. . .I didn’t feel sad about my son having to fly back to Southern California today until about an hour after I got back home from the airport. Little things irk me. The dogs. The general questions about what to have for dinner. My wife’s questions about a mysterious charge to our bank account that neither of us can make sense of. An equally mysterious event on the calendar that, likewise, can’t be explained. I’m maybe settling in, finally, to the realization that over the next two years or so, we might see less and less of our son, committed, as he is, to staying in Riverside, California to march until he ages out of the activity. His visit was only three nights long, and much of the time he was out and about with friends or his mom or sleeping and I find myself longing to have had more time with him. And I read this evening in Moon Unit Zappa’s memoir about her father’s cancer, what that was like for her, and then suddenly the absence is unbearable.
I really would like a drink. I’m trying to stay dry, as is the custom. Two of the nine days so far in 2025 have been decidedly wet days, but it’s been six days since that last one. I think I can do it, but I’m not a hundred percent sure I can, or if I want to. You’d think the recent news that the Surgeon General wants to add a warning to alcoholic beverages about the risk of cancer would sober everybody up. Dry January is bad enough for business, I understand. The fires in Los Angeles are terrifying and depressing. Trump’s statements about annexing both Greenland and Canada are horrifying, as is the impending second term of his presidency. My blood pressure is back up and that’s disturbing. This has been kind of a dark day, the darkest day of the year, which, so far, has been mostly light.
I’ll recover.
On the bright side, this morning’s meditation was successful. I spent some quality time with Moon Unit. And tomorrow, a new wonderful but sad new Project MA song gets closer to making its debut into the world.
michael jarmer 