Cool Cold Reality | johnozed

After a week of uneasy sleep, last night I slept really well. It was good and I slept later than usual and woke up refreshed. I puttered about, nothing in the plan for today except maybe a cigar or two. That meant a visit to the cigar shop which I was looking forward to. I watched the repeats of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report and the John Mulaney Comedy Central special before turning on the news at noon.

I was surprised but not surprised when I heard about a shooting in Connecticut. After all it was just the other day when there were reports of a shooting at a mall in Portland, OR and murder by gun is unfortunately commonplace in these United States of America. It was only a few months ago in the summer when a psycho shot up a theater in Aurora CO, and people are murdered by guns every day, several times a day. The initial report was that 3 people were shot, and I callously didn’t think that was so bad.

Shortly, a few minutes later actually, the death report jumped up to 20, including 14 children. 14 children slaughtered in their fucking classroom. Children who did not do anything to anyone. Time slowed considerably for me in Hoboken. The 30 minute news stretched to an hour and change and I didn’t notice. I was stuck in that moment. The final tally was 20 children murdered. Time stopped. Sadness came in. Anger came in. Disgust at the easy access of guns, why automatic weapons are available to people. They’re not used for hunting are they? What is their purpose?

Online the argument of ‘cars kill people, are you going to outlaw cars?’ came into play. And a psycho in China stabbed students a few months ago with a knife and out came ‘are you going to outlaw knives?’ Cars are built for transportation. Knives have other uses besides stabbing. Guns are designed to injure or murder others.

I got a phone call from Julio this afternoon. He was understandably stressed by the shootings, his son Alexander goes to school in Hoboken. Any parent should be worried and outraged by today’s event. You send your kids off to school in the morning, never expecting them to be murdered and returned to you in a body bag. An unbalanced man murdered his mother and stole her gun collection and then shot up a school, slaughtering 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.

The holiday season will be forever ruined for the families who have lost loved ones. The second amendment stays strong, preventing the British from invading our homes. The United States of America in the 21st Century. Sad but true and covered in the blood of innocents. A tragic shame for all concerned.

This was not easy to write today. I considered not writing anything at all, but here it is. I guess some NRA supporter acquaintances don’t read this blog anymore so I don’t expect to hear from them on this, or perhaps ever again. The number one country in the world with regards to death by guns.

Children being evacuated from what should have been a safe space at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT.

t’is the season.

Suffer Little Children
Newtown

Well I am back on my own computer and I am happy about it but Bill is happier for sure. When Bill would go to bed, he would allow me to use his laptop. I knew he would rather I didn’t but all I used it for was to check email and Facebook nonsense. Bill thinks otherwise and believes I was looking at prawns. Maybe a glance at the crawfish but other than that, no not really. And like I figured the fans inside the computer were quite dusty and in need of a cleaning, and so they were cleaned.

And now that I know what needs to be done I can simply do it myself and save some money. I had an idea as to what was wrong, but wasn’t too sure. So they had a better idea, ran some tests and it was just like I figured, dust on the fans slowly strangling the circular motion. It’s all so quiet now, it was making an intermittent racket before I brought it in. It got noisy and then suddenly silent, that is when I knew it needed repair. I usually ask Rand and in fact I did ask him but he didn’t get back to me until after I dropped it off.

I spent some time at the old bibliothèque today. No seminars for women and economics today but they were getting a group for a workshop on writing a personal memoir. Something I know nothing about and haven’t the slightest interest in such a thing. I mean, I wouldn’t know where to begin with such a thing. Me? Writing a memoir? An interesting concept to be sure but who would I write it for? What practice or precedent would I have to do such a thing? If only fitness guru and baccarat champion Nick Colas was available for guidance.

I wandered by the smoke shop in Hoboken. Israel and Shlomo seem to be at each other’s throats. Perhaps that is how things go when you are starting a business from scratch. Kevin hovered about doing whatever it is that Kevin does. He is like a throwback to older Kevins in my life and a definite improvement over recent Kevins from the past few years. I mentioned to Bill that though I would like to work there, it seems there are too many cooks and not nearly enough squaws. But I do like these guys, they seem alright I reckon.

Bill is in the city working on a reading. He’s been great lately especially after the head butting last week with both of us wrong, he has really stepped up. He’s also been very busy with this reading. The reading is going on for two nights, one a week- so it’s not going to be that long a run or anything like that. That means that the chances of Bill flaming out and crashing will be greatly reduced. And that works out best for the both of us I think.

And I am happy my computer is back. So many prawns slipped through the net!

Tonight: Casablanca, 8PM on Turner Classic Movies!

Be My Baby
I was invited to see The Who tonight in Newark for free. I said no.