tired....

between the awful southern california heatwave and menopause, the heat has me beat.  i haven't had a good night's sleep in two nights.  i sweat from humidity  while my bed becomes an infrared mirror from my own body heat. 

physically, i am finally on track, having nearly completely recovered from knee surgery and the unfortunate ensuing infection.  just allergies and sleeplessness. 

but its OK, i know it will pass when the heat lifts and my allergies have a moment to settle.  importantly, i am feeling stronger daily.

so what's the beef?

global warming?  feels like it.  

i wanted to give a review of my opinion of the republican convention.  i just wrote 2 full paragraphs  about it.  but now i have erased it as i think i can't win - i will only alienate my good friends on either side.

as for me?  well, i have just finished a couple of very nice paintings - i hope that they go down well in the public's eye.  i need to remember that as an artist, my chosen position in life is to communicate through pictures, my own creations.  my father was a hardcore republican newspaperman who wrote a weekly opinion column- i hardly agreed with him politically, but that was his chosen profession. 

 i got the backlash of it at times, like one time,  i got pushed off my bike by an aggressive  kid who was upset that my father had written something awful about his father.......could i help it if his dad was running a corrupt post office?  did i care at age 9?  except how dare him throw my bike down.  humpf.   i spent a couple of days reliving the incident --- i should have at least swung at him.....but i was too startled, and i had a hard time comprehending what his beef was.  i had seen this kid at school but had never talked to him, jeez, what a hothead-but i kinda admired him for reading the paper or at least listening to his old man complain about my dad.  i went home and humpfed at my father, "you caused me to get my bike thrown in the street today --- and i was on it!"  my dad laughed, he saw i wasn't hurt.  then he told me, "don't worry that old man macgregor knows i wrote the truth and the truth hurts.  that boy won't bother you again, that family has bigger problems than my column."

i was wowed.....an ordinary kid like that affected that much by pen and paper, er newspaper ink.  none of the other kids even knew or cared what my dad did for a living.  but i learned a big lesson about chosen professions from him - and public views.

as for a woman in office?  i will only say this....i wish we had margaret thatcher.  to me, she was one of the greatest political figures ever - and it just so happened, she was a married woman with kids.  how much of her family life was brought out while she was in office - hardly ever.  did she use her family as a political statement about how it qualified her for the job?  or did britain judge her potential as leader by how many kids she had - no!  that would be ridiculous!  and anyone resorting to talking about that would be looked upon as a simpleton.   the only time britain looks at the family ties is when they are discussing royalty when the children will one day rule.  not that they could stop that from happening.  but it gives the people something to gossip about at bus stops and barber shops.

my opinion:   the further we get away from a politician's personal life, the better.  that goes for both sides.

will i get thrown off my bike for saying that?   i hope not.