Data Dumping on Hump Day

Some pithy dude online today commented writing “unclutters the brain.” I’ve been calling it a data dump. So, here, let’s dump, ‘cos I’m feeling a little full-up on grey matter tonight.

It’s Wednesday. Half-way through a week that’s feeling like a marathon-a-day effort already.

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Biden did his “time for Kamala to run” speech and I barely kept it together.

He sounds so old, seems so tired, and has given so much, for so long.

50 years serving in office. He’s been serving since Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released. My whole life. Since Vietnam ended.

He came out of grieving the death of a son, only for his ambitions to subject his second son to endless scrutiny and potentially jail. Yet he never wavered in his commitment. He’s an imperfect man, but a beautiful human.

So, I’m thinking a bit about that.

I’m also thinking about the filing cabinet I just snagged for $25 after a frustrating 90 minutes of running around, but thinking more about what the filing cabinet represents — both that which is yet to come but also all I’ve weathered so far. It’s not just paper in those drawers, you know?

Then there’s the wind rattling the shells on the chimes next door, sending my cypress tree into a blowy mess, as clouds waft overhead. Or are they smoke?

Has the wind direction changed? Is the fire 41 kilometres west of town finally turning its acrid carcinogenic smoke our way?

One air quality reading’s heading up, the other’s staying steady, and all I knows is there’s 90 minutes of sun left.

Then there’s work tomorrow, sleep that’s eluded me, a writing job I’ve promised for Monday despite working full-time this week, and now a filing cabinet I get to load up.

Of course, because there’s not enough on my plate, I spontaneously bought a well-priced island-raised chicken, despite having leftover chicken in the fridge already and a freezer full of meat, sending me into an existential tizzy about whether I’m even remotely as intelligent as I’ve always liked to think I am.

Chickens, man. Who doesn’t like a good island-raised chicken? But you know what I ain’t got time for this week?

Cooking another chicken.

On top of filling the filing cabinet, learning about colonialism in Canada’s Arctic for work, cleaning the house, hanging some tomato plants, exercising, and so much more.

This is my last stupid week for a few weeks, so, the end of idiocy and fatigue is nigh.

Anyhow, sure. That’s a data dump for you.

My coping strategy these days is walking and music, so that’s on tap now too.

I’m oddly titillated by, yet equally horrified by, the prospect of walking four kilometres towards a fire 41 kilometres on the horizon.

Climate change is fucking weird.

Someone said to me last year, “It might be the best summer in the rest of your life, so enjoy it.”

What a prospect that is. Tell you what I’m not dwelling on tonight — that.

I have to believe we can do something, change things. And I’m hoping that the sad, powerful speech by that beautiful man tonight is the kind of selflessness which sparks that sort of change.

We’ve had so many tools, so many ways to change our world — look for a show that’s 15 or 20 years old from Sundance Channel, Big Ideas for a Small Planet, and see how many ingenious ideas have been around for so long, with the only thing lacking being political will.

That’s a choice. Hopefully this year we start making better choices.

Political will. That’s all we need, folks.

Anyhow, gotta go see a seashore about a fire, or something.

Have yourself a less-thinky evening. Maybe make some tea.

S.

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