So Tired of Political Crap!

One of the many downsides of having my lungs all dorked up is that I am not getting anything near my normal amounts of sleep and exercise. I can't even hold a conversation for more than 30 seconds before the coughing spasms pretty much end it.

This has left me much more short-tempered and intolerant than usual. As a result, I have become really frickin' tired of all the political bullcrap spewing out of the television and the internet. I can't seem to escape it. If I read the newspaper, easily 70% of the articles are related to some form of domestic political conflict. My Spousal Unit is fascinated by several of the programs on one particular political TV channel, so there's an hour or two of strident ranting injected into every evening. (Throw in that angry asshole Judge Judy, another program SU is fond of, and my brain is ready to explode!) The local and national TV news is of course saturated with bits about sequestration, cabinet nominations, fillibusters, and the (mostly) overweight white people showing up everywhere with handguns and assault rifles, demonstrating against any perceived infringement of their "rights" to prepare for armed insurrection against the federal government.

This glut of politically-themed fighting on the TV has led me to retreat from the living room for hours at a time. Now if it was summertime, and I wasn't coughing like a lawnmower filled with five year old gasoline, I would likely head for the pastoral pleasures of a golf course or driving range. Baseball season is on the horizon, (Pitchers and Catchers have reported to Spring Training!!!), so I'll have the relaxing refuge of listening to a ballgame on the radio very, very soon.  But it occurred to me that I have   another opportunity arising from my aversion to the tsunami of politics and stupidity, combined with the physical infirmity; I can spend those cloistered hours working on my novel!

Yep, even though sleep deprivation will reduce the overall quality of what I write, at least I'll have something to edit once I am again "Fully Functional". Shouldn't be much different from cranking out all those term papers in college at the eleventh hour, typing away (when we relied upon actual typewriters, and the clacking sound helped keep us awake.) and producing pages of brilliant critical thinking, which often turned out to be less than brilliant when viewed in the cold light of professorial scrutiny.

Looks like a short-term solution is at hand. Let's get to work!

It's BASEBALL Season!

A friend of mine wisely says, "The only thing Seattle Mariners fans are entitled to is disappointment." While he has been (unfortunately) proven correct every year since 1977, such realism doesn't dampen my April Enthusiasm for the M's prospects each season.  This year is no different. While the Mariners and Oakland Athletics officially started the Major League Baseball 2012 season in Japan, last night was their first regular season game back in the USA...and the Mariners kicked Oakland's buttocks...well, a little bit, anyway.
I  do KNOW that this was only one game out of 160, but after watching the M's getting timely hits, and even better, scoring a bunch of runs...well, a fan can dream, right? And the dream can stay alive until tonight's game, which gives me 9 more hours of happiness.
Now if only Freddie Couples can win the Masters tomorrow...