No, no, not THAT Homer. The other Homer, the one who sailed the Mediterranean.
That is they story the Contrarian is pushing. For what that’s worth.
Okay, so this is the story.
The Contrarian tends to read my blogs in bunches. And so he acccccuuuum-ulates all the MInor little digs I make at him, and makes them a BIG DEAL.
So he insists that I set the record straight. So that is this.
A couple of days ago, I was complaining, as has been my wont for some time now that my tummy was unhappy. I have what are known as “digestive issues” and from time to time they annoy me for a few days. So anyhow, I was grousing about this, and sucking down my fourth cup of coffee, when I mused, “I wonder if in fact the full caffeine coffee is making this worse than it otherwise would be?”
Lights, camera, action.
The next thing I know, said holder of the ring of committment, was getting his wallet and checkbook and inserting same in bibs.
“Where ya goin’?” I inquired.
“To get you some D-caf.” he intoned.
“Oh, dear, I can wait, I’ll just stop drinking coffee for a bit.”
“No, the minute you mentioned it, I knew that was it. I”m going to get my sweetie some D-caf.”
And so it goes.
He left.
He returned. With ice cream drumsticks, but no coffee.
“Didn’t have any at Troy. Didn’t have any at Walker either.” he moaned.
“Well, we can get some next week.”
“No, I just came back to drop off the drumsticks, I’m off to Center Point.”
“Parker, that’s enough. No need for all that.”
“No, I going. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, then I had to go clean into Cedar Rapids.”
He left.
He returned.
He had a green container of Folgers.
“I may have to take rest,” he shuddered. “It’s awful out there.”
“I think I traveled to hell and back. Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles everywhere. I mean they don’t even know enough to get over yet. They haven’t been hit enough times, the brush back doesn’t work. I was nearly killed on a hill when I had to go AROUND them. On a HILL of all places.”
He walked into the living room and flopped down, still muttering.
“I felt like Homer, I felt like Homer,” I heard him say again and again.
I had not the heart to ask which.
¶
I have only one dog left in the fight. MSU is in the Sweet Sixteen. All my other teams were defeated. Sometimes in nail-biters, sometimes rather ignominiously. Such is March Madness. Such is the foul-make ’em-foul shoot, college ball.
¶
I find that reading crap from the Right is a great sanity protector. One has to hold most strongly to one’s own in order to properly witness the evaporation of someone elses. (by the way, that is an original quote from me. Feel free to quote me–extensively. Sherry M. Peyton, thinker extraordinaire)
¶
What would it take to buy you off? I’m not talking about the average politician who bit by bit sells his vote for enough dough to insure his own re-election. He/she salves his soul by telling himself that he is simply doing what needs to be done to remain there to do the “right” thing by the really big issues.
I’m talking about the man or woman who makes a decision to deny their very self in return for success, however defined. The ones who out-torture their torturers. The ones who will demean gender, orientation, race, ethnicity, and/or beliefs in order to be in “the club” and reap the reward, called the “American Dream.” The ones who cannot look their own in the eye any more, because of what they have done in the name of winning personal reward.
I’m reading about them in Republican Gomorrah, by Max Blumenthal. It absolutely makes your skin crawl. If other life forms have visited us, they must surely have left in disgust. To witness up close the intertwining evil is frightening, but at the most basic, it’s not an ideology so much as it is a series of petulant, damaged little men and women who want people to sit up and take notice that they are alive and prosperous. They recognize each other, and join forces all supporting each other in their personal madness, corrupted and corrupting all they touch, for this barely believed “greater good” they hope to usher in.
I should go pack some more. LOL. I’m obviously in a foul mood.
It’s Monday, I’m retired, and I still hate Mondays.
Existential Ennui 