Author: Michael Seidel

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.

Monday’s Theme Music

Yes, it’s 3/14 of 2022, which means this Monday is National Pi Day in the U.S. Is it irrational to have such a holiday? Perhaps not, when we play with Pi and then say, well, let’s have some pie, like apple or blueberry, or pizza pie, yeah? Yes.

Sunrise was a hazy, lazy, diminished spray of more light on curdled gray clouds at 7:25 AM. That stratus could speak to water sprinkling out of the sky sometime today. Temperature is now 45, but they said that 20 more degrees will be added on before the world turns my valley from the sun’s face at 7:16 this evening.

My wife’s exercise class featured the Broadway hits tape today. One song was “Try to Remember”. I was passing through on a cat feeding expedition when she called out, “Who is singing this?” I recognized Jerry Orbach, the late, wonderfully talented actor. “What was the play?” she asked. I couldn’t remember that. As I walked out, she called out, “Oh, it was The Fantasticks.” Right.

My wife is responsible for today’s theme music. She likes taking a few short exercise breaks throughout the day. She had been using her little iPod Shuffle for this, but she forgot to charge it a few days ago. So she fell back to using Alexa during the weekend. The songs she usually play are “Head & Heart” and “Fireball”. She’s trained Alexa to play “Head & Heart” when she says, “Alexa, play my favorite song.” Then, when the Joel Corry/MNEK 2020 song finishes, Alexa aways follows up with “Fireball” by Pitball and John Ryan (2014). I’ve heard each of those songs about eight times over the last two days, and they’re now welded to my neurons. I must share them to free the neurons. Well, I just used “Firefall” last year and I’ve never used “Head & Heart”, so here we go with “Head & Heart”. It’s a good dance song to move your blood.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and boosters. I’m going for some coffee to move my blood. Cheers

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The Five Incidents Dream

I was back in the military. The dream featured people I worked with from several units.

It began with an incident involving a major who had a handgun. This was morning. The duty day was just starting. I was a senior non-commissioned officer. I was walking through the HQ building with a cup of coffee. The major had spent part of the previous night threatening to shoot someone, incorporating a real incident that once took place. He’d been protecting himself, he told everyone. In the dream, I was involved because the commander walked by. As he did, he told the major, “Brief him on the incident. Make sure he’s aware.” He pointed to me. Then he told me, “I want you up to speed on this.” The commander went on.

No problem, I understood. That was part of how things were done. The major explained to me how he’d felt driven to defend himself by things he heard and saw. I had the gun removed from him and went on. Another pair of people found me. They’d been involved in a confrontation over suspected adultery. They’d been told to come and tell me about it so I could counsel them on what to do. As the day progressed, I was approached by others with things which had happened.

Several hours had passed. There were now four incidents involving eight people reported: the major with the gun; a couple accusing one another of cheating; some missing money and theft; and a fight over presumed insults and mocking. I suddenly realized that this wasn’t happenstance. Someone was coordinating pieces of misinformation to orchestrate confrontation, which resulted in division and distrust, and distracted us. By now, it was almost the duty day’s end. I went about, collecting the people who’d been involved so that I could specifically warn them that they would probably hear or see something else overnight to further anger, frighten, or confuse them, because someone was using them and their situation to sabotage us and our mission completion. After bringing the eight together, because I thought that by giving them the larger picture of what had transpired, they would better understand, I told them that they needed to be on guard against that, and to not react. After briefing these eight people, I headed off to tell the commander.

I’d seen the commander throughout the day. A little humorously, ‘the commander’ was played by different commanders from throughout my career. All were colonels, though, regardless of how they were later promoted. While going for the commander, I heard a discussion going on among a cluster of officers. Among them was the deputy commander.

She was complaining that the night duty officer schedule had been changed. As a result, nobody was scheduled to be the duty officer that night. The person on the schedule wasn’t available because they were on leave and traveling. Others were certain that this individual wasn’t the one scheduled to be on duty, regardless of what the roster said, but they weren’t sure who it was supposed to be.

I wasn’t surprised. I told the deputy commander that I believed the schedule change had been done deliberately by someone trying to hamstring our effectiveness to respond. I then told her it was the fifth incident and explained the previous four. After all, what were the chances that all of those things would happen at the same time? All were based on festering, long-term issues, but now they were suddenly coming to a head at the same time? I was dubious of that coincidence.

I then warned the deputy commander that I thought she needed to have a backup plan to her backup plan, and then contingency and backup plans to those backup plans, to the order of five. Further, that there was at least one person in the unit behind this, because the officer duty schedule was in a secure area. One of our people had to have been the one who changed it.

Dream end

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Copyfloof

Copyfloof (floofinition) – An animal who mimics others or who does everything that they do.

In use: “Many kittens and puppies become copyfloofs for a while as the learn how to be by duplicating Mom’s behavior.”

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Sunday’s Theme Music

My body and mind are not happy with ‘springing ahead’. “Why’d you do that?” they asked about setting the clocks ahead. “We was perfectly fine, wasn’t we?” Grammar is a little weak between them.

Today is Sunday, March 13, 2022. That’s right, Sunday the Thirteenth. Bad luck for some. Not a good day to spring ahead with our clocks, as we did. Not much fun with these digital critters, either, you know, the kind where you must hold a button in to advance it, and if you miss, you have to keep going until you come around on it. Like, “Here it comes, get ready to let go. Too soon, too soon. A little more, a little more.” That’s on the house thermostat and the cars’ clocks. I punch in the numbers on the range and microwave’s digital clock, then stand there, watching my Fitbit, waiting for its digit to change, then punching the ‘Set Clock’ buttons on both devices while shouting, “Now!” in my head. So much work for a worn-out idea.

Sunrise came after seven today, because, you know, clocks, at 7:25 AM. It’s a dreary sort of rainy spring day, 45 F know, going up to 52 F. Had a lovely one yesterday, although it got a little variable. One minute, it’d be so warm in the sun, people be busting out of their jackets, sweaters, and sweaties, while the next minute finds them pulling them all back on. Up, down, go zippers, searching for the sweet spot. Wasn’t to be found.

Sunset arrives after seven, 7:16 PM.

I was out walking in the pleasant weather yesterday. The neurons did a songdance that summoned a 1971 Rolling Stones song called “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”. It’s a very rock and roll song of the kind hitting the vinyl in the late sixties and early seventies. I remember that I went about doing those lyrics from it for a bit. People thought me odd. I’ve always been real fond of the jam that came with it for the final four or five minutes. Those familiar notes stayed with me as I crested ridges yesterday and checked out the valley.

Stay positive, right? Keep testing negative. Wear a mask if needed, when needed, as needed. Don’t let complacency take you down. Get the vax and boosters when needed, as needed, when you’re able, right? Here’s some rock for your ears. I’m springing ahead for coffee. The neurons need it.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Congratulations. You have won a beautiful, brand-new Saturday, March 12, 2022. What will you do with your new day? Maybe clean the house, go to a concert, talk a walk, run errands, do general chores, read a book, play an instrument, knit, cook, eat, party, celebrate, sleep?

Day overtook night with sunrise at 6:28 AM. Tomorrow, as we spring ahead, sunrise will be at 7:25. But tomorrow’s sunset will be an hour later than the 6:14 PM of today. I don’t care. Just stop with it. Does it accomplish anything any longer?

Spring-flavored weather is in the air, with March’s roars shaking tree branches. A mild shower is expected in the afternoon. We’re at 60 degrees F now, with a high of 68 in the works.

A cover of “Blue Monday” by Orgy (1999) (which was originally released by New Order in the early 1980s) is running around and around and around the morning mental music stream, a writing derivative arriving because I was asking characters how they feel about a moment, and how I felt about the new novel in progress and its emerging, evolving directions. The neurons picked up on the quest for feelings and began playing the song. And here we are.

Stay positive, etc. You know it by now, don’t you? Keep Ukraine in your well of good outcomes. I’m going for coffee, as my well has run dry. Cheers

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The Confused Writing Dream

I was in a small building where there was a small office busy with people. It had a feel that seemed lifted from a 1950s movie. They had published something. Different authors were asked to read it and express what they thought. I was one, and my response was not like everyone else’s, triggering a new path.

Yet, I was never certain what was going on. I’d read and commented on something, but it seemed vague throughout the dream. My response made them ask me attend a conference with them. An old friend, a college professor, was going, too. He and I would go together, driving across country in a big, dark blue Lincoln Continental. He prepared to go in a hectic frenzy. I seemed baffled about everything he did and confused about what was going to happen next. Yet, soon we were in the car, driving across the country through light rain.

He was driving. I said something about seeing people needing a ride and wishing we could help them. Next thing that I knew, he pulled over for a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker climbed into the back. I offered to take a turn driving but the professor insisted that he was fine.

Seeing several more people on the side of the road, he pulled over and offered them a ride. I was leery of this, feeling that we didn’t have the room, but people crammed into the car. I looked into the back seat; it looked like a small, cluttered room. A blanket covered the rear window. That was to keep out the light so people could sleep, I guessed, but worried that it was illegal and we’d be pulled over. I again offered to drive, but he dismissed the offer.

We arrived at the conference. My impression was that it was a giant flea market, although it was indoors. People selling junk seemed to cover every square foot. Moving was done slowly, carefully, patiently. Food was being sold. I was hungry but passed on getting something to eat because I was reminded that we were having a big banquet. Someone gave me cookies, which I ate.

The head, a tall and bald white, middle-aged male wearing hornrim glasses, gave a short speech. He told everyone else that I was going to write about my impressions of the article they’d published. That startled me. Everyone applauded except me. Bewilderment was overtaking me. I was to do what, when? I didn’t understand but didn’t know how to ask the question.

Then, without me doing anything, the professor told me it was time to go. I realized that it was the weekend and that he needed to be back in order to teach Monday morning. We rushed around, packing things into the car. I offered to drive, since he’d driven us out there. He agreed. The dream ended as I entered the car and put my hands on the steering wheel.

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