I don’t think anyone reads these (aside from Brock), nor should anyone, so in this month’s ramble, I’m going to do just that: introduce a bunch of unconnected thoughts with absolutely no meaning whatsoever. I am quite certain that by the end of this essay, nothing will be accomplished, and anyone who makes the mistake of reading it will be left feeling at a loss. This is your warning: read on only if you have nothing better to do.

I woke up today. Strange, because I do it every day, but it always seems like a challenge. Sometimes I beat my alarm, which is frustrating. I allow myself a certain amount of sleep, and when I don’t get it all in, it renders the mildest form of disappointment. Sometimes I wake up an hour or two before I’m scheduled to wake up and lay there, half-awake, hoping to fall back asleep. Usually I do, but not until 20 minutes before the alarm goes off, and then it’s like being kicked awake. Usually what wakes me up is the fact that I have to take a leak. I guess I’m getting old enough where my prostate is playing tricks on me, but I think it has more to do with drinking too much water before bed. If I drink beer before bed, at least three of them, I rarely have any problem sleeping through the night, though I’ll typically wake up groggy. I’ve never gotten hangovers, really, and I rarely drink enough to bring one on, though I’ve noticed, again, as I’ve gotten older that I do have a mild form of internal sketchiness that accompanies the previous night’s imbibing…

There was no point to this essay. There is no point to life. We’re only here to party!

I’m starting to really appreciate telling people “no.” I’m a very productive person, and carry quite the workload, but I’m finally starting to realize (well, re-realize, because I knew this about people in the past, I must’ve just forgotten or blocked it out of mind somehow; or perhaps I came to expect more of the new crop of folks I work with – that was a mistake…) that people need to be told to piss off – in the politest manner, obviously. I don’t mind doing a lot of work, but I prefer to do it by myself. People are inefficient, and largely stupid, and they’re lazy as all hell. I’m actually befuddled that our species hasn’t killed itself off yet. Anyhow, I’m sick of people asking me to do stuff for them simply because they’re trying to get an “easy out” for their side. I told a colleague I wouldn’t partake in her little reindeer games because I wasn’t taking on any new projects for two years; my plate’s full… I just wiggled out of a committee assignment because I couldn’t deal with the BS I was put through. No joke, the last two 90-minute meetings were spent on making a mission statement and a vision statement FOR THE COMMITTEE. You’ve got to be F’n kidding me, right? Some people…

I’ve said this before (numerous times), but I really don’t like people. And I hate people who are cruel to animals. Now, I have nothing wrong with eatin’ the critters, as long as you kill ‘em as humanely as possible (but how often does that really happen?), but every time I see a story about someone abusing an animal, starving it to death, beating it to death, torturing it, man, my blood boils. Just this week I saw a story about a woman who starved to death 22 horses and a dog. She got six months. Really? I saw another story about two rednecks that killed a hibernating momma bear and her cubs, caught on camera. Man, I’d love to see them used as chum to feed the sharks…

I met a girl. Again. It’s like Groundhog’s Day with this stuff. Rinse, repeat. Anyhow, we clicked over some music, but she’s kind of hard to get to know, and we’re in a work situation so it’s hard to navigate. It isn’t very organic, so I need to pray to the gods of serendipity that we cross paths outside the workplace, but I’m not optimistic. I never am. Well, not entirely true. I’m cynically optimistic, but most would probably say that doesn’t count. Anyways, my guess is she’ll ride off into the sunset before I ever get to show my hand, and that’s fine, I guess, though frustrating. I’m starting to think those sex robots sound pretty good these days…

Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are the new axis of evil. These monopolies that run our lives, that infiltrate our every thought, want and need, their omnipresence is suffocating. Our political system doesn’t see this as a bad thing. Just recently Time Warner and AT&T merged; less competition, and less power in the hands of the consumer. Great. Our politicians are largely greedy bastards or idiots or aloof, likely a little bit of all three. Our system is broken, but according to some, it’s the best in the world. Being the best turd still makes you a turd…

And so-called “American Exceptionalism” – what’s up with that? That’s a piled high crock of BS. Show me the empirical evidence of that. It doesn’t exist. Perhaps people are just putting the emphasis on the wrong part of the word – maybe it should be on just “except”: as in “we” think every individual and country should do what we say – except us. I have friends who think they are socialists and communists, but they’re no different, really, than the capitalists. They’re all idealists, they’ve all bought into some system as savior or the path forward. Well, the reality is, we’re doomed. We were from day one, just like on the day we were born we started to die. In 1973 an MIT computer program predicted the end of civilization in 2040. Those nerds are rarely wrong. Enjoy your last 21 years, it’s gonna be a wild ride…!

Marco Esquandoles
Wanderer