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The White House is releasing details of President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget, including a $1.5 trillion defense spending request.

It was nice out after work, so we walked to our local pub for dinner. It’s an easy, ten-minute stroll each way. Dinner was fine, as it usually is there. On the way home, while we were waiting at the one stoplight on our route, three things happened quickly. A minor crash occurred about a hundred feet from us. (That unnatural sound of  a collision makes me wince every time I hear it.) The light changed green, one car accelerated...

On Saturday, we had not one, but two social engagements. One was a friend’s birthday brunch, and the other was dinner with my old comrade Sarah, her husband, and their adorable kid who I finally had the honor of meeting. A good day, but by the end of it, I was worn out from the socializing. To unwind, we fired up the Solo Stove, tossed in some color packs, and lounged beneath the darkening sky.

'The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water', J.R.R. Tolkien. August 1937 Finished THE HOBBIT yesterday morning, just before it was time to start working. None of my thoughts around the book are fully baked yet, but my initial reaction is I enjoyed it very much. I get why it knocked people flat when it came out in 1937 -- Tolkien was just inventing so many of the epic fantasy tropes.

I was staring out the front window this afternoon, dissociating in between work calls, when I noticed this little blotch of color in the mulch. I slid on my boots and went out front. It was gray, cold, and had just stopped snowing, and amidst all that gloom was this little bluish purple hyacinth. The little flower seems to me like it was leaning in towards the garden light, but to what end?

Yesterday it was 70 degrees. I would have fired up the gas grill had the wind not been crazy powerful. Then, overnight, it was fierce winds and thunderstorms battering the house so intensely that it woke me up. And today... snow. The Midwest truly is midwesting today. Fortunately, I stocked up on Sudafed recently — the good stuff, the pseudoephedrine — not that phenylephrine crap that might as well be a sugar pill for all the good it does.

We went to the Home Depot the other day and for a ridiculously cheap price picked up seven plants, including this Venus fly trap and a yucca for my office. Some days, the words flow so easily here. Other days, writing here feels like swimming in mud. Today is one of the latter, so I'm going to call it quits and go spend some time outside. READING: THE HOBBIT, J.R.R. Tolkien LISTENING: INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, John Williams

For my birthday dinner this year, we indulged and had cheddar bay biscuits from Red Lobster, a petite filet mignon, and fried Oreos from Twist delivered to us. Each thing on its own was very fine, but the combination of the three was even better than the sum of its parts. It felt sort of like going to a really nice buffet, but without having to leave the house.

Woke up this morning to my phone politely notifying me that we were under a tornado watch until noon. This follows after having had several tornado warnings last month. This should perhaps feel more notable than it does, given Ohio’s tornado season doesn’t normally kick off until April. But as the Earth continues to get hotter, “normal” from a climate perspective will come to mean less and less.

Slammed the work laptop shut, turned off Teams and Outlook notifications and moved the apps off the home screen, and am settling for the five day weekend. I can feel my cortisol levels already dropping. We’re having people over in a little bit to do birthday stuff. Cupcakes from Ele, pizza, California cocktails… it should be a chill evening. M also put up decorations.

As anyone who’s perused my Instagram stories more than a handful of times will probably know, I am obsessed with old bathrooms. Aside from being almost always gorgeous and interesting-looking, they also bring out a rare bit of nostalgia in me. It’s hard to put my finger on why they do, as I am not a person typically prone to nostalgia.

I finished James Rollins’s TRUST NO ONE earlier this week. It had everything I want from a historical mystery-thriller, chiefly the rediscovery of some ancient science or technology, a historical conspiracy/mystery to solve, and lots of exciting set pieces that take place in exotic locales. In this one, a motley group of university students is thrust into a mystery surrounding the…

I opened the windows in my office at 10 am on Friday and breathed in the outdoors. It was invigorating. Only a slight chill to the air. On the other side of the glass, the sun was shining brightly. The windows remained open. I watched a squirrel lounging on the arm of an outdoor chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him.

Today at work, I was showing someone this comically distorted perspective photo that M took of me last weekend, and they asked about my shoes. This got me excited, because I am enamored with these shoes and was more than willing to talk about them. Most of the shoes that come with a tuxedo rental are ugly, uncomfortable, and generally just unpleasant to wear.