Ramble

I dunno what happent that I hain’t writ here for a month. Or I do – I stumbled onto a site called by the name “Bored Panda”- https://www.boredpanda.com/ – and got distracted. Also, I started a training course to become a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist which takes up a bit of time and also I am as lazy as I am able to be. So there. But here I’m is, sitting up all night at ye olde low-barrier homeless shelter while the homeless sleep, except for the ones that are currently tweakin’. There’s on less of those because she left her kit on the counter in the women’s bathroom and a staff member found it and then waited to see who would come runnin’ to the can like they lost somethin’, which she did, but at least she had the decency to not deny that it was her shit. Most of the time, people here will lie right at yer face, but she didn’t. Maybe she thought she could get her meth back if she was honest. As it turned out, she’s in jail now.

The homeless are exactly what people think they are – drunk, on drugs, mentally ill, ready to steal anything that ain’t nailed down and pry up what is. Every so often, some touching tale about a hobo with a heart of gold will come floatin’ around and the moral will be some shite about how everybody deserves kindness because that poor misfortunate tramp might be an angel in disguise. Don’t you believe it. No one “deserves” any fuggin’ thing, least of all these bums. I’m fairly sure I’ve riffed on the fallacy of people getting what they deserve in this space before, so I ain’t gonna go that road, but I will freely admit hat most of the time when I start writing here I have no idea what I’ma be going on about and this time is no different. Here’s a song whilst I organize my thorts:

Another thing I did was start a Twitter. I don’t actually know what to do with it or why one would want to, but it did come in handy because I checked on a podcast I like, but which hasn’t had any new episodes on their website for longer than it’s been since I wrote anything here, which is Cafeteria Christian. I tweeted @ one of the hosts, Pastor Emmy Kegler, who tweeted back informing me that the podcast has been truckin’ right along. Apparently whoever updates the site fell asleep at the wheel. Never occurred to me. But now I got a buncha episodes of Cafeteria Christian to listen to whilst I do art. Oh yeh, I put a buncha art up on the place where I store art – https://www.deviantart.com/luthervanwolfen – so y’all can look at that if ya wanna. I dunno why I did “van” instead of “von” there. It’s “von”. Then again, the Twitterati dropped the whole word – it’s @LutherWolfen over there.

Meanwhile, the Xmas thing is happening. “Xmas” is a perfectly acceptable and proper abbreviation, by the way, as “X” has been a short for “Christ” since the Middle Ages or thereabouts. I had the pleasure of being behind some dumbo with a placard on his truck t’other day which read “Keep Christ in Christmas” as if that was a thing. Me personally, I do appreciate and enjoy the opportunity to celebrate the birth of Our Savior with other Xians when I’m able to do so, but I want no part of the disgusting display of consumerism that happens outside of church. I find the entire thing reprehensible and crass – not in a good way – and would prefer to not be exposed to any of it, including the garish and wasteful orgies of yard decorations. Feh. In recent years, the presence of my offspring has made some aspects of the season enjoyable for me, but I don’t have that one around this year. (Aside: I have frequently referred to my progeny as “the grrrl” in this space and others, but will have to cease and desist as they have informed me they prefer the pronoun “they” be applied to them and I am assuming that “the grrrl” is more gendered than they would like. They have no idea that I write this, so wouldn’t know if I continued to use “the grrrl” or “the little queerdo” or “the purple-haired nerd”, but I’ma respect their preference anyhoo, even if I do find the singular “they” somewhat awkward.) I got the little queerdo a ukulele. And a couple other odds’n’ends.

The birth of Christ is a thing to be celebrated. It would be nice if more people did celebrate it, but the whole thing has been hijacked for quite a long while. If I had my druthers, I’druther the world just change the name of their 25 December holiday to something else and stop taking Jesus’ name in vain. I’m reminded of another thing I been wastin’ time on – “The Handmaid’s Tale”. I ran outta shit to watch on Netflix, which I do not pay for, so I signed up for the Hulu 30-day free trial, which was worth what I paid. I’d heard about “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and I saw the movie version that came out in the ’80s, so I figured I’d check out the series. And what a furgin’ piece of shit that turned out to be. I watched up to the middle of the second season thinking that they were gonna get feminist at some point, then I quit. The whole thing was just negative stereotypes of women being tortured and raped. The fuck is that? Also, does anybody actually think that the so-called “evangelical Christians” in America are actually that awful? ‘Cause they ain’t. They’re not exactly wonderful and they’re not even close to “evangelical” though they may think of themselves as Christian, but they ain’t that bad. So I cancelled the free trial a few weeks early.

But then the purple-haired nerd told me about a show on Netflix, which I steal, called “Hilda”, so I started watching that and it’s pretty good. Especially after that “Handmaid” bullshit. I like shows that have grrrls being resourceful and having adventures. I will certainly do some art related to “Hilda”.

I also been taking steps to return to making music which is a thing I did in my ecumenical pagan days, under a different fake name. I got two projects in mind – one, a free jazz/noise/psych thing that I am trying to gather musicians for, because I enjoy the process of making a terrible din with no net and no plan; and t’other, a song-based project that’ll involve a friend who can actually sing. My musical past includes a song or two, but a whole lot more of the improv shizzle, so this’ll be kinda new for me. Fortunately, any dumbass can record any kinda noise and put it on Bandcamp so I’ll be able to link to more shit soon enough. I also have a raft of old Christian albums, mostly family groups, that I picked up at thrift stores for $.50/ea., that I been meaning to mine for compilation material. Feck – I’ma have to come up with a name for my music label. I would use Dorcas Records, after the Apostle mentioned in Acts, but I happen to know that name has been taken. Again, I say “Feh”.

Above, I said the bums here at the shelter don’t “deserve” anything. Neither do I. Nevertheless, I have been abundantly blessed. Luke 12:32 informs us that it is “(our) Father’s good pleasure to give (us) the kingdom” and it must be because there ain’t no other reason for Him to do it. The Bible has a few things to say about helping the bums too https://www.openbible.info/topics/helping_the_homeless – so I do. What anybody deserves is irrelevant. And a real waste of energy.

Aight. I’m end this ramble. Prob’ly won’t be back ’til after Xmas, but I’m up tomorrow night too, so it could happen.