Chronicling the Spiral

"Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths."

- Charles Spurgeon 

Dean and I are spending the morning marveling at these hills in their first small flush of fall color.

Slane's just walking around the condo crying, as is his wont. Lately we've taken to stuffing him into his cat carrier at night, dragging it into another room, and closing the door so we can't hear his moaning. A better cat owner would try to find the source of his despair and address it, but I think we already know the answer: he hates being inside, and would like to return to the farm, thank you very much.

But we probably won't be farmers much longer. In its insatiable quest for cash now that the mill's closed and the population shrinking, Taylor County has raised our property tax bill by 120%. At least I get $80 off because I'm a disabled veteran. Thank you for your service. That, coupled with monthly upkeep bills that are two or three times what I made as a lieutenant in the Air Force, have us looking hard at pulling the plug on the venue, selling out, and closing this vanity project and Peg's quarter century relationship with a place neither of us really know at this point.

A significant factor in our drift away from there is the 2024 election, in which nearly 80% of them voted for Trump. Bay County was at 73%. How does one abide among people so benighted at best, and malicious at worst?

But it's going to entail a major change in lifestyle for us, if we walk away from that latitude. I've already warned P that we're at the end of our financial salad days, and need to start making our peace with a season of austerity. She's ready to scale back work to a couple days a week, and who can blame her given the demands of her profession. I don't want to go to court anymore, have taken as much as I care to take of the sandpaper to the soul that litigation entails. There's a reason almost no one in my business is still an active litigator in their sixties. Also, I'm coming to the conclusion that one can't litigate at the level I've occupied most of my career as a sole practitioner with a part time remote paralegal. There's no one to "tag out" when a deposition or hearing needs to be covered, no way to avoid getting dragged back to Florida on some jurist's preference for in-person court appearances. I've been a member of the federal bench there for nearly thirty years, and only set foot in a federal courtroom maybe a dozen times. So quality remote litigation is possible, even if some of the state court judges disfavor it these days.

So P and I are going through some heavy vocational transitions right now. Add to that the usual worries of old age clustered around failing health, our midsections going from a six pack to a keg, friends starting to drop dead in this war of attrition against time that always ends the same.

And add to that the end of the Republic. I'm astonished at what I read, disoriented and grief-stricken and furious all at the same time. Even when P and I are in what otherwise should be a beautiful moment, on the patio above the lake or whizzing around on a golf cart at the Corning Country Club whacking at golf balls, the pall is there, and the conversation drifts in-and-out of the present horror. Every day we talk about where one might flee when it gets too dangerous here, and the options are pretty limited actually. Other countries have their own MAGA, and our finances are good but not so good that I'm confident we won't outlive our savings in Ireland or Greece or--the latest ex-pat dream destination--Mauritius.

My favorite blog out there, Lawyers Guns & Money, this morning posted an essay that's actually a mash-up of several essays published over the last few days that fairly summarize the state of affairs in the post-Charlie Kirk assassination era.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/remember-when-jd-vance-went-to-europe-about-three-weeks-ago-and-lectured-all-those-frankfurter-school-people-about-free-speech

Every morning around four I wake up, and the predawn worry demon settles in for a session in my head. Deadlines. Fifty active files I need to manage with a rickety case management system that mostly relies on my faltering memory. A loaves and fishes financial existence that seems ludicrous given our incomes. The fear that an intemperate social media post after a couple Jamesons might lead to censure, or worse.

My nervous tick during these insomniac mornings is the most unhealthy possible: I pick up the phone off the nightstand to check the time, then check the ball scores, then to the Drudge Report to scan the headlines for the latest political outrage. I put the phone down, and start the mental game I've created as a means of getting back to sleep, trying to remember every name starting with a pair of letters:

"MA"

"Mabel"

"Mac"

"MacKenzie"

etc. The key is to be methodical: start with mab, then mac, then mad, and go on from there. Sometimes it sends me to the Land of Nod, but more often than not my search gets sidetracked by some new source of angst that creeps back into the conversation.

Not great, Bob, not great at all.

Time to clean up and get ready to defend another expert deposition here in a few minutes. It pays the bills, I guess. For now.