Now What?

All About Me, Arts, Books and Literature, Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m freeeeeee! Finally, at the age of 51, I’ve graduated from college. Yay me. I’ve spent the last 3 1/2 years busting my butt, studying, reading, thinking, and writing, and it’s come down to this: I got an email the other day saying that they’ve checked, and yep, I’ve completed all the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing (I do have to admit to some disappointment that its a B.A., and not a B.S. degree, although, as some have pointed out, I’ve had a degree in BS for decades. Still, it would be nice for it to be official).

The last semester was particularly hard. It’s difficult to concentrate on Frances Burney’s Evelina, or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, first published in 1778, when the whole world seems to be losing its shit. Seriously. In the (sur)real world, we had Donald Trump, whose chief accomplishment seems to be losing money on casinos (and in fairness, even I would find that difficult) vs. Hillary Clinton, who is most famous for being the only politician on earth who has spent her entire existence under congressional investigation (and inconclusive investigation at that).

On top of that, we had dozens of examples of malfeasance by both parties, the campaign was virtually issue-free (why waste time talking about the future of the country, when you can just get on TV and sling shit at your opponent? It’s like the whole thing was held in a monkey house full of incontinent chimpanzees). Finally, Trump won, despite losing the popular vote (by almost 3 million votes), and all of a sudden, it seems like everyone is talking revolution; lefties are gearing up to stop Trump no matter what (although honestly, if they couldn’t get their shit together enough to beat Trump during the election, it seems fairly naive to think they’ll get it together now), and the rightest of the right wing are proposing armed revolt if Trump turns out to be a disappointment to them (it’s like cognitive dissonance has become viral).

So like I was saying, it was really hard to concentrate in school. All the time I was supposed to be writing papers, and reading books, I just couldn’t help thinking about all the stuff I wanted to write for Moonsthoughts. Every conversation would turn to politics, and I’d think, “Ooooh, that’d make a good post,” and “Hey, I have thoughts on that subject too!” I have to admit, I wasn’t really doing my best work there at the end.

And now, 2-3 weeks later, I’m free to write whatever I want . . . and I’ve got nothing. I’ve started several posts, and given up on them all. Part of it may just be ennui, after straining my brain for school, but I’m more afraid that it’s just . . . well . . . despair? resignation? depression? I thought that things would change after the election. I thought that, no matter who won, everybody would calm down, lay off the panic buttons, and maybe start talking to each other again (what can I say; I’m an optimist). Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. All the craziness and hyperbole (on both sides) just seems to keep getting worse.

Most people seem to just want it to be over, to forget about it, to get back to their lives. I’ve had at least two conversations in the last couple of weeks, with intelligent, reasonable, compassionate people who just want to stop talking about all this stuff. This is the wrong approach to take, I think. There’s way too much of just sticking our heads in the sand in that response. Of course, I think it’s also because we were all white, straight, married, Christian, several-generation American, lower-middle-class to middle-class people. The only thing we really have to worry too much about is our own slow slide into poverty (which does seem increasingly likely). Nobody wants to register us, or deport us, or revoke any of our rights, so we’ll probably be okay with our heads in the sand for at least a few more years. Yay us!

The only way I see things getting any better, is if we (and I mean all of us), pull our heads out of the sand (or wherever else they may currently be inserted), and talk to each other about the issues, about the ideas, about our fears, about what direction the country should take. We need to get off the talking points, stop talking about the politicians, and stop talking about what they want us to talk about.

One of the things I learned in college is that you don’t learn a whole lot from people you agree with. We need to talk to people we don’t agree with; to find out why they feel the way they do, to let them know why we feel the way we do. Of course, in order to do that, we’ll have to learn to stop communicating in memes, to stop parroting the misinformation machine that feeds both sides a steady diet of Bullshit.

On the Facebook, I’ve got a lot of pretty hard-core, right-wing friends. I’ve also got a lot of hard-core, left-wing friends. If I’m honest, I have to admit that I find the left’s bullshit much more palatable, but that’s why I don’t unfriend or unfollow my right-wing friends. I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. I know a lot of people who voted for Trump; some who did so proudly, and some reluctantly, but I have no problem with anyone, based on who they voted for. Whether I like it or not, I can understand the reasoning (or at least most of it), to some point, anyway. I think they’re wrong, but being wrong doesn’t make them bad people (to paraphrase a famous guy I used to know).

We’ve got to see past the generalizations. I’m soooooo tired of seeing right-wing propaganda that refers to all liberals as “libtards” or worse, and I’m just as tired of left-wing propaganda that refers to all conservatives as fascists. It’s bad enough in the memes, but when people I know start slinging that kind of crap around, I really get kind of angry, because, (I’m gonna let you all in on a little secret here) I’m a conservative – more on that later.

It’s not just counterproductive, it’s stupid. I don’t know anybody whose entire existence can be summed up by one word. Like I said before, I know a lot of folks on the right, and even though I disagree with almost everything they say, I know that they are not fascist, racist, gay-bashing, Troglodytes consumed by hatred for anything that doesn’t look or act like them (at least not the ones I know). I also know a lot of folks on the left, and none of them hate America, or want to invalidate your religion, or to take any of your stuff away and give it to anybody else. Pretty much all of the folks I know, left and right, just want to live their lives according to their own lights. None of them wishes harm to anyone else. None of them want to hurt anybody, or rule over anybody. They just want to do their jobs, support their families, and live in peace.

We like things simple; we like the idea that there are good guys and bad guys, absolute right and absolute wrong, and we all, left or right, like to think that we’re on the side of the Angels (or the side of Right, anyway). That way we don’t have to think. We really hate to think. We really, really hate to think that we might not be absolutely, completely, 100% right on everything (although ironically, we do like to post about how flawed and imperfect we are on the Facebook, especially us Christians). We need to talk, and more importantly, to listen to people who think differently than us because, the chances are that on any given subject, neither of us are really, completely, 100% right on anything.

We’ve got to talk about this stuff; capitalism, socialism, gay rights, racism, abortion, women’s rights, freedom of religion/freedom from religion, guns, immigration, all of it, among ourselves. We’ve got to take the power out of the hands of the politicians, and back into our hands, where it should be. The powers that be don’t want us to come together; it’s much easier for them to get what they want if we’re too busy fighting with each other to look at them. Our loss is their gain.

We’ve all got to do whatever we can do to contribute to the conversation, but first we’ve got to start that conversation; what we’ve got right now is essentially a nation of incontinent chimps flinging shitty memes at each other, thinking “that’ll show ’em.”

I know I’ve got to keep on writing; not to convince, not to convert, or to preach, but to present what I think, and why I think this way (and yes, I was dropped on my head as a child. Several times). It’s the only way I know to try to fix things.

What can you do?

 

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation: A Largely Unknown Known

Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, Religion, Travel

For those of you who are interested in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, here’s a link to a paper I wrote for Napenasi.com, a blog I write for Nape Na Si, a mission organization that works on Pine Ridge:

Shaking Up the Blissful Ignorance:

I hope you’ll take the time to read it, and then more time to think about it, especially during this holiday season.

I’ll be writing more on this soon.

Enjoy, and, as always, thanks for reading!

Doctor, Doctor

All About Me, Religion

Here’s a link to my latest article for The Odyssey:

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the (good) News

It’s kind of a follow-up to last week’s That Certain Friend (also available on The Odyssey Online, and here, in last week’s moonsthoughts post, although it certainly stands on its own. I hope you enjoy it, and, as always, thanks for reading!

Free Advice on College, and Writing! Remember, You Get What You Pay For.

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To whom it may concern: Here are links to a couple new(ish) articles I’ve written for The Odyssey. The first is a little advice for those just starting school, from one about to finish, and the second is essentially a guide to happily writing unsuccessfully (something I’m really starting to get the hang of!). Anyway, enjoy, and thanks for reading!

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/dont-panic-freshmen

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/embrace-the-obscurity

Two New Articles By Your Humble(ish) Moonsthoughts Guy

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Here are a pair of articles (unrelated to each other) that I’ve written recently: One link is to an article I wrote for NapeNaSi.com, the website/blog of a mission group I’m part of, and the other is an article for theodysseyonline about zombie movies, us, and social media. I hope you’ll take the time to read them, that you enjoy them, and that they at least make you think. Cheers, and, as always, thanks for reading!

If Not Me, Then Who?

 

The Typing Dead

Dear David: An Open Letter To My Little Brother

All About Me, , , , ,

Dear David,

Since you recently had a birthday, and now get to stare down the barrel of the big Five-Oh for a year, I thought I’d take a moment on the occasion of my 51st birthday to pass on a few words of wisdom regarding what is arguably the most horrific of all birthdays.

First of all, it’s really not all that bad. In fact, it’s actually pretty stinkin’ good. I know, I know, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true. I was having a little trouble figuring it out, when I came across some research that really cleared it up, and what it comes down to is this: It’s never gonna get any better.

Apparently, we peak pretty early in life: physically in our mid-30’s, creatively in our late 30’s, mentally in our early 40’s, and wisdomly(?) in our late 40’s. I’ve seen other research that says we also hit our peak earning potential in our mid-40’s.

That means (and I’ll just speak for myself here, your mileage may vary) I’m never going to be any stronger, prettier, sexier, smarter, wiser, or more creative than I am today, and my best earning days are just a speck in the rear-view mirror.

Do you realize what this means? It means ALL THE PRESSURE’S OFF!!!!! It’s all just one long downhill slope to the end from here, little brother. We can just take our feet off the pedals, enjoy the ride, and coast all the way to the finish line!

No more worries for me about trying to become a rich and famous writer. At this point, even if I do manage to write the Great American Novel, nobody will notice until after I’m dead, and fat lot of good it’ll do me then. Of course, the readers of moonsthoughts will have the opportunity to crow about how they’ve known about the lyric magic of my prose and my rapier-like wit for years, so that’s some consolation (and, by the way, you’re all very welcome, and thanks for reading). I can just concentrate on being a good writer, and writing about stuff that matters, and stop worrying about ambitions.

I can also stop worrying about inconveniences like diet and exercise (not that I ever worried that much about them anyway). I had pretty much shelved all that nonsense a few years ago, you remember, when I lost over 40 pounds, was looking and feeling really good, and then had a heart attack! I mean seriously, at this point, what’s the point?

Yes, I know that they say that stuff can add years to your life, and that smoking and drinking take years off, but as someone once said, those are years at the other end of your life, and those are shitty years anyway. Now, I’ll grant you, proper diet and exercise probably can’t hurt, and that you, with your abnormally moderate nature, will have a longer, gentler (or less meteoric) downhill trajectory than me, but we’ll end up at the same finish line (and you know how I always loved to go fast).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no hurry, I’m just saying it’s time to relax a little (or a lot!). After all, who, by worrying can add one extra day to his life? I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.

It’s time to maybe try some new things: apparently, I started school long after my mental peak, but it’s worked out pretty well. Although I’m not getting any smarter, every “A” I get represents a pretty significant triumph.

Of course I’ve always been a pretty smart guy (at least I like to think so, so don’t burst my bubble. Disappointment doesn’t get any easier to deal with), but that’s never stopped me from doing a lot of phenomenally stupid things, usually when I was trying to be smart.

No more worries about that though. Now I can relax and just accept the fact that I’m an idiot; that I don’t know shit from shinola, and I’m probably getting dumber every day. In fact statistically, I’ll never be as smart again as I am right now. On the up side, I’m waaaaaaay smarter than I will be next year, so yay me!

Nope, little brother, the big accomplishments are behind us. It’s time to start celebrating the little triumphs, like remembering where you parked, successfully hooking up a new piece of video equipment, or sneezing without shitting yourself (if you’re not there yet, trust me, you will be).

A little more free advise (and remember, you get what you pay for):

Try to spend more time naked, for a number of reasons:

First, you’re not going to ever look better naked than you do today, so enjoy it!

Second, it’s good for the environment, what with saving water on laundry and all.

Third, you’ve finally gotten your kids out of the house. Make the most of it! Think of all those times you’ve wished you were naked, but no, you had to think about the kids, so you had to put on pants just to go get something to drink.

Fourth, it keeps unwanted visitors away. There are two approaches to this: you can warn people, as I did about “No Pants” Fridays, or you can just answer the door au naturale a couple of times, and just let word-of-mouth do the rest. Dealer’s choice, really.

Enjoy yourself. Watch more westerns. Read (or, in your case, play more golf). Have more sex, if you can (no one, at least no one in a long-term, monogamous relationship, on their deathbed ever said, “I wish I’d had less sex”). That is another up side to spending more time naked. If you can get Robin to go along with it, that is. Good luck.

Worry as little as possible, about everything. To paraphrase the line from above, who by worrying can actually influence an election, keep the economy from tanking, or stop their adult children from doing stupid shit that you’ve already warned them about numerous times?

Really, life is a lot like playing football for Northeastern* back in our day. We’re going to lose. We’re probably going to get the living shit beaten out of us while we lose. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be ugly, and embarrassing, and we’ll never live it down, but we might as well play as hard as we can anyway, and try to enjoy it as much as possible. At least we’ll get some good stories out of it.

 

Well, I guess that’s about it, little brother. I hope as your next birthday looms ever larger, with its twin barrels of Age and Infirmity looking more like railroad tunnels every day, you’ll be able to remember, er, look this letter up again, to remind yourself that it’s only going to get worse, so enjoy today! At least you’ll always be younger than me.

Cheers!

Your Big Brother Lloyd.

 

*For those of you unfamiliar with the glory days of our high school football careers, the Northeastern Wayne High School football team set the state record for most consecutive games lost. We lost one game 83-0. An average game we’d lose 49-0. I was the team captain my senior year, the third straight season without a single win.

 

 

On Lost Friends and Heroes – Part Three

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Hey all, I’m posting a link to my latest article in the Odyssey. It’s the third (and final) part of my “On Lost Friends and Heroes” series. I hope you’ll take the time to check it out. If you like it, or it makes you think, please think about sharing it. As always, thanks for reading!

Here’s the link: On Lost Friends and Heroes Part Three

It’s the Little Things That Matter: At Least That’s What I Tell Jess

All About Me, Home Life, Wives,

Warning: the following post contains innuendo, double entendre, tasteless humor, and disco music references. Proceed at your own risk.

I often wonder how I got so lucky with my wife, the exceptional and clearly-out-of-my-league Jess. Not so much about how I got her (I really believe that was God’s doing, with an assist from alcohol), but how we’ve managed to stay so happy 22 years into it. I mean, let’s face it: I was no prize when we got married, and now, I’m even less so, and even though the still lovely and long-suffering Jess remains my dream girl, the years of living with me have taken a toll on her.

We no longer do nearly as much of the things that we used to do constantly. We don’t drink much anymore, although really that’s no great loss. We don’t travel much due to a lack of funds and abundance of dogs, as well as the fact that we both really like it right here. What we used to refer to as the “carnal Olympics” has slowly shifted from a daily occurrence to a weekly to a “Hey, we oughta do that again before we forget how” basis (although we both spend a lot of time reflecting fondly on all of the gold and silver medals we’ve accrued over the years). It kind of hurts to have to admit that we’ve become boring, middle-aged adults.

 

Still the most beautiful woman in the world
Still the most beautiful woman in the world

Correction: we’ve become happy, boring, middle-aged adults, and I think the key is laughter. We laugh a lot. We laugh when times are good, but we also laugh also as much when times are bad. I’ve always been able to make her laugh (and yes, laughing at me counts), and I’ve always thought she is one of the most genuinely funny women on earth. It also helps that the one aspect of our lives and personalities that hasn’t matured at all is our senses of humor.

I’ll give you an example: A couple of weeks ago, we were getting mom’s house ready for a renter. Now this is the house that we all grew up in, and it was killing me to think of renting it, but I couldn’t afford to leave it empty. So there we were, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and I was getting more and more depressed the whole time. We had decided that we needed to re-caulk the tub and shower, so I was trying to get rid of the old caulking. If you’ve ever done that, you know it’s no easy task. Lots of rubbing and scraping, rubbing and scraping.

I find that often, when doing a mindlessly repetitive job, my mind tends to wander. I get into a rhythm, and my subconscious will drag some old song up out of the vaults of my memory. So it was that I found myself scrape, scrape, scraping away, with the chorus from K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s disco classic, “Shake Your Booty” running on an endless loop in my head. As if that wasn’t bad enough (have you ever noticed, when this happens, it’s never a good song, or even one you can remember completely?), my subconscious kicked into overdrive, and “shake, shake, shake . . . shake, shake, shake . . . shake your booooo-tayyyy! shake your booooo-tayyyy!” became “scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape your caulk off! scrape your caulk off!” complete with the horn part.

Not a pleasant thing to have running through your mind over and over again, but I have to admit that, while distressing, the sheer stupidity of it did kind of cheer me up. When we took a smoke break, I told Jess about it, and she thought it was pretty funny. Then we sang a couple of choruses, just trying to get it out of our heads. It didn’t work, but we laughed and laughed. That was it for the rest of the day. Every time she’d come check on me, she’d ask, “Get your caulk all scraped off yet?” and I’d stretch my aching back and say, “No, and all this caulk scraping is getting pretty painful,” and we’d laugh some more. When we’d take a break (and I’ve found that frequent breaks are a key to making a bad job last a really long time), it was because I needed a break from scraping my caulk. When it was time to go back to work, she’d tell me, “You’re not gonna get your caulk scraped off sitting here,” and we’d laugh again.

I suggested, at one point, that perhaps she’d like a turn at scraping the caulk off, but she seemed to feel quite strongly that it was my caulk, and if anybody was going to scrape it off, it was going to be me. She also reminded me that I prefer it when she sticks to caulk application. I conceded the point, and we laughed some more. It really brightened up my whole day. In fact, we got about two or three day’s worth of caulk jokes out of that. It’s a good sign, when the jokes outlast the task.

That, I think, is really the secret to our success. We make each other laugh. A lot. About everything. There is very little that is off-limits. We both recognize our individual and collective shortcomings as sources of humor, and frequently, the more embarrassing the better.

Nothing makes us laugh harder than when we’re outside, having a smoke, or playing with the dogs, and one of us gets that shocked, deer-in-the-headlights look, and full-body clench that signals a sudden, impending digestive disaster (you other middle-agers know what I’m talking about). Of course, when that happens, only one of us is laughing; the other is too busy trying to hurry to the bathroom without actually moving anything between the neck and the knees (it’s funny to them too, but, in a digestive crisis, seal integrity is the paramount concern). For that one, the laughs come later, either from relief or embarrassment.

We spend a lot of time laughing about things that happened years, or even decades, ago; like the fart-heard-round-the-world at Stonehenge, or the time I got her to zap herself with an electric fence (I told you I’m no prize), or the time she gave me a concussion “accidentally” slamming a hatch lid on my head, or the time we both fell through the floor when replacing her mom’s living room floor (it’s really kind of a wonder we’re still alive).

Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks
Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks

We laugh about the way she used to mispronounce zealot (zeelot), or the time I absent-mindedly thought a bunch of calves in a field were full-grown miniature cows (“Why would anybody bother raising those? You’re not gonna get much meat.”). Yes, we are frequently idiots, but we’re happy idiots. And that’s the important thing. Much more important than dignity, or pride, or success, or financial security (thank God, because we’re usually running pretty short on all those).

The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming
The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming

I really think that, if you want a good relationship, find someone who makes you laugh, and thinks you’re funny too.

P.S. Just in case you don’t have that stupid song running through your head, here’s a link: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, “Shake Your Booty” . It’s also funny how easy it would be to make the entire song fit caulk-scraping. Also, now that would make a great video. Enjoy!