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I have written three chapters in the last week. Cissy Moonskipper Meets the Nebulons is back on the production line. I would tell you more, but I still have to curse the keyboard and arthritic fingers while typing the wrong thing and correcting it more times than any nudist ever typed the word “naked”.

Miraculously I am still alive and will be giving Donald Trump another potential four years to torture and kill me. He didn’t get me with Covid or the Tax Cuts that contributed to my bankruptcy in 2017 (I had to pay over $2,000 in taxes instead of getting back the $47 in tax savings that my conservative friends in Iowa got.) This time will certainly be worse. He means to deport my wife and take away my children’s birthright citizenship if he does what he crows about at his pep rallies. And eliminate the Department of Education, put Democrats in jail for being Democrats, and give more aid to Putin in Russia and our other dictator enemies.

But I will also have a chance to write more and draw more. So, there! I defy you to stop me, Pumpkinhead.

Here’s a picture of Ariel, my plastic doll, which I created today to show old Pumpkinhead how I will defy him by drawing.

It is a simple matter. As down and pessimistic as I have been in 2024, I am still here. I can still see. I can still think. I can still write. If there is a God, he has given me more time to work on the story. I mean not only the story of me but the story of us. I assume you are still here too. So, let’s see where this chapter takes us next.

This year, this miserable year of 2024, has been a debacle that I really don’t think most of us deserve. But part of what makes the outcomes of 2024 despicable are the result of the power of stupid people and the evil people who manipulate them.

We have now entered into a time in which the climate change numbers have crossed the red lines into irreversible consequences.

Here is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveals;

I am a pessimist. I think we are already doomed. It is not that we don’t already have technology to deal with the problem and save life on Earth. We certainly do. But the stupid people in this country put the Pumpkinhead President back in charge of the US government. to be assisted by co-president Elmo Muskmelonhead, you know, that fake technical genius who became the world’s richest man by buying other people’s genius inventions. And they will undo all the progress we have made because they can make more money for their hoards by sticking with the deregulated use of fossil fuels. Our lives mean nothing in the face of vast deregulated profits. Oh, and those profits are also going to be tax-proof. The massive national debt will be paid for by ending our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid funding. You know, the stuff we have paid into every single year we have worked.

My only accomplishment of 2024 is my published book of poetry. It was published early in the year and I have barely been able to write since. I am suffering from increased arthritis problems, growing blood pressure and diabetic issues, and a serious loss of energy and ability to mentally focus.

My book sales seem to slowly be gaining momentum. I am noticed by more and more readers, especially from those looking for nudist-related literature. But I am also suffering from problems that prohibit me from getting naked and being a nudist.

So, what this all means for me is that I am drawing near the end of my story. It will all go onward without me soon. Or not go on, depending a lot on the whims of stupid people and their Pumpkinhead President.

The little red bird that never flies away when the winter comes… is a symbol of who I am. I lasted for 31 years as a public school teacher no matter how hard it got to be, no matter how many brick walls I ran into, and no matter how little respect the world gives me for what I have done. I persisted in a difficult relationship for thirty years because it didn’t matter if she didn’t love me. I loved her and I made a commitment. And no matter how cold the relationship has become, it will continue. I don’t fly away when the snow begins to fall.

Life is hard. Terrible people do terrible things, and they seem to always get what they want and make the huge profits. Good and lovely people who sacrifice their comfort and wealth to help others always seem to be the ones who get kicked whenever they are down. Still, people are basically good. The depths of evil some of them sink to are the exception, not the rule. The heights of behavior and accomplishment are achieved by more people than the depths of the sinkers and the vile. Some people are amazing, inspiring, and the light the majority of us live by.

This world breaks many a soul under the hammer of God, but His forge is also where heroes are created from the truest of steel. There is hardship and pain and disappointment everywhere… constantly. But when you balance it all… life is good.

This is the philosophy I have come to live by. Work hard and take your lumps and wounds with grace and determination. And when it is done, celebrate. You may call me a fool or an idiot. I cannot prove I am not. But in the end, I know what happiness truly is.

The Return of the Pumpkinhead President is a sequel movie I don’t want to live through again. His victory in November leaves me feeling defeated. Not suicidal, but ready to give up.

There is no choice but to give up being a nudist, though. As much as I was enjoying my late entry into the lifestyle I had longed for over a lifetime, my physical health simply makes it impossible anymore.

I also fear giving up writing. My hands don’t work properly while typing, and the creative flow is slowed by too many obstacles in the stream of consciousness. The river of ideas is slowly damning itself up. I only write two or three original blog posts each week. The rest of the time, I rely on what is already written.

I must also move back to Iowa soon. I need to get out of the big city to maintain my grip on life and be back in the place I think of as home before I die. It will mean leaving my wife behind to finish her teaching career, at least for a couple of years. She will rejoin me if I am still alive when she’s done… maybe.

I will have to part with at least some of my doll collection, and probably most of my personal library as well. I’m sure I have over a thousand books in the house here in Dallas. Some I have even not read yet, though less of those than the ones I’ve read twice.

My whole life has to be simplified as I work towards its ending.