Your version of 2025 hasn’t been mine but I’m sure it’s been just as exciting. During this time of upheaval, I hope you’ve done as well as me. Actually, I hope you’ve done better.
Lest we forget, 2025 started in a hush. We all tiptoed on eggshells for the first 20 days of January. What could possibly be left in evil’s bag of tricks? They’d tried absolutely everything to sink Trump. What’s next? A nuke from space? Attack of the woke Elvis Impersonators? Ridiculous drones in New Jersey? It could be anything.
Perversely, all those relentless attacks honed the guy from an Orange Real Estate dweeb into the absolute machine he’s become. I couldn’t be happier!
Trump survived the swearing in and only then did we breathe a sigh of relief. On the other hand, after all he’d been through, the guy had a plan and it included lighting fuses everywhere. Thus, we began an action packed chapter in what is already a hell of a story.
America’s been trying to self-immolate as long as I’ve been alive. It never stops trying to shoot its own foot. It always failed but how many times could it aim at that foot and miss? Maybe the answer is all the way to color revolution… but no further?
Now the nation is coming out of its fever dream. Society itself is righting course and (except for the very ultimate irredeemably woke) trying to live in accordance with reality. (Step one, USAID was naught but corruption. Transparency is a good thing and we all know the truth now.) I’m in awe of America’s story arc!
Unfortunately, I finally broke under the stress. I picked up a cold and it was a nasty one. To be honest I didn’t mind. Nobody is immune to decades of bullshit. I figured my malady was well overdue. I thought of it as “battle fatigue”.
The human heart can endure only so much faffing about. Sometimes the body needs to check out for a while. My time had come. It’s a miracle I lasted through 2024!
I have neither regret nor anger. I was just sick. It’s been a hard ride. Don’t let yourself forget the madness we’ve experienced; remember it. Gaslighting is bad regardless of whether it was inflicted on you by propaganda or you indulge in it as a sort of mental self protection. Clear memory is good. False memories are corrosive. Care for your memories. Here’s a tiny part of the story I type today to remind myself:
In 2012 I was shocked to discover incandescent lightbulbs were illegal.
If you can bully a man where does it stop? Answer: It doesn’t.
They just… did it. My preference was irrelevant and illegal.
Eight years after someone I never met decided I couldn’t put an incandescent bulb in my chicken coop because apparently that’s how authority works, I went to bed after a solid Trump election, only to wake up in the Bidenverse. That was a much bigger blow. Say it with me, “Joe Biden got more votes than any candidate in American history.” Go ahead. Say it. Remember when you’d get cancelled off social media and possibly arrested if you didn’t say it. Did you say it back then, when it was forced on you?
If you can bully a man where does it stop? Answer: It doesn’t.
Two years after the totally legit, unquestionable, vote tally of statistical improbability, the man in the picture below ordered me to inject substances in my vein.
Remember when personal medical decisions were personal? I do. I also remember when all that went out the window. In a flash, Karen at the HOA became willing, actually eager, to dime you out. Were there cattle cars and concentration camps? In Australia, yes. In America, no. That angry night, with its blood red symbolism and complete disregard for human dignity was the closest America has come to Fascism. We balanced briefly on the knife edge and then a great and largely silent decision was reached. Within a few months entire stadiums were shouting “Fuck Joe Biden”. I love my people!
Is it a straight line between deciding what light bulb I can have and who shall inject what into my bloodstream? I don’t know. All I know is that the unthinkable happened. Huge portions of society, both in America and planet wide, took an injection they didn’t want. (I’m not talking about the folks who desired it and enjoyed getting what they want. Good for them.) I’m talking about the ones who got an injection because their job, or medical care, or child, was held hostage. How far can it go? If you let it happen, you now know your soul. You know what will make you submit. You know what your neighbor will do to you if they can. I don’t know far it could have gone. I only know how far it went.
If you can bully a man where does it stop? Answer: It depends on the makeup of who’s being bullied.
Two years after the snarling monster in the photo above, Trump’s head exploded in a pink mist on live TV.
Except it didn’t. The assassin missed.
Good fortune. Sometimes that’s all it takes to change a bad story into a good one.
The shot missed. The corrupt lawyers failed. The biased Judges didn’t pull it off. The FBI lies, the planted stories, the false and paid off media, the bots on social media, and the endless propaganda… A vast effort was put into making sure Americans don’t choose their president. The effort rebounded. Crooked, lying, corrupt, evil bastards created their own nemesis.
I always wondered just how totalitarian Americans could go. Now I know. I joyously watch the pendulum swing back. It’s coming back HARD. The first few weeks was an avalanche. It had to be that way. We needed release. The accumulated lies had grown too thick. The corruption intolerable. The boil had to be lanced.
I appreciate that Trump went at it fast. Smart move… and a historic moment to savor. I stood on the banks of the river of time, watching the flow. I gave thanks.
But I was also tired. Aren’t we all? Alas, the last part of a marathon is the hardest. I put extra effort into proper self care. Extra sleep. Better food. I did a fast. I reduced exposure to the “news”. Etc…
I tried to recover gradually. It didn’t work.
I picked up a plain old cold. I’m usually pretty resistant but this one kicked my ass.
I did all the right stuff. Took time off work. Plenty of rest, lots of fluids, fuckin’ soup (I hate soup!), etc… The only thing that really did much was sleep and NyQuil. I rode it out the old fashioned way and after a couple weeks I felt marginally OK. I’d made it!
In the meantime, the world kept keepin’ on. Brutal winter gave out. The first hints of spring drifted my way. Winter never lasts forever. Having declared myself “fine”, I tottered out to my yard. I stood in fuzzy slippers on the iced soil which will soon be muddy soup and then summertime lawn that grows so fast I bitch about it. The squirrels were out and about. Once again, I’ve lived through winter.
This one was always going to be close. I had not stacked enough firewood. I was so fried coming into it that I skipped hunting. I entered winter jittery in anticipation of the November surprise recount of doom and exited it under the exaltation of DOGE’s merciless hunt for corrupt expenditures. There’s a paltry 1/2 cord of firewood left, and a nation punch drunk on change.
Sometimes you roll the dice and win.
Thankful I’d survived the cold, I decided conditions were excellent to start on the future woodpile. Most of the snow is gone but the icy ground is rock hard. No better time to drag logs about than this. I’d just ridden out a cold but now I was fine. I gathered my saw; still placed exactly where I stowed it. I checked my tractor, it had half a tank of fuel. In half an hour I could swap the snow bucket and start hauling wood.
But something wasn’t right. I went back inside. I read a few chapters of a book and crawled back in bed. I slept the afternoon away. We are all human.
I was surprised at myself for being “lazy” but also I never touch a chainsaw unless I know, completely and without reservation, that I’m “in the game”. I wasn’t. A lot of people live life half assed. You can do it. I can’t. I mess with saws, and motorcycles, and firearms, and all sorts of stuff. Screw with a chainsaw on a day that’s “off” and you reduce your odds of someday being old.
The next day was just as sunny. Not knowing why, I tiptoed around the idea of firewood. I choose instead to do the springtime start of my “Jeep thing”. (I have a 4×4 object. I don’t mention on this blog. I will sometime, but not yet.) Struggling to install the battery was harder than it ought to be. But the machine fired up right well. I’ve dumped a lot of time and money in it and it starts better now that it once did. It has been inert since November and yet barely needed the choke to come to life.
I took Mrs. Curmudgeon with me on a shakeout drive. We “scouted” roads that are iced now and soon will be impassible mud. It was a fun afternoon but also a tiring one. The machine is not “user friendly”. I live life a little harder than most. My chosen steed is a hell of a 4×4 but hasn’t a single creature comfort.
I cut our adventure short and scampered home. Uncharacteristic of me to do so little on a weekend. Then, towards evening, my cold came back. It came back hard and beat me with a tire iron.
Ahhh…. that’s it. I wasn’t yet healthy! Who knew?
Grudgingly, I went to the Doc. He announced what I’d already figured out. I’ve got bronchitis. My self care and chicken soup had done what it could, but without antibiotics I just wasn’t capable of “walking it off”. How humbling! In the time before antibiotics would I just die? What a bummer to ponder!
For now, next year’s wood remains uncut. I’d picked a specific tree for my tractor and saw efforts but it has a temporary reprieve. On orders of the Doc and Mrs. Curmudgeon, I slumber under warm fluffy blankets while the lucky tree hosts songbirds on its long dead limbs. The tree and I will meet some sunny time, but not today.
