The Life in My Years

What’s happened to The Life in My Years? It used to be a semi-biographical blog about travel, nostalgia, and history. There were posts about San Francisco as it was back before the techies and short sighted politicians ruined it; you know Summer of Love, the good old days. It used to include posts dedicated to photography; flowers, food, people, places, architecture and landscape. There was even a post with a guacamole recipe. Politics was just a sideshow.

Now it’s straight up politics. What happened to The Life in My Years?

Donald Trump happened – again. And with a vengeance – literally with a vengeance. The Donald Trump Administration and all of the ramifications; the fallout, the cruelty and that fact that we are witnessing and living through the disintegration of America’s democracy and the repudiation of everything good that America ever stood for. This is what’s become of The Life in My Years.

This is the new and present life.

I get up in the morning, usually around five, and then I ask myself if I want to watch the news, or Morning Joe, or Sports Center. If I opt for the latter I know that I’m just forestalling the anxiety – and sometimes that’s the best choice. The two former options mean that I’m probably going to start off the day on the wrong foot.

Do I listen to a podcast during my walk with the dog or do I just go with the sound of the bayfront?

There are days when I vow not to watch news or even get news second hand. My wife Cora is a news junkie and sometimes the conversation goes like this:
Cora: “That Trump, he’s just an evil person. Did you hear …”
Me: “Nope, I don’t wanna hear it.”
Cora: “But … “
Me: “No, no and no. Not today.”

I’m on and off of Facebook.

Let’s face it Facebook – you’re a time suck, usually a useless time suck, and what’s more your CEO is a smarmy little creep. And yet I allow you to suck me in.

“Oh, I’m just going to take a quick peek.”

But there is no quick peek.

Invariably I see something that grabs my attention, and these days it could very well be something upsetting. Maybe it’s about Elon, or it’s a Congressman whose brown nosing Trump in some manner, or it’s another cruelty born of the administration, or it’s just a comment in a thread from a random MAGA addled fool that catches my eye and is so infuriating that I have to engage and then…

I’m in. Too late I’ve committed the social media equivalent of tugging on the random loose thread on a knit sweater. Yeah, I’m in; in an endless thread and I want to tap out but I really can’t because if I do it’ll look like I’m giving in.

And then there’s the depressing revelation that most of what I see on Facebook is blissfully ignorant disengagement.

I have to admit that the days away from Facebook are revitalizing and I often wonder why I keep hanging on.

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As of this writing I’ve been on a week-long Facebook hiatus. Before I left, I jettisoned my cousin in Wyoming from my friends list. It’s been a long time coming – too long. She’s MAGA to the bone. I would say MAGA right down to her soul but one can’t be MAGA and possess a soul. And I recently told her as much in a comment; “you are soulless,” I wrote.

For months she stayed silent in the face of my political posts. And then I guess I struck a nerve. She invited me to leave the country – first to Canada, and then Ukraine. And then she started to troll me on Messenger, sending me pictures of Trump and another picture of a soaring eagle with a caption praising Musk. She claims that it’s her patriotic duty to counter all of my political posts.

I had to explain to her the basic rules of engagement:
Me: “I don’t infringe on your privacy by trolling you on Messenger. I would appreciate the same courtesy. You want to express your opinion, do it as a comment or on your Facebook page. That’s basic social media protocol.”

Cousin: “I don’t know enough about it to know how I see your posts. I’m old school. I don’t go looking for them, they just show up. And I’ve decided to counter everyone I see. It’s my patriotic duty.”

Me: “Okay well your patriotic duty on Messenger is only seen by me. So I don’t know what your point is.”

I was advised by my wife and by friends to simply block my cousin. Why deal with the aggravation? After one of my cousin’s comments, one of my friends remarked, “For me that’s a hard unfriend.”

And then a week ago I sucked it up, clicked unfriend and went on a hiatus. Another relationship sacrificed on the alter of Trump. I imagine she thinks that she’s cowed me into silence. Probably doesn’t know that I’ve unfriended her.

The only way I want to hear from her again is after the roof caves in or the bottom falls out, choose your metaphor, and she says she was wrong. And even then I likely won’t want to hear from her or any other MAGA. Once the country has been reduced to ruins, the apologies and mea culpas will be too late. They helped construct the monster.

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I think my Facebook friends list has been successfully scrubbed clean of MAGA. For the longest time, I tried to be understanding. Tried to believe there were Trump voters who had some personal justification for their choice. In my mind, I tried to offer some redemption.

Those days are gone. They’re toxic. Guilty by association. There is nothing about them that is redeemable. It has gone beyond politics to just basic decency and there is almost literally nothing that is decent, compassionate, empathetic, loving, caring, just, or reasonable about Donald Trump and his administration.

Either you’re with decency or you’re against it. There is no middle ground.

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I was counting on getting Italian citizenship by virtue of my mother having been Italian. After checking with two attorneys, I learned that I don’t qualify. I can only get Italian citizenship through residency – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My wife will be checking on Spanish citizenship as a descendancy from her mother and at the same time she is verifying that her Filipino citizenship is still valid.

Yes, we’re planning our escape if necessary but any immediate action is off the table. Lexi is not negotiable. She doesn’t get left behind, she doesn’t ride in the belly of a plane and she doesn’t go through a lonely quarantine.

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So this, this is The Life of My Years now and for the foreseeable future.

It’s life in America’s nightmare; just getting by, trying not to get depressed, being ashamed of my country of 70 years, feeling sorrow for the people who will be victimized by the cruelty, agonizing over Ukraine and Gaza, wanting to scream my apologies to an unbelieving world, protesting, writing this hopelessly depressing blog because I feel the need to leave a personal record (until I get on Kash Patel’s enemies list), writing my congressman and senators and trying to wake them from their somnolence, trying to engage the chronically disengaged before events force their surprised engagement (“when did that happen?”), forcing myself to watch the news or listen to podcasts until they become too disheartening, and reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a road map to where America is careening .

And 10mgs of Melatonin nightly.

And then there’s whatever I can do to keep my balance and sanity; my dog, family gatherings, photo excursions, planning trips that may or may not happen, Art Pepper on the sax, Miles Davis on trumpet, or Kenny Burrell on guitar, Warriors basketball, thank God that baseball is coming back, the gym, a Don Winslow book, taking a stab at writing fiction, a Sunday in San Francisco, Chinatown, cappuccino and a pastry for breakfast at Victoria Pastry or pizza from Tony’s in San Francisco’s North Beach.

And still normalcy is always dogged by the nightmare of 47. Normalcy is a temporary illusion.

This is what’s become of The Life in My Years. It’s life under a looming, unyielding shadow of doubt and fear.