Six AM Thirstda was approaching. We were flying north.
I told my wife, “I’m closing my eyes for a minute.” The Neurons piggybacked into the morning mental music stream with “Dream Weaver” but it didn’t keep.
Neither did keeping my eyes closed. I read for a while, drank coffee, ate the cookies the airline provided.
Funny, getting those cookies. Hundreds of dollars were paid for these seats. This attendant comes along and bends down with a tray and asks, like we’re children, “Would you like a cookie?”
Oh, yes, please!
Descent into SeaTac was been announced. The eastern sky faced me. Molten orange was knifing through the space between a dark stiletto of clouds and the horizon. Then, left – north – a white slice hooked my vision.
Shooting star!
I probably felt the same excitement distant forerunners felt when they looked into a dark sky and saw that quick slash of silvery light. Euphoria jumped me. I felt, yeah, that’s a good sign. A good omen.
Thinking about my travel packing this morning. Long ago, I developed a habit of packing my toilet bag a few days before I leave. Then I use my toiletries from it as though I’m in a hotel room. In that way, I sometimes realize something was overlooked, and I’m not rushing through packing it at a later time. This is all my own in that I’ve never read about it, subject to memory limitations. I’ve never mentioned it to others till now, either. Wouldn’t surprise me to learn that others do the same.
Follow me for more tips about drinking beer and coffee.
Frank passed away, so I’m remembering Frank. 95, he and Mom were together for his life’s last twenty years plus. Which, as I think about it, causes me to realize that Frank was about five years older than my present age when he and Mom met. My youngest sister, Lisa, was the agent of their coming together. Mom was dating another, Ed, at the time. Lisa worked in a bank. She regularly saw Frank and decided that Frank and Mom were a good match. When she suggested it to Frank, he asked, “Is she pretty?” Lisa beamed and gave a knowing nod. “Yep.”
Lisa was right. Mom and Frank hit it right off. All was a lot of fun for years. Biking, walking, movies, tennis, dancing, estate sales. They had a good life before Mom’s accidents, health, and drugs crippled things. I’m happy they had those years together.
When my wife and I talked about it, she marveled about old people dating. “People our age,” she exclaimed as we both laughed. She went on, “I’m like that song. I’m not ready to get naked in front of another.”
We spoke more seriously about friends and relatives our age and older dating. Ron, 78, lost his wife ten years ago to breast cancer. He’s had a regular girlfriend for three years. Now he’s dating another woman and they’re having fun. Sis-in-law, coming up on 70, has a regular boyfriend, her third since her husband died of brain cancer about five years ago (I think). Then there’s Barb, 81 this Feb, dating a guy who is her age. Both had preferred younger people and would hook up with someone for a few months and then move on. Now, months into this relationship, Barb professes that she’s in love. Sweet and beautiful.
So, there’s hope, if you put yourself out there. As Frank and Mom did. Hell, as Dad did. Now at 92, he’s on his third marriage. It’s lasted over thirty years, the longest marriage of his life, and he seems happy and contented.
This is just a weird household fact. Weird isn’t even the right word. Really, just something noted.
Here in our household, the clothes washer is just called the washer, or the washing machine. But the dishwasher is always fully said with both words, even though it’s been morphed into one. Examples:
“I’m going to put some stuff into the washer and do a load.” That would be the clothes washer.
“Should we turn on the dishwasher?” Self explanatory.
And now, as I’m writing it out to understand what I think about this, I see how much context plays into the whole scheme. Like, we don’t collect dirty clothes into the washer and then announce that we need to do a load. No, that’s all more systematic. We put the dirty clothes into a wheeled basket. When it’s full or one of us has a specific need for something to be washed.
I’d attributed it to our upbringing. I’m 69. My wife is a year younger. Her family never had a dishwasher. Dishes were always washed by hand. My family acquired their first dishwasher when I was eleven. Mom bought it on sale at Sears for Mother’s Day. So I thought that my wife and I grew up with clothes washers but dishwashers came later. Hence the difference.
Could be a bit of both, I suppose. As a final aside, my wife announced on Friday, “I’m going to wash clothes. Do you need to put anything in there? I’m doing darks.”
“No, I have nothing.”
I went off and did something in the other room. When I came back, she accosted me. “We had so many dirty clothes that I had to split it up into two loads.” She gestured back at the machine. “Why are you wearing so many clothes? Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“I’m just following the norm,” I replied. “You know, clean shirt, clean underwear, clean socks. Just one of each a day. Except socks. I wear a pair of them. I usually wear my pants a few times before washing them.”
“You need to be less clean,” she replied.
I laughed. Being told to be ‘less clean’ was definitely a first.
I was the new guy in a small group of males. Basically smartasses and lower class with leanings toward crime and goofing off, I don’t know how I met them but was hanging around with them. They kept discounting me and making fun of me. I decided changes were needed and thought the way to do that was with my hair. So off I went to get dreadlocks.
A stylist eagerly did as I asked. I emerged with long black dreadlocks when I’d had brown hair before, with the crown being literally a crown of short dreads.
I went back and joined the group at a short track where a car race was scheduled to take place. All were surprised and taken back. One or two made fun of me for it. Then we split up. Most headed in to watch the race but one other and I stayed back, sort of watching the group’s belongings in a small corner by a counter. Catching my image in a mirror, I was horrified. “I look terrible,” I said. “Ridiculous. What was I thinking?”
The other guy, a short, white almost bald fellow said, “Well, I admire what you did. Took balls. I respect that.”
“Really? But it looks like crap.”
“Yes, but you did something.”
I met a woman who wanted to go into the track but wasn’t certain how to go about it. I asked where she wanted to go in there. “By turn two,” she answered. “Come on,” I said, “I’ll take you there.”
I took her in through the crowd. As I did, a young black woman paused to tell me with a wide smile, “I really like your hair.”
“Thanks,” I answered, pleased, amused. Showing the woman to turn two, I moved back through the crowd to the outside. Another young black woman accosted me, saying, “Nice hair.”
I encountered a white female friend as I left the race track. “What did you do to your hair?” she asked.
“I know,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m going to see if it can be fixed.” But I was thinking, it’ll probably need to be cut. Then it’ll take a long time to grow back. While this went through my head, a young black woman said, “I’m sorry but I overheard what you said. I hope you don’t change your hair. I think it looks really good on you.”
My wife and I had a minor disagreement the other day.
I had surgery to repair a ruptured tendon last year, in October, 2024. I’ve had pain of various kinds since then. One source of pain was along toes three to five, which was often stiff with burning pain. I’d mentioned it to my surgeon, as it began during my convalescence from surgery. He said that it sounds like a nerve was damaged. I felt the same. Although I’m not a medical expert or doctor, etc., I broke and dislocated a wrist in my late twenties. Pins casts immobilized that wrist and arm. I suffered from a burning, painful sensation along the pin sites after they were removed. My doc back then told me it was probably nerve damage. It did go away after about twenty years. This foot pain felt just like that pain.
While walking the other day, I felt a sudden sharp and painful snap in my foot where the toe pain resides. After gasping and slowing for a second, I resumed walking. Lo, that foot pain was gone. It hasn’t come back.
I was so elated. I went home and told my wife. She responded, “Why is this the first that I’m hearing about this?”
One, it wasn’t the first she was hearing about it. She’d forgotten me mentioning it, but I spoke about in early January of this year. I don’t blame her for forgetting it. We don’t remember everything we’re told.
Two was a broader philosophical position. Basically, I don’t tell her about every pain I endure. I’m aging, and have pains from time to time. Feet, ankle, hips, neck, shoulder, back, abdomen, eyes, etc. Those pains often go away. Their duration can last anywhere from a few hours to a week. Sometimes they limit movement, and more rarely limit my activities. My point is, pain comes and goes. I prefer to not complain. And then means, to me, not mentioning.
And there’s a little history in that. Number one was Mom. Mom as a mother often told us to stop crying, stop whining, stop complaining. She wanted us to be happy children. If we couldn’t be happy, she wanted us to be quiet.
Then there’s history with my wife about this. Long ago, when I was twenty, I was severely sick for several days. We didn’t see doctors back then for things like that. Basically vomiting, not eating, listless, sweating a lot, lot of pain. That pain resulted in some moaning and groaning.
Yeah, I got over it and lived. But about a year later, my wife was speaking to others and talked about what a baby I was when I was sick and hurt. That insulted and angered me. I told her so when we were alone. It since became a theme for her to talk about how often men complain about being sick or hurt when women are so much hardier, and more willing to endure. I finally mentioned to my wife that I disliked this reductivism about men and pain. She’s done it off and on since, and once, after seeing me give her a look when she made such a statement, apologized and claimed that she wasn’t including me. Since then, she’s slowly drifted out of the habit.
But this is how we evolve. We have our basic attitudes and tendencies, and then we react to our environment. Part of that is how we react to what we hear. What is said about us, especially by those we love, admire, and trust. Maybe I’m being thin-skinned, but words matter. Part of my problem, too, is that I seem to have a very strong memory. I don’t easily forget or forgive.
September continues for a few more days. It’s Thirstda, September 25, 2025. 74 F in Ashlandia. Blue but hazy sky. Sunshine. Reaching for 86 F. Leaves have not started freefalling but the fall color shift has begun.
A dream provides today’s music. It was a weird damn dream, featuring the strangest game of basketball ever, and a zombie sort of white man. The dream ended with me victorious in basketball, gaining others’ freedom, and then walking away, leading five others. As I left, I began singing a song made popular by The Animals, “We Gotta Get Out of this Place”. Written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, it’s a powerful protest place against the pressures and conditions of modern first world life, we were become so defined by work, paying bills, and trying to stay safe. When I started singing it in the dream, the others joined in as we walked up and out of a square, concrete tunnel, sort of the kind often encountered in underground parking garages.
Just want to note, BTW, Weil and Mann also wrote the hit songs, “On Broadway”, “Kicks”, “Make Your Own Kind of Music”, “Here You Come Again”, “Walkin’ in the Rain”, and contributed to “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”, and “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration”.
Whenever I think of this song or play it, I remember a childhood incident. I was eight when The Animals came on The Ed Sullivan Show to perform. Mom was very excited; she thought there would be animals singing. So we all tuned in to hear a human rock band singing this song, severely disappointing Mom.
Trump continues throwing apples at bogey threats. Now he’s pretending the violence in the United States is caused by ‘the left’. That’s how it is in his fact-free alternate reality. Actions like this lower freedom, democracy, unity, and respect. But it makes Trump feel pretty.
Deification of Charlie Kirk mounts. Put his likeness on the silver dollar, Republicans urge. Sure, cement this era’s insanity for the future to more fully and completely understand.
A government shutdown crawls closer. Trump refuses to negotiate with Democrats, chickening out once again, because he knows he’s a terrible negotiator. TACO, in control of the House and Senate, wi;th the Supreme Court backing him, has to resort to lying on the net once again in support of his alternate reality, this time claiming that Democrats want to give trillions illegal immigrants. It’s as shady and ugly as previous lies he’s made, like immigrants are eating people’s pets. His fact-free existence continues as a problem for the rest of us. From his ridiculously uninformed medical advice to his absurd grasp of history and his overinflated sense of himself, all he does breaks down centuries of trust, progress, hope, and peace.
As a bully, Trump is threatening to be cruel and stupid as part of the shutdown. That’s his normal style. Bully, bluster, blame others, and do stupid things. In this case, the WH issued guidance that it’ll use the shutdown to fire folks. “With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out,” the memo says. “RIF notices will be in addition to any furlough notices provided due to the lapse in appropriation.”
It’s part of the Trump Offal Office Circus. The GSA just announced it’s hiring people Trump let go through DOGE because getting rid of them screwed up the government. Ditto, the IRS. Now, here goes TACO down the same alternate reality hole he always goes, dragging the nation and world down with him.
I wonder what Trump’s BFF, Jeffrey Epstein, would say at this point?
Well, got coffee, so I’m good for the moment. Hope peace and grace grows stronger in the face of Trumpnanigans.
It’s a tale of two worlds. It’s the best of times, it’s the craziest of times. It’s a world defined by facts and reason where people come to share discourse about serious problems based on the evidence presented, and it’s a world where a powerful elected official shows serious problems with reality.
This makes it all hard to write. I want to rage about Trump’s insanity. But that’s the problem: he is sick. He should not be in a position of power. He should be retired to somewhere safe, where he can rest with medical care. Trump constantly trolled President Joe Biden as sleepy Joe, always claiming that President Biden was too old and feeble to be POTUS. Well, here we have an expanding body of empirical evidence that Trump’s grasp on reality is as thin and untenable as a cobweb.
Between his psychobabble Tylenol announcement, antifa EO, and his UN speech rife with falsehoods, Trump has blown out any perceptions that he shares the same reality as the great majority. Acting on some fabricated form of history and facts, he makes speeches, boasting about ending wars without naming them, claiming to save thousands of lives, chides others for being ignorant, oblivious to the ignorance which he displays. Whereas before, he was laughed at in his UN speech, this outing found a silent audience; they heard and saw how sick he is. Unless you’re Trump or a MAGAt, you don’t laugh at the sick. Yet, Trump probably saw and heard awe for how great he was. In his mind, they were silent with respect for how brilliant he is. That’s how disconnected he has become.
Tragically for U.S. citizens and the rest of the world, the GOP and Trump’s enablers gleefully go along with his madness. It serves their purpose for him to push his alternate reality unto everyone else and upend science, medicine, logic, truth, and history.
MAGAts seem too mired in their own hatred or alternate reality to raise their voices. This shows again and again through FAFO stories about how shocked they are to be victimized by the person and policies they support. They pretend Trump is religious, despite his history of conning, lying, cheating. They pretend he is fit and strong and muscular, even though pictures show an unhealthy, obese individual. They pretend to hear brilliant insights when he speaks, even when he incoherently rambles. They pretend that he’s religious, sent by God, although he’s committed adultery, paid for sex, has been indicted and convicted of crimes, and shuns the poor and sick while hoarding money.
Most of the wealthiest 1% seem addicted to greed and just keep grabbing whatever they can, regardless of what happens to the other 99% of the population. They’re just looking out for number one; number one is them.
Useful tools like former Fox News are broken individuals who like having attention, power, and position. They’re in over their heads and know it, but that’s okay, because Trump supports them. They’re all going for an ugly spin around the toilet bowl.
Project 2025 participants in Trump’s administration want to break the world. They’re the most dangerous, because they’re organized and serious. They want to create a crucible for cheap slave labor where the wealthy and powerful will flourish with little moral challenge to their ways. Where they can claim their one true god guides their cruelty, hatred, and bigotry. Where white men rule with a few exceptions as salve to prove to themselves they’re not racist, not sexist. They won’t be happy, nor satisfied. But they will be in power. In control.
Concerned only with themselves, bankrupt of morals and empathy, power and control are what they seek. They do not care who they hurt, who is used, or what laws are broken to do it. The ends justify the means in their minds.
This is nothing new. Acting on avarice, greed, and hate, others have peddled lies and misinformation to mislead otherwise good people in order to advance themselves. History shows that’s happened in the United States before. It’s easy to dupe people by drowning them with fake information, especially when it’s what they want to hear, and especially when the wealthiest control most of the media, and the wealthiest are willing to go along with the scheme. The difference now is that a deeply disturbed individual, Donald J. Trump, now commands them.
Michael Seidel, writer 