red shift
blue shift
flowing
flooding
streaming
receding
rising
falling
the day begins
the day ends
The Drop
I am a drop of water
when I evaporate
another will come
and replace me
and then they will evaporate
and another will come
I’m A Cat Person
I finish my shower. Stepping out, a cat approaches. He begins licking water off my leg. I stop drying until he’s done. When he finally pauses, I ask, “Are you done? Have you had enough?” Looking up and licking his lips, he turns and trundles away.
Leaving the office, I encounter one of the cat sitting in the hall and staring at the front door. Glancing at the door, I ask, “What are you watching?”
I’m eating a cobb salad in the office. One of the cats approach and sniffs. I offer them a bite…off my fork. When he turns down the first bite, I pick out a piece of turkey to offer him.
Chores need to be completed in the living room. They require the big ladder. However, two cats are asleep in swivel chairs by the fireplace. They look so sweet…I put the chores off. Easy decision.
Arriving home from my writing session, I walk around the house to check on the cats and see who needs let in and out and who needs fed, a treat or catnip. Then I take off my coat and gloves and go look for my wife. Along the way, I ask a cat, “Do you know where K is? She must be home. Her car is in a garage.”
The cat gives me a serious, level gaze. I can’t read his thoughts.
I keep the blinds down over the lower half of the office picture window to keep the room warm and provide privacy. But Tucker comes up and gazes at the window sill. I immediately raise a blind so he can get out there and look out. Heat and privacy be damned, we’re talking about cats, man!
The Boom: the Sequel
To recap part one of The Boom, my wife was making smoothies when the beverage somehow became animated, escaped all containers and spread its raspberry-pomegranate hues over appliances, hardwood floors and walls. Clean-up wasn’t difficult. We thought the incident was over.
But now…here is ‘the rest of the story’….
I left the master suite’s hallway late Christmas day and headed for the kitchen. The weak winter sun had already abandoned us. Lights were required. I went to the switch plate. Four lighting systems were controlled from that location. I clicked two and glanced up to assess, was this enough light?
The sight that I saw left me gawking. “Oh, my, God.”
Our kitchen has a vaulted ceiling. It rises from about seven feet up past fourteen. A pattern of dried smoothie resembling Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific island chains was spread across the ivory ceiling at about the twelve foot altitude.
I regarded it for a number of minutes, considering what we’d initially seen, trying to reconcile the two scenes. The distances…the quantity….
Something like this needed company. I hunted down my wife. She was in the snug. “Hey,” I said in Mister Casual’s voice. “We missed some of the smoothie spill.”
“Where?”
“You need to come see this.”
She went into the kitchen. I lagged behind her. She searched the floor and appliances. “I don’t see anything.”
“Look up.”
My wife did. She gasped. “Oh. My. God.”
“Yep. What the hell happened in here?”
Staring at the mess, my wife shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain.” Bewilderment glistened in her eyes. “We might need to paint that.”
“We’ll see. Let’s try cleaning it first.”
It would need to be me cleaning it, or painting it, should it be required. My wife would never be able to reach it. She’s too short. With cats warily inspecting my activities, I got out the ten foot step ladder to begin the cleaning process and set it up in the kitchen. Climbing up to the third rung from the top, I surveyed the mess.
It was worse than we thought. From here, I could see that another wall – ten feet away and fifteen feet up – displayed the Aleutians. Smoothie was on the walls above the cabinets and above the small artwork over the window. Smoothie speckled the dining room ceiling another eight feet away in the opposite direction.
Unbelievable. Studying it all, I wished again for Dexter to come in and analyze this mess. Turning on the Denver and KC football game for companionship, I began cleaning. Soap and water was tried.
The mess chortled at my puny efforts.
I doused a section with Windex and scrubbed.
The mess sniffed. “Is that the best you got?”
I conducted an Internet search. Magic Erasers were tried.
Magic Erasers failed.
I returned to the Internet. Another cleaner was recommended.
I tried it. “No,” the smoothie mess cried. “I’m disappearing…oh, what a world, what a world.”
By the third quarter, I had it all cleaned. A slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream was consumed to celebrate.
If you ever need to clean a berry stain from paint, I highly recommend OxiClean.
A Writing Cat’s Advice
Always watch the doors
When one finally opens
Go without thinking
I can’t even begin to tell you how important this TED talk is…I believe in this completely..for every teacher and person who has kids, knows kids or was a kid…watch it
I came to the part about the blocks and thought, this is what so many people struggle with when writing a novel: there isn’t a right answer. There are many answers and it’s a challenge to decide what is the right answer. You’re putting a great deal in this belief, that you can find the right answer in the fiction that you’ve created, an answer that will make others read and think, and perhaps enjoy. Or they can hate it, criticize it, and shun you. It’s a dangerous place to be and takes some balls to be out there.
Beyond that, the ideas in this video about education, economics, factories and the Internet are fascinating and truly thought-provoking.
The Boom
My dressing was just completed. I was visiting with the tailless black panther, Boo Radley , in the master suite. He was enjoying the attention. Just as I presented him a catnip offering on his favorite toy, a loud boom interrupted from another part of the house.
“Oh, fuck,” I heard from my wife.
Not good omens.
I went out. “What’s the word out he — ”
No more was needed. She’d been blending the day’s smoothie. Something had gone awry. Raspberry-pomegranate smoothie decorated the kitchen’s hardware floor. Spatters continued up the walls and wooden cabinets. The stainless steel refrigerator had taken a large hit. More hits were found on its stainless steel brethren, the dishwasher and stove. A puddle had settled on the dark granite top.
I wondered, what would Dexter tell me about this spatter pattern?
My wife, looking forlorn, was in the middle of the mess. Smoothie rolled down her jean legs. “What’s the best way to clean this up?” she asked without looking at me.
Cleaning wasn’t hard with a methodical approach, cleaner, some paper towels and rags. It took but ten minutes. The worse of it: the day’s smoothie rations were gone. Enough remained for her breakfast smoothie but there was naught for our lunches.
The best part: a raspberry-pomegranate smoothie explosion leaves the house with a great fragrance.
My Personal Cycles
I’ve long adhered to a few basic ideas. I want to think them out, so I need to write about them.
First, I have basic cycles. Yes, this is the basic emotional, intelligence and physical bio-rhythms. I know, and can feel them, waxing and waning.
I can tell when they all plummet together; at those times, I can’t get my shit together. It feels like I’m on the verge of spiraling out of control as I bounce through near-calamities, barely avoiding disastrous results.
It is not a good time.
I’ve become more aware of these cycles as I’ve aged. I don’t think they’re increasing in strength but that, as I’ve become aware of them, I’m paid greater attention to them, and from doing so, can sense their changes.
I can tell when they all come together; I feel fantastic and optimistic when they all rise and converge.
But, besides those cycles, I’ve recognized a few more energies within me: dreaming, social, writing, memory and creativity.
After observing my dreaming cycles for the past few months, I saw the pattern today. While I’m a veritable dream machine, the intensity, number and ability to remember them fluctuates. A pattern has emerged of going up and down through several weeks.
Social energy is harder to define. I think it has a pattern as well, but I have a naturally low social energy. Another blogger pointed me toward a post that queried, “Are you empath?” Of their thirty points, I was nonplussed to see how many seemed to apply to me, or that I applied to myself. One of the aspects identified was how being around others drain me. I’ve always known that. I find being with others hugely taxing. I find corners and the edges, where I can avoid the rest and shield myself from their energy and guard my own.
Which ties in with my creative energy. I’ve always been aware ‘on some level’ of my creative energy. I feel it most powerfully when it surges, and have always felt it. There is a cause and effect relationship inherent in it; I enjoyed being creative as a child. Being creative was encouraged in school and by the family. Drawing, painting, musical instruments, writing short stories, they lived it all, so I did it all. Besides that, creative activities could be done in solitude and solitude was accepted for these activities. Pursuing them allowed me to avoid socializing, which drained me. I ask myself, though, if I hadn’t been creative, encouraged to be creative and then pursued being creative, would I be more social? Perhaps so, but in reflection, exercising creativity has always been a joy. I think being creative is my natural path.
Writing energy is a bit different from the others. I’ve coaxed and nurtured my writing energy to develop. It seems like it resides in me but it’s a latent energy that needed to be brought out. Writing energy is harder to maintain because it is even more solitary than creative energy. I’ve learned a few tricks through the years to identify and maintain my writing energy but it seems to have sudden rises and plunges. I’m still learning to see and feel the rises and plunges coming on, and I continue to probe myself for the cycle.
All of these energies, however, are dependent on having enough sleep, eating properly and exercising. When these areas are taken care of, then I’m able to maximize an energy when it rises. Conversely, if I don’t take care of these areas, I’m not able to maximize them. Worse, when I’m in a trough, I feel it more acutely.
Writing and creativity energy are waxing now, so I blame them for this post. See, I’ve been intensely writing and creating. I woke up thinking about Hendrik Lorenz and Chi-particles.
Then it all went from there.
at solstice
I DID NOT WRITE THIS.
This is a reverse share. Gary Gach, a person I’ve never read before and do not know, posted it on Facebook. I found it through a friend. It’s such a mighty expression of what I want to think, believe and express, I re-posted it here.
at solstice
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back. ― Albert Camus
May the light that is deepest within you illuminate your path, in peace & joy, harmony & justice, all ways.
Write the Scenes You Don’t Think Belong in Your Book
I’m an organic writer. Writing the scenes I don’t think belong is critical to the process. I glimpse pieces at a time. You know the analogy: writing is like driving on an unfamiliar road through the woods at night. You only glimpse the turns as you come upon them. In other words, I don’t always consciously know on one level what’s going to come, but deeper level seems to see and understand what’s happening. It;s my guide, my muse. Besides all of that, I need to write to understand what I think.
Writing the scenes I don’t expect is absolutely necessary to all of this.
by Meg Dowell
Last week, I wrote a scene that both surprised and amazed me. NOT because I’m the best writer ever or because it’s the greatest piece of prose a human has ever written (nope and, uh, NOPE), but because I never planned on writing it at all.
In fact, the moment the idea wedged its way into my head, I immediately tried to reject it.
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