Dieting? Gaining weight, losing weight? Beer, marijuana, coffee, wine? Brain? What’s this about?
Monday’s Bumper Sticker
A Movin’ On Dream
I was visiting a wealthy male friend for some holiday. It was a stop during my travels. In the dream, we were in our late twenties. He was putting me up for a day and night. Had a big, fancy place with alabaster walls high above everything else on a mountainside overlooking the ocean, window walls with fantastic views. He lived there alone.
We visited, nothing special, had a good time. The next day, he went off to work while leaving me with things that I should do before going, if I could, as it would help him out, undoing things that he’d done for my visit. I planned to do them but kept getting distracted. Then, curious, I walked down a winding path to where he worked, to see what he did. He met me as I left the path and told me, “I just manage things.”
It was growing close to my time to depart. I had flights to catch. He told me to take one of his cars. A short and confused discussion followed because I thought I had my own car. I did, but it apparently wasn’t available, I discovered, because he’d taken it off to be worked on, cleaned up, and detailed. That took me aback, but I was grateful and pleased, too.
Something about a container followed. He had this container that he used to do things. He did it surreptitiously. I got hold of one. It was a light green square. My impression was that it was a box for getting a burger from takeout. I opened the box and verified that it was empty. Residue inside it was from a cheeseburger, showing traces of cheese, lettuce, onion, and tomato.
I was running late by then, so rushed to depart. As I did, driving away in his fancy car — don’t know what it was, except it was white and luxurious — I saw that I’d forgotten to do something that I’d promised to do for him. I wanted to go back but realized that I couldn’t, so I went on with the intention of calling him from the airport.
Got to a busy, bustling airport. It was more like a city than an airport that I’d ever visited, with multiple highways and flyovers connecting busy commerce centers and terminals teeming with people. After a bit of confusion and disorientation, I found my way, parked his car, and called him, telling him where I’d parked and what I’d forgotten to do. He reassured me that it was okay, don’t worry about it. Disconnecting, I went on to catch my flight.
Monday’s Theme Music
Time for a little Neil Young. Call out to him for being naturalized as a U.S. We used to live in the same neighborhood, broadly speaking, on the California coast. A friend was his primary supplier, so the story goes. A little club wasn’t far where he liked to play for small crowds with no announcement, so the story goes.
1989 saw him bring out “Rockin’ in the Free World”. The song provides so many mocking lines drawing attention to our cultural hypocrisy:
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn,
got roads to drive.
Yeah, that’s rocking in the free world. That Trump used the song during his POTUS campaign without irony nauseates, but then the Trumplicans bastardize the meaning and intention of everything that they touch, subverting without sparing, heavy of hand and cruel of ideas.
I’m part of the hypocrisy in my comfy white land, something the feeds my perpetual self-damnation. Too weak to walk away from the cushiness, I’ll just do some marchin’, protesting, donating, and votin’, hoping to change things, even though that’s not been working for lo’, these many years since Bush I.
Guess I’ll just keep rockin’. Pour a little CBD into my coffee, please. My joints are hurtin’. “I try to forget it, any way I can.”
The Game Dream
First was a non-related prelude.
I was with my wife at home. We had a large ginger tabby. He was grooming himself. I thought I saw a flea on his back. I attempted to pluck the flea out, but it moved away. The cat became agitated. After I calmed him, I attempted to get the flea again. Spreading his fur, I saw three fleas. I realized his issue was more pressing than thought, and went to get some tick and flea control. That segment ended.
What I remember of the main dream is pausing from other activities to kill time by playing a card game. I don’t remember anything of the game. Me, my wife, and a friend were playing.
The friend was teaching us the game. In real life, he’s a retired spokesman for Oregon Department of Forestry, dealing with wildfires. He’s a big guy, bearded, with a deep, booming voice, memorable in the dream.
We played the game, and he won the first hand by using all of us cards. He was then dealt cards from the remaining pile. When no cards remained, he played the last of his cards and won the game. He then explained, “Normally, when one person wins by going out, the other people pay them a dollar a card for each card in their hand. What do you guys want to do?” He was smiling as he spoke, and said, “I’m alright if you guys don’t want to do that.”
I only had a few cards but my wife was carrying twenty cards. My personal (dream) opinion was that we shouldn’t play by that rule, not because we were new to the game, or that she had so many cards, but because there were only three of us playing.
That’s where the dream ended.
St. Seata
Today, I applaud St. Seata.
Like St. Asphalta, St. Seata was originally a human who became a saint who attained a godlike presence by fulfilling others’ needs as expressed through prayer. St. Asphalta was all about cars, transportation, and traffic; you appeal to St. Seata for sitting issues. Sometimes, in mass transportation, such as trains and commercial airlines, St. Seata and St. Asphalta work together to address people’s prayers.
St. Seata’s origins stretch back into the caves of antiquity and are known through ancient cave paintings discovered in Europe. One of the first human cave dwellers, others often came to St. Seata’s cave and asked, “Hey, can you fit one more in there?” St. Seata always found a way to oblige.
As with many of the ancients, St. Seata fell out of favor for a period as organized religions and wealth dominated the seating scene. He eventually made a comeback via as major disasters like the great fires of London and Chicago, or wildfires, typhoons, hurricanes, and earthquakes that took down populated areas. As space and safety became scarce, people found themselves appealing to find a place to sit.
Entertainment has fortified St. Seata’s presence. People looking for tickets to events such as soccer and football games, the Olympics, music concerts like the Beatles, etc., draw him forward to help them with their pleas for seats, too. St. Seata tries to help them all.
My prayer to St. Seata was for a much less dire situation. Sunday morning, and I was late to the coffee shop. Spotting the full parking, I worried about getting a seat where I could sit with my coffee, plug in the ‘puter, and do my writing thang.
St. Seata obliged with my second favorite space. Thank you, St. Seata.
Saturday’s Bumper Sticker
In use: “Calling her friends and their friends, they quickly organized a sip celebrating wine, cheese, chocolate, and Friday.”
Her Smile
It began in her eyes and radiated down through her cheeks, touching her lips, becoming an aura as bright as sunlight on a clear winter day. Then the dark chocolate entered her mouth, and the smile grew impossibly sweeter.
Didn’t Finish
I didn’t finish writing the first draft of It Begins. (BTW, I’ve come to despise that title, even for a working doc. It was always meant to be short-termed. I keep waiting for the real thing to pop up.)
Disgust, anger, irritation, and frustration all stopped me from finishing the first draft. This wasn’t working, it wasn’t what I’d envisioned (or anywhere near it) and more, it wasn’t satisfying, winning a prolonged grrrrr from deep in my throat.
WTH and WTF? I kept trying to write around the issue. What was it disturbing me? Didn’t like that beginning, so I added shit. Didn’t like that, so I took it away again. Rearranged chapters. Deleted story lines.
None hit the magic g-spot. Exasperation hounded me like a hungry cat. Finally, and at last, as I was in the bathroom, a huge freakin’ epiphany struck.
First, I want to note that a much of my best epiphanies arrive in the morning while I’m doing my washing, shaving, and dressing. I think that’s because the tedium of routine permits my brain to enter a prolonged idle. The stream of thought calms and new items percolate in.
The second strike of intrigue came as I walked, thought, and then started writing. The epiphany showed me that I was pursuing the wrong tack. But as I reviewed what I’d written in the first takes compared to what I thought that I was writing about, it seemed that my subconscious (through the vessels called muses) was pursuing the correct direction while my conscious mind slaved in the wrong direction.
I’d been thinking that I needed clarity. That’s what I’d been hunting, not a problem with the writing, but clarity about the story that I was trying to tell. Now it feels like clarity has been found.
Hope so, but you know, like many things, a victory is achieved on one day, but the same work is required on another. Which was what I think all my writing efforts demonstrated: I knew something was off, and tried writing through it to a solution. In a roundabout way, that’s what happened as the effort helped my thought process. Guess that’s what fiction writing is about, in the end.
Once my clarify was delivered, I felt like I was suddenly shifting into a new, unknown writing gear. Not surprising, right? That’s what happens when you overcome an obstacle.
Done writing like crazy for the day. Off to other adventures. Cheers
The Access Dream
This dream progressed like I was watching a television show. I knew it was me — it was a twenty-something edition of me — but it was outside of me. The camera showed me and the others in close-ups, panning, wide-shots, etc.
I was outside, part of a growing gathering. It seemed like a fair or something was opening. My wife and some friends were present, queuing to enter.
A few minutes before the gates were due to open, people came out selling access badges. A short, young woman came up to me and sold me a badge, along with several others. The badge looked like a flimsy beige rectangular band-aid. She was talking to several of us simultaneously, selling us badges and telling us to wear them. I joked, “Wear them where?”
She said, “Anywhere.”
I examined it. It was amazingly flexible, thinner than a standard playing card, and about the same size, but it felt unusual in my hand, like it was vibrating. “What if I stick it on my neck?” I did that as I asked. I laughed after asking and glanced around. Others were putting them their shirt chest or their wrist. I thought that was boring.
The sales person shrugged. “Sure, that’ll work. Anywhere will work. Want to buy another?”
“Why would I want another? Doesn’t this give me access to everything?”
“Yes, but it has a time limit. It expires after a day.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I think it’ll be enough for me.”
Stepping closer to me, she replied in a low voice, “You should take more. I’m giving them away for free. The time limit is just what we tell people. The more you have, the greater access you have, but they don’t want everyone to have access.”
“But I can have access? Okay,” I said with a surprised smile. “I’ll take more.”
Giving me several more, she said looked around and then said, “Come find me later. I’ll give you more.”
The dream ended.
Michael Seidel, writer 