Just a little more than usual
I don’t know if there were any. I’ve always been ready to move on.
In retrospect, and perhaps as a function of nostalgia, I might choose the college years, when we were on our own, far from home, and having a taste of what in certain ways was more freedom than we’d known before or have known since.
Not sure, since it’s only for a day. On the other hand, if I come away from the experience feeling like it has some bearing on the rest of my life, then maybe it would be worthwhile.
So, maybe a professional golfer winning a big tournament, or a guide at Gettysburg NMP.
I guess resigning instead of playing along with Musk can be viewed as a sign of protest, if not …strength? On the other hand, wouldn’t a sign of strength and courage be to stay on and fight and make things difficult for these heartless thugs? Otherwise, they’ll just replace you with a sycophant or incompetent cyborg, or no one.
It’s the rare bird who would actually risk a stable home life and marriage and child-rearing responsibilities and a nice life beyond the Beltway to go all-in on saving the democracy—even as one stands to lose all that stability by neglecting the fight and giving Trump and his minions carte blanche.
All of a sudden, we’re in the fight of our lives. All of us have to be in this together– now– if there’s any hope of turning a corner in 2028. The people in charge are in it for themselves, as usual. They won’t be of any help, can’t be counted on for anything other than misery and coldness.
Almost three years ago, we re-did the half bath we have upstairs, from tearing out carpet (have never understood carpet in a bathroom) and toilet, to leveling the floor, to smoothing out the walls, to measuring, cutting, and installing new flooring, to painting walls and adding wainscoting and trim, to new plumbing connections, new toilet, new electrical outlets and switches, new towel and tp holders, fresh caulking, and a new mirror.
When nature calls, I sometimes still make the trip upstairs just so I can admire our work. We’d never taken on anything quite so ambitious, even though, in the larger scheme of DIY projects, it’s pretty modest.
It’s hard, day after day, to sneak up on the newsfeeds hoping for something… hopeful, only to discover the next frighteningly dumb thing happening in the Trump White House.
It’s difficult to know how to perceive things- as genuinely nefarious and insidious, or more the bumblings of sycophants and rubes who are play-acting and spouting the party line. I suspect the level of compromised values and knuckling under is pretty high for anyone who comes into the Trump orbit and expects to stick around for a while. And this batch has been more thoroughly vetted by the Heritage Foundation and others of this creepy brain trust.
And yet… there is still a part of me that wonders, on occasion, if some of these appointees may find their spine at some point and stand up to Kings Trump and Musk. Maybe the next generation of Hutchinsons and Milleys and Kinzingers are in place and biding their time.
Nah. Probably less likely, this time around.
In general, any word that becomes cliche, so over-used that it carries little to no weight anymore. Lots of words fit this category.
Narrowing it to one is difficult, but the first to come to mind is “devastated,” or “devastating.” People are devastated by so many things– clothes that don’t match, a favorite actor leaves a show, they ran out of maple syrup at Trader Joe’s. It’s misused or hyperbolized (not sure that’s a word) so often that when reporters or survivors at the scene of some natural disaster or a plane crash use the word where it actually fits, it loses some of its punch.
A close second is “traumatized.”
Civil society is on autopilot and pins and needles, while the leadership does its best to undermine and weaken the foundation and cut us off from any means of response or restoration or influence. Musk and the rest are not streamlining anything because they’re dutiful public servants looking out for the general public’s interests. They’re not cutting waste in the name of efficiency and saving money. They have other plans.
They’re turning inward, seeking revenge, abandoning our allies and support systems throughout the world. Their goal, or the goal of the Heritage Foundation mind meld, is to render impotent large segments of the federal bureaucracy and re-fashion the entire government to operate with a dystopian, faux love-of-Jesus vibe, while serving those at the top and leaving segments of the general population out in the cold.
By design, if they get their way, many of us will be on our own, without significant recourse.
Someone please tell me I’m wrong about all this.
It’s hard to know for sure, but maybe to carry on as if I’m not bothered by what I see going on in the world; to carry on as if I have faith in humanity.
I know that’s dark, but lately– and for a while now— it’s been top of mind. I want to believe that we can acknowledge and learn from the past, be motivated by altruism and kindness on a global scale, but I suspect I will be challenged in fully embracing such optimism.
Sorry. I’d love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised.
Someone in Canada has created a new song, based loosely on whatever the tune is that includes the words, “From the halls of Montezuma…” And Canada has tongue-in-cheek declared the U.S. its 11th province. I love it. Good for them. Turnabout is fair play.
But also, what a shame, and waste of time and effort, because they’re playing right into Donald Trump’s hand. I find it hard to believe he has any intention of trying to make Canada the 51st state. He says shit to rile people up and see what he can get away with, to distract from the serious things going on elsewhere, like in Washington and just about every federal agency and institution.
Trump is a deluded troller, an annoyance, a buzzing mosquito, an earworm, a child who has treated the Presidency the same way he’s treated everything else in his life— as a conquest to be cast aside, but not before it is drained of everything it can give him. That he was elected to return to the White House for a second term is one of the most unbelievable and shameful events in this country’s history.
He’s an unserious sham of a human being, playing fast and loose with peoples’ lives. He’s infected with the same poisonous thinking that has claimed other of his heroes—Putin, Orban and the rest. They all take a dim view of the people they “serve.” We’re all just plebes and subjects to them, not human beings with dreams and aspirations and self-awareness and much better brains. And parents who loved us.
So, you go, Canada. And Greenland. And take heart, Gaza, and Panama and western Europe… Just know that, like us here in America, you’re all being played. You’re just the latest targets, pieces in Trump’s dumb and dangerous games. Don’t let him get in your heads. And look around for things he’s trying to get you not to notice.
First off, I’d teach my teenage self to feel a pang of sympathy for the upperclassmen who pushed me into lockers between classes, since they may have already reached the zenith of their lifelong influence and notoriety.
As great an experience as college was, I might tell myself to look into a trade– maybe electrician– and forego the four years of higher education that was part and parcel of post-high school planning at the time. Maybe I would have gone to Vo-Tech, so I could study meteorology, if that was something offered. Maybe I would have ended up in college anyway, but better focused and more purposeful.
I’d tell myself to pay closer attention to and take to heart anyone who said to study hard, pay attention to the classes I take and whatever curriculum options might have been available at the time. I’d take my finances seriously! Maybe I would have studied the stock market more closely, learned how to invest and take calculated risks, buy some land as an investment, develop a certain financial acumen.
I would have insisted on guitar lessons. I’d have focused more intently on physical fitness, to the point of developing some lifelong habits. I’d have eaten better. I’d have listened more closely to the stories my elders were telling. I’d have told myself to learn as many words as possible, and how to use them to make a point and convey meaning.
Knowing what I know now, I’d tell myself to take certain things and people more seriously, to appreciate them in real time. I was a bit aimless, and still am.
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