Speak the truth & sing the songs: ups and downs of everyday life, Government shutdowns & Christmas carols

Life has never been better. Or more frustrating. Every morning, I wake up with a list of things to do and hardly any of them get done. Some of that is laziness. Some is fear, some is inertia. 

Also, I have a job, which comes with its own set of frustrations. That has nothing to do with the job itself, which I love more than any job I ever had and probably will ever have. It’s because having any job consumes a shocking amount of time and energy. 

Sure, you could call in and say, “Look, I just need a week or so of unstructured time not needing to be anywhere else so I can get a bunch of stuff done that would make me feel more peaceful – see you when I do,” but chances of having a job when you came back would be nil.

Also, everyone has their own set of unique challenges. Sweetheart and I – a pair of ADD adults (me with the “H” thrown in) – have to work 150 times harder than non-ADD types to be on time for anything. We do it, but some mornings are uglier than others. 

Speaking of ugly, every day, the news gets more disturbing. We have a president with no moral compass who refuses to do the hard and courageous work the job entails. We have a Congress full of Balless Wonders indulging him. 

Now, with the government shutdown, thousands of federal employees won’t get paid. What do they tell their landlords? Their banks? How do they buy food? Those who celebrate it have just been vaulted into a Christmas straight out of a modern Dickens novel. 

And what did Mitch McConnell & Paul Ryan do? Raise their middle fingers to those workers and every citizen who expects them to do their jobs. Adjourning the Senate and House so they could go home and celebrate Christmas with their families on the backs of the people who make so much of our lives possible was reprehensible.  

In this and so much else over the past two years, they’ve laid bare a truth. The US is basically Government By the Rich, For the Rich. The only real difference between us and other dictatorial, fascist regimes seems, from the cheap seats where I sit, to be that our rich are a little more diffuse. 

Also, that I’m too small of a potato to be demonized for saying that out loud. 

In some of those other places, I’d already be in prison, or dead. 

But I’m not. So, this afternoon, after yet another round of cleaning the disgustingness left behind by my alcoholic ex-tenant (he resumed drinking after a 20-year interval of sobriety shortly after moving in….sigh) who ran out and left us with a $715 water bill, Sweetheart and I will join a crew of friends and neighbors at a caroling party. I think this is the 23^rdyear Julie and her family have hosted it.

Sweetheart hangs with the partiers who stay behind. I bring a guitar and a pair of fingerless gloves. Our motley choir is comprised of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims & Atheists. 

Strolling from house to house singing to people more accustomed to solicitors, process servers and panhandlers than singers at their doors might not make up for all the awful things happening in the rest of the world. 

But it’s a start.