How can one have a “Hump Day” when there are no humps in the week? Such is my predicament. The days don’t really all run together, but there are rarely tasks for me to complete, except for swimming and writing.

When I started writing, I was worried I couldn’t tell a story. Now I’m worried I can’t write anything other than erotica (Porn).

I feel a little sickly today, like the cold has rejuvenated itself. I have to fight the urge to keep going. I suck at self-care.

“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”William Randolph Hearst to Frederic Remington.

The story goes that upon arrival in Cuba on an assignment from Hearst and the Hearst newspapers, the artist Frederic Remington wired Hearst that he saw no signs of imminent conflict to which Hearst responded with his now famous answer, cited above.

Journalism, as a profession dedicated to an objective and factual observation of events, stood indicted by this statement.

Now, over a century after Hearst’s pronouncement, journalism, whether print, electronic, or digital, is again having its objectivity challenged. When the media carries the same biases as its readers and viewers, it is difficult to discern those biases. “How could someone who thinks as I think be wrong?” is the assumption we all make. We’re never wrong, right?

The Watergate scandal gained traction by a shared fundamental dislike of Nixon by the media and a substantial portion of the public at large. Nixon had to be behind it, right? That’s what the media was looking for, that’s what the media, Congress, and the prosecutors found.

The John F. Kennedy assassination and its subsequent investigation by the Warren Commission, was never critically reported by the media, nor did the media vet the Warren Report at that time. Subsequently, the Kennedy Assassination is a seminal event in the crafting of popular legends. Involve organized crime and the CIA in any alternative examination of the assassination and one immediately has willing and eager believers. While the Warren Report may be specious, any refutation of its findings aren’t therefore true simply because they draw different conclusions.

We come to the present day and we look to the media for further validation of our beliefs around climate change, the global economy, local economies, electoral politics, race relations or the status of women, just to name a few issues.

It is far too unnerving to think that our own prejudices are what manipulate us into thinking and acting in the ways that we do. No one wants to believe that we furnish and tie the strings to our wrists ourselves that the puppeteers jerk.

Using the Albuterol Inhaler helps but it is taking a while. But I am feeling better. We joke about how we dread the “Spring forward” time change. So I am up and the clock says 5:30, but my body and mind say 4:30.

I’m watching people on YouTube nose around abandoned property. Creepy. I don’t have the chutzpah to do that.

We shall see how today unfolds. Still don’t feel up to going to Mass. I might just watch TV Mass and leave it at that.

It is 2:09 AM Eastern Time North America. I have been up about two hours. I wasn’t feeling all that well. I was also due for a dose of Albuterol through the inhaler.

I am tired. I feel lonely. Later today we are supposed to drive to Fredericksburg, 50 miles North to have dinner with J’s brother and his wife. Right now I don’t feel up for it. My brother-in-law and his wife are really nice people. But I just want to rest.

Questions around sex plague me. I will press on.

I am sleepy again. Back to bed for me.

Later Loves ❤

The doctor visit resulted in the Albuterol inhaler being prescribed. The next step is using the inhaler, which I have. I am feeling better. Breathing is getting easier.

Whenever I post, I am so grateful for my readers. You guys are a safe space for me. I feel accepted for being the mass of contradictions that I am. That leads me to think that if I am a mass of contradictions, maybe all of us are.

I called the doctor’s office this morning. He had an appointment opening at 10:00 AM, so I scheduled it.

They took me back, got my weight, (185.5 lbs,) my vitals (BP 140/70). Dr S comes in. I tell him I am fatigued by the end of the day. I have very little energy. He listens to my breathing, then says, “You’re wheezing.That means your airways are constricted.” He phones in a prescription for Albuterol, to be inhaled four times a day. I pick it up at the pharmacy, come home, use it. I then go back to sleep.

I’m on the way to feeling better.

Moral of the story. Men, when your wife tells you to go to the doctor, go to the doctor. (You may modify this advice to fit the parameters of your particular relationship.)

My wife wants me to get this bronchitis checked out. My ex-wife, with whom I was texting last night said it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I’m more concerned with the mild fatigue I experience by the time evening comes.

So I guess I will go see the Doc.