Update (for Ann)

With some exceptions here and there, I haven't really had the motivation to blog. There are lot's of reasons for that, but mostly I got bored with blogging (or maybe with myself?).

I still keep up with bloggers who continue to blog, though there are fewer and fewer to follow. Twitter is my new Internet addiction.

So, what's new?

We are well. The big news is we bought a house this year. We live a stone's throw from the Rev. Falwell estate.

In case it's not abundantly clear, Casa de Tropopause occupies the small circle, Fallwell's fortress occupies the big one.

Among the many nice things about our house is the space available for a home office, which, considering I work from home, is important. The small house we were renting had no legitimate office space.

When people come to see our new home, it's not my office they admire. No, it's our kitchen that gets all the "oooh"s and "ahhhh"s. Of the fifty or so houses we toured, the one we bought had the best kitchen we'd seen. Sadly, the majority of kitchens in East Jesus are frozen in time... as in the 1970s. Seriously, East Jesus' home-owners must give all their money to Thomas Road, because none of them spend it upgrading their homes.

We had the cash for the 20% down payment thanks to Obama's roaring stock market. By January I had recovered all that I lost in the 2007 crash, with plenty more to boot. And I was far enough away from my financial low point to qualify for a mortgage. A buyer's market coupled with low interest rates and my capital gains made it the perfect time to buy.

It took ten years, but I'm BACK!

Courtney and I are as good as can be. We've become surrogate grandparents (God parents, as Courtney insists) to our best friend's six-year-old son. She's "family" and a single mom who works 12-hour nursing shifts. Several times a week we are either taking her son to school or picking him up afterwards. And every third weekend he stays with us. He likes being with us because, among other things, the neighbors have two boys his age.

We had him this past weekend and on Sunday treated him to a day at Chuck E. Cheese in Roanoke. Look at all the tickets we scored! Care to guess how many?

If you haven't already figured it out from our ability to score tickets (winnings from arcade games), Courtney and I like Chuck E. Cheese as much as the godson does. We've even gone there, just the two of us, for date nights.


I recently celebrated my 52nd birthday, for which Courtney gave me a new guitar, a Martin 12-string.

I have been battling with some health issues. Recall that I went off my crazy meds, which was nice because it helped me lose a lot of weight. And for a while all went well. But two years ago things got quite crazy and I kind of fell apart in a pretty big way. So I went back on meds and since then I've gained back all the weight (and then some). My situation has improved a lot, though I continue to have some issues (anxiety on top of depression). I've gone through a couple of meds trials to find the right treatment with the least side-effects (lately it's vertigo and headaches).

And just for the hell of it, my thyroid recently got out of whack again (after being well-managed for 15 years).

The medical issues caused my work to suffer, and I came pretty close to losing my gig with the consulting firm. My income suffered, but, having lived through hard times quite recently, we made it work. Last year, however, was a banner year. And so far 2012 is looking like it will be better than 2011.

Courtney and I have been extra-legally married six years now--and legally married (Washington, DC) three years.  Things with us have never been better.

Courtney is a social worker, still working for the city. She hasn't had a raise since she was first hired almost four years ago. At the same time, her own case-load has grown from 130 to 280. Her unit has been under a hiring freeze since her hiring. They were under-staffed as it was, a situation that got worse a few months ago when one colleague was fired for wrecking city cars, and another was terminated for assaulting a co-worker. Courtney's had to take on some of that case load. She's also had to cover for two workers on maternity leave. She puts in 10-hour days most days, and often has to work on weekends. Her work is counter-cyclical: during a recession resources are cut, while demand for services increases.

That reminds me. I am re-reading Fanny Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and the part where Evelyn conjures up her alter ego, Towanda, really got me thinking:

"Towanda ordained that: an equal number of men and women would be in the government and sit in on peace talks; she and her staff of crack chemical scientists would find a cure for cancer and invent a pill that would let you eat all you want and not gain weight; people would be forced to get a license to have children and must be found fit, financially and emotionally--no more starving or battered children. Jerry Falwell would be responsible for the raising of all illegitimate children who had no homes..."

Now that Falwell is dead, I think all the illegitimate children of the world (e.g. the unwanted, neglected, abandoned and abused) should become the responsibility of Paul "forcible rape" Ryan and and the anti-contraception GOP. When you see the consequences of unwanted/irresponsible pregnancy you come to believe that abortion & contraceptives should be as accessible and inexpensive as a McDonald's cheeseburger.

Damn, I swore I wouldn't get political. Sorry.

My daughter Amanda will be 20 in four months. She's still living with us. This year she bought herself a cute little sports car. She earns big money waitressing for an upscale downtown restaurant, and is making her way through college part time. She is still on her first boyfriend (going on three years now). He's been good to her and for her, but he's such a slacker. He's 23, still lives at home, and only recently got his own checking account. His car was given to him by his parents, and he doesn't pay them room & board. He's your typical 20-something slacker. Yet he complains about society's freeloaders and moochers. He's not quite a "birther" but is suspicious of Obama for his "international birth." Duh, he's sleeping with my daughter, a person of "international birth," of American & non-American parentage. He doesn't see the contradiction.

In other words, my future son-in-law is a bit of an ass.

He and I are like Archie Bunker and The Meathead.

Damn! I did it again. Politics! So I might as well go all in...

I am among the politically undecided regarding the presidential race this year. I am not a low-information voter. I am devouring the campaign. I know who I am NOT voting for (Hint: I won't cast a vote for anyone who thinks his underwear has magical powers).

I am tempted to cast a ballot for Virgil Goode, an unreconstructed Virginia bigot who, bless his heart, managed to get on a lot of state ballots. It's not that I am a bigot, at least not in the Virgil Goode sense (he's afraid of Muslims and Hispanics). I'm just fed up with the shit Washington has to offer. I am strongly leaning toward Gary Johnson (again to send a message that I don't want to eat the shit sandwich being served up by our two party system). Ultimately, if it looks close (and right now "Captain Underpants" and "The Incumbent" are just about tied), I may just have to suck it up and re-elect Obama. I figure I owe him my vote for appointing Tim Geitner and getting back all the money of mine that Wall Street gambled away in their greedy housing bubble frenzy.

I've spent the past year reading book after book after book on the 2007 financial crisis and its aftermath. It's been a bit of an obsession. And the more I read, the more outraged I become. And I can't believe others aren't as outraged. The political class is playing us perfectly: shifting our attention to contraception and abortion, and having us confuse social mobility for socialism. Americans have become, figuratively speaking, cats chasing a red laser-beam dot that we'll never catch--focused on the wrong things. Idiocracy.

In all seriousness, I owe Obama my vote for delivering on Obamacare. Here is why: when access to health insurance is primarily through traditional employment or traditional marriage, as it is in the US, and you are neither traditionally employed (I am technically self-employed) or traditionally married (my same-sex spouse may not enroll me in her employer-provided health insurance) then self-insuring becomes an option only if you can afford the high premiums and large deductibles and your pre-existing conditions don't render you ineligible for coverage. Fuck the Republicans for their scare-mongering. They successfully defeated Hillarycare and then failed to put anything in it's place. The GOP are as much to blame (or credit) for Obamacare as Obama is because they failed to do what needed to be done when they had the responsibility to do something.

Why won't I feel terribly jubilant about voting for Obama? Because he hasn't done a good job with the economy. Yes, he was handed a real mess and Congress has done nothing but obstruct and do their level best to keep the economy from coming back. Nevertheless, Obama is missing it in big ways. For an idea of where I am coming from, there's THIS and the early chapters in THIS.

Okay, this is the REAL reason I don't blog. Because ultimately my musings turn to politics or religion and that's a HUGE turn-off, I'm sure. 

I'd love to hear from you (if I haven't completely alienated you by now). Leave a comment, or send an email (thetropopause@gmail.com).