Tag: relationships

Why Not Just Let That Shit Go? Or, How Not To Be A Total Dick During A Pandemic

A bit blurry. I know. But hilarious nonetheless and a good image for today’s writing, #HeresMyButt

Stay-at-home/shelter-in-place, day one, and I have already gone out to go feed my cat.

This is the week that KWeeks and I are together; on alternating weeks, he is with his daughter. I have abandoned my kitty to stay with Khristian but go home daily to feed him wet food, love on him, remind him I will be home soon.

There were still cars on the road, but not many. There were still people walking around, but not many, and usually alone or in groups of two, close together so you can know that they live in the same household.

What there was a lot of, unusually for Hampden, was police cars. I passed five in the mile-and-a-half drive to my house. It’s not tanks down the streets, but it feels close to that.

This seems fitting, this sense of lowering doom, as this will be the last week that Khristian and I spend together for who knows how long. The perils of joint custody, I suppose, with me as the casualty.

Woe is me, right? I wonder how many other people are struggling with this and not saying anything. Divorced people who share custody of children but cannot bring themselves to be kind enough to fully disclose what happens in their houses, placing the kids, the custodial parents, and their partners at risk.

It’s situations like this that make me believe that we will not, in fact, come out any better on the other side of this. Even when it comes to endangering another person’s life -whether you like them or not – there are still people so wrapped up in their own bullshit and power struggle that they cannot see what is best. They cannot rise above their ego to consider other people.

Here’s a thought: if you are normally a total selfish dick, maybe now is the time to step back and take a look at that behavior. Maybe now is a good time to let go of your vitriolic hatred. Maybe you could stop doing things that intentionally hurt others. Maybe you could soften just a little and recognize that things could be so much easier if you just let that shit go.

So. What are you learning to let go of? What are you still clinging to? And how is that working out for you?

And Still Life Goes On

Lovemaking, circa Pandemic 2020.

It’s Monday, and I am taking a breaking between laundry detergent delivery and a FaceTime conversation that was a little fraught.

My day job is a freelance writer, and this morning I got back to what I refer to as my mercenary writing (the stuff I actually get paid for). It’s time; a few deadlines for April are approaching, and I like to get my stuff in a couple of weeks (at least) ahead of time.

Today’s first topic was 2,000 words on testicular pain, and this afternoon’s topic is breast pain.

I could not figure out a way to work this in to the actual article, but I have decided to open a new sports bar after Pandemic 2020 and call it The Twisted Testicle (TM). Then I will coin phrases like, “Don’t get your testicles in a twist,” which is quite a bit more serious than panties in a wad and so forth.

And then I submitted the first article to my editor and realized how strange it is to be writing anything about anything except COVID.

And then I realized that what we might need now more than ever is anything about anything EXCEPT for COVID.

Or not. I guess we all deal with things differently.

When I log on to the Netflix or the Hulu or the Amazon at night, I am looking for frothy, stupid comedy or cooking shows that stop just short of making me feel like a total moron, but the movie Outbreak was #9 across the country when Khristian Weeks and I watched it last Thursday, so it seems I might be one of the few who functions that way.

I haven’t checked lately, but I would be willing to bet that apocalypse programming is doing pretty well, even this week as Baltimore stops justshort of a shelter-in-place order to help save idiots (and their families) from themselves.

So what to do, how to think, how to feel, what to watch? How strange is it write about breast and testicular pain, except that there are still people with painful boobs and balls, and they need information, too, right?

This blog is the mental ramble that rainy cold weather prevented me from physically taking today.

So let’s make a list: what are you watching/reading/listening to as we continue with our social distancing?