Tuesday, and we definitely survived another Monday, did we not? It’s technically my Hump Day, as tomorrow is the last day in the office for me for the week. I slept fitfully again last night, but I feel okay this morning. I hit a wall yesterday afternoon, as I feared I might, but managed to make groceries on the way home from work. Once home, Sparky needed my lap for a while–is there anything nicer than being tired and having a purring, sleeping cat curled up in your lap–and I was content to just sit there, let my mind wander while catching up on the news (oy). We also watched an episode of Furious, which just took a diabolical turn I did not see coming, and am itching to get back to it tonight. I have a nice sort of busy day here at the office, which will help the time go by. I slept fitfully last night, but not a big deal. I feel okay this morning, as I did yesterday morning, but I did hit a wall yesterday afternoon. I stopped and made groceries on the way home, and settled in for the evening once I got here. Sparky needed some attention, as always, and I was happy to oblige–there really is nothing like having a purring cat sleeping curled up in your lap after working all day. We did watch another episode of Furious, which took an interesting and unforeseen turn in this most recent episode. I didn’t seem to get much of anything else done yesterday other than going to work, really. Oh, well, no big deal.
I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do much this week, using the big birthday as an excuse for doing very little this week, but maybe tonight I can get back into the first four chapters of the current work. There are also some short stories I need to finish, and of course I need to do a birthday newsletter musing about becoming a senior citizen–and how weird it is to know that I started first grade sixty (!!!) years ago. The world is still burning, and of course there’s a stubborn percentage of voters who think this is the country operating at full blast, and somehow we’re going to emerge from this great again. It’s too much to hope for that this despicable administration has exposed all the cracks and flaws in the system and everyone can agree that an overhaul is necessary; the hard core faithful will go down with the ship and form the kernel from which the next treasonous rebranding of fascism will grow. (We thought after 2008 we were done with that, but then came the astro-turfed Tea Party, which the racist media gobbled up–after all, the media learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan–and went back to their job of being opposition to the president…which they will never do with Baron Harkonnen. I did find a meme on social media the other day that showed the Baron from the David Lynch version of Dune, comparing him to his modern real-life iteration, and it was eerie how spot on I was with that. Also glad I wasn’t the only one to see it.)
Heavy sigh.
I am going to stay positive despite feeling a bit tired and hope for a lovely day. I do love my morning coffee, but God damn, I hate waking up to alarms. Always have, and when I was in school I never was really awake until third period or so. It’s not so brutal now as it was when I had to start getting up this early (which I knew was just a matter of time once we moved into the new building; my glorious days of not going into the office until ten or eleven didn’t survive the pandemic, but I knew we were heading that way when we moved), but I still don’t like it. Five more years of this before I retire, I suppose–providing that’s even possible in our post-democracy era. I am still holding out hope, like the ridiculous optimist I am, even in the face of stark reality. The nation will be looted and bankrupt by 2028, if it’s even possible for us to have elections still at that time. This isn’t going to end without bloodshed, I fear (like Cassandra) because these kinds of things always do–and our proud American tradition of pretending it never happened will kick in if it doesn’t. The failure of Congress and the Justice Department for not investigating thoroughly the chain of lies and outright fraud that got us into two forever wars–and followed up with prosecutions. Has our Congress ever not be completely corrupted? I also saw that Grassley is running for reelection–which means he’ll be 102 at the end of his term if he wins. Is it really that hard to surrender power? Hasn’t he robbed and stolen enough from his constituents already? We need term and age limits, frankly. The Founding Fathers didn’t write term limits into the Constitution because it never occurred to them anyone would want to make politics their career. It was seen as you do your public service and then you go home, much like the military.
But no, we have been plagued throughout our history by these power-hungry greedy pigs almost from the very beginning instead.
Ah, well.
I am going to see if I can get the reread of the draft-so-far done today, with notes and making things more organized, and maybe even go ahead and outline the next four chapters? Why not?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow, on birthday eve.
Queer and Loathing in America 