Fourth of July Fireworks – Thoughts from July 3 and 5, 2022

July 3, 2022

Yesterday was my birthday, and I celebrated with sushi and gambling. It was the big five two. It was my last day of being off from work with COVID. I’m back to work today. I always worry that my ID won’t work when I’ve been off for a while, but it worked like normal. They actually counted on me not being here today, so I didn’t have much to do. We apparently got about 6 new people so I could introduce myself to some of them.

It’s interesting how less shy I am these days. I didn’t wait for someone to introduce me or for them to introduce themselves to me. I just told them, “You must be new. My name is Brian.” I like new people because they don’t have any baggage. If they have any baggage, I don’t know about it. When I find out people’s baggage, I have a hard time forgetting about it when I’m talking to them. There are certain subjects I just can’t talk about with some people. I’ve pushed those subjects as far as they can go in the past so there is nothing more we can talk about except to argue about them. Playing fair is not my style when it comes to people’s beliefs. I will only talk about known facts and don’t consider beliefs relevant in any conversation. I file beliefs in my head under useless topics of conversation. Instead of telling people I don’t care about their beliefs, I make a mental note not to talk about subjects they believe in. With some people, that leaves very little to talk about.

I over came my shyness only to find out it protected me from many uninteresting conversations. A boring conversation is sometimes worse than no conversation at all. Not being as shy has given me more control over conversations, though. I can now interject interesting subjects into other people’s boring presentation of facts. The best conversations are with shy people. Introverted people are still my people. Extroverted people are people who will probably piss me off in a conversation. I understand why extroverted people act the way they do now, but they still annoy me. I hope they will at least acknowledge how their behavior affects introverted people.

July 5, 2022

I was off yesterday, so it was my job to calm the cats down when the fireworks were going off. For the “littles” (as Patti likes to call Scout’s children), it was their first experience with them. Luna sat next to me most of the time and did fairly well. Beatrix and Willow were more freaked out. They just looked around, confused about what was happening. Scout didn’t seem too bothered by them. Quest (as usual) was completely freaked out. She was going between running around the house and hiding. At one point, Scout was staring at the space under our TV. I had to move stuff out of the way and use a flashlight to find Quest, but I knew she was under the TV because of Scout.

I don’t know when the Fourth of July became only about fireworks, but that’s what it is these days. Several years ago, we started seeing and hearing fireworks in neighborhoods that blasted into the sky. These are, of course, illegal and highly dangerous, but why should that stop people from celebrating all the worst parts of America in the worst way. Anyone who thinks America is something to celebrate is ignoring most of what modern America is. Most of the leaders are white men and/or Christians of one flavor or another. They are following more rules of being a good Christian than being a good person. The horrible leaders of England have become the horrible leaders of America. Theologians declared the seven deadly sins evil in the past. Today, you’d be hard pressed to find a Christian who doesn’t commit most of the sins every day. All the deadly sins are logical if you take out the religious parts. They are good rules to being a good person. Pride is not good. Being proud of America is only practiced by the worst behaved Americans. Setting off fireworks because of this undeserved pride is just something horrible people do on the 4^th.