Sinda’s Theme Music
Mood: Sindawriting
The calendar declares that winter has officially entered the stage. Still feels more like a good fall rather than early winter in Ashlandia, where Teslas are found around every corner. A riled up wind is carousing around the neighborhood, stirring things up. Doesn’t sit well with our floofs. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) says, “Merci, non.” But Papi the ginger blade insists on thinking, “Maybe it’s different now,” every fifteen minutes. Temperature isn’t bad at 49 F on this winter day, Sinda, December 22, 2024. Light rain and a high of 52 F are expected. Visuals say, yeah, that can be done. Clouds in varying densities from sheers to cotton layers in heather, oatmeal, off-white, and charcoal, pleasingly illuminated with eastern rising sunshine, set off against brittle blue sky, parade along the sky walk.
Today’s song is “Boys Don’t Cry” by the Cure. I don’t know why it’s in the morning mental music stream (Trademark blustery). I only remember one dream and it seems wholly unrelated to its tale of databases, strawberries, and fried food. Just in the kitchen, bustling about with floof feeding activities as Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) asks again about when he’s going to have his order delivered. Click, clink, bonk, the song is playing in the mmms and I’m humming along.
Done with the morning cuppa. Went down well. Brekkie is finished. Dressing’s final touches of shoes, socks, coat are needed, then I’m off to the coffee shop to cavort with muses and do the keyboard finger dance. Hope your day gives sublime satisfaction, no matter which season or weather elements are encountered.
The Writing Moment
I finished a draft of a novel (working title: Gravity’s Emotions) right before going into my October ankle surgery. Then, reading novels, stuck in variations of being on my back with my ankle in a boot raised at about 45 degrees, I concluded, I dislike that ending. Too damn pat.
Muses flew in with suggested revisions. It’ll be work, they warned. We’re gonna need to go back in and cut several chapters.
Okay, I agreed. Sharpen the blades.
I read through the novel without making changes except for egregious typos, punctuation, or grammar. By the finish, I knew where to begin cutting and went in.
Next came writing the replacement parts. This presented significantly greater challenges. Writing the replacement scenes has been word-to-word combat. But with all my fiction writing efforts, it’s ultimately a satisfying mental exercise. Squeezing characters and concept to wring out the story and then developing it into something rewarding to read is fundamentally entertaining for me. I’d rather be doing this than anything else.
Chapter by chapter, I’m edging toward the terminus. I don’t know how it’ll end. I sense I’m close. I’m just going to let it sneak up on me and take me by surprise.
That’s my favorite kind of writing.
Wednesday’s Wandering Political Thoughts
I should just stay away from the news because it’s just pissing me off.
AOC set out to be the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Gerry Connolly, 74, with cancer, won. Because one obvious takeaway from the 2024 elections is ‘old is good’. Seriously, Connolly won because money talks and he brought in more, another lesson gleaned from the 2024 elections: yes, stay the same old, same old. That’s what the voters signalled they wanted, isn’t it?
There’s a load of extra-spicy morning snark in that paragraph. But it’s this kind of shit that torpedoes my faith in the Democratic Party and their future. They continue making the same tone-deaf decisions that led to the Blue Wave in 2024. Yes, that was more snark. All they’ve done is cemented the impression that they haven’t changed and won’t change.
Turning to Crooks & Liars, they provided a happy spark by pointing out what a fucking idiot Trump is by citing what he says about groceries. First, they quoted him from an interview about his promise to lower prices.
“Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” Trump told Time, admitting to what many of us knew months ago.
Then they offered this:
On Thursday, Trump offered up a perplexing story about “an old woman” buying three apples at a grocery store and taking “one of the apples back to the refrigerator” because the price was too high. (Apples are not usually stocked in refrigerators.)
snip
This past Sunday, during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said, “I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost—you know, who uses the word? I started using the word—the groceries. … I won an election based on that.”
My gag reflex kicked in. “I started using the word — the groceries.” Like, oh my cat, this is what stirred people to vote for Trump? Such a wise people they are, following such a wise man. They should have voted for me. I’ve been using the word groceries since like the 1960s.
I’m trying to be a more positive person and look forward. Get through this winter and reach a new spring for democracy in the U.S. But I’m used to reading the news, trying to make sense of the world. It ain’t working for me.
Think I’ll just shut down and go read a book and drink coffee.
Michael Seidel, writer 