Guilty of Obfuscation - Or....I Fear I Did Not Make Myself Clear

I am thrilled that my last blog on Love stirred up so many heartfelt comments   However, based on some of those comments I think I must follow up with some further clarification.

First, I have to tell you that pondering and thinking about stuff is my life.  I can never fault myself for thinking too much.  I think about things that bother me until I finally understand why and then I can forget them and move on.  I never rehash old problems or relationships unless something develops that tells me I am not really finished with the subject.   Being able to finally see truth and leave old stuff behind has been one of the blessings that has kept me alive.

Second, my introspection does not make me sad or depressed.   If I fail to discover what is at the bottom of something that  is hurting, I just set it aside to deal with later, and if I do discover what is making me miserable, that in itself usually fixes the problem and I can be done with it.  And, oddly enough, what I usually discover that liberates me is some new way of seeing the situation  that generally reveals some flaw in myself  that I had not been aware of.   Getting closer to the truth about things and about yourself is a totally liberating thing even if that sounds  contradictory.  The old adage "Know thyself"  is a great key to peace and happiness.   When you discover a flaw that you were unaware of you not only behave differently, but you are in a position to DO something about it.  Those are all great things, not negative ones. 


What was so great about my realizing that I have a few shortcomings in the Love department was that it enabled me to stop blaming anyone else for my uneasiness over a recent stumbling block in a relationship.   For me this is a huge achievement and not a disappointment.  I find that I tend to get a bit smug with myself often and this leads me to wrongly evaluate a situation.  It is really good for me to smack myself down every now and then to be closer in touch with the reality of things. I don't know if I can communicate how important it is for me to find out what I have done wrong in a situation where I had considered myself blameless.  If the problem lies within your own jurisdiction, you can REALLY TRY to fix it......there is no way of fixing things if you are convinced that you are innocent and the other person is totally at fault.  (and even if they are, realizing that you are not totally innocent changes things and makes it easier to accept their shortcomings.).

Actually I have a pretty solid and positive sense of self  so this process does not damage my confidence....it increases it.  But, there was a time  in my life when I had no self confidence whatsoever.  I have written about that in a past blog.  It was the time of my first big insight and the moment when I started to rebuild myself from the absolute bottom.  I was writhing around in a pit of self loathing and said to myself in total despair, "You are a no good rotten person.....why should you continue to exist?".  That is when the voice of truth inside me said, "No, Lois, that is not true....you are good to animals."  And I saw that it was true and realized that I had at least one redeeming feature.  The pain and depression left and I was at peace with my new discovery......at least till the next problem appeared.  It left me one step up from absolute bottom and I never fell back from that step up.

Now,  if I can find hidden flaws and recognize them and accept them and go on loving myself (after the first few moments of disconcerting horror) I am definitely better off than I was before.

In my blog yesterday, when I rated myself as a 2 on the Loving scale I was not really being honest.  I felt that was about right at the moment,  but I do believe that my actual score is higher than that.  And with each new flaw that I discover I can try to improve  and  become even more of a loving person.  If I manage to do that, well.....that would be a good thing.  And if I don't, I guess whatever I am will have to do.

In All Seriousness Lo asks, "What Is This Thing Called Love?"

 The fact is that certain circumstances in my life recently have caused me to question my own ability to love.   I find myself pondering the possibility that I cannot really love, but I know so well how to play the part  that I have been fooling  myself and other people for years.

Florence tells me I am a good person......I am not so sure about that right now.  Could it be that I have simply learned how to fake it superbly and really have a heart  like an iceberg ?  (Does anyone remember that great song. "Hard Hearted Hannah" ..... the vamp of Savannah.....the meanest gal in town.... talk about your cold, refrigerating Mammas....whoops, boys, she's a Polar bear's pajamas....)


But to get serious again, my most recent struggle in maintaining my relationships has caused me to ruminate on Love an general and my ability to love in particular.  Perhaps some of you may think it strange for an ancient person such as myself to be thinking and philosophizing about love.  Not at all.  Don't be silly.  Love is the most important thing in our lives.  The ability to love others and to be loved/accept love is what keeps us alive.  And equally as important,I have learned,  is the ability to love ourselves which somehow is creating a conundrum that I am having trouble solving.  I have found that there is a certain point at which one must stop being loving or at least say "No" to another's request because it becomes harmful to one's own well being.

Oh, hell, you must know that I am not talking about the love of  " falling in love" .......that usually bears little relationship to real love... ... though it may, in some cases, develop into the real thing somewhere down the line.  ( The love experienced when you are falling is usually 97% lust egged on by some childish faulty judgment.)

No, I am talking about caring about someone who makes you happy and wanting to make them happy and/or make their lives better. Or something like that.  There are so many kinds and degrees of love.  At the top, I guess, is unconditional love.  The kind that makes people rush into burning buildings to save the ones they love at risk of their own lives.   The kind that, no matter what awful thing you discover about a loved one, no matter how they may disappoint or even betray you in some way or another, you can adjust and still love them in spite of it all.  I realized that I am not very good at that kind of love.  I am too judgmental.   There are some things which can make me stop loving a person altogether.... like shaking something repellent off my fingers.  I don't think that is acceptable in the field of love and I guess Ishould be ashamed, but I don't think I am.

There is also the slippery slope where love turns into need......a totally different thing.   Barbra Streisand  you are wrong.....People who need people are not the luckiest people in the world.  Need can turn what was once love into subliminal anger and possibly an uncontrolled fear and worrying that you might lose the object of your affection.  Love becomes adulterated and burdensome to both lover and lovee..


Then, there is the dangerous path where  caring too much slips,without your realizing it, into martyrdom.  Been there, done that.  Didn't like it and had to give it up.  I think I  am pretty good about caring, but unfortunately I have found myself caring about and for people so much that it almost killed me.  I have had to learn to pull back and save a little bit for myself. And I know I care too much about animals, but I can't help it.  They are so pure , beautiful, honest and unsullied that I must love them and care for them as much as I can.......but even there I draw a line.  I have refused to bankrupt myself to save an animal that I loved and I have, with much agony, had to give up several beloved cats who had such incurable bad habits that they made my life a living hell. and ultimately caused a fire that almost destroyed my house.  I still feel bad about that, but it was a definite case of Me or Them.  I guess I am just too selfish to love unconditionally. 

So, please, those of you whom I love, don't get trapped in a burning building and expect me to rush in and save you unless there is a damned good chance we can both get out alive and unscorched.    Better yet.....just don't get trapped in any burning buildings.

So there we are.....or...where are we?   Where can I rate myself on the scale of being a loving person?  Hell, to me it looks like about a 2.  Sigh.  I will have to keep working at it I guess..

Am I Beelzebub or Mother Theresa? Closer perhaps to St Francis?...........Naaaaah.  Too dramatic.

I guess I am just Lo who can only  love imperfectly.

Some Thoughts from a Member of the Clan of Unhappy Childhoods)

Warning:  Not a single Funny Bit to be found herein......this is serious stuff)

You know I love you all, but the truth is I am beginning to wonder  about some of the younger folks (that means nearly everyone) who seem to truly believe:

*Everyone ELSE had a happy childhood

*That if you chase Happiness long enough you will catch it
.
*And  that Adulthood sucks.

I feel like the Grinch.   I hate to be a spoilsport, but do any of you still think that you could achieve maturity and some degree of wisdom if you had what people fantasize as a  happy childhood?  Maybe I am totally wrong. I have often been known to be  full of shit.  Actually, there may be a gazillion folks out there who had happy childhoods and who are 100% wise, mature and pretty content with their lives.    Sadly, I am deprived and just don't know any of them.

One of my dearest friends confided in me when she had "graduated" from Psychoanalysis at around age 35 or 40.  I asked her eagerly if she could tell me the most important thing she had learned. She thought a moment and said, " I was liberated when I understood and accepted that I will never have a happy childhood.)

What provoked all of this mumbling and quiet ranting is the fact that I noticed in some of the comments on my last blog many expressions of sympathy, sadness and indignation at some of the miseries I had to suffer as a child at the mercy of a crazy, sadistic father.  Gosh, what if I had really told more and described my 5 years of  problems with the  overly loving grandfather whom we lived with ?  (Yes, I too belong to that abused club.....but happily, it no longer  deforms or embitters me.....I wish I could spell out the discovery process that bought me this freedom.....it might be helpful to someone...It is just so hard to communicate the "how" of it). 

The fact is , I do not regret one bit of my (often but not always) unhappy childhood.  The trials and tribulations of my childhood are what taught me some of the most important lessons of my life.  (......You do not HAVE to think like your parents think or believe what they believe......you do not HAVE to act like your parents act, etc........Someday you can make your own  choice about how you deal with  the world)   Without the  pain and lessons of my childhood I suspect I would not have known to develop some bits of compassion, tolerance, empathy and kindness, not to mention the sense of humor that has saved my life repeatedly when nothing makes  any sense at all.

We all use so much  strength and energy trying to avoid pain at all costs and if we somehow succeed, where are we?  Surely no wiser than we were.....just older and tireder and more perplexed and infuriated that we have had to suffer instead of being allowed to be......happy.  I wonder...if you take away the pain and suffering are you automatically happy?  I don't think so.  Pain-free does not necessarily mean  happy....it could mean just Numb.

It has been my sad experience that we do not learn much from our periods of happiness.....often not even to be grateful for them. The normal reaction is usually just,  "More, please"

 No, no, I am not advocating seeking out pain and suffering so we can learn....no need for that......If  you haven't figured it out already, pain and suffering will find you without any help.  But there is always a lesson to be learned in order to avoid future suffering from this particular thing.  And the lesson isn't just how to avoid this particular thing in the future.  In my experience, unless you can figure out why you are feeling the misery, you are doomed to continue to suffer from the same misery time and again.  When my  buttons get pushed causing me to say "Ouch", I have to trace the wiring down to the bottom to see what it is really connected to so I can disconnect it.  When I finally find the source it is always a huge surprise, not at all what I had been thinking all those years, and an even bigger relief.  Sometimes it takes half a lifetime.  Snip.....there is one pain not to be suffered anymore.  Whee.  (Now that is happiness .).

I am sorry I cannot give instructions on how to learn these lessons......I would if I could.......but each must do your own self-surgery,  digging, clawing, bleeding, unearthing what is underneath, finally  facing it and then joyfully kissing it goodbye and leaving it behind by the side of the road.


As I said at the top, the Adulthood or the Answer so many seem to be seeking does not come free......but (sigh) life gives you untold painful chances to earn it.

I hate it when I get what seems to me to be  preachy.   Ugh.    Forgive me if I have come across as  sanctimonious and arrogant.  I hope I am none of those things.  I only utter these words because I have been forced to learn one or two things during my lifetime and I keep wishing I could spare some of you the same pain.   I guess I should know better.  In fact I realize that I knew better even when I was young and on the other end of the equation. Now that I think of it, I remember  my beloved Mamma saying to me in exasperation, "Do you have to make all the same mistakes I did?"........and I wisely snapped back, "Yes!  How else can I learn?"

May you reach your goal and finally be able to be happy. 

I'll see you as we trod along the road.

Hey, Everybody.....Edna Is Combing Lois's Hair...Edna Is .........

The marvelous and brilliant Pearl of  "Pearl, Why You Little...."  left me a comment on my last blog which forced me to stop what I was doing (getting ready to clean stinky cat boxes.....this is Sunday and Flo is off) and immediately put on my Blogging Hat (the one with the upswept brim and just a touch of Maribou feather) and muse about the scene her comment brought to mind.

For any of you who missed my last blog or Pearl's comment,  I had mentioned that it wasn't till I broke my hip that I discovered that I was not as fiercely independent as I thought, and that I really adored being waited on hand and foot.   And Pearl said the following:

  " What I'd really like is someone to fix my hair, daily. Do you think that will ever happen? 
    I  can't imagine breaking a hip. I may find out some day. I turned 50 just a month ago and have been       reflecting on the differences in the ages that I've already been. What will come?"

                                   **********************************
Pearl,dear.... I cannot answer your question, but this one is for you)
                       
                                 **********************************           


I had an instant flashback to a moment in circa 1939......Lois is sitting on a chair in the kitchen of our house in Philly trying desperately to disappear or be somewhere else.  My two best friends, Sylvia and Stella are standing against the wall waiting for me to walk to school with them and wishing they were somewhere else.   My sainted Mamma is stoically combing my unruly locks trying to get the curly stuff to be smooth and flat in a few places and probably wishing she were somewhere  else. (I was an unattractive child, fat and clumsy and totally unable to make my hair look like anything but a tangled mop....hence my Mom tried to make things a little better.....that is how it all began)

And then it happens....what we all have been dreading.  Enter my Father, brows furrowed in rage stomping heavily into the kitchen  screaming, "When are you going to make the Brat comb her own hair.....expletive, expletive."  Whereupon (get this......so help me.....honest truth) he leaps onto a chair under the kitchen window, opens it and leans out  bellowing to all of
West Philadelphia,  "Edna is combing Lois's hair, Edna is combing Lois's hair!" 

I sincerely believe that he believed that this performance would so shame me and my Mother that we would immediately reform.  She would drop the comb, I would pick it up and start managing my coiffure from then on and  we would all burst into song......(I do not know what song would be appropriate)....and perhaps dance.  That did not happen.  We all stared into space and pretended we were somewhere else.  My father, defeated but still fuming, would stomp out and we could breathe again.
(incidentally, I never found out what the neighbors thought of this...but then, they always looked at me a little funny..)

This scene took place most mornings for several years........except for those periods when my father was so permanently enraged at us over something or other that he was not speaking at all that week or month. .  (Well, I confessed up front in my profile that I was from a dysfunctional family).  It might have continued into my teens and twenties had I not desperately figured out a solution.  One day, after gym, I was removing my stinky gym suit and staring in despair at my sweat soaked locks when it occurred to me that, if I were to get my shoulder length hair cut into a short bob, I could probably just tousle it into place with my fingers since it was so obstinately curly that it did whatever it wanted anyway. 

So, I did.

And I wish I could say that we all lived happily ever after, but that would not be quite true.  However,
West Philadelphia would never again have to hear :  "Edna is combing Lois's hair."

A Few Addendums??....Addendi??......Post Scripts???....duh.......Oh, WTF

How in the hell does a responsible blogger respond properly to comments?  I sure dunno.   I have mostly  refrained from adding my comments under my commenters'  comments because, how do you know if a commenter will come back to see if you have responded to their remarks?  Also.....to be honest, it is too much trouble and trouble-making....if I only answer certain comments -  that shows favoritism.....and if I have to answer each and every....well, I don't always have the strength, the time or the inspiration.  Yet, certain comments do cry out for a response......like some recent ones remarking on the fact that, since I have stated that I hate selling,how could I be tripping the light fantastic and having so much fun as a seller of them there Stock Options I wrote about a few blogs back?

Well, my dears, I understand your puzzlement, but I assure you I did not lie.  If I had to go door to door to sell the options like I did with the Liberty Magazines my Pappy sent me out with, and confront my buyers face to face, my new career would have died before it was even born.

I feel compelled to explain that the electronics age and the Options System in no way involve me with live people of any kind.....(to GTChristie....no, not even Stock Brokers.)  It is just anonymous Me and my trusty computer flinging Buy/Sell Tickets into cyberspace.  Somehow by some miracle they they fall into the correct slot at Scottrade (my Brokerless Brokerage House) and are forwarded electronically to the Option Pits on Wall Street by some magic or other.  I do believe there are live people there making all sorts of esoteric and possibly obscene gestures signalling "buy" and "sell" processing orders....maybe mine.....but that is so far removed from my world as to be a totally different and parallel universe. 

  Neither the buyer nor the seller have any faces in this little drama so I do not have to feel any guilt about the fact that I may be taking money from a misguided human being somewhere on the planet (yes, this could even be a trader in, say, Iran or North Korea) who has been electronically assigned  to participate in my transaction.  (And, by the same token that person need feel no guilt if the trade goes against me and I have to give the money back or sell my stock to them as part of the bargain.  No brokers, no victims, no defrauded widows or orphans and no gloating triumphant Wall Street Sleasebags.............it is all so clean, nay, antiseptic that no one ever dirties a pinkie.  Can you believe?

 If I think about it too much I am not sure if I can believe, but this is what makes it possible for me to be a seller of Options  with such gay abandon.  Is that now perfectly clear?  I certainly hope so.

That is really all I wanted to clarify right now......Wednesdays (today is one of those)  and Sundays are odd days for me.  My trusty Flo is off on these days and that means I am on my own, at the mercy of brutish cats, hummingbirds, squirrels and the occasional naggy mourning dove.  Stinky litter boxes cry out to be cleaned. whereas,  when I cry out for my breakfast or morning meds no one answers or provides me with anything.   It is only my grim satisfaction in being able to still take care of these things if necessary that makes these days bearable.   I sometimes think I may have been better off before the age of 82, when the broken hip  forced me to discover that being able to do everything for ones' self is not all it's cracked up to be and that, deep down in my soul, I had always wanted to be waited on hand and foot.   

Well, the honest truth is I haven't quite managed to achieve that.....in fact most of yesterday I found myself chopping veggies and stirring huge cauldrons of stuff making Florence a gallon or two of her favorite Lentil Vegetable Soup.  Sigh.  My dreams of having gourmet meals prepared for me have been dashed.   Florence is no cook..........sob.   However, she is great at washing up.    

Ya' takes whatcha  can get, I guess.

How the Hell Does She Do That?

I am consumed with envy, jealousy and inadequacy today...... directed at and generated by that incredible Blogger, Ms. Mary Moon of  "Bless Our Hearts".  Not only does she find it easy and therapeutic to blog 2 and 3 times a day, but, even if she has nothing in particular to say, she can, it seems, simply turn on the faucet of stream of consciousness thoughts and let them flow out of her fingertips to the keyboard, producing the most beautiful poetry and prose imaginable. Sigh.  I do love ya', Mary.

I have been wondering what kind of blog I would produce if I started, for instance, describing my day in detail from the moment I open my eyes.....or even before that.  Perhaps some of you might be interested in how an ancient's day begins.   Let's see how that would work out..........

"Ugbh.....grmph.......yuck.......aaaaaagh.......what is that wet thing pressing against my face......I hope it is a nose and not the other end....(I sniff cautiously to see if the kitty box nearby is wafting any yucky scents toward me)...what the hell time is it anyway.......dear god, does that say 5:13 am???.....wretched  beast.....if you think you are getting breakfast at this hour you had better reread your contract......later, Dude....(in my half sleep I pet, pet, pet).....that is all you are getting now. GO AWAY  aarrrrgh........zzzzz."

Through one slitted eye I see the sky is slightly tinged with that strange, soft, pale green, pre-dawn tint.  If I listen carefully I can barely hear the beginning traffic on the 3 Freeways nearby.  This is the closest you can get to silence here in North Hollywood anymore unless you put plugs in your ears and when you do that you are even more aware of the tinnitis ringing in the interior of the ear canals.  Besides, they are damned uncomfortable.   Not a chirp to be heard.   Not even the birds are awake yet..........zzzzzz.

Repeat this scene an hour later with a different cat. .ZZZZZ.

Fast forward 4 hours when my defenseless body is subjected to 2 cats marching back and  forth along my corpselike form making ungodly noises.  One of them (Winnie) has the strangest call....."Meh" she says......"Meh, meh, meh".     Gussie has a more strident call....."Mowrrr", repeated endlessly. )   Since one of these creatures weighs 17 1/2 lbs. this is not to be taken lightly much less  ignored.  I wondered where all those strange circular bruises with the 4 little darker spots  were coming from and I now realize that  a kitty massage from a 17 pounder has serious ramifications.  I think I am victim of assault and battery by Cat.

Now I can no longer ignore the punishment being handed out.  Gotta get up.  This requires laboriously flinging my body over and dislodging 2 creatures who have taken up residence on my belly and other parts.  I carefully remove the oxygen cannula from my nose (I sleep with oxygen because I have a low blood/oxygen level and this really helps.......40 years of smoking is not good for the lungs.).  I now do the first set of exercises to return my bod to a live  moving entity instead of a solid lump of frozen joints..........more aaaarrrgghhhs........Finally able to sit up, I do exercises 2 and 3 .....stretches.  Forgive my pride/arrogance, but I am still able to grasp my toes with straight legs at 84......I like to credit my years of yoga, but it is probably because my legs have shrunk 2 1/2 inches during the aging process  making it that much easier to reach the toes.....sigh.  Whatever.....I am still grateful that I can do it.

So now that I am sitting up on the edge of the bed I can reach the little brass bell sitting on my nightstand and lift it to take the 2 pills residing under it.....my morning pre- medications meds.  (I set them out the nite before and cover them with the bell so that the cats do not slobber on them or attempt to eat them)  I am still not awake, you understand, true consciousness does not set in for at least another hour, but I can detect the glorious aroma of the pink jasmine, just beginning to bloom outside my window.......mercy......how could that incredible scent have happened or been invented?...... Now all I have to do is reach out my hand to my cane hanging on the nearby bathroom doorknob utter some final prayers  and.......voila........I am upright.......(many oys, grunts and complaining noises uttered here  along with words of gratitude.)  I can now stagger to the dining table and turn on the computer after a quick stop to pee and turn off the oxygen generator. 

I am going to skip over the conversations with and the feeding of the cats, the joyful noises I utter when looking out of the kitchen window at the hummingbirds gathering into a lynch mob to attack if their feeders are not instantly replenished, the sight of Baskin poking his head out of the ferns in the garden white whiskers twitching,   waiting impatiently for me to open the sunroom slider and let him in for his breakfast, or the squirrel urking and scolding me from the safety of the lime tree, waiting for his sunflower seeds and peanuts.

Huzzah......another day has begun. 

 (to be continued at some time in the future perhaps........only up for 15 minutes and I am tired already)

Has Lo Come Slighly Out of Retirement ...or is it Onset Alzheimers??

 My beloved cousin, Lonnie sent me an email today quietly nudging me to get my fanny back to the blogging chair and I realized that I have, indeed  not blogged for 10 days.  Well, blame it on my new job/profession.  Yes, folks, it appears that I am sort of back to work, part time to be sure, at something totally new.  Has Lois lost her marbles?

I dunno.  I do know that for a number of months, if not years now, I have been silently bemoaning and regretting the fact that there is ONE major flaw in retirement (which has been quite blissful for me).  The fact that when one is retired, one no longer has any way of earning any serious extra money.

It has always made me subliminally uneasy to not have a way of earning any money.......when I was 6 or 7 I used to sweep the pavement in front of the house for a penny. A penny was serious money in those days and I am not kidding.   At about the same time my father sent me out with a shoulder bag that said "Liberty Magazine" on it and made me go door to door selling the magazines.  I think they cost a nickel......naturally, everyone caved in before this waif who was so miserable and ashamed she could hardly look them in the eye and I did a brisk business.  Trouble was, my father, beast that he was, took the all proceeds for himself (truly) and I finally found someplace to hide next time he tried that stunt.  I hated selling! 

Oh, yeah....then there was my little enterprise at about age 8 when Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs came out in the movies......there was a comic book in the five and dime with all the characters in full color and I would buy the book for a nickel and cut out the characters carefully and, out of the left over balsa wood from my model airplane kit I would cut out a wood backing, glue the picture on the front, a  safety pin on the back,cover it all with colorless nail polish for protection  and sell them to my school chums at 5 cents each.  The trouble with that business was that I did not have a large circle of friends and after everyone I knew bought a pin I was out of business 'cause, as I said above, I hate approaching strangers to buy anything.

Anyway.....as you can see, I found, very early in life, the need to have a way to earn money......(how hysterically funny that I chose for my profession the career of artist (sublimely but inevitably starving) and could not understand why the next 20 years were so uncomfortable.......but, I digress.

Since my retirement I have  been living off lovely things like my small pension, bountiful, wonderful Social Security and the pittance that my careful investments earn in interest.  It is a good thing that I am expert in being frugal, but it has worked fairly well for me.  However, intermittently,e I have been driven to a frenzy by the thought that I have no means of earning any money and have considered applying at McD's for a job.  (by the way....one of my  tenets has always been, "No Job Is Beneath Me".)   Fortunately, some crumb of reluctance has saved me from that fate, but still, I hated having no prospects in case of emergency.....and the creeping inflation that no one is talking about has been rapidly creating something of a possible emergency. The cats have begun to worry about it even......

So, to finally get to the point, (did you think I would never connect these widely scattered dots?) I do not know if any of you remember my confession of 6 moths ago when I mentioned here that I was being attracted by a possible money making process involving Options in the Stock Market and I was buying books on the subject and taking courses online from any market service  who offered me free education.  Amazingly, I have been quietly pursuing this course for the past months and, after a timid, cautious and somewhat shaky beginning, I have done fairly well......modest gains, but....hey.....remember, I am the one who used to consider a penny a fantastic payoff for sweeping the sidewalk.....  Above and beyond the thrill of finding a way to earn a buck has been the fact that I find it exciting and challenging and worth getting up for each day.  If you remember, I had been complaining that I had no motivation to get out of bed other than to feed the cats which is not, you must admit, the most titillating pastime.  Now, there are days when I rise at 7 am rather than my usual 10 or 11, in order to execute some fancy dancy transaction when the market opens in New York.(like getting myself into or out of a stark naked bear straddle or a barefaced, bare-assed uncovered strangle or who know what they call what I am doing).

  Incidentally, despite what you have heard, the kind of transactions I am engaging in are not really risky.........I mostly sell options to other people and collect the premium for same.  Since something like 90% of options expire worthless, it is the folks who eagerly, foolishly buy the options that I sell  who lose the money while I am banking the premium they paid me.  If I see the trade going against me badly, I get out with a small loss and count my blessings.  Also, I want you to know that I have subscribed to a paid service which gives me advice, education  and trades I can follow or not, as the mood moves me, so I am not dangling on the end of a branch all on my own....I have developed my own variations on their suggestions and sort of my own system ...and I really have learned quite a bit and am still learning every day.


The funniest thing of all though was this weekend when I sat down at leisure with the market closed to read some of the many newsletters I get either giving me market advice or trying to sell me a service which will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams.  There was one I had never seen before and I read it to the very end because, as I went along something about it resonated in my subliminal consciousness.  When I got to the bottom I realized that this guy was not such a nut at all ......his ideas were very workable.  But what he was doing was trying to sell me, for $895 a year, my own methodology.

What a hoot.  My insanity or wise approach (take your pick) validated by an outside objective source.  And to top it off,  I am no longer bored.

What more could a person ask?

P.S.  I  promise that, should I have to file for bankruptcy due to an unseen flaw in my system, I will not ask for a single contribution from any of you.  So sleep comfortably and know that, when sweeping the sidewalk for a penny ceases to be workable, there is always another Option.    (ooooh, sorry)