As I Write in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Last night on my drive home, I started crying. The knowledge of returning to an empty house hit me a bit hard. I pulled myself together in the car and then walked into the house. Nala didn’t even get off the bed to greet me. She just lay on the bed… moping. I came into the room, hung up my sport coat, and she finally lifted her head. She wagged her tail a bit, I pet her, and we approached the back door to assess the Walk Potential. When I opened the door and she stuck her head out, she quickly determined that it was raining and that she wanted nothing to do with the outside. Which meant she wanted to play indoors and play 3 hours of Keep Away, Tug, and Fetch. Ooof. I played for an hour straight and then off and on for two hours. Obviously, not enough as she woke me up at 1:30 a.m. But unlike Sunday night, at least she stayed in the room with me. Sunday/Monday she wouldn’t even do that. She slept on the sofa waiting for “everyone to come home.” At least last night, she slept on the bed with me.

I’m pretty into the new AMC Show “Dispatches from Elsewhere” and that was on last night. Of course, timing is an important part of this world… and last night’s episode centered around Janice, played by Sally Fields. The show is awesome but last night’s episode dealt specifically with Janice “facing” her past self. The version of her at her wedding confronting the version of her that had grown up, grown old, and at over 70 was trying to navigate a life where the love of her life was confined to bed. It was… an episode very much about what it means to live For Better or Worse and what happens when that ends and you have to start asking “What now?” So… kind of heavy for where I’m at these days.

Today? I’ll keep this up and update accordingly.
I have a hearing at 9:00 wherein an abuser wants the No Contact Order Dropped and the victim is adamant that the abuser pound sand. w00t! Good. Cut ties when you can!!
I have a hearing at 10:00 wherein a guy that broke the skull of a cop wants to argue for probation despite just recently also being convicted of 3 counts of rape.
I have a hearing at 11:00 wherein an abuser wants the No Contact Order Dropped and the victim is adamant that the abuser gets to do whatever they want and The State just needs to “let their love flourish in good times or bad.” Urgh.
And I have a hearing at 1:00 wherein a Sex Offender pleads guilty to moving three times without updating his parole officer.
That’s… my day as scheduled right now.

So I’ll admit, last night I decided to check Bumble because I was feeling a bit down. And like usual for that particular app?
Looking through was encouraging. A lot of attractive, educated, well-dressed women with engaging profiles.
Swiping, though, continues to prove pointless. Not so much because I’m not ready to engage… I’m probably not but at the very least learning how to carry on a text conversation on a dating app is something I need to start learning so… sooner than later.... but that isn’t why it proves pointless. It proves pointless because there are no matches, there are no Right Swipes on me… and for Bumble, the entire gimmick is that the Woman initiates contact. So… a great example (yet again) of an application that has an intriguing list of users (at least, intriguing enough that it raises my interest) and yet… I raise no one’s interest. Kind of.... another screw into the coffin. Years of a marriage where it felt pretty damned clear that I didn’t raise my wife’s interest and now… The Way of Dating In the 21st Century? I’m not raising any interest there, either. So… while I know I should’t use Dating App Response for any kind of self-esteem check or any kind of “how am I doing?” check… long standing patterns that present despite changed behavior and changed location tend to… well, hurt. Women who are actively seeking therefore on dating apps; women who continue to say Men Are Trash and receive unsolicited dick pics constantly; women who claim to want an educated man with his life figured out… but apparently… I’m not what they’re looking for.

Switching Gears Here:

I think I need to go to AA… or NA… or start going to church again. Because you know what I see at work a lot? That I also see in regular life a lot? That I’m getting really damned sick of? Bullshit justifications, a complete lack of accountability, and a moral fluidity and flexibility that would make Stretch Armstrong seem rigid. So the act of going to a NA/AA/Etc where people actually say, “I have a problem. I am working on it.” would be a nice change!

For example. Today. A 47 year old man that, during depositions, told us his life was falling apart. His girlfriend had left him, so he turned to alcohol and inhalants. ENTIRELY ignoring his 16 year old son who needed his dad. The son got so fed up with watching his father ignore life and destroy himself, that the son hid all of his Dad’s self-destructive items. So the dad beat the shit out of him. The kid ran off. The Dad decided to hit the bar. Got absolutely plowed and drove his car through the backyards of a residential neighborhood destroying property and putting people in danger. Today, during his hearing… he claimed that it was “one mistake” that shouldn’t “define” him because and that he’s “a good person” so he shouldn’t be “too punished.” That… actually made me angry. I would have taken pity on him or at least been “easier” on him if he had said, “I reacted to a bad situation poorly. I shouldn’t have done that. My life was a mess but I’m starting to put it back together. I would appreciate the opportunity to do that.” THAT would have been accountability. But this diminishing of his actions? DESPITE actively being violent with his son and risking people’s lives?! And this shit is my every day.

You beat the shit out of your wife. “She was getting in my way!!” You were drunk and she was attempting to keep you from driving. “Exactly. I have rights! She wouldn’t get out of my way so I put her down.”

There’s methamphetamine in your baby’s chord blood. “How did that get there?!” You were smoking meth while pregnant. “You can’t punish me for that! I’m not responsible for what happens to this kid until it comes out of me!!”

Your animal is dying. “I didn’t have enough money to feed it!” There are things you could do besides letting it die. “But I love my animal and I’m not letting you or anyone else take it away from me!!”

You just beat the hell out of your neighbor. “YEAH! He won’t keep his fucking kids off of my lawn!” You can put up a fence or call the police to report trespassing. “Or I can solve my own damned problems and teach that fuck to take me seriously!!”

And this is my life.

I get that facebook is garbage; but I also acknowledge that it is a garbage I am still willing to use. Back off, man. If people can continue to use Wal Mart despite their overt evil; I get my own area of hypocrisy. But, yeah. Facebook is a garbage fire in some ways.

Have you heard the White House Re-Tweet? Biden was giving a speech where he used the words “re-elect Donald Trump” and someone “cleverly” edited the video to make it look like Biden was endorsing Trump. THE WHITE HOUSE shared that video. Twitter flagged it (because obviously) while Facebook didn’t even so much as suggest it may have been altered.

One of the Liberal Facebook groups I watch? They are super anti-Cop and ridiculously far-left but sometimes they share interesting things. Since Biden’s surge on Super Tuesday? They’ve been… less than subtle. Or intelligent. They’ve dedicated 100% of their content to bashing Biden, trying to make him look like “Trump Light” and going WAY out of their way to make it seem like if Biden is the nominee, then ANY non-white non-wealthy non-cis-male is going to be worse off. While I’m sitting there thinking, “I get that you support Bernie. That’s obvious. But trying to absolutely annihilate Biden may not be the best tactic to use here, kids.

And then we have my Trumpeter Cousin. This barely graduated High School child who works construction for a living has somehow, it seems received his Medical Doctorate and specialization in Epidemiology recently. Or at least, that’s what one would take away from his recent Facebook habits. HUNDREDS of posts each day about how Coronavirus is a Democrat Hoax… about how (he actually said this) we’ve had the Coronavirus Vaccine for decades, but Democrats are sitting on it to make Trump look bad… how Trump knows what he’s talking about because “as President he has access to information we don’t” so everyone needs to “just shut up and listen to him.”

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… yeah. Alone at home. Work interactions are uniquely frustrating as I deal with hundreds of criminals, or as could be accurately stated… hundreds of adults with zero sense of responsibility, accountability, or maturity. And almost all of my social interactions are either through Prosebox or Facebook which means… not exactly the best of humanity most days.