The Depressing First Day of March In Texas

It's the first day of March. I only a bit ago realized this. February only had 28 days this year. I wrote 71 posts on this blog in February. The novelty of blog spewing wears a tad thin. Perhaps I'm experiencing Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD) due to this frigid weather.

That is the bright, chilly view from my computer room window this Sunday afternoon coming up on 5. It froze last night. It is only 53 right now. I didn't feel like doing anything aerobic in Arctic temperatures today, and so I didn't. Except, I did do the pool this morning, but I don't think it was aerobic.

I've been getting some very bizarro communications from the Tacoma zone that I don't quite know what to do with. On the one hand, if I think what I'm dealing with is mental illness, which I pretty much do, then I should tread lightly. If on the other hand, if what I'm dealing with is more of a pathological malignancy, then maybe I should go the route I enjoy most, that being using words as a tool. Or just ignore it, for the most part, which has been the path I've taken so far.

It saddens me how twisted people can get themselves, so much self-inflicted. I think I'm being more saddened than usual due to that weather affected SAD problem I mentioned previously.

Speaking of sad. Yesterday, on the way back here from hiking in the Tandy Hills, I saw this guy, looked to be in his late 20s, early 30s, on a bike, pulling a trailer like thing on which was packed big bundles of stuff covered with plastic. I figured it was all that he owned, homeless, trying desperately to get somewhere.

The day before that I was waiting in a parking lot in Arlington, by the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, when I saw this youngish kid, late teenager, early 20s, walking with an odd gait across an open field. He saw me, came towards me, I thought oh oh.

When the kid got within earshot he said something like "pardon me sir, me and my little brother are starving, do you....". I cut him off, told him I only had a credit card, no cash. That was a lie. I'd just seen a couple bucks in the cubby hole. The kid's face had the look of a meth-head, a look I'd seen only once before, up in that notorious town I've mentioned before, that being Tacoma.

When I cut the kid off he said something like, "Thank you sir, God bless you." Now that sort of made me feel guilty. Maybe the kid was one of the unfortunate thousands left homeless when Jerry Jones took their homes in the worst case of eminent domain abuse in American history so that he could build a $billion plus stadium to play football in a few times a year.

It does seem a bit sad and maybe ironic, that in Arlington, in the shadow of that humongous new stadium, there is a young kid, begging for money, because he and his little brother are possibly hungry.

At what point in the Great Depression 1.0 did "Brother, can you spare a dime?" and apples being sold for a nickel become symbols of the misery? We're not getting near that point in the Great Depression 2.0, are we? I hope not. But I'm not all that hopeful.