In which I monopolize the global Bead industry

We haven't had a bling post in awhile, but it has been a crazy-busy month in the shop. I can't keep up with the holiday demand, I list stuff and it's gone by sundown. Crazy. 

I get that it's just a bunch of beads, but it beats doom-scrolling the headlines and it's cheaper than therapy. And, to be honest, I feel like I'm doing more to solve the world's problems by putting pretty stones on string than I did in the entire 30 years I spent living and working in the cesspools of DC. 

Some of these beads have existed for thousands of years. Some of them will still be here long after America has sunk into the sea. And who knows, maybe they'll actually spread a small amount of happiness to someone in the meantime. 

Fine, it's not much. But it's something. And it's weird how there's a little community growing that is centered on my shop, a fairly steady crew of repeat buyers who just "get it" with beads and like my stuff. We interact, sometimes they interact, I get comments on my socials, things like that. A weird little community we're growing over here, and I like it. 

Anyway, if you're interested in seeing more, I've put the link to my shop at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile, enjoy these pretty pics of some of my recent sales.  

For those still scrolling this far, you really should check out the shop, it's unending fabulousness over there. Click here:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/bongobeach/?etsrc=sdt

This aged well...

Welp the joke's on me, ha ha. Turns out I was worried for nothing. 

 

 

The wind, Nicodemus, the wind.

So, I pretty much quit humanity on November 6, stopped reading the news, I'm done with politics etc, etc.  I've been singing this song for a long time now: The fewer interactions I have with "people," the better. The feeling isn't new, and this election didn't help. 

But I opened my eyes at 3AM this morning and, still half asleep, said out loud: "The wind, Nicodemus, the wind." 

Um. What the hell? The Book of Matthew. At fucking 3AM. REALLY...!? 

I haven't looked at a bible since I moved away from home, but the passage has to do with the moving of the Holy Spirit, like the wind, through the hearts of regular people. Something like that. I have no idea why I woke up speaking this, but seemed like a message, like something my back-brain was trying to tell me.

I'm not a believer in spirits, and holy ones are no exception. But it does occur to me that the only way forward, the only way out of the mess America has made of itself, is through those small, everyday interactions, the moments of connection, the little acts of unexpected kindness that I used to be so good at when I still had a soul.

 

Those little, every day interactions are where life happens for me. Not in the endless headlines of endless wars, not in the outcome of this or that election, not in the silly antics of some celebrity.

Forget saving the world, Dumblog. Forget winning out against  adolescent billionaires and boutique politicians. America is lost for at least a generation, and I'm not wasting another minute on it. There is no saving it from an apathetic and misinformed citizenry that actively votes against itself again and again. There isn't much you can do with that.

But what I *can* do is make someone's day a little bit kinder. A bit easier. A bit less marginalized. A bit less isolated. I can't fix humanity, can't save the world. But I can do that much.  

Not for their sake.

 

For mine.

So, we're all just fascists now?

 

Is it just me, or does this lull before the American Kristallnacht seem almost... anticlimactic? I'm so old I can remember when the worst we thought could happen was another riot at the Capitol, or a run on the certification process by a few Trump cultists. 

My, but how the times do change. We're now staring down the barrel of what feels to me like the End of Civilization as We Knew It. Or certainly, "America" as we knew it. Or, more accurately. what we pretended it to be. The sad fact is that the guardrails are gone, the gloves are off, and they will soon have their blood letting. 

"The People" have spoken, the same people who don't understand how tariffs work, or that "Obamacare" is how they get their health insurance, and that they just voted to keep themselves in poverty for the rest of their lives. 

But as more and more MAGA fascists awaken to the fact that they can't travel between the states without their papers anymore, that women now require a "reason" to cross national borders, when they realize that a head of lettuce now costs $45, and Grandma lost her Social Security and lives with us now...? 

I say, good. GOOD! This country needs to suffer for its sins, and Donald Trump is just the man to settle old scores. I, for one, am going to enjoy every fascist, bigoted tear drop when they realize that their Big Orange Daddy isn't just going to punish the hoards of brown people picking our cabbage and cleaning our homes. No, the bloodletting will be for all of you, too, the white and the stupid and the angry. The Christian, the zionist, the nazi, the thug: The chosen: 

Bring me your bitter tears, you fuckers. Your misery sustains me.

 

This Blog Lacks Focus

I came in here for something and now I 

 

Surfin' In A Hurricane

I feel safer already. 

Here's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with apparently nothing better to do on the day before a record-breaking CAT-5 hurricane hits, threatening his constituents who just want to board up their windows and hunker down. 

Yesterday he was dodging calls from the WH offering help, so that tomorrow he can join the chorus of lies claiming that all of that sweet, sweeeeet FEMA money has gone to those hoards of icky brown people who are stampeding over the border to vote for Kamala. 

Reminder: They aren't interested in governing. Here's sleazy and embattled Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz voting against the continuing resolution that kept FEMA funded for a few more weeks. 

It's like they're all surfin' in a hurricane. Can you imagine if this were happening while he and Marjorie Taylor Greene were playing patty-cake with poeples' lives? God help us, these sleazy clowns are trying to kill us all. 

No, Really: They Aren't Going To Accept Defeat

They aren't going to accept defeat. There's something happening over in MAGA land that should be deeply alarming to anyone concerned about America, concerned about Democracy -- or hell, concerned about their own safety.   

MAGA is preparing for a literal civil war. They've been enabled, and coddled, and normalized, and tolerated, and accommodated to the point where they think America is their sovereign right, decreed by God.

For the last four years they've been told repeatedly that the 2020 election was stolen, that Trump is the victim of a witch hunt, that he's a genius even though he can't string two words together. 

They won't believe it if Jesus himself returns with a host of Angels and tells them to their glassy-eyed faces that Trump lost another free and fair election. They simply aren't going to accept defeat. 

Meanwhile, here's House Hall Monitor Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to acknowledge that Trump lost in 2021.  Of course he is. He's probably afraid for his life, and given how MAGA has turned on Pence, who can blame him? 

It's gonna be a long month.

 

I'm sort of at the stage with this election that I don't see any more point to the screaming. Yes, yes, post your memes, get those zingers in while there's still time. But the messaging part of this campaign is over. There are no undecideds, they're all lying. 

It's all about turnout now. 

I posted some screed on FB for the "olds" a few days ago about how if you're still supporting Trump you're a fucking fascist, and for some reason, this very reasonable observation on my part led the last few evangelicals still clinging to my timeline to finally block me. 

Oh sure, we can all be expected to politely agree to disagree about whether or not the GOP thinks gay people should be imprisoned, deported or simply executed, but if I point out that you're a hateful bigot for supporting a party that wants me dead, then somehow I'm the rude one? 

Fuck all that. I'm done trying to reason with these people. I'm no longer in the persuasion business. I'm not interested in winning hearts and minds anymore. I want to crush them at the polls.  

We just need to get as many like-minded people out to vote as possible. 

Well, that and dismantle the electoral college, deploy an army of lawyers to handle the bogus legal cases already being filed, and pray like hell that the right four people on the Supreme Court are struck by lightening before then.

Because they're not going to accept defeat. There will be silliness. There will be ridiculous, blatant lies at the highest levels. There may even be blood shed. 

It would be nice if this country wasn't as stupid and feckless as I know it to be, but please, please America, surprise me in a good way for once?   

   

Are we still on speaking terms, or...?

 I'm trying to figure out if the comments work on this dumb blog. There was another blog once, in a galaxy far, far away, and there were days when you people would never shut up. Here? Crickets. 

Speak up, you simpering cowards. Somebody leave a snide comment to let me know I didn't flick the wrong switch when I set this place up and accidentally mute everyone. I thought we had comments for awhile there, but you've all fallen mute, undoubtedly with shock and horror at some of the completely rational shit I post around here. 

Reminder, if you don't want to wade through all the random bullshit and just want to see specific topics -- my peculiar bead obsession, for example, or how I'm aging gracelessly -- you can hit one of the handy labels at the right of your screen. 

I vehemently deny all allegations in my memoir!

I've been at a bit of a stand still on the book for two weeks, but feel like I'm finally back on track and making progress again. For the last few months it's been mostly stream of conscious word-dumping and a lot of it won't make the final cut -- but I feel like the needle finally moved a little again this week, and the words are coming again. 

I'm working from an actual chapter outline at this point, and a lot of the fodder I've just plunked down at random can now be fed into a more organized and cohesive narrative. I'm optimistic again, even if my original timeline is out the fucking window. I think it's doubtful it'll be done in time for the 30th anniversary of the OK City bombing, which is unfortunate since parts of my story are connected to those events. 

It's enough for me to be moving on it again. I'm trying not to be unkind to my mom, but the more I think about some of the dynamics of my childhood, the less flattering it seems to a parent. In fairness, I'm pretty unsparing of myself as well. 

I mean the prologue is a recounting of my DUI, ffs, and how even that horrific experience didn't stop me from eventually driving under the influence again. It's not like I come out of this tale sounding exactly heroic. 

  

Rethinking my business model...

 Fuck it, I'm declaring this a microblog. It's just gonna be short, inscrutable posts around here from now on.