Aaron M. Fortkamp

We live in Savannah now. It’s sunk in. We have a fireplace and the nights have been cold enough to use it. We have used Uber and met Uber drivers. We have karaoked. We have gone to the beach. I have visited my wife’s work. We’ve installed shelves and more shelves. Things are slowly moving themselves off the floor. My computer is up. Wifi is up. Television and surround sound is up. Dog feels enough at home to bark at whatever. Cats feel enough at home to remember when it’s feeding time. Everything is still in flux, but we’re here now.

I don’t have a job yet but so far financially we’re doing okay. So that’s not stressful yet. Gretchen and I are getting on great, improving our communication daily which is the main source of whatever marital conflicts we may have.

And yet.

Thing is… well, it’s like this Trump budget which just came out. On the surface, with the big military spending increases he wants to do, should be good news for those in my particular situation, but there are also reports that the Coast Guard budget is actually getting cut. So even the silver lining is more aluminum foil.

More weighing on my mind are things like the NEA being cut, out of pettiness, a big fuck you from someone in power who doesn’t get art. People throw around memes like this is what the Nazis did because art is where resistance is bred, but you cannot convince me this douche is capable of anything so calculated. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t see value in it, knows only that people who hate him like it. So it’s cut.

But you can’t stop art. Prisoners graffiti on walls. When people didn’t have a written language they fucking memorized stories. Epic poems. Bibles. So I’m not so much worried about art as I am waiting for the next shoe to drop. There hasn’t been a police shooting to dominate the headlines since the inauguration, because white supremacist cops aren’t so threatened and black citizens are even more leery, a combination bound to reduce conflict. Or maybe, bound to reduce coverage. Maybe I just haven’t heard of the most recent one. I have been dodging the news more, lately. It’s a four-year trek. I still bet on impeachment, but I have to prepare for the possibility of four years of this, and I swear to god if the democrats send up a Romney-esque softball against him in 2020 I will make it my life’s mission to burn the whole political system to the ground.

So hard to be happy, even when I’ve personally got so much going for me right now.

This feels good. Feels good to type. I signed up for a library card last week and I had to type in a digital application because that’s how they do it now, so I was using an old non-Apple, like, Dell-type PC keyboard which felt like playing an organ from the 1800s, almost musical in the play of the keys. The travel of them, felt like a full inch up and down. Brilliant.

Things to remember: this is just part of the cycle, and we must endure it. Comfort breeds ignorance. Yes the working class has it hard but only comparatively. Most drug addicts in this country have apartments. Shitty apartments, sure, but ask Aleppo how concerned they are with illegal aliens from a neighboring nation taking their jobs. It’s a farce. And most of it is not necessarily final. The environment will take a hit, sure. But we already weren’t doing enough to protect what we have. Four years, in the grand scheme of things, hopefully won’t prove insurmountable. The financial system will again bubble and burst because billionaires, but 2008 happened and we got through that and it wasn’t even great enough to be called the Great Recession. Racism, which will never die completely because of human nature, is experiencing a sort of Hitlerian renaissance, but on the bright side this may wind up distilling the waters a bit, all the coded racism we’ve become used to and don’t see anymore may rise like butter in a churn, and when this phase of the cycle abates perhaps it will be easier to slough it off.

Wait, how do butter churns work?

Not important. But the same thing goes for sexism. People saying feminist like it’s a bad word again, like it’s the early 70s, causing friends in my own personal circle to write things like “womxn” which I’m sorry I just can’t get behind. Origins of that particular word (women) may offend those with a particularly linguistic bent, but come on. It’s not even a vowel. Most English speakers don’t even realize there’s a masculine noun involved in the etymology until you point it out, probably while high, the pronunciation itself has long since evolved to signify a clear distinction between the genders. Let’s not lose our heads. Focus on what matters, please.

What does matter.

Another big name football player has just announced he’s got ALS. Perhaps the biggest name so far. Gleason has been an inspiration but his playing career would’ve been quickly forgotten outside New Orleans. Dwight Clark’s highlight catch is still called The Catch, a staple on NFL highlight films, like all other catches have to be defined by this one. And he’s pulling no punches, he’s not afraid to say playing football probably had something to do with his development of the disease. Which is good. What hurts to see is, well, this: 

Convinced we can beat this? I’m sorry, friend, but that’s not how this works. I don’t care if you took out the Cowboys solo in twelve straight Super Bowls in nothing but a jock strap, I don’t care how much you believe your own hype, I don’t care if you’ve coined a common verb as your own, there is no “beating this.” I watched Superman get taken down by this kryptonite, okay? and I’ve watched up close a greater love than anyone named Kelly could provide, and I’ve seen a support system conjured up from near thin air that should get to coin its own noun, how bout The Unwavering, and look I have nothing but sympathy for you but I can’t give you my empathy because I’ve got none left. You’re fucked. I’m sorry but you are. 

Hey look, over there, it’s a dirty Mexican taking our jobs, I’m not crying, it’s dirt in my eyes, just dirt is all, from the Mexican, let’s build that wall already.