I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Man, I really need to re-watch Blade Runner. What an awesome movie. I get that goddamn quote stuck in my head pretty frequently. It’s a reminder that the time we’re alotted is relatively short compared to the duration of existence of reality.

I’ve been working through creating my own installation of NextCloud to synchronize my data across a number of devices, and so far I think the installation has been a resounding success. It’s currently running, believe it or not, on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. I would love to detail out how me, a rube, got this crap working. I’m not sure how much of an opportunity I’ll get to do that, though. Work is picking up with a serious ferocity and my spare time is incredibly limited.

I never thought I would be saying this, but it turns out that 2021 is already becoming a bigger beast than 2020 already was. We kicked the new year off with the President of the United States encouraging a seditious attempt to prevent a fair election from being counted. It involved a few right wing talking heads as well, with Charlie Kirk organizing transport for as many as 80 buses full of QAnon-obsessed lunatics.

Alright, of all the people to take the lemons of COVID-19 quarantine and make lemonade, this unemployed wine sommelier absolutely wins the internet. His sophisticated palate interpreting utter gutter booze makes for some of the best comedy you can get for free.

Well, shit. Christmas was simultaneously fun and horrifying. I love giving gifts. I love making people feel good. I just always feel incredibly awkward accepting gifts. Not sure why. Not to mention the fact that Christmas is a goddamn drama machine. Everyone and their mother feels as though the world is immediately collapsing upon having to see “Uncle Joe” one more goddamn time and “put up with his bullshit”. It is what it is. It’s over, that’s simply where we’re at. I also still have a solid week left of days where I’m not obliged to work. I’m wholly fucking exhausted. I’m exhausted beyond reason. I’ve ticked all the checkboxes of exhaustion. I’m physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, and intellectually exhausted. It feels as though I can either collapse and sleep twenty-four whole hours or lapse into a coma, and the coma is imminent if I don’t take my Rip Van Winkle power nap.

Look, I’m still alive! Woo. I also bought myself a new Razer Elite keyboard, since they’re marked down to like eighty bucks. I get to take my Logitech G513 home now, which is what I’ve been wanting to do for some time. I think it’ll be pretty conducive to me playing Cyberpunk 2077 on my living room TV. I have to admit that I’m just wholly emotionally exhausted right now, intellectually exhausted, and even physically exhausted. I really need a few days off, and thankfully it looks as though I’ll be getting that time off. Usually I find the best way to reset my batteries is to do nothing until I feel compelled to get out of the house and actually do something. Only now I’m totally unable to do that, as Corona has everyone pinned in their homes. No dining out. Haven’t been able to go to movie theaters. Haven’t been able to get to bars. The toll on us as humans is immense, though I still maintain that it’s worthwhile to continue until the vaccine is widely dispersed. At-risk individuals are worth us taking precautions to not kill them. If you value business or liberty above lives, you’re morally and ethically bankrupt at best. I think lately one of the biggest things dragging me down is familial strife. It seems to be everywhere now. It’s in my immediate family, my extended family, and even the families of people I love and care about. It’s hard to escape, that’s for sure. The medicines I take for depression and anxiety, I’m keenly aware, are still functioning at full capacity. Though I’d be lying if I said I’m able to feel all sunshine and rainbows right now. As the months wear on and we’re not able to live as humans have generally lived for the last few decades, I find it harder and harder to cope with the situation. I dunno. The older I get, the less capable I feel of explaining things. It’s almost as though age is withering my tongue. Perhaps age is reminding me that my tongue can lead me astray. It’s not always the best or first tool you should use in all situations, and sometimes silence is far superior. I’m sure you’ll get sick of this rant long before I do. It just feels as though life’s stinging disappointments dig deeper these days, twist harder. Yet I also feel happier than I’ve ever felt before. Perhaps it’s having something to lose that makes loss tougher. Having nothing to lose means the perpetual state of disappointment isn’t exacerbated by the addition of a little more disappointment. I certainly don’t beg to go back to that world of perpetual disappointment. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. And I remind myself I’m speaking in too many vagueries, that perhaps it’s time to click “Save” and wrap this up.

I think it’s time we address the elephant in the room: Evangelical Christians are destroying the United States.

I’d like to share a quote. It goes as such:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.