An Uplifting Dream

Last night’s dream felt so uplifting and positive. I remember taking off my shirt and having my abdomen suddenly beginning muscular, showing off an eight pack. Suddenly, everyone was looking at me in admiration. I’m usually withdrawn and self-effacing, but I was happy for the attention and accepted it with grace.

As marvelous as that was, a woman suddenly sought me . I vaguely knew and recognized her. She said that she was back to get a story from me, fulfilling a promise she’d made a few years before.

Delighted, I was completely taken back by the unexpected request. I wasn’t aware of any promise, but I wasn’t about to question it and scrambled through my files for something.

Nothing was ready. I confessed to her, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything ready.”

She said, “Do you have anything that you think is promising?”

“Yes, yes, I have many things partially begun or sketched out.”

“Pick one.”

I returned to my files and began searching. “Okay, I think I have one in mind.”

As I continued searching, she said, “How soon can you get it ready?”

“I’m not sure. It’s going to take some time and work.”

“Get it ready. Finish it. I’m waiting for you.”

The end.

Well, cool. Amazing how something as unexplained as a nocturnal dream can feel so empowering, infusing me with positive energy while it shunts negative energy away.

March 4, 2019 1

Monday’s Theme Music

Sunshine lit the valley from the west, splashing through lazy swatches of stretched grey clouds outside our windows. Could’ve been early summer by its deceptive appearance, but it was March 3.

Ill with a sore throat and dribbling nose, I alternated between reading (Fear: Trump in the White House, Woodward) and napping whereupon a song found the stream and played in my brain.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
And I took off to find the sky

I couldn’t fathom why Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” (1972) was streaming in these circumstances. I often don’t understand how my mind words but I decided that “Taxi”, about the dreams that age into nostalgic memories, would be today’s theme music.

Cheers

March 4, 2019 0

March 3, 2019 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Nathaniel Taylor, an actor who I knew from his role as Rollo on “Sanford and Son”, passed away a few days ago. He was eighty.

Many actors, politicians, writers, and sports and rock stars have passed away throughout my lifetime, along with cats, friends, family members, and people that I didn’t know. Some of them were killed in ways that we don’t like to think about.

Nathaniel Taylor’s death was another death. We all understand that death is gonna get us. Now, what happens beyond the door that death opens, well, we don’t know. We have a lot of theories, and we think that we have intangible proof that once we die, that’s it, game over. Then again, many ancient people believed that the sun revolved around the Earth, until we learned how to prove otherwise.

The death of someone who acted on a show when I was young triggered a stream of thought about how time seems to pass and prompted me to think, wow, 1969 was fifty years ago. Ain’t that somethin’?

Not really, right? It’s as arbitrary as weather in March, 2019, predictable but still surprising. Thinking ’bout all that nonsense kindled reflections on the music from then. Pop goes the song and out came the Rolling Stones with “Honky Tonk Women”.

Seems ’bout right.

March 3, 2019 0

Movement

I move left and you slip right

down the stairs, bouncing and tumbling

through a night of

righteous indignation and outright

hopes for what could be

more optimistic than your simple

thinking that it’ll all come out

once we come to the understanding

that minute by minute, we’re

losing the way that moved us forward

and back we slide

March 3, 2019 0

Floofare

Floofare (floofinition) – a short and showy blast of trumpets, often imaginary, that accompanies a housepet’s entrance; a housepet’s showy outward display.

In use: “Whenever the door opened and his name was called, the puppy galloped in, and around the room, putting on such a display that all could hear the floofare announcing his entrance.”

March 3, 2019 0

American Essentials

fat shame

hair shame

body shame

lip shame

boob shame

skin shame

– “You ain’t nothin’ ‘less you got the look.”

smart phone

iphone

car

clothing

house

– “Better work harder until you got the best.”

money

mansion

influence

power

Republicans

Democrats

– “You don’t matter ’cause you’re not rich.“

minorities

women

immigrants

L-G-B-T

children

foreigners

– “Who the hell are you?”

March 2, 2019 9

Another Lisa Said

March 2, 2019 0

Inflooftory

Inflooftory (floofinition) – process for to account for or count pets and other animals.

In use: “An inflooftory was conducted each evening to ensure all the animals were safe and fed. Fortunately all held to habits that shortened the time and effort to locate the dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and the goat.”

March 2, 2019 0

Saturday’s Theme Music

We went to see Beehive at the Oregon Cabaret Theater last night. The link is to a newspaper review of the show. Music interspersed with some narrative to set or change the tone, along with clothing, hairstyles, and dancing that evoke the 1960s, is what it was all about.

It was called Beehive for the hairstyle that dominated the era for a long period. That prompted me to wonder what they’d call a musical named after our current error. Fake News? Smart Phone? Fragmented?

The show started in 1960. Most of the early years featured girl group or all female ensembles. Intermission came at the end of 1963.

With ’64 came the Brit pop-invasion, but what really changed the music was America’s evolving politics. If you were present in the mid to late 1960s, you know about the protests, the Vietnam war body counts, the civil rights movement, rioting, discontent, assassinations, and the growing power and influence of television and entertainment.

The subject matter for songs changed from simple, almost naive and innocent about meeting the right boy and falling in love to They did a fantastic job in last night’s show of portraying those changes through dance and music, highlighting singers like Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Janis Joplin, and their diverse styles and mind-blowing performances.

Performances of “Where the Boys Are”, “You Don’t Own Me”, “To Sir with Love”, “Me and Bobby McKee”, and “Chain of Fools” stood out for me. But for today’s theme music, I went with a group of four young women from New Jersey who were there at the beginning.

Wherever these singers, musicians, and songwriters came from, thanks for the ride.