#BUT I DIGRESS!!!!! i still live in a gorgeous turn of the century house with a wrap around porch and wonderful roommates

[glitteratti]

4 days out from a full year of living in what is essentially my dream house :’)

[callme-chaos]

The Perks of Being the President (1/4)

Chapter 1: Free Shit

There are many perks to being the President. Reduced travel expenses, high security wherever you go, lots of money and free shit. It can be a lot of fun. I would know. I was a King once. Now I’m a God.

But I digress.

               There are many perks to being the President but being known is not one of them. The history books are not always kind to their subjects but they are never kind to their rulers. Whether you win or lose or die or live – someone out there hated your guts and will never let the world forget it.

I would know.

               But this is not my story. I will just be narrating it because no one else had the energy to do so. Which I guess makes sense – everyone was very tired after the war.

               Instead, this is the story of President J. Schlatt who, despite being voted in completely legally and democratically, was still a very controversial figure in our history. You all know the beginning of the story, I’m sure of that much. But here is where it ended for one of them…

               “Does anybody smell toast?”

               “That’ll be your breakfast, sir,” Quackity said, his suit buttoned up to the throat, as he woke the President from his beauty sleep. Schlatt slowly sat up from the bed, holding his head. He felt like he was having the hangover of the century but had no idea that he actually was. For a moment, he remembered nothing of the previous days.

               Quackity presented the divine breakfast on a silver platter to Schlatt, who’s eyes gleamed with greed. “Did I pay for this?” Schlatt asked.

               “Of course not, sir. Breakfast is always on the tax payers,” Quackity replied.

               Schlatt licked his chops in delight and tucked in. There was something very grotesque in the movement that I distinctly didn’t like – but, hey, what was I gonna do about it? He was President and I was barely corporeal in that moment.

               With a mouth full of toast and cooked salmon, Schlatt spoke again: “You know, I had a really weird dream last night.”

               Quackity had been pulling out the perfect suit for his President to wear and barely turned around to listen to what the old crackpot had to say. Undeterred however, Schlatt continued. “I think I had a heart-attack and died.”

               Breathing a heavy sigh of “only if”, Quackity pulled out a grey suit and red tie combo. “And what did that feel like?”

               “Not so great actually. I got really drunk though beforehand so that was good. I think we might have been at war.”

               “There is no war in Manberg, sir.”

               “Maybe not out there, Quackity,” Schlatt swallowed harshly. Today felt like a big day. Schlatt could sense it: the clouds were moving faster over Manberg and it looked like it might rain. Something was coming. Something epic and gorgeous and legendary and green and funny and sexy and just all round pretty excellent.

               Though, Schlatt wasn’t to know that at the time, I guess.

               No, Schlatt instead tossed the feelings aside and went about his day as usual: he finished his free breakfast, had a free lunch to follow up and had an exquisite free evening meal and finally went to bed. Full and happy and unknowing.

               The house was silent and dark when the stunningly attractive green man came. He slipped through the window like a breeze and lay in waiting for his prey to wake from slumber. Jschlatt was a noisy sleeper. Every snore was a lion’s roar and shook the entire building. But the lovely green man was unintimidated by it and stood in the corner of the room, basking in the shadows.

               Until he inevitably got bored of the waiting and woke the sleeping man up.

               “Hey! Jschlatt! Wake up! I need to tell you something!”

               Schlatt tumbled out of bed and, still half asleep, pulled out a sword from under his pillow. “Waddyawan?”

               Amused, the green man said, “You sleep with a knife?”

               Blinking himself awake, Schlatt’s vision finally came into focus. “Dream?”

               The green man shook his head violently, “No no. I am NIGHTMARE.” A well-timed clap of thunder sounded above them and lightning struck the floor outside. It was very epic.

               But the drunk asshole just laughed. “Nightmare? That’s something I would call my Club Penguin avatar.”

               “You are far too old to be playing Club Penguin, Mr. President.”

               “Hey! Don’t question what I do in my spare time. Anyways, what are you even doing here?”

               “I need to tell you something.”

               Jschlatt released an irritated sigh and began to crawl back into bed. “Then make it snappy. I still have some z’s to catch before morning.”

               NIGHTMARE ripped the covers off the man and he shivered. “Over the next three nights you will be visited by three ghosts who will teach you things about being a better person-“

               “You’re a bit early for that, buddy. Try rescheduling for the 24th of December.”

               “Schlatt, I’m serious. You need to change your ways.”

               “Wait. Did you say over the next three nights? Dickens did it in one – what’s the hold up here?”

               “Minecraft nights are much shorter than real life nights – anyways, stop questioning the storyline and listen to me! You might be fat and happy in this timeline but you can’t be making mistakes. If you keep going down this path, you will die!”

               “That’s what my doctors have been saying for years.”

               “I’m not talking about the alcohol, Schlatt! Take it from someone who knows, being a leader is difficult – it’s more than just living the lush life.” NIGHTMARE watched the emotions flit across Schlatt’s face: a mixture of doubt then uncertainty and then nothingness. This man was empty.

               “Look here, buddy, things are going great for me at the moment – industry is booming, the treasury is over-flowing, the people are ecstatic and there is no war in Manberg! I’m a great president!” Schlatt said with no small amount of arrogance.

               “No, /your/ industries are booming, /your/ pockets are over-flowing, /you/ are happy. Your people are not. And while there is no war now, you will have one on your hands soon if you don’t shape up-“

               “What’s that about my shape?”

               “Three more ghosts are coming, Schlatt, whether you want them to or not. You better listen to them or else…”

               “Or else what?” Jschlatt taunted but anyone could see that the grip on his sword was faltering. “Are you gonna kill me?”

               “I’m afraid it’s already too late for that,” NIGHTMARE turned away from the hopeless case, annoyed. “And you can have that bit for free.”

               And with that final sentence resonating in Jschlatt’s head, the awesomely epic green man disappeared in a crack of lightning and another expertly timed clap of thunder.

[kingofthenorth49]

For the first morning in I don’t know when there are no brown eyes looking up at me (or in reality, my toast) while I sit in front of the fire enjoying my first sip of java on this gorgeous Saturday morning.

That’s right, we’re dogless.

His Royal Highstrungness is off socializing with strangers this weekend as mom and I enjoy a respite from the ever on ball of energy, call it a parenting break, but its actually more of a “let’s test our homeowner’s insurance policy against a lawsuit” type test. Part of me wants to unplug the phone for the next 36 hours in fear they call to tell me to come get my dog because he burned down the place.

Isn’t fear wonderful? It’s the one emotion that significantly limits us as humans from reaching our full potential. Babies are born without a sense of fear, but it develops rather fast. Some scientist believe the reason for this is to allow human babies to learn to move around with their bodies in their environment before fear stops them from wanting to learn to move. Think about it. If babies were born with the fear of falling, they would never move. They’d just lay there, paralyzed with the fear of falling, safe in their comfort that if they don’t move, they won’t get hurt.

Kind of like most humans have become.

Don’t deny it, I see it. I see you. You’ve allowed them to take control of your fear. Everyday I interact with people who have lost control of their ability to perceive risk and evaluate controls to keep themselves safe from harm.

I see it in the eyes. I hear it in the text of comments on social media. I feel it in the emptiness of our streets.

You are laying there paralyzed in fear. Just where they want you to be.

Relax, it’s natural for you to be in complete fear of the world right now, that’s what they designed. I’m 53 years old, I think I’m fairly intelligent, I’ve navigated through life so far with the tools my parents and teachers equipped me with, I’ve not ended up in jail (facebook jail doesn’t count) and raised a couple half-decent kids (let’s see if they read these) and travelled around the globe a bit to see how the other half live, but here’s what I’ve had to live with in those short 53 years.

I first recall the world famines that were coming in 1975, it was already too late for civilization and I felt guilty about eating my beans and weiners. Next it was air pollution and how it would cause an ice age by the 21st century and that the world was going to get very cold. I remember wondering to myself if our furnace would be able to keep the house warm. We had to get rid of brown paper bags to help the forests help us, and these new plastic bags were going to save the world.

By the late 70’s, the ozone layer was going to kill us all as the spray cans were ripping a hole in the atmosphere and deadly gamma rays were going to melt our faces. Then in the early 80’s, acid rain came along threatening to destroy our world in a few years with deluges of toxics water from the heavens, but by the late 1980’s they ice age had been called off, and they decided to turn the heat up and global warming was born.

Droughts, famine, and sea levels rising were the order of the day, and I can remember Dr. Friz VanWacko at Dal telling us in 1987 that within 30 years the Maldives were going to be under water, gone forever.

Funny, Facebook has been pelting me with ads for the Maldives for the last month, they must still be open or we need a fact check on aisle 6. I’ll also be honest, the ads are working, but I digress…

I can go on and on, but you know where I’m going, right?

GET IT YET?

Folks, they want us to live in a perpetual state of fear. Fear is the greatest motivator, and those who seek power use it as the lever to get us to do what they want, whether it’s an abusive spouse or Justin Trudeau, they use fear to keep us in control.

And we let them. We let them and they win, so shame on us. Then they use us to control others’, shaming is the new black. They’re now using us to control others’ and its genius. It is the ultimate way to subjugate a population. Keep people cowering at home under the bed, afraid to move all the while you make the changes you want in the world with no resistance.

Genius. We’ve seen this before, right?

We’ve become just like that newborn baby. A baby that knows if it never moves it will never get hurt. It will be safe.

But it will also never move, grow, or experience life. It will be denied the value of living a life fulfilled, of experiencing all the things this life holds that makes the risk of moving worthwhile, and sadly at some point it will shame the other babies who fail about in reckless abandon seeking their stairs to climb, all because they are too afraid to move themselves.

I’ve known debilitating fear, fear so deep you can’t breathe. I also learned early on in my life that when you are confronted with a crisis you have three “seconds” to live. A second to realize your in crisis, a second to panic, and by the third second you must respond to the threat or you will die. I learned that from Scuba Steve, my scuba instructor when I was 13. Best life advice ever, and no matter if I had gotten myself in a bad place on a motorbike or exceeded my comfort level chasing someone through the woods at 4 am, I remembered the three second rule.

Folks, most of society is stuck at second two. Seriously, people are paralyzed in fear.

How will you respond? How will you move past fear?

I know how I’ll respond, the same way I’ve responded for the last year. Going to keep washing my hands, keeping socially distant, and I’ll stay home if I’m sick, but that’s it. I refuse to cower under my bed, I want to live a life of happiness and fulfillment, just like I have through multitudes of crisis I’ve been subjected too over the last 53 years. Oh, and I plan to offer Justin my vaccine. He needs it more than I, because I don’t fear death, I fear not living.

Sorry for being so deep this fine Saturday morning but I felt I had to get this off my chest. I see the fear in many people’s eyes who used to live large lives. People who used to laugh, carry-on and really live have become skittish and fearful, posting mask-shaming and virus sightings on-line, and if that’s your choice on how you want to live, I respect that. But it’s how you are going to live, not me.

Happy Saturday fine folks of the world, what are you going to do today to fulfill your life?

I’m going to enjoy finishing my coffee and counting the hours down until I go out into the world and pick up my brown-eyed buddy, hopefully who hasn’t trashed the place on his first visit.

Jim Out.