Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofthanize (floofinition) – to be loved to death by a housepet.
In use: “Large and intractable, the pittie was determined to show his affection to Anders whenever Anders returned home, so Anders had to accommodate being floofthanized for thirty minutes to an hour in his daily schedule.”
I have mixed thoughts and emotions about today’s theme music, “Bad Motor Scooter”, by Montrose (1973). It’s an energetic song, but when I listen to the lyrics, I sometimes cringe. Then again, escaping on my bad motor scooter is really appealing on some days. Just race up through the gears and away from cares and civilization.
What the hell. It’s music. Love the rock attitude (rockitude?) on display in this video.
Here’s a dream fragment from last night.
I was walking a carpeted hallway when I came to a doorway at the hallway’s end. Dark brown, it was a metal door, the kind found in office buildings in America as emergency exits. Not seeing any signs, I looked back and then decided to open it and go through. As I am in life, I was cautious when I use doors like this, and confirmed that it wasn’t locked, and that I could open it from the other side. I didn’t want to be trapped somewhere.
The other side was a well-lit landing. I seemed to be in the middle of a building. I didn’t see any signs, but I decided on an impulse that I’d go up.
Up I went, with my feet clattering on the stairs, which, I realized, were metal. Okay. After going to the next level, I saw a red sign that said in white lettering, “SECOND FLOOR”.
I paused to lean over the railings and look at the stairs above and below. I didn’t see how it could be the second floor. There were a lot of stairs below. It didn’t make any sense. If I was now on the second floor, than the floor I was on before was the first floor, right? Was the first floor the ground floor? I thought, well, maybe the steps going down past that level descend to a basement level or a parking garage.
I decided to go back down. Reaching that floor, I saw another red sign with white lettering, “FIFTH FLOOR”. That make no fucking sense. Facing the door to open it and leave the stairwell, I found a green door. I remembered that it’d been brown. The color change disconcerted me.
As I went to open the door, it opened. A young white male briskly came out. Dressed in business casual, with trim, short-brown hair, he smiled at me as he went by. Then he stopped and said, “Do you need help?”
I said, “What floor is this?”
Pointing at the sign, he said, “The second floor,” which was what the sign said.
As I tried to reconcile that with what’d already happened, he said, “Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
He laughed. “Are you looking for a particular office or person?”
I laughed. “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for.”
The dream ended.
With a little surprise as I awoke, I thought that I remembering having a dream like this years ago. I thought of it as an ambivalent dream, reflecting my indecisiveness and uncertainty. Yes, where am I going? What do I want to do? I want to write, and I do write, but beyond that, I want publishing success, but I don’t want to market myself or jump through hoops to get published.
Yes, what am I looking for? Sometimes I rue being me.
Floofanomics (floofinition) – the costs and budgeting process associated with feeding and caring for housepets. The four pillars associated with floofanomics are, keep your pets happy, get your pets healthy, keep your pets healthy, and keep your pets happy.
In use: “With floofanomics, decisions sometimes become difficult with cats. While dogs seem willing to eat any- and everything, cats sometimes shun what they just scarfed down a minute before. It’s a mystery.”
In this throwback, I started streaming this song sometime yesterday afternoon. “Show Me the Way” by Peter Frampton, from the Frampton Comes Alive! album was a monster hit from a monster album. Nothing against Frampton, but this isn’t one of my favorites as an album, song, or performer, but I heard it often as I traveled throughout 1976-77. I always preferred edgier stuff, but edgier stuff in rarely heard on commercial radio in those years.
I’m not certain of the genesis for streaming this song yesterday or continuing it this morning. Is it the weather triggering memories of youth, or the jetsam of a lost thought? Perhaps it’s just echoes of mortality or mourning for another time. It could be just a misfired neuron setting others off.
Who the hell knows.
A canopy of dark green branches shielded me from sight and sun when I stopped.
My head was wet. Breathing fast, I wiped water from my face with both hands and blinked my vision clear.
I was standing in running water. I was in it, but I don’t know how high it was, just that it was somewhere below my waist. To my right, the water ran in a hard and noisy rush, spilling over rocks with chaotic splashes. To my left was a calm pool.
Something white was in the calm pool. Wiping my face and blinking water out of my eyes, I squinted at the thing. I realized the white thing were words floating on the water’s surface. I leaned forward but I couldn’t make them out. Worried about displacing them, I waded toward them.
The words stayed in place. I moved forward until I was upon them. Though I looked down on them, I couldn’t understand them.
I have no idea what the words in white in the pool were.
Thinking about this part of the dream this morning, I chuckled. Classic writer angst dream, isn’t it?
This is such a maudlin, sloppy song. It started streaming apropos of nothing that I can recall, but as I streamed it from memory, I thought about how meaningless the words might be for a younger listener.
“Sealed With A Kiss” came out in 1962, when I was six. It was a hit, so it was on the radios often, but I’m more familiar with the Bobbie Vinton version released when I was a teenager. This song is all about being morose because they’re missing their love, so they’ll send all their love, every day in a letter, sealed in a kiss.
I thought, well, these days, they probably wouldn’t be sending a letter. I imagined youth saying, why didn’t they just send them a text or a selfie? Why didn’t they just Skype?
I decided that, “I’ll send you all my love, every hour in a selfie, clicked with a kiss.”
WTH.
