2021 "Resolutions" - A Self-assessment

Not "weird," exactly. Photo by Joe

  

Before I get into my month-late Doomed New Year's Resolutions for 2022, I thought it might behoove me (yeah - I said behoove, so what) to take a look at last year's (such as they were), and see how I did. As you'll recall, I had a comprehensive list - and I even used bullet points. I know - fancy! 

I began by lamenting the Cat-5 dumpster fire that engulfed us in January 2021, and by declaring that my intention was to find the horizon and remind myself that all storms end. Eventually. Result: FAIL. Not my fault! I actually do see the horizon - quite often in fact, but the storm continues to rage, and it is sentient and malicious and promises to get worse or die trying. I'll keep working on this one in 2022, because what choice have I got?

Next, I promised to be twisted, and resolved to get the real camera(s) out and take some weird pictures. Result: FAIL. Oh, I took a few odd pictures...

Halloween Ice In Gatorade - Photo by Joe

[Maris]'s Gnomes Watching Miss Triple X-Mas - Photo by Joe

...Still watching. Photo still by Joe

Still a FAIL, though, for these were shot with my trusty iPhone, which is no slouch - but not exactly my Nikon - and two of 'em are from the very same minute! Wanna know how much action my Nikon saw in 2021? It shot eleven frames in total. Here's the best and weirdest one...

Yep. It's a bunny. Photo by Joe and his poor neglected D-80

See? Fail. Moving on...

• If the country continues to burn, I'm gonna toast some marshmallows. Result: FAIL. Not a single marshmallow was toasted. This year, for sure...
  
• I will become a better pickpocket, and not get caught all the time. Result: Qualified success. I didn't get caught once. See, you never fail if you don't try!
  
• I guess I'll try (harder) to avoid the plague like the plague. Result: SUCCESS! I totally didn't get the plague in 2021. Not even a little bit. As far as I know.
  
• Once the smoke clears - and yes, there will be smoke - I'm going to go downtown and take a good, long sniff, just to prove to myself that even the foulest four-year stenches can dissipate. Result: Qualified success. I was at Nats Park - not downtown. Smelled wonderful, though!
  
• I will finally find an editor or agent or something, and try to get my 2013 novel published. You guys know anyone? Result: FAIL. What is wrong with me???
  
• I'm going to go through the building where I work, and take down all the calendars. They're all stuck on March 2020, and they make me sad sometimes. Result (you would not believe the trouble I'm having typing "Result," today!): FAIL. That would've been too much work. I just took down the ones in my department.
  
• I will see the stars for what they are, and feel the cumulative age of their light. Result: SUCCESS! Kind of a cheat, though, because I'm already really good at this.
  
• Two words: ferrett-juggling. I guess that's one hyphenated word. Whatever. Gonna need one more ferret for this. Result: see below...
  
• I resolve to get one more endangered black-footed ferret, for the ferret-juggling, if [Maris] says yes. Result: see below...
• [Maris] said no. It'll have to be 2 ferrets and a panda. Result: FAIL. (sigh...)
• I'm going to get my grilled cedar-plank salmon to turn out as perfectly as my late father-in-law's always did. Result (copying/pasting "Result," now!): FAIL. I actually did attempt this one, and it wasn't bad - just a far cry from his.
• Gonna find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt. Result: OH FFS I FORGOT TO LOOK FOR MY EBN-OZN T-SHIRT! A goal for 2022...
• Mirrored contacts. I've wanted them since I was fourteen. Result: FAIL. Who am I kidding?
  
• I resolve to take the Christmas tree down. Result: Success! Too easy.
  
• I will learn to like snow. HAHAHAHAHA just seeing if you're paying attention. Result: HAHAHAHAHA.
• Drink more water. I'm not going to do this. I'm telling YOU to drink more water. Please. Result: HA!
• Okay, I'll drink more water, too. There's water in gin, right? Result: If there is a trace of water in martinis, this was a resounding success.
• I will laugh at the typo on my 10 years of service certificate at work, every day - instead of rolling my eyes at it. Result: Qualified success. I don't look at it every day.
• I will demand a better future. Result: Technically I did this, and continue to do it, all the time. I even try on occasion to help make a better future - but have you any idea how HARD that is? It's like work.
• I will stop making lists. Result: FAIL.
• I will stop making lists. Result: FAIL.
• I will stop repeating myself. Result: FAIL.
• See what I did there? Ha!
  
• And I will hold [Maris]'s hand more - especially when she's trying to type. [blogger's note: on my phone, I have a shortcut set up so that when I type two m's, I get the full [Maris]. I keep trying that on this laptop, and obviously it doesn't work, and it wasn't until about the third try that I realized why.] Result: Success, I think. We're pretty committed to frequent hand-holding. Shut up - it's cute.
• I resolve to be a little smarter, maybe. Result: FAIL. Not my fault, though! You can't become smarter. More knowledgeable/less ignorant - sure. But not smarter.

There. Still here? Wow - you really are good sports - both of you! I promise to make my 2022 resolutions list shorter, and to use copy/paste more.

See you soon!

 

Ante Vaccine Living, 1A - 1B - 027 - HO Arriba!

So. I owe my friend Godfrey O. Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) an email (yes, we still use email. sue us), and I haven't produced a blog post in almost two months. I'm nothing if not efficient (that's a lie; I'm not efficient - at all), so I thought I'd combine these two tasks and save myself like five minutes...

 

From: Your friend Joe, via Mostly Harmless Drivel

To: Godfrey O. Ozzenbarq III (not your real name)

Date: Saturday, February 20, 2021, 8:49 PM EST

Old-timey Dude,

Your list of categories of people who are ahead of you in the long and winding COVID vaccine queue was almost as amusing as it was depressing. I mean, you're behind blue-eyed Arabs, and it's not even close! Jinkies! That's bad. Carnival barkers and retro duckpin bowlers and Waffle House assistant managers in training - and ALL of the Roberts and Svens?? That list was daunting. I feared that your estimated vaccine appointment date would land several years beyond your expected life span. 

 

A small sample of the people ahead of you

 

But dig THIS!

I was checking out the 71 vaccine information websites for Maryland (2 of them were NOT 100% fraudulent!), and it turns out that you are in better shape than we thought. Yes, you're still behind appendicitis victims (2000-2012), Calvinists, Blockbuster Video clerks, self-parkers, all motor car operators since 1899 and everyone who has a "proper name," but there has been some kind of reassessment of prioritization. I'm happy to report that, because somebody sued the state of Maryland (probably that dimwit asshat Robin Ficker), you have officially moved ahead of:

• Teachers
• Nurses
• Police officers above the rank of recruit
• All other first responders
• The elderly
• Model train store operators, but only "O" and "027" and larger scales
• Movie theater lobby carpet sanitizers
• Ultra-high-speed poultry slaughter line monitors and their victims
• Hoboes
• People who still haven't tried the Popeyes chicken sandwich because they know damn well it's far superior to KFC's, and makes Chic-fi-la's (learn to spell, you assholes - and learn to make food) seem like a slurry of human thumbs, breaded in deer hair and deep-fried in cellulite. That's not really fair, that bit about Chic-fi-la, because that is precisely how they make their "chicken" sandwiches (although because I am a gentleman, I left out the step with the unhealthy person urine).
• Barbara Bach. Is she alive? If she's alive, you're ahead of her. If not, then sorry but you gotta get behind her.
• All "regular" bar patrons at Applebee's
• Me
• Okay, you were already ahead of me, on account of your advanced age, but I thought a reminder might make you feel better.
• Teetotalers
• Gen Z (it was determined that they are as unnecessary as they are invincible)
• Accountants (they are the WORST)
• Veterans of Up With People
• While we're at it - the Starland Vocal Band
• Other duties as assigned

So, yeah. Not so bad, right? Now, with our respective vaccination dates so fast approaching, let's get back to our normal routine of bitching about literally everything and inventing complex, vulgar, horrifically-insulting nicknames and descriptors for politicians and Kardashians. 

Yours in doom,

JMSeriouslydudewearejustasdoomedaswewereamonthagomaybemoreso

P.S. How's it going?

Socially Distant: Lonely Heiney Alan Meister's Life In Black & White

Grafton. Neither words nor pictures can do it justice.

It is a rare and wonderful thing to have the opportunity to interview an actual, living hobo, for obvious reasons - not the least of which is the stories they possess. I prefer to share these using the hobo's own words, but Lonely Heiney Alan Meister's interview answers were so riddled with profanity and other offensive language (don't ask), I thought it best that I paraphrase liberally. 

To wit:  He "found" a camera - a Woldemar Beier model Ia with only the first shot of film exposed - in Grafton, West Virginia. Paraphrasing: Grafton looks like a diseased colon turned inside-out, and it smells about the same, but the B and O hotel sure looked nice. Between 1933 and 1944 he shot the 11 remaining frames of a 12-exposure 35mm roll.

I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me...

The second shot - smoky greatness in the mountains surrounding Clingman's Dome, Tennessee. Up there, I was never more alone - or farther from the rails. Don't get me wrong - I liked people. I only walked alone because I was sure I still carried the Spanish flu that killed my folks (Well, my mother. My father fell off the sidewalk.) in 1918.

Wait. What?

Frame #3: A pelican - possibly in Florida or Georgia. I don't know. Somewhere on the Gulf Coast. Near Biloxi, maybe? That bird was NOT at peace with my proximity. But I threw him a fish from some fellow's bucket, and he followed me halfway to Birmingham.

Cows.

More cows.

Okay. Kind of a lot of cows.

What's with all the cows, says I. The fuzzy cows were in Winchester, Virginia in 1934. The black steer is near Leesburg, the same year. The dairy cows are outside of Dickerson, Maryland, 1935. What? I went through kind of a cow phase.

What happened... to the trees...

Ah. Logging railroad. Got it.

The images of a hillside nearly stripped of trees, and a shay locomotive told me all I needed to know, but I asked anyway. Bald Knob, West Virginia, he said (minus seven expletives). They cut down trees not even planted yet. I loved watching those shays churn their way up those hills, but the destruction made me sad.

More cows. Okay. Back on track...

Woodland cows. Why not?

Near good ol' Harrisonburg, Virginia, I think. Them cows didn't seem to mind the floodwaters, none, but boy howdy they didn't want their picture took. Those heifers in the woods next to the N&W in Shenandoah Junction [West Virginia] didn't mind me or the train. I spent the rest of my days aspiring to that kind of coolness.

Appalachian prison... oh what the hell???

Next: Alcatraz. What? So I went to San Fran. Lots of hoboes did. I don't have to answer to you!
 

How long did you have this camera, man?

Is that a modern RF tag on that there longhorn, I ask. Texas, he whispered, as if recalling a sighting of the great white buffalo. Texas. I walked alone, because I listened to the doctors. I would be damned before I'd pass that flu on to some other kid's parents. So I walked alone. Saw a lot of whiz-bang stuff. Took a few pictures. Kept on walkin' and had a pretty good life. I don't know much, but I know I got to this here bed without makin' anything worse.

That must count for somethin'...