No Politics Anymore

I thought to write an irreverent piece on this week in politics, but I just can't.  I'm not up for it.  As a matter of fact, I'm putting my head in the sand.  I can't change anything.  In fact, I'd probably make things worse.  My "smart" friends have created this environment.  The well-read ones who like cultural events and liberal politics.  They just didn't "read the room."  We live in a world of jokers and idiots, but you can't tell them that they are jokers and idiots.  There are just too many of them.  It's like walking into a biker bar and calling them all out.  

"You guys think you're tough?  You're just a bunch of pussies who want to be cartoon characters. Fuck you."

Sure, you'd be right, but how's that going to work out?   It's best to keep your "smart" talk for Bohemian parties.  

"You haven't read Judith Butler's critique of Julia Kristeva?  Oh. . . well. . . . "

I mean, by and large, it is a party game played in graduate schools.  

"I'm writing an article on the treatment of animals in Europe during the Middle Ages based on feminist theories of patriarchy.  Yea. . . wild, right?"

Then comes along someone like Vance who writes a book "the people" understand.  As C.C. says, he's a cosplay hillbilly.  What are you going to do, though?  It is a Horatio Alger story, rags to riches.  The Hallmark crowd eats it up. 

So. . . instead of reading the news in the morning, I'm switching to something--anything--else.  Probably self-help books.  That's what I thought last night at one a.m. when I woke with lightning bolts of pain in my back.  I've screwed it up badly and irritated it more just before bed trying to stretch it out.  There in the black of night, suffering terribly, I never got back to sleep.  I could only get semi-comfortable on my back, and I kept waking from my non-sleep gasping.  We now know to call it apnea with the available information telling us it will kill me.  I could feel myself dying last night, of course, could feel my heart constricting, the flame flickering.  I made all sorts of resolutions about life then.  Fuck Trump Van Gogh and Biden Magoo.  I don't care.  At first it was about one thing, my not caring, but it has spread like The Blob throughout my being.   

I need to quiet my mind.  So, probably, do you.  

I was at my mother's yesterday.  She went to the dermatologist to have a spot on her ear checked.  She was sure it was a cancer, but he told her no, it is some condition in the cartilage of the ear that has no treatment.  

"It happens," he told her and sent her on her way.  

She was watching the Republican National Convention when I got there.  I saw Vance get the nomination.  I also heard "the pundits" talking about what that means, how his views have changed, how this is going to affect the MAGA movement, etc.  Oh, they were a serious lot opining for their daily bread.  I no longer have cable t.v. and cannot see this sort of thing at my house any longer.  When you have it, you think you need to turn on things like the convention.  You don't.  What the commentators are saying seems important.  I promise you, it won't matter in a day.  They are there to sell you diet plans and lots of medications.  I mean, the whole reason for you watching is so they can sell commercials.  There is no other reason.  It is a hideousness I am glad to be away from.  

Besides, I have "smart" friends who "stay informed" and are willing to "inform" me.  

I have been trying to find an ending to this post, but all I can come up with is this; I couldn't perform the theory.  I spent most of my time writing about the thing I said I would eschew while distracting you with a little dark pillow talk.  I'll blame it on the pain.  It is a big disadvantage.