Bone Dry...

So when I end my work day, these days, my "commute" starts.  I get up from my "work desk" and use the bathroom, then stagger into the laundry room and sit down at this computer.  My personal machine.  

And then I take off the blinders.

For pretty much the entire day, I have the television on behind me.  It's usually tuned to one of the all-music-all-the-time channels my cable system offers.  No, not MTV, VH1, or any other video channel.  This is pretty much like radio, except there are no DJs, no commercials, no news breaks, just music.

And I keep it on the "classic rock" station.  About a month ago I noticed a change in their playlists.  Where I could count on hearing Baba O'Reilly, that song by the Who that some folks think is titled "Teenage Wasteland" - it's not.  But it's right in the pocket of songs which I love to hear.  I'm a bit of a sucker for music that starts out maybe not softly, but simple - sort of the solo up front - and then it builds.  Songs like Baba O'Reilly, Come Sail Away by Styx, and many others.  Hell's Bells, by AC/DC, We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister, and ... well, the list could go on.

Anyway, about a month or so ago, Baba O'Reilly moved from an every-other-day treat to once every two weeks.  A fair amount of Greatless Dead - er, Grateing Dead - oh, whatever, that band from San Francisco with Jerry Garcia in it.  Yeah, I am most definitely NOT a fan.  The only song of theirs that ever really sounded like something I could like was "Touch of Grey".  No, I am in no way any sort of Deadhead.  I'm sure that puts me on a special list, but so be it.  

That band, a lot more of what I call "whiney rock".  Sweet Home Alabama by Lynerd Skynerd, which always makes me cringe and want to shout at the TV when the lead singer says "...Watergate does not bother me.  Does your conscience bother you?"  In fact, not often.  But then again, I did not encourage associates to break in to offices, lie, and bring disgrace not only on my name but on the name of the office where I had been elected to be a leader.  

Nixon was right up there, and fortunately, he's no longer at the top of the mountain when it comes to Worst President Ever.  And no, I'm not talking about James Buchanan or Millard Fillmore.  Nope.  The Orange Buffoon.

But as I came in here this evening, I did as usual, and opened the CNN home page.  And I just can't even work up any sort of shock, surprise, or sadness.  A shooting at an elementary school in Texas.  Gee.  Who didn't see that one coming?  Oh, give me a break.  Yes, I grieve for the innocent children who were killed.  I also grieve for the people who think "gee, it shouldn't have happened to them."  Simple fact - there are far too many guns available today.  I have friends who hunt, who have need to go about armed in the doing their daily jobs, because they're occasionally in situations where they do not have backup or reliable support.  

And there are more than a few folks who have guns because, well, they're fun.  I get that.  But I also get that I do woodworking.  And it's fun too.  And I take precautions.  Obviously, there are a large number of people out there who don't, who sell guns to people who seem utterly normal and all right, until they take the weapon and, as a woman did this past weekend, fire it into her son.  She did this because she was able to buy a shotgun, despite concerns by her ex-husband that her deteriorating mental health and increasing drug use would be more than sufficient to cause her to have a reduction in custody of the kindergartener.  

But there we go.  Instead of this little boy getting his front teeth back, finishing kindergarten, and moving on to first grade, he will be buried.  His father will go through the rest of his life wondering what he might have been able to do differently to save that little boy, but the woulda-coulda-shouldas don't save lives.  Not as a post-review.

I guess the way I see it is when you know there is a danger, and you do not one damned thing to prevent that danger from becoming a real murder, then, well, you're not doing your job.  And when I look at Texas, and see the "guns-guns-guns-guns-guns" crap, I know what's going to happen.

My wife gives me a hard time about not wanting to travel.  I'm perfectly happy being a homebody.  It seems to me that I spend a substantial amount of my waking time doing my damnedest to make sure I can afford to be comfortable in my home.  Why, then, would I want to run away the first moment I get a chance to sleep in late, don't even bother setting the alarm, just taking it easy, and doing whatever it is I need to do?  Why would I instead run off to somewhere else, some place I do not know well, some place I won't sleep very well, some place where I don't have the tools and toys and projects I want to work on when I find the time, and instead go somewhere else and do something else?  Why?  

Sure, I suppose, when I'm dead, I'll have all sorts of memories that ... well, are also dead, aren't they?  But travel makes you a better-rounded person!  Right.  I'm pretty damned round already.  In fact, I need to shed some of the roundness and get more towards angular.  But meeting different people will make you more connected!  Right.  And being out in public increases the odds I might get hit by a runaway vehicle, a stray bullet, or some person may take a dislike to how I part my hair and decide to rearrange it with a shotgun blast.

Why the hell would I want to risk that?  There are far too many children who have been executed by our gun-loving public.  There are teenagers who run wild, shoot at and kill others because they feel they're justified.  Right.  Last I checked, there hasn't been a legitimate deputization of the untrained public in some time - make it at least 75 years.  

So I'm good.  And I'm disappointed that there was a mass shooting in a Texas School.  And I'm sure I'll be disappointed when the next mass shooting happens in a school, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that.  But you know, there's the old definition of insanity which says insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result.  Another definition I have of insanity is not doing anything, but hoping and praying things will change.  

Same crap, different shoe.  It still stinks all the same.