Past Perfect Me

Awakening to light, slowly mobilizing brain cells and muscles to enjoin the day, I sensed something different. The sense catalyzed my awakening, catapulting me into a full upright position.

This was not my room.

But it was my room from…when?

Rock groups, astronomy, and Formula 1 racing posters, blue bedspread, simple small room layout were absorbed, an answer gained: this was my room when I was seventeen.

I was in my bedroom from when I was seventeen. I had to be dreaming.

Almost as I went through this, I heard a voice inside me saying something similar. As I endured my shocked understanding, I stood.

Almost as I went through this, I heard a voice saying something. Freaked out, I stood up. “Who are you?” I asked in my head.

Then I did something I never thought I’d do. I asked a voice in my head to identify itself.

They seemed to be doing the same.

They seemed more panicked. And younger. So I took the initiative. “My name is Marshall Chamberlain,” I said in a calm voice. “What’s your name?”

“That’s my name, too. Marshall Chamberlain. I’m Marshall Chamberlain.”

Although I’d almost expected it, my throat dried as realizations took over. I couldn’t accept them but logic forced me to say things, searching for truth and understanding. “I’m in my bedroom from when I was seventeen, living in Pennsylvania with my father. Do you know where you are?”

I turned and looked into the dresser mirror as I spoke, staring at my young, skinny self. Thin dark mustache and goatee, thick, brown curly hair, unibrow, muscles.

“No. I’m…I’m in a bedroom.”

I took a tight grip on my sanity. It was like one of those crazy movies where a parent and child have switched places, except I’d been switched with myself. I was back in time, as had happened to Kathleen Turner’s character in Peggy Sue Got Married, except I’d also gone forward as a youth to my present existence, and we could hear one another.

“Tell me what it’s like. Is it big? Blue walls? Light-colored carpet, king-sized bed? Sliding doors to a patio, and a large bathroom with two sinks, a garden tub, sauna, and shower?”

“No. It’s…no, I don’t know.”

“Is it a nice, airy room with large windows, French doors leading to a balcony? Can you see a big body of water?”

Shock rattled me. A third voice. “Who?”

I was thinking fast, realizing as he spoke, thinking it as he spoke, as the young me also thought it, “We’re all past, present, and future. We all have a past while we live in the past, and have a future waiting to be lived.”

Then the ‘old one’ from my future said, “This could go very good, or very bad. I don’t remember anything like this happening to me when I was young. I think I would have.”

A younger voice asked, “What’s going on,” as another said, “I remember this room.”

Several of us thought, past, present, future, past, present, future. It’s not static but dynamic. The future almost immediately becomes the present and then moves on to the past.

“I hope this doesn’t spiral out of control,” most of I said. Sounded like seven, eight voices.

With a common thought, we all caught our breath and waited.

June 13, 2023 0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Tuesday’s here. Take advantage while you can because soon Tuesday will be gone. These fleet days add up.

It’s June 13, 2023. No clouds out there. 69 F in Ashlandia, so a warm morning with cooling tones licking in from the mountains and trees. Looking to a high in the mid 80s F before the sun’s exit just before 9 PM. Yesterday saw over 91 on the digital thermometer outside.

The floof boys so love this. In to visit, eat, drink, and zip back out. Back door is open so they’re going in out through the morning’s early hours before finding a napnest. Papi likes the vinka or the yard in the grass in shadows while Tucker prefers the front porch bushes. Both do the sun and shadow dance throughout the day.

I have “Calm Down” by Rema (2022) in the morning mental music stream. It’s a relaxed song, nice beat, interesting lyrics and inflections but what really had me going when I first heard it was, is he singing ‘condom’? So I had to look the song up. Didn’t know it’s name then or it was — they don’t like telling you who is singing what song on many radio stations. It’s apparently a game they’re playing with you. As the song gains popularity, they start telling you who and what. Well, when they said the song was “Calm Down”, the big light blinked on. Laughter followed because calm down made more sense than condom. Although thinking the song was being sung about condoms had Les Neurons imagining all manner of interesting lyrics.

Hope the tune rocks your Tuesday. Stay pos and don’t trip. If you do trip, don’t fall. If you fall, get up. Yes, simplistic; who knows what will happen between the beginning and end, things beyond your control? Oh, well. Calm down. Carry on and have some coffee.

Cheers

June 13, 2023 0

I Got Mail

The habit to check my email is strong. Still do it every morning. It’s even more of a habit now that I’m dead. The body might be gone but not the habits. Those who died before email don’t really get it. Those who died after email died don’t either.

I had mail. I knew I would but I still heave a heavy sigh when I see the messages. It’s iMail so the box is bottomless. I haven’t been able to verify it, but I think the i in iMail means infinite. I have fifty-seven thousand six hundred seventeen unread messages and counting.

They’re all from ‘me’, that is, other versions of me who’d also died but were in a different heaven. The multiverse theory of reality is right; every decision, no matter how small or large or nuanced, generates a new universe. With iMail, the dead across multiverse heavens can connect with one another. The messages from me to me vary little from one another. It’s the same missive I sent to my other selves when I discovered this capability after I died.

“Hi Michael, it’s me. Or you, ha, ha.” With some small differences. Some open with ‘hey’. Or drop the name and call me ‘dude’. Or, Mike, M, Mickey, Micheal, Mychael, etc., or yo. Some start, ‘it’s you’ instead of ‘it’s me’. Some hyphenate the ‘ha-ha’ or leave it naked of punctuation, ‘ha ha’. ‘Hah’ is also used. And ‘ha’. And there’s every variation of all those, including capitalization and punctuation and language. Because some of me were born in NAZI America because the US lost WW2. Others write from the Second United States or the Commonwealth of the United States or the Confederate States of America because I was born in Virginia, and we all share that. That’s who we are but the similarities and differences become complex.

There are some, who, like me, sent out a request. “Please stop. Don’t send me mail.” But the newcomers, who survived the heart attack which killed me — or never had one at all — or were sober, high, stones, drunk, etc. — but were killed later by cancer, accidents, shootings, on Earth, in space or on Mars, the Moon, etc, or by the first wife second wife husband father mother son, etc., — and all the many ways one of those might kill me — and different ways in which the attempt is made — and the different dates, times, locations — all of them come onboard and send out that same damn email, with variations.

I might be in heaven, but it’s email hell. You’d think I’d have the willpower to stop, but here’s the thing about the multiverses: even dead, since I still exist but as another form, every decision creates a new verse. So some of me manage to stop and quit checking their email, but it’s not me. At least today.

I’ll see what happens tomorrow. I hopefully won’t lose it and kill myself in heaven, which apparently we can do.

I’ve seen that imail, too.

June 12, 2023 1

June 12, 2023 0

Flooftinnabulation

Flooftinnabulation (floofinition) – A tinkling or crashing sound associated with animals.

In use: “Hearing a noise from the bedroom, Keri assumed it was a flooftinnabulation — because Jade was in a mood — of course, as always, because she’s a cat and a queen and bored — caused by the little tabby going along, knocking everything off the dresser again.”

June 12, 2023 2

Monday’s Theme Music

Good morning boys and girls and others. Thank you for inviting me. Happy to be here.

It’s Monday, you know. The day when the dead rise to drink coffee and hasten to work.

June 12, 2023. Ashlandia continues to thrive in a glorious stretch of weather. Cooled a little into the mid 80s yesterday, chilled in the low 50s F overnight, now is 68 F and marching toward a high in the upper 80s F. There’s still snow on Mt Ashland if you need a fix.

Papi, the ginger wonder, inspired The Neurons’ music choice today. In the morning mental music stream is playing some Neil Young & Crazy Horse with an electrified ditty from 1977 called “Like A Hurricane”. Papi was galloping about this morning, so I started with him. We were chasing each other around the rooms, hiding, springing out in ambush and sprinting away again. While I was winded, he was still going, prompting me to tell him he was a little orange hurricane. That gave The Neurons the opportunity they sought and here we are.

Stay pos, and be a little chill. I’m motoring on coffee, springing into the day. Here we go. Cheers

June 12, 2023 0

Idiot Floofvant

Idiot Floofvant (floofinition) – Person who is highly knowledgeable about one animal or species but knows little about other animals or species.

In use: “Having lived with thirteen cats over the last five decades (and friends with a dozen more), Michael acknowledged he’s an idiot floofvant who knows cats and that’s it.”

June 11, 2023 3

June 11, 2023 0

June 11, 2023 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Papers, please. We need to check you papers. Don’t you know? It’s Sunday, June 11, 2023. We need to check your papers and see if you’re on the right date and have the correct authorizations for being on this date. You know how it is. You start on one day, then, without any fault on your part, you’re on another. Confusion sets in, forcing you to ask others, “What day is it? What’s the date?” I have a calendar on my way to keep me straight. My computer also shows the day and date. As does my Fitbit. And phone. So I can crosscheck what they claim. I mean, machines, am I right?

Sprimmer is still on tap in Ashlandia. Moody clouds of different sorts and backgrounds. Some block the sun, then the sun re-asserts itself and throws down a hearty blaze. 61 F now, we anticipate highs in the mid 80s. We’re rolling on toward that longest day in the northern hemi, the once called summer solstice. Longest in theory, in general, on average. Our longest day in Ashlandia generally takes places a few days after the ‘official’ date. I suppose it’s because we’re a little rural, and it takes time for news to reach us. Yes, even with computers.

Papi was lounging out by our front porch yesterday in the early evening. I heard people talking through the open window so I looked out. Women walking by had stopped to speak with Papi and admire him. Papi eyed them like an imminent threat. He’s not one for flirting with strangers. I’m about the only one he’s consistently warm with. My wife tries and Papi tries to let her, but the results are uneven.

Had it been the late Quinn, he would have dashed right out there, offering himself up. He was the friendliest and sweetest floof I’ve ever had. The late Boo would have bolted away as soon as he heard them coming. They would have seen him. Scheckter would’ve talked to them but not allow an approach. Most of the rest would have just shrugged them off. As Tucker did later, when he’d joined Papi on the front porch and the women came back down the street. He was completely indifferent to them.

The Neurons have installed “Wondrous Stories” by Yes from 1977 in my morning mental music stream. Started last night when I was watching telly. Had been reading, writing before that, with yardwork and housework mixed in. At that point I was thinking about stories and the book I’d just finished reading. Eventually, I just realizing that “Wondrous Stories” was playing in my head. A mellow tune, has sort of a renaissance sound, not unusual for Yes.

Stay pos. Enjoy your weather wherever you are. By the way, it’s Father’s Day in the U.S. I sent Dad a card and will call him later. He’s in San Antonio, Texas, so I need to adjust for his time and schedule when I make the call. They’re always out at this time. So, first, coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers