10 Things I Think I Think on January 24, 2026

We’re about to get slammed with a big snowstorm in my part of the world. It’s been one of those winters and you know what? I love it. Winters should be wintry. They should be freezing and have plenty of snow. They should force you to wear layers and warm coats and scarves and all the good things. Make you want to drink some hot chocolate and take a belt of whisky to warm up from time to time. If I wanted to live in lame and boring, I’d move to Florida. That’s what we’re getting this year, and I’m here for it. Could really use a fireplace though.

It’s a good time to bang out a few thoughts as we skip down the road to dystopia in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

1. Another gestapo execution just happened in Minneapolis, literally as I started typing this post, which is absolutely nuts. Six gestapo pigs had a man surrounded and pinned to the ground. He was resisting arrest and they were trying to subdue him. One pig was punching the guy and then all of a sudden another pig shot him several times, killing him. It’s the second cold-blooded execution of an American civilian in less than a month. Other videos show the man videotaping the gestapo pigs and then coming to the defense of a woman that one of the pigs had pushed to the ground. That’s when one of the pigs pepper sprayed him and tackled him. Then more pigs arrived and jumped on him, pinning his arms. It appears that the victim had a holstered handgun, which one of the gestapo pigs took off of him before another one shot him several times. Another video shows the gestapo pigs searching the man’s body after he was shot asking ‘Where’s the gun? Where’s the gun??’, not realizing that one of their fellow pigs had already taken it away from the guy, who, once again, NEVER TOOK IT OUT OF HIS HOLSTER.

The victim’s name was Alex Pretti. He was an ICU nurse and Minneapolis resident who worked for the VA. Minneapolis police reported that he had a legal right to carry his handgun, which, for the third time, HE NEVER BRANDISHED OR REMOVED FROM HIS HOLSTER. It would have been suicide for him to do that.

Why do I need to repeat this three times? Because our fascist government immediately and predictably began pushing lies about Pretti, calling him a “domestic terrorist” and “political agitator,” and falsely claiming that he brandished a weapon and threatened the gestapo pigs with it. This is totally fucking false. The only thing this man was holding before he was assaulted and then killed is his fucking cellphone, which he was using to videotape these fascist motherfuckers. The way our government is blatantly lying to us about these incidents and telling us not to believe our eyes and ears is an Orwellian script at this point. It’s absolutely sickening.

I don’t even know what to say any more. It’s another wasted life, another government execution of a good man in a situation that should not have been life-threatening or escalated in the way that it was. Totally fucking senseless. But way too many people are still asleep when we have armed and trigger-happy Brownshirts roaming our streets killing people and creating a national registry of the courageous patriots who are filming their crimes. It’s all I can do to post about this shit so that hopefully a few low-information people in my social circle start scratching their heads about what’s happening. This is going to get worse. A lot worse. These pigs actually believe they have immunity from any consequences for what they’re doing. I saw one of those motherfuckers clapping after one of his fellow pigs executed this guy in cold blood. Some of these people are literally evil. Homicidal, trigger-happy, undertrained goons whom Trump deputized and incentivized financially to do his bidding. Bad fucking mix.

I really wish I had done that dual citizenship application ten years ago. Procrastinating idiot.

2. Flag down. My landlord has an American flag that’s been hanging above my front door since I moved here. A few weeks ago, right around the time Renee Good was killed, it blew off the house during a snowstorm. It’s been sitting on the ground next to the basement window ever since. In any other year I would have picked it up and brought it inside, out of respect to my father, who served this country and had a lot of respect for the flag. This year I’m leaving it on the ground where it belongs.

3. Sometimes all I want to do is get my camera, travel the world, find something beautiful, and take pictures. I’m so over this shit. Get me the fuck out of here.

4. It’s quite surreal when your daughter starts complaining to you about your ex-spouse’s…. uh… personality quirks…. let’s go with that. Those daily “idiosyncrasies” that made me feel like I was going nuts when we were married. M. is now at the age where she questions everything and can really see through people. This includes spotting every personality defect in both of her parents. When she brings this stuff up about Ex., which has been happening literally every time she comes here lately, it’s all I can do not to start laughing my ass off in commiseration. I have to practically bite my tongue off so I don’t say something like

Yes, sweetheart. You noticed that too? Yes, yes, I agree. She’s terminally negative, assumes the worst about everything and everyone, and always complains. Yes, yes. She’s never happy with the status quo in life and always needs to find something new that’s missing or needs to be fixed or changed, right? I feel ya’ Bruh!! Try doing eight years of that shit with no break! Walking on eggshells, searching for a smile, a word of praise, a pat on the head once a week, wondering why she shows your dog more affection than you, trying to break a false narrative about you that’s built higher than Edinburgh Castle, wondering what kind of mood you’re going to wake up to today. Those were fun times, Bruh. Real fun times.

No, I can’t say that shit. On the contrary, I always try to have Ex.’s back, even if my involuntary smile and gleam in my eye give me away. Mothers and daughters always butt heads at some point, and M. isn’t always fair in her criticism of her mother, even if it mainlines to the validation part of my cerebellum like heroin. It takes a village to raise a kid. Ex. and I need each other, so I need to avoid peeing in our pool just because it feels good.

Fortunately, I know M. never complains about me to anyone because I’m perfect and never do anything wrong.

5. It’s been two and a half years, and I’m finally smitten with someone. Finally. Actually. Really. Like… not just attracted but really smitten. The kind of smitten that makes me want to get into a relationship again and has me thinking long-term and quite irrationally. The kind of smitten that makes me want to close all my apps and focus on one person. The kind of smitten I haven’t felt in six years. It’s nice to feel this again. It’s nice to know I’m capable of it, that I can want someone like this again. It’s strangely comforting to feel Cupid’s arrow lodged solidly in my ass again and realize that it hasn’t turned to stone like I thought. Just in time for Valentine’s Day!

This woman is funny, witty, sarcastic, worldly, opinionated, and very easy on the eyes. A Kryponite combination that makes me weak in the knees and gets me all tingly in my special place. Like a solar eclipse, this feeling doesn’t come around often, so I’m enjoying it. So far, she’s also checking all four of my value boxes: consistency, honesty, authenticity, and loyalty. No red flags yet, but it’s early.

I like her a lot. Like like. In fact, I’m going to ask one of my friends to hand her a note in class to see if she likes me back. I think she might.

6. But there’s a small problem. There’s always a small problem with me, isn’t there? Nothing comes easy in this part of my life. Nothing. There’s always a fucking catch.

What’s the problem, Tim? What could it possibly be?

The problem: she lives in fucking Brazil.

B-R-A-Z-I-L. Yes, that’s Brazil the country, not Brazil, Indiana.

So the guy who doesn’t do long distance relationships, who automatically swipes left on people from other countries, who can’t stand driving to Ridgewood, New Jersey, or Danbury, Connecticut, for a date, the guy who’s supposedly not stupid enough to do another long distance situation again is now contradicting himself for the thousandth time in his life by possibly pursuing someone who’s a 10-hour flight away.

Yeah. That’s pretty much right.

7. Now I know what you’re thinking, especially if you’re a long-time reader, or know me personally. Dude. When will you learn? How many flames are you gonna chase before your moth wings stop growing back? What the fuck is wrong with you? I know you’re frustrated with dating. I know that connecting with the 50+ women you’ve temporarily graced with your presence over the past two and half years didn’t lead to anything lasting. I get it. But this is crazy, my good man! For the love of Mike, stay in your own country at least! You don’t know this woman that well. She’s probably looking for a green card or some shit like that. And please check yourself before you wreck yourself because it sure looks like you’re leading with your dick again. This is a well-trodden road, my friend! We both know that it only leads to misery. Abort, abort, ABORT!

8. My rebuttal, your Honor. Do you really think I haven’t thought these things myself? Do you really think I’ve learned nothing over the past six years? Do you really think I don’t learn from my mistakes and have blinders on in this situation? I’m not stupid! (Mostly not) We’ve only shared a couple of weeks of texts and video calls and are still getting to know each other. I understand this. I also know that my dick is way too vocal in these situations and should keep his mouth shut more. But we’re pretty close friends at this point, and he’s also my consigliere, so I can’t ignore him completely, now can I?

Yes, I know there’s a high probability of failure here, either now or in the future. So why engage in it at all? There are a few reasons:

• I like her a lot. It’s that simple. I don’t get this feeling often. I’ve only had flashes of it in the past two years, and none of it lasted very long. This feels different, so I want to explore it. Yeah, it sucks she’s across the planet, but you know what made me swipe right? Two things: in her photos, she was standing in front of two different monuments in Rome, which must have gotten into my unconscious somehow, and she was smiling big. I like smilers. The other thing, the main thing, was she had a simple question on her profile: “Does true love actually exist”? I don’t know, man. It’s such a silly simple thing, cliche, even, but it got to me because it’s a question I often ask myself.

• She’s not looking for a green card. She’s 46 and gainfully employed. She even made a joke in her first message that she’s not a sugar baby. She’s doing just fine in Brazil. Yes, she was shopping for men in New York, which she has visited once before, or she wouldn’t have found me at all. But having talked to her at length every day for two weeks, which includes a marathon six-hour convo the first night we connected, I don’t have the sense that she’s manipulative or gaming my ass. Quite the opposite. I mean, I even told her that I have no interest in getting married again. So if she’s looking for a green card or a meal ticket, I’m a risky bet. A dead end.

• Ironically, I’m the one who may be looking for a green card. She’s part Italian and has an easier pathway to citizenship in Italy than I currently do. I told her that I have no interest in staying in the United States long-term and joked that the only way I’d marry her is if she got Italian citizenship first. And the way shit is going down in this country lately, I wouldn’t even rule out a move to Brazil or Argentina at this point. Seriously.

• I’ve never been to Brazil or explored South America, apart from a visit to see family in Argentina thirty years ago. Even if this situation ultimately leads nowhere, there are worse possibilities in life than visiting Rio, Machu Picchu, Patagonia, and other places with someone special and experiencing new parts of the world for the first time.

• She doesn’t have any children, which yes, is a two-edged sword, but it allows her to leave Brazil if the situation is right for both of us and our feelings make us pursue a relationship. This is yet another contradiction for me because I don’t typically go for women who have never been married or had children, so if there’s something I’m keeping a close eye on, it’s this. But I’m not going to write her off because the circumstances of her life didn’t result in marriage or children. That easily could have happened to me. She also works with teenagers, so it’s not like she’s had no exposure to them.

What I’m saying is my eyes are open. I haven’t found anything this promising in six years, and I’ve learned a lot in that time. I won’t be sacrificing myself, my value, or my identity on the altar of this situation. It’s going to need to be right for me in order to progress, and we’re going to need to be compatible, as difficult as that is going to be to assess from this distance.

9. The old me wouldn’t have posted any of this for fear of jinxing it and humiliating myself. But like I said, this is a New Year of No Fear, so I’m letting it rip, future be damned. I’m happy and excited about someone for the first time in a really long time, so why keep it to myself? My next post could be talking about how I booked a flight to Brazil to see her, or it could be me saying that she ghosted my ass or found someone else, or that I found someone else. It’s obviously a long distance situation that’s fraught with potential potholes.

But what’s important to me is that my Grinch heart is finally growing again. I’m feeling all the feels for reals. It’s confirmation of my healing process and dating approach, and it validates that the things I’m looking for in people should not be sacrificed or second-guessed. When they’re there, I know it. When they’re not, I know it. What I’ve consistently lacked is patience. Importantly, I’m also not putting myself on a dating shelf yet, and I told her to do the same. We’re still free to see other people, and it’s what we should be doing. (Though I have to admit, I’m losing my desire for this the more I talk to her and see her.) There’s a balance between giving this situation an opportunity to grow and develop and being fair to myself and my own needs at the same time. The last thing I need right now is tunnel vision or putting all my chips on someone who lives half a planet away. That would be dumb. So we’ll see where this leads. I’m trying to approach it in a smarter and more self-aware way than I’ve done in the past.

10. And now, here’s some lyrics from a few of my favorite earworms lately:

Hang ups, let downs
Bad breaks, set backs
Natural fact is
I can’t pay my taxes

Make me want to holler
And throw up both my hands
Yeah, it makes me want to holler
And throw up both my hands

Crime is increasing
Trigger happy policing
Panic is spreading
God knows where we’re heading

Mother, mother
Everybody thinks we’re wrong
Who are they to judge us
Simply because we wear our hair long

— Inner City Blues, Marvin Gaye

I thought I fell in love, I thought she felt it too
I thought we was in love, she just another fluke
I thought you was the one, I guess you just the two
You want the last laugh, look, now the joke’s on you
You thought you fell in love, you thought he felt it too
I told her, “Don’t be dumb,” you just another fool
You thought he was the one, I guess he just the two
You want the last laugh, look, now the joke’s on you (Yeah, bro)

— PUNK ROCKY, A$AP Rocky

We pass each other by
And we don’t share our time for long
We have a change of mind
The moment ends and life goes on
Life goes on

We go on by ourselves
And hope that we won’t be for long
Then we find someone else
It starts again
And life goes on

— Life Goes On, E^ST

Let me see your palms, I could read your life
Makin’ promises I can keep at night
I′m not the one that can make this right
Eye for eye when the sky’s too bright
Baby, watch your back
You could hurt yourself
When you talk that
Oh, it hurts like hell

Go where the river’s cold
And you taste like snow
And the bluffs on your nose
I keep holdin’ for you
All you say is no
On which way to go
It′s not a fork in the road
I keep holdin’ for you

I just wanna check if you my read my mind
Playin’ telephone with a ghost sometimes
Runnin’ in the road, you could call me blind
See the curtain close then commit my crimes

— Snow on The Bluff, Evening Elephants