Here it is Tuesday morning, and I am up early and so ready to drink coffee and get cleaned up and head into the office. The coffee is actually hitting the spot quite nicely this morning and I actually feel good and rested again this morning. I didn’t feel terribly tired when I got home last night from work, but Sparky was needy and I allowed myself to give in to his demands for my lap. (Scooter also used to do this, and I am kind of thrilled Sparky is the same way after I’ve been at work all day; I missed my relaxation/wind down time with Scooter, frankly.) I had a good day at work yesterday, and hope to have a great one today. I do feel good, and not sleepy or groggy in the least, which is a very good thing. I may get tired later on, but I have to go get the mail and make a little groceries on the way home tonight, so whether or not I’ll be able to get any good work done tonight remains to be seen. We’ve also got shows to watch and get caught up on, too.
We’ve been watching Rivals, which we are enjoying, and it’s a lot of fun–slyly wicked and funny, with an exceptional cast filled with really hot men, including Aidan Turner, who is aging into a sexy hot daddy. I’m interested in seeing how it all turns out, and am enjoying the ride for sure. I also watched the most recent Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and his piece on naturalization and becoming a US citizen, also took some potshots at grifting loser Lee Greenwood–which I am always up for. Greenwood’s song is patriotic pablum mixed in with un-Christlike proselytizing tying faith to patriotism in a most egregious and heavy-handed way (my favorite part of the whole segment is when Oliver reveals that Lee “Mr. Christian Patriot” Greenwood recorded a version for Canada! The grift is real, people1.
I spent some time yesterday following the Taylor Swift trends on social media, so I could how much the Swifties loved New Orleans–and how much New Orleans loved them back. It’s actually kind of wholesome, you know? The economic impact of her concerts here was roughly half a billion dollars–and every service worker made a fortune in tips and had a marvelous time. The Swifties set a standard for New Orleans tourism that will be very hard for other major groups coming to town to live up to; henceforth it will be “yeah, but it wasn’t a Swiftie weekend”–and the Super Bowl crowd this coming February could also be Taylor Swift driven, too, if her boyfriend on the Chiefs makes it to the Big Game yet again…and while I am not a Chiefs fan, I kind of want them to make the Super Bowl (since the Saints clearly aren’t going to)…but it would also be kind of fun for the Washington Commanders to make it, since Jayden Daniels was an LSU star and is now getting Washington fans super-excited. He is fun to watch, and that Hail Mary against Chicago Sunday (I’ve watched clips) was stunning, and he’s so damned humble! Just a likable guy with a lot of football talent. I’m glad he came to LSU, obviously, but I’m also glad for him that it was clearly the right move for him. Say what you will about Brian Kelly (my jury is still out on him), but he made Jayden Daniels’ life. Had he stayed at Arizona State, he wouldn’t be where he is now, and that does kind of make the changes to college football over the last decade or so sensible. All that talent could have gone to waste because he made the wrong decision when he was seventeen, which makes me understand the need for the transfer portal so guys with talent can have a chance to prove themselves…but I’m sure for every Jayden Daniels (or Joe Burrow, for that matter) transfer portal success story, there’s several stories where the athlete screwed himself or was screwed by the system.
The election is a week away, and while the stakes couldn’t be higher (it seems like the stakes of elections have gotten higher with every presidential election since 2000), I did vote already so there’s really not much I can do at this point other than trying to reach undecided voters, and at this point anyone who is still undecided would be too fucking frustrating to talk to in the first place. I have no patience for puritan holier than thou third party voters because that is a privilege I have never been afforded. The number of straight white cisgender men (and the occasional woman) who have tried to shame me for recognizing that my rights are at risk with every election and therefore doing something pragmatic rather than appeasing my conscience? Who have talked down to me about it? All due respect, fuck third party voters now and forever. All third party voters have done in this century is elect George W. Bush and Donald Trump (and before them, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton…so it benefited Republicans three out of four times), and their refusal to take any responsibility for that betrayal of ostensibly progressive ideals (“I’m too pure to vote for Hillary!”2 Well, congratulations on believing twenty years of nonstop lies and smears from Fox and the Right, big thinker! We should put you in charge of everything!) and then continuing to try to shame a gay fucking man who witnessed it all? Fuck yourself with barbed wire, and then give it to Jill Stein and Ralph Nader.
Straight cisgender people: telling queers how to think and believe and behave because we are, by virtue of being queer, are far too stupid to think for ourselves. So yes, a third party vote this year absolutely is a vote for MAGA–so you’re a racist and a misogynist and a homophobe. Glad your “conscience” is okay with that….which tells me a lot about your conscience and values.
Maybe the medications are allowing me to control the stress and anxiety this election is causing in me–I’m not spiraling by any means, and not doom-scrolling endlessly–but I think that could be weighing on me otherwise, which is where the low energy has come from lately? A thought; one never can be sure. But I am lot calmer this year than I have been since the Supreme Court awarded George Bush the White House on a silver platter in 2000.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a good one, and hang in there, Constant Reader!
- Don’t even get me started on the Blasphemy Bible grift. ↩︎
- In 2016, I worked with two young straight white girls who who would say “Hillary is GROSS” and “I hate having to vote for her” and bullshit like that to ME, a gay man. Insensitive much, ladies? The morning after Trump won, they were morose. I probably enjoyed saying “Well, at least that GROSS Hillary isn’t president, right?” I thought about texting them the morning Dobbs landed…. ↩︎
Queer and Loathing in America 