At Least They're Committed

You’d have thought I was in preschool as I fumbled through this attempt to change up my blog’s theme after oh, I dunno, a decade. I take that back, my preschool grandsons would have done better. I’m sure it’s quite intuitive to a younger brain.

There are a slew of dystopian-themed series and movies out today and in general I avoid them because, well, they’re depressing and a tad cliche. Kind of like WordPress insisting on making me someone well known for being depressed and understated (so, no, not a cliche perse) in a new blog theme.

Somehow when I chose my ‘theme’ it decided it needed to make me Ernest Hemingway, versus just allowing me access to the template itself, and I couldn’t figure any way to fully make it ‘mine.’ For minutes — minutes I tell you — as I frantically tried to un-Ernest myself in earnest, I waited nervously for a lawyer to contact me and accuse me of unlawfully identifying as a great writer.

We are, however, watching ‘Twisted Metal’ because I like the cast plus it has humor. Still, it seems to me that dystopian flicks, with their dark themes, emaciated landscapes, rusted vehicles and crusty corpses, offer their characters a quick and easy ‘out‘ – that they instead are fighting.

So I changed it the theme, finally, after struggling to click the correct buttons and follow the right steps in the designated order. I’m leaning toward liking this one better and I think I kind of understand it — though I’m not sure how to make the ‘About’ page live. But I don’t care if nobody knows anything ‘About’ me. What they need to know is in the blogs and I don’t really even want anyone reading those. They’re simply therapy.

Unrelated, why is peanut butter and jelly called PB&J instead of just P&J?

I was looking back at my first few blogs — the first one in December 2007 — when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with this fascinating new medium that Brian (who I’m grateful to still work with) introduced to me. Ah, the twists and turns — some 95 pages of six posts each (at least within this new format).

We’re here on this Earth to help and support each other, yes? “For it is in giving that we receive . . . ” ~ St. Francis

Its often humorous but mostly boring looking back on those early blogs and ‘watching’ me struggle to find my theme — who I was, what I wanted to talk about and, mostly, why?

Which brings me to the ‘easy out’ for people trapped attempting to survive in a post-apocalyptic universe: Don’t!

The fog lies heavily across north Denver and, cast against the leafless trees out my window, it tells an eerie tale. We met up with the Dalton Gang early yesterday for breakfast and evidently the drive from far north to the meet-up spot in Broomfield was ghostly with fog. Dalton did not like it nor the rain. D and I didn’t have fog and loved the rain, thus we agreed to pray for rain southward while clear skies as they head back north.

Yeah, I know we need to do our very best to stay ‘here’ until it is our time to be called home, but there’s surely something you can do to legitimately hasten the process!

The universe complied! Sun to the north, rain in Denver. Thank you, God, for looking after Dalton and the gang in their travels. Now, looking on my backblog (heh), I honestly didn’t believe I’d be here long enough to meet and enjoy my grandchildren, at least not on Earth because I probably would know them in the spirit world, but here I am and here they are.

There’s nothing but peril in the apocalyptic aftermath, but there’s peace and love and redemption in the afterlife.

Even if I had not had children and grandchildren, this easy out of the dystopian-themed universe is pretty simple and obvious: Just make the world better for them.

Save a child and keep saving a child until you die trying!