2022: A YEAR IN THE MAKING

2022 wasn’t the worst of times and wasn’t the best of times. It was a year of a lot of white noise. Nothing is as bad, as far as I am concerned, as when Covid was at its worst and Trump was in office. Biden is in office today and though inflation is bad, we have a fighting chance against these MAGA rats that would eat through our constitution. People can complain all they want about Biden but think what the alternative would have been if Trump would have made it in, who is plain nuts. Let’s get rid of our Constitution and hang Mike Pence? Ummm..no. Biden, Democrats, and the few sensible Republicans have been the only wall–the ONLY wall–keeping the MAGA rats from climbing over that political dung heap created by conspiracy theorists and maga that says Democracy doesn’t work and chewing up our constitution to shreds because of inflated and exaggerated fears. Instead of working on our Democracy, they would have us burn it all down and put a dictatorship in it’s place? Ummm..no thank you!! Remember when Republicans were screaming Democrats were “Socialists”? LOL. How far we’ve come.

I missed the ball drop because I was watching the movie “White Noise” on Netflix starring Adam Driver. My favorite line from it has to be “We are fragile creatures surrounded by hostile facts.” People these days are not into facts! That’s because Conspiracy theorists have worked our notion of “hating the man” and “blaming the government” for everything so don’t listen to anyone because everyone is lying. That’s going to an extreme. We need to be vigilant citizens in keeping our democracy on course and that happens by keeping abreast of all relevant facts and authentic sources.

On to a personal note: 2022 is a lot like the title of this movie for me: A lot of white noise. From the 1st of Jan through the end of that school year, I was distracted by a stressful job situation and coming off of a sports club where a board member who bought me drinks and food, later went on to accuse me of harassing and misgendering her without ever saying so to my face. I guess so she could apparently get the board to buy into the value of her Gender Pronoun Workshops. Who knows what the real reason was, but that was a shock to the old system to the say least. The new friends I was building there were gone in an instant, not because of the rumor but because once you leave a club, people hardly think of you outside of it unless you’ve been there for ages. Then there were the Jan 6 trials, which was good to see our country begin some kind of process against people trying to take apart our democracy. Still, it is a lot of white noise because this covered up ALL the other news and anything else going on in the world and our lives like the Ukraine War and who knows what else we now don’t know about.

The summer was going to be my time to reach out and build better friendships but instead, I focused on finishing 2 books on Kindle Vella, joining a gay men’s group online, and building up so older friendships. I sparked some romances that fizzled out quickly but one remains hot with this man from Nigeria. Some scoff at me about it, stopped being my friend over it, that nothing but a scam can come from a man out of Nigeria, but I know those scams. I am playing my cards right and I am getting to know him very well. It is like we have known each other for years and it is progressing very well! People come and go out of your life and I’ve learned this year to see that as part of life. More people just continue to show me who they are and either drop off as friends or become closer. It was a tough challenge in that regard but I survived the test well. I am continually reminded just how fragile our LGBT community is. There really were no Oprah’s for us. Ellen, yes, but she was an entertainer on her show. Games, celebrities. There are so few relational role models that don’t charge you an arm and a leg now for their advice. So unless a predator is after a child, the community doesn’t even recognize it, especially if they are charming and in a leadership position because we want leaders and “daddy’s”. Sometimes all we know is a toxic daddy too and we’ll take it. When I spoke about one in a leadership position, a man came to me and said, “Aren’t you Christian? What about forgiveness?” That in itself is often a line an abuser will use to keep doing what they want. It doesn’t address the need for accountability. So I’m glad in 2022 some of these kinds of people left town, but what is sad about it to me is it can be normalized, and people look away. I’m glad these people moved on. I will no longer have to see them, but sad because wherever they go next, they will do the same thing with no consequence.

Covid eventually got to me in the fall when we all forgot to wear masks at a large Apple Orchard event and that was hard to get over and recover from. Now, as I write, a lot of people are getting Covid and a bad flu virus which is landing them in the hospital. School is going great this year. It is a harder batch of students this year but the ones that are rewarding are above and beyond rewarding. One student/parent relationship has been so highlighted I am going to be featured in the Charter School’s Magazine about the relationship it has fostered and my teaching at this school.

I’m really excited about my physical, mental, sexual well-being, some aspects of career fulfillment, and this new growing romance. Lots of new and exciting briefs this year–as you know, I am an underwear fanatic and some new swimsuits too. Andrew Christian is probably my favorite place to shop! I’m saddened by the hit of time, motivation, me not taking risks to build more relationships with friends, and family to do more fun things and not just work and exercise all the time. I would like my finances to grow even more and to better manage them.

Overall, I’m going to try to be more happy about me in 2023. Yes, that rhymes! I’m just putting out here tonight that I’m a little sad. I’m missing family that is gone, separated friends, and this one last thing: the realization that I live in a land of idiots. I was hoping for some education to settle in. I was giving America a learning curve, which us teachers do. However, since the year 2020 things haven’t improved in the school that is America. 4 million dollars and counting spent by people buying NFT cards of Donald Trump portrayed in different hero costumes. WTF is that? What president was ever foolish enough to dress in Halloween costumes, absurd enough to sell them, and opportunist enough to get away with it? Who are these people that buy them? People who don’t care to know how to prevent others from getting sick for various reasons but mostly idiotic, selfish reasons. A country that is way too close in allowing people or political parties to destroy our democracy in place for a dictatorship rule as long as it is “their” kind of politics– NOT even realizing that the promise made is not what they will get. At the end of 2022, I had hoped we had learned a lesson but our voting shows that it was so close in this last mid-term election, it was too close for comfort for me. As a teacher, I’m watching the students coming up today that just don’t have the caliber to make it in the real world. Whether its because of Covid or something to do with parenting, I don’t see the students we are producing today in our schools competing at the level with other countries. Unless something dramatically changes, America will destroy itself. I remember reading way back long ago that empires that fall, like Rome did, began with the problem of complacency. It works it’s way in like a grandmother offering you a bowl soup to eat but for years, and the country is distracted as corruption and conspiracy takes root until it is beyond repair. That’s where we are now. I despised that reason as a prophecy for America’s downfall back when I was a young adult simply for the justification that we were too smart for that. It was true at the time. We were much smarter back then. It isn’t true any longer. There’s just too much white noise now and few want to shut it off to hear what is really going on. So, while I have hope for my future, I have far less hope for America’s future unless there is some surprise wake-up coming.

Now some sadness vented out of the way…Happier me in 2023!