My Butt Hurts

My butt hurts. 

That’s right kids, if you’re gonna blog you have to start strong, use the word “Butt” in the first sentence, if possible in the first three words. 

My faithful four-legged companion had to give up his well-earned perch upon my lap for me to type this. So I hope you’re happy. 

*Guilt* *Guilt* *Guilt*

Roger has moved to a different spot on the bed and I’m glad. I can keep an eye on him and he on me. 

To my left is a chin cone bearded member of the Council of Ricks on my flat screen. Paused when my son lost interest in that episode. Frozen in place, in time. We're gonna talk about time in this blog,...eventually. 

Time is why I’m here writing this, and not just the fact that it exists and therefore I do. Or maybe there is some sort of philosophical line of arguing that makes my words lies, but if that’s the case such an argument would fly way over my Corona quarantined head of uncut hair. Hair that brings about images of the “Aliens” meme guy. 

My stomach is hungry, but the time merely reminds me that I’m overdue for my anxiety meds. I have alarms for them, but they seem more like overly loud suggestions. I kill the alarm with every intention of taking my meds. Little disolveable circular things made to put under one's tongue. 

I place one under my tongue as my wife enters the room, her mask around her neck, at the ready and an indicator that she’s ready to make the weekly Sunday jaunt to get groceries. We used to go every week together; I bounced from Game Boy to idle game, to writing lyrics while leaning against the frozen foods aisle. 

The last time I went I took pictures of the completely barren toilet paper aisle: 

A bit later the highly picked over bread aisle:

We bought some sort of fancy kind of bread just because it was the only loaf left. People around me politely stepped out of the frame for the shot. These same people shared knowing glances that said ‘can you believe this?”

An old man said something to me when I took a picture of the bread or lack thereof. I wish I could remember what he said. I wish I could have spent more time with him. Learning the things he’s lived through, listening to the things he’s seen. Getting his take on all of those things stacked up against what was going on around both he and I. 

Of course, since then things have only gotten worse, to the point where it’s become a running joke.

Before we even got home that day, my mom called us and said my dad had bread for us. My dad has always been the breadwinner both literally and figuratively. He has delivered bread since I was in kindergarten, with several years as a tobacco sales rep in between. 

Forced to start over after the tobacco company changed hands he had to start at the bottom of the bread ladder. The people he had trained were now his superiors. His line of work taught me a lot of things. For one, I will never work as hard as my dad did. Often working 16 hour days, never having two days off in a row. On weekends, and during the summers as a teenager, I sat silently in my dark bedroom alone with my feelings of guilt as I listened to my dad get ready to work at 3 am, 2am and on rare occasions just after midnight. 

Another thing I learned was that even the bread industry isn’t safe. The industry that makes bread, a commodity deemed so essential even the most hardened criminal in the most unjust times is given it and water. Even this industry was and is in a constant state of flux. Mergers, takeovers, layoffs, all of which resulted in routes being cut, always to my dad's determent. In almost every change made his job either less lucrative or increased the hours and miles he had to traverse, most of the time it was both.  

All that changed when one of the few good stops left on his route took a turn for the worse. By the end his route was spread across the entire southeast corner of the state like some sort of overly gerrymandered voting district. This last big stop began crowding him in the same small tents as hundreds of workers. These workers were comprised of mostly immigrants afraid to get tested out of fear of deportation. Their lives important enough to do our dirty work slaughtering the animals we eat, but fleeting enough that they could get kicked out of the country at the drop of a hat the next time some politician wanted to look tough on immigration. 

My dad was sent there day after day with no protection of any kind. At one point, the cases of COVID at that one plant made up a third of the new cases in the state. My dad's hand was forced and he retired, something I had always hoped he would get to do. But his retirement turned out to be something he had to do for his own safety. If he could have held out for a few more years he would have been entitled to a lot more money, but every day dropping off bread and picking up stale at the plant was another day of Covid Russian Roulette. Now he is retired and every free moment my mom has is spent on hold trying to figure out why his pension checks haven’t started coming yet. “Things are crazy what with everyone working from home because of the virus” she is told. As if she could relay that to the people on the waiting end of their bills and all will be forgiven. 

My butt still hurts, or I should more correctly say it’s falling asleep. I envisioned this writing position to be more comfortable, in fact, I remember it being more comfortable, but I’m stuck now, my buddy has curled up next to my legs and I don’t want to force him to have to move again. Laying against me in what feels like an act of solidarity or support. 

I never intended this blog to be about my dad, but my blogs tend to take a circuitous route to where I intended. At the very least, my blogs spin-off into lengthy pre-topic tangents that a better writer would just lop off like pruning a plant for its own benefit. 

I got off the phone with my mom before all of this. They’re preparing to go camping. I was driven to call my mom after Ozzy came on the shuffle of the USB drive which contains that half of the alphabet (M through Z) . This made me think of her, made me think it was time to come back upstairs. Before that “Stand by me” a song my wife loves. So I hugged her before retreating to my room and this chair that numbs my buttcheeks. If a tourniquet could be applied to butt cheeks I bet it would feel like this. 

I pause to reply to a discord chat. We’ll see what comes of it. 

Before those two songs came on shuffle, a friend I know as Boom had DM’d me out of the blue to tell me he was starting a new dynasty in video game college football. 

Meanwhile back in the present, my son wandered in long enough to ask several times to play football only to leave again with a fold-able tent another friend of mine had given me. I do not like that tent's chances of survival…..

Back to Boom. I told him I couldn’t play video game college football right then because my four-year-old was monopolizing the Xbox 360 to play Minecraft and that I had started a dynasty with an entire narrative around it. 

He asked me to expand on the narrative and tell him what was up. The result is below, sorry for the bad spelling/grammar.

The tweet was proceeded by this:

He talked me into posting it, I got two retweets, more likes than I thought I would get and about three or four new followers, about as many as I lose every time I post a tweet asking people to read my blog. 

Around the time “proceeded by” was written above, my son returned more adamant about playing football but unable to bring me the mouse to set up a game for him. I think I’ll get up and hope that Roger will still be in place when I return. Perhaps a break for my still numbing ass. Before I can attempt such a maneuver, my son leaves again, this time armed with a pool noodle. 

I now lay in bed, my keyboard lying diagonally across my body. Having returned from urinating, letting my four-legged buddy out into the blast furnace that is this mid-June heat. 

My son ultimately got his game, forcing the cone-shaped citadel Rick off the screen. I put that game on CPU vs CPU so he enjoys the illusion of thinking he is playing. Much like I pretended to play arcade machines when my parents didn’t have the coinage to enable me to play the game for real. 

Now my boy lays next to me, with his back to the game he believes he's playing. This doesn’t stop him from pressing buttons. He squirms his way under covers. 

At some point in this post during the butt numb era, I received a response from my discord question. This person, whose name and avatar or profile pic is of the kool-aid man, keeps his response all about himself, with no interest in my offer to expand on how I’m doing, but not in general chat. I’m secretly glad about that. 

My eyelids grow heavy. Man, writing in the first person is easy. 

On my way to the back patio door, I thought maybe this will be how I write my first book. I already do 90% of my writing in my journal which no one will read. Write what you know is what “they” say and I haven’t had near as much practice narrating my own life as writing anything else. 

Writing in first-person feels like cheat mode. 

I always want to write in third. I like the freedom of being able to create and enter multiple characters'minds. Third also avoids the trap of knowing with relative certainty, unless you’re hearing the story from a ghost, the first-person protagonist will survive to tell you the story you are reading. 

I really should read more. If for no other reason than perhaps karmically I owe it in exchange for anyone reading this. God bless you btw.

My butt isn’t as sore anymore. 

The announcer narrating my son's now forgotten football game sounds like a cross between Stimpy and that guy from "The Bird Cage" who later did the voice of the warthog in the Lion King. 

Eventually, something caused me to get up. As I did so, I looked down on the bed, my son lost his battle with his eyelids, the controller left limp in his hands, taking up the majority of his torso. 

I would learn soon that not did Boom attend the same high school as I, but graduated the same year. Neither of us remembers the other, both of loners us our own way. He took things a step farther than me though, intentionally dodging picture day.

I exchange twitter DMs until my battery dies. Just another form of writing, another form of therapy started with a lengthy DM that started "Dear Boom."

While I Was Still Here

I arise from my chair filled with the flavor of fatigue that only a Tuesday afternoon can weigh down on a person. Walking through the kitchen with a full bladder the sounds of "While I'm Still Here" fade

"Yesterday I found out the world, was, ending."

In it's place the blonde princesses voice from "Frozen" replaces it. She belts out "Let it go" to an empty living room.

Down the hall my teenage daughters door is in it's perpetually shut state. I gaze into my bedroom, my exhausted wife is passed out as Peabody explains something to at most one of my still conscious children. If either child was awake they never saw me, fixated on either the back of their eyelids or Peabody and whatever time travel adventure he's in the middle of.

After taking care of the only issue I can, flushing and washing my hands I return to my office and "While I'm Still Here Repeats."

"...A little more
Everyday
Falls apart
And slips away..."


I settle in to write this. My parched mouth reminds me I forgot to get a water refill while up. My trusty office mate, my dog, wants out.

I write until his whine tinged bark lets me know he wants back in.

I feel so lonely, I also feel heart burn.

My office mate must have had to take a leak too as he happily scurries back to his corner of the office, his legs seeming to move twice as fast as necessary to achieve the speed he attains. 

Every minute seems to disappear into the wasteland that is just another Tuesday afternoon.

"...These four walls are closing in

Ticking time is running out

Of all the things that might have been
Ticking time is running out...."

I'm waiting on a green light to put out my previous blog. It never got edited but I'm okay with that.
I wonder to myself what could await me when my time here is done for the day, after break is over.
My office mate is now asleep in his corner. I feel like I'm the only human alive in the world.

"God forgive me if I cry
Ticking time is running out"

The careless clock shows break is over. 

"Yesterday I found out the world was ending"

Time passes, eventually my cellphone springs to life indicating it is both the end of my work day and time for my anti-anxiety pill. The pill seems silly. What is there to be anxious about when you're the only one in the world who is still awake?

"While we can
Remember when
Always running
Even then

Stay with me
Hold me near

And I'm still here"

COVID Blogging

Been meaning to write this tweet since I was sitting in the parking lot mid-morning on Sunday. When out of the doors walked a nurse in full-on Andromeda Strain/Outbreak/x-files contamination gear.  I would have taken a picture of the strange juxtaposition, but I was on hold with the people inside….looks like I've already extended myself past the threshold of a tweet, oh well, blog it is. 

But I will never forget that feeling, of having to tell myself, to remind myself this is reality. This is Lincoln, Nebraska, the town I grew up in, only a few blocks from where I used to get overpriced wings and play trivia. A woman in a yellow space suit was walking towards a car in the parking lot like she was one of those waitresses on rollerskates in the 50s. 

Soon it was my turn, the masks I brought, that my job provided me seemed stupid since the test invovled having what seemed like a tiny q-tip on a flimsy peice of plastic shoved to the back of both my nasal cavities. 

A lot sooner than I thought, it was all over and I was headed home. 

I had awoken in the middle of the night with fever, chills, body aches, a headache, my productive wet cough and accompanying wheeze had turned dry, unproductive and unfamiliar.

I took my temp; a slight fever, but all I cared about was how I couldn’t get warm.

I managed to get back to sleep after a round of Tylenol, but my temp had crept up since then.

I called my Asthma doctor in the morning, the same one I’ve seen since I was five years old. He was on call and I talked to him on speakerphone. He wanted to do a respiratory viral panel, but because of the world, as it is now, no one would do one without a COVID screen first.

That’s how I ended up in the parking lot staring at a nurse who looked like an alien stepping out of a spaceship. A glaring visual, I must be hallucinating against the backdrop of an otherwise beautiful spring day.

I’ve been working from home since approximately mid-March, but since the test on Sunday, I haven’t left my room except late at night and once while everyone else was asleep.

I told my wife where all I had been, what I had touched.

I laid here and binge-watched Westworld and finished Post Mortal both of which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone in today's circumstances.

I forced myself to discover Comedy Bang Bang which is good, but I’m not in the mood for it, like a child pushing away nasty tasting medicine. I know it’s what I need, but I don’t want it.

It’s amazing what comes back to me in times like this.

I’ve never had mono, but I think I might know what it’s like. I remember how I felt in high school when my pneumonia got bad enough I had to stay in the hospital.

Thanks to my increased steroid use and my, what I presume to be, pneumonia I am reminded of what it feels like to have eyelids heavy, but a body that wants to move so bad, and then to have the opposite. Eyelids that can’t close, but a body that can only lay in a weird flat position along the bottom of my bed staring at the ceiling and smelling my own BO.

I’m not painting a pretty picture here, but at least I’m painting.

Paintings can be beautiful, even if they are during someone's ‘blue’ period. Even if they depict a toddler being talked out of his dad's room despite his father's desire to embrace him; the child crying because he misses his dad. These are heavy times my fellow breathers and even under an ocean of Prozac. I cried about that painting yesterday. Tears and all.

My canvas is a smartphone, my brush an ergonomic keyboard I have positioned diagonally off my hip as I lay on my side.

About a week ago, I wrote a blog I thought would help people in these times, and I stand by those words. I’ll be surprised if the test comes back positive, but either way, I’m exhausted and wanted to send this out to the endless black void that is the internet... At some point, I’ll have to get up and email into work again. Even though work is really just at the end of the bed, I lack the energy to do anything more than this, and even this is taxing. It took everything I had to write the email that excused me from work today, to just sit and type.

Last Updated: 4/7/2020 7:24 PM

Birthday Blog

Baring some sort of statistical abnormality such as a lightning strike or being hit by a meteor in the next five or so hours by the time you read this I will have made my 39th lap around the Sun.

I’m lucky, countless people are far worse off than I am. One, in particular, is so bad off I’m not sure I could even get her a hard copy of this. She’s on my mind a lot, I’m sure there are a lot of people who you’re thinking about right now. I find it amazing how physically separated we all are yet so connected with everyone else through shared experience,...all across the globe.

I’m blessed, I’m strong, I’m loved. Strength, regardless of form, takes work and adversity. I’ve had my share; constant, sometimes near-fatal bouts with pneumonia, depression, anxiety, suicide, struggles with side effects of prescription drugs. I feel like the stronger I become dealing with my own personal demons, the more the world around me turns negative and more challenging. Every bit of mindfulness, every ounce of energy, every piece of perspective is met with more bad news. The start of 2020 has continued this trend. I still consider myself blessed and want to share a particular quote I feel everyone needs right now. One of the tools I employed in my own battles and I now use to stand up against the rapidly changing world around me.

I’ll preface this by saying that I know saying “Rick and Morty” comes with a certain stigma not unlike being a Trekkie or being into Dungeons and Dragons. Rick and Morty bring about visions of dorks rioting over very specific Mcdonalds dipping sauces and other embarrassing behavior. This rabid silliness kept me away from the show for half a decade. A lesson in prejudging, a book, a cover, all of that.

I should also make it clear I don't have the virus and, to the best of my knowledge, never carried it.

I’m not here to talk you into liking or even watching an episode, just absorb the quote and tolerate it. If not, you're one of the "booers" (we'll get to that) but trust me, I think it could help.



In this scene, Rick is being booed by between 3000 and 4000 intelligent beings. Rick is not a hero, in fact, he’s a pretty nefarious dude. My personal theory is that the same fanbase that’s paying $4500 for McNugget dipping sauce is also directing a little too much misguided admiration at Rick, causing the creators to lay on the “Rick is bad and does bad things” extra thick in the perpetually half-finished fourth season. I can't say I blame them. Who doesn't want to galavant about an infinite amount of timelines doing whatever they want and being a badass about it? Not to mention being "the smartest being in the galaxy".

The harsh truth we'll probably never know is the extreme price Rick pays for being Rick that only Rick will probably ever know and understand. Everyone wants to be as smart and as powerful as Rick, but I bet no one would want to stare down the demons he's dealing with. These demons have turned Rick into an alcoholic, nihilistic, family-tearing, grandson manipulating, destroyer of entire worlds. Therefore, who might be better to quote from when searching for strength than the guy constantly battling with Rick level inner demons?

One of my most-liked comments ever on twitter was when the official Rick and Morty account tweeted about a line before this one. The line goes something like, “boo all you want, I’ve seen what makes you cheer!”  I pointed out that the line shortly after was my favorite and months later I still get ‘like’ notifications for it. For this reason, I know the power of this message. I know it can resonate with people, and I’m betting we could all use this.

On the surface, it appears to be Rick just being Rick, yelling at a room full of beings that don’t share the same interests as him. When this episode aired, the line immediately stood out to me; everyone has a room full of booing people (hopefully just metaphorically speaking), things they are struggling with whether they know it or not. Every time you take a step, click a mouse, or even just breathing you’re not letting your room of booers beat you.

Having originally been entirely metaphorical, these words now have taken on a literal sense for me. My immune disorder, something I’d been especially struggling with since last November, has had me on Prednisone ever since.  Even the slightest hint of going off the stuff and the wheezing gets worse, the breaths get shorter and the familiar taste of bronchitis returns, but as Rick level evil as Prednisone is, it kicks just as much ass, helps keep me breathing and each breath counts. These breaths come one after another, like compound interest they just keep piling up, and the idea your struggle has to go another round should indeed raise your self-esteem. You may not win the fight, but at least force the judges to make a decision.

During the course of the year, I’ve undergone a battery of tests; in the process,every file and medical note regarding my lifelong struggle with Asthma and Pneumonia was printed out. The end result was a phone book thick pile of papers I lugged all the way to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.  Reading the first entry was a trip for me. Dated 1983, the report looks like it was typed with an actual typewriter and very well may have been. The young me they are describing is the same age as my son, who shares the same name as me. This battle has been going on since before Coach Osborne went for two. Yet….I kept breathing, one breath at a time. I have a family, I have a job, I contribute to society, despite booers who told me I wouldn’t.

The threat of the virus and it's respiratory nature sent me home from work about two weeks earlier than everyone else. Something unprecedented at the time. People think working from home is great, and I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t have it’s upsides. Being so close to my family, no commute etc., but I feel it’s a bit like getting water from the same river you’re defecating in. You never really feel like you’re fully away from work, and during work you never fully feel at home. You exist in this sort of in-between place I've never really gotten used to. I knew this already. I had worked from home at both previous jobs, but never for two weeks straight. I knew it would be tough, but I also knew working from home was the smart thing to do.

The abruptness of it… one Monday I went to work, the next day I was logging in from my bedroom. That’s how the world moves now. Try and name something that isn’t affected by ‘it’....but fuck ‘it’, because you have to keep breathing.

I use the word ‘it’ because I’m tired of hearing the word, it’s overuse and constant reminders, both right in front of us all or across the globe are always there. I don’t want to give it the satisfaction.

No one knows what the future holds, most likely the world has changed forever, but the breaths you’ve taken, they can’t be taken back, you’ve existed, we’ve existed and with every single inhale we notch a point in the good guy column.

I should pump the breaks here a bit. Sure it’s great to take on your struggles, but it’s another to go out looking for bears to poke. If you’re not careful, you could end up like Rick:  alcoholic, extremely depressed and making enemies in every reality you portal yourself into.

With moderation in mind, we step back to me as a child,....many, many breaths ago if you will. I was extremely shy, hiding behind my parents, exhibiting antisocial behavior even at Thanksgiving. “Andy would it kill you to be a little social?” I was mature for my age and lacked patience with those around me. While other kids were playing, I was constantly worried about the onset of nuclear war or alien invasion (thanks National Enquirer). While other kids collected G.I. Joes and got better at Mario than I ever will. I was worrying about stepping outside in ten years and immediately getting skin cancer from a completely depleted ozone layer. I was more afraid of global warming in Predator 2 and Robocop than any ridiculous amount of bloodshed or cloaking aliens. In retrospect, I think these unfounded fears were what would later become my issues with anxiety.  In the meantime, Nuclear war never came, neither did the alien invasion of 1994 as predicted by National Enquirer and I never got skin cancer. I kept breathing, breathing through my fears, my successes, my triumphs, my struggles.

My mom patiently told me over and over again that the National Enquirer was full of shit and reassured me about all my other worries. Don’t listen to the booers, listen to your mother, mine was right about the alien invasion and countless other things... if your mom is one of your booers you can borrow mine, she's awesome.

At the same time though, my mom had worries of her own for me. She was concerned about my extreme shyness and even arranged playdates and sleepovers on my behalf. Looking back I can’t understand why I was so concerned with what people thought. The older I get the less the opinions of others matter to me. I’ve said this before, so If I’ve said it in this blog before please forgive me, but I think once you have your own family, your own cliche, you don’t worry about fitting in because you have your own tribe to return home to at the end of the day. That’s just my theory. Yes, some people are going to boo you, but you can’t waste your energy on them.  Focus on those very few who matter. Think about what a small number of people that is, the people who matter to you most versus the seven billion or so on the planet, pretty small number huh? I’m not saying dislike everyone out of the gate, I’m saying don’t waste your breath on someone who is booing you.

Yes, tomorrow is my birthday, the odometer is about to roll over, but over the last few years I’ve celebrated my birthday harder and harder. I take no breath "for granite"* and neither should you. So for my birthday do me a favor, share this blog with everyone who isn’t booing you, everyone that needs to hear it and we can all celebrate every single breath we take together.

*sorry I couldn’t resist at least one R&M reference 

Last Updated: 3/29/2020 11:29 AM

State Of The Smitty Adress

Last week Blizzard let me know I was to receive three free days of World Of Warcraft as soon as I redeemed the gift that was in my login screen.

The first day I played relentlessly, the second not as much and by the third, only somewhat. The small amount of time I spent on that last day was not unlike an elderly person "getting their affairs in order" prior to death. I tried to make sure my characters were left in a state where things could be picked back up without as much incident, unlike a lot of time I felt was wasted relearning to play each character and getting them to a place where I felt they could be productive.

My PC monitor stood tall and behind my laptop which I used to play the online stream of the Lincoln Saltdogs games as I quested away most of my weekend.

After having returned from a bathroom break my laptop monitor looked like a shattered window on acid. Colors and individual pixels danced about the mostly static screen that looked like a Microsoft Paint doodle in which someone went nuts with the paint bucket tool.

I did what any computer person would do in the above situation, I turned my laptop off and turned it back on. After two unsuccessful attempts, I let my laptop cool off as I feared I had let the poor thing get too hot ....no luck.

My fear upon seeing the screen was that I had let the laptop get too hot and I had melted or somehow damaged the graphics card but my eldest stepson was over and assured me that the screen had merely been punctured, broken or somehow hit with extreme force. He was kind enough to look up the cost of a replacement which ran right around $100 and removed the old LCD screen. Now I worry though that I lost the tiny screws for the LCD screen he had carefully gathered. He seemed baffled by what could have caused such extreme force. My guess would be my 18-month-old son who had spent the previous couple weeks popping off keys from my laptop keyboard one by one every time my wife and I were distracted for mere seconds.

I limped the laptop along getting precious database backups created and off the machine by hooking up the laptop to my flat screen tv. The second time I went to do so though resulted in a series of beeps and silences which made me worried I had lost everything else on the machine. The third attempt worked and now I can confirm that this indeed had all occurred on a Sunday because I left the laptop to copy files as the wife and I made our weekly trek for groceries.

The laptop worked a few more times after that, but a week later I can't get a visual at all anymore, regardless of what I hook it up to.

The epic and mysterious demise of my laptop plays a big factor in most of the issues I am about to list but ultimately just about everything below is also at least partially my fault.

My podcast is toast as my only unlocked version of Audacity rests in the unaccessible C drive of my laptop. By unlocked I mean, set up so that the audio can be exported. This is Audacitys way of not getting sued for people who might use it to copy or otherwise redistribute copywritten material, the name of the third-party software needed for this? L.A.M.E. I'm not making this up and can only guess that this software was both made and named as a sort of a subtle middle finger to the frustrating law side of things. Of all the issues in this blog this particular "lame" one is the easiest to remedy, and most likely will be by the time you read this.

I can't speak highly enough about Audacity, it's free, give it a go. I've seen videos on YouTube boasting that they could teach the viewer how to make music exclusively with Audacity which I may very well have to do because my only copy of FL Studio was on my laptop. I've had mixed results and the software is very expensive and somewhat frustrating. Despite these frustrations, the laptop had all of my works in progress and a working copy. I'm sure I'm allowed to download another copy if I can find my original login info, but that is a very, very big 'if'.

The above, although also solvable has for at least the moment put a halt not only to the podcast but to any headway I was making in the music creation process.

The laptop also had the best speakers I own, so even after standing up Audacity and even FL loops my playback would be limited to the cheapest pair of speakers I could find at BestBuy when I received this pc, I must remind myself, as a gift.

Another hardware failure (I think) has befallen one of the converters that enables me to use old Nintendo controllers to play Tecmo and Super Tecmo Football on my computer. Therefore the two leagues I have with my family the Smitty Family Tecmo Football League and Smitty Family Classic Tecmo Football League are both on hold again, no long after a brief return to glory since receiving new NES controllers my old ones had been devoured by the puppy of the house. Even if I pony up the dough for another converter, there is no guarantee the issue will be alleviated as my PC seems to be very picky when it comes to USB devices, especially allowing two controllers, so both of those leagues are shelved.

In addition to my two family leagues I was working towards a third solo league which I could technically work on even without being able to use both controllers but the other big factor in all of these is the general feeling of fatigue and lack of motivation that permeates my very being both at work and once at home.

Another solo league the Simulation Axis Franchise Football League sits mothballed but like the above could be getting worked on. As of this writing, I think the last tweet or the pinned tweet sums things up pretty well.

My two other leagues the NAFL and AAFL are still tangled in a database failure combined with issues from the C# front end which was as you might guess it....on my laptop. So even if I was to untangle the corrupted database their still is the systemic issues on the C# front end, I managed to get the files off the laptop as it turns out....just in time, but I doubt the links to the backend database still work and programming at home is even less appealing on my PC than it was on my laptop.

When contemplating writing this I thought about keeping up the charade of each of these accounts being attributed to different entities, but I doubt few will make it to, let alone through this entire whiny blog (Hi mom! Hi wife!).

I have other leagues like the PFL and my college league but both suffer from the same front end C# dilemma as the NAFL and the AAFL that thankfully for you none of which I created a twitter account for. As it stands only one league is still playable without effort put into external issues.

My train set is also mothballed as the curve I went to fix resulted in an entire side of the basement long layout being ripped up. I've tried to cludge together the curve from scrap wood but I think it's best to obtain a fresh piece of particle board and borrow a truck from somebody and do the thing right, in the meantime, the mediation of watching my locomotives do laps around me is also gone. Of course me being me, I was developing software and a database backend for my fictional model railroad reality....on my laptop.

Yesterday the wife and I rearranged the bedroom but not without casualties, she suffered a strained back that had already been reeling and dropped something heavy on her foot. I never should have let her move anything on that back of hers, it sucks, but that one is one me 100% she can hardly walk. The room is much better in both arrangement and functionality but I feel the cost was too high.

Our two toddlers are a constant strain on time, energy and sanity. I tried to think of a way to sugar coat that but I really can't. It's not like I'm not grateful for them but anyone who has raised a toddler let alone two at the same time can appreciate the challenge.

Most of the time we have four dogs in the house as well, one of which made quick work of the carpet next to the door here in the bedroom, I don't really mind honestly but the bare wooden subflooring acts as another reminder that the house around me is collapsing. The state of the house is also my fault but that patch of flooring yells at me for my own lethargy, laziness, and downright sloth.

The carpet in the nearby master bedroom was yanked up in what was to be a fruitless search for what was soaking the carpet in there. And as I write this my wife is trying to get the toilet in there to stop running after my efforts were ultimately fruitless. Speaking of fruitless, the bathroom that will soon pass year ten of its own remodeling abandonment, a monument to my own failures as a homeowner has a ceiling bulging with water damage, a look at the flooring between the two bathrooms reveals another potential leak.

Two of the dogs in the house are being babysat for free more often then they're not, much like the toddlers they have their positives too but additional chaos is inevitable. At work, I have a  project that is overdue and barely survived last week even with the 4th of July holiday. A holiday that went better than I ever could have imagined but stressed out about big-time beforehand.

The last home-related issue is a strange spell that seems to have been cast on my entire household where everyone but me is either unwilling or unable to sleep in their own rooms, it's bizarre, but I had to throw that in there.

This is going to sound extremely narcissistic but I feel like work is a place where I exchange part of my life, almost all of my energy and my creative soul for a paycheck. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and as far as the line of work it's in I'm convinced it's the least-worst place to be.

Many apologies as this has turned into a whine-fest but some positives exist. I'm in the middle of a good book: Ready Player One whose reality escaping premise is a welcome escape if said escape can be achieved amid toddler and dog chaos. The price for this escape is what feels like a very self-indulgent story acting as a mirror reflecting my own desires back at my being, making them seem petty, narcissistic and ultimately implausible.

Rediscovering World of Warcraft is another escape but often hinders any progress on the other ventures I have listed here. WoW offers a much easier and less tedious dopamine hit which proves addicting in my usual tired state.

I took a class on self-publishing but my lack of energy combined with, believe it or not, my inability to create enough content to fill a book compounded by constant desire to switch and think up new projects has thus far proved fruitless.

More exists but believe it or not there are problems even I won't share publicly.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Paging Gary Numan

9/29/2018
1:05 PM

I feel comfortable here. According to a quick google before I went outside, the temperature outside the windows of my car is forty nine degrees. Overcast skies, one would say a feeling of coziness exists for me here. I know this feeling is short lived, I know I’ll have to go back, I know I’ll have to open the door, turn and face the cold, but for now, I’m cozy.

As I look out at the parking lot, a black car blocks my view in the stall across from mine. I utilize the passenger's seat for extra legroom and the interestingly unfamiliar feeling of being in a side of this car other than the driver's seat.

How did I get here? I’m not sure, I just know I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to the place of darkness and cold. I don’t want to descend below ground where light is even more scarce than the overcast skies above me.

Something other than the cold exists in that place, something I cannot find the right words for. A sort of lonely sadness, mixed with a bit of nostalgia for something I can’t remember. I don’t feel like searching hard for the word because I don’t want to think about that place, and I’d be forced to do so in order to find the right word.

For now I am safe, I am away even if briefly. I dread the inevitable drag of the record player needle pulling the present back to a place where I am no longer here, no longer across from that black car, warmed by what little warmth somehow made the journey 93 million miles that last bit through dense cloud cover and into my car becoming trapped behind glass.

Perhaps the warmth doesn’t feel trapped, perhaps the warm is like me. Feeling cozy in here until the blanket of the outside world’s chill envelopes it into non existence.

The world will begin to die soon, as it does every October. I don’t look forward to this process, a reminder of the needle of time always moving closer to the end. With each cycle a fresh layer of fallen leaves, snow covered earth, the chill of early spring and the budding of new leaves, and at last the first warm breaths of summer, followed quickly by unrelenting heat. The heat slowly dissipates as the leaves start to turn and then fall once again.

I save this file, even close it, only to reopen it yet again. I have nothing more to say, nothing more to type, just sit and wait to pull that door handle and face the cold, on my own.

Digital Witness Breakdown

*Deep Breath*

Have you ever thought about doing something for so long that by the time you actually get to the point you are doing said thing that while it’s happening it seems surreal? Sort of a Deja Vu feeling but without any kind of mystery. You know why your mind is there because your mind has been there so many times before.

If any of the above makes any sense to you then you know where I am at this exact moment. I have been thinking, pondering, planning, daydreaming about this for years. I recently hinted about this in my latest podcast so now is finally launch day.

So many silent trips back and forth to Omaha thinking about this, being reminded whenever one of these songs comes on my shuffle, today is finally the day.

Here is what’s going to happen. I am going to break down a song lyrically. The original plan was to compare my interpretation to a website that is sort of a kin to Wikipedia for songs. People post what they believe the meaning to be line by line and things get removed/added/voted up and down. Theories get sited with interviews of the artist in question and normally what remains tends to make a lot of sense. However after finishing the first draft I tossed that portion out, but you’re still welcome to check my work if you like, the site is easy enough to find.

Long ago I had decided on St. Vincent’s “Digital Witness” to be the first song I broke down, but before we hit the lyrics something you should understand about St. Vincent or Annie or whatever you prefer I call her, she has given me every impression that she is an extremely private person. David Bryne of Talking Heads fame toured with her, made music with her and remarked afterwards that he didn’t know her any better after all of that then before any sort of collaboration had started. I say all of this because I’m a strong believer in motive, and the motive for this song lies heavily in Annie’s understandable desire for privacy. As if to cement my point further I happened onto a podcast where the host Marc Maron said he had seen pictures of her from early in her career. Like most non-vain humans she was embarassed when Marc asked why she said completely out of the blue "The Internet is a cemetery where nothing ever dies."

With that in mind let’s FINALLY get started:

Get back, to your seat

Get back, gnashing teeth

We’re a little slow getting on the anti-social media train, but traces of this sentiment still start early. Get back to your seat at the computer, in front of your phone, get back to gnashing your teeth. I’m guessing, the gnashing of teeth is a reference to the negative effect social media and especially Facebook has on people. They see all these wonderful things posted by friends, relatives, distant acquaintances and find themselves lacking. They compare themselves to this false ideal that even the people who are posting aren’t living up to. I’m no longer a very religious person but I am always in awe of the brilliance of the inclusion of the 9th commandment. “Thou Shall Not Covet”. This sin is right up there with stealing, murder, all kinds of really really bad things, so why is basically being jealous in there? Because this sin is sort of the marijuana of sins, greed, stealing, cheating all stem from wanting what someone else has. Facebook and other social media cause people to believe that everyone else has this perfect life, kids, looks, even dinner. People bite down on this effect hard, like a hungry fish on a hook.

I know I’ll get my feet put to the fire for talking religion but this is how I feel. Don't like it? Post about how angry it makes you on Facebook…..go ahead, I’ll wait,...maybe you’ll get little hits of dopamine in the form of likes. I wish you well,.....

Done? Okay we’re back.

Of course everyone looks amazing and put together on Facebook. No one is going to post “My son Donny is flunking Geometry and I caught him doing acid in the shed.” Okay, maybe some people will but this just leads us to our next line.

Ooh, I want all of your mind

I doubt Annie wants to know anything about anyone in a voyeuristic way but she needs to put a voice to this unspoken desire that HAS to exist for so many to share so much. She is sort of both mocking and trying to understand this desire to share everything there is about yourself, dumped out there to be indexed for all time on the internet, even your teenage son tripping balls in a shed. As if to say people actually believe everyone must know everything about them so someone out there must being saying, demanding everything in your mind be shared.

Before more social media bashing we take a short detour into reality TV

People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah

People turn the TV on, it looks just like a window, yeah

The success and longevity of reality TV is and always will be baffling to me, but in reality tv’s earliest form in things like MTV’s “The Real World” or “The Osbournes” you pretty much just have a camera rolling while people are living their lives, in other words a window. Yes, the genre has morphed into all kinds of things, even some entertaining things but when so much is produced, a shotgun blast effect has occurred. Something interesting was bound to be hit.

Yes the irony this genre is called “Reality TV” gets worse with each passing day. There was a time when people used TV to escape reality, to visit far away planets, to get invested in the lives of fictional characters, romances etc. Now the E! Channel literally has a show with a bunch of rich LA kids sitting across from each other drinking fancy lattes and having mind numbing conversation showcasing just how out of touch they are with the real world 99% of people live in.. So you went from an escape, a place where the imagination was stoked and the possibilities were endless to a boring window through which highly stylized version of life is presented as brain drain with no creative value whatsoever.

Wow, only three lines in,...I should have known this would happen. Luckily a lot of repetition occurs throughout the rest of the song.

Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping?

If I can't show it, if you can't see me

What's the point of doing anything?

Annie finally gives a name to both the consumers and the producers of this content as “Digital Witnesses”. A hint of sardonic knife twisting is evident with “What’s the point of even sleeping?” A reference to the fact that the only time people seem to not be sharing every detail of their lives is while they are asleep.

I hadn’t thought of this before but I believe the next line is perhaps a call back to what was previously a bit of a mystifying line for me, the line about gnashing teeth. The frustration that comes with not enough people viewing all the content you are putting out there, not enough followers, likes, whatevers. If I don’t have enough people looking at every detail of my life then why should I bother doing anything at all? I’ve seen this in person, I’ve attended many chorus and band concerts of my stepdaughter and I look around and people are only viewing their children through their cameras. There is something to be said for just enjoying the moment. I make it a point to stop filming or just holding my video camera in place (yes a VIDEO camera, because I’m a grumpy old man who still doesn’t have a smartphone), because yes there is importance in capturing my step-daughters hard work, but you still have to actually LIVE your life from time to time instead of recording it.

I’m cheating a bit here, the next line is part of the above three lines before the next short instrumental break but I’m separating the line out because I believe we’re getting to the panic/horror part of the song.

This is no time for confessing

The digital witnesses are angry. Why are you questioning things? Get back to your seat, get back to making content. If you don’t have enough followers then you need to be sharing more and better things. We don’t have time for introspection or thought.

Now we’re getting dark. I really hadn’t realized just how dark until now, but I do believe this whole electronic pissing contest does have its victims. The only line in the next section that is different from what we’ve heard before is pretty stark, but I don’t think the line was intended to be that way. I think the line was meant to show to what great lengths people are spitballing in their heads to get some sort of edge in the digital witness game:

Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping?

If I can't show it, if you can't see me

Watch me jump right off the London Bridge

This is no time for confessing

Next is more repetition. The lines that are different are worth breaking apart though so I’ll point that out.

People turn the TV on and throw it out the window, yeah

Get back to your stare

I care, but I don't care

Oh oh, I, I want all of your mind

Give me all of your mind

I want all of your mind

Give me all of it

x

At this point I believe Annie is hoping you’re getting what she is saying and the image of folks finally getting fed up and throwing that “window” out the “window” is cathartic and worth cheering for. Also worth noting is the double use of the word “window” as a tool as a means to fight back, instead of a creative prison, a portal to a land of no creative ideas.

Sadly though, the digital world isn’t going to give up that easy. Get back to staring at that window, at others’ lives, at sharing yours. The care but I don’t care is all part of the game in my opinion. People are on Facebook and pretend to care, feel obligated to like things they really don’t care about all in the hopes their things will be equally, hollowly (is that a word?) rewarded.

Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping?

If I can't show it, if you can't see me

What's the point of doing anything?

What's the point of even sleeping?

So I stopped sleeping, yeah I stopped sleeping

Won't somebody sell me back to me?

The last two lines are the only new ones and they are some of the most powerful. Our digital witness has now given up on sleep, I don’t think literally. I think Annie is just sort of sarcastically pushing the obsession to the extreme but the line is necessary because the setup up for the final line is needed. Facebook operates by getting to know its users so they can advertise with smart bomb like accuracy. They are literally selling everything about you to everyone. That’s what I believe this line is saying in the literal sense, but I’d like to point out that like any good piece of poetry or lyrical content this piece is working on a number of levels and for the most part I’ve just scraped the top level off everything for this blog, otherwise this blog would be far, far too long. I will however hit the last line on more than one level because this line happens to be my favorite.

Won't somebody sell me back to me?

On the one hand you have the literal selling of one's information, the realization of just how much of yourself you’ve put out there for the whole world to see, for Facebook to monetize for advertisers. On the other you’ve created this persona online and worked so hard at perfecting, polishing this false image of yourself and your life that you no longer know who you really are and with terror beg to buy your real self back from the insatiable maw of Facebook's advertising algorithms.

Perhaps the thought has occured to you while reading this that I’m being hypocritical, yes I have a twitter account for my blog, yes I do wish more people would read this thing, yes my wife posts a link on Facebook hoping to get more readers. Does this make me a hypocrite? I begrudgingly agree to that to a certain extent.

This is what amazes me. I’ve been thinking about doing this type of blog and this particular song for all of these years and the one line that gave me trouble is now on about meaning number three or four but only after ACTUALLY beginning to write.

Gnashing Teeth

You can’t escape the digital witness game, even if you are an amazingly talented musician with tremendous guitar skills or you love to write and just want to get better. You still have to play the digital game, you still have to put yourself out there. Even if you feel as though what you’re making is more than just a window, more than just an instagram post by your co-worker’s cousin of the stir fry they just made for dinner.

After all, if I write it and no one reads it, what’s the point of writing anything?