Another Week: Number 152

After about 676 days on my own, I’m starting to see a few small pockets of organization here and there. These trivial conquests often follow a spontaneous urge to clean out a drawer, wash a floor, or delete a few people from my contact list. Some notion breezes into my head, I see my feet or fingers moving, and soon there are a few more clean square feet of peace, inside and out. It’s slow going, but — like putting a jigsaw puzzle together — now and then a couple of pieces connect, and you have something to build on.

On Thursday, listening to the insightful eulogies at Dick Cheney’s funeral, George W. Bush included a quote that stood out — and which I have since traced to Sen. Everett Dirksen: “Occasionally allow yourself the luxury of an unexpressed thought.” It has been added to my page of favorite quotes.

In tracking down the quote, I Googled Bush’s words — and Google returned a defensive, rapid response straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Thursday was that sort of day — but also the kind of day when two separate long-lost clients contacted me out of the blue with website work, a startling coincidence.

This was the week for me to wash all my windows — and, because I hate gazing out through window screens all winter, to hose down and store my screens.

On Friday, while working my way around my home’s exterior, I listened to MS NOW’s coverage of Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting with New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Trump flabbergasted the world by turning every bit as charming and delightful as he is depicted to be on South Park. The cable news pundits were all giddy with amazement — except for Rev.Al Sharpton, who reminded them they were suddenly not talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

Earlier in the week, while hosting and defending the Saudi Crown Prince who murdered an American journalist, Trump lashed out at another journalist — ABC’s Mary Bruce — calling her “insubordinate” and threatening to revoke the network’s broadcast licenses after she questioned him about the Epstein files. Oh, well — our president is a demented tyrant, and we all just shrug and carry on.

Jeffrey Epstein is an extremely touchy subject with Donald Trump for some reason — even after Trump reversed course on Sunday night to suddenly support the release of the same files he’s desperately tried to suppress for months and months. I am not holding my breath expecting any actual release.

Meanwhile, Trump has copied and pasted Vladimir Putin’s wish list into a “28-point peace plan” and given Ukraine less than a week to accept it. Trump acting as Putin’s toady is no surprise after their embarrassing August “summit” in Alaska — you just wonder why his prostration took 14 weeks. Nancy Pelosi was dead-accurate when she said: “With him, all roads lead to Putin. I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally, or financially.”

Epstein, Russia … things that make you go hmmm.

On Sunday, the Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings for their third nail-biting, come-from-behind win in a row. Coach Ben Johnson is building his new aircraft while simultaneously piloting it. Pieces are coming together, and the plane keeps clearing the treetops while quietly ascending the NFC North.

I walked 9.88 miles this week — slightly more than usual, so my iPhone generated a notification to helpfully alert me of this at 12:23 a.m., when I was sleeping.

Train Dreams (2025)

Before visiting my mom on Saturday evening, I cross-referenced a few “what to watch” lists with Rotten Tomatoes, and added Train Dreams, now streaming on Netflix, to my own list of possibilities, knowing very little about it.

Based on a 2011 novella by Denis Johnson and directed by Clint Bentley, Train Dreams is the story of Robert Grainier (played by Joel Edgerton), an orphan who arrives in the northern tip of Idaho in the 1890s. As an adult, he meets and marries Gladys Olding (Felicity Jones). They build a log cabin and have a daughter. His work as a logger constructing the Spokane International Railway keeps him away from home for long stretches of each year.

Events happen. He meets people and witnesses things. Some of these haunt him. As a fairly recent widower, I can report that this movie’s portrayal of grief rang a deep and frosty bell with me. It also contains a casual observation so impossibly coincidental that it made my hair stand on end — a brilliant depiction of one of life’s “messages through the wall.”

Train Dreams is a quiet movie, beautifully filmed by Adolpho Veloso, and only an hour and 32 minutes long. Edgerton and Jones are both excellent. So is William H. Macy as explosives man Arn Peeples.

My mom and I both enjoyed it.