March 29th, 2026. The Day After.

March 29, 2026

March 29th, 2026. The Day After.

I dreamt it was the end of the world. But no-one was really taking it seriously. Everyone else was sure the lights would come back on tomorrow, and so it was just a party. I was grateful for that because we didn't lose the booking at this fancy dinner, but we stuffed as much extra food in our pockets as we could, and when we walked around the little apartment building where we'd been booked we saw a line of old friends all going to ask the advice of Rick and Audrey (Sense of Wonder). I'd thought of going to see them too, just to say goodbye, but when I saw the line down the hall I knew they had enough on their hands.

I'd rented another apartment a couple of weeks ago, but knowing that consolidation was better, and that our townhouse in Catonsville was more insulated and defensible than the glass-fronted Baltimore City apartment, I moved back in with Kristen and canceled the other lease. We would figure it out. Kristen argued with my but I convinced her that this time really WAS the time to hoard some food and we went and bought canned goods till our cart and our credit couldn't take anymore and we returned home and waited....

I woke up and scrolled and I need to kick that habit. A long story from a doctor who is spending too much time on doorsteps helping home caregivers navigate end of Life care. We're all going to die, but we refuse to acknowledge or face it. And so it comes to us alone and unprepared. I am surrounded by it. Age and aging. Minds and personalities and capacity fading, or is it paranoia? Every faltering word is an alarm bell. Or it's normal. And I can't savour Life for the death.

Ha. It's how we got Trump. We couldn't see the good things for the bad. And frittered away what was good and made it all worse.

I can't breathe.

Tonight I'll host my open mic. It'll probably help. But it feels like for years I've been faltering, feeling useless. It could be the stutter stop of LIFE from COVID. It keep be my aging mom. It could be my aging me. It could be watching other people in my community winding down. But it's probably me.

Someone called in a bomb threat to Strasburg Railroad in Pennsylvania this weekend and we can just add that to the pile of things that disgust me. I don't really know what to make of call-in threats sans REAL threat, but I think that on some level they trouble me even more than an actual bombing. A bomber believes enough to DO something. A hoax, I imagine, is usually one step away from trolling. Someone on the other end probably isn't ANGRY, they just think it's HIIIIlarious.

Our world is so finely-wired for surveillance, there's just no way someone should be able to actually make an anonymous threat like this. Find them and tie them to the rails.

In other news, I hosted my open mic. It helped.

We do this every Sunday at Morsbergers Tavern in Catonsville, MD. Signup at 6.30, 2 songs or 10 minutes whichever's shorter.

Tonight w