The Cultural Infidel

Day before yesterday, the overnight low was -30F; last night it was -18F. Tonight's low will be around zero, which counts as a warming trend.

The river is loaded with ice dams, so much of the lower reaches of town are inundated with something ranging between ice water and ice... glacier milch, more or less kinda sorta but not really. We're high enough above the river that it's not going to bother us at all.

I suppose I could and maybe should say more, but I'd much rather find that warm spot between my flannel sheets and next to my adorable wife.

Be well.

It's a warm enough day, for here and now, with a light breeze and an outdoor temperature of 61 degrees. Anything over 60 is my excuse to open the windows and let the air through. In the front, out the back -- until evening, when it reverses. I just love mountain air convection currents, especially in Summer when the daytime temperature can reach into the 90s and the downslope evening convection current comes to cool everything off again.

There is almost certainly still more snow between us and (what ought to be) planting time. Many of my remote acquaintances are already planting, some are already harvesting radishes and a few salad greens, but it's a month away yet for us here at 6250' on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies.

I'm not planting this year as the landlady/slumlord has decided that I shouldn't make use of the ground where my 2500 square foot garden once was. We don't know why she came to that decision; the story she gave me is nothing like the one she gave to a neighbor. A couple nights ago, right around sunset, a big dog wandered over and deposited his calling card right in the middle of what used to be my garden. My first feeling was outrage, momentarily, but then I realized that it's not my problem. I'll never again plant that ground that I worked so hard to improve for my beautiful organic vegetable and herb garden, the earthworm populations in the soil will dwindle, the ladybugs, dragonflies, damselflies, wasps, toads, snakes, robins, sparrows, et al. will not find it such a happy hunting ground as it once was, and some day (probably soon) it'll all be under either concrete or a damnable lawn full of pesticide, herbicide, and chemical fertilizers -- perfectly unfit for living things.

No matter. This is just another town along the road, and if my business will do well for the next few months we'll blow on down the road once more, closer to where we think we might want to be. The ultimate goal being to buy (with cash) a nice chunk of ground upon which we can put down roots and remain for the rest of our days. Other than occasional forays into town for the things we would like to have but cannot provide for ourselves, I intend to stay within my own fences, tending to my own affairs and minding my own business.

Now there's a novel idea: minding one's own business. More folks ought to take that advice, I think, and make that demand of their appointed rulers, too. If we all just let well enough alone and didn't concern ourselves with things that are not properly ours to direct, more of us would be free to enjoy a beautiful Spring day such as the one we're having here today.

There's nothing quite like a fine Spring day in the mountains. The air has a quality that cannot be found at any time anywhere else. There's a hint of life in it, some indescribable quality of it that signals that out there in the world new life is emerging from the soil. It's not the cold, lifeless air of winter, and it's not the life-abundant air of summer with definable fragrances of pine, oak, aspen, grasses, et cetera. There's just a hint of something there, something green and growing but as yet still too young to have developed its personality. It's the air of hope, and of trust, the trust that the days will warm, the rains will come, and once again the seasons will play out as they always have. There may be hordes of voracious grasshoppers in the future, or fires, or drought, or even excessive rain, but the air of an April day in the mountains doesn't give any hint of them. This is the kind of a day that makes me think that I might just want to live forever so I don't miss any of them.

... but I won't explain precisely why, at least not in this entry.

It's my firm belief that only a fool tolerates a liar, a cheat, or any other variety of manipulator. To accept the good with the bad is to set the price for your willing participation in your own injury. It's my peronal policy to never accuse without logically sound and incontrovertible evidence, so sometimes these two principles are in conflict -- but only temporarily, because the truth has a habit of making itself known eventually. So, while I'm suspicious but not yet absolutely convinced by facts, I keep my thoughts to myself and trust that eventually the truth, be it of my misconception or of vindication of my suspicions, will present itself. Once my suspicions are confirmed, I'm quick to terminate the relationship with the manipulator. I've ended employment relationships, long-standing business relationship, friendships, marriages, and even a parent/child relationship in this way, and I regret the loss of none of them.

Perhaps my self respect is too generously inflated. If so, the probability of my eventual redemption is likely quite low, near zero. I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam, et cetera.

I find myself today with incontrovertible evidence that not just one but two of my clients are liars, and a situation in which their lies will certainly cost me money if not great inconvenience, perhaps even hardship. However, I cannot presently afford to terminate the long-standing business relationships, so I am compelled to violate my own principles in order to save my own hide. I can't even call them on it, because they've both been known to stall future projects as retribution for (respectfully) belying their fantasy images of themselves as honest, forthright, respectable people. There is no profit in shattering the illusions of those who owe you money.

Why can't this possibly be my life? Because I'm supposed to be an organic farmer/homesteader when I grow up, and I'm probably supposed to be grown up now that I'm well into my 45th year of life.

If you're raising children, please keep in mind that it's the supreme arrogance and a great disservice to your children to presume to know the course their lives should take and advise them accordingly. Rare is the happy adult who has followed his or her parents' designs, regardless of the material rewards and/or social status thus obtained. As proof, I offer myself -- but you can probably find many, many more who would serve just as well and perhaps more convincingly.

A tad over a year ago I mentioned that it'd been half a year since I
last blogged here... now it's been a year and a half! Shame on me.

I'll work on blogging more often. Yeah... right...

I'd neglected this blog for about half a year, and now it's time to start over.

First, allow me to introduce myself: I am the Cultural Infidel. I question everything. I am a misfit.

I live in a dinky town in the American West, a town populated by miners and ranchers, a town in which I do not fit. The ranchers are descendants of those who either got here while the land was free for the taking, or took advantage of the Homestead Act before it was repealed. The people who live in town are either miners of more recent arrival, or work in the shops and other businesses that support the ranchers and miners. I am neither a rancher nor a miner, and in fact I don't have a Real Job -- I'm self employed.

I write internet applications (software) for e-commerce. I came to this dinky town because I like the area, and had originally hoped to buy some rural land. I can live anywhere that has internet access; it's a pretty cool way to be. My third wife had a problem with unused money just lying around in the bank, so the land purchase never happened.

The third wife is psychotic, an obsessive-compulsive shizophrenic. Undiagnosed and untreated, but it doesn't take a genius to do a little symptom matching. I feel confident that any headshrinker would confirm my amateur diagnosis in very short order -- if she were willing to seek help. She's not, so I divorced her.

I've since remarried. Today, I'm ecstatically married to my high school sweetheart. We've recently discovered that her oldest child is also my oldest child, and I'm establishing a father/daughter relationship with her.

I have a younger daughter from my second marriage, who recently went to live with her mother for the first time in her 16 years of life. The aftermath of her leaving was difficult, and I just deleted the bits of emotional detritus that once littered this blog. Nobody needs to read that crap.

I don't believe in the American Dream.

I distrust the government.

I distrust politicians, judges, lawyers, cops, wealthy people, or real estate agents.

In fact, I distrust pretty much everyone.

I certainly don't believe the propaganda put forth by the major media outlets. The illegal Iraq war was never about weapons of mass destruction or ties to al Qaeda -- anyone with a reasonably accurate bullshit detector knew this right from the start. The "war on terror" is a sham -- it's an excuse to gain control of oil reserves. The economy is NOT recovering for anyone except the wealthy.

I'm a heathen -- in fact, a pantheist. I don't believe in a personal god who will help me when I'm down, punish me when I'm bad, and reward me with eternal life if I do the right dances here on Earth.

In spite of my distrust of pretty much everyone, and my lack of faith in a benevolent gaseous vertebrate, I am quite happy in my life. Like everyone else, I have my struggles and my challenges, but unlike many, those struggles and challenges don't often diminish my happiness.

Here, in my newly reincarnate blog, I'll share some news and some views, and hope to keep you from suffering too much boredom along the way. That's why I'll only write when there's something worth writing about. No, make that, instead, "something in some way worth reading about."

Be well!