Floofbitzer (catfinition) – a cat who provides unwanted advice or broadly comments about events and activities.
The Long Road
I just wrote a sentence in the novel-in-progress. Reflecting on its significance, I looked at the distant horizon of the novel’s conclusion and saw how this sentence impacted the outcome, tens of thousands of words away.
This reminds me of so many plans made. The long game needs to be played. I didn’t take up some vocations because of their long roads, like astrophysics and architecture. Oh, to study all those years, and learn all that math. Ugh. I lacked the patience, and the outcome seemed so tortuously distant and uncertain. Besides which, I probably wasn’t sufficiently smart or disciplined to pursue those courses. Thus comfortably rationalized out of trying those things, I set my sights on easier, and more comfortable targets.
Now I’m writing, what, the tenth novel? More? I’ve published four. More await editing and polishing. They need covers. More concepts queue to become novels. More stories stack up to be told.
I began writing because I thought I could do it. I’ve worked on it and continued working on it even as I sometimes slump over blank pages and screens, even as I read novels and admire others’ talents and skills, and wish I could attain half of their skill. I continue believing that I have so many shortages of skills, but I continuing writing and trying. I saw the long road demanded of writing a novel, but it didn’t matter. The other possible vocations interested and appealed to me, but writing is an addiction with the intangible draw of a true love.
Just some thoughts to conclude another day of writing like crazy.
Black Friday
You’re not going to believe it, Michael, she said. I went shopping on Black Friday, last night. I never go shopping on Black Friday. I did this year.
I just wanted a “Wonder Woman” DVD. I love “Wonder Woman.” I’ve seen it twice. When I like a movie, though, I like watching the same ones over and over again. I don’t know why. I have this huge DVD collection. I wanted “Wonder Woman.” Walmart had it on sale for five dollars. Five dollars. My girlfriend was going to Walmart. I didn’t want to go. Just get me the “Wonder Woman” DVD, I said. No, she said. Come on, she said. Come with me. I finally gave in. Okay. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t need anything. But I went.
I got in the store, and I got my DVD. Five dollars. But, OMG, there were so many nice things there. I didn’t need anything, but I saw these things, and the prices were so good.
Still, I didn’t need them. I didn’t want them. But everyone was so nice. They were so sweet and polite. So I stayed, and walked around the store.
And then, I came face to face with my dream camera. Digital SLR. I’d been thinking about this camera for three years. Three years. But it’s five hundred dollars.
Well. The one on display had two extra lenses, and an extra card. Four hundred fifty dollars.
I didn’t want to buy it, but my girlfriend was like, you should totally buy it, you never buy yourself anything, you deserve it, you’ve been wanting it for three years.
So I picked it up and got in line. I thought, I can think it over while I’m in line, go over my budget, and think about it all, so it wasn’t an impulse.
Yes, I bought it. I spent a lot more than five dollars.
Statement
He didn’t think his cat thought much of the holiday and his plans, because the animal went out, caught and killed a bird, and brought it to him.
Yes, his cat had given him the bird.
It had to be the holiday.
Eating
You ever have the good fortune to eat so much that you think, I am never going to eat again?
Yes, I’ve been lucky enough to do that many times in my life. Yesterday was one of those times.
Floofcipe
Floofcipe (catfinition) – a floofcipe is a set of instructions given for how to approach and care for a specific cat, because all cats are not the same.
Friday’s Theme Music
Yesterday was America’s Thanksgiving holiday, so I was thinking about the first one spent away from home. That would be nineteen seventy-four. Eighteen, I’d joined the Air Force and was at basic training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas. My uncle was in the military and lived in the area, so he and his wife, Pat, invited me to Thanksgiving at their house.
It was a terrific time. We watched the Cowboys defeat the Redskins as Clint Longley, a rookie, came in the game and threw a hail Mary that was caught and gave them the victory.
Other than that, and another day off, we were sequestered most of the time during our training, and without television or radio. But once we finished, we returned to our musical roots. For me, it was rock. Here’s Golden Earring with “Radar Love”, a song that had been released the previous year. Love that psychedelic special effects they put on the video. Sooo cheesy.
The Place Dream
I was attempting to firm up my understanding. Little was coming.
In my twenties, I’d made it to the place, but didn’t know the place’s purpose. Located on a busy street, the place was an innocuous building with rooms and offices. It could have been a school or business. Others of my age were there, and a staff gave vague instructions. Reticent and withdrawn as I always am, I found an office, sat down and waited.
This rough sequence repeated a few times. People warmed to me, and I, to they, through the sequence, but I still had no idea what the place was, or my role. But a taller, bigger, gregarious person decided he liked me, and started letting me go with him when he did things. He seemed to have a greater position than most.
At each day’s end, we would leave the building and then board one of two buses. I didn’t know the difference between the two buses or which I should ride. Everyone else seemed to know. I would ask, but I never understood the answer. I tried to stay with my big buddy. Riding a bus, I would look around, mostly interested in the other bus, to see if it went somewhere different.
When the bus stopped, they’d call something out, and I’d know to get off. When I did, I’d be back at the place.
I grew comfortable with the routine, although I didn’t understand it. Not understanding it, though comfortable, I kept looking for more information. I asked others questions about what we were supposed to be doing. Smiles were mostly given in answers, sometimes with vague statements like, “Oh, you’ll know,” or, “You’ll find out.”
Came a time when a female supervisor came in and spoke with us as my buddy and I sat in an office. I don’t know what was being discussed; it seemed like a foreign language. As she spoke, she gave me a small silver container and a package of matches. The small silver container, the size of a tea candle, had silver, waxy material in it, but no wick. Confused about whether it was a candle and I was supposed to lit it, or that it was something for my consumption, I puzzled over it and the matches as the woman spoke.
Others came in, looking for me. They had news about what my big friend was planning to do. I went to his office. He wasn’t there. Two objects were there. I studied them. They were red and white missiles on rails. I understood what they were. Rumors were circulating that he intended to launch them in test, to see if they would work correctly and explode. Worrying that he might be planning to do that in his office, I sought him out.
We talked. He explained with a dry chuckle that he was awaiting a test location. No, it would be safe. No one else would be there. He was trying to reassure me but he wasn’t answering all of my questions.
The woman came in and gave me another silver container and matches. The match book was closed, but one match was stuck out, as though it was there to be used. I remained unsure. I feared that if I lit it, the silver stuff would explode.
It was time to leave. I went out with the rest to catch a bus. I didn’t see my big friend. Everyone else boarded a bus while I debated about which to take.
The buses left without me. After a moment of concern, I shrugged it off and started walking. I knew where the buses were going and could walk there.
I passed the buses as I walked. People on the bus came to the windows. I heard them saying, “Look, he’s walking faster than the bus.” It was true. As they said that, everyone came to the buses’ windows to see me passing the bus. That inspired me to walk faster, determined to beat them to the destination.
The road narrowed and grew dark, the first time that it was dark in the entire dream. I found I was walking upside down. “Look,” the people on the bus said, “he’s walking upside-down. He’s walking on the ceiling.” They sounded amazed and envious.
The ceiling became dirty and thick with roots. It was like I was underground, with the road and the buses beneath me. I fell off the ceiling, but picked myself up and continued walking, right-side-up. Then, I was walking on the ceiling again. I was determined that would not stop me. I learned that whenever I discovered I was walking on the ceiling, I could rotate it, and it would be the proper orientation and surface.
I continued walking. I beat the buses to the place. Dirty and sweaty, I went inside. Sitting at a desk, I listened to the woman talking. She brought me the silver thing and the matches.
I tasted the silver thing to see if it was edible, and awoke.
Michael Seidel, writer 