bAdwords

Google doesn’t give two shits, a fuck, or a good god damn about my blog, because I’m not an Adwords customer. And I’m fine with that.

I’ve never run advertising on my sites. This is a labor of love, and I personally foot the bill, paltry as it is. Do I give a fuck, two shits, or a good god damn about bumping up my PageRank to the first results page where Google secretly prioritizes all its own Adwords customers? Hell no. Anybody who really wants to find me can find me.

We could’ve gone in so many amazing directions with this world wide web thing. Instead, we chose the advertising model.

Beaters

Is it a sin to hate your hobbies?

I just got my car back from the shop. 13 fucking weeks. Thirt. Teen. Anyway, I took all my ham radios out beforehand to minimize risk. But now that my car’s back, I should reinstall them, right?

Yes, I’ll reinstall them. It would be a fucking waste to not reinstall them, since I spent all that time and effort wiring up the fuckers.

But will I use the radios? Probably more “no” than “yes”. I mean, I can always turn down the volume and ignore the drivel.

So why a No?

Because there are other ham radio operators out there on the radio.

Repeater Beaters.

There’s a certain demographic that’s highly present when it comes to Amateur Radio. Older, white, heterosexual, middle-class males who lean conservatively and on the side of lawful. Almost lawful-evil. We study the rules and laws and keep each other in check so we don’t lose the band privileges. We like to toe the line, as long as we can bend the rules when it suits our needs without getting caught. It’s part and parcel of the hobbyist community.

I mean, it’s great that I studied and took the tests that proved I know the technical and procedural protocols when it comes to the communications medium, and that I can be trusted to transmit within specific frequency bands with whatever radios and modulation modes are allowable without risk of interfering on other legal commercial transmissions. But what of the messages?

I worry about representation when it comes to Amateur Radio.

I feel like I’m surrounded by white power nationalists who hang out in hamfest parking lots with American flags and rebel flags both flying from their truck beds. Who dip their camo caps and tap their noses when someone signals with the right handshakes on a cash-only deal. And I have to assume that there are a lot of men on the repeaters, and at least on the low bands, that fall into that class of blowhard assholes.

Repeater. Beaters.

On any overnight, I can tune through and find someone him-hawing about, “they ain’t supposed to do that” and, “well if they came to my house, I tell ya whut they find when they open my door.” Too much, “me and mine,” and too little, “it’s a big world out there.” Too much, “them people are just stupid and wrong,” and too little, “it takes all kinds, and they’re alright with me.”

There’s just something that worries me about the hobby. It’s full of other people.

No wonder people are flocking to FT8. There’s no room for talking.

So anyway, I’ll be installing my radios soon, because radios are a useful tool. I just can’t remember what problems they fix.

Quiet Night, Cold City

Quiet night. Cold front has us all down, low, homebodied, sheltered in place. Chat is quiet. Phone is quiet. Internet is quiet. Been home all day, restless evening, nothing doing. I get stir-crazy like this and don’t feel like life is lived right if I’m home alone all day, and them old feelings come raging back, making me risk the exposure. Shoes on and mad dash to get espresso from Epoch before close. First trip out today, at 9:30 pm. Got to the place, empty lot, Ian at the reg, Tiff keeping company. “Espresso, no Topo, add $3 tip”, I breathe through my mask. Wave hi to Tiff. Ian looking at shutting down early, slow night. Pace the patio until the cup of dark warm love appears from under the plexiglass screen. Turn the corner to stand at my rental car to enjoy the moment in the open air. The paranoid homeless street preacher dying of cancer beelines toward me from a distance, says, “Hey old-timer, how ya doin’.” Already a third into a fifth of engine cleaner. I just can’t have a moment. So we spit about coffee, booze, smokes, cars, politics, until he goes off the rails. Luckily espresso is quick. I tap out, head to the grocer. En route coughing, hacking up the loose stuff, my chest has been a problem of late. My denial is strong. Seems I have problems keeping the traffic on the southbound lanes going down the right exits, so sometimes I take the hit when I swallow. Of course my lungs complain. This cold will take some time to adjust as I take out all my winter clothes and remember how to bundle up, learn how to adjust the thermostat at my new apartment for heat. I should feel pampered and whole, but all the lights are on, it’s cold, I have a cough, I’m alone, and my soul is strapped down by all the nights in all the back bedrooms of all the cold trailers I’ve lived in beyond the city limits of my hometown, not knowing what drama will appear to make me want to disappear. I should be my own man, accomplished, motivated, successful. But I’m a restlessly bored geezer nagged by hungry ghosts. I guess that’s the true spirit of Halloween.

Lug

Physical possessions are a curse. Especially when you have to move.

We spend our 20’s thinking, “I need more stuff.”

We spend our 30’s thinking, “I can afford this stuff.”

We spend our 40’s thinking, “I have too much stuff.”

Is it really a universal truth that if you need something, it will become available to you? And when you no longer need it, will you be able to overcome the sunk cost of acquiring it and let it go? What is the real value? And is this line of thinking just part of the consumption game plan?

“Need it? Buy it!”

That’s too pessimistic.

On the personal balance sheet, I’m fully moved out of my last place. Nine years to load stuff into the space, nine weeks to move it all out. And my spine is paying the price.

I should get acquainted with the process of selling much of the stuff I bought. Because the next move will be just as brutal, and I still have a storage unit to empty.

Cat Landing

For those of you keeping score, I’ve found a new apartment. It’s about a mile south of my current home, in my previous neighborhood. It’ll be nice to get back there, since that area is closer to my usual haunts. But it won’t be this place.

Nine years, two months. Four jobs. Countless shift rotations and neighbors. The longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in my life. Watching the slow march of time take its toll on nearby businesses that shuttered after decades of service. Dark windows and empty parking lots, and now the land is cheap enough for vultures.

It’s a long time to rent a place and call it home. This apartment, for most of that time, was just a closet where I stashed my shit while I was out and about. But with the COVID-19 lockdown, I finally made it home, because I had no other choice.

But now I have no choice but to leave.

It has taken me a long time to adjust to this place, and learn the patterns and schedules of my neighbors and how to deal with their quirks (and they mine). We finally got into a groove.

But now I have to relearn. That’s the hardest part. The new place is certainly shaped weird, which I kinda like because it’s unique. But how are the neighbors? Will I hear bumps and rumbles from overgrown speakers powered by overgrown egos? Will I have to deal with unassigned parking where everybody has their unassigned spot, and don’t you dare take it? Can I grapple with the idea that I will be the freshman tenant that everybody sneers at while I figure out where I fit? Can I deal with a new place where no windows face the sunlight? Should I invest my energy into making it a home beyond the lease term?

See, I don’t know the future. I won’t really know until I move and start settling in. It’ll be a long adjustment, a shellshock-inducing event. I already feel numb, which I take as a kindness from the uncaring universe. My hope is that it’ll be good, at least in the greater context of me spending my life making bad choices and never investing in my own home (if ever was a time for that, it’s now, but have you seen how much real estate costs now?).

I dunno. I’m a fuckup sometimes, but I find serendipity and luck out with saving throws and generally just ride on whatever comes along, bitching the whole way. So whatever. No gods, no masters. Whatever. Nothing means anything. The bulldozers are on their way. Whatever. Fuck this apartment. Long live this apartment.