Wow… it’s already Friday! This week really flew by, thanks to our trip to Cologne. It was our first time in the city in seven years. We were last there in 2012, when we took our very first Space A “hop” to Ramstein Air Force Base and decided we wanted to try to get a “blind booking” from what was then known as Germanwings (and is now Eurowings). During that trip, we stayed at the Ibis Hotel in the train station. This time, we stayed at the Excelsior Hotel Ernst, which is a really nice property.

Because of our trip, I haven’t had much time to write. It’s not such a bad thing, though. I think I’m just settling back into the routine I maintained before my friend Alexis visited my blog every day and left me comments. Alexis is busy with her medical training, so she doesn’t visit as often… ergo, I have less inspiration to write. Also, some of you know, a few months ago, there was some drama on my original blog. Actually, it was one of a few unwelcome dramas that erupted since we moved back to Germany.

In spite of what some people might think, I don’t like drama very much. I simply like to write what’s on my mind. Sometimes, what I write gets people upset; they send me nastygrams, and it causes angst that I’d rather not have to deal with. It’s never my intention to upset people when I write, even though I know it’s inevitable. I think it would be hard to be interesting if I didn’t sometimes get people upset. However, I would be lying if I wrote that I didn’t care about other people’s feelings, because I do care, and I mostly regret it when people have a negative reaction to my writing. It’s exhausting and stressful to deal with other people’s angst when I have so much of my own.

Sometimes it’s really good to take a few days off, though. I’m glad I did that this week, even if it has knocked me off kilter a little bit. You see, one thing I did while we were in Cologne was lay off the news. I mean, yes, I heard about the headlines. I read about Jessa Seewald’s new baby girl, Ivy Jane (yea for a normal name, Jessa!) being born, and I heard snippets about Trump badly explaining his potential connection to Russia. I’ve seen braindead comments from Trump supporters, who can’t see that their dear leader is a narcissistic whack job. I even got a private message from one– a total stranger– who felt the need to call me “deranged”. Really? I mean, you could call me a lot of things, but I’m not deranged. I think anyone who believes Trump cares about them is deranged. The man is a very obvious narcissist, which means he can’t care about anyone but himself.

And I did see Mitch McConnell’s unfortunate mealy mouthed face in a couple of articles that indicated that he intends to obstruct any progress we try to make toward fixing the United States after Trump’s sorry term is history. I used to really dislike seeing pictures of Paul Ryan, because he always looked so tragic– like he wanted to burst into tears or something while he systematically worked to turn the United States into a right wing utopia. Just seeing Ryan made me want to clock him. Well… I now have the same– perhaps more intense– negative feelings about Mitch McConnell. But he’s not worth going to jail over, so I mostly just stifle them and thank heavens that I’m not in the United States right now.

My Italian friend, Vittorio, has often described American culture as “weird-o-rama”. I didn’t used to agree with him. Now that I live abroad, I can see what he means. It really is a strange culture, where people are so obsessed with forcing women to give birth, yet don’t care at all about the resulting babies born who need food, education, healthcare, and healthy parents who can nurture them. I do not understand pro-lifers who are not actually pro-life as much as they are pro-birth, and pro trying to force women to stay pregnant at all costs. It makes me think more people should read up on Romania during the 1970s and 80s and how the pro-birth attitude ending up working out for them.

On my old blog, I once notably wrote a post about how I dislike it when people attribute quotes to people who never said them. That particular post was about George Carlin, who happens to be one of my heroes. Someone had posted a meme falsely claiming that he said something he hadn’t. It irked me, so I wrote about it and caused a huge drama when the guy got pissed. He thought that I was busting on him. I wasn’t. I was busting on the practice of sharing memes with incorrect information on them. He wasn’t the only one; he just happened to be the catalyst. Well… someone shared another Carlin meme yesterday, but theirs was accurate… and I think it’s a pretty good statement on where we are today, even though Carlin said it in 1996.

Anyway, I think I like being a little less visible to people. I like it up here in Wiesbaden, where things are less dysfunctional and Facebook is less important. Stuttgart is a very dysfunctional place, even if it will always have a piece of my heart for being the one place Bill and I have lived the longest. My former blog still gets a lot of hits. I keep thinking maybe I should delete it. What stops me is that, despite the drama, some people find it useful, mainly for the book reviews and true crime posts. As for me, I just want a place where I can be myself, for better or worse.

Well, maybe this weekend, I’ll think of something more specific to vent about. Right now, I’m finishing a very poorly written book about growing up in Christian Science. I’ll probably review it soon. Maybe someone will inspire me to write something with more focus. Or maybe today will be a music day. It’s been awhile since my last one of those.

Hope everyone has had a nice week and a good May.