End of the Month

This month lasted for eons. EONS. I knew it wouldn't get a lot easier once Biden was in office but I'd hoped slightly MORE of the stupid and crazy stuff would calm down. Nope. I really hope my country turns away from all the conspiracy theories and insanity. 

I mean, the crazies were blocking people at Dodgers Stadium for almost an hour. The people were just there to get their Covid shots. Look, Billybob, it's FINE if you don't want a shot, but don't stop other people from getting theirs. Ugh.

Last Weekend in January 2021

It's still weird to write 2021. That seems so far in the future. And yet, here we are. This was a messed up month. People tried to overthrow my country's democratic process and now everyone is acting like it was no big deal. It was a very big deal. Assholes. 

I'm still pretty shut down. Creatively, I can knit ten stitch rows, and honestly, that's about it. I manage to get myself organized for tutoring every week. I have no idea how long this will last. 

So many people I know are still injured or grieving or frightened. Everyone ran out of spoons a long while back and most of us aren't really resupplying. 

In fact, it reminds me of this thing that happens in one of the game modes of Don't Starve Together. When you die, you can instantly come back. However, your health bar is lowered and it never returns. I think that's what happened last year. A lot of people's Spoon Bar was lowered and just will never refill completely. At least, not for a long while. 

The Lesson of Melkor

So in Tolkien's work, Melkor starts off as an agitating asshole. He causes problems and tries to screw up the Song of Creation. He's forgiven for it and allowed to continue on. No consequences to his actions.

When they land in Arda, he is still an asshole. He perverts creations. He smashes the Lamps. He starts kidnapping newly awakened elves and turning them into orcs. 

A small punishment is doled out. Just a small one. He promises he's learned his lesson. He promises he won't cause any more problems. He says he's sorry and things will be better.

And then......he starts sewing seeds of doubt in the elves and kills the two Trees. And commits the first elven murder. And basically, all of his lies fester into the elves going back to Middle Earth and starting a war on their way there.

Melkor is full of lies and jealousy and a need to be the Most Powerful and a need to be the Special One. A few people speak out against him, but they get drowned out by the people who just can't accept that he is as bad as he is. They keep building things back up and he keeps destroying them. 

The lesson here? I think you can figure that out for yourselves. I think you can also see how it applies to current situations. 

 

Deep Geekdom

I spent my evening listening to a nice British gentleman breaking down Tolkien's mythology. It's so good. I love Youtube series like this. It just pleases me to no end. 

Earlier this week, I watched a documentary about Lovecraft and loves that quite a lot as well. 

People spend so much time arguing with each other online that they seem to forget there is this wealth of other stuff they could be doing. I hope we get past that. Less anger. More joy.

The Neverwills

I have this bad habit of getting yarn from people and then deciding that I'll use it in projects. Then......never using it in projects. Did I talk about this already? I probably did. Anyway, I'm talking about it again.

So the Projects of Neverwills just sit there for months/years/decades and do nothing. I want to get past that. It takes up too much of my space. And beyond that, it is a disservice to the yarn. Yarn should have purpose and life as a SOMETHING.

So yes, I really want to try and make everything into a blanket this year. The yarn deserves that.

The Best Feeling

I finished the blanket on Saturday. Yesterday it was washed and returned to my bed. Last night, the blanket kept me warm.

Okay so I usually don't feel ACCOMPLISHED about things, but last night, I did. My blanket is amazing. It's perfect. It's neat looking. Best of all, I opted to make it better than it was.

Before I added the last two rows, it was okay to sleep under, but it just wasn't QUITE big enough. It covered me, but there wasn't the extra length and width that one really needs for a blanket to achieve Supreme Coziness.  

Now the blanket is everywhere and warm and so very deeply cozy. I'm so hapy with it. YAY!

The Hill You Die On II

I had to block a friend today. For a long time, he posted about just funny stuff. I even reposted a lot of it. Every once in a while, there would be something kind of Libertarian in nature, but not that often. 

Lately, he seems to have shifted to a full Trump supporter. Today he posted some stuff so insane and awful that I had to block him. I just could not look at it any longer. I cannot understand how someone could support that man. I don't want to even know. I have no patience for that any longer. Blocked.

And yet, I feel sad about this. He was my friend. I enjoyed his humor for so long. Maybe the politics thing was always festering under the surface. But it's not there now. So here we are. 

I miss who he was. 

The Hill You Die On

There is a saying. "Find what you love and let it kill you." No one is really sure of the origin of this. There are debates over who first said it. For that reason, I won't attribute it to anyone.

However.....

Fuck all y'all for ruining the complete morbid romance of this quote. I always kind of loved the idea. The passionate, obsessive death of it appealed to me. I also kind of suspected it was about heroin. 

But now we have a whole group of idiots who have decided they love conspiracy theories and demagogue political figures and are letting it completely destroy them as people. And they don't want it to just destroy them. They want to take the rest of us down with them. 

Uggh. Find something else to obsessively love. Something fun. Something beautiful. Something that isn't rotting the foundation of the free world.  

The Power of Art

I didn't watch the whole inauguration. I watched some. I enjoyed the memes, you know, like a good American. What parts I did watch were good.

One part was amazing. One part should be one of those moments that stand as a defining moment in the American soul. That was when Amanda Gorman recited her poem "The Hill We Climb" and basically jumpstarted the healing of my psyche. 

I cried. I mean, I made it for a bit, but then I cried because this was what I needed to hear. It's what we all needed to hear.  The poem talked about how America wasn't perfect, but how that was okay because America is something we work on and something we work at. This is how I have always defined my country. The importance of being an American is that you have a chance to make the world better. You have a chance to make people around you have better lives. We should work toward freedom and justice. We should work toward people living happy and secure lives. We should strive for improvement. 

I'm including the transcript of the poem here. This is important and beautiful.

The Hill We Climb
-Amanda Gorman

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We've braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Messed Up Plans

I had errands to run today and it didn't happen because of a timing conflict. It kind of threw off my whole day, but I'll be fine. 

Tomorrow Biden takes office. I hope he serves the country well. And yes, I said serves. Presidents are not our bosses or our leaders. They are public servants. It would do everyone good to remember that.

This Week

I should not have to be worried and frightened about this week. I should not have to think about people trying to destroy my country because they refuse to understand their guy didn't get the votes.

The people elected to represent their states should not have to worry about death threats and possible assassinations. Folks need to stop ripping at the core of what it means to be America. 

The peaceful transfer of power is one of the best things about my nation. If you can't respect that, if you can't understand that, perhaps you should look elsewhere for a home.

Cold Sunday

It was cold today. I held Tinkerbell most of the time. The cold weather seems harder on her this year, but then again, she is ancient for a cat.

I'm on the third side of the blanket and back to brown again. With any luck, it will be back on my bed by the end of the week. We'll see. After that, I'm....starting on another blanket. Hah!

Anyway, I'm hoping to stay as centered this week as possible. It could get scary, but I really pray it doesn't. Peaceful transfer of power. This is what makes America function. 

Saturday in Pause

Some balls of yarn were pulled out to finish the border on the blanket. It will mean the basic 'pattern' on the border is just 'yeah, none of this yarn was used in the rest of the thing.' It's not much, but it's something. It makes me happy. 

Things could get scary over the next week. I'm hoping everything is okay and the transfer of power is peaceful, as it should be. However, there is a lot of stupidity and egomaniacal bullshit that may make that impossible. I have faith in the Constitution. I just wish some other folks had some dignity. 

Past Trump leaving, I just want us to try and heal. A lot of people are messed up by Covid and the consequences around Covid. A lot of other people are addicted to delusional ideas and cults of personality. Addictions like this are as dangerous as heroin and just as likely to kill you. 

It's going to take a way to recover from all of this.

The End of BoJack Revisited

I finished the series again. The first time through, I focused more on the second to last episode, The View from Halfway Down, because it's the showstopper. In the episode, BoJack has a meal and entertainment with people in his life who have died. Some of the people were just deaths he witnessed and couldn't shake. Others were people who were significant in his life. One, his uncle Crackerjack, died before he was born. However, the fallout from Crackerjack's death shaped a massive amount of what happened in BoJack's childhood and his relationship with his mother. 

I could talk about that episode for a long time, but instead, I want to talk about the final episode, It Was Nice While it Lasted. The episode takes place almost a year after the events of the episode before. BoJack is in prison but allowed a day out to go to Princess Carolyn's wedding reception. During the episode, he speaks with all four of the other major characters in the show. 

Mister Peanutbutter picks him up from the prison and drives him to the wedding. Their interactions all take place before the wedding. PB buys BoJack a suit for the wedding, takes him to lunch, buys him a different suit after he gets stains on the first one, and talks to him about his life. PB has made peace with being single and is trying to work through his issues with codependence in relationships. They really had the least amount of relationship work to do because PB is so in the moment, he never really stays mad at anyone and tends to be pretty delusional about his relationship with BoJack anyway. Overall, however, he seems to be in a good place.

BoJack then spends some time with Todd. Todd, in a lot of ways, has grown the most as a character, even if he did so while retaining so much of his own strange way of thinking. When we first meet Todd, he's unemployed and has been living on BoJack's couch for five years. By the end of the show, he has his own daycare business and his own apartment with his girlfriend Maud. They exist in happy asexual bliss and love each other. Unlike PB, Todd doesn't let BoJack fall back on his usual patterns of destruction. when BoJack worries that he'll just start drinking again once he's out of prison, Todd tells him that if he does, he'll just find a way to get sober again. He uses the song The HokeyPokey as a way of looking at addiction or any kind of backsliding. You do the hokeypokey and you turn yourself around and that's what it's all about. 

Todd says that it isn't 'doing the hokey pokey' that it's all about. It's the 'turning yourself around' that it's all about. No matter how much you mess up, the idea that you can stop doing that and begin to walk in a better direction is always an option. For BoJack, who stays in a headspace of 'it never gets better,' this is a revelation. 

When we see Princess Carolyn, she's in her wedding dress. She's married to Judah now and in a good place in her life. Like Todd, she's grown so much through the show. The most marked sign of her growth does come in this episode. From the beginning, she's always been unable to cut her ties professionally with BoJack. She could end their romantic relationship, but never their working one. Even when he fires her, she still begs him not to and as soon as he wants to work with her again, she lets him. 

Earlier in the season, BoJack remarked bitterly that maybe Princess Carolyn letting go of him would be her happy ending. She disagrees, but when he screws up his life after doing an interview she told him not to do, you see how she's reached this place where she really can't work with him again. In this final episode, she still feels that way, and doesn't slip back into the same destructive pattern. When he remarks that he'll need representation when he gets out of prison, instead of taking him back as a client, she tells him that she knows some good people he could work with instead. Letting go of the stress and hell of being BoJack's agent/manager really is part of the happy ending for PC.

Diane's last conversation with BoJack is the one I'm still not as happy with. It's no secret that this season was rushed to finish and Diane's storylines felt like they suffered the most from this rushing. There was so much that got glossed over and wedged into place just to conclude things for her. I'm not sure it works as well. Todd and PC feel more organic. Diane's stuff just doesn't.

Maybe that's because of our typical expectations of how shows and stories should work. In a more conventional show, Diane and BoJack would have ended up together. There were points where it seemed like this would happen and certainly points when they both wanted it to happen. Thankfully, this show isn't conventional. Diane and BoJack together would have been horrible. Neither of them would have gotten better. Even though they would occasionally call each other out on their shit, for the most part, they indulged each other and made each other worse. 

When they see each other for the last time, it's uncomfortable. They fight and talk over each other. And even though they finally come to a kind of peace, it's a shaky one. Diane's life is better. She's married. She's writing a successful series of books. She's moved to Texas. She's on meds to help handle her depression. But it's very clear that unlike the other three, she's not settled in how she feels about BoJack. She thanks him for the role he played in her life, but it doesn't feel as peaceful as Todd or PC did. The wounds are still open and you get a sense that if BoJack gets out of prison and ends up messing up someone's life, it will be Diane's. 

Of course, we'll never know. 

Brain Business

My brain is so erratic right now. I can't do videos. I can't write. I can't even focus that well. The best I can do is work on the blanket, continue this blog, and maintain. 

I'm setting up a tablet for my dad. I need to get my email stuff off of it before I drive it by his house. I'll try to do that tonight. I also need to charge my phone. 

It's not really a lot of stuff, but it feels like A LOT.

Long Day

My roommate had a dentist appointment in Fort Smith. I went along with him to keep him company. The appointment was at 2 and this ended up making us get home around 4:30. Appointments take forever. Travel feels like it takes forever. I'm exhausted.

I'm also really emotional. I think someone that I care very deeply for is in Cult45 and that is disheartening. I talked to this person today and they commented about the evils of Amazon and how dystopian things were these days. This person has always pulled the Republican party line about the benefits of large businesses. This is a strange change.

I hate it when people change for men. Ugggh. 

Netflix and Endings

I watched the end of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina last night and I am not happy. It isn't that the show ended. It isn't the events that happened to create that ending. No, my problem is the lack of realistic storytelling involved in that ending. I'll TRY to avoid spoilers here, but be warned; I may slip up. 

Throughout the series, several things have been established, things that could have prevented what happened. Certain people had abilities that would have altered the ending. The Spellmans have a resource on their property that could have altered the ending. They have skills far above and beyond what was shown that could have altered the ending. All of these skills were shown even in earlier episodes of this season.

It's frustrating. 

And honestly, this is becoming a pattern with Netflix. A lot of their shows are really good, then suddenly canceled, and wrapped up in a pretty bad way. 

For instance, and there probably will be spoilers here. I wish Bojack's showrunners would have been told the year before that the show was ending. I think ending the show with Diane driving Bojack to rehab would have been a solid ending all the way around. That season was dark, but complete in a way the following season just wasn't. There are a lot of things in the last season of Bojack that feel like they were going to have larger plotlines, but due to the show ending, that just didn't happen. 

Netflix needs to change this pattern because honestly, it's making me wary of starting new shows on that platform. 

No Words

When the horrible terrorist acts of Wednesday were happening, the people I know on the Right were silent. Were they embarrassed? Frightened? Secretly cheering them on? I honestly have no idea because none of them said a damned word. Many of them still haven't addressed the events, other than to perhaps suggesting it wasn't THEIR people or it's been blown out of proportion or we need to move on and just heal. 

Now they have grasped onto the banning of Trump from various platforms. They're trying to take the moral high ground of this being a first amendment issue or some other freedom of speech issue or how the Left is going to grind them down and destroy everything.

All the while, mind you, with still no comments condemning what happened at the Capitol. It's like it never happened. It's like Trump didn't stand there and tell them to do it. It's like just the Saturday before, Trump was caught on a phone call trying to talk people into committing voter fraud. It's like he didn't fire the people who were there to keep our internet structure safe and therefore allowed hacking from outside governments to happen. It's like he hasn't been destroying and ruining things for four years now. No word on that, just how wrong it is that he's not allowed to continue his pony show of conning and poison on Twitter. 

Look, this isn't like shutting off a private citizen from using social media, although private companies are certainly allowed to do that as well if said citizen breaks the rules. This is cutting off the dangerous words of a dangerous cult leader who is actively trying to get his cult to commit acts of violence and sedition. 

Someone compared this to your cell phone company removing you if you said stuff they didn't like. I mean....look, most people who are committing crimes using phones are smart enough to use burners. They don't do it on Twitter and Facebook. 

I saw someone lament that Biden would probably put them in reeducation camps......and this is someone I saw say no words about Trump putting refugees in camps. It's like they haven't even noticed that the Left is rather hellbent on people NOT going to camps? 

I want Trump impeached. I want this election finished. I want the new administration to begin. Maybe with Trump not as accessible, they'll start to become normal humans again.

The Auction

A few years back, the school where I spent my first several years of elementary was shut down. Since then, people have been trying to revive it in one form or another. It was hopeless. The community is small and often at odds with itself. Today, I found out they were auctioning off the school.

I never liked it there. Every second I spent in that school was miserable. However, it has a history with my parents' and grandparents' generations. I will miss it for those reasons. For the ghosts of their good memories. 

At the same time, my brain is already redoing the classrooms into small apartments. I have no idea why anyone would want to live there, but it would still be fun to redo the whole thing. 

Winter's Mercy

The cat is perched on the top of my chair and leaning the bulk of her weight against me as I type this. Sometimes when she's up there, she'll just place a paw on my shoulder. It's her way of maintaining contact without actually being held. I really like this.

It's cold tonight. I'm under three layers of blankets and the water is dripping in the sinks. Winter is going to winter, I suppose. I hope it snows in Washington during the next several weeks. I hope the weather keeps those maniacs from going back. This war on my country needs to stop. 

What happened on Wednesday should never have happened and it had best not happen again. I don't care what one's beliefs are. Trying to kill members of our government and make the rest of us submit to mob rule is wrong. 

May Winter show mercy on my nation. 

The Void

I have no problem with people owning guns. I've lived in the country. I've lived in dangerous areas. I understand why guns can be useful tools to keep you safe. 

However..........

We need to separate gun-ownership from gun-obsession. And I don't mean 'we' as the government. I mean 'we' as people who recognize what is mentally sound and what is not. Watching what you eat can be a very stable and healthy thing. Obsessing about your weight can get dangerous. 

Actually, a better example here is shopping. Shopping is something we all need to do. It's a basic and fundamental task. It can, however, become an addiction. You can find yourself buying and buying and buying as your house fills with boxes and goods and new things. 

You think the New THINGS will make your life better. You think they will fill the void. But they don't. Buying things to try and fix your life (instead of buying things to just address a problem) isn't going to make things better.

If you purchase a gun, you need to ask yourself some questions. Is there a task this gun will perform? Do I already have something else performing that task? Is this to make me feel better? Is it to make me feel more like a (fill in the blank)? Is it to make more feel more included? Is it to make me feel safer, even though I already have many things that should make me feel safe?

Is it just to make me feel? 

THINGS are not going to fill the void. THINGS are not going to make you OKAY. THINGS are not going to make you happy. 

We each have a responsibility to really analyze the stuff we're consuming. Not just the food and drink, but also the media, the words, the images. We need to think about if this stuff is telling us the truth or just manipulating us into certain patterns of behavior. 

There are industries out there that want you to feel insecure and broken because it makes it that much easier to sell you their stuff. 

Last Round

I am now on the last round of the blanket. I am glad I made the decision to increase the blanket's size. Not only will it help me in terms of being warm, but it's also kept me sane during this crazy week. 

As a nation, we need to calm down. As a nation, we need to focus on finding a way to move forward past Covid. As a nation, we need to focus on rebuilding what has been broken. It won't be easy. 

I think we need to fill the cracks, but not try to hide them. We need to acknowledge that things almost fell into autocracy here and make sure it doesn't happen again. 

Two Coup Day

So.

We started out the day wondering how the Georgia runoff race would end. That seemed to be the biggest news of the day, even though we all knew a bunch of GOP Trump loyalists in Congress were going to raise some objections. The objection thing was annoying but didn't amount to much. Still, it was their way of making a show at some kind of coup. 

So one Georgia race goes to the Dems. My roommate and I leave to run some errands. By the time we get back, Trump supporters have stormed the capitol and tried to do...I dunno, something? They scared people and made a lot of noise. It was illegal and they should be put in jail for it. 

So the Angry Masses Coup kind of overrode the Congress Coup. In the meantime, the second Senate seat went to Georgia as well. 

Republicans no longer run the Senate. Though, they did try to overthrow the government. Twice. In one day. And should be dealt with.

The Blanket Continues

I had to scavage a scarf today in order to finish this row of the blanket. I think the blanket is more important, as, well, I'll be using it on the regular. A have other scarves. 

I also watched an old episode of a Brit culture show about the punk scene as it was just starting out. It's interesting to see all of these people so young. It's sad too, knowing that in the years to come some of them would die, some would sell out, some would lose their friendships. 

It's also always best to watch what you say when you're young and being interviewed. You never know when that might come back to haunt you.

First Monday 2021

We paid the first bills of the year today. I guess bills are always a predictable cycle, no matter how chaotic everything else gets. It's weird to be living in 2021. That still sounds like The Future to me. 

I never suspected living in The Future would be like this. I guess plagues and political corruption are predictable, but the rest of it is far more mundane than I assumed it would be. 

Then again, I will be sitting here watching a movie on my rather flat computer screen, so there's that. I'm also knitting. I never thought I'd be knitting in the future. 

Self Healing

I think I'm still trying to heal my brain. Or my spirit. Yes, I think that's the better way to put it. I'm not depressed, but I am so very, very tired. I just need to be on autopilot for a while. Knit. Listen to music. Maybe read. Practice my new things. Knit. 

My only somewhat big project today was that I vacuumed my room. I used the new handheld to do the edging and to clean the filter on my tower fan. It was a mess, but everything looks better now. 

Tomorrow we go out and get things started for the first bill set of the year. I hope it isn't too dreary. I would love to have some real sunlight for a day or so. 

NYD

The year started out well. We went shopping. I talked to my best friend, my father, and my nephew. I ate my blackeyed peas because I'm superstitious. I also folded some clothes and vacuumed a little. 

For most of the day, I talked with my roommate and cuddled the cats. I also knitted and watched Bojack. 

I really hope this year will be good. Late winter is always the time when things can go scary for me. I hope, this year, it does not.