Sunda’s Theme Music
Greetings from Ashlandia on Sunda, June 22, 2025. Speaking weatherly, it’s a better day today than yesterday. Sure, dark clouds still clot the sky with potentially ominous intentions. But sunshine is striking, driving the air into warmer realms. We’ve already broken past 60 F, three degrees above yesterday’s high. 72 F is in sight as a possibility.
Papi the butter butt floof is much happier. He’s snuggled into the vinca where just his tiny triangular orange face is marginally visible. Yesterday, he came in and stayed, finding a place to sleep until the rain, wind, and cold had gone away.
Well, Trump attacked another country but we’re not at war, oh no.Yet.We just bombed another country. Just a strategic ‘surgical’ strike on someone Trump thought was being a bully. On a whim. A hunch. Like a bet was being made.
A bet has been made. A bet that Iran’s nuclear program was more advanced than intelligence claimed. ‘We’ – because it was our government, acting on behalf of the United States, so we’re all involved, like it or not. So ‘we’ made a bet that we knew where the facilities were, and could reach and destroy. We bet that Iran and its allies would not respond. We made a bet that the mission would be successful and cow the Iranian leadership into not striking back. Will June 21, 2025, go down as an infamous act that triggered WWIII? Time will tell. If you bet on past history, this will get messy, but it might be down the road a few years.
We always knew Trump would attack. He’s been eager to use the military in whatever way he could to bolster his self-image. In the space of six months, he’s deployed troops against protestors and bombed another country, after, of course, threatening to invade Greenland and take it over and joking, “Maybe Canada should be our 51st state.” Ha, ha, what a brilliant funnyman. And then he claims he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Please, someone shut him up before I pee my pants from laughing.
Today’s musical offering comes from — ta da — Der Neurons. For some reason that isn’t plain to me, they were kicking the morning mental music stream with “Basket Case”, a 1994 song by Green Day.
Alright. Had a double helping of warm oatmeal for breakfast. Risked some blueberries in it. Mouth took it all well, knock wood. Out to the coffee shop to write out the stuff piling up in my head. I wish for good things for you today and all days. Cheers
The Writing Moments
I told myself again yesterday, get out of the way and write. Write, I did. And when I reviewed what I wrote, I laughed to myself and whispered, “This is fucking crazy.”
By far the craziest of what I’ve ever written, I sat down with a specific purpose and some simple ideas about where I was going. Well, The Writing Neurons quickly queued up, redecorating, rearranging, reordering, taking me into completely foreign waters. “But how will this match up with what I had planned and previously wrote?” I complained.
Well, after the cat barked me awake at 5:58 AM today, The Writing Neurons pounced on my poor brain. They began weaving story webs like caffeine-fueled spiders in a web-building competition. I laughed at a lot of the shit they conjured. Then, when I put eyes to screen and hands to keys, I hustled to duplicate The Writing Neurons’ input.
It’s a wild frigging ride so far and I’m nervous about where I’m going. But you know, write on.
That’s what it’s all about.
***
So…I finished a novel last month. Felt damn good about it. Began firing up the querying mechanism.
Meanwhile, I handed it off to friends for feedback. But, without telling them, I capped it at part 1. I figured, if they finish part 1, I’ll give them parts 2 and 3. I did this knowing that the manner the novel unfolds will be confusing by the end of part 1. You need part 2 to see where it’s going, and part 3 for full illumination. But I still thought it would be a fast read for them. Instead, I’m hearing that they had to reread parts; they were creating notes. They want to sit down and talk about what’s what. All of that’s pushing my hopes and confidence toward the writer’s abyss of despair. I just need to hang on. Wait for their feedback. See where it goes.
That, too, is part of the writing process.
Michael Seidel, writer 