Monday, October 23, 2017

Monday

You know, its really hard to be light and funny right now.  The news and the catastrophes and the apocalypse are starting to get to me. I just have no head space for what is happening in Spain and Catalonia right now.  I'm full up.  Sorry, Spain. Or Catalonia. Or whichever one is right, I don't even know, and I just can't pay attention to that right now.

So right now I'm sitting on my couch in my bathrobe at 5 pm.  I just need a cigarette and a soap opera and some hamburger helper and I would be a picture of the 70s.  My house has been upside down for the past week because we had some work done in our bathroom, and I did some work in my kitchen and everything has to be put back together.  By me.  Alone.  So I cleaned the kitchen, had some food, and then took a break and read and took a nap.  Then I promised myself that if I scrubbed the bathtub and took a shower, I could watch The Deuce on HBO (more on that in a minute.)  So I scrubbed the shit out of the shower (its so weird how clean stuff gets when you actually, y'know, clean it) took a shower in my freshly scrubbed tub with freshly grouted tile surround, and then I sat on the sofa in my bathrobe and watched my show and haven't moved.  The kitchen and the tub are the tip of the iceberg in this house, but I don't want to get carried away.

I love this show, The Deuce.  It is so dirty and gritty and misogynistic, and so well acted, and so well art directed and shot.  I love everything about it.  If you can't handle pimps and prostitutes and violence against women and the mob and dirty cops, its not your show.  But I love it.  It makes me want to smoke.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in over a decade and even when I did smoke it was only a little.  But lately, and maybe its all the apocalypse, I just want to smoke again.  I haven't, and I would probably barf if I did, but sometimes I fake smoke when I'm by myself, with a pencil or something.  This came up on that show This is Us, fake smoking.  Now that show:  Is there anything more manipulative?  I don't like shows or movies that pull the tears out of you like that's their goal.  That show doesn't make me cry.  I refuse to cry because that's what it wants me to do.  But I'm still watching it, so that's on me. 

I have to go feed my dogs and the fish.  They are all waiting not-so-patiently

Monday, October 2, 2017

Vegas, baby.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

You know what is sad about this incident in Las Vegas in addition to the horrifying loss of life by the hand of a man who was clearly suffering some major defect, is that I'm not even surprised anymore.  My daughter was born pre-Columbine, and is used to news about shootings every few weeks or so.  Its a part of her life.  Last week there was graffiti on a bathroom wall at her high school warning of a school shooting, and the week before the students were evacuated as a result of a bomb threat.  This is her life.  And she doesn't live in Mexico among drug cartels, or South Central LA among gangs, or in a war torn country, this is a safe, affluent county, and this is still a part of her life.

AND NOW TOM PETTY IS DEAD? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

What is the universe trying to tell us here?  I have been so frustrated lately with the amount of hostility I see around me every day; people yelling at each other about parking spaces, people being snarky and entitled when it would cost them nothing to be kind, kids following those adults' examples.  The negativity of the news, and the hurricanes and the shootings and the fleeing refugees, and the earthquakes.  I just can't.  Its hard to let it all in and feel it.  I think we'd go crazy if we did.

So here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to call my representatives and ask them what its gonna take to get some gun control laws passed.  I'm going to attend a rally for gun control if I can find one.  I'm going to be as kind as I can, and as generous as I can, and I'm going to self righteously suggest that others do the same when they are choosing to be ass hats. 

I'm going to blast some Tom Petty and have a day drink and dance in my living room.  And pray. In my atheist way, I'll pray.  What else can we do?  I'm open to suggestions.