Another dream from last night found my wife and I arriving on an island – not deserted but civilized, part of a nation.
We were younger, in our thirties. Don’t know why we were there, but we were returning.
After disembarking from a red and white ferry, we found our car, got in, and began driving home. Leaving the port parking area, we were behind a small, old, Army-green bus. I knew that the driver – a man about my age – had been on the same boat as me, along with a group of quiet, sullen children.
Both of us drove over and parked at a little office to get cleared to go. I arrived there, went in, got my paper and got clearance.
Back in my car with my wife, we prepared to go on. Watching that slow-moving old green bus, I said, “Oh, no, don’t get in front of us.”
He did, pulling slowly onto the narrow, paved road. The road had a few potholes and high berms where the shoulders had crumbled and the dirt washed away. The green bus belched dark smoke.
I figured I was in for a long, slow trip behind that bus. My wife and I talked about the bus. But the bus pulled over to the right. Getting out of the bus, the driver waved us down.
He asked, “Do you know how to get to Naha?”
“Naha?” My wife and I were surprised, taken aback.
He continued on his own, explaining, “I’m going to go fishing there.”
I thought, fishing at Naha? “Yes,” my wife and I answered, talking at the same time. I took the lead. “Keep going on this road. There’s a intersection where you go right. There’s a brown sign that says ‘Naha’ on.”
“Is it a big sign?” he asked.
I laughed. “No, it’s one of those little military signs.” He looked military so I guessed he would understand that. “It’s brown but it’s by itself. You won’t miss it.”
He walked away and my wife and I drove on. “Fishing at Naha?” we said back and forth, wondering, is he taking the children to go fishing at Naha? We could think of better places to go but that was his business.
The dream found me at home – not my real-life place – with my wife. I awoke to discover that she had hired people to fix the plumbing. Thick, dark dust filled the air from the work. Three men were going all through the house, looking at the pipes and changing things.
I was floored that my wife had apparently decided to do that without consulting me. “First that I’ve heard about it,” I huffed before going off.
Coming back later, the men were in another part of the house. The three were all older, with short hair, white skin, and wore coveralls. Weirdly, usually they stayed clustering, staring at the pipes and talking about what they were going to do.
I came across my wife in another room. Wrench in hand, she was working herself on plumbing in a bathtub. I was like, “What the hell?”
I noticed that she was working on the faucet and spigots but she was on the side of the tub and had the floor torn up; but the tub still had its faucet and spigots attached on the end. I wondered, is she putting in new ones on the side to make it easier for her? Or putting in a new tub? I didn’t.
Going outside, I saw that she had people working in the garden and was building something new out there. That worried me. I knew that she had evidence of crimes committed buried there. (I was thinking that it was a murder but I didn’t seem sure.) I went back and told her that I didn’t think that was a smart decision but she was busy with the pipes and didn’t respond.
Returning outside, I saw a large rock being moved; I knew that was crucial evidence. With a sigh, I also saw that a police detective I’d seen earlier was watching and saw the rock. A little later, the police began digging up the area.
I thought, my wife is going to be going away, because her DNA is all over that. That disappointed and saddened me but I also thought, I should be okay because my DNA won’t be there.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, June 27, 2026.
A cool summer day, overcast and dark. Rain showers came and went yesterday, and the high never broke the low 60s.
Today, it’s 51 F and seems like it might not get as warm as yesterday. I’m okay with it but I worry about how it affects the local agriculture. The good news that emerges from it is that we’re less likely to suffer from a wildfire in our area.
I’m doing much better today with post-op. Moving more like myself. Not bothered by a feeling that I constantly need to pee, I’m also able to sit and bend much more comfortably. The hiccups continue, though; violent hiccups awoke me at 2 AM on Friday morning. They lasted about thirty minutes. Had two more attacks yesterday, mollifying them with Manuka honey. Another attack this morning but it ended after just a few minutes on its own.
Hiccups are common after being intubated, and I was intubated after I was sedated. Several reasons for the hiccups are given, including irritating Vagus nerves and diaphragm tissue.
As an aside, I did wake up several times last night to ensure my tube was draining correctly. I don’t know what prompted that concern, as it always was. Thank you to everyone who texted, emailed, or commented on my medical issues and wished me well.
Catching up on the news, I see that Utah is now on the wildfire front. I feel for them and wish them safety.
My wife pointed me toward an article about the new US commemorative passports Trump created. They feature Trump’s likeness face and say, “Welcome, but be good.”
Like, WTF, old man, do you understand that the passport is for US citizens to go overseas and return?
Meanwhile, we continue to deal with Trump’s messes: Iran war, Epstein files, tariffs, the ballroom, a worsening economy, and the ongoing problem of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, otherwise called Algaegate. The thing about all of these is that he took a fair to middling to good situation and worsened. That is the Trump legacy.
In the Iran War, the US and Iran have signed some kind of something to agree not to fight but are shooting at each other once again. Neither side trusts the other.
As part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, Trump threatened European countries with a 100% tariff if digital services taxes are implemented. Everyone mostly shrugged. One, this is TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. While he frequentlythreatens, Trump also slinks away without carrying out on his threats. The pattern has been well-established.
I also read that Trump’s Freedom 250 celebration was sparsely attended, leading to him pleading for greater attendance. That brings us to your Trump Quote of the Day:
Newsflash, Trump: historians are rating you as one of the worst presidents ever! As the Trump disasters stack, we expect Trump to cement that legacy as the worst ever. As for popularity, Trump keeps sinking in almost every poll except for the ones he and his staff fake to appease his ego.
Today’s song is “Who Made Who” by AC/DC. The song is in today’s morning mental music stream because of a dream. Not a great deal of the dream was remembered but in one point of it, I remember asking someone else, “Well, who made you do that?” As I sat and remembered that piece of dream, using it as a lure for the rest of the dream to follow and re-emerge, My Neurons — who don’t always pay attention to what I’m doing — began playing the song.
The song was released in 1982 as part of a movie soundtrack. I’ve often thought it as I wonder about people like Donald Trump: who made you? How did you get into power?
In a funny way, I found a good summary of Trump in an historic fiction book, “The Winter King”. This is by Bernard Cornwell. I enjoy many of his books and was re-reading “The Winter King”, which is based on who the mythological King Arthur may have been, and that era of pre-England when Britons were fighting the invading Saxons. In later Cornwell historic series, including “The Last Kingdom”, the Saxons are fighting off the Danes to establish ‘one England’. What a history.
Anyway, in “The Winter King”, paraphrasing, a character describes Lancelot as a man who makes lying a choice and always lies to cover his weaknesses and to make people like him. Lancelot is portrayed as a coward who takes others’ victories as his own and is able to charm others into believing his lies. I’m fascinated because that’s exactly how I think of Trump, and this description of Lancelot was published in 1995.
I hope your day is full of positive energy and that you and yours stay safe and secure.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, June 25, 2026.
Cooler today — just 85 F — but the summer mix of blue sky and sunshine continues without interruption in our valley.
I haven’t been watching the World Cup games. Not my kind of football. But I dreamed that I was working with a gregarious black guy, trying to sell team jerseys to fans. He’d come into a large shipment of them at a discount, but he didn’t know what sizes he had. All had been manufactured outside of the US, and they weren’t using the labels familiar to me. I was using the Internet to help him size them so he could sell them.
Results are not back from Mom’s tests yesterday, except they have confirmed she doesn’t have a yeast infection. My sister, Gina, related that Mom was complaining about the sunglasses Mom was wearing: they were too big. She went on a rant that Frank probably let his sister, Joan, wear them, because Joan has a big head. She finished, “I could just kill Frank.”
Gina replied, “Mom, you do know that Frank died last year, don’t you?”
I feel like I’m in a variation of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. In that 1989 song, he recites court decisions, celebrity names, historic events, and pop culture fads and trends that took place between 1949, when Joel was born, to the current date in 1989. As I read the news, there’s a Billy Joel rhythm: Supreme Court rules, shooting leaves x dead, earthquakes, wildfires, flooding, climate change denial, Trump texts, Trump promises, Trump lies, Trump claims, distraction, distraction, distraction, fake news, elections, corruption, facts, truth, history, Epstein files, Epstein ballroom, tariffs, Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Strait of Hormuz, Musk, Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, China, ICE in the cities, economy, jobs, prices, prices, prices, crisis, crisis, crisis!
Trump didn’t start the fire. But he threw gasoline on it and gave it oxygen. He didn’t start it but we’re gonna fight it.
The song had a lot of airplay back in the early 1990s but has since faded. Not one of Joel’s better offerings, the chorus was pretty familiar to everyone because of the airplay.
Despite those thoughts, The Neurons have the Allman Brothers performing “Statesboro Blues” in my morning mental music stream. A favorite song and cover, it has a jumping, thumping sound to it which always kickstarts my energy.
I hope you have great day, summer or winter, wherever you inhabited for now, and that all goes well for you and yours.
Problems cropped up. Wasn’t certain where I was supposed to be or what I was doing. But a kindly man offered to help. Older, with trimmed hair. White and clean-shaven.
He helped me dress but the clothes were too small and tight. Seemed to me like children’s clothes he was trying to get me to put on.
I protested but I also thought it funny. Pointed out that the light gray shorts he had me in were so small that my penis was hanging out the bottom.
Gruffly, he dismissed my concerns. “Told me, don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
To which I just shook my head, disagreeing but not overly concerned, rather chuckling about it.
I went out on a small stage. Light brown wooden floor, varnished. No curtain.
I was in a spotlight. Dark theater. The man was behind me, out of the spotlight. Small audience, mostly women, sat at the front.
I wasn’t sure what to do. The women started calling out, “What are you doing? Get him some clothes. Can’t you see his pecker hanging out?”
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, June 13, 2026.
Another June morning. 63 F, it feels cool and comfortable to me, “chilly” for my wife. Today’s high will peak in the mid 90s. A heat advisory is on for tomorrow as temperatures are going over 100. Temperatures are expected to drop on Tuesday — a little.
Nothing new from my family and Mom in Pittsburgh. Going through dreams occupied my morning.
I enjoyed this morning headline:
Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center after blowing past deadline
One small step for decency, democracy, and justice.
Do we really need a monument to remind us of Trump’s ego? No. Sure won’t help with any problems we face. It’s just more by Trump, for Trump.
Seven states led by Democrats — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington — have withdrawn from the ‘Freedom 250’ fair. The states withdrew, citing costs and politicalization.
It started out as a celebration of the United States. As with anything with Trump involvement, he’s slowly made it less about that and more about him. For example, after many musical performers bowed out, Trump decided to replace them with himself as the opening act. He plans a ‘rally’.
Trump’s war with Iran goes on. The war has clocked 105 days. Peace is close, both sides agree, then argue about whether the other is telling the truth. It feels like, “Pot, meet kettle,” to me.
Gas prices in the US have dribbled down over the past few days as peace in Iran seesaws. Many best-case scenario project gas prices will drop to $3.75 gallon on average by November. In most dire predictions, $6.35 a gallon is projected as the national average.
Self-Focus: AI found that Trump frequently centers himself in posts, with roughly 1 in 11 posts being self-praise, and his name appearing as the most common positive reference.
Conflict & Adversaries: Many posts involve accusations, criticism, and disputes, portraying Trump as both a victim and a winner in political and legal battles.
Posting Habits: Notable patterns include heavy capitalization (16% of posts), late-night posting (midnight–6 a.m.), and recurring themes of praise, boasting, and accusations.
We didn’t need AI analysis for these conclusions. They’re self-evident, something who isn’t part of the MAGAsphere has noted for years.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
“Wrong Again” Trump was wrong again. We the People built this nation. Men like him just conned people to make money from what others built.
Playing “Spelling Bee” this morning, I laughed and put in Levitake as a word. “Not on the list”, the system responded.
I think it should be. Levitake: to lift and remove something. In use: “They worked through the night to levitake Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.”
The music playing in today’s morning mental music stream is “Fantasy” by Aldo Nova. The 1982 song started playing as The Neurons spied on me doing my dream review. It was because of the night breeze coming in the window, cooling me.
May your day progress with peace and grace, and bring you an abundance of joy and love.
I’d just signed a contract. Half of the money due me was paid and the other half would come later.
I was going next to visit my family. I decided I would surprise them. I bought four condos which were exactly the same, along with four 1968 Chevy Camaros, also exactly the same. Everything was in excellent condition. I can’t tell you what color the cars were, except they were immaculately polished and gleamed in the light.
I would be staying in one condo but I expected my sisters and Mom to stay in the other condos with their families. I would drive one Camaro; they would drive the rest.
Here it gets a little hazy. It’s about the keys. Whenever I got the keys for the cars or condos, there would be a green light.
I went to leave to meet with my sister, driving the Camaro I was giving her. First, I had to stop. There was unfinished business, leaves which needed to be moved away for Dad. I did most of those very fast, with the car door open and the engine running, then went off and picked up my sister and her son.
I told my sister to drive and told her the car was hers. She didn’t fully understand. I took her to the condos. Oddly, the three condos for the family were on one floor; my condo was alone, stacked on top of them.
I told my sister and nephew that this is where I’m staying and that it’s where I wanted them to stay as well. My sister worried about the expense. I kept telling her that I’d bought it and already paid for it.
Another sister arrived with her husband. I gave them the keys to their Camaro and showed them the four cars. They responded, “That’s nice.” I explained a few times that I was giving them the car. They finally got it and were shocked. My brother-in-law kept talking about the cars’ “mint condition”.
Other family arrived. Some young man from the condos came to help people with baggage. He asked, “Which condo is yours?” He seemed concerned about so many people staying in one condo.
I explained to him that I owned four of them but that I was giving three of them to my sisters and mother. I gave him the keys to their three condos. Catching on, he responded, “That cost a fortune.”
Mom was there, in her nurse’s uniform. She worried that she had to go to work. I kept telling her that she didn’t, but she was insistent.
It was raining, with light flooding. To go to work, Mom had to cross a muddy, swampy stream. I didn’t want her to cross because I didn’t think she would make it. But she went. As I watched, she fell into a hole and went underwater. I began rushing forward to help her but a large man showed up on the other side. Reaching down, he lifted Mom, drenched and covered with mud and weeds, and set her down on the other side.
Lightly rained off and on all day yesterday. We have a marbled sky today, gray and white against blue. Sunshine cuts through the clouds, darkening the mountain’s greenery with shadow islands. 56 F, our high will cut into the mid 70s. I don’t mind; give me this instead of the drought’s extreme dry and the blistering heat that usually strikes.
Gina is on the warpath, as we put it in my household growing up, a carryover from Mom and her generation and those before her. Mom called Gina with reports of theft and the lack of regular cleaning. Mom said that she’s been cleaning her own bathroom floors with wet wipes.
As the most confrontational of my family, Gina charged right in: this needs to be fixed. What’s the ‘or else’ implied? I’m not sure. It might be ‘more Gina’.
My wife got her latest ‘real ID’ yesterday. This one has the star. What will adorn them next?
Getting that for her required an appointment and a visit to the ‘big’ DMV in Medford. It was either go there or camp out at the Ashland DMV every morning and hope the Gods of Bureaucracy were kind.
She took in her birth certificate. Not the real thing, but a tattered, certified ‘photographic reproduction’ created in 1962. Much of the birth certificate’s entries were in cursive. The DMV agent, a very nice person, laughed about the struggles to read cursive, as she hasn’t had to in a while. That led to a sidebar about her children. They don’t know cursive and when she writes notes using cursive, they ask things like, “What language is that?”
That chased us into a conversation about signatures. The DMV agent said anything can be used and recognized as a ‘signature’. From further conversation, it appears that we’re basically going back to ‘making our mark’.
On the Trump side of things, my wife and I were talking about the food prices. My gosh, how they’ve gone up.
I did a search about Bessent’s claim and saw that he’s made that claim a few times the last several months. And as late as last November – 2025 – he was trying to blame Democrats for the prices. I know from Trump’s latest Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! pivot, aka the Trump Iran war, that Trump knows that prices are higher. He knows that the war is causing it.
*probably also knows his tariffs are causing them but won’t admit it because that would reveal he’s been wrong all along*
Trump, though, has pivoted. He’s not worried about high prices, affordability, or Americans’ finances, no; he’s saving us from Iranian nukes.
Ironically, of course, that was also the Bush-Cheney claim for the war against Iraq: WMD.
Yes, Trump and the GOP have dragged WMD back out of the closet. They’ve avoided using that phrase.That phrase — WMD — is loaded with baggage for US voters and the world.
It shows that in the end, Trump and the GOP only have three dimensions to their strategy: fear, distract, and cause dis-unity. For when facts, truth, and unity show up, Democrats win, and we move forward. Not evenly, and certainly not perfectly. But we move forward in our efforts against poverty, food deserts, climate change, and real challenges. Not fake challenges that are monsters only in unthinking minds.
The Epstein ballroom remains under construction. No new news on who is paying for it.
Trump’s approval continues its slow crash. Disapproval numbers show a sea of red. In a way, Trump is starting to live up to the vision he had of himself as a ‘unifying’ force; unity in disapproval of him and his policies is increasing.
My morning thoughts were about a dream that involved flying. The Neurons were snooping around, found out, and introduced “Aeroplane” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the morning mental music stream. Hope you enjoy it.
My hopes for everyone and everything is to go with peace and grace and make life better for all of us. Not just a privileged few.
I was on a large, modern aircraft filled with people. We were going on a long flight.
After takeoff, I was taken to the cockpit. It was airy and spacious. Windows showed the air around us but I could also see the planet below. It was a bright, beautiful day, with a few high clouds. Very cool.
I was told that I’d been selected to monitor the flight. Didn’t need to do anything; just be there.
Well, I could do that! It felt like some kind of honor. I settled into a chair and my role. The flight progressed…
Then, I was awakening on the flight deck. Klaxons were blaring. I could tell from perspective and angles, we were MUCH lower. I thought, oh my God, we’re going to crash. And I’m going to be in so much trouble.
Then I was irritated because, why didn’t someone already respond, come up, and take over. Then I thought about pulling on the controls and trying to take us to a higher flight level.
I thought, ARE YOU NUTS? Don’t touch the controls. You might make it worse.
Then, in a weird dream shift, I was on the ground at the airport, in the working part of the airport, waiting for the plane to craft, fretting about the trouble I was going to be in. I ran into a friend who was on the flight; he was worried about being in trouble, too.
We had to keep moving to stay out of the airport workers’ way. My friends explained that there were five of us in positions like me, people who were supposed to be watching things, so there was trouble to go around. At the same time, the people who were supposed to be on the job were not, so they would also be in trouble.
Exactly, I agreed.
Meanwhile, a young female set up equipment on a table not far from us. She was going to monitor the aircraft’s progress from there because they might need to blow it up. She was busy and couldn’t explain more about this process.
Then I heard others saying, “Look, what’s that?”
I went out. They were pointing up. The sky was blue but a bright white fireball was going across it.
That’s the jet, I thought. Then I thought, but that could be a meteor. Or a comet or asteroid.
Then I thought, wait: how am I on the ground, waiting for the plane to crash? That didn’t make sense.
I then went back in and decided to change clothes so I could walk around more. Then I thought, how do I have my clothes on the ground with me if we’re waiting for the aircraft to crash? How did we all get off the aircraft, if it’s still flying?
That didn’t make any sense.
Dream end.
NOTE: When I wrote up this dream this morning, I saw how much of it paralleled what I was going through with writing. I set aside “Unfocused” after several drafts to let it cool, get some distance. Then I began working on “A Tribe Called Death”. As I hit page 70, I was frantic because that novel took some weird turns and left me flailing about where to go, what to do.
I calmed myself: hey, this is the first draft, nimrod. Just write. And by the end of the day, a character had taken a position and showed me the way. I think the dream reflected that whole process, in its own way.
I dreamed I was at my mother’s house. It wasn’t her real-life house but I knew what it was in my dream. Although everything was white, there was little light.
I was trying to open some kind of cistern. As it transpired, I knew that it was wine I tried opening, to see how it was. It was supposed to be red wine.
I was being very careful, meticulous, because I worried about the cork falling apart. But it wasn’t the ‘traditional’ cork stopper, but a round, flat circle.
My youngest sister joined me. She asked what I was doing and I softly explained it as she leaned over me and watched. I had just gotten the safely out when something fell into the wine.
I asked my sister, “Did you see that?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Was that a piece of the cork falling in?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.” I sat back. “All that work and I got it out and then it broke and fell in.”
Michael Seidel, writer 