Sometimes, there’s just too much going on to write

In the time since our last posts, so much has happened in our lives, and in the greater world, and in the world of GoT, that it feels truly overwhelming.  I can’t keep up with it all.  If I was to try to describe everything in great detail, it would take multiple posts of extraordinary length.  And right now I don’t have the time or the energy.

I am just going to try to summarize everything with just one one post.  At least for now.

The things going on in the world are just so unbelievable and so heartbreaking, I can’t even get into it because frankly it is just too frustrating and depressing for me.  It’s as if the world has truly gone just completely insane.  I have no idea what is going to happen in the next few weeks and months in regards to American politics, but I doubt much of it will end well in the long run.  I think what frightens me most is not the possibility of a Trump presidency (which is small, I think – I don’t think he will win, but God help us all if I am wrong), but the fact that we have arrived at a point where there is ANY possibility of it happening at all, and the political establishment of this country (politicians, pundits, and media of all kinds) acting like that is no big deal that we have reached this point.  Our political discourse has deteriorated to the point where it isn’t just swirling around the metaphorical bowl, it is deep in the sewer now and we are all along for the ride.  The fact that we are on the brink of one of the major political parties of the United States, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, officially selecting as its Presidential candidate a walking, talking, human-Cheeto hybrid that is utterly incapable of empathy or serious reflection of any kind, completely unwilling to admit he is ever wrong or that anyone else could possibly have anything worthwhile that they could teach him, is just stunning.  A man whose ego is so massive and overbearing and yet somehow still fragile that he feels compelled to respond to any and all criticism personally via social media or in front of TV cameras.  And our utterly vapid, shallow, reactionary and sensationalist media is more than happy to oblige him.  How much lower can we push that bar, I wonder?

I keep waiting for someone in a position of influence to say “this is nuts, everyone just stop it” but it doesn’t happen.  We just keep going further and further down the rabbit hole.  I remember just ten years ago, thinking that politics in this country couldn’t get much more debased and that politicians couldn’t get much more reactionary and ignorant, and look at what we have now.  We went in my lifetime from a President Reagan and a Speaker of the House O’Neill, who couldn’t be farther apart politically but could still generally agree to get things done for the good of the country, to a Congress that literally can’t accomplish anything, with the GOP majority automatically going against anything and everything that the President is for because he is for it – a perfect circle of illogic – even when he adopts their own Republican ideas.  It’s completely and utterly insane.

I remember thinking just a few years ago that media couldn’t get much worse either, that it was getting more dumbed-down and more sensational, and figured between Fox News’ alternate reality and CNN trying to match them dumb for dumb, it couldn’t get much worse.  Then CNN hires the likes of Jeffrey Lord and Corey Lewandowski, two guys who are so godawful that they make Don Lemon look like Walter Cronkite in comparison.  And all the networks basically are more interested in showing an empty podium or an empty parking lot where something might happen than actually try to explain anything useful whatsoever.  Sure, we could have scientists or historians or other actual experts  to explain what is actually happening in the world… but no, let’s bring on ten or twenty loudmouthed pundits to speculate on what might happen.  God forbid we have some actual experts to come on and talk about anything, when it’s so much more interesting to just round up a bunch of illiterate random idiots who are seemingly on  hallucinogens and see what THEY have to say.  In the rare instances where someone with a clue DOES happen to show up, the media of course has to counterbalance them with some tinfoil-hat-wearing mouthbreather who works for some “think tank” and has a very tenuous grip on facts and reality in general. And since journalism apparently has no more interest in reporting facts, but instead prefers to report opinions, we find ourselves stuck in a hell of “he said/she said” style commentary where there are literally anywhere from two or three to six or more talking heads all on the screen at once, shouting at each other, each interrupting and trying to drown the others out, like some sort of psychotic Hollywood Squares.   This is why I stopped watching TV news years ago.

I can’t even discuss GoT right now, it just feels so trite to do so.  Just as my favorite show does some truly amazing and unexpected things, the real world decides to out-crazy the show.

The only thing going on right now that gives me hope, that gives me something to truly look forward to in the near future, is that Kelly and I are in the process of buying our first house, which is both exciting and a bit scary.  I never really appreciated just how much was involved with doing that, but if you have never done it, I can assure you that it involves a LOT of different things all moving at once. It is stressful and time-consuming, and even with us splitting up the mountain of tasks that have to be accomplished (Kelly taking the lead on all the paperwork and bureaucracy, and me taking the lead on all the cleaning and packing) it still feels a bit overwhelming at times.  We will be overjoyed to finally have our own place, and the prospect of a 2016 holiday season in a beautiful home of our very own really does motivate me to get more accomplished.  Sadly, it also means that a lot of other things have to be put off until all this is over. There simply isn’t time.  I hate it, but there it is.

And yet, we are still moving towards the end and all that entails.  But I won’t go into a lot of detail now.  Not yet. There are still too many question marks, and I don’t want to start talking about the place until everything is settled and we are actually able to put up pictures of all of us in the new place.  We are excited for ourselves, and for our furry kids, who we are sure will also enjoy the new place very much.

Trying to focus on the positive.  I need more videos of puppies and hummingbirds and baby otters and cats.  They help me get through my day sometimes.

-Geoff