Since my last post, I have lost loved ones. Chronologically, I lost Cuttledog_3 (long time readers remember the loss of Cuttledog, or Cuttledog_1 back in 2009, I think). I then, fairly soon thereafter, lost my mother (honestly, this was a mercy, as she had lost herself 3 years prior), and today I have lost Cuttledog_2. It was not that long ago that I posted, if memory serves, “an unwanted repost” about the loss of the last of the Cuttlecats. That would be today’s verse if I was up to posting it.

I am well aware that there are bigger issues. Thing is, when you are right close to a modest house, it can block out a skyscraper behind it. Small issues are rarely small, up close.

I don’t really have anything much to say, and nothing in verse. Hug (or pet, or scritch, or whatever) your pets, and tell people you love that you love them, while they can understand. All of which you already knew.

And I know I haven’t said it in a while, but thank you (yes, you!) for everything.

This is why I don’t use rhyming dictionaries. Look at rhymezone.com, and ask for a rhyme for perfect. It gives you a bunch of them, and not a single one actually rhymes with “perfect”. Not one.

So you know I have standards.

And by my standards, she is perfect.

Eight perfect arms, two perfect feeding tentacles. Or maybe the human equivalent, I wasn’t really paying attention. I was distracted. By her absolute perfection.

Tomorrow, I might look at the news, and see why the world is all going to hell. Tonight, the world is perfect, and she is perfect, and I suspect so are a great many other new humans, and more than a few old humans as well, or if not perfect, at least worth fighting for.

Goddammit, now I’m crying.

Anyway. It is a very good day, today is.

I dare us all to make tomorrow a better one.

Everything is going well (all digits, appendages, and tentacles crossed), and Cuttledaughter is amazing.

I am buying books for the little one, and reveling in the memories of what this book was for me as a child or as a parent. I have two books that I think (no, I know) are terrible—just atrocious writing, just painful to read—but which were Cuttledaughter’s favorites. I have classics. I have newly recommended books that look wonderful. (Not too late to make your own recommendations in the comments below! I am especially interested in books like my parents collected, books from around the globe, from different cultures, sometimes in different languages.)

And I am looking for other things, like music, or art, or stuffed animals, or *anything*. Again, please, feel free to recommend in the comments.

And Cuttledaughter is looking for something specific. Seen on an app currently under congressional investigation, a Cephalopodean outfit for a very small human. (I will try to post a pic). If you have any leads, I would be happy to chase them down. If it is a pattern… I can sew.

I don’t have a verse for you today… although, oddly enough, I did dream of one recently—reminiscent of the Cat in the Hat, it was several stanzas of The Newt in a Suit. I have great difficulty remembering my dreams, but it seems to me, vaguely, that it was an environmentalist number, not in the league of the Lorax or Oobleck or anything, but in that direction. But about water shortages. So now you can go and imagine your own version. I, myself, am getting ready for another generation.

And I am going to fight like hell to make the world a better place, for her and for all the others.

Be well, my friends. I miss writing here much more than you miss reading it. Maybe soon??

(Much easier than parodying Ozymandias)
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I have not moved to Mastodon, or to anywhere. If/when Twitter goes down, near as I can tell, this blog and/or my original one (does that even still work?) are my only virtual habitats. Who knows, maybe that will be the nudge I need to start actually writing again!

I have reinvented myself completely at least 3 or 4 times over the decades. A friend (in meatspace) notes that it takes about 7 years to completely replace, through cellular maintenance, your entire body. So my time at any one space has been longer than it might have been, all things considered.

I must confess, I have not checked my cuttlefish gmail in… like, 5 years? Since the Big Event happened. So if you need to tell me something… I do check the comments here, eventually. And if I actually start writing again, well, this place is currently the only place I have to do that. So both of you can contact me here if you like, if you are patient.

We live in interesting times.

They’re putting guns on robot dogs
And teaching them to run
The videos are well-produced
And make it look like fun
They’re faster than most people, and
If not, well, there’s the gun
They’re putting guns on robot dogs…
And calling it step one

They’re putting guns on robot dogs
And teaching them to chase
To run, perhaps, a marathon,
At one unflagging pace
And only when the job is done
Come back, at last, to base
They’re putting guns on robot dogs
God save the human race

They’re putting guns on robot dogs
And teaching them to think
It’s not quite perfect, yet, they say
But very near the brink
No faulty human biases
Just silicon and zinc
They’re putting guns on robot dogs…
I think I need a drink

Via @drskyskull on Twitter, a story about those adorable robot dogs we’ve all seen dancing, climbing, scampering around, and now, apparently, hunting and chasing.
Because that was always going to be the end product. There are, basically, two drivers of innovation, and one is war (or various other ways of hurting or killing). The other is porn, and we’ve already written about robots there.

****

Yeah, this is the first verse in nearly a year. As some of you know, it was not for lack of trying. It just wasn’t there. But “They’re putting guns on robot dogs” is so metrically vivid, it is the headline equivalent of starter fluid. No guarantees the engine will keep going, but this one took just over 20 minutes, which is how they used to arrive. So who knows?

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
As the G.O.P. files a lawsuit or ten
And they say they’ll show proof, but they never say when
Until even Fox News will stop taping
For this dig, they need shovels, and several strong men,
So call Four Seasons Total Landscaping!

Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call
Where conspiracy theorists go one, they go all
With McConnell deciding, when faced with a fall
For the Tangerine Loser he’s caping
With a story as flimsy as Trump’s Border Wall
He needs Four Seasons Total Landscaping

Come mothers and fathers, throughout the land
The children you raised are now taking a stand
And it may or may not be the way that you planned
But the country is surely reshaping
If the bedrock you stand on is now sinking sand
Call for Four Seasons Total Landscaping

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The Republican arguments all are half-assed
They can choose—either to be a thing of the past
Or pretend they have only been japing
We should bury them deep, we should bury them fast
So call Four Seasons Total Landscaping

With sincere, deep, and heartfelt apologies, and many thanks, to Bob Dylan.

If I have to explain this one… please introduce me to your dealer.

Though they’ve seen the grim statistics
And the doctors’ best advice
Wearing masks is such a hassle
That they’d rather roll the dice
Thinking odds are in their favor
They prefer to trust their luck
And if others pay the piper
Well, they do not give a fuck

“It’s my choice” to strain the doctors
“It’s my choice” to spread disease
“It’s my choice” to, through my actions,
Bring the country to its knees
It’s my patriotic right to
Freely exercise my will…
“If I die, well then, I die” means
“If I kill, well then, I kill”

I started this one a few days ago and forgot about it. Saw it today and thought I’d have to throw it away, that the moment had passed and I had missed it.

Then there was yet another fresh-from-the-oven video (no, I won’t link it) of a woman from Cleveland refusing to wear a mask and refusing to leave a business. She took the video herself, and this is not her first such video. From her language, it is clear that she has been reading/watching some of the myriad conspiracy theories; I’m sure she thinks she is better informed than all the people begging for her to mask
up, or step outside, or have even the remotest iota of care about the well-being of those around her.

She’s not stupid. She’s not mentally ill. She’s the product of a subculture that fosters such belief and such behavior, and that subculture will be a large part of why school openings will fail, sports at all levels will be forced to cancel, supply chains for food and medical goods will be compromised, and basically the shit will hit the turbine this fall. As if it hasn’t yet.

I wish I was wrong. And that’s saying something; I was wrong once before, and I didn’t like it.

We’ve got a plan for open bars
And beaches, parks, and such
Gets rid of social distancing
So, once more, we can touch
Allowing us to doff the masks
That everyone has donned
The only thing that’s missing
Is a fucking magic wand

It takes a bit of sacrifice
But nothing too outrageous
We know we all must do our part;
The enemy’s contagious!
This plan combines and synthesizes
Everything we know
It’s perfect, if we start it six
Or seven months ago

If you can’t tell, I’ve been looking at the plans by states and universities to reopen classes. While also reopening beaches, parks, pools, malls, bars, restaurants, daycares, nail salons, museums, and professional sports. I have not seen one workable plan yet. They rely on magic tests (more available, more immediate, more accurate, and more accepted by the microchip-in-the-brain crowd than any tests we currently have), magic contact tracing, magic adherence to plans, and, frankly, magic people—people who don’t act the way they have been acting throughout the pandemic thus far.

Meanwhile, I have colleagues updating their wills, and my (still alive) parents planning their own socially distanced funeral. And I’m trying to figure whether it is a good thing or a horrible thing that I live alone.

And I know with every fiber of my being that I am one of the luckiest. So far, anyway.

Oh…. the title was meant to be hopeful. The best time to plant a tree (so the saying goes) is ten years ago. The second best time is today. The best time to do what is needed for this pandemic was many months ago. The second best time is today. You know the things that help, and the things that hurt.

My cat is yowling; I’m going to go see what’s up.

Stay safe.

Confinement, when one is unwilling, ain’t thrilling,
I’m starved of a way I might kiss, hug, or dance
A household made up of me only, is lonely,
A terrible time to give writing a chance
As “time to myself” grows, each hour, more sour
In forced isolation I never did choose
I dream of new days, filled with meeting and greeting–
A much nicer way of invoking the muse

This one got lost somehow. I found it in a document while cleaning my computer desktop; I think maybe I meant to post it here and on twitter, and maybe I posted it there, but not here? I don’t know. Anyway, the inspiration was a whole lot of really annoyingly cheerful and optimistic people putting the best face possible on home isolation, with Newton’s “Annus Mirabilis” as their inspiration. The plague–the literal actual plague–led to these discoveries! What can we do while cloistered away, but with the benefit of the internet, and all of human knowledge accessible through your cellphone?

Precious little, it turns out, for most of us. Maybe three and a half centuries from now, it will be common knowledge that “the Rona” was the source of a rebirth of art, music, science, literature… but if it is in fact common knowledge, it will be because it serves some future narrative, not because that is what is happening.

Or maybe I’m just grumpy. My contacts (taking the word literally) these days are two dogs and a cat.

Have you seen beauty? Have you seen creativity? Art? Music? Poetry? Literature? Have you used this time to create, or to curate your collection of dust bunnies? (you know I won’t shame anyone for inaction, given that I have become the personification (cuttlefishification?) of inaction itself.)

We could have used the time we had
Delay the peak, and work like mad
So “back to school” could be… less bad
But Trump just wouldn’t see.
We moved too late, to start phase one
And ticked off guidelines (meeting none)
Phase two collapsed when just begun
So now let’s start phase three!

But just because you’re now allowed
To gather in a smallish crowd
And show the world you stand unbowed
That doesn’t mean it’s smart
It really isn’t much to ask
A simple, sane, and selfless task
Please, show the strength to wear a mask
And stay six feet apart!

We shake our heads and wonder why
Our “leaders” choose to live a lie
And huff and puff, while people die
(A truth that’s hard to swallow)
Our politicians, as a creed,
Refuse to do the things we need
But surely, if the people lead
The leaders then must follow.