Entry 112: To Stave Off Panic in Much Ado About Nothing

This morning greeted me with ill omens.
In the night, Nala decided to retreat to her chair rather than sleep in the bed. But there was no evidence of my tossing and turning. So either the mattress needs replacing that much or she was cold. Both could be true. I found her bathed in sunlight wrapped tightly to the arm of her chair.
Then at work? The Electronic Document Management System the entire state of Iowa uses to make the Courts run? Is down. I can’t look up cases, I can’t file motions, I cannot interact with the Court in any on paper way for any reason! An entire state unable to effectuate law… due to a website crashing. The impacts of a Black Mirror episode with the absurdism of a Rick and Morty episode!
So… I’m doing what work I can… marking INFORMATION MISSING on every form to remind myself (I hope) to go back over and include the missing information whenever/ifever it shows back up!

In “perfect” show of Government Communication?
I got into work this morning. Noticed the computer issue. Texted the staff, who confirmed that it was down and not an isolated incident. I do my work, to the best of my ability, for about 90 minutes when the website finally comes back online. About ten minutes after THAT.... I get an e-mail from the Head Office Administrator alerting the office of the website being down with no ETA on a fix. And that… is very government.
8:00- issue is noted
8:04- issue is shared with staff by user
9:30- issue appears to be resolved
9:40- Issue is Announced by Office that Should Have Announced at Start of Day

My biggest issues today at work, according to the schedule, are going to be 2 separate men.
Man 1: Decided he was going to be my current PosterBoy for why I hate Self-Checkout. Oh, I hate self checkout for so many reasons! First, it’s an intentional act of removing customer service (making the shopping experience less helpful/pleasant/positive) in the name of Corporate Profit Margins. Why have a staff when you can just have profit? Because a staff is necessary and is important, you fucking shill. Plus… I used to be a Grocery Cashier. If you were working, you could enjoy discounts on food. Do you customer who is now required to do your cashiering get any discounts on food? And before you rush in with “They do this to keep the prices down” I want to remind you that a large portion of Pre-Tariff price increase at these places kept being lain at the feet of “a rash of increased thefts, so we need to increase prices.” Do you know the MOST common way for customers to steal from these places? SELF CHECKOUT! The two ways they do this:
(a) Tag Switching- I’ll take this “Clearance Tag” off of last season’s picnic plates and I’ll scan that tag when I’m buying my winter coat! So, the coat that retails for $189 rings up on the register as being $0.59; or
(b) Selective Scanning- I’ll scan half the things in my cart, so it looks like I’m not stealing; but I’m actively not scanning these things. It’s like a half off sale I give to myself!
So… self-checkout is bad all over. And this guy spent the last 4 months doing Plan B more and more brazenly. Starting out with “I’ll not scan these two or three items to see if I can get away with it” then barreling towards “I’ll only scan these two or three items as I seem to have gotten away with it.” Except… he didn’t. He’s being charged with EVERY THEFT at once. So- he did NOT get away with it.
Man 2: Frequent Flyer who keeps escalating. It is his firm opinion that anyone telling him what to do is wrong, an ass, and should beg his forgiveness because he’s never wrong. Y’know.... regardless of the fact that he literally ditches abandoned cars on other people’s lawns… which we would all agree is illegal and a massive dick move. Regardless of the fact that he continues to drive illegally and screams “I CAN DO WHAT I WANT” so has now taken to leading the cops away in a chase, or outright attacking police officers. Which is what he did in my case today. As officers were attempting to handcuff him for driving illegally for the 48th time this year; he kicked two of them so hard that it dislodged their equipment… sent a body camera hurtling off the officer, smashing into the street with such force that the camera could not be repaired. So, yeah. I object to this case being a Simple Misdemeanor. If he’s attacking cops, you need to indict him. Get on it!

But we’ll see what the work day actually winds up being for me. My list of TODAY isn’t terrible. It’s the “still trying to catch up” that always winds up being a problem.

Laura, it seems, is certainly falling to the side. I appreciate Autism and Life and Being Ill and all the reasonable explanations for many days of silence but… at the beginning stages? In a long distance arrangement? On Monday, I texted her to see if she was feeling any better. Heard nothing back. On Tuesday, I texted her to see if she was feeling any better. Heard nothing back. SO… I’m just going on the.... I’m hearing nothing back route. The only other current conversation of any type is the Hinge Conversation that answered “Smut” for preferred reading and the conversation has stayed in that “Short answer, no questions, no conversation” style. Her last message was “Wow thats neat” and honestly… I can have a more engaging conversation with a potted plant at this point so I’m going to stop trying there all together.

So… this time.... in 6 months of various App Usages… I’ve managed more than 1 first date, which beats the last App Usage experience of 2020-2023! And I even got a SECOND date for the first time in all of my App Usage! So, there you have it for now. I’m not even willing to contemplate the amount of money spent in the 2020-2023 stretch but… yeah. Roughly 3 years of Apps and I’ve graduated to .... having a second date once. That’s… mostly just describing the water in case people weren’t sure why I found this whole exercise discouraging. And, of course, throw in the Speed Dating “success” into that.

But if I can be really, nakedly serious and honest and FULL DISCLOSURE here… the big thing is trying to police my brain to NOT go back into the worst place. But after.... just… so many years hearing Nancy’s negatives about me… my brain is primed for that in instances like this. My marriage wasn’t Nancy rejecting me because I had gotten fat.... it’s just what she said repeatedly (until Couple’s Counseling when the truth came out; but by that time- too late). So… my entire sense of self is (a) A marriage where I was constantly told I don’t measure up in Attraction; (b) a pair of Chaotic Manic Polys that were just eager to lose themselves in sexual distraction; and (c) a woman who literally couldn’t see me to assess whether I was Attractive in any fashion. BUT I like my face. I think I’m… not so hideous of face… I’m just… that was a long time hearing how someone who is fat like me can’t be found attractive. So, it is really hard not to go there in my head at times like this. ALSO calling down the ire of those seeking to lay their own hostilities… this is, according to statistics, the common experience of most men on dating apps. The numbers repeatedly detail how men have to swipe hundreds of times to get conversation and thousands of times to get a meeting… and that 4 out of 5 of those meetings either don’t show up at all or leave without any additional contact. SO.... thousands of engagements for a 20% chance of even getting a SECOND DATE. And in that backdrop, we see the rise of people like Andrew Tate and the Man-O-Sphere.... and people can’t see the logic in it? I am not, nor would I ever, advocate for those monsters. Misogyny and Woman-Blaming and Pick Up Culture are all shitty. But if some guy struggling out there is spending his very little disposable income on these apps, and he’s engaging as best as he can over and over and over and over and over again.... and the majority of his interactions are either complete silence, one word answers (like Smut Girl), or blatant scammers/bots? That’s going to impact how that man feels about women generally. If, after all of that, 80% of his actual in person experiences are not showing up or leave and don’t come back? That’s going to impact how that man feels about women generally. So of course he gravitates towards the Figureheads saying, “It isn’t your fault. It is because women are bitches. Feminism is to blame!” NOW… obviously, I disagree with that assessment. It isn’t “because women are bitches” or “because of feminism”.... it’s because of the App Culture! The way we’ve migrated our social interactions into these FOR PROFIT models that commodify our misery… we’re incentivizing these companies to keep us miserable. I can’t speak to the woman’s experience; and I’m interested. Men are awash in a scarcity problem where our isolation is pushed, packaged, commodified and sold as a product. Keep putting Money into Apps! Keep promoting Toxic Creators! Fight with people over how the Loneliness Epidemic is a Male Loneliness epidemic and it is because of WOMEN! Whatever you do, don’t form actual, real connections… just stay at your phone giving us your money and attention.

So if the product is “Male Loneliness” and is being used to spin young men into Alt Right Pipelines, take as much money and attention from them as possible..... what is the Female equivalent right now? I’m not being cheeky, I genuinely want to know. Women used to be packaged into the “We have to incentivize women to use these apps and give us their attention” but I don’t know what the current “give us your soul” targeting women is right now.

Then… the aftermath of Court Hearings. Motherfucker. I’m still compassionate regarding mental health, I am. But I will forever be a person who understands, agrees with, or supports that all things WITHIN LIMITS. And the guy that has escalated to attacking the police is certainly mentally unwell and has exceeded his limits for compassion/understanding. As he hung out menacingly in the Courtroom waiting to be the last person in the room so he could argue about how HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING WRONG; IT IS JUST THE COPS WHO HATE HIM AND ARE TARGETING HIM. HE CAN LIST EVERY COP IN THIS TOWN AND WHY THEY HATE HIM, SO IT IS PERSONAL AND HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING WRONG! And it’s like… dude? If you aren’t going to take care of your mental health, you can’t attack cops. And when cops ask you for your driver’s license and registration information? If you don’t HAND IT TO THEM, they have lost their patience with you. You do this MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK so, the more you fight the cops, the less time they’ll give you to work with them. So… yeah. If you’re swinging on cops, they aren’t going to hold your hand and say please. But Lord forbid he actually fucking understands that!

A good rule of thumb, generally… if you spend more than 4 days a week in Court and you aren’t being paid to be there… you need to do some serious life reflecting. Are you doing things that are causing you to come into negative contact with the law? Are there things you could be doing to prevent breaking the law?

Though… the world is a mad place anyway! On one of my TikTok Videos just as a “Lil Greeting” I started it by saying, “Today is tax day, so most Americans have until midnight to file and I wish you luck with that. Moving on to the day’s story....” and yet… of course (what else did I expect?) It seems like the majority of response that video has gotten (despite being a 10 minute video covering the Harvard story) were people saying “You can request an additional 6 months!” or “I have 3 years before I have to file” or… things of that nature. Like… your algorithm put MY video about Harvard on your FYP… and you were compelled to be argumentative about the Tax Day Greeting? Not… y’know… the idea of the Federal Government trying to dictate how a private business hires and fires its staff? Not… y’know… the idea of the Federal Government attempting to wrest certain controls over a Private Institution? NOTHING AT ALL to do with the actual content of the video or the substance of the ongoing Constitutional Crises and Rule by Moron that we’re facing? Just… “I DON’T HAVE TO FILE MY TAXES” kind of responses? Okay. Okay, good for you, kids.

Meanwhile, the news of the day keeps getting insane. Did you hear that, as part of trade negotiations with the UK, the Trump team is demanding that Britain repeal its hate speech laws that protect the LGBTQIA community? Apparently, JD Vance is demanding that “close allies protect freedom of speech” is all. But it is clear, if confirmed, that this is America saying “We get to control the Culture War in other countries, too. Christian Nationalist Global Edition!” Did you hear the newest about The White House vs. The Associated Press? After the Court rightly said, “You can’t suppress the AP because you disapprove of its content. The First Amendment exists. Didn’t you guys make a whole big stink of freedom of speech like… five seconds ago?!” the White House refuses to “back down” to “Lawful Court Orders” (constitutional crises being the watchword this month, apparently). After being ordered by a federal judge to give AP access to White House events, the Trump administration responded with a policy gambit that would remove a position set aside for wire services such as AP, Bloomberg or Reuters in a media pool. The White House said Trump’s press secretary “shall retain day-to-day discretion to determine composition of the pool.” Very literally The President dictates who reports. Oh, did you hear this one? How the new rallying cry is blatant racism by saying “I’m not going to cry over one illegal alien that shouldn’t be here in the first place!” when faced with things like “Without due process, the government can classify ANY person as an enemy and deport you out of Country to a prison camp. As seen in Germany 1930s sending people to out of country prison camps after labeling them enemies.” But SURE… sending people to prison camps, even in flagrant violation of Court orders from co-equal branches should absolutely be responded to by “I’m not going to cry over one illegal alien that shouldn’t be here in the first place!” How very mature and not at all psychotically apathetic or unnecessarily cruel. Very Christian of you, especially at this time of year.... y’know… when we celebrate our Lord and Savior being executed by a corrupt government despite having committed no sin. Always the BEST time to say, “Fuck the Courts, fuck morality, fuck ethics. Kill the brown people.” You fucking morons. And, by the way, I know facts don’t actually matter to these people but… Green Card Holders, Visa Holders, those seeking Asylum.... actually a huge swath of people the right call “Illegals” are actually here legally. So, it goes right to the heart of the damned point. If you can be here LEGALLY but then rounded up and shipped to a prison camp without any due process? They can do that to anybody they want to.

Script Idea for TiKToK tomorrow:
So, between comments and between what the algorithm has been showing me, I’m seeing a rise in the trend of “There are no sides. Republicans and Democrats are the same thing!” or “Democrats suck, too, so spend time on that!” And… I’d like to address that. YES, the Democrats are falling on their faces. The content of the day is not to pretend that the Left is perfect. But, and we seem to be forced to have this conversation every YEAR, let me put it in a different way.
Imagine a house made of wood. There is a group of people that keeps throwing matches at it. One of them is even spraying kerosene around the house to make it go up in flames faster. There is another group of people that is sitting apart and just watching, not doing anything. It is YOUR job to keep the house from burning to the ground. That’s the scenario. NOW… are the two groups the same? Are the ones actively harming without hesitation the same as the ones actively ignoring the harm? NO. Both can piss you off, both should piss you off; but they are not THE SAME. Going further, you are a limited person. You can’t do everything, go everywhere, recreate the world with a snap of your fingers. SO, how do you channel the limited energy and time you’ve got? Do you spend it screaming at those doing nothing or do you spend it screaming at those actively harming? There’s an argument for both sides, so I’m not discrediting one approach over the other necessarily. We need people on all fronts of this issue. We need people actively getting in the way of those who are attempting to destroy us; we need people trying to shake the apathetic to action; we need people exposing the issues to those who may choose to turn away. So, as long as you are bringing attention, fighting back, resisting.... fight on. But these are the moments. These are the times where you can’t say “both sides are the same” and think you’re contributing. Right now, we have 1 political party that is laughing and applauding the idea of shipping people to camps to die; and another political party that is not doing that. So, this claim that “they’re just the same” is a shocking departure from reality at the present moment.