Don't move to the beach. Its a trap.

Living at the beach is not all it is cracked up to be. Sure, if you have lots of money and are in the upper middle class it is a whole lot easier than living amongst the cogs that actually make this place work. For the longest time, I could not understand the idea of someone coming here for a visit and getting left then fully believing they are "stuck" here for no lack of a way home.  You have feet right?  Wrong.  Once you become a cog of the machine, it reels you in, sucks the lifeblood out of you and never lets you go.

Never.

The work is seasonal, you cannot afford anything and you have to work like a slave during the season just to barely scrape by in the off season. Even then, it only works if you can save your money and not let anyone know that you have a nickel to spare.  That leads to the lifetime beachers.  Those that have accepted their fate that they are here for life or those that have spent their entire lives at this beach and have no ambition to see other places or simply leave.  They are like vultures sitting on the side of the valley just waiting for you to drop dead so they can peck your eyes right out of your face.  They move in on you at the slightest twitch of weakness and then they hone in for the kill and suck the lifeblood out of you and then you assimilate and become one of them. Lifeless, bloodsucking, feelingless wretches that do nothing but suck you dry and leave your carcass for the wind to carry it out to sea.

For a long time I loved it here. It was nice to be able to go to the beach whenever you felt like and I love hot summers so this was a great place for me. But then we moved here and I still loved it but it slowly changed for me.

They became the predators and I became the prey.  There were other factors that led to the change however, this is the overpowering cause. My family was happy and we had everything we needed.  While we had not yet purchased a home, we had each other, we got along and there was not any strife among us. Then things began to change. These people are needy.  No, I am not talking about the ones that have things going for themselves.  I am talking about the cogs of this society that have to work for a living and scrape by from check to check.  They look at us 'outsiders' and say, "hmmmm....they have more than me.  We shall change that." And like vampires in the night, they do everything they can to make that happen.  They call at all times of the day and night and expect you to take them all over hell and creation.  This runs up your phone bill (if you are on an allotted minute plan, otherwise, it is just nuisance,) it puts a great deal of wear and tear on your car if you become their taxi service and they want to borrow shit.  ALL THE TIME.  You get promises of gas money and for return of your things and that will never happen.  Then they figure out what your schedule is and do everything they can to interfere with your home life with the incessant ringing of the phone (shut it off, now NOBODY can call you,) dropping by, take me here at 3 am.  Its bullshit and rubbish and needs to stop.

But it doesn't beause you write this person off then the next one does the same thing.  How can people live like that?  Do they not want better?  I have lived many places in my life but never one like this.  They also like to play mean jokes on people but that is for a different day.  Have you ever lived in a place that makes you feel like you have found Rancid Armpit, USA?  Tell me about it....

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.

No life should be worth less than another

I was contemplating the meaning of life this morning. No particular reason but the answer 42 does not satisfy the curiosity I have about the meaning of life. I see how people treat each other. Some men believe that women are less worthy of things because they are women. Racial divides are another way to devalue a life. Others believe children are less than the rest of the human race. I hate to say this, but we all come from a woman. Even test tube babies do. Everyone is in some sort of racial class, being black, white, Irish, or American. Lastly, we each were a child once upon a time. Oh, there are also religious divides. I happen to believe that so long as your religion works for you and you are not forcing your religious opinion on me, then why should I waste my heard earned air tormenting you about it.

Everyone's life is worth something and it feeds into the circle of life on this planet. Also, because human beings on this planet choose to have pets, those domesticated animals should have the same regard from their people or people in general. If you are utilitarian, treating a dog or cat as less than worthy is going against the total units of happiness for society. Therefore, you should treat pets as part of the family and not as some nasty disease in your home.

It just hurts my soul to see people being treated so badly and animals being neglected because people have no regard for the lives that are in the carriages of the bodies that are being mistreated. Everyone's soul has a purpose. No matter what you may believe, they were created for a reason and that is not for you to decide whether or not they are better, equal to, or less than you. It would be nice if everyone would assume that each life on this planet were an equal. This way, there would likely be a whole lot less hatred in this world and (out of selfish reasons of course--->) my anxiety attacks would likely come to a halt.

I simply cannot stand to see, read, or hear about atrocities people inflict on other living things on this planet. It simply makes me sick. Even old people are being treated badly.  Those people have been around long enough to EARN respect. When they become invalid, why beat them? They are defenseless. Just like children and domesticated or farm animals, beating them will get you nowhere. It is evil and mean and should not be tolerated nor should it even occur.

I am not sure if  all of these things that we read about in the papers have been going on en masse like this for all of history but it seems to have become more rampant as time goes on. Maybe there is a correlation between the acts and the growing population but it just makes me sick.

What do you think?

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........