There's not much to say today, because I've lost my damned notebook. It's a pocket-size spiral, green cover — have you seen it?

The notebook is where everything I want to say stays until it's said. Usually it's in my pocket or on the table, but I've spent two hours going through the clutter in my room, looking all the places I might have stupidly put it, and it's vanished into another dimension.

Oh, the frickin' humanities. The brilliant prose I was going to put down in pixels for my literally dozens of readers — Pulitzer-worthy bus rides, conversations with bums, lines overheard at the diner…

All those moments will be lost in time, like my notebook in this messy room.

I'm serious about the new improved diet and getting more exercise and trying to live a little longer, but I'm giving myself some days off from the daily walks, because it is seriously cold in this city. The forecast says 14° overnight, which is about ten degrees colder than anything I remember from growing up here. Cold enough to kill homeless people if they're not well wrapped. Cold enough for me to be sleeping in my pants.

For a hoax, climate change sure seems real.

Wisconsin, where I used to live, gets lots colder than that, but in Wisconsin I lived on a flat street in a flat city. Seattle has hills, and I live near the top of one of them. When it's raining I'll walk, and when it's 95° and I'm sweaty I'll walk, but I am not walking up and down a hill when there's a layer of ice under the snow.

My Yaktrax are in one of the many boxes not yet opened after moving here, so there'll be no walking until the sun warms this zip code. You'll find me in my recliner.

Which reminds me — postings might be sparse for the next few days, as I've decided that in addition to fixing up my fat body, I need to finally finish moving in and getting settled in this house. The closet still has boxes stacked four-high.

I've only unpacked the essentials, and left everything else in boxes, first because I wasn't sure I was staying — Dean bugs me — and after I'd decided this is home, everything stayed in boxes just because I'm lazy.

Nine months I've been here, though. It's time to unpack, and generally tidy up the room. Maybe I'll find my notebook in the mess.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mistreating customers

Fines, even multi-billion-dollar fines, don't mean much to Wells Fargo. If we wanted to actually punish and prevent such criminal activity, executives would be arrested and the bank would be liquidated, or better yet, nationalized.

That'll never happen, because the people in power don't want to punish and prevent criminal conduct by big banks and big business.

Rob a bank of $500, though, and you're going to prison.

• DEA seized enough fentanyl to kill every American in 2022

Oh, bullshit. Since at least 1909 when opium was banned, the authorities have been lying about drugs. They'll never stop.

ABC News presents "enough fentanyl to kill every American" as fact, but it's only a quote from the person who runs the Drug Enforcement Agency — an entire bureaucracy with a vested interest in keeping Americans frightened.

• Schools lose fight for anonymity after censored tours at human rights museum

• Climate change forces KCBX Public Radio to halt FM broadcasting in Santa Barbara

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because climate change isn't 'coming', it's underway. It'll kill billions, and we're not doing squat about it.

• El Paso officer arrested, accused of video recording in women's police station locker room

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because all cops are bastards, or they know who the bastard cops are and do nothing about it, which is the same thing.

• Ohio AG sorry 10 year old rape victim wasn’t lying

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, because Republicans are the enemy of common sense, common decency, simple truth, and democracy.

• Journey bandmates in legal fight over performance for Donald Trump

Clicks ahoy

• Libraries offer music streaming services that really support local musicians

Seattle Public Library is a member, and it's basically free streaming music from local bands.

• The Oppermanns, a long-forgotten masterpiece published in 1933 and recently reissued with a revised translation by the novelist Joshua Cohen, is a book written in real time, right on the threshold of Nazi Germany.

• Mystery links... like life itself, there's no knowing where you're going, so click and click and click a third time.

• Man who could have been holding gun in diverging timeline shot dead by police

• Bubbles

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• Circles — Billy Preston

• From the Beginning — Emerson Lake & Palmer

• Lost for Words — Pink Floyd

• Science Fiction Double Feature — Rocky Horror

• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised — Gil Scott-Heron

The End

• Eric Allison

• Frances Hesselbein

• Charlotte Mayer

• Curt Simmons

• Robert Toth

12/22/2022
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...