Deviant Rambling

The sickness I was describing in my last post turned out to be COVID-19 after all, as revealed by two positive tests on Friday. We both had a decent list of symptoms and had to abandon some plans we had over the weekend for the safety of the company involved.

It was sad to have to cancel the plans because we were going to get to see some friends from out of state, but one of them is pregnant and the risk simply is not worth it. We will have other opportunities when we are all healthier and not currently infectious with anything.

This also meant that New Years Eve was an uneventful affair but it was going to be either way. I was never really one for celebrating it, and so long as I’m able to spend the time with the one I love, that’s good enough for me. We managed to stay up until about 12:01 on January 1 and then turned in. I saw the recap from people who went out and partied and did all of the usual things and it looked as pointless as it always does to me.

As always, that date is meaningless. But we have given it so much meaning as with all of time. It is a construct that we adhere to and it’s completely made up and honored as though it were some immutable law of the universe.

I am not immune to this worship because I see my time as valuable when in truth, it’s worth nothing, same as everyone else’s. But it does feel like the only thing I have of any value.

I seem to have come down with something of a bug, and after a few negative COVID tests, it’s safe to say it’s not that. There are some respiratory aspects to whatever it is, so it could also be the flu or RSV. Or it could be none of the above, and my body is just being an asshole.

In any event, it’s been an unpleasant few days as my immune system does its job and I cough and leak fluids from most of the outlets available. Top it off with a gross and rainy day today and it’s got all of the makings of a winter day worth forgetting.

Some days you just want to hate everything.

My application to write mental health content was personally and politely declined. I received the news from a real person and thanked them for the opportunity to apply and wished them well in 2024.

I appreciate seeing someone putting forth the effort to let applicants down gently, and I will continue to seek other opportunities. I still believe my best shot at success will be an idea of my own design and implementation, but I like paid work to make me feel like that is even possible.

I hope they find the candidate they are after and continue to engage the important conversation about mental health.

I started to write a post about the signs of winter today and realized how boring of a person I have become. The weather concerns me now, apparently. It is more about the general malaise I am beginning to feel considering the low light we are currently experiencing and I know that the shortest day is only three days away from now.

There is a dread every year around this time understanding that it will be months of crawling out of the dark until I can feel something closer to myself again. It’s been another year and I am still here, so my post from last year fell on my own deaf ears. The reality of escape is that it simply wasn’t in the cards this year.

That’s the truth of any number of lives I wanted to lead in 2023, you can’t win them all. I’ll take up the same mantle in 2024 and try to conquer worlds, but some will simply need to be abandoned for practical reasons.

The only thing that held position and saw improvement was my writing, and it’s a sign that I should continue working on that craft. Other interests arise and take temporary control of my senses, but writing seems to maintain a sort of staying power that the rest don’t.

Naturally, the thing that I’ll have to work the hardest at to earn a living is the thing I am good at. I really must be my father’s son…

The past couple weeks have just been jammed with activity but now as I try to recall it all I can’t. The holidays have a way of blurring almost two months of the year and this appears to be the case yet again.

Add to this the fact that my aging grandmother suffered a fairly serious fall and rapid decline in her health, and it has all of the makings of a period of time worth forgetting. Her 95 years are catching up with her all at once, and I hope that if this is it, she can find some peace and comfort in however much time she has left. I’ve never seen this version of her, and I don’t want to see her suffer.

I’ve had steady writing assignments and applied to be a writer on a mental health related website. I hope that I at least have the chance to try that out, because I want to be a part of that conversation if I can.

The book is coming along nicely and I have stuck to my goal of 500 words every day since I started the journey. It has been over two months now and the word count is so far beyond what I have ever done that every day is uncharted territory. It’s a great feeling but I know editing and revising the thing is going to be a monstrous task because the ideas come in bursts and don’t always follow a linear progression. Still a real fucking treat to work on it.

I have a concept for another book that I’ve started broad-stroking and will take occasional notes on it for when I’m done writing the current one. The next one will be closer to the self-help section but I think it has some real potential.

There’s a lot going on I just had to get over here to get back to the randomness. Posting here helps alleviate the need to create with zero pressure.

I had a real doozy of a dream last night and it made me want to learn more about colors so I will have a better vocabulary to describe the unbelievable scenery that my mind built. I have always found it to be a somewhat difficult task to convey colorful scenes because I have a shortage of words.

I have gone out of my way to try and describe it with my humble vocabulary but I feel I need to take this a step further and visually recreate it. No clue what form this will take so I have jotted down the description based on what I can recall in the boring gray light of a cold November day. It is my hope that I can faithfully recreate this image at even a fraction of the vibrancy it had when I imagined it in my sleep.

That realm never really interested me very much until I woke up from this particular dream. Now I’m compelled to act.

I am intent on spending the entire year of 2024 in service to the artist I know is in me. Once again I can feel the bursting out of possibilities in all directions and the continued lack of responsibilities practically paving the way for free and clear exploration of these avenues.

I want to take new and fresh risks and I will continue to do so unapologetically. When I am free to express myself without restraint, I am often surprised by what seems to come of it.

Barring any practical concerns arresting my progress, I will make significant strides creatively in the next year.

Just under a week until Thanksgiving, a made-up American holiday that conveniently glosses over the amount of suffering that existed during the beginning of the tradition. Like so many holidays in the modern age, it has been taken hostage by rampant consumerism and built as a way to boost sales before the end of the year.

The day after Thanksgiving is an abomination of capitalism, and a reminder that spending money is still one of the most relevant forms of expression as a free-thinking, red-blooded modern American. It is a day I go out of my way to avoid retail entirely.

The truth is I hate this entire time of year until it’s over. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are all completely overrated. We have winter so it is just the windup for the coldest, deadest, and grayest time of the year that follows. We have been really fortunate to avoid much of the cold so far, with temperatures well into the 60s this week and abundant sunshine, even if it is gone by 5:00. It makes it hard to complain but I’m gonna keep trying my best.

We will be cooking on Thanksgiving and it will be as lowkey of an affair as it has ever been, with just the four of us in the house. It is as it should always have been, about the people you are most invested in. I am thankful for these amazing women in my life, and I look forward to the coming year with them.

2024 will be the 6th time I have the opportunity to cast my vote for President of the United States.

This journey began in 2000 when I first turned 18 and I voted the way most of us did at that age, based on who our parents supported. As the years have went on, I believe we would have ended up voting nearly the same in every election, save for the fact that dad eventually just gave up and stopped. I feel as though I am on the same path and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

It appears as though the field for 2024 will look identical to the one in 2020, with Biden serving as the incumbent and Trump as the challenger this time around. Just to make my position on the candidates clear, I am, at best, ambivalent about Joe Biden’s performance. I, like most of the country, am scared that he is going to end up dying during a second term, and the resulting chaos would throw gas on the dumpster fire that already is American politics.

I have never hated a candidate more than I have hated Trump since 2016, and I’ve voted twice already to express my disapproval of his running in the first place. It wasn’t because I believed in the Democratic party or their candidate, it was in protest and to take away points from the other team. He is a terrible human being and he does nothing to hide who he is, in fact, he wears it like a badge of honor. He has no business holding the most powerful office on the planet, but we get the president we deserve and one round might not have been enough for us.

2024 feels like it is going to be another vote with the exact same goal in mind. I have only grown in my disdain for Trump and I can’t stand idly by and do nothing. The only rational thing to do is vote for the other party who stands a chance at beating him, and it is the only thing I can do that will make a potential difference.

I have grown tired of this routine, though, and the games that Washington plays in general with no regard for how it may affect the people who they pretend to represent. I want to opt out of this system, but I don’t want to feel culpable in a second Trump term. I don’t have strong feelings of support for the Democrats or their lack of a message besides “It’s not our fault, it’s theirs.” That isn’t a platform and eventually it’s gonna stop working on the people from either side. I don’t have blind faith in any party, but I do have an unmitigated hatred for one of the candidates so I am going to do anything I can to vote against him.

I hope that 2024 will be the last time that I protest vote, and if I feel nothing about the candidates in 2028, I will officially stop voting entirely and begin my disconnect from this system. Barring some spectacular specimen of humanity ever runs and deserves my vote, that can be it for me.

Just once, though, I’d like to feel as though I’m voting for the right person for the job and for the right reasons, to support the best candidate for the job. I don’t think it is too much to ask, but politics is one thing I think I’m done trying to understand.

It has been 32 days since I committed to writing 500 words a day on my next book and I am fast approaching 20,000 words. I have been in uncharted territory for most of the time now, and it’s a good feeling to look at the ever growing number of words that make up the total.

There have been very few days that were a chore, and when it did happen, it was because I had so much else going on in the day that I was concerned I wouldn’t have the energy to commit to this modest goal. But then I’d commit and sit down and write and the words would come out almost instantly. I keep remembering little details about the trip that I may not have recalled were it not for the writing. I continue to be grateful that I have the opportunity to use the time in this way and that I was able to enjoy such a journey to be able to tell the story.

The world feels chaotic these days and recounting the story helps me to remember a time not long ago when the world didn’t feel so uncertain. Visiting these places in my memory makes me believe similar times will come in the future.