After watching some televised testimony in Congress yesterday, I walked away thinking, yeah, but who will save your soul for these lies that you told?
Cue Jewel with “Who Will Save Your Soul”. Although it was released in 1996, the lyrics’ sentiments are timeless and easily apply to our current era.
People livin’ their lives for you on TV
They say they’re better than you and you agree
He says “Hold my calls from behind those cold brick walls”
Says “Come here boys, there ain’t nothing for free”
Another doctor’s bill, a lawyer’s bill, another cute cheap thrill
You know you love him if you put in your will, but
Who will save your souls when it comes to the flowers now?
Who, who will save your souls after those lies that you told, boy?
And who will save your souls if you won’t save your own?
La da de da de da la da da da da
Well, writers, musicians, artists, poets, essayists, and novelists, we made it to May. Sometimes, in Feb. and March, May seemed like an impossible goal. But we kept going, didn’t we? Sure, there were a few stumbles. New bruises and injuries were acquired, but here we are again.
March and April were good, and not good for me. That’s how life often seems, though, doesn’t it? One area is going great and another area collapses like a calving glacier. My setbacks were in health. First, there was a long time where I had a severe cold. It seemed to be touring my body. Just when I thought it’d done it’s farewell show, the tour would begin again.
Next, whatever steers these things enlarged my prostate and shut down my bladder. It wasn’t a joyous experience but I survived. I’m fortunate to be financially comfortable and have health insurance. Besides being painful, uncomfortable, and inconvenient for a while, the issues meant that coffee, caffeine, chocolates and alcohol needed to be sliced back. I allow myself one cup of coffee a day. Drinking it centers around my writing. I used to drink a glass of red wine each night; no more. I haven’t had chocolate in weeks. I still have a beer once or twice a week. I last had one a week ago. I going back to the doctor in a month to see if surgery is required, or what.
Many writing days were lost in March and April. I’m surprised to discover that the novel I began writing in January is eighty-eight thousand words, three hundred forty-five Word pages, and almost finished. I thought, how did that happen? I guess it demonstrates the power of just sitting down and pushing. I didn’t write for five straight days in March, although I tried. I stopped posting my goofy little things for a few days, too.
When I read the work-in-progress that I’ve written, I enjoy it. Then I read someone else’s novel and fall into dejection because my novel is a piece of crap in comparison. Then I read my work-in-progress again, and think, no, this works. It reminds me of George Jetson. Know him? He’s a fictional character in the animated cartoon series, The Jetsons. When the show ends and the credits run, George is walking the dog on a conveyor belt. The cat jumps on, and the dog begins chasing the cat. As the belt goes faster and faster, George falls down, and the cat and dog jump off to watch as George haplessly goes round and round, shouting, “Help. Jane, get me off this crazy thing.”
That’s how I sometimes feel with my writing efforts.
My exercise practices took a hit with my illnesses. Some days, my walking dropped to two and a half weary miles a day. Weekly totals plummeted to thirty-two miles. I gained eight pounds.
I’ve lost five of those pounds. The weekly totals of miles per week are back up into the mid-fifties. I recorded ten miles yesterday for the first time since the end of February. So, I’m making progress, and will cling to that.
That’s my recap. I hope you guys are all doing well, making progress, and not going insane or becoming depressed. Thanks for reading.
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Flooflighting(floofinition) – similar to gaslighting, flooflighting takes place when a housepet begins manipulating activities to sow seeds of doubt about what’s going on to either inflict terror, gain power, or get revenge.
In use: “She was beginning to think her cat was flooflighting her. Every time she couldn’t find something, she’d find the big black and white cat sleeping on it under her favorite chair. It couldn’t be a coincidence that things were always dropped there. He had to be picking them, moving them there, and then hiding them from her.”
This one came from yesterday’s walk. The song, “Iris”, by the Goo Goo Dolls came out in 1998. I was walking past a bed of gorgeous bearded irises. My brain said, irises, and the stream, like some weird Siri/Alexa, said, “Playing “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.” I finished the walk with that last bit thrashing through my head.
And I don’t want the world to see me.
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.
When everything’s made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.
Yeah, another dream post. I’ve been avoiding them, but…well, here I am.
We were in a dark, dark future. It seemed like most of the light was sucked out of the world, but that may have been because we were confined to a small, claustrophobic keep. Blue dominated. It seemed like everything that was lit was indigo blue – clothes, walls, and machinery. There weren’t many of us, we didn’t have much food, and we were dying.
We were trying to solve multiple huge problems to stay alive. To do that, we’d learned how to look into the past. To solve the future problems, we discovered that, while seeing into the past, we could move people into the future, where we were. That was helpful. We then tried moving objects, like food, medicine, equipment, and machinery into the future. They couldn’t be moved. Whenever we tried moving anything but people into the future, it turned to blue and black dust.
We were puzzled; why could we move people, but not food and other things? Why just people? The question was never answered.
***
In an aside, I then dreamed that I was making my bed. When I untangled the sheets and covers and began straightening them, I heard jingling. I pulled back the corner of the sheets and found a pile of silver coins.
Michael Seidel, writer 