A New Ordering of Things
- Mike Dickey
- Oct 9, 2025
- 3 min read
“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
-Oscar Wilde
A chilly morning out there, 35 with a frost warning. The double-paned old windows are all fogging up.
The boys seem comfortable enough.
Last night at bedtime we put Slane out on the back porch of the building to roam the neighborhood instead of crying all night locked in his cat carrier. When I awoke this morning I peered out the window to see if he was squashed in the middle of Chemung Street. Happily he wasn't, and I found him sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, waiting to be let back in from his nocturnal peregrinations. He seems pretty content this morning, so I reckon we'll try that again tonight.
Last night marked the second in a row that ended with P and me sleeping in separate rooms. Two nights ago she moved to the couch because my snoring was keeping her awake. Last night I kept awakening to find myself being poked back into consciousness by Peg because, again, I was snoring. I moved to the couch. Maybe this is the new normal, separate sleeping quarters for the balance of our lives together. I don't see that as a good thing.
Meanwhile, yesterday video emerged of ICE shooting a pastor, in black shirt and collar, in the face with a pepper ball for the crime of protesting in front of a detention facility.
No one gives a damn, or we'd be doing something about this authoritarian power grab.
But what to do? They want you to fight back, want a spasm of violence as pretext to unleash a reign of terror against anyone who isn't MAGA. Just listen to Stephen Miller on any given day, the guy who's actually running the country while the drooler-in-chief slips ever deeper into dementia.
Maybe the protesters in Portland have the answer. It's hard to create a photo op of a masked ICE thug taking down a violent antifa commando when the commando is dressed as a frog.
Well, they did end up pepper spraying the guy. Because of course they did.
Or there's the fellow dressed as a chicken wrapped in an American flag shouting up at ICE Barbie as she surveyed the carnage from the roof of a detention facility.
Or, my personal favorite, the crew that taunted the stormtroopers by pretending to fish for them, with donuts.
The only problem with mocking someone with authority to use lethal force is that, sooner or later, the dimwit in the flak jacket's going to use it. And then what?
On the other side of the country, a bill was introduced in the Florida House to force every state institution of higher learning to name a street after deceased internet troll Charlie Kirk.
I remember when the Dumbshine State was sort of a nice place to live, back during the Margaritaville period of my life. Now I wish I had those years back so I had time to build a life somewhere else, finding myself, and P, now sojourners as the place where we spent decades slips into a parody of itself. And most of my neighbors there see this as a good thing.
A gloomy note to end this post, feeling mocked by the brilliant sunshine outside.
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