Optimism on a Gray Monday

There's a new world coming

And it's just around the bend

There's a new world coming

This one's coming to an end

-Cass Elliot

Fifty-five, gray and damp out there.

Twelve more wakeups and it'll all be over. Makes me a little sad. It can't happen soon enough for Slane, however. He screams and howls every morning at exactly 4:30, I chase him into the guest room and close the door, and when I let him out as I'm making coffee a couple hours later he starts it again. I just ran him back in there to keep him from waking up Peg. My cat is an a**hole.

But overall, a few green shoots this spring morning. By quitting time tomorrow it'll all be over, this final exam endurance exercise. I'm completely exhausted, but probably have the gas in the tank for the last push. I'll spend today building my Estate Planning outline after spending six hours on it yesterday, the most I could do before my eyes started crossing and I halted to call Johnnie for Mother's Day and my sister for her birthday. I'm at about the halfway point, so perhaps by a little after lunch I'll have a decent draft, which I can pick at between then and when the test begins at 10 a.m. tomorrow. This journey began in August of 2024. I'm hopeful at the prospect of a little free time again.

And oddly hopeful at the unfolding political debacle in this country. The neo-Confederates seem to be carrying the day so far, gleefully wrecking our electoral norms and laws in an attempt to establish a Christian nationalist apartheid state, paid for by the people they loathe in the cities. But as the blog I read each morning points out, it still appears highly likely they're going to lose the House, and perhaps more importantly a bunch of state houses. It's all a mess, but not irredeemably so.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/05/lawless-hack-judges-in-broader-dc-area-give-republicans-a-significant-but-not-insurmountable-advantage-in-2026-house-midterms

Orban tried to rig the game, and his moderate successor was sworn in yesterday in Budapest. And even the Nazis gave way to what's now probably the most liberal country in Europe. Fascism is surprisingly brittle, and its reliance on utter incompentents in positions of leadership leave it especially vulnerable without the cudgel wielded by the masked goon squad.

It's spring, and a new day is coming.

Back to studying.