Hectic

It’s been that sort of month.  Weeks of cough and sickness, a whirlwind plane trip, return to work with massive of back log in a few days, sudden calls for deadlines, complaints and threats, death by stabbings ,death by suicide, more suicidals.  I was thinking the sun would quiet things.  People made it through the winter and like those with depression getting well find the energy to want to die.  The lack of caring for our own.  No resources or less than necessary.  More drugs and more drugs on the street. Death and fentanyl. And anger and entitlement in the addiction community. Despair in the psychiatric community.  It’s no fun.
Then I realized I’ve been day in day out with sick people over 35 years.  Others avoid the ill. Others avoid the insane. Others avoid the criminal.  It’s been my life and the bureaucracy is ever perfect, toxic, superior and afraid.  The cowardice is palpable.  Barriers walls and boundaries, delays and paperwork and committee meetings, anything to procrastinate and avoid reality.  I’m envious.  There’s so much corruption, so much ‘free’ government money, so much criminal drug money.  I work each day, get out of bed, wash, dress eat, face the daily now traffic jams, a 20 minute commute often now an hour and a half because of mismanagement of traffic.  It’s easy to see the lack of concern for everyone but the paperwork. Increasingly the judges take a year from a trial and then months to write a report. Everyone is critical even when there’s that much time and effort and experience put into a matter.
Critics everywhere like cockroaches.
  And me no better. Self pity everywhere. Anger and self pity. And me no better.
The Myth of Sisyphus.
Existential angst.
Kafka.
There’s tulips blooming. The sun is coming out. Summer is coming. I love the women in spring frocks. The feminists in Canada have outlawed looking at women as “lookism’. It’s why I like to go to other countries, like Europe, where I can sit in a cafe and watch the girls go.  I indulged myself yesterday enjoying the diversity of shapes and sizes and the new fashion but every here and there seemed was an angry woman looking for some man to lash.  All the rest of the men and women seemed tired. There was little laughter on the street.  The non criminals are working long hours in Vancouver.  The faces are not happy. So many who looked at first glance happy were blatto, stoned on drugs or rushing for a drink.
It was a contrast to Moscow.  There seemed as much focus there but less fatigue and more ‘brightness’.  But then I never know if it’s my perception. Vancouver has the look of Athens though to me.  That worn down look.
But then I was in a cafe here and everyone seemed as happy as any cafe I’ve been in. Sitting, eating, meeting.
But watching people on the street, drinking coffee in an outdoor Starbucks.  Not a tourist district. The working part of the city. At the end of the day.
It was the first time in so long without sickness and overwhelmed by work and deadlines that I sat down and ‘relaxed’. Is that the word. Relaxed. So much of my life for a month or two now has been work and recover , work and recover.  Home at 8 , up at seven, work on the weekend.
But I overstate it. It’s because my expectations are out of whack. I’m working as hard as I’ve always worked and it’s just I’m a lot older and it’s harder because of that and yet I thought as I got older I’d get more respect and appreciation for all the ‘service’ , for staying at my post, for showing up, and I’m laughed at as a fool. The clever ones see the folly of my Christian upbringing.  They’re pushing marijuana and selling drugs and taking cuts on the side and lying.
I don’t lie.  Liars accuse me of lying. I know the liars but their accusation. But psychologists tell us we all have ‘white lies ‘ and I have those too but not where it matters.
I’ve lost so much by telling the truth. My dog Stuart was murdered because I told the truth.  The drug addicts wanted me to lie and say their urine was clean when it wasn’t. They threatened to kill my dog. And they did. Poisoning.  Now Gilbert’s life has been threatened.
I wonder how much my perception skews my view.
EMOTIONAL REASONING>
I feel bad therefore what I see is bad.
One can’t really know.
I’ve just been so hectic and when I walk into a government office it’s so slow. Like a different time zone.  I see Trudeau and he is such a ‘fat cat’.  A really fat cat.  Preened.
I’m not.  I forget to shave on the weekend. Must remember now.