Month: December 2016

Future Projection

Rising to pee at six AM and see which feline is scratching at what door to go in which direction, I sail my thinking through the dreams still cascading through my consciousness.

Then I set them aside. Forget about them. They seemed like much of the same.

But later, reading other blogs, a flash of remembered dream scythes in.

I’ve been in a school. Walking through it. Looking for a shirt. Being watched and judged. 

I know I’m older than them. They’re looking at me for guidance. 

I try to ignore them. I keep going, meandering through the school’s white brick walls, up steps, and down halls, looking for a shirt until I discover that, here, in this classroom, that I just passed, to my left, is the locker holding my shirt. But a class is going on in the classroom. I don’t want to interrupt it.

Then I do interrupt it. I slip in along the wall. I’m immediately noticed. I apologize for my presence and the disturbance and explain that I need a shirt from my locker. It’s well received, politely received.

Then I’m back where I was. I still don’t have a shirt. I did not go into the classroom, I realize, but projected myself into a possible future to see what would happen if I accepted that path. Then I decided not to do that but to continue looking for a shirt elsewhere.

While looking, I come to another crossroads. I’m in the school. People are off to one side, talking. Noticing me, they begin talking about me.

I try to ignore them. I’m focusing on my objective to find the shirt. I have the choice of three directions. Looking into one direction, I project myself into the future. 

I’m surrounded by people. They seem smaller than me but they’re not children. They seem smaller because they’re all looking up at me. I’m speaking. I don’t know what I’m saying. They’re listening, nodding and smiling. 

Returning to the crossroads, I project myself into another future in a different direction. I’m again surrounded by people. Again, they’re looking up at me. I’m telling them my name and spelling it for them. They’re listening, smiling and nodding. Some of them are answering me, “Yes, that’s your name.”

That’s all that’s remembered right here and now. I’m sort of breathless with the idea that I projected myself into a future, even if in a dream, but I remember thinking in the dream, The things we can dream.

 

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Pocket Change

Some loose thoughts rattling around in my mind’s pocket.

  • Trivial Pursuit was released on this day in 1979. My wife and I love the game. We eat at Brothers, where old cards are on the table so we can ask and answer the questions. Trivial Pursuit replaced Risk as my preferred game. My friends and I used to have monstrous Risk parties when I was stationed at Kadena AB. Empire became my favorite computer. It ruled for a few years during my Germany tour.
  • The Risk and Empire parties always featured beer, wine and cigars. Risk was an iffier proposition where beer was considered. We were on Okinawa. This was the early 1980s. There weren’t many great beer offerings. My friends drank Miller Lite. Gads. I was always searching for something. We didn’t have this problem in Germany, where plenty of decent beers of all preferences were available.
  • I was a great cigar smoker back in those days. Churchills were favorites but I liked Madura wraps.
  • My beer group met last night. We collect money from our weekly meetings to donate to local STEM efforts. Last night, two representatives from Southern Oregon Area Robotics came and collected $500 from us and give us an update about their progress, victories, plans and losses. This money helps them with material and transportation costs as they compete in robot competition.
  • One of the SOAR students last night is graduating high school this year and will be attending design schools. She loves designing cars. I love car designs and my friends do not, so it was terrific to discuss the Ferrari J50, BMW i8 and other designs with her.

  • You always need to figure out how they like it. Maybe it’s just me, as a buddy at Onizuka Air Station used to say, but cats don’t all like to be petted the same way. Tucker enjoys a good belly stroke but you must first follow certain protocols to be permitted belly access. Deviations can be dangerous. Whereas DO NOT TOUCH BOO ON THE BELLY. I repeat, DO NOT TOUCH BOO ON THE BELLY.  Don’t attempt to scratch his chin, either. We don’t know what happened in Boo’s past life, but he’s tremendously leery of being touched and he will attack you without any warning, so I’m warning you. Yet, someone will always try.
  • Quinn, on the other hand, is a little love bug, throwing himself down at your feet, visiting with strangers on the street, whatever. He’s a happy little loving cat.
  • A decent dark beer remains absent from our beer offerings where we meet each week. The porter on hand has a cream soda flavor that we detest. Enduring wasn’t a problem, as we imbibed the most excellent Ashland Amber Ale from Caldera and Ninkasi  Tricerahops DIPA. As always, the conversation was interesting and the time was gone as fast as the beer.
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Today’s Theme Music

This isn’t a theme song. I could tell you that I chose this song because it’s rainy, cold and foggy outside. Or it’s Thursday and this song fits Thursday’s vibe.

It’s none of that, though. I just like the blues, Albert King, and this song. Play it. Listen to that playing and singing. Appreciate it and play it back in your head later.

Here’s the late Albert King with ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’. 

 

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Sweet & Comfy

And so I sit

in the recliner

legs and hands growing numb

with my ass feeling sore and asleep

hungry,

with a need to pee,

or maybe more,

not moving and staying at my station

because the cats are on me

asleep

You idiot, I groused

Just move

They’re cats

They’ll live

But don’t they look so sweet and comfy?

 

7

The Real

He awakes. Stillness is king.

Big snow storm was striking the area. They weren’t due snow in his zone. Snow was expected above five thousand feet. That gave them an almost three thousand foot buffer but weather is fickle.

He checks the time and temperature on his weather station. Three fifty-five. Thirty-five degrees. Three five. The numbers made him smile. Those were his lucky numbers as a kid.

Two cats investigate him. Deciding all was safe, they expect rewards. He feeds them and goes to the kitchen for water. Drinking it, he surveys the remnants of two dreams. Odd, of course. One involved his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband, their car, and a white bi-plane. The other was military oriented, of course – structure and identity. The dreams remind him of wreckage after a hurricane.

Peeing was required. The business didn’t require much attention. His mind wandered to blogs and knowing people through blogs but not otherwise knowing them. He pondered the difference between aspiring writer and struggling writer and the choices the words reflected.

He went to bed and thought of a road trip movie. A writer. A series of events. A wife passed away. A writer road trip to meet bloggers that he’d never met. It reminded him of a movie more than a decade ago, perhaps two decades. A man retiring. He bought a recreational vehicle. His wife dies of a heart-attack while vacuuming. He can’t recall more. Details trickle in. Man discovers his wife was having an affair.  De Niro? Murray? No.

Ah. Nicholson. ‘About Schmidt’. What year? That’s too much for dead AM.

A working title arrived for his movie: ‘The Real’. He smiles at that. He thinks of it as a dramedy.

He wonders how much of this he will remember in the morning. “Sleep,” he whispers to himself and lets his breathing seek its rhythm.

So much to write, he laments to himself, and sleeps.

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Today’s Theme Music

An usual choice for me today, this song isn’t my favorite from this band, and I don’t consider it their best. It was very different from their preceding work, and I thought of it as a sell-out at its debut. The lyrics draw me more than anything. It’s a bit sad, though, but the refrain, “But I don’t ever want to feel the way I felt that day,” is an empowering theme to sing to yourself when you’ve made a decision, if you’re a romantic.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Under the Bridge’, 1992.

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Finer Points

Finishing up another awesome writing day, knock on wood. I exploded with excitement here in the coffee shop, leaping up to rapidly pace with an epiphany. The coffee shop was empty so there wasn’t anyone to witness this except the security cameras.

I’m eighty pages into Part II. One of my finer parts: do I want to use Roman numerals for these parts, or Arabic?

Other finer points: had to add a reminder into the bible that Travail, regardless of sex, sound female to Humans.

More finer points.

  • Still have trouble with some words. Lay and lie today. I believe it’s because they’re often mis-used, and that ends up causing me confusion. Then I researched the differences between replicate and duplicate.
  • Dislike writing and using the expression ‘time travel’. Movement, travel, etc., indicates physical motion in the inventor’s opinion. She, as a physicist, objects to that expression. It’s under discussion and investigation.
  • After yesterday’s intense session, I continued writing in my head when I left. That’s sort of frustrating and exciting because it debilitates my ability to navigate and manage in the real world. Walking was okay, as I was on residential streets with little traffic. Behind the wheel was more dangerous as dialogue preoccupied my brain. I was able to capture this today and expand on it when I resumed my writing.
  • I had to go over where the novel is at and where it’s going. Eight major story lines exist. Each has its own presenting POV. I went over each one, re-stating where they’re at, where they’re going, what (in a broad sense) needs to be written, and how they intersect and affect the others. This was mentally done three times to sort, organize and solidify my understanding. Part of today’s session was then spent capturing that novel map into (yet another) guiding document. LOL.

They’re such intense writing sessions at this time. I love it. They remind me of how wonderful and satisfying writing like crazy can be. I can’t write fast enough to stay up with the unfolding novel.

Now, the coffee is gone, my ass is asleep, yadda yadda yadda. Besides, this new arrival at another table has an impressive stage voice. We all know that she had two glasses of wine last night. It’s been said three times as a minimum.

Time to go.

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Today’s Theme Music

In light of the beer news of acquisitions, sell-offs and mergers, I thought I’d go with a brew theme. What could be better than Cream’s ‘Strange Brew’. Most Americans and many other world citizens have watched Donald Trump win the presidential election to become the President-Elect. His support and campaign were also pretty strange brews, as was the whole election cycle.

So what the hell? Let’s finish this year and see how far the strange brew carries us. BTW, be sure to check out Eric Clapton’s clothes and hairs. Woo. Stylin’. Sadly, perhaps tragically, or comically, I remembered being adorned in somewhat similar styles in my teens.

Life sure is a strange brew, and fashion can be the strangest brew of all.

6

Snow

I’ve never had a Snow. Have you? I’ve only learned of it today.

Snow is one of the biggest selling beers in the world. A lager, it’s brewed and sold in China. Some say it’s the best-selling beer but others argue that Snow breweries include multiple ranges of beers, and that if you let Budweiser include all its variations as a single brand, Bud is selling more. Impressively, perhaps, Snow was only introduced in 1993. It’s climbed fast but then, it has state sponsorship to grow and it’s offered in a unique market: China.

As I only rarely drink lagers, I don’t believe I’m missing much by not tasting Beer, a belief that’s flat-out wrong. I don’t know what the beer will taste like. I’m assuming that such a mass-produced lager isn’t going to open my eyes and make me weep with joy at its taste. I could be wrong, though. I understand from reviews of Snow, it has a low alcoholic content and has a mild flavor, tasting like an mass-produced American beer. Those aren’t attributes I seek in a beer.

I learned about Snow courtesy of the big news. Asahi, the Japanese company that brews beers, is buying five beer brands from Anheuser-Busch InBev, the giant beer octopus. Anheuser-Busch, of course, is the American brewer. We know them from their beers like Anheuser-Busch. A-B is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, a name that flows like an IPA off the tongue. InBev, of course, is the giant international brewing company. Anheuser-Busch InBev acquired SABMiller in 2015. SABMiller brews Fosters, the Australian lager, and Miller, the American lager.

All of this is marginally depressing. I decry larger and larger acquisitions. I’ve been sucked up into the guts of Tyco and IBM and slightly smaller but still large corporations through acquisitions. Each time, they enthused about how they loved our corporate culture and wanted to change their company culture to incorporate our culture, which is absolute bullshit. Taste it once, you don’t need to taste it again. Then the feasting began. Eventually all that was left of the acquired company’s culture is a few picked over bones, like the name and a handful of employees.

I also decry malls, for kind of the same reasons. Fly to any city and go to the malls and the variations between them are smaller than a pubic hair. They really only change when you go into the fringes of the poor and wealthy. Try it sometime.

These beer mergers and acquisitions would depress me more if I weren’t in the humble Rogue Valley, home of sensational breweries pumping out interesting and tasteful variations on lagers, pilsners, porters, stouts, porters, IPAs, ales and the like. I also live not far from Bend, with its happening beer scene, and awesome Portland. What worries me most is that such acquisitions are often harbingers of things to come. What keeps me sane is that there are many home and craft brewers who keep taking the decision to take their creations public.

A toast to those bold souls. May they ever brew on.

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