I was sitting on an airplane, and for 2 hours, the woman sitting next to me only interrupted her near-continuous coughing fits to take the occasional sneeze break –the woman was clearly sick as a dog. Everyone gets sick, I get it, but this woman refused to cover her mouth/nose when she coughed and sneezed, she was spewing her disease all over me and everyone else around. I was friggin furious. Doesn’t she know you are supposed to cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze? With each and every hack my anger-o-meter shot-up;  I wanted to slap her, to shake her, to teach her a lesson, because folks are not supposed to be so damn inconsiderate. She is not supposed to treat me this way.

The drivers in New York aren’t supposed to honk –shit its against the law, with signs at every intersection about the $200 (never-enforced) fine for honking; horns are supposed to be for safety not road rage. Honestly, I want to bang on the hoods of every honking car, to claw-out the eyes of the drivers, to bring-back corporal punishment and apply it to honking. I want to start a Citizen’s Against Honking in NY movement that advocates for public whippings as punishment for gratuitous honks. Fuck fines, these people need pain!

My health insurance is supposed to cover my prescription medication. My doctor prescribed it, I pay my premiums, I need it for my health, my old company always paid for it. But today I was told “No”. That drug, no matter how much I need it, no matter how many doctors call and vouch for me, is not covered by this new plan. I sat on the phone with the insurance company all day, I spoke to nearly a dozen reps, multiple supervisors, and each “No” brought tears of frustration and fear to my eyes…aren’t I supposed to have access to the medications I need?

People aren’t supposed to cough on seat mates, brazenly honk, care more for profits than they do for someone’s health, but it happens all the time. The truth is, I don’t even do everything I’m supposed to do all the time. Just this week, I was supposed to pick-up dry cleaning for my husband, but I forgot. I was supposed to double check my employees work, but I got lazy. Why would I think that if I can’t even do what I think I am supposed to do,  the world, and everyone in it, will be able to/want to do what I think is supposed to be done?

Meanwhile…I suffer. I suffer because of the delta (the difference between) between what I believe things are supposed to be and how they really are. The greater the difference, the greater my suffering. And here, in New York, where I am trying to re-plant all those ‘supposes’ that where so well-adapted to the San Francisco soil where they first set root, the suffering is tremendous. But whose fault is it that I expect the norms, culture, customs and courtesies of one place to be the same as in the other? The belief that this world will adapt to me, to what I am used to, to what I suppose is right (to my desires) — this is the root cause of the suffering of my mind; my mind’s suffering is entirely my own creation.