I am pondering complexities of the universe: stop the melodrama, right? I am tired of the struggle to maintain the status quo. I am tired of the onslaught of McCulture. I am tired of being asked for money on the streets. I am tired of looking for answers that may or may not exist. I am tired of forcing imagined realities onto eyes that don’t want to understand the truth.

Why? Because the office smells like glue: potent glue - the kind of harsh contact-cement glue that they use to do construction work such as repairing the wall moldings on an area damaged by recent flooding. Does that make sense? I hope not. There is no relationship: it is arbitrary.

Why? Because there is no reason. Frustration with a reality that is inescapable and exhausting. But what can you do? Continue. Keep moving along and try to break thru the wax layers of craziness that sometimes are inescapable. Another chink in the once shiny finish: Carolyn told us a story this morning - something that happened to her husband’s employee. It might sound like an urban myth, but this is true - it occurred to someone I sort-of-know.

Picture it: young guy - mid-thirties - driving down some road in the depths of downtown Vancouver. He has stopped at a red light - waiting - and the crunch comes: he’s been rear-ended by another car. He reaches for his insurance and related papers, and steps from the car. Before he’s moved more than a few steps the other driver is in his face, literally, shouting, blaming, and angry. “You backed into me, you %$@#!” “What?” Then stars: the story gets painful, as the other driver head-smacks our protagonist, ramming their foreheads violently together and causing a 2 inch gash on the edge of his scalp - that’s five stitches worth.

Half-stunned he climbs back into his car, fiddles with the glove box and produces a can of pepper spray, blood everywhere. Back to confront the other driver - of which there are now two - the pepper-spray is enough to scare the freak - both of them - back to his own vehicle. They disappear.

Blood gushing down his face he flags and waves - and another car stops, the driver of that vehicle rushing off to get the license plate number: it is later revealed that these guys were known to police. This was an attempted carjacking. The lesson the cops offer: don’t get out of your car if you are rear ended. The lesson to my sister who was recently in a minor fender-bender: at least your just dealing with a dishonest fraud. The lesson to the rest of us: these are the problems, and we are all becoming victims.