We don't live in a perfect world. In a perfect world, I would have married Tanya Mayo and given her eight kids, because she was shaped like a woman instead of a girl and understood Tenderness inherently. Lovely lovely woman. I was an idiot. I will always regret that mistake of mine. Don't bother looking for her picture online. I can't find her at all. Those other people aren't a fraction as pretty. Tanya was beautiful. And apparently I was the only one who noticed she was smart, right up till she got her Masters in International Relations and went to work at NATO in Paris, took up full-time smoking and found a Frenchman to love. She's living bigger than anybody else from my graduating class. How d'ya like d'em apples? I wonder if she would have been happy with a bevy of kids in our home town? Feminists would say no, but their mission is to destroy women with unreasonable expectations so they can feel better about their own failures. Feminists are bad at choosing.
I read every book on the list for my AP English class, and wrote essays for each one, formal five paragraph essays, often enough I can do it in my sleep, which is why I blog in a far less formal fashion today. And I still use commas adroitly. Appropriately. Even, comma, correctly. I wrote four times more than was required to pass the class. I read that much more too. We even read Waiting For Godot and watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Masterworks of Existentialism are surprisingly valuable when you suffer from chronic depression. It helps you accept that part of you instead of constantly fighting something you can't stop. When you embrace it, you become an English speaking Russian, a White African, an Atheist Mexican. You understand the true nature of the universe. Existentialism and Atheism are really important. But I can't talk about those things at work.
Everything is connected. There are NO Light Subjects in my world. When I talk about something that sounds light, it becomes a dark subject because it reminds me of something dark, and my entire perception is colored by this. When my employer told me "light subjects only", they may as well have told me not to talk about anything ever again. I certainly don't want to talk about stuff which can be overheard by anyone who isn't a friend, since I'm now responsible for their feelings, as if I were telepathic or something. There's this important detail: I was born and raised in California. I'm not an immigrant here. Most of my coworkers came from someone else so while they fake being Californians, they're faking it and are genuinely uncomfortable with real Californians natural oversharing. We don't recognize those "barriers" other state residents are so protective of. Its part of the reason we're despised everywhere. Why the government steals our money to pave roads in South Dakota or bribe officials in Baltimore. They figure we deserve it. Real Californians are nosy and Real, not fake. That's how you can tell us from the immigrants. We're real. We really DO care about other people, even strangers. Because we're all connected.
That connection brought me to buy the GPS, finally, after much waiting and research. I opted not to get lots of accessories. I just want the gizmo. I don't have lots of accessories with my camera or my cellphone. I'm good at looking after stuff. Its fine. Which one? Garmin Etrex 20. Its better than the monochrome, but lots cheaper than the touchscreen version. Its just enough to be great. Or good enough not to complain. And I'm fine with a small screen when I hike or Geocache. When I drive, I'll either rely on map study or get a $110 Nuvi with lifetime maps and the various crap to make it work. So far, I've done okay without it. I am glad I can make maps. I like putting my personal private time into writing articles for the public good, commercial free. This is my volunteerism. Because I'm a Real Californian. Like Real California Cheese. Accept no substitutes. California is not a lifestyle choice.
One of the things my Ex and I did which was good and fun, was we'd get in a car and drive down a road and see where it went. Oftentimes, that place was pretty interesting, sometimes in the Foothills, sometimes up the Sacramento Valley. And unlike where I grew up, roads in the Sac Valley go in all directions. Not just into a box canyon or the sea. More choices! I liked those trips, up to a point. Some of my better memories of my marriage. It wasn't ALL bad. We had an couple atlases, for NorCal and Nevada, and went hither and yon. I didn't realize this then, just how serious her OCD was, that she would try and kill us several times ignoring reality into full psycho mode. It was genuinely scary and now that I understand it better, I think she was not in her right mind. Sigh. What can you do?
I don't need the fancy features of a higher end GPS. Camera and voice notes? Nah. Altimeter? I found a really nice analog one on Amazon for $60, if I decide I really want one. As for camera I still have my Minolta DiMage for pictures and video and voice notes. I can upload and combine those for proper documentation. I can download, by LatLong, and notes, the local geocaches, even in a spreadsheet, and use that to find stuff. I'm not as fussy as folks I've read about on Geocache.com. Some of that is because I did this for a living, GPS I mean. The other bit is I'm a Nerd, rather than a Poseur, so I WORK for my cred. Its important to work for things. I delayed this purchase for weeks before buying it. Now I get to wait a week for it to show up. Kinda like Waiting For Godot.
A pity so few people here will even get the reference.
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