Breaking out of writing mood, I check the news. I don’t care about the politics at the moment. I’m worrying about winter storms. Southern California wildfires. War in Ukraine and Gaza. Perusing these matters remind me that I exist in a small, sheltered bubble. Scary what else is happening out there.
Those are but the big stories. We know that other fires are burning which are just as meaningful to those involved, even if they’re on a small scale than what’s happening in California. People’s houses and businsses burn down all the time. As for the weather, legions of homeless and poor are enduring bad weather and trying to survive all the time. Below the fold of headline news, shootings are going on across the country. There will be robberies, homicides, rapes. Children are being abducted. Sickening things regularly take place.
So do beautiful things. New songs are being written. Couples destined to be great loves are meeting for the first time. Somewhere, someone is finding an ill person and helping them get up. Nurses and doctors are working to save the sick and diseased. Parents and grandparents are welcoming new children into our existence.
Existence and being is a forever busy place. Then again, how much of this is real?
Listening to the coffee shop blaring music from the eighties, sipping a cup of coffee, gazing out the window as sun flashes off cars hurrying by with people on private missions, don’t ask me. It’s all a mystery.
I’ve re-written the last 20% of the current novel in progress. Again, I guess. Guided by muses, and getting out of my own way, I added a whole other first section. Started it on Dec 26, 2024. Finished that section yesterday. How well it fit in really surprised me. I sweated and cringed as I wrote, wondering with clenched teeth, where is this all going? How does it tie together? But while I fretted over those things and tried my hardest to step up in front of myself and squirm and overanalyze, something inside me managed to push me aside again and again, and keep writing.
Then, suddenly, OMG, plot twist. And another one. And another.
I’ll tell you, all these plot twists make me nervous.
Am I close to writing a final ‘the end’? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… I can’t seem to really say. There’s a writer in me who took over, and he/she/they don’t let on about what they’re doing. I’m just going to sit down, gulp up coffee, write like crazy, and see what’s delivered.
Man, it’s a gorgeous day outside my windows. My first look was south and west. Blue sky. A few clouds and contrails. Sunshine. Appeared to be a late fall day. A litle deceiving as further gazing brought out frost speckling the bare earth and laying on roofs. Temp was 30 F. High of 51 could be. After looking out that side and inhaling sunshine, I headed for the back windows and a view to the east and south. Still sunny. Woo hoo.
Amazed and amused how the MSM addressed PINO-elect Trump’s Monday comments. These were regarding the possible invasion of other countries. Adding states like Panama, Canada, and Greenland. No doubt he (DJT) loves the attention he gets from saying such garbage. It also distracts from the real business taking place. Like he’s the Wizard of Trump, faking people out, insisting, pay no attention to the man behind the curtains. But a CNN article summarized Trump’s comments as — paraphrasing — different from presidents of both parties in the last few decades. Yeah, NS; you’d need to go back in history for a point where the POTUS was talking about taking land from other countries. I guess they felt a need to make a sober and unbiased statement about it.
Of course, if you’re talking about invading other countries, you know, just for the sake of that other country and, you know, freedom and democracy, or regime change, you don’t need to go so far. And just like true Republicans of the last few decades, they’re eager to look at other countries — say, the UK — and declare how that country needs to be changed while ignoring the shit conditions their policies build at home. Their vision is often shaped by greed, so it’s frequently myopic and narrow. They are very good at Orwell-speak though, and doubletalk, so they can’t be discounted. And, with a third of the country voting them in and a third not voting at all, well, hell, they feel a mandate to do whatever they want has been achieved.
Good news on the social media front. Women can now be called household objects on Meta platforms. I’m sure that will advance the causes of freedom of speech and democracy. Yep, that was snark.
The sunny weather has inspired today’s theme music. Live local, right? So looking out those windows and seeing sunshine, The Neurons adopted a cheerful attitude and put “On the Sunny Side of the Street” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark warming). Mom played versions of the song by several while I was a child. I became familiar with versions by L. Armstrong, T. Dorset, D. Day, and Nat King Cole, among others. I checked out several versions online and stayed with Satchmo on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hope you found it favorable as your day’s theme music. I find it a song that’s amenable to lyric variations. Fer instance, I used to sing, “Life can be so sweet with a cat sitting on your feet.” That was inspired by our cat, who liked to sit on our feet. Strange girl but ever so sweet.
Coffee and I ground out an agreement in the kitchen. Here’s the music, and away we go. Have a good Wezda, Jan 8, 2025. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 