Enough, people!

Today was an odd day. It’s supposed Spring…and it’s Good Friday (if the Catholic calendar has any idea about the crucifixion). It’s Spring, I say…and it was 29 degrees this morning. I understand that happens in places like Wisconsin and Maine and Colorado, but it’s not too high up on the list for us’n folks down below the Mason Dixon line. It was even more disconcerting to hear so many birds singing their little hearts out, in the robust and chilly wind. It sounded like the rain forest, but it was North Carolina and it was 29 degrees. Type mismatch.

Anyway, I listened to a part of the Derek Chauvin trial early this morning, while I was still on my first cup of coffee, and there was a homicide detective on the witness stand. As usual, the defense was trying to make it seem as though he wasn’t qualified to speak about whether or not a knee should have been applied to George Floyd’s neck for nearly ten minutes, but I guess they figure like that’s their job. I think it backfired, because the guy was pretty unflappable and politely explained that certain things are kind of, well, common sense and basic procedures don’t change all that much year to year. They were trying to make it seem like since he had been on the job for a long time, he didn’t know what he was talking about when he reinforced what EVERYbody has said, which is that if an officer has applied a choke hold, they should disengage it once the suspect has ceased to struggle and resist the arrest. Derek Chauvin continued the pressure of his knee until after the suspect had not only ceased to resist arrest, but had ceased…to be. He was dead, and there was still a knee on his neck. I hope that’s not supposed to make sense, because it doesn’t.

Anyway, the detective who testified has the same last name as me, and I always get really big charge out of seeing that sort of thing. None of my cousins are likely to be subjects of national news, at least not for something like this, and this detective had about as much in common with me as Ivanka Trump. The last Zimmerman who found himself in the news was George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin, and he had zilch in common with me as well. When he was on trial, I found it necessary to begin a lot of my conversations with the words, “No relation.” before the question was asked. I probably do have people in my lineage who are as nutty as George Zimmerman, but I ain’t claimin’ him.

So, while this is going on, and more of the unseen horror of George Floyd’s death on that Minneapolis street comes into painful view, we go from the horrific to the absurd. A sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives is accused of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 17-year old girl, and not only securing her transport across state lines, ostensibly for purposes of having sex with her, but paying for said transport. Dude. Even gang members understand that’s called trafficking. Apparently nobody really likes him in Congress (I found him a bit nauseating, myself) and reports have begun to surface that he would show nude pictures of himself having sex, while on the House floor. What a dildo. Last time I encountered a man locked into overdrive to demonstrate his libido and attractiveness, that guy was seriously conflicted about being gay. I wonder the same thing about this fool. He is always overly self-righteous about anything and everything, and if my suspicions are correct about his sexual orientation, he has some serious man-love for the former President. He has done everything but bend over and kiss his own behind whenever that guy bellowed, always over eager to show his undying loyalty. Bless his heart.

So, the last part of the odd-day triumvirate was…more calamity for the U.S. Capitol Police. Somebody in a blue car crashed into one of the barricades outside the Capitol, and two Capitol Police officers began to approach. The driver got out with a knife, and rushed the officers, who fired in self-defense. He was able to stab one of them, who died a short time later. The driver was hit, and died as well. Nobody has a hint of a clue what this was about. Nobody knows who this guy is, what he came there to do, why he was there at all. But two people are dead. At the Capitol, again. This mess is getting old.

Back in my corner of the house of mirrors, a.k.a. the crazy house, I managed to get one of my tasks into the “completed” list, and it wasn’t for some minimal effort. I went back to the IRS website again, trying to make some kind of sense out of what it was telling me to do with my 2020 taxes. I still find it hilariously funny that I should need to file income tax return when I have no income, but now it’s even funnier because the e-file program calculated a refund for me. What the…? The only reason I was even vaguely interested in filing is because I was told I had no choice if I wanted to continue getting a health insurance subsidy under the Affordable Care Act provisions. So, OK – I’ll comply. By the time I was finished, I had contradicted myself at least twice, because the program they provided for me to electronically file did not follow the instructions they sent me in the mail earlier, about supplemental forms I had to file along with the tax return. But, at this point in my life, I just nodded and smiled at the computer screen and hit enter. *poof* Away it went, into the void. I was just happy there is some record somewhere in the reality that I share with the IRS that says I filed a return. Like they wanted me to do. I am not going to spend a dime of that refund when it comes, because I have a feeling it’s totally a mistake. But I did what I was told. I followed orders. And if that doesn’t scare the crap out of everyone, there’s some giant hornets in a lab somewhere just waiting to come and visit.

I ordered a new vacuum cleaner the other day. They said it wouldn’t be here until next week, but it showed up today. Goody. A new toy. There’s a part in there that doesn’t seem to be in the assembly diagram, so I have no idea what to do with it. I managed to get the handle on there and screwed the “hose collar” on the back of the machine, and screwed it together. That extra part is annoying me, though. I have bad luck with these kinds of things, because the assembly instructions seem to be counterintuitive – and I never read the instructions until after I’ve got the whole thing put together (usually all wrong). I once bought a lightweight vacuum cleaner with extension wands, and for some reason I thought the wands fit into the body of the case for storage. Then I screwed the case together. Unfortunately, I discovered later, that could not be reversed and I couldn’t retrieve the wands, so until I got rid of that machine, there were brand new extension wands locked up tight inside the housing, never to be seen again. *sigh* I amuse even myself sometimes.

Today I was hungry. Legitimately hungry. Well, OK, I was a lot bored as well, but I had a real pang of hunger around noon, so I ordered delivery Thai food. When the carnage was over, I fell asleep at the keyboard, apparently on a carb high. I am very partial to Thai noodle dishes, and that’s what I had – shrimp Pad Woonsen, with crab rangoon for an appetizer. As though I needed an appetizer for lunch, but if somebody else is going to schlep over an overpriced meal, what the hell. It was very tasty. I at it all. Including the garnish. And the egg rolls and soup. Carnage, but I am unapologetic. I did adult this for the past two days, so I felt entitled. Hopefully, I will sleep well tonight, having gotten the taxes off my mind and having eaten like a short-legged pot-bellied quarter horse today.

Today I didn’t complete much of the cleaning tasks, but I did not one but two Zoom calls for my social justice group this morning. I feel like we got some decent things done, and seeing as it’s Good Friday, I figure I can take a little time off from my appointed rounds. I really want to finish, though, because even though I’ve been a shameless slob all of my life, I am the first to admit that after a while, the clutter begins to unsettle me. When I can’t find stuff that I can see in my mind’s eye but can’t get it into my paws, that makes me a little … annoyed. Irate. Not functional. That’s when it’s no longer fun, if ever it was in the firs place.

I am starting to wonder if I’m spending too much time working on myself lately. Or at least too much time focusing on myself, paying attention to myself, being concerned with myself. Or maybe I’m just not getting enough sleep. I keep waking up every few hours to go to the bathroom, which is fine since the alternative is not a good one. I am not taking anything to help with sleep, which could make the bladder enthusiasm disastrous, but I don’t feel like I’m sleeping all that deeply. I have had dreams that I remembered, which usually means I’ve gone into alpha sleep, but I don’t really know. When I sleep for a full eight hours uninterrupted, and I’ve gone down into deep sleep, I don’t feel all that much better when I wake, but I wonder if I have truly rested. If I’ve truly been able to shut down, turn off the lights in my head, all that. Sometimes when I wake up, I feel as th though I’ve run a marathon or something. I wake up with my feet and arms cramped, where I’ve been contorted in some unnatural position and held it for the whole time I’ve been asleep. Sometimes it’s painful, not because the muscles are spasming, but just because my limbs have been in a weird configuration. I don’t know what in the world that’s all about.

Life is so simple, but yet so complicated. I forgot to say that the new vacuum cleaner powered up just fine, and I did a sample swatch of carpet and it seemed to work just fine. But. It’s a bagged model (you need a bag when you have a poop machine like my dog – trust me on this). I ordered extra bags, since I’ve been through experiences with new machines that didn’t come with bags in the past. Those were delivered as well. Good job, good preparation. But. I can’t get the stupid machine open to put in a new bag. It says to just pull on the “bag door”, and then replace the bag. I have been pulling on the bag door since I took the machine out of the box. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be pulling it out or sliding it up. Either way, it isn’t opening. It just goes to show ya…it’s ALWAYS somethin’.

I think I will pull out the guitar and plink a few notes. Have not played in over a week, and I’m not even sure why that is. It could be the whole tax drama, it could be the weather, it could be the shape of things to come, or things that passed. Some days time seems to go faster than others, other days it seems to crawl. My strange mind says maybe that’s not imagination, maybe there’s some glitch in the space-time fabric, like something changes relative position and bends the arc of reality just a tiny bit. Who’s to say that’s not true? Who’s to say it is? The point is that none of us really know one damned thing about where we are and how reality actually works. We’re all in the same jam – where are we going and why am I in this handbasket. I have that bumper sticker, actually, and it’s always sort of resonated with me. Where the eff ARE we going, and why are we all in this container, this crucible of time and space and destiny? I am believing these days that we’re all headed somewhere that’s not so much fixed as it is impacted by whatever we do right here and right now. A while back, I believed Karma a real fixed orientation, based on what you’d done in some other place and time. Along the way, though, other folks’ perspective on Karma and predestination has begun to resonate with me. I was introduced to some other perspective that said Karma is not a fixed point that is set in the past, but an ever varying axis that is controlled by my actions in the present. In some ways that view tracks with the Law of Attraction – you attract what you put out there. You call to you what matches you, what is like you. If I rob people, I will call to me the energy of a robber, one way or another. Sometimes I suppose that will look like simply being always in the company of robbers, other times it will look like being unable to break away from the identity of being a robber, and other times it may look like being the victim of robbery. But it will be about robbery. Until I begin to change the energy I send out. That’s very simple and very complicated, but fortunately I don’t have to comprehend it, just accept it as reality. And reality, some days, is just a bitch. And that…is reality. Nobody asked me if I liked it.