"All our times have come, here but now they're gone."
I begin to fear our entire summer will be this unrelenting heat. I am a Southerner, and the heat is right and natural to me, but this seems like something else. I suspect that last year the globe reached that much watched for tipping point, and this is the other side. A deadly Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf at the beginning of July; never before. Anyway, our high today was 91F, with a heat index of 101F. The humidity is a nightmare.
I have hardly slept for weeks. Three or four hours of night, unbroken, is rare. I blame politics, and my worry at being so far behind on work, and the fact they just raised our rent again, and the climate, and the lingering bitterness at having been inexplicably been labled a fascist by the Howl, even though I have spent so much of my life fighting fascism. But as with McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials, claiming innocence is proof of guilt, so until now I have said almost nothing. Anyway, I blame all that and more for my wakefullness. But I am now desperate for sleep, for real sleep, not this dream of sleep I sometimes manage. I wish for the sleep of childhood. The sleep of ignorance and innocence.
I think I'm about to start smoking again. I'm fucking sixity years old, not likely to see seventy, watching as the wheels come off American democracy and our country's youth sinks into a hellish wave of antisemitic violence after being seduced by Middle-Eastern terrorists (honestly, that sounds like the plot of a truly lousy novel). I might as well at least allow myself to enjoy cigarettes.
Yesterday, Bill and I finally settled on a cover of Bright Dear Star, a cover I love, and it will be revaled soon, once I have a good version of the graphic. Bill has agreed there will be no text on the front cover, so as not to spoil the composition, and I thank him for that. The ebook will have lettering on the cover. That was the compromise I made, and it seems fair.
As a lifelong, deeply loyal Democrat, it is very strange to find myself, in this moment of existential calamity, without a party. I suppose I am at last left with no choice but to consider myself an Independent. But make no mistake, I will vote for Biden and Harris in November. Like it or not, to do otherwise is to vote for Trump. To do otherwise is a proudly immoral act. Doesn't seem "fair" that should be so? Life ain't, kittens. Fair, I mean. Also, I have forever parted ways with the New York Times, which I believed all my life to be a bastion of sanity manned by tireless journalists devoted to the preservation of democracy and free speech. If it ever was that, it isn't any longer. My subscription is cancelled (you can still cancel something in the actual, not lunatic sense meant by the Howl). Maybe I will say more about this later, but it breaks my heart.
I'm trying what to decide what next to read. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a tough act to follow.
Please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. Maybe if I can move more books and tshirts, bring in some pennies that way, I'll sleep a little better. Thank you.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
2:55 p.m. (the broil)
I have hardly slept for weeks. Three or four hours of night, unbroken, is rare. I blame politics, and my worry at being so far behind on work, and the fact they just raised our rent again, and the climate, and the lingering bitterness at having been inexplicably been labled a fascist by the Howl, even though I have spent so much of my life fighting fascism. But as with McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials, claiming innocence is proof of guilt, so until now I have said almost nothing. Anyway, I blame all that and more for my wakefullness. But I am now desperate for sleep, for real sleep, not this dream of sleep I sometimes manage. I wish for the sleep of childhood. The sleep of ignorance and innocence.
I think I'm about to start smoking again. I'm fucking sixity years old, not likely to see seventy, watching as the wheels come off American democracy and our country's youth sinks into a hellish wave of antisemitic violence after being seduced by Middle-Eastern terrorists (honestly, that sounds like the plot of a truly lousy novel). I might as well at least allow myself to enjoy cigarettes.
Yesterday, Bill and I finally settled on a cover of Bright Dear Star, a cover I love, and it will be revaled soon, once I have a good version of the graphic. Bill has agreed there will be no text on the front cover, so as not to spoil the composition, and I thank him for that. The ebook will have lettering on the cover. That was the compromise I made, and it seems fair.
As a lifelong, deeply loyal Democrat, it is very strange to find myself, in this moment of existential calamity, without a party. I suppose I am at last left with no choice but to consider myself an Independent. But make no mistake, I will vote for Biden and Harris in November. Like it or not, to do otherwise is to vote for Trump. To do otherwise is a proudly immoral act. Doesn't seem "fair" that should be so? Life ain't, kittens. Fair, I mean. Also, I have forever parted ways with the New York Times, which I believed all my life to be a bastion of sanity manned by tireless journalists devoted to the preservation of democracy and free speech. If it ever was that, it isn't any longer. My subscription is cancelled (you can still cancel something in the actual, not lunatic sense meant by the Howl). Maybe I will say more about this later, but it breaks my heart.
I'm trying what to decide what next to read. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a tough act to follow.
Please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries shop. Maybe if I can move more books and tshirts, bring in some pennies that way, I'll sleep a little better. Thank you.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
2:55 p.m. (the broil)