end of the world

Welcome to the Apocalypse, Take #354,427 (or so) We’re All Gonna Die!

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the-plague

die

Got news for everyone.  The mortality rate is still 100%.  You’re gonna die of something.

The current pestilence- the coronavirus- is more or less a really bad flu.  It isn’t gonna kill most people. Millions of people get the flu every year and several thousand die from it.  That’s every year.  Four thousand or thereabouts die of flu every year just in Ohio.  So much for living in fly over country serving to any advantage.

I have my suspicions, and frankly I believe the dreaded coronavirus already made its rounds around here back in January when about 70% of my coworkers- all the outside sales people who were in one meeting, and all the accounting department- all got a really bad flu that held on for about 3 weeks.  One of the accounting ladies ended up in the ICU for a couple of days, but even she recovered. Yeah, that was a bad flu, and believe it, I had the Lysol spraying madness the whole time these people were wandering in and out in their various states of illness.  By the grace of God somehow I didn’t get it, but I stayed the flying hell away from everyone, even more than I normally do. I’m all about social distancing. You don’t have to tell me twice to put at least 6 to 10 feet between me and other people. I prefer it. Especially when I have Lysol to spray.

But since it’s an election year, let’s take a page from the Marxist handbook (desperate Democrats) and never let a good crisis go to waste.  Let’s attempt to destroy the economy, while blaming it on a particularly bad flu season, and try to sell socialism that way.

It will backfire.  The crisis will end, sooner rather than later, and that’s all I really have to say about that. I hope and pray that all the overreacting will serve as even more fuel to pour on the dumpster fire that is being created by the Democrats and their corrupt enablers.

dumpsterfire-1

Granted I don’t want to see people die.  I particularly loathe respiratory illness because I have chronic sinus issues even when I am well. My biggest fear is strep throat (which could be more lethal to me than any flu because of my history with rheumatic fever.)  So yeah, I wash my hands and use a lot of sanitizer anyway, especially in the winter when I am surrounded by the hacking and coughing multitudes.  I get the flu and pneumonia shots. I don’t like being in crowds or in loud places and avoid them when I can.  I’m not a huggy-feeler either, and I don’t go around fingering people, or kissing on strangers so I have that in my favor.

The bottom line even with precautions taken – and I have a sharp eye for the macabre as it is- is that we are all gonna die of something. 

I’ve already defied the longevity odds for a person with autism.  The average age of death for a person with autism is 37 years. I made it to 51. Yay me!  To be honest though, I remember my doctor telling me once when I was 30 that if I didn’t do a whole lot of things differently I wouldn’t make it to 35. I did change my lifestyle to a certain degree. Now I know why, but still, the fact that even with a boatload of meds that I am still vertical and sucking up valuable oxygen amazes me sometimes.

Part of the abysmal longevity projections for autistics, I am sure, is that we have a horrendously high suicide rate, as well as a plethora of co-morbid conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, various physical and mental illnesses, lack of social support, and the list goes on.

But coming from the perspective of an autistic, I think I can explain why we die very young.  We aren’t made to live in your world.

Of course everyone experiences stress.  But “normal” people don’t experience the stress of trying to live in a world that isn’t made for them.  Autistic people have to adapt to the “normal” world in much the same way as space travelers have to adapt to the unnatural atmosphere of space.

Some of us learn to navigate almost seamlessly- you can’t see the space suit or the oxygen mask- but they’re there.  We script.  We mask. We mirror.  We do what you do and perfect our acting skills…and it takes a ton of energy to hold up the faςade. Over time this takes a toll.  We have hypertension. We have stress headaches. We deal with anxiety 24/7 because we can’t script, mask and mirror forever without stepping away from time to time.

Those of us who can’t learn to navigate are even worse off than those who can. Those of us who are non-verbal and/or who have cognitive or severe physical deficits on top of autism are at the mercy of the medical industry (whose only “care” is the almighty dollar) or even worse, the public educational system whose lack of common sense and dearth of efficacy is only equaled by its lack of care.  So for people like me- you either figure out things and navigate for yourself, and live with an eternal stress meter pegged out on 11, or you’re doomed to a life of marginalized, institutionalized poverty.

No wonder autistic people die young.

And yeah, every single human being out there, whether you’re “normal” or autistic, we’re all gonna die.

Get used to it.

 

 

A Tired Theme: The End of The World for the Thousandth (or More) Time!

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everythingsuckingPragmatism is my way of life.  It keeps me from having too much faith in humankind.  I may not be a Calvinist as far as my theology, but I go along with Calvin 100% regarding the Total Depravity of Man. Even though I intentionally try to avoid the news, because as far as I’m concerned mainstream news is nothing but proof that Orwell was right, I do have to go out and deal with people in places like Walmart.  Devolution has been going on ever since the Fall, and there isn’t enough chlorine to fix the human gene pool.

Let’s face it, most people suck.  If people didn’t suck, God wouldn’t have to tell us to be nice to them.  Being nice to other people takes work because they suck. I suck as well.  We all suck, which is why we are so crappy to each other. There are plenty of things in this world that completely suck too. Buck up, buttercup, and deal. I can buck the natural progression in subtle ways, but I can’t change the parameters humanity has been given.  As long as we are in these bodies, on this planet, things are going to suck.

I am wildly amused by date setters- people who think they have nailed the date and the time of the End of the World (even though Jesus tells us not to, and you don’t have to be a fantastic theologian to figure it out, just read Matthew 24:24-36 .)  Nobody knows when the world’s going to end.  I don’t particularly want to know, any more than I want to know when I will drop dead.  The surprise is part of the fun.

I am not afraid of death.  I just hope it’s a matter of going to bed and waking up dead.  Jerry was fortunate that way in that’s how he went.  He wanted to stay out of the hospital (especially after watching the hospital completely ignore his Dad’s Living Will and DNR orders) and he managed to do that.  Pain is what I am most afraid of- a long, suffering lingering death.  Pain and suffocation. I’ve always had a thing about suffocation especially because that was one of the torments my sisters loved to engage in when I was a little kid.  Just sit on your younger sibling until she turns blue and stops moving, and/or Dad thinks it’s getting too quiet, so he gets off the couch to investigate, sees that one of his offspring is losing consciousness, and makes you get up off of her.  What a fun game!

If I am given a choice I just want to go to bed and wake up dead. But that’s not for me to decide.

Our friend David Meade claims the world’s going to end tomorrow.  If that’s true then I shouldn’t have bought that pack of new underwear or bothered to stock up my fridge for next week.

I think I might just chill to the REM song End of the World as We Know It a few more times.

 

 

 

The World’s Still Here (Told You So) and the White Death Returneth

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end-of-the-world snake food

The world obviously didn’t end on Friday, December 21, just like it didn’t end on May 11, 2011 or in 2000, or 1988 or 1986 or any of those other dates set by people who desperately look for meaning in the writing of the ancients and/or the scattered patterns of the skies.

It would be easier that way, maybe, but I don’t really want my life any more scheduled than it has to be.  Routine is one thing, but scheduling all activities down to the minute is bullshit.  I can imagine that might be part of the reason why today’s kids are so apeshit.  I mean, most of them have to get up way early to go to the sitter before school, then spend all day at school with every second micromanaged, only to stay after school to play sport “A” and/or do activity “B” which is also micromanaged, and then come home to a late dinner and chores, fall asleep, and repeat the same noise the next day.

daily_schedule_prekinderThis would drive me apeshit as an adult, let alone as a freaking four year old!  I really can’t schedule my whiz times.

There’s not much room for any quiet contemplation in that kind of rat race.  I don’t respond to micromanagement well, and I don’t generally function well as a part of a group.   What if I want to stare at the wall when everyone else is dancing about the room? I would be royally screwed if I would have to adhere to a day care schedule, let along to be a middle school or high school kid today.  Granted, very few if any people share my need for copious quantities of solitude, but I’m sure that after awhile the lack of spontaneity and absence of breathing room would- given time- have to disturb even the most extroverted neurotypical.

It’s not that I’m so averse to having a schedule- as long as it’s mine and not one imposed upon me.  It’s one thing if I set aside time for an activity that I’m interested in doing, and quite another if it’s something someone else schedules for me that I’d rather not be doing.  There are also some things- like bodily functions- that just really don’t occur on a regular schedule, at least not for me.  I take a lot of blood pressure meds, I like my coffee, and I don’t have much bladder capacity.  I have to stay within reasonable proximity to a toilet.

I think that’s why holidays and so forth are so stressful for me- strange toilets.  In all seriousness, there are people I want to see and spend time with, and others I’d really rather avoid.  This Christmas I was pretty fortunate in that I spent most of the day with Steve-o (someone I did want to spend time with) and got to spend most of the day Sunday with my granddaughter (who I also wanted to spend time with) so I’m cool.  I don’t need and I certainly don’t enjoy big formal parties and such.

ballroom gown meAll dressed up, (and this looks itchy to boot) with nowhere to go.

As far as the End of the World, I say let that be a surprise.  There are some things I don’t think I really want to know about in advance.

Central Ohio is positioned in a sort of strange place in relation to weather fronts.  It’s far enough south of the lake that we don’t get the “lake effect snow” that Cleveland and other cities too far north for human habitation experience.  Columbus proper- or at least within the confines of I-270- sits in a bit of a valley.  It rains a lot and it floods easily, but we get far less snow than the hinterlands up north.  There’s a huge difference in snowfall just in going 15-20 miles further north.  Most of the really wicked weather fronts end up either staying north or sort of blowing around us.  So when forecasters say the White Death is coming to Central Ohio, I believe it when I see it.  Far too often we’re supposed to get some huge-ass storm, the mere mention of which sets everyone off raiding the grocery stores on their quests for Velveeta cheese and Marlboros, and instead of White Death of the Apocalypse we get either a shitload of rain (that’s the default for Central Ohio anyway) or a piddly dusting of snow that doesn’t even warrant me putting on boots.

Velveeta-cheese1marlborosRedneck priorities- screw the milk and bread- we need smokes, and Velveeta cheese is good all by itself!

Yesterday we actually had a substantial snow- about 4″ or so within I-270.  Despite the arrival of the White Death, I was quite able to get to work and get home in my nice little Hello Kitty Yaris.  I think the traction control light came on once.

Maybe I’m jaded because the snow situation is very different where I come from, even though it’s only about 50 miles away.  I remember one surprise storm up in the hinterlands all too well.  My sister and I ended up pulling cars out of ditches with her ’68 VW Bug and a tow rope.    She had snow tires on the back of it which came in handy.  I also remember off-roading in snow-covered cornfields with VW Rabbits.  They’re geared low and are fairly high off the ground, so they would go through a lot more than one would think by their size.

1983-volkswagen-rabbit-gti1983- when Reagan was president, the air was dirty but sex was clean, and Steve Perry wore Spandex.  Damn, I should not have sold my ’83 GTI.

The End of the World, Take # 479, Pragmatism Has Its Advantages

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goodinbed

I was fortunate enough this weekend to pretty much not have to do squat.  So I didn’t.  It was lovely.  I missed seeing my granddaughter, but I had such a horrific headache yesterday that it was good for me to simply stay in bed.  After awhile I felt better and figured since I pay for premium cable (mostly because Jerry has to have all those stinking sports channels I don’t watch) I might as well watch TV.  The only thing that sucked is that it seems right now everything on TV is all centered on the same theme- that 12-21-12 is going to be the end of the world.  Never mind that the Mayans, while technologically advanced, were superstitious enough to pull beating hearts out of live humans, to sacrifice to demons.

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I really want to trust my apocalyptic timing to guys like that.  I think that the whole Mayan calendar thing is sort of the same concept as going through the calendar on my cell phone and coming to the conclusion that the world must end on December 31, 9999 because no programmer thought it necessary for there to be a provision for a five-digit year. Never mind that by the time the year 10,000 rolls around either a.) all the humans will be dead, or b.) if there are humans they will be using different technologies than we use today.

People have been trying to set a date for the end of the world for forever.  Odds are they’re wrong this time, just like they were back on May 21, 2011.  And all those other times too.

the-end-of-the-worldIs this the End of the World- or just Detroit?

Let’s face it, the odds are against the date setters, and if I were God (good thing I’m NOT) I wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction.  I’d pick a day and a time that’s completely off the radar and surprise everyone which is exactly how God said He’s going to do it:

(Jesus said-) “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” – Matthew 24:42-44 (NIV)

I don’t know when the End of Days is going to be, and I’m not really that worried about it, because it’s one of those things I can’t change, but I could almost bet it won’t be on December 21.  Maybe whenever it is, it will be at the end of February when the world (at least Central Ohio’s portion of it) is at its most dark, dreary and depressing.

There are, however, websites devoted to Doomsday 2012  who claim true believers with all the credibility of Britney Spears.  Yeah, the crazy chick who went nuts and shaved her head.  I’ll believe it when Ozzy endorses it.

ozzy

Ozzy Rocks!  Never mind he’s the same age as my Dad.

I just don’t see too many believable authorities giving the 12-21-12 doomsday theory much credence. Unless proven otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, the doomsday sayers are simply modern-day Millerites.  We’ve all heard that noise before. NASA has pretty much shot down most of that hoo-hah.  I figure if these guys could send people to the moon and get them back then they probably know a thing or two about stuff that’s going on- or not going on- in outer space.

Speaking of outer space, you really don’t hear much about UFOs anymore.  I mean, they’re sort of in the same category as Bigfoot.  I’ll believe there’s such a thing as Bigfoot when someone can either capture a live one or find a carcass.  How can a giant ape live in the forest without ever leaving a dead body or even scat?  I mean, bears live in the forest and they leave carcasses and scat.  People catch live bears too.  It would be as if someone is alleging the existence of redneck men but can’t provide evidence of beer cans, Hershey splatters in the toilet bowl, and a trail of cigarette cellophanes and dirty clothes behind them.  Redneck men exist.  Even should they try to hide, we can prove the existence of the redneck male by virtue of all the PBR and Natty Lite cans and Slim-Jim wrappers they leave behind, as well as all the fudgy whitey-tighties.

rednecktatooUnfortunately, most rednecks are not shy.  Even when they should be.

I think I should have some sort of celebratory “The World’s Still Here” party on December 22.  Then again, that’s the day I will probably be at CVS around midnight, buying all the candy my sisters don’t want my nieces and nephews to have.  This year I am really only bothering to buy the good stuff for my granddaughter.  Steve-o has already gotten a high dollar pair of shoes and a car seat to put in his car- early- so I’m not getting him anything else.  I got Mom a velour sweater that isn’t fugly, and I got Dad a gag calendar (so far) that has Toilets of the World on it.  I’ll probably also get him some socks and some long johns or something.  It’s hard to buy for the man who has a taxidermied squirrel on a skateboard.

toilets-of-the-world-calendar-2013-5239-0-1345046806000At least Dad appreciates my humor.

Too Much Effing Basketball, Reflections on “That Special Time,” and Misandry Revisited

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Why, oh, why are they putting that damned basketball tournament on TruTV again? It pissed me off enough last year.  That’s why there are channels like TruTV on cable, so that those of us who don’t care for sports have interesting shit to watch.  Why not take over the Oprah Channel for all the people who are regular TruTV watchers who don’t give a rat’s ass who’s playing who and sure as shit don’t want to watch the games?   Almost $200 a month for premium cable and I’m still buried in farking sports. It pisses me off royally.  I think Time Warner should have to refund me for the entire month of March.  I am having withdrawal from Smoking Gun:World’s Dumbest.  I actually ended up watching a documentary on bugs on NatGeo because most of the channels were either sports or pecker pump infomercials, or the Bigfoot special, so the bug show was the most interesting thing on TV the other night.   Either bugs or the endless speculation over the existence of Bigfoot.  I don’t believe in Bigfoot- someone would have found a body or at the very least, scat, by now- but I have evidence for the existence of bugs, so I went with the bugs.  Might as well learn about the various nasty little arthropods that inhabit the planet.   The bug shows made for some rather interesting dreams.  Now I know why as a kid I used to fry ants with a magnifying glass.  Pesky little bastards.  Must…not…let…the…queen….live—

Now I would be interested in both Bigfoot and basketball if they could find Bigfoot and get him to play basketball.  That might be interesting, given that Bigfoot is (theoretically) over 7′ tall.  If I were to make up a mythical man-beast I’d like him to be tall too, but I could do without the massive hair.  I’m not a fan of excessive body hair.  If I were to make up a mythical man-beast he would look a lot like Antonio Banderas.  He would also have a lot of money, and an insatiable fetish for older women with troll-like proportions.

The bad thing is, the really hot ones are either gay, married (to a good looking woman) or hopelessly stupid.

The various History Channels seem to be caught up in the doomsday stuff that I’ve already watched, and for the most part discounted.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: What makes people think that an ancient culture who practiced blood sacrifice and cannibalism is some kind of authority on doomsday?  Granted, the Mayans were really, really good at astronomy and math.   So was Ted Kaczynski, at least the math part.  What did that get him?  Harold Camping could probably recite the entire KJV Bible from memory, but all of his doomsday predictions (supposedly based on Scripture) were wrong.  Here we still are. 

I’ve said it before, but I really don’t want to know the exact date and time when the world will end.  It’s sort of irrelevant anyway because everyone is going to die.  If the world doesn’t end you still die.  The rest of the world goes on, but you don’t care because you’re dead.  If the world ends, you and everyone else die at the same time.  What’s the diff?  The scenario I don’t want to experience is one of those cataclysmic disaster type events that doesn’t annihilate everything outright but causes mass extinctions and lots of slow, lingering death.  I know people build shelters and stock up on everything from canned peas to condoms, but is that any way to live?  The survival mentality is nothing new- back in the 1950’s everyone thought the USSR was going to nuke us so people built bomb shelters and stocked up on food and supplies and so forth.  The bad thing about the doomsday shelter is,” How long can you last? ”  Would it be better to just be in the line of fire and be suddenly disintegrated- instant death- or to linger about underground in a shelter counting the days and rationing stale decades-old food?  I don’t think it would be terribly enjoyable.

100% vegetarian.  No meat.  How lovely.  About as appetizing as pool chemicals, which come in the same type barrels.  On the plus side, it does have the shelf life of a Twinkie, which means it will be fresh long after I’m dead.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was thankful for the benefits of menopause.  Believe me, camping out in the frozen food section of Kroger’s to get cooled off is infinitely better than the alternative.  I can deal with hot flashes. I can also wear white pants any day I want.   It’s creepy that the manufacturers of certain feminine items try to make “that special time” of the month sound like a freaking vacation in Jamaica.  There should be some truth in advertising when you’re talking about that particular bodily process.  I can’t speak for every other woman out there, but I had specific anatomical anomalies and surgical scars, etc. that made Aunt Flo’s visit a huge nightmare every month.  I went through years of torment with it. 

Rather than visions of flowers and butterflies and kittens, why not skulls and crossbones?  Bloody daggers would be another extremely appropriate theme.  If I were to develop feminine hygiene items, I’d go with a pirate theme. 

Imagine a box of extra-absorbent adult diapers (because “overnight” is  a lot longer than fifteen minutes, and that’s about how long the “overnight” maxis lasted me) with a colorful skull and crossbones motif.  That would at least reflect some truth in advertising. 

I’ve always been a bit of a misanthrope, but contrary to my postings of late I do find men attractive.  Vexing, yes- complicated, always, but oddly endearing, sort of like Sheena when she flops over and lands on my feet.  Sheena’s a hopeless clutzy ditz.  Jerry is worse, at least as far as the beer drinking and stupid behavior that accompanies that-(instant asshole, just add alcohol) but he has his charm.  I’ll have to remember that when I’m scraping man-face-fur shavings out of the sink again.  I need to remember to get the drain cleaner tonight.

 

 

 

If the World Ended 2 Hours Ago, Why Am I Still Here?

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I love black cats.  Isabel is quite sanguine today as usual.  None of the girls seemed to be tuned in to all the apocalyptic hoo-hah.

I figure the Lord is already here.  He’s been here eternally.  Even at the intersection of Morse Rd. and Cleveland Ave., (this billboard was up there last December) although I wouldn’t want to be there after dark.

Sheena did well at her vet appointment.  Her surgery is scheduled for June 22.  I am glad our regular Vet will be assessing her this time and will send the offending growth out for biopsy.  She seems to think these growths are benign, but that any strange mammary growth should be removed as a precaution.  I want it gone because of where it is.  Mammary cancer is not as frightening and deadly in dogs as it normally is in cats, but I’m not letting it get out of control- if that’s even what it is. With dogs, 50% of mammary growths are benign, and even those that are cancerous are usually not metastatic cancers.  Even so,  possible cancer is enough to be paranoid about.

I do believe what the Bible says about the End of Days.  I am not so confident in people who want to play with numerology, funky ancient calendars or manipulating Bible verses out of context to make them support outlandish claims.  The clearest thing in the Bible regarding the End of Days is that we can’t know when it’s going to occur, and we shouldn’t really try.  Any day might be my personal last, so all I can do is the best I can, and I’ll have to trust in the grace of God for anything and everything along the way.

I think it’s kind of funny how we went from annihilation by the Impending Ice Age to extinction via Global Warming in the span of less than thirty years.  It goes to show that science is not always right, and that the hubris of humanity is the third most plentiful element in the universe, right behind shit and stupidity.  Are we blatantly arrogant enough to think that the future existence of the planet is contingent upon whether we drive our cars or bury them?  The greenies haven’t made what I feel to be a coherent argument as to why I should exchange toilet paper for washable cloths either.

No human being is more than a slight electrical charge away from physical death at any given time anyway.  The only thing between me- or anyone else for that matter- and the Dirt Nap, is that spark that tells the heart to keep beating.  That’s a good reason not to put too much into this world and what it has to offer, because you’re going to spend a lot more time in the next.  Some things are for forever, but most things aren’t.  The challenge in this life is to learn the difference.

So we can hope people might put a lid on the doomsday soothsaying- at least until 12-21-12, that is.  Methinks barring personal calamity or God having different plans than mine for my sorry carcass, that I will wake up on 12-22-12 and  I’ll still have to get Christmas candy for my niece and nephew so that they can get (much to my sister’s distaste) their chocolate fix on Christmas Day.

I hate motorcycles.  I really do.  Clara is very disturbed by the bikers that tool up and down Stygler Rd. with their loud exhausts blaring.  I wish the bikers would stick their loud pipes where the sun don’t shine.  I don’t like things that disturb my dogs.

Not even Obama has done enough damage to bring on the apocalypse.  Yet.