January 7th.

I slept late today after spending yesterday at church and then driving Uber until late at night. I was pretty spent. That’s perhaps the problem with Uber. It takes me a day to recover. It felt good to sleep late, drink coffee and then go for a long walk. A long walk on the muddy golf course. It’s been a rainy winter. All my shoes are filthy and caked with mud. I haven’t been running lately, though I love to run, because my feet have been giving me more problems than normal. Tendonitis and just general pain. But I have been walking. I listened to a Rachel Maddow podcast about Spiro Agnew. Something about the 70s history and 70s culture in general that scratches an itch in my unconscious (unconsciousness? I don’t know which is correct.) I love 70s muscle cars, 70s cop shows, 70s movies, books, news reports. So I’m a sucker for Watergate-era documentaries and stories. The BBC did a great Watergate documentary that is (or was) on youtube. I think I like the 70s era because it was the twilight of my consciousness and of course there’s some nostalgia there and the 70s stuff helps me return and remember that era, which was a good era. I was happy then; I lacked nothing. Of course I like it.

Tonight I ate dinner with my parents and watched some football with my dad. He loves football. Whichever gene it is that makes people like football was not passed to me. So I rarely watch football, but tonight I did. I watched the pregame show with some troops marching and a bomber flying overhead and a giant flag unfurled and a guy I hadn’t heard of singing the anthem, with extra cloying melisma. I still love the USA and will probably always be someone who stands for the anthem with my hand over my heart. I remember being 4 years old in 1976 and turning to the flag and pledging allegiance with Gerald Ford looking on approvingly from a portrait on the wall. It was what I was taught should be done and it’s what I still do. I guess there is a quasi-religious element in there which should make me uncomfortable. I mean, an allegiance to a flag? Hm.

At the same time that I am patriotic I am skeptical of the reflexive and over-weening patriotism I see in certain quarters. I’m over it. The stupid kneeling debate. The ubiquitous flag-pin on the lapels of politicians. I swear I’ll vote for the re-animated corpse of Karl Marx himself if he promises not to wear a flag pin. That’s something I’d be afraid to say on FB because some of my conservative friends and/or fans would take it the wrong way, *or* it would start a stupid argument in the comments section. Man I do not miss moderating arguments in the facebook section of Facebook. That sounds like Hell. Oh also the US is the world’s largest arms dealer by a large margin. That ought to make every American a tiny bit uncomfortable. Or, a lot uncomfortable. Every anthem-singing is invariably accompanied by some military display. I’ll still stand for the anthem, but I will never second-guess the choice of anyone not to.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my parents. I wonder if perhaps this is unnatural or something I should resist. I do resist a little. but Meh. I don’t care. I like them, they like me and I am blessed to have them. And I won’t have them forever. I won’t be here forever either for that matter. For now I am here and I want to hang out with my family.

I needed a break. I needed a break from not being around family so now I am quite around family, and that is A OK. Nothing wrong with that.

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