Phonyvirus 2020

So yeah. It's been awhile. As I type this, we're still in the middle of the "great plague" of 2020. Coronavirus aka COVID-19 has everything shutdown. Our economy is collapsing. A lot of people have died, about 122K worldwide as of today's official count. That number was supposed to be a lot higher but for reasons one or the other, it's a lot less. I won't go into the minutia of why or what I speculate, but let's just say it hasn't brought us together as a society any more than before. We're as divided as ever. It seems like if you have anything positive to say about Trump or anything he's done, suddenly you're lumped in with the Trump cult crowd, or if you have anything negative to say you're a hater. It's like people have completely forgotten there's a middle ground and both things can be true. I like some of what he's done, and hate other things about what he says and does. It's not all black and white, but that's just how I see it. I have a duplicity in my nature.

In that vein, I'll move on to the bulk of my post. I'm done with pretending to be something or someone I'm not. The last few years have given me a lot of clarity on things that I didn't see before. The last year in particular. People I once thought were friends have drifted away or outright stopped talking to me because I don't agree with them on every political point. I had to get off Facebook. Every day I found myself getting pissed off at someone or something and I just don't need that in my life. I have enough stress and things to worry about. I'm tired of trying to keep people happy or be some image of something that I'm not to please those who at the end of the day, don't really give a shit anyway. I'm tired of trying to please people who can't be pleased. Be bitter, I refuse.

That's why I had walked away from this blog. There was a time when I thought maybe I wanted to find ways to monetize or at least raise my profile in social media. I've been toying with finishing a book and getting it published, so hey, why not right? A good social media presence would be a good thing, right? That may be true, but I've reached a point where I don't care what anyone else thinks about me. Love me or leave me. I've been hiding too much and painting pictures that are more surrealism than realistic. I'm done with that. My last post about our camping trip? It was bullshit. I mean, yeah, those events happened. And I truly do hope my kids will have good memories about it. But for me, it was a disaster. I feel like I threw away a lot of money on a trip that nobody appreciated. Maybe the kids will someday, but outside of the little one, it sure didn't seem like it at the time. There was a lot of bitching, fighting, complaining, and all around bad attitudes. And the pic of the Lincoln Memorial? You know what I remember about it? I remember trying to get a picture with my loving wife in front of the reflecting pool along with all the other loving couples and basically getting into a fight about it instead. The one lasting memory I have is a fight with the person who is supposed to be my ride or die. I know I'll never be back there again. I'll never have another opportunity to take that pic, and she burned it to the ground. That's my memory. I remember going home still bitter and angry. I should have posted honestly about it, but I didn't want to create a negative image. I don't care anymore. I'm calling it like I see it. I appreciate someone pointing this out to me and giving me motivation to rectify myself. I like blogging. I just don't like being a phony.

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

All about the dark places you hide

Tell me all your problems, make them mine

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

I live a picture in my head

Colours soaring as I float up with my body in my bed, yeah

And I wonder if I'm dead

Saw the white light flicker so I wake up in a sweat; code red

Sirens going off, probably something that I dreamt

Thinking 'bout the shit I never told you that I meant

I can't shake it off, chloroform, peace and rest

But you know all I ever really wanted was a friend

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

All about the dark places you hide

Tell me all your problems, make them mine

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

I wonder if the sun will shine again

If I'll ever see your face again

You know I'd rather die than say goodbye

So tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

Late night fantasy, it's when I teleport again

I got a spare key, we can and go and play pretend

(We can go and play pretend, yeah)

We can really transcend, no (We can really transcend, yeah)

You and me in an empty room

They can't get in, only room for two

If you play your part and I play mine, too

I'll never take my eyes off you

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

All about the dark places you hide

Tell me all your problems, make them mine

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

I wonder if the sun will shine again

If I'll ever see your face again

You know I'd rather die than say goodbye

So tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

(Sweet, sweet, tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies)

Tell me all your sweet, sweet, oh no

(Sweet, sweet, tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies)

I love the picture in my head

But I know that it's not real

I live a picture in my head

'Cause I like how it makes me feel

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

All about the dark places you hide

Tell me all your problems, make them mine

Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

I wonder if the sun will shine again

If I'll ever see your face again

You know I'd rather die than say goodbye

So tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies

(Sweet, sweet, tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies)

Tell me all your sweet, sweet, oh no

(Sweet, sweet, tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies)

Thanksgiving Sea Legs

Well it's that time again. Time to update this little blog. This is actually my 3rd attempt at it tonight because for some stupid reason my tablet lost the other two. (User error, I'm sure.) I hope you can view this for what it is. I said I was going to be blogging more and I meant it. The fact that I'm mostly writing the same words 3 times now shows my commitment to getting it down. Did you doubt me?

I need this though. This blog is good for my soul. It helps me put things in perspective. It helps me to be thankful. Sometimes I need to be reminded. Thanksgiving Day was last week. I intended to blog that day, but instead I got a nasty stomach virus. I would have thought it was food poisoning but the wife and kids had it the week before. I assume my prior weekend home was enough exposure that it smacked me down. Great timing. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very thankful by the evening. I had a pretty terrible night actually. It carried over the next day as I was feeling exhausted and still needed to work, deliver a load and make it home. I spent most of Saturday in a half daze recovering and being a vegetable. This morning I was much more myself, both physically and mentally. The mind tends to wander into darker waters when the body breaks down. I'm thankful to have recovered. 

I guess it's good things worked out like they did. I'm feeling a little more thankful today. I wasn't much in the spirit on Thanksgiving Day. To be honest completely, I wasn't feeling it much this morning either. At one point, I made the comment that it's hard to enjoy the small things in life when they aren't ever where they should be. In retrospect, I know I have a lot to be thankful for. My family. We're not a picture perfect scene out of a Technicolor still frame, by any means. We're more like bathroom graffiti scrawled in a seedy bar in the bad part of town. But it's our mess, and it's it beautiful. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. Sometimes lights get left on. Dishes get put in the sink instead of the dishwasher. A favorite bath towel gets taken. Trash overflows. Litter boxes make messes. Laundry comes out of every corner of the house. You trip over shoes or toys. Fights happen. Noise gets made. Things break. And somewhere in the middle of it, love abides. We'll make it to the end of our story someday. That's for certain. The ending may not be what we want it to be, but the book will be written.

If life's an ocean, then the book is the story of how we sail it. I'm learning to ride the waves a little better. The sea may never calm, but I'm getting better at navigating it.

Thankfully, I have an amazing first mate to help me out. I'd be remiss not to mention that I'm thankful for my wife. We just celebrated 15 years of marriage back in October. It was more of a mile marker than a celebration to be honest. I'd love to have gone on some romantic vacation. I'm sure she would have too. Life had other plans. And that's what makes her amazing. She's here for the long haul. Wherever the ship sails, she's there when we drop anchor.

So yeah. I've got a lot to be thankful for. It's good to be reminded.

My mind is filled with ghosts
They're more than most of all my loves gone wrong

My mind should be the way
Most people say that I should just move on

My mind is focused on
Things past and gone when I have no control

I can't forget there used to be
I used to see but now no more

Think I'm living in a past life...

In a past life, too,
it's a kind of thing that
Catches up to you
I guess I just believe that
It's the thing to do
So here's a little feedback
You gotta wear those shoes

No one said it would be easy
Sometimes it is hard to do
It isn't like the TV
You see the cold hard truth
And the things you see in movies
Just don't come true
So here's a little feedback
You gotta wear your shoes

I will live a half-life
It'll have to do
Now you can have a love life
You have loved me, too
You can see me in the evening
When the weather's cool
But here's a little feedback
You gotta wear the shoes

Life After Midterms

If you're reading this, you survived the 2018 midterm elections. I had my doubts. It has been ugly. Really. Ugly. I've never seen our country so divided. It's disgusting to tell you the truth. I suppose that's why the steam had gone out of my blogging. Looking at everything day to day was making me feel like isolating myself from social media. Can you blame me? Most of it is cancer. Sometimes I get sucked into it. It's hard not to. I'm not proud of that. I'm just being honest. It's the realization that I was getting upset about it way too much that made me take a step back. Life's too short to get upset about politics when there's only so much I can do about it anyway. I voted. Did my part. That's it. Otherwise, I can talk to people who want to listen to my viewpoint, and let go of arguing with those that don't. I've had to do some of that in my own home as well. My wife and I don't always see eye to eye politically. And that's okay. I love her, and she loves me. That's more important. We all would do well to remember that. Even toward the stranger on the street. I've already seen this spill over into our church group. That's pretty sad, isn't it?

Speaking of church. So... we found a new church. I say "we" as if I had anything to do with it. Really it was my wife that talked (nagged) me into going. I wish now that I had listened to her in the beginning. It would have saved us some time at a different church that we never fit into. There was nothing wrong with the first one, we just never found our groove there. The people were nice and all, but just not the right chemistry for us. We're a little... "rough around the edges"... I suppose you could say. Not your typical suburban Christians. We're pretty screwed up if you want to know the truth. We found a church that seems to be pretty accepting of messes like us. We aren't even the most screwed up there, so we got that going for us. And my wife like's the choir. So that's cool.

So why am I blogging now after basically ditching it for so long? I guess a part of me feels like it's important. Not to the world as a whole or anything grandiose like that. I'm not that full of myself. I just want to leave a little piece of myself out there in the ether of the internet I'd probably do better to put it down on paper, but I like the ease and wider distribution possibilities of the internet. Anyways, I guess the reason I'm doing this and why it matters to me is for my kids more than anything. I can hope that someday after I'm dead and gone that these words will still be floating around in the archives of the internet. So they can look back and get a glimpse into the mind of their crazy old dad, grandfather, great ancestor, or whatever. I think it would have been really cool to have had such an opportunity. I don't know much about my ancestors, other that some of the basics of the history of the family lineage. I have never seen any writings from any of my family's past. It would have been nice to have known what they were thinking or experiencing. I'm rambling. You get the idea. I realize that they may never even look at this blog, but at least I did my part at created it. So there's a chance it may mean something to someone in the future. That's good enough for me. It makes me feel good to do it.

What else is going on? Well, work has been going as planned. I had my bumps and bruises in the beginning but it's smoothed out. If thinks continue on, I'll have my truck paid off by this time next year. I am SO looking forward to that. It would be a huge accomplishment for me. A milestone in fact. I don't remember if I blogged about it before, but the account I got hauling loads out of East Texas has been a huge blessing. I get to see mom and dad at least twice a week usually. I've seen them more in the last year that the previous 15 years before. They appreciate it and I enjoy it knowing my time with them grows shorter by the day. Such is the way of things. So I cherish every moment, as much as I can. The same account has now expanded and we've got loads our of a second facility that will hopefully push us through into a profitable year in 2019. I'm cautiously optimistic.

That's about all I feel like discussing in this post for now. I'll try to update more in the coming days. Writing feels good again. I'll need to catch you up on the goings on with the kids and such. It's been a battle of it's own. That's okay though. It's part of being a parent. It's tough sometimes, but also rewarding. I love them deeply. They bring much more joy than pain into my life.

Love and peace to all who stumble into these ramblings of mine.