I still check the news twenty time a day. When I finish a task at work, a breaking-point. After a run. When I wake up, when I go to bed. When I head off to the loo. Sometimes I go to the bathroom simply to read the news. No prying eyes, no one counting my obsessions. “You’re checking the news, again?”
How long will I keep it up? Nothing ever happens anymore. Well stuff happens, just nothing unpredictable. A Mars landing, bills kicking their way through congress, vaccine distribution ramping up. Harry and Meghan articles are back. Things have gotten boring, routine.
Exactly a month ago, I wrote There’s No Bottom. The Republican House representatives just absolved Marjorie Taylor Greene for her violent speech, her threatening behavior, her hurtful beliefs. No, they didn’t like it—some of them, anyway—but they didn’t do anything about it.
My final straw. I wigged. Do you know this term? I flipped my wig, I went nuts. This episode, further proof that America lost its way. They kept coming, these egregious examples, lower and lower. There’s no bottom. Except there is. Was. The mayhem of January sixth, clearly the climax, an explosion that blasted away the remnants of the Trump years. And the month after that? The death knell. A pathetic gathering many hours past midnight, drunks using a vodka cap to throw back shots, the only bottle of booze left in the house after the real party ended. That month was the hangover.
Years ago, I woke many mornings with scant memories about what happened the night before. Always, I was in that group drinking shots as the sun came up—a few pitiful souls without the good sense to go to bed. In my college dorm, guys waking up with the dawn, maybe to use the bathroom, maybe to start their day, would walk past my open door and shake their head. Me, trying to milk a few extra hours out of the weekend, refusing to face the fact that Saturday night was over. My bottom, at least for a that week.
I love the calm that’s descended on the country. The adults have returned from their vacation to clean up the mess, untrash the house, repair the furniture. It’s difficult to put myself back in the mindset of 2020, the disgust I felt every day, just like it’s hard to fully comprehend my destructive drinking years. Without alcohol in my life, I pop out of bed daily at five a.m. I live a straight and sober life. Predictable, maybe a bit dull, but I always know where to find my car.
The Other Stuff 
For someone who has been in the middle of drama their entire life (some my own doing, other I could not control), boring feels so much better. I’ll take it any day.
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Maybe it’s just an age thing, but I really like knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow. Better to make accurate plans than constantly getting derailed by “surprises.”
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Predictable and dull is something I look forward to. It’s very rare in my life, and I don’t know why. 🤷🏼♀️ Even our animal are a little cracked, and tend to get up to shenanigans.
Ah well… it gives me something to write about😉
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We have to be the dullest family I know. Everyone is introverted with good sense (now). Younger me would have been disdainful.
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Love the self deprecating humour and honesty in this piece
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Self deprecation is the only response that works for years wasted drunk. Thank you for your comment.
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The news really is so boring anymore. I too feel like I am spending way too much time looking at it because there isn’t really anything to see. Don’t get me wrong, I like the boring news. I am realizing I just need to find something else to do.
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I’m a little bit obsessed with the COVID package. I REALLY want that stimulus check. Once that’s done I don’t know what I’ll read.
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I’ve been feeling this way about the news a bit too. It’s been kind of nice though, because it’s made me more focused on local politics and news. We just had a mayoral election that’s going to a runoff, and I had the bandwidth to try (and fail at) phone banking. It’s simultaneously higher stakes and lower anxiety because local politics are one thing I can do something about.
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It’s hard to get excited about local politics here. In my mind it all comes down to who’s less right wing. Serious Trump country here. You should read the op Ed’s. Scary stuff.
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It’s somewhat that way here too, but our urban center is pushing left. TN state politics though – every bit as scary as it sounds like it is up there where you’re at.
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I never look at the news. I guess that’s equally bad. I get mine from you it seems, mostly. I love the way you wrote about the drinking bit! Anyone who’s every gotten drunk more than once can probably relate to that. I know I sure can. Good writing.
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Er, I might not be your most accurate and unbiased source of news. Thank you for the compliments. That’s really what it’s all about.
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Ha, yes I know. Also I shouldn’t have said I never check the news. That’s not at all accurate. It’s more I like I force myself check it briefly from time to time. And yes, all about the compliments! :))
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Relative dullness is such a relief after the insanity and anxiety of the previous four years.
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I agree. It’s probably short lived anyway. I’m sure something big is coming to shake up society some more. Costal flooding? You heard it here first. 🙂
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Boring news is one (or many) less adrenaline spike(s) in the day, I’ll absolutely take it.
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I know what you mean. But the lack of nonstop shock is hard to get used to.
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I have been living for the day when politics becomes boring again. I hope you are right – I hope we are there.
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