Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, October 17, 2019, 12:36 p.m.

I am reminded this morning of the line of actor Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill. It was something to the effect of … aw, hell, I’m a journalist, let me look it up:

Michael: I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.

Sam Weber: Ah, come on. Nothing’s more important than sex.

Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

Man, that was true then, but it is standard operating procedure now.

I was angry when I awakened. Almost every night I fall asleep with the television on. The only time I don’t is when I’m really tired. Usually, concentrating on the TV dialogue puts me to sleep. I don’t use it when I don’t need help. By turning sideways after I’m not even conscious of it, I muffle the sound with one ear. I’m sure someone is going to tell me that something about that is unhealthy, because, today, everything is. I always think that getting all stressed about it is unhealthy, too.

A rationalization.

Moving right along, I awakened at about 6 to hear news of Rep. Elijah Cummings’ death, and I thought about President Trump’s tweet some time back – time flies since he’s been president, and we forget outrages a week after they occur because no man has a mind capable of keeping up with them without the internet – in which he practically waved a pompon at news that Cummings’ home had been burglarized. As I spent the next 90 minutes in fitful slumber, I thought, or dreamed, or a bit of both, about how I hoped the President wouldn’t say a word because I’d rather him be a thug and a liar than a hypocrite.

Of course, he never fails to disappoint. Someone wrote a suitably insincere tweet for him. Someone is going to say that I would have been just as angry if he hadn’t said anything, but I wouldn’t have. I was already on the record with myself.

I was already troubled by that photo the President tweeted of Nancy Pelosi standing up with her finger pointed at him in a room full of grumpy white men.

Yes, I am a grumpy white man, especially right now.

I got up, saying “damn it” under my breath. I don’t know why. I was the only person in the house. I could have screamed if I wanted to, but I try to follow some modest decorum when the audience consists only of God, in the unlikely event that He is interested.

I clicked up Facebook and got angrier, so I called my mother because she is adept at settling me down.

But I needed to write this blog, anyway.

When it is over, I may play my guitar a little and sing a Don Williams song because his words calm me, too. I will definitely bury myself in tedious work, not the creative kind. Oh, goody, there’s a City Council meeting to write about later today. My goal is to get out of this funk by then.

Yes, I detest President Trump. It’s as much personal as political, although I certainly disagree with him there. I just think he’s a pompous, disgusting, exaggerating when he’s not lying, claiming everyone else is doing what he is, egomaniacal, selfish, America exists for me, not much of a man.

I wouldn’t like him if he was a barber, and I’m satisfied he’d be better at it.

But I’ve got to hand it to Trump’s army of unruly supporters. They will follow their dream wherever their dream may lead (paraphrasing Elvis), right into the swamp they think he is going to drain.

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