Camus and Curtains

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." Albert Camus

Today was semi productive. As usual it got off to a slow start. Its easy to slip back into a third shift schedule on the weekends, where I wake up late in the morning and shower at noon.

My parents were going to go see my aunt and uncles house this afternoon. My aunt and uncle are the kind of people who buy a house, fix it up and then sell it. So seeing their house is always an adventure. I declined to go this time.

I had two objectives for the day. First, I needed to deposit all of the money that I had gotten for Christmas into my savings account. I want to think about what I want to buy before I spend any of it. My second objective was to get a new shower curtain.

Usually the afternoon hours of the day are a wasteland for me, but today I was shopping. On the other hand, shopping can be just as mindless as lying around the house. Besides I had to experience humanity at its finest, because everyone knows that after Christmas shopping brings out the best in people.

Tracy used to think that I judged people too harshly. I guess that I like to be judge, jury and executioner some of the time. If I don't like something, I'll say it. Exceptions seem to come into play when someone I care about is involved.

Tracy liked to see herself as a caring person, and because of this she worked in the medical field. Since she didn't have much of an education, she was at the bottom working as a nurses assistant. She had plans though to do better. Strange how those plans never seemed to happen.

My life feels right again. When I was with Tracy, I felt old and worn down all of the time. People like to laugh that a man needs a woman to relieve the stress in his life. Living with Tracy, however, increased my stress levels to new heights and sex was a regular part of our lives.

People spend so much of their lives looking for a person to fill something that is missing inside of themselves. I like to think that nothing is missing from my life. So maybe a woman would enhance my life, since nothing is missing. I don't know, that just seems too optimistic to me.

Being involved with someone changes a person. Or at least I change when I am with someone. I become concerned with what she wants to do. My life seems to be more focused on her, which really isn't all that healthy for me.

So maybe what I am saying is that I'm still not sure if I want to get involved with someone again. Sex isn't enough for me. I learned that years ago. I guess if I was involved with someone they would have to be more of their own person. Tracy seemed to take so much from me and give so little in return.

Every so often she would ask me, if I saw her as a burden. At first I said no, but she must have seen how she was killing me.

I like to think of myself as a simple person, not in the sense of Forrest Gump simple, but more in terms of what I really need. My job provides enough for me and I have a decent place to live. True, I do still strive for more, but I won't kill myself to get more. Nor will I be a vehicle for someone else to use. Lady Macbeth need not apply.

I want to take a moment here and mention that the times that I have discussed Macbeth with professors, they were women. Despite some personal concerns, they both felt that the play was an excellent piece of literature that accurately portrayed how people interact with one another. This is the enduring quality of Shakespeare.

The play is often seen as casting women in a cruel light from the witches on up to Lady Macbeth. This is worng. People are trying to put a twentieth century Oprah Winfrey spin on something that was written centuries ago.

Back to shopping.

When I was in the store looking for a shower curtain, I passed the regular curtains and decided to take a look at them. I've only been living here a year without real curtains, so I felt that maybe that was long enough. Plus I am hoping for a lower heat bill this winter. The combination of plastic on the windows and real curtains should make some kind of difference.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to decide what curtains would look the best in my living room. I went with a solid burgundy color. They look pretty good except that they need to be washed because they have an annoying fresh from the package smell that is filling the house. I wonder what kind of chemical they use on the fabric to make it smell so strong.

People in retail have to be either extremely patient or able to focus past all of the bullshit that comes with the job. Thankfully I have never worked a retail job in my life. Most of my job history was spent in the factory sector.

After I had bought both sets of curtains, I made my way to Best Buy. No sign of Nicole.

This evening I was reading a copy of The Maxx, a comic that seems to be an exercise in textbook psychology, when I started to think about how people can be so cruel to one another. Maybe I am being negative, but so many people only seem to care about themselves. I often wonder how humanity made it this far.

The storyline was set in a casino where people take advantage of one another all of the time. Grifters are the main characters and what they do to people is what we get to see.

Gambling has never attracted me. I just don't understand what people see in it. To me they are throwing their lives to chance. Why would anyone do that? They say that it gives them a rush. Once again its that me first attitude.

This afternoon I dug out some episodes of Northern Exposure that I had taped. The episode that I saw mentioned Camus. Its been a year or so since I read The Plague, but it made sense to me. Each character represented a part of humanity. I guess that you could call it a modern allegory.

Humanity can be so many things, but fails so often. Then who am I to say what is right and wrong.