WTF?

 I just watched the first presidential debate and all I can say is what the fuck was that? A shit show, I guess, is the best way to describe it. Donny was out of control, Chris Wallace was useless as the moderator (but he does work for Fox, so expectations were low), and Biden tried to hold his own, but he wasn't great either. I weep for our country. Is this the best we can do? Apparently. God help us all if Donny gets another term. The guy is nuts. He can't even control himself enough to allow someone to provide a 2-minute answer to a question without interrupting. What a waste of space and what a waste of time this debate was. I don't need to see any others. I've had enough. My pressure was up after watching this. I will watch Pence and Harris because they both know how to behave in a debate, unlike Donny. 

During the post-debate analysis on CNN, Van Jones was moaning about Donny's refusal to condemn white supremacists. I don't know why he was so shocked by that. Hasn't he been listening to Donny for the last three and a half years? He depends on those folks for votes and he believes that they believe. Why would he condemn them??? Stand back and stand by? Break out the white hoods and sheets, guys! Get the tiki torches ready! Pathetic. November third can't come soon enough. 

College Town

 I live in a college town and, although the university here has told freshman and sophomore students to stay home for the first quarter, other classes of undergraduates and graduate students have been allowed to return to campus. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, many businesses in my city rely on the college students and when there aren't any students in town, those businesses suffer. Students already vacated campus earlier than expected and now they're staying away beyond the summer. How is a local restaurant that relies on student traffic supposed to keep things going? It's a tough situation. But, on the other hand, what if all of the students were allowed to return, they dismissed the social distancing and mask rules in town, and there was a spike in Covid cases? This wouldn't help the situation either. Even though the students would be out and about and spending money locally, if an outbreak occurred, the university would surely shut down again, and we'd be back to square one. 

RIP RBG

 I saw Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the steps of the Supreme Court back in the 1990s. I was in Washington, DC for my stepbrother's wedding and everyone was out sightseeing before the wedding and there she was on the steps. I seem to recall she was posing for a picture someone was taking of her. She had her robe on. I was sad to hear about her death last night. But, for everyone moaning and groaning over her replacement on the Court, I say this: Be angry, be sad, and get over it. You can't let yourself get out of control about things you have no control over. Of course Donny and Cocaine Mitch are going to jam a conservative nominee into Ginsberg's spot and there's nothing we can do about that. What we CAN do is vote Donny and this gang out of office. Send these jokers packing. The fact that McConnell has remained in the Senate for as long as he has is a travesty. Kentucky isn't exactly thriving under his leadership, yet he gets reelected each time he runs. Ridiculous. 

Another One?

There are more books on the market about Donny about our awful POTUS and his awful exploits as POTUS and the awful people round him who promote his awfulness. Do we really need yet another book to tell us how terrible he is? Apparently we do! I read the first book about his crackpot administration (Fire and Fury, or whatever it was called) and that didn't really tell me much I didn't already know. Why buy these books when you can see Donny's craziness and idiocy on display every week for free? Just watch the news or the late-night talk shows for recaps of whatever stupid thing Donny said/did for the day. 

Seriously, if you're an undecided voter this late in the game, something is wrong with you. Get your shit together already! 

AHS

Before recently, I'd only watched two seasons of American Horror Story: the first one (with the haunted house) and the one dealing with the last presidential election. I'd tried watching other seasons when they were on, but never finished. Lately though, I've been watching the Hotel and Freak Show seasons on Netflix and I have some thoughts.

Hotel: How did I miss this when it initially aired? It's hilarious. I didn't even watch every single episode, but I watched enough and the ending. I mainly watched to see Finn Wittrock, Matt Bomer, and Cheyenne Jackson and I wasn't disappointed. Matt and Finn's brief fist fight was the equivalent of foxy boxing for me. And Finn and Cheyenne's scenes? Sleazy and titillating. I loved them. 

Freak Show: I'm only watching this to see Finn and he does not disappoint as Dandy Mott. What a mess. Just watching him throw a fit and start crying over not getting his way is hilarious. I see why he was nominated for an Emmy. He's great. 

With everything horrible happening in the world, I enjoy mentally checking out from time to time to watch something like American Horror Story or Tiger King and I have no shame in admitting this.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

 I'm finally finishing up the new book I've been working on called Thorns in My Side. I'm just proofing it now and doing some additional edits. It feels good to finally have this one wrapped up. Hopefully everything will work out for a January 2021 pub date for it. I'll keep you updated on that. It's been a long time coming (too long), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope to have a short story based on something that happens in this current book and I'm working on that also. Writing is hard work even when there's not a pandemic going on or when you're overwhelmed from your day job. I read a blog post recently about how to deal with Covid in writing. Do you just ignore it? Set your work before the year 2020 or way into the future? My current work doesn't mention Covid at all because it was started before this thing happened and I really couldn't find a way to work it into the book without disrupting my time line. Readers can just assume these events took place prior to 2020. I would like to write something where Covid is a part of the story, but I'm not mentally there yet. Maybe a few years out when I can (hopefully) look back on the pandemic, I'll be in a better frame of mind to actually write about it, but not now. We need to get a vaccine and things need to get back to some normalcy before that happens.