Shiny

I thought I wrote a blog. Turns out I didn't.

Maybe I wrote it in my head. That's a VERY distinct possibility. My head is a very busy place to be.

Maybe I wrote a blog and deleted it. I do that sometimes. I'll read it and think, "what the hell was the point of that?" Away it must go.

Maybe I started to write a blog and, because of my work, I stopped writing the blog and then proceeded to forget about it. Right now, my job is all about writing. Policy and Procedure mainly. I'm queen of the keyboard, churning out vats of business babble. I become delirious after awhile and don't even know my name, let alone if I wrote a blog or not.

Maybe I was too busy sweating in PPE that I honestly didn't know there was no blog to be written, which is different than not knowing I hadn't written a blog. When not writing policy and procedure, I do things like donning N95s and helping those who can't help themselves.

Here I am, full gear, ready to take another swim in the cesspool of COVID. For the record, I remain immensely grateful for the availability of PPE. Knock on wood and thank you, Baby Jesus--I swam in that cesspool of COVID and was able to stay safe, thanks to this stuff.

Maybe I wrote a blog about things of which I do not want to give power and thus, disgusted with myself, left the blog somewhere in draft mode and later deleted it without thought.

Take, for instance, a photo-- a real photo--of beans on "Resolute." I honestly thought this was photo-shopped. It's not. It's disgustingly real. This is enough to distract me from rational thought. I have a bazillion words I'd like to say but I do not want to give this fool and his racist minions power. I'll just post the photo, spew disgust and move on, wondering if I ever wrote that blog of which does not appear written.

Or, maybe I started to write the blog and got distracted by something "shiny." You know, "oh look! Squirrel!" -or- "ooooooh, pretty!" Many a decade ago, I had a boss who was all about shiny. She loved people who wore a lot of bling (literally shiny), new things, pretty things, ... shiny fancy cars, rich people, beautiful people. You get the idea. I'm not shiny, so I didn't qualify for top of her list. You have to be shiny to be at the top.

Americans are all about shiny. We can only follow one thing at a time. We're hyper-focus on one thing and then when the next big/new/shiny thing comes along, we totally turn our attention to the new thing and forget about the other things.


Take, for instance: kids in cages. Guess what? Those kids are still in cages. We were all about those kids in cages. We were mad about those kids in cages. Then, along came something else and the kids in cages magically disappeared from sight and mind.

COVID is a very shiny thing. Until it wasn't. The news was 100% about the virus. Americans immersed. Then came the protests. Virus? What virus? Shiny!

Please know.... I'm not saying anything remotely bad about the protests; in fact, I fully applaud them. I am all about protesting. I'm certainly not saying anything derogatory about the virus. It's real, it's serious, it's damn scary and it's killing people while our government is hocking beans on the most powerful desk in the world...

The point is that we seem to have a very limited ability to focus on more than one thing at a time.  Now, we're back to talking about the virus and the protests have faded out of sigh. Not so shiny anymore.

(Thankfully, we're back to talking about the virus. Someone has to take this seriously. Sadly, we're not talking about the protests because we as a collective whole can only focus on one thing at a time.)

Right now, I'm consumed about the banning of Fauci, the folly of taking science from the CDC, the incredulous thought of people spitting and coughing on each other because of face masks. Those are pretty shiny things. Maybe I thought I wrote a blog but in reality I was so busy convincing myself I'm not crazy that I didn't realize there was no blog.

One of my favorite shows of all time, "Firefly," used the word "shiny." I guess you could say it means everything's great--all good. Exciting, ready to go, cool. "Everything's shiny, Captain--not to fret."

Firefly was a shiny show; Serenity was a shiny place to be. That's the kind of shiny I want in the Addiverse. I want the Addiverse to be shiny. I want it to be a good place to be.

Today, we are forecast to have a heat index of 110 degrees. (I don't know how to make the degree symbol using my keyboard. Pretend it's there.) The only thing shiny about today will be my skin. I anticipate I will shine with sweat. It won't be glistening--it will be a shiny waterfall of a sweat.

Back to my original thought... I thought I wrote a blog. Turns out I didn't....

Of all the listed possibilities, I'm going with I wrote the blog in my head and called it a day. Wearing a mask did not deprive my brain of oxygen, leading to the loss of a blog, despite what mask-shamers say. Using social distancing didn't keep me from a keyboard, so that's definitely not it.

Yup, it was in my head but not on paper. Wonder what I wrote about?

Oh look--squirrel!

Life is shiny. Not to fret. Wear a mask--that's shiny. Stand strong and proud--that's shiny. Stand for each other--that's amazingly shiny. Don't forget the kids in cages--don't be distracted by the shiny.

Stay shiny. In the good way. No fretting allowed.
*********************************************