OFF

     In PD, off ties are not good times. It is when all that one is trying to hold off, to hold back, breaks through all the defenses and a rotten times ensues. Sometimes the off times are of short duration, like just around the time medication is due. But other times they last longer and at present it seems as if I am in an off period. No, one cannot see it. I look the same, act the same, but the 'offness' is there. 
     Averaging two hours of sleep a night is not conducive to good times. It is like walking around in a fog, dragging some heavy ropes and packages with you. It is frightening when the habits of a Parkinson  gait that were vanquished a while ago seem to have returned and take a massive effort to overcome - and try doing that on two hours of sleep a night! And yet one must continue the fight, the struggle, do the exercises, take pride in new capabilities and realize that this PD is progressive but one does not have to lay down in front of it and its demands.
     The off period is also an affective disorder in that one appears to be somewhat sad, low. Well, being tired, being a bit challenged, being hit in the face again with the knowledge of a future awaiting one, does not lend itself to a rip roaring happy time. But the affective side of this is also definitely not helped when the events around one seem to be going down an eddy, whirling and twirling in its death grip and what is in that eddy? Us, our country, and the world itself is trying to swim away, not get caught in that doomed circle, but it looks as if they are already there, within its circle of power.
     Government agents that break into a man's home while he is being interviewed, disclosing a lie that he was told to repeat and recite - and he was always a good 'soldier', till this. Are we now truly trying to shut down free speech with force? Maxine Waters, a Congresswoman anti Trump, is now besieged with death threats. The Red Hen is being cyberattacked by people looking for profits in this mess. Another mass shooting. ICE agents that want to separate this agency into two, thus enabling the other functions to proceed apace, unhampered by the negativity and awfulness of the whole immigration mess and family separation. And remember, over 2,000 children are still separated and in some cases the government admits they are not sure where they have stored these poor kids.
     Off times indeed, corresponding to my personal off times and it ain't good times. Product after product, thousands of jobs are now at risk due to the dangerous asinine tariff war policy of the jackass. The stock market is going nuts and the plans and hopes of many are quite shaky now. And then, of course, we have Amazon, the giant eating all that comes in front of it, devouring all. And if one wishes to see what a world run by giant corporations are like, well, there are any numbers of books and films about this, fiction and non fiction and an easy but scary read is The Store, by Patterson.
     500 women are arrested in the Capital building for protesting the administration's immigration policy, all while wrapped in the same aluminum blanket given to the poor kids trapped in the hellhole of the government. Try to cuddle into sleep with aluminum! And hey, maybe that policy will change because aluminum costs are up already. So thank you, Donny boy!
     The Constitution is endangered by this Supreme Court, now and in the near future as Trump and the wimpy Republicans try to pack it for decades to come. Our Founding Fathers, our soldiers who died in all the wars to keep us safe and honoring our values, the massive death count of the Civil War when our nation split in two, over human and humane values - and it seems we are right back there in so many ways.
     We set a 'controlled' burn - and then burn up double the acreage and oops, dozens of home. The carelessness of government, the off times and attitudes, the danger of a looming chaotic crack in our country's unity and future - all is OFF, big time! I am hoping my off time will quiet down with some more sleep - working on that - and my determination to fight back, to regain the progress I had made to beat the damn PD off again - and turn 'on' in my life once again. When will the nation do this? Wish I knew.