Blog

  • House Votes for Impeachment, Nothing Changes

    Well, I’m watching the House debate and vote on impeachment, and it is just making my stomach sink. Last night it looked like Republicans were going to break with Trump and vote to impeach. Now, watching the debate and the first procedural vote, it looks like nothing has changed from the last time there was a Trump impeachment vote. Yes, there will be more Republicans voting “for” than last time, but there is no way one could say this is a bipartisan vote.

    I am well aware of the fact that 120+ Republican House members voted to overturn the election are in solid red districts, meaning their only real challenge is in the Republican primary, and not in the general election. Odds are that these districts are Trump country, so they have to vote against impeachment, or risk being primaried.

    That is the truth, and that is also disgusting.

    I’m not sure what is worse; the Republicans politicians from these districts, or the people in these districts.

    Sadly, I don’t see 17 Republican Senators voting to convict Trump. Maybe if 60 Republican House voted for impeachment, then I could believe in the Senate. But if only 5 House Republicans vote “for,” then it’s like we are right back where we were.

  • Letting Go of Past Mistakes

    I’m finding it hard to stay motivated. I was able to put a blog together yesterday, but I never made it to journal or work on anything else, which, at the end of the day, I was feeling like I had failed. And with my anxiety started a death spiral of thoughts about, well, just being a failure. Then I started thinking about everything that I had screwed up on in the past three years, replaying the mistakes over and over…

    It’s exhausting…

    Digging myself out of that isn’t easy. The first step is watching an old MST3k on PlutoTV. That helps in just calming my head down. Then I have to start telling myself that tomorrow is a new opportunity to make changes; to get it right.

    But, when it comes to thinking about the things I did wrong in the past, that one is much harder for me to put to rest. I have been told in therapy, by friends and loved ones, and Oprah that I have to forgive myself. You know, I’ve tried, but there I was last night thinking about old work situations, and people I haven’t seen in years. I don’t think there is anything that I can say to myself to enact a state of forgiveness that will cause the exorcise these thoughts. It is unattainable.

    But what I think is attainable is more attune to what being an ex-smoker, or recovering alcoholic is like; It is a daily struggle to choose not to take part. I used to smoke, and it took me about a year to ween myself off of cigarettes, and a good part had to do with changing my behavior. I had to stop having the first cigarette in the morning, or right before I went to bed. The desire was still there, but I had to say no to myself. That was seven years ago, and still I have moments where the craving for a smoke over takes me, but I fight it off. I don’t have to forgive myself for the craving, I have to fight it.

  • Still Dealing with the Capital Riot

    I can’t seem to get my head in the game today. The kid’s schooling is going fine, and the wife is off and working.

    Me? I feel like there is this looming storm outside that is about to hit.

    Yes, this is a day of Covid fatigue, but also everything that has happened at The Capital, Trump, Biden, and all the other shit involved with it.

    I thought I was linked to the news before, but now, it’s like I can’t go five minutes to see if there was an update. It’s sickening. I feel like I am in a knot. This weekend was a loss for me, as I didn’t accomplish anything, just dealing with the anxiety of the moment.

    What I feel like is right after 9/11. Such as everything had changed, but at the same time, everyone was trying to go about their normal routines. Now, it seems even stranger as nothing was normal before 1/6, and today everything feels even weirder. The mere fact that people can’t even agree if the attack and its repercussion are worth dealing with. One side is, “Let’s Deal with This!” while to other is “Move on and heal.” The answer is both, but I don’t see that happening.

    The kid has asked a few questions about it, and I know she is trying to figure out what happened, and whether she should have an opinion. Clearly, the wife and I are very angry at Trump and want him removed immediately. But when I hear my kid parrots the same sentiment, that makes me uncomfortable. I know she can’t grasp all the details other than bad guys broke into an important building, so I feel like she should say those things. Yet, bad guys did break into an important building, and if we don’t stand up and defend this country from those bad guys, then what future am I leaving for my daughter.

    We have to show my kid how Americans deal with a situation like this. Protest peacefully. Vote. Get involved. Call and write your representatives on the local, state and federal level. Stay open minded and curious. Fight the fiery emotion of hate, with the cool logic of reason. And remember, always, that all Americans have a place at the table of Democracy.

  • Learning to Read and Write

    I am not a fan of remote schooling, but I don’t know anyone who is. It is something that we are all putting up with. I have said this before, and that is that the remote teacher my daughter has is great. She is patient, and calm and very nurturing to all the kids. My daughter looks forward to seeing her teacher, and draws pictures for her. For this crappy situation, I feel very fortunate that she is our teacher.

    I am also aware of the short coming of remote learning. Mainly, it is difficult to consistently reinforce lessons in these spurts of learning. Even with parental support, which I know all of us parents do for the class, it is not reaping the same results as compared to the kids being in a classroom together.

    But there is one very wonderful thing that I do get to take part in; I get to help my kid learn to read and write. (The kid is an ace with math, which she totally gets from her mother.) I have made flashcards to go over sight words with her, and its fun watching her begin to recognize those sight words in the real world.

    “Hey, Dad! I can read that!” is a new fun phrase she likes to share with me. She is just beginning to unlock the world around her, and that feeling of the discovery beams off of her.

    And at the end of the day, the kid will sit in my lap and read one of her books to me. Slowly, sounding out words, connecting the thoughts in the words, and watching her confidence grow as the words are no longer a difficulty to her.

    With reading the books, she is now wanting to write her own books. We have bought her several notebooks to draw in, but now she wants to put words with her drawings. She labors over her desk, drawing images, and scenes for her stories. Then she starts the process of finding the right words to describe her pictures.

    It is pretty special that I get to play a part in my kid learning the basic building blocks of her education.

  • The Sacking of The Capital

    Yesterday was pretty awful. I watched the whole Capital invasion unfold starting at about 2pm, and then I was pretty much stuck to the TV and social media for the rest of the day. My “Dry January” also got thrown out the window, as I watched the confirmation of the Electoral College late into the night. I called it at 1am, and tried to get some sleep.

    I am horrified at what happened, but not surprised. It had been building for months, and Georgia’s voting systems manager Gabriel Sterling had called out Trump saying this is what will happen if President didn’t stop his lies.

    But it didn’t stop with Trump. No, this is also Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley’s doing as well. Dan Patrick and his stupid lawsuit at the Supreme Court also had a hand in this. And I especially blame Mitch McConnell, who danced around saying Biden had won the election, which gave air to all of these lies. All of these actions led to this situation.

    And then there were all the cowardly Trump supporters, who had been saying since 2015 that Trump is just kidding, only making jokes, he would never do anything the threaten the country. Just a month ago, I had a friend say online that Trump would never incite mob rule, that it was just liberal fear mongering.

    And yet the President of the United States sent a mob to the Capital Building to stop the certification of a free, fair, and legal election.

    I want to laugh this off, and say that in two weeks Biden/Harris will be sworn in and things will start getting better.

    But, this is going to be a very scary two weeks. I don’t see Trump shutting up, and I don’t see that his supports were horrified at what happened yesterday. If anything, it seems to have energized them; That majority male and white mob that forced their way into the Well of the Senate and the House, went home yesterday with out any penalty. They looked like the Visigoths sacking Rome.

    The easy lesson here is that this is why you don’t elect people like Trump. That if we want to protect and preserve our Nation, then we all have to demand that all of our elected leaders must meet a minimum of decency and decorum. That if you ignore these norms, you get chaos and bedlam.