Something is in the air these past few days. There have been mistakes made, some serious, some less so. I was up and about, participating in mundane life and working with my hands to help folks. I cooked dinner for friends, assembled a garden shed for my sister-in-law. I carried some things back and forth and I am planning a last few fruits/vegetables to preserve for the coming winter. I visited a friend in another town, attended the virtual remembrance service for my mother. I cleaned house and finalized a plan for moderate renovations. I put new tires on the car and realized how dirty the car became from the running around I did. It needs me to wash it. Maybe it is dirt that’s in the air? I say something is in the air because all of the above usually get put on the shelf for another time and music/writing/talking on Facebook are front and centre. I also say something is in the air because the air is vibrating with error.

I have not been writing or concentrating on my music. Usually, that is not so much different from week to week. I never practice enough. I avoid rehearsal of my choral pieces, I leave piano for ‘later in the day’. When I do manage to sit down at the keyboards (various types) and things don’t go the way I hope, I get bored. I get up. I go do something else. One habit I have kept is I do write something most days. I am not brilliant and I know it to be so. I need the practice. Still, to tell myself the truth – I rarely attack art seriously. Maybe this next week it will be work, work, work? I don’t think so.

Whether writing at all is a thing I should do or whether being a musician is a worthy exercise have been questions for some time. I have had friends tell me it would be best that I not do these things. Yet, like a serial art murderer I keep returning to the scene of my crimes. I keep wandering back in to the muse’ library room. Since I was about 12 or 13, I have periodically worked on writing projects of various descriptions. I always end by setting them down to go do other things, like work for a living. I do keep being drawn to creative arts, though. It is that I haven’t dared make art my life or my work. I don’t find the self discipline for a dedication to these things. I am too easily distracted. Maybe I am a milk-wagon horse without blinders?

At times, I think it best that I not agonize about ‘Pursuing’ art but just relax and allow it to flow as it flows. I’m not an artist. Not really. I don’t do the work, the due diligence. I do what I feel and don’t take art seriously. It’s a good thing I have no schedule, no deadlines, no contracts to honour. If that were true, I would give Truman Capote a run for his title as champion procrastinator. I have no expectation of receiving a cheque and truly don’t need one, there is enough money to pay the rent. I don’t need to worry about a red or lost face event, there are no famous writer or singer friends/contemporaries/no spouse to be embarrassed before. I do enjoy the company of magnificently talented folk but they don’t judge me. Only one has ever let on but I know they don’t take me seriously. Partly, I try to just be quiet and partly, they humour me. I don’t even have grandchildren explaining to their friends about how charming the unpolished poems and songs are. “Oh, that’s my foolish old Granddad amusing himself and boring the crap out of me.” Margaret Atwood has a country home nearby but the likelihood of her bumping into me for a possible critique of my work is remote. The teacher who viciously attacked my intellect and the brother who harshly criticized my level of education are both far away, distant now. They will not likely consider or judge me anymore. Those doors are closed. I have nothing to hold me back.

I talk to Facebook, since I don’t have an art audience other than or outside of my cyber friends to perform for. In all my awareness of the true value of my art, one thing stands. I need the audience. This is a serious problem. Needing an audience and finding one on Facebook, I get into trouble with a misunderstood or too-overt phrase periodically. I am trying to keep away from the fray. I have been trying to free myself for the last six years or so that I have been on Facebook. It won’t be possible, I fear.

In the last six years, I ticked off my remaining aunts with my raw humour. They did not understand at all. I provoked a sermon of judgement regarding my opinion of digital audio from a cousin. He ended the rant-in-answer-to-my-rant by reminding me that HE has an education in these matters, I do not. In the last few days (something in the air days) I have again run aground with my determined speech. I ticked off a cousin and dished a new in-law. All of this was in the open air market, for the consumption of all and algorithm. That, along with other events has piqued the ire of my distant brother, who adamantly chastised me through a third party. Ha. He didn’t speak to me, face to Facebook. It’s likely that he will not speak to me ever again. Oooops. I am human, being human is pretty expensive. There is something in the air.

All we need from Donald Trump is some sort of ‘enabling act’ and we will have our return to 1935 Germany. It’s true, he is puffing up as the grand cock, about to take control of the barnyard. The great orange cock is filled with hate. He may have no wacky little beard and we have no Charlie Chaplin to portray him but we do have Randy Rainbow and the comb-over hair. The first debate became nothing less than an incoherent shouting match, with a red-faced (under the orange makeup) sham of a human being assaulting civility. He proved himself all bluster and threat but he managed to take control, he forced us to pay attention to him. He is pushing, he is riding over civil behaviour and stealing the starlight. With the relentless aid of the Fox news propaganda machine grinding away at truth, we have all we need for a complete descent into chaos.

In a certain way, pushing through a further conservative Supreme Court justice may well prove to be what is democracy’s final undoing. Likely, that will be the last straw and enough to give Trump his ‘enabling act’. In the extremely likely case that Trump declares the election fraudulent and the decision goes to the House of Representatives, he has an advantage. Even though there is a Democratic majority of house members, each state gets only one vote to choose the president. There are 26 Republican state legislatures. The Republicans have proven themselves unwilling to do the right thing. It is probable that they will vote to doom the system.

No matter what, we can expect at least several months of rioting and police/right wing violence while the election moves ultimately toward the Supreme Court. There isn’t a legal process where Trump can declare himself ‘supreme leader’ yet but with control of the Supreme Court and control of the Senate, there easily could be. Yes, the election will be a sham. The result will have nothing to do with the will of the people. There is nothing to be done as long as Senate Republicans and House Republicans sit back and continue as they are doing. They are proving themselves to be most foul and lacking in any sort of moral decency.

Because of the relentless self interest of Republican legislators, the U.S. is going to go down in flames. That was unthinkable even a year ago. Now, it is almost a certainty. I know many folks think I am being hysterical, that I am over-thinking this, worrying too much. The debate proved me correct. I offer as example the fact the man exhorted a far-right extremist group to stand ready. He stood right there and spoke to The Proud Boys directly. The Proud Boy group leader almost spit out his beer in surprise at hearing the call, loud and clear. Beyond that, Trump openly dismissed the election as fraud and urged his supporters to invade the polls and evaluate the results. He has given us plenty of warning that his intentions are not honest. He made it quite clear that he will refuse to leave office.

So, what to do? I believe myself to be relatively safe here in Canada. That is, I am physically safe. My financial life is tenuous since all of my retirement income is sourced from the U.S. With Trump’s open war on Social Security, most of my income is at risk with no ‘safety net’. I do have savings outside of Social Security but they are dependant upon a stable U.S. financial system. With the coming battle over the White House, there is little to convince me the central banks, the insurance companies, the stock market will remain stable. It might take a while to crash but it is almost certain to be a wild ride. The thing that puzzles me is that with all of the uncertainty surrounding the government, somehow, the stock market didn’t crash? I don’t understand. What can the investors be thinking? Do they believe Trump is a saviour? That the system will prevail? Ha.

Indeed, what to do? The only rational thing is to stop worrying. There is nothing to do. The U.S constitutional authors didn’t forsee this. The great experiment failed and we are now on our own. Putin must be smiling! Kruschev was absolutely correct, my parents grandchildren will be living under what passed for communism. It wasn’t communism, of course, it was totalitarianism and bore little resemblance to the Ideas of Karl Marx. Donald is riding in on a red horse and nothing can be done. Sigh.

I voted, I did my best but I cannot allow the mess to soil me. I can step away from that scene and work on my stuff. I can write my blog, my books, my songs. I can play guitar and sing. I can bake a cake. I can exercise my freedoms, my rights as a human being and reject the fear these small folks are spreading. The best choice is to enjoy what I have while I still have it.

I have an approaching birthday, my 70th. I am in the shadow of my days. It is a low point, by the river where one can cross easily to the other side. It won’t take much more time. There is little to be gained with a backward glance at the fabled city. The city is in flames. I gather up my trousers for a bit of wading. It will take a while yet but the path for fording is clear. I shall chillax and continue. This is the way of it, then.

Poor Starbucks. They have not had my requisite tea (English Breakfast) for several days now. This is a major problem and has upset my equilibrium in serious fashion. Without my tea, I am dizzy, in a tizzy. I don’t know who I am anymore. The muse? (such as he/she is) has taken a break, a coffee break. The modern, younger inspirations are different than the classical variety. Being less committed to work and more committed to family and fulfillment, they just sit down from time to time. All of earth has shifted. It is seismic in all quarters. Dwight David Eisenhower is turning in the grave. Any change is a strange thing but the ones some of us are are trying to sleep through? hahahah.

On slow, tea-less days like today, I don’t feel the song. I know it is there but I can’t remember how to hear it. The radio plays but it is a hollow sound and only vaguely like music. Usually, there is great change afoot in that situation. In days past, a dull and quiet space like this one has led me to some other facet of writing, living. Is it a presently illumined former shadow I am noticing? Maybe I am seeing the tip of something breaking through dusk? While I wait to see what awaits at my new plateau, I shall describe the current obvious scene…

I heard the sounds of murder happening. There was a loud slap, then a shout went up from semi-circle gathered baristas celebrating one young woman’s successful fly kill. Cheers! Congratulations! At that point, I noticed the Abell Pest Control official who was crouching beneath the counter. What is it he is trying to kill? These few brief actions are adding an edge of dis-ease to my dining and drinking experience. It is totally dull and partly quiet here, otherwise. Industrial strength air conditioning is rolling away at full tilt, pouring exhausted heat out into an otherwise cool day. Pop music is gently pushing away at the loudspeakers. It’s a vintage pop from the sounds I can hear but not a known era to me, I cannot hear the lyrics or much of the chord accompaniment. The music is mostly acoustic blur. This troubles me further, regarding the missing muse. Vocal song is tactile for me, to fully hear it I have to feel it with my understanding. I am a blind man, white cane tapping in search when I cannot hear the core of a thing. If I can’t follow a lyric, the muse is absent. I am lost.

As if to find where I am, I cast a glance around the ‘dining room’. A man who earlier in the week introduced himself as Peter is sitting to my right. He is engrossed in his work (Some mystical sort of financial service which he tried to start selling me on when we met. I am not interested and he quickly gave up his pitch. Perhaps my ragged look warned him not to bother). He has a wide-eyed but squinted sort of countenance as if intensely solving a problem of historical dimensions. “Just how do we get the money laundered and through our Swiss numbered account without the Canadian authorities discovering what we are about? Hmmmmm.” Maybe, he is in touch with Bill Morneau. He seems an honest enough fellow but has an interesting story I would like to pursue some day. He tells me that he is currently living on a friend’s large boat, parked at the marina. His living arrangement has something to do with Covid restrictions but I am unclear why. When I am not so busy doing nothing, I will inquire further.

To my left is a young woman/man. I cannot really tell which without a serious, piercing and analytic stare. I am sure she would notice an old guy like me, trying to solve the mystery. My gut feeling is that she is a she. The wide shoulders and unusual height give me pause, though. Is she or isn’t she? Her brusque, purposeful movements and lip crunching intensity as she grips her pencil add up to Man In Drag. The unfeminine, spread legged, forward leaning stance makes me wonder as well. When I am not so busy doing nothing, I will inquire further.

I am busy just now. I am very occupied doing nothing of measurable value. I am typing and typing and drinking tea and finishing a bagel as if the U.S. president were a kind and wise man who had empathy for the rest of the planet. I am typing and typing and living as if there were no need for presidents or government or muses anymore. I am typing and typing as if that would finish a book and as if finished books mattered a whit. I am typing and typing but mostly because it is a thing I learned to do and it makes my arthritis feel a bit better. Hah.

Fairness. The forces of evil. Forces for good. Changes. So what. We are, the world is on the cusp of social and governmental (what is often refered to as seismic) transformation. Very soon, things ain’t goin’ to be the same. Populism, capitalism and Covid have guaranteed, inked, signed on the bottom line a contract that binds us to change, but what else is new? Any study of history, committed, cursory or maybe just casually ignored shows the same result. We are always in flux, whether on a pleasant summer day spent sitting out under glorious trees and reading a nice book or, on a pleasant early fall day spent sitting in, trying to write one. There is always change, even in my daily habit of a tea and bagel at Starbucks with my electronic pencil and paper to hand. Change is happening now, we can see it. It is right before our eyes, two blocks away, next door, halfway around the earth. At any moment, things could go either way. It is a game or a tense story. We are at the precipice, we are the brink. We worry. We fret, we elect politicians, we save our money, we can vegetables and soup but why worry? We always get to three strikes and then it’s the top of another inning. The game is also a many inning opera, a play. We always get to act three and the curtain falls, to rise again on another play whose death scene drags through another few acts. There is an indeterminate number of innings to the intense game and an endless supply of dramatic stories. We will know it is almost over when the fat lady sings (or Yogi Berra does or St. Peter does). I don’t hear anything yet. Not really.

I am at two strikes and one half for Starbucks. Saturday, they did not have my favourite tea. Sunday, they didn’t have my favourite tea or my favourite bagel. Today? No tea. Again. That is two and one half strikes. Compounding my frustration was the fact that I forgot to drag along my little wireless keyboard. That made typing difficult, I haven’t acquired speed or agility on the touch screen at this point. Many folks I know can click away without seeming effort but I can’t. I am stuck in the IBM selectric past of thinking with all my fingers and not just one. Ha. Today’s frustration all added up to “Why am I doing this?” again. Indeed, why? Am I saving myself? Am I saving anyone else? Is typing away into the wilderness solely a habit? Is this a valuable avocation? Am I stuck in the past with my little keyboard? My guess is that I type ritually, habitually and that it has little value.

Typing does give me something to do. It is a habit that I prefer over drinking all day. That is option number two and a very sound option. My old neighbour spent his retirement years doing exactly that. Starting at nine or ten a.m., he continued drinking until supper time. After supper, he would have one more while watching tv and retire early. His life was very still, predictable, without sudden, noisy movement or change. He didn’t seem aware of flux, he was ‘away’. Each day, save for the weather, was the same. Pop….sizzzzz, gulp. No upsets, all good. “What’s for dinner?”

Sitting, typing on my electronic devices is a habit I cultivated, thinking it would come to something maybe. As it happens, I prefer the pretend writing to drinking or busying myself with myriad tasks around the house, getting life-work done. Typing passes the time for me. I enjoy it. As tense as my consideration and chatting about how our reality can be, I would rather type and think with my fingers than clean or cook dinner or drink. At least sometimes. Sometimes, the story or the game get to me and I would rather drink or eat fresh cookies. And, there are times I realize that spending time doing the daily life living with mindfulness can also lift you away from the insistence of a NOW world. Making a loaf of bread takes you away from Donald and his demands for attention.

It is no surprise that drinking and eating can be more enticing than thinking and writing about our world of flux, craziness, wacko cries in the wilderness. Things can seem intense, impossible, urgent. That upset, the noise, is the world as it has always been. I like typing but when doing so I am confronted with the current of our days, my days. I often see only the hysterics, the panic, the possibility of losing to the opposing team. I start to see the heroine and can hear her aria. I try to go with the flow but there can be an awful flow at times. It is both electric and liquid that invades, floods my need for peace. It pours over the opera stage, zaps down as lightning in the outfield. Lately, that flow appears when I start thinking about anything and typing. It leaks out of my fingers onto the back-lit screen. It’s exciting. It is also a sham, an illiusion itself. There’s nothing to be excited or worry about…as it is, it ever was, as it is, it ever will be.

This is always true of being human and probably will be for the future of being human. Ancient Egypt was a culture and a government that existed in the same form for 5,000 years. They didn’t have baseball but they did have music, poetry and upset. They didn’t have the wireless keyboard with them. They couldn’t type easily, it was more a clunk, clunk into clay. Their world was pretty stable for the whole of their time, if you don’t count the wars, famine, regime changes, earthquakes, floods and other catastrophes they wrote about with a clunk, clunk and a cartouche. Our world is pretty stable, too. Maybe it’s best not to get too excited? Hm.

Changes To Fishermen

It is time each
additional day not feel
a storm-driven giant,
traveling great distance
to break at shore or,
worse, some grand ground swell that bore
down it’s full weight on hapless anglers.

We may swallow a bit by accident,
scooping pailsful to save the dinghy,
but won’t be swamped any more.
We shall survive by careful increments,
with an eye on the weather,
ever inclement,
as it brings relentless, something other
than what seemed only recently
in store.

There is a sun in the sky, reasonably fresh air and 95% of the folks passing by are ordinary, harmless folk. Some of the passers-by are leaders and heads of state/industry. Unfortunately, those folk are oftimes not so harmless. There are a lot of different folks and It is an ordinary day here in our little town. There is a bit of traffic jam today in keeping with the rest of the world. We are, most of us, engaged in routine, leaving only a few exceptions. A few people are serial killing and getting elected and poisoning the atmosphere and hurting other people but not that many. Those few have a big impact, but they are only the few. Almost seven billion folks are just going about the everyday. Fetching water, looking in the fridge, making some food…scratching something out in order to continue being alive. These good folk are falling in love, raising children, feeding pets, cleaning the windows and building marijuana grow-houses for other people. We are myriad human beings just minding our own business. Almost no one wants more than to live and let live. Almost is a big word, though. There are always the ones who want to ‘Make America Great Again’.

Each era of our time is much different than the last but always ends in a recognizable fashion. We do keep on, though. We have changed much as we manage our virus-like spread around the globe. Starting off somewhere in Africa, as far as is known, by little old me, we rose up. A sweet woman named Lucy was our Eve by most of the agreeing accounts I have seen. From her and hers, we traveled, some of us bleaching out in the woods and cooler climate of Europe, while some of us stayed brown, even though the arctic circle beckoned and the polar bears could see us against all the white. When we realized how easy to catch we were, we put on funny hats, goofy shoes and painted our faces all kinds of colours and patterns. …might as well make the catching of us more fun! We built igloos where we (oddly) stayed warm, pyramids in Egypt, pyramids in the Yucutan, castles on high mountain tops in Peru and finally, enormous cities with towers of glass that scrape the stars. Along the way, we blew an awful lot of stuff up and killed a lot our fellows. We ate as much of the rest of the living things as we could cook. We did more, too. We built vaccines that have the potential to eradicate diseases and keep us alive. We built bombs that have the potential to destroy life on the planet and probably make the thing wobble even more. We have opposing thumbs and just because we could do it, we did it. We even invented chocolate fudge sundaes. (..and cherry pie, thank God!)

We come through a long line of cultures, governments, wars, famines, tragedy, success. Always building stuff and carrying stuff with us. Always, a purse or a backpack and a little house of some kind, a picket fence. I guess that makes us unique, we are show-offs and try to outdo the other life forms on this planet. “See, Mr. Mouse? I have built myself a much grander house than the little hole you call home! I have an indoor toilet and running water!” Most of the rest of the creatures just relax and watch us. They are shaking their furry or finny or feathery heads in disbelief. It is not an amused head-shake, not a jealous one, the creatures can see what we are really up to.

In each new age, we are stronger, there are more elaborate cultures, more stuff. We turn ourselves into birds and fly though the air, we turn ourselves into fish and dive down deep in the water, we dress ourselves up in exotic man-made fur-ish outfits and ‘discover’ the North and South poles. We use sophisticated tin can suits to go stand on the moon for a while or just float around way up high. Trouble is, we get covetous of stuff and blow each other up with ever more powerful explosions. We do it almost every time. We steal each other’s stuff and blow stuff up. Some of the explosions cause whole cultures to fall into disarray and the fabulous stuff gets wrecked. After the cultures rise and fall, none being the superiour of any other, we sift into the background a while but we don’t seem to die out. In all of our measureable time on Earth, we haven’t truly disappeared from anywhere but Easter Island. Egypt, the Mayans, China, the Norse peoples, Rome.. all of it has come and gone but folks kept on living there. Sometimes, we hide in the forest but we keep on a-going.

The rise of Europe, the spreading influence of the royal houses across the globe and the conquest of North/South America are just the latest of the great cultures to glow and fade. Fading is what we are doing now. That time of fighting over stuff and killing people and making pornography in Thailand hasn’t faded completely but is on it’s way out. There won’t be a Facebook when all of this settles down. It will settle. It will settle like the dust it always is. Not very long from now, some scratched up and bruised folks will be wondering, ‘what in the hell?’ as they go about their business, trying to find something to eat and drink and having their new leaders coax them into building stuff to steal from and throw at whomever remains. Perhaps, they will strip the stones off of the Washington Monument to trade for stuff other beat up looking folks have scrounged? Maybe, they will use the abandoned cars and buses for a house to proudly display. “See, Mr. Mouse/cat (it’s probably going to be a mutation due to the radiation), I have a fine house!” Yep. That’s where we are headed. I am packing my backpack now for the trip. Haha

Well, glory be! Folks, since I got my ballot in the mail, a great cloud of peace has settled over and smothered my sleeplessness. Ahhhhhh. I have had several days in a row of full nights. I am rested. Now I can get back to my ruminations about the neighbours and the town I live in. Oh yes, I haven’t been involved in their comings and goings for some time. I have been too caught in the web of international intrigue to see the various interesting things that are right in front of me. It is interesting, here.

I will start with a note about Stubb and Stubb’s Wife. The two are short and stout but equally full of energy. They are always doing something, whether reading in the swinging chair, mowing the lawn for everyone else or barbecueing. I wonder shamelessly about their sex-life. It has to difficult to remain in any one position since they are both so round. It would be like two balls, trying to…well…you know. I hear them huffing and puffing through their days. They seem like okay people. They talk to me and have noticed that I play piano and guitar and sing…Stubb mentioned it whilst huffing by with his lawnmower. He plays piano, too but I haven’t heard it over the noise from here.

Speaking of myself making noise, I am concerned for the Mayor. It seems she stopped attending official duties last January. I noticed that she disappeared for about six weeks, then returned sans cheveaux, wearing a white baseball cap. She walks with a lumberjack swagger, so I thought it was a style choice but I am not so sure now. I think she may be under treatment for cancer? Or something? She holes up for weeks at a time, never going out, then disappears again for weeks at a time? I have to assume that something is up. Perhaps, she is spending time at her official residence?

Miss Twiggy and Shirtless Joe live across the alley from me. They are young and, as they say, full of life. Busy, busy, busy working or sitting out in the yard having a beer together. I think it’s beer, it might be something else. Joe is a craftsman of some kind. I know he works with wood since he is always carrying ‘live edge’ slabs down into the basement and bringing them back up a different colour. Professionally, he might be a mechanic because he wears a ‘work uniform’ when he leaves the house each morning. He must be pushing the envelope about work timeliness, leaving the house at 5 minutes to or 5 minutes after 7 each day. He must work very nearby since he comes home for lunch, goes back at 5 minutes to or 5 minutes after 1 and arrives home from work at 5 minutes to or 5 minutes after 3 each day.

Joe walks delicately about the yard, it is an elegant sort of gait. Very light, as though he were uncertain about gravity. I call him Shirtless because he takes his shirt off after 2 minutes of being outside working. Always, no shirt and wearing shorts. No matter what work he is doing, fixing the brakes on Miss Twiggy’s little red car or weed whipping — there he is with very little clothing on. He must be hot all the time or an exhibitionist. Maybe he is an exhibitionist, he has a tattoo on his shoulder blade. I like that he has a varying beard, sometimes long, sometimes short. During the first lockdown, he became all hair for a while — a real Rip Van Winckle. I was nervous that his beard would get caught in the steering wheel when he drove Miss Twiggy’s little red car to test the brakes.

Miss Twiggy started working from home during the lockdown and only goes in two days a week, now. Sometimes on Monday and sometimes on Tuesday, she briskly carries a cardboard file box out to her little red car and humms away to her work place. Most days, she stays in. Sometimes, she carries her little computer out to the glassed – in back porch and I can see her typing away. I don’t think she is a secretary (if they have secretaries any more), I think she is an executive or something. Maybe she is an engineer? Right now, as I am typing, she is home. I am guessing she is working because she is so thin it isn’t possible for her to be eating pancakes. That reminds me, I am hungry for pancakes. I eat them and I am not thin like Miss Twiggy. I am going to have a couple right now. See you.

This is a backwards day. When a series of things go wrong, just a little or don’t follow the plan, just slightly… it is a ‘backwards’ day. Not a day to curse. Not a day to slap. Not a day to hibernate. It is just a ‘backwards’ day. I tried to get my ballot in the first shipment of mail (I believe it goes at 10a.m.) but I needed a tracking stamp, so had to go in to the office. The office was closed at 8:30 and I had to scoot back to the house to meet with the construction guy. When I was through my meeting and headed back to the post office, it was 10:30. Darn all hecky. Well, okay then, the ballot goes off in the next mail. (1 p.m. or thereabouts) Shoot tooty. Nothing to be done, that’s the way it goes. Sigh. I am over eager, of course. I didn’t accelerate my package the way I planned and that irritates, just a little.

Now, the construction guy is going to charge me $600 to put a beam on a couple of patio stones and call it good. I trust his assessment of the situation and that it will be safe, he does know what he is doing. This isn’t what I wanted but I don’t have the money right now to do more. Crap, darny heck. Well, okay then..I will have my support beam and it will be sufficient. I can paint the deck, replace the skirting and leave it a while. Sigh. Not what I wanted and that frustrates, a little.

To cool my nerves, I settled on traveling to the office for a writing session. I discovered my battery is low and my favourite seat is occupied by someone else. I am trying hard not to send mocking thoughts in her direction. Backwards, backwards, backwards. Now what? All of these frustrations and irritations are brought to me by my unwillingness to confront another soul in even the most benign way. I accepted the construction guy’s cheap fix and I accepted that the U.S. won’t accept registered or expedited mail, I accepted the too-skinny Karen who chose to usurp my place and I accepted that I have to write on a different tablet, the iPad, the one with lots of battery that is difficult to download from…Grrrrrr. Don’t be surprised if I send my bagel back to the kitchen with a few choice words today! There! Confrontation at last!

Maybe I could mean to someone on the phone? That usually satisfies me pretty well. I haven’t made anyone cry but I am pretty good at firing back into the mouthpiece when baited. I could fire an email off to “Letters at the Star” or “Letters at the Globe and Mail.” Maybe, I could wait until exactly the right moment and blast someone with an extremely well planned and amusing fusillade that causes anyone nearby to laugh out loud, bruising the ego of some foolish but otherwise completely innocent person. “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” (Bette Davis in ‘All About Eve’.) Is that truly a talent that gay folk have?

Wait, no…there is a young lad here who fits his jeans very well indeed. He is a mite on the short side but very well proportioned and has a sweet little carefully close cropped dust of a beard. He might be chubby but that remains to be seen (clothing off). Don’t care about that, he is too handsome. He took his mask off and a has a lovely round face that is enhanced by the beard. If I had any sense, I would go hiss a bit of “Hi, there…” and offer up a snaky lick. That’s all I needed- a breath of freshness to offset all the botheration.

Interesting, the phrase “Speaking with a forked tongue” has, at it’s root the story of Adam and Eve and isn’t an American English idiom but you already knew that. Well, it is off to work on the novel/biography and finish the rewrites. I am having fun in spite of old age, back pain and minor frustrations. On we go.

I have finished filling in the ovals completely on my presidential election ballot and it will go into tomorrow’s first round of outbound mail. It must be received before 8 P.M. on November 3rd at the Clerk’s office in Redford Township, Michigan. Getting it off tomorrow gives me about six weeks and I hope enough time before the election. More than what I have done will not be possible. With the latest extension of Covid closure to the border, I am not likely to be able to cross, even though I am a U.S. citizen. The border guards have a lot of flexibility in whom they allow and for what reasons. I am not a wealthy Trump donor and I am not returning home so I don’t know what the outcome of an attempted hand-carry of my ballot would be. So, best case is having my ballot in the mail tomorrow. That work is then, done. I shall attempt a withdrawal from politics,Facebook and the news now. There exists nothing more I can gain from those things except worry and that worry is abysmal. The stress, the concern is destroying me and I can’t let that happen…we still have time left to live, books to write, songs to sing and I won’t give my peace of mind to Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg, neither are worth it.

Speaking of peace of mind, I have been attempting a Facebook/social media withdrawal for a couple of years. So far, I am not very successful. I will pull away for a bit from time to time but circumstances and the nature of Facebook conspire against my better judgement. Co-conspirators are the events of the last 6 or 7 years. Certain situations have emptied my life of close-human relationships. By itself, that is to be expected in later life. In my case, divorce, financial and work life changes, deaths of family members have ended up multiplying the isolation that is inherent to growing older. Now, Covid and extreme politics have gathered forces against peace and quiet, increasing my isolation further. I just don’t fit in with the strident crowd. I have my definite ideas, I am adamant, I am outspoken but I don’t fit with the name-callers and the haters of Facebook. At the same time, Facebook is sort of like having someone to talk to and share time with. It can’t be denied that a ‘like’ to your post gives you a shot of something sweet. The dark side of ‘like’ is vicious disapproval of something you may have said or something you wholly believe.

Over the last few years, I have been devalued in a thousand ways through ‘social media’. My latest go ’round with a post on Facebook was a dagger…it really hurt to discover or be forced to confront the fact that someone whose education and understanding of religion and politics I value, respect could so easily dismiss and be mean. Why not just state a case with an abundance of relevant fact? Why couch a view in anger, resentment, arrogance? Why do folks do that? Why the anger first? Why insult and degrade? The telephone has become a similar space. I had a misdial situation and the result shocked me. The person whose number I accidently dialed, then immediately disconnected…sought me out. I did not leave a message because I disconnected too soon. He called back after checking his missed numbers and threatened me with a slew of choice words. He was outraged that I didn’t have a name attached to my number…well, it isn’t attached to my number because I am not in his contact list and I don’t have a business name. Why is it so important for him to hunt down a wrong number? Why? Why go to the trouble?

These days, these sorts of angry folk and this sort of technology advancing me toward my golden years? Yeah, right. When I am in my right thinking space, I am able to endure and manage. I have a million friends who respect and care for me, I care for them and we share so much. I have some remaining good health and enough money to eat, stay warm and buy the occasional shiny object. Trying to stay in that space where I am relaxed and able to think, able to write, sing, play is very difficult when I am joined to the fray via Facebook and TV news. So… I am going to try shucking that, giving it up until after the election. There is nothing in that space for me and nothing that my simplish mind can handle. It is an insoluble problem and must be set aside. Today is a lovely fall day, lots of folks out and about. I have a bit of painting to do and piano to play. Maybe I will take some time to work on the new book, too. It’s all good when you step back a bit.

We have a word in English to describe the situation, it is ‘dilemma’. My beautiful actor, painter, singer/songwriter and artist friends are without work. A vicious infection is spreading about and has closed down the opera house, the gallery, the movie theatre. A rapacious on-line attitude by the likes of YouTube and Google has usurped copyright and further emptied out the wallets of most creative artists who work in music. For a while, the concert hall saved musicians a bit after Youtube stole their material but now? We are in dilemma, the state of ‘there doesn’t appear to be a way to go’. WPA-style handouts, the sort of thing that saved Woody Guthrie, are not even being discussed by government. There exists no political will for those programs. What to do, what to do?

Better minds than mine are working away at some kind of solution but nothing is on the horizon. The great promise of the internet, that anyone can step up and do their art and find an audience, didn’t pan out. The internet based companies end up stealing the work, monetizing the art of others and paying nothing for it. We are going to pay a huge price for this. Interesting and new voices are not able to make a living from art. They are forced into obscurity. In order to live, they have to spend their energy and time on activities that rob the creative spirit and dull the skills. As one who has struggled to earn a writer’s notebook. I can tell you that NO, you cannot burn the midnight oil and be a good artist. In defeat, I accepted what work I could get when I was young and had to live. I spent 40+ years in a job that had nothing to do with who I was…simply because, “You have to make a living, write in your spare time.” You cannot be a musician/poet/painter as a ‘sideline’. It is a full-time, energy consuming activity. Tillie Olson wrote of this many years ago in her book, “Silences”. Check it out.

I can point fingers and blame but that is not a useful thing to do. Whom do we crucify? A modern music and entertainment industry that shied away from using their power, influence to convince government that internet providers should pay for content? A greedy, lawless and unethical world of tech-heads who flood the air with illusion: that music is free, that to read, listen, watch everything costs nothing while at the same time, reaping the rich fields of advertising money? What good is blame, now? Without political will to solve the problem, blaming is spitting in the wind. So, what do we do kids?