Stand By Your Ham

 Ham is just who Ham is. Ham gonna Ham. Ham brings home the bacon. Ham sometimes smokes, but can also come home with a sweet glaze, ready to treat you right. Ham will spiral with you on the dance floor. Ham likes pineapple, and you know what they say about eating pineapple, right? Ham, bamalam! Black Forest, hamalam! So many Hams.  

I don't know what I set out to accomplish with this silliness. All I know is that I'm hungry and ham tastes good, bamalam.

Here's a picture of the best ham in the world.  This man likes to ham. He was also a former supervisor of mine, back in the day. Ham Man.

Ham Man, complete with "Ham Action Grip". Kids, tell your parents that you want Ham Man for Christmas. Cloves not included. 

Touched by a Ham Angel.

Slapped Ham.

Ham on Ham

"I know what you're thinking" Ham.

Hot Ham.

Pressure Wash Your Cares Away

There's something to be said for mindless, menial labor. Since I became king of the grunt world some time ago, I can order people to do these mindless things, instead of me. However, I need this kind of work in my life, occasionally. 

I'm currently pressure washing the north side of a building, blasting off all the lichens growing on the stucco exterior. What do I do for a living now, you may ask? Well, same thing I did before but fatter. I'm a facility manager of a large office complex. The cream has risen to the top, well, at least past the halfway mark of the coffee mug. Anyway, I could have any of the workers under my supervision do this mindless, menial task. I could stay warm, dry, and fat in my office.  I don't want to do that shit. Time fucks up your body--relationships, finances, and work stress does the rest. I have to keep my body moving and my mind focused on something methodical, predictable, and most importantly, controllable. 

When life turns out to be something you never expected, and that spans the good and bad, there has to be something you can turn to that will never change. What never changes are the tasks that you go to that are reliably boring, repetitious, and constant. It's the task that puts you in a state of meditation, no cares, and subconscious prayer, where the physical pain fades into a drone, a hypnotic vibration, and auto pilot cause you to leave your body, in a sense.

I'm pressure washing this building because I need to do it for myself. I need to take the pain of my heart, mind, and body and throw it at an immovable object, knowing that if I only move it an atom's width, I have triumphed.

I am back.

I'm a Kucking Flutz!

 I spilt Dr. Pepper on the bed tonight. I was trying to help by taking it and some food to the fridge for my wife. As usual, I fucked everything up. Something is wrong with me. I can feel it. I drop things more and more. I seem to forget things more. I'm experiencing brain fog. I don't know what is happening. I just feel like I'm letting people down all the time. I feel like my body and brain are starting to decline. This can't be happening. I feel uneasy and unsure about myself. I don't know what to do. 

The World Is Fucked, By Bartholomew T. Gruntington

News Flash: The world is fucked! What's that, you say, fucked? Yes, fucked!  Oh no! What shall we do?  Go out to the streets and yell? Sure, why not. Wear masks so we don't die? Absolutely! Above all, vote Orange Man out of office.

I'm not as clever or funny as I used to be, sorry.  Just don't screw shit up this November, okay?  Hey, I don't like Biden as a presidential candidate either, but sometimes you just have to take that damn bitter pill in order to get better. Hillary wasn't a great choice either, but I still voted for her. Why? Because Trump is a fucking dumpster fire of a human being and a black hole of humanity to boot. Didn't everybody get that memo back in 2015? I sure as hell did. I don't know what gave anybody north of a 70 I.Q. the impression that Trump was anything other than a neon conman with a T.V. show and a trail of destruction that spanned the globe. Oh, I forgot. He owned the libtards. Well, fuck you! If we don't get Trump out of office this election, then we are truly and most certainly fucked in the literal sense.

Grunt mad!

Blog Is Dead. Long Live Blog!

I will never quit this blog. Never! I may not come on here very often anymore, but with the other things that people have fled to (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Fartfinder), I still feel the need to keep myself rooted in this thing called blog.  I think it is where all the cool kids are right now, anyway.

About Fartfinder.com, well, that was more of an idea for a website that I had. It's more of a service than a social media platform. It can be used to find farts or to place blame--find out who dealt it. Why would you want to find a fart? Well, I'm thinking that it's more of a fetish thing, but those loud farts that don't end up smelling bad, the smell found its way into another dimension, by way of our Lord's eternal grace.  If you wanted to find out how bad it really smelled, then this service can find out and recreate it for you and your friends. Judging by how strong the fart smelled, you can determine God's love towards you, that God spared you from such stench in the first place.

My work here today is done.

Old Timey and a Little Bit Stinky

My beloved laptop has been pushed into a corner by all the major browsers.  So, I run Vista. What's the big deal? I still remember how to fuckin' DOS man. So, I have been all a-scared to go online  and do stuff because my operating system is no longer supported by Firefox and Chrome, the two browsers that have made my life so fabulous and complete, until now.  I feel so old and obsolete.

I'm writing this post at the risk of sounding old timey.  I'm crossing into dangerous "Hey kids, get off my lawn" territory.  Fortunately, I found that I didn't have to get all pissed off.  I haven't descended into the fear of being left behind in a strange new world (like a Trump supporter's persecution fantasy). No, I found out that there are other browsers that accept me and my Windows Vista.  Hooray!

I have found myself on my phone too much, anyway. I need to get back to the tactile "typey-typey" thing. I need to get on here more and let loose the little Grunt man again. Strange things happen when you become an even more grown-ass adult and I shouldn't let the opportunity slip away from me to blog about it. Yeah!

That's the other thing bugging me. It's "yeah" not "yea". Unless you're reading Shakespeare or the Bible, you really shouldn't be coming across yea too much.  OH, YEAH! Yea, verily.

Okay, I need to get going.  I have decided to just wash my hair and trust that the rest of me is not stinky.  The things that happen when you are running your own little rest home, well, let's just say, drain you of life and the motivation to stay on top of every routine that used to come so easy. That may sound like I'm depressed. I'm not depressed; tired, yes. But, my life is actually pretty good, when I think about it. I've just channeled my energies into areas that are much more rewarding.  So, while there is the mire, I also have developed a great life outside of that hard slog.  It doesn't come easy, but it's damn sure worth the effort.

Holding fast to slow people (An old post that didn't get published but should have)

(Grunty's notes: I've been looking back at my posts and noticed that I didn't publish this post. I'm not sure why. It does seem to be a bit negative and self defecating--I literally shit myself. Anyhoo, whether or not it makes me look pathetic, it represents me at that time. My inner person is doing pretty good right now and I've grown up a lot since. That's probably why I'm not funny anymore. Tee-hee!)

I often feel like the Shepard of a special flock. I don't know how this has happened. It probably has something to do with insecurity, my need to feel depended on and superior. All of my smart friends are out being smart, with good jobs and beautiful families. I don't get to see much of them anymore. Somehow, the gaping hole that is my life needs to be filled. Stupid people usually fall into holes. Therefore, my life is full of "special" people.

I am going to start paying homage to those special people in my life. They may not be the brightest bulbs, but they are always happy to see me and to put up with my paranoid rants. They don't judge me or point out my failings to reach my potential. I was and am too weird for most to want me to work with them, if they actually are with it enough to realize what effect that would have on them professionally. This is why most of my networking contacts have usually only given me leads on jobs like auto detailing and door to door salesman. What the fuck is so wrong with me? I think this all stems from an incident at scout camp where I built a bomb out of human feces. Don't ask. It didn't work. Well, it worked in that the whole surrounding camp ground stunk like shit for the rest of the evening. I have long accepted that I suffer from an unmarketable personality and mind.

Stupid, Dumb-Ass, Well-Meaning, Nice People Sharing "Quotes"

Okay. I have had people share a quote from Gandhi, that goes something like, "Be the change you want to see in the world." First off, Gandhi never said this, just like Jesus never said, "I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it." I actually looked for that shit in the bible when I was younger, "Wow, they really broke away from the King James's English there for a sec."  Gandhi did say this, however, "We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do." It's a bit more soul stirring, wouldn't you say? It is a bit harder to plaster that on a t-shirt and sell the shit out of it, though.

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." ~Mark "Choo-Choo"Twain

Gah! I feel that is what people do with our great philosophers, prophets, and leaders: make the marketable for mass consumption and for profit.  Everything's got to be a damned bullet point or tweetable. It also annoys me to no end that people have no desire to do any due diligence with regards to verifying the credibility or source of these things.  Now when I see this fake quote pinned to a bulletin board at work I just want to rip it to shreds or burn it in front of the stupid smiley person who goes around without a fucking care in the world, perpetuating feel-good falsehoods, thinking that they're making the world a better place.  The thing is, as long as no one points this shit out, they are making the world a better place...for other stupid smiley people.  So, I go on with my inner screamy "I really know what the hell is going on here" voice and say, "Meh, fuck it anyway" and let the babies have their bottle.

Mountain Clowns

I have stated in the past that I like the idea of Bigfoot.  What I mean by that is that I feel that the possibility of Bigfoot keeps me feeling hopeful, kind of like believing in God.  Thinking about Bigfoot, I recently asked myself, "Can the same be said about clowns?" Why compare the two? I mean, clowns do exist and they do not give me hope...except Ronald McDonald. He's a pretty good clown in my book, so not all clowns must be bad, right? I feel I could get behind the idea of a new type of clown, or yet to be discovered clown.

I went about thinking of different types of clowns: party, circus, sad ones, killer, alien, and the ones that hang out at 7-Elevens. I'm sure I left some out. However, the clown must've had its origins along side primitive man somewhere along the way.  If so, then there was a wild clown who roamed the earth at some point in time.  I have wondered occasionally that some of those wild clowns might exist still to this day, much in the same way Neanderthal DNA found it's way into modern humans via interbreeding, or perhaps, a clown version of Bigfoot.

Rendering of a possible clown/Bigfoot hybrid.

Is there a lost tribe of Mountain Clown, perhaps?  There's been several situations where I believed that I was indeed confronted with evidence of mountain clowns: graffiti on rocks and trees, trash, used "balloons", and torn up hillsides. Those turned out to just be idiots who treat the outdoors as their personal trashcan. Moving on, the real mountain clown would most likely be timid and hole up in caves, with the occasional pine cone juggling or prat fall into bear shit being captured in an out of focus photo.

The odds are that mountain clowns do not exist, but if they did, I would imagine that they would be covered in technicolor fur, with huge floppy feet, red noses, and a comical way of moving through the forest. They would originate from the Clown Mountains, where flowers squirt the purest spring water, and all the animals are made from balloons. I can just hear their mating call of "honk-honk" filling the air among the cottoncandywood trees and seeing tourists feed them jelly beans, despite the park's strict "do not feed the clowns" policy.

P.S. No, I haven't been micro dosing LSD.

The Captain of Köpenick

I don't feel like the person that people tell me I am. Praise is hard for me to accept. It's not that I want people to stop telling me the good about me and when I do good work. I'm sure it sticks somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind. When I'm told something bad or negative about myself or my performance, I tend to give it undue credence or am already expecting to hear such things. Why? Probably because I had already thought those bad things about myself first. I suffer from a form of perfectionism that rarely lends to productivity. 

I spent my college years believing that I was only lucky and not as good as my grades and professors told me I was. I had a good chunk of time serving my LDS mission where I felt good about myself, because everything I was doing had a purpose in bringing truth and the goodness of the Lord to people in need.It was such a beautiful time in my life. Once cracks were made in that, I became worse and have lamented over it ever since. It is a terrible feeling to believe that you are not worthy of success, love, and the "you" that others see. I have survived by hardening my heart and succumbing to cynicism. That isn't good. Also, it's probably not totally true; it's something that I tell myself to avoid letting it out that I am a blubbering feely deep down inside. 

After coming home from my mission in England, I had gone through a string of jobs only to end up working at my old high school job at McDonald's. I was a lowly grill worker trying to figure out how my life had hit the shitter so hard after all the promises I believed in from my service to the Lord. I thought my co-worker was on break and that my exclamation would just evaporate into the grill vents. "Fuck me, I feel sooo jaded!" Sunny, my co-worker, was right behind me and she started laughing like crazy. She kept doing impersonations of me saying this throughout the day. In a weird way it helped. It helped me to know how silly I was in that moment. It helped me to know how serious I was taking it all and that I needed to chill the fuck out and laugh it off. I like laughing things off now....It is the best therapy by far. 

I only share all of this, not to punish or shame myself, but to help others, because I know there are others that experience this. I am growing from grace to grace with regards to this feeling of being an imposter. I have been posing as "me" and that is a fallacy, because I am that man and I must embrace the good in me.

Fartistic

You know, if it weren't for the smell, I believe that farts would be a socially acceptable form of self expression. Heck, farts might have also become incorporated in language, punctuating sentences for dramatic effect or acting as commas in speech.  Farts could even be used in symphonies and the like. Think of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (cannons anyone?) or an all fart rendition of Beethoven's 5th. Magnificent!  Wet farts could be used in painting. I'm pretty sure that Jackson Pollock just shoved random colors of paint up his ass and shat them out in random order: ta-da! (F)art.

Farting could be a way of expressing your moods. I've had many sad sounding farts in my days, as well as excited sounding farts. More often than not, my farts sound out my displeasure, relief, and satisfaction. But less often, my farts have expressed awe, wonderment, and confusion. I have had my farts ask "why" on occasion. I didn't always have the answers to my farts, but I really did appreciate their inquisitiveness.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the smell that most farts produce may be what is giving them a bad rap. But what is a fart without the smell?  I do believe that one without the other is robs the fart of it's true purpose: to amuse and offend at the same time.  The fart is probably the first comedian, in this case.  To quote some random hobo that I once met, "If yer a feller that don't think farts is funny, well mister, I don' wanna share my beans witchu."  I couldn't have said it better, Skippy.

In conclusion, farts may not be socially acceptable now, but I do hope in time that they will be embraced by all.  We all pass gas from our ass, some with more sass than grass, but alas, I've run out of things that rhyme with ass. Bass. Anyway, try using farts as way to express yourself, become a fartist. Be the vanguard in this movement, but keep the movement from turning into a full on shit. Thank you.

Slippery Psyche

I find that my emotions aren't helping me out much lately. There's got to be a switch inside where I can turn them off. You take a few days off from people and whammo, they feel hurt. Hermitsville or homelessness would suit me. I can't continue being inconsistent in my feelings, but it appears that I don't know how to change that right now. Honestly, if I could settle my psyche one way or another, I would. It would make my life a lot easier. The question of whether to advance or retreat becomes another question of how to avoid fracturing my being. Vulnerability takes a backseat to survival, especially when it involves the welfare of dependents. Why can't I just let my hair down and be free? Because, if I did there would be real consequences. That's how you know life has deemed you too old for dreams. Move over, Charlie, and let the young 'uns on by. I at least have this fascinating "relic of times past" role to play; to inspire the occasional starry-eyed dreamer, who just might make it to Xandadu. When you get there send me a postcard. Let me know if the milk of paradise is as good as I've heard. I'll snap out of it. Ok?

Recumbent Exercise Bicycle as Imaginary Friend

Sometimes when I am watching T.V. I am guilty of making commentary out loud to no one.  Recently I caught myself turning to the recumbent exercise bike after I had made such out loud comments, as if I needed its take on what just happened on the T.V. program.  At first, I felt silly as I continued to catch myself making comments and looking for the bike's response. I felt like I was going crazy, but then something even more crazy happened.  

After some time, I began to feel as though the bike could understand me.  This bike knew what I was going through and how frustrated I had become with life, feeling left behind, professionally stunted, the struggles of being a white male, and generally none too good with the state of affairs in the world. It felt good to have something listen to me and my troubles, no matter how trivial they may be. Soon, the bike would appear in my thoughts and dreams at night.

These thoughts and dreams started out innocent enough but eventually got weird.  Here is the first and only significant exchange that we had.

Me: What? What was that? Who said that?

Bike: It is I, the all-powerful Recumbent Exercise Bicycle.

Me: You can talk?

Bike: I can do many things.  I can change your body.  I make annoying beeping sounds.  My seat has the power to destroy asses. I know your pulse. I am stationary, yet everywhere at the same time.

Me: If you could talk, why are you talking to me now?

Bike: I chose to speak to you because I have a purpose in mind for you.  You seemed to lack a direction in life and expressed that you felt forgotten. Yet you did not vote Trump, despite so many white men feeling the way you did, and who ended up voting this man into the highest office of this nation. Why is that?

Me: Well, because he's an asshole that in the end only looks to serve himself.  I don't care how persecuted or how invisible I feel, a tyrant is still a tyrant, and I won't make the world pay for my insecurities and hurt feelings.

Bike: That is precisely why I chose you for my purpose.

Me: What is this purpose that you have ordained me for, oh Recumbent Exercise Bicycle?

Bike: The purpose that I have designed for you is start to blog like a mofo.  Keep the people entertained, while being heartfelt and thought provoking.  It is going to be a long four years. 

Me: Do I get paid for this? Will this get me into heaven?

Bike: No. What? How the hell should I know? I'm just a fucking exercise bike. 

After this encounter with the bike, I felt a renewed commitment to blog about shit, like maybe once a month.  The bike continued talking to me about certain other things, but mostly about Game of Thrones.  It really hasn't been that great, to be honest. The fact that no one else hears the bike makes me feel a bit scared. I wish the thing would just shut up now.

The End!

Ouija Hat

I've lost two hats in the past three months.  That's almost one hat per month.  Who takes care of those lost hats? When the hat catcher finds them, the hat catcher takes them to the hat pound. What happens to those hats at the hat pound if nobody adopts them? That hat, my friends, gets put to sleep and nobody wins then.

I know what you're saying, "Grunt, you are a bad hat owner, so irresponsible...uuuuugely irresponsible."  You know what? You'd be right.  The first of these two hats got lost because I wanted to take it for a motorcycle ride.  Because of my recklessness, this hat got real scared and jumped from the crevice between the seat and backrest that I stuffed it into. If you live in the Mt. Olympus area, please keep an eye out for a dark blue hat with some faded patches and has an eagle on the front.  It responds to "Hattie".

The second hat that I lost was when I was hiking up a popular canyon in Sandy that has some beautiful waterfalls, where people like to slip and fall to their deaths on a fairly regular basis. I guess when you are looking at a beautiful waterfall it's easy to come to the conclusion that life isn't worth living.  I mean, what is your life, really, in comparison to such beauty? It's nothing, I say.  Get closer to the edge.  But I digest. I'd digress, but there's still some of that Little Caesar's Pizza taking up residence inside of me, doggedly so. Turn to poo already!  

So, I put on my Napa Auto Parts hat.  It's my pride and joy because I like cars and working on them.  I like Napa because their staff actually knows what they are doing. All the other auto parts places employ individuals who seem to know what a car is and what oil is; therefore, they are your new god. 

I went into an Autozone wearing my Napa hat and the manager told me to get a new hat.  I told him that I would, if he would stop being gay.  It isn't a choice, is what I was trying to say.  Only my dad gets to call me homophobic. Oh, and if you were wondering if I made that last part up, well, I didn't. My 86-year-old Mormon dad totally called me homophobic.  I asked him if he knew what homophobic meant. He said, "Uh, maybe I don't...er, I forgot." I explained to him that it meant a fear of gay people.  He then goes, "OH, not that one.  You're a Sociopath!"  Thanks dad, that made me feel so much better.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, so I'm going up the Bell Canyon Trail wearing my Napa hat.  The first part of the trail goes around a hoity-toity gated community, with all these uuuuuuugely tremendous homes.  It was rather windy that day.  As I was hiking up the hill, I remember thinking that I'd better take my hat off.  It was just as I was completing that thought that a gust of wind came and whisked my Napa hat off of my head.  I watched it sail through the air and into the backyard of some dickhead's mansion.  It hurt my feelings because I've started to wonder if my Napa hat wanted a better life and decided to use the wind as an excuse for leaving me. Rather convenient, I say.  

So, what does this all have to do with the title? Well, I had an idea.  You have heard, I hope, of urban legends where people get in too deep playing with Ouija boards.  They get all freaked out and throw it away, run it over with their car, burn it, or send it to Grandma.  Inevitably, the Ouija board returns the following day, unharmed, ready for the next round of satanic Chutes and Ladders.  I thought that this kind of supernatural technology would actually be welcome if it were employed in objects that tend to get lost.  If you lose or accidentally burn your remote, wouldn't you want it waiting on your coffee table for you the next day?  I sure would.  So, I thought that having an Ouija Hat would be pretty rad. If both those hats were Ouija Hats, then I would still be wearing them today.  I would be haunted by demons, but I'd still have protection from the sun.  I'm just bummed that I wasn't the first one to think of and create the Ouija Hat.  I really thought I had an original idea.  Oh well, at least I still can lay claim to being the inventor of the Breakfast Thong.

Thinky Brain vs. Feely Heart

Thinky Brain knows what's best for me, at least that's what it tells me.  Feely Heart wants me to believe in stuff that is unknowable, whether the stuff it wants me to believe in is totally bat-shit crazy doesn't seem to bother it at all.  Popular subjects that these two parts of me fight over are God, religion, politics, and love.  It seems that my Thinky Brain and my Feely Heart don't get along on these matters much.

I won't go into the specifics of each argument vying for my attention, but I will say that I'm fucking tired of Thinky Brain making my Feely Heart hurt and Feely Heart pissing off Thinky Brain with all of its mushy, illogical wants.  I always thought that it was a good thing to have a brain that would keep me out of trouble.  I also believed that my heart would always show me the way.  It seems like having these two things would be a match made in heaven for me and it would if they could ever agree on anything.

My Feely Heart loves it when I pig out on stuff that makes it feel good and my Thinky Brain just goes with it because it's all "I like thinking about why this is so damn good. It's because of bacon, right?" Winner: Both.

On matters of politics, Thinky Brain wants to find the evidence that backs up the candidates' claims and is interested in what will work, versus what will make me feel good about myself.  Feely Heart wants everybody to get along, but also wants affirmation that what it feels is right and is best for everyone else, even if what it feels has no basis in reality, reason, or logic. Feely Heart is also prone to acting on fear, but will never admit it. Winner: Thinky Brain.

When it comes to love, well, the battle isn't as one-sided as you'd think.  Sure, Feely Heart gets a lot of time at the podium here.  I get to hear all about how good or bad Feely Heart is feeling at any given moment--like constantly and unrelenting.  It's that blubbering, attention-starved teenager who is given the spotlight and wants so much for the world to know that they are the center of the universe. Feely Heart can also be a little prima-donna bitch in this matter, if you ask me.  Thinky Brain is mostly putting its fingers in its ears and repeating "la-la-la-la" until it can't take it any longer and screams "SHUT-UP, YOU NINNY!"  This is the point where Thinky Brain has to step in and take control of the situation. Thinky Brain is usually pissed off because it was on the verge of discovering the cure for cancer or some shit, but got interrupted and lost its choo-choo train of thought. Thinky Brain has to figure out all of the compatibility issues, current readiness for a relationship, whether upping the hygiene routine and wardrobe is warranted. Winner:  No winners yet, but I'm hopeful a peace can be negotiated and that the sanctions will be lifted.

God isn't so much fought over as much as religion. Thinky Brain can dig God, even if that's more Feely Heart's territory.  It figures that if there's a being that did all this universe building, well, they've got its vote.  Plus, it has decided that against the odds, believing in God provides a bit of afterlife insurance.  Where we get into trouble is when religion gets thrown into the mix.  This is where Feely Heart and Thinky Brain start pulling the off the gloves and fighting dirty.  Feely Heart feels so loyal and obligated to notions that comfort it and provide a sense of being one of the "chosen" or part of God's only true path.

Feely Heart relies purely on emotional validation as it's standard of proof.  Feely Heart calls this The Holy Ghost. In fact, Feely Heart was at one time convinced by a slight peaceful ease, which lasted a couple of minutes tops, that American Indians were really Jews who came over to the Americas to escape religious persecution and evil in general. Once in the new land, some of these Jews were disobedient and caused God to become furious, resorting to his big hammer of retribution: the curse of dark skin (And it came to pass that a great and thunderous voice came from the heavens and said, "ooogah-boogah" and the wicked suddenly got darker and better at music and of sports).  Thinky Brain eventually caught wind of this (it took quite some time and about two semesters at university) and was all "the fuuuuuuuuuuck?"  Thinky Brain soon found out all this other crazy shit that Feely Heart was getting me involved in with this religion stuff, too much to list here.  Thinky Brain has wanted to put a stop to all of this, but the real chance of being cut off from family and friends, plus being the village pariah, have caused Thinky Brain to hold back and plot its next move, biding its time.  The winner: Feely Heart, but it sure is fucking with me hard at the moment.  God help me.

Even though Thinky Brain and Feely Heart don't get along, I truly believe that for all of their arguing the two will steer me where I need to go, eventually.  Feely Heart's desires make me human and are responsible for the joy I have in life.  Thinky Brain is doing its best to keep me out of trouble and cleaning up the resulting messes made from trying and failing.  Thinky Brain's job is to tell Feely Heart that everything is going to be okay and that things are not as bad as they seem.  Feely Heart, in turn, celebrates when Thinky Brain figures out important shit and gives Thinky Brain credit, where credit is due.  Feely Heart also is Thinky Brain's editor, quite often.  It tries to keep Thinky Brain's editorials from reaching the printing press without a thorough examination first, and then offers its suggestions.  Sometimes, Thinky Brain sneaks these things past Feely Heart and later has to deal with the blow back from the readership.

Thinky Brain and Feely Heart aren't perfect but they are trying.  It's just that I get a bit tired of them fighting and wish I could go on a long vacation somewhere nice. That's all I'm asking.

Smug Electronic Game

I was feeling rather optimistic at a certain point today.  I felt like I might be coming out of a depression.  It's been more than that: a dark pit of fear and anxiety, mixed with depression.  There were attempts at displays of humor, musing, and sharing music on social media.  Trying to play through the pain seemed to be speeding my recovery.  Unfortunately, I had over estimated my recovery and tried contacting a friend before I could really deal with it.  Before we go any further, let me just say, I am the one at fault.  I know you are all gasping because you thought I was perfect.  Well, I'm pretty freaking far from perfect. Okay, now that we got that straightened out, I will continue.

What I was trying to get at was that I fell back into that pit of depression/fear/anxiety.  I concluded that I needed to stop making an ass of myself and go do nothing in a place where nobody, including me, would be affected or hurt.  That's where I found it: an electronic handheld game called "20 Questions".  This game asks you a series of questions about a thing that you are thinking and within 20 questions, it tries to figure out what that thing is.  Well, I felt pretty awful tonight, so I chose "depression" as my thing that the game would have to find out from my answers to it's questions.

I didn't think it was going to get it, but right after the 20th question, the game got it.  The way it celebrated after was a bit dickish, though.  It basically said, "I know what you're thinking! I got you beat! It's depression, isn't it?"  I answered "yes" and then it did this whole end zone dance, "I AM THE WINNER!!! You thought you could beat me, but I am too smart! Do you want to play again?"  No, 20 Questions, I do not want to play again.

If I had a robot, It'd probably sneak into my room later tonight and whisper "loser" into my ear, and then pat me on the head.

Gift Basket of Deplorables

This post's title begs to be made into a movie.  Who to direct? Tarantino?? Rob Zombie???  Whomever takes on such a project needs to tap into the mind of the Trump supporter and extract that magic--the perfect horror movie.  I figure the strategy to "make America great again", in this horror scenario, is a family magically appears in every neighborhood around the country, in a house that no one remembers being there.  Things in the neighborhood mysteriously start to change, bit by bit.  It's a "The Stepford Wives" meets "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" kind of thing.  One by one, each household is transformed into a super xenophobic, uneducated, disgruntled Trump supporter. It gets better. Hillary and her zombie body-double hoards start taking over the urban areas, eating the rich but not leaving any meat on the bone for the working class. Her attacks become more intense as the weather cools down.  Meanwhile, The Great and Terrible Orange One is busy building a wall around his tower, using illegal immigrant labor, to protect him from the mess he started.

It's a work in progress.

Gassclown

This is the clown that gives me gas and haunts my dreams.

This one gives me gas and haunts my dreams, too.  However, this clown used to pay me to do horrible things to people.

It's no wonder I turned out to be a mentally-scarred adult clown with many, many issues.  If you are brave enough to honk my nose and stick around, you'll probably be disappointed. I am not used to keeping the party going longer than an hour or two.  I'll probably say something awful to ruin the birthday party, so I can go home early and calm down. After a while, it starts to sink in what a sad, sad clown I really am. I think about how nice it was to be at the party, with the balloons, bad clothes, floppy boots, and my squirting lapel flower. I think about how nice it was to have someone get involved in my act, even if I wasn't ready for it. I really appreciated you honking my nose. Sorry for the strange noise it made. Please forgive me.

A Whale Regulated Militia

Elf Evaluation

Sometimes I wonder about my life and why things happen the way they happen. I'm either too smart or too dumb...I don't know which.  Well, if I don't seem to know which, then it's probably the latter.  I certainly feel like I've been rather dumb lately, dumb and insensitive.  I blame Donald Trump.

Have you ever entered a situation or an experience so loaded with prior hangups and bad memories that you ruined things? Yeah, I've totally screwed shit up because of that.  I can say that I'm cool with things and try to convince myself and others that I'm okay with it, but if I haven't really dealt with my issues, they always have a way of showing up at the wrong time and wanting to crash the party.  I blame Hillary Clinton.

I may not want something 100%, but that doesn't mean that I don't want it like 85%.  What's with the whole binary system of desire, anyway?  I am criticizing myself here.  It seems I have to want something with every fiber of my being in order to make a life decision.  Shit, I don't have this standard with food.  There have been plenty of times where I choose some kind of burger with a bit of uncertainty, but after am all "Damn, that was a good freaking burger!"  It's really because I can be a chicken shit sometimes.  I blame the media.

Sure, there's a rush when you flee your supposed "burning building", a feeling like you've somehow escaped a potential problem.  The problem is that when there becomes a pattern of these events, well, you have to start asking yourself if you just view every situation as a burning building.  I blame my optometrist.

What do I do? I don't know, really.  If I hurt someone, then I do my best to make that right. But what do I do about myself?  I am repeatedly hurting myself and it has to stop.  I have to identify my problems and their root causes.  After that, well, the hard work begins of actually trying to fix myself.  Can't I just shut up and play my guitar?  I blame society.

Boy, this self evaluation stuff is hard. I blame myself.  At least that's a start.