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07:08:2004 Entry: "Ann : "Just" Desserts"

"Just" Desserts

I might lead a life of simplicity...not a lot of things, not a lot of connections, no family, hardly, to speak of. But some people's lives are so SIMPLE, even though they have a lot of material possessions, know a lot of people and have a big family. Rather, maybe I should say their life is EASY. They get what they want. They get vacations. They get holidays. They got resources. But they don't get it. They don't get it that some people don't get vacations or holidays or resources. They just don't get it. And you try to explain it to them, and they come back with the 'Well why can't you just...?' response. They don't get it. We can't 'just....' 'Just' doing that won't work, and it never would. Their life is so simple. Simple, simple, simple, simple minded people. I know I would hate their lives smothered by family and noise and inane babbling female chatter, yet at the same time I would 'just' LOVE to trade a few days with them just so they could see what we're up against. Why we can't 'just...'

So maybe I've been guilty of the 'Well why can't you just...' in my life too. I guess I did that when I didn't understand the person's predicament. Now I understand that they couldn't 'just' leave their kid with their husband while we went down to Chicago for the day because he WOULD MOLEST THE KID. OK. Now I understand. See, it's just a matter of understanding, and then the problem is settled. But when you TRY AND TRY AND TRY to EXPLAIN your situation to them (well, we can't JUST take off for a weekend because Stan can't trade his weekends he works because there's no one to trade with and the shifts have to be covered) and they STILL don't take your explanation as good enough and they continue to 'well why can't you just...' us to the nth time until you're going around and around in circles, it's 'just' pointless.

Just leave me alone. I enjoy being a hermit. You can't explain that to people. They JUST don't understand why.

I've stopped watching the news...it makes me ill. I stopped the day Reagan died because I couldn't stand the media bombardment of All Reagan All The Time. I watch Seinfeld reruns at night to end the day. I watch Pet Detectives or Pet Cops or whatever that show is that arrests people who allow their animals to live in deplorable conditions. I love that show...it makes me cry. I watch old shows on TVLand. Sometimes when I'm working on my jewelry in the middle of the day I turn on the Westerns, Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Bonanza is such a joke...it's like a comedy of awfulness, and the way they stereotype different ethnic peoples just makes me shudder. One of the better guest stars they had recently (heh...recently is a relative rerun term...the show is what...my age?) was Dennis Hopper. He played a son of a preacherman who became an atheist bounty hunter who lived alone and had no friends. I really liked his character. But by the end of the show, they had him going off to divinity school. I hate sad endings. They make me laugh. I much prefer Gunsmoke. I like the fact that the major characters are not married. Not that I'm not married myself, but I'm not Married with Kids, the latter 'with Kids' almost being an 'understood' part of being Married. If you're married, you have kids. Or you're working on it.

A tornado went through Madison last night. We didn't get much damage here, just the delphiniums got a little windblown is all, but I heard there was a big willow tree that fell a couple blocks away! I'll have to check it out. Most of the damage was on the southwest side of town. Lots of damage and a tornado touchdown. It was very scary and we were all down in the basement. I was truly frightened, this was the closest tornado scare we've had. I truly do not know what I would do if something happened to my house. I'd have nowhere to turn, nowhere to go. The people on the news were being such middle-class comfortable fools, saying 'it's always important to have a traditional land line phone in case your electricity goes out.' Yeah, tell it to my former idiot phone company. Lotta good a phone line did when it didn't work anyway. Right, everyone can always afford BOTH a landline *AND* a cellphone. I figure, hey, if my electricity goes out, let someone with a landline from my neighborhood call if my cell batteries have died. (I hear it now, those voices in my head 'well, why can't you just...?' BITE ME!!!!!)

You know what? I really like being unreachable. I like not having a landline. I don't mind having a husband who works every other wekeend and can't take time off when 'family obligations' (not death or tragedy obligations, I mean frivolous 'let's get together for another annual reunion like we haven't have enough of these lately' obligations), and I love having a husband who refuses to go to high school reunions. I just realized I missed my 25th high school reunion. Aw, what a pity. I guess I 'just' plum forgot.

3 Comments

I've stopped watching the news...it makes me ill.

Yes, I know that feeling. I stopped watching news YEARS ago. Like, pre-Holger.

Everyone I know calls me "different" (in that snootyass way) because I "don't keep up with what's going on in the World blah blah" and it just bugs me.

I am GLAD I missed the news about the guy who got his head cut off and I WISH the news hadn't been *just on* that moring (Holger watches/reads it religiously - but strangely, he's the only one who never BUGS me that I don't) that those planes hit the WTC. I saw the 2nd one hit.

That was enough news for the next decade.

Also, from what I've seen here and there, "World news" on CNN tells an entirely different story than BBC News.

I was at the Consulat when I saw CNN and everything they were saying was BS, according to Holger.

Well, I don't need it.

I have just a very few close friends and that's all I need.

I've done the "why can't you just" thing too, but I swear - not about the kinds of things you're mentioning. More when someone (one person in particular) is doing something totally inane out of fear.

Like I have this friend who was going to take a job, 1st one that she came across, 4 hours away from her house *each way* now because some guy who she's seeing (she has some kind of man-needy issue) hooked her up with an interview, she was really going to take this job for LESS money than these other jobs that are EVERYWHERE for people like her (I helped her look and got her 11 suitable options in a couple minutes) so I did say: Why can't you just look for something closer to where you live?

I mean, truly, the gas alone would have put her out of her apartment, but this guy said to do it, so off she goes!

Well, she didn't get that job, which truly is (and she think so too) a blessing in disguise, but she wasted her time by following advice to please a guy instead of rational advice.

Now I'm rambling...anyway, I do the "why don't you just" thing sometimes, too. Guilty as charged.

:)
~K

Posted by Kimberly @ 06:27:2004:11:46 PM CST

I admit it: I find it strange (and kind of sad and scary) when someone don't care what goes on in the world around them. I watch and read news every day, but Fox news and CNN is not news, it's freak shows.

I very well understand everything about being socially handicapped but not mind it, though.

Posted by Nico @ 06:28:2004:04:51 AM CST

"I watch and read news every day, but Fox news and CNN is not news, it's freak shows."

That's why I don't watch it, Nico!!! I personally prefer MSNBC's Keith Olberman (sp?) because of the satirical wit he spins it with, but I haven't even been able to watch that lately.

I do listen to NPR news in the morning on the radio, and when Stan gets up for the early shift, I listen to the BBC on radio. So I'm not saying I don't care what happens in the world around me. I just can't stand to WATCH the news. American News. On TV.

Oh yeah, and about what I said about the willow being blown down on a street near where I live...that was totally wrong. Reported by local news. So I'm thinking local news makes these stupid little f-ups all the time, national corporate news is making BIG f-ups all the time. I catch them all the time on subjects I know thoroughly, so I'm thinking what about the things I *don't* know about, how can I tell if what they're saying is accurate or wrong? I have no way of knowing if I don't know the subject. I'm just assuming since I catch their innacuracies on my known subjects, I can estimate they are also innaccurate on my unknown subjects as well. So, I'm just sticking with NPR and BBC on the radio.

Posted by Ann @ 06:28:2004:09:21 AM CST

By Ann @ 20:01 PM CST:07:08:04 ..::Link::..