We Go Up, Up, Up. We Go Down, Down, Down

 OK! So I'm sitting in my chair yesterday afternoon, just sat down and got comfortable and the Ring says there's someone at the door and I look and it's a woman with a clipboard. I get up and go out the door and say, "What can I do for you?" I'm thinking, what a hassle but it won't take a minute to say No Thank You. As she turns I recognize her as a neighbor from up the street but I can't come up with a name. 

She starts out saying she's trying to touch base with the neighbors and it's been a while, and Nate died last year, and then I realize it's what's-her-name Gypin, and she says that she's collecting signatures for a referendum that keeps the "powers" from stealing our property for the proposed airport for half-price, or some like that.

Now she's got my attention. I ask, they haven't made a decision yet, right? She says, why else would they have published something or other (I have no idea what). She says that she doesn't have enough money to pull up stakes and move to another house. I'm thinking, wait, I don't want to move! I want die right here but I was hoping to make it into the future a little bit, not in the next week or so. I can feel my cortisol rising and the millstones in my mind start turning. Since there are no facts to throw between the stones, I throw in some stomach lining and a few brain parts I haven't been using. My mood sours like battery acid in whole milk and I feel a palpable need for more sertraline, a lot more.

I grab the clipboard and start writing and she says, "You ARE a registered voter, right?" and I say yeah. She asks if my wife is home too and I tell her Sue took off a couple years ago. She says sorry and I say my son lives here and he's registered but he's not home right now and she should come by again when she sees his car. 

She spends a minute telling me what a shithole her life is now and I try to wrap it up quickly so I can go inside and assume the fetal position (or as close as I can get to it.)

She leaves and I stumble back into the house blind with worry and depression. When Ben gets home I tell him what happened and he starts into Churchill's speech about fighting them on the beaches, fighting them on the water, in the air...  

Needless to say, I spend the rest of the evening looking up housing prices in places like Vader and Battle Ground and wondering what it might be like to liquidate everything and decamp to an unknown destination, possibly Palestine versus reasons why it might be better to plan a dramatic end for myself right here where our people and dogs are buried. (I said it was dramatic.)

I calmed down enough to sleep with the usual soporifics. Oh, and I remembered her name was Theresa.

I hate Mondays.

More later,