Category Archives: feeling sorry for myself

Living in the Upside Down

Well, I have now paid property taxes for 2019, exhausting all the money I have earned by substitute teaching this school year. I am not broke exactly, but all the money I still have is now already spent. There are more days in almost every month than I have funds to actually pay for them. I am not broke, but I am breaking.

And Washington is debating giving us money to help us make it through trying times. But I don’t anticipate “us” actually includes “me”. “Us” is mostly a matter of rich folks when they use that word in Washington.

But I have been busy. I continue to write away on A Field Guide to Fauns which is basically a book about naked people… specifically about sad naked people and the happy naked people who try to cheer them up. It is about nudists in a nudist park in Texas, I have also been walking the dog, which means bagging poop and yanking on the leash whenever she wants to run out in front of cars and Bubba-trucks and get squished under Bubba’s tires. And I have been talking by phone with relatives in Iowa and Missouri.

The Princess and I, while delivering the tax payment to the drop-box, noticed that Braums’ Ice Cream store had their dining room open for a number of patrons. Most of the food businesses are doing drive-up orders only. But, apparently, somebody has to feed the stupid people of Texas. After all, how else are they gonna spread viruses and kill off all those danged kale-eating liberals and old people?

You have to get rid of us somehow, right? And that “us” definitely includes me, even though I hate kale.

But there is no “normal life” anymore. Was there ever any? I am legitimately asking. I was a teacher my whole life, so I had to get used to “abnormal” and “chaotic” long ago.

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Filed under commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, illness, Paffooney

Quarantine Follies

We have been isolated and quarantined for 12 days now, and the world around us continues to get weirder and weirder. The dog killed a squirrel in the yard two days ago. We are running out of bread and meat and potatoes thanks to hoarders, and we may need to find alternatives to toilet paper. But as long as we have love, not unlike the dog and cat in the illustration above, we will be alright.

One has to wonder, though, what they are using all that toilet paper for, those hoarders who are apparently eating it in massive quantities to give them more fiber in their diet.

Or, maybe, they know something about the virus that we don’t. Maybe it causes loose bowels and the toilet-paper-consuming condition of Montezuma’s Revenge.

Or maybe there are lots of toilet-paper mummies now roaming the nights looking for pretty girls who resemble dead Egyptian princesses?

Oh, NO!!!!

But with the virus lurking out there, waiting to pounce on me and my weak, diabetes-ravaged immune system, there are some good things about being home-bound and fortified with solitude. For one thing, the girl who had to go see the nurse during that last substitute-teaching job I had did not turn out to have Coronavirus. In fact, it is now past the date by more than two weeks that I would’ve come down with the type of flu she did test positive for. So I don’t have that either.

This is not the girl with the virus. This is a random picture from Twitter.

Since the four of us are basically confined to our rooms for the majority of the day, it is a great time for reading in the nude. I benefit from that because I have psoriasis in places that itch less if kept dry, naked, and in front of the fan, but aren’t exactly safe for public places. And I don’t even have to offend my family with my naked self to do it. I am also pretty sure you are grateful that I didn’t use my own picture to illustrate this goofy notion.

… And by that I mean, of course, a picture of me reading naked.

We have done things together as a family too. Making masked visits to the grocery store or Walmart only to find there is still no toilet paper is one. Using up the gingerbread house kit that didn’t get used at Christmas is another.

And, of course, eating the gingerbread house was also something we did together. The Princess and Number Two Son both ate lion’s shares in order to save me from being weak and eating too much of it myself with my miserable diabetes. I say, “miserable diabetes” not because it is out of control and making me ill or susceptible to comas, but because I get to eat less of things like gingerbread houses, and that makes me miserable.

But the evil, moron, criminal president says that too much quarantine time will make us kill ourselves. So, he intends to end our time in isolation by Easter. We have to go out of the house, spend more money that could end up in his pockets, and get back to work to make the economy stronger so he can be re-elected on a strong economy. Even if we have to sacrifice our lives to the virus to do it. After all, what’s more important? Staying alive longer? Or helping an evil, moron, criminal president get re-elected?

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Filed under angry rant, being alone, compassion, family, feeling sorry for myself, gingerbread, good books, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney

“I Don’t Believe It”

The viruses are winning. And why are they winning? Because of people who say, “I don’t believe it,” and mean it, because they are either stupid (not the majority) or because they are too afraid of the obvious consequences to admit what they know in their hearts to be true.

We are not handling the pandemic well. The disease is out of control because so many carriers of the disease feel well enough to go out and have a good time while infecting everyone around them. And testing is not occurring to identify all of these happy, restaurant-going and green-beer-swilling Typhoid Marys. They are unknowingly (and more alarmingly, uncaringly) infecting the elderly, compromised, and vulnerable people in their lives. The Governor of Oklahoma took his family out to a restaurant to celebrate their obliviousness and later tweeted about it to tell us we should do the same. Congressman Devin Nunes of California went on television to tell his true believers that they might as well go out to bars for St Patrick’s Day. He said it wasn’t crowded. He ignored the potential consequences completely. There ought to be a law.

And we won’t even talk about Happy-Talk Trump, the moron criminal president, because… What’s the use?

There is no reason to believe that quarantines will cause problems with the grocery-store supply chains. There should not be shortages. People are having fist-fights to be able to hoard toilet paper. There’s almost no meat, bottled water, or bread at Walmart. Thank you, stupid people.

The worst of it is that this stupidity is exploitable. People don’t want to admit that they have to do hard things that they don’t want to deal with, not only Coronavirus, but also climate change, wealth inequality, racism, terrorism, or even such things as the browning of the American population demographics. They let the Koch Brothers and other evil billionaires convince them that money-making exploitations of the environment (that actually only make money for the billionaires) are in their own best interests. Those exploitations will doom us all.

But I am facing the end of my life no matter what complications I do or do not have ahead of me. It has been a good life. But everybody else in the world has a right to have the same sort of good life. And that will not happen on the paths we now tread.

So, I refuse to believe it. I refuse to believe that we, the people, are stupid enough, or callous enough, or lacking empathy enough to continue down these paths. And I am, by the evidence alone, a fool to not believe it. But there it is… the reason for my title and the theme of this rant.

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Filed under angry rant, compassion, conspiracy theory, feeling sorry for myself, politics

You Are Not Alone

Well, here I am now. Shut down and quarantined, not because I have Covid 19, which I don’t, even though I can’t prove that. Rather, it is because I am a high risk individual. Coronavirus could kill me easily. And also because the world is shut down around us. No school. Officially for this week, but probably for the rest of the school year.

So, what will I do now? Well, write more on my novel, of course. But this is not the 19th Century. There are ways to reach out to friends and family instantly, by phone, or Skype, or Facebook, or instant messenger… And you need to check on them. Keep them from feeling isolated and alone. Especially if, like me, you or any of them are at risk from this pandemic. We are not living in the days of the Black Death or the Spanish Flu. We are able to actively connect with others to keep the depression monsters at bay. And no one gets physically sick from a phone call. (I honestly hope that is the truth.) I talked with my octogenarian parents last night, and texted my 60-something sister just to talk and reconnect. My daughter talked to her grandmother in Iowa. My number two son has online friends in Europe and South America. We have family in the Philippines. And I can write this blog post for you. How is your family doing? Do you know somebody that is at risk? Reach out to them. It may be the phone call that saves their life, and then the invention of the telephone will be validated and justified.

And hopefully, with the use of modern communication devices, you won’t infect them with anything, and they won’t infect you. Not even Mr. Grupp.

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Filed under feeling sorry for myself, healing, health, illness, inspiration, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life

Curiouser and Curiouser

I finished a possible cover for my work in progress, A Field Guide to Fauns. It is a book about re-forming families from tragedies and divorce. It is also about suicidal thoughts and depression. And it takes place in a nudist park where the family has a permanent trailer.

This book will definitely be about some of my own experiences with these things and issues. And I hope to distill a bit of high-quality wisdom from this brewing novel. After all, when it comes to depression and battling it, I have deep scars and burned-in notions of how you overcome them. It is ironic that I know so much about fighting depression and darkness, even though it was mostly about the depression of other people, not me.

I have come to know how to stitch families together out of used and discarded parts. Hopefully not creating a new monster. And again, it is ironic that I know this mostly from other families, not ours.

The book is flowing, practically writing itself. And that is always a sign of a big idea turning itself into a great novel. I look forward to finding out what happens in each and every next chapter… or, in this case, Canto.

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Filed under battling depression, Depression, feeling sorry for myself, finding love, humor, illustrations, novel, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Things Go Awry

Things go awry,

Like dropping apple pie,

Cause you’re really not too spry,

And don’t know the reason why…

And the pipes have sprung some leaks,

And our house now really reeks,

And fixing it takes weeks,

And even hero Aquaman freaks,

At the water in the hall,

And the dampness over all,

That the fish began to call,

A real big water wall…

But we have done this all before,

And the rain begins to pour,

As our luck flows out the door…

THERE IS WATER ON THE FLOOR!

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Filed under angry rant, feeling sorry for myself, humor, poetry

A Pinch of This, a Pound of That

Nudists and naturists exist in real life, and some of them read my books!

Because I have characters in a few of my books who are nudists, based on people I have met in real life, my books have caught on with naturists, particularly naturists who write novels about naturism. Ted Bun, a naturist writer and operator of a nudist resort in France, has read and reviewed several of my books so far. You can find his reviews using the link below.

http://tvhost.co.uk/reading-writing-and-posting

It is a good thing to have your novels read by others. And I am sorta on the edge of being a member of the nudist community on Twitter myself. Of course, my days of comfortably going nude anymore is limited by psoriasis sores, ill health, and disapproval by family members. So, I guess I can only say I am a fictional nudist myself.

I have also been successfully spending time in schools (with all my clothes on) being a successful substitute teacher. I benefited yesterday from the efforts of an excellent teacher as I successfully conducted a U.S. History class with eighth graders all day long. It is rare to have a day when you don’t actively have to stop and redirect bad behavior at least once or twice during the day. But her well-taught series of classroom procedures made my day easy. I only had to tell them I was instituting her every-day discipline plan, and the classes seemed to almost run themselves. Especially in the two LEAP classes (Advanced Placement) . Those classes were heavily populated by students who are first or second generation Indian-Americans. Perry Middle School obviously has a nearby immigrant community of people who are originally from India. And probably smart, professional people too.

I am also still working on my next novel, A Field Guide to Fauns. I am currently at 8,672 words with 32 pages and three illustrations completed. I have been working on it for almost two weeks. It is the story of a boy trying to recover from psychological abuse while trying to fit in with his father’s new family, a stepmother and two twin stepsisters who are nudists, living as full-time residents of a nudist park. I hope the Twitter nudists will love it, but I am not writing it for them. As always, it is a book I am compelled to write.

I am also losing my eyesight. I have glaucoma. Bright lights now fill my field of vision with haze and blurry spots while floaters swimming in my eyes have me repeatedly swatting at bugs that aren’t there. I continue to have symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, including minor hallucinations. If school children I am trying to be a substitute teacher for ever find out, they will be repeatedly telling me that the misbehavior I am seeing is all a hallucination. So, finishing visual projects has a new urgency now.

My eldest son talked to friends in Oklahoma this weekend about acquiring cheap medical marijuana for my glaucoma. We shall see if I am to become a pot-head or not.

Anyway… this little essay is rather a mixed bag of ingredients, poured into a stew and loosely cooked together with poorly-written transitions. So, I now have done a pinch of this, a pound of that, and the stew must now marinate its very meat in weird broth. How do you like them apples?

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Filed under autobiography, feeling sorry for myself, goofiness, humor, novel plans, Paffooney, teaching

Sundays at Walmart

I figured today was going to be a bad-luck-sort-of day because the signs and omens were all against me. I forgot to buy dog food yesterday. And I also forgot yogurt for the Princess’s breakfast in the morning. Not only that, the Simon’s Cat game on my phone made me lose the daily challenge three times and the phone ran out of charge before I beat the stupid thing.

George Appleby and his wife (Red Skelton’s Hen-pecked Husband sketch)

Time out for a word from our sponsor;

The promotion ends at midnight tonight.

What’s worse, the first and only thing my wife said to me this morning was, “Michael, stop looking at me with such an angry face!”

I admit I wasn’t smiling. But I was not mad about anything. Should I have been?

“I’m not angry. Are you just saying you think my face is ugly?”

“You said it. I didn’t.”

Yes, the signs and omens were not in my favor today.

What is destined to go wrong?

Car accident on the way to Walmart?

Didn’t happen.

The price of yogurt went up to the point that I could no longer afford it?

Nope, again. But the bill at Walmart had 13 dollars on the front of the price. !!! 13!!! The unluckiest number? I added a candy bar to get the price up to 14 dollars. The candy bar was 88 cents. The total= $13.95. “Oh, no!!! An impending stroke when I carry the dog food into the house!”

Nope. Didn’t happen there either. Is bad karma building up on me for my next teaching job?

Maybe. We find out with 6th graders on Tuesday.

Or maybe I am just fixated on the bad signs and omens too much. If I worry too much about it, I might become George Appleby.

But then again, my wife probably deserves to be covered in toothpaste.

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Filed under comedians, feeling sorry for myself, humor

Dear Daddy, Don’t Die!

Two weeks ago I let my car drift too near the curb of the street. I hit a curb-corner at the edge of a driveway and something there punctured the passenger-side tire. It was a financial setback. I had to buy a new tire.

But what it really cost me, was the confidence of all three of my children that I can still take care of myself. They were united in threatening to take away my driver’s license and treat me like an invalid.

It was a bit of an over-reaction to what actually happened. But God has it in for me. The challenges to my continued survival seem to never stop coming. At this writing I have six incurable diseases. Diabetes, hypertension, COPD, arthritis, psoriasis, and an enlarged prostate. On top of that, I am a cancer survivor. Skin cancer, 1983. My father has Parkinson’s and it is severely slowing him down. It is also a disease I am beginning to show symptoms of. God hasn’t killed me yet, but not for a lack of trying.

Personally, I am worried about my own frequent bouts of stupidity more than anything else.

Sure, I have diabetes and not enough income to get insulin thanks to pharmaceutical profiteers (another term for blood-thirsty pirates) But I have learned since 2000 to battle it with proper diet. It has been working. And it still does.

But I can be stupid, too. I hate being left out of restaurant trips to SpringCreek Barbecue or Chili’s. But the temptations to eat myself into a coma is always there right in front of me. My wife always eats food that will kill me and even offers me some. (She is not trying to kill me for my money, though. She knows I am bankrupt. That’s why she has to pay for these little family outings that she invites me to. And there are no huge insurance checks in her future if the mashed potatoes get the better of me.)

Arthritis is hard to live with too. My kids worry that my gas-pedal knee will seize up when I am going 55, or my break-pedal leg will fail to move when I need it to when the inevitable Dallas-area killer grandma is driving beside me in the next lane in her black BMW, thinking seriously about how to kill me and make it look like my fault on the insurance claim. I learned long ago to drive with extreme defensiveness in Texas. But still I can be stupid too. Like when I don’t watch the lane’s squiggles and curves hawkishly like I didn’t do two Sunday nights ago.

So, I have to be less stupid for more of the time. If not… if I die on the road some god-forsaken night, my sons are going to kill me. Even if they have to dig me up again to do it.

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Filed under family, feeling sorry for myself, health, humor, illness, Paffooney, psoriasis

99 Luftballons in Our Time

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Denkst du vielleicht g’rad an mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Und dass so was von so was kommt

The song tells of 99 balloons that are released into the sky above the Berlin Wall and are immediately misinterpreted. Thinking the 99 balloons are UFOs, the air force sends 99 hot-shot pilots who all think they are Captain Kirk. They shoot at the balloons creating fireworks in the sky for the nearby country to see and get nervous about. 99 war ministers start shooting back… leading to 99 years of war.

99 Jahre Krieg
Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger
Kriegsminister gibt’s nicht mehr
Und auch keine Düsenflieger
Heute zieh’ ich meine Runden
Seh’ die Welt in Trümmern liegen
Hab’ ‘nen Luftballon gefunden
Denk’ an dich und lass’ ihn fliegen

Today I was walking among the ruins of the world. I found a balloon and I thought of you and let it fly away.

Such is the nature of this surreal song that it echoes and resonates in the world today just as it did in 1983 when it was first played by the German band Nena. We see things we don’t quite understand. And if we don’t understand it, we try to shoot it. Over-reacting and under-reacting work together to brew up disasters.

You have to be aware of the potential dangers of letting goldfish chew gum and blow bubbles with it.

Maybe we ought to do something positive for a change. We have a criminal president. He apparently can’t be charged with a crime. Republicans are immune to the accusations they always use on Democrats. We have a dying planet with warming and polluted air. Soon we won’t be able to breath if we are not already dead in hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and other global-warming-related disasters. How many more balloons do we have to shoot at or decide not to shoot at? How many more mistakes can we make?

But I like the song. I listen to it, and I forget my mistakes and the troubles they have caused me. Well, at least for the duration of the song.

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Filed under commentary, feeling sorry for myself, music, Paffooney