We Wait, and Time Passes and Soon?

Today we remove to the Stroock Northern Strategic Direction. There we can worry about a new set of problems. These include the basement, gutters, cleaning out the garage (should we roust ourselves to do it), the boat (as usual). [Don't you think you should, you know, maybe see a doctor about all the anxiety?-Ed] Why? Don't do no good. 

We could probably cut down on the caffeine. Our only source is coffee. [Decaf?-Ed] Never. We usually have four cups in the morning. This morning we had three. We have two at night. [If you had any brains you'd get down to two cups in the morning and one cup at night-Ed] What do you know about it, Scouse tea drinker?

As we write this Iran is preparing to attack Israel, they say. They've been saying that for a week. Our own thought is that Iran will begin a series of attacks tonight and end them the 15th when ceasefire talks are supposed to resume again. Don't believe the press. Iran is in a race against the clock to save its proxy and Sinwar specifically. Israel seems willing to play the 'proportionate' response game - up to a point. Exit question, the fascinating question; what are the unknown unknowns?

2004 and More. Twenty years ago right about now we finished the rough draft of A Line Through the Desert. We'd resigned ourselves to substitute teaching in the autumn and are retroactively glad we did. No more second-rate Yeshiva in Passaic New Jersey for us. The next two years of substitute teaching would be fulfilling and fun. We earned $85 a day. Get called in three or four times a week and it adds up. Not bad for a gig where we could sit at a teacher's desk with our computer and work on novels and magazine articles. 

And 20 years ago right now we were fretting about the 2004 election and promising ourselves that once we got this election out of the way, we'd stop following politics so closely. Go ahead and laugh. We just had to see that jerk John Kerry go down. Had to. He's the biggest A-hole to run for president in our lifetime. 'Did you know he went to Vietnam?' Sorry, a little conservative humor there. The joke was Kerry couldn't start a sentence with anything else. 

In just a few weeks' time big things would transpire in the presidential race. CBS made up a story about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, and then the very men Kerry commanded in Vietnam attacked him as unfit for office. We'll talk more about those issues when the actual anniversaries come up. 

In 2004 our blog reading greatly expanded, most importantly to Real Clear Politics. We checked their poll-tracker a few times a day. For fun yesterday we thought we'd go back and look at their 2004 poll tracker. Go have a look. Kerry had the lead in the summer but lost it after the TANG and Swift Boat scandals and never got it back. We didn't remember Bush being so solidly ahead the last month or so of the election. What the hell were we worried about? This week is poll week here at Stroock's Books. We'll discuss what we learned about polls, what we unlearned, what we forgot, and what we experienced. 

Monday not Metal: Last night we watched the Olympic closing ceremonies. Toward the end of the show, the venue shifted from Paris to LA. There were the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the beach, strutting and dancing on stage like it's 1994 or something. Come on guys, you're in your 60s now (look it up). Put your shirts back on and dress like grownups. 

We sigh in resignation. Rock lost tons of talent in the late 60s and early 70s, but the rest of them refuse to die or even get the hell out of the way. Rock wasn't supposed to be a bunch of social security recipients and pensioners strutting on stage playing 50-year-old hits. Aerosmith just called it quits. But Kiss is still out there, and the Rolling Stones are touring. We're guilty too, having seen 60-year-old Bruce Dickinson run around the stage at an Iron Maiden concert in 2022.

Well, okay, we're threshing out War Night's Haig chapter and almost done with the Taoiseach chapter. We love it when a plan comes together. We've got proposals for a fleet action scene and a BAOR scene, the latter of which becomes more and more appealing as time passes. We shall let time pass and see if said idea is still appealing. In the meantime, we've got time behind the wheel this afternoon to ponder what other stories we could write.