By Cliff “Pops” Potts

Baybay City, Philippines — September 3, 2026

To all my friends and followers who have been concerned about my health: honestly, the main problem right now is musculoskeletal.

I’ve had some kind of stomach bug that has made a couple of appearances, but at the moment it has apparently decided to leave me alone. Fine by me.

The bigger problem goes back to July 21, when I evidently decided it would be a brilliant idea to slide into second base while carrying a glass of water.

For the record, I saved half the glass of water.

That’s impressive. I don’t care what anybody says.

Nothing broke. The problem has been muscle spasms and tightness following the fall. First I had spasms on my right side severe enough to interfere with walking. Later I started getting them on the left and across the back. Basically, my body responded to my stupidity by tightening everything up to protect itself, and some of those muscles apparently forgot they were eventually supposed to let go.

So I’m now doing a ten-day course of prescription pain medication and muscle relaxants.

They’re working.

The pain is substantially reduced, and the muscle relaxants are revealing spasms in places I didn’t even realize could spasm. Every once in a while I’ll feel another tight area suddenly release. I just had one above my left knee decide to surrender.

The downside is that the medication currently has me stoned on my ass.

I’ve been through this before. Usually my body adjusts after a few days. I learned long ago that fighting the medication and trying to function as though I’m completely unaffected doesn’t accomplish much. So this time I’m riding the wave.

Outwardly, I’m still corporeal.

Inside, I’m a ghost wandering around the solar system.

Earlier I visited Pluto and decided we should colonize it primarily so humanity can declare it a planet again. Then I drifted beyond the Kuiper Belt into the Oort Cloud, where I would like to report that the word “cloud” is doing a tremendous amount of work.

I’ve since returned to Earth.

Unfortunately, being medicated and being sleepy are not necessarily the same thing. I’m lying here trying to sleep while my brain keeps announcing new things we absolutely must think about immediately. So I’m spending a lot of time somewhere between asleep, awake, and halfway to Pluto.

That’s probably going to be my general condition for the next few days. Maybe I’ll be reasonably normal by Sunday. Maybe Monday. Tuesday? Wednesday?

Okay, apparently “three days” was optimistic.

Today is also September 3, the first anniversary of my wife Luz’s death. She died at 5:15 a.m. one year ago today. I was awake at 5:15 this morning and marked the moment.

The moment came.

I missed her.

The moment passed.

Life goes on.

Now I’m going to get some water, crawl back into bed, and see whether sleep and I can finally reach a negotiated settlement.

Should I be writing music while I’m in this condition?

Probably not.

Will that necessarily stop me?

You have heard my music, right?

Fans, friends, and fellow humans currently occupying Planet Earth: that’s the current state of Cliff.

I’m okay. I’m medicated. I’m resting. I’m still weird.

Bye-bye for now.