Dot-connecting, inflation edition.

I usually carry two-three dollars in my pocket for opportunities to make myself feel good through an act of random kindness. Most of the time, it's still in my pocket when I come home, as I didn't have an opportunity to do a mitzvah.

But the other day, as I was unloading my pockets, I thought I might have to rethink the practice. Not the loose bills, not the practice, but the denominations. Earlier that day, I had been out, and, among other things, had swung through a fast fooderie for lunch—two 'value menu' items, a name burger, fries and drink. Total came to just over $13. I did the inflation grumble, collected my food, and drove on.

So that night, when pulling out the tiny wad of bills, I realized that my 'generous' donation wouldn't even get the recipient up to the counter.

So adjustment is in order. It's time to put a couple of different Presidents into the mix.

The all-natural solution.

Southern Living wants you to know How To Get Acorns Out Of Your Lawn—No Rake Required.

Their solutions all require purchasing mechanical devices. My solution requires no mechanicals, and relies only on re-visioning squirrels as beneficial members of a balanced ecosystem. They're not just for emptying birdfeeders anymore–they're eradicating acorns.

Flies.

It's been a particularly good year for flies, and by that I of course mean 'flies in then house.' It seems there's always been a fly in the house this summer.

Now, I don't know if it's a whole squadron of flies that disperse all over the house, or just one very friendly fly that craves human companionship, following me from room to room. This morning, the current occupant added to the wake-up noises by buzzing around my head at 6 A.M.

I've given up trying to kill them. By the time I find a swatting device, they're gone. Even the cat has given up, just watching them buzz at a window or screen.

We (or at least I) might think that flies are outdoor creatures, and that their straying inside is an aberration, but the full name 'housefly' would indicate that might not be correct, although it may have gotten its name ironically.

The buzzing has stopped (which is in the 160 Hertz range according to one source, while another has it at 200 to 1000 Hertz), which means it's settled in to a far corner for a while. I can live with that.

Which brings us to that curious phrase, 'ain't no flies on him,' which is supposed to be a good thing. I guess, but after conducting this unextensive research, is pretty much a synonym for 'ain't dead yet,' or 'ain't sittin' still,' which are also supposed to be good things.

Questions for writers, artists, and livers of life.

I was checking out the description of a book I was thinking of buying, and read Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter...

Which made me stop, as the image of a well popped into my head. Yes, it was one with the rocks, a roof, and a bucket with the rope and crank handle.

But it was the question that accompanied it that I thought I should share:

What's your well?

and of course, the follow-up question:

How do you refresh/replenish/refill your well?

My answers: life, experiences of others; and putting myself in the way of new experiences and other creatives, pampering my curiosity, and re-viewing my life.

Lives I could never conceive living.

It seems a little odd to put an article about people not reading after an article with advice to writers, but welcome to life in 2026, where non-clinical schizophrenia reigns.

Fortune Magazine reveals 40% of Americans didn’t read a book last year. If you're a 'glass half full' kind of person, that means 60% of Americans, or nearly 200 million people, did read a book, maybe even more than one. And there's always the possibility that people in the 40% are reading things on social media, or have given up on 'long form' reading, in the same way I very rarely watch movies–haven't been in a theater in nearly a quarter-century, and usually bail on movies on TV in the first hour or so.

But I'm guessing 'no books' probably is closely connected to 'no reading.' I'm sure it's not a conscious decision–it's just that there are so many other opportunities for entertainment and engagement. Technology created literacy–now technology is ushering in post-literacy.

That 40% figure took me back over a half-century

to the first time I encountered a 'print-free' house. I went to a end-of-summer party at the friend-of-a-friend's house. Not a scrap of reading material. I was in every room of common space, and saw nothing, not even a TV Guide. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, but the space seemed cool, if not downright cold. I wasn't uncomfortable, but I was a little off (yes, even more so than usual). I'm sure that nowadays, I would encounter many more such homes. Life goes on.

Random disconnected observation.

Archeologists on TV often complain about how hamstrung they are when they unearth a magnificent structure from a period or civilization heretofore considered hunter-gatherer or agrarian that had the poor taste to not leave a written record.

Lazy, self-centered buggers, I say. Do some work! Take notes! Document!

But in writing the previous piece, I began wondering about what archeologists five and 10 thousand years in the future will think when they start excavating our eras' trashpiles. After all, so many of our records are written on paper, an organic material subject to decay and destruction. Granted, we are digitizing information, but will future generations have the technical wherewithal to be able to bring our machines back to life, and have a Rosetta stone to translate binary to English or Greek or whatever their language of choice is?

One of the more interesting finds is Woodhenge,a ceremonial circle constructed of wooden timbers near to and contemporaneously with Stonehenge. Apparently, the builders not only abandoned it, but took the construction materials with them.

They didn't leave a note explaining why. Will future archeologists face the same challenges in decoding and interpreting our times?