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Daily Goals

“What are your goals today?”

It was the female without an accent asking. Accents and the apparent sexes their voices displayed were the only way of identifying the daily taskmasters. Identifying was a weak expression, as they remained nameless and without form.

He scratched and swallowed. He needed to get up and drink water but also pee. Was that ironic? No, coincident.

Goals. “I want to get up and pee.” That would get him no points but they didn’t remonstrate him. Still, sharp past responses made him moderate his approach.

“Write, of course,” he said.

“You always do that,” she said.

Did he imagine that she sighed? “Still counts,” he said.

Silence answered. They weren’t pleased.

He said, “Wash, vacuum, and gas the cars.”

A male overseer said, “Good,” with boredom as thick as flies on shit.

“Yard work.”

“Hmmm.”

“Finish reading a book.”

“Oh.” The female. “What book?”

“Donna Leon, The Waters of Eternal Youth”. 

“Very good.” Happiness seemed to shower him. “That’s a good goal. Good luck.”

He was released. Opening his eyes, he sat up. Of all that he’d said, what would most count was reading the book. That was his number one priority. He was hungry and needed enough points to get a decent meal. He sensed that if he failed to read the book,  they’d punish him.

Draining his bladder in the water closet, he snorted and chortled. His mind was a strange overseer.

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On A Beach

embalmed with denigration

drowning in clichés

paralyzed with expectations

frustrated by delays

 

harpooned with envy

mesmerized by guilt

sucked into disappointment

sunken in the silt

 

riding all the waves

hoping in belief

searching for the way

getting stuck on a beach

 

4

Writing Interrupted

Ready for a rant of self-pity and exasperation? It’s all about me. Yeah, you’ve been warned.

So, sick. Nothing threatening like a terminal disease, just a trifecta of irritations, a head cold, the flu, and then a kidney stone. With each, I thought, this will pass, and then I prayed that the last one, the kidney stone, passed fast (which it seems to have done).

Three weeks mostly killed except for a few days when I caved to the obligation to defy my body, throwing ripples of confusion and discontinuity into my carefully constructed writing existence. I could little practice the rituals of writing, of  walking to clear my mind, establishing a mental framework for walling myself into a solitary zone where I coexist with word storms, of ordering coffee and sitting down to tap, tap, tap, forwards and backwards, creating and correcting, of staring out windows and trying to understand WTF the muses are trying to tell me.

Illness didn’t slow my inner writer and army of muses. Death might slow them down, but not minor illnesses. They came in waves, expecting to be released or entertained. That doing nothing routine was unacceptable, a position strengthened because my illness habits called for me to read, sleep, dream, awaken, and read, punctuated by episodes of eating, drinking tea, and the sickness processes that my body demanded in which it hurled things out. Nothing like reading to calm the writer, right? Wrong.

Perhaps, worse of all, was the limited coffee. My taste buds warred with the coffee’s flavor. Variations failed. Spiced herbal teas were substituted, but they’re not coffee, ya know?

All of that seems cleared away today. Did my walk. Got my coffee. It still doesn’t taste right, but I’ll work through it. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Failing and Rising

Failing and rising, you select a place in the curl and fall on your ass, get back up and try again

hunting balance, trying to keep the ride going or find another one

but the winds die and fall, and the seas grow tranquil

leaving you becalmed and lost

you can wait for the next wave or you can paddle out to meet them

pushing yourself to find a wave to ride

failing and rising, paddling and jumping up, striving to get your balance and keep riding

crashing and going under, afraid that you’ll never come up again

getting up and trying again

riding in search of a beginning

and end

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The Selection Dream

There I am, in a bathroom with George Clooney.  We’re dressed in matching outfits: tight white shorts that end in mid-thigh, black knee-high socks, and blue Oxford shirts open at the collar.

I’m watching us from one side. That perspective never changes. The bathroom doesn’t have a fourth wall because we’re on a movie set. Clooney is filming and waiting to go out, and I’m sitting on the commode with the seat down, reading a book. He’s doing a series of scenes that requires him to go out, react to something or throw off a one-liner, and then return. We speak between scenes but I have no idea what was said.

The dream was about that quick, too. With a flick of the dream selector, I was now on another set. On this one, a woman in a sparkling silver suit escorted me to a man in a tuxedo at a control panel. Behind us was a huge wall of large monitors.

I was in a spotlight. The impression that I had was that I was on a television game show, which confused me. I asked about it, and the man and woman clarified, “No, this is your dream selection headquarters.”

Between the two of them working as a team, I was told, “What kind of dream would you like tonight? Prophecy, zombies, monsters, disasters, school, alien interaction, offbeat humor, adventure or thriller episodes, something mysterious or new-age? Name it, we have everything.”

My confusion remained too deep for a quick response. I needed to validate what I thought was happening. “I’m in a dream but in this dream, you’re giving me the option of choosing what to dream?”

The man and woman laughed. The woman said. “You act like you’ve never been here before.”

“Have I?”

“You come here every night,” she said.

The man said, “Yes, usually several times.”

“Why I don’t remember that?”

The man said, “It’s your dream. You decide what to forget.”

I was left then thinking about my recent streak of dreams. They’d been of the episodic adventure type. Sometimes I’m not even apparently in them but watch as others act and react. Then I asked, “If I can choose what to dream, why have I made the dream decisions that I did?”

Looking amused, the man and woman shrugged. “What can I say?” the man said. “They’re your dreams. You decide where you go.”

Dream end.

 

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Reflooftive

Reflooftive (floofinition) – a person’s behavior imitating a pet’s action; a housepet’s efforts to imitate or duplicate people’s behavior.

In use: “The morning became a reflooftive routine. First, when the dog stretched, she dropped down and stretched like him, wiggling her butt like he wagged his tail. Then, when she went into her yoga routine, he joined alongside her, stretching and putting his leg over his head. It always made her laugh.”

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Amendment

I’m fighting waste and ageism wherever I find it and have realized an amendment is in order. 

I think everyone is familiar with the five-second rule. To ensure we’re addressing the same rule, the five-second rule states that food items dropped on the floor can still be consumed if they can be retrieved before five seconds expire.

This discriminates against older people. Our elders can often encounter problems bending over and picking things up. Hell, just noticing that they dropped something can take several seconds.

Therefore, I’m proposing an amendment to the five-second rule. Individuals over fifty-five years of age will be allotted one extra second to the five-second-rule.

Examples: a person of sixty years of age will have an additional five seconds. That gives them ten seconds to notice they dropped food, find it, pick it up, and eat it. Someone who is seventy will have an extra fifteen seconds (twenty in total).

Of course, if you’re over one hundred, you can take all the time you want, sugar.

The floor is open for discussion.

2

Manifested

Done for the day, he packed up and walked toward the front door. Seeing Gwen, he veered toward her. Looking up, she said, “Hi, how’re ya?”

“Good.” He stopped at Gwen’s table. “You?”

“The sun’s mostly shining, it’s mostly warm, so I’m good.”

“How’s your car search?”

“Great.” She looked tired around her mouth and her eyes but Gwen grinned. “I was driving down Phoenix Avenue yesterday afternoon. I was thinking of a gold Toyota Camry, and when I stopped at the red light, I looked to the left, and there was a gold Camry for sale in an empty lot on the corner.”

“Wow.”

“I turned and went in there. The owner had just parked it. He’d literally just put it up for sale and was going to go home and post it to eBay. He wanted two thousand. He’s a mechanic and always took care of the car and had all the receipts, and he’d redone the interior.”

“Sounds good.”

“Then, when I was talking to him, he said he was asking two thousand but he liked me so he’d let it go to me for fourteen hundred.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m so pleased that I manifested that for myself. I had a need and I manifested it. And it has a name. He calls the car Goldie.” She showed him a picture of a clean but older gold Camry.

“Good for you, I’m happy for you,” he said. “Congratulations.” As she smiled at him, he said, “I have to go now.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Congratulations again.”

“Thanks.”

“See you later. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He walked out into the sunlight and paused to think about the conversation, smiling as he realized that Journey’s song, “Don’t Stop Believin'”, had been playing in the background during their conversation.

Inhaling, he looked up at the sun. It was a beautiful day, a little chilly but boldly sunny. Spreading his wings, he rose into the sky and disappeared.

3

Should You Tell Your Friend They’re Bad at Writing?

Always difficult to address this question. I would have once said, “Tell the truth.” Morals, ethics, integrity, and that shit. But I’ve since thought, this is a Schrodinger situation, innit? It’s a thought experiment that their writing is bad today but it could be better next week, next month, next year. Or bad writing may become the new vogue. I’d rather keep the friendship. I don’t know how the the writing will be when tomorrow is opened.

Meg Dowell's avatarMeg Dowell Writes

So you have this friend. You value them enough to respect them and avoid hurting their feelings as much as possible.

You and this friend continuously bond over the fact that you’re both writers. It’s not the primary reason you get along, but it’s nice to have someone to “talk about writing” with, and a solid reminder that you aren’t the only one struggling to put ideas into words and make those words accessible to the masses.

You’ve gotten to the point in your “writing relationship” where you both are willing to swap prose knowing you’re good enough friends that each will receive honest feedback without resentment — a great place to be, as far as writing relationships go.

There’s just one problem.

When your friend emails you a piece of their manuscript-in-progress, you sit down, open it up, get a few sentences in and realize …

It’s bad.

Like…

View original post 944 more words

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Genius Drinks

So you know that they’ve come out with Genius Coffee. It’s about time, innit? But, I hasten to inquire, where is our genius booze? I’d like to walk into my fav beverage hangout and ask for a Genius IPA.

Wouldn’t it be excellent if McDonald’s and Wendy’s began selling genius milkshakes? (Picture those television commercials.) Have a Genius Coke with your Jack? Prefer a Genius Red Bull? No doubt we’d need to have genius wine, vodka, tequila, to be fair, along with genius water, for those who don’t partake.

Maybe, then, if all these genius beverages work, we can make progress on what humanity is doing to each other and the rest of the world. Doubts force me to say, probably not. More likely, some will declare, “I don’t trust geniuses, so why should I swallow a genius drink?”

I don’t blame them. I’d be dubious of genius drinks. God knows what I’d learn about myself that I’ve worked so hard to hide.

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