I’m suffering from a form of writer’s block today. That’s pretty unusual for me. I can always think of something to write even when it’s not very good. I’ve been struggling all day, trying to distract myself. I even went up to my old tool barn and just sat there looking for inspiration. For a reason I’ll never understand, that’s one of my favorite places on earth.

It did come to me it’s hard to force any kind of creative process when you’re upset, and I am upset, I think I’m actually more disappointed and sad. I seem to spend my days now watching things I used to believe in crumble and questioning why I ever believed in much of it in the first place.

I’m disappointed in the level of dysfunction in the United States government. I think the people we elect to Congress ought to be able to figure out how to fund the government, or if it’s broken beyond repair admit it. I don’t think that would really be shocking to many. All I see are theatrics and partisan nonsense. I’ve never understood the spending caps anyway. They always raise it. To me it’s just a dog and pony show, while we slide deeper into the abyss of uncontrolled spending. I’ll always wonder why the US needs a trillion-dollar military budget, and why it subsidizes wealthy corporations, but we are told the single mom with three kids getting some food stamps is driving us to ruin.

I’m disappointed that we mistake entertainment as news. The daily onslaught of nonsense is staggering, but we suffer a drought of useful and factual information.

I’m deeply disappointed that my grandkids must accept school shootings as the norm. For Christ’s sake, how screwed up is it that the best we can do is accept this madness and make sure our kids know what to do when there’s an active shooter in their school. Kids should not even know what an active shooter is. We normalize and rationalize this madness like it’s as much a part of the school day as lunch and recess.

The subject also came up this week that I need to speak to the nine-year old grandboy about drugs. I guess it’s a natural assumption, what with my storied past, that I’m the guy for that job. I hear they are giving away these test strips to check for fentanyl. When I first heard about this, I thought it was a really stupid idea. I don’t know a lot of junkies that would be worried about the content or quality of their dope as long as they got off. What I learned is kids are using these strips to test their bags of weed for this killer drug before they smoke it. Again, how did it get this broken? I used to worry about having enough Doritos and Cheese Doodles to eat when I smoked, not dying instantly from a deadly chemical it was laced with. Once during the Nixon/Rockefeller years a lot of Mexican weed was being intentionally tainted with Paraguat. That was making kids sick, not killing us. It’s terrifying now. I’m scared for all my kid’s children. Experimentation is part of growing up. Now it seems one hit off a joint may actually kill you.

I’ve got a car to troubleshoot and fix this weekend. I’m looking forward to that. I know a lot of people think I’m odd because I really like working on cars. It’s not odd, it’s having one thing in my life that’s tangible. It’s something I can take apart and put back together and it’s fixed. When I wipe the grease off my hands and put my tools away, what didn’t work properly now does. I need that. I need to know some things can be fixed.

Maybe you can’t be creative when you’re just so goddamn sad and disappointed.