Science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. Singer (sorry, no shows) & nudist (in my home). Beer, cat, cheese, coffee, pie and wine friend. Left IBM and Silicon Valley for the southern Oregon life but I miss the ocean. We're too far inland. Gotta move.
The door is thrown open, and there it is. Everyone walks in, looking and whispering in awed tones. Friday, revamped and new, was open to the public. Speculation about what to expect from this new Friday had been traveling mouth to ear for months. Now that it was here…well, first, they were excited. Then they were deflated.
Officially, Friday was July 29, 2022. “It’s just like yesterday,” one woman was heard to complain. “Hot and miserable. I waited all week for this?”
The heat is the thing in our area. Currently, 8:30 AM, it’s 26 C. Yesterday, Thursday, reached 106 F at my house, according to my ancient home weather system, with the forecast calling for a high of 108 F. The car claimed it was 111 F at one point. Today’s forecast says the high will be 110 F. Tomorrow, it’s expected to cool off to 107 F, and then drop back below 100 by Monday. We keep our eyes on the skies as thunderboomer clouds build, checking apps for reports of lightning strikes and fire. Knock on wood, we’ve been spared, and the fires have been found and put out fast.
Sunrise came after six this morning, 6:01, and sunset will be at 8:34 PM.
I have “Cold As Ice” by Foreigner in the morning mental music stream. This 1977 song is a deliberate choice as I pursue a ‘mind over environment’ angle for handling the day.
Hope your weather is good, and your day’s experience is great. I know with so much going on that those hopes aren’t always achievable, but let’s make the effort to believe and try to improve our lives. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and vax as needed. Coffee? What, it’s 80 F outside right now. What are you waiting for? Pour.
It’s your choice. Will you stay with what you have or will you trade it for what’s behind one of these three doors?
They’re going for door number three. Let’s see what’s behind door number one and two first.
Door number one is…Monday, May 1, 2028. So that would have been a small trip into the future for you. And door number two is…a slip to the past, Friday, August 16, 1996. Have you experienced that year yet?
Okay, let’s see what they won. Let’s open door number three. Good luck.
Today is Thursday, July 28, 2022. Today’s high temperature for Ashland in southern Oregon is 108 F or 42 C. 108 is pretty high and I’m dubious we’ll hit it. Only touched 103 F at my house yesterday. Right now it’s 74 F (23 C). Sunrise was at 6 AM exactly. Expect the daylight selection of our day to finish at fourteen hours and thirty-four minutes later.
The felines have been loving the heat. Go into a torpor in shade for the day. They don’t eat or move much during the high heat portion. Come night, they turn into homicidal psycho jungle cats (a phrase borrowed from Bill Watterson), prowling and pouncing, muttering and munching.
In news —
No, let’s skip the news portion. Speaking of 1996, The Neurons plucked a song out of that portion of the memory puzzle, I mean palace, and slotted it into the morning mental music stream. See, I was writing in my head as I went about feeding beasts and prepping my breakfast, following up on what was written yesterday, dipping into where I want to go today, addressing a character and what they’d believed and what they now believed, which meant they needed to do this — well, you know the chains. Out of that, The Neurons plucked “Stupid Girl” by Garbage. Took a long several minutes to get more than, “all you had you wasted,” but I could clearly hear the voice and supporting music for that slender segment. More would not come. Just as I drifted away with the attendant thought, it’ll come later, pop, The Neurons released more and the song and band were fully recalled. Yea, go neurons, go!
Stay positive and test negative, and so on. Three friends have announced they’re COVID free while another announced he just tested positive. So it goes. I’m going for coffee before it gets too warm. Here’s the tune. As a bonus, you get it performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman”. Cheers
The rumor of a breeze circulated at ten o’clock last night. The temperature had plummeted to 91 F by then, still a little warm for opening the doors and windows to cool the house. Although we have central A/C, I dislike its effects on my sinuses, environment, and energy bill, and avoid using it as much as possible. I really wanted to open the doors and such, and it was hard to hear the insects and bugs’ tiny rapping and requests to come in and escape the heat. I eventually yielded at eleven, when it was 81 outside and 86 in the house. The air, still warm, barely stirred.
A few clouds and haze mar the sky’s true color today. This Wednesday, the final of July, 2022, the 27, for those seeking more, will reach 104 they say. We officially reached only 100 in Ashland yesterday, although my house said it was 103.5 as the high experienced. Sunset will be at 8:36 PM. Sunrise today was at 5:59 AM. It might be the last time for a sunrise before six in the morning, unless it happens again when we ‘fall back’ with the clock later this year.
“Janie’s Got A Gun” by Aerosmith (1989) inhabits the morning mental music stream. The song is about parents and others raping, abusing, and molesting children and Janie getting a gun to stop it. Rape was removed from the radio version. And yeah, it came up as a song as I read more sickening news of the world. Not going into it any further. Many people frequently promote an idea for using a gun to shoot and kill people with state permission as soon as their crime is discovered. I’m not for that for many reasons, among them being an orderly and intelligent system of justice. I know it fails often but throwing it out isn’t a solution; its shortcomings need to be addressed and fixed. That’s difficult in today’s political environment but I stand by the belief.
Stay positive and test negative. Wear masks and get vaxes as needed. Good luck and stay safe. Coffee? Why, thank you, I think I will.
This dream was different from the beginning. In my previous military dreams, I’m usually arriving and lost, or establishing order and structure. In this dream, I found myself finishing and leaving. The dream was mostly about me showing my replacement all the equipment and introducing him to our processes and procedures. In a parallel action, the colonel who was the commanding officer, was handing over command and moving on. This individual was a real-life person who later retired as a lieutenant general. We’d worked closely together during my final assignment. Now, in the dream, I ran into him. Both of us were in good moods. He was hungry. I told him that I could get him pizza, which he accepted.
It was very hectic, with much going on. I was constantly fielding questions, introducing people, and hurrying from point to point. During this, I saw a young airman watching. I grinned and waved to her, and then asked her what she was doing. She told me that she was watching me and that I just amazed her with my energy and authority. I laughed and joked that that was all surface appearance, that underneath it all, I was a quivering mess. She rejected that, telling me, “I know you, and you’re always like this, in control of everything and getting it all done.” The flattery pleased me.
The computer, once a useful writing tool, had become intrusive and frustrating. Programs and apps interrupt the writing flow to make suggestions about tenses, spelling, and other matters. He’s just trying to get the story down, letting it flow as fast as he can. Technology’s helpfulness disrupts his process.
Michael Seidel, writer 