: I need some lucky shoes :

We all do, I suppose. These are unusually trying times; missteps and hostility abound and I’m beyond worried.

Originally, I’d planned for this post to be about winter and the danger its slick, icy conditions present to stumblebums such as myself. I just can’t afford another broken leg (hip, if you want to be a stickler). Heck, I still have a limp from last winter’s crash. 

So, yes, I’d love to lay my hands on a pair of lucky shoes. The slip resistant kind. The kind with tread like a death grip in all possible conditions. I don’t think such shoes exist, to be honest. I have some Doc Martens, they’re as close as I’ve come, but they skid and slide plenty. I have some Merrell hiking boots, too, but they’re too small with socks of any kind. Who goes out in wintertime with no socks on their feet? I don’t. I won’t. I’d rather walk barefoot across hot coals.

My newly minted  plan for the approaching winter is to avoid pavement — at all costs — from now until next May. I’ll stick to the frozen, snow-covered, yellowed grass. And if that proves impossible — parking lots, for instance, are treacherously short of grass — I’ll stubbornly refuse to go there.

It’s going to be a protracted, very anxious winter, I’m afraid.

When I sat down to pound this out, though, I realized we’re all in pretty desperate need of some luck. Things are spinning wildly out of hand. Lazy, underachieving knuckledraggers don’t want the world to keep progressing. They want to drag everyone back to the Stone Age, a time when all you needed to get ahead was a great, big club and an itty bitty brain. Although they’ve traded the big club for a semi-automatic rifle.

Meanwhile, Sideshow Don and his GOPolitburo, carry on with their gerrymandering and redistricting to disenfranchise all but the most misanthropic, ill-informed voters. You know, the chumps who believe absolutely anything as long as it involves lizard people and secret cabals and tunnels and bamboo and the late, but future, Vice President JFK, Jr.

Their utter stoopidity, while entertaining, is stressful.

Last week, I went to give blood at the Red Cross. They wouldn’t let me. Know why? When they took my blood pressure, it was 220 over 100 something. I froze their computer. They were alarmed. But I wasn’t. I’ve been in a full body clench since February. Every muscle in my body is tensed, I’m in fight or flight mode 24 / 7. It takes a toll.

I’m not in fear for my life. I’m in fear for my country. And the planet. And the future. I don’t own a gun, but I’m seriously thinking about buying a helmet. Because I won’t surrender without a fight. I sincerely hope you won’t, either.

~ Good luck to us all. Every one. ~

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