It's late and I should go to bed...

...but here I am writing a little thing

There is so much bad and scary stuff going on in my country.

A man attacked Jewish people in Boulder CO. who were walking in support of hostages being freed and returned. Someone went to a peony garden and cut all the blooming flowers off the plants and left them on the ground.

A mad-would-be-king continues to spew madness now that Joe Biden was assassinated in 2020 and the office of the president was held by a clone or a robot for 4 years. (Author’s note: if he was to be replaced by a robot, don’t you think they’d have made a peppier non-stiff, non-stuttering version? Maybe one that entered every press conference doing cartwheels?)

A hybrid, crowd funding based publisher has declared bankruptcy and many of their authors have been left in the lurch, with unpaid royalties and books held in limbo. I am not among the abused authors, but I know of at least one Substack writer who has been dealing with the fallout of this debacle. A gallery I used to show at did this to their artists. I know several who were owed 10s of 1000s of dollars. (the good news for me was they hadn’t sold much in the months preceding the meltdown. Ha ha….good news, bad news)

Existential dread doesn’t begin to cover it. (everybody drink)

I am hallucinating: what if Miss Piggy replaced Karoline Leavitt at the podium in the WH press briefing room? Would her condescending, vacuous remarks be more tolerable?

But I planted tomatoes this week, and basil, as if I will be here to eat them when fruit forms and ripens. Is hope springing?

You Say Tomato
oil on sanded paper panel
11” x10”

I sit on my patio, surrounded by trees and birds and the occasional bunny, warm breeze ruffling the about to bloom Styrax tree. Still, I can’t escape the existential dread (everybody drink) even surrounded by peace and beauty. (for now)

Thank you

All of you who come here when I write something. New subscribers as well as all of you who have been here for a while are part of what keeps me going. I keep finding people I know from the real world here. This week I discovered

Corinna Luyken

here, a wonderful author/illustrator. Her book The Book of Mistakes is one of my favorites.

I’m working on a new story over at The Panda Chronicles. It’s not an easy story to write or to read. When I have several episodes done, I’ll share it here with you, but you can head over to read them as they come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Till then, bear with me, and all who are Friendly to Bears.