Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofserker (floofinition) – An animal who is frenzied in an activity.
In use: “Fish and Chips were both well-mannered and sweet puppies until it came to eating their kibble. When they heard it hitting their bowls, the tiny brown and white beasts became floofserkers, leaping into the bowls, spraying kibble in every direction as their little paws kicked it out and their mouths frantically chased pieces.”
He read a Reddit thread on the insanepeoplefacebook forum. It claimed, with this capitalization and punctuation, “MENSTRUATION ISN’T Natural. It’s a UNNATURAL response to improper dietary habits & toxic environment. ALL ESTROGENS are POISONOUS.”
WTH, he wondered. Do people honestly believe this? Where do they get their ideas? Or were they just posting this insanity to pull attention?
Either way, it was from a wholly different world than the one he inhabited. Of course, that’s why he read it: to see what people in this other world were saying, so he could try to understand them.
Something crashed into me. Once mental equilibrium was restored, I raged, “What happened.” Looking around, I discovered that I’d been hit by Wednesday. Right in the middle of the week, too. Examining it in the mirror, I admired a developed welt and darkening contusion. Wednesday was leaving a mark. That’s how life goes for Day Hunters. Sometimes they strike back.
This is August 31, 2022, which happens to be September Eve. Naturally, I’m gonna dress up and party, as my tribe has done since they first illuminated recorded history.
Sunrise broke night’s grip on the valley at 6:35 AM. Night fled but vowed to return at 7:47 tonight. I admired his willingness to express such a specific time in this day of vague promises. It’s a lovely 21 C right now, but Purple Air says wildfire smoke from Rum Creek to the northwest and another blaze in California pours a blend into the air that makes it red, 148, and unhealthy for sensitive folks. That must include me. I’m zinging sneezes and coughs to beat the band (an expression that seems very confusing and leaves me wondering about its origins). Eyes are teary and the nostrils are smarting. So, I’ll take precautions, y’all, if I were me, which I think I am.
The Neurons have plucked a Stevie Wonder song out of the 1965 memory cells and loaded it into the morning mental music stream. I always loved the energy of “Uptight (Everything Is Alright)”. Knowing this, following a successful writing expedition which naturally also rendered me anxious (does this work or am I fooling myself?), The Neurons kicked the song on in a game effort to reassure me.
Over to you, Jim. Here’s the music. I’m setting off into the kitchen’s darkest corners in a quest to find a cup of hot, black coffee. Come at your own peril if you wish. Stay positive, test negy, and so on. Don’t look know, my fellow Americans, but Labor Day weekend is rising out of the calendar’s murky depths. Cheers
Floofisthenics (floofinition) – Floofercises and stretching related to animal behavior or practices.
In use: “Many people don’t appreciate how much having pets such as cats or dogs improve their physical conditioning, but floofisthenics done while feeding the beasts and cleaning up after them, as well as actually walking or chasing them in play, can help keep people fitter and trimmer.”
Gonna be a hundred F here today, they tell us. I’m doubtful. Rum Creek smoke fills the air, making it unhealthy to breath, but it also blocks the sun and cools the air. I don’t think it’ll go over 95, 96 F today. It’s now 20 C.
After much discussion among replay officials, they’ve concluded that this is Tuesday, August 30, 2022. When I typed that 3-0, The Neurons said, “That ain’t right, is it?” But the replay officials say it’s so, so let’s move on, and play ball. First down.
Happy sunshine sneaked over the eastern mountains and winked through the leaves at 6:34 AM and will take its light and heat and stalk off, probably in a deep red glow, given this smoke, at 7:48 PM. The sun’s light comes through different windows now as the Earth’s relationship with the sun shifts via orbital mechanics. The eastern windows see less sunshine as the sun treks into our southern sky. By the time winter has arrived, we won’t see sunshine through most of the eastern windows.
I’d like to pause to mention folks in Mississippi, coping with their flooding, along with Pakistan. Here’s a call out, too, for the people around the Rum Creek fire here in Oregon, and for those enduring power outages from storms in the U.S. Midwest and South. Send positive energies to these people and places if you can, however you manifest it.
Music – that’s why we’re here, innit? – in the morning mental music stream is “You Only Get What You Give” by the New Radicals, circa 1998. The Neurons, putting their whimsy in the display case, plunked the song into the M3S after I struggled to remember a dream. The dream keeps poking its head out but whenever I shout — mentally or figuratively, right? — “There it is”, the dream ducks out of sight. Maddening. Perhaps after I’ve had coffee…
Better go get some. Duty calls. Stay posi, test negy, and so on. Here’s the music. Sing along if you know it. Cheers
His wife needed new shoelaces. Only one store in town sells replacement laces.
He realized that finding shouldn’t surprise him. When he was a child, it was commonplace to snap a shoelace, forcing imaginative knotting to keep your shoe tied. In these times, the shoes usually wore out before the laces. His wife’s laces were for new shoes; she wanted white laces instead of the stripped ones that came with her shoes. Yes, it is a little first world pain, isn’t it?
No, the store didn’t have the laces she needed.
A paragraph of muses arrives. (Maybe it should be a page of muses, or a book (a tome?) of muses.)
Writing begins. The story soon rises from the mind’s mists.
Sticky writing becomes prominent, exhausting and intense. Sticky writing, the condition where the ‘normal’ world – the real world – seems unreal and distant, even artificial and alien, because what’s being created in the writing sticks to your mind. Real world observations and interactions are colored, distorted, and isolated by the writing in progress. The writing effort pushes the real world out.
Becoming part of the RW again was going to challenge his mind. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be part of it. What choice was there? It was real life, not the made-up world of his book.
A languorous stretch
Then the shift and turn, twice, thrice
And sleep is resumed
Michael Seidel, writer 