Insurrection in the Capital
Well, I’m not even sure what to say, other than this day will live in infamy for some time. Trump supporters storming the Capitol building today, trying to stop the Electoral College vote for Biden. Shameless. I went to bed last night feeling slightly neutral about the Senate elections in Georgia, and woke up to see a big ATH spike in the bitcoin price around the time that the results came in for Warnock. Ossoff was favored as well. It was another busy day at work, markets were up, everything was pretty good around the house, and then MAGAts started swarming the Capitol. The afternoon and this evening were taken up. Even now, Missus is on the couch watching Senate remarks on PBS.
My Twitter feed has been a complete clusterfuck. Kinda hard to shitpost about crypto when the President is inciting violence in the street. We are in full-on Fourth Turning crisis mode now. There’s a part of me that thinks that this is too far, that Trump isn’t going to get away with it. Most of the establishment Republicans are condemning the violence, with the notable exception of Ted Cruz, so maybe all this talk about the 25th Amendment and impeachment might have some teeth. Early indications is that Pence has broken from the President, finally, so it doesn’t seem like Trump will be getting any pardons. We’ll see.
I’ve stayed off my normie feed today. I don’t feel the slightest urge to engage anyone right now. I’ve been holding back to urge to message my quaranteam dad down the street and ask him if he’s still a “Trump fan”, or to berate my dad and brother that “this is what we get cause you couldn’t have a woman president.” It’s too much. Missus said it feels like 911, so she’s going to be up all night watching the news and staying on social media.
Every day we ask why we’re working. Like seriously, what the fuck is going on? I haven’t spoken to my boss about bitcoin since before my vacation. I’m sure he’s seen the news. He must be thinking about my comments about retiring this year. I wonder if he’s realized that I’m not joking. We’ll see how tonight goes. I may not even bother working tomorrow. Maybe I’ll put in a half day and take Friday off. I just feel like striking. I feel pretty angry right now.
Last night, after I finished writing, I went back and looked at my posts from a year ago. One of them was about my 2020 goals. Looks like I’m three for eleven right now:
- Finished my degree. +1
- Did not get a raise. I suppose that staying home with the kids out of daycare was sort of like a raise. I cut expenses quite a bit with that, saying home and getting rid of the car, so it was almost like a raise. More money in my pocket anyways. Still, I think the goal was to assert myself, so -1 there.
- Find a new job. Failed the Sixty Days to Six Figures goal that I set for myself. Gave up looking after I convinced myself that I’m happy working for lower pay with more freedom.
- Freelance work. I’m neutral on this one. I did do some work here, but it all trailed off near the end of the year. WordPress management isn’t what I want to be doing anyways, so I don’t feel like this one is too bad. +0
- Younger still sleeps in the bed with us, she creeps in during the middle of the night. This year is the year. -1
- Elder the defiant: man she is willful. Being home during COVID has been good, overall. I feel like we have a better relationship. We’re not dealing with the stress of morning chores, and getting out of the house so I can get to work at the proscribed time. She, and her sister, still have their days, but we’re coping much better, and I’m not abusing them the way I was abused as a child, so that’s a plus. Actually going to give a +1 on this one.
- Meditate: +1. I’ll have to look up whether I did the 60 for 60 this year or not, but despite a lapse, I’ve been doing twenty minutes quite regularly this year. I’ve even been doing an extra evening session the last two days, since I’ve been writing at night.
- Exercise: -1. Not enough, not regularly. Need to do something about this since I’m no spring chicken.
- The drink: Let’s be honest, -1. I’m still drinking myself to an early grave. It’s a problem.
- Piano: +1. I managed to work through four or five Bach pieces, plus re-learned Fur Elise again. And I’m about three quarters through memorizing Claire De Lune. It’s been slow going getting through it, and I’ll probably need another year to play it comfortably, but this year I want to learn how to play Let It Go, just so the girls can play along. Elder has been doing really well learning as well; I’m not pushing her as hard, but she’s starting to push herself. I’m trying how to figure out how to get Younger going as well. That will be fun.
- Writing/blogging. +1. I didn’t write every day, but I just passed four hundred posts. My original goal was two hundred words, and I’m easily writing four times that, so I’m going to give myself that one. I wish I had a word count. I started and abandoned a substack, more from fear than procrastination — I’m trying to hype myself up to write. If I keep this up I’ll convince myself I have a book in me. One day.
So it looks like it’s a wash, as far as my planned goals were. Overall, I have to hand it to myself. We were extremely fortunate, and lucky. We not only survived 2020, but we flourished. Our family has grown tighter, and I cannot overstate the level of financial security that we’ve achieved. It’s really hard to overstate. I mean, we’re not multi-millionaires, (yet) but the amount of money that we were able to save coupled with the gains that I’ve been able to accumulate in the equity and crypto markets is life-changing.
It’s really hard to complain about anything. Even on a day like today.