Category: Thinking, thinking

A Pivotal Moment

Chapters finished, scenes drained out of me, I come to the next piece, the what happens next part of our show. This, for me, involves sipping coffee, reviewing notes, and staring fixedly at inanimate objects as I draw down the world, shut it out, and tune myself to the writers inside, waiting for one of them to clear their throat and begin telling me what happens next.

After review, I know where I stand, and where the novel stands, and where I’m next heading. I’m now pivoting to essentially part two of this section. This section begins with the genesis of this entire aspect of this volume. I’d created it August 4. I’d last modified it on August 8. It was a piece that came out of the darkness and rolled over me. As these things do, the piece created multiple questions about the setting, characters, plot, and situation.

To answer those questions, I began writing, and finished writing twenty-four chapters, one hundred eighty pages. Now, a little over two months later, I’m ready to pivot back to that first scene, and continue writing the story.

Of interest probably only to me, that first scene that I wrote has been deleted. It’s saved in another document. It was deleted because, within four days, I realized I was writing from the wrong character’s point of view. Another character had been created after that one, and they took over, demoting the original character to a minor role in the background. The original character didn’t put up a fight, but accepted the reduced role without a problem.

This is how I often work, not just in writing, but in almost every activity. My organization is strangely chaotic. Solutions and ideas leap at me, and I embrace them. But they usually reflect the end result desired, or some epiphany about what needs to happen within the project to enable the rest. Fortunately, generally, my mind works amazingly fast, especially when dealing with abstract matters. Yes, I’m being immodest, but it’s one of my favorite, and most dependable, traits. On the other end, it’s not unusual for people to write me off as a little crazy. I accept that, because I work with what I have, and what’s proven successful for me.

This is a pivotal moment. Action is moving the ship, the Epitome, and everything set up, down to the planet, Kyrios. The Kyrios action is grittier and darker. It’s complex. I’m intimidated with what’s planned for this section. As far as I know, it’s the second third of this volume. Parts of the end have already been written, serving as a light at the tunnel’s end.

Deep breath, and another gulp of coffee, and it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Slow Progress

I’m having fun with this novel. It’s grown into an epic. I’m trying to divide it into tasty volumes.

“Incomplete States” is science fiction. It features time travel, galactic alliances, others sentient life forms, and advanced Human cultures and technology. There’s lots of space travel on ships that sometimes carry several million people. New planets have been terra-formed. (It’s terraformed in the future; they’ve dropped the hyphen.)

Many diseases have been mastered. They’re not a threat. Aging isn’t a threat. Choose your age. Keep it as long as desired. Change it when you desire.

Death is not much of a threat. Resuscitation, regeneration, and resurrection (depending on the marketing and technology involved) have made it a side topic. One side-effect is that Humanity is dropping toward zero population growth. Children who are born are often incubated in artificial wombs. Nanosystems help the mother and child stay connected and develop that special bond.

Communication nets are introduced into their bodies at young ages. Phones are internal bio-devices; they’re constantly in touch with others, listening, filtering information, and contributing.

As noted, I have fun writing this, but I’m easily side-tracked, and my progress is slow. I barely write one thousand words a day. Editing and reviews for accuracy are extensive — and intensive. A large quantity of moving parts must be synchronized. For example, against this showcase of technology, Humans are faced with going to a planet where their technology not only fails, but is actively attacked. They don’t know why, but are going to live there without technology. Their mission is to track down four people who are believed to be on this planet.

That’s required a lot of brainstorming. What do you do, and how do you live, without technology, when technology is deeply embedded in all aspects of society? Aside from a few small fundamentalist sects, nobody knows what they’re doing or how to do it. They’re researching how to cook on stoves, burn wood, grow food, and process it. Their energy weapons won’t work; what about gunpowder? They’re learning to ride horses, exist without their augmented memories, and fight with swords, bows and arrows, and other more primitive weapons and methods.

This is where I become side-tracked: I research and write about much of their process of coping with these changes and their new needs. I put it all in the novel. I enjoy writing and reading about these things, but I suspect I’ll lose a lot of readers who don’t enjoy these sort of details. I’ve been thinking about it, though, debating whether it’s too much in that vein before concluding, screw those readers. I rationalize the easy way out: I’m writing for me, and for those who enjoy books like these.

Had to write this out, to think it out. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

2

Guys and Gals

I entered the cafe. The two female baristas called out greetings to me. I responded, “Hi, guys.”

Then I thought about it. When I retired from the U.S.A.F. in nineteen ninety-five, I didn’t call females guys. But I discovered the young females in my new civilian office were calling each other guys.

I asked one of them about it. She shrugged. “It’s not gender specific to me. Everyone is a guy.”

“A guy is a male,” I said.

She didn’t agree. I thought, is this going the way of many other words, like decimate and literally, losing their definitions and developing into something more generalized? Over the years, I slowly tested it, calling women guys. Some responded, “Excuse me, I’m not a guy.” It was a rarity that I did, though.

I asked the two baristas their thoughts about it. They’re the same age, in their early twenties, college students who work in the coffee shop. One said, “I don’t care. Anyone is a guy. It not about gender.”

The other said, “I’m very sensitive to it.” She also works at a group with a large elderly population. They’re acutely aware, and have made the point to her, “Would you call a group of people that include men, ladies?” I didn’t view that as a parallel; there’s not a general trend to call groups of people ladies. I’ve only encountered that as a derogatory expression to groups of men, essentially implying that the men are effeminate, which is then offensive to them. That was particularly true in the military, as you can imagine.

Out to you, writers. I’m curious about others’ experiences and responses to this issue. Does anyone have some they’d like to share?

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The Resentful Writer

I’ve been warring with myself. Fortunately, I’ve been winning.

The war is about priorities, routines, and discipline. I’ve worked hard to establish a daily writing routine. Discipline, so many writers counsel. If you want to write, write. Set up a schedule, and do it every day. So I’ve faithfully done. Friends, coffee shop employees, and family members all know my routine.

Several aspects have evolved on the quest for writing discipline and publication. First, I’ve learned that I’m happiest writing from mid- to late-morning to mid afternoon. Second, walking before writing helps me shift thoughts from daily life to plots and characters. Third, I write better outside of the house.

Writing outside of my home took some time for me to understand. My wife and I bought a home with a room that could be my office. We specifically set it up for that purpose. Yet, writing in there feels uncomfortable to me. Being an introspective person who self-obsesses, I’ve thought about why and came up with reasons.

First, cats. We have four. They seem drawn to my typing sounds. I suspect it sounds like scurrying little critters to them. Hearing my typing, the cats enter to investigate. Oh, it’s just you, they realize. Then, they say, give me some loving. Let me sleep on the keyboard. Let me on your lap. Let me mark this computer as mine. Permit me to play with your hand.

Yes, it’s precious, but it’s a frustrating divergence from the focus my scurrying brain cells need to type a coherent sentence. Closing the door on them doesn’t work. A close door is a challenge to get it open. They work on that challenge with scratching and mournful wails of deprivation.

The walks, too, are part of the whole thing with being out of the house. I leave, I walk, I shift into the writing mode, and go write somewhere. I think returning to the house pushes me out of the writing mode.

Socializing, chores, and errands all work against maintaining the schedule. Events come up that my wife wants to do, like go places, and have fun. I don’t know where she gets these ideas. I blame it on a bad element that she works out with.

She comes up with things to do. They’re enticing. I often want to do them, too. Well, I can say, “No,” to her. It sounds good, but it doesn’t work well. And I want to say, “Yes.” I want to have fun, and I want her happy, and I’ve heard that experiencing life can be a pleasant, entertaining experience, and help me develop as a writer by introducing me to other elements. So I say yes.

But I’m often resentful. My writing time gets whittled down to a third of my desired period. I’m forced to rush, and move the writing session to another time to accommodate the socializing.

Balance was needed. Balance is needed. Yet, the balance isn’t between socializing and writing; the balance is needed in me to accept that I don’t need to adhere to these hard-wired set of practices I created.

The shallow and insecure part of me fears that if I don’t write every day, I’ll lose the plot. The story will meander. My output will dry up. I’ll stop learning and improving as a writer. My meager stores of talent will oxidize, turn to dust, and get blown away. So, after working hard to establish my routines, I’m loathe to forfeit them, for anything, and anyone. The challenge, then, became, banish the fears. Accept variations.

Relaxing, I did. Yes, I write that like, la-di-da, I’m relaxed. It’s basically taken the year to date to get to the point where I’ve relaxed about it. I realized that my resentment was counter-productive. Negative energy often is. After I relaxed and dismissed my resentment – again, expressed as though I faced the sun and shouted, “Resentment, I dismiss thee,” three times, and it was all good, when it was really a constant wrestling match – I found I could enjoy socializing and varying my routines, and still be a productive writer who was having fun, learning, and improving.

It’s been a difficult lesson to learn. Once learned, I struggle to remember it, and keep the lessons learned in play. Sometimes, I feel like a child learning my ABCs.

It’s coming together, though. Check in with me again after twenty years. I believe I’ll have it down by then.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

2

Time Surge

It was a major trip, a major moment in his young life, a BIG DECISION. He was going off to start his flight training, and then, if it worked out, begin living his dream life as a commercial aircraft pilot. An unexpected bonus was that he had a girlfriend. He was a good guy, but had never defined his life through love and relationships, except those he had with his family. He knew, from talking with others, and posts and articles read on the web, he had a good family. All loved one another. Sure, there were problems, and they argued, but none of them were killers, addicts, or criminals. All of them were pretty smart. He felt like he was the dumbest. They mostly argued over politics. He and his father were more conservative than his mother and sisters. A liberal like his sisters, but not as liberal, his girlfriend easily plugged into this familial unit. They’d exchanged vows of love, and when he’d been accepted into the flight training school in Texas, she worked it into her plans so she could go with him, and continue her college education.

His planned departure was just nine days away, which was impossibly long. He felt like a kid again, waiting for Christmas morning, so he could open his presents. That was a minimalist impression, because he had all those other activities to take care of to move down there, possessions to cull and purge, good-byes to be said, an apartment to clean, a truck to pack up, and then the long drive. Two thousand plus miles, the drive would take twenty-nine hours. They were diverting to New Mexico for a two-day visit with her father, a Santa Fe artist, and then go on to Austin, Texas.

Then, then, it was suddenly just two days away, and, Jesus, he was frantic with everything that had to be done in that short period. It seemed like every little fucking thing was going wrong. His girlfriend thought she might be pregnant. He couldn’t sleep over that possibility. She’d told him without getting a kit first. Why she’d done it like that was beyond him. She said that she wanted them to do it together because she was scared, and it wasn’t something she should go through by herself. First thing when they could, they went to the stores for an EPT. It was a relief when she came up as not pregnant, but now, there was the worry about why her period was late. He loved her, and he worried about her, but he had plans and dreams, and he worried about them.

Her period began. It was late, and heavier than usual, so there wasn’t a lot of relief. She cramped with pain, and didn’t sleep with worry. Then it was the day to move, to begin the drive. Everything was miraculously done. After saying good-byes to friends, professors, neighbors and co-workers, he looked around his adopted town and said emotional farewells in his mind to the streets, trees, and buildings, as he thought about everything that had happened here. He’d met his girlfriend here. He wondered if he would ever return.

Funny, in the days leading up to his departure, it had first been impossibly slow. Every minute felt like an hour, and every day seemed like a month. Then, time had surged, accelerating like a beam of light. Every minute seemed like a nano, every hour was a second. Days? Forget it; days no longer existed.

But he’d survived the time surge. He’d survived it all. Now it was time to go. Looking down the road, he thought he could see his future, like the Emerald City from the “Wizard of Oz,” out there awaiting his arrival.

He just had to get there.

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Masquerade

The day was supposed to be a Thursday. That was the word from the calendar, and sources like computers, phones, and Fitbits. Other people asked, agreed, “Yes, today is Thursday.”

He remained unconvinced. The day didn’t feel like a Thursday. It didn’t feel like any proper day. His senses and thinking couldn’t penetrate the mask the day wore to see what day was under it. It definitely wasn’t Thursday. It didn’t seem like Friday or Monday. Distinctive in their feel, he thought he would have known them. Nor did it seem like a holiday behind the mask. Each holiday had its own uniquely cultivated taste and sound. He was certain that a holiday couldn’t be completely and successfully masked against his awareness.

Could it be Sunday behind the mask? It seemed out of character for Sunday. In fact, of all the days, he would expect Thursday to be the one that would pull a prank like this and masquerade as another day. Certainly it wasn’t something Saturday would do; Saturday was too full of itself to pretend to be another day.

An odd idea came to him. He had nothing to tell him it wasn’t Thursday behind the mask. If it was, Thursday was masquerading as itself, but doing a poor job of it.

He considered why that would be, why Thursday would want to pretend it was another day masquerading as itself. Doing a poor job of it would make him distrust everything about the day.

That was it. One of the days was up to something, and the way they were going about it was inculcating distrust in all of them. He looked around the day with sharpening suspicion, wondering which day could be, and what was going to happen. Whichever day it was, it was a cruel, cruel thing the day had done. If a day couldn’t be trusted, what would be next? Gravity? Sunshine? Time? That was all that he needed now.

Looking to the future with dread, he looked to the past with doubt, and stayed wary about the present, certain something else was about to happen, and completely unprepared for what it was going to be.

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My Purple Hair

I love my purple hair. Most would call it eggplant. It’s purple in my mind.

Most people can’t see it, though. It doesn’t exist, except in my mind. I’ve never dyed my hair purple, nor any other color. Although I want to, to demonstrate my rebel nature, having purple hair isn’t me. I don’t like attention; purple hair would draw attention.

I cope with a trifurcated opinion about unusually dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings. One, I don’t like them. Two, I admire them. Three, I don’t understand them.

People getting and doing these things must not mind the attention, but I question how much they’re rebelling. With piercings and tattoos becoming more prevalent, it seems less like they’re rebelling, instead conforming in a new way. Maybe they’re not rebelling; that’s part of what I don’t understand.

The same happened with me and my parents. I wore bell-bottoms. My hair was long. Mom and Dad didn’t like either of these things, because it was different. Was I rebelling? No; I was emulating the Who, the Beatles, and other rock and rollers. As I told my parents to their disgusted observations and comments, “But everyone wears them.” I guess that if someone I admired back then dyed their hair purple, I’d have done it, too.

No one did, and I retained my natural hair-color. Some rebel.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s theme song comes from last night’s activities. We attended the Rock the Resistance last night, an Indivisible fund raiser for Oregon District Two. Local talent performed. We have terrific local talent, like the Rogue Suspects, LEFT, and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. One of the songs performed was “Higher Ground.”

Written and recorded by Stevie Wonder in nineteen seventy-three, when I was still getting my eyes opened in high school, it’s an uplifting song, perfect for a fund-raiser supporting the “Resist!” movement. While dancing, singing along, and sipping a beer, I thought of the rest of the world. War in Myanmar. Flooding in Asia. Evacuations for Hurricane Irma. Eyes on Hurricane Jose. Texas and Louisiana recovering from Hurricane Harvey. Mexico recovering from an earthquake. Wars on going on everywhere, driving people from their lands into a search for safety, and wild fires burning in Canada, America’s Pacific Northwest, and California. It’s a mess, ain’t it?

It ain’t new. All these things have always been going on. War, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes have always been with us.

One hundred years ago, in nineteen seventeen, learning about other’s catastrophe and trying to help them out would have taken some time. Now, updates come by the second via digital channels, satellites, and social media, and connect us to one another.

Watching disasters and wars on my monitors and televisions while sipping coffee at home demonstrates how fast technology has outraced our thinking, culture, and politics. We’re together but isolated. We don’t need to be. Dare I say that we need a significant paradigm shift?

Yes. Technology is going to keep racing by. And look how much of it is conceived and designed in one locale, manufactured in another location, and sold and used in other places. We need each other. Meanwhile, countries are starting to man the borders to shut others out. It’s backward behavior. Fear drives many of these actions. Hatred contributes, and ignorance amplifies and sustains this backward behavior.

We’re one world. We’re one tribe. We keep spiting others, and end up spiting ourselves. Come on, people, we need to get our shit together. Time to start trying, and keep on trying, until we reach a higher ground. That’s the paradigm shift needed: we need to stop thinking in terms of nations, and think in terms of people, without regard for anything except that we’re all people.

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The Overlooked Opportunity

There are types and tricks to sleeping in an airport. My wife and I know this, having spent many nights stuck in an airport.

Airlines usually do offer hotel vouchers when your flight is cancelled. But the song and dance is a familiar show: it’s midnight to two or three in the morning. They tell you that they have you on the first flight out, which will be six or seven in the morning. By the time you leave for the hotel, get checked in, and arrive in your room, your chance for sleeping is limited to a few hours before you need to get up and come back to the airport, because you need to process through security and get to the gate an hour before the boarding time.

So, when sleeping in an airport, don’t just settle for a chair. Walk around and look around. Many airports have conversation lounges or pits. You want to be able to stretch out.

Which leads me to the overlooked opportunity. Airports should be building sleeping lounges. These need not be fancy, just spaces where you can rent a daybed or cot and sack out for a few hours. You’ll rent it, of course. It’s not practical for airports to give things away for free. They get nothing for free. Taxpayers, businesses, airlines, and customers must tote the bill for everything in an airport. Why should you get anything for free?

Yes, there would be some administrative, bureaucratic, security, and cleaning maintenance overhead. Yes, no doubt, but we’d be willing to accept quite a bit, we exhausted, worn out, stranded travelers. Look what we’re already enduring, how we curl up in corners on the floor, or hunker like twisted metal hangers in chairs. Don’t you think we’d pony up a little money to stretch our backs, close our eyes and sigh into sleep?

By having these temporary beds available, airlines could look like heroes. They’d be off the hook for offering hotel vouchers. Instead, they could give you a bed voucher, so you should shuffle off for a sweet nappy nap before trudging back over and resuming your place in the queues.

You know the opportunity is here. We need them now. Walk through airports at night and count the sleeping denizens. Don’t tell me the need doesn’t exist. That need will only get worse in the coming years. The prices for tickets will climb. The airlines aren’t going to suddenly awaken to their ways and stop overbooking. No, they’re addicted to that profit model, and profit must be had. And aircraft break. We need a space to shovel these people so they stretch out when they’re left without the chance to leave.

Come on, some airport out there must step up and make it happen. The people are counting on you.

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My New Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Well, I did it. After vowing I wouldn’t, I bought a robot toilet bowl cleaner. It was several hundred dollars, but I don’t like cleaning the toilets. Neither does my wife, so we shrugged, and slapped down the plastic.

It kind of looks like a gray plastic daddy long-legs, with less legs. Called Rotoboc – Robot Toilet Bowl Cleaner – it weighs just five pounds, and it isn’t large. That didn’t alleviate my doubts about its skills, plus the cleaner bulbs cost fifty-five dollars for a package of twenty-five, shipping included. You can only buy them from the website at this point. Naturally, they come in scents. In a way, the bulbs remind me of modern home office printers; the printers are inexpensive, but those ink cartridges are expensive. It’s one of my pet peeves, so I felt it necessary to mention.

Using the Rotoboc – I call my Rooty — is easy.

  1. Lift the lid and seat. The Rotoboc sits right on the rim.
  2. Extend its five little legs to cover the bowl and set the Rotoboc on the rim. Don’t worry about centering it.
  3. Insert the cleaning/disinfectent bulb into the receptor.
  4. Fill the water tank with a pint of fresh water and insert into position.
  5. Select the mode. There are two: cleaning, and disinfecting. Disinfecting takes longer.
  6. Press On.

After Rooty comes to life with a few beeps and lights, it says, “Good morning,” in a female voice that reminds me of Glenn Close. Then it centers itself with a few hums.

So, from what the website tells me, the fresh water is used to inject the bulb and mix with the cleaner/disinfectant. First, it puts down a little spray head into the bowl, and sprays, while rotating, like a lawn sprinkler head. The sprinkler head withdraws.

Then it sits there counting for a while, five minutes, if it’s only cleaning, twenty, if it’s disinfecting. Next, brushes are extended down into the water like landing gear coming down on an aircraft. They go into the water, and then around the bowl and under the rim. While that’s happening, another small arm comes out and grabs the rim. Giving squirts as it goes, it begins rotating the Rotoboc along the rim, cleaning it while the brushes are at work below.

The whole device is quiet, emitting a gentle swishing sound when its working, with a white noise background hum. Green lights on top tell you its progress. Basically, there are five green lights. As a stage is completed, that light goes green. When all five lights are green, it’s finished. The Glenn Close like voice announces, “Done,” with a flourish of tinny trumpets.

If something goes wrong, a red light on top illuminates, three dongs are issued, and it says with a calm voice, “Error.” Then it gives its error number for your convenience. Nothing has gone wrong in the month we’ve been using it.

Afterward, you pick it up, fold Rooty’s little legs back in, and put it into its white case for the next time. The case has a recharger for the batteries, and is plugged into the wall. We store the case under the sink. Whoever built our house decided to put an outlet there, so we were good to go. I’d say that would be a problem for many people, though.

As I say, so far, its’ been a good investment. I can’t see hotels buying them, but they’re great for a household like ours. I predict a lot more will have them by the year’s end.

Hopefully, the bulb prices will start coming down, then.

I hear they’re coming out with one to clean the bathtub, too. I’m dubious, but I am thinking about it.

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