C'mon Wordle, let's drain the swamp!

July 3, 2025

The b-b-b-b-bastuds

To one degree or another I've been a game player all my life. Throughout my childhood the whole family would often sit down together after dinner for a game of monopoly or Clue or hearts or Pounce! Or Battleship or even stultifying War. That was pretty normal behavior then in households before electronic devices took over the scene and rotting everyone's minds because they were staring at them instead of the folks right in front of them or read a book or played a musical instrument or built something or went wandering around outside on their own exploring the Church of the Great Outdoors.

Some of my most treasured social memories were took placein game-centered settings, which makes perfect sense to me. I've always been something of a loner, uncomfortable in social settings and in-person conversations because I have no small talk to speak of, am a bit slowslow on the uptake, rarely produce a well received bon mot, and in general feel like pretty poor company and something of a bore.

In fact, one of the most hurtful comments ever made to me personally came from my third wife. At some point I shared thoughts such as these with her and she rather clinically and bluntly responded "You're right. you are kind of a bore".

Probably like some of you, I imagine words like these are barbs from the past that still have the ability to penetrate because they found such a sore spot in some chink in armor, maybe in your Achilles Heel.

At one point in our fast failing relationship (and it has to be a fast failure if you're going to burn through two complete marriage cycles in six years - but then I've always been something of a prodigy in certain domains. I just never expected staying hitched was one of them.

So two things are going on here. One, the secondary one, is the game of Wordle. And Wordle gets this role today only because my mind leaped to an association with it in response to a comment that came in today from one of my CB demigods, a figure who's comment wasn't even tangentially about Wordle or any other game even. Only I understand why my mind instantly made this association (because immediate associations like this are a constant part of my life until we slow down the prednisone cyclone a bit more, hang in there, Rocky! I'm slowing down as fast as I can. And the association it makes perfect sense to me. Some day I'll come back to tell that story too.

So who or what is this heretofore silent half of this duad who's been waiting apprehensively behind the curtainsto be pushed out from the wings and shoved out onto the stage? Drum role, gasp, applause:

The Blog!

Surprise! This is another About topic, one meant to illustrate a bit where this blog is going - because it is going somewhere, evolving quickly, and actually is settling in to what I'm feeling is destined to be its final form much more quickly than I'd expected, one that will stand the test of time and continue to run as long as I maintain the blog - which if I'm anything like Bruce's dad as he claims I strike him as, a former writer for a small local newspaper who in his uguisssretire and created the Daily Report and maintained it for pretty much the rest of his life.

That could be me in the years ahead, but we'll just have to see. But in another odd leap of imagination, I find that a comforting thought. My one greatest fear beyond having something dire happen to Rocky is for me to find that for whatever reason I have to go back on prednisone and maybe lose sight in the other eye. But you know what? I'd be fine, and as I still have Rocky and we can work through the transition and come out the other door fine together, I'd be fine. I'd just spend more of my day looking inward and into the past and randomly putting out new leaves on the Cortisone Dreams tree of life, letting it grow a little more firmly into the soil and fill in another gap on what's essentially the story of my life - primarily and above all of the thirty-six and counting years we've been married. And 37 in just five days! We're going back into our primes again! It is still hard to believe that the odds are that I'll live to see my Golden Anniversary, a possibility I could never have imagined half a lifetime ago.

So we're not going to build that About the Blog component yet until the evolvin' phase has pretty much passed and we're down to hearing a few rustles in a light breeze - maybe a misplaced branch gets shaken and pruned off or merged in with its neighbor or maybe a leaf here and there dries up, turns brown, and slowly drops to the ground. Imagine it as a beech tree, with a thin layer of these leaves creating a thin layer blanketing the Mandela it sprouted from. If you've ever been in a beech forest and were aware of it you probably know what I mean. It's one of my favorite settings. Like this one in Urkiola Narptionak Park on our first night out on our ride from Bilbao to Sete a decade ago:

Other than that though, the tree is strong and should last the ages, its trunk growing straight and tall, striving to reach the sun along with all of its neighbors doing the same thing, and since it's virtual it has good prospects for a longer life, not obviously impacted if the Subduction Zone destroys Portland and Seattle and Vancouver overnight, or Mount Rainier or Mount Baker of Mount Hood defies the odds and blows its top during the possibly quite short duration of the Age of Man, or if the ice caps melt sooner than hoped for and Elon's dream hasn't materialized in time and there's no safe haven in space for all those Billionaires amongst us to flee to. No, the tree should stand tall until someone finally pulls the plug (please, Mr Webmaster, be wiser than some folks out there and have a succession plan).

So there a few thiings to point out here while we're talking' about the shape of things to come:

Look at that shape. It's got two halves - one half has one dimension, the other has twice that. To me that's the most stable, immutable part of the vision. It's solidified now to the point I don't expect it to budge.
Look at how this one new leaf got conceived. It burst out of nowhere when one of the CH Demigods made a comment in the blog just this morning that triggered an idea, a pretty simple one at first that I envisioned as a quick one to knock off (so thanks for that, anonymous demigod). It should take maybe a half hour to knock off, and then I was planning to finally let folks know where we'll go first when we leave for London exactly one month from today, or maybe tell them about the new old camera I just bought last night after discussing it over a cup of Clinton Street's best with Bruce; or my first Tyreene injection that I self administered with Rocky's help two days back, or . .
In other words, it demonstrates where content is emerging and why it is developing so seemingly randomly, turbulently, chaotically even though in fact it's one long, linear stream - think of it sort of in a very much more modest scale similar to Keroac's sheets flowing out in a long scroll from his manual Olympus typewriter up there in his garret in Chelsea where he's shacked up with the love du jour of his life while
She's sleeping fitfully in the other room with her head buried under the covers just trying to get some sleep, or like Arlo's fever dream attempt to end the war. Folks, in spite of the evidence you see so far I came here intending to talk about what in three short years has gone from someone's brainstormed idea to what's now become by far - by far! - the most popular word game in the country. Explosive growth.
And there's another dimension. I don't start out with that adding referential complexity in mind. In general most posts start out with a very simple model, a small idea that I fantasize that I'll bang out in a half nor or so, maybe knock off a couple or three before getting back to exposing that three week itinerary around Snowdonia we're planning on and have already booked (oops -spilled the beans there. Forget that you know that, OK? Sweep that new bit of knowledge under the beech leaves and ignore it for a bit.
OK. Back on point. There tend to be a number of associations sprinkled throughout these posts, ones that didn't occur to me at the onset but tend to just keep coming.
And finally, I think in some ways many of them have the same cookie cutter format: a punny title, overt or obscure references to almost anything: someone else's or one of our blogs on the site, or a reference to what's happening in the real world today, or to something that's just flashed back to a piece of my past - a song or book or film that I haven't heard or thought of in ages and am delighted to remember it was part of my life once, or some a fantastic , unbelievable tale shared with me from a friend that I put down here because I want to remember it and because it feels like it enlarges my world and makes me feel more connected with and less alien to others in ways I've never felt before, and

Hmm. Beer time. Better crack open one of those IPA's we picked up after dinner the other night and call it a day. Quitting time! Let's go hang out together after work at a virtual happy hour or head over to Lucky Lab for a slice and a salad or . . .

"Stop! I'm the foreman. I'm the one that says when it's quitting time", an indignant voice shouts out from the wings. Get back at it. And start with the idea what brung you here and sing a few bars about that stupid word game before you put your trumpet away. Oh, OK, slave driver. If I hasta, masta.

It looks like this. You can find it behind the NYT paywall. Worth it, if you're into that sort of thing,

There! Are you happy now, Big Sam? But if someome needs to stop blowing his trumpet it's this man who's playing the right songs but is an awful musician that's driving me crazy.

Now, Big Sam? Please. I've got a powerful thirst for some reason, and desperate for a Portland-brewed Steeplejack NA IPA to quench it. Now?

Quittin Time!

Thank God. I'm free at last.

Oh, and one little fterthought: another hint, this one about that curious subtitle:

I've been thinking about triplets for some reason, specifically BBB. Somewhere way, way back in the attic is a hook I've been trying to rediscover all week, and it suddenly popped out of thin air partway through talking about Wordle; and I'm thrilled that I found it again, and have rediscovered a book and favorite author from long ago that I'd forgotten I knew and loved once.
And it really delights me to see that it's perfect for the day, when the BBB was passed just in time to help us celebrate the shredding of our independence on Independence Day.
And the swamp? Yes, please drain it fast, before some Sheisskopf bores a giant ice hole out there in the swamp with a ring of alligators surrounding the hole and starts chucking innocent folks down into it like he's Saint Peter and gets to decide who goes up up and who goes down. Yes, Drain the Swamp! Fast! But maybe just leave a tiny bit of swamp with a tiny ice hole in it, just big enough to down-chuck a few lost souls who really do deserve to be tossed under the bus, mane thumping them a good one on the head when you whacks them down, Houston enough to give 'em something to contemplate, and stay there for a good while - and keep the lid on long enough that it might sink into their miserable minds why they're suffering so. And let thembe miserable the whole time, knowIng fully well why they're suffering so horribly. Boils, demons gnawing on their brainless skulls or their tiny little hands. Yes, Chuck Them!!

Now, Big Sam? Please. I've got a powerful thirst for some reason, and desperate for a Portland-brewed Steeplejack NA IPA to quench it. Now?

Quittin' time, the foreman finally shouts out so everyone can quit picking cotton or whatever they've been signed to that day and go back to their shacks or cushy new AirB&B that they just moved into earlier today and look down on the folks milling around the pristine white tents nd booths of First Thursday, ime. Day early this month for some strange reason, crack a beverage, lean back on the deck, and enjoy the show and their lucky lot on the carousel as it continues with its endless spin.

Thank God, I'm free at last!

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