State the problem
divide the tale
multiply the problems
carry the voice
subtract the boring
and reduce the remainder
The Rolling Floofs
The Rolling Floofs (floofinition) – A musical floof group formed by two cats, a dog, several hamsters, and a bird during the 1960s, known for their rock and floof songs.
In use: “Whenever The Rolling Floofs’ early songs come on, such as “Get Off of My Tail”, “(I Can’t Get No) Decent Treats”, or “Under My Paw”, other floofs remember where they were when the song first came out and sing along.”
Puzzle the Fourth
We started building a new jigsaw puzzle on SuperMonday, so we’ve been working on it for several superdays.
This one is used (always a worry, because what if pieces are missing?), purchased from the town Goodwill for $1.49. Depicting a village green with a growers’ market and shoppers in front of a row of shops, it offers a variety of color.
A big ‘un for us, fifteen hundred pieces, over three feet long by almost two feet, the puzzle sprawls across the dining room table. Some many pieces must be appraised and sorted that we’ve added containers. Detainees for specific sections — “Oh, wait, that’s part of the flower cart” — “This belongs to the watermelon guy” — are set aside until we can get to a point where they can be added.
We’ve worked out several categories of pieces during our process.
- Edge Pieces. The edges are important for us. We like working from the outside in. None of those edgeless puzzles for us, thanks.
- “Eureka!” Pieces. Also known as “Found” pieces (“Hey, I found it!”). these are pieces for which a hard search has been going on. Usually we search, then search again, and again. We typically grouse, “We’re missing a piece. I’ve been through all of these pieces and I can’t find it.” Hence, it must be missing.
- “I know this…” Pieces. The color is sufficiently unique that you recognize where it’ll belong, but you can’t put it there yet.
- “WTH”, or “WTF” Pieces. Bizarre colors that mystify you as you stare at them (“Do I have my glasses on?”) (“Yes, it’s better with my glasses off,”) these pieces drive you to pick up the picture and stare with furrowed brow until your eyes sweat and your butt falls asleep.
As this is an ‘interlocking ;uzzle’, no weird shapes exist. That’s good. We’d developed a vocabulary for pieces during past efforts (“I’m looking for an angel with black blob feet.”), but my partner prefers straightforward shapes. Unusual shapes annoy her.
Jigfloofs have been diligently employing a paws on approach, often walking among the pieces and on the puzzle in progress to give us their help. While their help is welcomed, of course, we generally remove them from the actual work space with gentle words (“Damn it, get off, I can’t see, stupid cat!”) to the chairs, where they curl up and sleep until a need for them arises again.
The puzzle is coming along. I estimate it to be sixteen point three percent completed (accurate, ain’t I?). We should finish it in time for next year. Meanwhile, optimists to the bone, we’ve been searching local stores and the net for our next project.
Someday, we’ll get a life.
The City on A Ship Dream
I felt wonderfully happy. I parked my black car, a little sports vehicle in an unpaved space and went in to talk to my wife. I had to go up steps. Speaking with her about tickets and time, I had the impression that we were getting ready to leave. Then, stepping out of our place onto an breezeway, I looked across the land.
Our place reminded me of the building where we lived on Okinawa, Japan, for a few years. Built in a new style in the sixties, it overlooked an old gray stone building, matching wall, and an unpaved parking lot. The similarity ended there; Okinawa’s paved streets were asphalt. The narrow, curving streets I saw in my dream were light gray cobblestones. As my eyes swept the vista, they were drawn toward the sea in the west. It wasn’t too far off. Changing my vantage and looking north, I saw sea there, too. For a moment, I thought we were on an island, but then I knew we were in a city on a ship.
Turning in another direction, I could see much more of it. The city on the ship reminded me of an old English village. The talk about tickets and time was about getting ready to dock and arrive, not to leave. That realization pleased and excited me.
Dream shift. My wife and I had come down to some shops. Now she went off to do something. Left alone in a large, crowded business, I found a place and sat down to eat.
While eating fries, I played with a game, something made to amuse young children. It was just on a table. A woman came up and teased me about playing with her game. She then ate chips out of my hair. I was surprised because I didn’t know I had fries in my hair. I teased her about eating them without asking for permission. She introduced me to her mother. As her mother went off, she sat down to chat with me at the table.
I enjoyed her company. I was young in the dream and she was my age. White, with short brown hair, she impressed me with her self-confidence and humorous outlook. We ended up running into one another and spending a lot of time together. She seemed always happy to see me. I had the impression that she looked for me.
Then, once when we were looking out a window, I saw my wife. Out on her knees by the sidewalk, she was planting small bushes. I realized that she’d volunteer to help with a beautification project, and she’d done it all on a whim.
I said as much to my companion. This seemed to change her demeanor, as she left the table after a few minutes and disappeared into the throngs.
In another shift, I was preparing to leave. I was driving somewhere.
I decided to eat first and entered a bustling business. It was both auto-repair and food. The man behind the counter was a large, swarthy, jovial person. He was separating the customers in line between auto-needs and food. When he asked me what I wanted, I replied, “I’m hungry, I’m looking for food.”
Pretending to be aghast, he asked, “And you came here? Then you made a mistake.” Then he winked and pointed. “Go forward, the lady up there will help you.”
I wanted rice with food in a bowl but decided to leave without it. Then a friend joined me. I was giving him a ride. I told him we’d leave in a minute, I wanted to get food. Then I saw the toys like the one I’d been playing with when I met the woman. I looked for her there. After not seeing her, I told my friend, “Lets’s go.”
We went out and entered my convertible sports car. We were turning left onto a four lane road. I said, “Hold on, because I’ll need to accelerate hard to get across to where I want to go.” As he said okay, the light changed.
We rounded the corners. Stepping on the accelerator, I downshifted to a lower gear. I missed the shift. My car stalled.
I was shocked. Fortunately, traffic was light and the car was pulled to the left, by a median strip of dry brown grass.
After realizing what I’d done, I went to start the car and saw the keys were missing from the ignition. As I processed that, I realized that there was a second ignition on the floorboard to the left, and that’s where the key was. Reaching down, I turned the key, started the engine, and engaged a car. The dream ended as I began driving away.
Recruiting & Black Powder Dream
Fade in…
They were trying to make me a recruiter. Military? I wasn’t sure.
A friend was a well-established recruiter and something of a star. They wanted me to be like him. When he appeared in my office dream scene, he was well dressed in a navy blue business suit with tie, clean-shaven, with tight, neat hair. He said some things that I couldn’t quite follow, and others asked brief, insightful questions. He answered those, and was gone.
Afterward, the rest said, “See? That’s how it’s done. That’s what we want you to do.”
I agreed. “That’s what I want to do. But how’s it done?”
They told me that I needed to begin by dressing right. I was dressed casually in jeans and a shirt. I need to change that clothing style, and also get a haircut.
I began by trying to cut my hair. It was short in the front, but grew as a long and thick, brambly bush down my back. I couldn’t see my hair, so I was trying to cut it by using my silhouette and a mirror that showed my side profile. Using a power hedge trimmer, I managed to cut some hair but it grew back.
Don, the superstar recruiter, returned. He sat in on a pitch I made. It was okay. I sat with him in his office as he reviewed information and made a pitch. I saw that it didn’t begin with the image. The image was a culmination and result, that his hard work behind the scenes, and intense activity was what created his success. I needed to put a lot more time in.
Fade out.
I’m at a house with Mom and her husband, and other family members. The house is large and the scene is chaotic. A lot of it has to do with everyone’s schedules and the bathrooms. There are two bathrooms, one on each level. Who is using which one? Mom is getting ready to go. It’s involved. She’s dressing, but also looking for her bag.
I find Mom’s back and help her with it. She wants a gun in her back. I find one and put it in. She’s still talking about that, but I keep telling her, “Mom, it’s already in your back.” She replies, “I want a different one.”
My sister is there, advising me on what to do. I’m confused. She tells me to use a litter box to go to the bathroom, then scoop everything up, take it to the bathroom, and flush it away. Her answer exasperates me because it seems ridiculous.
“I don’t want to use the litter box. That’s another and unnecessary step. I want to just use the bathroom.”
She and her friend laugh at that, irritating me.
I go up and watch a plumber work by the front door. An old friend goes by. He’s now my brother. I tell the the plumber that my brother does the same thing that the plumber does. He replies, “Yes, I know, I taught him.”
Scene shift. For some reason, I’m in a robe, in a tub, on wheels. The skin on my entire body is covered what seems to be blackface. It’s a powder, not a grease or lotion. As I rubbed it, I knew that it was sun protection.
My brother-in-law got in his car, a powder-blue Chevy convertible. I discovered that the tub was hitched to the car’s rear. As he started the car, we exchanged questions and answers about what he was doing. He was going to get the mail, it was just a short drive, and I could stay where I was. That horrified me. I didn’t want people to see me like this because they’d get the wrong idea.
Waving that off, he reversed his car. We were in a garage. He told me, “Just sit back and relax.” Then he backed the car up. The tub that I was in gently pushed the doors apart.
He backed into the sunlit driveway and the street with me in the bathtub in a robe in black powder leading the way.
I was mortified but I also enjoyed it. As promised, the drive was brief. People seemed to notice me but none seemed upset. The wind was blowing through my hair and the sun was warm and comfortable.
We pulled into the garage.
Dream end.
Floof! The Pets.
Floof! The Pets. (floofinition) – An American rock duo known for their eclectic style, which critics sometimes describe as “caterwauling and barking”.
In use: “Floof! The Pets. burst on the music scene with a song that quickly passed six zillion downloads, “Feel It Still”, about male animals who have been neutered. Many young housepets identified with its message about others’ attempts to change who they are.”
Not Necessarily
Is three times a charm? Not necessarily when novel writing.
I’m into draft number three of the current novel in progress (NIP). I call it number three, but I’ve rewritten and rearranged the first five pages about one billion times, and do the same for the first fifty pages at least six million times.
Fast writer, aren’t I?
I suspect those numbers are exaggerations for effect, although it seems like they’re true. I know of some days when I undid when I did he previous day. Makes me think of the novel blues.
I woke up this morning with a gleam in my eye.
Had a masterpiece in my head, I will not tell a lie.
Rushed to the keyboard, to get it all down,
then the muses abandoned me, made me feel like a clown.
Oh, yeah, I have the stumbling through the story, struggling novelist blues.
And if you wrote like me, you’d probably be sufferin’ them too.
Come on, sing along as you write.
As with everything writing, I remain mostly passionate and hopeful, depending upon the hour, day of the week, which way the wind is blowing, and other important portends such as a crow cawing from the top of a tree.
Got my coffee. Time to continue writing like crazy.
A Randy Dream
First, my buddy was there, Randy. Randy died years ago, colon cancer, just before his sixtieth birthday. He was two months older than me.
Suddenly, in my dream, he was still the hale and hardy southern boy I’d always known, a man without an ounce of remorse, but charming and polite, a rogue right out of a Faulkner novel. He was always an entertaining and generous man.
So he was in my dream, coming along as he did, naked, as he was, which was startling. Part of my conscious mind intruded, hollering, “Time out! Why is Randy, who is dead, naked in my dream?” Dream me just ordered, “Go with it, dude.”
Still, it was non-plussing to be visiting Randy at his house. Naked, he was talking and entertaining me, talkin’ about sports and music, while providing beer and hot wings.
Okay.
Sometime during the dream flow, the house spun, or I left, or Randy left. Maybe it’s just a dream gap. However and whenever, I was now out in a woods, on a hill, by a cave. I’d been walking and was sweating, so I stopped to drink some water.
I’d noticed the cave. Weeds and brambles were growing around the entrance. The entrance’s squared-off appearance made me wonder what was within, and enticed me to explore. Searching for what might be within the cave — is it a cave or an old mine? What makes me think it’s an old mine? — I entertained entering it but hesitated. One, it looked dark. Two, I didn’t have a light. Three, there might be animals within in. Four, it might collapse.
But it looked sturdy, tall, and wide. The entrance seemed to be reinforced with cut granite. Beginning to think that it was part of a train tunnel, or for cars, I looked for railroad tracks, a road, or some vestiges that could be evidence of its previous use.
While this is all happening, I’m suddenly aware a man is there. White guy, not particularly old in appearance, but still with a balding gray head and a tidy gray goatee. I thought he was was wearing a toga but then he seemed to be in a suit but without a tie. I think he was barefoot. I also wondered if he’d come out of the tunnel, but he was behind me, so I thought, no, that can’t be right. Was he there before?
I then saw a pile of railroad ties to one side, prompting, aha, this probably was built as a train tunnel. Thinking that encouraged me to want to explore the tunnel because a tunnel is safer than a cave, was the reasoning, partly because it’ll be open on the other end and lead somewhere.
The man and I hadn’t addressed one another. In fact, I had the impression that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Just something about his demeanor.
Now, though, he was approaching me. I turned polite, expectant attention his way. He was holding a gray mortar and pestle. As I took him in with some wariness, I had the impression that he was offering that to me.
Which he was. “Here, this is for you.”
“What is it?” It looked like off-white shavings. I was suspicious.
“Medicine.”
“Medicine for what?”
“For everything. It’ll cure everything. Take as much as you want.”
“Okay, don’t mind if I do.” I reached in and took with my fingertips, then pushed it into my mouth.
Randy showed up and said, “I’ll take some of that.” He then helped himself as the man shrugged and said, “Help yourself, there’s plenty here.”
The dream ended.
The Acting Dream
This began as a budget dream.
I was sitting before a bank of computer monitors. Someone working for me said I was going over budget by a million dollars. I wasn’t bothered by that (and was actually amused) but it did need addressed. He told me that he noticed that I was using certain sequences of material in my budget and suggested alternative material available online at a Simpsons website.
Finding a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, I found the website. While we looked at it together, the worker told me that he was surprised that I didn’t know about it. Everybody knew about it. I agreed with him, the info on that website would work for me.
Then he told me that Oliver was looking for me. He said Oliver had an outline of something and he thought I’d be perfect for it. Oliver wanted me to sign up for it.
I went off in search of Oliver. Wandering outside, I crossed a broad, campus-like setting. I was dressed in very casual, loose gym clothes. Everyone else that I encountered were dressed in school uniforms. I suspected that I was going to be upbraided for being in these clothes, but I didn’t care. I was comfortable.
It was late afternoon. Most students were finished with classes and ended in the opposite direction, but some were still being lectured. As I made my way toward the main body, several told me that Oliver was looking for me.
Seeing some white tents, I headed for them, thinking that’s probably where Oliver is. As I encountered others, I stopped to talk. Oliver — who reminded me of Oliver Platt — came up. He told me that he had an outline for me, that I’d be perfect for it, and he needed me to sign up for it. I told him, okay, I’ll sign up. That made Oliver really happy.
I went off, heading back toward my office. I wandered a bit, visiting with other people. Someone came up and told me that Oliver was looking for me. They said that he had something new. I said that I’d already seen Oliver and had signed up for his outline, and that I was going to do it for him. They said, no, this is something else that Oliver is doing.
I went off to find Oliver again. More folks who said Oliver was looking for me because he had something for me were encountered. Oliver then came up. I told him that I’d already agreed to sign up for his outline. Yes, Oliver said, but I have a few other new things. One of these other things was something that I’d need to try out for, but I’d be perfect. I was confused about what Oliver wanted until I realized that he wanted me to act in something for him. He clarified and verified that’s what he wanted.
I was hesitant because I had his other project going on, and my own writing projects. Oliver talked me into agreeing, and after some thought, I decided that I could do his projects (which now, it seemed, were three), and that I could also write. This made Oliver extremely happy. He told others that I’d agreed, and that made others happen. Seeing how happy and excited he and the others were made me happy and existed.
The day was getting late. Oliver, me, and two others went home. Oliver told the other two that he wasn’t cooking dinner for them. He’d been doing all the cooking and was tired of doing that. One of the others said that he had a burrito that he could eat. The other said, okay, he’d find something.
I decided I wasn’t worried about eating. I had many more things to do and wanted to go write because I was going to be very busy and didn’t want to waste time.
The dream ended.
Floof Bowl LIV
Floof Bowl LIV is history, with the Kansas City Furballs upending the SF Hairballs, 31-20. Floof Mahomes was the game MVF. The game experienced a twenty minute delay when the players decided to take a nap in lieu of playing. Play really came alive in the fourth quarter when a bag of treats was opened.
There were no floofensive penalties called, although several Furball players were cited for excessive grooming.
Michael Seidel, writer 