Ponderings and Musings

I’ve never been hip on the latest terms or slang. I recently asked Jamie if he “dipped” when he did some gesture that involved bending and throwing his arms and shoulders to one side. He laughed at me because apparently it’s called “dabbing”. Wait, did he “dab”? “Daub”? Now I’m thinking about playing BINGO.

I subscribe to a couple of motivational newsletters that come out on a regular basis, and one of the newsletters talked about the concept of “Doomscrolling”. During these American times of the pandemic, the crap politics, and the planet falling apart, among many other things, the Internet has provided humans a way to infinitely scroll through their smart devices and search for bad news. We get a certain amount of a dopamine hit from social media in general, and this bad news gives us the same type of hit as good news. As long we’re getting that dopamine hit, we continue to scroll.

The issue is, all of this bad news is stressing us out. Because the bad news generates more clicks and swipes, which in turn increases ad revenue streams for the social media companies, said companies continue to algorithmically fling this type of news in our direction, basically turning social media into an “Outrage Industrial Complex”. We combat this Doomscrolling by adding to the noise, countering or repeating this bad news with our own digital screaming, hoping that we’ll change someone’s mind or make things better by yelling into the chamber of the Outrage Industrial Complex.

This is not the way the Internet was suppose to work.

Some time back I took all “infinite scrolling” apps off my smartphone. If I couldn’t get to the bottom of a web page, or the end of a social media stream, the app didn’t belong on my phone. About 10 years ago Apple took away the ability to directly send a tweet or a Facebook update without using the actual respective application away from iOS. Today, if you want to update your Facebook status or tweet something, you pretty much have to go into an application designed to suck you in with their Doomscrolling algorithms.

This is not nice.

For my 30 day self challenge in September I have resolved to look at Facebook for no longer than three minutes per day. I basically see what the blood relatives are up to, wish my the appropriate friends a happy birthday, and then I shut down my Facebook connection. And I do this from my computer, no mobile devices allowed. I still want to get rid of Facebook completely by the end of the year, but so many of my family and friends rely on the platform as their only interaction method I feel like I’m missing out on important milestones in their lives. I really miss the days of when folks maintained blog like this one right here, but those days are apparently long gone. I am grateful for those continuing to do this old fashioned blog thing.

Twitter is a little trickier for me. I use Twitter as a way to stay in touch with those I share a common interest, namely aviation, tech, and Star Trek. I’ve tried using a third party Twitter application like Tweetbot or Twitterrific but there’s two issues with these apps; like Twitter, they encourage infinite scrolling and Twitter has neutered their third party API to the point that you can barely glean what’s going on in the twitterverse if you’re not using the official application. My primary use of Twitter, aside from my dorky interactions with others, is to see breaking news and use that information as a catalyst to look elsewhere for more reliable sources. It kills me that users think anything of actual news comes across Twitter or Facebook. These streams may provide a hint as to what’s happening in the world, but it’s up to us to find a reliable source to confirm what we’re seeing on the streams as we’re doomscrolling through the latest round of woes.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on improving myself through some professional and other motivational newsletters and other mailings. These things inspire me. They’re not recipes, they’re seeds of ideas that we nurture to grow in ways we want them to grow.

I need to focus more on this and less of the doomscrolling through the “Outrage Industrial Complex”.

Happy scrolling!

It was either the summer of 1974 or the summer of 1975. I can’t remember if I had just completed Kindergarten or the first grade. However, I can vividly remember the day I became really interested in Mother Nature’s severe weather tendencies.

I grew up along Lake Ontario’s Eastern Shore. Famous for its record breaking snowfall, the area also features beautiful sand dunes, and ample opportunity for outdoor recreation. On this day in ’74 or ’75 it was a hot, summer day. At the time, my Dad’s cousin and his family lived down the street from us. During the summer vacation days my mom would pal around with the cousin’s wife, resulting in five kids being blended together for summer day activities. Our ages interspersed nicely and because we were so young at the time, four kids could fit in the backseat and the youngest would go up front between my mom and the wife.

My mom had not yes taught herself to drive my Dad’s muscle car, which doubled as the family car. It was a snazzy green 1971 Chevelle Heavy Chevy. Three speed on the floor. I loved riding in the back seat of that car, especially driving home from visiting my grandparents in Syracuse. The 45 minute drive home on a Sunday night was magical to me. The family together. The darkness of the car. Everyone sitting where they should be: dad driving, mom in the passenger seat, my sister sitting behind my dad. It’s where we sat. I loved it. I still love being in a car on a dark night, the lights of the dash down to their lowest setting. Today’s 21st century cars have too much interior lighting. I miss the days of incandescent.

Back to the summer day. The five kids and two adults were in the wife’s 1968 Chevy Impala. If anyone offered me a brand new car of my choice, no matter the year, it would be a 1968 Chevy Impala two door coupe with either the 350 or the bigger 427 under the hood. Lead in the gas, vent windows up front, and only three speeds on the floor. Pull down the license plate to fuel it up.

The wife didn’t know how awesome her car was, but the lot of us had been “downtown” at the Department Store in the small town I grew up in. No chain stores had arrived yet, the “Department STore” was literally called just that and it was locally owned. Fun fact, there is no Main Street in the village. The business district was bisected by a river and the businesses flanked two streets, “Jefferson Street” and “Salina Street”. There is no Main Street.

Lake Ontario is three miles to the west of the village, but we could see the skies getting very dark as all of us piled into the Impala. The sky had been flashing and rumbling. It was just lunch time. We’d be going home to the trailer for peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches.

The wife (it’s weird that I’m referring to her as that) needed to put gas in the car; we stopped at a Seaway Gas Station on Rome Street. The sky was menacing. As I looked around, it was as dark as night. The street lights were coming on. The Rexall Kinney’s Drugs neon sign had just lit up like it was after sunset, even though we still hadn’t had lunch. The sky was loud, the clouds were flashing on and off and I thought it was one of the most awesome things I had ever seen.

We had just pulled out of the Seaway Gas Station when the skies let loose. The wife couldn’t see to navigate Rome Road. She pulled over as the wind rocked the 1968 Chevy Impala back and forth in front of a florist shop opened by a man named Jay.

The others were scared. The wife and my mother were just watching it rain. I was wide eyed, looking at the buckets of water falling everywhere. Mother Nature was incredibly feisty that day and I was lving every minute of it. I knew I wanted to see all Mother Nature had to offer, whenever and wherever Mother Nature wanted to offer it.

Eventually the storm passed and we went home and had peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Had it been the 21st century instead of 1974 or 1975, I would have photos to share.

I hoped I painted you a picture instead.

If the Trump administration has showed me anything it’s that I am apparently a terrible judge of character. A few family and friends, that I may not see eye to eye on a few subjects on, have turned out to be rabid, heels dug in Trump supporters. If I was a smart person I would have seen that coming. But I look for the good in people. I really try to find the positive.

Sometimes there’s just not that much positivity to find.

A sly joke here, a remark there, these are things I would let roll off my back. Shame on me.

I’m reminded of Maya Angelou. “When a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

My first “real” sci-fi novel was “The Demu Trilogy” by F.M. Busby. I’ve read the book over three dozen times. I recounted my experience with this book in a blog entry from 13 years ago.

Once in a great while I’ll do a Google search on “The Demu Trilogy” to see what others have to say about it. Usually the comments are not favorable. I find the reviews to be quite pedestrian. I think folks don’t get it or approach the series from a preconceived notion as to what it should be, and then are disappointed when it doesn’t meet expectations. Why should folks have an expectation when they start reading a book?

Recently I was going through the book shelf and came across my only copy of the book; it’s the second copy I’ve owned. I purchased it used back in 1993 after my original copy was eaten by my roommate’s cocker spaniel. I don’t think the dog enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s time for me to read “The Demu Trilogy” again.

I think I read “The Demu Trilogy” at my most impressionable time; there are elements of a casual approach to sex and relationships present in the book that I’ve had in my adult life. I suppose it’s just a manifestation of the way I’m wired, but back in the day I was never one for beating around the bush when I wanted to know if someone shared a mutual attraction. This is what made building a relationship with my husband so simple; I would just say what I was interested in, and he would honestly answer if he was interested in the same sort of activity. There were no games, no coy text messages, no hidden secrets. I knew I loved him, he knew he loved me, we said it, we did it, forever and ever, amen.

Perhaps if we all lived our sexuality honestly the country would be a better place. The problem is, the American soap opera would have never come to fruition.

One of the main hangups with relationships is jealousy. I’ve shared this thought before: jealousy is a feeling that comes from within. It’s an insecurity. It’s competitiveness. No one can make you jealous; only you can make yourself jealous. “What do they have that I don’t?” So many relationships end because of jealousy. So sad. I have several insecurities in my life, but those leading to jealousy are not among them. I’m just wired differently, I guess.

I’m reminded of the hilarity around an episode of “Maude” where a college professor of some sort comes out and says that he wants to sleep with Maude and then the Norman Lear hilarity of dialog ensues. The episode was actually filmed twice, the unaired version starring Bea Arthur’s then-husband Gene Saks.

I digress a lot.

One of the themes in “The Demu Trilogy” has to do with the humanoid race the Tilari. They’re very sexual beings. They are open and honest about their sexuality. Quite frankly, I’m surprised my great-aunt and uncle included this book in the box of books they gave me when I was 13 or so years old. Maybe they didn’t know the contents of the box, after all, this book was sandwiched between two copies of “Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex (But We’re Afraid To Ask)”. I read one of those two copies of that book in the box that was gifted to me by my Uncle Pete; I learned a lot of outdated things about being gay.

If people were just honest about who they are and what makes them tick.

I’m rambling. It’s been a while since I’ve rambled on the blog. Can you believe this blog turned 19 years old last week? Where has the time gone? I started writing this thing when I was 33 years old. Wow.

There is no forethought into the construction of this blog entry. I’m just letting the words flow, uninhibited. My husband says I get too hung up on my inhibitions and that I try too hard to try to fit into societal norms.

COVID-19 prevents us from congregating, but this is the type of dialog I would have with my husband and family around a campfire at the gay campground. We’d all be shirtless. I’d be drinking a craft beer. Something with some octane. Others would be drinking other things. We’d be relaxed.

And then we’d continue the conversation as this blog entry comes to an end.

Monday’s storm definitely followed a marked path through our neighborhood. Walking the blocks to the north of our building, there wasn’t a lot of damage to be found. Small branches here and there, leaves everywhere, but not much beyond that.

South of our building, I’m finding more and more fallen trees, some resting on cars and houses. Power and other lines are still down. Cleanup is well underway, but there are still several streets blocked from fallen trees.

I guess a derecho can follow a defined path much in the manner of a tornado doing the same, though the National Weather Service reported and EF1 tornado touched down just to the east of us.

Perhaps our neighborhood was part of the approach.

So yesterday’s storm was quite feisty. O’Hare showed winds gusting over 80 MPH. An EF1 tornado touched down just to the east of us. I thought the clouds coming over the condo looked quite “swirly” as we watched the storm pass through yesterday.

I was surprised to see exactly how much damage was on streets in our neighborhood when I went for my morning walk. As of this evening there are still areas without power; ComEd is working around the clock to restore electricity to those areas. Luckily we never lost power.

So a very impressive storm blew through. All of our devices were alerting us to a tornado warning and to take shelter immediately. We had secured all the furniture on the balcony and made an exit plan. If it looked like it was going to overwhelm us, we’d go into my office, which is the furthest room from the windows and has a concrete wall.

We spent most of the storm on the balcony with our backs to the upwind wall, though at one point we came inside due to the force of the wind. We watched patio furniture fly off the roof deck next to the clock you see in one of the photos. The trees around us bent over in ways we’d never seen before. It was a very impressive site.

Then, in less than an hour, it was over and by evening the winds had completely died down and the sun was out.

It was probably the strongest wind I have encountered and part of me wishes I was out on the prairie chasing the storm.

So I focused on relaxing this entire weekend. We didn’t go flying, I didn’t embark on some sort of weekend project, we didn’t try to go out and have a drink or eat and end up dealing with the stress of maintaining distancing and the like, we just had a weekend of downtime.

It’s just what we needed.

I’ve had this habit of trying to maintain a certain level of productivity as well as not missing out on life (something I’m more aware of as I get older) during the weekend and I feel like I haven’t given myself a chance to relax. The world is stressful enough these days, why add extra stress when we don’t have to?

Hence, a weekend of doing very little. It was quite nice.

This shop in our neighborhood is keeping their message simple, clear, and concise. It’s brilliant marketing. I wonder how many potential customers take a self inventory before walking into the place. How many get worked up into a huff and take their business elsewhere? I’m sure the owners of this location don’t want the latter in there anyway.

Too often I see folks sharing images of receipts with tips of minimal amounts because the server wore a mask or they wanted their waiter or waitress to go back where they came from. I find it difficult to wrap my head around this concept. I didn’t pay close attention in Sunday school but I know there’s something about “Do unto others…”. Perhaps the cranky folks that leave bad tips with hateful messages think they’re above the commandments. They’re certainly not acting Christian.

So many false prophets here in these “United States”.

I’m occasionally amused by science fiction/alien arrival movies that assume visitors from another planet would start their visit here on Earth in the United States. We don’t have a particular large land mass. We barely qualify for “world leader” unless you want to talk about deaths during pandemics. I should think aliens would be more interested in smart cities, bullet trains, and societies that have universal health care. So many American movies have depicted aliens arriving to this planet as hostile. Years ago, back in the LiveJournal days, someone mentioned there would be no other reason for a race to cross the vastness of space for any other reason than hostile military reasons. It’s like crossing the ocean from Europe to a new land in the west.

I’d like to think everyone should just be kind to their neighbors.

I took a ride through rural northwest Illinois yesterday. My journey took me almost to St. Louis, following mostly backroads, until I decided to turn around and head back to Chicago. It was a mostly relaxing experience. I find it interesting to drive through the small towns in the Land of Lincoln.

Once outside of Chicago, a common theme in lawn signs is “Pritzker Sucks”. These reference Governor Pritzker, who in my opinion, has done a very good job in leading efforts to keep the pandemic at bay. The lockdown and subsequent measures have been unfortunate, especially for the economy, but if I had to choose, a business can be rebuilt or replaced, a human being can not.

Not even human beings that don’t seem interested in gaining or sharing intelligence.

The big installation shown in the photo is found along Interstate 72, somewhere between Quincy and Jacksonville. I’m not surprised at the size of it, when you don’t have much you make prideful displays of something. But I couldn’t help think how much more valuable the funds used to build that sign could be to someone that couldn’t afford a meal or the neighbors that couldn’t afford their medicine. For many, compassion has been replaced by idiocy and ignorance. This makes me sad.

Of course, the makers of that Trump sign have every right to build and display their political allegiances in such an egregious manner, just as I have every right to write this blog entry.