Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
I go to RoCo in Ashland for my coffee these days. One barista, Jasper, is young actor, singer, and dancer. This week found him getting a phone call from someone putting on a play in New England. They wanted him for a role.
Thrilled and surprised, he accepted. He began to share the news with friends and co-workers. Part of his process is to explain that he will be in “To Kill A Mockingbird”, a play by Aaron Sorkin. He often begins, “Do you know who Aaron Sorkin is?” The response often I along the lines of “I think I know the name” or “No.”
I was relating this to my wife. When I said “Aaron Sorkin,” she instantly barked, “West Wing.” She continued, “Martin Sheen as President Bartlett. That should be required watching in civics for how a president should act.”
She then went on to tell me about her favorite scene. I looked it up for her and share it with you.
It’s a good one to watch during Pride Month in the Trump era.
Raw
Be my guest
No one said
But I made myself
At home
Sitting where I please
Drinking what I wanted
Gazing where I chose
Till one said
Who you looking at
And another asked
Why are you here
What are you doing
So I shrugged
Smiled
Drank
And told them
Being
Me
*This post is part of Linda Hill’s SoCS fun at The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 13, 2026 |
At the Goodwill
My wife and I are on the Oregon coast. We ate a wonderful fresh breakfast at the Fresh Harvest Cafe. Then we hit the local Goodwill.
My wife enjoys visiting Goodwill stores. She likes bargains and she likes re-using things. She did say today, “I’m not buying anything new. I’m death cleaning so whenever I see something I want, I just tell myself, ‘You’ll just have to throw it out.'” Books are the exceptions. We bought four, two for each of us.
Killing time, I wander the store and write a short story in my head. It’s about a future Goodwill. Dystopian situation. A guy ransacks an unused house. There’s a lot of them. Finding a cache of shot glasses, he brings them to the Goodwill. They give him a small bag of peanuts for them. He sits outside in the sunshine, savoring every nut as he eats them.
My sister texted me about her grandson’s birthday. He’s already fifteen, thoroughly discombobulating my brain, which still thinks of him as much younger. His mother is still a teenager in my thoughts. To see that he’s now a teenager is too much. I do the slow math; I was fifty-five when he was born. Time, you know?
Sis tells me that her grandson went to an Escape Room for his birthday. Muses gather in my head to conceptualize fiction about Escape Rooms.
Sis interrupts with a text abut Mom. She’s taken Mom to Urgent Care for another suspected UTI. Mom complains about dizziness as she Mom gets in and out of her wheelchair and the car.
Browsing Goodwill shelves, I see things which might be in my home. I go through an aisle of tools and imagine my tools in there.
I believe I have seen the future.
Leaving the building, I breath in fresh air and smile at the sunshine on my face.
SoCS – Sweet
This week, Linda Hill’s prompt was sweet for the Saturday Stream of Consciousness. Here we go.
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Sweet, I thought, go to the coast, get away, enjoy the weather and eat something different and just be someone different somewhere doing something different watching waves, breathing the air, smelling it –
Hope it all goes well. Why shouldn’t it? Well…yeah. Life.
Maybe I should eat something. Cookie? Scone would be nice. Blueberry. Lemon.
Time to go home.
Michael Seidel, writer 