There's A Reason I've Been Away

With thanks to Mark Bryan

So I've been away for a while. But y'all prob'ly already knew that. So here's why.

Every day. Every goddam day that orange idiot does something else expressly designed to outrage, to infuriate ... and to obfuscate. The result? The chattersphere gets their collective panties in a twist. On the left, gallons of ink are spilled detailing the hypocrisy of the Republicans (kinda like issuing a press release stating that water is wet, but whatever), the fact that donald trump is essentially a sulky toddler on the world stage, and that the religious right is neither. This fires up the right wing version, who spend their time shrieking MAGA phrases, calling liberals "leftists" to try to paint them as dangerous European revolutionaries, and crowing about how good the economy is doing (it really isn't, but that's another topic entirely).

All of which seems to be on an endless loop, repeated day after day after day after day after day after day after ...

And this vitriol, this venom directed at our fellow citizens, our neighbors, in some cases our families, has spread down through the masses. The result being that the online world is full of people yelling at each other, demanding that they provide incontrovertible proof of their opinions (not possible ... such is the nature of opinions, after all) ... it's depressing. It's sad. It's sickening.

Above all, it is beneath us. As Republicans and Democrats, as Americans ... hell, as people. We are better than this infernal sorting.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only time we come together as Americans is in times of dire crisis. 9/11. The Challenger disaster. Pearl Harbor. These events brought us all together. They were not partisan issues (until politicians tried to make them such, but again, a different topic). The afternoon of 9/11, the full Congress -- House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats -- gathered on the Capitol steps to sign "God Bless America," and eleven days later George W. Bush delivered the best speech of his career -- and the one we all desperately needed to hear -- to a joint session of Congress.

And within a matter of hours, the partisan sniping had begun anew. Republicans attacked Democrats for having the temerity to question why we were going to invade Iraq when it had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Democrats attacked Republicans as profiteering warmongers who were only interested in enhancing their stock portfolios at the expense of the American people.

I finally reached a saturation point. I don't go online much any longer, simply because it is full of various Shriek Factories squawking about how their opponents are horrible people who should be put to death in as unpleasant a manner as possible, and donald trump is a master negotiator/classless knuckle-dragging idiot, and Nancy Pelosi is a shrewd, cautious manager/shrill harpy, and Melania is the epitome of class and grace/an empty-headed whore, and on and on and on.

I just can't take it any longer. Every time I see a headline about trump, or the 2020 race, or the roughly 87,000 Democratic candidates for President, or the constant will they/won't they of impeachment, I can feel my chest tightening, my stomach sinking. My energy level goes way down. I start feeling the beginnings of a panic attack, and I think longingly of my medical marijuana and counting the minutes until I can dose myself to sleep.

So I have come up with a new strategy, a new way of dealing with trump and Congress and politics and the election and Mueller and Russia and obstruction and the Emoluments Clause and ... it is this.

I'm not gonna do it.

I am not going to get sucked into fighting with strangers over politicians on either side that, quite frankly, don't really give a furry rodent's posterior about us anyway. I am not going to get into "debates" that are nothing more than an excuse for some pinheaded douchenozzle to hurl insults at me and others. I am not going to try to defend policy positions that don't exist and are fabricated by the right solely for the purpose of sowing discord. I refuse to justify my stance to those who don't give a damn and are only looking for an excuse to start a fight (and yes, this is directed at one specific individual, who knows damn well who he is).

So, for the time being, my online presence will consist of:

• Today's Earworm. Every day I wake up with some piece of music playing in my head. It has happened every day, without fail, since I was a small child. It's a 50/50 chance as to whether or not it's something I like, and a couple of months ago I decided that it wasn't fair that I suffer through Steve Perry squalling "Oh, Sherrie" by myself. You can find these by searching for the hashtag #eotd (Earworm Of The Day).
• The occasional recipe. The latest was butter steak that, while quite tasty, just wasn't worth the amount of work involved.
• News stories that are NOT dealing with politics. Science, the arts, human interest, yes. Politics, no, unless it's a particularly good bit of satire.
• Updates on home improvement projects. For example, in the past few weeks I have built two flower beds (one raised) and remodeled the downstairs bathroom.

What I will not be doing is getting sucked into another endless back-and-forth with some right-wing brainstem who only wants to convince himself he is well-endowed by belittling others. It's counterproductive, it's not fun, and I can think of roughly 450,000 other things I could be doing (many of which involve food, some of them are centered around playing evil music really loud, and at least three involve both).

I gotta lie down.

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