2020 - The Year of Talking Nonsense

 Just days before school started, in August of 2020, I felt symptomatic, so I had a COVID test.  I tested negative.  Unfortunately for me, I was in quarantine for the two days prior to school starting.  Add to that - I was promised a room with a window.  Perhaps a nod to the fact that I was one of the first teachers to open our new building, and the head of my department wanted to give me a room that wasn't a prison cell.  But ... the new principal decided I was unworthy, so 18 years of things got moved to three different places, and then I lost 18 years of my personal files on every single thing I teach.  

Just a shitty game of hide and seek.

But hey, no big thing, right?

I only had to recreate every thing I teach in the middle of a pandemic, in a new room, which was nowhere near being six feet apart from anything.  With no files.

Teachers are just like any other serf-job sect.  Disposable.  Replaceable.  Irrelevant.

The week of November 9-13, 5 kids tested positive on Monday, 5 on Tuesday, 6 on Wednesday, 7 on Thursday.  And I have received ONE email from the administration telling me I was in close enough contact to be at risk.  Total bullshit.  

Oh, and my school district is the ONLY one in our area 100% committed to 100% in-person learning (at the expense of ... everyone), but as long as we are towing the party line of Pete Ricketts and Donald Trump, we are winning!  Our sports teams are playing!  We are awesome! (propaganda)

Students who chose to go "remote" were punished.  They couldn't take any honors or AP classes, no athletics, no activities, no academies ... 

We had a "no harm" policy In MARCH, because of the pandemic, and more people are sick now than ever.  Nebraska rates keep climbing, even as we pretend that wearing a mask inside, in closed rooms, with 30 people is not a problem. So fucking embarrassing.  

I have never been embarrassed of my school or district before now.  They will not help me.  Mr. Man said this this morning, "If you need anything, you need to let us know".  (I did.  No one cares.). Mr Man said, "if you're going through a difficult time, let us know.  We can help."  (I let them know.  They didn't help.). Mr Man said, "when you're on, you're on; when you're off, you're off."  (Sure.  Tell that to any English teacher.  I bring work home EVERY SINGLE DAY, and I work during the weekend.  I do not get paid a single extra cent for my effort, and when I asked, I was not allowed to work from home, even when the students were given two days off to "be safe and take care of themselves".)

Total communication breakdown.  I came home from school today and threw up everywhere.  But hey, who cares, right?  I have to stick to my contract rules, even when the state has thrown out the number of hours students need to be in school for this year.  

Why not target teachers?  It's nothing new, but this year is a fucking slap in the face.  

Our software programs don't communicate with each other.  

I teach a remote class, and I received NO help in terms of how to do something I've never done.

My paycheck increases every year ON PAPER, but my take home salary is about $1000 less than last year (thank you, taxation).  I talked to Human Resources to ask if I could stop contributing to my retirement fund, but my retirement account is a Ponzi scheme.  If I leave early, I am punished.  I will not get my money back, let alone the promised matching funds.  The school district treats teachers like idiots, giving us donuts and email thumbs-ups rather than actual help.

And this Monday, I will go back to school, working in that cinderblock prison cell, trapped in a cesspool of viral contagion, until someone either dies or there are no more teachers to staff the building because everyone is either COVID-positive or in quarantine.

Happy Thanksgiving.  I feel so blessed.  

Mental Health in 2020

 We are at a precipice.  

People are dropping off the edge.

America is the land of the free and the home of the brave and all that, but what are we doing to support each other?  When was the last time you went out of your way to do something kind for a stranger?  When was the last time you looked into the eyes of the people with whom you work and live, and asked them how they REALLY are, (behind the mask)?  

When you ask someone how they are, listen.  If they say they are fine, remember the acronym:  F.I.N.E.  - Fucked-up.  Insecure, Neurotic.  Emotional.  

Be kind.  To others and yourself.  Don't make other people feel stupid or irrelevant, because you can't step outside of your own brain to see other people's struggles.  

Make the effort to say the truth, so humanity benefits from honesty and acceptance and common courtesy.

Never stop learning how to communicate with face-to-face interaction.   Put your phone down when someone is speaking to you.  Take a second to recognize other people.  Realize that we are all in this together. Make an effort to let people know they are not alone, even if you feel alone. 

We can be we again, not a partisan, in-fighting, rude group of individuals who happen to live in the same place.  

Schools & The Dark Ages

 A pandemic is happening.  What was bad enough to shut down the entire fourth quarter of school in March is now exponentially worse, but we brought students back to school.

Here is a list of bullshit:

• I was quarantined for the first three days of school.  My test results came back negative, which is great, but by the time I got back to school, I had NO idea what was going on, because we have switched operating systems for storage and communication.
• When I was quarantined - waiting for results - my school district made me fill out the form to take 20 days off.  Now I have to just trust? hope? that they go back in and change it to three, not 20.
• P.S. No one in the district seems to have answers for anything related to COVID.  All we have is expensive, laminated signs saying to "wash your hands" and "socially distance".  Oh, and we got watered-down disinfectant of some kind to clean the tables every 50 minutes.  Everything else is ... loose.
• Google Classroom might be user-friendly, IF someone had taught me to use it.  
• Google Classroom isn't entirely ready to be used (functionality), even though the school was shut down for SIX MONTHS because of summer/COVID time.
• Google Classroom doesn't work for students with Android phones.
• Our hall passes are now electronic - they don't work.
• Everyone is wearing a mask, but we are NOWHERE near the six feet of social distancing.  Kids are sitting directly next to each other, all over the building.
• The halls and stairwells are (as always) packed.
• The lunch room is a fucking joke.  Kids are packed in there before school to wait for a bell to release them.  During lunch, students are NOT socially distanced, and the "system" in place to attempt that distance makes it so some students don't even have time to eat their food.  Or they end up sitting ON THE FLOOR in the hallways to eat. 
• I volunteered to teach a remote class, and I have been given little to no instruction on how to do it.  Also, the website isn't ready to go remote.  Also, we're the last school district in our area to "be committed to 100% in-person learning", so what are we going to do when the whole school has to go remote (probably in a matter of days)??
• I had to move classrooms over the summer, and I am missing EVERY ONE of my file folders that contain ALL of the things I've collected over the past 17 years.  They are just gone.  M.I.A.
• One of our students posted a picture of the overcrowding in the cafeteria and now he's in the cross-hairs of a school that's trying to tell the public one thing, when reality is something different.  

Happy Friday, America.

Farming in Nebraska

I know that being from Nebraska and writing about farming is a stereotype, but I do not live on a farm.  I don't ride a horse to work.  I don't own cows.  I don't grow corn.

Having said that, I do know some farmers.  As it turns out, if farmers don't belong to a co-op, they get no help.

Here is what we grow in Nebraska:  corn (only 20% of yellow corn is for human consumption, and sweet corn is less than 1%), soy beans (lots of uses which include food and non-food sources), wheat (straw/hay), milo (to feed cattle), sod (for rich people's yards), and alfalfa (again to feed cattle).

We don't grow vegetables in Nebraska.  You might find food in people's backyard, but not in large farming situations.  How can we progress as a society (or a state) if we don't grow things which people can actually eat?  Instead Nebraska grows things which become part of something of an industrial train.

Maybe, just maybe, we should all try to self-sustain, just in case.

My suggestion:  plant something edible in whatever space you have.  And then share.

Missing Out on School

There are a hundred reasons students should not go back to "school-as-usual" in a few weeks, but I want to talk about the most important one:

     Human interaction. 

Kids come into my classroom not just to learn, but also to find a reprieve from the chaos of high school.  They have been known to sit in recycling boxes as a safe space, to sit in a corner with a blanket and a pillow, to sleep (because they can't sleep at home), to eat lunch and talk about their lives, to ask questions about life and love, and to share.

So when "The Man" says that we need to open schools during a pandemic, because kids needs social interaction and social skills, The Man is batshit crazy.

Most classrooms in America do NOT have the room for 6 foot distancing.  Even the hallways, lunchrooms, and bathrooms don't have that kind of space.  More importantly, if they have to stay away from each other, we will not have the same kind of human interaction that the government so boldly says they need.  Everyone will be awkward, seminars will be less informative and less interactive, and the very things which help us communicate (like facial expressions), will be mostly hidden, behind a mask.  Students with anxiety or depression will not be helped by this experiment we seem prepared to do on our children.

If books and desks and chairs and doors have to be sanitized every time someone uses them, aren't we kind of describing a hospital ward?
If kids are being sequestered, aren't we kind of describing a prison?  (By the way, look at the number of COVID cases in prisons right now ...)

And let's remember that kids are kids, so they will take the masks off, try to be funny by coughing and/or sneezing on people, refuse to follow the rules, and then have to be "disciplined".  What am I supposed to do?  Tase a kid who's being a dick?  If so, we should have had tasers a long time ago.  But I think the point of schools is to EDUCATE, not just control.  We have options.  I don't want to be even more of a babysitter, nurse, therapist, guard ...  I got into education to TEACH, not police.

Isn't it enough that we already target our children with crippling student loans and high interest credit and five-days-a-week, eight-hours-a-day confinement in school buildings?

America has the unique opportunity right now to change, adjust, amend, and improve the way in which we educate our children.  Instead, we seem hell-bent on keeping the status quo, even when the status quo has proven again and again that our model of education often makes kids hate school, EVEN WHEN THERE IS NO PANDEMIC.

I suggest that regardless of everyone's political affiliation, Americans come together and fight this pandemic, get it under control, stop paying out billions of dollars to companies for a vaccine (even when those companies have NEVER brought a viable product to market), and THEN get our kids back to schools which reflect proactive thinking and real-life knowledge, not just plowing through a curricular syllabus to check off school district boxes of "proficiency" in any given subject.

American schools have an opportunity here.  I hope we don't squander it just to prove that we are too big to fail. 

COVID + School = Stupidity

It's 2020 America.  We are fucking everything up.

Schools are planning to open when COVID cases are rising daily. 

Teachers are rewriting their wills.

Protesters are tearing cities apart.  (Violence and destruction is not the right path.)

Police are shooting pepper spray into the faces of people who are exercising their first amendment right to assemble and to free speech. 

The federal government is sending military personnel into protest zones, and making them WORSE.

People are spreading false information about COVID, because the virus has become inconvenient to them. 

Partisanship is ruining the fabric of our country a little bit more every day.

Shit is so bad that KANYE is running for president again.  Jesus H. 

WAKE UP, AMERICA!

WHITE PRIVILEGE.

It is 8:30pm.  I am home alone, running a bath – all the doors are unlocked and/or open. 

            In no way do I feel unsafe, because of my surroundings.

I was born white.

I was born female.

I was born in the right zip code.

Our zip code had excellent schools.

I lived across the street from a Catholic church.

I attended school at the Catholic church until 9^th grade.

            (My education was better.)

My neighborhood was ethnically diverse, minus black people.

My father had a good, union job – one of the benefits being that we could fly anywhere, for free.

My parents went out of town a lot.  I held parties.  I disrespected their house for no reason.

I was forced to go to public school, and the public school was one of the best high schools in the state.

I went to college for 7 years.  My parents paid for it. 

I have three degrees in English.

I was never afraid of other people’s beliefs.

No one has ever called the cops on me for being in public without a purpose.

Racial slurs are never about me.  (And when they are, I am not offended.)

           

I live in a small-ish city, attached to many other, bigger cities.  My city is very white. 

White Bread, boring, spyware - video surveillance doorbells.  (FALSE sense of community.)

I am white, but the only thing I really understand is “privilege”.

(This entry is not terribly helpful in sorting out anything of importance.  You’re welcome!)

COVID 15 July Update on School

School is important.
I work for a school.

American students should not go back to "school-as-normal" this fall.
Life is not "normal" right now.
College sports started practicing, and Oh! students tested positive for COVID.
A couple of cheerleaders for a local high school were diagnosed yesterday.  They've been practicing.
I wonder ... if school starts back as normal, will people get sick?

So we (America) can do one of two things:  we can pretend like we know what's going on (quite literally I work for a school and have little to no idea what they're planning), OR we can adapt.

Darwin:  survival of those most willing to adapt.
If you keep doing the same thing in this pandemic, you will:  (potentially)

• Be fine. Nothing happens to you.
• Be fine.  You have been infected, but you were able to heal yourself.
• Get diagnosed by a doctor and have to choose whether or not your insurance is good enough - or if you have enough money - to be treated, because you are symptomatic. 
• You then cannot go to work.  Your medical bills are outrageous.
• You get it and succumb.  You die.  

*Of the above options, I choose all but the third.  

The government throws money at people "for COVID', as a stimulus, but it does not help those people who cannot afford to be either be off work or go to a doctor. The stimulus is so temporary, that it simply gave some demographics of people the time to breathe, before those people had to make life choices about work and child care and school and ... well, everything, pertaining to day-to-day life.  

We can be better. Our society and systems can improve.  

Peace and love. 

COVID 9 July 2020

Here is a snapshot of the bullshit going on today, during the world of pandemics and social unrest:

• "Nebraska is building a new state prison, which will cost upward of $450 million."  (What a shitty waste of money.  Like Nebraska needs another prison.  If we worked on social infrastructure, maybe we wouldn't feel the need to lock everyone up.)
• "Michael Cohen has already violated his early release by talking to the media."  (Is this shocking to ANYone??  He's a loud-mouthed idiot.)
• Donald Trump is ass-hurt about potentially having to hand over his financials ... (again, shocking.  He will fight that until he's dead.)
• "Trump/rally/surge of corona cases..."  (Hmmm ... thousands of people in the same space with no distancing and no masks.  I wonder why there is a huge, sudden outbreak.)
• "For the fifth time in nine days, the U.S. set a daily record for new corona cases."  (Great.  Go America.)
• "Health care workers a facing (another) dire shortage of protective gear." (Can the government seriously not get their shit together??)
• "Families look to homeschooling amid COVID."  (So ... how are they going to pay their bills if they have to stay home and teach your kid?)

Probably some good stuff happened in the last 24 hours.  I mowed the lawn and did some gardening, so maybe if take care of my own back yard and enjoy nature, I can ignore all the stupidity flying around out there. 

Peace and love.

COVID-19 8 July 2020

Every day, I wake up and look at my notifications on my phone.
Every day is a new version of shit.

Today:

• "The Ivy League will not play football this fall."  (Hmmm. No shit.  Kansas State comes to mind.  You start practicing, and a bunch of new people get COVID.  Shocking.)
• "George Floyd told officers more than 20 times that he could not breathe."  (Before they killed him.  Police officers need to get their shit together.  What the fuck are they teaching in police academies?)
• "It's an ideal setting for transmissions."  (Talking about reopening churches here.  Again, no shit.  Obviously god will protect you from a pandemic if you just go to church and pray.  Or not.) 
• "The Supreme Court upheld a Trump administration regulation allowing employers with religious objections to limit access to free birth control."  (Asinine.  Ridiculous.  Birth control is cheap.  It's not breaking any big pharma company's banks.  And if you want to not have children, you should have access to birth control.  The conservative idiots backing this legislation are pro-life, only when it's a baby.  Once that unwanted child is born, who is going to pay for him/her?)
• "The U.S. will pay the vaccine maker Novavax $1.6 billion to develop 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by early 2021."  (Yes, that's what we need - huge corporations benefitting off of death, with a vague hint of a promise that may or may not even work.)
• "Everyone is feeling caught off guard."  (About school re-openings.  OBVIOUSLY.  Opening schools again is just going to cause the number of cases to skyrocket.)

I can't be the only one who is tired of the puking of lies and deceit and selfishness coming from our government.  If I had the money, I'd get the fuck out of here.  If Trump gets elected again, we will watch the collapse of the United States.  (And the democrats suck too.). 

Where are the people who are equipped to run a government??

Racism, socio-economic imbalance, and stupidity are the true impetus of this disaster we look at every day.

COVID-19 & Education 3 July 2020

3 July 2020

COVID-19 has given the public school system an opportunity to be better.

Public schools are still run the way they were in the 1960s.  Parents take their kids to school, drop them off, and then go to work or do their thing.  COVID-19 has taken that away.  Parents have to parent AND educate their own children right now, and they don't like it.

I understand why parents are struggling with their children right now, but let's remember that people have children, and that action comes with certain responsibilities.  Why would parents want to take their kids back to school in August, when schools will be the next enormous breeding ground for COVID?

I also understand that people have to work, so they need somewhere to take their kids.  Some single parents, especially, will be forced to choose between having a job and paying for daycare, or quitting their jobs and going on public assistance.  The United States can't afford thousands more people collecting money from a government which is already trillions of dollars in debt.

Many solutions exist here, and the WRONG solution is to just throw thousands of kids into the same building and hope for the best.  The president may think it's time to go "back to normal" and get kids back in school, but what the hell does he know about the logistics of the educational system?  He doesn't even read his daily briefings for god's sake.  All he wants is for the economy to improve so he can boast about "fixing" America.

If high schools are trying to get students ready for college (especially in the junior and senior years), they should be taking half their courses online anyway.  They shouldn't need to be in a brick box for eight hours a day, five days a week.  Let's help them grow up, but treating them like adults.  And let's not punish them and their parents and their teachers by exposing everyone to a pandemic which now has over 3 million infections (and counting).

Educators, teachers, and parents in the United States need to rewrite the rules and use this opportunity to improve our schools and change our mission statements to include the best interest of everyone, including society at large.

COVID-19 1 July 2020

I was told the other day - by a man who wants to drive recklessly and then pull the key out of the ignition - a man who wants to bury the speedometer and then pull the parking brake - to be patient. 

COVID can't be blamed on everything, but try "dating" someone who lives nowhere near you during a pandemic.  It's time to give up gracefully and move on.  Maybe COVID is the "reason" I needed to shed some excess baggage.

I haven't been going to work for four months.  I am both spoiled and bored.  I am honestly astonished at the "plans" school districts are pulling out of their asses to start back school in August.  The CDC is quite clear that cases will increase in number.  They already have, since society got all weird and decided they all needed to go to the bars and eat out. 

The better example with schools is to look at these college football programs that insisted on starting practice, and they all started blossoming COVID cases.  Kansas State had to just stop, because it was spreading so fast.  What the hell do public schools think is going to happen when we start letting kids back into classrooms?  A fucking nightmare, both logistically and health-wise.  Maybe it's time to rethink the entire education system, and improve it fundamentally so kids don't end up hating school by the 12th grade.  (But that makes too much sense, apparently.)

So time is messy now.  I don't know the day or time.  I don't care.  I get all used to life lived this other way. being a hermit.

And then - yesterday - my 21-year-old friend dies, tragically, and in front of one of my other friends.  His death breaks my heart, and the loss reminds me that we do need each other.  His parents are strong, social butterflies, so they will be okay eventually, but I wouldn't wish that kind of tragedy on anyone.  Ever. 

I will try to be better.  I will try to create more things of value rather than bingeing netflix and putting together puzzles.  I will remember that a pandemic is happening, and I will not let the decisions of others compromise who I am.  Guilt isn't going to work on me anymore. 

COVID-19 10 June 2020

Let me preface my comments by saying that I know that no one is listening to me.  I write under a pseudonym, because the Human Resources department at my job told me  - years ago - that all the good writers had to hide behind a different name in order to protect their jobs and benefits. 

If I knew how to change this blog to my own name, I'd do it, but I'm old as hell and I can't figure it out.

So ... no one is listening.  Got it.

What the fuck is happening in this country?  Am I wrong to root for anarchy?  Am I wrong to root for the protesters?  Am I wrong to defend the police?  (Yes, yes, and yes.)
Anarchy is not productive.  A small, vocal minority of the protesters are assholes, and the police forces throughout the country are not doing a great job of protecting law and order when they shoot tear gas and projectiles at people who are exercising their 1st Amendment right to PEACEFUL protest. 

A new ordinance was recently passed in the state in which I live, which is an "anti-hate" rule.  Such total bullshit.  An ordinance is NOT a law, and the way the ordinance is phrased is almost entirely unenforceable.  It helps no one. 

Let's just speculate that Trump wins the next election.  (We're fucked, as a democracy.)
Let's just speculate that Biden wins the next election.  (We just hit pause for the next four years, until god-knows-what happens after.)
We are not doing well.

COVID took attention away from the dictator in charge.  Then murder-by-cop took attention away from COVID.  NO ONE IS WINNING.

My new theory is that literally NO ONE in charge of anything knows what the hell is going on. 
I had a "work meeting" (Zoom) the other day, in which nothing of importance happened, but for which I got paid.  I genuinely feel bad for earning money that way.  I am lucky that I don't own a restaurant or a bar or am a nurse or whatever.  And I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a police officer right now, even though so many of them are literally trying their best to protect and serve.

Prayer, religion, and hope are irrelevant right now.  America (WE) needs to get it together before we all go six feet under.

COVID-19 5 June 2020

I know there is a date in the title of this post - I hope I'm guessing correctly.  Half of the time I have no idea what day of the week we're on or what day of the year.  I have lost track.  And I genuinely like it.

This COVID shit was one thing, but then America added a bunch of death and protest into the mix.  I can't even believe what's going on in my own country.  Honestly, you could tell me ANYTHING was true, and I'd believe you for the (roughly) 60 seconds I'd use to fact-check you.  America is borderline anarchic. 

I'm not even going to say a bunch of political things, because (some) people seem to have lost the ability to think.  They believe what they believe, and no amount of truth or evidence is going to change their minds. 
So now we have to go from that starting point.  Here's my advice:  EVERYBODY FUCKING BE COOL ...
America can be a better place if we follow the spirit of the law more often, rather than adhering to the legal parameters.  A curfew is a fucking joke.  A curfew is an invocation of violence - preemptively - because the 1st Amendment allows people the right to peacefully assemble, and the curfew is entrapment. (Yes, some people do bad things - I'm not talking about those assholes.)

If America needs anarchy or an extension of the violence we are seeing now, so be it.  Historically, democracies don't survive.  Look at Greece.  Look at "democratic" Russia, where Putin often (somehow) gets 115% of the vote. 
They all fall, get overturned, because the people are frustrated and the government is enabling certain parts of the populace, discriminating against other parts, and making a very few people obscenely  rich.  I wonder why people are pissed.  Most of us live month-to-month, so three months can be a financial crisis, for a household.  I have been lucky, but I understand that I am in the minority in terms of my job.

Listen to music.  Maybe some old Bob Dylan.  Practice positive thinking, engage in constructive dialogue, and don't get tangled up in blue. 

Vapidity

I believe in nothing.

13 May 2020

I have recently discovered two things: 

1.  I have not been writing.  Only little thoughts on random pieces of paper.
2.  I am a medium:
      *an agency or means of doing something, OR
      *the intervening substance through which impressions are conveyed to the senses or a force                 acts on objects at a distance.

I am writing in this moment, so I'll give myself a break on that first one, but that second one isn't great. 

Neither of these definitions of "medium" reassures me, and yet I'm certain I am there. 

I am an interim in my own life, as everyone is, and I always end up being an interim in other people's lives.  I am not permanent.  I have lost the sense of self which tells people how to proceed.  I don't know anymore.  I am me, and I don't like me.  How can that be possible?  I have a million ways (theoretically) to "fix" myself, and I choose, every day, not to do them. 

I'll resort to quoting Jimi Hendrix right now:
"I know what I want, but I just don't know about how to go about getting it."

(And then - much of the time - I don't even know what I want.)

I feel polluted.  Perhaps something good will eventually come from that.

Phones.Com

Today is beautiful. The temperature hit a little over 70 degrees.  No wind, just a nice breeze.  I opened all the windows in my house (at least the ones I could open - some I accidentally painted shut).  So Fresh Spring Air, you know?  Spring Cleaning - when you move stuff that hasn't been moved in a while (last spring) and there's just dust and cat hair or whatever.  I just take the pre-emptive Zyrtec and be a spring soldier. 

So my windows and doors are open, and I can see more of my neighbors.  Usually I'm a total hermit, with all the dark shades drawn, for no reason.  Anyway, everyone is outside, and they are on their phones. Americans are talking to each other MORE since this pandemic, BECAUSE they can't (shouldn't) leave their homes or being around other people, in person.  People are logged in and online and on the phone. 

A lot of people are losing a LOT of money right now:  restaurants, bars, sports venues, music venues.  God help you if you're a waitress. 

Here's who's NOT losing money:  ATT, Verizon, Netflix, cable companies/Direct TV, Spotify, Hulu.  And Zoom.  wtf?  I didn't even know this company/app/whatever even existed until last month.  The stock market is bleeding money, and THIS company went up 8% last week, and the S&P fell 12.5%.  Now would be a great time to buy stock in certain things, if you have money.  I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but this is where people come up with money for their future.  Pick a telecommunications company this isn't gigantic, and throw a little money at it in stocks.  (As if I have a single dollar to invest in anything ...)

But seriously, find a company that data mines and start researching.  If you're like me, your retirement won't even make a dent in your cost of life. 

Happy Tuesday!

Why Marriage Should Not Be Legal

Marriage is defined as: 1. the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). OR 2. a combination or mixture of two or more elements.  (Oxford Dictionary)

I don't dispute either of these definitions.  I believe that if two people love each other, they should definitely commit to one another.  What that commitment entails should be entirely up to the people entering into a union.

My problem is with the legal ramifications of the word "marriage".  First and foremost, "marriage" is a Christian sacrament.  As most people know, when two people get married in a church, that marriage is not considered legal, in the eyes of the government.  Another step needs to be taken at a local courthouse to legalize the partnership.  This is where I disagree with society's norms.  

If you're religious, get married in a church.  If you're not, proclaim your love for each other in front of friends and family.  But why is a legal contract necessary, especially when most states are "no fault" states?  Why doesn't everyone get a civil union?  or - better yet - why not just create legal documents based on individual needs and requests?  Or - even better yet - why not require people who get a marriage license to renew it every year?  Fishing and hunting licenses require renewal every year.  Driver's licenses require renewal every four years, but marriage is a forever contract.  I believe that license should cost like $25/year, and if you choose not to renew it, the license is void.  Easy.  If you're still in love, awesome.  If you're not, contract dissolved.  All legal documentation and assets should be managed by the people getting married, not blood-sucking lawyers and court systems.  

Love is a choice.  Every day, all the time.  Falling out of love is not all that rare.  "Sticking it out" in a marriage just to appease other people, or "for the kids" is not beneficial to individuals or society.  

Just saying.  We live in America 2020, not Puritan times.  Love and commitment shouldn't be governed by law. 

27 March 2020

My attention span has (somehow) become shorter.  I start things, and then I wander off and do something else. 

I have watched the entire Tiger King series.
I just put pre-emergent on my grass.
I broke my trowel digging up rock in my backyard.
I keep trying to play my bass.
I tried to write, which makes me hate my own book.
I have a canvass in front of me to paint, and I don't know how to draw.
I read the New York Times.
I want to do my job, but I am being told not to.
I am watching a ridiculous documentary about Jared Kushner.

I need my own channel, to disperse "news".
Actually, I don't care enough to do that.

Good talk today.  I have nothing relevant to say.

20 March 2020 The Death of Love

He said, and I quote: "I cannot give you what you want, so I don't know why you keep asking."
He said, "instead of bitching about not seeing me, you should be appreciative of what I brought you."
He said, "I can no longer listen to you complain and hear about your dissatisfaction.  Little things in the past four years have made me lose more respect for you than gain it."
He said, "I cannot be your friend anymore."

What.  The.  Fuck.

This person has been my friend for more than thirty years, and you know how we fucked it up?  Sex.  That's it.  I am an excellent communicator, and he doesn't like to talk about feeling words.  I told him from the beginning that the meanest thing he could do to me was ignore me.  So how do I always get punished?  Being put on "silent mode". 

I don't apologize to other people for being who I am, but I pussy-footed around him for three years.  I didn't disagree with him on little things, because he would get angry and hold his breath like a child.  I apologized for things which weren't my fault, just because the ensuing argument was never worth it.  I took care of him through two major surgeries.  I cleaned his house a hundred times.  I cleaned dried dog piss off the kitchen floor, because he was too busy or in too much in pain.  I cleaned up dead kittens and their blood and piss and shit that had been drying on the floor and in the floor vents for weeks.  I guess I was a semi-convenient maid who just happened to have sex with him too.

And when he couldn't have sex anymore for medical/mental reasons, I became an inconvenience.  Another chore he had to deal with.  Another person he had to talk to.  Another person who wanted his attention.  All his wants is to be left alone to wallow in misery now, so (once again) he gets what he wants from me.  And I'm supposed to just accept that we never had a final conversation about the end of us; he just started refusing to talk to me, answer texts, or answer the phone. 

I guess I'm free now.  Last year was pretty brutal for me personally, and then (who I thought was) my best friend just said, "you are not worth another minute of my time."  It seems I am unlovable on that highest of levels.  People get what they want from me - physically and/or emotionally - and then they tap out. 

I'll live.  I'll cry for a bit and then try to forget about that kind of love, because I can't allow another person to shred me to pieces ever again.

COVID-19 18 March 2020

I find myself in a strange situation wherein all my behaviors BEFORE this week (not going out, not socializing, being a hermit) are suddenly not only EMBRACED, but ENCOURAGED by society.  

I feel good.  I haven't conquered anything big yet, but I have a different surge than usual.  I am totally on board with staying out of the public unless absolutely necessary.  And knowing that I don't have to go back to work anytime in the near future is oddly freeing.  I can do whatever I want.  

Have I wasted a lot of moments?  Yes, but I don't care.  I have been productive.  I'm typing away at my current book.  I cleaned some stuff.  I am currently rewatching all of the Stranger Things episodes.  I'm very okay with all those things.  

People are weird, though.  Some 21-year-old drive-by shot at a HyVee yesterday.  I don't know what to think about that.  A lady at Trader Joe's was pissed about the store running out of some meat she was trying to buy, so she got mad and threw a pound of bacon at the girl who was working there.  Strange.  A woman at HyVee was really pissed about not finding the beans she wanted, and she yelled out, "This really chaps my ass", (which I thought was kind of funny, actually).  

I'm not going to hoard, but I will do my part to stay away from others.  

Do I know someone who has this virus?  Yes.  Have I been in immediate contact with him in the past 14 days?  No. Was he in at least a dozen places either me or my family has been?  Probably.  You just have to hedge your bets at this point, and hope you've escaped any imminent danger.  

In the mean time, I'll just play that guitar over there and forget about the world outside again today.

COVID-19 17 March 2020

Breathe in the new air of emptiness, America!

Our human virus is now on a different prowl.  Bars and restaurants limited to 10 people.  Don't gather in groups.  The schools shut down, which is weird, but the CHURCHES shut down!  Man, that doesn't happen.  Shutting all the churches is unprecedented in my lifetime.

And here were are on St Patrick's Day.  I'm not gonna lie, I think it's kind of funny that Irish people and all their wannabe-Irish pub-crawlers are on lockdown.  All these people were probably fine with shutting down other things, but YOU SHUT DOWN THE BARS!!  (That's some funny shit.)

People are hoarding toilet paper and ripping hand sanitizer machines off the walls of businesses.  Yep, America is exactly what all those uppity British people thought from day one - we are paranoid, and we revel in it.

Personally, I've spent the last four days writing a book, actually cooking from scratch, playing a lot of Yahtzee with my roommate, and generally wandering around.  I kind of like it (minus the whole "death" thing).

I also put together the soundtrack for the novel, which is fun.  And I threw in the virus as a side-story.  Why not?  What else have I got to do?  Go to work?  Nope.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Don't check your stocks - there's no reason at this point.  Just be.

COVID-19 2020

(To the sound of N Sync ... "Here we go...")


This coronavirus, am I right?  What the hell is going on in society right now?  I'm not even scared, I'm just sort of astounded.  People are weird, and when they are encouraged toward paranoia and hoarding, they're like, "yeah!!".   (Just watch Idiocracy.)

I'm off work for Spring Break, but that timing was sort of convenient, in terms of what's going on virally in the world . Tik Tok is all the rage - it probably brought the virus :)

I don't even know what to think about any of this shit, so I'm just trying to stay home and clean my soul, if I have the time.  I'm ready to totally disconnect from people (as much of possible) in order to get my own shit together, mentally, emotionally, and physically.  I am going to try to take this unexpected time off and be a better version of me.  No pressure to go to a second location.  Lots of pressure (and time) to simply look in the mirror.  Much time to reflect about how all the various moments in any given of my days are spent.

I think I've been throwing away too many of my personal moments for too long.  I fixate on exterior things, and forget that if I am not functional, I cannot function.  (Seems super-obvious, but is nevertheless quite important.) . I'm not trying to say this whole virus shit is a good thing, but it might be exactly the thing that makes me pay more attention to my life and how I'm living it.

My life is weird in all aspects right now:  politically, socially, financially, emotionally, physically, and topically.  As Hunter S. Thompson said, "when the going gets weird, the weird go pro".

I'm going pro.