Reporting In

 Yesterday, I made it to the group session and to the bank to set up an investment and had CC over for her dinner.

The group was another chat fest of a weekly check in. However, I was given a questionnaire. I will not repeat the questions here; there are both embarrassing and not for immature eyes. Suffice it to say, they're not bearing on me and my past, and that leaves me thinking someone, somewhere, is exercising their perversions on others. CC read some of them and found them silly - a slightly edited response.

She finished off the quiche Lorraine that I had bought on Thursday, and read more of “One Dead Blonde”. I had her home around 7 pm.

I came back, tried to some more work on the prison journal, and wound up watching Ava on Tubi.

I got this in my email, a purported response from Senator Young to an email sent about the federal shutdown:

     Thank you for contacting me on October 21, 2025.  I appreciate hearing from you.

          Constituent correspondence allows me to hear directly from you and helps me better represent the various views and priorities of millions of Hoosiers.  As I have done during my time in the Senate, I will continue to advance policies that address our fiscal challenges, incentivize private investment in innovation, streamline inefficiencies, and promote our national security, while simultaneously making government more responsive to the American people.  From border security to threats from China on multiple fronts to our ballooning national debt, many pressing challenges face our nation.  I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues in the 119th Congress to tackle these issues, advance American interests, and advocate for Hoosier priorities.

          For more information about my legislative priorities, I encourage you to visit my website: young.senate.gov/priorities.  Additionally, to stay up-to-date on the work I am doing on behalf of Hoosiers, please sign up for my weekly newsletter: young.senate.gov/newsletter. 

          Please be assured I will keep your thoughts in mind should legislation on this issue come before the full Senate for consideration.

          Again, thank you for contacting me.  It is an honor to represent you in the United States Senate.

From Brian Howey: The week America turned authoritarian, which goes well with this letter from Senator Young. 

Can You Be Serious and Seriously Glamorous? Zadie Smith Asks (Vogue); it's Zadie Smith, and I am in awe of her.

‘Everyone seems to be on Zimmers’: after 70 years of hip-shaking thrills, is rock’n’roll dead? (The Guardian)

After all, as Chuck Berry noted, rock’n’roll’s not hard: it’s got a backbeat, you can’t lose it, any old time you choose it.

But what are Zimmers? 

Hedda movie review & film summary (2025) (Roger Ebert) - seems like an interesting idea gone awry.

Hedda review – Ibsen meets Downton Abbey in Nia DaCosta’s exotic rendering of classic play (The Guardian)

This is a movie whose absurdities need to be indulged, and there’s a great deal of slightly baffling business about the manuscript of Eileen’s forthcoming dazzling magnum opus whose title and contents aren’t specified. It unfolds in a counter-historical context of ethnic diversity, though unlike TV’s Bridgerton the fact of racial difference and racial prejudice is explicitly remarked on. Hedda discloses a crazy world of hedonism and gossip; more Hopper than Gabler.

Fallen stars: why are Hollywood A-listers flopping at the box office? | Movies (The Guardian) - or movies are all going awry?

10/25:

Wow: Typepad died. Just learned this. 

Maher in the morning - sense, even if he is still a little smarmy. I do not think the video is still available.

 No Ordinary Word rejected: 

Unfortunately, your submission to shortstory.substack.com was not picked as the July winner. That being said, please feel free to submit for the coming months as submissions are rolling throughout the year. 

Remember, a rejection this month doesn't mean a rejection in future months.

Thanks, 

Mike

 

 

As I said, a word of warning and a call to action from Uncle Lou, which goes well with Brian Howey's commentary above:

 

 I made it out to the apartment, only to get my Coke Zero out of the car. I think I will do something crazy - going to see a movie tonight, a late show of Blue Moon. If I can stay awake that long! Right now, my resolve is fading fast, along with my eyes. But I will go see Good Fortune tomorrow, after church.

I fixed a pork loin, of which I am both impressed and underwhelmed. Maybe it was baked a little too long; maybe I was hoping for more from the apple cider.

The batch of prison journal entries that I have been working on and off for the past few weeks has been finished. They will be published here next month.

I also did some research on the Versailles lynching; that will be published at the end of next month.

And that has been Friday and Saturday. I am trying to avoid the political stuff - I want to get into my fiction, and all that Donald J. Trump does for me is make me wonder if this country is as childish and malicious and destructive as he is.

Yeah, skipping the movie.

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