Coincidentally, two shows we watched on Netflix last night happened to be about inaugurations—one was a movie that took place during Obama/Biden, and one was the fictional Bartlet on West Wing.  Both seemed like something nostalgic from a far, far better time in history.  Now here we are back in medieval times.  This is a crazy time machine ride.  I’m just watching for it to all collapse, and hoping we all survive the disaster.

Is it just me, or do those Trump family people look like a bunch of mannequins or androids?  (Note, I didn’t say “dummies”.)  There’s nobody home behind those dazed eyeballs–or are there little Putins hiding in there?  Do they dream of electric sheep?  Time will tell…

Anyway, while waiting for the other shoe to drop, life must go on.  Right now it’s 61° in Ohio in January–it’s actually warmer today than where we’re moving in TN!  For the first time in a while, we took a walk in a local park, Russ Nature Reserve.  It was very green.  Here are some shots of a nest, some cool fungi, and an uprooted tree sculpture.  Enjoy nature while you still can.

What inauguration?

Here’s how we are observing erev Shabbat: Ignoring all news, especially of the DJT variety, Sephardic/middle eastern music on Pandora, lots of calming incense and herbs, cooking up a middle eastern/Indian dinner, and most definitely some special drinks later on!  We wish y’all a peaceful, non-eventful erev, and nonviolent resistance for the next four (or less?!) years.

Here are scenes from around our place.

On the occasion of the beginning of the end (tomorrow’s inauguration), I’ve seen various suggestions on how best to ignore it/boycott it, from tuning your TV/streaming service to anything not news-related, to more proactive activities like supporting local minority-friendly businesses and orgs, and marching in protest.

Some of us po’ folks can’t afford to do our philanthropic part for democracy, or risk life and limb confronting the gestapo, so we’ll just dedicate our erev Shabbat to peaceful coexistence in an uncertain Trump world, and think impeachy thoughts!  May his evil empire implode in upon itself.

I’m thinking of opening the alt-U v-bar tomorrow, so if you’re feeling a bit apocalyptic doomy, no need to drink alone!  I myself will no doubt be drinking heavily in some parallel reality.  Cheers!

In the meantime, here are some happy plants and cats taken at our friend Rex’s house last night, after our Equitas meeting in Dayton.  E was doing some deep electrical sleuth-work to determine what was malfunctioning in his wiring, and successfully got to the bottom of it.  Meanwhile, I got the more fun job of entertaining cats and admiring his sunroom of tropical plants, some of which I’ve donated myself.  Some of the enhanced lighting in there is also due to E’s electrical prowess.  (Also, there was pizza, not shown.)

These scenes inspire us to look forward to our own small home full of plants and animals, and maybe even a saner world somewhere down the road apiece.  Now, if we could only take our few real friends with us, it would be even better.

I read an article about decluttering by the one category technique.  Rather than sorting your clutter by room or drawer, you pick one category of items, say, socks, and go through the whole house gathering all socks.  I realize that entails washing, sorting, and filing all the pairs into their appropriate drawers, where they will proceed to jump out, randomly scatter, and dis-match, all by themselves.  I haven’t worked out the solution to that, yet.  I live in a more orderly world, in which I sort my socks directly from clean laundry to sock drawer.  I realize this system probably doesn’t work for most large households with kids.  Maybe have a separate clean sock basket, from which each person has to find and match their own socks?  I can only imagine…

Somehow dirty socks leads me to my next thought, the insane circus that is Trump’s new cast of characters.  (My mind works in mysterious ways.)  Each one is more loony than the one before.  It’s baffling how these ludicrous choices can even be taken seriously, let alone get appointed to head serious departments.  (E says that’s why Ringling Bros. is going out of business, the competition is too stiff!)  One can only hope that they make such a shambles of it that not even Repubs can support their appointments.  But that would be in a reasonable world, which evidently we are not.  To put it another way, there’s just so much you can launder and darn (yes, I remember when people did that) an old worn-out odd sock.  It will never do the job.  Maybe turn it into a sock-puppet.

Lest I mismatch metaphors any further, I’ll put a sock in it.  AHAha.  😉

I skipped a day (it was an off-day) so I’ll try to make up for it here.

I realize the more I read classic and modern literature, the smaller I feel as a writer.  But I can’t let that stop me from writing something every day.  Most days will be excruciatingly boring, dumb stuff, but maybe accidentally I’ll get it right some time.

This won’t be one of those days.

On the brighter side, my resolutions are coming along very well.  I only report this to encourage you, not to make you feel worse or throw rotten things at me.  It looks like a vertical mountain at first, but when you take it a small step at a time, it becomes a level plain.

Except maybe the Infernal Machine part.  That always feels like a steep incline somehow.  But I don’t let that stop me, because I see the good end result up ahead.

As for the fiendish filing from hell, I’m taking an almost diabolical pleasure in ripping old papers to shreds (cue evil laughter).  My paper recycle keeps filling up.  It’s satisfying to destroy the evidence of my compulsive past.

I’m currently crawling my way through two books: Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: the Enigma, and (rereading) Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  (Inspirations for the movies, “The Imitation Game”, and “Blade Runner”, respectively, both of which I’ve seen.)  I say crawling, because I don’t do as much reading as I used to, these days.  Something to do with the dispiriting atmosphere of Ohio, I guess.  I’m trying to rebuild that habit as well, to limit my unproductive time online.

As for the latter, the news continues to be extremely surreal and disturbing.  It defies reason.  So I skim the headlines, and try not to dwell on the psychosis of our so-called incoming president and co.    I have to hope and believe that saner minds, including those of the founding fathers, will prevail.

Meanwhile, we’re tightening the proverbial belt even more, to save for our move.  Our ambitions are modest and limited by a low fixed income, but we are determined to get out of this forsaken state (like, apparently, all the smart people before us).  We’re dreaming of a tiny house on a small piece of land with a garden and small animals, a safe haven for our extended/adopted family to feel welcome.

Well, that’s all I have for now.

Here are just some random observations on the stark contrast between the values of people born on opposite sides of the great economic divide.  Disclaimer: this is strictly unscientific, biased, and subjective.

When you’re born being handed everything, and take things for granted, it’s easy to reject all that materialism as empty and meaningless.

When you’re raised with nothing, and struggle for even essentials, you take nothing for granted, and come to think of acquiring anything as a privilege and a goal.

Similarly, when you’ve been able to accumulate more than enough things, you tend to think of them as disposable and replaceable.  You think in terms of downsizing, and traveling light, and you can’t take it with you.

Whereas, when acquiring every little thing is a struggle, nothing is dispensable.  It took hard work and hard-earned money to obtain them, and you aren’t about to downsize for the convenience of your future survivors.  You’re all about “nesting” to compensate for a lifetime of deprivation.

When you grow up in an atmosphere of books and learning, owning and reading books is like air to breathe and food to eat, something you consider essential and non-optional.  It’s what separates you from lower forms of life, and expands your understanding of the universe.

When you grow up deprived of books and discouraged from learning, you think of books as something privileged people accumulate like decorative collectibles.  You’re too busy working for necessities to even have leisure time to read, let alone think of books as a way to discover new worlds and open your horizons.

Growing up with diverse, healthy food options, not only is your physical and mental development fortified, but you learn to think of culinary arts as a creative cultural discovery as well as preventive medicine.

Growing up with poor role models and with few affordable options in a food desert, it’s about scrounging just to survive.  You appreciate the little you can get to feed yourself and your family.  Health, variety, and creativity are for the privileged.

These are just some of my admittedly biased perceptions of the “divide”.   It’s one thing to opt out of privilege to experience how the “other half”, which is actually the majority, lives; it’s another thing altogether to have never enjoyed that advantage in the first place.  So although I may be living among the less fortunate, my experience will always be a bit secondhand.

Still, it’s eye-opening to start to comprehend the extent to which we are increasingly divided in this country.  On the coasts, one doesn’t always get to experience the time warp that is the vast middle.  People here in the midwest still have the collective memory of living on farms with no indoor plumbing and outhouses, with gravel roads and horse-drawn carriages, with never having heard of fruits and vegetables we take for granted.  In some ways it’s like time travel back to post-WW2.  People here are still recovering from the loss of industries, and are fortunate to even find jobs, let alone good educations or healthcare.  It’s literally another world.  A Trump world.

Here is my personal HQ, the desk and laptop from which all the drivel spews forth.  I spend way too much of my time here.  It keeps me off the streets.

Note to your left the hulking edifice that is the infamous industrial-strength file cabinet from Metropolis.  Bombs wouldn’t phase its imposing efficiency.  It is some serious extreme office equipment.  Did I mention OCD?

I am currently in the process of reducing its weight so it doesn’t crash through the floor and crush unsuspecting persons below.  Although a few less meth-heads in the world might not be too big of a loss.  I didn’t say that.  You do not want to mess with this file cabinet.

My printer is on top, for easy access.  The side is like a bulletin board of favorite miscellaneous that I often refer to.  My shred-bag is between it and my desk.  It’s always brimming nowadays.

I am proud to report that, for the first time ever in history, I am keeping new year’s resolutions.  Corny as it sounds, it keeps me honest.  This time it worked because of the clever key: keep it short, doable, and daily.  Do not be tempted by your success to add on additional tasks, or extend your undertaking, or you’re doomed to failure.

Once your few daily increments become automatic habits, say in a month, or year, then maybe it’s safe to add one more to the routine.   Just keep it realistic.

I realize most people have converted over to electronic everything, but I’m always going to have one foot in the paper past, being old-school like that.  I’m working on it.  On the other hand, I have been fully assimilated into the online Borg; resistance is futile.  Even I can no longer imagine what we did pre-internet.

Well, obviously today is one of those drivel days, but since one of my resolutions is to practice writing more and spend less mindless time on social media, there you have it.  One of my favorite writers, Mark Manson, connects to his audience so effectively because he writes the way he thinks, not necessarily the way some old English teacher dictated.  I’m trying to learn that technique myself, but it definitely needs some work.  As always, I welcome any feedback, either on content or style.

If you’re feeling more than the usual level of anxiety, depression, and dread lately, you’re not alone.  Anyone with a speck of intelligence and concern for the state of our union is feeling the same right now.  It’s a scary future we’re headed into.  You know it’s bad when the only hope is for the incoming a–holes to just implode in their own train wreck.  Meanwhile, we’ll all have to pick up the pieces of our lives and survive.  What a surreal world to wake up to.

If you voted against this fiasco, all you can do is watch helplessly and acknowledge that you don’t have much control or recourse.  When those who enabled it realize the consequences affect them and their children and grandchildren as well as the rest of us, there won’t be any smug pleasure to be taken in our collective downfall.  We’ll be too busy licking our wounds and finding ways to never let this happen again.  Maybe this time around all of us will wake up to whatever went wrong in our country to allow a clueless psychoclown to be President.

Meanwhile, we ourselves are too old for another revolution, so we’re just going to hunker down, lay low, and sit it out in our future home in Undertheradar, USA.  It will be a safe haven for us and our immediate family, and the few fellow refugees we may trust to allow in.  We know things may get rough before they get better, but it won’t be the first time in history.  Sometimes it has to get extreme to wake people up.  Obviously we were not getting it right leading up to this election, and perhaps this is what it takes to shatter all illusions once and for all.

So I’m going to drink in the coming storm, and I hope you’ll join me.  What else is there?

Since pre-inauguration news is already so mindbogglingly insane and ludicrous, I suggest the following for your own mental health:  just keep it all at arm’s length, self-censor it down to reliable briefs, and ignore the rest for now, unless you have some superpower we don’t know about.  Let the morons duke it out.  It will get crazier before it sorts itself out.  Worrying and panicking will only give you an ulcer or worse, right when all hope of healthcare is out the window.  (I’m telling myself this.)

Because there still is such a thing as cause and effect.  The sick people “we” elected are on a collision course with disaster that they’ve brought upon themselves.  The sad part is, everyone will suffer for their delusional behavior.  But the good news is, when it finally hits home, and everyone is losing essential, life-perpetuating care, protections, and services, when these conmen are found to be in flagrant disregard of constitutional law and rights, something will have to give. (A loose interpretation of “good”.)

That is, if we are still a democracy.  If we aren’t, then we’re beyond help, we’ve finally gone too far.  Nobody’s god can help us then, because we allowed this, and now we have to reverse it.  Unfortunately, the damage will be done, and it may take years or decades just to recover and pick up where we left off.  Evidently we weren’t as advanced as we like to believe.  If we can learn from this mess and revise our trajectory, there may be hope.  We can drink to that.  And remember…

One of our favorite cheap pastimes is to wander the endless museum-like acres at one of the local indoor antique malls.  We buy the occasional quality houseware or unique gift for someone, but mostly we’re there to time-travel.  It’s a good (and affordable) way to spend a rainy winter day walking around, imagining a long ago age of kerosene lighting and weird mysterious torture implements.  It helps us keep our goal in mind of moving to TN and setting up shop.

Here are a few of the more picturesque scenes we came upon.  The ship model was huge and very detailed.  The saw-looking things are from actual sawfish.  There were alligators around every bend.  (Don’t shoot the messenger!)  There was an actual working old-fashioned phone booth (not pictured.)  There were authentic Victorian nooks and crannies.  It was very timey-wimey.