Rain's Right To Fall

Difficult to love what you don't understand...

Aspirin Eight-Ball

Eighth rainiest July since the National Weather Service began keeping track?

The first rainiest was probably during the time of Noah, but there were actually six rainier Julys than this July?

And how come everyone at the coffee shop wants to keep reminding me that, "We had a heck of a May, though, Matt. Three weeks of sun. Don't know what you're complaining about."

Easy.

First, we did not have three weeks of sun during May - no matter what internet weather history searches say - we had maybe four or five days, scattered amongst a few more days of partially sunny days that were also sprinkled with rain.

Second, why would you want to fall back on some May sunshine when what we are talking about is the almost complete lack of summer?

Winter is long enough without throwing it a couple extra months.

Now that Arizona is kicking out Mexicans some of those highly coveted jobs are opening up. The growing number of Anglo teen meth addicts will now have a shot at earning their drug money rather than sneaking it from Aunt Lily's purse.

I said this to a friend, expecting a chuckle, and instead was met with, "It's the Mexicans making and bringing in the meth!"

So with Arizona bringing-the-wood, meth addicts are now going to have to cross over into Mexico for their fix? No one makes it in the U.S. anymore? And who told you this? The newspaper?

In the mid/late 1980s when I was living in Los Angeles meth quickly began replacing cocaine because of its affordability and longer-lasting buzz.

Through various 'acquaintances' I began to see it working it's way up from San Diego and the desert areas South of LA. It became popular with penny-pinching college students who wanted cocaine, but could not afford cocaine (or were tired of running out and returning with an eight-ball to a salivating house party only to find they were going to need a lot more booze if they wanted to get high off the laundry soap, aspirin and flour they'd just purchased).

It's not the issue of legal or illegal immigration that is really being discussed. It is Mexicans. Legal, or illegal.

Not Russians, Africans, Canadians, New Zealanders, Germans, French, English... I've known (as have many of you) at least one person from each of those countries 'illegally' living in the United States at one time or another.

It's similar to when someone proclaims, "I really fukken don't agree with what you say or who you are but I will fight and defend to the death you're right to say and be it!"

It sounds good, and that person might momentarily think they really would fight to the death for something they didn't believe in, but they won't.

When we say things like that we should remember that at other moments we are usually cheering on the failure, death, and destruction of that and those we do not believe in.

Those who already have put their life on the line for the benefit of humankind (not just in war, and not just for the people they like) usually don't rub it in other's faces.

When/if they do rub it other's faces, they're behaving like ass-hats who miss the point of what they did in the first place.

But they'll one day feel bad about rubbing other's faces.

Or refuse to feel bad and run off and hide in the metaphoric woods until the rest of the world has gone away, because Fuck them all anyway!

Saying 'Fuck them all anyway" makes for a difficult remainder of days.

You might have a solid reason for saying it - but it reduces the number of people you find you can hang out with. And we are social creatures. Those who prefer not to be social are saying they don't enjoy the human race, of which they are one.

You might have a good reason for silently holding onto it - but it reduces your ability to be open to the experiences of others, and the tools they have discovered that help us actually find some joy in living amongst each other rather than alone.

'Fuck them all anyway' makes for a difficult remainder of days.

If you think I'm preaching, it's only to myself.

I have rain gear, but on this 26th day of the eighth rainiest July in the history of the world, after reading and deleting two more emailed writing-submission rejections, and then slogging through a few crappy pages of an acclaimed author whose Pulitzer Prize Finalist book I received for Christmas, on this day I will not put on the rain gear and go out into the rain and stack the rounds of the eighty-foot Cottonwood recently felled in my backyard so that I can make the house more presentable for a sale that will bring me the money that my writing no-sales are not bringing, because after all I need to eat and I don't even bother looking for a real job because the Mexicans have taken them all!

I'm not going out into the rain. I'm going to sit here and write about it.