Late Night Doings

I eat my breakfast cereal

Every night before bed. 

So when I seem to skip breakfast,

I just ate it early instead.

Postal

Yahoo News: The Postal Service is running a 'covert operations program' that monitors Americans' social media posts 

I'm really not at all nervous 

About the postal service 

But I wish they'd deliver my mail 

On time and without fail.

Delays Ahead

In Chicago's construction season, 

We don't even ask for a reason 

As to their actual goals 

For digging up holes.

Build Them Up To Rip Them Down

How come this Bill Gates misbehavior 

Is leaking all at once? 

A week ago he was a savior. 

Now he’s a lecherous dunce.

Loss

The loss of people you love leaves a hole in your soul.
The love lives on, longing sharply for those who are gone.

 

End of Imprisonment

I have been haunted lately by the ending of King Rat, an old novel by James Clavell. It was a movie too, but I read the book first, so that's what stands out in my mind. 

The book is about a young British officer in a terrible Japanese POW camp. He's not the King Rat. That's an American wheeler-dealer who kind of runs the internal POW economy. What haunts me is the ending. They get rescued. They are miserable, in a state of near-starvation, in a terrible way. 

Even that's not what strikes me. What strikes me is that their rescuers are not interested in how things were in the camp. Their rescuers are ready for the former prisoners to move on with their lives. All the power structures and conflicts from the prison camp... simply vanish. The people who were important are now nobodies, and everyone is expected to go back to normal. Not all the prisoners are ready to go back to normal. 

 I sure am. But a lot of people around me seem to be suffering from some strange malaise that's a bit like Stockholm Syndrome, a bit like Institutionalization, and a bit like Agoraphobia. They don't want to stop wearing their masks. Okay, keep wearing them. But please don't tell me you are still Following The Science. Because The Official Science took a sharp turn in the other direction. 

Well, terror can be traumatic. We had a year of media-fueled terror. It's going to take a lot of people a lot of time to get over it. I'm sure there are some who will not live long enough to ever feel normal again. 

It is the appointed hour.
We do not need to cower.

De Clutter

If I have a big pile of flyers, 

Some of which have expired, 

For classes on throwing things away... 

Tell me, what does that say?

Python

I assumed that the language, Python, 

Was simply named after a snake. 

You can see where that would be 

An easy assumption to make. 

But checking various sources, 

I found that the actual scoop 

Led back to a very silly 

British comedy troupe.

Return to Normal

Here in the States, it seems that all the vaxing

Is causing all the rules to start relaxing,

But now they want me to come back into work!

Can I say no? I don’t mean to be a jerk. 

It’s true that I miss seeing all my friends,

And maybe it’s time for pandemic panic to end,

But I have grown so fond of my commute:

From bedroom to my desk for remote-compute!