Things I no longer care about

-- Dandelions. I used to really care about dandelions. They used to get under my skin and make me just ... seethe. Well, specifically, it was the fact that neighbors let these pernicious, invasive WEEDS grow rampant in their yard and not even mow down the little fuckers before that white fuzzy ball of destruction appeared atop and allowed that evil taproot to send out new progeny with the next gust of wind. I used to really HATE that. But now, I don't care. I don't own a home; I don't have a yard; dandelions mean *nothing* to me. (Not until one of them takes root in my bellybutton while I'm sleeping or something, anyway....)

-- Property taxes. I guess increases in this could affect my rent, but ... ahn, whatever. But it always had so much more of an effect on me when I owned a home. And the fact that I'm not a parent but that I was being asked regularly to increase not just my property taxes but also to pay a local income tax to pay for schools ... well, that used to bug me, too. Now, I have no income and I have no house on which to pay taxes, so ... I no longer care.

-- Politics. Really, what's that? Someone asked me the other day: "Are you a registered voter in the State of Oregon?" (because this *is* petition season), and I was able to say, "No, I'm not!" quite cheerfully. The truth is, I am registered. Just not in the right place. So technically, I'm *not* registered. In any case, I no longer care. The political structure of our country is a fucking scam. I am sick and tired of participating in it. Perhaps I won't fix my voter registration after all. And then, once I become a Jehova's Witness and it's against my religion to vote, I will officially no longer care because Mr. God doesn't want me to anyway.

-- The news. It's amazing. I am nine months into the most substantial media fast of my life, and it's really starting to work. People talk to me about things, and I am blissfully ignorant -- although still somehow aware and relatively knowledgeable, which never ceases to amaze me because I'm NOT paying attention. I really do get my news from the weirdest sources: Letterman's monologues, a glance at the newspaper headlines when out walking the pup, snippets of conversations, other people's blogs, the occasional passionately upset e-mail and the barest scattering of news briefs (what we called "News McNuggets" at the paper I used to work for) that come at the top of the hour on my distinctly non-news-oriented radio station in those rare times that I'm driving the car at the top of the hour (on a weekday between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.). So I pretty much have no clue what's going on, and I no longer care!

-- The price and availability of the Green Goddess. This once concerned me, because I used to smoke a good bit more of it than I do now. In fact, ever since I moved out from XGF, I hardly smoke at all. I've been contemplating what that is all about, of course. Some of it has to do with the way the Green Goddess reveals my energy, my anxiety and my libido, which are all pretty much the same thing, really. But I think a greater part of it has to do with simply having no need to escape very much. And feeling quite good about chilling out on wine, which is better for my cholesterol, blood pressure and weight, as wine does not give me the munchies. In any case, someone asked me to acquire them a little of the stuff recently, and I obliged. When I was told how expensive it was, I was like, "Ah, keep it." Then, several weeks later, I got a really good deal. Must be the time of year or something. In either case, I simply did not care.

-- Whether I'll ever get that Pulitzer. The nomination was flattering, but it wasn't my year. How was I supposed to compete with the Boston Globe buying SLAVES and writing about *that*? My work was so much lower-rent. But still, it was good. ... Some day, I'll probably write something noteworthy again. Maybe I should try fiction. In the meantime, though, I've got to admit: I won a lot of awards as a journalist. Some of them are actually quite pretty. None of them are the Pulitzer, but... well, I no longer care.

-- Bedtime and breakfast time. XGF was never a night owl like I am, so for the past six years or so, we were at danger of being totally out of synch in our sleep routines unless I capitulated and went to bed early. Also, there was this stinking ass job I had -- where it smelled like the rainforest, OK? -- that required me to be in the office by the god-foresaken hour of 9 a.m. So I learned to go to bed early, like 10 p.m, which I felt was an obscenity because that's when all the good TV shows come on. But I did it so we could snuggle and have sex and get up somewhere around the same time and all that shit. But now that I'm living la vida solo, and I don't have that butt-crack-stinkin' job at that financial conglomerate, I sleep and rise when I please. So I'm hitting the hay around 2 a.m. on average and rising at 10 a.m. It is a beautiful thing. I usually lounge around in bed for 30 minutes to an hour after I wake up, so that means on a good day, I'm showering by 11, eating my Luna bar 45 minutes later and out the door to walk the dog by noon. I'm sure some people would be horrified by these hours. But you know what I'm gonna say, doncha? I no longer care!

Oh, my ... look at the time! It's going on midnight, I've just finished dinner and I've got a lot of reading to do. It's all reading for pleasure, though. I *tried* to buy the books for the class I have starting on Tuesday, but the stressed-out book store manager told me he's been agonizing and kvetching and trying desperately to get the "adjunct faculty" at my grad school to tell him what books to order -- all to no avail. He's really wigged out by this. And he keeps apologizing -- at length -- when I ask if the books have come in yet. But, frankly, I couldn't give a shit. If I don't have the books, no one else does either. We're all in the same boat, so I really don't care. That's why I'll spend the next couple of days engaged in leisure reading.

It'll be blissful. I can stay up to 3 a.m. with my nose in a book if I want. I can read through the evening news because there's nothing meaningful there anyway. I can sit in the coffeehouse and read "Love's Executioner" and ignore the headlines about property tax increases or whatever. I can eat a brownie made with Green Goddess butter and watch the dandelion sperm wafting in the breeze, and I don't have to give one flying fuck about any of it.

Bliss is mine. No matter where I find it.