Computer issue solved: my clock going peculiar

My PC's clock was running off, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. Sometimes off by a half-hour in a day. I'd re-sync it, and it would be far off the time in less than an hour.

This might seem like a mild irritation, but a clock is a very basic, low-level computer function. It's also essential. Inside the computer, the clock directs traffic. If it's going wrong it could cause all kinds of trouble with higher-level programs. Plus, it might on its own be a symptom of other problems, like the motherboard firmware (BIOS) having gone peculiar.

First I had to determine if Windows was having the issue. Or if it was happening at a level below Windows.

So, I restarted, hit the delete key to boot into the BIOS. The BIOS time was wrong. I knew this meant that it was either a firmware or a hardware problem. If it was hardware, it would be the CMOS clock.

I knew the first step would likely be to update (flash) the BIOS. I'm not very confident about anything, much less on technical matters. I hadn't updated my BIOS since I got this computer, and there's a reason: the process itself wouldn't be complicated. But the consequences of doing it wrong would be a permanently slagged motherboard.

If flashing the BIOS didn't remedy the issue, then I would have to try removing and reinserting the CMOS battery. If that didn't work, it was time to take it to the shop.

Of course, I Googled the problem (actually, I quacked it, with DuckDuckGo.) I found a video on how to flash the BIOS. It turned out, my motherboard manufacturer (who will remain nameless) had a built-in utility that took all the guess work out of it. I didn't have to download and make sure I got the BIOS that matched my motherboard. I just had to know where to find it in the BIOS menu. I had looked for one of those before, but totally missed it. My ADHD makes me terrible at the simple task of picking out items in a list.

Anyway, I found it, followed the instructions, and brought my firmware up-to-date. The clock problem looks to be solved. But the next two days will tell.

It's a miracle to live in an age where a simple search can take you from dummy to computer whiz by answering one or a few questions.

My atheism

This morning on Twitter the question came up: What made you finally realize that God never existed? Here's my answer.

"I was in my mid-30s before I was certain. I realized that this universe we find ourselves in is nothing like the world described in the Bible. Humans guessed wrong all the time about it. God was just another wrong guess, but like astrology, the belief itself was socially useful."

Before I elaborate, I must confess that I'm no expert. I was raised Catholic, but I was never a good religion student. In Catholic school, I tried to believe, but I found religion classes baffling. My education was a fiasco, because I had ADHD. I've spent my life catching up on years of learning and socialization I missed, but I didn't begin to make serious progress until the ADHD was treated. By that time, I was fifty-years old. Now I'm racing the onset of old age to learn.  

I'll support my Tweet above by saying one strange quirk the Bible's Yahweh character is he makes believing in him the first requirement of avoiding Hell and reaching a blissful eternal life. This is all the more odd considering that he's supposed to be all-powerful. Why would an all powerful God have a problem with people not even knowing he exists? How many ordinary people on Earth have that issue? With their very presence being doubted? Furthermore, why does such a God need believers to help him, actually vouch for him, saying they know something they really don't? An all powerful God doesn't have that problem, unless he's also fictional.

I know he demonstrates his power in the Bible, but that just underlines the fact that he can't do it now. Just as easily as write a book, a God who created this universe could move a black hole into Earth's orbit and use it to saw the moon apart. His smiting and miracle-making in the Bible actually makes a case against his existence; it emphasizes the difference between the real world and the Biblical one, making the the latter transparently mythical.

Also, books are written by people for people. A real supreme being wouldn't need a book to make his point. He also wouldn't need angels to carry messages for him, nor believers to preach about him. He has a serious existence problem.

People who originated, compiled and wrote the Bible had no idea how large and old this universe is. Therefore, Yahweh character they concocted is as small-minded as the barbarians who created him. He has a personality of a tribal despot who must constantly keep his people in fear to maintain power. His insecurities are out of character for a supreme being whose power can never be threatened. Yahweh is vain, narcissistic, cruel, demanding and obsessed with obedience and fidelity. He's also erratic, becoming unpredictably enraged about the slightest, strangest infractions.

God's creators had to make him more awesome than any over-king on Earth. So, they simply took every personality trait they'd ever seen in the most powerful people at the time. Then they pushed those up to 11. 

Later, the Greek-influenced theologians promoted Yahweh from tribal tyrant with superpowers to the all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing creator of the whole world. Oddly enough, they also later recast him as all-loving. In the meantime, humans learned our world is actually small part of an unimaginably large and old universe. We discovered, literally, all of creation didn't revolve around us and couldn't have been created for us. But Yahweh's powers stayed worldly, his disposition stayed petty. His existence problem made him onery. Rather, it made his believers depict him that way. As we learned more of the universe, believers tried to revise their concept of God to fit, but I think it's broken beyond repair.

In my humble opinion, this universe was never created. Yes, plainly, it exists, but it wasn't made by anything with mind, anything with a plan or purpose. Definitely, the Yahweh character never would've created this. I'll go as far to assert that no over-God humans have ever dreamed of would've concocted this universe. "Creation" is the wrong understanding of it, as creating is something humans do with a purpose. We imagined a supreme being with a mind like a human mind. We hoped we existed under its care as part of its creation, and our living in its creation, but that doesn't describe this universe.
 

Bertrand Russell in his book, A History of Western Philosophy, said Christianity is combination of Jewish scriptures and Greek philosophy. Most Christians see their religious origins in the Old Testament, unaware that much of their dogma and doctrine comes from the Greek philosophical thought.

Those theological conjectures were almost totally dependent on logic, reasoning and guesswork. They were impoverished in terms of empirical testing, information, and peer review. Historically, Greek philosophers always guessed wrong, and never corrected themselves. Other philosophers in other cultures failed just as badly. The only Greek thinkers who were even close to getting any physical facts about the universe right were the Atomists, such as Leucippus, Democritus and Parmenides. Yet, they were wrong on every detail. Parmenides, for example, thought motion didn't exist, that it was an illusion. Today, this is laughable. But the Greeks were important in that they originated questions that sparked thinking for two millennia.

The lesson here is that the most imaginative, most educated guesses made from a dearth of information are almost always wrong. Yet, the wrong guesses made then stayed around because they proved useful despite being wrong. God became an ad hoc way to regulate and direct human effort on a mass scale.

This raises the question: if ancients were so consistently wrong about every other thing in existence, how right could they have been about guessing there's a God? Who in the ancient world was in a position to guess right about such a thing?

In my thirties, I realized the entire Biblical story was incoherent. If you look at how many plans the purportedly omniscient, perfect God made, how terribly they all failed, and how each time Yahweh blamed and punished his believers, you'll agree with me.*

The Biblical story hasn't aged well. We now know there is no heaven in the sky for Jesus to have ascended to. So that didn't happen, or it was a cheap, staged magician's trick. Most likely it was the former, because lying about it a century later is as good as a magician's trick. I actually have doubts that Jesus the man even existed, but that opinion is too weak to argue.

Nevertheless, the important teaching was he would return very soon, within the lifetimes of his apostles. Except it's been 2,000 years and nothing of the sort has happened. The gospels said clearly that any further prediction regarding the time of Jesus's return would be wrong. Christians have predicted it, even though their scripture says it's foolish.

By my count, his not returning is the fifth plan of Yahweh's that's failed*. We on Earth await Plan F, but whenever Yahweh comes up with a whole new plan, first he punishes us humans for messing up the previous one; we're purportedly his greatest creation.

It's a relief that a supreme being with Yahweh's personality doesn't exist. Except Christians earnest about believing it anyway, and their honesty is corrupted by vouching for the existence of God, claiming they witness it when they've really witnessed nothing like it. 

I'm not a Christian anymore because now that I've seen the empty throne of God, I can't un-see it. I think for the first time in history atheism is a tenable philosophical position. However, as true as it is for individual skeptics, I don't think it's true for humankind collectively.

We use fictions for organizing and cooperating. If religion could be said to have function for society, it gives people a certain level of trust in each other, i.e. it sets a minimal level of confidence and suppresses suspicions and acrimony. However, even if we need a powerful God-overseer, the need is completely irrelevant to its existence.

A consequence of this is that atheists are so distrusted. In a Pew Research poll of the American public, only Muslims are distrusted more than atheists.

Religion doesn't perform this ad hoc function very well, but it's  important that people believe it regulates their neighbors, their families, their superiors and subordinates. It restrains paranoia and cynicism. I believe it's due to implied trust religion provides that humans are able to intelligently organize into nations and whole corporations, while other higher primates can't even come close. Marx was wrong: religion's not opiate of the masses. It's the placebo of the masses. 

Therefore, I think it's necessary that atheists should swear to a code of conduct that's similar to Christian morality in all the important ways: i.e. don't murder, don't steal, don't bear false witness, and so on. Atheists should find this reasonable. Since we can't see what we don't see, there is no other solution I can think of.

Humans cooperate in such complex ways because we tell each other stories. Religion is only one of our practical mind games. It's not necessary for social cohesion that everyone believe in the omniscient God, but it's necessary that enough people act like that do.

The next question: if I know atheists are so distrusted, why do I identify as an atheist? I'll leave that for some other blog entry.

The Arizona ninja recount is comedy relief

 If 2020 was an epic disaster, 2021 is already a historically significant year. First we had the insurrection, the pitched battle with police, Trump's banishment from social media, and the arrests of the insurrectionists. This was followed by the inauguration of President Joseph Biden, with its unsettling atmosphere of armed guards and unrest. Then we had the (first?) Derek Chauvin trial, with some of the darkest, most dramatic courtroom testimony in courtroom history. Right on the heels of that we had a whole rash of police shootings, including the first one where a an officer with 26-years of experience claims to have mistaken her gun for a taser. President Biden managed to get 200 million people COVID shots within the first 100 days of his administration. Recently, a judge said the CDC couldn't block evictions, which might cause a million people to go homeless. In case we didn't get the message from Trump the power crisis in Texas about what incompetent, indifferent government could accomplish. Oh, in there someplace, the COVID relief bill was passed.

Republicans have got to be frustrated that their "border crisis" can't get any attention, neither can their cancel culture message. All of those events are going to be fodder for the entertainment industry, but it's all either solemn, tragic and heavy.

That changed when the GOP got to work and have finally given the year some comedy material: behold, the Arizona Recount to find evidence of election fraud Trump declares is there, evidence that Sherlock Holmes couldn't find. This is done by a "not-at all-a-fly-by-night-outfit," Cyber Ninjas. Its Qanon company president is Doug Logan. His very recent job titles include, "Insurrectionist," and "Seditionist," and to Arizona Republicans, that makes him properly vigilant, if not exactly qualified.

He must have skipped Donald Trump's first lesson on running a fly-by-night, a form of enterprise in which Trump has had much experience, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka (which the Russians won't touch), Go Trump, and his crown jewel, Trump University. The first rule, violated by Trump many times himself because he can't help it: keep a low profile.

Just because Logan was at the insurrection and supported all of Trump's crackpot election fraud scenarios doesn't mean he can't make an impartial count. Given the fiasco, there's some question whether he can count at all. In this assignment, Cyber Ninjas doesn't have to slash computer viruses, assassinate hackers, and disarm spam bombs. On both counts, it's failing. Their getting sidetracked on checking ballot paper for traces of bamboo, a sign that Chinese have handled the ballots. It's unclear whether C-Nincompoops have employed anyone who can tell bamboo from pubic hair. They've also been using UV light, apparently looking for . . . semen or blood? Also, they've been warned by the justice department that contacting the voters to confirm their votes are correct (secret ballots) looks enough like voter intimidation to start an investigation.

All of this mission creep is leading to counting creep. They've only done 10% in 2 weeks, which means they'll finish sometime in September. I can't say how long the many other audits of ballots took, because they were done before I knew they were being done. The venue they're doing the count in has other events scheduled. Two more weeks, and it's probably over.

But while the C-Ninnies are making asses of themselves, they've spoiled the ballots and have created chain-of-custody issues. No other audit can be done of the presidential race in Arizona.

Yet, this dog and pony clusterfuck gives me confidence that the GOP is dying quickly. Forty years of believing their own propaganda, followed by a Trump lobotomy, has created a brain drain. Trump has a conman's talent for making people who listen to him dumber than he is. They're too dumb to hold on to power. At least, that's the theory I'm going with.

A Recap for new readers: My ordinary origin story

There's never been a better time in history to be a nobody, and still I'm tired of it. Given the (minor) surge in my social exposure, I think new readers need to know who I am.

I'll hit on the marks minus the details: I was born and I live in St. Louis. I'm 62 in August. This surprises me.

I had an unhappy childhood. My parents also did. My parents childhood was one of poverty. They saved me from that problem. Instead, my troubles came from emotional poverty. They raised me and the five other siblings who following me. This they did despite a having a terrible marriage, one of alcohol abuse, mental illness, and tragedy. They deserve acclaim for that achievement.

The main family tragedy was the child born immediately after me. He had a severe birth defect. This congenital disorder saddled him life-long with a mental age of a two-year old. My parents chose to raise him with the rest of his siblings.

Mother's mental illness was the second tragedy. She would spend whole months in psych wards. In the interim she was either going psychotic or in full-blown psychosis.

Due to this, I lost my mother's emotional support early on. She was distracted at best. At worst she was mean-tempered and abusive. My father was out of the home most the time. He worked late. They would fight, usually in the late night. He was drunk and manipulative; she was buzzing on caffeine, nicotine, and clinical mania. This deprived all of his children of sleep.

My father did his work very well. In fact, he became wealthy. He never succeeded as spectacularly with his family life. When he was home, he was an asshole half the time. He reserved the right to become one at any time. Yet, because of his hard work and diligence, we were never in poverty. This is how and why we stayed out of foster care. Kudos to him for that.

This upbringing has negatively affected my siblings and I into adulthood. For myself, I was a depressed, angry, lonely child. I passed most of my childhood watching television. distracted myself with comedy. I tried sometimes tried to socialize despite my depression. None of it ever worked. Depressed and angry is never a good posture for childhood socialization.

Catholic school never did anything for me. A poor student and sickly, I missed dozens of school days every year. To this day, and likely until the day I die, I've been trying to catch up on the learning I lost during those empty years.

As an adult, I struggled to keep a job. I ended up living in my parent's, sad, chaotic home for long periods. I never married, never had children, and all my relationships were disastrous and traumatic. I had my own hospitalizations due to mental issues. Of course, therapy has been a big part of my life for over forty years. Yet, I never complicated my illness with substance abuse. My resolve appears to have carried over to my siblings. (Kudos to me.)

Then, in 2011, I was diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It wasn't a borderline issue. I now take the maximum doses of two anti-ADHD medications. My life began to change much for the better. My parents, too distracted by a child who was by far worse off, never detected it. To them, and to the Catholic schools they insisted I attend, I was a behavior problem. 

I might have had a hard childhood, but I realized recently my own bottled-up anger greatly magnified my problems. It also made me a worse person to others. Yes, I had a serious neurological issue, but even that would've been clearer to see if not for the displaced rage. I'm sorry for everything I did wrong, and people that I hurt. (I might be brave enough to elaborate on these later).

For decades I knew I wanted to be a writer. I'm not published yet, but I write fantasy, horror, and science ficton. I call that FIBS, Fantasy Informed By Science, which would make me a FIBber. 

Prior to now, I was always too distracted and short on time to write. Controlling the ADHD has given me time now. I want to spend my remaining life, without resentment or anger, doing the best writing I can, and helping who I can.

PS. This blog is called Life After Shocks because I hit bottom in 2009 when I received electro-convulsive therapy. Afterward, I decided my biggest misstep in life was never writing. Now it's my vocation.

I'm a left-of-Bernie-Sanders liberal. I think Trump was (is) the worst crisis this nation has suffered in my lifetime. I support and I'm optimistic about the Biden administration.

 

I also keep a political blog called AnArch Liberal.

 

My first COVID vaccine dose

 I was finally offered an appointment for a COVID vaccine and went for my first round yesterday. It was so well-organized the way they processed people. I would compare it to the military. It felt like a moment of history, because it was.

With all the deaths and misery from COVID so far, this last year and a half has been worse than Vietnam. With all the co-existing issues, COVID has and continues to affect the course of history, especially of America.

The major reason why Conservatives (especially Christian Conservatives) are so hostile to COVID measures, and even the very reality of COVID, is that epidemics cannot be stopped through individual action. It takes cooperation. The best and fastest way accomplish that is with government. Therefore, the pandemic directly challenges the conservative ideology, not only challenges it, but refutes it. Donald Trump's COVID policy was based on individualism. Conservatives are still trying to claim it wasn't a failure, but as time goes by, the fiasco of it is going to sink in, especially as Biden's success in the issue stands out in contrast. Conservatism has lost a major battle.

But I digress, and that belongs in my political blogs.

I'm having a moderate reaction to the vaccine. This is new for me. I've never had any kind of reaction to a vaccine before, aside from some shoulder soreness. Now I have tiredness I felt worse waking up than I usually do and stayed in bed an extra hour, something I almost never do now. I woke up with throat congestion late in the night, body aches and my shoulder actually felt hammered. No swelling or redness though.

I gave myself a somewhat higher caffeine dose, took my morning dose of acetaminophen, with ibuprofen. I all right now, but I'm canceling my morning walk. It's raining anyway, so the walk would've been drudgery.

 

2 a.m. RAMBLING LIFE RECAP

 I've been overflowing with words recently, writing by compulsion. Unfortunately, most of my words are scattered over social media groups and timelines. For everyone, the last three months have been a roller coaster. For me, the political situation has been enthralling and horrifying, and I've lost sleep over that. But my personal life has been pretty good.

Yes, there's the social isolation. I'm now almost convinced that I'm on the autism spectrum. Looking back on my boyhood with the communication problems, my extreme social anxiety, how I could feel a barrier between me an other children, how a crowded schoolyard just made me feel lonely, my inattention to grooming and hygiene, my lack of self-control, how being observed caused extreme anxiety, how I couldn't understand sarcasm until I was in my 20s, I can go on with the list. My ADHD symptoms pretty ruined me academically. 

As I tried to socialize. I was hapless at best. I even pushed myself to socialize when I was also depressed. Those were always disasters.

My parents had some terrible luck. Their first child was borderline autistic, their second child had Angelman Syndrome, which is far, far worse. Of course, that was where their efforts and time had to go. However, they did punish me for things they couldn't know I had no control over. And many times I couldn't communicate and tell them what was going wrong.

So, I write fiction now. It gives me a social outlet, and its therapeutic. When my life collapsed eleven years ago, writing gave me something to look forward to, gave an outlet to excessive, irrational emotions.

I'm exactly where I want to be, doing what I always should've done.

DONALD, YOU'RE FIRED!!!

 What a week! Tuesday night I was close to suicidal, it looked so bad. I didn't take the fact that the swing states hadn't begun to count the early/mail-in/absentee and provisional ballots yet.

But today, today, I'm happier than I've been in 5 years, probably happier than I've ever been. It's such a relief. 

Congratulations, to Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris, the 46th POTUS and VPOTUS of the United States. 😎

False start, lost time

I hate this kind of fall weather: the temperature is in the 50s, breezy, with the sun shining. What that really means is the sun is hot, the air is cold, and the wind is wicked, especially if I'm walking into it. No matter how I dress, it's uncomfortable.

I had to try out several different coat combinations to walk to the store. Turns out I had "outgrown" a few of them, in the horizontal sense of the word. (Sigh). When I got to the store, for only two items, I discovered I had left my charge card in the other coat.

Don't have time to make another trip, even if I'm inclined to.

Missouri Election

I'm in a solid Red State. If the legislature stays Red, the GOP is going to get to redistrict, on the basis of Trump's corrupted census. This depends a lot on Proposition 3, and I hope it loses, because the GOP redistricting will keep Missouri red for the foreseeable future.

 

I encourage everybody to vote for Nicole Galloway and a Democratic state Rep. She's so much better than Parson. Missourians are unaccountably preferring Windows 3.1 over the latest iPhone. I've made up my mind: I won't phone bank after all, but I will donate to her campaign. 

 

 

Election Jitters and Health

I'm frustrated and on-edge. I'm waiting for election results, and I'm waiting on my biopsy. If it's not why they think, h. pylori-- stomach ulcer bacteria, the diagnosis will enter the twilight zone.

 

It might seem like moderately inflamed stomach would be painful, and yes, I guess some people experience pain with it. Actually, the main symptom is the stomach acts like it doesn't know what it wants. At night, I'll go to bed and take Tums for reflux. Twenty minutes later, I'm starving and I eat literally like a pregnant woman: pickles and butterbread seem like Fillet Mignon. Fifteen minutes later, I go to bed, only to have reflux again. I have to pop Tums to quiet it down so I could sleep.Then I'll wake up with phlegm in my throat and no voice due to GERD. I have to take Tums again.

The election: 3 days. Just 3 more days. I said before that the texbanking is completely done. They try to persuade us to phone bank. I HATE PHONE BANKING. And I'm terrible at it. But I might go for it Tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday just to keep myself busy. I encourage everybody to vote for Nicole Galloway and a Democratic state Rep. She's so much better than Parson. I've made up my mind: I won't phone-bank after all, but I will donate. Galloway is so much better than Parson. Missourians voting for him over is like voting for Chester Arthur instead of George Washington (if we can break history a bit).

As for the elephant in the room, the Biden-Trump choice, I don't understand why any person in all of humankind would vote for Trump. It depresses me. I do believe that only the darkest cynicism explained it. The cynicism that started with Vietnam and Watergate, which has congealed since then.

But Charlie, people say, Trump's not that bad, and it's not the End of the World if he wins. He'll ignore both COVID, and far worse, climate change. If he wins, it will literally be The End of the World. The only question then is if you have the reserves of morbid curiosit--and the tolerance for grief-- necessary to stick around to witness it. I did the first time he won. I don't if I could find it in myself again.

A collage of this time in my life

Wednesday I got a rejection notice for finished piece that I'm most proud of. A rejection is always a disappointment. However, this was about the most encouraging rejection a writer could ever receive.

"We thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, we will not be publishing your story, "The Light at Grandmas," as we felt it did not quite fit the theme and tone of our magazine.

We would love to read more of your work, and we invite you to submit to us again in the future!

Thank you for your time and your submission. We wish you and your loved ones good health, and we hope to hear from you again!

Victoria Elghasen & Michelle Baleka

Editors
Déraciné Magazine"

A shoutout to Victoria and Michelle for the rarest gift of encouragement from a publication editor(s). I won't forget them, and I will submit more writing to them.

I had thought the story was perfect for they're magazine, but they know what they want. I'd like to think what really doomed the story is that the protagonist is a child, and they had a story in their current issue that involved a teenager at his grandmother's house. That was probably was too close to the same song for the same gig.   

I just woke up. I'm missing my neice's wedding, but it looks like I'm out of it today anyway. Fact is, she's already married. They were supposed to have the ceremony in late March. And you know what happened then. In the meantime, they held a Zoom wedding. I managed to miss that by having the time wrong. This is the "contractual obligation" ceremony because they can't get their deposit refunded. 

The rest of the family is there, while I'm at home recovering from upper and lower GI's yesterday. The anesthetic has left me reeling, trying to find all the pieces to the rest of my consciousness. It doesn't matter. I don't want to catch COVID at the wedding and then spread it to every voter and worker at the precinct, if I actually get called. And I need to buy a suit that actually fits my current body configuration. I'm hoping to do that with the stimulus funds, if they ever come. 

I spent a lot of time this last week asleep, finally kicking my insomnia, then sleeping off the anesthetic. The insomnia is caused by my stomach troubles. What they found was my stomach is inflamed for some reason. Whatever chronic bug it is, I know I'll have to see a gastro specialist, and it will probably require a round or two of antibiotics, because a gut infection is the only thing I could think of that causes such local inflammation. If it lives in stomach acid, it's a tough bug. 

I haven't had any time for fiction writing since I began working for this election. I know I've been writing this, so why not fiction? Creativity requires a lot of time and focus. I know there are prolific authors like Stephen King, but he realized early that he loved to write. He wrote his first story when he was eight, and was writing since. I didn't know I wanted to write until I was twice that age, and by that time my basic skills in grammar and style were already poor. A poor grade and high school, ADHD and its social, emotional, and intellectual complications doomed any effort. Now, I'm setting an ironclad deadline to complete the novel: May 1st for the draft, August 1st for the final. If I don't meet the first one, it's time to pull the plug.  

When I realized writing was my vocation, the one thing I emphatically didn't want was to the stereotyped unstable artistic type. It doesn't matter because that's where I am now. I took a wrong turn somewhere.  

After today, I'm going to be textbanking for the Democratic Party six hours a day until November 2nd. Anyway, I have to take the online poll worker quiz by tomorrow. So, I have to go through the material today. By November 4th, I hope this 4 year nightmare will be over. But this election will hardly be the end of our country's troubles. Biden and Harris and the other people elected will have their work cut out for them fixing all the things Trump has broken.  

I'm afraid that they will try to return things to what they were before. If they do that, we'll get another authoritarian, one smarter and more ruthless than Trump in ten years. I hope they realize with the rest of the country that the only way to fix the system is to turn left. The reason why I'm supporting them is that the only viable way Left is through the center. Under most circumstances, that's an unsafe and illegal turn. We could only hope we don't crash in the process.  

Damn this election! Take me back to 1999

 I couldn't sleep for about a week. Then I dropped everything late yesterday, lingered in a low state of existence, and went to bed.

I slept! I had almost forgotten how it felt. It was wonderful to take a vacation to the Sandman's realm for a while. Then, wouldn't you know, I woke up, and immediately got tired again.

My psychiatrist recommends that I think about happier things. My siblings suggest that I avoid thinking about Trump. Instead, I'm doing text-messaging for Show Me Change. I love it, but doing it sleep deprived is close to Hell, if not in Hell itself.

My moods have gone from ecstatic as it looks like Trump doesn't have a chance, to sullen when I think he might win despite all the eggs he's laid and all the public shitting he's done. The four years under Trump has been like a nonstop night terror, where I try my best to wake up, but can't move to do it because an orange, 6' 2" troll with bad hair is sitting on my chest. My real wish is that I'll wake up and find it's 1999, and the last 20 nightmare years since Bush v. Gore never happened. Then I'd party, like it's 1999. 

So, I got a good, long night's of sleep last night. But I got up tired anyway. Figure that. Maybe I just want to sleep more, take another vacation from this world of the shattered future. The complete reverse of the one I let myself think we were going to have in 1999.