Tag: #2022

  • Ideas for 2022

    I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Mainly because, they always fail.

    I, on the other hand, try out new ideas to see if they stick.

    As you can see, two totally different things.

    This first thing I will try out is not drinking. Not total sobriety, but taking a break. It comes down to two things; health and finances. On the health front; I am twenty pounds overweight. I have the middle age man belly, which isn’t really surprising, as I am middle aged. The alcohol isn’t helping with the gut, and I think it’s adding to my depression as well. I don’t feel as positive of a person as I used to be. I don’t think I have a problem with drinking, but I feel like if I don’t start making steps to take my health seriously, that I could have a problem. The other thing is financial. Not that the wife and I are spending a huge amount of money on alcohol, but looking at our year-end review, we spent, on average, $100 a month. I think we can say that we know of a better ways to use that money.

    The next thing is that I will, oh god, start going to a gym for 30 minutes at a time. You might have heard that I am about twenty pounds overweight. Though I would like to say that it was all alcohol and sugary drink’s fault, it’s also inactivity’s fault. Yes, we were hiking most weekends this summer and fall, but one day every two weeks just isn’t enough. (We will pick up hiking again in the Spring.) It’s also the mental health benefits that comes with exercise that I am missing. In the past year, I have been harder on myself than usual. I know everyone has that nagging self-sabotage voice in their head, but most people work through it. For me, this past year, it has been harder and tougher for me to forgive myself, or even have the energy to follow through on a project. That’s not who I am. I was the guy who followed through and got shit done.

    And the last thing is that I have to admit that I didn’t meet my writing goals for the last four month, and in essence, for the year. I did okay, but I didn’t make the goal. I wanted to have three short stories completed by the end of the year. I got two finished, and I think they are in good enough shape to submit, but I wanted to have three. Now, I know full well there is nothing stopping me from submitting the two, but, you know, I didn’t complete what I set out to do. I have maintained the blog, though my viewers have dropped by half. So, instead of four people viewing daily, I now only have two. (And I think I know who those two people are. Hey, guys.) Maybe I do need to spend the $100 and get away from the free WordPress site, or might just need to come to terms with the fact that a random blog about one guys thoughts isn’t that dynamic anymore. It’s not 1997 when confessional blogs were all the rage. Anyway, the blog still brings me a level of joy and feeling of accomplishment daily, so I think this will keep going. The other writing? I need to get back to the grindstone. I need to put in the work.

    And I need to read more!

  • 2022

    Made it to 2022. I stayed up till midnight, and then fell asleep pretty soon after that. Then, I had a restful night of sleep, and woke up feeling refreshed.

    So, I’m feeling good about the New Year, and I have become a very old person.

  • THE END of THE YEAR

    So, 2021 comes to close, and just like how I was feeling over Christmas, I have no excitement for the coming year. I am quite sure this is due to having three shitty years in a row. And if I really think about it, 2018 was a craptastic 12 months as well. It is fair to say that me and the wife have had a really difficult five years, if we are to be honest.

    I feel awful for saying that, mainly because it’s our daughter that is getting the short end of this stick. The first two years of being a parent aren’t easy, but we handled that time of our lives, I think, rather well. But these last five years… She’s had to deal with parents that have had a high level of anxiety. And I know that we aren’t the only people who have had a hard time. But I would like it to lighten up a little for the kid, if nothing else.

    She asked me last night as I was tucking her in how long she’ll have to keep wearing a mask.

    Just a while longer, I said.

    I had to give her some hope. I needed some hope as well.

    It’s a very fine line when hope goes from optimism, and crosses into a lie.

    But, there is still a chance that things can get better. A chance that optimism will return. That we can start planning for longer than a week, or a month.

    As my grandmother would say, you gotta have goals; something to look forward to.

  • Covid in The City: Part 3 (But Could be Part 6?)

    I really wanted to write about Tottenham getting back to form and playing Liverpool to a draw. I even thought about putting a sport post together, and talk about the Cowboys as well.

    But alas, it was not to be.

    Because Covid is back in New York City. It feels like this is the third wave that has hit the City, but when I look at the US cases graph, this is like the 6th spike we have been through since the start of this whole thing.

    We can’t get away from it.

    Even though NYC has a 71.6% full vaccination rate, and Manhattan has an 80% full vaccination rate, I cannot deny that the lines of people getting tested, have been growing every day for a week, and now are wrapping around the block. The running of ambulances all day and night has started up again. Just about everyone is in a mask now on the street.

    Covid is back.

    Is it Delta, or Omicron?

    Who knows, but it is starting up again. And it is depressing and disheartening. New Yorkers had taken this thing serious. 70% to 80% was considered herd immunity, and we are there. Once more kids get vaxed, it looked like we were going to close in on 85% to 90%.

    But it feels like even if we do hit those numbers, it won’t stop people from getting sick.

    I have friends right now that are documenting their infection, and in one case reinfection of Covid.

    It has created a feeling malaise, and add that to the general oddness of this Christmas, and it makes a potent combination resignation going into 2022.

    I’m trying to stay upbeat, but a third year of a plague feels really awful. I wish I had a more creative way of saying it, but I have used up all the adjectives.

    It’s just awful.

  • That Judge Thing

    The Republicans have made a deal with the devil to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. This is the gross world we live in, but there is just about nothing that could have happened yesterday that would have stopped his approval. The goal has been five conservative votes on the court, and it didn’t matter how it happened, but the Republicans will do anything to get the five votes. And that’s the goal post in all of this. And they will get it. Public opinion be damned.

    And that is the calculation in all of this that I just don’t understand. That fifth vote will cost them in the midterms. And then it will cost them in 2020. This may even go on to 2022 and 2024 if major cases are over turned. It makes the Court an issue for years to come.

    But what I really don’t get is that the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot for the next generation of women, if not the one following. For most girls in high school, Dr. Ford looked like their mother, and they just watched as a political party say that her honesty and suffering mean nothing compared to the destiny of a man to be on the Supreme Court. This will last. I know this to be a fact because I was in high school during the Hill/Thomas hearings, and it was clear that a smart intelligent, successful woman amounted to nothing compared to a man. These are the women that are running for office now because they have seen this shit happen before, they have experienced this shit happening to them or their friends, and here we are, doing it all over again. Men will not solve this problem, only women can and will. And why is the Republican party deciding that it is worth alienating just about all women in this country?

    Women the age of Dr. Ford won’t vote Republican. Their daughters won’t. And what makes you think that they won’t teach their sons and daughter to not trust Republican’s in the future.