As we anticipate with baited breath what now appears to be an inevitable long-awaited indictment of the treasonous former guy this week for espionage (one still has hope that this isn’t mere media hype), and as we wait for said media to not be so teeth-grinding annoying (no, I am really not interested in any of the astoundingly stupid, racist, misogynist statements by unmitigated morons running for president as repugnant Republicans), I continue to avoid drafting past chapter five in my next Other Worldly novel, Aliens Watch.
However, I still do smatterings of “research” for various themes for book seven (yikes, maybe I’m experiencing burnout?), which has led me down what I now refer to as a rabbit hole on Facebook.
Specifically, there is this thing that crops up in my FB feed called “People You May Know” and I admit falling into it repeatedly as time seems to slip by and I’m lost in a pit of nostalgia—or having some not so nice flashbacks to times or people I’d prefer to never have experienced or known.
Numerous FB profiles are “suggested” for following that include friends or relatives of folks I am already friends with on this social media site, and some have familiar last names and are clearly the next generation(s) of people I once knew in junior high or high school (do I feel old, or what?).
For some names and faces, it is nice to see them smiling and having seemingly happy lives. I even recognized the distinctive name of a fifth-grade heartthrob who I don’t remember being in school with for more than that year. Kind of amazing…he’s also still handsome.
For others, let’s just say there are some dudes in suits and ties with families (including daughters) who weren’t so very respectful of females back in the day, and it gives me the creeps just to see their smirks.
One can only guess what their politics are, or one can pretty much presume, which leads me to a topic for my next book.
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, likely has family or friends that they are no longer communicating with on Facebook or otherwise due to the pernicious rabbit hole of MAGA mania. They drank the Kool-Aid and fell down a rabid racist pit. Wherein, they continue to spread foul fables instead of recognizing that they are now the most duped, willfully ignorant human beings on the face of the planet.
I actually already addressed this depressing issue regarding a few former high school friends in Alien Sensation, published last year. Because it’s all-too easy to translate racist rhetoric into anti-alien vitriol in the pages of my novels.
What I plan for Aliens Watch is to delve into the behavior of a few others from my adult past, including my life as a member of the Marine Corps family for nearly fifteen years. There are some very good friends from back in the day that I have now had to irrevocably shut out of my life—on Facebook and everywhere else—and I have no doubt there are many who can relate to this unfortunate situation.
This may be why I am procrastinating on writing about it, because it won’t be easy, but I’m hoping it can be cathartic.
For now, I feel lucky that there’s a somewhat cool morning breeze for me to walk my Bodie dog due to unusually moderate temps in the Vegas Valley so far, and I’m lucky to still have many friends and relatives who haven’t fallen into the vile rabbit hole of white supremacist or supposedly religion-based fascist psychosis.
Now, if we could start holding some of these violent traitors accountable in real life…