Hello dear readers. I’m reaching out to let you know what has been going on, and why I’ve not been active over over two months now.
First off, my wife’s mother was diagnosed with cancer in November. She had surgery yesterday, and all seems to be going well. Please send your positive energy and prayers her way.
On top of that, my wife’s business failed due to Trump’s tariffs (directly) and people just not buying as much as before (indirectly). She created things and did engraving using a laser machine, and other devices (appliques, jewelry etc) in addition to sourcing other items online. She started this business at the beginning of 2025 at a location as a mall near our home at a very small store that charged about $400 a month for rent. We were able to pay our bills, and support her business as needed from my income, and at most times she was able to break even. That ended in September. With her mother needing more attention, and us running out of funds to keep it going, she shut it down in November, and we spent several weeks moving everything out to our home.
We’ve been spending time since the shop closed reorganizing our home to create a workshop for her things, and to make room for storage of her inventory and displays etc. Ultimately, she is thinking of moving her business online, in addition to doing outdoor flea markets, but the ways and means are still up in the air. The house is a mess. With the ‘cold’ weather hitting here - we’ve been acting more like hibernating bears than human beings, and things have slowed to a crawl. I suspect there is a bit of depression involved, and given all that has transpired both inside and outside of our sphere of life, I don’t blame us for that natural response.
The holidays rolled along as usual with me cooking the turkey and trimmings for both Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I work six days a week and volunteer for extra hours to keep my paycheck up to cover things, and not having to pay rent on the shop has helped, but no income from the shop also means we have to cover the expense of the laser engraver, which is still under loan payments. I’m a part time worker - so I don’t go over 30 hours per week. Savings are non-existent at the moment as we are taking in enough to cover everything we’ve made arrangements for. Thank heaven for SNAP.
As for myself, I’ve been doom scrolling over the ever unfolding shit storm that is the Trump regime’s attempt to reduce America to a third rate fascist dictatorship. The book I am working on has slowed down as a result of all of the above, but this slow down has given me a pause to analyze it and further refine the direction I want it to go. This is a good thing, because it will make it more useful and more clear to readers (I hope) than what I was originally planning. In short, the focus on civics is going to be pared down in order to do a deeper dive into progressivism and why we need it more than ever today against the backdrop of crazy authoritarian wet dreams including Project 2025, Dark Enlightenment, and TESCREALism that call for amplifying and speeding up the destruction of humanity to support our future AI ‘children’ (and the Oligarchs who made them, of course, while the rest of us burn in the destruction they caused). I didn’t have “shit could get even crazier than we could ever imagine” on my MAGA bingo card, but there you have it.
Yesterday was Martin Luther King day, and I’m planning a longer form article on the other channel on him and his movement, with emphasis on what we can learn from it to help us today. That will probably make it into the book. Keep an eye out for that.
Anyway, thanks for hanging around and not dropping your subscriptions. Things will pick up. We have a long way to go to get through the midterms and not to mention the next three years!
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