Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floof Division (floofinition) – Post-flunk Flooflish band formed in Salfloof in 1976, active until 1980. After two albums were recorded, the suicide of one founding member caused the band to reform under a new name, Floof Order.
In use: “Originally heavily influenced by early flunk (floof punk), Floof Division embraced a pioneering post-flunk style and sound, typically playing loud and aggressive live performances, establishing an abrasive sound that emphasized mood and expression.”
Hello. Welcome to this edition of Wednesday, brought to you by 2021. “2021. The year that has to get better.” Today is the twenty-fourth of February, meaning that February is fast running out of time. Today’s sunrise came at 6:54 AM in Ashland. We expect sunrise about eleven hours and four minutes later, at 5:55 PM. A sun bomb has gone off but the air is chilly at 40 degrees F. We expect another late charge into the low to mid fifties by late afternoon. The mountains blocks so much sun as it steals over the sky, robbing us of warmth and plunging us into early twilight. Across the valley is the land of sun, where it’s bright all day long, you know?
Rush is the music provider today. “Limelight” from 1981 skipped into the mental music stream as I walked yesterday. Its rhyming lyrics, with their sharp enunciation, are memorable.
Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage
Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
h/t to Metrolyrics.com
And so the song goes, a good walking song, solid beat except where it slows for the solo, but that’s how prog-rock often goes, innit? Stay positive, folks, and test negative. Persevere, carry on, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. If that all fails, have a drink. Think I’ll go get a coffee, black, thank you, and unsweetened, like my soul.
You know?
Floofile (floofinition) – 1. The extent to which an animals attracts public.
In use: “The shelter called the Tortie known as Canned (because of the circumstances in which she was found) shy, but she was keeping a low floofile to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention (again).”
2. A short and secret document detailing a person’s description and attitude toward animals.
In use: “The Floof Exchange had a tetrafloof database of floofiles regarding people on Earth, providing tips on their likes, dislikes, and tendencies, with some floofiles flagged with red notices which meant, “DO NOT TRUST”.
I didn’t know what to call this dream. It popped about. The dream starts with my wife joining me in bed. Naked and in our twenties, we play grab-ass, laughing as we do. For some reason, it’s sunny.
Then… We’re at a play with audience participation. Don’t know what the play is about. I’m up by the stage. The audience, including me, are laying down. The light is low, with focus on the stage via yellow spotlights. During intermission, it’s announced that prizes are available. The prizes are up by me. I begin exploring them. One is of a pair of model racing cars: a Chaparral 2E and a Mclaren M8F. The Chaparral always raced as a white car while the McLarens were orange. In this model, though, the Chaparral body parts are painted orange.
Not all pieces are painted, I observe. The cars are models to be constructed, and small, maybe 1/86 scale, yet, there’s amazing detail. Some pieces are in chrome, and others are in brass. There are fittings for water and oil lines, suspension pieces, engine covers and headers, brakes, modular wheels… It’s mind-blowing the amount of details in these tiny models given away. The announcer is saying that these are for children but I say, “These aren’t for children. I’d never give these to children. The pieces are too small.” I look at the box, confirming that it states for children five and up. That has me shaking my head. It’d be a challenge for me to assemble.
We leave the theater, and are out on a sunny plaza. Many people are returning to work but I don’t need to. Because I was laying down at the theater, I have a pale yellow sheet around my waist. A red-headed young white woman is flirting with me. She’s talking about some safety procedures that I previously established for work, and how they’re still in use. They call them “the Seidels,” she informs me, which she implies is funny, but also implies that I should be honored because they’re still using the documents I create and call them by my last name.
She invites me to sit at a table with her. Drinks are ordered. Making chuckling noises, she’s reaching under the table. As the chuckling stops and the smile leaves her face, she finally looks under the table. I look, too. Her hand is up under my sheet. She asks with some indignation what I’m wearing. I realize that she was trying to get into my pants. I laugh. She huffs away.
There it is, all that I remember, although there’s a sneaking sense that I have some gaps.
Good morning. Today is Tuesday, February 23, 2021. Sunset was at 6:56 AM and sunset will be at 5:53 PM in Ashland. Just a few more minutes less between the two and we reach eleven hours of daylight. Hooty-hoo.
Today finds the sun out in full force, unfettered by clouds, giving us an early temperature of 46 degrees F. We expect to hit the mid-50s. We’re told clouds are regrouping by the coast a few hundred miles away as the clouds flow, and rain is a late day possibility, but I’m living in the present.
Although I push that claim (about living in the present), the music Wayback Machine was busy pulling in tunes from the last century. Lyrics and melody were recalled. But I was then stymied: who is that? What’s the name of the song? Damn, I should know this. Well, thirty minutes later, some memory chipped its way to the surface. Exerted by effort, memory said with the heavy breathing of extended exertion, “I think it’s Bread.”
Bread? Really? Are you sure? A few minutes of net searching confirmed the song is “Mother Freedom” by Bread, 1971, yes, fifty years ago.
Freedom, keep walkin’
Keep on your toes and don’t stop talkin’ ’bout
Freedom, get goin’
Lots to be learned and lots to be known ’bout
People gotta reach ’em
Sit ’em right down and then you gotta teach ’em ’bout
Freedom, gotta win it
Gotta put yourself smack dab in it
h/t to AZLyrics.com
I unnerstand why Bread didn’t immediately pop to mind for this harder pop/rock song. Bread was mostly soft pop, like “Diary”. This song wasn’t a big hit for them.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, get vaccinated, and keep on rockin’. Cheers
Flooftrot (floofinition) – A broken slow-trotting gait in which a person or animal pursues another, speeding up and slowing down as the other speeds up and slows down.
In use: “Conway pulled his leash from Jackie’s hand. Freed, the big dog began investigating surroundings with his big, black nose. Starting a flooftrot, Jackie moved toward him, bending for the leash dragging along the ground, calling, “Conway, Conway, here boy,” which the dog deliberately ignored. Just as she reached the leash, Conway darted away, mouth opened in a lolling-tongue grin, forcing Jackie to speed up and change course.”
It was Valentine’s Day, ten PM. The blinds were down. Thumping came from beside the house. Squeaking ensued. Definitely an animal noise. I turned. Outside lights detected motion and lit the area.
I pulled the blinds up. The squeaking came from a skunk, our skunk, as we call her. Haven’t formally named her yet but we know her by her tail, which looks like a well-used white toilet brush.
Furious squeaking kept going. She was jumping and darting briskly around. I zipped into the other room to bring my wife to the spectacle. Not much was on television and I’d just finished reading my book.
“What’s she doing?” my wife asked.
“I think she’s fighting with something.”
“I think she has a mouse.”
The skunk jumped back, leaped to one side, and twirled. “I don’t see a mouse. I think she’s fighting with something else.”
Our skunk turned and rushed away. There was no mouse. As we stood to consider what we’ve seen, another skunk darted out from under the house. Bigger than our skunk, I’d seen ‘him’ before. “Look.” I pointed him out. “I think she was fighting him. They sometimes fight.”
My wife was nodding. “Yes. I read that females will reject males and sometimes spray them in a defensive action.”
“So he came a-callin’…”
“And she said, no thank you.” The skunk disappeared. The lights went off. My wife turned away. “I think she doesn’t want him because she’s in love with Boo.” Boo is our big black cat with a single white star on his chest.
I remained doubtful. I began lowering the blind. The light appeared. ‘He’ appeared. He looked up at me.
I nodded down at him. “Tough luck, brother. Can you go somewhere else?”
He scurried off into the night. The light went off. I finished lowering the blind on the theater and began wondering what I was going to watch on the telly.
Live theater is so much better.
To begin, it’s the late 1960s on a hot, dry day. I’m younger than now but not appropriate for that era vis-à-vis my life. After watching some Formula 1 practice action, a dust-up between two cars at one corner stops practice. Strapped into my car, I’d been waiting to go out. Leaving my car, I returned to the garage area to get out of the sun and get a drink.
The two drivers involved with the accident, Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Graham Hill, come in. They’re trying to figure out what happened, so they’re going to talk it over. I suggest some coffee. Coffee was served to them in small glass cups. They finished it quickly. I told them that maybe we should sit down. They agreed to that and move to a table to one side. I asked and they agreed, they could use more coffee. I brought the pot over to serve them. Both glasses were sitting on a shelf above the table. I didn’t know which cup belonged to which driver. They tell me that it doesn’t matter. I poured the coffee into the cups. The coffee is light with milk as it came out of the pot.
Next, Tina Fey is walking around inside hallways which were in my body. As far as I know, I’m the only other present, but she’s acting like her 30 Rock character. My first reaction is, wow, Tina Fey is here. Second: she’s in my body. Third: there are hallways in my body. Fourth: Tina Fey is in my body making jokes about my organs. Consumed by those four thoughts, I understood nothing that she actually said.
A dreamshift takes place. I’m outside of a motel/lodge, in the parking lot, by the raised cement sidewalk. The motel is modeled after modernized log cabins. A candy stand dominates the sidewalk. Tiered rows of candy offerings face me. I’m amazed by the selection. Every candy I think of — Jujubes, Good n’ Plentys, Mars and Mounds bars, Dots, Old Henrys, York Peppermint Patties, are all there in neat rows. But they’re expanding, adding another section, to add more candy.
I’m amazed that so much candy is for sale and amazed that they’re preparing to offer yet more. There is nothing but candy. Shouting children begin running up to the stand. SMH, I enter the lodge.
Adult motel workers and customers are inside. I know several because I’ve been staying there on a writing retreat for a few days. Now, though, I’m supposed to go meet my wife at another hotel. I’m to take a pale blue dress with pale orange trim to my wife. It’s way too big for her, probably five times her width, but a perfect length if she’s six feet tall (but she’s just five four), but she requested it. So I’m carrying this dress around for her.
Discarded candy and candy packages litter the lodge’s deep brown carpeting. I’m incredulous. Laughing and screaming children — no doubt charged by sugar, I think — are running about. I change (don’t know where that was done) into new light gray shorts. They have a bright blue string. I speak with my wife on the telephone and tell her that I’m on my way. Then, first, where’s the dress? It was on a hanger. I set it down and now I don’t see it.
Then I need to urinate. I find a bathroom. Weirdly, it’s at a juncture where one side is a hallway to rooms and the other faces the foyer/waiting area. The two walls are sliding accordion doors which need pulled to and locked. I attempt to do this but each keep sliding open, though I slam them. I then discover there’s a screw lock at the top of the accordion doors; I firmly screw that in place and start to do my business. I see that the screw is turning, becoming undone. Irritated, I screw it tight again. Sure that it’s secure, I step up to the urinal to pee and discover my shorts are in the urinal. They’re getting wet. Exasperation growing, I pull my shorts back. One accordion door has slid open. My shorts are pulled half down, so I’m effectively mooning people. A manager and customer come by to tell me. I answer back with explanations about the doors and how unimpressed I am by these doors. They’re chuckling. The male customer keeps joking, “Your bulls are showing,” by which I realize he means my ass. I joke back that I’m running with the bulls. Yeah, lame.
Although my shorts are wet, I’ve managed to pee and I’m ready to go again. Someone has found the blue and orange dress that I’m taking to my wife and call out, “Does anyone claim this?” I do, I answer, then explain that I’m taking it to my wife at her request. It’s way too big for her, I explain — I think it’s bigger than it was before — but she requested it.
That’s where it all ends.
Michael Seidel, writer 