Today is probably not that day.
The kittens are off the schedule they have been on for the past month. Up from 6am to 11am, back asleep til 6pm, up till 11pm and so on and so forth.
The good/bad news is I slept in this morning.
I have been sleeping in a lot lately.
I like being up in the dark of winter and writing by lamplight.Coffee in hand. Smoke breaks in my slippers and pjs. Feeling like I actually did something while others were still asleep.
But what am I really doing?
Plus, if I get up early enough, uninterrupted showers are a bonus.
Alas, I was up late last night and committed the classic blunder of stripping and washing my sheets, then forgetting to make my bed before bedtime.
I did it. The kittens “helped” so it took a bit longer
The time between Christmas day and January 7th was spent with a minor hyperfixation on a niche mass hysteria event, coupled with the fear of civil war breaking out while I slept.
Nothing can exist in a vacuum.
Multiple things can be the truth at the same time.
I have a few articles floating around my head that the muses have chosen to bless me with or that my brain needs to work through, but unless I make the conscious decision to wake up and not explore the world through my phone before the sun is even up and the caffeine has hit my veins, everything becomes tainted.
An article about Jail Bae and Prison Bae and my role as comfort girl for both of them.
But ICE is harvesting and murdering people in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
I wanted to talk about the loss of Alice and the healing process. About how I just pulled 13 cat toys out from under the stove while my kittens supervised and my second coffee percolated.
For a minute there, things were both comical and peaceful.
But Russia pulled diplomats out of Israel and the ceasefire is a lie.
I have snippets of the catharsis surrounding getting my implants removed and the physical and spiritual ramifications of this whole surgical/healing process.
But listening to anyone in the Trump administration or their supporters justify anything that has been happening just launches me back to a place where I was gaslit for years about what I knew was happening. Those 2 thoughts jive if I let them.
This is not cognitive dissonance, this is sociopathy. They believe the words they are saying.
I am thinking the only way around this is to get up and write. Keep the outside influences out for as long as possible.
But then there is the laundry list of “have tos” and “should be doings” that, funny enough, usually include laundry. And an event order for work and the litter boxes and ceiling tiles and that new shelf I bought and and and. I have to figure out how to silence those too. Or just hit pause, on those things that all need doing.
I spent too much time this month/year/decade glued to Instagram.
Recently because I fell for “conformity gate.” The Stranger Things conspiracy that nay nay, it wasn’t bad writing, it was a fake out of epic proportions. There is something in my brain that thinks I can alter the course of events if I remain vigilant. This was ever so prevalent during the plague.
I almost wrote there is so little joy left in the world, but that is not the truth. The scales that hold the balance between joy and pain have tipped hard…towards pain.
But there is still joy.
I am still capable of love.
My kittens taught themselves how to play fetch, and they are girls so they trill constantly. I have nicknamed the combination of the two things “yelly ball”.
Darkling Daddy still exists. And coffee, and kids laughing. But they often get drowned out by sirens and I have to be careful what coffee I buy lest I exploit someone or accidentally fund a bullet that will kill a Palestinian child.
The Greek definition of apocalypse is “the lifting of the veils” between what we believe to be true and the truth.
It was nice to have something to believe in for a few days, nice to feel like a part of something. Nice to have that sense of community and commiseration about something that wasn’t a real atrocity.
Darkling Daddy was sending memes and videos about it even though his emotional investment in the show was zero. He never watched it.
“Give the people bread and circuses, and they will never revolt” Juvenal
But the wheat is poisonous and my favorite circuses have massive plot holes, actors who are Zionists, and really shitty endings. Endings so shitty in fact that their entire fanbase imagined a hoax where there doesn’t appear to be one. It was all a dream Dallas circa Season 9 in it’s entirety. Or the jumping of the shark in Happy Days. Or Lost or Game of Thrones. The disappointment is palpable.
Got me wondering, why can’t we have nice things?
Well, let me tell you.
It all started back on the Titanic and the formation of the Central bank, or before that during the industrial revolution or when the sun never set on the Kingdom of Rome, or or or. We can keep going back. People have always been shitty and people with money and power are the worst.
I am half kidding.
But the Prussian public school system that teaches half truths and prepares graduates for either labor or war or prison if they choose not to participate in the latter 2 options also keeps the masses docile and illiterate.
And with the invention of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle and the owning of the media by a select few here we are. 4th grade reading level, less comprehension and the attention span of a goldfish.
Television shows aren’t smart any more because writers and producers are being told to present storylines in a way that we can consume it on the medium screen with the small screen in our hands.
During the first part of the plague I made a decision to finally watch Game of Thrones all the way through. Hadn’t watched it past season 3 episode 4 I think. Google has corrected me, season 4 episode 2, Joffrey died and it made me happy. But that was 2014, then Young Un the First left and it was our show and I just never watched it again until 6 years later.
Small sidequest here. The evil in GOT didn’t stop just because Joffrey died. 45 will be the same. It’s the hydra, chop off one head and Erikkka Kirk appears to take it’s place.
My point is, I made a pact with myself to watch one or two episodes a night depending on my level of tiredness and my attention span and to plug my phone in on the other side of the room. So I actually could focus. And it worked.
But, it took some effort, self awareness and self discipline, which is sorely lacking among the general public. And myself if I am being completely honest. And I am, that is what this blog is for.
Everyone curates their own algorithm, it’s all an echo chamber and I firmly believe reality has been split in two. Everyone doom scrolls for their own brand of doom. Christians think they are being persecuted and the rest of us know they are in a cult. Trumpers think he is the second coming and the rest of us know they’re in a cult.
I heard the term Tragedy Tourism. And it encapsulates everything that has been happening since Harambe and the clowns from 2016.
I am not really on Tik Tok anymore. Instagram, yes. Ir’s been 5 years and I still miss that one Facebook feature where they would let you look back every day at the same day in years gone by. Made me feel like I actually existed.
Panda is back and that helps. Someone with the same memories as me from a time when the world didn’t feel so fucked.
And therein lies another revelation.
It was always fucked. I just didn’t know about it.
I knew some things.
Eric Garner died in 2014 for selling single cigarettes and it broke my heart. In the late 80’s I had a child’s understanding of the apartheid in South Africa. In the 90’s there was Rodney King and Rwanda.
But I was insulated and I see that now. I technically still am. Nothing I am doing or not doing is aiding anyone anywhere.
I am safe in Canada. I can feed myself and pay rent.
It’s been 2 weeks and I am over the let down of Stranger Things. Apparently the wife was carrying a lot of the weight talentwise without being credited, and they divorced so there’s that then. Shocking, I know.
I am going to keep writing. I have always said, they can’t all be diamonds. And maybe I am digging in the wrong places. But if I keep at it, maybe I can find my rhythm and my voice again. Provide a bit of serotonin for you fine folks here and there.
But for now, the plants need watering, kittens need feeding and I have to get to work.