Anna Said
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Today’s song comes from another person’s post. Jill Dennison posted “Ain’t That A Shame” by Fats Domino. After enjoying it, my stream countered with Cheap Trick’s version from “Live at Budokan” (1979). I enjoy the original and the CT cover, but the latter is stuck in my head, so here’s some rock and roll for your Wednesday’s theme music. Feel the beat.
Vacflooflate
Vacflooflate (floofinition) – for a housepet to waver in mind, will, or feeling about going or staying in and out of somewhere.
In use: “The cat ran to do the door, but once it was open, he vacflooflated about going out or staying in.”
h/t to Facebook/The Greek Cat Society (UK) for photo.
Shipwrecks
Edgy dreams undermine my rest even while I sleep.
Sometimes they seem malicious,
but they help restore balance and serenity.
More frequently, they’re insane, causing me concern about my mental health,
although sometimes, they’re not remembered, listing in the gray of my thinking’s edge
like shipwrecks from other times.
Floofari
Floofari (floofinition) – a housepet’s hunting expedition.
In use: “Entering the kitchen, the doxxie began a floofari for food dropped on the floor. As long as she cooked, he knew scraps would fall to the floor. It was only a matter of time.”
Tuesday’s Theme Music
This one comes completely via the memory stream, inserted their by a friend’s Facebook post.
When I was fifteen, I’d listen to this McDonald and Giles tune, “Tomorrow’s People – the Children of Today” (1971) on my old phonograph player. A quarter weighed the arm down against the needle skipping. I’d acquired some huge speakers and wired this hybrid stereo. I’d put this on, lay down, and listen to it at a soft volume. I found it relaxing and reassuring.
Bittersweet to hear this song, then and now. It’s about children playing in sunshine. One set of lines that always strikes me:
And who will open their eyes
To see what they can see
And then while looking around
Feel the warmth of reality
At the time I listened to this, I’d left Mom’s home and was living with my Dad. He was in the Air Force and freshly back from overseas assignments. I read and drew a lot, a loner, listening to music. I’d known families back then where the children lived in hard misery, parents who tortured their children with cigarettes or made them stay in a closet for hours in the dark. It was monstrous to think of adults treating children like that. Then, of course, I matured and discovered that there are adults who brutalize children and delight in it.
I admit, I never thought my government, the government that I joined and supported during my military years, would ever be part of the monstrosities we’re learning about in the Trump Camps. I’m ashamed and mortified.
Sorry that it’s such a downer of a post. Probably shouldn’t write this things until I’ve had at least a sniff of freshly brewed coffee to mitigate my dark side.
The Hot Mess
Dreams wrecked my sleep like booming thunderstorms. While the dreams went all over the place, often with multiple storylines and settings, and frequently anxiety fraught, one theme stayed true: the leads were missing or broken. I kept hunting them or trying to repair them. In one example, others brought in a large and heavy broken motor. “Know what we found in this?” one man that helped deliver the heavy electric motor said. He was affable and burly, curly-haired and sunburned, a little dirty and greasy in his blue uniform with its red and white name tag with “Mike” in script, and a gap in his teeth.
I grinned. “Broken leads, right?”
Mike grinned back. “Yep. You got it. The leads weren’t working.”
Stepping back, I’d finished the first draft of April Showers 1921 a few days ago. I found it a hot mess. Good writing, yes, but shitty storytelling. The concept had over-excited me, and I’d peed all over the place. It’s my big friggin’ writin’ weakness. The first draft had become six hundred Word pages and one hundred fifty thousand words. The last quarter and ending were weak. The beginning and middle were confusing.
When something goes wrong, I try to figure out what to do. That’s been try for me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, the process requires me to walk away from the project. Grant my mind some space and let it work. This isn’t one of those projects, though. I felt an urgency to keep working on it.
The writing hadn’t been a waste of time, of course. One, it entertained me. Second, I learned more about the concept, and then the story. As I’ve quoted Terry Pratchett before, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
Now I knew the whole story, and it needed to be re-worked. Many hours of thinking and walking were conducted in search of what to do. Well, I roughly knew what to do: revise and edit. Sure, but I thought, more structure was needed than to proclaim revise and edit and go forth. I needed a better, more solid plan. I just wasn’t satisfied enough with this draft to begin considering revise and edit. I was thinking, write again.
I didn’t wanna write it again, I whined. I know, I answered. That’s writing.
Decisions were made. Each decision took me down a tangible plan. I began seeing how and why I’d concluded the ending and last quarter were weak. Glimpses of what to do began emerging.
Wasn’t easy to get there. The journey from proclaiming hot mess to saying, okay, this is what I’m going to do, took hours of thinking and plotting. It was intense. I was not a good person to be around. Fortunately, I was mostly on my own.
Then came the dreams.
The dreams were beneficial. They didn’t dictate, “DO THIS,” in a deep voice that might’ve been Jehovah or James Earl Jones. No, the dreams were more like a thundering rain storm with strong winds, blowing out the mess.
Now, it’s been accepted. The first hot mess was done; work is required. The path has been defined. Jaw is set. Coffee is at hand. I’m in position.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Monday’s Theme Music
I began as a ZZ Top fan in high school art class in 1973. I introduced them to my friend, who became my girlfriend and then my wife when Tres Hombres came out that year. “La Grange” become a song that had her reaching for the volume knob and twisting it hard right whenever it came on.
I’ve seen them in concert three times. Today’s song came about from a dream last night. Multi-tasking in the dream, one sequence had me trying to feed the cats. They were going nuts for the food that I was offering them. I was trying to keep them out of it while putting the food in bowls for them. Meanwhile, a dozen interruptions were transpiring.
Anyway, from that feeding sequence, I started singing to them, “Gimme all your kibble, all your hugs and kisses, too,” because that’s how it seemed in the dream. My music stream picked it up and started cranking out “Gimme All Your Lovin'” from Eliminator (1983).
Never seen the video before, though. I was overseas during those years in places that usually didn’t have television available. Kind of a cheesy video. But it was the 1980s.
Michael Seidel, writer 