In my childhood, Washington’s Birthday was celebrated, 22 February. The advertisers loved to do ads and commercials around the “Washington cutting down the cherry tree” legend. Everybody knows by now it was a story fabricated by a clergyman, Parson Weems. He wrote a textbook and decided that Washington should be made a paradigm of virtue. Hence the story.

Lincoln’s Birthday is 12 February and Lincoln was associated with log cabins, splitting rails, and cheesy-looking fake beards. The month was a four week long marketing opportunity. Caricatures of car dealership presidents wearing colonial style wigs, with hatchets , chopping down the cherry trees of high prices, seemed to abound. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe these cartoons are just dreams of mine, false memories and embellishments on reality.

Today February is Black History Month.   That’s it. All Black All The Time. Does Black History only matter in February? You know the answer. The various History Months and Pride Months are all concessions to the pressures of the identity groups that make up the modern Democratic Party. As such, these honorary months flirt dangerously with contrivance and artificiality.

Now if one expresses scepticism as to this popular proliferation of. “______ History Month” as offering any true educational purpose, one risks ridicule or shame.

Ironically Black History Month risks morphing into the modern version of Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream, solely a public relations artifice.

But that’s our time. Public Relations and Propaganda hold forth as our dubious conduit to truth. And we don’t even know it

The old TV had been around for seven years, I guess. The power supply had an issue. I replaced that set with Monroe’s old set, the one he left us when he died in 2014.

Monroe was what Janet’s family called her Dad. He was James Monroe to distinguish him from another James in the family. Eventually, he was the last James standing so his name shifted to Jim for most people, except for the family diehards.

I had a power cord issue. The original issue power cord was nowhere to be found. I thought I found a replacement at Best Buy but it did not fit. So I scrounged one from multiple power cords we had around the house.

It is a nice HD set, a Vizio 37″ in the E Series. Hard to believe this is obsolete. It lacks Smart TV technology. That means Google and the NSA can’t spy on you as easily. Nice to know. Our country is safe.

So I’m tired. We went to the 5:00 Mass with the annoying music. I’m just glad I went.

Dinner was well received, especially the sauteed Brussels sprouts.

Night all.

It has been a very long day of not giving a fuck, of longing for J, but knowing her return will be nothing more than going upstairs to recover from working, and having a very good reason for not giving me the time of day.

I have a brisket in the slow cooker, her favorite, will sauté Brussels sprouts with carrots in olive oil and garlic, maybe a potato, but maybe not. Strawberries and whipped cream for dessert

We shall see what happens.

Here it is 8:36 AM on Sunday 16 February 2020. My nephew is 17 today, a fine young man. J is at work. I am sitting in my chair, having finished my first cup of coffee, staring at my television. I can get it to work by unplugging the power cord after I finish watching,then plugging it in when I want to resume viewing. A nuisance.

I am considering which Mass to attend today, the 1100 Mass at St Benedict, the traditional Latin Mass at 430 at St Joseph, or the “contemporary” Mass at St Bridget at 500. Right now I am sleepy and want to go back to sleep. That would eliminate the 1100 Mass. 430 Latin Mass is not J’s sort of thing. She likes when I attend with her at St Bridget. I guess St Bridget is the one.

AA talks about packing things in to the stream of life, once liberated from the tyranny of alcohol. Right now I want to pack in more sleep.

Here I am, tired, been up for a while, too long, really. I should go to bed.

The yearning I feel for the love that I don’t get sears my heart. It is like getting socks for Christmas. Just socks. Ugly White Tube Socks. Again and again. Year after year. Nice gift only if that is what I need. And I often need them, I should be grateful and yet…. the prospect of socks again is frustrating and maddening.

So I am waiting for Romance and Passion to hit me like a ton of bricks.

Emotional. That is the only kind I ride. Perhaps I need to change that.

Yesterday, my TV crapped out. There is something wrong with it. They are made so inexpensively (cheaply), that the modern television is more economically replaced than repaired. So I have to survive an indeterminate period of media deprivation; no Popeye cartoons, no English “mudlarkers”, no Ukrainians with metal detectors, no Russian “mukbangers”, and no interminable World War Two newsreels and documentaries. I will survive (cue disco music!).

The emotional roller coaster I am experiencing pertains to my upset with our local delegate to the Virginia General Assembly, who just voted to override a fundamental element of the US Constitution. What is gallimg is that he is a high school government teacher in his real job. His fix could serve to precipitate a Constitutional crisis (no matter who wins) and is of questionable legality.

So I wrote letters (emails), to him and to the school board, citing his 1) conflict of interest as an obvious political partisan and 2) his bad judgment. I suggested he resign or be terminated if all he is is a partisan tub-thumper masquerading as an objective educator. (Emotional peak). Then J and I went to dinner, where we talked, ate, and otherwise reconnected. (Emotional drop and leveling off).

I feel much better now. Remarkably, since I have no access to Popeye.

I will survive. ( 🎶So I’m saving all my lovin’…. 🎶)

Here I am awake. Deceased Ex-wife’s birthday is today. She would have been 71, had she lived.

Oh well. The sleep is tugging at me. Back to sleep. In the other room, I think. Yeah. Bed.

I was going along minding my own business, hoping my wife would be happy about something. She tells me she has trouble figuring out how to respond to make me happy. This means what?

If I share that I need physical intimacy (aka SEX ), and she has trouble with being sexually attentive, approachable, and vulnerable, then it’s better for me to not express my needs.

It is time to put the mask back on. Stop the naïve optimism. This is what reality looks like.

How often have we heard that communication between spouses is of utmost importance?

Well it’s true. Then again. I have nothing to say any more.

Just not worth it.

After a period of doing than usual stuff, shower,AA, visiting S, my AA sponsee, late lunch w J (Cracker Barrel), I decided I needed a nap. Truth be told, I am exhausted, probably from trying to keep J happy.

So I lay down and slept on and off. I might lay down some more and sleep some more. There is physical exhaustion present, emotional burn-out too.

J tells me she is down now. And I think it’s my fault. Cognitively I know that’s nonsense. J needs no help from me in making herself miserable.

I believe the best advice, for me right now, is to watch Popeye cartoons and let J be “down” till she isn’t any longer.