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For decades, North Carolina’s economy thrived largely due to its relatively moderate government and its relatively well educated population compared to its neighbors. The current Republican administration seems determined to do away with both. They have apparently determined that the best way to stay in power is to keep everyone ignorant and poor by destroying public education and through backward social legislation that scares off they very types of businesses and professions that might actually build the economy.

When I moved back here from California eleven years ago, I was pretty happy to be back in the “sane” part of the South. I didn’t realize I’d gotten here just in time for the birth of a new Mississippi. Ad campaigns notwithstanding, North Carolina is starting to feel a lot less like home.

I’ll stay, mainly because I have a pretty good life and a really good job, and because I want to piss off the assholes who have taken over a state that may not have been perfect but that used to be a hell of a lot better than it is now. Staying will be my own little way of telling Phil Berger and his mob to bite me.

Signal-to-noise

What I know about Bernie because of social media:

  • He is the salvation of the planet.
  • The media, the Democratic Party, and the cosmos just aren’t being fair to him.
  • He still has a chance to be nominated. Really.
  • He is a democratic socialist, which is (of course) the exact same thing as a communist.

What I know about Hilary because of social media:

  • She is (of course) the only electable candidate.
  • Unless, that is, “Bernie’s kids” think Donald Trump is a better option than she is, which many of them apparently do.
  • She is also the antichrist and eats adorable puppies for dinner on dishes paid for exclusively by large corporations.
  • She then uses her personal email servers to send pictures of the dead puppies to Nancy Reagan’s ghost.

What I need to be reminded of constantly via misspelled and oversimplified social media memes or by stupid fucking clickbait “journalism” links originating from the followers of either:

  • None of the above.

I miss media with editors. 

While sitting in the hospital with my mom this morning, I’ve been doing lots of Facebook and Twitter pruning.  

Spring cleaning is fun. 

Happy anniversary to me (another one)

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It may seem an odd thing to celebrate, but as of today, I have been single again for five years.

Today in 2011, I was in a pretty rotten place. I’d pretty much known where things were headed for several months; deciding that we weren’t going to live together anymore (or even live in the same time zone) was a pretty unmistakeable sign. But I was still unprepared for how hard it hit me on that Wednesday night when I realized that it was really over after nine very happy years and six really shitty months.

Being “coupled” has never been my natural state, even though there were some times that I really wanted it to be…and even though there was one time where it really did feel right. By the time I met Mark in 2001, I was pretty comfortable–hell, even enthusiastic–about the prospect of remaining a confirmed bachelor for life. One very serious case of love changed all that and I do not for a minute regret that it happened. All in all, it was a very happy time in my life and I was very sad when it ended.

The fact that it ended at a time when there were a lot of other things going on in my life made it much harder, and the fact that I didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking about most of it even with close friends made it even harder.In the end, I was not prepared to make one really big compromise that might have (at best) delayed the end, but would have done so at the expense of my sanity and my emotional health–which looks in retrospect like the very moment I started my recovery. It didn’t seem like it at the time but ultimately, I realized there was a bigger problem in my life/brain/body chemistry/whatever and I began working on that. Pretty successfully, I think.

But I’ve also spent the past five years learning how once again to be that single person I used to love. I think I’ve been pretty successful at that, too. Frankly, I like myself better as a single person. I think most of my friends like me better that way, too. I’m more adventurous, I generally have more fun, and I don’t have to have anyone else along for the ride when I travel (which in itself is justification enough). And the introvert in me has more time for my friends now that most of the limited time I’m willing to allot to other people is not dedicated to just one other person.

I’m also more independent. In retrospect, I gave up a lot of that when I was coupled, just because it was easy to do so, and he was willing to take over a lot of things and make a lot of decisions. And, of course, that really wasn’t fair to either of us. It took me a long time to get back in the habit of taking care of things on my own. I’m still working on it. I think the task of building a very successful and satisfying new career while I was pretty much in “the depths” is what saved me. In fact, I didn’t even miss one day of work, which either means that I really loved my job or that I was scared to stay home the next day. Or both.

Again, I don’t regret having spent nine-plus years in this relationship. Not for a second. I do have some regrets about the end and the aftermath, but that’s to be expected.

Five years later, though, I also don’t regret where I am today. I’m happy, I like my life, and I finally gave the goddamned chair to Habitat.

I think that’s worth celebrating.

Sling has slung

Yeah, that title was pretty bad. Sorry.

I have terminated the great Sling TV experiment, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, I realized that even though the cost was much lower, I was still paying more money than I wanted every month for maybe two channels that I ever really watched. And I also realized that I wasn’t even watching those two channels all that often.

Second, the on-demand functionality is really a mess. The big issue (and it’s very much a known issue) is that on-demand streams have a tendency to freeze. When they do, the Sling TV app does not remember when the break occurred. That would be a little annoying, but it’s made even more annoying by the fact that the fast-foward function does not really work. At all. Or at least not on Roku, OS X, or iOS. That means you have to basically start over every time it happens. And it happens a lot.

So I’m sticking with my over-the-air channels (getTV kinda rocks) and my Netflix. I may invest in a Hulu subscription. I have a shelf full of DVDs and a hard drive full of downloads and home-recorded material as well.

And if all else fails, I could read the occasional book…

Respectfully sumbitted

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perry

Raymond Burr for SCOTUS. Why?

  1. He’s a gay Californian, which would make the left happy.
  2. He’s not a lawyer but he played one on TV, which would appeal to the Trump contingent.
  3. He’s dead, which would satisfy all the people who despise “activist judges.”

Just a thought…

Letting go

When a relationship ends after almost ten years, it always involves lots of emotion.

Let’s face it. I got dumped. He basically told me it was over and that there was no need for us to see each other anymore. I was just redundant and irrelevant to him at this point. Of course he gave me the standard line about how he’d always be there for me if I needed him, etc.

And I’m finally OK with it now.

I can get by without him.

In fact, most people live completely happy and healthy lives without an oncologist.

Not my girl

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247882899″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
New Tokyo Police Club. They’ll be here in April, thus permitting me to see them for the second time and to provide a friend with a good birthday present. Plus, as an (honorary?) child of the 1990s, how can I not love an EP entitled Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness?