The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • This land is not mine

    Almost 30 years ago, I was standing among a large group who were singing “This land is your land.” (No way would I ever sing with other people, but that’s not important.) As I looked around the crowd, I noticed the people around me were White. It occurred to me that this land is neither mine nor theirs. We White folks have past the point of trying to ‘splain our way out of the mess we’ve made since we set foot on this unlucky continent.

    Independence Day is a good time to remember that even now, not all people in this country are free. Some people are growing less free by the minute.

    I try to blog every Sunday. I didn’t blog yesterday. I didn’t feel like it, so I immersed myself in a Chinese romcomdrom. It’s my drug of choice these days, to get lost in a story and escape the sad reality of the failing American experiment.

    I don’t give in to despair but neither do I imagine the precarious survival of democracy is just going to happen, like some sort of force of nature, the unstoppable march toward justice. As a White person, I have no claim to be part of America’s historical progress toward justice. For my part, the only thing I can think of today, besides being kind, is to stay out of the way and not make things worse.

    Speaking of marching, the turkeys are back. They were busy hatching chicks in early spring. Now their parents are introducing their offspring to the tasty treats in my backyard. The kids are young teens now, audacious feathery chunks digging up the grass. The parents split the chore of maintaining security, one leading, and one following. There’s not much danger in our yard. Cats won’t mess with turkeys, squirrels and crows don’t care, and the one dog big enough to cause trouble is lazy and stupid. Good personality, though. Similar to some people I’ve met over the years.

    Summer in Northwest Oregon is usually dry and mostly sunny. Like so much of the country, we are in a drought. The grass in this yard is green when it should be brown because sprinklers pop up for 20 minutes every morning at 5:00 am. I don’t care about green grass. However, I’m guessing that source of water is important for all kinds of critters in the neighborhood.

    Speaking of critters, two skinny teenage cats came to visit me last week, one solid gray, the other solid black. They might have been siblings. Friendly, not feral, which made me think they had homes somewhere. They had skin problems, though, which suggested they weren’t receiving good care. I spent a day and a night fretting over how I could help them. I called the local animal control and a local feline rescue place. What I learned is that the only action they would take is to spay or neuter them and then return them to their territory. Ear mites and scabies and all.

    For a few minutes I contemplated paying for care myself. Then I realized that was a bottomless black hole of financial and emotional insanity. Cats are allowed here in this apartment but the pet deposit is steep. I wouldn’t be able to afford it. Not to mention the ongoing cost of care and feeding. And not to mention the fact that they weren’t my cats. After dreaming about them all night, I woke up and realized I could not get involved. I closed my blinds.

    Since then I haven’t seen them. Maybe one glimpse for a few seconds, in passing. As if they picked up my vibe and decided I wasn’t an easy mark after all. I’m sure someone else is feeding them. Probably they have feeding stations all around the neighborhood. I feel stupid and also a tiny bit abandoned.

    I still have the turkeys, though!

  • Brain shrinkage

    My brain might be shrinking to fit my small town home. Is that how it works? The brain expands when you go traveling and shrinks if you stay put? Could it be the further you go, the bigger your brain gets? And conversely, if your world shrinks to the size of a pinhead, does your brain shrivel up to fit?

    By that logic, if I were to be launched into outerspace, it’s possible by the time I got to Mars, my brain would have exploded the spaceship. Oops. So maybe my premise doesn’t hold up. As a thought experiment, this one is sadly lacking.

    Speaking of sadly lacking, it’s time for another contribution to the literary world. Here are the five words for this week:

    Suppose

    Turn

    Mastery

    Acrylic

    Fifteen

    There were six of us at the meeting, so I was excused from tossing out a word. FYI, my word would have been zip. Either that or fizzle.

    And here is what I wrote (sans typos):

    Angie’s parents confronted her after school. Her father said, “Angie, now that you have turned fifteen, we think it’s time for you to choose a profession.”

    Angie scowled. “But Daddy, you know I was meant to be an artist. It’s my life’s calling, my true northstar.”

    “I suppose you think you have the right to freeload off the backs of hardworking citizens?”

    “No, I just think artists are unique. I was born to paint. “

    “So you are saying that your art is the most important thing, more important than earning a respectable living doing honest work?”

    “But art is honest work, Mom. It’s just a matter of time before I have truly mastered oil painting. Acrylics are next. My teachers say I’m very talented.”

    “We are calling in the authorities. We will abide by their decision.”

    The next day three members of the citizens committee visited. 

    “So, Angie you believe other citizens should support you while you pursue the frivolous life of an artist?”

    “Art is not frivolous!”

    The committee members did not look impressed. “Explain to us, please.”

    Angie described her artistic process, how when she was in the flow, paint simply flowed from the tip of her brush. Colors emerged like butterflies glistening the sun. She was born to be an artist! There was simply nothing else she could do.

    “You couldn’t be perhaps a hair stylist or a floral designer?”

    “No!”

    “Thank you for your honesty. We have made our decision.”

    The committee members took Angie by the arms and marched her out to their gray utility van.

    “No, what are you doing? Where are you takking me? Mom, Dad, stop them!”

    Her parents looked on with sad expressions as she was thrust into the van. A few minutes later, the van arrived at the top of the mountain. Angie had never been there before. As they invited her to step out of the van, she admired the sunset over the distant hills.

    “I’d love to paint this. See how the gold edges the clouds? Isn’t it beautiful?”

    “One last chance, Angie. Wouldn’t you prefer to be a manicurist? Maybe a makeup artist?”

    “No! I was born to be an painter! There’s no greater calling in life. I would die for my art!”

    The committee members shook their heads. One grabbed her arms, another grabbed her legs, and one took photos. “For our social media page,” he said. “To deter other artists from making the same mistake.”

    “No, stop! What are you doing?” 

    They swung her, one, two, THREE and threw her over the cliff.

    Angie fell a long ways. Something in her back snapped when she landed wrong. 

    “Ow,” she said.

    “Who is that? Angie?” said a voice from behind a rock.

    “Becky? What are you doing here?”

    “I wanted to be a poet, but my parents said no. They didn’t even call the committee. They brought me up and threw me off themselves.”

    “Hey, quiet, you two, I’m trying to compose a song over here. I need to concentrate. It takes more work because I can’t move my hands.”

    Angie moaned as best she could. “Are we destined to die here then?”

    Becky sighed. “My mother said that’s the price we pay for creativity.”

    Perhaps a little too close to home.

  • The endless purge

    On Friday the library was closed for the holiday so the writer’s group met at an alternative location, the local theatre. The building, a former elementary school, sits next to the Grange at the crossroad of two rural country roads. The place was only an eight-minute drive from home, so it wasn’t really the middle of nowhere but it was definitely out in what you would call the country. A weird kind of country, though. Multitudes of brown cows, goats, and horses grazed in green and brown pastures presided over by modern McMansions. Big farms, big houses, big pickup trucks. Big country on the outskirts of a small town.

    The production manager (who happens to be the boss of the writer’s group) took me on a tour. She is the writer who reads science fiction to us at the writer’s meetings and an important figure in town, I have discovered, involved with several city organizations. Writing is just one of her many pasttimes.

    The theatre is a flat square building with several rooms all roughly the same size arranged in a circle, one of which was the actual theatre. The theatre (a former gymnasium) holds maybe seventy-five audience members? I’m guessing, I didn’t count the Tuscan orange carpeted seats, which I was told were salvaged from a nearby community college back in the ’90s. I’m sure the room looked perfect in the dark. It’s most interesting feature, for me, was a shiny white coffin parked in an aisle, partly hidden under a black tarp.

    The other rooms were crammed floor to ceiling with cupboards and shelves loaded with objects required to produce theatrical productions: costumes, furniture, lights, sets, too much stuff to identify or describe. I still sneeze thinking about it.

    The amount of clutter made me thankful for my quasi-minimalist lifestyle. I wanted to exit the theatre asap but I made all the praise sounds because I want to support creativity whenever and wherever I find it. Even if it comes in the form of a hundred dusty hats.

    I’m not sure my lifestyle actually qualifies as minimalist. I’m not a spartan. I think I have a lot of stuff. Let me ask you, how many hangers do you have? I have nine. I could use four more, but for now, nine seems like enough. I don’t have many clothes. I’ve collected underwear over the years, which I wear way past expiration, so I’m good on underwear, and I have a lot of socks (all the same so I don’t have to match them), which I keep in a plastic bin. I have seven long-sleeve T-shirts, which seemed like enough until I realized I’d tie-dyed six of them with bleach to hide the food stains. I can’t bear to retire them so I bought four more of the same brand (black, gray, yellow, and purple). I don’t want to wear them so they occupy four hangers. I want to postpone the moment when I have to tie-dye them.

    I have three cold weather pants and four warm weather pants, all in various shades of black. All but one pair are men’s pajama pants, and most have bleach stains on the knees and lower legs from my time living in my car. Bleaching a pee jar isn’t an exact science. Stand back is my advice, in case you have to do that in the future.

    After retrieving my household goods from storage, I now have four white porcelain bowls. Two are large, two are small. I have one white dinner plate, the kind you can throw across the room and still use for pancakes. I have two coffee cups (my favorite says Oregonize® your life), two plastic water bottles, two aluminum water bottles (one says Holy Water for Parched Sinners), two insulated travel mugs, and a clear IKEA mug with a handle, which I use for smoothies.

    I try to minimize new purchases, but I admit to buying a blender. My friend gave me a microwave. I have a carpet sweeper now (a vacuum seemed like too much). I bought a desk lamp. I got a nightstand from Goodwill. I built a worktable from a door and some cheap shelves and cinder blocks. So, yes, I have more stuff now than I did when I arrived in Oregon. I cringe sometimes.

    In my defense, I haven’t bought any books. I didn’t keep many from my previous life, and now that I’m housed, I realize I didn’t even need those. I’m holding onto them, though. I may reread them after I grow tired of binge-watching Chinese historical costume dramas.

    Does that sound like a lot of stuff, or a little? I have more than enough, and after touring that theatre, I feel like I still have too much. I remember my apartment in Portland. Eighteen years of stuff, much of it books and paper. Was there anything there I really needed? I thought so at the time, which is why I moved a lot of it to Tucson in a U-Box.

    In Tucson, I gradually jettisoned pieces until I could fit the barest essentials in my car. The amount of stuff in my storage unit dwindled a little each time I visited it. Rugs, shelves, household goods . . . but even then, I didn’t purge enough when I moved from Arizona to Oregon. My minivan was packed too full for me to sleep anywhere but the driver’s seat. Does that seem like too much stuff? Now I have storage (built-in wire shelves) and not enough stuff to fill them.

    I kept some keepsakes, for example, my grandmother’s leather pencil holder, decorated on the side with a handpainted Order of the Eastern Star pentagram; a green ceramic container with my mother’s name engraved on the side (Marge), which I use to hold toothpicks; a half-dozen family photos and pieces of art, some mine and some by friends; the ashes of my two cats; a cardigan jacket that was my mother’s (a weird maroon color I don’t like all that much); a Swingline stapler.

    Multiple purges have still left me with stuff that someone else will have to deal with when I’m gone. Is that a nice thing to do to family, friends, or strangers?

  • Elect a clown, expect a circus

    The regime we get we deserve.

    It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood, far from the shenanigans in D.C. I watched the live feed of the tarp going up. It’s still up, so I’m moving on. Nothing to see here. The circus is still happening. I would go out and sit on the street corner with my sign, but it’s 95°F today, and I’ve lost my desert tan.

    The writer’s group met on Friday for it’s every-other-week write-from-a-prompt delusion. Three of us showed up. Here are the five words, followed by what I wrote.

    Fog

    Never

    Need

    Collide

    Tree

    Harold’s family erected a cross at the intersection where Harold had collided with a tree in dense fog. A dozen or so crosses already marked the spot, so Harold’s family had to settle for the spot they could get, even though it wasn’t all that close to the place where Harold bought the farm after a few too many at Tippy Canoe. Harold had never been all that picky, his wife Jill had noted, and his son Bob wasn’t inclined to carpentry, so Harold got what he got.

    On the first anniversary of Harold’s demise, his family brought a picnic lunch and spread out a blanket next to the cross. 

    Harold’s wife Jill examined the cross and turned to their son Bob. “Couldn’t you have painted it or something? It looks like crap. So disrespectful to your father.”

    “At least I spelled his name right.” Bob held up his phone. “Shut up, it’s almost time.”

    Jill looked around. “I don’t see him. Harold! Harold, we’re here. Where the hell are you?”

    A faint voice came from down in the ravine. “I’m down here, you idiots. Wait, I need to float up.”  Harold’s shimmering form appeared by the picnic basket. “Did you bring beer with  you? I’m parched.”

    “What were doing way down there?” Jill asked, sounding  a bit peeved. 

    Harold said, “What are you doing putting my cross up here?” sounding equally peeved. “The truck lost it when I hit that tree. Didn’t the cops tell you? I was spattered from here to Sunday.”

    “Ew, Dad. TMI.” 

    “What, squeamish, are you? Twerp. Never mind. Come on, did you bring me some beer?”

    “Sure thing, Dad. Here’s a Bud. Let’s drink to the good old days.”

    Harold tried to lift a beer but his ectoplasm failed. “Darn it. I guess I”m fading.”

    “Wait, don’t go yet,” Jill said. “I need you to tell me where you put the life insurance policy.”

    “Ha, ha, joke’s on you. I kept it in the glove compartment. It’s probably in the junkyard. Whoops, gotta go. I’m fading. See you guys next year. And move my cross, would you. Just bump that other guy down the hill.” Harold faded out of sight.

    “Come on, Junior,” Jill said. “Pack up the stuff, quick.”

    “Where are we going?”

    “To the junkyard, of course.” 

    I used to drive a school bus in Gresham, which is a suburb of Portland. I endured one academic year before I bailed. It was one of the more difficult jobs I’ve had. I drove problem kids in the short bus out in rural areas before we had GPS. I got lost a lot. One of my routes took me past a particularly dangerous intersection. Multiple crosses marked the site.

    Remembering my bus-driving job got me thinking about other terrible jobs I’ve had. Each time I remembered a crappy job, I said to myself, well, at least I don’t have to do that anymore. I said that phrase after I thought of my short-lived waitress job. I said it after I remembered my retail jobs. After my hellish personal assistant job. After I sold my soul by painting art to order to go with someone’s decor. After my 10-year self-employment sewing debacle. After my market research jobs, my nightmare nursing home activities director job, my back-breaking warehouse temp job, my 10-year teaching “career.” My endlessly tedious editing gigs. There might be more but that’s all I can bear to remember right now.

    Have I ever had a job I didn’t hate?

    I was born retired. That’s the story of my life.

  • When you can’t sleep, try writing a book

    Sometimes I can’t get to sleep. Usually it’s because I’ve just watched another episode of a Chinese historical romcomdrom and my brain is trying to (a) save the hero from the flying slice-and-dice squad, (b) figure out how the girl will get the right guy, or (c) hoping I don’t have to upgrade to the premium app to see the final five episodes. Or all of the above. When sleep eludes me, I resort to my reliable remedy: I pull out my journal and start making notes about my current writing project.

    I’m working on my next book. For me, starting a new book is like . . . hm, what metaphor would be accurate but not cliche? Building the plane while I’m . . . no, too trite. Climbing a mountain backwards with my eyes closed . . . no, too stupid. Um. Going into a crowded bar expecting to find love after I get totally plastered? No, I don’t drink, and I would never go into a bar, crowded or not. Not to mention, I’m not looking for love. Maybe a better metaphor will come to me.

    Meanwhile, where was I? The point is, when I open my journal at bedtime, after I write a few lines, my mind turns into a mushy gooey puddle of thought slime. What is thought slime? I’m glad you asked. It’s the mucky pit of despair, the respository of dashed hopes. . . you could say it’s the hole in the sidewalk into which I repeatedly fall, even though I swear I’m going to walk down a different street next time.

    In other words, when I fall into the thought-slime pit, I’m ready to shut it all down. Closing the journal turns off the malfunctioning mental computer. File not found. Function ceases until the next bootup, which will hopefully clear the cache and free up some RAM, especially after coffee.

    Already you are offering me remedies for insomnia? Thanks. Some of you are saying, take a chill pill, like, one of those that come in a bottle. Just check out for a while. Got it. Others of you are saying, wait, what’s the issue with writing? Aren’t you a writer? Writers write, just put ass in chair and get on with it. Okay, so noted. I can hear a few of you saying, what’s the point, just give up. Writing is a futile pursuit that only leaves you with bags under your eyes. Okay, thanks for sharing. A couple of you (and a little dog) are pointing out that watching TV before bed is the root of all sleeplessness and to remember these people are not my friends. So noted and completely ignored. La la la.

    And maybe one of you is saying, Carol, I get it. I have the same problem. Characters are hard to get to know. Plotlines lead you into a corner or off a cliff. Sometimes you have to throw it all out to get back to the idea that inspired your book in the first place. It’s not easy building a world out of nothing. Writing can be frustrating, maybe more often than it is rewarding. But remember, you wouldn’t write if there weren’t some sort of payoff for the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish it brings, right? Remember who you are writing for.

    Who am I writing for? I’m sure you can guess.

  • You broke it, you bought it

    Sometimes when you buy it, though, you don’t actually own it, as in the case of bodies of water, which humans pretend to own by drawing lines on pieces of paper (or clay tablets or sheep skins) and pointing to one side of the line, saying that’s mine, and this over here, that’s yours, and too bad if my side is bigger (or greener or juicier) than yours, I drew the line, so I win. I digress. What I was trying to say before I derailed my brain is, if you broke it, it’s on you to fix it, even if the remedy benefits others besides yourself. I can already hear you whine. I know. Life is so unfair.

    One of these days, humans will decide the earth owns itself, but until then (if we still exist), we will keep pretending we have dominion over our little corner lot (or our vast acreage, as the case may be), as if we (and the earth) aren’t a temporary blip in the life of the universe.

    I follow the news. Some of what I consume is propaganda, I admit. It’s been amusing at times to hear rabble-rousers rousing the rabble. However, lately I’ve grown tired of listening to pundits jabber-blabber about the end of the world so I’m tuning out with Korean and Chinese romcomdroms. I think I mentioned this before. I used to read stuff. Now I watch stuff. Reading books and watching videos serve the same purpose, the purpose I’ve always had since I began reading, which is to escape from my personal reality. This is why I don’t read nonfiction.

    I confess, it does not explain why I feel compelled to follow the news. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like the news touches my life much. Even though I pay rent, drive a car, and eat food, somehow I don’t have the energy to care. I’m not lazy, I don’t think. I go out and protest when somebody puts out a call to arms. I put save-democracy-term-limit-SCOTUS-8647 stickers on my car windows. I’m just not fired up about much of anything. It’s enough to go and sit and wave my sign. It’s a good day if nobody gets run over.

    In my mind, I complain about idiots and jerks and morons and grifters but I’m mostly resigned to my belief that people are always going to be people, meaning they are mostly idiots, jerks, morons, and grifters. Not everyone. I don’t mean you, of course. You are kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and well read. It’s everyone else. I’m sure you know who I mean.

    No, I’m not depressed, in case you were thinking, whoa, Carol has really lost it. I’m actually feeling mostly content, except for my hip that is warning me it is soon going to need to go back to the factory for refurbishing. Other than that, well, and other than my vestibular issues that flare up into a dizzy crackling brain blob when the wind blows, which it is doing right now, but other than those things, I’m doing really well here in my new small-town home. Except a big dog took a dump on the grass just beyond my patio. But other than that, life is really good.

    I hope your life is good too.

  • Banana sunrise chair

    My health insurance company sends out a doctor or nurse practitioner once a year to assess customers’ health, I assume so the company knows what is coming down the turnpike. That is, they are assessing future risk. If they know my heart condition is progressing, they can project their future payouts or figure out what tests and procedures might be coming so they can prepare to deny coverage.

    As long as Americans agree to farm out our healthcare to private companies, healthcare will always be about generating profits rather than promoting wellness. It’s (currently) the American way.

    A nurse practitioner named Lindsey visited me this week. She was big, and she packed a lot of stuff, so she had a hard time navigating the narrow hallway from my front door to the living room. Eventually she made it without losing one of her giant doctor bags and commenced her “examination.” No new maladies were discovered. After several years of doctor’s office visits, blood tests, diagnoses, and prescriptions, I’ve pretty much run the gamut of what is currently wrong with me. I’m over it. I had no new complaints, so after updating her on my current status, she checked my meds and remarked that I only took five different drugs, which apparently is some kind of victory.

    She asked me how my memory was, and I shrugged and said it wasn’t what it used to be and I wish it were better. She said, let’s do a cognitive test. I immediately thought of a certain person and said, you mean like man, woman, camera, TV? She flashed perfect teeth at me. Like that, she said. She said three words and told me to remember them. I recited them to myself, feeling a bit skeptical of my brain’s capacity to hold three words longer than three seconds.

    Next, she gave me a piece of paper and pointed to a large blank square. She drew a perfect circle in the square, freehand. We both admired her ability to draw a perfect circle. She said, now put the numbers on the clock and mark the time as 8:20. I put on the numbers and marked the time.

    She said, what were those three words?

    I said, banana sunrise chair. She said, you passed the test. (You could say I aced it, but I would hardly call that a test.) Anyway, before long, she wrapped up the visit and left, complaining that she had two more visits to do before her day was done. I gave her some empathy, which cost me nothing, and shut the door.

    The writer’s group met on Friday. It was a five-words day. I spent the week mulling over what word I would contribute. I wanted something visual but not overtly positive or negative. Not a word that would conjure anything that could steer anyone’s writing in one direction or another. For instance, curmudgeon is a great word but definitely sets a tone. Likewise, abyss. Another great word that conjures up something perhaps better left unexplored.

    The word I finally chose was drift.

    Here are the five words, followed by what I wrote. No edits. Well, I fixed one typo.

    patience

    choices

    ossuary

    drift

    angry

    I admit, I made a few poor choices last year. I had no patience. In my defense, I was angry. I spent my best years on a riding mower, weaving among the graves, expertly dodging certain headstones, intentionally chipping the corners of others, which takes some skill, let me tell you. I guess I assumed no one would see me desecrating what was supposedly hallowed ground. Hallowed my rosy red rump. The only thing hallowed about that cemetery was the amount of money it generated for the overlords of the hospital next door. Clinic to hospital to nursing home to funeral home and here, to the final resting place, six feet under the lawn I mowed. So what happened? I’m glad you asked. My buddy Mitch ratted on me. The boss called me in. He said, I’ll give you two choices: burial or cremation. I said, what do you mean? He said, coffin or ossuary. I said, what’s an ossuary? I should have chosen coffin. There would have been more room. I’m writing to you from an ugly ceramic jar. It’s very cramped in here, and I think the funeral home dropped in a few cigar ashes when nobody was looking. The boss keeps me on a shelf in the garden shed as a warning to other mowers who drift by. 

    I should have incorporated drift somewhere else. Like, if you get my drift. It was my own word, and I almost left it out. Oh well. Twenty minutes isn’t really long enough to wordsmith a literary masterpiece.

    When it came to read-your-work time, I read a short essay I’d written the previous week. The subject was lawlessness. The first paragraph was predictable. By the second paragraph, it was probably clear I was headed for outer space. I discussed how the breakdown of laws in the U.S. had led to the breakdown of other laws we’d taken for granted, namely, the law of conservation of mass and energy and the law of gravity. I’ll let you imagine the consequences of these two breakdowns.

    The third example of lawlessness involved the law of attraction. I think my distaste for vision boards came through loud and clear. One of the writers in the group observed I’d spent too much time in California. I laughed, ha ha, thinking really? That’s what you have to say? Later she slipped me a bit of paper with my name on it and the words phone number? What could I do? Say I didn’t have a phone when my phone was on the table in front of me? I wrote my phone number and gave back the paper.

    Did I just make a friend? Time will tell.

  • Is this a bad time?

    It is for me. How do I cope? Thanks for asking. I’m dealing with my existential angst by watching Chinese historical rom /com /drom TV series, supposedly to appreciate the costumes (I used to be in the costume biz) but really to lose myself in other peoples’ stories so I don’t have to think about my own.

    I get so invested in these stories, I dream about them at night. I obsess about the characters (what will happen to the lovers, will they finally get together? Will the hero win the battle or will he get sliced and diced? Will have to wait until the last five minutes of the final episode to watch the evil villain finally get their comeuppance?). I swoon over the gorgeousness and talent of the actors. I slobber at the sight of cooks designing elaborate dishes that not only look amazing and taste great, but also heal every malady you can think of. Of course, quite often the culinary creations are poisoned, but sometimes you have to kill off someone to keep the plot going. Doesn’t make me not want to eat Chinese food.

    My friend frequently reminds me that these characters are not my friends. I don’t believe her. These screen friends keep me from descending into the fires of rage and the pits of despair.

    In between episodes, when I need a laugh break, I resort to SNL comedy. All I have to do is remember the scene of Melissa McCarthy impersonating Sean Spicer and driving the lectern around the press briefing room, crashing into chairs, people, and eventually through a wall. Or Amy Poehler and Tina Fey channeling Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin (“I can see Russia from my house!”). Or Bill Hader doing Stefon. Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig doing Garth and Kat. So many other comedy sketches, too many to name . . . I don’t even have to watch them to bust out laughing.

    If I’m feeling really down, my go-to remedy is watching YouTube videos posted by a Japanese content creator. He’s a chubby guy who recreates high fashion runway designs and struts like a super model in the dusty courtyard in front of his house. First he shows a few seconds of real footage of skeletal models in sculptural monstrosities pounding or slinking or dancing along the runway to relentless disco music. Then he shows his attempt to recreate the outfit using whatever he has on hand, usually household appliances, garbage bags, and duct tape. To the same music, he imitates the model’s walk (often in high heels). He aims for verisimilitude, which sometimes requires incorporating his wife into the costume. Their little dog runs around his ankles. It’s hands-down the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I usually have to pause the video part way through to breathe, I’m laughing so hard.

    Just writing about this guy makes me laugh, which is the whole point. It’s hard to feel anger and despair when I’m laughing.

  • Thinking errors

    I hardly ever know what I’m going to blog about when I start a new post. That means I’m a pantser when it comes to writing. A pantser is a writer who writes by the seat of their pants. Which is very odd expression, when I think about it. I searched for the term and discovered it originated with early pilots who relied on the feel and pressure of their butt in the seat to fly their plane. Good thing I’m only a writing pantser, not a pilot pantser. Crashing into things when writing usually is not fatal.

    Speaking of writing, another episode of writing from prompts occurred on Friday. Only four writers showed up but we made our valiant attempts to weave stories from five words.

    Here are the five words for this week.

    difficult

    communicate

    camouflage

    discovery

    control

    Here is what I wrote, and disappointment warning, it’s not very good. The thread eluded me.

    When you suspect danger is lurking in the bushes, you can thank your ancestors you are ready to run. Ancient humans who ignored the difficult lesson of assuming danger was everywhere failed to transmit their inferior genes to the next generation. In contrast, the superior genes of humans who assumed the dappled shade was camouflage for a hungry tiger survived to communicate the importance of staying in control, which meant their descendants enjoyed a healthy fear of dappled shade, even when the shade was just shade. You can thank your superior genes you learned to run.

    I don’t know what staying in control has to do with anything, but there you go. Not all impromptu essays make sense. Hence my claim to be a pantser. If I did some revising, maybe I could massage this little story into something more coherent, but why bother? Nobody cares.

    Speaking of staying in control (or not), or speaking about caring about soemthing, there is something my family cares about and cannot control and that is a member who has gone AWOL. Last night I called a city police department and asked them to do a welfare check on our family member who may be having some cognitive difficulties. Of course, my siblings feared disaster, but none of us seemed willling to take action. Including me, at first. I am usually inclined to let the chips fall, assuming most adults should be allowed to manage their own lives, even when that means choosing to drive off a cliff, but my sibs were exhibiting signs of manic anxiety, so I made the call last night.

    The police officer informed me the family member was apparently okay, still alive, anyway, but I know from experience that people experiencing the onset of cognitive impairment are experts at hiding behind social norms. For example, our mother was a master at using polite conversation to hide the fact that she didn’t understand a thing and couldn’t have reasoned her way out of a bathroom.

    In my family member’s case, I have a feeling the chips will continue to fall, but if I’ve learned anything from my mother’s mental decline, chips fall whether you want them to or not.

  • Being the primary caregiver in my own life

    I’d like to forget my conscious self exists in a physical body (see previous rants). Alas, alackaday, woe is me, ’tis not to be. As previously mentioned, yada yada blah blah blah. The year before Medicare, I got an inkling that all might not be well. Cholesterol medication was the unwelcome harbinger of what was to come.

    Aside from the vertigo, I’ve always been healthy. Well, a bout of walking pneumonia laid me low for several months, but so far that was a one-off. Other than allergies and the aforementioned, I’ve been remarkably healthy. Not even a broken bone.

    After Medicare, though, different story. Is it true ignorance is bliss? I’ve never actually experienced bliss, but I consider myself an expert in ignorance. In my case, not knowing my physical health was declining was emotionally less stressful than knowing.

    I wrote (whined) about my various maladies in the former incarnation of the Hellish Handbasket (no longer available), so I’ll just summarize briefly here: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, vestibular paroxysmia, vestibular migraine, and a heart condition. Plus, I’m 20 pound heavier than I want to be. It’s that last one that bums me out. When I look in the mirror, I see my mother but three sizes bigger. It’s depressing (but not enough for Prozac).

    All this palaver is leading up to my commitment to be the primary caregiver in my own life. I finally accepted the fact that no one else is going to take on the job. It’s not their responsibility, and anyway, they don’t care. Everyone is ultimately concerned about their own lives. Plus, I’m (ostensibly) an adult. The job of taking care of me is mine.

    So, tomorrow I’m driving into town (11 miles) to meet my new opthamologist (cataracts, glaucoma watchlist). The following day, I will make the trek to meet my new dentist (it’s been a year since my Tucson dentist tortured me).

    I’d like to ignore the whole health thing, like so many people do (my father, my younger brother) and pretend I don’t have any issues, that I can just lift weights or eat pizza and every malady will magically heal itself. Sometimes I wonder how I would be doing if I hadn’t slogged to the healthcare providers even when I didn’t want to. Probably dead of a heart attack. Or dead from a broken hip followed by a heart attack(my father) or dead from a gut aneurysm (my mother). Dead is dead.

    Modern medicine is a marvel, for sure. On the upside, doctors can catch potentially silent killers (heart attack, stroke). Unfortunately, they haven’t yet figured out some of the invisible diseases (vestibular disorders) but I am sure if the U.S. ever regains a robust healthcare system, doctors will stop blaming the patient and finally look for the cure.

The Hellish Handbasket Blog

Self-expression on a stick

If you lived in your car, you’d be home by now

Receive the latest blogpost in your email inbox using your favorite RSS reader.

(c) 2025 Carol B. The Hellish Handbasket Blog