Roller Curtster

Those who know me best, (and those people are rare) know I've been through the mill over the past 7 years or so; they also know that no matter how much I gripe, growl or groan I'm always going to keep moving forward.

Wife leaving, dog put down due to cancer, job vanishing due to angry boss and nasty investors fighting and then said nasty investors liquidating 300 people, two of my favorite houses being sold off because of prior mentioned events; yep it's been rough ride on the roller coaster of life.

I moved, changed my life around and said goodbye to 18 years of the dread insurance game; I found Colorado and it was good. While there I did have to move on from another lover, left another dog behind, (at least she was still alive) and it all had to happen like some Twilight Zone version of my prior experience...that was rough, but less so than the first time...guess it's like riding the same roller coaster over and over; it's still got the same twists and turns, but you know what to expect after the first time.

I loved Colorado; I loved being a bum and doing what I wanted when I wanted and how I wanted! The freedom of those last 2 years of my 3 years in the Enchanted Valley of Northglenn, Co will live forever in my memory as the golden age of Curt.

There were issues of course; I don't lead that charmed kind of existence that has moments of perfection. No, even during my moments of perfection there is some hair out of place, or loud stomping pompous ass making noise above me 20 hours out of every day...but I can deal with that if everything else is golden.

Money running short and jobs in shorter supply I started to think of what ride I should go on next; I had always wanted to join the Peace Corps; in fact I had done the paperwork in my late 20's just before I met my ex wife and left the PC line for that new attraction.

So being free and amazingly unencumbered of emotional or monetary debt, I joined the Peace Corps and left for Jamaica in July of 2008; just prior to then my mom passed away unexpectedly at the end of May. It was rough and the USPC almost didn't let me take my assignment, but I convinced them it was the right time for me and off I went.

I was sworn in to service on August 28th 2008 and thus began my first official year of Peace Corps Jamaica. I was in for an amazing ride; the people I met, places I went and things I learned about myself, my culture and then others and their culture are experiences I will not only keep a life time, but will take a life time to sort through.

I planned to go home for 1 vacation during my 2 years in Jamaica; the plan was August 11th through September 2nd. Then my father got sick and I was called on the 27th of July to rush home to his bedside. I arrived on the 28th and he succumbed to his illness just two days later; suddenly I was a 45 year old orphan... my mind was like a poor little Oliver, "Please sir, I don't want any more!"

While I was back in the USA I realized just how much I loved America; my home, my culture. Watching the USA from Jamaica we seem so ridiculous; I mean all the BS with movie stars and politicians and people stomping people into the floor to buy a new X Box...but then I came home and I was just blown away by all that we have and what we've done with it.

We Americans are goofy sure, but after living abroad for over a year I realized that all humans are just young babes in the universe and we're just crawling around trying to learn how to take those first few steps. I had lived for a year in a culture just starting to roll over, after being born to a land that was already up on it's hands and knees rocking.

So when I could step back for a few moments from the loss of my father, I was able to notice that I felt more love for my family than I had in ages, relished the time with my friends in a way I hadn't in years and when the air turned cold one night and I could smell fall inthe wind, my very spirit smiled. This was my home; not one state, but the the very state of being...American.

When the time came to get back on the airplane and head back for my second year in Jamaica it was rough; this roller coaster of a life I have been living the past 7 years or so seemed like it was ready to pull into the loading station and stop to let me off for a while...but I had said I'd ride until the end and those who know me best know I'm in it to the end, win or lose.

I'm in a new place this second year; I moved from the middle of Jamaica to the tip; changed from a business town, to tourist stop and from friends and familiar faces, to a whole new set of people and places. Up the hill and down I plunge; stomach in my throat, hands gripping the cross bar as I try to keep my head from banging around from side to side. It's thrilling and scary and you want it to keep going and stop all at the same time...

In 8 months I'll be leaving Jamaica; I have no clue what comes next; like a walk through Six Flags, you wait in a long line, talk to your friends and then climb into the next roller coaster and see what the ride is going to be like.

STFU PETA! -or- Plants are people too!

“PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly”

[Squeezes bridge of nose, takes a deep breath of life and blows it back out again.]

“PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.”

[Feels reality slipping away, and not in a good way.>]

You have to be kidding me. This can’t be real…has to be April 1st again and the time here in Jamaica has just FLOWN past.

[Checks date on computer; covers face with palm, since it is in fact June 18, 2009 and not All Fools Day.]

Nope it’s real; there are people in the world this insane.

Anybody who knows me will agree that I am a fan of animals. I am a bit of a Dr. Doolittle in fact and have petted cats and dogs that others swear are either too shy or too ornery to be handled by anybody other than their owners. I adopted a greyhound and crusaded for greyhound rights when I heard how terribly they were treated.

I’m not a vegetarian, I eat meat, but I agree that the animals don’t need to suffer while they are alive and can be killed in ways that do not give, (or prolong) suffering…I’m cool with that; good Karma.

I don’t begrudge those who chose to live free from an animal based diet. I applaud those who do so for reasons of health, and even those who, (un-judging of others) do so because they do not wish to cause the death of animals.

But this is too much. No really; shut the flying fuck up PETA and get a grip on the insanity you are spewing out these days! You’ve gone from being a viable group of people looking to help find rational rights for animals to a flat out psycho ward full of dangerous and delusional morons.

I’ve long held that those who do judge others on eating meat are wrong in their beliefs; sorry but everything that isn’t dead on this planet is ALIVE folks…EVERYBODY MUST KILL SOMETHING TO LIVE; period. Shut up; you’re wrong…it’s a fact. Plants are living things and you kill them to eat them and thus live yourself.

Plants give us the very thing of life that all other things on our planet need to survive; oxygen. Last I checked, you can’t live more than about five minutes without breathing, but you can most likely live a good long time with a few less flies on the planet.

(Notice please that I said a few less flies; other than a recent interest in the genocide of mosquitoes, I don’t advocate killing off an entire species of anything on our glorious globe.)

I get the concept that a carrot isn’t as cute as a cow and I’d rather have a pet puppy than potato, but when you start telling me that a fig has less of a right to life than a fly, A SHIT EATING, DISEASE CARRYING FLY…it’s time for you to go. If a life is a life and all should be saved from death by digestion, then we should kill nothing to live and it's time for us ALL to starve to death; better that than become like PETA.

There are plenty of animals (and plants by the way) that need our help just to survive; flies will be here long after we are gone from this place. They will buzz around our corpses and plan families in our gray dead eyes no matter how many we swat during our lifetimes, flies are the lords in the end.

So take a few deep breaths to regain your sanity PETA; consider the (now dead) cumquat your about to swallow and suggest a Venus Flytrap to our President; it's the oval office of life.