Solutions, but because I took one of my meager supply of vacation days to console myself for the growing realization that, thanks to the Katrina-like incompetence of the government added to the utter amorality and greed of every single businessperson above the level of manager in the country, I will probably be working until I am found dead at my desk, which, judging from the blood-pressure-raising rage I feel, may be as early as next Tuesday.  People work all their lives to achieve some goal - a nice home, educated kids, a Harley, a cabin in the mountains, whatever, and my goal has been one and only one thing - to retire and never, ever have to get up because I had to go to work, never have to leave the party early because I had to go to work, never cut short my stay in a great place because I had to go to work again.  Goals are dreams in today's America and dreams are myth, like the pot of gold at the rainbow's end.  Both the  pot of gold and the rainbow itself are illusions, and we are meant, like medieval serfs, to work forever for our greedy masters, living our short, brutish lives until we can expire either in some war to gain honor and riches for the nobility or wear out our hearts in one of milord's fields.  The one modern enhancement to the servile life since 1100 A.D. has been the improvement of medicine so that we can serve longer and be less happy.  Otherwise I don't see a scintilla of difference between then and now; one might say the serfs live more comfortably now, and this is true, but then so do the masters.  What pisses me off most is that the jerks that did this aren't jumping out of buildings on Wall Street.  What on earth is holding them back?  Oh, yeah, maybe those zillion-dollar bonuses.  In 1929, the bastards at least had the decency to lose their own money.  If some crazed guy or woman, who actually made a reasonable mortgage he (or she) could afford before the job on which he or she depended went bye-bye, and who then lost his or her home anyway because of this debacle, happens to go on a shooting rampage on Wall Street and nails one or two of those bastards, well, let's just say, (s)he can count on an anonymous contribution to his defense fund from Upstate NY.  I only ask that he please not shoot the secretaries or the mailroom guys.  It is this indiscriminate shooting that gives such rampages such a bad name, when actually they could be such powerful forces for good.

The old me, the one who took off on a whim to hitch to California or to fly to Zambia with no money or to take a job in Saudi, seems to be smothered beneath someone new, someone who dreads living in the streets or living on pet food in his old age, yet I do hear his faint whisper in my ear, saying, "Why not retire as planned, and see what happens?"   I am not totally wiped out (yet), I have my tiny pension (for now) and my Social Security (thanks to the days when the political class threw an occasional scrap to the peasantry).  And my 401(k)  - there are three of these, one from each of my last three companies,  plus a small IRA and some savings.  My thought is I could use up the smaller ones for the first years and hope the bigger ones had a recovery by the time I got to them.  And I have no debt other than my mortgage; my house was painted this year, and a new roof was put on last year.  "Faint heart," 'tis said, "never won fair freedom".  OK, they said, 'fair lady'. but I really am not looking for a lady, fair or otherwise, and I would assume the principle holds true for other desires.  We shall see come Spring, when I am most wont to act impulsively. 

In the weeks that I have been absent from blogamy, I have had a couple of events of note.  Aunt Bertha, my last aunt and my Mom's last remaining sister died suddenly.  She fell, and when the ambulance folks got her to the local whatever, it was discovered that she had an aneurism or something the size of a baseball (aren't these things - tumors, and so on - always said to be the size of a baseball?  Maybe we should adopt shooting BB guns as our national sprt and save a few lives) .  So they were about to medevac her to some hospital and she was, as always smoking like a chimney.  "Oh," she said gaily to her son Tommy, "I am going to ride on a helicopter!" 

"Ma,  you can't smoke on a helicopter."  quoth Tommy.  It has been the lifework of her three remaining sons to try and get her to stop smoking.  The odd thing is that, like Bill Clinton, she never inhaled.  Yet she kept the air around her a dense fog of smoke - she must have actually had to absorb the requisite amount of nicotine, usually done so efficiently by one's lungs, by the twin stratagems of absorption through her tongue and breathing her own second-hand smoke.

"Oh, shut up, Tommy!" said Aunt Bertha to her loving son, as she was whirled out of sight.  These were her last words to any of her family, and as words to live by, I suppose they are as good as any. 

The other thing that happened, and this will be of note, I suppose, only to such Shaggers who have been with me from (nearly) the begining of ye olde blogge, since it was way back when, that I mentioned this, was that I found Rob, the guy who cried when I left my surfing life behind me to enter the nut house.   He is still living in Southern California, though he surfs no more.  After I left, the nightly parties that used to occur at my house on Periwinkle Street were resumed under the aegis of one of the other surfers who took a house not far from there.  At one of these parties, Rob met Wendy, and the two have been joined together in unholy wedlock since.  They have survived addiction and come out clean, have some kids now grown, and he now works in electronics, a job that gives him great latitude in hours worked, and which he enjoys.  I was gratified that he had talked of me so often that Wendy, who never met me, knew who I was the instant she saw got my letter, and called Rob at work.  On hearing how far I have fallen from what I used to be, in short, that I was a programmer, Rob said, "I always thought you would be a writer."  I can't imagine that he ever saw anything I wrote, but it was gratifying to be reminded that I was once interesting.  He also said, "No one ever wanted to learn to surf more than you did."  I don't know why, but that warmed my heart a great deal.  So we are desultorily in contact, and that growing itch to find him has been scratched.  So too, has the small dream that he was pining for me somewhere alone, waiting for me to ride up on a white horse, but I never really believed in that entirely.  I am glad he found a soul mate; he was much nicer and kinder of heart than the average guy.  And he remembered all the things I remembered, and pretty much remembered them the same way I did; you don't often find that after 40 years apart.

The reason I have taken tomorrow off was not to annoy the local Native Americans by celebrating Columbus Day, but because my sort-of-friend Tiko is coming to visit.  I set up for him to come Sunday, only to discover too late that the plane that was cheapest on which I booked him was an overnighter and would not arrive until Monday.  I have to take off Friday also to return him  spent and exhausted to the airport for a return to Nevada.  His prospects have been looking up: as I wrote  long ago, he fled his country in a revolution that ousted its very corrupt government in which his family was intimately involved (in the government, not the revolution) and has had to live the life of a poor Black man in America since he was 22.  Now there is a president in power who is a personal friend to him and his family, and they are recovering some of their vast properties at home.   So he may soon get to experience the life of a rich Black man in America, which is sadly rare, I guess, for folks who are neither athletic nor musical.  He told me he would have to find a rich boyfriend now, since his father always told him never to marry down (although said father had married up in a big way, coming from a tribal backwater to marry into the wealthiest family in his nation).  But our relationship, such as it is, has persisted so long, I doubt I will be pushed aside now.  His incredible skill at letting cash flow outward from his grasp is such, that I wouldn't be at all surprised if I had more money than he three years after he gets his claws on the family booty, by virtue of my having nothing at all, but not being in debt. 

I have procrastinated on posting this, and will do so from my Apple so that I can leave now for the airport.  It is a toss-up, usually as to whether i am more eager to see him arrive, or to see him leave when the time comes, since we have nothing in common - no interests, no values.  We dislike each other's choice of foods even - he can't stand pasta of any sort, but lives on seafood which i won't touch, and African dishes, few of which i can approach with any enthusiasm.  He may never have read a book in his life.  We like different music.  He has started a blog - a political one, of all things - and we do support the same candidate, but that is an odd congruence of taste in an otherwise utterly disparate world.  We dislike, or are bored by each other's friends.   Our ideas on what love is or can be are completely different,  And yet after 28 years, we have such a passionate physical attachment, it is insane.   He still sees the 38-year-old (and I was HOT, if I do say so) he met in 1980 and I still see the skinny 22-year-old African lad with the slanting eyes who dazzled me back then and ever since.  Love, no; but something. 

I must hie me to the airport, it would be unfortunate to have our first fight of many this week, be because I am late.  Peace to you all; there is like to be little of that in these parts...