The musings of a madman...

       Despite the utter 2020-ness of 2020 and the prayers of people who once SWORE they were on my side, I made it out of 2020 whole. Yes, I got a 6-week furlough that wound up being VERY productive in terms of what was done around the house and pushing me back to writing.   The bigger point of the “whole” assessment there is that there were no missed mortgage or car payments, nothing was in danger of being cut off or defaulting and we got a shaggy dog while I was home. I say all that to say that if I did so well on a summer vacation from Memorial to Independence days, I am hurting for nothing in the time since.      As some of you may recall, we went to Vegas before ‘Rona decided that the world need to chill the fuck down for 14 months (and counting because some assholes have no chill).   For those of you who DON’T, here is a reminder… [ link ]      Welcome back… As Nevada and Las Vegas come back open, hotels on and off the strip have been champing at the bit trying to ge

       People talk too damn much… I should say that I ALSO talk too much as well, but since no one listens to me anyway, my talk is of the “to myself” type, for the most part.      As much as I talk to myself , I listen better than some people might give me credit for.   I may not REACT well, but I am receiving what is being said while I am in earshot. Another funny thing is that people have observed that I also don’t REPEAT what was said while I was in earshot, so I am often loaded down with other people’s blathering about others.   I’m holding secrets for people I don’t even know that I will either die with or sit in my rocking recliner and babble to the dogs when I am seventy, no in between.      It could – no, SHOULD – be said that the most important person I am holding secrets for is myself.   I mean, I sit and listen to people talking about details of other peoples’ lives, why in the hell would I ever divulge factual information that would assuredly become the center of one

  “I finally got on the list and scheduled my Covid vaccine.   My appointment is later on this afternoon. Needles never bothered me, I take my shots like a big boy, but I really can’t help but be a LITTLE bit worried… Will they give me the 5G version of the vaccine? Will they give me the Bill Gates mind control version? Will they inject me with the gay gene? Will they give me a Black Eugenics shot disguised as a Covid Vaccine and then blame it on ‘side effects’ later on down the road? Will one of the yet-unknown side effects down the line be superpowers? Sheeeeit…   That would be kind of cool, now that I think about it.   What if I got x-ray vision and could use that to get into bank safes and peer through walls to steal peoples’ information to come back around and log into the bank systems and blank out everyone’s mortgage and student loans, then delete the backups as well? What if I got superhuman speed and strength?   I would set up an online streaming pit fighting ring

       Have shenanigans, will travel… It is spring break and since my daughter is with me and not the woman I had a wedding with once her mother, my wife and I make a point of doing things with her and my great niece, so I took the week off like they got so I am not the only asshole in the house telling everyone to pipe down because I am working and they are not.      Back when outside was open, a thing to do was go and park downtown and walk around.   While there one could eat good, people watch, score drinks and/or dessert.   I have even seen people find their forever mate and/or religion. Speaking of “religion,” you could count on the Hebrew Israelites standing in front of the Civil Rights Museum and SCREAMING at white people (and not-black-enough black people) as they walked by just trying to get a taco on the next block.   Before ‘Rona, Ava used to get her done hair across the street from this amazing spectacle, so sometimes I had to park RIGHT in front of it when picking he

       I am habitually on time… No, seriously.   As a character trait, I am completely obsessed with punctuality and become visibly annoyed with people who are not.   Even before “work” was right here in my front room, I was 100% never that dude barreling across the parking lot at 7:56am trying to look like I was where I was supposed to be. My will to be where I need to be when the hell I am supposed to be will usually override the natural human “hit the snooze” reflex. Usually.      Well for the last month and a half, I have been back on my gym bullshit.   That means that three days a week, my day begins at 5am and involves burning several hundred calories in the span of the 75 minutes gyms are allotting people due to local Rona ordinances.   With the coincidence of the spring solstice and Daylight Savings coinciding, I get two more hours of daylight with which to kill one of by burning a few hundred more calories in local parks or designated trail spaces. I say all that to sa

       I will be 42 in about 3½ months… I look back to things I did twenty years ago and shake my head so hard that my neck hurts.   It was legitimately NOTHING to get off work at 11 (or 1am), bolt home and wash the day off my ass and head back out until 4am, then reemerge at 7:30 in time for class to turn and do it all again.   Day of the week bedamned.   If it was a “thong contest” ( ß yes, those were a thing in REGULAR clubs) on a Tuesday, me and the squad were there.   Party promoter needed someone he knew would get the place moving on a random-ass Thursday?   He would call one of us. Needless to say, EVERY day between Tuesday and Saturday could easily become a party night until people started shooting INSIDE of clubs around 2003/04.      The only thing I miss about those days is the stamina it took to go to class from 8a-1:20p, work from 2-11 (or 4-1, or 2-3:30 and THEN 4-1 when overtime was cracking) and THEN hit the skreets. Oh, and the money I blew buying alcohol at club

       I really do need an adult most of the time… As of last Friday, I’m informed that my work-from-home situation goes from “indefinite” to permanent effective next week. When I came home to work one year minus two weeks ago today, I had to make my PC space into my bill-paying work space.   It took me thirteen and a half years with the company to finally get a window seat.   Kind of unfortunate that I am the one paying for the window.   Whatever, the dogs and I get to spend my working hours watching and barking at the world go by the front of the house.      That arrangement is cool when I am sitting at the work computer doing work things.   Sometimes, though, I need to Google things for True Story©, or use language that is not safe for work during my internet journey and need to do so.   Don’t worry about that right now though, it will be back later.      Wife person, being a teacher and all, has been vaccinated and dispatched back to the schoolhouse to continue to educate yo

       I don’t know if y’all know this but unless I have somewhere to be or something to do directly after work, I watch Maury Povich twice a day every weekday.   Everyone who has watched even one episode knows that Maury’s #1 draw is the paternity tests, complete with the “you are/NOT the father!” declarations.   Witnessing the embarrassment of others live on television is something I find entertaining, for better or worse.   We’ve discussed that before.      Of late – like, say, the last year or two – Maury’s show has been used as a natural “in” to sell up those ancestry DNA testing kits as well.   It is kind of a cruel sick joke that a show that has made their nut on embarrassing the shit out of people to be shilling “legitimate” DNA testing as well, but that is none of my business. So one day last fall, Wife Person sees the ancestry DNA testing segment and says “we should order a kit!”   Without having the brainpower to ask why or even remember how horrible an idea this might