It’s like camping in comfort of your own bed

I don’t sleep well. I did when I drank, but that was more a passing out than going to sleep. And that went on for 40+ years. That freaks me out. I don’t even feel 40, mostly. But I don’t sleep well, and I’ve tried everything except any sort of sleeping medication – real ones, good ones. The ones that work. And that’s why I didn’t take em, because they work. I’ve taken many a drug in my time, but for whatever reason, I didn’t want to go there. Alcohol knocks you out, as I noted above, but you get those 7 hours of drinking leading up to it. Popping a pill and dropping off like boom is weird. It’s like the fancy people who always have proper meals and you stand at the sink wolfing down leftovers out of the to go containers. Maybe.

So, New Years Eve night before we were to go on a strict budget on January 1 I was on social media and got an ad for sheets that were able to be grounded and so ground you as you slept. Seriously. Here’s the ad. Okay, I can’t put the video up for some reason. Anyone know how to insert an Instagram ad into a blog? But found this one with the same guy. https://youtube.com/shorts/tdD0xP4040s?si=hT2Q90eQpP-4Z-bg

I thought, what the fuck? Even if it’s a bunch of hooey I get sheets, and I need sheets. But I do have to say that ad kicked ass. The guy talking is perfect, handsome, sciency but normal, and what he says and claims about this grounding business blew me away. While, of course, raising the beware internet scams flag. But I bought them and about two weeks ago they arrived. Well, they didn’t. What arrived was 9×12 padded envelope. Inside was a piece of sheet, I guess, about two feet wide and 8 feel long. And a cord that snaps onto the sheet with just the little round ground plug on the other end that I plugged into the nearest outlet. That’s perfect me, by the way. I didn’t bother to read the thing. I just went to the first item on their website, I suppose, and somewhere saw “sheet” and clicked buy. It was $99. Which was expensive even for a full set of sheets for a guy like me. I got ripped off, I figured and will forget to even try to return it. That’s the MO. I’ve got issues. 

This came also in the envelope. 

Feast your eyes on what this thing can do. These are some serious claims, although “Enhances detoxification processes” sounds a bit bullshitty. 

So, I plug in my slip and slide lookin grounded sheet, strip naked to get the whole effect and lie down on it. I immediately experience what feels like the energy in my body falling down toward the fabric. It was weird but it also felt really good like that meditation of feeling the weight of your body being pulled toward the floor. My jaw was tingling. 

All right, I figured it was me being all excited about it, some psychosomatic or placebo effect. So I got up thinking that it was for sleeping on anyway and walked away. Later in the day, I tried it again, and I got the same feelings. Still, though, placebo and for sleep. 

I slept that night. Much, much harder than I had for as long as I can remember. It was a feeling I remembered now but had forgotten. I dreamed again. I hadn’t dreamed in a very long time. I usually wake up a couple-three times at night and I only woke up once. Could this thing seriously be for real, was grounding in this way somehow able to grab hold of my circadian rhythms and get them dancing in unison? Do we have more than one circadian rhythm?

PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT SUGGESTING IN ANY WAY THAT THIS MAKES ANY SENSE TO ME AND I AM NOT SHILLING FOR THIS COMPANY. THERE ARE A MILLION OF THEM OUT THERE I GUESS GROUNDING PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE LAND. THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED BLOG, NOR HAVE I HAD ANY CONTACT WITH ANYONE RELATED TO THE COMPANY, ALTHOUGH I’D LIKE TO MEET THE GUY IN THE VIDEO. I THINK HE’D BE A GOOD CONVERSATIONALIST. 

It’s been a couple of weeks and it’s still working. I’m sleeping way better. And I can still feel the energy thing. But maybe it’s still psychosomatic or placebo. I don’t know. How can I know? But could something this simple have merit like this? Sitting right under our noses for all these many years. Just sleep on the ground, fool! I’ll bet cowboys slept well.

Yesterday and Today

[Yesterday]

I’m sick. And I’m sad. And I think I’m losing my mind. Nothing’s falling into place like it tends to. In fact, things seem to be falling upward and out of my control. But I’m sick – sore throat, fever, sleepy as hell, so the falling upward is a good description to my feverish mind. It truly feels like life is being sucked up around me into some slo-mo tornado so I can reach up to try to, but grab nothing. It’s out of reach. It’s out of control. It’s nightmarish. 

It’s the emotions
that swirl like air
whirling the debris
of life 
of which
I’ve lost control.

***

[Today: So my therapist tells me to journal when I’m at a point like I was yesterday and I got this far in my writing when my phone rang and it was a good friend who just called to see how I was doing. I was able to articulate my frustrations and fears about life, love, work, money and the state of the nation. He talked me back from the ledge and we were soon laughing. He was just doing what friends do and didn’t have any idea how incredibly well-timed, important and helpful it was to me. Keep your friends close. And don’t be afraid to reach out to them before you get to this point – something I need to get much better at.] 

Remember Science?

When I was a young man, science was the one place all Americans could agree on, even if they didn’t understand the science itself. That is because they understood the scientific method that simply states that we don’t know something until we can prove something, a terrible paraphrase. So, in the case of climate change, it is understood that CO2 traps heat. That is proven and so everyone should get behind that, but what that would mean in our day to day lives, we weren’t sure about and so could be discussed without stepping on the scientific method. Turns out, by the way, they underestimated how serious it would be. But no one in those days was against science. It would be like being against curiosity or the desire to learn more or understand something better.

That has changed. Over the years, the Republican Party has embraced an anti-science agenda, which is beyond weird until you consider the source. Despite what any republican voter thinks, that party is in place for the ultra-wealthy and keeping them that way. They don’t care about the border or trans people or any of the other issues they throw at their voters to get them riled up. Republicans had the White House, senate and house during Trump’s first presidency and they did absolutely nothing about the border. These types of issues are golden for republicans for the very reason stated above, they need them to rile up the base and get them to vote based on these issues, while paying no attention to what really matters. And it works. I can’t tell you how many Minnesotan republicans I’ve seen interviewed who brought up the borders. Minnesota. Only Alaska is farther away from the southern border, I think. Oh, and Hawaii. They’re riled up as they eat fruit picked by immigrants, go to restaurants with kitchen staffs filled with immigrants, have repairs done on their homes by immigrants and so on. And just how many Minnesotans have had a bad experience with a trans person? None?

The new Trump White House just abruptly cancelled all scientific meetings without any rescheduling. This included gatherings and panels and the like. But why? Because if we followed the science, we’d have to invest in policies that will help the whole nation, and the entire world, in the case of climate change. We’d get behind renewable energies, which are scientifically proven to be better in our fight against climate change. The new issue is that those renewable energies are costing less and less and less due to science-based upgrades to the technology and the costs of manufacturing. So, you’d think that republicans, who famously hate paying for anything and particularly taxes, would embrace renewable energies. Nope.

But that gets to another point about republicans. Yes, they would save the nation money now, bring down he cost of energy for all of America, and help the nation and world slow climate change. However, those at the top of the republican pile, the men and women Trump brought on stage at the inauguration, don’t care about saving that kind of money. Whereas, we read constantly stories of homeowners who opted for solar and now not only don’t pay for their electricity but even get money back for it. That’s huge for the average American, republican or democrat, but chump change for those folks. It’s not even on their radar. But what is on their radar? The wealthy fossil fuel industry who would rather watch the world burn than lose their oversized piece of the American pie.

Elon Musk, who sat on stage with Trump and offered up a Nazi salute(?) and gave a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump for his reelection, among other things makes electric cars and solar panels. Does Elon Musk care about climate change? Ten years ago I would have said, yes, absolutely! But now, not at all. He saw profits, money and power, and he got them all in spades. He spent 250 million dollars on a man who hates electric cars and solar and wind and so on. But Musk knows that electric cars are our future, as are solar panels, so he plays both games.

I’m certain we need better science and civics education in high school – and throughout high school. Civics should not be a one-off class as it was for me. The science doesn’t need to go particularly deep, but create a good understanding with students about its importance, the scientific method, and how it is absolutely ignorant to somehow turn against it as Republicans have. As for civics, our voters are woefully ignorant of this and without an understanding of our governments, what they do and our role in making them work, we’re screwed.

multiple viscosities and hues 

I want to write a book about snot. It fascinates the shit out of me. It takes so many interesting forms, so many viscosities and hues.  Some snot can stick to a sink in perpetuity if no one takes a pressure washer to it. I imagine it would be a handy adhesive and maybe our forebears loogied to hold things together. It’s not all that far-fetched, but what do we know? 

Busy Busy

I’m a busy guy and it stresses me out a bit. I run a business and own half of another one. I have two kids – 12th grade and off to college next year, and one in her second year at the university, I have a large house (2,500 square feet) with a detached garage with a second-floor office space, about an acre of land to take care of, family, friends and all the rest. Many of you can see yourself in much of that. It’s life and it’s freaking busy. 

But I have friends that have pretty much none of that and yet they are equally stressed and complain of being way too busy, and I have one friend who doesn’t work but has a few hobbies and watches a lot of TV, and he’s the most stressed of all. It’s like whatever life we lead, we will be stressed. Maybe not when we’re old and have enough of a nest egg to live comfortably. But that was my parents, and my dad would absolutely stress out if I hadn’t taken the dock in at the cabin in mid-September before the lake froze (in late November).

I suppose we’ve evolved to need stress. Our bodies know it’s important to survive in the world – some sort of stress response. We need to run from lions, you know?

One Nation, Two Movies

A friend of mine had wanted to watch Idiocracy with me for years. It’s a Mike Judge film. Here’s how IMDB describes it:

Corporal Joe Bauers, a decidedly average American, is selected for a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive.

I knew what the film was about a long time ago – the title gives it away I guess and I didn’t want to watch it all those years because I just knew that I would be struck by intense feelings of, we’re already halfway there! and it’s only funny because it’s becoming true! and blah, blah, blah. So after the election I figured now was the time, so I called said friend and we sat down and watched it.

Holy crap, Judge is a genius. Yes, it’s a little ham-handed, but that’s the funny and so are all the citizens living in our future; but the movie is also razor sharp in its skewering of the true and actual dumbing down of the nation, the thrill of violence on the stupid, the overconsumption of media and addiction to entertainment. Sound familiar? Idiocracy came out in 2006 – long before we slipped rather quickly into our own reenactment of it.

The other movie I happened to watch was Civil War, a 2024 movie by Alex Garland. IMDB again:

A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

I didn’t plan to see this one either and for similar reasons as Idiocracy (we’re already halfway there) but had the opportunity and watched. Depressing. They do a very good job of not making it into a MAGA Republican versus American Progressives war movie and in fact have Texas and California in cahoots on one side of the civil war. But it’s hard to completely avoid the obvious when threats have come from mouths of people who will have a say in the new administration, so of course it’s depressing and frightening. That it’s so new and current makes it even harder to watch. It looks feasible right down to the folks in some towns they travel through who simply ignore the entire Civil War due to callousness or media misinformation – or both – ugh.

Too close to home, that one.

Tests of what?

An obituary appeared in the newspaper a few days ago for Reg Murphy, who was a newspaper editor at The Atlanta Constitution, among other jobs and publications. He passed away recently at the age of 90. What interested me was a story about him that happened in 1974, which is why I don’t remember it at all. (I was ten.) So one day, while at the paper Mr. Murphy was contacted by a man “identified as William A.H. Williams, a drywall subcontractor.” Mr. Williams reached out to Mr. Murphy ostensibly about 300,000 gallons of heating oil he wanted to donate “to a worthy cause.”

It was all rather odd and he wanted Mr. Murphy to go to his lawyer’s office to sign some papers, but as Mr. Murphy said, he went along because it was important and usual “for newspapermen to have to lead open lives and be available to anonymous or strange people.” Strange indeed. Once Mr. Murphy was in the car, Mr. Williams brandished a gun and said, “Mr. Murphy, you have been kidnapped.” Why? It’s going to sound very familiar. First, he said he was a “‘colonel in the American Revolutionary Army’ and ranted against the ‘lying, leftist, liberal news media’ and ‘Jews in the government.'” Murphy by the way was a moderate in politically.

But what the hell? It’s the same shit people are slinging right now. This was 50 years ago! When are we going to grow up? Lump all Jews into a single stereotype and bitch about the so-called liberal media? Great. I think it’s time we put away this way of thinking and acting.

What? They won? Oh. The dog caught the car. This is going to get interesting. However, …

Jews, immigrants, people of color, gay people, sick people, artists, disabled people, poor people, incarcerated people, and decent, liberal white folks, do you understand that the federal government, beginning in January, is actually openly gunning for you? For who you are, what you stand for, how you love, where you worship or come from?

I hope so. Because without you viscerally experiencing the very real fear, danger and anger you should be experiencing right now, and doing something about it, we’re screwed as a nation; and as individuals who do not, for whatever arbitrary reason, live up to the very real and very bizarre physical, mental, emotional, sexual, political, religious and whatever else set of creepy-ass tests of character or personhood or deserving of being treated nicely, or whatever the fuck they make up and use to judge everyone else.

Sit on your hands on the buses of life, blushing at all the apple stealers. That’s a paraphrase, I think, of Davie Bowie. This is not: And then one day, the apple stealers show up with guns.

When you think about it the earth is our only actual god that we can be sure of and the earth gives us everything and every opportunity to live and thrive as long as we’re nice to it

Like Holy Shit

It comes from the earth
natural processes like
the earth working
on the earth
or a still
cooking dead life
to a new drug
(num num)
petroleum

A junkie surrounded
detritus floating
an oily flotilla
ridiculous ludicrous
malleable colorful
in and out of focus
a pendulum
travesty/convenience
but there
always there everywhere
plastic/petroleum
petroleum/plastic
micro
plastics
everywhere
like holy shit

Macro Micro Plastics

This from Harper’s Findings June 2024:

“Microplastics were found in sixty-two of sixty-two human placentas from a biobank in Texas, in half the arterial plaques of Campanian carotid endarterectomy patients; in the gastrointestinal tracts of three bottlenose dolphins and a harbor porpoise in the Black Sea; in shrimp in South Africa’s Crocodile River; in two-thousand-year-old archaeological remains buried seven meters underground; and in the gonads of adult oysters in the Mangrove Coast of the estuarine Brazilian Amazon.”

Found their way seven meters underground. And we have no idea regarding the long-term effects of microplastics on humans. We just went with it many years ago and here we are. But are we seeing it already? I read a while ago that tests on mice showed them suffering from both physical and mental maladies, and got, well, dumber. You think?