Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Time for some first world blues. I’m in the coffee shop. Music is playing. Business is booming and the baristas are scrambling, shouting out order details, clarifications, comments. Machines grind, hiss, and whirl with energy. Other customers are set up to chat, read, type. Conversations rise and fall.
Above it all is a man with a baritone theater voice. He’s on his cell phone. Although he’s across the room from me, his voice echos above all other sounds. Maybe it’s a matter of acoustics. He’s calling to different businesses to make purchases and complaints. He’s pedantic but polite. His first three calls are flavored with a condescending attitude toward the people on the other end.
“Do you have my email address?” he asks again and again.
“You have a screen in front of you, don’t you?” he asks. “Look at the screen. Does it have an email address? What is that email address for me? And my phone number. No, this is what you should have. 541111111.” This is repeated. “Yes, it’s seven ones in a row after the area code.”
I respect that it could be worse. I could be at home, typing on my computer, responding to my wife and cat, becoming annoyed with them. I could be trapped in an airport, waiting for a delayed flight, or in traffic somewhere, wondering why traffic isn’t moving. I could be sweating it out with an injury or disease, or fretting over a loved one’s health. I could be poor and homeless, hunting for a meal and a little relief from the elements.
I’m normally effective at filtering sounds out of my awareness. His voice and conversations are just one of those things annoying me today. That’s my problem, though.
That’s why I rant.
At 4:07 AM, the cat announced, “Let’s go!” Yes, he batted and chatted me awake enough to sleep walk to the door and release him back into the wild. He didn’t stay in the wild long. Cold, wind, and hunger drove him back in. “Not that wild, are you?” I asked him. He meowed back.
Thus began Twosda, April 22, 2025, much as many other days begin. Twosda and Thirstdas are the worse for me in this regard. My wife gets up early on Mun-Wen-Fri to attend exercise class. She deals with the cat between 6:30 and 8 AM on those days. But today has Papi testing the limits, in and out. I suspect he has two twins and they’re taking turns at this.
It was 39 F at 4:30 AM. If you trust Alexa. I asked it the temperature after Papi came back in. I was curious because it felt cold to my half-naked body. Like Sun & Mun, today features a clear blue-sky sauce and a glaze of sunshine with a tincture of wind and mild temperatures that lose their punch in the mid to upper sixties.
Trump continues to pile instability on instability, crazy on crazy, losses on losses. Like all great leaders, he sets ridiculous goals using ideologically-driven data, fails to take many details and factors into account, and then pretends it’s going great as everyone else prepares to get out the toilet plunger because this shit is overwhelming the crapper. He is consistently terrible and proud of it. Living in a Teflon-coated bubble, he’ll probably never recognize his insanity and the disastrous, negative impact he delivered to millions of people.
Unless, of course, his secret goal is to completely undermine and destroy the United States. That’s also possible. He could well be in collusion with Russian and oil oligarchs and are busy setting the table up to establish a powerful global cabal. Makes as much sense as any other shit he spreads.
They say that the Roberts Court is finally getting a backbone. “They’ll reign Trump in.” Ha. I think Trump is already smirking at the Roberts Court as he says, “Hold my Big Mac.” Harvard and other universities are suing the Trusk Regime. He doesn’t care. He’s already destabilized and disrupted our education systems and research programs. A third of the national NOAA weather offices have lost their leases. We’ll see what that does to the ability to warn about weather disasters. Then, Trump and Noem have been dismantling FEMA, so when these disaster squat on communities and drop a load, the state and community will struggle to recover and rebuild. Meanwhile, DOGE is raiding personal data and will probably weaponize that on behalf of Russia. He’s truncated international alliances and friendships that effectively worked for over half a century, isolating our nation. Besides all that, he’s been running due process over with a golf court.
And Trump and his supporters think this is just great. Anyway…onward.
When I first heard this Led Zeppelin song when I was thirteen, I thought, holy fucking shit. That was a startling development because I’d never sworn before that. That’s when I took up coffee, too. It all seemed to go together.
The song — “How Many More Times” — is in my morning mental music stream for reasons which The Neurons have sealed. They have better security than Kristi Noem and keep secrets more effectively than Pet (Pete) Hegseth. Not saying much, given how terrible and sloppy the Trump Regime has demonstrated itself to be, outside of the Musk-driven DOGE dogs.
Here is the music. When I listened to it today, my inner thirteen-year-old sat up and said, “Holy fucking shit.” This is a recording of a live show. Anyone familiar with Zep knows it’s gonna be a jam and will vary a bit from what was on the album.
Coffee has again insinuated itself into my body’s systems. I’m prepared to rock another day, at least until nap time later today. Hope your day is as purpose-filled as you need it. Carpe diem. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 