Category: Male

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I do not like this “New Normal”

I went shopping and did some errands on Tuesday.

The Auto Club was helpful and easy to work with. This was a new one for me, I’d been going to the one in Victorville and honestly hated it. I tried one near Rancho Cucamonga and had a much better experience.

I suppose that’s why we always went “down the hill” instead of to the closer towns in the area. It was just a nicer and more civilized experience.

After the Auto Club, I dropped by what used to be a great Best Buy…

This experience was not as nice. The shelves were bare, horribly disorganized, and over all the store was dark and dingy. I was completely ignored by all associates. This was particularly clear when I asked an associate to scan something so I could know what the price was… I was told, “I gotta clean up, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” as he walked off.

Let me be clear, this was not a janitor. This guy had been helping another person literally moments before, he hadn’t even logged out of his computer terminal yet. WOW! What fantastic customer service!

If I hadn’t really needed the item, I’d have bailed. Instead I finished my shopping, picked up a couple more items then went to the cash register.

I had the lady scan the questionable item before we began the transaction. I had a backup selection if the questionable item had been too expensive. It turns out the price was acceptable, so I left the backup selection at the register. They can restock it or simply throw it on some random shelf as it appears they’d done with most of the rest of their inventory.

There were employees wandering around in masks and it was a very unpleasant shopping experience. Best Buy will probably go the way of Frys. The employees are acting just like Fry’s employees acted near the end.

Then I headed over to Ralphs. I was able to find all but two items including a ton of stuff that I hadn’t been able to find at my local Stater Brothers for months.

The aisles were neat, people polite, and they had two doors to get folks into and out of the store easily without a traffic jam. Also I wasn’t being shocked every time I touched a freezer or shelving unit. I spent less at the Ralphs than I do at the Stater Brothers. That was surprising too.

As I was driving home, I was thinking that COVID panic really screwed up a lot of things. My local grocery store is much like the Best Buy. Dark, poorly organized, and with plenty of bare shelves and more than half the staff running around with masks on. It’s like they never recovered from the COVID mentality.

Then I thought about shopping in Florida. The Best Buy in Tampa is well lit, well stocked, and the employees are helpful. The Publix grocery store is like the Ralphs I was just in. I suppose Kroger owned stores in Florida would also be to the same standard although I haven’t, to my knowledge, shopped in a Kroger owned store in Florida.

Now with the Fall season upon us, we’re hearing about COVID again. “Mask Up”, “Get Jabbed”, “Be prepared for lockdowns” Why? COVID is technically endemic. It’s like the flu. Are the “Powers that Be” just trying to squeeze another year out of COVID panic, or are they really concerned? How can we know? They’ve lied so much, and been caught in their lies often enough that I, and apparently a lot of other people don’t trust them.

Is this too part of the “New Normal”? Once trusted organizations within and outside the government sphere are to be nothing more than noise, conflicting information, and lies?

I don’t like it one little bit. The “New Normal” SUCKS!!!

I suspect that nowhere does it suck worse than California and New York. Both will be stupidly compliant with whatever suggestion the government pulls out of its collective ass.

If Sniffy Joe said that we should all wrap our heads with Saran Wrap to ward off COVID while in our homes, and that it was mandatory. You can bet your ass that California and New York would fine anyone who disobeyed. No one would wrap their heads…

Well maybe there are some incredibly stupid people who would suffocate themselves with Saran Wrap, there were people who used aquarium cleaner as a cure for COVID and nearly died. Yeah, the aquarium cleaner has ivermectin in it, but the OTHER chemicals were completely ignored by these rocket scientists! Ya need to read the whole label morons! Honestly, they should have been allowed to Darwin themselves in peace. I digress…

We know the fines would go right into the stupid pile of money California and New York “BURN” everyday providing their respective citizens such lovely services as tattletale hotlines, and drone surveillance of our homes and yards.

The “New Normal” is new to us in the United States. But it’s old hat to folks from the former Soviet Union.

I suppose that’s why I don’t like the “New Normal” it feels a bit like what I imagined living under Soviet rule would have felt like.

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Wow, I’m torn about this…

Recently a Judge dismissed a case from a sorority that was seeking to prevent a “Trans” a.k.a. a cross dressing man from joining.

On the one hand, I think this is wrong on its face and we shouldn’t be having a discussion about a transvestite being allowed into a sorority in the first place. I know I don’t want a transvestite bunking in my niece’s dorm.

The judge should have heard the case. But as is all too common these days, common sense and the law don’t intersect. Worse, the law and those entrusted to uphold it, either don’t do their jobs dispassionately, are too cowardly to make a decision that might fly in the face of the vocal but small minority.

But and this is where it gets really muddy. I’m pleased that Women are having to deal with the infiltration of spaces that were “Theirs”. Now they know how Men felt when we were told we couldn’t have exclusively men’s clubs, or salons, or VIP locker rooms for men, (if the women didn’t have one too,) even when 98% of the gym membership was male.

I doubt Women will get it, they’ll make everything about what it means to them, but never think about what they’ve done to men by demanding there can be NO MALE only places. Even our bathrooms aren’t ours anymore.

Ultimately, because I’m like most decent men. I’ll forego having satisfaction that women are getting what they deserve and stand with the sorority against the so called “Trans” agenda.

These girls are supposed to be going to college where they can learn something, they shouldn’t have to live in fear of some messed up freak.

If I was the father of one of these young ladies, I’d tell her she didn’t need the sorority experience. I’d tell her that the distraction of the sorority isn’t going to help her grades. I’d probably offer to arrange for her to attend a conservative private college.

I admire the sorority trying to seek legal remedy for the problem but that’s not likely to happen in our society these days.

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Mitch it’s time for you to head to the pasture.

I say that to you the same as I’d say it to anyone in my family.

The men in my family would pour our Elder two fingers of Evan Williams, and respectfully ask him to give us his guns. (Provided he hadn’t already.) It’s symbolic; A way of telling our Elder, “We’ve got your back. We’ll keep you safe, and shed tears when you leave us.”

While I disagree with a lot of your politics Senator McConnell, I’m sorry about whatever is happening to you. Maybe you should take these freezing events as your body telling you time is short. (That’s what the men in my family would interpret them as. We’d take you hunting, fishing, or riding, as often as you wanted, so the last of your days are filled with happiness, love, and respect.)

Since you’re not a member of my family may I suggest, it’s time to retire and spend the waning days of your life on the porch with your family?

Go home to Kentucky and appreciate the smell of hay being mowed, the rain on the earth, and the fall foliage. Enjoy the change of seasons and Thanksgiving watching the kids and grandkids playing touch football in the yard.

You’ve lived a long life, battled in politics for years, and have certainly earned a little peace & quiet.

Walk away from the political theater. You’ve done all that can be done. Killing yourself by staying in office isn’t going to change a thing. The cards have been dealt, they’ll be played whether you’re in the Senate or not.

Go home to our beloved bluegrass covered hills, horse farms, and orderly split rail fences.

Enjoy watching horses running across the fields. When you close your eyes for the last time, you’ll be doing it at home, contentedly in a quiet place without a gaggle of reporters shouting at you.

Respectfully, It’s time for you to rest sir.

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A Good Day

I did the usual chores, played a video game or two, watched Foundation on Apple TV. Then I made dinner, went out to the deck to eat and watched the sunset.

The moon rose gently over the mountain then hung behind the trees at the top of the ridge for a few minutes.

It was one of the perfect photographic shots that you miss because your phone is inside and probably won’t catch the image. You think for a minute and realize that by the time you grab the SLR, the moon will have moved on and the shot will be gone.

So you do the only rational thing.

You sit still, take another drink of your adult cocktail and enjoy the the moon moving up behind the treeline ascending to its proper place in the heavens. You store the image in your head, just like your ancestors did for the preceding million years.

That was my evening.

When I came in and was cleaning up the kitchen the pup came in and had some swelling above one eye. I think he took a wasp hit or was bitten by something while we were out walking. He sticks his head in bushes sometimes so it’s possible he ticked off a wasp or bee.

He came to show me. I’ve washed his face with a cool damp rag, I cuddled him next to me on the couch for a while. As expected, the area is a bit sensitive but the cool rag seemed to sooth it.

I’ll have to keep an eye on it. If the swelling is gone or reduced by morning it’ll be fine otherwise I may have to take him to see the vet.

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I was going to start this with the old…

… This is your brain on drugs photo. If you’re old enough, you’d remember the eggs in the frying pan.

As I was looking for an easy image to pull, (because I don’t feel like fried eggs for breakfast,) I ran across a lot of images of brains, and brain related memes.

Ironically more than a few of those “informative” images, were suspect or had typos.

This one for example, has both concerns. I think the average human brain is perhaps 1/3 larger than the image asserts and there’s the old To, Too, Two, bugaboo. I’m going to ignore capitalization and sentence structure.

According to a quick internet search, (we all know how accurate that’s likely to be,) The average human brain weighs in, at about 3 lbs. It has a volume of 1260 cm3. Another interesting thing to note is that the human brain contains approximately 40% fat.

I suppose that means I shouldn’t have been offended when someone called me a fathead.

All of this about brains started because as I’ve moved through the grieving process, I’ve noticed things that disturb the hell out of me. I can’t remember SHIT! I write stuff down, or I put it into my phone and then forget to check my list.

I didn’t used to have this problem. I remembered everything, and found the act of writing things down to be a waste of time because I remembered everything I needed to do.

Now, I can’t stay focused, or on task. Everything is monumentally difficult, even the things I like doing. I’ve also noticed that I feel like I’ve lost myself, and am lost. I don’t “Feel” like myself right now. I’m easily bored and far too easily annoyed by the simplest of things.

People have said that this will pass. I can feel the truth of that statement. Simultaneously, I sense another truth as well. The hurt will diminish, (and has,) but I will never be the same person I was. I will be irrevocably changed. Things that I used to enjoy, I may leave behind because those things remind me of who I was with my other half, and it is too painful.

It’s in your other half’s absence that you are confronted with constant reminders of how much you were loved. You also have to confront how much you took that love and care for granted. There’s an element of guilt in that last bit. I don’t think guilt is the right emotion because if the roles were reversed, the feelings would be the same.

Moving on is hard. I haven’t done as good a job at it as I thought I would. I feel ashamed about that. I’ve been told not to beat myself up over it. I try not to, but I still feel ashamed.

I thought I was prepared. I thought it would be a quick searing pain and then it would be done. I was wrong. The pain lingers on. I think that’s a lyric from Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I don’t remember the exact track.

I understand now why many societies have a minimum period for the grieving process. None of these societies have the process written in stone but many have social constructs that determine appropriateness of various behavior during this time.

As an intelligent species with millennia of lived experience behind us, various social fabrics have been woven to accommodate and protect those of us wounded by loss. Make no mistake, it’s a gaping festering emotional wound. It may be a wound that scars over but is always felt. My thinking along these lines allowed me to feel a connectedness that is very human, and was strangely comforting.

July and August have been very hard months for me. I’ve burned a lot of energy trying to process why. His birthday, my Birthday, my Father’s Birthday, the anniversary of my Father’s death, this was typically the time that my other half and I would do things together because he was off work. Which meant he wasn’t running from thing to thing 7 days a week.

In years past we’d take short trips, go to museums, wine tasting, or if it was really hot, we’d content ourselves to walk the dog or dogs here in the mountains where it was cool and beautiful.

In really good years, I’d have sucked enough cock and kissed enough ass at my employer that I could actually take my paltry week of vacation. Most of the time though, “Business Needs” prevented me having anything but weekends off. (Business needs usually meant that the boss was taking 3 weeks off in Cancun with his family or mistress and fuck everyone else!)

School would have started by now and my other half would be getting into the swing of the school year plus preparing for the holiday services at the church and temple.

This hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday while I was making a meatloaf. Laugh if you wish, it is funny. I think it’s the mundane nature of what I was doing.

For a few minutes I forgot he was gone. I looked at the clock on the stove and thought, “I’ll get this cooked and walk the dog before he gets home then make a nice summer salad and sweet corn for dinner, the weather is nice enough that we could perhaps eat on the deck tonight,”

Then I saw his car in the driveway where I’d parked it, and it all crashed in on me again, he’s gone and he’s not coming back.

I think the dog is getting tired of comforting me…

Perhaps not, he doesn’t seem to care as long I cuddle him back. Then he does the only thing he knows as a “Fixes Everything,” he’ll keep bringing me balls until I pick one to throw for him. Apparently fetching a ball is the puppy cure-all that ails you.

It actually works. I think it’s his tenacity, he’ll bring each ball in, drop it at my feet or in my lap and wait for a response. The response he’s looking for is a smile, or for me to grab the ball. At that point his tail starts wagging and he heads for the door. All is well again…

The point of this rambling train of thought is;
Life is Change
Change is sometimes painful
Love is beautiful, terrible, painful, and joyous. Above all, those we love and who love us back are never forgotten, because they’ve literally gotten into our head.
The pain we feel when grieving is real, and I think caused by suddenly finding familiar pathways in our heads non-functional.

Hell, it could even be endorphin withdrawal. When we see a loved one we get a hit and when we don’t see them anymore we have to go cold turkey.

There are probably thousands of too tightly wrapped Phds, MDs, and whatever else the educational system has turned out that will vehemently disagree with my assessment. Go ahead! I never claimed I was an expert, I’d bet however that I’m a damn sight closer to being an expert than any of those so called “Experts” because I’m living through this time, it’s my lived experience. (See what I mean? I’m almost as edgy and easily pissed off as Biden, or my Mom these days.)

I need an endorphin hit. Maybe I’ll go buy myself a birthday present or two. I think I’ll try the built-in method of getting that endorphin hit before I go out and spend money. I suspect however that I’m going to be shopping in the next day or two.

Maybe it’s time for a haircut, a massage, and some time spent caring for myself and saying the hell with responsible behavior (within limits…)

Yeah, I’m working through a lot of shit that I am ill equipped to handle.