"My doctor didn't give me a good excuse to die, and wouldn't prescribe a good recreational drug. What good are doctors again? Dammitt!"
Well, a lot happened in August, and it was a terrific month. But I evaluate it as a month with much motion and little progress. Here are some highlights, followups and some things that didn't make the cut for the journal, but deserve an honorable mention anyway.
First, I guess there are no plans after all for Ernie and Bert. Oh well, TV marriages never work out anyway. Some writer someplace would have Bert cheating with Oscar or some pathetic thing before long.
I did create (in the confines of my own mental heliosphere at least) a world without debt. I wrote about some of it but it made boring reading, even for me. But I thought through the rest and, although I think it is doable and in our best interests, it isn't going to happen. 12% of our economy is based on servicing and managing debt anyway and 2.1 million people would be out of work if I got my way. So, we'll just keep digging that hole deeper and see what happens.
I didn't get around to suggesting that each of us do something to prepare for harder times. We need to learn to garden or at least plant a fruit tree. We need to learn a skill that possibly has no use now, but might in the future. I learned to make my own cigarettes.
Taxes on cigarettes are way to high. The government has decided that I shouldn't smoke, but can't pass a law banning it (damn that constitution anyway), so it's going to choke out cigarettes through taxation. This, of course, means that the smokers have to retaliate. By rolling my own cigarettes, I'm saving $22 per carton. Instead of paying $35 per carton (for the cheap cigarettes, not the real thing), I now pay around $13 for tobacco and supplies to make my own.
My doctor said everything looks normal and healthy. But I need to quit smoking, lose weight, exercise more, eat better, and I fell asleep after that. How come I have to do all of that if everything looks good? And he wouldn't prescribe a good recreational drug either, which is what I wanted. Someone really needs to invent Soma soon.
I started off the month talking about perspective. I needed an attitude change, and I knew it. I needed some 'home time' in my world with my stuff, and I took it. I need the hot weather to subside a little, and it will next month. I feel refreshed, refocused and ready for whatever next month brings.
Life is good.