Warped Gratitude Blog

Today I am thankful for the realization that bullies have always been my biggest life challenge. It's not the bullies that are the exact challenge - it is keeping my presence of mind in the face of bullying. I was a child when I swore off magick. Do you remember that story about the Monkey's Paw? That did it for me.  I come from a long line of  relatives who engaged in sorcery and superstition. I wanted no part of it. Then the universe had to put my feet to the fire. My Step-father was kind of a bully.  He was also fairly stupid.  He drank and he liked to play with guns. Fortunately, when he was lucid, he taught me about gun safety.  This helped on those occasions when I had to walk the weapon to the authorities. Man, his pistol was a pretty little thing.  It was a silver Smith and Wesson six shooter with a pearlescent handle. It was beautiful.  I loved the smell of the gun grease. The last time I saw it was 1980 when I walked it to the fire department a

Today I am thankful for a spark of insight that I received from reading a local news story.  We have a paper here in town that... well.... let's just say.... the entire publication brown noses the local government. I always figured that they had to push every tax hike..... rally behind every measure introduced.... and love those in power..... because those are the only people who actually advertise in the darn paper. Most of the ads are from the local government.  During election season, most of the ads are from candidates. I even tried to advertise in the paper but found they were too expensive for the small amount of exposure I would get. There is a better free paper in the area. ***** I try to take the liberal bull in stride.  It's business. I understand....you don't want to alienate someone helping to pay the bills. ***** Today, I read a story by one of the most creative reporters. He likes to wear a mask.... I think of that as his s

Today I am thankful that I have a place to document the weirdness. Well.... Someone was in my house on Wednesday afternoon.  My eldest daughter heard footsteps.  She barricaded herself into her bedroom with the cat and waited a few hours for the footsteps to stop She went downstairs and didn't see anything. Nothing was taken. A couple of boxes of football cards are gone -but- I did let a neighbor take things out of my garage.  Perhaps I didn't notice that he wanted the sports cards. This has gone on for years.  I thought changing the locks and garage door codes would solve the problem. I don't know what to do. We don't call the police any more.  In the past, the police would tell me that my ex just wanted to mess with my head and that if I divorced him it would stop. I divorced him. It was written into the separation agreement that he could have access to the house to see the kids after school when I worked.  That idiocy was the brainchild of the m