Wait & See

 When the person I'm pretending to be dies, will the real me be born?

Seems kind of risky to wait and see.

Go After What You Want or Be A Fool

So here I sit.

71 years old. The biggest decision I should have to make is how late to sleep today. Instead, I am working part time, condemned to do so until I die.......................................until a vicious, vengeful, unbalanced man was elected president.

Now I am condemned to working full time until I die. I'm already applying for full time jobs.

When social security is ripped away from us, Carol and I will not survive. We will lose our home.

Brief aside: What kind of heartless, immoral, psychopath takes social security away from people who are already receiving it. If you are opposed to it, lay out a plan to phase it out over time so the younguns can plan ahead. You have to be one cruel son of a bitch to take it away from people who rely on it.

Carol and I will survive. I will get a job. We'll eat spam and I'll drink cheap whiskey. But there are those in my own community who are too old and frail to work, who rely solely on social security. They will suffer. Poverty, health issues, homelessness, and death.

You Fucking Asshole.

To a great extent, it is my fault we are in this position. If I achieved, we'd be sitting pretty. But early in life when I realized I was living the exact life I vowed never to live, I threw up my hands and turned to whiskey and partying. Had a lot of fun. Figured I'd survive. But I did not count on a dictator ripping America to shreds.

You gotta watch out for life. It will fuck you hard and stomp you when you collapse in despair.

I never chased the life I wanted. I gave up instead. Huge mistake. Because from here on out my life is out of my hands. If I was alone I would just drink myself into the grave. But I owe Carol. Owe her big time. She deserves to be happy and unafraid. So I will do what I have to do.

But on my terms. A lot of whiskey will be consumed. With whatever limited free time I will have, I'm going after fun. I will not drag my ass home at night and fall asleep 18 minutes later.

I only get 4 hours of sleep right now. So fuck it. I can push myself hard and I already just don't care.

I admit to my portion of the blame for the way my life turned out. But the harsh truth is that 77 million gullible people voted a man into office who will destroy my life. These peoples' twisted opinions ruined my life. MY LIFE.

The only comfort I take from that, is that he will ruin their lives too.

And they will never see it coming.

Rather Me Than Them

My cats are serene. Happy. Loved. Loving. Insane.

I would love to trade places with them. See what it feels like. But with my life as it is and, even worse, what it is about to become, they could not handle it.

The level of stress and unhappiness would be so foreign to them, that they would die. Immediately.

I would rather die than have one of my cats die.

Before I Die

 Before I die I'm gonna start a rock group and play Live in New York City

How Much Worse

Been doing the rope-a-dope all my life.

Arms raised, covering up, absorbing the blows. The strategy being to wear out my opponent to the point where I can suddenly knock him on his ass when he least suspects it.

The jokes on me, 71 years down the road. I am the one who is tired, I am the one who is worn out. 

Thinking about dropping my arms.

How much worse can it get?

Sweet, Protective, Solitude

 No one can hurt you when you're alone

Trust Your Soul

 Got me a cheesy bookmark.

The Friends of the Library whipped up a bunch of homemade bookmarks to be available in the library free to patrons. Nice touch. But they are cheesy.

I was curious. I thumbed through them and came across one that said Trust Your Soul. Felt that was appropriate because not trusting my soul has royally fucked up my life.

The catch is the bookmark has a fucking tassel on it. I hate tassels on bookmarks. And it looks like it was made by a prison inmate. Or a psychopath. I am not kidding.

The words are printed out and taped to a piece of cardboard.

Like this:

  Trust

Your Soul

"Trust" is on one small chunk of paper, "Your Soul" is on another. Kind of like psychos do when they leave ransom notes, or when murderers want to freak you out before they kill you.

So I'm not really sure what I have here.

Inspiration? Ghoulish nightmare?

What the fuck.

It was free.

Root of the Problem

 All the worst things we believe about one another can always be proved with a story we've heard from someone who heard it from someone else.

Whose Soul is in Patsy's Body?

We have had nine cats and one dog over the years.

My relationship with our pets is always intense because I am deeply emotional, incredibly sensitive, empathic to a fault. And I need emotional connection. Open and honest. Crave it. Cannot live without it.

Carol digs our pets too, loves them intensely, but she is more reserved with outward displays of emotion. Something I had to adjust to but never got used to. Even after 47 years.

I have been very close to all of our pets but never as close as I am to Patsy. The love that goes back and forth between us is genuine. And intense. 

She doesn't just sit in my lap, she crawls up my body until she is draped across my arm inches from my face. Then she stares into my eyes, directly, and for long periods of time. She talks to me constantly.

I am so grateful for this because she repairs my soul, which is torn and on life support. She melts me. She softens me up in my harshest moments and amplifies my love when I am in a good mood.

Lately I have been wondering who she is. Her love for me and attention to me are so intense, so focused, that I've been wondering if someone's soul is inside of her. Some dead relative or friend. But I can't place it, can't make sense of it.

Who have I known that could love me like this? No one. I cannot think of anyone who loved me enough to go out of their way to communicate that love to me from beyond the grave. Someone who cared for me enough to want to make my life softer through Patsy.

It's all Patsy. Has to be. And I am so grateful for her because every day, every fucking day, she is in my lap and on my heels and in my arms, meowing at me, staring lovingly into my eyes, melting my heart and resuscitating my soul.

She makes me so happy, makes me smile, makes me laugh with her cat insanity; gives me life when all I feel is death.

Patsy is a miracle and a gift and a surprise, a life-giver, and a bottomless well of pure, untainted love.

She keeps my heart beating.

Especially Appropriate During trump-times (which may never end, God forbid)

 "There are no sides. There's no Sunni's and Shiites. There's no Democrats and Republicans. There's only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS."

"There's always a confused soul that thinks that one man can make a difference, and you have to kill him to convince him otherwise. That's the hassle with democracy."

From the movie Shooter; Ned Beatty as Senator Charles F. Meachum

Good Times

 "What I see now, Eilish, is a black hole opening before us, we have passed the boundary of escape and even when the regime has been overturned the black hole will continue to grow so that it will consume this country for decades."

From Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch

The story is about exactly what is happening to this country right now, only set in Ireland, and it follows events to their logical conclusion.

Meaning people getting arrested for criticizing the government, people getting killed and "disappeared", grocery stores running out of food, the internet disabled, the military roaming through the streets, no news on TV except government authorized news which is all lies.

It is chilling.

It is coming.

Maybe not all of it, but enough to make us suffer financially, physically, and psychologically.

Good times.

Wonderment

As I was driving home Sunday morning after spending a night with Keith, I was overwhelmed with a sense of wonder.

He and I ate at a funky burger joint the night before. A cool place that is frequented by the local college crowd. The place was crowded with youth. Which means it was filled with laughter, conversation, energy,  and unbridled positivity. Because life has not yet robbed them of hope and optimism. Beautiful.

It was fucking great. And the burgers were damn good.

Then we went to a UNH/Boston College hockey game and watched a game that was so good it should have been illegal. BC is #1 in the country, UNH is pretty shaky. BC should have won 58 to 0. Instead, UNH took them to OT, and then a shoot out, when they finally lost. Heart-braking.

Again, the arena was rocking. Lots of youth and lots of alumni exuding equal intensity of enthusiasm. The atmosphere was fantastic.

I spent the night in a hotel and headed home in the morning.

Travelling from Belmont to Portsmouth and vice versa, GPS's first choice is a route that follows back roads. And I mean some seriously back roads. There is even a half mile stretch of dirt road along the way.

I navigated that route once before and was afraid that GPS was shitfaced. I could not believe it. I was so worried that it was all wrong that I didn't enjoy the ride as much as I should have. But it did make an impression on me. It was gorgeous and left an imprint in my brain.

Ironically on the way to meet Keith I avoided it and took a typically boring route. But on the way home I was a bit looser and went with the flow.

Spending the night with Keith greased the skids. Spending time with my sons is the best thing that can happen to me. It opens me up and makes me come alive. We had a great night and I was happy. So when I drove home my senses were wide open and receptive.

New England, man - it is beautiful. Even on a 14 degree morning when the ground is covered in snow. I was thinking about these hardy people hunkered down at home on a freezing Sunday morning living their lives free of work and obligations for a day, reading the Sunday paper, having a special breakfast, being themselves unfettered and feeling alive.

New Englanders are indeed a special breed.

Stereotypical New England homes. So much character. My head was on the swivel, which was OK because it was Sunday morning early, there was no traffic at all, and the speed limits were conservative.

Abandoned pickup trucks in the yard. Falling down fences, peeling paint, porches on the slant, steps in need of repair. Beautifully maintained houses, freshly painted and in good condition, expensive trucks, farmer's porches inviting me to visit, smoke billowing out of chimneys. I drove through it all in sheer amazement.

Wonder welled up inside of me uncontrollably, making me feel so good that three years were added on to my life. No question.

I came to a four-way intersection and sat at the stop sign alone, just sat there for minutes because the view was so damn gorgeous. Surrounded by funky houses, yards, smoking chimneys, sun bouncing off windowpanes, snowdrifts sparkling.

Eventually a car came from my left and another from my right and stopped at the stop signs. Still, I sat. Until I realized they were waiting for me since I was there first. I looked at one driver, then the other, and they were both staring at me. So I turned left and kept on appreciating.

I am trying very hard to hold on to the nourishing good vibe that originated on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Doing pretty good too.

There is hope for me yet, surprisingly.