Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Dreary sunshine and bleached skies say hello when Papi and I step out to inspect the morning. It’s 49 F in Ashlandia today, Satyrda, October 4, 2025. A high of 60 is anticipated. The furnace was turned on to dispel some of the morning chill, as it was just 67 F in the house. Despite these clouds, rain is not a worry for us. Personal note, today is the 51st anniversary of when I swore my oath to defend the Constitution in the U.S. military.
All my appointments went very well Thursday. Texted Mom to tell her we’re coming to Pittsburgh for her 90th birthday. She says she’s looking forward to seeing us but is busy painting the kitchen cupboards right now. Dad remains in rehab in Texas. Spoke to him, and he was in terrific spirits and sounded strong, healthy, and alert.
Trump’s Venezuelan body count is 21 after U.S. missiles destroyed another boat. That’s number four. What’s the body count over/under for a Nobel Peace Prize?
The Weariness Meter is in the upper ranges today. I feel I’m flagging over the news. Think I’ll take a time out from keeping up to date. That general malaise striking me had me thinking about past and present. 1974, when I graduated from high school and joined the military, still appears as a decent year when I look back through time’s long lens. This year, 2025, feels like a terrible year on multiple levels. Reflections have me treading on a path of thought about how much we’ve regressed in my lifetime. Most of that came in the last 20 years. Hell, most of it came with Trump’s takeover of the White House in 2025. Much of it is due to Russ Vought and Project 2025 and their effective use of Trump as a dupe.
The Neurons decide to cheer me up with “Here’s Where the Story Ends” by Sundays in my morning mental music stream. Sample lyrics for you from Songfacts.com.
Crazy I know, places I go
Make me feel so tired
I can see how people look down
I’m on the outside
Oh, Here’s where the story ends
Ooh, Here’s where the story ends
It’s that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
And who ever would’ve thought the books that you brought
Were all I loved you for
Oh the devil in me said go down to the shed
I know where I belong
But the only thing I ever really wanted to say
Was wrong, was wrong, was wrong
It’s that little souvenir of a colorful year
Which makes me smile inside
So I cynically, cynically say the world is that way
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise
Here’s where the post ends. Hope grace and peace pop up for us someday soon. Got my coffee. Time to motor. Cheers
I’ve often stated that I write to help me understand what I think. Writing is a process that forces me to slot things into a more coherent order. That process helps me dig up what’s really bugging me below the surface of my reactions.
I spent time yesterday walking and then writing myself a letter. It was almost like meditating for me, with surprising results. Turned out that I was angrier, more frustrated, and more depressed than I realized. Baring it all to myself helped me shed those things and reinvigorate myself. Some of the anger was irrational, railing at life for the afflictions happening to friends and family. Some, on a deeper level, were revelations to myself about how I perceived others and my relationships with them.
But once again, writing came through for me. I’m happy with the outcome. Purging my psyche of that anger and depression lifted my spirits and restored my energy levels.
Dad and I spoke for almost an hour today. The conversation energized me, boosting my mood into a happier place. On the surface, a high percentage can be attributed to relief: Dad was home. No greater problems were found during his latest hospital visit, and it was a short one. He and his wife were both friendly, engaging, and happy on their end. Undoubtably this fed me and my spirits.
I also insist, though, that some of this came from just speaking with Dad. He and I are familiars. We mock and respect one another. He’s one of the few people I sense I can really spill myself to regarding what’s going on, whether it’s politics, writing, relationships with my wife, Mom, and sisters, or my DIY projects.
We’ve not always been like these. It’s been a long evolution. I’m glad we made it here, though. It’s taken time. We followed a torturous path. But here we are.
Finally.
It’s Wenzda, aka humpday, but also July 2, 2025. Cooled down to a comfortable level last night some and the morning ingredients are calling birds, blue sky, sunshine, and 72F. High will be 83 F, a drop from what I saw yesterday at my casa, 95 F.
I realized this morning that I’m in a metaphorical holding-my-breath state. So many balls in the air. I scan horizons for ‘the next’ in six different directions. Out there is the One Big Beautiful Bill, known in some places as the Big Ripoff, the Great Screwed Up Give to the Rich bill in others. Trump was again idiotically blithering on TV like someone who shouldn’t be allowed out on their own again. Russia and Ukraine’s war continues. Iran and Israel are still out there glaring at one another. Israel bombed some more people in Gaza. Don’t worry: they’re ‘investigating’ how it came to be that they bombed a cafe and killed reporters and workers and such. Yep. Tariffs hang all over everything like toilet paper from trees after Devil’s Night. Supreme Court rulings have been issued and the storms building behind those will come out. It’s Hurricane Season. Europe is suffering record heat and it’s not that cool in ‘Merica, either. Wildfires burn and FEMA is ready to shrug because Trump says states should be doing it for themselves. DOGE has had access to personal data; can that be good? The U.S. measles outbreak has ‘plateaued’ according to the gov’t but has it really? And what will happen with all that new guidance from the science and medicine skewed HHS led by worm brain Kennedy? Killer Noem’s ICE Troops seem more reckless, sanctuary and blue states are being threatened by Trump, he has a new eua-du-shit out, and Musk and Trump have taken their insults to new levels. Then there’s the personal and family stuff.
Hold my breath. Wait to see. What. Is. Next.
Quickening to my mood and thoughts, The Neurons unleashed “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons into the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 2012. Led by Marcus Mumford, the band has a different sound but it works for me and enough others that they’ve established a solid career. Hope you find it okay for your Wenzda’s beats.
My follow up dental appointment went well yesterday. All is healing, no problems, no complaints. Biopsy showed nothing of concern from the cyst removed from my gum. Have another appointment, different dentist, for a cleaning.
Coffee-fueled energy is ascending. I’m off to early morning yardwork. Have the best day you can. Cheers
Someone must’ve pressed the ‘misty’ button on today’s weather menu. 44 F, cloudy, drizzly, misty, a little sunny, the high will jump to 51, 52 F. Not a bad day, just not particularly inspiring or uplifting, here in Ashlandia.
Fortunately, I experienced uplifting, energizing dreams. Returning from them to here was a rough landing. There, I was supremely happy, eager for the day, embracing the future. Here…everything is knotted with uncertainty, fused with irritation and frustration. I keep telling myself that this too must pass. It presently feels like empty rhetoric.
Papi the ginger blade, aka Butter Butt, is doing fab, busying himself around us, scampering about with tail up, sometimes punctuating the moment with his high pitched meep. That sound gifted him his original name of Meep. My SO ordered a change. Didn’t think Meep conveyed enough gravitas. Now she calls him Butter Butt. Like, that has gravitas?
Today’s song is a product of the news. Joey Molland of Badfinger has joined the gig in the sky. Badfinger was an early rock power guitar group. The Beatles fostered them and the group lent their talents to my teenage years. With Molland’s transition, the original group’s lineage has ended. For their part, The Neurons inserted “Baby Blue” from 1972 into the morning mental music stream. The song was written about a woman who showed up and toured with them for a while, Armstrong. It wasn’t a relationship meant to last, though. I went with a recording that’s a little muddy but it shows the most successful lineup during the glory period when they were young, before things began going to crap for them.
Coffee has made another successful landing in my gullet. Let’s rock and roll. Cheers
Well, the challenge is to keep on keeping on. I get tired and frustrated. Like, “Oh my God, I have to vacuum the floor again? It’s time to take out the trash? I just took out the trash.” I mean, the tedium of these things… The weariness builds and grows…
My wife is with me on this. It seems like she’s washing clothes every other day. There are just two of us living in the house. How in the world do we use so many clothes?
Then there is the irritating, always-asked question: “What should we do for dinner?”
This is truly a song of the first world blues when you’re complaining about what I have to cook to eat. Like, waah.
Which delivers me on the doorstep of the biggest challenges facing me in the next six months. To keep perspective. To remind myself that things like higher gas prices are minor for me but major for others. To remember that my health complaints are minor and not to get too absorbed about who I am and what’s bothering me. Because let me tell you, brothers and sisters, there are many out there with a much worse fucking life than me.
That’s the challenge to keep in mind.
Good mornin’! It’s Sunda, February 9, 2025. Sunshine is crowding the window, pressing its rays up against the glass. We started the AM at 25 F in my locale but the sun soon had us soaring past 33 F. ‘They’ tell us 43 is possible. Don’t know if their fingers were crossed behind their backs.
The sun has been working its magic. Trees and bushes are pushing their heavy lids of snow back and stretching and flexing into their normal postures. Seeing sunshine, both floofs clamored to escape the house. Checking on them later, the two sat, eyes closed, soaking up rays on the patio’s sun-warmed cement. After being sun-doused, they returned to the house. One is now napping on a bed while the other is in a chair in sunshine snoozing.
What a night of dreams. Another military dream was among them. Classic of these dreams, I’m in the military again, and again coping with a uniform malfunction. In other words, I was out of compliance and trying to solve that. It’s my version of being pantless in school. But a twist arrived when an officer accosted me and asked, “What are you doing?” I figured he was going to ladle grief on me for my uniform. I whipped out an explanation and told him I was trying to rectify it. “Why?” he responded, surprising me. Then he added, “You retired.”
Oh, yeah.
That sunshine had me thinking, I hunger for a bouncy, energetic song. Something as an antitdote to PINO Trusk’s destruction. Drifting back into time, The Neurons surfaced with a Who offering from 1972. Although the video is silly with them miming playing their instruments and singing, the infectious blending of instruments stirred the kind of hope I felt when I was sixteen. That — and coffee — is just what my spirit ordered.
Coffee saved me again. Brekkie is done, cats are fed. Time to gen up other activities. Hope your day serves you well. Cheers
Mood: chillycool
Friday morning, October 18, 2024. Outside air temperature is 31 degrees F. Doesn’t stop the floofs from wandering out into sunshine. Heavy sunshine, no clouds, and sharp blue sky herald the trees’ autumn gowns. They show off vivacious, vivid golds, lemons, ambers, scarlets, reds, and orange among the greens. It’s a new show every year. Our high today will be in the mid 60s.
I got struck with a fake virus popup scam. Where they want you to buy, download, or call somewhere to get rid of it. Go in and clean it out later. Right now, it’s just an annoyance.
Picked it up when I was looking for birthday flowers for Mom last night. Clicked on one site. It came up with the standard thing about wanting to send me notifications. They seem like beggars to me with that ubiquitous plea, “Want me to send you notifications?” I can see them at a traffic corner, newspaper and water in hand, ready to clean your windshield for you. Anyway, I clicked no, of course, and bang, here was the scam. Deep grrrrrrrrrrooowwwlll.
I have a Twenty One Pilots song in the morning mental music stream (Trademark scammed). Song came out in 2009. The Neurons plucked it out of the stuff floating in memory because I was out there with the cats thinking, hey, it’s a good day. That’s basically the sense of TOP’s song.
Low-key, I’m alright
Would you say you depend on the weather?
My sunshine
Is a buzz and a light, I’ll be singing out
I know it’s hard to believe me, it’s a good day
h/t Genius.com
It’s a chill song with a simple rhythm. Big jaunty. Jaunty songs talk to me.
Heading off to get another COVID vax. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee and I are doing our thing. Here’s the music. Cheers
I enjoy being in the coffee shop and witnessing people encountering one another. They’re often so pleased, excited, or happy to meet. Short hugs are exchanged, and there’s often smiles and laughter.
Just a tonic for my spirits when I’m exposed to such joy.
Michael Seidel, writer 