I just tossed a fifth of gin

Now I’m going to dizz knee land

I just got cuffed again

Now I’m going to dizz knee land

Shot my gun into the night

I’m going to dizz knee land

I just saw a good man die

I’m going to dizz knee land. ~ Dada

I wrote this post five years ago. I’ve pulled it from my private collection.You’ll know why.

My lame joke about guns and holsters for all occasions may soon  become reality. America has noticed an insanity problem. America has declared it will not give up its guns. The discussion is on the table.

There are no statistics here on the prevalence of pharmacueticals prescribed for anxiety and depression nor statistics on gun sales. I took no opportunity to rail about the challenges of adapting to a technological and potentially isolated life. Or maybe I just did. Guns are now allowed in our parks.

From the archives of the Journal Pages 2008

I heard the news today oh boy. The NRA is putting pressure on Disneyland. Employees should carry concealed weapons to work. It seems those employees put their lives on the line every day. As a person who has an unhealthy horror of anything plush or otherwise with an over-sized head or hands I can see that.

Once a week I teach at a tennis club. It’s a diverse crowd and I saw an opportunity for real growth last week when I brought up the NRA concern. I instigate where I can. There are so many opportunities for us to dislike each other but we don’t which is a great accomplishment.

Someone added that the NRA is pushing to allow concealed weapons permits at all national parks and though she didn’t seem too concerned a couple of college students gasped in horror. An older woman known for her terse and take no prisoners attitude snapped,

“Well it’s supposed to be a free country. We should be able to do what we want. In the old West everybody wore a holster and had guns right on their bodies! I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

I made a bad joke about the opportunity for marketing guns and holsters to suit a modern woman’s changing wardrobe needs.

I imagined getting pulled over by the police for a bad tail light and getting a ticket for not wearing my seat belt but the weapon would be allowed. In fact I could wear my gun to a bar, get drunk and stagger down the street as long as I didn’t get in my car and drive. For that matter I could get in my car and drive with an arsenal of prescribed drugs in me as long as I wasn’t carrying pot. But I digress.

In 2003 in the state of Tennessee there were about 217 requests for concealed weapons permits and in 2007 that increased to about 217,000 requests. They have a gun, I need a gun or maybe they have a gun and why shouldn’t I? I live in the South and there is a sense of entitlement to guns that we didn’t share in the general non criminal population of New Jersey. I have friends who have guns and as I write this I’m wondering why I am friends with people who believe it’s good to have guns but I’ve gotten used to it. I should heed the words of my Nana who once admonished me for dating what she saw as a loser,

“You can get used to anything, even a wart at the end of your nose.” A woman of impeccable appearance, this curse was avoidable as anything could be cut out or off or made reasonable with the help of a plastic surgeon.

Still, there is a peculiar poetry to the insanity in the South which both disturbs and pleases me. I unlike the Chinese who recently issued a statement that mentally ill people would not be allowed at the Olympics have come to expect unreasonable behavior.

The Chinese have whole cities devoted to making products like mattresses. In a mattress city the country folk are imported to work and in return they are fed and crowded into small apartments where they live on top of each other. How crazy is that? Aren’t you harvesting crazy people? How can people who have cities like this talk about mentally ill people?

And how will they know who is mentally ill anyway?

If you’re not drooling and screaming perhaps something in your toiletries kit will offer the information they need. Anti-psychotic drugs are widely distributed as are drugs for depression. And then there are drugs for general anxiety and drugs for pain or sleeplessness that have the side effect of making one wild eyed. Are you going to keep out right wing folk singers?  How about Jews for Jesus? People who chain dogs in their fenced in yards?

And who would fill all those seats? I would consider about a third of the people I know more than a bit off. My husband and I had three people to dinner the other night and two of them were barely orbiting the planet while I have automated voice turrets. Anytime any automated voice addresses me I go crazy with verbal assaults. I am the most reactive yoga teacher ever and worse still, I don’t care, I delight in it. So what do you expect China?

Will it be okay to carry concealed weapons into the Olympics? How about Capitol Hill? Why not?

That’s all.