The Writing Moment
It may be a new year, but it was the same him. His resolutions weren’t changed. He would slot time each day to read as well as time to put his rear into a chair and sit down to write. His resolutions were still to coax the muses to come and help him, write a novel, and then edit and publish it.
He didn’t think those resolutions would ever change.
A Bookish Dream
A new position for me had been offered and accepted, and this was my first day. I continued writing around my work schedule. I asked for and gained permission to use work facilities for my writing.
My work location was a towering and modern white edifice, churchy in its serenity, very peaceful. The position was as a research assistant. Basically, I was staff to several teachers. I would go to the modern library and go through the ancient information which was stored there. Docents, librarians, and other assistants were in the library to help me find and understand my research and take it back to the requesting teacher.
For my writing, I used the facilities to create a gigantic digital white board. I found that I could speak to the computer and rearrange things on that white board. Two to three stories tall, it was a dozen feet wide. One of the women I worked for was a previous college professor who taught a creative writing class that I attended in RL. When she saw my writing board, she was immensely curious and complimentary, asking if I could make something like that available to others. Of course I could. I would get right on it.
Not so fast. She fast had a project for me researching a woman named Alice Fingersmith. I knew the last name. I’d read a book by that name and saw a television series based on the movie. I wondered if I’d heard right.
After going to the library, I asked the staff where to go to best start my research. Seeing that I was drinking kombucha, the male staff member, a tall and young fellow, offered to make me orange flavored kombucha because he thought I would like it. The female, who looked and acted just like Poppy from Mystic Quest (the RL Apple TV series), showed me where to find information on Alice Fingersmith.
Fingersmith’s information should be in a low, wooden filing cabinet. The cabinet was so low I needed to get on my knees to open the drawers and look in them. Finding the right one, based on last names, I pulled the drawer open and rifled through the files until I came to a place holder for Alice Fingersmith’s files. There were only small scraps of paper within. I drew a few out and then read them.
Poppy and the male staff member came to me. As he gave me my orange drink, she asked how I was doing. I told them about the files, showing them, and drank the orange drink, finding it very tasty. They were puzzled about why the file was empty as it was and decided they would request a search to see if others in the system had Fingersmith info or knew why information was missing from the file.
I’d been looking at the scraps of paper in the file. I realized the requesting teacher and Fingersmith may have been lovers. I thought the teacher would prefer discretion so I told the two to hold off. Then I took the papers I’d found and went to find the instructor.
Dream end.
Monday’s Theme Music
It’s a beautiful non-snowy winter day out there. Plants are shimmering and swaying to the wind’s music like it was a 1960s Motown cover band.
It’s a brand-new Monday, Jan 2, 2023. Time to carpe Monday. Sunrise is listed as the same time as yesterday but it felt like it might have been a few wingbeats earlier. The temperature has steadily climbed to 39 F. Clouds filter the sunshine but the sun has a new year’s resolution to be a little brighter and warmer for us in January, so it’s out there trying. The hot part of the day comes later, when we’ll see 44 F. The sun will continue on its journey out of our valley at 4:50 PM, because new year or not, the Earth plans to keep on rotating. Rain is expected.
“Brand New Day” by Sting (1999) seemed like a natural for The Neurons. Looking out at the Monscape, the song rose into the morning mental music stream. Sitting beside me, the cats began singing and swaying to the beat. I may have imagined that part; I really don’t think they could have carried the tune as well as it seemed.
I’m off to carpe some coffee. Stay pos, test neg. Remember, today is the first day after the last day. Here’s Sting with his music. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
Well, we did it, we crossed the midnight Rubicon into a brave new world. Which, ah, looks quite a bit like the old world, unless you squint past the fog. Even then, the house across the street and the street and all the bushes and trees surrounding them are not new. But it was a new sunrise, which, admittedly, can be said every day. But this wall calendar is new, so take that, you scoffers.
Welcome to New Year’s Day, January 1, 2023. It is all about attitude, this New Year thing, innit? But the same can be said about every day. It’s a new day, with a new chance, a day which will never be experienced again, unless, of course, we solve the whole time-travel dilemma and find ways to go into the past, or it’s revealed that reality is much looser than the tidy order of days on a calendar and hours on a clock. So live for now as if it is new, right? Why not.
Sunrise was at 7:40 AM. Sunset will come at 4:50 PM. It’s 37 degrees F outside. Rain, with a high of 41 F, is expected. A dip in temperatures is coming this week. Nothing severe. No snow.
We went out to dinner with friends last night. The restaurant, open for thirty-five years, is closing. That was its last day. It served Thai food, and it was delicious. I thought it had been there for less time, but I was wrong. Then, dancing at an old hotel where an old band played music from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. We danced, but not on the dance floor. One of our group was wearing her Apple watch. It warned her that the music was dangerously loud, 98 decibels. Adjusting, we danced in the corner by our table and had fun.
I’m using an old song, from all the way back in 1983, “New Year’s Day” by the Irish band, U2. Not much more to say about it on New Year’s Day.
Here’s the music. I’m going to get a new cup of coffee in an old cup. Feels like a good metaphor for something. Stay positive. Test negative. Press on. Cheers.
Saturday’s Theme Music
“Overture! Hit the lights! This is it, the night of nights.” That’s the Bugs Bunny Show theme music. The show was my favorite Saturday morning show for several years. I have not seen it in decades and I don’t know if it’s still broadcast. I suspect it is.
Yes, it’s 2022’s final day. The song is over. Fog in the morning, issue a warning. Rain and fog are again the day’s ruling roosters. The sun tapped in at 7:39 AM, bringing up the light to see the fog. Temperature then was 41 F; it’s now 42 F, with a 50 degree high projected and rain. Sunset is 4:48 PM. Then into New Year’s Eve. We’ll be dining out with friends and then to a local hotel for dancing until Midnight. A local band, who are also friends, will provide the music. We will be masked although a friend reports health authorities find no COVID in our town’s wastewater. There is the flu surging around here, though. Restlessness and the desire to do something is pushing the evening agenda.
The last time we saw the new year in like this was back in 2019, I think. Our companions then were the same as the ones going out with us tonight. They packed it in about an hour before midnight. If you’ve seen one new year, you’ve seen them all, is this gang’s opinion. Sadly, though, the night marks the final night of the restaurant where we’re eating. They’re going out of business after twenty-five years. It’s Thai food and I’ve only eaten there three times since I’ve lived here. Two of those times was on New Year’s Eve.
A Boz Scaggs song called “Breakdown Dead Ahead” is in the morning mental music stream. Do Der Neurons know something that they’re trying to tell me with this 1980 musical choice? They always give me the feeling that they know more than they’re letting on to me. It sometimes feels like they’re deliberately withholding information to make me look or feel inept. I think I’m going to keep an eye on them. I just don’t feel like I can trust them, you know what I’m saying?
Coffee time. (And now The Neurons have substituted coffee time for hammer time and are playing that melody. They’re loony tunes up there in my head.) Stay pos, test negative, and enjoy the holiday as you can. Do you have big plans?
Till next year. Yes, it’s a law that the joke be put out there as often as humanly possible. At least, that’s what The Neurons are telling me. Cheers
A Dream of Sisters & Mom
I have four sisters. Two dropped in a my dream last night, along with Mom. Time was spent thinking about Mom yesterday.86, she’s on a slow decline, but she fights to stave everything off and keep going. ‘How long can that fight continue’ is the natural question. I’ve witnessed it with others. I segued into thinking about Mom when she was my current age, remembering how she was at that time, comparing her to me, a flimsy exercise at best.
The dream started with Mom at my age. Twenty years younger, I was visiting her. She was bustling around as Mom spends her waking hours doing. She has lists and cleaning projects and her daughters and grandchildren. It was a busy scene. Not any home I knew from RL, I went up into Mom’s room during a still moment. A small white, square sink was in the corner of her room. Going to use it, I discovered the drain was heavily sealed with white tape. Odd, I thought, but they obviously don’t want it to be used.
I found bathroom downstairs. A double white sink, also square, was along one wall. I went to it and found those drains covered with white tape just like Mom’s sink.
I left the room and encountered my young sister — the little sister. I asked her about the drains. She replied that, yes, they had a clog.
I was appalled. And this was their solution? They needed to have that taken care of soon because winter was coming. If total plumbing failure came in the winter because of a clog, they’d have a real mess and it would be more expensive to address.
Everyone except Mom left, leaving Mom behind at home, and went to another sister’s house. Also a younger sister, she was my ‘little sister’ until another was born six years after her. She was deep into her career in the dream, as in RL, a banking VP. She handed me her black briefcase as we chatted. Goofing around, I opened it and found VHS and audio cassette tapes, along with her lunch in a brown paper bag. (The last is true for sis, too; she usually took a brown batag lunch to work. Still usually does in RL.) The lunch I understood, but the tapes? Oh, I get bored, she told me. Why didn’t she take an iPod or CDs or something? She didn’t know what those were. I realized I was thinking of things that were still in the future, and this dream was taking place in the past.
Leaving my sister’s house as a chattering, happy group, we headed down the street and across to a university. Arriving there, we encountered a group going through orientation. Focused on safety, they were talking about how people crossed the street, point out that the large crosswalks (which I was using as they said this) often go unused. As I reached the other side, my sister told me that she’d forgotten something and could I go back to her place and fetch it for her. Sure.
I turned around, checked traffic, and ran across the street. As I did, I heard the orientation leader say, “Many young people first arriving here often cross the street just by running across it wherever they are, regardless of traffic.”
Well, I was using the crosswalk, I told myself, even though I was amused, so I’m not like them! I ran down the street to sis’s place, found the forgotten folder, and jogged out. She called as I did, telling me that they’re at another location, and gave me directions for how to get there because I was visiting and didn’t know the area.
Well, I was the crosswalk by that point. I didn’t have the light but I checked the traffic and veered off the crosswalk at a easy jog as the orientation group stood by, talking about proper safety when crossing the street. At that point, I looked at the leader and realized it was the young man who married one of my nieces. Confusion fell on me because the niece and her future husband weren’t born yet, although my sister — the middle youngest one — was pregnant with the girl and was due in a few months.
With that in mind, I hailed him, confirming his name and saying, hello. He replied that he wasn’t ready to meet me yet, and that wasn’t going to happen if I crossed the street unsafely as I’d just done. My phone rang at that point with my sister asking me where I was. Holding the phone up, I used it to find her and shift myself to her location.
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 