It doesn't help that my daughter's dog died. Well, not so much died, but was killed. Alison came home with the adorable grandsons & they found Rico at the gate where he always waited to be let in after digging his way out of the yard in search of adventure. No blood, just a small dead formerly adorable little black dog. They figure he was either run over or kicked by one of the meth-rednecks that live up the hill and come down the road to pee on the fence & have screaming matches with their stoned girlfriends.

Rico was a great dog. My daughter rescued him from the pound, & shortly after he returned the favor by saving my son-in-law & grandsons from a furious & probably abused pitbull who charged towards them as they walked down the street. Rico threw himself between them, took on the pit bull & nearly died. The vet saved him with antibiotics & a couple hundred stitches. Rico had warm eyes, a sweet disposition, barked when strangers approached, & liked treats. His only weakness was a sense of wanderlust which ended up costing him his life.

And now he's gone. Depressing.

And then there's the whole Tea Party Glen Beck Sarah Palin Fox News propaganda Muslim-hating global-warming-denying bullshit. Totally depressing. The USA was a nice house with a good foundation & then a few years ago these guys & their friends took a bulldozer to it & trashed it & partied & shit on the rug & now everyone's blaming the NEW guy who's come in with a mop & some Mrs. Meyers Lemon soap & sighs at the hopelessness of ever making it a nice house again, especially since every time he tries to clean up a room, the guys who trashed the place inexplicably try to stop him.

And let's recognize that demonizing a religion or ethnic group is never a good idea.  I have known this even since 1963 when Kennedy was shot & my wonderful-in-all-other-ways Great-Grandmother chortled gleefully (the most real instance of gleeful chortling ever) when JFK was assassinated.  Not even Saluting-John-John could soften her heart against Catholics.  She was a Baptist, & Catholics were her Muslims.  They were naked under those habits, you know, & constantly having all manner of disgusting sex after which they would have babies & bury them under the church.

Although I am all for demonizing Meg Whitman. Please. God. No. Please tell me my beautiful California isn't up for sale.

Also, it is depressing to me that Glen Beck cries all the time.  I remember when men didn't do that shit. I remember when guys lost elections for wimping out & shedding tears. I only saw my dad cry once & it was because they were hauling him off to jail. My own husband rarely cries, & when he does it's not in PUBLIC! I mean, he cried when his Mom died, he cries at romantic comedies maybe…but quietly, with dignity.

Glen Beck reminds me of my ex-husband who cried ALL the time. And not JUST because he was married to me. He cried to manipulate people. He cried to get laid. And even HE cried less than Glen Beck, who ALSO reminds me of guys I knew in the '60's who pretended they'd been in Vietnam & then got all teary-eyed & fake-malaria-ridden about 'Nam so that they could get laid by 15-year-old girls.

Not that Glen Beck cries to get laid. Or was in Vietnam. I mean, was he even born? I guess he was born after the cut-off period for men acting like men & not sobbing like two-year-olds or heavily hormonal menopausal women like myself.

But enough of Glen Beck. Just because he annoys me doesn't mean he's not a perfectly nice man. Probably not, but…we'll move on to…

Coyotes. Coyotes howl at night & make me sad because they sound so lonely & hungry. Also, I worry that they're howling because they just found a delicious cat or delicate fawn to munch on. I don't want the coyotes to starve, but I'd prefer they eat delicious roots & berries & leave soft furry animals with big wet eyes alone.

Also: Hawks. (See coyotes.)

I get depressed by the GPS or whatever that thing that tells you what direction to go is called.  I don't WANT to know exactly how to get anywhere. I want to meander, that's how you find the good stuff, that's how you have adventures! I'm afraid that someday map reading will be a lost art! And I love maps!

And let's talk iphones: I hate when I'm talking to someone in person & they smile & nod & surreptitiously glance at their iphone, checking to see if there's anyone better on. In my youth we LISTENED POLITELY as old people blathered on, damn it. I listened to MY old people, it only seems fair that someone listen to me!

And then there's passion. I used to think about sex 24/7. Seriously. I would wake up in the morning thinking about it & go to bed thinking about it & I would write about it & do it & talk about it & smile all languorous & satisfied a lot. Now that I am much much older I think about it on, say, Tuesday. I do still smile all languorous & satisfied, but it kind of creeps me out. I'm not proud of being creeped out by it, but there you go. "Golden Girls" always creeped me out, too.

On the other hand, there's a photo of older woman Georgia O'Keefe smiling at this guy in a cowboy hat that I think is like the sexiest photo ever. I guess I want to be more Georgia O'Keefe, less Blanche.

I was watching TCM with my 13-year-old granddaughter when Morocco came on. I told her, Oh you have to see this! Gary Cooper is the most beautiful man who ever existed! So we watch & on comes Gary Cooper looking so gorgeous that I'm thinking about Tuesday, & my granddaughter checks him out and what does she say? She says, "He's okay, but he's no Taylor Lautner."

I bite my tongue, I don't tell her that I think Taylor Lautner looks like a chipmunk on steroids (which I think is a description I read somewhere) because I remember my own 13-year-old crush on Mickey Dolenz. Although at least Mickey was funny & not all buffed. I don't like "buffed." "Buffed" means you spend a lot of time in the gym & that just seems narcissistic.

I am thinking I'm really sexist, as I don't think guys should work out all the time or cry on t.v. You didn't see JFK crying on t.v. & his back hurt a lot. You didn't even see Jackie cry on t.v. & her husband got shot right next to her.

AND...last big depressing thing.  A virus hit my computer!  A Security Suites virus.  And even though Stopzilla killed it so I could get back INTO my computer, it still won't let me use the printer & the print spooler is all screwed up plus all that other stuff that's in "Services" so I've been spending DAYS down here trying to fix it instead of fun stuff like hikes & novels & reading Open Salon & watching Gary Cooper movies on t.v.  

I am just saying that next week had BETTER be better.