Chatty Cathy

While I was waiting in one of the hospital beds for my second cataract surgery, an older woman was escorted by me and deposited in the bed next to me.

"I have Crohn's disease, don't you know," she started. "My mother had it and now I have it. It makes me sick sometimes."

"Hmmmm," said the clearly uninterested nurse.

"Yes, it's true." Totally unable (or unwilling) to read the room, she continued on relating her complete family history. "Now my father never had it and my sister doesn't have it, isn't that funny?"

"Huh."

"But my sister has GERD. Do you know what that is? Well, it's when stomach acid comes back up. I don't have GERD but I have Crohn's disease. Did I tell you that? Yes, I was diagnosed with it back in..."

The nurse politely excused herself and ran for cover. However, the anestheologist soon became her second victim.

"I have Crohn's disease, don't you know? It was diagnosed back in the 90's and it causes me to--"

"Do you smoke?" The anestheologist was not nearly as patient as the nurse had been, abruptly cutting off the old woman's reciting of her medical history.

But she remained hellbent on being heard. "No, I've never smoked. It's kind of disgusting if you ask me. My dad, he smoked. And that's what got him in the end, the cancer. But I've never had any desire or interest to--"

"That's interesting," replied the anestheologist. "Excuse me."

She rushed off but my bed neighbor was not discouraged as she latched onto another poor passing unsuspecting nurse.

And the hell began all over again. "I have Crohn's disease, don't you know? And my mother had it but my--"

The nurses all had a hasty escape plan, but alas, I was bed-ridden and helpless. I wished fervently for the drugs to kick in and put me to sleep. This was far worse than the unseen guy who sits down on a toilet stall next to you and wants to chat about the baseball game last night. Far, far worse.

Mercifully, after another half hour or so of her incessant rattling, I was wheeled away to surgery. With a smile on my face. Probably a first time for that reaction.

Early the next morning, I had a post-op visit scheduled with the doctor. My wife and I sat in the waiting room. The door opens and it's Chatty Cathy again! She sits across from us. And a fresh new hell opened up all over again.

"Did you have surgery yesterday, too?" she launched.

"Yes, I did. I--"

"What color are your eyes? I can't see from here. Did you have surgery for distance or close up? I had surgery to fix my close vision. Can you see better? I think I can. I have Crohn's disease, don't you know? Yes, it's true. My mother had it before me but my sister never had it. Isn't that funny? But she has GERD, do you know what that is? It's when your--"

"Stuart?" I nearly kissed the nurse as I escaped the nefarious clutches of Chatty Cathy. 

God must've been particularly unhappy with me those two days.

Speaking of which, check out my book Godland. It's a midwestern nightmare. Farm noir. Suspense and horror collide. You've been duly warned!

Sleep Apnea-Nation

I put it off as long as I could, really I did. First, my sadistic dentist had proclaimed me as having sleep apnea after I took some lousy, at-home test. (I thought "how in the hell can my dentist accuse me of having sleep apnea when the lousy, dad-gum test kept me awake all night?") But she hollered, "J'accuse! You have zee sleep apnea!") 

She wanted to fit me for this two-piece device that would jut out my lower jaw, which sounded tantamount to torture. So I kinda said, "Uh, yeah, no thanks. If I couldn't sleep with the test, how in the world do you expect me to catch some z's feeling like a faulty, high-wired cyborg?"

Time went on. And my wife started telling me I've stopped breathing in my sleep at times.

To which I shunted it off again. Now, you gotta understand where I'm coming from. I always kinda thought "Poo poo, sleep apnea is one of those made-up things that the entire medical community is using as a go-too tool to sell CPAP machines."  Kinda like how I viewed "restless leg syndrome," which I attributed to anxiety or too many Red Bulls. So...I likewise thought if I could lose some weight, then that'll solve my so-called sleep apnea problem. Ta-daaaaaaaaaa and BOOM!

Plus I didn't want to end up with one of those damn machines strapped onto my face like an Alien face-hugger.

But my wife persisted. And after a couple of friends told me that they loved their CPAP machines and it helped them get great sleep, I began to break my iron will on the topic. (Okay, it's maybe more like a "tin will.") I gave in.

After over a month of not hearing from the CPAP people, I contacted my doctor who kicked their butts into gear and scheduled a meeting. At the CPAP meeting, there was another cranky guy (I think everyone who gets a CPAP is a high-ranking member of the Cranky Guy Club.) who had no interest in social niceties, but made sure he let us know that he was getting a CPAP under duress by his insurance, so he could eventually get some sorta surgery. Waaaaay beyond my paygrade to comprehend.

So the CPAP woman (we'll call her "Ms. CPAP") displayed a slew of mannequin heads with devious-looking devices strapped onto their Styrofoam faces. I went in thinking I could get away with just the simple little nostril clips, but when I tried it, it was like standing in the dead center of a hurricane with wind blasting me at full gale.

So Ms. CPAP brought out a "face-hugger." After a ton of adjustments and lessons and instructions and eye-rolls, I didn't really get the hang of it. I just wanted to get the hell outta there.

With CPAP in hand, we drove home. All day long, I was full of trepidation about the torturous night of insomnia that lay ahead. Once nighttime fell, I spent too long reading on the porcelain throne, postponing my inevitable destiny of doomed anti-sleep.

At long last, it was time. Filled with dread, I crawled into bed, strapped the monstrosity over my head and around my mouth and nose. And hit the "on" button...

I lay back and thought, "Hey, this isn't so bad! It's not like the massive wind tunnel I experienced this morning in training. Why...I could get used to this...I could....I....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

The next morning, refreshed and vibrant, I found out why it had been so easy. Apparently, I had never turned it on.

One month later, I'm still trying to get used to it. The humidity element feels like it's going to drown me at times. Once it quit working and I issue you a challenge--just try and get a human on the phone at CPAP headquarters (go on, try it, I dare you! I've got a Kenny G song forever seared into my brain as a result of being on hold for half a day.). And to my ears, every night I sound like an annoying, asthmatic Darth Vader on steroids.

But...everyone keeps telling me it's good for me. And everybody can't be wrong.  Right?  RIGHT???

While we're on the topic of making fateful decisions, check out my book Godland. We have an embittered farmer, a New York corporate raider, two teenage high school girls, and a failed small business owner. What do they have in common? I'm afraid you'll have to read to find out the shocks and twists as past and present collide, and secrets are revealed as these disparate people gather at a desolate Kansas farm for a hellish night not everyone will survive. Plus they've all made some bad decisions (see how I finally tied it into my post?) Visit lovely Godland here!

Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy

My wife and daughter claim that I'm prone to exaggeration. Me? I don't buy it. Not for one minute.

Take for example the dark, dark incident that henceforth shall be known as "The Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy." 

You know, memory can be a funny thing. It's strange how my daughter remembers the "incident" quite a bit differently than I do. I suppose it's her mind's way of protecting her from such vividly nightmarish occurrences.

And it's all true!!! As my mind is my witness.

There I was, visiting my daughter in her small lil' town when we decided to get sushi. However, her town's so small, I doubt the inhabitants have ever heard of sushi, let alone run a sushi joint.

So we had to travel about 35 minutes away to yet another small town (although this one big enough to have a very good sushi joint; we'd eaten there before) to satiate our sushi cravings.

The parking lot seemed uncustomarily full. Uh-oh #1. The waitress looked around the packed restaurant and said, "It'll be about an hour until a table opens up."

Hopes dropped. Hunger pangs rose. As did blood pressure.

Sensing our sushi hopelessness, the waitress suggested we could sit at the sushi bar. 

Now, I've sat a sushi bars before, but none as cramped and awkward as this one. It wasn't a bar, but a tiny ledge, barely enough room to put a plate on while people happily chowed down at tables right at our back. And we sat so low, I could look up into the sushi chef's nostrils, mere inches away. Trying to talk to my daughter played havoc with my neck, cricking every time I attempted to turn to speak with her. And we couldn't even hear each other over the raucous chowing and chatting and coughing (Uh-oh #2!). We'd found Sushi Hell. Or...it had found us.

But, being the good-natured, good sport that I am, we decided to make the best of our awful situation. 

Naturally, things crashed downhill after that. 25 minutes of waiting and we still hadn't seen a menu or waitress. I noticed a table in the corner opening up. So I raced back to the front desk and waited for the "friendly (or at least, that's how I perceived him at the time)" bus boy to come talk to me.

"We're sitting over at the sushi bar," I gestured to the claustrophobic corner, "and just wanted to know if we could move to that table." Mind you, I said this in my best manners, displaying magnanimous kindness in doing so given the circumstances.

The friendly-in-disguise-only boy glances at the table, and says, "Sure! Let me just go get it cleaned up!"

Things were looking up for us! Or so I thought. But the dark clouds just kept rolling in.

After another twenty minutes of watching our table not get cleaned up, a clearly bored waitress comes up and says, "You ready to order? Or WHAT?"

I said, "Thank you so much for your gracious offer, but we're waiting on that table over there. Have a nice day!" Under my breath (because good manners count, after all), I added, "And we still haven't seen a menu."

Unbothered by our suffering and grumbling stomachs, she walks off, slower than a one-legged turtle.

Then I hear the bell jingle above the door. Two women enter the restaurant. The friendly-posing boy races over (Oh...I see...he RACES toward them, but took his sweet time leaving me hanging at the front desk for minutes!) and chats with them, giving them excited nods. Then he looks at OUR table. He looks at us. The women look at their fingernails.

The boy--visibly getting more crazed in appearance by the second--rushes back to OUR table and finally cleans it. He looks our way, shooting daggers, then looks back toward the indifferent women with love in his eyes.

I stand up. Ready to race the women to OUR table if necessary. The sushi boy narrows his eyes at me. 

Ennio Morricone music plays over the speaker. The Sushi Kid looks back at the women, smiles. SMILES! Looks back in our direction and glowers.

I take one step toward our table. Then another. 

My daughter remains seated. Possibly worried that I'm about to get attacked.

She was right.

Finally, downright menacing sushi boy sprints toward me. Holding a long sushi knife!

He said, "I forgot about the reservation at that table."

Things got a bit blurry then until we got back to my daughter's car. Shock is a funny thing.

"Man," I said, shaking my head, "I can't BELIEVE how that guy attacked me! Did you see the knife in his hand?"

My daughter said, "You mean the super nice boy with the huge smile who apologized profusely?"

"What? That's not what happened at all! He was downright mean, arrogant, and one step away from gutting me!"

"You mean when he continued to apologize and you stormed out of the restaurant yelling, 'That's uncool! That's UNCOOL, MAN! THANKS A LOT! THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING!!!!'"

"Clearly, daughter, you're delusional. That's NOT what happened at all! He attacked me vocally first, then physically! And...and...he wasn't a boy at all. He was this HUGE, scary guy with two knives in his hands and murder-lust in his eyes!"

"Hmmm. I must've missed that when I was apologizing for your hissy-fit. Whatever, Dad."

Sigh. Maybe my daughter's defense mechanisms are making her even more delusional than I thought.

But hope springs eternal. No, we never did get sushi that day. But we're going to try and go there again in a couple weeks for my daughter's birthday. But just in case, the guy wants to go round two with me, I'm going to wear a baseball hat, a fake handlebar mustache and sideburns, and speak in a funny German accent.

While I've got delusional people on my mind, there's more than a few running around in my horror suspense thriller, Godland. But, hey, that's what makes it fun! (Hmmm. Maybe I should redefine my sense of "fun.")

 

Back in the Lap of Godland

You guys ever visit little Godland, Kansas? Well, don't! Trust me... It's a small, ironically Godforsaken little rural armpit of a town stashed away in Western Kansas populated by...well, I don't want to give it away.

Maybe in my excitement, I got ahead of myself here...

You see it's fine to read about Godland. Just don't visit there. In fact, I would urge you to read my book, Godland, and then you'll certainly want to stay away from the Hades hole.

Godland means a lot to me. It was the first out and out horror novel I'd written and was initially published in 2016. Alas, that publisher went under this year, but thanks to the great guys at Grinning Skull Press, they've resurrected my very first horror novel and given me a chance to spiff it up (and correct a LOT of troublesome timeline issues). Ta-dahhhhhhh!

The novel introduces a lot of themes that came to trouble my sleep and dominate my books: dysfunctional families, evil people (sometimes worse than the supernatural kind), lots and lots of plot twists and surprises, multiple characters' point-of-views, a so-dark-and-nasty-you-gotta-really-dig-deeper-in-the-grave gallows sense of humor, and (I hope) an impending sense of dread and mounting suspense. All of this set in my stomping grounds of the sometimes creepy, at times terrifying, more often than not pious red state of Kansas.

Call if farm noir.

Wait...here's the big tease:

An embittered farmer.
A New York corporate raider.
Two teenage high school girls.
A failed small business owner.

Past and present collide, secrets are revealed.
These disparate people gather at a desolate Kansas farm
for a hellish night not everyone will survive.
Godland is a dark psychological suspense horror thriller.

A Midwestern nightmare.
Farm noir.

There you have it. Oh! I almost forgot... Some of the incidents in this book are based on real events. One particularly nasty scene (I'm not telling which) sprang from something that happened to my dad. Another incident occurred to a friend of mine. I'll leave it to you guys to suss out the reality from the fiction.

And if you guys are really, really nice and buy the crap outta this book, I'll toss you a bonus and drop my original, dunder-headed, so bad it's hilarious, "happy" ending in a future post. Thank Godland, I came to my senses!

Okay, folks, that's Godland, published by the great Grinning Skull Press (best horror editor in the biz!) and available through the omnipotent, unavoidable, faceless leaders of the world, Amazon. Kindle version or spiffy trade paperback. Tell 'em "Edwin" sent you. Go on...do it. And then wait for funny hi-jinx to ensue.

 

Cat Terrorism

No one believes kids, especially parents. I still carry a grudge over the long-ago case of being falsely accused of...*gasp*...making faces at the neighbors' cat.

Years ago, when my brother and I were in early grade school, we were easily bored. Nothing to do. Zilch. Nada. There were three (on clear days, maybe four) TV channels. Not that it mattered. In our house, friggin' Lawrence Welk ruled the TV. Trying to force a kid to sit through that mind-numbing series of dance numbers, old people music, accordions, and toothpaste smiles would drive any kid out of the house, even me, a notorious reader and homebody.

So outdoors my brother and I ventured, searching for something--anything--to do. As it was during the aftermath of a rain storm, we thought it'd be mighty keen to catch falling raindrops from the tall trees in our mouths. Desperate measures for bored kids.

To this day, I still remember spinning around the driveway, eyes closed, mouths open to catch drops from neighbor Walter's hulking tree between our houses.

Now, Walter was a curious sort. My dad didn't particularly cotton to him as he considered him somewhat of a "sissy."

"Why is Walter a sissy, Dad?" I asked one day, because again I was super bored.

"Because he's a bachelor and has three cats," said my dad with a self-satisfied, prim set to his lips which he thought explained it all, but it didn't, not one bit.

Anyway, shortly after our innovative game of catching raindrops orally, we soon grew weary of that challenge and trundled back inside to be tortured by some sisters warbling like rabid birds on "The Lawrence Welk Show."

All was fine until the next day when the doorbell rang. I gave it no heed as I was upstairs busy setting up my menagerie of stuffed animals in an elaborate court martial trial because that's the kinda kid I was (my brother's teddy bear, Tweaky, was the accused and I had already made up my mind that he was guilty, guilty, GUILTY!).

"Boys! Get down here! Now!" 

My brother and I knew Dad's tone quite well, usually the precursor to the dreaded belt. But, honestly, for once I couldn't even imagine what I'd done. I'd been on decent behavior for at least 18 hours. I mean, c'mon!

Down the stairs we trundled, heads down in a walk of shame, tails between our legs.

"Boys, what do you have to say for yourselves?" Dad grimaced, his mad face pinched tighter than a vice. 

"Um, nothing...I guess..." I said.

"You know who that was?" Dad hitched a thumb behind him. "That was Walter! He said you were outside yesterday making horrible, just horrible, faces at his cat!"

"What?" I thought back, couldn't take the credit for this random act of cat terrorism. "Dad, we didn't make any faces at any cats! Really! I never even saw a cat--"

"Don't you lie to me! Walter said you were making horrible faces! Screwing up your mouths and rolling your eyes back into your head and trying to scare his cat!"

"Dad! We didn't even see the dumb cat! And I swear we weren't scaring any dumb ol' cat because--"

"Save it! Now you're really in trouble for lying, too!"

Well... After that, things get a little hazy. I'm sure tears were spilled over the incredible and tragic injustice done to our poor lil' fragile childish selves, forever making us distrust adults (and cats) again.

No matter how much we protested--and granted, we were no angels, but this time we were completely innocent (which made me change my mind about sending Tweaky to the firing squad once I resumed my mock trial upstairs)--Dad wouldn't believe us, his mind made up by Walter and his poor, mistreated cats. J'accuse!

And, really...even if we had been making faces at a cat (which we weren't!), so what? My brother and I still can't get over it.

Parents. Hmmph.

While on the topic of questionable parenting, have you met the father in my "farm noir" horror thriller, Godland? He's not gonna get father of the year, that's for dang sure! (Every time I think of the great traumatic "Cat Incident of 1968," I think how worse things could be such as in this novel.)

 

Adventures in the Amazon Day Two: Markets, Manatees and Misery

The prior night, our "Jungle Momma" told us to get lots of sleep because the next day would be jam-packed. I scoffed, nothing to it. Hey, I lived through a heart-pounding motokar city-wide trek!

Dumb. I'm soooo dumb. So very, very, very city-dumb.

I showed up in shorts. Jungle Momma chastised me, said "Nope. No. No way. You need two shirts, a long-sleeved shirt over a short-sleeved shirt. And long pants."

Grousing, dragging, I hauled myself upstairs and changed, wondering what the big deal was. I mean, it was a thousand degrees out and humid as Satan's sauna. Oh, what a naive, spoiled American I am!

First stop! The Belen market. The market is huge, supplying all of the food and goods for the entire city of Iquitos, population around 371,000 (plus ignorant tourists such as myself). 

But something didn't seem quite right. On the bus, there were two guards: one, a man strangely named "Clever" and a guy whose name I never caught. Clever warned us to watch our pockets, wallets, purses, and leave all but our necessities on the bus.

Hmm... Odd.

Ye gads, talk about overwhelming. More fish on display than an ocean could house, I wondered about the sanitation of it all. Clearly I needed to get over my Western way of thinking. Dogs and cats meandered about nonchalantly, inches away from food. Dead mice lay gutted at the foot of chicken corpses. Strange men mosied up, smiled, performed a kinda one-armed chicken dance. Ghastly things lay splayed out on merchant tables. Giant turtles were cut open with their eggs on display. Alligator heads and tails decorated tables.

 Thumb-sized larva and grubs ("Suri") wriggled about in baskets before being skewered and cooked. Like that annoying kid in eighth grade science class, I held one, showed it to the females until they "ewwwed." To get the full effect, I was willing to eat one until Jungle Momma shut me down.

Our guards stayed attached to us and I'm pretty dang glad they did. At the end of an hour-and-a-half, claustrophobia  set in. I couldn't move. An unwelcome realization dawned over me with the sledgehammer inevitability of a "duh" moment: "Hey, I think the locals might realize I'm a tourist." Not only am I the whitest guy in Kansas, but my Hawaiian shirt and camera were probably a giveaway.

Sweat began to percolate as we boarded the bus (air conditioning!). I thought I knew sweat. Turned out I hadn't even mounted the sweaty trail.

Up next was a visit to a medicinal herbal garden. (Our group was composed primarily of pharmacists, so it was kinda a big deal for them. Which made me arm candy, I suppose. Maybe more like an arm grub). But, I thought, "This will be a nice pleasant five minute stroll. We'll just drive up, park, get out, "ooh" and "ahh" over some plants, get back on the bus, and bask in air conditioning." Oh, naivete, your name is Stuart.

My wife grabs her purse, thrusts it at me to stuff into my backpack. (Embarrassing disclaimer: I've never worn a back-pack before. Back in my day {pay attention, whippersnappers!}, we carried our books.) Suddenly, Jungle Momma is tucking her pant legs into her socks. (The hell...?) Bug spray is lacquered on. Sun hats are strapped on. Shirt sleeves rolled down, buttoned, and double-checked. (Uh-oh...)

Just off the bus and already sweating, I follow the others' precautionary efforts. I don't really understand what all the fuss is for over a simple stroll through a garden. Right? RIGHT?

 That "simple stroll" turned into a three hour tour (worse than Gilligan's nightmares) through the jungle. And I'm wearing double shirts, long pants, and carrying my wife's forty pound purse (clearly she packed her bowling ball collection) in my backpack. Naturally, every intrepid explorer carries purses into the jungle.

On the left, my beautiful wife. I'm the guy wearing mustard so the anacondas can see me better.

We climbed up trails, slalomed down them, slipped through mud, dodged branches, the whole nine yards. I thought we'd never reach civilization again. I also thought a daily five miles of treadmill walking had prepared me for strenuous hiking. Such is the life of city sissies. Jumpin' Jehosophat, by the end of the tour--and with my "moobs"--I looked like I'd been hosed down for a wet t-shirt contest.

Tired travelers, weary pharmacists, and soaking wet big dumb guys in mustard.

Back on the bus, I sucked down a bottle of water and juice in seconds, dehydrated as a shrunken head. But relief was on the way as the next visit turned out to be a relatively low-key visit to a nature habitat dedicated to saving animals on the brink of extinction (due to hunting, eating, other "civilized" products) such as manatees, turtles (of which we saw the grotesque end result earlier), monkeys (monkey-head soup's big), and others. Great cause. Still, it's outside. And once I broke my sweat-seal, I never stopped draining. In fact, between the three men on the trip, we had a bit of a sweating competition. Hands down, I won, glad to know I'm good at something.

A tour of two museums followed. First up was the Museum of Indigenous Amazonian Cultures. Amazingly, there are still 200 tribes in the jungle who flat-out refuse to "civilize." The not so amazing reason is due to white man unleashing a lotta diseases and vile behavior on the indigenous in the past. Honestly, after seeing some of the lifestyles in Iquitos (and boorish American behavior), I kinda think the tribes made the right decision. 

Our final stop proved to be the most grueling one yet, the Boat Museum. While fascinating, the displays and tour took place on a boat. In closed, non-air-conditioned rooms. During the hottest part of the day. Give me the jungle heat any day. Now I know why they're called steamboats.

Finished! Back in the room, my shower was perhaps the finest I'd taken in my life, definitely in the pantheon of Top Three Showers ever.

On the next blog post, we travel down the Amazon River to...Monkey Island!

Speaking of traveling, you guys ever been to Kansas? No. What're you waiting for? Kansas is a nice, exotic, wonderful, getaway of a vacation for... Ah, who am I kidding? Kansas is downright frightening. But don't take my word for it. Here's a primer for you, a terrifying excursion into the twisted dark heart of the Midwest...Godland.

Plan your vacation now! Enjoy Godland!

Hippity hoppity, here comes Trumpity!

Honestly, the state of America right now's so depressing and ludicrous, the only way I'm able to handle it without a nervous breakdown is to envision our orange president as something benign, something friendly.

Behold the Easter Trumpy!

There.

You feel it?

That nice, calming mood... The mood the friendly Easter Bunny evokes when it drops off eggs (and for God's sake, why does the Easter Bunny do that anyway? Wait! There I go again, getting upset...calm...find my center...). But do kids really like eggs all that much, consider them yummy?

Speaking of dropping off things, Trump recently made the decision to drop some bombs on Syria. To tell you the truth, for once he may've made the right decision. The gassing needed some sort of retaliation, the Trumpster Bunny was caught between a rock and a hard place. Still...that fear of another impending war causes me anxiety!

Okay, I'm back. Relaxed. I'm swinging with that groovy Easter Bunny now, the most benevolent creature on the planet. Hell, I'm sweating unicorns of peace and farting haloes!

Then again, I'm gonna' wake outta my temporary tranquility and realize that no matter how many Easter eggs I color, it's not gonna tie a pretty bonnet upon the sad state of America.

Dang it!

Sorry. No more digressions...

The world's a lovely, pastel colored place. The Easter Bunny is a beautiful sentiment. Kinda' disturbing, though, if you get right down to it--I mean, what's the reason behind a giant, creepy bunny delivering chocolate? And who likes marshmallow eggs anyway? And the Bunny, like Santa Claus, breaks into people's houses! (Agh, I'm getting sideswiped again!).

Alright. Peaceful. Cool. Finding my core. (And what does that mean anyway? Only core I'm worried about right now is the nuclear core which is minutes away from going full-on inferno!)

Be good people. Tolerate others' opinions. It's what the Easter Bunny would want.

Happy Easter everyone!

Orange is the new Hate

Okay, okay, I'm sick of politics, too. Especially this new world order that makes no sense whatsoever.

Two weeks in, let's look at Trump's major accomplishments: low-income families can no longer afford to buy houses. The Trump immigration ban? Makes sound sense, right? What the United States is all about. Trump's ticked off China, numerous other countries. Shocker. But America's great again!  
No wonder 1984 is the best-selling novel now.

I'm absolutely terrified. Who's our new US president representing? And why are people buying into it?

Trump says he's giving America back to "the people." As long as "the people" are white, rich, male and orange, natch.

Here's what I don't get...white, rich, male, sexist, Eagles-listening, Fox News-watching, golfing people have ALWAYS been represented by the government. No matter the political denomination, Republicans or Democrats. The power's been in their hands, will continue to be. So why are white guys suddenly rising, like there's something to be angry about?

Orange is a new power group, but I thought the Oompa-Loompa Union had them covered.

Nothing's changing in the US regarding the power structure. Doesn't look like it will in the next four years.
 
Trump proclaims he wants to unite the country. Good luck, Orange One. Your hateful political campaign divided the country. (And, yes, Hillary had a hand in that as well).

We liberals aren't exempt from horrible behavior. I own up to that. Proponents on both sides have turned ugly, bitterly awful. I used to enjoy healthy political chats with friendly opponents. Not any longer. Not even with politically like-minded allies.

The so-called "leader of the free world" promotes hatred like a merit badge for scouts. Someone who's supposed to lead by example of exemplary behavior.

I feel like I'm following the biggest brat on the playground. One who likes molesting women and loves golden showers. 

Have you tried having a decent, intelligent, political chat these days?

Trump has unleashed a wave of hatred, anger and bigotry across the country, unrivaled since Hitler's reign. Now more than ever, people find it okay--even admirable--to bash people, verbally and physically.

Opinions that people have been harboring--festering away like cancer--are suddenly being unleashed with zeal. Thoughts that people knew were previously forbidden to share. But everything's changed. Our leader's made it clear it's okay to hate everyone different! Shout it from the rooftops, dammit! Our president does!

Couple days ago, I wrote this about my new book...

"Not Donald Trump's biography! But very close to it. From Riverdale Avenue Books, Demon with a Comb-Over (with a brand-spanking, sparkly new prequel) is out now! http://amzn.to/2iZz0OH"

Just trying to find an amusing hook.

A woman responded, "Get over it! You're irritating me! We had 8 years of your idiot and he didn't do crap! Shut your mouth and deal with the future!"

Oof! Cyber-slapped! I "irritated" her. I live in her world and I'm just lucky to be sharing it. Whoops, my bad. Meanwhile, she's out there poking the bear.

 Welcome to the new world order. It's like we're living in "Celebrity Apprentice," praying we don't get fired from life.

America's always been about freedom of speech and healthy political debate.
Let's get back to that.

Help stomp out orange.