November 17, 2023 – A

It is 5:33 AM.
I woke up at 3:31 thinking about Nikki Haley.
If she becomes president, she, 
like Trump if he becomes president,
(and in saying she will do what he does,
she isn't playing her voters to vote for her,
she is playing Trump to name her as VP,
because, Tra-la-la, it's all a game
to get what I want and have my way,
anyway I can,
and it is sick to the core
because it is fascist to the core
and fascism is the disease that ends the world)
would end all association 
with all people in the world
not like she is,
which is also not like she wants the world to be,
and with withdrawing from the world
is more practical than killing the world,
which is the quick way to rid the world
of everyone not like she is,
which is what she would do with everyone in the U.S.
not like she is--
she would rid the world of us
by ending all the "entitlement programs,"
(And don't tell me that tax cuts for the rich and powerful
isn't an entitlement program!),
ending Social Security and Medicare
(Which she also thinks of as entitlement programs)
and thereby throwing most of the people who vote for her
on the trash heap of those unworthy
of being her kind of people,
but don't get me started.

And I moved from here
to thinking about Native Americans,
and how we all would be better off
if they were in charge of things,
and how I would be glad to pitch my tent
in with them,
just to see, if for no other reason,
how long it would take for them
to fold their tents 
and disappear into the night
to get away from me.

They would never kill me, or ask me to leave,
like fascists would,
they would just pack up and move away in the night.
And I would like to see if they would do that,
betting that they would not.

And that flashed me to my friend at the time
Bailey Phelps
who told me,
"Jim, you are like someone jumping out of the bushes
exposing himself to people
to see who would abandon him
if he exposed himself to them."
And I told him it comes from having an abusive father,
and needing to know who I can trust
and who I can't trust early on,
because I don't have time to waste
and don't want to drag things out
wondering who can take me and who can't.

And that flipped me over into the Opposite Game,
in which we all identify ourselves
by choosing which side of polarities
we would choose to be on.
For instance, between celibacy and promiscuity, 
I would choose celibacy, 
and between teetotaler and alcoholic,
I would choose teetotaler, 
and then it got sticky
because between light and dark
I realized that is a false dichotomy
because light if it is bright enough
is darkness because you can't see anything there
just like you can't see anything if it is dark enough,
and I would choose enough light to see what I'm looking at,
but it is not an opposite.
There is no opposite to light or to dark,
just a range of too much and not enough.
And THAT is where we all need to be!
And why can't we realize that,
which is what I think Native Americans all do!

They make room for all people to fall out 
along a continuum from too much to not enough,
and allow them to be wherever they are
for as long as it takes for the to adjust 
their position to somewhere else along the continuum,
knowing that we all have to work out for ourselves
where we belong at different stages in our life,
and no one has to say "Here I am! THIS is ME!" 
because not one of us is capable of being ME!
just like I AM NOW forever.

And then, I said to myself, "I'm going to lose all of this
if I don't get up and write it down right now!"

And that is how we got to be here/now.

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