Contact Sports, Lesbians, and Streaming Services – Thoughts from February 11 to 25, 2024

February 11, 2024

This is a day when I wish I hadn’t decided not to swear in my Thoughts papers. Today is Super Bowl Sunday (insert puke noise here). As usual on this day each year, there were a huge amount of A-holes on the freeway. At work, they had nachos, donuts, and cookies. I ate none of it. Last night, we got cotton candy, and I brought that to Patti. I avoided anywhere with TVs so I didn’t have to see it. I’m sure I’ve mentioned my dislike of American football, but I will spell it out in the next few paragraphs.

My strong dislike of American football has grown over time. Alongside boxing, it stands out as a horrible inhumane sport. Like boxing, it was the brain damage from playing these sports that disgusted me the most. Misogyny, homophobia, racism, and other discriminatory practices were other reasons I was against it. When I listened to Dr. Bennet Omalu’s book about football players getting dementia, depression, and dying from CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), I had a whole new view of contact sports. For all the football players who made millions, there were many more whose lives were ruined by the sport.

A whole separate issue exists in all sports. When people watch sports, they become personally invested in them. They call them “their” team and state how “we” are doing. When I hear people I know talking like this, I tell them how ridiculous they sound. They are not part of the team nor could they ever be. Big and tall men watch football because it’s the only sport they could have played. When Patti watches baseball, I don’t like who she becomes. She yells at the screen in anger and elation. I’m usually in another room, but I hear her reactions. At least she doesn’t get as bad as people watching football.

February 14, 2024

Yes, you read the date correctly. It’s Valentine’s Day! I actually planned this year and got Patti presents and a card. The card is the easiest part because I just look for the cards with cats. Both of us worked today, so we had to give each other presents in passing. I’ve gone many years without being prepared for this day. It only took me 26 years, but I finally feel like a married adult.

February 25, 2024

I continue to have problems with my throat, and I recently got sick. It’s regular sick, not Covid sick. The snot that I cough up soothes my throat somewhat, but the constant coughing hurts it. My tonsil removal tools I got didn’t work, so I made a doctor appointment in March. It sounds and feels truly horrendous when I cough. In brighter news, I finally replaced the siding by our bathroom window that was letting in streams of water when it rained. I was getting up to four towels a day to catch the dripping. It was dripping on a ledge so there wasn’t enough room for a bucket to catch the water. I think the bucket would have disturbed me with the constant dripping. We’ll see when it rains again how well I did.

I was listening to a book by a writer who is a lesbian. She said something about the God she doesn’t believe in, and I wanted to declare her as my new favorite author. I started several books recently and was sideswiped by their religious beliefs. It strikes me as strange when any LGBTQ person is religious. Religions have not been kind to the LGBTQ community. Why would you want to believe any of the same things as people who openly hate you and want you to change who you are? You truly have to believe in a different supernatural being than they believe in. If you do that, don’t you have to question the original source of those beliefs? The people who invented their beliefs were homophonic, sexist, and hateful men thousands of years ago. I’m glad when someone in the LGBTQ community accepts that.

I’m thinking about giving up on watching all the streaming services that we have on our TV. There are some Patti watches and are, therefore, we must keep them, but many of them she doesn’t watch at all. This is partially to save money on the monthly subscriptions, but mainly to get myself to do more creating of media rather than just consuming it. The only time I have to myself to create is on my days off when Patti goes to bed. That’s about six or more hours that I could be creating something new with all the equipment I have to do such things. Hopefully, I actually do it.

I had a thought the other day about Democrats and Republicans. I’ve always thought that Republicans hide from reality because of their money. The other side of that and new thought was that Democrats hide from reality because of their lack of money. We separate ourselves from other people with money and ignoring them. Rich white people ignore poor people of color and vice versa. Each group becomes the other people to the other group. They can ignore one another because they never interact with the other group. Instead of seeing each other as fellow employees, we separate ourselves as if we work for different companies. The United States is the same company with people fighting for different goals. Conservative people have more power, but liberals have more people. The two parties keep each other from becoming better or worse.