A Vortex of Anger in Everyday Ramblings

Rose hips and hydrangea.

I had a challenging day yesterday. The news is affecting me, and I think I need a tune up or something. I am feeling isolated and on a lot of levels that is of my own doing. You know, the proud, independent, socially anxious streak. Most of my life I have been able to manage being functional in the world with one or two close friends and or companions and my supportive family. But right now, all of that is in disarray.

Not in a bad way, just in a life taking people in different directions way.

Anyway, I have felt intensely on my own this week. Besides all the international news we had a terrible road rage weird shooting downtown a few days ago. It was a block from the studio I used to teach at. A guy honked and aggressively swerved around another guy who was illegally blocking traffic and then his anger getting the better of him, pulled over, got out and went to say something to the first guy who was blocking traffic. The first guy shot him dead for his troubles in the middle of the day, in the middle of the street, surrounded by onlookers even though he knew the guy yelling at him was not armed.

Then a visiting conference attendee, who had stepped out of a hotel across the street thought it would be a good idea to take video of the incident was shot in the leg for his trouble. The shooter then drove away a few blocks, went to a parking garage, called the police, and turned himself in. A man, whose life wasn’t going all that well, recently bankrupt, with a name change and some documented anger management issues in his past.

Anger. A river of anger.

So yesterday I was walking to the bus stop with my groceries along a path by some shops and I see a fellow coming towards me, walking with a large wooden staff. I think, well, he looks marginal but okay, so I kept walking. As I passed him he turned towards me and yelled, quite intensely at me, that I was a worthless piece of human scum or words to that affect.

I wasn’t in the best of moods, and at a low ebb. This did not help. I suspect he was projecting big time, but the visceral feel of the anger was disturbing. Oh, and the threat of the staff.

Then when I got off the bus from the back door there were two people getting on up front and as I went to step around them, I saw a woman lying on the ground, on the damp cement, in the bus shelter with a coat over her head. She looked young. I didn’t have Narcan with me and I didn’t know what to do and I am ashamed to say I walked on by, already rattled. Those people getting on the bus must have seen her as well.

It is a tragedy that we are getting used to this.

A bit later on my computer I had a charge I didn’t recognize from Amazon, and I thought oh, I will go and look at my orders and see if I can identify it. I go to Google; I type in Amazon. I see a link. I click. Big warning noise and blue screen, Your Computer Has Been Locked.

I closed the computer. I unplugged it. I sat there and freaked out. I can’t function in my regular capacity without my laptop. Two of my students have been hacked recently and had no end of trouble. I have my iPad right there. I have Apple Care. I think okay. I will call my local Apple store and make an appointment. I looked up the number on my iPad.

I called, talked to a robot, got an Apple Tech without a very long wait. His name is Matt. He was very calm. He asked me a bunch of questions and walked me through next steps.

Somewhere in there I had done a hard shut down of the laptop. Even though the instructions from the scammer were not to do that I saw later as Matt took me through the simple process of deleting my browser history and checking that everything was okay.

Apparently, I had the sense to not take the bait. But oh man, I came close. Way way too close for comfort. It happens to the best of us. I didn’t lose anything but my browser history for the last week. And I did eventually figure out the charges were legitimate, just combined in a way I didn’t recognize.

It makes me furious that scammers take advantage of people like this. So mad.

What are we to do with all this anger?

Might I suggest not having guns in our cars? I eventually went for a walk, listened to a distracting audiobook, took pictures of flowers, and came home and ate too many cookies.

On Thursday, Walt had rented us a side room at the old church for the coffee guys, and we all talked about what we do to find comfort and relief from the relentless and difficult news. It was a useful and thoughtful conversation that became quite poignant at points.

This is long enough. All I can say is that today is already better and thanks for letting me share my very bad, no good, what the heck kind of creatures are we, day with you.

Last updated October 14, 2023