Well, I tried calling my mother, but she didn't answer her phone.

Karen's son Matt called his mother, though... at about 05:30 this morning. From jail. Where he was incarcerated for another DUI.

Karen is hurt and worried, and I am really really pissed. It's bad enough that he is practically worthless and has no respect for himself and others, but anyone who makes Karen cry is despicable. Gotta put that sputtering accent on that word, a la daffy duck...

Bad feeling between Matt and I go way back to shortly after Karen and I got engaged. He is, according to many other people, a really nice personable guy. His mother especially thinks this way, which is probably OK... I mean, like, My mother thinks that I'm a nice guy, but she would get a disagreement from a lot of people. And she wouldn't listen, just as Karen doesn't listen.

Just some good and bad points about mothers....

Back to the subject... Karen came by the hospital to get some money to bail Matt out, which I gave her without objection, but my tongue really hurts. She left and I was in the process of getting a backrub from Hyon when Karen came back... the car wouldn't start. The key wouldn't turn, she said. So I went out the the car with her, jiggled the key and the steering wheel and it started right up.

So now I'm sitting here waiting for them to come home... although I'm sure that Karen won't bring him over here, so I guess I'm just waiting for Karen.

I need some chocolate. Now, dammit.

Anyway, my buddy Steve the security guy and I were out in the ambulance bay smoking and he said something that started me thinking...

What he said was that he didn't really care about all of the wars abroad and the starving people and the vast injustice of the world.

And I realized that, you know, I don't either. I still do in an intellectual way... but the emotion that used to be there for... causes... isn't there any more.

That reminds me of a joke. Save the whales... get the complete set...

Or maybe... what do you get when you cross a Jehova's Witness with an atheist? Someone who knocks on your door... for no reason at all.

Back to the story, if that's what it is... what is it that makes people stop caring? Is it just age, or mostly age? Possible just too much exposure to the world and the nasty people in it? Is it the same thing that makes people stop loving one another? Boredom?

I used to wonder why it always seemed to be the old men who started the wars. I'm beginning to understand, I'm afraid, because I'm starting to become that way myself.

No, I don't care that I appear to be apathetic.

But I don't think that it's apathy.

It is knowing that mankind is an inexorable force, heading blithely onward, sightlessly, never even wondering where it's going.

And knowing that, in the end, it doesn't matter.

Hedonism.

What the hell, it works for me....