BY DC CUEVA
As I write this little note this late night on this first Hump Day of November, in a week from now I will not be in this chair behind either my desktop or my laptop... but instead, I will be in Las Vegas to turn the Big 4-1 as part of my annual sojourn to that happy place in the desert. At the start of this year, I had high hopes to get back to what I do best with regular posts returning on this little hobby known as DCBLOG... but there is a reason why it hasn't turned that way, just as it has been for the past two years.
It's early on November 7th, and without elaborating on it much it has been an emotional last day or so for so many in this country. The toll the events that led up to that night has no doubt challenged so many people's mental health... and those two words have become a bigger part of the national dialogue in the course of the past decade or so. And as we approach the second straight year of commemorating a birthday without having our family patriarch with us to celebrate this night with me (and in the case of this year, doing it on the road in Las Vegas), my family and I continue to feel dad's absence... and that has been a reason for the inactivity of this site since we lost him to cancer in July 2022.
Away from this cherished site I have taken tremendous pride in doing for over a decade (and the DC YouTube channel as well), I have put family and mental health first. And in the case of what this nation has just gone through, I took bold steps to keep my wellbeing upbeat when everything else was getting out of control outside my cocoon: for the first time in my dozen years being on the platform, I am taking a week-long break from the former Twitter platform. When on YouTube, Instagram and other social channels, I am being selective in curating my feed without any mentions of current events, and keeping the focus on my passions of pop culture, sports, entertainment and the culture surrounding the city I'll be stepping foot in four days from now.
As everyone else was watching coverage of those events, just as I did four years ago I looked to escapist content for my first November Tuesday's television viewing, being stuck in my room for most of the night. In this case of this year, my TV was tuned to both days of the ISU Short Track World Cup tour stop in Montreal, Canada thanks to having that precious subscription to Peacock, and the fandom I have watching Olympic sports (which of course was at its zenith during the Paris Games). My tablet had on the usual fare of sports and Vegas things, while continuing to buy all that music piecemeal for the Vegas playlist on my laptop just so I don't have to incur extra charges on next month's phone bill as I place all my songs on my many iPods. And as I post this note, I got on another sport in women's cricket.
Remember, if you are stressed out about anything -- whether it's life matters, events taking place in this complicated world or anything else, you got favorite things to do as a way to escape all of this, and to keep you mental state happy - even if all kinds of emotions were stirred elsewhere. If you're me, - just do what I get to do of just enjoying other forms of entertainment and enjoyment like I got to do when everyone else was awaiting what the fate of this country would be through the heart of this decade. I also got both DCBLOG and YouTube as avenues to bring my slogan that I used during that year from hell to full use -- so does all of those things both silly and amazing in the daily DC Instagram stories and posts.
By the way, The Escape That We All Deserve is just around 100 hours away from getting started... and that perhaps is one of the only good things that everyone on either side of that aisle can agree on. In any case, see you on Monday from the Desert -- and finally, we can have some fun at last.
- I AM DC
@DC408DXTR
