Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Mai is about to flip to its second half.
It’s Thirstda, Mai 15, 2025. The weather flipped last night as a cold front jumped into the Ashlandia area. Gone is the rain. Blue sky and sunshine fill the vacated space. That translates to a cold but clear night and day, but one that gives the sun permission to warm us. 68 F is our suspected high for the day. For now, it’s 55 F.
Papi has mixed feelings about it. He’s, “No rain, yea!” But, “Cold air, boo, hiss.” Then he adds, “Sunshine, yea!” He searches for a warm and sunny spot in the backyard. Then he comes into the house and yells for treats and attention. He’s such a sweet-chirping cute floof, our wills melt like ice cubes in hot coffee, and we do as he requests.
Starbucks, where I usually write, was closed yesterday. I found out this morning that it was due to a strike. I support them. They can strike as much as needed to gain contracts and improve their conditions. Meantime, we have other coffee shops in Ashlandia. I went to Roco and staked out a place and did my writing thing, as needed.
Another coffee shop is across the street from Starbucks. I like their products but their space doesn’t work for my writing needs. They supported the SB strikers by giving them coffee. How cool is that?
Today’s music is an old favorite by the late Gary Moore. Seeing sunshine and blue skies, The Neurons fed the song, “Still Got the Blues (for You)” into my morning mental music scene. Yes, despite better weather, the blues still weigh me down. Part of this is due to Mom. She’s become such a bitter and angry person that nobody wants to spend any time with her. She can’t see her own part in her isolation, instead blaming everyone else. I believe she needs counseling to help her deal with longtime issues. She fixates on things and never lets anything go. Her history of what happened when is at huge odds with everyone else involved. Suggesting she needs therapy, though, just sends her into a greater rage and accusations that everybody hates her.
Other part of the blues is all about the political thing. It’s amazing that progress begun over two hundred years ago is getting shredded by one megalomaniac backed by right wingers. That they’re quite willing to do whatever is necessary to break down the foundations of individual freedoms and democracy to gain power for themselves, including wreck the world economy and the planet’s environment. Empathy is not in their wheelhouse. Lust for greed and power dominates their intentions. So, yeah, I’ve got the blues.
Despite the blues, I have plans. They begin with coffee. I can check that off my list of things to do for today. Have the best day you can. Cheers
I’m just a Venn diagram. I’m at a point where massive disappointment in my nation fills me. I didn’t expect the GOP to fight Trump. It saddens me that I’m right. They just rolled over and became the Grand Ol’ Trump Party.
Pisses me off that the Trump Regime thumbs its nose at the law, treating elements like due process as something beneath them. Unfortunately, I predicted this when Trump was campaigning in 2024. So did many others. They laughed at us. But Trump said he would be a dictator on day one. We knew that wasn’t a joke.
Politically, I’m angry, disgusted, disappointed, and a whole dark rainbow of other negative energies about what’s going on from bullshit tariffs to the damaged economy to the ridiculous and unlawful gutting of the Federal government to — well, fill in the blank.
But it’s a sunny and warm spring day. Promise is in the air. I’m getting ready for beer with friends on Wednesday. They’re intelligent, good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Preparing for a secular Easter brunch with friends on Sunday. That’ll have bittersweet toppings drizzled over it. Some of the regulars are gone. Others are in hospice.
Writing is fun and full of promise. That puts me in a very positive frame. A novel draft is finished, and so many other novels are lined up, eager to be written. But will that finished draft hold up in the next round of editing and revision? Then there’s the publishing game. That closes the damper on my enthusiasm.
Mom texts me and reminds me that she wants to be cremated. Do what we will with the ashes. Play Glenn Miller at her service. Hold it in the garden. She’s lived almost nine decades but she endures hourly pain and discomfort. Her quality of life can be categorized as miserable.
Down to one cat, my cativities are truncated from what they once were. An air of depression clouds that aspect of life.
Financially, my wife and I are okay. Viewing my health, I can be better or worse. Got all my limbs. They function well. I endure little regular pain on a daily basis. I’m not as strong nor limber as I used to be, and my hair is trekking away from my forehead. Memory still works for most of the time on most of the days.
My wife’s health is not as good. She searches for words more often and doesn’t find them. She’s developed a new habit of forgetting to turn things on or off. She’s bitter and angry with the world, especially with Trump, and the Roberts Court. She’s furious and anxious about women’s rights. Shoulder and back pain are building up their frequent flier miles with her.
So, I am here. In the middle of it all, happy and sad. Worried and hopeful. Bitter and angry. Joyful and loving. Loved and frustrated. I read of far worse situations for people. Like those in Gaza. Ukraine. Immigrants hunting a better existence for themselves and those they love. War and disaster refugees trying to find a home. People working hard and struggling harder. Sleeping in cars and hanging on for meals and help. Women and people of color hiding, living in fear, beaten and killed for who they are. People with a gender that doesn’t fall cleanly into male or female dismissed as less than equal, unaccepted by narrow-minded bigots. People starving to death as billionaires pile up more money and more property, self-pleasuring themselves with mindless greed.
We seem so far away from Star Trek‘s ideals and so much closer to Mad Max, Solyent Green, and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Life is one hell of a spectrum.
The monthly black mood is coming on, one with a rich ore of self-pity. Trying to wrestle myself out of the mood this morning, I started telling myself what I really wanted. That transitioned to all I really want. Lyrics from the Alanis Morissette song, “All I Really Want” (1997) crashed the stream.
And all I really want is some peace man
A place to find a common ground
And all I really want is a wavelength, ah
And all I really want is some comfort
A way to get my hands untied
And all I really want is some justice, ah
What I really want turns out to be a complicated network of hopes, dreams, desires, and longing. Some of it requires a time machine. I think more of it requires different DNA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHvb9V8Yzs
Sara Fischer had a surprising article over on Axios.com:
“What?” I asked myself. People don’t like pop-up ads and pre-rolls? Bullshit. Dismissive of this headline, I read the article.
Sara Fischer claims that Morning Consult did research, and discovered that surveys show that seventy-two percent of U.S. adults don’t like pop-up ads.
It’s more fake news, I suspect.
I don’t know anyone who dislikes pop-up ads. I love them, myself. Pop-up ads are technology’s way of saying, “Hey, relax. Take a break.” They stop me from getting too involved in stories by preventing me from immediately reading the articles, clicking on links, and searching for more information to vet the story.
Pop-up ads are a blessing, and should be embraced as such. Just think of how much more shit you could be reading and doing on the web, were it not for pop-up ads saving you.
This song, and the album it was on, blasted in on us in the summer of 1995.
I was stationed at Onizuka Air Station (a place also once called Sunnyvale Air Station and Onizuka Air Base), working as Director, QAF for the 750th Space Group. A young airman was working at his desk, radio on, as I walked by; this song was playing. I stopped down to listen, and then laughed and said, “Holy shit.” It was one of those songs that shocked me into instant memory. I listened for it on the radio as I was driving arrive the bay, and cranked it up whenever it came on.
The song starts out so gently, confessional and non-confrontational, but then it rises with unmasked, almost uncontrolled rage and contempt, a thematic approach repeated several times in the song. Listening, it feels like an emotional stream of consciousness that zigzags between confrontation, reconciliation and coping, someone trying to release their pain and bitterness even as they search for understanding.
This is Alanis Morissette with ‘You Oughta Know’ from ‘Jagged Little Pill’.
I’m fine
Just countin days till I die
Tryin to dredge up a will to survive
veggin on tv scenes
I’m fine
Wishin death would come
Permittin me to end this run
sleepin with my eyes open
I’m fine
Talkin to my machines
Because they’re the only ones who seem to seem
to care about what I say
So when you ask how r u? 🙂
I don’t care if you smile and walk away
Bcuz we both know what I’ll say
I’m fine
Words from the the spectrum’s dark side
I’m sliding along the spectrum of emotions today. The spectrum itself is on a fulcrum. The slightest shift tips it sliding one way or the other.
Some are wild slides. I slip from depression to elation to bitterness and frustration, zing zing zing. Exhausting, but I’m older, experienced in my mind and body’s ways, and have some sense this will pass. Last night and the early morning both had me sliding toward the spectrum’s darker end. Self-pity and regret stifled my breathing. Reading helped me out.
I’ve not been reading much, I thought, then corrected, I’ve been reading non-fiction and news, but not fiction. So I retreated into The Signature of All Things. I started reading it a month ago. I added new books to my tower of reading and realized I needed to finish Signature before permitting new reading. A book of a woman reaching understanding of herself and heartbreak, the novel enabled some quiet reflection and delivered new insights into me and my existence.
I believe this mood will pass, recognizing it for one of the more prolonged types of funks that sometimes shroud me. They’ve always passed before, prompting speculation about what sort of guarantees that provide (none), but it does give some expectations, and helps me stay upright as I slide along.
Michael Seidel, writer 