The musings of a madman...

       Not to let anyone in on more than they need to know about me, but in my adult-adult life, I have worked full time for three companies.   I will not name any of the three, but you’ve assuredly heard of all of them.   I will cross fourteen years with my current employer next week.   More importantly – to me at least – each of my prior two company changes was of my own volition and I was not removed from the premises by any security folks for cause or anything such.      One benefit of being consistent with a place of employment is the accrual of leave time.   With my first real full-time (as in with a company that I didn’t work for when I was 18 and actually offered benefits) employer there was no expiration of leave time and I was so busy with school that I never had time to be far enough away to warrant taking time off for any real reason. A couple of years in, I found myself staring at WEEKS of accumulated off time and no real reason to use it.   Add to that the fact that I

       I’m a middle child… When that is brought up in certain company, “but you’re a twin” is a response, but I am the oldest twin in birth order out of three of us total.   I am a middle child and that is absolutely a thing whether accepted or not.      I say all that to say that I am pretty damn used to people forgetting to pay attention to me.   Not to cry into my beer over or anything, as it is 7:30am and work starts in a few minutes.      My wife has grown scared of introducing me to the uninitiated… “Why?” I hear you asking.   Because I have grown SO accustomed to people either not listening to what I am saying, or even still not taking any of it seriously when they have listened that I tend to blurt things out as if I have automatically inferred that they won’t be listening – or worse still, I will say some wild shit to test them.   Not necessarily to troll people or anything, but really just to entertain myself in this fucked up world.      I will never forget when s

Can we please get back to politics? No… Good.      So back before we got into election week month the weather was unseasonably warm and I had daylight after work to do things before I had to make sure home was ready for dinners and whatnot.   Y’know, get outside and stretch my legs and enjoy something other than these four walls all day every day.   The governor reopened parks and playgrounds and apparently some parents have had the same idea for their kids.   Smart, cheap and wears their little asses out for an effective bedtime catalyst. Normally I would begin in one park and then pass through two other connected ones for a good 3-4 mile walk/run, but this particular Thursday, I really just wanted to sit on the bench and read.   I chose a park near my mother’s house, since I would be by there directly after work to take her trash cans to the street anyway.   In such, I parked my car in the cul de sac as I have for 20 years and walked to the park with my book.   There was a f

      16 days… As previously discussed, I voted for the 23 th time on October 17 st …   I knew when I LAST voted that I would be voting for someone I am not particularly a fan of.   I cannot rightfully bitch about the goings on of things that could potentially swayed by voting, so I strapped on my Nike Airs and did it.      Seventeen days after I voted early was official election day.   It would be four days after THAT when we would have an actual projected winner. “Projected,” the operative word in that sentence is “projected.”   What we are used to on election night every major election year is the winner projected by the Associated Press aggregated from the districts reporting their results, with a declaration made as soon as simple mathematics leaves it that the leader cannot be caught.   It has been that way since the advent of long distance telephony and has been more efficient since the ubiquity of the interwebs.      Why, then, in the dry fuck are we still sixteen days

       The man is clearly unhinged… We watched and kept refreshing on our phones this past week/end in wait for the Associated Press to update the electoral count so we could know if we were in for another four years, or primed for a new regime.      Funny is how, during that time, he himself already claimed victory despite numbers first indicating nothing, and then trending the other direction hard and fast. That would give way to WILD claims completely not rooted in anything nearing reality.      In the days since, we have seen those numbers continue to trend against him, and his response has not been to face the actual music, but to continue to create his own reality. As entertaining as that may so have been, I luckily woke up before work yesterday and tuned into the special back channel Twitter feed to see if ol’ 45 had taken to his golden toilet sharpening up his battle raps in preparation for the next few months before the Secret Service has to physically remove him from t

  July 14, 1997… I walked into an NC DMV and got my no-longer-a-kid license.   The one with facial hair, a stamp that didn’t peg me for being under 18 and reflecting a height that reflected my last adolescent growth spurt. I also registered to vote.      In the interceding 23 years, I have not missed one single opportunity to inform myself and vote in every single election.   I have avoided being arrested for or convicted of anything that would jeopardize my right to vote.   I avoided being less than informed on issues that would drive who I should vote for, even in a land before ubiquitous internetting and unsolicited (or solicited!) text messaging.   Every first Tuesday after the first Monday of every November, I got my ass up and went and participated.   When Early Voting became a thing in my mid-to-late 20s, I chose a favorite polling location – one alternative one now – and have not missed an opportunity to vote early since.      I have seen election seasons come and go.  

       My wife is a saint… I have been back to work since my six-week vacation ended after we escaped for my birthday and the 4 th of July.   She planned that trip for my day, she made the best of it even though it mon-fucking-sooned the entire time we were in Wilmington. Back home, we got ahead of what would be the school year for the littles even though we had no clue what a “school year” would look like.   This matters doubly when considering the fact that she herself is a teacher. … and now her sainthood…      When school actually started back, everyone was virtual, so where when this fiasco all started, there was a chance that we might all be returning to an office in the late summer/early fall, or at least she would since my job can be done quite efficiently while watching the traffic go by the front of my house.   As it were, she opted to work consistently from the back in the guest room-turned-office because I type loud as fuck and often break into song and/or laughter.

       I was in Vietnam. No, seriously, I was IN Vietnam!   Read about it here and here , then come back and we will continue…        Welcome back.      The funniest of shit has happened since I have been home during this whole Rona situation… I sit and watch Maury every morning at 11 and then again every afternoon at 5, just to make sure people are still living more shittily than I am.      One day a couple of weeks ago, just as it was going off and my lunch break was beginning, my wife was away at a meeting at her school.   I threw on some shoes and set out to grab some Jamaican food for lunch, a Lyft stops in front of my house and blocks my departure. I hop out of the car prepared to throw hands in the street, and a guy jumps out of the car and yells “FATHER!!!”      Now, a perhaps few of you know that I spent some of my 20s doing some bald-head-hoe shit, so the fact that something like this has not happened by now lands somewhere between being a surprise and of validat