Grooming day!

Oh boy!

Today I get to load up the dog for a trip to the groomer. He’ll be happy I’ll just be tired! The groomer in question likes Jesse and he seems to like her. His grooming appointments are more expensive than mine, and that’s saying something!

Well… if I have a massage As part of my monthly grooming I still have him beat.

I’m not going to know what to do with myself while he’s getting bathed, trimmed, fluffed and made ready for his close up.

Due to distances, this is going to take a huge chunk of the day. 1 hour or so just in transport to and from the appointment. He’ll be indisposed for about 3 hours.

It’s okay, I haven’t been taking him on a monthly basis. Mainly because the cost is prohibitive. I miss being able to take him to local folks who knew him. But the local folks have retired or moved elsewhere and the remaining “Locals” can’t keep an appointment.

The last local person I tried canceled 3 appointments in a row. Jesse and I never met her and I decided that she obviously didn’t want the business. She also was about as expensive as what I’m doing now, going to one of the big box groomers.

Previously, other locals, provided great services at reduced prices because they liked having regular business. We tended to book monthly appointments regular as clockwork. 60.00 for two well behaved dogs versus 80.00 for one.

Candy was the best. She let my retrievers run around, out of the holding cages (on nice days out in her yard,) until after their baths. Then they’d be in the cages for blow drying and out again. Those two retrievers were protective of each other and Candy figured out that working on them was easier if they could hold each other’s paws. They also liked her and she them. My boys knew how to wrap a person around their little fingers.

Jesse is excellent at wrapping people around his fingers, he’s not so good at doing what you’ve asked him to do. He’s getting better about it, every so slowly.

Well it’s time for me to get cleaned up and get this show on the road. I think a nap this afternoon will be in order.

On the plus side, this will mark the second day in a row that I’ve left the neighborhood. That’s a good thing because I’ve gotten to the point that leaving the house is an ordeal. I just hate dealing with people in general.

I like select individuals but the majority of folks… I can’t stand. I didn’t used to have this problem this bad, but isolation during COVID and isolation over the past 7 months has made me really antisocial.

Little excursions seem to help as long as I can avoid asshole drivers. I ran into a gentleman at Costco yesterday that said he’d noticed an increasing rudeness and even had people hit him with their carts as if he wasn’t there, or wasn’t human, or wasn’t worthy of courtesy.

We entered into this conversation right after a lady had run into me for a second time in the same aisle and… well I sort of let her have it.

There are reasons people like me don’t like people in general.

A lot of people have ZERO standards of behavior in public. I can’t educate everyone but I sure as hell don’t have to put up with them.

You know…

Sometimes my mind runs in strange directions.

I was thinking about Biden’s reactions to the Maui fire and wondering why our government doesn’t redirect some of the Billions of dollars that we’re sending to Ukraine, to Maui to patch up their hurt.

Biden’s “NO COMMENT” response kinda pissed me off.

Then I thought about the Biden Family involvement with both Ukraine and Russia. I started wondering.

Is the Russia Ukraine war nothing but a big SCAM?

I know people have been killed, & there’s been a lot of damage. That doesn’t mean that Putin and Zelenskyy didn’t sit down at a Swiss Ski resort and say, “Now that Biden is The US President, and we know he’s an idiot, we know his vice President is a moron, and that they have surrounded themselves with sycophants. Perhaps we could go to ‘war’ and the idiot Americans would send us lots of money in aid. We could make a lot of the money ‘disappear’ and grow very very rich.”

Putin and Zelenskyy have demonstrated time and again that they are brutal dictators who no doubt would consider all the deaths “Acceptable Losses”. Especially if you’re talking billions of dollars, even after kicking back 10% to the Biden Family.

We know that a lot of the cash has vanished. The equipment could easily be sold on the black market for decent money.

I don’t know if that’s what’s going on, but I could sure see it happening.

Ukraine gets some renovation, the Russian army gets live fire exercises, Putin & Zelenskyy get filthy RICH and perhaps retire to Malta.

Big Yawn!

Ohhh Georgia indicted Trump and a bunch of other people.

Bored now!

But I can say this, Georgia is completely off my list of potential states to move to. Not just because of this indictment, but because of Stacy Abrams, their crime & violence, and their tax structure.

Then you add this weak ass indictment, and guess what? Obviously, they don’t have any damn common sense either.

Even if I was to find a place well outside the Crime zones, how long would it be before some moron like Stacy Abrams got into office and did all the usual shit Democrats do? Increase Taxes; Income, Retirement, Property, Registration, and provide absolutely NOTHING in return for my dollars? I doubt I’ll live long enough for some moron in power to weaken all my constitutional rights, as California has managed to do. But I’d hate like hell to live to be 90 and find myself having to move at that age.

Georgia I never thought I’d see the day when you were as stupid as New York City. Yet here we are…

So, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. Georgia, aren’t you just precious?

NEXT!

Really? My God I wish people would separate their feelings from facts.

I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do so very well but I’m going to give it a shot.

I ran across an (AP) Article titled US suicides hit an all-time high last year I thought, “That’s concerning but not really surprising.”

I can’t speak to the rise in suicide among young black men, but I wouldn’t be surprised if its a factor of hopelessness much like what I feel being in the 45 to 65 age group.

Realistically, what would it be like to be told literally everywhere all the time that the boogy man of systemic racism, will never allow you to succeed. (Personally I believe that racism is worse today than it was at the beginning of the Obama Administration, and that it’s fed in large part by politicians and people who make money from misery. BLM, Al Sharpton, etc,)

Imagine being told you’re a victim and always will be, or you’re not smart enough, or good enough and no matter how hard you work at it, you’re always going to fail, because of something that you have no control over. Add to that, how many of these young men may be losing friends to violence, or drugs. Maybe they can be included in the white 45 to 65 age group for the purposes of studying why suicides are increasing because of similarity in the root causes?

Just off hand I can think of reasons that might be causing an uptick in the white male 45 to 65 age group.

A lot of folks in that age group happen to be veterans. Veterans have not been served well by the VA especially in the area of Mental Health. This is also the time in life when you start losing old friends, spouses, parents, and a lot of men find themselves asking existential questions like, “Is this all there is? Work for fuckers I hate, making them rich, while they threaten and bully me with losing my job every fucking day?” Don’t even think that companies wouldn’t allow that kind of bullying, or it’s a rarity. Some supervisors think it’s funny to threaten subordinates with their jobs. Others use it as a way to “Whip their crew into shape,” and no HR department ever takes action. Their response is, “I’m sure the supervisor was joking.”

The job angle assumes a man has managed to keep working in the first place. If they’ve been laid off for the 20th time in their life after buying into yet another corporate pack of lies, ( We believe in family first, time off, vacations, and bonuses for good work…) that sure sounded like promises or agreements, they might just feel like, what’s the fucking point…

Contrary to popular belief, just because you’re older doesn’t mean that there are enough management or owner slots for everyone. The majority of folks aren’t going to get that single promotion slot… Often being older just means you’re at the top of an HR layoff list. Oh that shit is illegal, but the employee can’t prove they were the victim of ageism so older workers are totally screwed.

Having explored that existential question myself, I can say that the feeling of hopelessness and despair can be overwhelming.

I can also say with some certainty of belief, that our government, in collusion with Corporate America is directly responsible for any suicides over job losses. My belief is that the worker visa program is horribly flawed and government inaction bringing that system to heel, is killing Americans. It’s been obvious on its face for decades. When American workers have to train foreign Hn-nnn workers to replace them, we have a serious fucking problem.

The Hn-nnn system is destroying or has destroyed more than it has helped. President Bush be damned with his “These are jobs Americans won’t do,” bullshit!

Then there’s the terror most people feel about the IRS if they’ve worked long enough to have made, much less saved, any kind of money at all. The IRS has become a ravenous beast flinging audits and locking bank accounts at the drop of a hat. This is usually explained as crime prevention but almost always involves some small business owner who takes a lot of cash payments like a laundromat or coffee shop.

But that’s not all. Society is a mess. I’d like to see statistics on how many of the 49,500 had recently lost their jobs, have been involved in, or accused of, sexual harassment, have been accused of /counseled for racism or misgendering, were under IRS audit, might have been conservatives, may have been christian, possibly had a dim view of drag shows in front of children, might have voted for Trump, perhaps preferred common sense & old values to reading bullshit thrown at a wall to chart today’s course of action, or any of the million other razor blade hot button issues one could possibly run afoul of these days. Some members of families see no difficulty “Cancelling” each other over the new set of rules. Does that lead to more isolation and therefore higher suicide?

I often feel like I’m living in a social mine field and I’m unemployed! I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to deal with chaotic societal rules every day with no choice. If I’m not up for the silliness I simply don’t participate. It isn’t that I want to avoid other people or completely divorce myself from society.

I simply don’t always have the energy or desire to keep up with social rules that change as fast as vibrating atoms. In social settings today, failure to comply has immediate and sometimes lasting, even violent consequences. As a rule, there is no mercy or forgiveness for someone being unaware of an arbitrary rule created 12 seconds ago, or making a social mistake.

I don’t want to live constantly in fear. I’m very content waving at y’all as you whiz by on what is in my humble opinion, the highway to hell. “Have a nice oblivion morons,” is what I find myself thinking more often than not.

Admittedly, it makes me lonely. Especially since losing my spouse. But I was sort of lonely before losing my spouse. In a social sense we didn’t have a large circle. We relied on each other for support and there was comfort in knowing that no matter how shitty the rest of the world was, when we got home we had each other.

I get why people in my particular situation would flirt with the idea of suicide, or even decide it was preferable to living in this ever increasing insanity / stupidity.

What caught my attention was that the article turned toward Guns being the problem. I found that offensive as hell. (Yeah, I know my feelings & beliefs are intruding…) People choosing to kill themselves with a gun is just logical. By all accounts a bullet scrambling your brain is quick and probably relatively painless. That’s why slaughter houses use a boltgun on cattle. Brain is gone, cow dies, NEXT!

The gun isn’t the problem, nor are guns the source of suicidal ideation. (I picked that term up from a Psychologist. See I can learn things, as long as you’re not reversing every two seconds…) I’m too cheap to go buy a gun for the purpose of suicide. Strangely I’d be worried about the mess and who would have to clean it up. Is that a point in favor of the slightly OCD crowd???


If someone wants to kill themselves they will, just as if someone wants to kill someone else they don’t need a gun, a gun might be convenient, but it’s damn easy to kill a human.

The venerable club makes a fine weapon. Smack someone with a baseball bat in the head a few times and that’s pretty much the end.

As an aside, that is why I personally was appalled at how the media and police addressed the “Knock Out” game. Smacking someone at the base of the skull with a lot of force, such as running up behind them, is attempted murder in my book. It’s not a game at all.

If someone wants to kill themselves there are a lot of ways to do it. All you have to do is look around. There are literally thousands of sources of poison. Under your kitchen sink for example. Chlorine Bleach and Ammonia mixed in a confined space can do ya really quick.

If I was looking to go the poison route I’d just score some Fentanyl. Thank you China, Joe Biden, and open borders… It’s cheap, easy, and quick. The beauty of this method is that if you don’t leave a note, it will probably be ruled an accidental overdose and your life insurance if you have any, will pay off to your family. Get high as fuck and die. Now there’s a plan.

If you believe that killing yourself is a mortal sin, you could leave it in Gods hands. You could go to a black neighborhood and scream racist shit at the top of your lungs. Or you could walk into your local mosque and light a Quran on fire, perhaps while screaming Muhammad was a pedophile, who took it in the ass, and false prophet. If you lived through either of these events you could perhaps go on living knowing God had a plan for you.

You could use death cap mushrooms, you could go old school with other ancient poisons. Hemlock for example. A quick search of toxic plants is very enlightening. Oleander for can be deadly, even the common Daffodil bulb can kill, I’d say chop finely and brew as a tea.


My point is, Death is easy to find if you’re looking for it. Gun or no gun if someone is going to kill themselves they will.

I am repeatedly offended by politicians and other organizations using anyone’s death to push forward their fevered dreams of gun control. I don’t care if you’re talking about a mass shooting, or a single suicide. The dead are not for politicians to use for self aggrandizement or political gain.

Let’s agree that the real problem is that the person felt they had no hope, no future, and nothing to live for. (Perhaps we should eliminate politicians and their divisive rhetoric. It might be interesting to see where that leads us. Just a thought…)

I was glad to note near the bottom of the article there were some constructive things. The CDC working to expand suicide prevention services and the national 988 hotline number are encouraging steps.

Sometimes all that’s needed to part the clouds of depression is someone indicating that they give a shit about you and aren’t interested in using you. So if you know someone who’s depressed, give ‘em a call or a text just let them know you thought about them. I smile several times a day from a text message as simple as “I heard or saw X and thought of you.”

That goes both ways, if you’re depressed or feeling a little suicidal, (dear God don’t do what I’ve done here in this blog post and think too long about it, ) give someone, anyone, a call. Or you can go to a public place, help a stranger. Pick up an errant bit of trash some child dropped so their mother doesn’t have to. I’m always surprised that my doing simple things, and receiving just a smile for my trouble is remarkably uplifting.


FYI for me personally, If I was to get totally suicidal, I think I’d go with a fabric belt around a stout closet rod, naked with a dildo up my ass, jerking off, and wearing a pair of roller skates. Autoerotic asphyxiation is just soooo unseemly and dirty. It’s kind of the ultimate FUCK YOU! To the world. It says, “I blew my load and arrived to judgement still dripping!”

So friends, don’t worry about me buying a gun, worry if I buy roller skates!

To those of you who might be scared that I’d given this too much thought… Nope! Not really. Back in the early days of AIDS, a lot of my friends who nearing their end and not wishing to die gasping in agony in a hospital would ask me what I thought about suicide and how to go about it.

They asked me, because I had the ability to respect their choice without making judgement about it. In other words I’d give them a straight answer and was open to discussing the options pragmatically.

I miss those guys. I’m glad they’re in a better place and hope to someday meet up with them again.

A LONG number of somedays in the future! Until then guys, keep the bar tab open and the servers hotter than hell, cause when I get back with you guys, I plan to party!

Dang I was looking for a really offensive photo of autoerotic asphyxiation to finish this piece off with there was nothing truly interesting. Although what came up were a lot of photos of men having choke sex with women. But that isn’t autoerotic, is it?

Here’s the best I could do…

Enjoy!

Thank goodness!

Okay, things are finally starting to bend to my will!

I know that sounds terrible! Maybe not terrible, just arrogant as hell!

The second car is in good shape, the overheating issue had been addressed.

I cleaned out one of the two dead trucks today and I’m sitting my ass on the couch! I got hotter than hell sorting through all the crap the other half left in his truck. It’s cool outside, but damn! Inside the truck it was hot and with no battery power I couldn’t drop the windows since they’re power.

I’m hoping my truck is in better shape. Although since the other half was driving it until he blew the engine, I have no idea how much crap he left inside.

I found all kinds of interesting things inside his truck. Hymnals for example, that I distinctly remember him being upset about misplacing. I found it amusing, I was laughing as I pulled stuff out. I used to tease him that he had too many places to lose things. I’d get a glower and go hide in the office.

Now I can schedule the dog for his grooming appointment, I can pay the registration on the other halfs car, (Needed a SMOG Certification). This clears the way for me to be able to load and transport the boxes and boxes of music to where they can be sorted. I’m working toward getting rid of the dead trucks and feel like I’m moving forward.

Tomorrow the backflow inspection is happening it’s only 3 weeks late! Another one of those things that you can’t just call and schedule. The folks who do this service, want to schedule a lot of stops at once. I get it, It’s not cost effective to send someone 30 minutes up the hill and then 30 minutes down the hill for one 15 minute appointment. So folks that do this kind of thing want a cluster of inspections in town because it makes the trip worthwhile. Especially now with gas prices what they are, and considering that a lot of these inspection guys are plumbers and therefore driving a truck with a lot an equipment. Coming up the hill costs a bunch of gas.

I’ll be sad to see our old trucks go, yeah they’re non-functional but they’re from a time when we were both younger and healthier. They need to go, they’ve needed to go for years. But there’s a nostalgia associated with them.

As with many of these kinds of things, it feels like I’m letting go of “US”. This is normal. In fact I am letting go of stuff that didn’t add to our relationship or life and now it adds even less.

I’ve sort of concluded that donating the music folios will be a good thing insofar as buying me back a lot of space. If this music was sorted, I might consider putting it up for sale. Some of the items are kind of rare. I’m not qualified to curate it all. The other problem is I don’t even know what he had.

To be honest I’m not sure that he knew what he had. I’ve found a few duplications of music here in the house, he had two storage areas, neither were anything other than “stacks”, it’s no wonder he lost track of what he had versus what he thought had been lost in the fire.

The music and Truck should be taken care of this month. That leaves the stacks of junk stored in the basement. Toss it? Or should I set it up for the Labor Day garage sales???

I’m still thinking about what to do…