Saturday, February 15, 2020

 Well, shoot. Another day where I really don't have anything kicking around my noggin screaming and clawing to get out. Ah, but we persevere and the Work must be done.



 I don't really understand why. I'm in a fairly decent mood, if that sort of exhausted tired that I can't figure out where it comes from or what causes it. The professional consensus is I'm bored and need to do something to stimulate myself. The Therapist cheerleads another Trip like I took last year. I certainly won't take on something as monumental as that, but I guess I am about do to get off this Hill before I start climbing the walls.

 I'm not sure where I'd go. Portland or San Francisco would be too much to drive again, and honestly I'd rather drive than fly. I like to ramble, have a destination but no path, and fill it in as I go along. That was the best part of last year's Big Trip, just wandering around and seeing what I could see. I'd get a wild hair first thing in the morning and spend the rest of the day going to Woody Creek seeing much of rich-as-hell-but-incredibly-beautiful mountain country in Colorado along the way.

 Anyhow, I got a buddy in Vegas and I'd like to see more of that. It would give me the chance to do the Southwest sweep I had initially planned for the Big Trip but wound up calling off. See my people down in New Orleans for a couple days, swing through places of importance like San Antonio and Tombstone, maybe see more of the Grand Canyon.

 Ain't going to lie, the main reason I skipped that on the Trip was because by the time I left California, I was worn out and tired of driving. I just wanted to be home or, at the very least, not have to be on the road anymore. Another big part of it was the amount of medicine I had in the car, I had no desire to go near the Border and deal with the Border Patrol fascists down there. I forget what it was, but something foul happened down there while I was in North California and it just wasn't worth the risk.

 Anyhow. I haven't even looked at the News so I have no idea what's going on, apart from Trump quoting someone quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson and he's decided it means someone's calling him a king. Which it's not, but he doesn't know and his herd doesn't care because it's "owning the libs", and that's the only thing that matters to them. Doesn't matter how dumb or unsettling whatever he says is, so long as the libs are owned, the humanoids are happy. Or, as happy as they get, anyway. Miserable bunch of bastards who's only joy is seeing suffering in others.

 The Coronavirus seems to be leveling off according to the World Health Organization, so that's some good news. The disease springing from the virus, COVID-19, has spread to more than two dozen countries and, as right now, officials still have no way to deal with it. However, WHO says China's method of containing the disease "bought the world some time" if we only will use it. The country where it originated marks over 66,000 cases and over 1,500 deaths at last count, the bulk of the world figures. So don't get snooty.

 Here's a neat interview with Philip K. Dick from 1977. He's in France talking about how his work was better received there than in America and how his paranoia of being watched by the government and police - which he was, matter of fact - evaporated after Nixon resigned. In his Exegesis and the 1981 novel VALIS, he refered to it as "the Black Iron Prison," essentially claiming the world never moved on from the Fall of Masada in 74 CE, everything since is an illusion overlaying this reality. Well... maybe. It could very well just be a metaphor coming from a guy who thinks God or a satellite or a satellite that is God implanted lost wisdom in his brain via a pink laser beam, so who knows. Read it yourself and decide.

 I didn't wind up playing any games last night but I did get a wild hair from reading this piece from the New Republic. So I went to Tumblr, and pounded out this jeremiad over why defeating Trump at the box office is just the first step. We need to completely dismantle the Republican party and the Modern American Conservative infrastructure if we hope to evolve at all as a culture. Dick didn't live long enough to see Reagan, much less Bush Junior or Trump, and I wonder what he'd say about the Black Iron Prison now. Anyhow, check it out and encourage my behavior.

 The rain's gone but the effect continues, especially in Jackson. Lots of flooding going down there just from the runoff from the rain playing hell with the Pearl River. It's been declared a state emergency and is a massive pain, but everyone down there seems to be dealing with it well enough and keeping on higher ground. Stay dry if you're in that way.

 Here in Enon Holler, though, it was sunny and cool but not cold. Me and Otis took us a nice constitutional, had a nice nap, and, hey, I've blown away my word count. So that's that, I suppose, and we'll see what tomorrow brings.