We spent the weekend in the mountains with friends, celebrating our sudden good fortune and waiting for snow, which never came. At some point the dinner conversation veered to the subject of this blog.
"It used to be funny, but now it's just mean" one of my good friends remarked. He shall remain nameless. Robert.
Well yes, point taken. But tell it so someone who cares. If you want unoffensive good fun, go here.
Here's the deal... I started this blog a week after we moved here because I was suicidally depressed and couldn't afford a therapist, not that I would've wanted a local one even if I could afford it.
As horrible as the situation was, I tried to see the humor it. It was easy to be amusing back then because we were delusional and honestly believed this was going to be a very temporary aberration. We were so sure our stay here would be brief, we were reluctant to sign a year lease on our first place because there was no way on God's green earth we would still be here in a year. Our stay in Bakersfield would soon be nothing more than a funny cocktail story...
"You think Turkish prisons are bad, well, let me tell you about the time we lived in Bakersfield..."
Then one year turned into two and it stopped being so amusing.
I think the turning point was the opossum.
So, try as hard as I might, the anger and bitterness and resentment and desperation and loneliness crept into the blog and yes, it became mean. So shoot me. You try living here and staying cheerful. I defy you. Besides, I never imagined anyone would ever read all of this, it was just my little journal of despair.
But that's now all in the past, bygones.
I did decide over the weekend that in the weeks remaining here I'm going to try and be a little more charitable. It's the least I can do. If I have any regrets at all about the blog, it's the language. I've been dropping altogether too many F-bombs. The other day, on the morning news, some old fart was on saying that cussing is a mark of low intelligence, but what the fuck does he know? All the same, I'm going to try and clean up my language for the time remaining. I'd like to go out on a high note.
