Interest or not

Tag: life

  • Merry Christmas

    This Christmas eve I went to bed alone. I woke up early and my pet dog Sage greeted me. It the two of us and we have the whole apartment to ourselves. Sometimes I miss being around family and friends during Christmas. I imagine young children waking up safe and sound warm and dry, clean and with enough good food to eat. With many gifts from their family and friends waiting for them to open around their decorated Christmas tree. My imagination brings me joy and hope and good will towards humanity.

    I know many men women and children are waking up today cold and wet in soiled clothes and hungry having slept outside. I hope and pray for peace and comfort for them today and in the New Year.

    I am very fortunate to have a safe and warm home with a heater and plumbing and electricity in a safe neighborhood. And I’m fortunate that my kitchen is stalked with fresh nutritious foods.

    I’m grateful that I have work. I am grateful for the many men and women who volunteered and donated money and food and their time to charities I benefited from that helped keep me alive when I was homeless.

    I am grateful to live in USA, the country I am from and grew up in. I am grateful for the many things Americans have in United States like a stable Government, police and firefighters, hospitals and Doctors and Military protecting us.

    I am grateful that USA is a powerful country and I hope American US citizens can use our power to help other countries with less means to care for and protect their people.

    Before I was homeless I worked full time for many years starting at age 15. I paid income taxes on my work accomplished and I’m grateful to be a recipient of Social Security Disability Insurance. I’m grateful I can afford to pay for my medication that helps my mental health. I’m grateful my insurance covers my meetings with a Therapist I elected to meet with regularly. I live very far away, half way across the country from my closest in distance family. I am no longer a young boy and making friends in my local community is not as basic as it was in my home town many years ago.

    I’m grateful for my co-workers I’m getting to know better. I’m grateful for a local organization I’ve volunteered with and for my friends I’ve made volunteering together.

    I’m grateful I have the opportunity to earn as much money as possible and if and when I earn enough money will no longer qualify to receive SSDI. This is my opportunity. I am physically strong and able bodied. My mental health is very important to me and taking medication to reduce negative symptoms of my mental health is working.

    I’m grateful I own a car and do all my shopping and buy groceries and run errands and drive to work and to visit places in town and further away.

    I am grateful for the people I meet almost every day in town when I go to buy a cup of hot coffee in a cafe and when I shop in stores.

    I have so many things to be grateful for. I’m grateful I was able to start over from owning only the clothes I wore on my back to leasing an apartment I’ve filled with my possessions I’ve bought and gathered such as a cluster of sea shells I picked up on a beach.

    I’m grateful my ability to develop websites I kept although on hold through the years homeless I am currently using to give back to the local community. To learn about my new project helping to feed homeless people and people experiencing food insecurity in this region visit the website at https://nourishlink.org

    I hope to build Nourish Link with the help of many people who have skills that I don’t posses and bring insight and strength to the project beyond what I alone have began. I hope Nourish Link helps to feed many thousands of people in need of food support.

    I hope you and your loved ones are safe and warm.

    JAG

  • Dream dream dream, dreeeeam

    I have some recurring dreams. By some I mean hundreds of dreams of being at my father’s house. The last one felt so real it hurt. I was a young boy and that’s what hurt. It hurt because I’m a middle age man and the details in my dream were vivid.

    Childhood is more than a game with good friends and caring adults. For the reader who’s grown into their adulthood looking back at their childhood might bring a smile or a tear or a frown to their face. Honestly, the emotion brought back from delving into a childhood memory can be very specific. One memory might be all happy. And brings a smile to their lips when thought about. Honestly, while it is said time goes by in a blink, like childhood is there one moment and gone the next.

    What makes a child an adult? The question seems odd. It takes time to grow. The words “grow up” comes to my mind. I don’t remember being told to grow up. I’m an adult. It took 47 years of growing to get here.

    Childhood is one stage of life. Before childhood is infancy. I believe, I could be wrong and I believe after the infancy stage of life is the toddler stage of life. The word toddler brings to my mind a very young child learning to walk and run. Possibly taking his or her first steps. The words toddling along comes to my mind of a very young child going at their own pace learning to walk.

    In my minds eye, the stage of life from being a child to a young adult is around 5 years old to puberty around 12 or 13 years old. I remember in middle school being told by teachers us classmates were young adults.

    In my dream I would have been a young adult at home in my dad’s house in the awkwardness of puberty. I cried out, “Dad help” in my dream then woke up. My desk is next to a lamp next to my bed. I got up to type. My desk is also my office space. The light on the ceiling is off. I got up and turned the heater on and saw through the dark to my desk and chair.

    I just got up to smoke a cigarette. Outside at the door of the apartment I call home. I stood facing the street looking beyond where my minivan is parked on the parking lot, beyond the road, above the curb on the other side of the road on the neighbor’s lawn is a tree. The tree is tall and alive and directly in view across from the entrance to the apartment. It’s a quiet night, early in the wee hours of a new day. I put the cigarette out before finishing it then rinsed the smell of tobacco off my hands and gulped milk from the gallon container in the fridge. I live alone. There is no one else to take offense from me drinking directly from the milk container. In the dark I dogged wet spots on the carpet where my dog peed. Later in the morning would be a good time to shampoo the carpet in my room where the dog pees and poops sometimes when I’m away at work during the day.

    There was smoking when I was a young adult. My dad smoked. I started smoking regularly when I was going to middle school.

    Maybe I’m finally getting over the reoccurring dreams I have while I sleep of my dad’s house. I don’t want to be haunted by them.

  • Luck

    I’m very lucky. I was in court 4.5 years ago and the judge told me I can not own a firearm. I’m lucky because I have no interest in owning a firearm. Violence doesn’t interest me. The only place I can stand violence is on a movie screen. Generally I’d rather watch a movie that is not violent. I still enjoy watching action and suspense movies on occasion and I leave the drama on the screen.

    I’ve had a lot of drama in my life when I was a kid and since then as an adult. The judge also told me in court that I need to take my prescription for the rest of my life. That is an order I accept. I accept both orders from the judge. I’ve been taking my medication every day for almost 5 years and went from living outdoors on the streets to having a home again.

    I have a car and a job and a pet dog and I pay my bills on time. I don’t know why the judge ruled that I can’t posses a firearm and that’s ok with me. I think it has to do with my case where I was barely recognized as being able to stand trial. The judge and prosecutor against me debated whether I was mentally competent to stand trial. I was doing very good taking my medication every day and going to all my psychologist and therapist meetings and doing well and showing improvement in the half way house I was living in. All these things combined had to do with the decision that I could stand trial.

    I was granted an attorney because I couldn’t afford one and he did a good job defending me in court. I have a long history of being in and out of psychological hospitals. Never for harming anyone else and never for self harm but when I was off my medication my behavior became very erratic and out of an abundance of caution I was brought in as an inpatient in numerous psychiatric hospitals.

    The first time I was a patient in a psychiatric hospital I was 30 and have gone back a number of times. I’m 47 and the last time I was in a psychiatric hospital was almost 5 years ago. I’m doing good these days. I live in an apartment I lease half way across the country from where I was born and grew up.

    I made many bad decisions as a teenager and in my twenties and grew up around many bad influences that were involved in illegal drugs and crime. I am grateful to be living safe and secure very very very far and away from those negative influences that surrounded me growing up and in my twenties.

    Life is not perfect, it’s not perfect for anyone. Sometimes I want more than what I can afford. I want to live in an apartment with a fenced in yard for my dog so she can go outside all day. It seems cruel to keep my dog inside almost every hour of the day every day.

    I’m keeping my hopes up. I would like to get off SSDI and go back to work full time. If I do that I could afford to rent a better apartment or a house with a fenced in yard for my dog.

    I’d like to be able to provide for a woman. I’d like to start a family and my experience having had a very difficult time just taking care of myself and staying housed makes the prospect of being able to provide for a woman less likely.

    Who knows, maybe I’ll fall in love with a sugar girlfriend who can afford to pay all the expenses. It could happen. I’m not holding my breath. If that were to happen there is a higher probability that if we have children that our kids are more likely to have mental health impairments.

    I have schizophrenia. I’ve been told by Doctor’s that my condition will deteriorate over time and my symptoms will increase. Schizophrenia is considered a life long disease. It’s not contagious but children of parents with schizophrenia have a higher risk of having mental health problems.

    I can see why a woman who want’s to have children would not want my sperm to get pregnant with. We could still love each other and raise a family together, but to be safe we would be wise to find a sperm sample from a sperm donor at a facility where men donate sperm to impregnate her.

    Schizophrenia is a serious mental health disease people have died from how they acted due to their symptoms. It causes hallucinations both visual and auditory. When a person with schizophrenia is experiencing their symptoms it can be very difficult to have a conversation with them. Often they become paranoid and irrational. Their words get mixed up and they have a difficult time communicating. This causes many problems because they are seeing things that are not real and hearing things that no one else hears.

    The down side of taking my medication every day is that some days I don’t want to leave my home. I’d rather lay on the couch and in bed almost all day. I might not even take my dog on a walk. I might be completely unmotivated. Those are difficult days.

    Work helps. I like to work and I like to be busy and have things to do. But I don’t work full time. I work part time. I can keep my SSDI benefits and work part time. If I go back to work full time I’ll lose my SSDI benefits.

    It’s scary because my SSDI benefits make up a significant amount of my monthly bills. That’s not what’s scary, what’s scary is that if I found a full time job and got hired there would be work days when I’d rather be home instead of working.

    I think that’s normal for many people, and people who don’t have a mental health disability are better at coping with wishing they were at home when they are working a full time job.

    I’m physically healthy. I am a laborer and can probably work another 20 years or longer doing labor. I’d like to think I can go back to work full time for 20 plus more years.

  • Recently I’ve felt sad for ways I harmed people when I was a troubled youth. I would like to apologize to them and the truth is most of the people I harmed I did not know and never met. The people I called my friends then were experimenting with drugs. We smoked marijuana, we took LSD, we got drunk, we ate psylocibin mushrooms, we smoked cigarettes. We were often high on drugs or in-between getting high on drugs.

    We stole cars. We stole parked cars that we learned how to hotwire. We would drive them around town for a few days then abandon them somewhere completely different than where we stole them from. We stole a minivan one night and had a crazy idea to drive from where we were in Colorado to Canada. The group of us so called friends were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen year olds.

    We stole license plates from another car and attached them to the minivan in an effort to hide the fact that we were driving a stolen minivan. We drove north to Wyoming where we ran out of gas in the city of Casper. We had no money and left the minivan parked on the side of a road. We walked to a mall where our plan was we would sell fake LSD to kids and use the money on fuel. School was probably in session and we found no one to sell our fake LSD to. When we returned to the minivan Casper Police caught us.

    We were put in the Casper Jail in a separate area from adults where we stayed a night. I remember being alone  in an interrogation room waiting for an officer to ask me questions and looking at the brown wood covered walls and how the design of the walls looked horrifying. When the officer entered the room he asked me questions and I told him my version of what happened.

    One of the kids dad drove to Casper to pick him up. Me and the other kid were put on a greyhound bus back to Colorado where our parents picked us up the next day. I remember my dad picking me up where the bus dropped us off and seeing how angry he was with me. He drove me to the police station where I was processed and he left.

    From the police station I rode in a van with other youth who were in trouble to the Mountain View Detention Center where I stayed for one month. After it was all said and done I was ordered by the court to pay restitution to the owner of the stolen minivan. If I was not on probation before the incident I was definitely on probation at that point.

    Those were difficult times for me and for the people I harmed when I stole their property. In retrospect all these years later I look back and am grateful I got caught by the authorities when I did. I’m glad I was ordered to pay restitution to a fund for the victim and I’m glad I stayed a night in jail and stayed one month in the juvenal detention center and was put on probation.

    At that point in my life I needed correction by the authorities and beyond the ways my dad tried to put me on a safe and productive path.

    Sometimes I think about how horrible it would be to wake up and get ready to work or to bring your children to school or to go shopping and to find that your vehicle was stolen. I played a role in the theft of as much as five cars including the minivan with our group of so called friends and in those acts caused as many victims.

    I am grateful I moved far away from the community where I was living and got in a lot of trouble. I’m grateful I’m far away from each and every one of those bad influences. I’m grateful that I was able to start over in a community that is new to me. I’m grateful to be here at home safe and sound in my community and happy that I don’t know any people who do drugs and happy that I don’t know any people who sell drugs.

    I was homeless when I moved here from Colorado and was homeless in this community for four more years before I got into a recovery program and started taking medication I need for my mental health. When I was homeless I received very much help from volunteers who provided meals to the homeless and volunteers who opened up shelters to sleep in on very cold nights.

    Since getting into recovery, I’ve received help and support from very many professionals at work in social services. I have a home I lease in a safe neighborhood. The neighborhood feels safe to me. I volunteered with a local organization for nine months helping people in need in my community escape poverty. It feels good giving back.

    Often I think about my minivan I own. I think that it is parked in a safe location and locked and that it will be there where I parked it when I return to it. Thinking about my minivan locked and parked in a safe location is a comfortable feeling.

    I feel confident in thinking that my minivan is waiting for me to drive it when I am ready to drive. Whether I’m driving to work or to buy groceries or to do errands, the thought of my minivan I parked in my safe neighborhood and locked is a good thought. The thought is basic. I parked it at a specific spot and it should be there when I return to it.

    As a resident of the apartment building I lease and community I live in I feel valued as a neighbor who looks out for my neighbors. As the owner of the minivan, I am responsible for maintaining it and for keeping the plates registered and keeping the registration current and keeping it insured.

    This is about being responsible for my property. Making sure that my minivan is in good working condition is my responsibility as the owner and driver.

    I know that writing this does not make good on the victims of the cars I played a role in the theft of many years ago when I was a teenager. It’s ok. I have forgiven myself. I believe in karma. I don’t know what the future will bring. I like to think that my most difficult days are in my past. And I know that experiencing problems happens in life and life is worth living through the ups and downs. Life is precious. Every moment including this one.

  • I am my father’s son

    In a previous post at Interestornot I described in some detail about ways my father mistreated me when I was living with him as a young boy. I also wrote that I wish he would have made more time to play ball with me.

    My father said he is my best friend. A true friend will tell you words you don’t always want to hear. This is certainly true of my father. A true friend will not agree with you on everything. This is also true of my father. A true friend has your best interest in mind. While my father cared and looked out for me the ways he new how when I was a young child, sometimes in ways I vehemently despised I am grateful that he was in my life then and to this day.

    I’ve heard numerous stories of children disowning their parents when they became old enough to take care of themselves because of their parents bad behavior. While this is the healthiest option for people in those situations I’m grateful that never happened in my family.

    My father managed to keep a solid roof in a safe neighborhood over our heads and enough food in the kitchen while I was growing up all the way until I moved into my own home at 18. My father’s home was warm enough and dry inside on the coldest snowy nights outside. My father taught me how to shovel the snow and chip the ice off the sidewalks around the house early in the morning so men women and children could walk over them and to avoid paying a fine to the city where unobstructed sidewalks are the responsibility of the residents. In the hottest summers the cooling system kept the house from overheating throughout the years.

    My father taught me many skills from mowing the lawn to installing and maintaining the sprinkler system. He taught me how to paint interior walls and exterior siding. He taught me how to maintain the fence and apply wood primer over it to keep it solid and strong. He taught me basic carpentry and automotive maintenance skills. He taught me basic plumbing skills. He taught me how to turn the soil and to plant seeds, to water them and to harvest the fresh produce as it ripened in his garden.

    We had electricity wired into every room and plumbing that worked consistently throughout the kitchen and bathrooms throughout the years. The water pressure at home was strong with both hot and cold water and was clean and clear and ready to drink and to wash in consistently throughout the years built into the solid foundation and land where his house was built many years before may family moved in. We had a clothes washing machine and clothes drying machine in the house that consistently worked throughout the years. We had a telephone, line, and service that worked consistently in the house.

    The house has windows on every wall of the exterior that open up and look out into the lively residential neighborhood that is safe day and night one block away from the public Elementary school I attended. My father always had a reliable car.

    The community my father brought me up in is economically strong and stable and peaceful in the Democratic Republic of United States. Clean clear air filled the environment I grew up in. Environmental pollutants were not a problem in our community. The environment I grew up in is far away from hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanos year after year to this day.

    My father has worked for himself since before I was born. He is his own boss and owner of several businesses. Through his work he has taught me about leadership and independence. These are all blessings I thank him for.

    Growing up with economic strength and geographic stability is a reality for many of us US Citizens of America. I can thank goodness and thank God and thank the hard ongoing work of many generations of Americans who made this a reality for so many.

    Thanking goodness has many implications. It’s good to have a clothes washing machine and a clothes drying machine at home. And it’s good when there is a store in your community with clothes washing machines and clothes drying machines for their customers use.

    Every community is unique and has people with more financial wealth and people with less financial wealth and less material possessions. That’s life, that’s normal. We all can’t have the most and all of us can’t have the least. Increasing financial wealth is often the result of gaining a college degree and or a highly valued skill learned attending a trade school and through a lot of hard work.

    I was enrolled in college with a full schedule of courses and attended classes on the college campus for one year. I did not graduate. I did not earn a college degree. I did not attend a trade school where highly valued skills are taught and people put to work.

    I have many skills highly valued to me and are practical I use in life every day.

    I know that many Americans have to leave home and leave their apartment and travel with their bag filled with their soiled clothes on their feet and in their car and sometimes have to pay the fare to travel on the schedule of a city bus to a store only during business hours to wash and dry their clothes.

    And sometimes wait for the machines to be available and pay their hard earned money for each use of the clothes washing machines and clothes drying machines. Then travel with their bag of their clean and dry clothes back to their home to have clean clothes ready to wear.

    Many possessions I was brought up with and learned to take for granted took on new meanings and new practical matters when I moved out of my father’s home into a one bedroom studio apartment I rented where I lived on my own for the first time 29 years ago.

    That’s life and the experience of growing up and living on your own in your home away from the family you were born into. This is a human experience most Americans becoming adults realize at some time in their lives.

  • Internet and TV, there’s a difference.

    The internet used to scare me. The internet used to excite me. The internet is a busy environment bringing men women and children together from around the world. The internet is not neutral, while it might appear to have the feeling of being neutral often the loudest and biggest messages that are repeated most lead people navigating it.

    The same goes for TV. There is scary news on TV if you look for it and there are heart warming relaxing shows to watch if you look for them. While TV and internet have many similarities, they are different. Watching TV is more like being on a one way path. Using the internet is a more proactive experience. Websites ask for visitors to interact by imputing directly to a website with the keyboard and pointer select tool.

    You are powerful and your use of the internet makes a difference. The difference you make using the internet, you might not notice immediately. TV may seem like an endless library where you can choose what to watch and it’s different than the internet because over time your input makes a difference.

    Over hours, days, weeks, months and years your use of the internet has an effect on how the internet shows itself to you. Input is received and interpreted from visitors to the internet around the world. Those interpretations are summed up and form how new content is created on the internet.

    Just like watching a whole lot of horror on TV has an effect on the viewer, the same goes when using the internet. Consuming is more than buying food at a grocery store. Just like in a grocery store you are wise to look what food look freshest and read the sell by date on packages of food on the shelves when you’re shopping for food, the same goes for Television and Internet.

    While it can be entertaining to watch an old movie or show on TV and visit the same content on the internet you’ve navigated to for years there’s new content to visit on the internet and new shows and broadcasts on TV every minute. Keep your eyes open and choose wisely.

  • I miss my friends

    This sounds cheesy but cheese is good. I miss my friends I met in Elementary School who I grew up with and attended middle school and high school with. I miss seeing my friends almost every day and spending time with them. I moved far away from my home town where I was brought up far from my friends who stayed.

    People grow up and start families and build careers and have less time for friends when raising their own family and working to pay their mortgage and save money for their children’s college education and to have for their retirement. That’s life.

    I moved half way across the country to Medford Oregon not knowing anyone other than some of my family who have since moved very far away from Southern Oregon. It’s just me here. Me and my pet dog. A good thing about being in Medford is every day I see people I’ve never met for the first time and have opportunities to make new friends.

    I’m 47 and it seems as the years go by the harder it is to meet new people and make new friends. I haven’t been in College for nearly 30 years and meeting people outside of school is not as easy. Good friends don’t come easy.

    I’ve never been married and am not a father. I could still bring children into the world with a good woman and that would be a challenge for the ages. challenges are good to have and build strength and resilience to adversity.

    A good thing about being in Medford is I’m very far away from people I once called friends who did not look out for me and did not have my best interest in their minds. Some of the people I once called friends were bad influences, self destructive and reckless. They needed healing, correction and recovery. They are far away in space and time and of the distant past.

    It’s better this way. I want to make new friends here in Medford who look out for me and have healthy habits and are of good character. I want to make new friends that are not in trouble with the law and have learned from mistakes either their own or from others. That’s a good thing about living in Medford. I don’t know trouble makers in Medford and I don’t know people in Medford who are in trouble with the law.

    When it comes to making new friends in Medford I’m on a new page to fill with good habits that strengthen community. While there’s no reason for me to detail past troubles I’ve experienced I don’t shy from talking about mistakes I’ve made with people I know. When meeting someone for the first time I don’t talk about past troubles. Speaking to someone I just met about past mistakes would be awkward and out of context given the healthy positive situations I find strength in every day.

    In Journal entries posted below are more details that include my successes and struggles.

    I’m glad I had the opportunity to leave my home town for many reasons and took it. Many people never move far from where they are born. I’ve travelled to many cities and states, some for work and mostly on vacation and visited a large handful of foreign countries over the years. I’ve always come back home to United States. The U.S. is where I’m from and is my home.

    I’m proud to be an American. The United States has many strengths and has many problems regardless of who POTUS is and how he or she goes about leading Americans and the role they play in the world. Responsible citizens work to make this country and the world a better place to live in. I believe that immigrants have many reasons to migrate out of the country where they were born. Most immigrants migrate for good reasons, are hard working and law abiding. That’s not the case in every situation, it never was. I’ve written more on the topic of migration in the posts below.

    Living in Medford Oregon is much different than my home town in Colorado. Oregon became a state 17 years before Colorado became a state. That seems odd to me. Some of my distant family members on my mom’s side of our family very long ago were Pioneers from Europe and settlers who arrived in Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean’s East Coast.

    On my dad’s side of our family my great great great Grandfather ( honestly it’s not clear to me how many generations ago) arrived in Ellis Island New York. Gradually over many generations our family settled further out west.

    Colorado is smack dab in the middle center of US and Oregon is on the farther North on the West Coast of the Pacific ocean. I’m not a history expert but it seems that when Pioneers moved out west in carriages on horseback they would have arrived on the land that is Colorado long before they arrived on the land that is Oregon.

    Good friends don’t come easy. Wish me luck.

  • My mom turned 81 years old near the middle of August. On the same day she wrote me and my sisters about her down the road preparations for entering hospice. It was sad for me to read the message and not a big surprise. My mom has good health and lives almost independently in an elderly community with warm weather year round.

    A team of property managers lives in my mom’s community who help look after the residents. Sometimes my mom borrows her friends car to do local errands and for the most part rides an adult size electric trike that has a basket for holding the things she shops for when she’s out riding around.

    My mom cooks for herself and is healthy and strong. And my mom is not as strong as she once was. My mom moves slower than she used to. That’s aging and it is good to age. My mom has a sharp memory and quick wit and her ability to communicate is not what it used to be. That’s aging and it’s good to age. My mom lives in her own apartment in the elderly community and enjoys socializing with the men and women in her community.

    I hope my mom lives many more years in good health and strength. My mom has comforted people volunteering at hospices and talked about hospice for years. My mom asked that me and my sisters “pull the plug” when she gets to a point where she is in overwhelming pain or discomfort. She has made it clear to me and my sisters that she would rather have us “pull the plug” than to keep her living in a vegetative state.

    My mom is alive and well and just got home a few days ago from traveling on her own over the summer visiting family and friends in Oregon and Vermont.

    I wish I had more money to visit my mom more often. I live across the country from my mom and can take time off work and fly to visit her. It’s expensive to take time off work and to save money to travel across the country. Family is very important to me. I will always make time for my family to be there with them and to support them when they are in need.

    When I visited my mom last year we went to the beach. It was so much fun. The water was warm and we both went swimming in the ocean. It was a great visit and good to be there.

    My mom has told me and my sisters that when she passes away she wants to be cremated. The topic of death is serious and a topic I don’t often write about or talk about much. It’s good to write about the topic of death the more relevant it becomes.

    Life is good. Life is precious. Hug your loved ones and tell them you love them while they are here.

  • Sometimes I believe it is difficult to make small talk with people I meet because I want to know if we share the same or similar political opinions. I want to know right away if their politics align with mine so I’ll know if a conversation will be agreeable or confrontive. I don’t like confrontation. I’m trying to make small talk with people I encounter more and more. I live alone and am here at home with my thoughts. No one else is here with me to agree with or confront. The matter at home is the physical matter that makes up the floor and walls and ceiling, the apartment I rent keeps me safe and secure.

    Outside is adventure and life and opportunity and meaning. Outside there are people with similar interests and values. Outside are people from every walk of life. Rich, poor, highly educated and laborers. Outside are people scraping by in poverty and people who are homeless.

    A neighborhood store I shop in often has snacks on the shelves and a soda machine. At the store I usually buy beer and cigarettes. I’ve been shopping at the store for several years. I am cordial with the salespeople who work in the store. All and all like most customers I go to the store to buy products then leave.

    I don’t like that they sell pipes and bongs but I don’t make their rules. Smoking marijuana is legal in this community. It’s not the America I grew up in. In the America I grew up in Marijuana was illegal and criminal and suspect. Marijuana was dangerous. Eventually marijuana was available for medicinal purposes to people with health problems and authorized to buy it in the few places where it was sold. Most Marijuana for sale back then was sold illegally on the black market in back alleys.

    Times have changed. Marijuana is legal for adults to buy and posses in small quantities and consume for recreational purposes on private land. Marijuana stores are in almost every commercial neighborhood in town.

    When I was a teenager we spoke about how marijuana would one day become legal and sold like cigarettes.

    Those days are here. Marijuana is addictive and smoking it harms the lungs. Marijuana is a controlled drug. Consuming too much marijuana in one session is dangerous. Some marijuana is more potent than other strains.

    In the news marijuana farmers have been reported to be influenced by cartels and people working on marijuana farms have been mistreated and exploited. All in all the news reports of cartels infiltrating the marijuana industry is not a daily occurrence. I believe the marijuana industry needs more regulations to protect people who work tending the plants from cartels.

    It is good that marijuana is legal. People can buy marijuana legally for personal consumption. People can buy marijuana in a safe and secure well lit store where there is no rush and no reason to hide. A marijuana store has to maintain quality standards. A consumer can buy marijuana today and pay with a credit card if they choose and get a printed receipt. For these reasons marijuana is safer to grow, sell and consume now that it is a controlled drug sold for personal use. I’m glad marijuana stores with similarities to liquor stores can not operate businesses in school zones.

    I respect your right to sell marijuana in an authorized store to adults. I respect your right to consume marijuana. Please be safe and help keep marijuana away from young people.

    Beyond cigarettes and beer going to a neighborhood store often to buy their goods feels good. I’d rather buy at a store in person than have products delivered to my door. Making a transaction with someone at work in person face to face is a part of living in community. It’s not the same as meeting with people when volunteering. Human interactions are valuable to me.

  • I’m scared to talk to people. It’s a fear. I don’t often make small talk. I don’t chat with people I meet usually. I’m polite and appropriate when speaking with people I meet. At work I usually have little to share in a conversation and few words to add to topics of discussion. My work is manual labor and while communicating clearly is very important, verbal communication is limited in nature where I work. I’m not a boss, a supervisor and I don’t lead a team of workers. Other workers don’t usually look to me with most work related questions.

    I would like to be more talkative when I meet people. Almost every day I come in contact with people whether it is at work or shopping paying for products. Communication comes natural to me with people I know. People I know and care about are the individuals I speak to most. My family live very far away and when we speak it is usually over a phone call. I meet with a therapist regularly and speak to her in volumes and in depth conversations. The community I live in is new to me. I’m not from here. I live here for nearly nine years. I’ve met many people at work, though my temp to hire work makes opportunities to build relations with the same co-workers limited.

    I consider myself to be serious in most situations. I am a realist. I do offer light hearted comments to people that are more about sharing the moment than conveying a serious attitude. When I say something funny I make a point to convey that it is a joke and not to be considered too seriously. I’ve met many people while volunteering in the community. I’ve been active in many conversations with other volunteers and people in the community I’ve met while volunteering.

    I speak to my neighbors often. Speaking to neighbors is a good way to pass the time with people who have similar interests.

    speaking to a stranger is a challenge. Sometimes I’ll say hello to a stranger on the same path as me when I’m walking in public. There are challenges in life and life is worth living. Many challenges involve limited physical requirements. Speaking challenges require my voice and breath and lungs and mouth and jaw and lips and tongue. My body is strong and in good health. I have strong lungs. I move my mouth and lips and tongue and jaw with ease from moment to moment. Challenges meeting individuals who are new to me I’ve never met, and come in contact with for the first time are worth having.

    There is no reason to speak to most people I come in contact with in public. People I come in direct contact with happen most of the time when I’m walking in public, most often in a store or at a cafe.

    Meeting a person who is new to me for the first time I experience almost every day. This is often when I’m buying a product in a store from a person at work at a cash register. I enjoy the exchange of purchasing products and services on sale face to face in person with my money handing over to individuals at work.

    When I have the choice to pay for products at self checkout or with an individual working with a cash register nine out of ten times I make my purchase with the person. I enjoy the opportunity to look into someone’s eyes and watch their facial expression and listen to their voice while I speak to the person, in person.

    I like living in society apposed to living in solitude. I like living around people. I like seeing people every day in public. I want to instigate more conversations more often with strangers when I shop. Not just to the person at work with a cash register, also to persons shopping at the same time as me.