Odds and Sods #11

 Sometimes i have all these fucking ideas floating around for the lounge, they bounce off the walls of my cavernous skull as i mull over what to write and where to start, not that anyone is clamoring for my method of ranting away into the ether but it's just what happens. Luckily for the, erm, no one, i'm much too lazy to actually accomplish all the little nuggets that come to mind while i'm toiling away as houseboy and with any luck i'll get to all my current ideas, some of which have been floating around for so long to call them current would probably be a misnomer. At times there are just bits and pieces of things that have no real home in a proper post but seeing as this is both an experiment in art (what a pretentious prick i've become) and my therapy i sometimes pour it out onto this archaic and dying medium known as the blogosphere. Fucking Christ! I mean how many people are really still seriously toiling away at this fucking non-sense? Not to disparage those that do seeing as i'm one of them but i remember way back when, say a decade ago, when this shit was all the rage and there were conventions and aspirations by the would-be, soon-to-be famous bloggers! Not that i was ever one of them or attended any such convention or harbored any such aspirations so grandiose as, for lack of a better word, success. What started as a medium with a world of promise, where people could tell their story, was soon co-opted, like most things these days, into the promise of profit, commerce and branding... Or things i have no fucking interest in whatsoever, hence while some have faded into the ether of internet obscurity and inactivity (the lounge falling squarely in the former seeing as it's still active yet still firmly planted in the latter) there are still a few of us playing with the medium for whatever reason we may have. You see as a writer, if i may be so bold as to all myself that, i understand this shit takes time and patience and discipline, three things i sorely lack but do my best to practice, though i'm not sure how the fuck one practices time? Maybe it means taking advantage of the time allotted when given the chance. Needless to say i remember reading somewhere how what humanity sorely lacks is humanity and that by we humans sharing our stories, however mundane, can help us connect and find kinship in a world that is increasingly electronic and doled out in small and ADHD sized bites, or is it bytes if i'm being clever? So to steal from Mr. Bowie, where are we now? 

Now we are in the midst of a raging shit show. A global pandemic which has left the place i live in tatters both economically and socially. We have a spoiled toddler in power who has no interest in anything other than his whims and wants while many of his knuckle-dragging followers refuse to believe in things like science while waving Confederate flags and brandishing bibles and believing that dinosaurs roamed the Earth some 6000 years ago. And by the way, that same Earth? it's flat... at least according to the knuckle-draggers. The lack of critical and rational thinking is fucking staggering. Even all my philosophical studies and attempts to understand leave me sometimes shaking my head and wondering if a well placed uppercut would be more effective than trying to reason with the unreasonable. Then again i am far, far away from reaching the eternal dharma and dubbing myself Bodhisattva. 

Now i could go start a new diatribe on the transgressions of the Breadwinner against our hero here but that might soon lump me into the same category as a certain whiny Orange Shitgibbon always claiming victim. What i will say is that recently i was mulling out loud the prospect of new tires on the old auto seeing as a major component of my gig is driving around and it does happen to be winter and shit here in the Rust Belt. I mistakenly believed that i might be able to use some money from the "household" seeing as it was what i thought fell under the household category only to be told that the request for funds would be summarily denied and that i would be on my own when it came to the purchasing of new tires. While i can't say i was surprised i did find it interesting that while i was told the money was not in the budget said informer was scavenging the internet to buy her family Xmas gifts, including one for a 70-something year old man who every year requests what he'd like from his children. In a bit of coincidence it dawned on me what the Breadwinner always stated about the Posa, that he showed his love by spending money because he didn't know or understand how to love. In a bit of apple/tree theory here i'm on my own for the tires. I understand perfectly. 

Currently my county and state, and really the whole country, is a raging wildfire of a ass-hattery when it comes to the Covid. Having two active boyos makes this tough as most shit is currently closed down and when you add in the foot of snow that was dumped on the region this week it's gets even tougher. Stretch was spending most of his days after school at the turf practicing the football (soccer) until dark. Of course it's tough to practice when the field is covered in snow but i'm sure at the first opportunity he'll be back out there but for now he spends his days building up his FIFA 20 team on the PS4 while dribbling around the house with whatever ball he finds at his feet. 

For Disaster, on the other hand, it's been a tough year for reasons that i won't get into here. Unfortunately his parents are trying to be the responsible types so we don't really want him going in his friends houses but have no problem with him playing outside. The foot of snow was a boon for my youngest boyo and currently right outside the front door is a swell snow fort built at the top of the hill because somewhere along the line the boy must have read some military strategy and understood to take the high ground. He also has taken and old and unused boogie board and turned it into a makeshift snowboard which he rides down the rather steep hill in front of the house. His old man is both frightened and amused by this and the fact is that if i ever got the kid a skateboard it would be over. In fact you could throw snowboard and surfboard in there as well (he'll have a cheap snowboard soon enough to see how he likes it) because the boy seems to have this fearlessness and joy when it comes to doing crazy shit. I showed him so old footage of skaters riding half-pipes and the look on his face told me all i needed to know, speed and being upside down and spinning? perfect. 

The other night Disaster's friend was having as sleep over which brings me back to the responsible type stuff. Fact is i didn't want him in a house with a few of his friends overnight due to the current situation. Disaster for his part understood even though he was bummed by the decision. It should be said that Disaster has expressed some anxiety about the pandemic and seeing as he's not the open book his older brother is i've done my best to talk to him and help him understand and be okay. That said on the night of the sleepover that he didn't go to i could tell he was a bit down. He kept bringing it up and talking about how the last sleepover (which for some reason he couldn't make) his bestie had stated that it kind of sucked. Still i could tell he was bummed. Disaster always enjoys when one of the cats curls up on his bed and hangs with him and it just so happened on this night that my Little Baby Kitty aka Psycho Syd, had made herself a swell spot on the end of his bed. He was playing a game on his phone and happy that Syd was sleeping on his bed when in walked the Breadwinner who immediately for some reason scooped up Syd to show her the fish. Why? i have no fucking idea. Needless to say Syd was not happy and scrambled to be put down and then bolted from the room. Disaster i could tell was bummed again and in a rare moment of pissed i asked why the hell she did that? couldn't she see that Disaster and Syd were both much happier before she came in and disrupted everything? that he liked when one of the cats hung out with him, particularly Syd and that it was a shitty thing to do? The Breadwinner, in Breadwinner family style defended her actions and said the cat liked it while having almost no recognition how her actions affected her son who was already bumming about not making the sleepover. I was very close to blurting out the fact she was being a selfish asshole but i figured Disaster didn't need to see a full fledged argument break out between his parents. For her part, the Breadwinner refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing and flitted off to do whatever. I went and found Zuko, another cat who likes Disaster's room and brought him up to his room where he immediately walked up to Disaster for the obligatory head rub that Zuko enjoys so much, thus bringing a smile back to Disaster's face. 

The other day in a moment of losing the Buddha as i say, i was lost in reverie about what life might be like when i'm living in an apartment on my own, the boyos grown and doing their thing. Yes i had slipped out of the eternal now to dwell on the future a bit and while there were some worries about how to afford certain things, like health insurance, and wondering about what i'd need to do jobwise, my first choice being working at a dispensary most likely supplemented with my current gig, i also understood that right now it was nothing more that a dream, a wishful and useless distraction as i'm not going anywhere until the boyos do. But every now and then i allow myself that bit of fantasy, like i said i'm not all that close to the eternal dharma, maybe someday, if i don't try hard enough, if that makes any sense.