Wednesday’s Theme Music – FAFO
Ashland, Oregon — Wednesday, March 18, 2026.
Sunshine and blue sky rule this morning. My current thermometer reading is 53 F with 79 F possible after seeing 80 yesterday.
The assisted living facility where Mom resides shared pix of their St Patrick’s day festivities. There was Mom, smiling, looking happy with a silly little green hat on.
Sis suspects that our youngest sister is secretly in contact with Mom and helping her. Mom has been quiet, not reaching out to any of us. Maybe we’ve found the balance for peaceful co-existence. I plan to send Mom a small Easter present.
We’re deeply into the Fuck Around, Find Out phase of Trump’s second term. After expending a lot of air and time on how ‘hot’ the United States is as a country, how other nations were ‘going to hell’, and how we don’t need them, Trump is now asking for help.
According to Trump, nobody anticipated Iran’s response after they were attacked. In fact, who didn’t anticipate it, other than Trump? Now, as the war and its costs are dragging on and dragging him down, he called on other nations to help.
No, they responded.
It’s classic FAFO.
Likewise, Trump insisted his tariffs were legal and would save the nation. No, to both, almost everyone outside of the GOP said. The Supreme Court ruled that the largest ones Trump installed were illegal and refunds were due, a costly, prolonged project.
Trump claimed that last year’s 4th quarter GDP would be 5.4%. It came in at .7%. He claimed his tariffs would decrease prices and unemployment. Didn’t happen. FAFO.
Meanwhile, Trump is pushing hard getting the SAVE Act passed. It’s more classic FAFO moment. We know the ramifications of the act if it passes. We’re not the fools Trump thinks we are. Neither are the Democrats in Congress refusing to go along with the SAVE Act, no matter what Trump threatens.
Trump acts alternately triumphant and angry, demanding help and attention and insisting it’s not needed. His performance reminds The Neurons of a song by the Who, “I’m One” from “Quadrophenia”.
This song is about a young man struggling with mental issues, trying to fit in, coping to find out who he is and create an identity for himself. That’s where I think Trump is. His threats and bullying have less and less impact. What he thought would work isn’t working, and even his bubble isn’t protecting him from knowing the truth any longer.
May this day find you chilling with some hope and grace that Trump will bottom out, the Democrats will take over in a blue wave, and we can begin fixing the Trump Mess. It’s so bad, I think that’s how we should call this period from when Trump began running for office last decade until he’s finally gone: the Trump Mess. We can refer to things pre TM and post TM. Trump likes his name on things. I think we give it to him.
Although Trump Mess might not be strong enough. Trump Hole? Trump Disaster?
Something to think about.
Cheers
The Trend…
Excluding oral surgeries, I’ve had four surgeries in the past half dozen years.
A urologist did the first for a blocked bladder. Next came a broken arm and orthopedic surgery, followed by an orthopedic surgeon repairing a ruptured tendon. Then, last fall, a different surgeon removed my gallbladder.
What’s interesting about this is that these four surgeons left the system within a few months of doing my surgery.
My suspicions are inflamed. Were they just put there to operate on me or did operating on me give cause to have them removed?
Either way, it’s a troubling trend.
I’m keeping an eye on my oral surgeon. At least he’s still here.
For now.
Expectations Met
I tried logging into Gmail this morning.
This page came up:
“We’re sorry, but your account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes. You can view the Google Workspace Status Dashboard for the current status of the service.
If the issue persists, please visit the Help Center »“
Well, hell.
The “Google Workspace Status Dashboard” shows a green checkmark for the current status. Everything is working fine.
Just as I expected.
It’s just me.
Navigating Some Changes: A Dream
It started weird.
In my mid-twenties, I’d been somewhere, had a few drinks, went home. At home was an old girlfriend, visiting someone else, staying the night. Morning broke with sunshine through windows. I realized she was leaving and wanted to get up to say good-bye.
I could not move.
Paralyzed isn’t quite the word. I had no control. My limbs were flopping, weak, uncoordinated.
How did this happen? I kept asking myself. I didn’t much the night before, struggling to remember what I’d eaten, concluding, not much. I suspected someone had spiked my drink.
Thinking over the previous night, my memory pulled up a hypothetical scene where a man dropped something into my dream. I couldn’t guess his motivation and speculated he thought my drink belonged to someone else.
Then, damn – I’m late for work.
In the military again, I scrambled to find a clean uniform and shit, shower, shave.
Rushing out of the house, I headed for a train station and realized, I’m in Germany and I don’t know where I’m going. Nor did I speak the language.
There were long lines and a byzantine system of turns and steps. Putting together clues from what I saw others do, but screwing up, I sometimes got scolded – in German. I studied landmarks for more evidence about where I was, where I was going, then made it to work.
I was just a little late. Eventually I explained to the commander that I thought someone else had spiked my drink. He eagerly agreed, recapping my symptoms and then explaining the same thing happened to him the night before. That greatly relieved me, knowing someone else had gone this. I sensed that he felt the same.
I need to go somewhere else, they told me. Out in the system again, I tried putting pieces together to get to the right place and ended up going too far. Figuring that out, I backtracked until I found the right station. I realized we were sometimes going through people’s personal lands. They were very particular about what was permitted but sometimes changed it. For example, one old, white hair man opened up a door as a shortcut, apparently on a whim. An elderly gray-haired female chastised us when we considered using part of her walk as a shortcut.
Then it was time to go home. I had to figure out where to go, what to do, but fewer people were available. I had to figure it out on my own.
Dream end.
Friday’s Theme Music – Wasted
Ashland, Oregon — Friday, March 13, 2026. Ah, Friday the 13th.
I’m surprised that this is considered a day of bad luck. One, because our ancestors thought Friday was a scary day, the scariest of the week.
What? As someone who worked and partied, I always thought Friday was a good day. It was frequently regulated to a quasi half-day. How is that a bad thing?
The ’13’ part comes from the number being perceived as imperfect. “Ancient Romans and later European traditions also treated 13 as a break in the natural order, contrasting it with the “complete” number 12 (months, zodiac signs, apostles).”
Well, that’s kind of funny and arbitrary. The months are divided into different lengths — 28 (or maybe 29), 30, and 31 days. That seems imperfect. But there’s a ‘perfect’ set of twelve of them.
Yet, we only have two each of limbs, eyes, ears, legs. Just one mouth. Guess we’re not perfect or we’d have twelve of each.
It’s all so silly. That’s why I trust my lucky underwear, my lucky pen, and three beeps on the microwave. They’re proven to bring good fortune. I’d loan you my underwear but it’s just my bad luck that they need washed.
Today finds us cloudy but pleasantly warmish and coolish outside, with sun and blue sky playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. 46 F now, a high in the mid 60s is anticipated.
Quiet continues on the Mom front, and the news shows war, violence, chaos. Thanks, Mr. Trump. It feels like it was an unlucky day when you were elected — both times.
Today’s music is “Wasted on the Way”. The Neurons slipped the Crosby, Stills, Nash song into the morning mental music stream when I was thinking about how Trump wastes the world.
Lives are being wasted by Trump’s hate, biases, indifference. Opportunities wasted by his greed and ego. He’s creating a wasted world, ignoring warnings about climate change, starting wars that destabilize the diplomatic order, breaking agreements which fracture the business world, raising havoc and prices.
Then he tells us it’s all going great.
The biggest question on my mind for the peace president, unifier, and founder of the Board of Peace is, when will Trump stop the bombing and killing that he started, so that others can begin picking up the pieces and putting things back together?
I hope this day isn’t a waste for you. May peace and grace find and keep you.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 