Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Have you ever been eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation and want to join in? Are you a joiner? Do you insert yourself in their private conversation?
For me, it depends on the subject and the people’s emotional state. Their drunkenness and my drunkenness can contribute.
I probably join in others’ conversations about twenty-five percent of the time.
Today, although the others’ subject matter and comments fascinated me, I restrained myself.
I just posted about it.
My Dad was a special guest star in my dreams last night. I was a teenager in all of them, not really surprising, because that’s the era of my life that I saw the most of him, as I lived with him for three years after things became dark and unpleasant with Mom’s husband. Then I graduate from high school and left home.
In one memorable part of the dream, Dad and I were following a young tabby cat. The cat had gone down a sidewalk. I hurried after him, and discovered him rolling around on the cement walk in some freshly cut grass.
After that, the dream scenes fluttered and crackled. There was Dad and I driving in a car, and I’m looking out the window, checking out passing scenery. We throw a baseball back and forth in sunshine. I hear his laugh. Dad enjoys laughing.
The dreams grew darker and faster in nature. Then, suddenly, it became “This Is Your Life” from when I was in my mid-teens.
Life wasn’t going well. Most of my time was spent reading books, riding my bike, playing sports, drawing and painting, and listening to music. Although I enjoyed math, history, science, and literature, school was a bore. I was becoming a loner and acted out out a lot, and the dream managed to feature sharp memories of that era. In one sequence, a boy two years younger than me was riding a bike. A bunch of us children were in front of his house on a late summer afternoon. We weren’t doing much but hanging. I think I was fourteen. This kid, though, was riding around and bantering with others. Then I heard my sister say, “He spit on me.”
I don’t believe I’d ever reacted as fast to anything in my life, and I have always, from childhood on to even now, been known for amazingly fast reflexes.
He was riding his bike by me. My hand shot out, caught the rear of his bike and jerked it back, pulling it out from under him. As he fell free, I tossed the bike to one side, stepped forward, grabbed the kid, and hauled him to his feet. I told him he needed to apologize to my sister. I remember that other kids there were freaked out and afraid I was going to do something terrible to the kid. But he apologized to my sister. I released him. He took his bike and ran to his house.
His mother came out and confronted me. I was unapologetic. I told her nobody was going to spit on my sister while I was there. She didn’t know her son had spit on my sister. That changed things.
The scene was just a brief flash in my dream, the part where my sister said, “He spit on me,” and I grabbed his bike. I remembered the rest, along with other memories from that period, after awakening.
The whole dream and memory sequence left me emotionally shaken as I went about my morning routine. As I wondered why I’d dreamed so much about my father and childhood, I reached out to him to ensure he was okay.
Perhaps, if you’re old enough, you remember having thirty-three and forty-five RPM records that you played on your phonograph.
Maybe you had eight-track or cassette tapes. Perhaps you had a VCR later, playing VHS tapes. Maybe you went with Beta.
Then you switched to Laser Discs, Blue Ray, CDs and DVDs before you started streaming.
You may have used a Walkman a couple decades ago, before changing to an iPod Shuffle. Maybe you use your phone now, downloading your songs from the Cloud.
It’s fun living through these changes. Now we’re embracing more changes. Ford and GM have both announced moves to curtail selling cars in the United States this year. The profit margins on manufacturing cars is small, and sales are down. People are buying more SUVs and pick-ups, if they’re buying a motor vehicle at all, because motor vehicles overall have declined. Young people aren’t buying cars as often.
Just curious, but do you remember talking about SUVs in your youth? I didn’t; we had utility vehicles then. The sports came later.
Do you remember the mini-van craze, or are you too young to remember that?
Young people are marrying less these days. The median age for a man in America to marry was twenty-nine point five years old, up from twenty-three in the early 1970s.
Young people are also dating less. They struggle with interpersonal relationships of romantic and sexual natures if they’re engaged face to face. It’s easier for them if there’s a cell phone involved.
Did you know what a Tinderella is?
Fun fact. My friend the professor struggles initiating class discussions in her class of twenty-somethings. Then she started posting texts, and the discourse began.
Ah, cell phones. Remember princess phones and wall phones, cordless phones? Remember pagers? Remember car phones?
Do you remember Instamatic cameras?
Meanwhile, NASCAR paid attendance is declining. Less people are watching the races on television, as well. That’s parallel to a trend of declining NFL paid attendance and television ratings.
Remember playing video games? Are you old enough to recall Pong? Did you ever think about playing a game on your phone? Did you ever believe that you would enjoy playing games on phones so much that you needed data plans to enable your habit?
Beer sales in America are declining. More people are drinking wine.
Over in the Olympics, snowboarding was a big draw in 2018 while the slalom was dropped. Word came out last week that the IOC is not planning to have boxing in the 2020 Olympics.
Went to the movies the other day. When I was young, over fifty years ago, we had a cartoon or short film before the feature. That’s been replaced with ads, trailers, and previews.
The movies cost thirteen dollars for two of us the other day, cheaper than many places, but do you remember paying less than a dollar for the movies? Mom remembers paying a nickel, but she’s over twenty years older than me.
A nickel to get into the movies was a long time ago, wasn’t it?
Shall we talk about the price of gasoline? How ’bout a quart of milk, a loaf of bread, or a cup of coffee?
Say, do you remember when you first thought about buying organic?
These times, they are a’changin’.
He stepped aside to let a woman pushing a shopping cart go by. A young girl in the cart’s child seat said, “Mom, while I ever be big enough that I don’t have to ride in the cart.”
Mom replied, “Yes, you’ll be big enough sooner than you think.”
The man said, “I wish I could get in a cart and ride around.”
The woman laughed. “Yes, I would love to be in a cart and have someone push me around.”
As the adults laughed, the child stared at them. Then the man rounded the corner. Encountering a woman in a wheelchair, he began re-thinking his wish.
Goals are great. I establish them to help create a direction for me, motivate me to keep going, and to keep on track. They help me measure progress, providing a tangible foundation for examining how I’m doing.
My problem with goals I’ve found is that I think of them as the destination. Then, I reach the goal and discover it was just a milestone to somewhere else.
That doesn’t reduce their effectiveness, but it is a reminder for me that I don’t always appreciate the larger situation. That works out, though, because setting goals that are small enough to achieve are great in helping me gain confidence and traction.
What I’ve realized is that goals are not the end, but I tool toward reaching for the end.
I’ve been suspicious lately. It’s just the things that’ve been happening. I feel like I’m being set up.
All this in less than two weeks. It’s more than I can take. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, if you know what I mean.
He’d known Taylor for a while and knew he had a son. Now he was meeting him for the first time.
Son was taller than father, but much more slender and quieter. Son was also about half of Dad’s sixty-five years. The years count for a lot.
Observing the son, he wondered and asked him, “Are you like your mother?”
Son replied, “God, I hope not.”
Conversations erupted, and the questions that erupted from that answer couldn’t raised.
There it is, the bolt informing you that, holy shit, it’s almost December. December begins this Saturday.
If you’re like me — and I hope you’re not — you’re agog with amazement that November is almost empty. Hell, 2018 has almost spent its calendar, and here I am, still dragging myself forward.
But, you know, take the positive, I am moving forward. It doesn’t go as fast or smoothly as desired, dreamed, or hoped for, but I keep creeping forward.
What will the end of November mean? Well, in some ways, it means a re-assessment. It means, for me, an agnostic in America, enduring the holidays, which sometimes means enjoying myself, respecting others’ beliefs and traditions, and otherwise, doing what I do, except there’s more food and music.
Likewise, the end of the year means some searching, but I search almost every day, looking for truth, hope, justice, luck, love, something to eat, answers for puzzling questions, etc. So, really, nothing, but because of where I live and who I am, everything.
Yes, it’s a conundrum. It’s a good word, conundrum.
It was an excellent day of editing, with little re-writing or revising required. Five chapters were edited. Although I kept part of myself separate as an objective measure to ensure continuity and clarity, reading my work was a reader’s delight. This was the sort of book I enjoy, and I was pleased with myself for what had come of my efforts of drinking coffee, staring out windows, talking to myself, dreaming, thinking, and typing. So, congrats to me.
Meanwhile, this evening, I had spare time to kill. It happens often when the daylight hours grow shorter. It suddenly seems like, hello, it feels like eight at night but it’s four P.M. I have energy but the darkness discourages activities.
So I’m reading. I’m usually reading several books. To pass time this evening, I resumed reading Carlo Rovelli’s book, The Order of Time.
His book is a slow read for me. I typically read a few pages a week. Sometimes I don’t read it for a week or two. His book gives me a lot to think about. As I read, ideas stir in me like mice creeping out in search of food. I begin pacing, hunting for the handle about what I’m thinking.
And suddenly, I realize, there is a potential sixth book in the Incomplete States series. There is something else that can happen, that can be done. It seems like it should be done.
Drawing out a notebook that I kept for scribbling about ideas, I confirmed that I’d formed the basis for this final book back in March, 2017. There it was, in the musings about Chi-particle states as they decay and transition from being imaginary and traveling faster than light to gaining mass and energy as they slow to less than FTL, to interacting with a wave-function collapse to establish arrows of time. In those fourteen pages of thoughts, written over three days, was the answer that could be the basis for the final book.
I’m astonished that I overlooked something that I think is sort of obvious, now that I see it.
Naturally, a muse leaps out to take charge. Words flow like lava from an erupting super-volcano. Opening a new doc, I type. As I do, ideas accelerate. Scenes expand. Dialogue rushes in. Plot points follow. Pages are typed.
Of course, I was writing at home. That’s fraught with interruptions as my wife laughs aloud at things she sees and reads on the Internet, plays videos, and talks to me about the news. The cats come in to see why I’m making that noise with my fingers and whether it’s something that they can eat, and if it’s not, can I give them something to eat?
All this puts me on edge. I’m frustrated with the interruptions, excited about the ideas, and pensive about writing another book in the series. Knowing me, one book can easily become two, or three. I’m almost finished with editing book four, A Sense of Time. Do I really want to pursue a sixth?
It’s anguishing. It feels like, I’ve envisioned the framework for the book so I’m now compelled to write it.
I didn’t know how to finish this post. I write to help me understand what I think. I write to channel my thoughts and enthusiasm. I write to wonder…
I returned to the new document to read what I wrote. More ideas and arcs are squeezed out of me. I’m reluctant to agree to the muse and write a sixth book but the writing fever has me, again begging the question, who is in charge here? Is there a master?
I’ll see what I think tomorrow, when it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Feeling mad as a hatter, Skip bought a brand spanking new car. To his friends, it was a bolt out of the blue.
Checking it out, Clyde said, “What’s the four-one-one, Skip?”
“Yes,” Penelope said. “What, d’yer win the booby prize? Give us the straight skinny.”
“It’s my new jalopy,” Skip said, at one fell swoop gaining jaundiced looks. “I bought it, cash on the nail. I could only afford it by the skin of my teeth.”
Milly said, “You’re such a crack pot. Did you have to cook the books?”
“To coin a phrase, I think it’s a blot on the landscape,” Parnell said. “It’s the mutts’ nuts.”
Nodding, Tucker said, “Right on. Did you forget to use your loaf, Skip?”
“What’s with the third degree?” Skip wondered as Hester said, “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but gag me with a spoon.”
“Fer sure, you’re barking mad, Skip,” Ethel said as Horatio said, “You’re such an airhead, Skipper. You bought a pig in the poke.”
Beaming, Skip replied, “Well, I think it’s the cat’s pajamas. It’s really groovy.”
Tucker rose. “That’s all well and good, but I need to catch some zzzs. I’m gonna skate.” Looking at Skip, he said, “Drop a dime when you’ve come back to earth, space cadet.”
“Word,” Ethel agreed as Clyde said, “Peace out,” and Milly said, “Mic drop.”
Watching his friends troop away, Skip said, “Well, I didn’t mean to upset the apple cart.” Leaning back in front of his ride, he took a selfie. “I’ll share it on the Cloud, and Facebook it, the whole shebang. Then, when people Google me, they’ll see my wheels.”
But first, he texted it to himself, and then went to veg out, pleased as punch. It was a new day, and the sky was the limit.
Michael Seidel, writer 