Welcome Back! Wait, who ARE you?

Hard to believe it’s been over a year since I wrote anything on this.  Kind of fell by the wayside.  Pretty sure no one will read this, in a dusty forgotten corner of the Interverse, but I guess it’s really just more of my cathartic splashboard onto which I dump out the dregs of my emotional coffers.

I’be been separated for a year and a half now, divorced since September.  I’m getting through life, doing pretty good all things considered.

And yet.

Father’s Day came and went. And not one person wished me a happy Father’s Day. Well, that’s not true. My ex-wife and one co-worker.  No family. Not my mom, not my brother.  No aunt’s or uncles or any other relative.  No cards, no calls.

And of course, then I really have to be honest with myself.  What did I do for anybody else? Nothing.  No calls, no cards.  So, I guess karma’s a bitch, turnabout is fair play, or maybe, you reap what you sow is a little more apt.

I am broken.  I can be social, I can be friendly, but the effort involved in sustaining long-term relationships seems to be beyond me.  Most of the time, you get out of relationships what you put into them…and I haven’t been making any deposits lately.  Okay, maybe for a long time.

Part of it is that I’m a textbook introvert.  Social interactions take a lot of energy, and I never seem to have a lot of that.  It also takes planning, and deliberation, and follow-through.  Other things I’m weak on.  Just ask my ex.  Baddoom doomp.

I guess if I expect people to take the time, and make the effort, I need to do so as well.  I think maybe there’s a part of me, deep down inside, that doesn’t think that it will do any good.  That all I face is rejection and denial. Thanks for that, mom & dad.

And so I just don’t try.  Even though, time and again, it’s been shown that quality people will try and connect with me, try to establish that relationship.  And all I do is sabotage it.  And then rue and whine about why I’m so alone.

Sad. And so avoidable.  How do you break loose these old, dark, sabotaging thoughts that undercut you before you even get started?

I guess I’ve resigned myself to being alone.  I fear that fate…and yet seem powerless to avert it.  I know I’m not, and yet, seemingly choose to make it so.  Messed up, bent and broken.

Something’s got to give.

Awkward Holiday Much?

So, yeah, Mother’s Day is just around the corner, except that, Mother is actually 5,286.4 miles away in Las Fuckin’ Vegas baby, and yet I still feel honor bound to be all nicety-nice and send her the requisite cards despite it all.  Mostly from the two kids, cuz we made it very clear that through this all she was still their Mom, and that would never change, yada yada yada, and so I had them sign a couple of mushy-gooshy cards. Yes, I even sent one myself.  I guess I’m constitutionally incapable of being that much of an asshole.  Although you might want to get a second opinion on that from, you know, her.

Imagine the challenge of finding a card of appropriate vagueness and neutrality such that I could wish her a happy Mom’s Day while avoiding the requisite fawning adoration Hallmark and their ilk seem to think is somehow appropriate for this day.  Sheesh.  Lemmings.

And I DID find one, lo and behold.  Probably one designed for the reluctantly-tolerated mother-in-law type, or the mom who leaves her teenage kids and her husband to pursue some whimsical vision quest while telling said husband, “I love you, I’m just not IN love with you.”  Or words to that effect.  I probably translated it more closely to, “Fuck you, I’m outta here.  Loser.”  But, I might have just had a bad, pirated copy of Rosetta Stone or something.

But I’m not bitter.  No, really, it says right here. See?  “Not. Bitter.”

So for all you mothers out there, I hope you get delightful, mushy-gooshy cards from all your friends and family.  And for all you crazy meddling mothers-in-law or wives who hary off on a wild mid-life crisis in Las Vegas, I hope whatever card you get is written on the back of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese box, addressed in hastily scrawled pencil to,”Occupant.”

Again, most decidedly NOT BITTER!  Shut up.

Heart trouble.

You know how sometimes when you smash your thumb with a hammer, and there’s those few moments of numb shock when you know you’ve been injured, but nothing has really started to hurt yet?  You just stare at your thumb in shocked amazement, puzzled, yet dreading what you know is going to come?

Yeah, that’s been me over the last few months.  I’ve talked a lot of shit about being angry, but I haven’t really been dealing with what has happened to me.

Well, today the numbness finally wore off.  Not sure what is was that uncorked everything. Someone’s email, just time enough, don’t know.  But all of a sudden, I feel the growing ache of a broken heart.

I think before it was all about her. The emotions were external, oriented outward.  I was mad at HER, what SHE did, where SHE went, who SHE was with.

Now, the emotions are internal.  I’m finally feeling what I need to feel.  I’m finally acknowledging what is going on in my chest, in that place where my heart used to be.  Now, nothing but broken shards and dust.

I hurts. DAMMIT it hurts like a sonuvabitch. 17 years of trying, or pouring out my heart and soul, of trying to be what she wanted me to be, only to be told, time and again, it wasn’t good enough.  As a matter of fact, it was SO not good enough, that she took her business elsewhere.  Oh sure, she was more than content to live in my house, drive my cars, have me pay for her gas and her food and her clothes and her trips.  But that other stuff?  You know, the whole “forsaking all others” part?  Yeah, not so much.

It’s making me see that there are still of lot of things, a lot of emotions I haven’t allowed myself to deal with, to even admit were there.  I guess now it’s time.  But MAN….

It just…hurts.

So what ever happened to Hyperbole and a Half?

This is some hilarious and cool stuff right here, but she seems to have disappeared from teh intertubes?  Since, like, 2011?  Anyone? Bueller?

 

When “Free” Ain’t Really

This just in:  Your “free” health care will cost at least $108 Billion.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 23 million people who don’t have health insurance now will get it on one of the exchanges. More than 18 million of them will qualify for a federal subsidy averaging $6,000 a year per person.

Mathy Part Goes Here:

18 Million x $6,000 = $108,000,000,000

Englishy Part Goes Here:

“Federal Subsidies“: (n) pl; – Money the government takes from you in taxes so it can give it back to you in the form of grants to help offset the cost of the health insurance it is making you buy, which you can’t afford to pay on your own because your taxes are so high.

Explanationy Part Goes Here:

It’s okay, because it will always be $108 bil of someone ELSE’S money.  For everybody.  For everybody the costs will always be covered by somebody else’s (tax) money, which is why it’s free for everybody, even though the government has to subsidize your ability to pay for…the…free…uh…health……care…

O_º

(Sorry, it always seems to kind of break down around the “explanationy” part.)

Here, hold my beer. Watch this!

Holy muthafuggin bajeezus, when I wrote this, it was only to use hyperbole to express how utterly ridiculous the idea is, and how utterly appalingly stupid it should sound to each and every even remotely rational soul capable of even the most rudimentary cognition.

It honestly never even occurred to me that the dumbass would actually TRY it.

The Proposed $1.6 Trillion in Tax Hikes Already Threatening Jobs

How, honestly, in the name of all that is round and fulsome, do you NOT understand the devastating impact of imposing over a TRLLION dollars of new taxes on an already struggling working class?

At the SAME TIME that you are implementing policies which are driving employers to cut hours and drop benefits in order to stay in business?  Oh, and your energy policies are sending the price of once-abundant electricity through the roof, and oh-by-the-way, gas is approaching $5 a gallon in many places?

Quick Review, here:  A trillion is 1,000 billions.  Or, 1,000,000 millions.  The entire US population is hovering around a paltry 314 MILLION.  Not wage earners, mind you, but every mouth-breathing consumer of all types from infants to old farts in nursing homes.

How. In. The. HELL do you expect to squeeze over a million million dollars out of 314 million people?

Oh, sorry, wait.  What I meant to say was…over a million million MORE dollars than they are ALREADY PAYING?

So, let’s make everything cost more, while simultaneously taking away at least $2-3000 a year from the average family, all the while trumpeting how awesome your fiscal policy is, and oh my, isn’t is great how we kept those evil Tea-Partiers from getting into office?

Economics for the math challenged.

Also know as, Economics for the willfully ignorant, or, as I like to call them, “Liberals.”

Here it is, folks.  Plain and simple.  If you have a $1.4 TRILLION deficit, as in, planned spending over and above what you expect to receive in income, then you’d have to increase your income (in this case, taxes) by $1.4 TRILLION if you ever want to break EVEN!

So, if you have a federal government that hasn’t passed a federal budget in over four years, who thinks that things like “continuing resolutions” and “unfunded liabilities” are just an a-okay way to run the show, who continues to maintain that we can’t “afford” any spending cuts because OMG-You-hate-grandma-and-want-her-to-die, and whose only plan for solving this problem is to “tax the rich,” then you are, and let me see if I can come up with an appropriately descriptive term here….uhmmm, OH, I know:

Completely fucked.

And remember, that would just be to stop the bleeding, to keep the hole from getting any deeper.  Any talk of paying off the existing $16 Trillion in national debt would have to be an entirely separate and additional conversation.

The reality of it, of course, should be patently obvious to any but the most self-deluded, braindead, dumb-ass muthafuckin’ social reject (again, as I like to call them, “Liberals”):  You cannot pay off our debt, or solve our deficit problem just by increasing taxes on the rich.   You HAVE TO STOP SPENDING SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY. 

And yes, so, we put forth a couple of pretty hardass, ball-busting economics powerhouses to do just that.  And they and their ilk were summarily defeated in favor of the “We want our stuff, and we want it for free, and we want it now, and if we don’t get it we’ll throw ourselves down and have a tantrum like a demon-child in the candy aisle of Wal-Mart” crowd pleasers.

And yes, this is probably the most profanity I’ve ever posted on the internet at one time, because I’m just that damn pissed off.

I had a gentleman of color in my office the other day (or, as I like to call him, a black dude),  who was just giddy and bubbly and beside himself that Obama had been re-elected.   When I tried bring up all the problems and economic Bad Things going on, pretty much all he could do was grin like the cat that ate the canary and insist, “Obama’s gonna fix it.”  I’m not kidding.  That is a direct quote.  Try to pin him down on specifics, and he gets all vague, talks about generalities, points out quite eruditely the problems, but his only really solution was, “Obama’s gonna fix it.”  He couldn’t tell you how, or why he was so confident despite the fact that Obama hadn’t managed to fix it during the LAST four years, but he just knew.  He had faith.  It was The Obama.

How do you possibly face that kind of blind idealism, completely unassailable by anything resembling fact or reality?  It really does feel like a cult.

So, yeah.  We are so screwed, and enough of the country doesn’t care, just wants their stuff, and they want it for free, and how dare you even suggest we defund PBS or the National Endowment for the Arts, or National Education Assocation, or any of a million other useless boondoggle pork projects. Hater.

Yes, as a matter of fact, now that you ask…

I DID, in fact, eat all 12 of those donut holes.

And I did it with élan, and perhaps even a touch of verve.  And yes, I chewed slowly, with a smug, even condescending smirk, blatantly ingesting empty, meaningless calories in full view of everyone.

OUTLAW!

Provocative and Eye-Catching Title goes HERE

Well, when I started this blog, I actually thought I would blog. On it.  Frequently.  That I would join the ranks of the witty, scathing satirists and snarkophiles, my URL getting ladeled over blogrolls across the interwebs with great abandon.  Yes, people would come to my blog, and they would comment, and give me one of those virtual noogies or a punch in the shoulder about just how great that last post was, and really, why haven’t you written a book yet because you’re just that damn good/funny/charming/obnoxious?  I’d get a bunch of trackbacks and tweets with those wierd tiny urls.  Fawning posts on other blogs about how they were gonna blog about this or that, but Cheeze already did it, and really, just go read his post instead of mine.  Yes, you can almost see the little sparkles in my eyes as I gaze off, slightly up and to the left at that classic angle, fingers curved and set lightly under my chin, with a vague, distant smile as I let it all play out in my head.

Well, when I started this blog, I didn’t plan on having all my internal organs ripped out and replaced with radioactive sand.  But I digress.

I’m still trying to come to grips with this whole separation thing. Some days I’m all self-righteous and angry about what SHE is doing TO me, and then next I’m all melancholy and angsty, wondering what it was I did to make this happen.  And then I’m back with the, “I’ve done so much, tried so hard, how come it’s never enough?!?”  Only to cycle over into picking over every mistake, holding it up, looking at it in great, morose detail, then smashing myself in the forehead with it over and over again.

It’s hard not to write about something when it’s consuming your life, but I really don’t want this to turn into a whinging ooh-I’m-getting-divorced blog.  Because, yeah, THAT’S the way to keep your customers coming back for more!  Now with even MORE 13-year-old emo drama in every bite!  Ga’ak.

Is there an apostrophe in “Ga’ak?”  Gaak?  Probably not, eh?

So, how about those debates, eh?  Romney really brung it, right?  I didn’t actually see either one, but I’ve read a lot of blog posts about them, so that’s pretty much the same thing.  I honestly don’t understand how Obama is still in the running for anything other than the guy who wipes down the chrome on your car after you take it through the car wash.  Considering what a hash he’s made of our economy, our national prestige, and just about everything else he’s touched, I’da thought even the Democrats could have run somebody against him and won.  But no, it looks like the cult of Obama is a strong as ever.

Now if only my marriage had that kind of staying power.  Damn.  Did it again. Sorry.

I fear that my chosen means of dealing with the stress will be food, and I will balloon myself up to 200 pounds.  Because THAT’S what a woman want in her man.  Uncontrolled obsessive eating.  Not that it matters at this point, DOES IT?! NO!  A LITTLE LATE NOW, ISN’T IT?!

Crap. Gotta quit that.

So, yeah, elections coming up.  Got my absentee ballot. No, you don’t get to know where I live.  I plan to be an informed voter and actually research all the candidates in my local election, even though I haven’t actually lived in my “home” states for eight years. No, you don’t get to know that either.  Okay, it’s Washington state.  But that’s it. That’s all you get. 

I have a sort of cynical attitude towards absentee ballots.  I figure their like some sort of consolation prize, or the trophy that everyone gets these days at the end of the soccer season, so that you can feel like you actually participated, even though everybody knows they don’t actually count for shit.  Kind of like everything I’ve tried to do in my MARRIAGE for the last 17 YEARS!

Heavy sigh. My sincerest apologies.  I guess I really do need to go have a quiet time somewhere.  Maybe have a few drinks.  Mellow out a bit. Because, I mean, after all it doesn’t matter if I drink NOW, DOES IT, HONEY?!  DOES IT?!

Damnit.

I read it for the articles….

So, I’m thinking of going to see the Katy Perry movie tonight.  Because, well, Katy Perry.