Month: July 2026

Categories
Summer Writing

1 (7/21)

Writing again because, well, this was something I could do to slightly quash my racing mind.

I think we might be past the peak on summer heat, but it’s been a very uncomfortable summer so far.

I still have an irrational resistance to eating oysters in a month that doesn’t have an “R” in the name, but, I dunno, just feels like something you do when you’re not sweating through your clothes.

Speaking of comfort, I’m actually wearing basically business-casual stuff today. Nursing just ice water as I wait for my ride into the District to go be a lab rat for a few years.

I took a quick glance at what it’d cost me to get rides to/from Biloxi and New Orleans. Um. Okay. I’ll pass.

Let’s get into it.

I don’t remember if i mentioned it, but these where from a deck of writing prompts I got, I think, for Christmas last year.

I scanned them using the Google App, and copied-and-pasted them using the inbuilt OCR.

That this can happen now is fucking awesome.

I anticipate it’ll have as much problems understanding my chicken scratch as my teachers and professors did, but I’d imagine there might be something in my mother’s garage that’d be worth trying to capture.

How do I listen to my body, and when do I tend to ignore it?I

The short answer to this one is, “I don’t.” The longer answer is, “I don’t, because what my body tells me is so often just complete nonsense.”

Am I uncomfortable? Pretty much all the time.

Am I hungry?
Am I nauseated?

The psychologist I’ve been seeing has helped me a lot with those, but I still have problems from time to time.

Am I exhausted?

Yes, but I’ll ignore that until I collapse, which probably isn’t a good thing.

I think we’re running. Back tomorrow.

Categories
Scarred Brain murmurings

So You Don’t Have To

Sometime during the really bad years of censorship, I was getting really tired of hearing podcasters who almost uniformly used the really bad NPR “Delicious Dish“-style almost-whispered delivery.

Who can I listen to who actually projects?

I remembered Bill Cunningham. Willie hosts his daily radio show on WLW in Cincinnati. He also hosts what became of the Matt Drudge Sunday night national show.

Cunningham often prefaces really-bad TV talk show clips by saying something along the lines of “I watched The View so you don’t have to.”

I forced myself to listen to JDVP, tying it back to Cincinnati, on Rogan. At least one of the recent WTF episodes had several tidbits about it.

I’d listened to him in the run-up to the election. The interview with Vance then was kinda interesting. Yeah, there were a few really off-the-wall things, but it’s the kind of thing that’s really to be expected of someone who would have been a mid-2000s Midwest Democrat. Vance came too late to collaborate with Harry Reid, but the sorts of batshit-crazy utterances are absolutely in line.

His analysis of the various Epstein conspiracy threads is….I’m failing to find the right word.

So, what was Vance’s take? The the really interesting stuff was from the 2008 trial, and that’s been deleted, but the Trump administration did a bad job rolling things out this term.

C’mon, guy. You were in the crowd who were floating the outrageous conspiracies during the Biden Administration.

You also didn’t do much, either then or now, to tamp down the weird, often antisemitic, claims. You know he was hiding money for Mossad, right? No, and you don’t know that, either.

So the nutbag Rogan audience is disappointed?

I don’t care.

Your focus on this issue is one of the myriad reasons why I’ll never vote for you. The 400-some members of the House who also cemented that distinction by voting to release a bunch of investigative data. Bubuhbut GOVERNMENT SECRECY!!1!

Yeah, there’s things that come through that need to be forgotten.

My tagline here is “everything gets deleted, eventually.” Maybe some day, it’ll be more difficult to remove the most-random thoughts from storage, but even that doesn’t make them things that should be shared publicly.

Can you even imagine?

Spoken: “She looks very nice today.”

Unspoken: “I wonder what she looks like without the dress, and these are the things I’d like to do with her.”

Keep those things to yourself. Nobody needs to know. Just like nobody needs to know about whatever crackhead fever dream someone told police about Epstein.

Would I turn down a chance to have Skyline Chili with JD? Absolutely not. Would I enjoy watching a Bengals’ game with him? Form a luxury box, sure. Outside during “The Freezer Bowl?” No way. Would I go fishing with him? Yeah, probably.

Absent the stupid things done after 9/11 (And I’m looking at you, TSA), I probably would have had a similar reaction to Harry Reid.

Summer writing compulsion starts tomorrow. That it lines up with my participation in the clinical trial is pure coincidence.

Categories
Scarred Brain murmurings Summer Writing

Smoke

My wife asked me to watch Atonement, which was something that’d completely missed my radar. Maybe it was a recalcitrant reaction to Keira Knightly who kinda didn’t impress me in Bend It Like Beckham, but I never really actively sought other things she’d done.

I think my wife wanted to hear my reaction to the narrator who had actually ruined lives out of a childish desire to be with a too-old guy who was in love with her older sister.

I did give the desired reaction; “you bitch!” I did really bear down and try to pay attention so I could better-capture the story.

Yes, trying to consume with as few distractions as possible is one of the things I’ve been trying to do lately.

For the cinematic side, since I really have trouble appreciating a lot of the visual things on account of my failing eyesight, trying to remove as many distractions as possible is important. Working through Narcos on Netflix was tough; which attractive Latina is that? I’m sure I’m supposed to be getting some bigger meaning by her appearance, but it’s not working.

Same problem with Your Friends and Neighbors. Yes, looking at still shots of the actresses, I can sorta tell the difference, on a moving screen, notsomuch.

Still looking for other things to try to watch. Back to the Keira Knightly discussion, I do kind of want to watch the World Cup finale tomorrow. I was hoping for a US-Argentina matchup, if only to fuck with the Socialists’ brains, but….. I’m not sure if that was even possible. The US lost to the Stupid Flanders, and I really haven’t paid much attention since. They’re playing in New Jersey. I hope that the Canuckistani smoke doesn’t settle in too deeply.

Kennedy had on a guy who actually walked from Times Square to MetLife “New York Stadium.” (Is that even what it’s called? I’m too lazy to go look. I suppose I understand why it’s there, but with Zorhan as mayor, I’m completely out of fucks to give about NYC at this point….) Nuts how difficult it is to get from point-A to point-B using your feet. I’d imagine it’s better using public transportation. But it’d still probably be quicker and safer in a car, even if that car drives itself.

Other stuff….

I think I mentioned before that I am writing this summer. There’s many things that want to come out through my fingers. Should I be getting better at doing that on the guitar? Yes, but it’s been a hell of a week.

Thankfully, it’s almost over.

I have most of my prompts lined up. I’m ready. I’m also ready to see how this research study at Georgetown happens. Looks like they’re planning on driving me point-to-point. Which will be refreshing in this smoky, hot summer.

Categories
Scarred Brain murmurings

America Is Hot

In many places. Certainly here inside the Beltway Swamp.

But it’s cool here inside our apartment. I am almost certain that it’ll remain that way until all the festivities are finished. (This might be an instance where using “done” might be appropriate considering the weather.)

So, what am I doing otherwise?

  • Summer writing. Again. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s something to do, and last week’s test kind of found the words flowing out. I do wonder if I can string together something more substantial, still.
  • Financial planning. Questions to my lawyer about what I am able to do or not do while I’m getting insurance income. Can I get reimbursement for stuff like the research study? Would converting my conventional tax-deferred retirement holdings to Roth IRAs be possible, still? If I earn income through passive sources (e.g. dividend income), does that affect my insurance payments?
  • Still trying to get through Euphoria. Um. Well, I only have a couple of episodes left’. might as well finish.