Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Having the holiday in the middle of the week is odd, but a day off is a day off, right? (I've actually been off from my day job all week, but I'll be back tomorrow, unfortunately.)

While 2024 wasn't a particularly bad year for me because I got to go to Madeira, Portugal in May and had a great time. (See the photo below from my trip.) I also survived another year, healthwise and workwise, so that's always good. I wish I could say I was looking forward to 2025, but with Donny T. in charge in a few short weeks, I'm not optimistic about the year to come. But, I'm blocking that noise for now and trying to enjoy the time now before Donny's regime comes back into power. 

My publisher, JMS Books, has an anthology coming out later this month called Love Is Free. (See the sidebar photo.) All proceeds from the book will be going to the ACLU. I have a short story included called Whenever, Wherever, Whatever. It's a love story during the height of Covid. 

RIP, Jimmy Carter and Nikki Giovanni (who I neglected to mention earlier).

H1-BS

Years ago, I used to do immigration work for a university. I stumbled into the job because I was unemployed and needed work at the time. Doing immigration work was horrible. I don't even list this job on my resume because it was so terrible. Thankfully, I was working another job at the time (teaching community college English, so I had something else to fall back on for employment during this time). I knew nothing about immigration and work visas when I took the job, that was largely administrative, but I learned a lot during my brief time in that position. 

A lot of foreign workers wanted to obtain an H1-B visa from the university where I worked so they could leave their home countries and work in the United States. Many also hoped that their employer would sponsor them for a green card so they could stay in the US permanently. Hopeful applicants submitted financial paperwork to show that they were able to support themselves while they would be in the US because the positions they were applying for at the university were largely low-level lab jobs that didn't pay much. We would later find out that some of the financials the applicants submitted were fake or that family members and friends in their home countries would pool their money and provide it to the applicant via a bank account to show this person had a lot of funds available. Then, after the H1-B was granted and the paperwork was done, those same family members and friends would pull their money out of the account and the applicant would go back to being largely destitute. But many of the applicants were so determined to leave their home countries, even if that meant working for slave wages in the US, that they didn't care and the employer didn't really care either because they were getting cheap labor. The whole thing was awful on all sides. H1-B: the B is for bullshit, folks!

Hearing the current debate on the right with the tech bros advocating for more foreign labor via H1-Bs and the MAGA faithful aruging against this makes me laugh. Yeah, fight amongst yourselves, kids. Are the folks who voted for Donny T. just now realizing that he's sold them a big old bag of bullshit? Tech bros want money and they don't care how they get it. If that means importing H1-B workers from India and China who will work 80 hours a week and get paid for 40 without complaining, then the more the better! If Donny's agenda is so driven by putting America first, then why not put your money and energy where your mouth is and start backing training programs for American workers, college kids, and high school students in IT? Because that makes too much sense. 

Baby Reindeer: WTF?

I know I'm late to the game in watching Baby Reindeer, which I did over last week and the past weekend, but I had to post about it now that I've watched the last episode and slept on it. What the fuck did I just watch? Thankfully, I had not read much about the series before I started watching it. I only knew it was about a woman stalking a man and that's it. I had no idea the series also dealt with trans women, rape, grooming, and a whole host of other issues that, in my opinion, made the stalking storyline take a back seat for a while.

My main takeaway from the series is that people need to stop giving mixed signals to others. A lot of the issues in Baby Reindeer came from the main character, Donny Dunn, not being honest with people about what he wanted and how he felt. If he had been up front with Martha about being bothered by her behavior from the start rather than acting wishy-washy and  pseudo-sympathetic, maybe he could have stopped the stalking before it really got going. Donny also should have been up front with Teri, his trans girlfriend, about the shame he felt in being with her publicly. If you can't have an honest relationship with your partner, then maybe you're not meant to have a relationship at all with that person. And the whole situation with Donny and Darrien was awful on so many levels. Why do you keep going back to your abuser when you know you're being abused? Are you getting something out of the abuse? I know Donny was hoping for Darrien to help his career but, at some point, he realized that wasn't going to happen, yet he kept going to Darrien. Dude, get it together and have some self-respect! 

I thought the mixed signals and lack of communication issues throughout Baby Reindeer were a generational thing. Young folks lately (and not all of them, I know), seem to be unable or unwilling to verbalize their feelings and, as a result, you get a lot of wishy-washy responses (if you get a response at all) or reactions that aren't clear to interpret. Maybe these folks are better able to express themselves online and any face-to-face communication suffers as a result. I don't know, but I keep seeing this kind of thing on TV, in movies, and in real life.

While Baby Reindeer was entertaining and made me go through a range of emotions while watching it (and I couldn't watch more than one episode at a time), this is not something I'd watch again. Donny largely annoyed me because he was such a man-child who didn't handle his business. He needed to get his shit together ASAP and quit crying to his ex, her mother, his parents, Teri, etc. about his sad life. And his stand-up routine was garbage. Ugh. How did this guy even get any comedy gigs with his awful one-liners and suitcase of bad props? Terrible! 

Is the next season of Squid Game on yet? I need a palate cleanser.

Keeping Calm and Carrying On

As I try to mentally prepare myself for the coming year of 2025 and the next Donny T administration (ugh), I've been doing some writing, reading, making an effort to get to the gym a few times a week, and trying to keep myself sane by not doom scrolling the news (a task easier said than done). I did manage to finish a short story (a Covid love story) and, hopefully, that'll be published early next year. (More news on that later.) 

In addition to writing, reading, and the rest, I watched the Yacht Rock documentary on Max a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. As a fan of yacht rock music, I was really looking forward to the documentary and it did not disappoint. Interviews with Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, and others were great. Too bad Donald Fagen declined to participate, but I can't say I was surprised. The Dan doesn't consider their music to be yacht rock (even though it is). Watching that documentary made me watch the Yacht Rock series on YouTube. Hilarious! I'm surprised I hadn't heard about this web series before it was mentioned in the documentary. Check it out if you're a fan. Episodes 1, 3, and 10 really cracked me up. Have you ever wondered how the song What a Fool Believes came to be? Want to see a fight between the Eagles and Steely Dan? Then the Yacht Rock YouTube series is for you! I need to watch stuff like that to take my mind off of the problems in the world right now. 

I'm ready for Christmas this year. Aside from getting some time off from my day job, I just need to chill out and have some positivity before the year ends. I even sent Christmas cards this year because I think my family and friends need a little cheer. I had not sent cards in a while, but I did this year because I'm ready to embrace the holiday, keep calm, and carry on!

Read the Room

Like many others, I've been reading a lot lately about the United HealthCare CEO who was gunned down in New York City yesterday. (Fun fact: I stayed at that Hilton hotel where the CEO was killed the last time I had to travel to NYC for work in 2020 before Covid hit!) I'm surprised the shooter hasn't been caught yet given the tremendous amount of security cameras in Manhattan. It's been more than 24 hours and that dude is still on the run!

Many people are using the CEO's murder to express their own complaints about the health insurance industry and its willingness to put profits over people. Count me in as one of the people on this bandwagon. I'm not a fan of vigliantism, but I am a fan of fairness and it's hard to feel sorry for someone who made millions of dollars a year while denying health coverage and needed procedures to ill people in order to save a few dollars and line his pockets and the pockets of other company executives. 

As someone who has health insurance via my employer, I'm grateful for it. I have health problems, I'm not 22 years old, and I need to be able to go to a doctor and get prescriptions when needed. But it is frustrating when you have to adhere to such strict rules set by the insurance company: don't get your next mammogram even a day earlier than the one you got last year or no coverage, these medications aren't covered because the company doesn't deem them necessary, the company has denied a CT scan your doctor ordered because it's deemed too expensive, etc. 

I'm grateful I have not had any serious issues with my health insurance. But, many years ago, I dealt with a situation where my mother's home had a fire and her insurer (Allstate) refused to pay to get the house repaired. My mother paid home owner's insurance for years without a claim and as soon as she had a claim, she was denied. The whole situation was ridiculous. My sister and I had to get an attorney and threaten to sue before Allstate got on the stick and paid up. To this day, I would never deal with Allstate. I wouldn't let them insure a dog house for me let alone a home, condo, co-op, car, whatever. This is the kind of stuff that gets my pressure up and these greedy insurance exceutives need to read the room. It shouldn't take a guy getting shot down in cold blood before the insurance industry realizes that something's wrong with the system. Sadly, the industry executives probably still won't see the light after this. One can hope, right?

Back From the Beach

I took a week off from my day job to enjoy some time at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico and really enjoyed the break. After such a stressful month with the election and the unfortunate return of Donny T and the (New) Funky Bunch, it was nice to get away and relax for a few days. I'm also working on a short story for an anthology my publisher, JMS Books, is going to put out (and more on that later).

WTF, United States?

I went to bed last night before any candidate for POTUS declared victory, but I knew the way the wind was blowing. I asked a coworker yesterday afternoon if he could imagine 4 more years of Donny T. Well, no more imagining that scenario now! It's about to happen! WTF, United States? WTF, Pennsylvania (one of my former home states) and WTF, Michigan (another one of my former home states, although I don't think the final votes have been tallied there yet). Donny T and the Funky Bunch (w/special guest Hillbilly JD) are returning to the White House? Say it ain't so. Oh, it be so! Ugh. And it looks like the Republicans are going to take over the House and the Senate? Ugh again. 

There are two good things that might come out of this presidential race: 

1. The Democrats have time to regroup and get a candidate out there who can actually win in 2028. (No offense to Harris, but she was fighting an uphill battle from the jump and Biden should never have tried to run for a second term.) 

2. The Republicans could fuck up so royally that the country will be more than ready to chuck them out and move on to someone else. (At least Donny can't run again unless he manages to somehow get the Supreme Court to make that happen. Hey, you never know.)

So, on this depressing post-election day, I will keep on keeping on. Disappointment happens in life and this is one of those times when things just didn't go my way, but I feel fine knowing I did what I could by voting. At least Illinois stayed blue (unfortunately, surrounded by a sea of red states; WTF, Wisconsin?). As I've said before, I was born during the Nixon administration and made it through that, so now I'm mentally preparing myself to make it through the return of Donny T.