The Stagger Litany, 41st Day of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Aldebaran): I have ominous premonitions about the near future. It feels like we're heading for some catastrophe or another. 

Martial law and suspension of the midterm elections? I wouldn't rule that out. A financial crisis with runaway inflation, spiraling oil prices, and devaluation of the U.S. dollar? Doesn't sound unreasonable.  Global outbreak of ebola or screwworm or flesh-eating bacteria? The safeguards against those epidemics are largely gone. Agricultural collapse due to some combination of drought and fertilizer shortages caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz? Followed by global starvation, mass displacement, antimigrant hysteria, and genocides? Kind of already happening. 

Sorry to be Debby Downer here. It's been raining a lot lately, and I'm probably not getting the amount of natural light necessary for a sunnier psychological disposition. But in my 72 years of living, I never felt so keenly that the wheels are about to come of the cart, and I lived through the 60s and Nixon, man.

I can feel it in my bones: we might even be in for some tectonic-level geological shit, like an eruption of the Yellowstone super-caldera or rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. One might even trigger the other for a certain mass extinction event.

It's insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but my central bath needs to be redone - the peeling paint over the tile needs to be completely removed and the walls repainted. I may be overreacting, but I'm so uncertain about the near future that I'm hesitant to spend money on cosmetic upgrades to the house, when for all I know, civil war, riots, or worse will displace me anyway. 

They're asking ridiculous amounts for hotels in Knoxville for the dates of next year's Big Ears festival. I'm not at all convinced there will be a Big Ears 2027 for a variety of reasons, or that I'd be able to afford to attend even at previous year's hotel rates, so I'm not committing any money toward it.

Why pay for home improvement? Why plan for concerts? Gonna be different this time. Can't write a letter, can't send no postcard, I ain't got time for that now.