Still Quitting

About six months ago this time, I announced here that I was giving up on just about everything - my goals for the future (some of which were for a part of my life now in the past), numerous activities, and just about everything else.  Here's an update: I'm still giving up.

My social life still isn't what it should be.  Despite a day trip to the Jersey Shore with my friend Clarisel to take pictures, I haven't been able to follow up on that with other social experiences.  I had hoped to see a woman I'm friends with through social media sometime this fall, but right now it looks like I won't have the time, meaning I'll have to put it off for at least six months. And even in the spring, I may not get to see her.

I'm still disengaged from politics.  I'm aware of what's going on, but being aware of something should never be confused with the ability to do anything about it, and since there's nothing I can do about the country becoming the sort of place no sane person would want to live in, I'm pretty much on the sidelines watching its downfall happen in real time.  (The Beto O'Rourke gubernatorial campaign in Texas started sending me e-mails, and I unsubscribed from them. When asked why I was unsubscribing, I replied by explaining that I don't live in Texas and Beto's not going to win.)  I would advise anyone planning a big celebration for a quarter millennium of American independence in 2026 to just call it off.  What is there to celebrate?

Annual activities? Like auto shows and Beatles conventions?  Those fashion-business reunion parties I go to by virtue of documenting models on my beautiful-women picture blog?  Well, those annual parties are probably done due to COVID, the plague that will not end, and COVID is keeping me away from anything else.  Actually, I stopped going to Beatles conventions after 2016 because they cost too much, and COVID wasn't the only reason I gave up on auto shows.  The other reasons were that some auto marques aren't taking part in New York's annual show and those that do offer up pathetic displays, which I noticed on YouTube.   I did plan resuming to go to an outdoor annual classic-car show devoted to cars with air-cooled engines - mostly Volkswagens, of course - held every third Sunday of September.  Unfortunately, I learned too late that the organizers no longer sell tickets at the gate and that I had to buy one in advance; by the time I tire to, they were all sold out.  I went to a smaller car show elsewhere, but it wasn't quite the same.  For one thing, there was only one Volkswagen. 

Ahh, who cares?  Everyone laughed at John Mellencamp when he sang about how life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone, because he made it sound like there's no thrill to life even when you're healthy enough to enjoy it.  The pandemic showed just how life can go on without the thrill of living, so that stupid song lyric now sounds like genius.  But then maybe a thrill that goes away someday comes back.  Maybe when the pandemic finally eases, when we get a handle on climate change, and when Trump and his ilk are finally washed-up has-beens, life will get better and I'll have reason not to give up on anything.  But in the meantime, I'm lying lower than a snake's belly.  

See you 'round the clubs.