I broke out of my writerly cocoon this week. I typically get into the coffee shop, find a table and seat, assume the position and shut down to being friendly. I have met Kim, another writer, and chat with her regularly, but briefly. We each respect the writer’s privacy and methodology, so while we will emerge to joke and exchange words, we shut back down and get down to our respective writing processes.
Meanwhile, though, there are dogs. People bring their pups in with them, a practice I applaud. Living in Europe, it wasn’t unusual to encounter dogs in restaurants, cafes, and shops. I’m fine with them.
And the dogs are fine with me. But because they come and visit me, I end up chatting with their people. Then the people open up with their curiosity about what I do there each day. In explaining, others overhear. They volunteer later, privately, that they’re a writer, too. It’s a veritable writing hive.
I also ventured out of my cocoon on my own. A woman sat down beside me yesterday as I was wrapping up. She put a book down, along with a notebook. Always interested in people’s reading material, I glanced over. The book’s title was A Wild Life, a book about women in botany and their discoveries. I have several botanist friends, learned, intelligent, charming people who are passionate about botany. I said, “Pardon me, I saw your book. Are you a botanist?”
“I wish,” she responded.
We chatted about the book and why she chose it. A local person, Lucretia Saville Weems, is the author, and the woman saw it in Bloomsbury’s local authors section and was interested and bought it.
Packing up, I said my goodbyes to her but wasn’t done socializing. I’d noticed a young couple. She was wearing a One Piece sweatshirt. My wife and I are One Piece fans, so I had to pause to compliment her on her top, and then we talked about the television series and enjoyed some laughs.
Probably just something in the air for a few days. I’m back in my cocoon today, ready to get to it.
As I sit here typing, I’m aware of a hair. It sits on the left side of my left eye’s vision. It’s been pestering me for two days. It’s from the Eyebrow Tribe. At first, I just brushed at it. Then I tried finding it in the mirror and pasting it down. When that failed, I tried jerking it out with my fingertips. Should’ve gotten tweezers to seriously address it but no, I was in the middle of something else and was rushing myself. Or should I just clipped it back. Tsk.
And here it is again. Sitting on my vision’s edge, mocking me.
Curse you, little curly hair. Curse you. This isn’t over.
I’m busy typing at the coffee shop but the conversation going on with the newcomers to my left pluck me out of my fiction and into the real world.
The woman was catching up with her father. So I gathered because she asked, “What do you drink, Dad?”
“Black coffee.”
“Cream? Do you want a little cream?”
“No, black.”
They sat and talked. Her healthcare premiums were going up. That’d forced her to change insurance coverage, reducing it to reduce her monthly costs. That meant getting less insurance. Her deductible would now be $9,000 for her. Only her. Her monthly payment now would be $448 a month. She discussed the notices she’d received about her reduced subsidy now dictated by the Big Beautiful Bill.
Dad commiserated. Mentioned, you’re like one of those on television, facing tough choices because of the new bill. Lamenting that the legislators won’t take it up.
Then she said, “Thank God I’m healthy.”
I bit my tongue. Wondered about their politics. Shrugged.
It’s now 80 murders. Let’s call them for what they are. Crimes.Yes, Dozy Donny is killing in the name of the United States to provoke Venezuela into retaliation, giving Trumpy a paralegal excuse to invade the oil rich nation. I’m sure Trump will whip out the autopen and pardon this criminal soon. It’s the Trump way!
Dawg, what a gray, wet day looking in on us. It’s up to 36 F with clearance to soar to the mid 40s. Sunshine is lacking and what sun shows up is shaded in fifty shades of gray. This is December 3, 2025.
Today’s music emerges from an exchange with my wife. She was leaving for exercise class. I was still abed. It’s her habit to check on me before she leaves to ensure I’m alive. Hearing her coming, I held my breath and stayed motionless. “Is he alive?” she teased. I felt her hand pressed on my hip. Then she pressed on my scalp. After about ten seconds, I sprang up and proclaimed, “I’m still standing.” We laughed like idiots.
But that’s how “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John arrived in the morning mental music stream on this Wenzda.
Reports on Mom shows her doing pretty good. Sis has stocked Mom’s lair with her favorite munchies and drinks so Mom has some independence of others. Mom has become better at using Alexa to call for assistance. The one major complaint now is that Mom has her television at supercharged levels. Sis says it’s so loud sometimes that they can’t hear their television upstairs over Mom’s TV. I used to complain about the television and radios’ volume (yes, that’s a plural on the radio) when I visited Mom. She always blamed Frank. Guess it’s the ghost of Frank cranking up those devices now.
Lot of news rolling out about Trump falling asleep at meetings. ‘Member when he used to criticize and mock President Biden for falling asleep? Now he can’t seem to stay awake.
Some say it’s because he can’t sleep at night because worries about the Epstein files revelations drive him to midnight sessions of shitposting. Rumors are that Epstein’s ghost has begun haunting him, whispering in Dizzy Donny’s ears reminders of what a failure he is, how weak and vulnerable Deceitful Donny is, and how Duplicitous Donny’s failures are catching up to him. Once BFF with Epstein, TACO now tries to claim he barely knew the guy.
Got my coffee and I’m out of here. Hope peace and grace show up and sing you to sleep. Here we go, into another Wenzda. Cheers
Don’t know what’s in my water. Dreams continue rolling through me. This one featured a deceased but appreciated and missed Uncle. Died of a brain tumor ’bout a decade ago or so. He was one of those people who always demonstrated belief in what I could do and pride in when I do things, a good person to have around when you’re young and feeling your way.
We were at a celebration. Seemed to be a family birthday party. My uncle was hosting. He was young, energetic, and charming, the perpetual image contained in my memories of him, sunglasses covering his eyes, teeth clamped on a cigar. Don’t know who the party was for. Seemed like cousins were there. Weird thing is, it seemed to be held in a Japan or Mexico.
It came time for the cake. That was prepared for a local bakery. My uncle asked if anyone could pay for it. Yes, I volunteered; I can. I scrambled to find the money, just $25. Impatiently, he left, and went to get the cake. Finding the money at last, I rushed after him, encountering him as he left the store. “I have the money,” I told him.
“Too late,” he replied. “I paid.”
He seemed sad, disappointed. I suggested that I could pay the shopkeeper and he could give my uncle his money back. The shopkeeper, watching and listening in this tiny establishment, agreed. No, my uncle decided. It’d be too complicated. What’s done is done.
We were high-school classmates. Graduated in 1974. I haven’t seen him since 1979, when I was home from the military. He was a good friend for the times, at the time. But we have all changed, haven’t we?
I dreamed I encountered Keith at a store. Don’t know what kind of store. We were both the young people we were in high school. Someone else was with him, hanging back in the shadows, behind him. I don’t know who they were. Keith told me he was running for office. I was very surprised. Keith, reserved, a little shy, with a sharp mind and a dry sense of humor, didn’t seem destined for politics. I asked why he was doing that. He gave me a detailed response about problems he’d had with several local businesses. He’d felt cheated but everything the businesses had done were legal, so he was running for office so he could change things. As he gave his response, he showed me his phone, where there were records and newspaper and media articles about the businesses and Keith’s issues. I said something about him using his phone as evidence. He replied, “Good lord, no. I have too much porn on it to ever show anyone my phone.”
Sort of funny how we use the word charge and how its meanings has shifted.
We used to say things like, “Then he charged at me,” or, “That animal charged me.”
More often for a while, we heard charge in, “He was charged with the crime of soliciting,” or “He was charged with drunk driving.”
Later, charging things via credit cards were in vogue, such as, “I’m going to charge it for now, and then I’ll pay it off later.”
Now we say, “I didn’t charge my phone and now it’s almost dead. I have to find a charger.” Imagine hearing that forty years ago, if you’ve been alive that long. What were you charging in 1985?
Of course, imagine back in 1970 if someone asked you, “Do you have a laptop?” You’d think they were crazy, asking such a question.
The Sundowner-in-Chief is trying to assign blame for things going wrong to President Biden.
It’s all a distraction, of course, a classic page from the ‘It’s Everyone Else’s Fault!’ Donald Trump playbook. In this instance, Dizzy Donny thinks he can arbitrarily decide that President Biden’s autopen use was illegal. Therefore, everything signed by President Biden is null and void. Yep, Dozy Donny sez he’s cancelling it all.
After bragging that this year’s Thanksgiving meals were marginally cheaper than the year before, President Donald Trump is continuing to spread holiday cheer. On Friday, the president vowed to cancel all executive orders signed by President Joe Biden using an autopen.
On Truth Social, Trump claimed that “Sleepy Joe Biden” signed 92 percent of documents with the machine, which is used to automate signatures. “The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States,” he wrote. “The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him. I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
~snip~
Does this make sense? No. Totally illogical, par for Trump’s thinking. Is it legal? Absolutely not. Is it dumber than a bucket of golf balls? Yep, and that makes it sooo Trumpdiculous. Is it outrageously hypocritical, given how many times Sundowning Donny has used the autopen? Well, of course! This is Trump. With his popularity falling fast, he’s desperately lunging out at shadow monsters. The odds that the United States will attack another nation are probably going up, desperate as he’s getting. There’s been so much losing for Donny T, and there’s a lot more losing looming on the horizon.
Well, my jaw just fell open when I read that. Not.
Thieving Donny is funneling money. Again. Of course. His greed is only surpassed by his lying and cheating. Here it is, a three-fer-one. He’s funneled money for charities to himself to the past, so why would anyone expect anything else? He’s never been punished for all of his stealing and cheating and lying. People, the press, and governments all give him a pass, again and again. And this is their reward: he’s cheating them, he’s cheating the nation, and he’s cheating We the People. He’ll continue to until the breathing air is gone and the sun is just a bright star in the nighttime.
The House of Trump does seem to be wobbling more each day. Fer ‘xample, Melania’s ‘meme’ coin has lost some value. From the WSJ via Raw Story:
Supporters of Donald Trump, who believed everything he touches turns to gold, are finding out the hard way that investing in the president has turned into a bad bet.
According to a Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal, since Trump was inaugurated in January, shares in the parent company behind the president’s Truth Social platform have spiraled downward 75 percent and the numbers for Trump-branded “meme coins” have suffered a worse fate as of late.
Producing and starring in a buzzy documentary about her prominent yet under-the-radar life was just the beginning for Melania Trump, who has now launched her own production company.
The first lady announced the launch of “Muse Films” on social media with a brief video unveiling its official logo.
The company will make its debut with the upcoming film titled “Melania,” which is slated to release in theaters nationwide Jan. 30 and later on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service.
The documentary showcases the 20 days before the former model returned to the White House following President Donald Trump‘s inauguration on Jan. 20.
~snip~
So, from that and other articles, I’d say it’s not about Melania’s life, just a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny slice. She’s not going to reprise her nude modeling career in this film. I don’t think Jeffrey Epstein will be mentioned, even though he may have been the vehicle through which the doggishly-loyal Trump met his third wife.
Overboard and over the top. That’s Duplicitous Donny. An Afghan refugee was involved in a shooting in D.C. You probably read, heard, saw that news. The individual shot two West Virginia National Guard units in D.C. when they were shot by the Aghani.
Naturally, Trump responded with a thoughtful, nuance take – NOT! Instead, he vowed to permanently pause immigration from a number of nations and whipped out his autopen to make it so.
Because, yeah, that’s the root of the problem, right? Almost 48,000 gun murders were reported in the U.S. in 2023. How many of those does Trump think were done by immigrants? Oh, sorry, I wrote ‘Trump’ and ‘think’, which do not conjugate anywhere except Dopy Donny’s alter world. Trump doesn’t think. He makes crazy, baseless decrees which he believes demonstrates that he is strong, intelligent, and on top of everything. Instead, his solutions are often problematic, rife with flawed logic and fallacy, and often are dangerous and malicious.
My laptop computer informed me of its battery status.
Battery fully charged 100% Fully smart charged
I thought, WTF? Isn’t that just three ways of saying the same thing?
The Neurons pursued that a little. I suppose someone somewhere, reading that their battery was fully charged might wonder, “Does that mean 100%?” And another might wonder, but if it’s fully charged and 100%, is it also fully ‘smart’ charged.
Admittedly, I don’t even know what ‘smart charged’ is. Probably means something to someone, but not me. 100% charged is good enough for my math.
Michael Seidel, writer 