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.

The Floofridge Family

The Floofridge Family (floofinition) – Floofmerican musical floofcom which originally aired on floofevision for several years in the early to mid- 1970s. Although the show’s characters were musicians and singers, only two of the cast members actually sang in the musical recordings. Under the name of the band, several floop (floof pop) songs were popular, reaching the top 100 in Floofmerica.

In use: “One of the The Floofridge Family floop hits was “I Think I’ll Bite You”, which reached number one in the Floofnited States and several other countries between 1970 and 1972.”

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Cutting Away

I didn’t write yesterday. Yes, it was hard. Habit, desire, and intentions all draw me back. Getting lost in a good book when reading is easy and entertaining. Its the same experience, but deeper, when writing one.

So, I didn’t sit down with pen and paper or at the laptop to write, but the writing continued in my brain. As the story resides in my mind and the novel is taking shape in the computer, many things are put into the tale. Yesterday, I made decisions to cut some adventures to keep the story tidier, reduce complications, and keep the pace up.

That’s the writing life. Until it’s done, you’re discovering and nurturing characters, story, concept, playing it first through mental processes, then spilling it across pages. In the case of novels with a sweep being driven by its setting or time – say, historic, science fiction or fantasy, or a different culture – added issues with focus are brought on by how much of that other place is to be included. It’s a personal decision for every tale. As the writer and creator, it’s a challenge to shape it all. When I do, I create a lot that I enjoy. Readers don’t require the entire world, so I need to strip some of my darlings from the tale.

The ones set aside never completely go away. On the computer, they’re put into other documents, annotated with their heritage, along with the reasons they were cut. They live on in my mind, too, perhaps resurfacing in other stories.

Got my coffee. Time to sit down again and write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Called Mom yesterday to exchange holiday greetings. She lives in a suburb east of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania where they’re more or less snowed in. Four to six inches were on the ground and the snow was still falling. The roads had been plowed and salted, and appeared outside her window. But snow still fell and temperatures were low. Those are treacherous conditions. If you don’t need to go out, you don’t.

So she and her fiancée spent Christmas at home alone. They seemed fine with that. Stocked with plenty of food, they know how to entertain themselves and one another. She conveyed to me the news that the governor had announced that Allegheny county, where she resides, had received the Pfizer COVID-19. Residents seventy years old plus would be the first vaccinated. Mom is awaiting word on the schedule and details.

Conversation ended up including food — of course (Mom and my sisters love holiday meal planning, and endless discussions, texts, and emails ensue to make it all happen — which it didn’t, this COVID year) — relatives, and then music. Mom relayed to me that her two favorite songs are “Blue Christmas” covered by Elvis Presley (1957) and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey (1994). “Blue Christmas” has been around a while. In cassette days, one sister always bought her a new cassette for the holiday. Mom would pop it into her Walkman and wear it out as she listened and went about activities.

The Carey song stuck in my head. So, thanks to Mom, your after-Christmas theme music is “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Whenever I think of this song, it’s lifted from the movie, Love Actually (2003). Enjoy the music, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vaccine. Happy holiday!

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A Change Dream

Dreamed I had a large house. One story, it was white and long, like an extended ranch, with many windows. Attached to one end of it was a business in a garage. The unspecified business, now closed, used to be a hangout for gangs and drug dealers.

This was about me, but I wasn’t the me that I am now; I looked different and had a young family. Someone told me that the business used to be used for different gang meetings, the first I learned of it. Gang members, motorcyclists, white supremacists, etc., kept showing up. I was turning them away but worried about my family. The only weapon I could find was an air rifle. I used that, constant vigilance, and threats to call the police to keep them at bay. That didn’t stop them from breaking in a few times and insisting they had a right to be in the business because that’s how it used to be. Sometimes, they would try to sneak in on the other end of the house. I kept telling them, sorry, you need to go because that’s all changed.

Despite this short synopsis, it was a lengthy dream. No violence ever took place, it was taut with tension throughout.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Well, this is definitely a redux.

I enjoy Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s Christmas duet of “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” from 1977. I was stationed in the Philippines that year and didn’t see it for over another year. I enjoy the two of them together, legends in their own right, and wildly different. Crosby was 73, and Bowie was 30. Newsweek’s tale of the two is entertaining reading. The banter and setup is true to that television era, and makes me cringe a bit, but their voices blend well.

Happy Christmas to you. Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask.

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Comflooftable

Comflooftable (floofinition) – 1. Sharing or enjoying comfort with an animal.

In use: “He was at his best being comflooftable with his cats, watching telly with them curled up and asleep on his lap.”

2. An animal’s state when feeling secure, contented, and safe.

In use: Finding himself comflooftable, the puppy closed his eyes, sighed, and went to sleep.

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Thursday’s Trinkets

  1. Feels like a Saturday. Odd, for me. I haven’t worked for a company where I kept a schedule for several years. You’d think the days of the week would’ve lost their feel by now.
  2. How does Saturday feel? Less structured. Freer. More relaxed and less stressed. Comfortable as a pair of your favorite shoes. Full of expectation that something good is just about to happen.
  3. Mood was dark earlier in the week. Ah, the standard black cycle. Went into a snarling depression. Thinking about what/how to write a scene, I sulked. ‘Thoughts went, I’ll be sixty-five years old next year, struggling to finish a novel. Written fifteen. Published four on Amazon to no great success. Agents are barely interested in what I submit to them, and I don’t pursue getting published with any great energy. Why am I wasting my time with this shit?’ Then I went mumbling away, did some other things, and thought, oh, this is what happens, and went back and resumed writing. Mine is a fickle mind, probably like most people. The fact is, I enjoy writing, and employing my imagination to create puzzles for my mind to solve, then scrambling to find he words. That’s writing, innit?
  4. Some of the week’s hours were spent helping my wife. She belongs to an exercise class. They meet every MoWedFri at nine AM via Zoom. Pre-COVID, it was an hour earlier at a gym. The instructor has been teaching this class for forty years, and my wife has been going for fifteen. We’ve made many friends through the class, including the instructor and her hubby. The class also launched my wife’s book club. Each year for Christmas, the class members take up a collection and sign a card for the instruction. Well, hard to do that this year. So I set up a private Gofundme for them. We worked with the Y on a letter that was sent to the members. Then I created an eighteen inch by thirty inch prop check for my wife to use to present the collection to the instructor. The prop came out okay, although elements reminded me of a fifth-grade project. But we had to use what we had on hand. It’s the thought that counts, right? The class took up over eleven hundred dollars. Knowing the instructor and her hubby, who aren’t in need, they’ll share it with others who are in need. They’re quite generous people.
  5. Setting up the Gofundme was extremely easy. It impressed me with how simple it was. Which had been my impression, leading to why I helped my wife. She and her friends were thinking it was technical and required computer savvy. It doesn’t.
  6. Reading Bill Bryson’s book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants. It’s rich with history and details. Great expanding knowledge. I’m not as intimate with my body’s functioning as I’d like to be. That’s one reason why I selected this book as a read. As I’ve aged and endured some minor health issued (enlarged prostate gland, broken arm, high blood pressure), I wanted to know more details about myself. I’ve been reading on the net, pursuing symptom after symptom, organ after organ, getting more granular with processes and functions. I suspect many people take up the same pastime of learning more about their body as they age. I keep thinking that I should’ve paid more attention when I was younger. You know, before things began giving me problems, right?
  7. Ran into a friend at the grocery store. I was checking out, he was coming in. About eight AM on Wed. We were both masked and had hats on. I said, “Pat.” He stopped in front of me, six feet away, and stared. “Who is that?” “Seidel.” “Michael!” A smile lit his eyes. “Didn’t know you. Hat. Mask.” We chatted for about ten seconds, and then pressed on. Not great socializers, either one of us, but it was pleasant encountering him.
  8. Watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom last night. Fraught with dialogue, tension, and foreshadowing, the film kept me focused. Strong characters…well, strong in every area and value. Viola Davis is on the shortlist of actors that always shade my opinion of a movie. If she’s in it, I’m more likely to be drawn to watching it. All that I’ve seen her in, she impresses me. Chadwick Boseman had also joined the list so it was crushing to hear of his death. Gotta say again, though, white people are often cruel, greedy assholes. Which, as a white person, pisses me off.
  9. It’s been a windy week. My cats DO NOT LIKE WIND. Tucker refuses to leave the house. His position is fine with me; he’s safer in the house. Boo the house panther likes to go out in the morning for a few hours in the back yard (if there’s sunshine) and an hour in the evening on the front porch. Papi, though, (aka the ginger boy, Youngblood, and Meep) despises the wind. He goes out the back and returns to the front, banging on to get back in. Does this six to eight times a day. Bored in the house but too bothered by the wind (and the cold) to stay out. Poor boy. I wrote about his feelings about the wind last month in The Despised Wind.
  10. My Fitbit report said that I did eighty-seven miles last week, three less than the week before. I thought, bullshit. I don’t know how that thing counts. Yes, I know the principles they employ; I’m just dubious of the results. Still, I keep trying to maintain a twelve-miles-a-day average. Need some sort of goal to focus.
  11. Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. Happy holidays, whatever one it is which you recognize or celebrate. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, social distance, and get the vaccine. Cheers
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The Floofles

The Floofles (floofinition) – Floofsical flock band formed in 1981 in Floof Angeles. The band achieved their greatest success in the mid-1980s. Disagreements arose and the band went on hiatus. Reforming in 1989, they continue performing to this day.

In use: “Early hits for the Floofles included “Walk Like A Kitteh” and “Manic Puppy” in 1986.”

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