Just Can't Do It

No fucking how hard I try, I just can't look cool in my 2020 Hyundai Elantra.

I can do better.

The Death of America

I am reading historical fiction.

Something new to me and quite delicious. Book about the Revolutionary War - two volumes, actually.

Dig this quote: "There is an awful danger when the people become accustomed to tyranny. If the people learn to accept small abuses, then larger abuses will follow. It is like a disease, crippling slowly, until the body is beyond repair.

...................When there are loud voices here, London hears them, and they back down. But when the voices are quiet, London grows brave again, bringing more abuses, stretching their own laws, reaching their fingers ever so slowly into our pockets, our homes, our rights."

And this one: "If the mere delivery of a petition is considered an offense, and the messengers are so abused, then who will perform the duty? It is a dangerous thing for any state to maintain its power by plugging up the vent of complaints, stifling the voices of the people. When complaining becomes a crime, hope becomes despair."

And this: "Stupidity. Blind, incredible stupidity! You don't slap an entire people across the face, put chains on a town, and expect....what? Sullen acceptance? Quiet regret? Who in England believes that this will be resolved by a renewed peace, an end to controversy? Starve us, enslave us, and then expect that we will be humbled into grateful obedience? How can they believe it will ever become normal again? Will the king and his amazing audience of buffoons ever consent to give us back all of what they have taken away?"

From Rise to Rebellion, by Jeff Shaara

As I read this book it haunts me to realize that every grievance the colonists had against England is the same as those that intelligent Americans have against putintrump.

Feels like I am reading a history of the birth of America at the exact moment of the death of America.

Paul & Lisa Are Gone

Paul and Lisa are gone.

Son of a bitch.

They are good friends that we made here at Pre-Death Central. I'm comfortable calling it that because my doctor has been comfortable telling me for 10 years or more that I am pre-diabetic. Every fucking year at the annual physical. Pre-diabetic. Still I eat my Snickers Bars and drink my whiskey.

Pre-death because this place is a prelude to the cemetery. No one here gets out alive. Most of the crowd is older than me and Carol. Many in their eighties, some in their nineties. Been a few deaths since we moved in a year and a half ago.

This is why we treasure Paul and Lisa. Lisa is 60, Paul is 65. And they like to party. 

We get together for dinner - sometimes their place, sometimes ours, sometimes we go out. We run into them out walking, they run into us out walking, we sit together at community functions.

We talk, we laugh, we drink.

I need that. I love that. I worship that.

They spend summers in Maine. They headed up on May 1 and the air got sucked out of the room.

We met them late in 2023 when we first moved here. Got along immediately, but they spent a chunk of the winter in Florida, and all of the summer of 2024 in Maine. So we didn't really get to know them. When they came back in the fall, the friendship deepened.

We spent a lot of fall 2024 with them, all of winter 2025, and part of spring. Now they are gone.

There are a lot of very nice people here. Even a woman (who's name I always forget) who drinks Crown Royal and ginger ale. So we are Crown Royal buddies. Nice lady. But these people are not crazy, unless you count dementia.

So I'm feeling empty. Hollowed out like the Tin Man. And I definitely don't have a heart. But I do have excessive gas.

This place is safe, it is quiet, it is pretty. I love it. But that is not enough for me. I gotta have insanity. Irreverence. I gotta break some rules.

We're gonna go visit P&L in Maine sometime this summer. Spend the night. That will be great. Everything is within walking distance for them so they often do a pub-crawl kind of thing. Grab dinner somewhere, walk to a bar, walk to another bar, and the band plays on. Looking forward to it.

Until then, I'll keep my toenails neatly clipped, and volunteer at the local food pantry every other Wednesday.

Gonna be a big summer.

Now THAT'S Livin'

 "I sure like that candy, I don't go for them turnip greens...................so when you put it on the table, oh mama think about me.

Well, I don't drink coca cola, but I sure like the old moonshine.................yeah, we drink it from a fruit jar, with my little baby by my side.

Well, I don't much like walking, but I love my Eldorado ride.......................yeah we run it 'round the cornfield, with my little baby by my side"

Candy, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Happiness is Relative

 "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

Oscar Wilde

Legacy Denied

 "I'm not particularly interested in dying with fuck all to show for it."

Movie quote and a good one.

Would You?

 If you woke up with the phrase "ghost-monger cocoa pie" running through your head  over and over and over again...................would you question your sanity?