An Aston Martin Dream

Young again, middle-aged, I was with my wife and others in this place with blue carpets. I don’t know why the others were present, but I was there to see a doctor. The doctor, young, White female, with, with short, dark hair, briefly saw me.

“You need surgery,” she said, indicating my neck. “We’ll do it today.”

That pleased me although I was surprised that my neck was to be operated on. I waited for the my scheduled time to arrive. I noticed the others began dressing up. My wife emerged wearing a dark suit with a white shirt. From overheard snippets, I realized that everyone else was waiting for surgery as well.

I was taken back; I’d not seen the doctor examine any of them. As people came out dressed up, the doctor began telling people when she would see them. Hastily I dressed like the rest, in a black suit with a white shirt and tie, but laughed at it as I did, thinking, this is silly.

Then – poof – the surgery was completed. I didn’t notice a thing but I knew it was done. It’d been so quick and simple, it was completed in an eyeblink.

I encountered my sister-in-law. She and I went off to await everyone else finishing off. I began helping some children drawing with crayons. I ended up with crayon on my white cuffs. While wondering how I was going to clean those off, my SIL showed up with a similar problem. I then took a paper towel and blotted the colors off. I shared what I was doing with her and she started doing the same.

We talked while we did that. I asked when she was going home and how long it would take her. Then I remembered that she lived in Florida. No, she answered with surprise. “I live just an hour and a half away. I’m taking my boyfriend’s train him.”

I hadn’t met her boyfriend but I knew of him. My wife arrived. She and I talked with my SIL and my wife and I announced that we would go get my SIL and her boyfriend some food for their trip home. We went out and bought very large sandwiches with French fries. We ate while we were there.

Then we rushed back to give them their food. They were already gone. We looked down the track to see a three-car train pulling away, which amused me and my wife.

We then needed to go deliver a package. I jumped into my car, a gorgeous and expensive Aston Martin roadster, green, with a white interior. I raced down the highway at very high speeds, overtaking many cars. Then, seeing a line of cars breaking, I slowed down and moved left.

Good thing I did, I told myself, as we overtook a long line of cars and trucks pulling travel trailers. They were stopped. I worried that we wouldn’t be able to mail my package.

Then I pulled up to a booth. Jumping out of the car with my package, I told him what I was doing. He was short, solemn, round Black guy. He listened and worked as I apologized for the state of my package and for not having it correctly prepared.

He shrugged that off, saying something like, “No problem.” I thought the packaging needed to be replaced. He consulted with a co-worker. They agree, it just needed a new clear plastic bag. He put that on, then grinned and told me, all down.

I laughed, surprised at how easy it went. Returning to my car, I prepared to drive away.

Dream end.

Just Keep Trying

I wrote a brief post about writing novels and searching for agents the other day. My friend, Nan, commented on it and asked how I go about finding an agent. I pointed her to one of the places, MSWL, which I use to search.

Nan commented back.

Way back when I was ready to publish, I did my own research for potential agents and contacted a few with minimal success … which is why I ended up self-publishing.

I suppose a site like this is helpful, but from a quick look-see, it appears more like a resource for “agents” that aren’t getting enough submittals through regular channels.

But it’s been a loooong time since I wrote/published my book, so what do I know? 😉

Nan’s problem before remains my problem now. How do you find an agent?

MSWL is one of five online resources which I use. The publishing industry is changing, though. Traditional publishing and agents are still out there. So is self-publishing. But either one requires editing, marketing, sales channels. Doing these things yourself is a challenge when you self-publish.

As far as I can tell, all the agents which I review are getting many submissions. But they all have different requirements for submitting, whether it’s by snail-mail, email, or online tools like QueryTracker. Some want only the first five pages. Others request a light synopsis or outline. Some agents ask for the first ten pages while others request the first fifty. There are asks for bios, previous work, comps.

Will you hear back? Probably not. You’re generally submitting into a void. The agents are upfront about that.

The many sites are themselves problematic. It’s a challenge for agents to define what they’re looking for and how they’ll accept submissions. But keeping up with keeping sites up to date is yet another challenge. All too often, I find an agent which seems like they’ll be a good fit my offering only to begin the submission process and find that that they changed agencies or are closed to submissions.

It’s a familiar lament. Writers have put out many stories about how many times they’ve been rejected and how long it took them to find an agent and get published. More stories are rising about how writers self-published and achieved success, and then had agents and publishers come calling on them.

I began years ago with a simple question, how do you write a novel? I read books, magazines, blogs, and spoke with successful published novelists. The bottom line: you find out what works for you, and you do it.

It feels like that’s the same answer for publishing: find out what works for you.

Do it.

And to find out, you just keep trying.

Thursday’s Theme Music — Stroking

Ashland, southern Oregon. Thursday, September 10, 2026.

Heat is in the air again today. Sunshine sluices down between scattered clouds. 83 degrees F as of now, we’re looking for a high that’s ten degrees more.

I’m trying to negotiate a peace between Mom and one of my sisters. I’ve written before about my younger sister, Gina. She put in a lot of work helping Mom over the years. Gina’s husband, Pat, was right beside her.

When Mom’s partner, Frank, died at 95 last October, Mom was put into a bad situation. Given her needs and medical challenges, she couldn’t live alone in her home. Gina and Pat took it upon themselves to make space for Mom in their home, and tried including Mom in their activities.

It turned out to be a six-month experiment which became progressively worse. By the time Mom was taken to a hospital in February, Mom was accusing Pat of spying on her, stealing her things, and hurting her. We knew from security cameras that none of it was true.

Mom ended up being in an assisted living facility after that. Pat’s feelings were hurt. He was upset, which upset Gina. Since that time, Gina has slowly cut off communications with Mom.

Labor used to be special for our family as we all prepared food and came together to celebrate. I wrote Mom on Labor Day. She was pretty sad and miserable, reporting that she’d not heard anything from any of her daughters. She knew a celebration was going on but nobody included her.

I passed that on to Gina. Gina replied, “If Mom apologizes to Pat for all those mean things she accused him of, I’ll welcome her back to our gatherings.”

I sent that on to Mom two days ago.

I’ve not heard anything back.

Trumpapalooza kicked off last night. As anticipated, it’s about how wonderful Trump thinks he is, the almost open acknowledgement that things aren’t going well in our nation, and Trump’s desperate attempt to win the election by bribing voters. In other words, it’s more Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, an attempt to distract voters from what’s really happening.

Beyond all that, the event is about stroking Trump’s ego. He thinks he’s great, and all others need to bow down to him. If everyone was as great as him, we’d have a great nation is his basic message.

Yes, Trumpapalooza was short on logic, facts, and truth, depending on your point of view. If you want the national and international order disrupted, Trump is doing a great job. If you want a nation based on democratic principles and freedom and equality for all, he’s driving hard away from those principles. Either way, he’s having fun, golfing on the taxpayers’ dime, sending out ridiculous little AI-generated images and videos trying to convey himself as great, blustering at other nations and people with threats if they don’t do what he wants.

Your Trumpapalooza Quote of the Day:

After all that, I ended up with “The Stroke” by Billy Squier in my morning mental music stream.

“The Stroke” came out in 1981. The song is about the music business and the need for bands to stroke music exec egos while the execs must stroke the artists’ egos. Everyone is stroke someone to keep it all going.

Sample Lyrics

Better listen now
They said it ain’t no joke
Don’t let your conscience fail ya
Just do the stroke

Don’t ya take no chances
Keep your eye on top
Do your fancy dances
You can’t stop, you just

Stroke me, stroke me
(Stroke, stroke)
Stroke me, stroke me
(Stroke, stroke)

And that’s pretty much Trump. He does his silly dance and his fancy ‘word weave’. The rest of us know the weave as lie upon lie upon lie, but for Trump, it’s the dance.

May this day reward you with patience, happiness, and good health.

Cheers

Here We Go Again — Your Trump Quotes of the Day

I laughed as soon as I read the headline today:

Trump pledges $5K ‘Trump dividend’ if Republicans hold onto Congress

Bribery: such a classic grifter move: I’ll pay you through the government if you vote to keep and put Republicans in office.

Gosh, has Trump ever made a promise like this before?

Trump Has Repeatedly Promised Payments That Have Yet to Materialize

I’m sure there are some voters out there nodding and saying, “Did you hear? Trump promised us money for our vote. I’m going to vote Republican.”

Meaning, they would need to pretend that Trump is going to follow through on this promise after all his other failed promises. It’s so much easier for Trump to promise more instead of fulfilling all the previous promises. Especially those promises Trump made such as, “I will not golf”, “I will deliver a new healthcare plan”, and “I will start no new wars.”

Or this classic Trump promise:

Over two years later, and we’re waiting for Trump to do what he promised.

Trump is calling this a ‘dividend’. He’s not really explaining how it’ll be paid for. It’s hard to believe that a ‘dividend’ is available when the national debt has surged past $40T, a level never seen before, and shows no signs of slowing.

In the past, Trump has cut programs and services which he didn’t like, labeling these fraud and waste. These were mostly from the regulatory side and the social safety net, like SNAP, healthcare premium subsidies, and childcare assistance. Since Trump has already cut those, what else can be cut? Defense?

I can see why people with little future and little hope, desperate just to make it to the next payday in order to buy gas and food might want to take Trump’s deal. But Trump is the one who create the 2026 affordability crisis. His DOGE cuts, tariffs, and bloated defense budget with its plan to build ‘Trump’ class battleships created this crisis. Trump’s Iran War fueled the crisis by disrupting the global supply chain and pushing gas prices to record levels.

Now, instead of addressing those things, he’s offering a bandage when surgery is needed.

I think Trump is falling back on an old favorite.

We’ll need to wait and see if Trump can buy his way out of another mess, as he tried to do when he paid off Stormy Daniels after Trump had an affair with her.

That worked out so well.

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