It’s been a nice long weekend in KY – good weather, time with family and plenty of time with the grandsons. Time zone fatigue (CA, then Mexico, then CA, then KY in 2-3 weeks) and my clean living lifestyle have led to (very) poor sleeping, but what the hell. The old saying, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” may apply.

Meanwhile, out in the world things are flying apart. More natural disasters (Turkey), an unnatural disaster (Ohio), more mass shootings (US), and now Russia is ready to strike back after Biden visited Ukraine and gave Russia the finger. In response Russia just announced they’re exiting the nuclear arms treaty with the US – a symbolic measure, but definitely a message being sent. “Remember, we have nukes and are just crazy enough to use them”, or something to that effect. Combine that with our commitment to keep sending weapons to Ukraine as long as it takes, and it becomes clear that we’re in an escalating proxy war with Russia. Sixty years after my gradeschool classmates and I were scared shitless by having to hunker under our tiny desks just in case Russia dropped a nuke on us, it’s finally happened. This time I’ll need a bigger desk.

All this wonderful news plus insomnia have created a feeling of general malaise, an ever-present thought that “things aren’t right”. It doesn’t help that there’s absolutely nothing one can do about most of this. It’s probably time to hunker down and stop worrying about the world at large, and just focus on being healthy and happy(er). Easier said than done.