Category: Uncategorized

So…. So…. So….

Er….. I thought I might get 25k over two weeks, if I begged a lot. And then we’d borrow the other half, pay the bill, and if the house sold quickly, we’d be okay. Mostly. I mean BTB — back to broke — but not in a hole, right?

And then the GoFundMe funded in… 7 hours? And is now double the amount? And I’m not keeping it up because I’m greedy, but because people keep sending me emails and pms saying “leave it up another week, so I can play.”

I don’t get how this is “play” but I get it seems to be cheering people up. The discord group is watching this like it’s election results only better. And I don’t want to take that away. But it seems…. surreal.

People in the discord group keep saying it’s like a real life It’s A Wonderful Life. They’re not wrong.

This side of the keyboard? It’s pretty lonely. I often wonder if I’m flinging out things no one cares about/reads. Like shouting into the dark, and not being sure there’s anyone there. Sometimes there’s glimmers of eyes.

So, it’s amazing to get this kind of response. It’s — life affirming.

And yeah, the fundraiser is at double. And someone — coff Kim Du Toit — has threatened me with deathy death if I take it down before it hits 150k. That seems…. excessive. (I mean the amount, not the deathy death. The man has enough guns to deadify half the planet.) And surreal. But it seems to be headed that way.

And — besides the fact that of course if the house sells fast I’ll use some of the money to help friends I know need it, and who’d never ask — the other part is why it feels surreal.

You see, our married life started with nothing, my degree being of limited value in the US (Well, you know, there are like 3 new translator jobs a year and they might not be in YOUR languages. Even if I had 7) and Dan being a beginner programmer. A year in, he said I should JUST write. Of course we thought I’d sell the first book and we’d be rich. But though I got very encouraging rejections from first submission on, nothing was accepted.

I finally got a job as a translator, just before I got pregnant (finally, six years in) and got very ill, so I had to quit. From then on, we were on one income until I sold a novel 6 years later. And for the unitiated, a mid-list novel, which mine was from day one, isn’t an “income.” It was 5k. And since it was “literary fantasy” they wanted one a year TOPS.

By the time my advances were bigger, the kids were teens. And I was writing five novels (at around 10k a piece) and taking side writing gigs to keep them in food and shoes. (My dainty boys.Would you believe 13 EEE and 15 EEEE — or depending on the cut 17 EEEE?) And we were socking away what we could, but never getting enough for a cushion in case of trouble.

When the possibility of indie raised its head and “the more you write the more you make” I was ill. And it’s been very hard – as you guys know — to write anything. Partly because of stress. This has been very bad the last five years. We bought the last house in CO for various reasons, and partly because it was the cheapest (trust me) we could get and be where we needed to be at that time. BUT it was more house than we could afford, both in price, (Yes, we qualified. But I think those calculations are a bit nuts) and size. Buying it as a short sale, with a ton of stuff that needed to be done was bad enough. But there was also heating/cooling and just regular maintenance. It reminded me of when we owned a 5th hand Volvo. No matter for what it went in, it was going to cost us $500 (or in the house’s case 10k.) Oil change? $500. Wiper blade squeaks? $500. We loved that car, but only had it a year and a half because it was bleeding us. Well, the house bled us for five years, and almost killed us getting it in shape to sell. (Both monetarily and physically.)

And I can’t write when I’m stressed. It doesn’t work. I mean, regular every day stress, sure. But “Where are xk coming from to pay for the food/gas/mortgage?” That shuts me down. Which yes, is counterproductive.

Ultimately, the reason I did the GoFundMe was to be able to write. Because the alternative was to borrow and then sit here, with my hair falling out and without any nails, while I waited for the other house to sell.

I’m actually somewhat embarrassed by how well it’s done. (No, I can’t explain it.) And yes there will be yearly fundraisers (Younger son spent an hour talking me into this.) They might pay a tenth of this, but that’s worth it. But they will be of a different nature, with returns at various levels. Nothing I need to physically mail, unless younger son undertakes to do it (I SUCK at that) but tuckerizations and exclusive stories and stuff. Not this. This was because otherwise I was going to have a heart attack trying to find the money to pay bills.

For now? It’s surreal because for the first time ever, we have a cushion. I.e. if something goes wrong, like the other house takes three months to sell, we’re not going to be broke/homeless.

And for right now? It’s a wonderful life.

The lights in the great dark theater have come on. And the darkness I’ve been flinging words into is full of friendly, loving faces.

It’s stunning. It’s almost unbelievable.

And yes, it is wonderful.

So we found a new place, but between the pandemic shutdown and it being so soon after buying the last house, we’ve drained our savings. After much urging from friends and family, I am asking for help.

Yes, I’m embarrassed and terrified, but I’ve never really charged for my work here, and we truly, desperately and very urgently need help. The figure I put up scares me, but it scares me even more not knowing where it will come from. I want and need to write stories, and I can’t while locked in stress over this thing looming over us.

Health Moving Expenses Go Fund Me link here.

TWO CATS COFFEE

The True Tale of King Harv’s Most Ferocious Coffee by King Harv Coffees

The coffee was brewing.  Not fast enough for me, but it was brewing nonetheless. Here in the wilds of North Central Florida, coffee is just as required as an airboat and a shotgun. Probably more so. So many dangerous animals.  So many creatures of the dark.  Gators of course. Lots of gators.  But also huge Snapping Turtles. Black Bears. Amoebas. Beer cans.  Only one struck fear into me though. Well, maybe two things.  Specifically – Two Cats!

I was brought up fearing them. My Dad always told me if faced with the choice of facing the Two Cats or swimming through a shark infested beach, to just “shut up and get in the water kid”.  The nightmares were predictably bad. I grew up with many issues.

On my 60th birthday, and having successfully navigated sixth grade with honors, I began thinking for myself. Why are these Two Cats so feared? How come they look like cute little kittens? Could they be reasoned with?  Fear seems to have prevented anyone from even trying.  Well, after my brilliant idea for an edible donut yo-yo business was laughed out of town, I had a lot of time to fill. And a lot of donuts to eat. And someone’s got to do something about the Two Cats.  It seems I had a purpose in life after all.

My investigation moved along far quicker than expected.  First, I was able to locate where they made their home.  Coincidentally it was at the house of my son Zach and his wife Terri, where they masked their true ferocious nature.  But every morning, for a few hours at least, these monsters were let out to wreak havoc on any living or non-living thing in their path.  Rusted out cars surrounded their home.  The fish in the pond were long gone, as were the frogs and the mangroves. The big sandhill cranes had abandoned town weeks ago, and no children had been seen in the neighborhood for years.  Even the gators left in disgust.

After modifying a professional shark cage for land use, I staked out a location in the bushes a few hundred yards from the house. Bottled water – Check.  MRE’s – Check. Habanero Doritos – dang, they don’t make them anymore! Wise potato chips would have to do.  I settled in to wait and to watch.

At about 6:30 am, through my eyepiece I saw the two little fuzz balls exit the house via a secret tunnel behind the couch. They looked incredibly unhappy! Hissing, hair standing on end, eyes searching for anything to tear apart.  I gripped the shark cage for reassurance.  I was not reassured.  Day after day I saw the same pattern. The risks were high, but I was patient. Why in the world were they starting their day so upset? That’s when the trash can blew over.

My son’s trash blew everywhere.  Empty cheese ball cans, broken bottles of grapefruit beer, a beginners to guide to car warranties, and a lot of Drakes Cakes wrappers.  The kind of trash all of us produce on a daily basis. Except for one thing. It stood out like Wolverine at a Carvel ice cream store. A can of Folgers coffee.  A can of stinking Folgers coffee. Good gracious!  How could they?  Of COURSE these cats were pissed.

The back of my hand greeted Zach that morning. “What’s that for, pop?” he said, bewildered in the extreme.   “You’ve been giving these little angels Folgers coffee for breakfast!  What were you thinking!  You know they prefer low acidity coffees, with luscious, tropical taste notes of kumquat and vanilla!” 

Zach looked chagrined.  He really loved these little cats, despite their reputation.  He and Terri did all they could for them. And yet…  “Gosh Dad, you’re so right!”  Zach was a dang good son, and knew to admit when he made a mistake.  “How do we fix this?”

We both headed off to King Harv’s Imperial Coffees Experimental Roasting Facility, deep under the mountains of Apopka Florida.  There we toiled day and night, roasting, blending, testing, rejecting, over and over again, until on the 6th night, we hit it.  THIS IS IT.  

The next morning, little Yuri and Valentina, as I learned they were called, lapped up a bowl of their new Two Cats Blend coffee. Well, actually they just sniffed and played with it.  (Editors Note: Never let cats drink coffee.  It is dangerous to them.)

The Two Cats then proceeded outside, as they did every morning.  But they were not upset. They were not hissing.  They were not destroying.  At that moment Carl the mailman stepped on the porch to deliver a package.  He turned white with fear, but there was no need.  The Two Cats brushed up against Carl’s artificial leg with affection.  A leg that previously was not artificial. A friendship began. Children played on the streets again. Even the gators returned!  

Well, King Harv’s Imperial Coffees continues to roast Two Cats Coffee to this very day. Two Cats Coffee is considered by the Apopka FL Rare Coffee Roasters Association to be one of the best low acidity coffees in the world. When asked to comment, David, chief spokesman for King Harv’s said “I’m not surprised they said that. Not surprised at all.”  You too can order Two Cats Coffee, and many many other rare and exotic coffees, online at www.kingharv.com  Oh, and the shipping is still free anywhere in the USA. Even though USPS raised the rates on us again.

A Catholic priest, a rabbi and two Lutheran ministers walk into a bar…

If they’re friends, and at ease with each other, you’re almost certainly in America. Or in a country so far gone into atheist socialism, that it doesn’t matter what religion you have, you’re an enemy of the state.

Years ago, when the kids were little, our priest was a gentleman who was a weekend “biker” (and computer programmer) before he got his calling. Half of his sermons were about how our soul was like this problem he’d had with his motorcycle where he had to fix it with spit and bailing wire, or something.

So– At some kind of city inter-faith charity he met a rabbi and two ministers (one was Lutheran, the other, I THINK Presbyterian) who were similarly obsessed.

They started meeting for riding their bikes and for fun and became fast friends. I never figured out how that worked with weekends being different and with their duties, but I do know some friend gave them leather jackets with white wings and the words Heaven’s Riders picked out in sparkles.

And I remember going up to Denver (we lived in the Springs) at the highly unusual time (for us) of Sunday afternoon (we normally — meaning 4 times a year — went up for the weekend, and left Friday nigh) the kiddies got very excited in the back seat, yelling “Look, it’s them.” And thee, riding down the road were four middle aged men with “Heaven’s Riders” on their jacket.

Yes, incidentally, the four of them would make a great urban fantasy series. And when I told the story to some friends years ago they tried to organize an antho. The problem, as I found a couple of years ago, while doing Deep Pink, is that it’s hellishly difficult to write “won’t offend the heck out of people” let alone “they will like it” fantasy that TOUCHES religion. So that was a mine field.

Anyway, this is literally an “only in America.” Maybe — very maybe — England. But at this point I don’t know enough to say that confidently.

However, in the history of the world: how many gallons of shed blood, how much hatred and enmity tied humanity for centuries over religious differences. But in America, it doesn’t matter, unless you make it a point of hating x or y. And those people are rare. Our adopted-late-in-life son, (with duct tape, if you must ask) is Presbyterian and when we’re talking religion, he affectionately calls us “frigging Papists” and rolls his eyes. My friends so close they’re family are Jewish, Catholic, all flavors of Protestantism, slightly more exotic Mormons, and of course pagan and Asatru (more exotic flavor of pagan). I might think their religion is a belly laugh (I often think that of my own) but I’m certainly not going to try to kill them or even separate myself from them.

And as religion goes, so goes ethnicity, the two being linked throughout history. (Duct-tape-adopted son is Scotts and Welsh and Scandinavian. Um…. husband has a lot of Welsh for sure just from his family coming from that border.) In the US if a nice Italian boy brings home a half Swedish, half English, with more alien sprinkles bride, the likely response is “She’s blonde and so pretty.” And honestly, these days the same is true for race. (Which is why people fake racist incidents. The demand outstrips supply.) With very few exceptions, your family might hate your different colored bride/groom and give the race excuse, but almost for sure the problem is something else. (Like politics.)

This ability to co-exist is almost bizarrely rare elsewhere and elsewhen.

But hey, “progressives” want to throw it all away, in the name of imagined race wars that will give them power, and in favor of “safe spaces.”

Various colleges have segregated graduations, so students “of color” are safe from the “white gaze” (even though, let’s face it, guys, it’s America. we’re all mixes. Even some new arrivals. (Grins.)) which is so powerful it can stop their success with a look. And they have benes and goodies for only certain races. And they’re doing their best to bring back Hitler’s dreams of “such the race, such your personality.”

They haven’t started in on religion (yet) only because they don’t believe in religion. I don’t mean they’re atheist. They actually don’t believe religion exists, as such. Because they don’t have any, and everyone is like them.

The amazing thing is that they call themselves “progressives.” As though dragging us kicking and screaming to mankind’s stupid past hatreds were progress. As though us, people who tan needed their help, and needed “white” people removed so we can succeed.

Their program isn’t as successful as they’d like. None of this is, on account they don’t understand people-not-themselves. But it’s been too successful for my taste. As Heinlein said “it’s easier to teach people to hate.”

And that worries me, because it will backfire on the left who seems to think that because they declared it so, white people are already a minority. (Heck, guys, blond Amerindians might put whatever they want in their tax forms, but…)

And that rows back decades of just learning to live together and ignoring what’s not relevant to building and living and having a functional society.

We’ll come back, of course. We’re Americans and America in an era of fast travel falls apart if we try to magnify all differences and atomize.

But it’s going to cause trouble. By which I mean famine, misery and a huge butcher’s bill. Or in other words, those not-so-heavenly riders of the at least temporary apocalypse.

It would be much easier if we told the regressives to put a sock in it. And did it loudly enough to stick.

Can we do it? I don’t know. But despair is a sin, and might not be needed.

Shoulders up. Be not afraid. Don’t give the regressives an inch. Refuse the hate they call ‘love.’

We’re back home after doing a week’s worth of work in a day and a half, then driving afternoon/evening/night to get here at 5 am. I’m feeling mostly dead.

And terrified. Because you see we ran through our savings BEFORE moving and the moving expenses were way more than we expected (just the gas back and forth), because of the looking was so expensive, particularly with Pandemic Hotels TM. Then renovations, which weren’t as extensive as you might think, but everything was through the roof, because of “the times we live in.” And if the house takes longer to sell than we anticipate, we’re going to be in a world of trouble.

I realized that on Friday. The problem is fear and stress shut me down. So — as embarrassed and terrified as I am — on the advice (and beating) of many friends, I’ll be doing a gofundme.

Meanwhile, while I was at my lowest I got given a very odd gift.

As some of you know I’m so cheap that Scrooge McDuck would look at me and go “Whoa”. So I rarely buy ornamental things just to buy. (Except mugs, and even that it’s more I have a weird relationship with them.) So, I wanted a fall wreath, but they were like $30 or $150 or something. (This is how much I retain prices beyond “ah, too expensive.”) BUT when browsing Arc Thrift store there was a bunch of “fake fall foliage” for $2 and a vine wreath was $4. And I have a glue gun. So. Three years ago, I made this wreath and hung it up.

The other part of this story is that the other house had a little bird who made its nest on the next-to-the-door light. Dan would get upset it might burn and want to take it off, but I wouldn’t let him, because I enjoyed watching the baby birds.

Well, normally I had the fall wreath up August through December, but this last year…. well.

So two weeks ago, we took the wreath down after a year plus. And two days ago I was cramming it into a huge box, just shoving to get it in. When I realized there was an addition I DID not make, beautifully mated to the wreath. And suddenly I was in tears, as though it was a gift or a sign or something.

It came home with us, wrapped in bubble wrap, in a medium size box, and I’m not even sure about putting it outside or in an interior wall.

Below the pics.

No blog tomorrow. If we’re very lucky blog Monday. Maybe.

The money pit struck again. I might need a go fund me, because things are dire. more later.

Probably the worst part of the last month and a half to two months was that for various reasons my husband had to be at new house while I was in Colorado.

It’s not that I’m insecure in our relationship, or that I thought anything would break from being apart, but there was a terrifying, “broken” feeling, like I’d just been sliced in half.

I’d like to say that’s just habit, because we’ve been married 36 years, but I’ve never done particularly well when Dan is gone for even a few days. And honestly, from the way he looked when I got here, nothing was particularly all right at this end too. In fact, the last time I was gone more than two weeks, he not only completely rearranged the house, but the minute I came through the door, I was told to “never do that to me again.” At the time we were married 1 year. (I went back for degree-finalizing reasons, for a month and a half.)

The title of this post is from a quote about marriage, and somewhere I have a mostly written novel about a woman who marries an elf Lord which I used the title for, which is stupid, since of course it’s fantasy. Anyway, I might have to revisit that sometime next year.

Because marriage is a mystery and very strange. You go from being two to being one. This doesn’t mean you develop a mind meld, of course. Dan and I are very similar in conclusions, very different in methods, and it sometimes — in the rare times we really disagree — sparks fly like you wouldn’t believe it.

It is more that your sense of self goes from being one to being two. An entity of two.

This means you acquire a whole lot of new interests, and do things you might never have had any interest in, otherwise, and also that you learn and grow in ways otherwise unknown.

The fun part is this happens again with kids, but more so. At least for me, having the kids was almost a symbiotic relationship. For the first three years of their lives I LITERALLY could “Feel” what they were doing and where they were. This diminished year by year, but never fully went away.

We went from being a couple to being four. New interests were discovered, like older son’s weird fascination with elephants was communicable. Also, younger son’s very odd music tastes seem to be viral. And we took interest in things we’d otherwise never care about.

Now the process is reversing as the now adult sons cut lose. We’re going from being four to being two. We’re learning who we were, reaching back to before we had them, and what has changed.

And that’s fine, as long as we are together.

I know in the way of life and mortality someday one of us will have to learn to be one. Maybe. I’m still hoping for that “instantly at the same time.”

In any case, I intuit that will be far harder than letting the boys fly.

And I don’t know why or what magic this is. But there is magic there. And a mystery.

When I was little, I looked down on people who moved. No, not you know, who could move, but who moved from house to house.

I suspect in that I was a little like say Regency manor families. I was born in a house where generations of my family had been born (and died) and by gum, I was going to stay there. There was pride in that, and also a little bit of insanity. I suspect it’s to blame for my keeping all sorts of weird things: Cloth I’m not sure what to do with. ALL screws and nails. I mean, something comes into my house and breaks, I remove the screws and nails, before discarding. Pieces of machinery. Bits of interestingly worked wood.

This is mostly because when I was little and wanted to do some craft or create something, the first stop was not “Let’s go get the materials” but “go rummage through the attics and outbuildings, because someone who lived here before has left something I can probably use.” And part of my idiotic back brain equates that with security. Yeah, it has to change, or we’re going to end up two old people living in a labyrinth of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. (What do I mean end up. Shut up. We’re moving. The boxes will get unpacked. Things will change.) I still want to keep a good number of things, because, look, we’re going to uncertain times, but enough is enough. So, the truly ugly curtains in this house are going for donation. I don’t want them. I’ll never use them. And if in the future I feel a strong need for ugly material (I don’t know. Maybe I’ll need to scare someone?) I’ll BUY some. Or trade for some. Or hand-draw some on unbleached muslin, d*mn it.

Anyway, ahem.

So, anyway. I really never thought I’d move out of the village, while simultaneously wanting to live in Denver and be a writer. Yes, I could have contradictory aspirations. I guess we all do.

People who moved around a lot baffled me. I lived where my ancestors had lived. They were in the air, in the water, in the produce, and oh, yeah, the cemetery down the road.

They’d known and loved this landscape like I knew and loved the landscape. There is a love, buried in my memory. This time of year — last smelled at the Denver botanic Gardens, two years ago — the smell of a certain kind of ripe grapes can bring tears to my eyes. It’s etched in my memory with a visual pallet of gold and grey. The gold of the ripe wheat fields and golden leaves. The grey of the field stone walls and the skies, that foretell winter.

Of course, I was in my late teens by the time I realized none of this was what it seemed to be. The village, slow changing though it was, when I was little, was still changing, and the village I spent my childhood in was wildly changed in physical landscape let alone social one from the one my dad loved and grew up in. And I suspect it had bugger all to do with the one grandma knew and loved.

It was like it had moved us/moved around us, till we were in a different place.

This was both freeing and dismaying, leaving me unmoored. But I remember, and still love the village of my memory, the village that no longer exists, now being crisscrossed by high ways and choked with stackaprol apartment buildings.

Some days I’d give everything I own to walk down the main street, even with the smell of uncertain sewage processing, and the noise of the radio soap operas coming from every door. And if it granted me the right to open that little side gate and go around the back and share just one more tea with grandma… Don’t tempt me. I don’t know what I’d give.

That is, of course, not what life had in store for me.

I won’t make jokes about being really from North Carolina, because that’s where I was naturalized. There’s some truth there, like there’s truth in that type of joke. Because, you know, the place left its imprint on me, and some see it. But I never fell in love with it. Partly because we lived in a blah starter home in blah suburbs. There was not much to attach to. And mostly we worked, and had friends. We didn’t do much that engaged us with the place.

Colorado was different, both because it was somehow my place of dreams, and because we were a family when we moved there. Which meant we did things as a family, from taking the kids places, to finding favorite places to eat to–

Mind you our Denver was not most people’s Denver. I’m forever highly amused when someone speaks of Denver and mentions something that’s hilariously alien to me. “Oh, yeah, x place. That was Denver.”

But we are weird and like weird things. Our love affair with Denver started on weekend “mini vacations” (the only vacations we really ever had.) We’d stay at embassy suites, because the kids could sleep on the sofa and not WITH US. And we went to the Natural History Museum (Now DMNS and really changed) and later the art museum (Sometimes. Depended on the exhibit they had) and to Lakeside, (where if a bomb fell that killed only non-native English speakers only Dan and the boys would survive.) Oh, we also went to the zoo because #1son likes elephants and #2son likes monkeys. And there was Pete’s. For a lot of my birthdays Dan and I would take lunch out and go to Pete’s kitchen. Maybe the Natural History Museum.

Later, as downtown became gentrified, we sometimes stayed in the embassy suites there. And as the boys stopped going with us, we’d go to the botanic gardens to walk, and plot and dream.

And I loved that. I loved the place, I loved the feeling. I loved the seasons.

Well…. everything is different. If not utterly spoiled by 2020, then just…. different. Like a suit of clothes that shrunk in the wash.

The Denver I loved doesn’t exist. Like the village, I can only visit in my memory.

And we moved.

And I feel like an old cat in a new house. My box is in a weird place, and what are all these smells?

It will get easier. There are things I already love. This place seems to have Fall, which Colorado saves for the places with Aspens. It’s more like you’re going along, and it’s summer and suddenly the snow storm of surprise descends.

I used to love fall, and I can discover that again.

I suspect I’ll fall in love with things and settings in this place too. I doubt it will be my final destination unless something catastrophic happens.

I used to look down on people who moved.

The author has a sense of humor.

Sauve qui peut. Sauve qui peut. This is me sounding the toc sin. Sauve qui peut. NOW.

Okay, you know and I know that I believe in the end we win they lose. But that’s in the end. There’s the in between time to get through.

And I told you the waters will get mighty rough. I failed to estimate just how rough. Partly because I failed to appreciate how Rat on Meth the opposition is, and how bottomlessly, bizarrely, almost impossibly stupid. Note this is not a natural stupidity. That has limits. This is the stupidity of otherwise normal (though not half as smart as they think they are) people. People who’ve gone to school to be that dumb. People so spoiled, so “educated”, so convinced that they’re speshul that they not only can’t find their ass with two hands but are convinced someone else will always wipe it for them.

Or as I have put it in the past, this is fourth generation communists in charge of every organization, every major institution, everything that is used to keep the nation running. Now, mind you the country isn’t communist. They just took over our institutions, which — given full control of the media, as they had when the long march began — in the past would have given them absolute and total control over the country.

Communism is an amazing thing. It achieves in four generations what took the royal houses of Europe ten to achieve via incest and genetic messes: leaders so useless that it takes three tries to figure out on which end to put the crown.

Worse, the crowned heads of Europe had some excuse. Most of them were genetic rejects. Communism does this with perfectly normal if not brilliant people by simply training them to bark like seals and clap at received wisdom and never, ever, ever, let a seed of doubt of a shred of thought get in the way.

The first generation of commies were evil (There is no option for non-evil, in a philosophy that enshrines envy as a virtue) but cunning and smart, and often lied to themselves about their own goodness. But they knew that given a chance people wouldn’t back them. So once they took over something (or even got a foot in the door) they had to bring in their ideological brethren. The problem of course being most of those weren’t that smart, and were more evil than cunning or competent. So the second generation was perceptibly less competent than the first, but still competent enough that given mass media control, and insistence that these were “the best people.” The fourth generation, which is where I came in, had become somewhat noticeably incompetent. If you were in the field (whatever field) you knew that they were selling less/doing less/less efficient/less sane than the preceding generations. But people outside still could be kept from noticing. And there were enough of us mobi-ing to keep the whole thing from collapsing by being normal-person competent. I suspect most of the left in our fields knew we weren’t on their side, or at least suspected so. But they tolerated us, while treating us like crap, because we sold just enough, or whatever to keep them in business. (Whatever the business.)

And then about 10 years ago that changed. You had to be fully on board zombified to stay employed. 4th generation. They don’t know how things run, and they don’t really think things need to run. They believe they can control everything by the same means they got promoted/hired/pushed up the ladder: WORDS. They think that words and performative and reality is irrelevant.

And here we are.

Apologies for linking National Review until they acknowledge their Never-Trump part in this mess, but As the Economy Crumbles and CALIFORNIA DROVE TRUCKERS OUT OF BUSINESS. NOW STORE SHELVES ARE EMPTY and so much, so much else. You can find it without looking too far.

And the problem isn’t even that everything is fucked. A semi-competent administration, say generation 2 commies, or an effed up but with some non-commie zombies in the midst could fix this up in no time.

The problem is that they don’t realize anything is wrong. They — and this administration is all 4th generation, including Joe who is an early member — are all 4th generation. All Cargo Cult Communism.

They’re going on the experience of their lives: say the right words and everything is WONDERFUL and PERFECT. It works.

So we get the administration laboring over PRONOUNS as the economy disintegrates. We get the Junta pushing “get the jab” in a labor shortage. And none of them would DREAM of challenging the holy environmentalism of California, even if it starves the country.

It is tempting to attribute it to malice. And there is malice. As I said, any ideology that sanctifies envy is not on the side of angels. BUT it’s not as coordinated and epic malice as you’d think. It’s just… performative stupidity and thinking they can say the right words and magically there will be rainbows and unicorns.

Part of the issue is that Occasional Cortex is not that far from 4th generation mainstream. She’s just stupid enough to talk about it. And her stupid, bizarre idea that in the green new deal we could just pay “Native Americans” to advise us on the environment is the type of thing they think. The noble savage spun through a thousand woke tales, and having nothing to do with real life blood and sinew humans, who you know? actually are mostly European since Amerindian genes got overwhelmed, but even if they weren’t wouldn’t be some of kind of magical mystical environment fairy.

They really believe in the magic of the right words. They really don’t believe in reality. Which means it’s all going to come apart at speed.

Yeah, we probably can put it back together. We’re Americans. But count on a rough, rough year. If we’re lucky no deaths from famine, but it’s going to come damn close.

And no, the idiots at the top of all our institutions will refuse to admit anything is even wrong. Because if they admit something is wrong, then they can’t change reality with their words.

They’re attempting a stunt on the level of levitating the Denver Mint, which they tried at the 2008 DNC, but with the entire country.

It’s going to get rough. And bumpy. Hold on to the sides of the boat. And prep.

Yes, like most kids who remember the 70s I’m skeptical of prepping. I’m also really bad at it. But we need to boys and girls. Food. Medicine (And that’s a how do you do given prescription meds. I’m trying to get some of my medical peeps to give us lists of herbal OTC stuff we can stock that while they might not be as effective as the meds (they won’t be) might keep some people alive.)

Get ready for year from hell, and then just very rough times as we rebuild. Remember freedom seeds because #teamheadsonpikes looks poised to have a go, and you know, our side has lousy target acquisition.

Good people are going to die. Innocents are going to die through this. Form what association you can, even among commenters here. Prepare to take care of yourself and those you love.

Don’t be fooled into a false sense of security. The type of collapse we — probably all — are sensing is first slow then very fast.

And yes, what a time (I picked to stop sniffing glue or rather) for me to be strapped for money and unable to fully prep?

The water is going to get rough. Keep your clothes and ammo where you can find them in the dark, and get ready for a year of suckage.

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We’ve all heard of Ming the Merciless, and his depredations on the planet Mongo.

But you probably never heard of his truly evil twin, Ming the Merciful. You never heard of him, because he destroys civilizations so completely that nothing is left to tell the tale of their fall. And he’s been in charge of our institutions for a long time. It’s frankly both a wonder and heartening that we’ve resisted him so long.

Yeah, I’m being silly, but only somewhat. And what I said still applies.

I have nothing against mercy and compassion. In fact, I try to exert it on a regular basis, because I’m conscious of how far off ideal-me I fall and how often I need mercy and compassion. Half the time when husband asks “Why did you do x?” (Which makes our life markedly more difficult) my only answer is “Actually I have no idea.” Mostly because ADD and tiredness… let’s say hope I don’t have Alzheimers, but the last month is largely a blank, and the two months before that not much better. And I find my body has a mind of its own. For instance our fridge in CO has this really neat feature where you can open JUST the dairy compartment, and not the rest of the fridge. So for five years I’ve trained myself to put the handle towards that door. … I’m still doing the same, even though we don’t have that door, and the handle is hard to reach from inside the fridge.

So, on that as well as more — ah expensive and destructive — miscalculations, I often need mercy and forgiveness. And I try therefore to dispense it to others.

But I’ve come to suspect that mercy is a bigger responsibility than unbridled anger and destruction. If you lose your mind and kill a bunch of people, it’s terrible. But if you, in your mercy, plan to make people act as they should for (your vision of) a better future, you an distort people’s lives and cause misery (and death, or never life) forever. See FDR and the soft socialists of Europe.

My Wicca friends have a rule that goes something like “Harm none.” But looking back on half a century of life, I have to tell you that this rule is easier to believe in than to apply. Sure, I can refrain from punching people in the nose, or taking stuff from them or — even — hurt them. Physically. In the moment. But in the long term, my acts of what I thought was mercy, my — often — attempts to save people I liked or loved from themselves probably led to more misery than if I’d stepped back and washed my hands of them. Okay, so my life would probably have been lonelier. But these people would probably be in better places now. Some of them much better places. And others would have wreaked less havoc if I hadn’t believed their stories.

Of course if one thinks about it too much, one ends up in a corner, trembling neurotically and doing nothing.

But–

So, Peter linked this story on his blog: It’s not a “homeless” crisis – it’s a drug crisis.

He’s not wrong.

There are two things that caused me to sit back and reconsider the “Always be merciful; always give unstintingly. There’s never any harm in charity.”

One of them was seeing a thrift store throw away perfectly good things, better than we had in our house or could afford at the time: even from the thrift store which was (still is) where we acquire most of our stuff. (Dan calls it the lease program. In Colorado it was ARC thrift stores, because they were cheapest, in fact 10 years ago very cheap. We got furniture and clothing there, used it as long as we needed it and donated it again.)

We’d just bought something — probably a desk — and I was waiting out back to return it, as I watched the employees take a lot of the donations they had been given — piles and piles that were completely unsorted — and put them through the compressor dumpster. A lot of these were things I would have bought on the spot. Disclosure, in fact I tried, as they were putting a dinnette set in, and our dining table had just been broken. They wouldn’t sell me the dinette for $50 (which is all we could afford) and instead reduced it to shreds.

How is that harm? Well, how is it not? I realize they got the thing for free, and probably get rid of a bunch of things so they can keep prices up. But– It was something we could have used. We would have paid what we could afford for it…. and then it was destroyed. This while they keep a steady drumbeat for more donations. Which causes more waste.

We still donate things to thrift stores, but I usually try to give them away to PEOPLE first or (weirdly this works better, particularly when Dan assembles computers from the “components junk” around the house) sell them very cheaply. For the longest time, Dan would take broken computers replace the non-functioning parts, and sell it at cost of repair parts. Usually around $50. I think in the nineties we equipped a lot of broke or strapped people with computers for that price. That was our charity. But I also “sell” refinished furniture for that much, rather than take to thrift store.

The other experience that made me uncomfortable with “unbridled charity” was walking through Acacia park in downtown Colorado Springs, when it was still safe, but getting overrun with homeless. If you walked as I did, minding your own business, you heard the most appalling things.

The link above talks about how the homeless crisis is mostly a drug crisis. They’re not wrong. I’ve come across at least two “high as a kite” homeless who weren’t even, in any definition, human and one who fit as close to the definition of “Possessed” as I ever want to meet (Yes, including quoting scripture.)

But back in the early 2000 when we moved back downtown Col Springs, the homeless were not, by and large, demon-kind on meth. They were … homeless. Panhandlers. Shiftless. No account.

And the conversations I heard were… uh… enlightening. They despise and think of settled/income producing people as patsies. There to be fleeced. They’re not wrong.

But I also heard enough life stories of people who “dropped out” to leave a life of ease and do nothing, catering only to their pleasures in their teens. And now they were facing old age (Often at 50. I mean, you age fast on drugs and such) and couldn’t go back. wouldn’t be able to figure out how to go back.

Heinlein unlocked something in my mind in a book (Red Planet) where he says Man is made to strive. He was right of course. Without some strife, something you desire and sharpen yourself against, you stagnate at best. At worst, you decay, fast. You lose touch with doing anything but following your pleasures.

Even people who have worked their entire lives decay fast when they retire.

Yes, people who lived “disordered lives” of just doing what pleased them have always existed. Well, at least since the industrial revolution. Before that, you needed to be very wealthy. As I pointed out before Jack the Ripper’s victims were of that kind.

And those people tend to be miserable, while destroying everything and everyone they touch as well.

But once our government and really big institutions got in the game, we tempted a lot more people into the rat trap of this sort of life.

I was listening to Elvis croon “in the Ghetto” two weeks ago, when it hit me this sort of propaganda for the welfare state (no? listen to it.) was exactly wrong headed. It seemed to be “people grow up to a life of crime because they’re deprived.” And that’s an insult to every poor-but-honest person ever. Yes, it could/might have been a croon for civil rights. And yes, destroying the horizons of the young does cause violence. Though mostly it causes disinterest and descent into drugs, and the welfare state does that too. Everywhere.

Man (and verily woman too) was made to strive. And most humans aren’t prey to some overriding thing they MUST do. Like me with writing and looking after my family. In fact a lot of humans just want to survive. If they have that taken care of, they’re free to self-destroy. Yeah, it’s contradictory. That’s human.

The problem is, until we rid ourselves of undeserved superiority, of the idea that it’s ours to fix other people’s lives, our charity is more likely to be counterproductive than not.

And the government, and most mainline churches, being staffed with people indoctrinated in Marxism are vast pools of people with unearned superiority and an unshakeable conviction the lack of money is the root of all evil.

Don’t destroy your kids, or other people’s kids, by making their lives too easy. Don’t assume they’re living in squalor because they need other people to tell them how to live. When you do help, make sure you’re helping in a way they can accept and build on.

The hardest thing of all has been — with my kids — to accept their goals are not mine, and they must make their own mistakes.

I suppose that’s even harder when it’s some bureaucrat planning for other people’s kids. And making broad assumptions.

Ming the Merciful is the real threat. He makes people too incapable to help themselves, and in the end so much prey to their appetites they’re not even human in the sense of thinking through and planning their course.

Don’t be Ming the Merciful. To yourself, or others.

Man was made to strive. All we should ask for is that none of us strive in vain.