Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
After the three-day holiday weekend in the U.S., it feels like a Monday. To kick off this week, a 1983 Elton John song has jumped into the stream.
Don’t you know I’m still standing better than I ever did?
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
And I’m still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
I’m still standing (yeah, yeah, yeah)
h/t to Genius.com
So much happened in dreams last night. Putting it all together…well, I probably failed that. But, here goes.
My wife and I were in a new car, a small vehicle, made of gold. I was driving, and the car pleased me. I was very happy with my new acquisition.
My wife was in the passenger seat and there were two people in the back. We were going through a tunnel, perhaps exiting a parking complex. She told me that I’d missed the turn. I couldn’t turn the car around, so I backed up. Not able to see where I was going, I hit a support pillar with the car. This upset me, but we kept going. When I finally parked, I checked the bumper for damage. There was none.
After parking, my wife and a friend were going shopping. I decided to check into a hotel. But first, I spoke with Jerry.
I haven’t seen Jerry since 1977. We were stationed together at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Smoking a cigarette (as he often did back then), he was laughing and talking about how he’d changed. “I used to be a survivalist. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that I had.”
Laughing, I said, “I find that hard to believe, knowing you.”
Dead serious, he replied, “You don’t know me. You think you do, but you don’t.”
I went into my hotel room, got into bed and went to sleep. A while later, noises in the room awoke me. It was Jerry’s wife. She said, “Hey, do you need anything, baby?”
I said, “I need you. Get into bed with me.”
She said, “No.”
Shrugging, I sat up in bed. Her long dark hair was now a short bob. Looking right, I saw a pile of hair on the floor. “Have you been in here cutting your hair?”
“Yes.”
“While I was sleeping?”
“Of course.”
My wife rushed through the room. I realized that she was going shopping again.
I dressed and hurried to work. When I arrived, I found hundreds of people milling around, waiting for something to start. The man in charge gave me several lists. “There are forty possibilities in here. You need to match them up from the different sources so that we have the information we need.”
Looking at the lists, I saw that many were printouts, but some were newspaper articles. Some had circles in red markers, but others were highlighted in orange. Another man came up to help me.
“Can you do it?” the man in charge asked.
“Yes.” I was confident that I could. He left, and I got busy. It soon became apparent that the information was more difficult to sort and mass than I realized. He expected results for forty but there were hundreds or thousands of possibilities. I struggled with finding a scalable way to do it.
The man with me said, “It can’t be done.”
“Yes, it can,” I replied.
The man in charge came up. “How’s it coming? Are you almost done?”
“No,” my helper said. “Far from it. I don’t think it can be done.” He and the man in charge argued.
I said, “I can do it. Give me time and space.”
The man in charge said, “Okay, we’re counting on you.”
End of dreams.
prioritize
supersize
elasticize
plasticize
comsumerize
profitize
monetize
politicize
moralize
demonize
capitalize
Floofgilist (floofinition) – Animal who frequently fights.
In use: “Ethel, a little Yorkie, was great friends with the family cats and dogs, (along with the direct neighbors’ cats), but let any animal from outside her select circle enter her yard, and she was a little floofgilist, attacking and fighting them all.”
Stealers Floof (floofinition) – Scottish floof rock (flock) group active and popular in the 1960s.
In use: “Stealers Floof (sometimes written as Stealer’s Floof) is most known for a song called “Stuck in the Middle with Me”, a jaunty song about house pets that won’t give their people a minute of peace or solitude.”
This is Memorial Day in the USA. As we remember the ones who gave their lives in wars to preserve our freedoms and celebrate their lives, I watch with wonder at others thumbing their noses at the efforts to keep them safe.
“Tyranny,” they shout. “My body, my choice.”
“You’re trampling on our rights.”
Watching the social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines collapse in Missouri (via video) yesterday (well, they did have hand sanitizer and were taking people’s temperature, so I’m sure it’s all good…), an old Steve Miller Band song, “Serenade”, came to mind.
Wake up, wake up
Wake up and look around you
We’re lost in space
And the time is our own
That’s my choice for this Memorial Day’s theme music.
Huzzah! (Can you tell that I’ve been watching “The Great” on Hulu?)
As I mentioned on FB last night, jigsaw puzzle #10 of 2020 is finally finished. As we started it on April 29, it required almost a month for us to put it together. My wife will admit guilt about it; the puzzle didn’t call to her. She didn’t work on it much (okay, almost at all). It called to me, but we also had other things to do, and it was a challenging diversion, which, yeah, is the best kind: challenging and entertaining.
Per house policy, this one will be kept on display on the dining table where it was put together for a few days before we tear it apart, box it up, and turn to another. Several are in the wings as jigsaw puzzle #11. Which will win? My wife is leaning toward the Coca-Cola dream garage. The house says the outcome is stacked against me. The cats agree, so it’ll probably be that puzzle.
While the fanbelts hanging on the walls and, well, everything, was a puzzle to put together (yeah, sorry), the bottom two corners stimulated our frustrations the most. When only the left corner and directly below the car is when my wife charged in to help. Quoting her, “This is my favorite part of doing jigsaws. You just keep sticking pieces in until one works.”
I was ready to start a new chapter, and went back to where I’d stopped yesterday.
Main character was on a zeppelin. I decided I needed to get him there, so I moved back in time. Yeah, my process is very non-linear. I’d written what I saw the day before, and that meant he was on a zeppelin, taking a trip. Now I needed to get the hero and team there. I decided to pick up the action where he first encountered the zeppelin. I began visualizing that moment. The zepp is tall. How tall? How big? To the Google!
Wikipedia was a bitcoin mine about zeppelins. A company had built some and had been giving tours, but folded. The company was based at Moffett Field. Well, shoot, used to live there!
I needed technical information on the zeppelin. How many engines did it have? What’s its payload, crew size, etc. Remembering my time on Moffett, I recalled the U.S.S. Akron. Well, let me search and read.
From the Akron, I went to the Macon, and on through the history of German, British, and U.S. military and civilian zeppelins, designs, and disasters. Nevil Shute helped design R100 and R101 for the British military. A side path was followed to a summary about his autobiography, Slide Rule. Clicks uncovered information about hybrid air vehicles (HAV), dynastats, rotastats, Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), the Airlander 10, and the Flying Bum.
This novel is set in a future dystopia so I needed to wrap my head around how HAVs may progress from now to then. Then, what limitations would be encountered, and how they would address those.
Hours had elapsed. I’d taken bathroom breaks, replenished fluids, and stretched and walked around. I hadn’t written, although I’d collected a stack of information as building materials. It was almost four by then, so…well, I needed a break. I’d do a Sudoku, and then write. But, by the time I finished the puzzle fifteen minutes later, well…I went on to my jigsaw puzzle in progress.
And that is how a novel doesn’t get written.
Got my coffee. Time to try to write like crazy, at least one more time.
J. Floof Band (floofinition) – American floof rock (flock) band originally from Floofster, Massafloofsetts, who hit their commercial peak in the 1980s.
In use: “The J. Floof Band broke into floofstream consciousness with “Flooframe” and “Centerfloof”, but seemed to drift away as suddenly as they rose.”
