Rambling

You know what I love? I love the way Maggie goes ape-shit bananas when any company comes over, especially Rosa, my mother, or my father. I love the smell of frying bacon as it's aroma fills the house in the morning (bacon will probably be outlawed in future generations). I love that first smoke after a restful night of sleep. I especially love my sanity and the calmness it brings to my life. I sometimes forget from were I've come from and how far I have traveled.

This morning, I defrosted a breakfast casserole I had in the freezer. 45 minutes later a steaming casserole dish filled with gooey cheddar, crumbled sausage, and crisp hashbrowns greeted me. The smell was just wickedly wonderful and I was pleased at how good and wholesome it tasted. I then took Rosa home so she could shower and do some things around her house. We pulled up in front of her house with her waving and blowing me a kiss goodbye. I shot by the grocery store near Rosa's house to gather some things for some recipes I want to try today. A cheesy and creamy tuna casserole. A roast, with potatoes and carrots, slow cooked in the crock pot. It is going to be a grand day of cooking and wonderful aromas.

I was thinking about what I wrote at 5 AM this morning about me and Rosa's little exchange before bed last night. Most people, I think, experience wanderlust. My father often says, "I wish I could sell that damn drugstore and drive around the country in an RV without a care in the world." The difference is that people like me and The Homeless Guy will actually act on those impulses effectively sabotaging any gains we have garnered in conventional life. You know the absolute, main thing that keeps me in a home these days? Maggie and Rosa. If it wasn't for these responsibilities then I would be parked down by the river sleeping in my car and occasionally making trips to God's country to camp.

All morning long, I have thought of how conventional society and life keeps us tethered and conformed. It is all designed to keep us behaving and acting a certain way. A person with a family and home is far less likely to commit a life altering crime or default on their loans, or just sleep in their car. Jobs keep us tied to one location for the most part as many of us neither have the time nor the energy to travel or experience the world. I worry about all this and it makes me extremely cynical and paranoid that there is some grand design or scheme keeping people behaving as mindless sheep. If I worked full time, watched the drone of the television for my daily dose of their skewed world, had a brimming family of five to suck up all my time and energy, I would never think about these alternate realities or lifestyles. I would be too tired and worn thin by all the responsibilities.

Now, what I just wrote would drive my father absolutely crazy. There would be cries to go to the psychiatrist to try new meds or up the dosages of my current ones. I long ago quit talking to him about anything of substance. He thinks I am just some poor, pitiful, and stupid(intentionally, by me) mentally ill, ex-alcoholic to be coddled and pitied. I am all, but any of those aforementioned adjectives. I am vibrant, loving, adventurous, unconventional, and truly unique in a world of mindless clones all doing what the other 95 percent is doing as well. It makes me want to embrace my wanderlust and nurture it as a trait to be admired and held in esteem. Oh well, I know some of you might be thinking I have gone off the deep end. You are just getting to read the real me and not the persona I have to portray to the world so as not to be put down, controlled, and medicated. It is all rather frustrating, but I digress.