Walkabout Thoughts #51

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts… July 11, 2023, Tuesday

Weather for the day… 57 degrees began walking at 8:10 AM, 71 degrees upon arriving home

Podcast: State of Ukraine, then Pod Save America, then Strict Scrutiny

Check the price of the house for sale across the street.

Yesterday I mailed off two DVDs of my films ("Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" and "Gumdrop", a short horror) to a filmmaker in Albuquerque at Experiments in Cinema.

Why did I stop posting an Instagram shot/video on my walkabouts? Because of changes to Instagram that I found annoying and convoluted. I liked just posting pictures... for years. Something I really got into when I was traveling around Ireland in 2015. I got home and found I'd lost access, someone hacked my account. It took a while but I eventually got it back. Then they made changes toward shooting videos for Instagram, probably because of TikTok and maybe also because of YouTube shorts. But now it’s just gotten, for me anyway, not simply click and shoot like I used to do. Some of these enhancements we see may be financial enhancements for the company, but too often seem like just a pain in the ass for users.

I have to take usually half a Benadryl if I take anything on these walks. Usually I don’t have to. If I feel my blood pressure being uncomfortable, which can be just slightly high, I take one and then I don’t feel it. I assume it’s got something to do with histamine levels. I’m hoping it’s just long Covid dragging on because I figured if it goes away by April 20, 2024. I’m doing good. That would be two years. If not, then long covid may have evoked some permanent changes. Or who knows, it could go away in an extra year or so after that. I bought a bottle of Benadryl from Costco for years ago and it was so much I gave, probably less than half, to one of my kids who lives with heir spouse on 5 acres, up north. My bottle sat with far too many for too long. I didn’t think I’d ever use them, just end up throwing them out and buying a new bottle when they expired. But because of long Covid this past year, I’m now almost out of what I had left and bought a 2 bottle pack from Costco online which has now arrived.

From the podcast, Pod Save America (or was it this ep?, the Ukraine one is only ever a few minutes long, which is sad, but always informative…). They’re talking about how years ago they helped Bernie Sanders beat Pete Buttigieg for POTUS election. Got me thinking because I was a Bernie supporter as were, I  my kids (no, they didn't always agree with dad as I was for Hillary, they way weren't, much for disinformation reasons, some promoted by Russia, however). I know one of them for sure went with me to see one of his speeches in Seattle, which was an awesome event. I suspect had Bernie won the presidency, what Republicans did to Obama would’ve happened in a different format to Bernie. Because when you consider the reaction against two terms of Obama, in Trump elected ridiculously as POTUS, they viewed Bernie's social leanings as toxic Socialism. Which is not America who doesn’t do foreign versions of toxic Socialism as other countries did. We’re just not designed that way. So all this talk about we’re going to be socialist is fantabulistic bullshit. Mostly propped up by those who immigrated from an abusive socialist  country like Cuba under Castro. So in their misguided well intentioned diatribes, they have damaged America and caused this issue of China in Cuba now, Because we didn’t at least somewhat normalize relations long ago, because we didn’t like Castro, which I didn’t like Castro, but there must’ve been a way we could’ve kept our enemies there closer? You know? Goddamn political science isn’t that difficult unless you bring humans into it! Yes, that’s a joke. Sort of. But it’s also true. So Conservatives and Republicans and bigots equated Obama being a black president, as they would have Bernie being a “socialist“ POTUS. The ignorance and divisiveness, stupidity and disingenuousness around social programs merely to aid our citizens, and not just reward, and not tax the wealthy and corporate... it’s just mind-boggling in our country. What's left of it by this point (Thanks GOP). How Republicans ever got poor people to vote for rich people is really kind of insane.

Once again on that, how are Republicans in power at all ever, reminds one or two of the old adage, "they can’t see the forest for the trees", because Republicans pick these little annoying thing just to fire up their base and those people can’t see their overall plan and path. Which of late has been autocracy. I noticed on "Alex Wagner Tonight" (last night she had on her old friends from "The Circus", great show), that behind her on the background graphics at the top of a "building" it said, correctly: "Authoritarianism"). In every autocratic country they bring an autocrat populist leader to power. It never seems to farewell however for those delusional people in their belief that what, an asshole will make things better? Really. As example Turkey and around 50,000 buildings that fell because of bad building codes due to Ergogan's backroom deals with contractor friends. And let's not mistake or forget the role of religion, which is basically an ethereal power and magical thinking autocracy with “God“ as the "populist leader".

When an atheist ever says things like, “thank God”, they’re not being hypocrites as I’ve heard theists claim, they’re being ironic. And if they’re not being ironic, because they’re not really thinking that deeply into using such a common idiom, then they just using a common phrase, perhaps one we all grew up hearing. Which was much the same during the founding of this country and many who claim that makes this a Christian nation, don’t know much about our Founding Fathers, or the elements and extent of Freemasonry in our nation's founding. Of which I can speak, because I was nearly head of my lodge in Freemasonry years ago, but had to step down due to nearly tragic, traumatic family matters. As it should be, my family, and in this case, my kids, were more important than anything outside our home.

Insert photo here of my Covid book in Yakima at my eldest son’s store (top of photo).

"Suffering Long Covid"

Stopped "Pod Save America" and switch it over to find and add/follow (thinking I had already done that), the "Strict Scrutiny" podcast about yet another ridiculous enemy of democracy, The Federalist Society. And apparently on societies at large, there is that one Clarence Thomas that joined years ago, that introduced him to all his wealthy billionaire friends. The, Horatio Alger Association, for the wealthy (from Rolling Stone).

The Republican Party ended various infections, such as the Tea Party, WSnon, MAGA, but they are our party of weaponizing and being that concept of flight inversion for a pilot where they think they are upside right while their instruments tell them no, and they cannot accept or believe reality and so ended up pulling up on their flight control, and right down into the ground. I can think of no better metaphor for what we’ve been seeing these past few decades with the GOP, and especially since Trump hit the political stage. Again Republicans getting the lower classes to vote Republican, or minorities, including Latinx, in moving from the Democratic Party, who granted, had ridiculously ignored them, because I get you shouldn’t be ignored. But whether I’m ignored or not, I would still stick with the people who have my best interests at heart. The GOP are petty retailers using their consumers, their voters, in any way possible to profit off them with the belief that even if they killed them, there will be more to come. At least Democrats don’t look at voters that way.

I really need to finish my academic book on my film "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero". The older I get, the harder it is for me too feel the motivation and endurance I used to have, which could be at times, fucking heroic. My last summer quarter of University after graduating, I had wanted to graduate with at least one screenplay under my belt. But that hadn't happened in my year long special team screen and script writing series of classes. So I wrote my first full length screenplay that summer. I was taking three classes in the mornings as college classes typically are, twice a week or whatever, just to get my VA benefits. I only had one school quarter of that left to pay for my school and apartment while my girlfriend went to Tacoma, where we’re from, to get a job and find us a place to live. I spent all day and night, studying and writing the screenplay. Sixteen hour days wasn't unusual. I rented an RCA video player which uses vinyl record like discs to play a movie, audio AND video, which fascinated me in 1984. I rented a machine and I think five movies. One was "Brainstorm" with Christopher Walken. I liked it so much the first time around, I watched it four more times that day taking notes and mapping out the structure of each scene. By that evening I was pretty tired of watching the same film, fives times. Or I should say I mapped out the overall structure of what kinds of scenes were where? I plotted out the kinds and format of the scenes. Like when you have a lighthearted or comic scene prior to someone being murdered in a horror movie. I built my screenplay on that model. Just for something fun to do and to see what happened. I liked what I came up with – two professors gave me an "A" on that screenplay. I had first talked to them about doing this. One credit per prof for a self study class. You could create your own "class", if you got a professor advisor for it to have them sign off on it and then turn it into them at end of quarter and then they to grade you or maybe give you a pass/fail. Professor Schaeffer said, "Cool", and I gave him the screenplay end of quarter and that was it. The same with Professor Rees. I had previously done that with Dr. Reese for shooting a film on phenomenology. Which was my first ever film, shot outside of maybe our family home movies if my parent said, "Here, shoot this", when I was a kid, or something. I was also an AV tech for my family and later in high school I took a class as an A/V tech (Audio visual), where I was one of those guys who came to your classroom to run whatever your teacher needed. I remember taking a projector to a girl's "Health" class in 12th grade but some of the girls complained. The teacher sent me out of class after I had set things up and the girls voted: should he stay to run the projector, or should the female teacher? I could see them raising their hands or not through the window in the door. I nearly was voted in to stay. For some reason that made me feel pretty good. Anyway back at university, Dr. Rees also said I would have to give him a log I should keep, which would be what he “graded“ me on. I so wish I had made a copy of that. He later told me he showed it to all his classes and one girl in particular complained that especially in one scene, all she saw was my ego. He corrected her, having read my log and intentions and mindset, that he knew for a fact she was incorrect. What I found interesting about that for myself, was that in cinema it doesn't always matter what the filmmaker intends, but also what is being projected and/or understood by viewers. As for Dr. Rees, my girlfriend were lucky to get Dr. Rees as advisor. We had many of the same classes together and were kind of a noted couple on campus for our tending toward being at the top of any class we were in...except for psychology statistics, one of the hardest classes either of us ever had and we had a legacy professor and statistician whose father and grandfather were noted people in the history of that discipline and to be sure as he warned us in our research we would repeatedly run into the three of them. We were lucky to have gotten Dr. Rees as our advisor at Western Washington University, but the moment we first saw him, the way he looked, like a thinner crazy looking Einstein, with wild hair and a forked beard like some Chinese philosopher, we knew immediately... he was our guy. And he was an incredible choice. If you ever heard about. and I’ve talked about this before, when Brown University shut down in protest in the 1960s, when the students took over the college president's office, they went to the on campus think tank which he was a part of as a student and the leaders of the students did something smart. They asked their group: "Here’s our situation. What do we do?" So his group of guys got together, talked about it and then presented their model to the students. Which the students then executed, and made international news. Anyway, that screenplay of mine is, “Ahriman” which I have also discussed previously on this blog years ago. This blog which has been running since 2010.

Perhaps I should mention this. I got connected with a company who will take your screenplay and turn it into a book format, give the elements to you and then you can upload it to sell on Amazon. They just the other day sent me the cover graphic [df file and text elements file, which simplified my work to put it up on Amazon. I’ve asked the AI if it's a good idea. After a few iterations of honing my query to it, and it thinking I meant, should I sell it in novelization form… No, I meant a book that is the screenplay, just in book format… it basically said, "probably not a good idea, if you’re still trying to sell it to a studio." So I put it up there so it’s ready if I ever do want to publish it and that way I get my own copy of it, but not open it to the public so I can give it to others. I know my kids would like a copy. So I did that and I have copies coming as a proof and sent my oldest a copy as he's into collecting them and my youngest doesn't yet really have the room at their place.

As I told my son yesterday about this, I remember in high school when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" came out. Big film. We all loved it. My cousin went to a high school south of my school district in  the suburb of Parkland by McChord Air Force Base. That's the area I lived in when we returned from Spain and Philly in 1960. All of her actor friends had a paperback version of the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" screenplay. Which I thought was bizarre. But of course I bought my own copy and read it. Which was fascinating for me in it being my first screenplay read. I was a voracious fiction/non-fiction reader. I wish I still had my copy of that that paperback. Anyway, I really need to quit procrastinating and finish my academic companion book for "Pvt. Ravel’s Bolero". [I'm working on it again now, a little be every day after asking the AI if my Table of Contents was good...it said yes, but made other suggestions to add and, I have, now I just need to write those chapters]

I got this short sleeve Tommy Bahama shirt some years ago. It’s light blue and I like it a lot, it’s in good condition, just a little sun bleached. I had an interesting green pull over coat that I really liked years ago, and I’ve discussed on this blog in the past, which had the same issue from being in my car too much in the sun hitting it too much. I had given it to my youngest, who a couple years later didn’t want it any more, so I happily took it back (having had regretted giving it up) and thought, "What the hell, I gave it away, I’ll try dying it green. I knew some of it had maroon trim in it and I thought I'd ruin that, but, oh well, better all  green." So I died at green and... it came out looking brand new, the maroon was still maroon, but the green now looked a nice solid green again. So I’m gonna get some light blue dye and toss in the shirt and see how that works. I know, not rich peoples concerns, but yeah, maybe “"irst world problems". Still, doesn't hurt to look nice.

I have to say. for those who might want to walk or exercise, maybe listening to a podcast or music to distract you, especially maybe if you feel a bit isolated or alone, which I kind of like to do, transcribing your thoughts when you have a thought, especially one that others might be interested in, is really an aid and positive technique to make you feel less isolated.

It's been over my 13 years of this blog, which began with two blogs a day, seven days a week to quickly get articles online back then. I now have 1600 posts, with this one here. I always thought it would be fun to go through all of these and pick out any little pearls of wisdom I may have inadvertently dropped, to put them all into a single compendium of thoughts. Which would be better if someone else did it, objectively. That would be a lot of work. If I were rich, I could hire a writer to do it, or a researcher. Or maybe someday, probably soon, I’ll be able to point an AI at it and for a small fee, have it digest, analyze and divulge said compendium of knowledge. In the meantime, years ago I did have the foresight to start some pages off of this blog as what I called, "Quotes on the Murdock" (oldest, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, newest). Because, I'm always seeing quotes by others, famous thinkers or authors, or just known people being quoted, and I wanted somebody to do that with me. No big deal but I do think I've said the wise little observation in life from time to time and I just wanted to think I had something to say it was worth sharing. That I actually said something worth repeating. It’s funny, I look over those pages now and I find, reasonably so perhaps, that the more recent ones are the ones more relevant to the masses. The earlier ones are too long and maybe not quite as well defined.

Damn sweets! I went shopping at Winco yesterday and while I didn’t get sweets to last until the next shopping trip, I did get some for yesterday and hopefully some where I’ll just have like one cookie a day after lunch, and I don’t think that’s a problem. I’ve been having a healthier kind of ice cream bar which isn’t very big that I have after lunch, but rather than having one of those after lunch every day this time, I got 1 pint of Ben & Jerry’s and ate that yesterday and now no worries, no ice cream in the house. Eating something not good for you once in a while is fine. Maybe a small amount every day is fine. The reason we eat healthy is so once in a while we can enjoy eating for fun. But I need to drop 20 pounds or I’m gonna start getting telegrams from my knees going. "Hey! Knock it the fuck, off pal! YOU try carrying your weight up there...down here, like we do!"

One of the women on the Strict Scrutiny podcast is talking about her book “Ideas”, that she said one reviewer said was "jarringly academic". Reminds me of my own academic/scientific e-book on the history of psychology and using synesthesia and schizophrenia to study each of those through each of those, if you see what I’m saying.  "On Psychology: With Illustration in Psychopathology via Synesthesia and Schizophrenia". That was weird because I just wanted to get it out to people. I wrote it in like '83 in senior level university abnormal psychology seminar. it was my final paper. And I completely blew away my professor and our small class, sitting around a round table. This was that exciting, final senior year where we were told there’s no more tests, you have to prove yourself through oral and written reports and discourse. Speaking for myself, I didn't know that was coming. It was a day of exhilaration. No more tests?!! That was so exciting and rewarding. Of course any other non psychology classes I had not in my major would still have tests. But then I was also that year into my special series of team screen and scriptwriting, which also was awesome. I had a lot of credits so I could almost have gotten a double major having gone each year through college to summer classes.

Anyway, my ebook on psychology, schizophrenia and synthesthesia, is an interesting article, with references, which was the problem for an audiobook. In an ebook at the end of a sentence, you just see references, that correspond to the bibliography at the end. In an ebook which is supposed to match up to audiobooks, so people can switch from reading to listening, back-and-forth ("whispersync"), and find themselves in the same exact spot where they left off in the other format...how do you do that? Well, I thought "Occam‘s Razor". So I read aloud the references at the end of each annotated sentence, or quote. Which was the name and the year and there are at times several. Easy to skip over while reading but painful when you’re listening. I could’ve release the ebook and I kind of wish I had, and just used a footnote that may be referred to at the end in the bibliography. That way at the end of a sentence, I could just say "1" or I could say "2" or whatever the number is, thus quickly referring you to the end of the document in the bibliography. I got some interesting reviews on audible.com for that. Some said that it was an amazing piece of work. My professor had said in class, the day I presented it, when I ask why the room went silent, that I didn’t do anything wrong. Everyone in the class was just... stunned. I thought I did something wrong during their silence and I was getting really nervous so I asked our professor, sitting next to me if I did something wrong? He reclaimed himself from being deep in thought and shook his head and said "No. I’m just surprised. You know researchers seek through their entire careers for a seminal piece of work like this and here you found something, even before even graduating." I have to say I walked out of class that day feeling pretty good. I had put a LOT of work into that. In fact the night before I was up until 1AM literally cutting pieces of the paper up and they were scattered all over my entire living room. My girlfriend had gone to bed going on midnight, empathetic. She asked if I needed help, but I looked around and said, "Thanks, no, I wouldn't have a clue how you could help." So she went to bed. I've written about this night elsewhere. About how I remembered Dr. Rees saying a cluttered mind has a cluttered environment and vice versa. One leads to the other and you can affect one by ordering up the other. So I did that and it worked very well. That was also the night I wrote my short-short single page story, "Perception", which eventually evolved along with another story, "Andrew" (novella end of "Anthology of Evil" which I've written about elsewhere and had a similar effect on my university intro to fiction class which they loved and voted me to write another story with a woman also chosen for that honor for our finals day class as we had no finals to take) into my book, "Death of heaven". There was very little research on synesthesia back in the early 1980s while there’s been much more research done by now. Last time I researched the studies done since 1984 I was pleasantly surprised. But I didn’t know how to get that paper out into the world back in the 1980s. And so in 2012, or 2014(?), having some published books on Amazon by then, I put out an ebook for this paper and also on Smashwords as an ebook. By the way, my (half)brother, Marvin Hayes, did an amazing cover for it! I have got to say though that one person, a female reviewer on audible, said she felt like she was being spoken down to. Which certainly wasn’t ever my intention, or my orientation. But it's an academic journal type piece, and if you don’t understand psychological journals, it might come off that way. But she was the only one who had that assessment. Was it my writing, or my speaking the words? I did the best I could.
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Dammit! I just did it again. I got down to the end block on the end of my walk, by my home, turned around and started heading back away from my house for the next half mile...I went to write down what mile I was starting and saw that I had done 3 miles and was unsure if before I rounded the end of the bloc a few minutes ago, if I had already written the number "3" down... to save time. And then after I turned around headed back out onto the next half mile and went to add that mile and saw it said mile "3"... I was confused if I'd already added it, or if I actually just did 3 and should now be at mile four. Sorry. If you see what I'm saying. So I’m thinking about it and it feels like I'm beginning mile "4". So I put down the number "4" and promised myself, no more adding the number before you’re around that corner!

By the way, this memory issue of what mile am I on? Is the reason I write it down to keep track of it. This is not an old people memory issue. This is not a long Covid memory issue. This could be 40 years ago and I would have had the same issue perhaps because of ADHD, or perhaps because each half mile begins to blur into each half mile and it’s just hard to remember what mile you’re on. Tracking things is good. I also use an exercise app so when I’m done I can look at that. If it doesn’t add up to close to the 5 miles I did two days ago, or two days before that, then I know I probably have one more mile to go. So what that points out is... redundancy is always good.

That’s something that always bugged me about commercial flying. When I was in the Air Force packing parachute, I was talking to a pilot one day who said that I need to understand that all pilots around the world appreciate their riggers. Because the airplane is a pilots primary mode of takeoff, and of landing, and when it fails to safely land them, parachutes are their secondary mode. I had asked him about they're having an emergency chute, because as a civilian skydiver, we had to have one. Which is why he pointed out that while civilian divers have a primary chute for landing, pilots have an airplane for that. Our emergency chute is our secondary option. "So please do pack carefully", he said good naturedly. To which I responded that we’re all very serious about packing. Our chutes have all our names on those you pack. And failed chutes have gotten rigors tossed into federal prison at Leavenworth. I was involved in that once when we got chutes from another base and they were so poorly packed, someone went to prison. We had to repack them when we attached them, which you always do with new chutes coming to a base, see who previously packed it, and write down all we found wrong. One chute was not even attached to its harness! So anyway, my point about commercial flying is nobody on those planes have a secondary option to land if the primary (the plane) fails. To have a chute for everybody would be excessively heavy. But I will forever think that commercial airlines as with ships on the sea that need enough lifeboats for everybody, so too should an airplane have an option for each passenger and crew member. But nope. No redundancy.
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On the above about my adding miles in my notes as to which mile I’m walking. Currently, you might ask and I’d considered this, why don’t I walk a mile and write down "1", then walk the 2nd mile and write down "2" when it’s finished? The reason for that is, I write down "1" and I begin. Then at the end of five miles, it already says "5" as I finish since writing down "5" at that point is a non sequitur and rather a moot point. Because as soon as I get home, I dump these notes on my laptop to edit for this blog. Then I delete all miles back down to "1", so the next day I walk that "1" is ready to go.

Another thought about these walkabout thought blogs of mine… I don’t publish these expecting every word to be carefully read, as I might one of my published books. Or my screenplays. But my thought on anyone reading these is as a stream of consciousness journal, only briefly edited once before publishing, That people might quickly scan through these if they have an interest to see what I have to say, and then slow down when they hit a paragraph of interest. Or to see a link they want to check out from somebody more interesting than I am, in my just giving a brief summary of something they said. So for anyone who is annoyed with these blogs because they’re not well written enough, because I didn’t give them enough thought or something, these are just basic streams of consciousness, and the only reason I edit them at all, is because of the "text to speech" software, or my speaking while walking, or sounds in the outdoor environment screwing my words up as often as they do. I had wanted to do a blog straight from my thoughts to yours. Sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes I’m confusing. But hopefully sometimes I’ll evoke thoughts beyond what I’m saying that will do someone, or anyone, or perhaps someone you told about what I've said, or offered, in my or our offering something beneficial.

Oh boy, this is gonna be a long blog to edit today… I got behind in the past week. I’ve been trying to catch up, and now I am! I have one more blog at home to read through and publish and then do this one. But the one I did yesterday, the final one that I had edited, was thankfully a very short one of only a couple of pages. Yay! And that was a pleasure and a grace! Period.

In case I haven’t previously mentioned, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached and removed from SCOTUS and forced into mental health therapy. I have compassion for the man as far as his being damaged in a poverty stricken, culturally abused childhood. I don’t however have compassion for someone who grows up to a position of power who abuses that illegally and monetizes it for his personal gain, having evolved into an ideology of abuse for all others, because they may have gotten their start in life in a similar way to what he did, in receiving help from others he has apparently grown to resent and hate. Sounds like a self-esteem issue to me. Sometimes in growing  out of a childhood of abuse, one has to embolden one's ego to a point of far "more than", and it can get carried away, even to a point of dysfunction. The man is a ball of emotional and mental pathologies. It’s so obvious, but it’s painful to witness. And it’s more painful when no one is doing anything about it, especially to protect others he has sway over, as in AMERICA, and our Laws. As article after article is coming out about his grift as one of OUR SCOTUS Justices, in his abusive his position, which he seems to think he is owed, and makes him some kind of royal lord. We do not have that in America and we need to knock those types down when we find them, and when they get out of their lane. This is NOT about putting down a Black man, but a friend of the elite and the wealthy and powerful, many of whom have taken their leaves to negatively affect our nation and government, laws and citizens.

It’s pleasing for me to note today that I’m on my almost completed 4 miles so far, but the sun is up, very few scattered clouds out, with a slight cool breeze, a beautiful day. But the sun is beating down and although it’s not too hot, it’s hot to the point that not that long ago, because of long Covid, this would’ve caused me health concerns. I’m used to all my life, as with most people are who exercise and work out in order to get a good workout, to sweat and somewhat exhaust yourself, to push beyond your limit or go a little further than normal, once in a while where it’s not affecting you in anything but positive ways, with the occasional maybe strained or sore muscles. But I’m at a point now that I feel I can push through this and be OK. It’s sad, but at this age, in this point in this illness of long Covid, it is a milestone and a rather great feeling.

Two days ago according to my Accupedo exercise app, I did 11,577 steps. Today starting my fifth mile I’ve done 8,651 steps so far. But I also think I went to Costco two days ago so it should be a little lower at the end of this 5th mile, but still close.

When Pres Bush stopped using the American Bar Association for who to make a judge and started using a greatly suspect The Federalist Society, America began yet another plummet into our current insanity.

The Federalist Society has been exceptionally effective and exceptionally extremist and destructive to American democracy. Just to be clear…

So Xfinity gave me $5.99 off a movie streaming rental. Cool! [I watched "Hypnotic" with Ben Affleck and you go through it wondering or shaking your head, but it's fun, until we realize, it all DOES make sense and oh, that's cooler than I thought! So worth the $6 I didn't spend.]

Our awesome dog

By the way, again, in 2016 I sold my house in the woods in Suquamish, Washington, home of Chief Seattle, where his grave is… I sold my pristine couple of acres in the forest because my kids were moving out or had moved out. So I was there alone with our awesome dog and life was good. But I wanted to retire and I could no longer afford the mortgage. I bought the house in 2000 for $180,000. I sold it in 2015 for $340,000. After it had previously gone down $140,000 but came mostly back up. It’s sold for $600,000 a couple of years ago by the people I sold it to. But there were two other reasons I sold. I was starting to be concerned about climate change and wildfires. And I was tired of being alone after 16 years and the longest I had ever lived anywhere. I wanted to be around people again and retire to get more involved in the independent filmmaking community and to write and so on. While we haven’t seen any local forest fires, it’s not how I want to lose my home and history, and all our things and memories. and media from my children’s past and my own. My heart goes out to all those who have.

Our awesome dog who put up with us for 15 years...

Constitutional originalists or contextualists aren’t fools, but are disingenuous and divisive. They know better. They know that the Constitution is a living document that should be evolving, even though we’ve managed to lock ourselves into a position where we can no longer make amendments that have long been needed. Once the 2nd amendment began to be weaponized against America it needed to be updated. The reason and purpose that was written, when it was, is different than what we have now. People are just locking onto it because they are having "fun" and they know they can get away with it. When that happens, things go badly awry. When things happen about and around a topic such as guns, it inevitably leads to autocracy, and here we are with people who see that and have monetized it and weaponized it, not FOR the nation, but for their own benefit, for the few who have that ideology for real, are rather sick individuals, and if not mentally ill, certainly socially.

The Republican Party needs to be renamed, the Regression Party or the Regressive Party or just cut to the chase and go with the sinking Ship of Fools. Take your pick.

OK, so 10,721 steps for today and I definitely feel like I did 5 miles. If I look above at the 11,000 something from two days ago, I think I definitely did 5 miles today and not 4.

The Black Stone Legal Fellowship is like The Federal Society. Check out Media Matters about them. Or Rewire News. So it's something else we should dissolve.

Remember, when you hear conservatives, especially toxic ones, say the word “freedom“ they're referring to freedom for THEIR ideology, and that alone. What America refers to in that term is freedom for all. Not freedom to abuse others without repercussions. Because what we’ve seen, especially with people like Trump, when "called on the carpet", accurately, factually, they scream to high heaven of abuse and oppression, and to THAT, as our courts ARE, we must all scream bullshit.

I just got home and checked my mail and my Costco package with my new Benadryl showed up. Two bottles of 100 each. I thought something was odd so I looked at the old bottle I have had for so long (still not expired) and it said 600 on it! Well, that’s instructive.

[So I got home, took a shower and weighed myself. I'm down 5 pounds. The work's starting to pay off, finally!]

Cheers! Sláinte!