Category: miscellaneous

Monday’s Wandering Thought

He eavesdropped on two young women. They were seated about five feet from him. He guessed they were twenty years old and probably SOU students.

One woman asked the other, “Are you asexual?”

“Yes,” the other answered. “And bisexual.”

“You can be both?”

“Oh, yeah, you can be both.”

Can you, he wondered to himself. He thought that asexual meant that they either lacked sexual organs, or weren’t interested in sex and didn’t engage in sex.

Continuing his activities, he thought, it’s just another way in which words and their meanings are changing. He still couldn’t reconcile being asexual and bisexual, though.

1

Five Dreams, A Few Thoughts

Five dreams are remembered this morning. Takes a while to process them. I usually do this in bed, eyes closed, pulling out their sequences. What normally happens is that I have a dream and wake up with it in mind, process it, and return to sleep. Then I dream again and repeat the process. Later, I sit and freehand the dreams. Sometimes, when the dreams become larger, more involved and remembered, I type them up. And sometimes I post that result, usually without any insights I acquired, just presenting the raw dream. In this instance, because there were five sharply remembered dreams, I just wanted to share intriguing aspects of two.

I was with my father. It was Christmas. His third wife was there, too. I’d brought twelve gifts meant for my cousins. Several of those cousins are dead. I knew that in the dream. When I showed Dad what I’d bought for who, I actually said, “Even though he died,” when I introduced their gifts. Dad laughed at that and I responded, “They’re dead but they still deserve a gift.”

Gifts included beer, pastries, pasta, and books. I explained to Dad when describing the gifts, showing them to him, why I selected each present. Dad seemed particularly surprised by the beer, which was a German Pilsner with a flippy top, which were common in Germany when I lived there.

What happened next is that I went off for a bit, returning to find that Dad gave away several of the presents to the people because he forgot buy them. So instead of a gift for my cousin, Jeff, for example, Dad gave it to his nephew, Jeff. That left me speechless. In Dad’s usual style, he laughed off my protests and explained that he just said it was from both of us so what difference does it make? The people received the gift, which is the intent of the gift being bought.

I didn’t fully buy into Dad’s position but decided yes, the person getting the gift was most important, so why be an asshole about it?

He later asked me if I had other gifts to give people, because he didn’t buy gifts for others but he thought he should receive a gift. I laughed at him, mocking his lack of preparation and planning, but took him to a white chest freezer and began pulling things out. He asked me why I put them into the freezer. I answered, “Ask your wife. She gets it.”

The other dream had a segment involving a vase. I was in a dim warehouse sort of building, metal, with high, dull lights. Items were stacked on shelves, creating a labyrinth, and lots of shadowy places.

White and tall, with flowers and dragons painted on it, the vase had several cutouts. I noticed the vase and remarked on its beauty. When I did that, one of vase’s cutouts yawned wider and issued a black cloud. I jumped back, pushing the others with me back to avoid it. We discussed, “What is that?” Several, including me, believed it to be poison. We wanted to get out of there fast but there was only one narrow path out. The vase was up on a shelf at head level along the path.

We needed to pass the vase to leave, we found, because we found every other way blocked. Two attempts were made to race past the vase but it moved each time, growing larger and growling at us. Finding a hammer, I attempted to attack it. The vase counter attacked, growling more and growing larger again, issuing more scary black gas. The vase’s cutouts now had teeth.

Someone said, “You have to get rid of that vase.”

“I know,” I answered. Swinging the hammer, I knocked the vase onto the floor. It rolled toward us in a rush. I hurdled it, but it was trapping others. I rushed the vase. It spun around me. Jumping back, I dropped the hammer. Teeth bared and roaring, the vase charged me. Dodging it, I pulled a shelf partially over, stopping it from getting me. I spotted an old black, portable television on a shelf. Grabbing the television, I lifted it over my head and slammed it down on the vase. The television and vase both broke. Enough of the television remained for me to hit it again with the television.

The vase pieces were trying to come back together. Someone threw the hammer to me. It bounced on the cement floor. I seized it and hit the larger pieces of the vase. The vase hissed out wisps of the black cloud. I started kicking its pieces around, shouting at the others to run past it and escape. After the last of them had gotten past, I picked up the largest piece of vase, threw it across the warehouse, turned and ran.

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The Writing Moment

My writing moment came yesterday afternoon. I awoke in a grumpy mood yesterday morning and was in full curmudgeon mode before my first cup of coffee.

Some of it could be put on my reaction to some of my wife’s comments. I was feeling sour about my novel in progress. First draft was finished and now I’m reconciliating, slicing, and dicing. It mostly went well, but sometimes a section was encountered that forced a gag reflex.

My SO was preparing for her book club meeting. She always takes that as seriously as doing a doctoral thesis or presenting a business plan, devoting time, thought and energy to the exclusion of many other things. Extra effort was going on this time because she was the moderator. She owned responsibility for driving the discussion.

The book was A Friend by Sigrid Nunez. Each month, one member selects a book for the others’ reading and discussion. My wife suggested this book to another book club member. She’d read reviews, and after reading it for book club (twice, because she was the moderator), she raved about the book, author, and the author’s glittering literary career. Nunez is serious about writing (yeah, like most writers are not, right?) and has an impressive career.

My wife raving about Nunez’s success settled poorly on my wounded writer psyche. I’m not usually like that. I generally am just as enthusiastic as her about these things, or even more bullish on writers and their works and rewards. But circumstances threw dark shade on my own writing efforts, and her comments dropped me into a place where there’s little light.

That happened in the morning. Vowing to myself to do better and get through this, I went off to the coffee shop to slog through writing requirements. I knew there was a problem with the section I was editing, but didn’t know what it was. Then, pop, pop, pop, three epiphanies about the what-and-why arrived. Those epiphanies energized my writing and pulled my spirit from the gutter and set it on top of the world.

I’ve through those moods and endured that kind of writing low before. Nothing new. Nor is it something that other writers haven’t experienced. Happy I’m out of it.

Time to write — and edit — a little bit more, at least one more time. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Wednesday felt like Friday. He searched through his layers of mental dirt and emotions about why Wednesday felt like Friday. As he found no reason, he concluded that it was Friday, not Wednesday. It was everyone else who was wrong. Not him.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

He smelled stale cigarette smoke. He turned and saw a woman in a chair. It was rare to smell cigarette smoke coming off someone in these days. It happened all the time before 1995, when more smokers were active. As it was so infrequent now, he always looked to see who the smoker was. They always appeared a decade or more older than him but aging in appearance could be from smoking.

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First Puzzle of 2023 Finished

I finished the Christmas jigsaw puzzle. Though she picked it out and suggested we do the puzzle, my wife helped with the edges and then bowed out. I worked on it in evenings and found it a mentally stimulating diversion, which might be the best kind. It’s the first puzzle of 2023, though technically, it was begun in 2022. We found it at our local library of things and will return it after I admire it for a day or two.

Hardest part was the tree. Took a few days. Fireplace was easiest. Last done was the top wood paneling.

Feast your eyes on it. Cheers

1

Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He thought, it must be a sign of maturity when you use scissors or a knife to open a bag of chips or cookies, instead of just biting it open with your teeth.

4

A Short, Satisfying Dream

I was in charge of some undefined group and was enormously successful. As part of my responsibilities, I mentored others, including a young man who was very dissatisfied with his position and progress. His frustration felt like heat blowing out of a furnace. The company was planning to move him, but he would be going to a place where his didn’t want to go, so he was anxious about it and was thinking about leaving the company to get out of it. I told him to hang in there, that I would help him.

Meanwhile, the company told me and my wife that they wanted to move me somewhere else. Nothing of us were interested in that, so I began making other plans. I decided that I would retire but I didn’t want to do so immediately.

I made calls on the young man’s behalf and found him a new assignment. He came past a while later. I asked him if he’d gotten word on that. He answered that he had. His wife was with him. I asked if the new assignment would work for them, and they both replied, “Absolutely, yes!” That satisfied me.

I was then notified that my retirement was approved and was effective on 12/31. Almost immediately, I was told that the new assignment was coming down. Laughing, I replied, “Did you know that I’m out of here on December 31?” They didn’t. Hearing about it, the reassignment was rescinded. My wife and I went on, pleased with the outcome.

The dream felt good because I was taking control and making positive changes for myself and others.

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

He eavesdrops on others. He always does, the rogue. This time, he’s listening to three attractive women as they meet and discuss their lives. Their shifting topics could have been lifted from his own existence. He has to restrain himself from chiming in when they try to remember the name of a television show or when they struggle over recalling the name of Amor Towles’s latest novel or Jerry Seinfeld’s writing partner. He’d love to plunge into their brief discussion about The Mists of Avalon as one tries to tell the others about the novel.

But he doesn’t know them, and they don’t know him. They might think it’s rude.

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The Best Years Dream

Totally different environment for me. A young man, I didn’t look anything like the me from RL, except of the commonalities of being a white male with brown hair. I’d joined a household. I’m not sure what my status. I was given tasks and expected to get them done. I was working alone.

I was working alone, going in and out of the kitchen to the outside, as others came but mostly went. They ignored me so I only glanced at them, seeing who they were and so on. My job was to select fruit, mostly pears, to throw away. The pears were large, of the Bartlett or Bosc varieties often found in grocery stores, but larger than you’d find. Some were almost as large as my head.

As I worked this, transferring them from one location to another, I thought, why are we throwing these pears away? After examining them, I questioned what was going on and concluded they would be perfectly good to eat. Changing my process, I removed the tossed pears to a kitchen location and moved the rest of the pears there.

Then, on a whim, I made lunch for everyone. I wasn’t certain what to do and learned on the fly but made and baked a square pizza. Without planning to, I ended up with a house on it. As I did this, I encountered a bearded man with curly hair leaving the bathroom. Saying, “Excuse me,” I pushed past him, but thought, who is he?

I turned back and introduced myself, sticking out my hand as I did. “Michael,” I said.

We shook as he said, “Patrick.” But he didn’t call me Michael at any point in the dream. The name he called me was something like Metcalf.

Most of the people, including the head man, had returned. Seeing the pears, he said, “What are those?”

I explained what I’d done and asked him, “Do you think you can eat these?”

I cut one up for his inspection. As he looked at it, he said, “Where did these come from?”

“There were grown here, in your garden,” I replied.

He looked at a woman beside him and asked, “Is this true?”

“Yes,” she answered.

I gathered that he didn’t know what he was growing here.

Next, I showed them my house pizza. Patrick and others declared that they wouldn’t eat it. They thought it inedible. I defended the pizza but they refused. Shrugging that off, I cut some off and ate it myself, finding it delicious.

We’d moved outside. There were sixteen or seventeen of us on a sloping green lawn. As a sort of outside, I was on the edge and alone. A tiger approached me. Patrick said, “Don’t worry [some name], I’ll take care of him.”

Annoyed, I answered, “That’s not my name, and I’m not worried.”

They began talking. I asked, “What are you talking about?” None replied to me, feeding my irritation.

Finally Patrick said, “You haven’t said what you think, [some name].”

I said, “Why can’t you get my name right? I introduced myself to you. I’m Michael. And I can’t say what I think because none of you would tell me what you’re talking about.”

The head guy said, “We’re talking about how we would summarize 2022. What would you say about it?”

After a second of thought, I said, “I’d call it one of the best years in the last fifty years.” I was saying that to get a rise out of them because they’d been saying that it was a bad year. Then, doing the math, because ‘fifty’ was an impulse, I realized that fifty years ago was when I turned sixteen.

Dream end.

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