brainsplotch

This has been a shit year, there's no other way to put it. (Well, maybe there is a more artful way to put it, but I don't feel like it. Describing it as "shit" just seems more appropriate). I don't think it's necessary to enumerate the many ways in which 2016 sucked. Any year in which David Bowie and Prince died, while Donald Trump was elected president, is automatically a horrible year. All of the other bad things that happened are just more poo clogging the toilet. (Sorry for the scatological metaphors, folks). So why not take a look at the good stuff from 2016, at least from my perspective. The year was a good one for music. It has been a long time since I've been as excited about new music as I was in '16. It started in January when David Bowie released Blackstar ,  an album that has to rank as one of the best of his career, and there is no hyperbole in that statement. It was as if Bowie knew that this was his final statement to t...

We're on the road in Ohio, finally returning home from a 13-day trip outside of Michigan. We have driven through eight states (Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) as well as one day on a small island owned by Royal Caribbean (Cocoa Cay) and one day in Nassau, Bahamas. We also spent time just gently traveling in a cruise ship in the Atlantic to our ports of call. Long vacations are strange because one loses all sense of time. Since ordinary routines are broken, our ways of measuring our days go completely out the window. So two weeks can feel like two months. It feels like we have been gone for way more than 13 days, at least to me. I don't know if I'll be able to cover the whole vacation experience in one post, especially since I'm pecking away at a tiny keyboard on my phone--in the car. I can at least talk about the cruise. So about the Royal Caribbean cruise: I had no idea what to expect, and had ...

We are currently driving near Savannah, Georgia. Yesterday's drive was not without adventure. When we stopped in Cambridge, Ohio for a restroom and food break, we discovered that the electrical cord--that connects the trailer lights to the vehicle--had broken off and for God knows how long we had been driving without tail lights on the trailer. I tried calling U-Haul roadside assistance and was on hold for what seemed like an eternity. Meanwhile, the rest of the family had gone in McDonald's and found out there was a U-Haul location in Cambridge. After a little adventure finding the place, the people there were kind enough to fix it free of charge. Special shoutout to the young 20s-ish guy in a Chicago Bears cap who did a great job getting us back on the road. 12/19/2016 We survived many maniac drivers on I-95 in Florida, and a couple torrential rainstorms, but we made it to Cape Canaveral. Florida is such a strange state. Rarely does a place combine beauty, sophistication ...

I'm not good with vacations involving travel and preparation. I'm not good getting out of my comfort zone, which would be at home in my daily routine. This is either due to a natural reticence or undiagnosed Asperger's, which I suspect I may have. So I am writing to you south of Dundee, Michigan. We are heading towards our first day destination of North Carolina. I spent a good deal of last night tossing and turning. Will we get everything ready and packed? Will I be able to back the van out of our long-ass driveway (with the attached U-Haul trailer) without backing into a snow bank? (Almost. My wife, who is better at such things, relieved me and had slightly more luck. She made it out with just enough clearance). So now I try to maintain calm as much as possible. It can be difficult with six family members crammed in close quarters for so long. But I survived our 2013 Disney trip, so I should be able to do this. Signing off for now.

It's been almost a full month since I last wrote in this blog, still reeling from the presidential election. Though I am not experiencing the full-on depression of that time, I'm still extremely anxious. With every bizarre Donald Trump cabinet appointee, I find myself cursing and wincing. I find myself constantly bombarded with news stories involving our president-elect that make me feel like someone is constantly jabbing me with a knitting needle: Russians hacking the election, Trump not attending security briefings, Ben Carson as secretary of HUD, Betsy DeVoss--a person who would love to chuck the entire public school system, as secretary of education, a secretary of state appointee (Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson) with business interests with Russia. ...and this is just scraping the surface. For several weeks I'd wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat with an overwhelming sense of despair. The "bubble" concept: I may live in a bubble. I'm sure ...