Ink In My CoffeeWed. Nov. 19, 2025: Unnecessary Chaos
image courtesy of PublicDomainPictures via pixabay.comWednesday, November 19, 2025
Dark Moon
Neptune, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Mercury, Jupiter Retrograde
Cloudy and cold
Time is flying so fast. Not fast enough for Mercury to go direct again, but there you have it. Although I often miss the big Thanksgiving gatherings we attended for 30 or 40 years in Maine, with 60+ people in a rented hall, the driving, cooking, and cleaning up was getting to be too much. I’m grateful for the years we had it. I am equally grateful to have smaller, quieter Thanksgivings at home right now. And next week the weather is supposed to be awful, in addition to Mercury being retrograde, so we will just stay in our little blanket fort and cook.
I mean, they’ve been telling us every day is awful weather, but very little has happened so far, although I have the barometric pressure headaches to beat the band. Headache medication does nothing for those. The only relief happens if it actually begins to rain or snow.
I lost the morning to filing response paperwork in protest of the 18% rate increase Berkshire Gas has filed for with the state. They already raised my rate 125% in 4 years, and 45.9% of that in the past year. They shouldn’t be allowed an additional 18%. And why weren’t these other rate increases regulated, as they are supposed to be?
I had to file some other nasty paperwork, too, on a different issue. I am so sick and tired of systems punishing people for trying to survive. Burn it all down. All of it.
Walked down to the post office and mailed all the overseas cards. Way early, but at least they are out! On impulse, stopped in at a nearby store where I usually find the bags for my cookie platters, and there were a few in stock, so I grabbed them. Hopefully, I will have enough.
Home, started making lunch and. . .no water. I contacted maintenance who said the whole neighborhood is out because they are “replacing gate valves” on Ashland Street, and they have no idea how long it will take. Now, that is not something that is an unknown. They had to plan and order these valves. Yet again, the city refuses to communicate. They could have let people know yesterday, so they could plan. They could have posted something on social media this morning, or even once the shutoff happened. There were four hours of office hours between the shut off and Public Service’s end of workday. Nothing. It’s not just dropping the ball. It’s a refusal to communicate. I contacted one of my city councilors, who keeps bringing up communication issues at the city council meetings, how this continues to be necessary.
On top of that, I’d received an email from a newsletter to which I’ve subscribed for several months, but I’ve considered unsubscribing because they have AI sponsors and advocate for AI, when supposedly they are all about high paid and high-quality freelance jobs. Anyway, I got an email that said they wanted to know something that was an issue in freelancing, other than low paying clients. My response was the type of client that tries to combine copywriting and graphic design into a single position, and still underpays. I got an automated response about a “support ticket” from a “university” which set off warning bells. Today, I got a response that hey, yeah, that’s a problem, and we’re rolling out AI tools to help. Um, no. In other words, it was not a legitimate information request, it was a way to get my email to try to sell me something (the newsletter already tries to upsell every time, and I ignore it, because constant upselling annoys me). I responded, saying if it was a so-called “tool” having to do with AI, I wasn’t interested, and to take me off the list. I got a very condescending response that “actually, AI has many uses” that I should learn, but if I still wanted to be taken off the list to let them know. To which I responded, “I am aware of the uses of AI. I write for a living. Do not ‘well, actually’ me. DO take me off your list.”
And yes, I’m unsubscribing from the newsletter, too. I should have, the first time I got the twinge.
Effing tech bro.
Why, yes, it was very much a Mercury Retrograde day!
At least I got the notification that the Level Best payment for the anthology is about to come through.
And then That Thing said to a journalist, “Quiet, piggy” and no one spoke up. Cowards. AND That Thing hosted a murderer and excused the murder. Every day, it gets worse. And NO ONE stands up to any of it.
I did my day’s marketing, and set up December’s content calendar, which will focus on the holiday short pieces and MURDER BELLS (since that is set around the holidays).
My fellow Boiler House Poets recommended the poet Ellen Bass during our studio time last month. I’ve been reading some of her work. There’s a poem in her collection OF SEPARATENESS & MERGING called “When I am a Zen Teacher I’ll Simply Throw the Pictures into the Fire” which is just devastating. Talk about a poem’s ability to just rip you down to the shreds, especially with all the conversations for which the Epstein files have been a catalyst.
Headed out to yoga (on foot). There are still big holes all over the sidewalks, now for weeks. Late this afternoon, they finally filled the big hole at the end of our street that’s been open for six weeks because they kept digging it and leaving it uncovered and then having to re-dig it when it filled with water and debris because they just walked away and left it for days at a time. The inefficiency of this project is just appalling.
Yoga was great, very relaxing. The service dog was there, and one of my friends from the gallery was there, too, and plans to keep coming.
Walked home. Still no water. While I still had coat and boots on, I trudged down to Cumberland Farms at the end of the street and bought 2 gallons of water. At least they were still working on the pipes. I was afraid they’d just packed up for the night and walked away. One gallon was for cooking and washing dishes, and the other was for the toilet. Yeah, not that I want to use designer water to flush, but that’s where we were, especially since no one would give us an estimated timeline of when we might have water again. If we had known, we could have prepared, but heaven forbid. I need to invest in Brita pitchers again, too. Mine are in storage, but they’re not expensive, and worth the investment. We had them in the residency apartment, which reminded me how good they are.
I remember, in Maine, going to the spring near my grandmother’s place years and years ago. I want to say it was the original Poland Spring, but it might have been some other spring. We’d just bring a carful of large jugs and fill them up. I think it was free, but there might have been a fee to enter the property. I don’t remember. I just remember pumping the water to fill the jugs.
Cooked dinner. The water came on while we were eating. I let it run from the various faucets for a while, because it was disgusting. But at least I could wash all the dishes, and we could flush the toilet by the end of the day.
I think I might start keeping/refilling the jugs, so we always have a few gallons of water on hand. Storage will be a challenge, but at least we won’t be caught out quite as badly again. On Cape, I used to keep jugs of water handy, in case of emergencies, but I had a garage there. One of the few things I miss about the Cape is having a garage.
Read in the evening, slept reasonably well, although I was up early. Good morning routine.
Day 90 of the morning 15-minute free write! I did it. Every single day for 90 days, and got viable work out of it. I have to type up notes and put them in the various project folders. I also have to decide if I want to do another 90-day cycle or just keep going. If I keep going, I should then block in time to type up project notes every week.
On today’s agenda: writing, ghostwriting, who knows what else? I want to have a quiet day. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was another water shutoff. The Sidewalk Chewing Demons are out there again, making a lot of noise and doing a whole lotta nothing. Same chaos, different day.
I was going to do laundry today, but I didn’t trust there to be water.
Since the end of April, it’s been chaos around here, and I’m sick of it.
Have a good one!
#chaos #cityCommunicationFail #poetry #retrogrades #techBros #water #waterShutoff #writing #yoga
Devon Ellington
Michael Fenichel
Michael Alexander 🛡