#amp rants

Who knew you could experience withdrawals from a lack of fresh leafy greens? It sure wasn't on my bingo card. But then, so many other things have shown up there that I never thought possible.

FYI: the best ad-supported streaming platforms that don't choke you to death and that I use most often are Netflix and Tubi (which is free btw). The ads are short and they show up where they don't ruin the flow of the story. The only ad-free service I pay for these days is HBO/Max, simply for the sheer number of movies and shows they have available. Got a specific genre? There's something there you can watch and be satisfied by. I don't mind paying the higher ad-free price for that.

Our weather here in corn country sucks right now. Temps in the low 90s for a least another week. So of course my big, older window AC unit decides to shit the bed yesterday. Won't get my apartment any cooler than 82 or so, and I have to shut it down every two hours or the coils start to ice up. I have a smaller unit in my bedroom, but it's not enough BTUs to cool the whole place and I only use it at night (can't sleep when I'm hot). I get ahold of my landlord this morning and let him know what's going on and see what he wants to do. I've lived here for going on 21 years and Tom has always taken good care of me. If something needs fixed he is right on it, and usually the same day. But he tells me tonight he'd rather wait until spring to replace the AC unit - and besides, it's supposed to be a lot cooler next week. Can I make it through this week with just the bedroom AC?

Meanwhile, I'm living on the second floor of a 1940's cinder block and brick building with little to no insulation (basically a brick oven) and even with all the windows open and a fan going, it's fucking hot. Add in the fact that there's construction on my street right now (a "downtown revitalization project" that requires tearing out all the old sidewalks (and the only two trees left on my side of the street 😭 because I guess beautification means replacing all the nature with concrete) and these dudes are out here with huge excavators and concrete trucks and all their various yelling, and fucking dust everywhere, beginning every morning at 6 AM. Why wouldn't I want to have all my windows open as this is happening?!?!

So Tom texts me tonight and tells me he doesn't want me to be uncomfortable, so go ahead and buy a few more fans and he'll deduct the cost from my rent. And I'm sitting there sweaty and uncomfortable and thisclose to asking him what he'd do if his nice house in the affluent part of town was a steamy 80 degrees at 9 o'clock at night. But I didn't. Because I don't want him to decide it would be easier if he didn't have to replace the AC unit for his always-pays-rent-on-time-and-has-been-here-for-20-years sole tenant, and kick me out. Because then WTF would I do?

I know part of it is just the heat and how it builds up enough to make a person angry. But it's also because everything in the fucking world sucks right now. And I'm old and sweaty and poor, and it shouldn't be this hard for regular people like me to get by.

Okay, I'm done. Tomorrow's a fresh start, right?

But not this year. We've already gotten more snow this month than we did all last winter. And we're experiencing one arctic blast after another. Our high temps should be in the 40s but we've been averaging 15 to 20 degrees below that for going on a month. It's gonna be a long fucking winter. And I'm getting way too old for this shit.

Many of us thought that nothing could be worse than what happened at Sandy Hook in 2012, and surely real change was coming. But it didn't. It still hasn't. If Sandy Hook taught us anything, it was that those in power value guns and money more than they do the lives of our precious children. Every school shooting since then has just driven that point home.

This slaughter of children is happening all over the world. I know that. But there are things we can do about it here. Those in power in this country have simply chosen not to.

Fuck the right who continue to chastise us by telling us that this is not the time to make these events political. Politics is what got us here! And politics is the only way out.

Not feeling it so much this year.

I made the mistake of peeking in on MSM and read about how "we" just ripped health care away from millions of Americans. How "we" snatched food out of the hungry mouths of babes and families and seniors and vets who can't even pay the rent, let alone feed themselves, how "we" are decimating all the social safety nets we used to be able to rely on - the very programs our taxes are supposed to fund.

And I'm wondering who the fuck this collective "we" is. Cause it sure wasn't me. I didn't have anything to do with it. I'm not the one who was elected to protect their constituents from these rich old white men who just can't seem to stuff enough money or power into their pockets to suit them. All so they can look down at the 99% of the rest of us, and without shame or regard for their fellow humans beings loudly and proudly proclaim "Fuck you! We deserve this and you don't."

All while insisting that they're the "good" Christians. Because this is what God wants them to do, right? Fuck the rest of us - we don't matter.

The bad: I'm experiencing living through my first ever boil order. I've been boiling water and finding containers to store it in most of this afternoon/evening. Do not recommend. It sucks. Hope the PW guy knows what he's talking about and it will be lifted tomorrow morning.

The even more bad: Fucking Chuck Schumer is folding on the GOP CR to keep the government going for however long and is basically signaling his willingness to hand over all the keys to the (new) kingdom to Trump and Musk. Because god forbid we fight back and possibly offend anyone by letting them roll over all the rest of us. The Democratic leadership of old is dead and needs to be buried. Let the young guns take over and show us what real courage is.