Decay begins at the foundations.

When I first began this blog, it was about social decay and my experiences living in povertial america.  A recent roadtrip to pick up my mother reminded me of the very basis of those early writings and the dismay I have at our world today.

When we travel, we tend to drive off the beaten path.  This is to enjoy the beautiful country side and to allow us to become enthralled in the conversations we have with one another while on the road.  Too often, I will see delapidaited buildings in deserted farmland or the promise of a shiny new apartment complex or some industrial building for future benefit of society. I say rubbish to all of that.

This very farmland and the old buildings that occupy such are the very foundation upon which white america built this country.  So far wrapped up in greed we are that we fail to remember where we came from and simply contrive to chew up the resources around us to later spit out like long forgotten garbage.  What in the sam hill have we done?  So many times I hear about how the polar ice caps are melting and the Co2 levels are increasing and all those lovely pictures of children rummaging through mountains of garbage for a mere two cents to eat with. Bleach.

Have we failed to realize that, currently, this is the only planet we have and if we fail to respect that and all that it has afforded us we fail as a species?  Mother nature will find a way.  She sees what we as human beings have done to her lovely cradle she has provided and will one day seek vengance on the very ground all of us tred upon.  Have we failed to understand that we did not learn from the mistakes of the coal powered trains and the hole they sent up to the ozone layer?  Oh, sure, lets put up a few thousand coal powered electricity plants because they are "cleaner!"  CLEANER???????  What in the flip is cleaner about something that allows for the vital oxygen we need to breathe to escape our planet forever!  No wonder we are a society of asthmatics and disease ridden souls.  We are slowly killing ourselves and our children. 

Ugh.  Ok, I have become overy ticked and cannot finish this.  I will be back with more later.  Just had to vent a little.

What if Gas prices led to a healthier America? Bwahahahahaha

Well, there was my ab crunches for the day. Lets pick that apart for all you philosophy peeps that I know.
If Gas prices go up, then there will be more healthy people.
If Gas prices go up (If A then)
More people will walk and become healthy (B)
HOWEVER
Not all people who walk more are health (C)
Or some such nonsense. At any rate. I have seen first hand that high gasprices lead to mass chaos in an organized society. I am not saying that what our nation's military and government are doing is wrong, I am just saying, why not look at the little things to assist in making the big picture a little more clear:
Here is what I am saying. We have been fighting in the lands of the great petrol gods for many years because we use their imports in our cars, trucks, and lawnmowers. We are doing this to protect our own interests. In doing so, the people that control those land sucks (the drillers, refineries, and such) are raising costs because of all the blood they have to clean up in the process. Further, the lovely desk fillers that inhabit the imports and exports offices of this great country seize the opportunity to add an extra zero here and another 7 there simply to fatten their pockets. When they are discovered, it is all blamed on the bottom line and to protect the interests of this country. Um....the interests of whom? Surely not the fat pockets of the upper class. Sure....they drive but not much and surely not much on their own. Besides, they have enough money to not even watch with facination the fluctuating numbers on the sign of the local gas station. Therefore, they have no reason to complain nor to even consider what is going on.
Nobody asks for the common folks opinion. Sure, some of us speak up and write our congressman or the interest groups that are supposed to lobby on our behalf, but do they really have the utilitarian interests at heart? Certainly not when it all comes down to the almighty dollar. (Shit, that is not even worth much these days. I digress. THAT is for another day.) No, I believe they don't because they are not telling their kids that the price of gas was just $3.21 not seven days ago and now I have to pay $3.52 per gallon to fill up my car with watered down garbage they call gas. No, they are not the ones that are having to purchase a crappy, bubble gum car, every year or so because they cannot afford to put the Premium gas in their tanks at the tune of (on average) $4.00 per gallon every time they get gas.
Funny thing about making your children aware: Our daughter takes it as a challenge to find the cheapest gas in the city and it is still not cheap when I can get a happy meal for less. Our middle son keeps an eye on the gas hand and when it gets to quarter a tank or less, he stresses out because we need to put more and he does not quite grasp the concept of the fact that I am holding on for tomorrow in hopes that I can save a few cents over the prices of today.
Um, Remember when Gas was $0.79 cents a gallon and it was a ten buck fill up for the trusty ole Nissan sitting in the yard? You could even afford to splurge on special occasions and CHOOSE to use premium and keep your car for a few more years. It is the same stuff if not of a lesser quality as it was then, so why are we paying more for crappy gas? Another thing that I have noticed is that the prices rise to an uncomfortable level, then drop about a half dollar or so (but never below the lowest in the previous cycle) only to go back up and start the vicious cycle over again. WTH!?!?!?!
Maybe we all should go back to the days of bicycles and walking. Healtier people and a lot less pollution and we would surely hit the pockets of those that benefit from the common folk just trying to be comfortable or at least make it. Nobody should have to take a mortgage out on their home for a fill up. I dont even think that my gas hand can remember what the F looks like on that gauge in my dashboard. I know it wants to get to know it better but that will not happen anytime soon.
Greedy rich fluckers. They are the ones keeping the prices high, get a half a brain and make people WANT to fill up their tanks. You will make more that way stupid!

The Dollar as the Ball to My Chain.

I seen a picture on a friends Facebook wall a moment ago. It was an innocent picture of the back of a one dollar bill. However, there, someone took a sharpie and wrote upon it:

"I am only a piece of paper, yet I control your life."

Hmm. That is food for thought. (No, don't eat the dollar, it still buys a CAN of soda from the vending machine at Food Lion.) Yea, here I sit at a crossroads while I see that. Do I still look at the job boards daily, send out countless virtual resumes to HR departments that dismiss them as mediocre or overqualified or underqualified or for whatever reason? Do I keep looking for that golden opportunity when the truth of the matter is that money is the number one reason to accept a job anymore?

I remember as a kid, people spent 20-30 years at a career and never bounced from place to place because the "at will" laws were not as well known as they are today. It seems like such a tiresome dilemma. Companies want to pay as little as possible for qualified (or warm bodies) people to fill positions that people are looking for the highest pay they can get. What is the fallacy there? What happened to the best qualified gets the job and it is based upon ones experience and qualifications. There are no such things as careers anymore as people graduate from college under crushing debt with the hopes of getting the ONE job of their dreams that countless others are competing for. No one I know can be so lucky. Those people are only on TV or they know someone very influential that owes them a favor or two from back in the day.

That dollar is what motivates me to surf job boards not only for myself but for those I know who are in the same boat I was in when I got laid off. It hurts and it is about as dry and as fun as car shopping and I LOATHE car shopping. Nothing makes my stomach curl more than a car salesman (other than a shitty supervisor that makes me HATE a job I once loved....at......the......newspaper.) Ok, minor digression <----over p="" there.="">
The dollar controls us all in this awful economy. You can blame it on the government, you can blame it on the job market, stock market, foreigners, corporations, whatever. What it boils down to is outright greed. Remember the 30's when there was the "Great Depression" and countless so called rich people jumped out of windows to their deaths because they lost everything they owned. They didnt lose everything they owned? You cannot buy your own life nor can you buy your family and there is always this thing called starting over. Done that before. While it is not easy, it is a great learning experience that many people would rather not learn.

I witnessed that with a dear loved one that ended up being the Cracken of the human race. She married poor and became the queen of her own little world and when that magic carpet was snatched from under her, she blamed everyone around her. Including her children. Yes, I know that hurt and karma is a blitch and starting over sucks. However, if you play your cards right and not hurt those closest to you along the way, starting over can be an experience that will mold and shape who you are. However, that dollar bill has its grips around her. Quite possibly around her neck and will not let go. Yet, she is family and she has nothing else to hold on to. I just hope that she turns around one day and realizes that it is a learning experience and to pick up the pieces and make for the better. Nobody wants to be alone like that. We do not talk anymore because we are on opposite sides of the field but she is family and I do still care for her. (No, no sarcasm here folks. I am certain she will see this and rage and see blood run down the walls of her home. However, I cannot feed off that as I need to deal with my own and continue on. I will leave that to a greater power and let it be taken care of that way.)

Nobody should have to have an outlook on life that makes them hate every thing in life and depend wholly on the money in this world. When the world was created, it wasnt about money. What happened to it takes a village? What happened to the fact that status does not matter and that how we treat each other does? Sure, there is a cost to living in this world. But it is not the end to a means.

Rich people everywhere should take that into their inventory and reflect upon that when they have a minute free of their greed. Sure, it would be nice to win the lottery and take care of all the bills that I have and not have to worry where my next bit of grocery money is coming from. It would be nice to live in a Scarlet Ohara mansion and not live check to check. So, with that little dollar mentioned before, it is the ball to the chain that is on each and every one of us. Even our children. Some have 500 dollar bills (yes, they still exist) and some have dollars. Just depends on where you are in life.

Think about it. What denomiation is your dollar at the end of your chain?

I didn't plan on seeing the crack of Don!

Took our numba 14 with me to run errands (Running errands with my mom!) this morning and while she was sitting in the car waiting, she happened to look up at a group of homeless people gathering their things at the corner of the conveinence store building. Upon getting back into the car next to her, she was not too happy.
"Well my gawd! That is NOT something I wanted to see first thing in the morning."
I followed her gaze and seen the last of the homeless gathering up his bags getting ready to follow the convoy of them out of the parking lot. (There were about 8 of them total.) He was rail thin, had more baggage than what he weighed and had on a pair of sweatpants. They were obvoiusly too big on him and when the poor guy raised his arms over his head, you did not see what one expected....
I asked my dear child what happened and she said:
"I seen his but crack! I did not expect to see the crack of Don when I woke up today! I more expected to fight with my brothers!"
So, at this I calmly said, well...."Wouldn't that be sad if his name was really DON?!?!" Of course we got a good laugh out of that. However, it got me to thinking. There are ALOT of homeless in the city of Myrtle Beach. While most of them simply wander around from day to day and get arressted every now and then, they don't cause too much trouble. Don't get me wrong, I DO NOT go near them nor do I choose to speak but there are many of them. We see them every time we go somewhere. They have camps in the wooded areas in the city and frequent WalMart and other convenience stores whent hey have money to spare. Sometimes you will even see newbies panhandling money at the entrance to the Walmart parking lot. (No wonder I make it a habit of coming in the side enterance to the parkinglot.
Honestly, it has become so commonplace for them to be seen around, that I don't pay much attention to them. I only notice their presence when I go out of town with my family and note that there are not as many visible homeless people around or that I can successfully go into a store or the mall and not see one on the way there or while looking for a parking spot.
Truth be told, since the city has tried to curb a lot of the bigger events around here, you see them more and more. The city and county have even tried to run them out of the camps in the wooded areas. All these people did was move their things from one place to another. Clearing out the woods they live in does not do a good job either because then there is the mess they leave behind. While I understand they are just trying to survive and I even get that there are those there that CHOOSE that lifestyle, they are truly their own community in this dying city.
Sad. That is for lack of a better description. I remember coming to visit here and seen the homeless but there was not so many of them. They are everywhere! They walk through my neighborhood and they make the news quite often. Normally for a body being found or that some "famous" homeless person in the city has died or some other non extravagant story but what is the city doing about it? Nothing. There is a homeless shelter that was built right next to a neighborhood a couple of years ago. There is also Helping Hand that feeds them in their soup kitchen. However, what else do they have? What services are being provided to enable them to get up out of the woods and live a life that the rest of the world knows and (most likely) takes for granted?
Seems a little backward to me. Decay....This is the very foundation of it in this societly. Outright decay. We have come so far and so snooty in our ways (even those of us who feel they are entitled to welfare "benefits" when they have no business being lazy simply because they can get away with it) that we simply turn away from the part of society that is crumbling the foundation of the very SNOT that we thrive upon every single day. The lost. The forgotten. The ignored.
Next time you come to Myrtle Beach, please do not forget to gawk at our homeless of which our leaders are so proud to shuffle from one area to the next. Also, please don't forget to go by the old fruit stand on Mr. Joe White Avenue and see how it has been repainted all pretty simply for the homeless population to accumulate their wares and hang out under the shade trees. Your city leaders are so proud of what they have done to the lower class. The poorest lost everything and the rest of us are getting poorer by the minute because the jobs are still being handed out to foreigners and not given to those of us who live here and keep this rotten city going.
I may be going on and on about this because I am angry when it comes to my pocket but what do you expect? A maypole dance and glitter? Go visit GrumpyCat for that one.
But I digress........

To breathe or not to breathe, that is the question.

I dont get it. How in the world to people of the large persuasion do it!  I am (on paper) considerably overweight.  While I do not look very large, I am a little thick.  I just don't understand how people who are like DAYUM! (Yea, according to the comedian Fluffy, big like that.) breathe, move, and even just stay healthy.

Here I am in a situation where I feel just as crappy as I did when I was smoking only five (yes 1/4 of a pack for you mathematicians) cigarettes a day.  When I breathe, it seems that my nose will randomly shut off for a moment and I have to sputter or skip a breath just to get back right.  I can hear myself breathe and it is embarassing to know that I can take a 99 cent muffin mix, mix it up, bake it in the bowl I mix it in and eat the ENTIRE THING!  That cannot be healthy.

I also have found that it is easier to plan to do something then to get up off my lazy rumpus and do it. BAD BAD Cheley.  Lets not get into that habit.  When I finally do get up to do something, I feel good about it and think to myself, well, I should do this more often because it makes me feel better.

However, I believe that the one thing that I need to do is to actually FORCE myself to eat right.  If I can do that, then that is the step in the right direction.  I do note that there are so many factors that make me just want to eat whatever makes me feel good at the moment.  There are drawbacks here to cuz, it may feel good when I eat it but boy do I sure feel like crapola when I am done. The guilt, the should haves, the regret. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I am not looking to get the fabulous body I had at 18 that I hated anyway.  I just want to get rid of about 60 pounds ideally.  Then I would be about a buck thirty and I would probably feel a whole lot better! Even if I could get 20 I think I would feel better.  I am so tired of waking in the middle of the night to turn over or to "wake up" an appendage that fell asleep.  Nobody is supposed to have tingly limbs all the damn time!  That happens when you are chillen on the couch while your leg is curled under you. NOT because you happen to be sitting there minding your own damn business.  Lets get real.  Being of the larger persuasion is no fun!

I am not knocking those that choose to live this way or have found themselves the victim of a doctor with a sense of humor. (You know those medications with steroids in them that blow you up like a ballon.)  No, if you so chose to be large and in charge, then that is your business and I am not forcing my opinion on you. I am talking about myself. I want to be comfortable in my own skin.  I was almost there about nine or ten years ago when number nine was a baby.

Not anymore and I want out of this place!  Yea, my soul has a lot more room to bounce around in this body because of the size pants I wear but I am miserable! 

I wrote this because I took a walk today and have decided that because my hours have been slated back due to the slow season, I may try to go back to walking to see if it will help me lose at least the first 20 that I am so desperately trying to shed.  I will be able to run with my boys more, and do more in general.

What do you think? Are you with me? Any suggestions?

Road Rage: Better off in my own mind....

I try not to let stupid drivers get to me. I have plenty of other stuff to rage about or scream about without having to yell at some stranger for cutting me off. However, there is a time and a place for dicussions such as this and here is my forum.
One of the things that make me madder than hill is the fact that someone can run up on you super fast, cut you off, and then...........yep you guessed it............slow to a crawl right in front of you. What does this accomplish? Did you decide the moment that you got back in my lane, in front of ME, that you were no longer in a hurry to get where you were going? Truth be told, I will probably get to my destination before you and I was going the posted speed limit the entire trip!
Let me guess, you were on the phone and failed to realize that the more engaged you were in your chatter, the heavier your foot got. I call that the heavy talk syndrome. I am guilty as charged there. This is yet one of the many reasons why I do not talk on the phone and drive. It is against the law in most places these days. WAIT! Maybe you decided that you wanted to be Mr. Nugget McAssshole this morning because you woke up on the bottom side of the bed. Yeah! That is it. Well, sir, I am not the source of your frustration and taking it out on me silently by impeding my progress is something that simply should not be done. However, you chose me this morning so I am now faced with a dilemma.
Do I beat the crap out of my steering wheel (not its fault) and roll down the window to scream obsenities at you while my family slowly slides down in their seats from embarassment? What, pray tell, would that accomplish?? Nothing but another pissed off driver. Better off keeping that reaction to myself. Ok, another option would be to do the same thing. No, that will never work. Then you will beat on your innocent steering wheel and that is not called for either. Final, and certainly most difficult option? The best one, with practice, I say. You simply keep the rage in your mind and pull out your mental movie projector and play Death Race Michele in your mind and imagine how it would be to go into the next lane, push my kill button and out come the nails and just RATATATATATATATATATATATATA all over that bitchards wheels and shiny car so that they simply STOP in their progress and are successfully late for where ever they were in such a big rush to get to in the first place.
Muahahahaha. That would be great in MY perfect world. On the up side to that, remaining safe, and ignoring stupidity and getting out of the way of it is great! It also makes a lot less stress on my health and lets me remain alert for the next idiot that is surely going to do something just as stupid. Further, it is such a YES! moment when you are pulling out of Tim Horton's Coffee shop and you see that same fool, pulled over by a cop getting a ticket. Talk about stress for him.....I feel for that poor steering wheel.

My Inspiration

During the many treks my family makes through the Carolina's, my husband and I often chat about the passing countryside. Both of us grew up watching many miles of interstate out the window of our parents cars during the countless number of moves we both made to new states as children. As a result, we choose to take the state roads and the "quiet" routes to our destinations. Obviously many members of our families do not understand the thinking behind the routes we take. This allows our children to see many things that have faded to nothing more than words in a history book. We pass farms that were once vast plantations and on a couple of spots along the way up SC 501, we even see old slave quarters that are giving way to the elements. I hope to share some of these images with you as well as other things that I happen to see along my many misadventures in this mortal life.

I begin with the world closest to me and expand from there. I hope to share many insights into the life of the upper lower class life presently in the South. It is in these rough economic times that many of us reflect on the reality that is part of our everyday lives. I would like to think that we are entering into the Great Depression Revisited. Times are tough. The rocky road that our pockets are travelling is far from over and it is hot out there. People need to reflect on our history. Long gone are the memories of one time rich people jumping out of windows and committing other forms of suicide because the stock market crash hit their interests too hard. We are in the eve of that time and our society is crumbling at our feet. The rich are hurting and the poor are barely surviving. Those of us who are surviving with our heads barely above water see the cornerstones of our society giving way to the despair and hell the greed of man has driven us. Not only is it an economic depression, it is countless other factors as well. Everywhere, illegal immigration is a problem. While it is in everyones interest for our educated population to learn other languages, corporate and political America needs to be reminded that our primary language is and always has been English and nothing should change that. Progress is another thing. Progress pursued by those who have the means has left behind ruin in its wake and it is aesthetically bringing this country to shambles. The countryside is shrinking and will be endangered if we do not repair what we already have first. Everywhere I have been in my travels, I have seen too much progress. In my own community, for instance, the money makers and paper pushers have blotted out the light from the beloved Ocean Boulevard and have left the rest of the city to rot. All for the love of money. This rot is what I experienced recently when I decided to ride a bike to work. While I focus on the area between the beach and the Intracoastal waterway, it is Myrtle Beach that is rotting while the city council focuses on tearing down what made Myrtle Beach what it is and tries to make it something it is not.

I welcome all comments and critiques to my blog and take all suggestions into consideration. While these blogs may seem one-sided, they are merely opinions and insights by one person. If you disagree with what is in the following blogs, please be nice and do not bash. That is not the objective here. I just want to turn my thoughts into a form of art...electronically.