I saw the Shrub on TV the other night and I was struck by something I thought I would share. It was a sense that the only thing worse than being in a country ruled over by George Bush would be to BE George Bush ruling over a country. Look at the man... he can barely speak, he stammers, stutters, reverses track... he's scared shitless. He has never been successful, has he? In school he was less than average. In college he was a doper, a loser who was kept out of jail because of his father's millions. They bought him a state and he screwed that up massively and then they bought him the White House and he's screwing up there too, even to the point of going to war in two or three countries while we go through a time where the value of the dollar is sinking, where the people are out of jobs, the trade balences are all against us... this is a terrible mess for a kid from Texas who can't tie his own shoelaces. If it wasn't for his little toy mammy bedding him and stroking his forehead I bet he'd be screaming to be allowed to call king's ex and go home.

So he wanted to rule over most of the planet, to have people jump to their feet when he walked into the room. He wanted to be equal to the world's leaders. But he's a chump from texas and he knows it. He got passing grades by paying people to take his tests. He joined the National Guard to avoid risking his ass in Viet Nam and that's on the record. He snorted enough coke to float a steam ship and is still from time to time doing a few lines. He and Tony Blair like to get buzzed and call press conferences. But when the haze lifts and he is standing in a room filled with people hired by friends of his fathers to applaud whenever he completes an entire sentence on his own, he knows the truth. He is in WAY over his head and tens of thousands of people are dying because of things he has said but didn't actually know what they meant. Or at least what would happen if you actually DID that. He bubbles and babbles and Condi strokes his head and calls him her mean Daddy Warbucks, and that helps. But in the end he Knows that he is a moron doing work that should be done by people who understand reality, something he has never had to do. He may even want to do a good job, but he can't. He's too damn stupid and too fond of the coke and some under the sheets action. He's never been very smart and now every time he mutters a threat against some jerk because he dresses better than George, some Marine slaps on some greasepaint and marches off to slit some throats.

George is running scared. I suspect they will have to find him a couple of whores and some more good coke or crack just to keep him from running through the streets of Washington screaming, "I am a loser, I've always been a loser and you all KNOW IT!!!"

George is running scared. He always thought somebody would fix it so he didn't look like a moron, but he never realized that even though the sign says "The buck stops here" it really means "the BLAME stops here". History books... real history books, written years after he's dead.... will say that George Bush screwed up the world in much the same way he screwed up everything he ever touched. All his chickens come home to roost in full view of the world and he can't stop the world from printing all his mistakes. He can control the American press fairly well, but not the world, and not the physical facts. Corpses are corpses, no matter what you call them, and hundreds of thousands of dead people are camped outside his window staring in. It scares him badly and you see it in his eyes. That's why he never is allowed to speak to people who might not already think he's a genius. If somebody asks him about the blood and the bodies and the screaming babies, he wouldn't be able to pick his teeth with a stiletto and murmer, like Rummy, "That's democracy for ya..." He'd start screaming, "It wasn't me!! I just said it'd be nice if Iraq was another state like New Jersey....!"

I don't think he sees any way out of the next four years except to do a bunch of stuff, no matter how stupid, and get out with his multi-million dollar a year pension, free room, board, and all the dope he can take and hope for the best. In the long run it won't affect him. The wealthy people own "money" not dollars or yen or euros. They live in condoes around the world and drive fast cars, all the stuff he loves to do. But in the end he knows someone will write about his reign objectively and then History will know that George was a moron, the worse President we ever had and he screwed up the world so badly that hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were lost and entire countries toppled, leaving their citizens penniless, homeless and angry. And outside the US many people figured "an eye for an eye...." and began to make plans to come to America and get a job selling fuel oil and fertilizer....

This week I turned 55. I sent an appeal to the Social Security people about my denial of benefits. They seem to think that a man who can't sit for very long, or stand for very long, or who has only done drafting all his adult life, can somehow be retrained and start a whole new career without sitting around in a drugged up haze. These are the same people who thought Sadam had huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. I'm not too worried that they won't eventually see the way of things and since I did pay into an account that included disability insurance I'm not too weirded out by the idea of taking money for doing nothing. I did something for years: worked in pain. I've gotten to a point where I really don't want to do that any more. The pills may be screwing up my liver as my enzyme numbers are sky high and we are trying to find the culprit. Need to achieve a balence, ya know?
Well, a strange thing happened to me the other day. I was suddenly granted a glimpse of the emotions of finding out you will be living alone for the rest of your life. I'm serious. I was meditating on things in the afternoon, as I do sometimes when I've been good and have time to sit, or actually pace since I don't sit much. I suddenly felt this wave of emotion as I thought about making sure I ate that lunch, and took my pills. I thought about making sure I cleaned the floor sometime soon before the dust Freddies got too big. Then I realized that someday either my sweetheart or myself would be older and being in that room thinking the same thoughts. Maybe this was a gestalt experience with a future self, but the sheer lonliness of it all hit me. I can't be sure of it but it felt very real. I sat for awhile and considered it. How my darlin girl would feel one Saturday morning puttering around, picking up my stuff and putting them into boxes. She has done that sort of thing with her mother and with Larry, but I know that where my things are concerned it would hurt her even more, and I was wondering what I could do so that the pain was less. Could I leave a note somewhere I figured she'd find it? Could something I say make her smile and remember me fondly? Or would anything just break her down?
Then I wondered about me walking around packing up her things. Being a shaman has some advantages in that talking to the dead is not that hard and getting answers is not unknown. But still, talking to the dead of the ones you loved that much.... that can be painful too. Then I considered my old heart, starting to get all out of whack with too many of this and that floating around in the blood. Would Her being gone take me out too, or would I just pad around the yard and house feeling empty and alone? Terribly sad thoughts and yet needed to be felt, because these things happen. Popes die, freinds die and the love of your life sometimes dies. I know people going through all that and it hurts, because even a hug won't stop the pain. You hang on to the pain because it's all you have left of them.
So there you are, in your familiar house surrounded by familiar things, and everything is different. Like the color green has been snatched from your universe, everything is different. The other day a very good friend of ours casually told us that she had had a "non-fatal heart failure". We were stunned. I have been trying to think of what I can say in a letter or a phone call that would tell this girl how much her friendship and even love, has meant to us and to me especially. I knew her since before I met my sweetheart and she was always good with a smile or a hug, always there when I was really beat up. Her husband and I had many a great adventure and many a long laugh. They both mean a great deal to me and our close friends: Larry started coming to Thanksgiving and going to our friend's house just like family. Just like we are family. So how do I deal with the idea that this young, smart and gentle lady might leave her husband and sweet daughters and travel on that dark journey? How do I think about that funny guy sitting in a bedroom one night holding her gown and sobbing? I guess you don't think about it that much. You think about holding him closer and telling him that she's just around the corner and hope that it helps.
I hope if the time comes he will do the same for me. In the meantime we take our meds, write our letters and wonder why all the death lately? Why the sudden upswing of awareness of these mortal thoughts when over in Africa there are thousands doing it every day? Maybe a door of perception has opened up or a window anyway. Maybe I caught a whiff of the pain around the world and I just happened to in the right frame of mind to realize what it was. I do know I plan to hug a lot more and sit a lot less.