2024 Ways To Raise Our Enthusiasm This Year.
Let's Thumb Our Noses at the Whole Mess
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Another presidential election year. Ugh!
With these two characters running for Prez, there’s fertile ground for writers of all stripes, from nonfiction, fiction and satire, a delicious blend of the two. Yet, problems abound as these guys are lame ducks, I gag on political Kool aid, and I’m long tired of them.
In fact, I’m so tired of them, it’s no fun to make fun.
Lucky for most of us, politics doesn’t rule our lives (until tax season). Still though, my enthusiasm for 2024 needs a serious lift, because:
a) the news media will report every campaign detail ad nauseam;
b) many on social media will go berserkoid bonkers (the highest berserk level possible). They’ll do so because they’re being paid, want a job or a government contract, or need to share their existential stirred-up woes;
c) ads I don’t want to see will pop up everywhere, even on our phones as texts. Reporting the texts as junk is ineffective. I call these invasions of privacy vexting and it ought to be a crime.
In short, because two oldsters want a job in a white house with free maid and butler service and all the other perks, 2024 is going to be a divisive year for the history books. If we’re not careful, we could play their game of division and wind up disliking a great proportion of the population.
I’ve talked to many people and all are as enthusiastic about this election as facing another pandemic lockdown.
Let’s try something different. Let’s have politics unite us in our misery. Let’s have politics propel us to live normal lives.
In a recent, satirical post, I mentioned we’re due for a book titled 2024 Ways To Raise Your Enthusiasm This Year. Satirical, yes, but we are due.
Let’s join together and list 2024 ways to raise each other’s enthusiasm this year!
I’ll start—the first two were named in the previous post:
1 Sing in the shower. Or bath, which compresses the diaphragm because you’re sitting. You gotta belt it to drive away the ‘24 blues.
2 Eat more garlic to mentally cancel the vexts on our phones.
3 Encourage
of Writing Around the Edges, of Book Alchemy, of Writing Talk, Heather Harper Ellett, and others like me in finishing our novels. Novel writing is the best for escaping.4 Read a novel, such as Charles Portis’ humorous The Dog of the South. Someone on Substack recommended it (I forgot to record their name—whoever you are I hope you rec more books). I’m close to finishing Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. It’s so good, I’ll write a review in the near future.
5 Plant tomatoes. Fresh off the vine beats anything available in stores.
6 Take a five- and a three-year-old on an impromptu picnic out of the house so their parent can attend to a business phone call in relative quiet. Roll with it and don’t worry about mistaking the bottle of Ranch dressing for mayonnaise when making their sandwiches. And carry some small oranges to peel for them. (Already accomplished and it made my week.)
7 Mount an expedition with a two-year-old to uproot prolifically annoying yuccas in the field below the house. (Also already accomplished and while making my week, it didn’t make the two-year-old’s. Thanks to our sixteen-year-old, one-eyed cat who follows like a friendly dog, but took a grouchy swipe. Our oldster cat, who possibly watches too much news, has learned how to misbehave by example. He also senses something’s amiss and is highly hissed by the upcoming election.)
8 Hope Kelce proposes to Swift after Labor Day so we’ll have something to cheer for.
9 Speaking of cheering, cheer for my friend Kirsten Garrison, who is hard at work on revising her debut novel so her agent can submit to publishers. Few write matriarchal-political-fantasy better.
10 Visit cool places this summer. Cherie Lee kindly wrote this piece about Flagstaff. Kristen Luiso is writing about Cape Cod, town by town, starting at the tip with Provincetown.
11 Pen a new title. I’m seriously thinking of starting Memoirs of a Geisha-Like Voter: Oh the Wooing.[1] As you can see in the photo above, I finished the cover art, meant to evoke the bland prospects of anyone in the running actually keeping their promises.
12 Petition Congress to pass a law—the Stop FreeLoading Phone Act—for every campaign vext sent (Example—Jane Doe needs your help running for Congress!), the candidate pays their share of the phone charges. The likes of Facebook/Meta make billions, charging for the same ads, so we’re not unreasonable. A dollar a vext will do, candidates. Taxfree of course. That’s right, you don’t get it back through the rear door.
13 Listen to the news in stereo- left news in left ear, right news in right ear. Maybe it’ll sound like white noise and lull you into a nap.
14 Spend time with, or meet, a friend like Kent. Kent, a retired pastor, gave a recent talk about getting along with others, even those who disagree. To Kent, having grace is priceless. To me, having a friend like Kent is priceless; us not seeing eye to eye on all things is a minor matter.
Your turn to join in, to thumb your nose in displeasure. Add your list in the comments. Because this newsletter is about writing and good books, I’ve included a few of those. But there’s no reason for you to feel so constrained. After all, we write and read to reflect the things around us. If you have any good books to recommend, by all means, name them and tell us why.
Please self-number. 2024 is a huge number, but it’s going to be a long year. Share among others to enlist them, the more, the better. Feel free to come back and add more as the ideas strike you; we’ve got all year.
If you’re like me, we can use the Help!
All the Best,
Geoff
[1] Unburdened by running again, lame ducks have little incentive to make good.
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Came across this in my feed. My, how things have changed. Trump gets shot. New players in the game. Who’d have thought???
You know Geoff, if I think back enough, I can remember back when you were the first person I knew during an election year that was campaigning for Pat Paulson for president. So that had to have been 1968. You had made something tangible, like a small picket sign or something, that meant you were serious! Are you still backing this man this year?