Just a little more than usual
I play the piano by ear– I hear tunes and chords in my head and can sometimes work them out on the keyboard. But I’d much rather have the ability to sight read music. I can make sense of the right hand, but the left hand takes me a while to decipher. And note value and time signature still mystify me.
I know it’s always been a matter of practice, but I’ve never taken the time nor made the effort. Guess there’s no time like the present.
Every day it’s something. Directives are given, declarations made, another EO signed, deals struck, threats made, departments handicapped. Sometimes it’s a late-night decision, or an early-morning tweet– from the toilet, for all we know. But every day, and night, it’s something.
Something new and often outlandish, brash, impulsive, stupid, dangerous, often enough motivated by vengeance and anger, or at the insistence of a diabolical plan hatched by unelected yet influential people whose thinking is off the rails. What the hell is happening?
It’s obviously time to get a grip and come to terms with the fact that Trump and Kevin Roberts and the rest are intending to bring the nation to its knees.
I hope what AOC and Bernie are doing is heartfelt and genuine, though it’s difficult not to watch her and think she’s laying some groundwork for a 2028 run. Anyway, it would seem that public sentiment may be leaning toward dissatisfaction with Herr Trump and his minions. We’ll certainly see how this all plays out, what levels of heel digging, doubling down, and anger Trump can yet sink to.
It’s liable not to be pretty.
Sunny and mild, just a touch of breeze. The kind of day we get every now and then in the Spring, when temps in the mid-60s feel comfortable, and when the sun isn’t directly overhead doing its midsummer best to torch everything.
Sometimes, I like a rainy day, too. For some reason, it feels cozy, and it takes the guesswork out of having to plan some activity or project outdoors.
OK, last one. I like a good thunderstorm– minus the damaging wind and hail. It’s a sensory experience, kind of awesome.
Full frontal assault. This is what we’re witnessing. It’s not at all about saving us money, or being more efficient. Besides, “efficiency” sounds like a word pulled directly out of Elon’s ass, or maybe out of some Nazi code word manual, in service of creating that convenient, tongue-in-cheek acronym.
This is the Heritage Foundation and its ilk realizing the long dreamed-of vision for an America they’d prefer to see. Where the rich get richer and hold all the cards, and the rest of us are shmucks who they really couldn’t care less about. It’s certainly not the America the founders envisioned or risked their lives for. Bannon, Vought, Vance, Roberts and the rest most likely treat all that history as so much sentimentality and idealism that have no place in their more “realistic” understanding of human nature.
It seems there will always be people with motives in the sewer, people who give up too easily, who surrender to the usual siren songs of merit and power and money. Same old shit, except now it’s getting personal. It’s happening where it wasn’t supposed to happen.
My high school Spanish teacher, Mr. McGregor. He was funny, intense (he was also the football coach), he took his job seriously yet also had a sense of humor. He made it very clear that he cared about the subject matter, and us. He spent a year in Guadalajara, Mexico, immersed in the culture and language. He wanted us to learn and would walk out of the room to cool down when it seemed clear we hadn’t done our homework.
He drove an MG Midget. I never had another teacher who came close to his passion for his work.
Looking back, it was an interesting dynamic: he was demanding, but no one seemed to mind. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he burned out and left the profession prematurely.
Michael Beschloss, presidential historian, sums it up nicely, in reference to Donald Trump:
“This is not a president. This is a gangster, relishing the use and abuse of power. This is not a leader. This is a criminal, a malignant hustler who’s using the occupation of our White House to feed his ego and run roughshod over the morals and ideals that have inspired the world.”
Let’s add patsy, pushover, bully, and trash talker who scowls a lot and raises his voice and thinks this passes for toughness and resolve.
It’s only March in Year 1. We’ve got three more Marches to go.
It’s a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, find ways to be more useful, purposeful. On the other, really make every day an open book with blank pages, totally open for whatever I feel like doing or not doing.
On the purposeful end, write with insight and passion, find new recipes to actually try, get into a stretching routine, expand my workouts at the Y, practice piano regularly, create a reading list, a household fix-it list, get going on the workbench I want to build, organize old pictures and slides, find an activity or activities that both of us enjoy, get out with my camera and walk around taking pictures, either service my bicycle and use it, or try to sell it, start learning about the stock market and dabble in some investing, find a part-time job that I’d actually be willing to commit to– as disappointing as that would be to have to contemplate. I still really like being retired.
As sad as it may sound, somedays I’m perfectly fine with wandering aimlessly. I’m still taking notes, though. Maybe I should gear up for the coming days– it’s looking like we’re all gonna be called upon.
Chuck Schumer’s decision to vote for the recent budget CR has created quite the firestorm. A handful of Democrats sided with him, while most others—and many in the public—sound as if they prefer he vacate his post and leave Washington—something about it’s time to take the gloves off and play dirty like Trump and whatever his party is called.
The possible trouble with this is it would seem to play right into Trump’s hand. Playing dirty only causes Trump to break into his reserves of skulduggery, sink lower than anyone thought he could. He’ll see you and raise you. This reminds me of a scene from Community, where Pierce ends up explaining that either way, it ends with an explosion.
People may be concerned that Schumer could be in Trump’s pocket, but the way he explained his decision on PBS Newshour last night made some sense. Maybe Chuck is trying to save his own ass, or maybe he’s playing the long game, as he said last night. But maybe all this kerfuffle has really done is expose the reality of terrible options that having Trump in office always presents. Bannon and Vought and Miller and the rest want only untenable choices on the table, the lesser of two evils.
This is what we get when a complete disaster is voted into office. FOR A SECOND TIME.
I have no desire to put a tattoo anywhere on my body.
Hesitant.
Close second: cautious.
3 Cents' 