Jan 6 Committee Hearing

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Days of hearing that all of Trump supporters will never change their minds because they will not watch any part of the hearings. That, because Fox News, the only station they watch, will not air the hearings, they will never hear the truth, let alone believe it if they hear any of it. Those are definitely no hopers. I wonder just how many of those people lack any curiosity at all, to the point that they will actively make sure they do not see any of the information. Surely bits will slip through, enough that some goodly portion will tune in and have their minds either opened or blown. I finally dug out the remotes, put batteries in them and turned on the television for the first time in years. I was riveted for the entire two hours. Talk about refreshing one’s memory and having it all brought together in one place.

Morning Ramblings

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With all the casual and not so casual cruelty, outright torture and murder of animals for fun, profit, food and just plain human nastiness, in your face every day, it is no wonder that people in PETA come across as unhinged sometimes. It must be like Sisyphus every day only ugly and worse and even more demoralizing. It seems like it would slowly drive you loonytoons and that members would start to go over the edge and do crazy stuff.

Saw a photo of my sister posted to Facebook by her grandson yesterday. She was at Michelle’s place for Thanksgiving (Swiss Chalet). It was only a back view and her hair looked terrible and she is chunky. I realized as I was looking at the picture that it was always ME that maintained contact and did all the running around to maintain a relationship with her..never ever the other way around. I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she actually drove anywhere to visit any of the homes I have ever lived in. Last time she wrote was that nasty, snubbing email on June 29, 2021 and since I did not reply and have not reached out since…there has been silence. I do not even comment on her Facebook posts. It is like she is dead to me…but I still mourn the loss of what we did have.

I stumbled across something weird and interesting and shocking. There is a sexual category to be pigeonholed into…like heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, trans, and asexual. Asexual has a lot of subcategories like caedsexual and fictosexual. I suddenly realized that there was an explanation for my disconnection in the physical…why my body just did not seem to be aware and that my mind drove me to do things that it thought it should do at the time but the body was just an instrument and not a participant.

Wow, to finally know at 76 what the fuck was wrong with me my entire life and realize I am not alone in this either. Amazing. It explains why I never understood other women’s craving for sex or craziness when they did not get it or their pleasure when they had it. I can remember stretching my mind trying to understand something …like hearing a sighted person describe colour.

It was like that with religion, everyone around me with faith, and me wondering how do I get that. All those trips to every denomination church, all those services, all those bibles and nothing. The mind and body just refused to belief. I wanted it, I wanted what those people seemed to so fervently believe but in the end I not only could not believe but found it hard not to think that they were PUTTING IT ON for effect. It is still unreal to me and I still look at people spouting their beliefs as not quite all there.

All those books I read with sex and never able to actual ask a human female ‘what is it like…what does it feel like’. No wonder this last fifteen years have been the happiest of my life, no wonder growing old where I and society no longer think of me as a sexual being and not having someone is a normal thing, or not being interested at all in sex or masturbation or books with sex or anything to do with sex..can now be considered normal because I am PASSED IT.

I no long have to hide what or who I am from people. I love having my bed to myself, I love single person stuff. There is so much shit I don’t want anyone else to see or know about, that I never want to have to explain to another human being. Basically, anything I ever want to see or do is best enjoyed alone, on a bed with a book or a computer or a notepad and no other noise whatsoever.

I do not want people/men to look at me with appreciation or with sexual intent. I am neuter in all the tests I take on personality. Introverted and of no sexual identity whatsoever. It is why I put on so much weight…a fat suit to hide behind. In 2013, I lost a lot of weight because I felt safe from that gaze in men’s eyes and then Finton made a pass that I had to deflect and I felt the fear and within a short period of time I had my fat suit back on for five years. This year with Peter gone and Finton gone I am again losing the weight. I walk the world oblivious to other people of any sex. All my friendships and acquaintances came to me…I never sought them. I never tried to MAKE a friend or chase a lover…I often tried to fend them off at the start but if they were persistent then gradually I started reciprocating..not because I physically wanted to (I was often repulsed at people wanting to hug or say I love you or kiss you even on the cheek as they arrive or depart) but because my mind told me the motions required. It never ever felt natural and spontaneous. There are still a minimum of people in my life, I am not a joiner, I do not like to socialize, I do not like small talk. I also have no filter when I am forced into situations where I am one on one with another person. Words just seem to flood out of me…to keep them at bay or to drive them away. I hate going outside and talking to people can be excruciating and I am always happy when I go to get the mail etc. and meet no-one. I like a lot of alone time. I like having my own shit around me untouched by others.

Why I recognized caedsexual (result of trauma). None of what I read stated the trauma was in childhood. I was withdrawn and an outsider even before it happened but disconnected forever after. Chicken and egg. What I am, what I might have become as a result of trauma is certainly not a choice. It is what I have been as long as I can recall.

Haphazard and inconsistent childhood…nothing to hold onto…no safety net. Life was so random and precarious. Adults so untrustworthy and unavailable. No love or affection from anyone except predators wanting sexual things. It appeared that all I had to offer the world was my body and that body was wooden and it was my mind that was bruised.

Speaking of families – memory is so unreliable but my recollection is: Wendy was always MY responsibility. She was also the winsome little girl who stayed for dinner, got the cookies and freshly baked bread right out of the oven from neighbours and landlords. I was the one across the street shivering looking in the window. I remember ironing (standing on a box), I remember scrubbing clothes in a cement sink on a washboard, I remember putting clothes through a ringer washer and hanging them on the line in all kinds of weather. I remember frozen sheets. I remember dampening with a sprinkler bottle or putting in the freezer. I remember peeling a million potatoes and scraping wax off floors and rewaxing. I remember painting all the green squares on the huge linoleum kitchen floor on Queen Street while my mother painted the white. I remember hanging wallpaper with my mother. Where was Wendy? I do not remember her at my side sharing chores. I think I remember dinner preparation or dishes at Queen Street when Bent came into our lives. Too bad I cannot ask her her memories of that time….the bitch has decided I am a waste of her time.

The internet and email arrived in my life at a perfect time and suits me. My perfect relationships are faceless people sharing their minds electronically.

Ah, as for the asexual subsections:

The sexuality of being attracted to fictional characters, people who play those characters, and occasionally to other fictsexuals or avid fans

Person 1: Why don’t you go out with some real people instead of fantasizing about X-Files characters all day?

Person 2: I can’t! I’m fictsexual.

My fantasies never include me..as me. I am always watching and manipulating from behind the scenes or if I am one of the characters…I can be any sex but always focused outward and never recognizably me.

OCTOBER 2021 – WHERE HAS THE YEAR GONE

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A busy busy year. Cataract surgery on right eye in January, left eye in February. Peter died in February. Paid off Ken’s mortgage and a large chunk of my line of credit in March and put a new 900.00 toilet in his bathroom. April 3 started keto and intermittent fasting diet at 271.5. Also got my first Covid shot in April. Bonnie cancer in remission as long as she keeps taking the experimental drug. Her daughter Stephanie also has cancer but prognosis is good. Drew and I buried Peter and Elsie in with John Schhmocker at Sanctuary Cemetery (Royal York and Dixon) I paid for it. Drew visited two months later with three bread boards that I paid for and sold two to Lori and kept one for myself. I haven’t seen him again since and I worry that he still hasn’t got a new job. I would have thought that if he did get a job he would call me to tell me. He still has Peter’s pictures he was to bring. Ken got new wheelchair and crashed into his wall destroying face of air conditioner and wall. First Mr. Handyman contractor I sent in refused to fix it. Two leaks they tried to blame on him but first was definitely the unit above him and the second on September 7th looks like it was also not his fault…heard nothing about it, or about repair to his ceiling from the first leak.

Brandon visited on his birthday and took me for my second shot. Tried to get his blood type and screwed it up. Gave him two of my Hutch Varsity jackets (including the green lined one) and a new winter coat (I let him choose and I think he chose the one I didn’t want).

Brandon has a hole in his bathroom ceiling where the roof leaked and no one has fixed it in months either. WTF. Both Ken and Brandon got two Covid shots and Brandon got diagnosis of glaucoma in both eyes. He is scheduled for cataract surgery on his right eye on October 12th.

I bought myself a new microwave and an IPad and a Shark stick vacuum. Brandon offered to buy my large Shark vacuum so I will hand that over at Christmas.

I had duct cleaning guy come in and he plugged his machine into bathroom GSI and blew the circuit. I felt I could afford to have an electrician come in to replace a single outlet. Well, four and a half hours, three 4″ holes in bathroom wall, two guys chattering and scanning and getting me to empty medicine cabinet so one could take if off the wall, clearing the laundry room so they could pull out the freezer…they change the outlet behind the freezer..showing me that it is scorched..I could see nothing. Charged me for new face plate when they could have used the old one. Bill came to 462.00 and they actually had the nerve to want it all. These were recommended by Lori???? Then got recommendation from building for man to do drywall…Mr. Handyman. Came in, patched the three holes, attached wires and replaced telephone jack in kitchen (another story) spent 1 hour and fifteen minutes in apartment building and bill came to 402.00 WTF. I complained but had to pay. Other story, I called Ma Bell to get a repair man to come in and fix jack in kitchen, said I had to buy the part myself and a visit would cost 75.00. I ordered part from Amazon and actually managed to get the right one. Patrick, Mr. Handyman put it in (after I researched enough that I could have done it myself and I had removed the old one from the wall in preparation. So he attached 4 wires to 4 screws and then put in 4 screws to attach plate to wall. I guess I could consider at least 75.00 of that 400.00 to be what I would have paid a Bell tech.

So then I asked Betty for number of the handyman from 75 Ellen that she uses, the guy who replaced Finton as painter. I went to Lowes and bought 100.00 worth of paint and gear. He came and quoted 100.00 and said he would use his own gear. (Okay part of that 100.00 was a second, smaller lazy susan for fridge). On Thursday I finally used that spray bottle of T.S.P. that I have had in laundry room for 15 years to scrub the walls, baseboards etc. in bathroom in preparation for paint. Steve arrived on Friday and painted one wall, all baseboards and the kick plate under cabinet a bright glossy yellow. The following week I got a burst of enthusiasm and used the bottle of white Grout Refresh that I bought eight years ago (after I bought the wrong colour for the kitchen floor grout) and did the bathroom floor. Looked great but was such hard work that I thought I would order a pen paint stick from Amazon (expensive). When it came I barely managed to get 1/8 of the grout lines done in shower before the applicator sponge on tip was destroyed and so I threw it out still full of paint. I got another tooth brush and, using the Grout Refresh, did all three tile walls of the shower enclosure. Since you cannot wait more than five minutes after applying before removing excess (I went outside the lines) there was no break time and I, again, was exhausted and didn’t do a perfect job. It looks great and from my point of view FINISHED. On top of all the work I did last week the scales were up on Saturday morning …I was sure it must be that time of month and that I was full of water…well this morning I am down to 214.0 so yes it was water but then I fasted Saturday and Sunday. Ken just called..he lost his birth certificate. He never takes it with him when he goes out so the fucking thing must be in his apartment. Should we waste money trying to get him a new one right away or wait to see if it surfaces since he doesn’t carry it as identification anywhere? Searched in silver notebook and found I had all the details of Brandon’s birth certificate but not Ken’s.

I ordered myself a Remarkable2 electronic notepad (after I ordered my 2022 Daytimers). I cleaned fridge thoroughly and put colourful liners on the shelves and two lazy suzans inside…looks great.

I am getting together stuff for Christmas and I will not be buying anything for anyone else except the boys. I babysat Denise’s cat for a week this summer and she gave me nothing but she had given me some mousse cakes and bottles of wine before that. She did offer salmon but I do not eat fish. I babysat Mozart and cut his nails every two weeks for Joan and she gave me some of her son’s free bottled water. She is hoping to go to Winnipeg for two weeks at Christmas and I offered to look after the cat. I am out of my bloody mind. I am also moving out of my comfort zone calling Betty in 1011 who talks my ear off ..she is alone and lonely and I feel sorry for her. Bea fell and cracked her hip on Friday the 13th of August and is still not home. She spent a month in Royal Vic and then moved to Barrie Manor for rehab. She is 94 and moaning. Lori was due to pay 300.00 for parking but I have the use of Bea’s car so maybe she feels that is payment enough. I have been selling my Starsky & Hutch zines (which paid for my Remarkable2) but taking the out only once every ten days which she wants me to do to keep the battery running.

We are all still in lockdown of a sort and wearing masks due to Covid. There are a lot of Pro-Covid folk out there picketing hospitals and making assholes of themselves, freaking out on planes, insulting nurses and grocery clerks and waitresses and actually hitting mask wearing people. The world is absolutely fucking nuts these days. Most of our media is owned by right wingers and it is beginning to show as they get bolder and bolder about lying to the public. It is no longer journalism, our news stations and newspapers are full of opinion pieces that show their bias. It is yellow journalism at its worst and very discouraging.

The boats are still in the water and weather forecast is for good weather for October but a hellish winter starting November. Haven’t seen Canada Geese flocking in at least a week.

Call Aunt Lena on the 15th of every month and she is still mostly all there and coherent as long as she has her teeth in.

Wendy wrote a nasty, mean email on June 25th in response to my complaint that she doesn’t write me often enough. Essentially she said she is too busy to write to me and she had just wasted an hour composing that email to me. I did not reply and have not written since and NEITHER HAS SHE. I made the decision right there and then..no more begging. Zero dark thirty time. I ghosted her. She doesn’t seem to care and that just reinforces my decision. I might have caved if she wrote on my birthday (which she did not). What pisses me off is I made a new will for Brandon and put her down as alternate executor and beneficiary if I predecease Brandon. Cunt of the first water is my sister.

Don’t hear from John either but then I pissed him off by telling him a few home truths about himself and Ken echoed them by mistake when instead of replying to me he sent it to John.

So there we are…all caught up on my life this year. Mac is doing fine (underweight), I have two new friends, responsibilities in building, I have not seen Lena since before she went into Spencer House January 2020. Ken is still Ken. Brandon still has lingering after effects of his six weeks with Covid. The glaucoma is worrying. He is also on diet and has lost a lot of weight and looks good.

Going to cook a lamb rack today.

REREADING BOOKS

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When I read a book there is a mind picture that forms, a taste almost of the atmosphere, a sense of the space, a visual of the characters and a feel for entirety

I am reading a book for the second time and find it is an entirely different experience from the first time. That fact is what makes rereading possible. Depending on how much time has elapsed since the first reading I may or may not enjoy a book as much the second time or I might enjoy it even more. One can age out of books or grow into them. This was just as funny and I still love Jane even if my visualization of her has changed. It was a really good series and I am glad there is another one to read and wish there were more.

I think this explains how I can reread a book multiple times and every time is like the first.

BEEN A LONG TIME

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Haven’t actually posted much since Ashley died April 30, 2020. Living in a Covid world has not been a hardship for me except it caters to the worst in me…I am not a shut in, nor am I agoraphobic but I am socially isolated and prefer reading to any other kind of entertainment. Shopping is now possible from home for almost all my needs and I no longer own a car and even though I have the use of a neighbour’s vehicle…I hate to do it. However, I did go out at least twice a month and ran around doing a multitude of errands each time and enjoyed it. Even went to lunch with the ladies once in a while. Covid put a stop to all of that when my city went into lockdown. I have had both my shots and have quarantined for what seems like a year and now I do not want to go out at all. I have an anxiety attack at the very thought. I am reading fewer books these days and spending way way too much time on social media and writing emails. My list of things to do seems to get longer and longer. Just spent the morning calling around to the fire department, the Red Cross, the local Wildlife Rescue, the local cat rescue, Storybook Farm which rescues monkeys and not one of them will accept gently used teddy bears from an adult (never been played with) non-smoking home. Regular charities stopped taking second hand stuffed animals a long before Covid made it problematic but I live in hope of finding a home for my much loved bears. I am getting old and I hate the thought of them going into a landfill. I would take them all with me and have them cremated with me if that was possible. Okay, morbid much, but there is so much death and life is uncertain these days and the world news makes going almost palatable.

I have been reading Cecil Beaton’s life story from his biographies and diaries. I am currently reading Molly Harper’s light supernatural series…easy, quick, funny and I can get through two a day. My neighbour (the one with the car) has been spending the summer at her cottage (her and her daughter sold their mobile trailer and bought a cottage early this summer) so my social life has shrunk to the telephone and one visit every two weeks to a neighbour’s place to cut her cat’s nails and chat for half an hour. Bea fell on Friday 13th and has a hairline fracture of her hip. Operation was last night and not major but that means she will be home and complaining and I will be on deck for company and if they get her a wheelchair to take her out…sigh…I can feel my anxiety rising just at the thought.

Brandon has had both his shots and Ken gets his second on August 19th.

I cannot remember if I wrote about Peter’s death. Peter Schmocker died of cancer on February 24, 2021. He had a mild stroke and they were going to send him home but did one more test and found him full of cancer. So they transferred him to a hospice and he died two days later. He never knew what hit him…it was that fast. I got his insurance pay out in March. Andrew (his son) and I took Peter’s ashes plus the ashes of Elsie (his mother) to Sanctuary Cemetorium at Royal York and Dixon on April 30, 2021 and put them both in with his dad John.

I am at that age when friends and family are dying off. At the same time, my sister, Wendy, has no time for me..no emails, no visits, no telephone calls. It is like she has ghosted me. I have given up writing to her begging her to write to me.

Both boys/men live in old buildings (older than mine) and both had leaks from above that ruined bathroom ceilings and we have been waiting for what seems like a very long time to have the repairs done. Ken drove into his wall with his wheelchair and we are waiting for a contractor to come and price repair and then do it. Thank you, Peter, I can afford to pay for the repairs. He is expecting a new mattress for his hospital bed and a new wheelchair…fingers crossed all goes smoothly.

I started the Keto/Atkins diet on April 3, 2021 at 271.5 pounds. After two months when I was well into fat burning transition, I started Intermittent Fasting. Today, August 16, 2021 (Elvis is still dead) I weighed in at 225.5 pounds.

I only eat one meal a day and fast on weekends and a couple of times I fasted for ten days and once for five. My goal by July 31, 2022 is 165 pounds. Already life is easier.

So, there you are..all caught up.

Trump Rally Insight

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What brings people together to cheer mindlessly?  Trump has made such a frightening mess of the USA and the world situation that we look at his ‘fans’ and think ‘are you out of your fucking mind?’

But all of a sudden I thought of fandom in all its forms and other things like Branch Davidian, the members of Jim Jones cult that killed themselves, the people waiting  in the desert for aliens to come and take them away, the group that killed themselves waiting for the mothership, Hitler’s rallies, Mussolini’s rallies, people standing outside Windsor after Diana died, Trudeaumania, Elvis fans, Beatles fans. We speak of his followers as a cult but I don’t believe that is the case. Groups gather to celebrate, talk, party, scream, dance and yell and be a part of something larger than themselves all the time. The world is full of strange and lonely people who all have different beliefs and obsessions. Specifically what brought the thought was fandom. There are one fandom people, there are serial fandom people (like me), there are people who follow multiple fandoms. The different pairings are endless and looking at some of them from outside you think WTF. The stories within a single fandom display an incredible breadth of subject matter and if you have ever been squicked by something you have read about your favourite pairing you would understand the blinding observation that people really are different. Same show, two minds so diverged. Think of sex and all the different ways people relate..BSDM, sadism, masochism, m/m, f/f, threessomes and more. Think of furries and bikers and curlers. People become interested in so many different things and looking at some of them from outside one wonders…how can they possibly love that. Sports…hockey lovers who hate basketball. Others who love watching skating competitions. The things that interest others most often seem weird to those of us bored to tears by whatever it is..or outright detest whatever it is…like dog fighting rings or cockfighting rings or people who go out and shoot wild animals for fun and ego satisfaction.
Look at all the different religions and the fanatics that follow many of them and the weird things they believe. Look at all the different varieties and churches just in Christianity. So, the mistake we have been making is in thinking Trump supporters are morons and stupid and blind and self-destructive and treasonous when they are merely fans who have found their current niche, a home with like-minded people and even if you find some of them off putting or coming at the fandom from a different place than you…you are accepting because the ‘object’ of your affection is the same. Think of having a child who is different – disabled, mentally ill, criminal, tortures animals and goes on to kill people…the parent hurts but protects. The parent might turn a blind eye and refuse to believe their child capable of the horrors and even when faced with incontrovertible truth still denies the reality because it is totally unacceptable to them…they will it not to be true. Those who fell in love with Trump as a media star (and look at the variety of media stars and what awful people some of them are..even John Wayne was an asshole but much beloved and excused for his opinions and thoughts) it is so hard to let go of the fantasy of what he represented to you in the beginning. It is like when your teenager brings home a totally unacceptable boyfriend/girlfriend and you as a parent want to throw him/her out of the house and scream at your kid that it is a horrible choice and you refuse to let the relationship continue…I guarantee you that what might have been a single month relationship could become a marriage just to defy you. Trump supporters are the same..juvenile as that may sound but then fandom is a hangover of our juvenile refusal to grow up. The more we disparage them, the more fervent they become and the more determined to stand by their man. Maybe if we left them alone, stopped making fun of them and criticizing them and accepted their right to choose their love object…they might just come to a point where it is time to move on to another fandom, another pairing, another anything.

Marching For Freedom

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We all know that the Republicans in power have their hands in the till and are sticking with Trump because once he goes, they go. We also know that a lot of fringe weird morons will never leave Trump’s base no matter what crime he commits. But, there MUST be sane, sensible, honest, upright citizens who love America, love the constitution, believe in true law and order, revere truth and justice and do not want America to become a police state with citizens being beaten in the streets for lawful, peaceful protests. Those Republicans should take a deep breath and for once in their lives vote Democratic ticket. Four years…please just give us a four year breather and use that four years to find and groom a decent Republican to run for President four years from now. Save the country from gestapo tactics and a fascist president. Trump was NOT your choice, he became what was left for you to vote for if you were determined to vote Republican, just as Democrats are faced with Biden. The system and the dark money on both sides give you unpalatable choices…please please please side with sanity and give America a chance to breathe again. Because for 3 1/2 years we have not been able to breathe under Trump.