He enjoys writing, especially science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction. Been entertaining himself with it on computer since he first bought a Kaypro in the 1980s and installed WordStar. Many of those stories are trapped on old floppy disks stored in a container in a closet in his home office.
He still uses a computer but MS Word is now the program, and all is saved on a hard drive regularly backed up. One feature in Word both helpful and bugs him is autocorrect. Making up words, planets, languages, names, of course, is fun. Autocorrect usually marks it as wrong and tries ‘fixing’ it for him. What’s weirdest is when it takes one of manufactured words and turns it into a real word which he doesn’t know. Always sends him to the net to see what that word means.
Happy National Cheese Day! Yes, it’s Sunday, June 4, 2023, which, as all know in the US, is National Cheese Day. Yes, America’s founders, Washington, Adams, Franklin, and the like, loved cheese. They regularly ate cheese while working with Jefferson on the founding documents. Jefferson practically lived on cheese during those days. Whenever he got stuck, someone would say, “Get Tommy some cheddar.” One of the reasons why we have problems with the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights was because of the Great American Cheese Shortage. They were trying to come up with the right words but ran out of cheese. Quoting T.J., he wrote in his journal, “I can’t think without my cheese. I crave colby so deeply that it plagues my dreams. Damn it all, when will we get more cheese?” Today’s conversations about gun rights may have been much different if they hadn’t run out of cheese. That’s also when the expression, “Cut the cheese”, was originated when someone passed gas.
I hope that cheesy tale didn’t curdle your spirit. Mozzarella with you, can’t stand a little weird humor? I know, calling it humor might be slicing it thin. Remember, just brieth and move on.
Yesterday went so well with the weather, we’re doing it again today. 60 F now, we have expectations to pop into the mid 80s F, a lovely summer prelude. More yardwork on the agenda. With all the late rain we had, the bushes and trees went nuts and need trimmed back.
Jimmy Eat World is in the morning mental music stream. I was taking in an eyeful of luscious full moon last night, recalling how, during cheese shortages, people looked up at the moon and saw cheese. “Oh, if only we could reach it,” they’d tell one another. “We’d have all the cheese we want.” Sometimes they built great edifices, like towers and pyramids, in an attempt to reach the cheesy moon, or climb the highest mountains. They’d come down from the mountains and people would greet them and ask, “Did you get some cheese?” But no; they usually came down empty handed, except one guy, who came back with some tablets. People were furious with him. “Tablets? We can’t eat those. We want cheese.”
Anyway, while taking in the moon, the night’s beauty took my breath away. From that, The Neurons began feeding different songs with the phrase, ‘take my breath away’, in it. There are a few, and my mind busied itself, eventually branching out to songs about breathing or with the word breath in them. Eventually, The Neurons rediscovered “Pain” by Jimmy Eat World from 2004. The song landed in the morning mental music stream and has been going ’round and around in it until now, when I free myself by offering it to others. Don’t know why, but that’s how it works.
Stay pos and carpe Sunday. Time for more coffee, don’t you think? Yes, The Neurons agree, it is. Here’s the music. Cheers
He bent to the bathroom sink to wash, brush his teeth, and shave.Movement made him stop. A small spider was trying to climb up the sink’s white porcelain surface. Each time the spider came within an inch of the top, he slid a few inches back down.
He put his finger out to help the spider. The spider darted back and slid all the way back into the basin. After a three-count, the climb back up was begun again.
He looked for something to use as a spider lift. But as he finally found something, he saw the spider was almost to the top again. He leaned closer to the arachnid. “Come on, you can do. Just think of yourself as the little spider who can. Tell yourself, I think I can, I think I can.”
The spider made it. After a pause — orienting himself or catching his breath? — the spider turned and marched along the counter top and on to another adventure.
Amazon Marketing was either housed a low level of intelligence or a superior sense of irony and humor. He liked researching things on Amazon. It was the best reason for the site’s existence. Once he finished his research, he usually bought things elsewhere. Say, 9 out of 10 times. But after a few days, Amazon inevitably sent him an email featuring the thing he’d researched, proclaiming, “We found something you might like.” Yeah, you think that, Amazon? Do you think I’ll like it because it was what I was looking at on your site two days ago?
Yes, either impressively stupid or outrageously ironic and funny.
Made it to June — June, when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to — well, that depends on the young man. We’re all different you know. Some ask, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Now that I’ve reached June, I’ve set my sights on July. As was said in the military on performance reviews, “Set low goals and failed to achieve them.” A cynic’s coven, they were.
Sunrise was about 5:30 on the AM side of the day and the setting part will be on the B side after 8:30. Temperatures for the nocturnal portion dipped into the mid 40s F but we’ve strutted into the low 60s by now, making our way to the low 80s in Ashlandia. How do you describe a sky this blue, not smudge by dust, smoke, or cloud, just sun-kissed and beckoning?
This, ladies and germs, is Friday, June 2, 2023.
Re-installed the pet door last night for Papi’s use. T’was removed for the winter. Some trepidation clings to the decision. Cougar, you know, seen in these parts. Well, there are several ranging our town’s streets and yards. Wife suggested, “Put the pet door back on so that you can get some sleep.”
“Cougar?” I responded, a one word summary of the six sentences said to remind her of her worries about a cougar getting Papi.
“This will give him an escape route. He can run in through the pet door if he gets scared.”
Sure, in a perfect world, I didn’t answer. That assumes Papi lounges around the back yard, close to him, instead of chasing moonbeams around the block. It also assumes that Tucker doesn’t passive-aggressively sleeps in front of the pet door, blocking it. Whatever. I am like water.
Today’s song is a product of glancing at the TV and seeing something. That something — I don’t know what it was — prompted The Neurons to select Dire Straits and “Lady Writer” (1979) from the memory bins and play it through the night. It still plays in the morning mental music stream, a classic DS sound to me. Catchy tune, upbeat, with intriguing words. Hope it stirs something for you.
Speaking of stirring, I’m stirring to get some java. The coffee low level light is blinking, and a top-off is the cure. Stay pos and bounce into the weekend, wherever your are and doing. Here are the lads and the song.
Okay, we’re back. It’s about half past coffee on a T-day morning. June 1, 2023. Looks like we made it. Well done. Give yourself a round of applause.
48 F outside in Ashlandia. Sunrise was 5:37 AM, about when I was scolding Papi in exasperation as he sang about his need to be free, never mind the cougars. A cool morning after a chilly night. Sunny, with clouds like sailing yachts cruising the space between the horizons. No visible snow. Need to walk down the street and look east to the higher els to see that. The thermometer will percolate up to the mid seventies today before the sun show shuts down and moves on to bring us another day.
Big news riding the US headlines is the debt ceiling deal passing the House. Who voted for it, who did not, he said – she said, who are the winners and losers, who lost political capital, who gained it. Reading this, The Neurons scoffed, snorted, chuckled, and dished up Aerosmith from 1974, “Same Old Song and Dance”, into the morning mental music stream for my musical merriment.
Breakfast has been et, coffee is prepared, and the day awaits. First, think I’ll read a bit. Stay pos. Coffee diem. Or sumpin’ like that. Here’s the band and their music. Cheers
The children bellowed into the coffee shop on a wall of sounds and cliques, styles varying sharply among them all, a mélange of current youth culture. Their ages escaped him – anywhere from fifth grade to eight or ninth, he thought. Several schools surrounded the coffee shop so it wasn’t impossible. Except, few of them seemed like young adults. No, these were children.
His study flicked through them, trying to glimpse their futures. Not the close history, no, but what they’ll be in thirty, forty, fifty years. No more possible for him to see in them than he’d seen in his friends. Few followed predicted paths. Surprises, disappointments, successes and failures too often changed the paths.
He had a dream that he was going in the right direction. It didn’t feel like the right direction today. Maybe the dream was wrong. Or maybe going in the right direction was going to be harder than expected.
Michael Seidel, writer 