Wednesday Musings

The dogs are asleep on their living room bed, light on in the kitchen, I finally got two 65 watt bulbs into that fixture where before there were 2 one-hundreds and it was so bright it looked like the aftermath of a nuclear blast.  I've been for a walk; it's cold and crisp outside and as I sit down to write, for no reason other than it makes me feel better, I find it disturbing that I can't focus. This may be due to either having too much to say, all about unpleasant things like Trump and brutality and history along with the sad fact that we're all going to die someday and how dare the sun, when I get my comeuppance, go on shining without me.  Or it may be due to the anxiety pill I took earlier.  Truth be told, I was an anxious mess this morning and when I get that way I can't accomplish a damned thing.  I opened the washing machine threw in a couple of towels, then went to brush my teeth, but remembered the bill that's due today and the fact that I haven't spoken to one of my kids for 4 months even though he's only 5 miles away, and that my coffee's going cold.  Then I stick the coffee into the microwave only to discover a half hour later that I am out of laundry soap.  I run my tongue across my teeth realizing that while I put the toothpaste on the brush, said brush never actually made it into my mouth because the microwave beeped.

So I decided to the gym to take a posture fitness class.

The posture fitness class is run by a woman affectionatly dubbed "the posture nazi."  She believes in her thing, like all people with such things believe in theirs.  According to the posture nazi, correct posture can cure whatever ailes you and bad posture is the root of all evil.  In class we flop our arms around, stand up straight, stand on tippy toes and get harangued about our pelvises, but it's all in the service of the greater good and maybe it will cure everything that ailes everybody. Something's got to, doesn't it?

After the posture fitness class I go and do some time on the elliptical machine.  There are a couple of old ladies next to me, and by old I mean 3 or 4 years older than me.  They are trying to figure out whether they should take Social Security before it is all gone-- even though they won't get as much as they will if they wait until they're 65-- and if they're going to make it to Medicare before Trump gets rid of it and replaces it with leaches and mass deportations onto ice floes.  Their conversation was pretty centered on how they were going to save themselves from all the trouble that's coming.  Not that they weren't decent ladies.  I imagine their logic was like that of passengers on an airplane in freefall.  Always put your own mask on first, then help others.

I've been wondering about what my own little plan might be.  On the plus side, I'm white, was born in the US, and am sort of middle class, although close to the bottom of it.  Chances are that unless I burn a flag or get a subscription to the New York Times, I won't get deported.  Not that deportation must be such a bad thing, but I've always had trouble with Spanish and at this point in my life my brain is calcified sufficiently that I don't think I'll ever really learn it to the degree that I'd need to to survive.  Hell, I can never remember whether derecho or derecha mean go straight ahead or turn right.  If I was stuck in a Spanish speaking country I'd probably just go in circles all the time until I dropped dead of exhaustion.  I can just imagine myself banished to a place like Equador and trying to communicate my dilemma let alone get my prescription for Retin A refilled.  No, I don't think I'd like being expatriated at all.

But the ladies at the gym's concerns not withstanding, what's the best case scenario if one does manage to insure one's own survival in these troubled times?  How can any of us avoid this bloated hot mess that is our incoming president.

Donald Trump really does think that as president, he can deport people who burn the American flag. Now of course he doesn't give a damn about the American flag, and in a pinch I'll bet he can't even tell you how many stripes it has, maybe not even the number of stars, but in his mind, he's the boss now and can do what he wants.  And it's not even this crying baby/man who scares me the most.  It's all the people he's surrounding himself with who see him for exactly what he is: a tool.  All you have to do to make Trump do what you want is flatter him, cheer him on, tell him daily he's not the fat old tiny mouthed short fingered vulgarian the rest of us see, but as studly dynamic and handsome as he ever was.  All he wants to be is worshipped, praised, said yes to.  That's it.

I thought thing were bad when Bush took over, knew he was going to use 911 as an excuse to savage the economy and line all his friends' pockets.  We're still reaping the wages of that.  But Donald Trump is something different.  While Bush's arrogance was substantial, and weilded against the interests of the American people with great force and consistancy, still, after all this time I can't quite characterize him as a "bad man."

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a very bad man surrounding himself with worse ones who are going to play him to the hilt with total disregard for the consequences and suffering of the rest of us. And he's too dumb, or just too fucking disinterested, to see it.  He may, in the end, go down as the biggest toady in history but he won't care.  He can't.