Here I am, late and soon.
Here are some things I fear, in no particular order.
1. Humans. You never know. Well, when you get to know them, it can be different. Often isn't.
There you are, trying to be a friendly, polite, reasonable person; and then they go and start trying to convince you that humans who believe humans are animals and need a healthy habitat just as much as other animals do, deserve violence done to them.
That alone.
Or they try to convince you that the police are not only your friends, but that they need your volunteer work spying on your neighbors.
I could go on, but I think I want at least a #2 on this post. Hmmm.
2. Dead stuff. I'm afraid of my house. I'm actually getting better at that, as I realize that humans lived without these weird constructs for a couple-three million years, and managed to go forth and prosper & stuff just fine.
I do believe that you cannot know too much about your house. If I had a fall-back position, I'd mess up this place to pieces, practicing on fixing stuff. Still, I'd prefer to live in a tree, but I don't live in a culture where that is viable. sigh.
3. Myself. I'm getting better at this too, but I'm afraid of myself teh crazy, myself the out of control, myself that just has to get out there and kick shit around (metaphorically) from time to time.
I once tried doing this literally. I got a few beer bottles and threw them at the side of the house.
It wasn't fun. It was really very boring, but I had to try, because I'd never done that before.
What struck me most about this exercise in nihilism was that every dog in the freaking neighborhood went off.
Interesting.
It was a pain to pick up all the glass, though. Still, my yard seems to breed little pieces of glass. I think I'm living on some fill dirt dumped on some kind of garbage dump. I dig down in some parts of it and I find concrete rubble.
What kind of a way is this to give people places to live?
I shudders, I tell you. I wonder sometimes (though rarely, only now for the sake of this essay) whether it's radioactive, all that concrete rubble, fourteen inches down. Can't even double-dig decently with that junk.
4. Communications. I fight this one valiantly. I win and lose on a regular basis. Tell? Don't tell? Write people whom I've offended? Write people who have offended me?
Telephone? You've got to be kidding. I fails some. Almost always wrong (though not quite always, not quite).
I need to make a garment for my telephone, and a shrine. Leaving myself messages doesn't work.
Something scary and vengeful. Perhaps with sequins.
Do Not Pick Up The Telephone
(with apologies to Ted Hughes)
5. Cars. Coffins. Submit to driver, who may or may not be crazy or control freak, take you wherever she wants to. Asks "Do you mind?" You just asked for a ride to somewhere two miles away. Never do that again.
6. Airplanes. See cars. 1000 times worse. They want to see you naked and touch you, or even worse, they hate having to see you naked and fondle you. Screaming babies on airplanes, insane people, etc. no problem. You can go find that on Amtrak, lots of entertainment, plus you can walk around and bother people and watch the Amtrak cops throw out the crazies in the middle of nowhere. Train people will not make you go someplace you don't want to; they will just make you wait forever and buy stuff too expensively, but at the same time, you can make friends! And they show movies, but not everywhere. Is there still Amtrak? Writing this, I am concerned.
7. Dog. My dog. I can't let my dog down, he is my dog, he is mad, I am mad, we are mad dog and bitch together. But mostly we do okay.
I'm not afraid of him, I'm afraid for him, and for me if I can't keep it together to keep him. I'd actually rather deal with a fair amount of other shit than give him up.
I see street people with dogs even here. I read stuff from people (not here) saying street people shouldn't have dogs.
To them, I say; what you really need is to get stuck being on the street for awhile.
8. Fear, fear, fear. I'm still afraid of people I like and respect deciding I'm bad or wrong. That is hard to shake. I don't really know where it came from. Well, I'm an outlier and I got abused as a child some, but it could have been a lot worse.
I did have family members who pressured me about the brain, the brain, the brain.
Not my mom.
I wound up, though, feeling so defined by my math/language brain, as opposed to feeling defined by any other talents - or even, not feeling defined by any talents at all, just seeing them as they came...or went?
Can I do that? Maybe I can.
Can you do that, too, in your own way, you Kossacks?
Yep, maybe you can too.