It always bugs me that fundamentalists think there would be no morality, and life would have no meaning without a belief in god. They honestly believe that morality was delivered to Moses on the mountaintop. Before that, I guess, people were just running around doing anything they wanted, because they didn't know it was wrong to lie, cheat, steal, kill, or covet your neighbor's wife. People from other cultures who coexisted with the Jews obviously had no moral code, either, and their lives had no meaning at all. I guess that's why god want the Jews to kill every last one of the men when they invaded their land, and take the women and children as their slaves. When they didn't do this properly, god punished them! (I should provide a refernce here, but I am to lazy to go look it up. Maybe one of my followers can help)
I think the ten commandments encoded morality as it had developed up to that time. People developed this themselves over time, by trial and error. Conscience evolved as our societies did. People who want to stop the clock at the time the ten commandments were written down deny that our morality and conscience could possibly evolve over time. So what was wrong then (read:homosexuality) is wrong now. And what was right then (read: slavery, genocide, polygyny) is still right today. Oh, wait...
As far as the meaning of life goes, I don't think life has any meaning in and of itself. Saying life has some inherent meaning is like saying that the sounds of our language have inherent meaning. They don't. But in context, in a society that has assigned meaning to the sounds and gestures, it means a whole lot. Live is like that, too. Your life means nothing to the earth. The earth was here before you and will go on after you are gone. The earth may very well swallow you up in a gigantic sinkhole tomorrow, and it wouldn't be anything personal. The stars in the heavens don't give a hoot for your life. Neither do the comets and asteroids which bombard us from time to time. But in context, from you point of view, and from the point of view of others whom you affect, it means a whole lot. What you leave behind has meaning too, as long as there is someone who understands. In a few thousand years, no one will understand the language we use today. There may be some who study ancient languages who can decipher it. Society will be so different from what it is like now, that they may not have the context to truly understand the way we thought, and why we did the things we did. Maybe they'll judge us by their own standards and find us lacking. Maybe there will be sects who look back at our moral code and deplore the morals of their own society! Who knows? It's happened before!

disorientation

I WAS going to go to work on Friday. But on Thursday Ramona got sick. My older daughter, Ramona, who is 24. She is in the hospital, with pneumonis, still in intensive care. They removed her breathing tube yesterday, though, and she is maintining her oxygen level just fine. So she is improving. On the other hand, I am finding myself extremely disoriented. She was entubated for three days, and she couldn't talk. Now she can talk, softly, but she doesn't believe she is as sick as she is. She wants to go home, and I don't blame her. But she isn't ready; she's still critically ill. I am starting to get worn out by all of this. I'm scared. Not that she won't get better this time, but that she isn't taking it as a sign that she needs to take better care of herself. She just wants to get back to her regular life. I, on the other hand, am afraid to get back to mine. I feel like this is all I can pay attention to, and if I forget, something may go wrong. Do I really have that much control? No. I am supposed to go back to work tomorrow, and I have to decide whether or not I will. She is an adult. Then again, if I work all day, I'm not there to get doctors reports in the morning. I'm out of the loop. Ramona doesn't seem capable of managing her own care yet. She's in denial about being so sick. But is it my place to take over? I don't know, I don't know. Will she need care when she comes home? Will she accept care? I don't know. In the meantime, I did manage to pay my bills yesterday, and I came home and took a nap after sleepig at the hospital on Saturday night. I slept at home last night. I need a shower, but don't want to get my toe tape wet and have to change it again. I want to get to the hospital before the doctor comes around, and yet I am sitting here on my computer. I didn't do my laundry over the weekend, but my uniforms are still clean because I haven't been working. The pets are cared for, but the trash cans, the sink, the recycling, all sit in the same condition they were in when Ramona got sick. I'm afraid if I concentrate on getting my life in order, hers will fall apart. I don't even feel like I have a job, although I dimly remember that I do. In short, I am feeling indecisive and disoriented. I suppose it will come back together with time. Even this blog is disjointed. Just one of those 'other rantings' rather than a 'bus story'. At least, being in my 50's, I have enough experience to know that things will get back to normal. Or else we will adjust to things and they will become normal. I need to get up if I don't want to miss the doctor on her rounds. So I'll leave this post as it is, a disjointed, meandering blob of cathartic expression.

back to work...

On Friday I get to go back to work. I say 'get to' because I will surely start to put on weight if I don't, and I don't want that! Also, I say 'get to' because I am lucky to have a job in this economy, and get sick leave. I should also apply for State Disability, but I probably won't, since they don't pay the first seven days you were off, and all told, I'm only going to be off for nine days. Going back on Friday is strategic. Monday is a Holiday, and I am off. I want to get paid, so, just like my birthday, I have to work the 'day before' and the 'day after'. I've already sacrificed my birthday pay on the altar of the broken toe. That's enough! So I go back for one day, and then have a three day weekend. I can live with that.
On my last day of work, May 14th, I was having a conversation with a man named John Allen. John Allen likes to talk to me, and he is a conserative Christian, so I think he probably has an ambition to get me 'saved'. He suggested to me, on Friday, that I was 'taking a chance' by not believing. I've been 'saved', a couple of time when I was younger. I can't imagine why you would need it more than once, if you needed it at all. I used to believe in that stuff unquestioningly. I mean, I was raised a Baptist, for Christ's sake! ( Ha ha, the irony is intentional.) But now, after having given it a half a lifetime of thought, I can't see that the idea of needing a blood sacrifice to appease an angry god is anything but barbaric. So if anyone ever tells you I 'accepted the lord' on my deathbed, don't believe them. It ain't so. I'll go to my grave looking forward to my eternal rest, perhaps wishing I could have had more time, maybe regretting some things I have done, maybe not even remembering. But I won't suddenly get scared that just in case there really is a hell, I'd better cover my ass. I hope my humanist friends will be there to fend off any attempts by well wishers to convert me. Or maybe I'll still have it in my to make the case against them. So I'm looking forward to seeing John Allen again, to make my case for not believing. Who knows, maybe I'll convert HIM!

broken toe

Yesterday was my birthday and I broke my toe. I have never broken a bone before, at least not for sure, but this time there was no question, even before the x-ray. The picture says it all, I think.
I'm not terribly distressed about having to miss work for a few days, although it may cost me my birthday pay. Our contract stipulates that to get paid for a pesonal holiday, you have to work 'the day before, and the day after'. Even though the toe has been reset, and looks less scary now, I can't put it into a shoe yet. Being a bus driver means that you have to wear something with closed toes. I don't know how long that might take. We shall see. So tomorrow I get to sleep in. Even getting hurt has it's good side. ;-}

vacation week

I'm on vacation this week. No bus driving for me. Just sleeping in, being lazy, and trying to get a little of the housework done.
There was a fire in an apartment in Golden Hill on Friday. I saw is as I was coming up Broadway on the 15. When I had the 2 I went right by there. The next day in the paper there was an article about it, and it turns out a man died in that fire. An old man named Sam Taylor. It just happens that Sam had been riding our buses for years. He was a older, light skinned, slender black man. I didn't know how old he was, but the article said he was born in 1926. So he was 84, or close to it. He was always really friendly, and remembered my name, as I remembered his. He was still in good shape, and probably would have lived well into his 90's, if not 100. But now Sam's gone. And I feel sad about it.

People ask the dumbest questions sometimes. My personal favorite: "Do you go up this street a little ways?" Me:"Yes" "Will you tell me when we get there?"
Of course, they all think I remember them from the beginning of the trip, even though I am not looking at them, and probably wasn't looking at them when they (I assume) told me where they wanted off. Out of nowhere, I will hear, "Is this my stop?"
Some famously unanswerable questions: "Do you go by the Starbucks?"
"Do you go to Mission?"
"Do you go by the Hospital?"
"Do you go to the mall?"
"How do I get to Wal-Mart?"

Of course, these all have a common theme. This is a BIG CITY, people! We have lots of Starbucks, lots of hospitals, lots of malls, lots of Wal-Marts. And every other damn thing is named Mission, or Scripps, or Sharp, or Balboa.
Once, just to pass the time, I mentally went through every route in our system, and EVERY ONE went by a Starbucks! So that one would be easy to answer, I guess. "Do you go by the Starbucks?" "Yes". Never mind that I've given you absolutely no information at all. If you're satisfied, so am I.
Some people don't want to give you any information at all about where they are going, but they still want you to tell them how to get there! Then there are others who want to tell you and everyone else on the bus exactly where they are going. "Do you go by the Welfare Office?" they shout. Or, "Can I have a courtesy ride? I just got out of jail and I have to get home." There used to be some shame in admitting these things, but no longer.
Speaking of shame, I haven't seen the alcoholic whose pants would always fall down in a while. I wonder if he is okay. He never seemed to be ashamed when his pants fell down. He could never make up his mind which to do first, finish paying, or pull up his pants. If he pulled his pants up before he finished paying, there was a good chance they would just fall down again before he was done. And in case you are wondering, he DOESN'T wear any underwear, and he is a natural blond. Once he got seated, he loved to tell about how he lived at the Golden West in the men's dormitory for $14 a night when he had the money, and slept on the street when he didn't. He was always getting robbed, because he carried around a bunch of cash, and was drunk all the time. Unless, or course, I picked him up at UCSD hospital. In that case, he was sobered up and on his way home to start the whole process again.
A lot of these bus stories are funny, yet sad at the same time. On one hand, I love the variety of things I get to see and hear in a day. On the other hand, some things are not so pretty. I try to be amused rather than annoyed. But annoyance comes with the territory, I guess. Sometimes the passengers say they are amazed at my patience. But I am not really that patient of a person, to be honest. It's just that I've been at this for so long, I've learned which way of handling things actually turns out to be quickest. Being rude to people is not going to shut them up or sit them down. My goal is to keep moving, NOT to educate the public on how to act. Their mothers either did that, or they didn't, and there's nothing that can be done about it now. Of course, sometimes I let my annoyance get the best of me, but it never fails to cause new problems, and slow me down as a consequence. So I am NOT acting out of patience. I'm just hiding my impatience because I've learned it's faster in the long run .

The worst thing about my job is that you have all day to be alone with your thoughts. This can be fine if you are in a good place. It can be torture if you aren't. Luckily, lately I have been in that good place. I sing in my head, chat with passengers, even plan my day after work (usually futile, since my daughter will have different plans for me when I get home). But there have been periods of time when I absolutely DREADED getting into that seat for the day. As soon as I would sit down, here would come the negative thoughts. I'd chase them away, but they'd come right back. Usually this has happened during difficult times such as relationship breakups, or the time before the breakup when things just aren't going well. Those are the times when I wish I had been a mathemetician or something. Nothing like a good math problem to get your mind off other types of problems. Right now the biggest problem I have is setting the clock forward and having to get up an hour earlier. Lucky me, my life is boring!