I’m a big gulp fan. I usually have one a night. Sometimes, though, if it’s a fresh bottle of a favorite pinot noir or red blend, I’ll have two big gulps, or even three.
An Infuriating Dream
While most of last night’s dreams are strong enough to recall, one dream remains a tantalizing sliver. In it, I was either told or decided – not certain of which – to go to a certain website. The website has four words in its name. The dream is creeping as slowly as the time between since the last season of Game of Thrones, tantalizing me with just…a little…more…about every hour.
Then I’ll stop and think and almost have it, only to lose it.
It’s maddening. Out, out, damn dream.
Flooforous
Flooforous (floofintion) – a pleasant sound made by a housepet.
In use: “Daisy’s flooforous barking announced how happy the golden retriever was to see him.”
Mewincholy
Mewincholy (floofinition) – a housecat’s sound of pensive sadness, often with no discernible cause.
In use: “Sitting in the living room, not far from him as he read his book, his cat released a a deep mewincholy, breaking his focus. “What is it?” he asked, staring at his fur friend. In response, she turned to him and unleashed a softer rendition of the same sound.”
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Once again, a debt is owed to the house clowder for coming up with a song. One cat was briefly absent, prompting me to say, “Where have you gone?” That was enough to let “Good Thing” (1989) by Fine Young Cannibals shoot into the morning stream. The cat turned up almost immediately after I began singing the song. My cats are always curious about me when I start talking, singing, or typing, apparently thinking, “What’s that sound he’s making? I better go check on him to see if he’s okay.”
Eye Drops
Leaning back, he let loose with one drop, shifted to the other eye and let drop again, as he’d done every day for decades.
After a moment, he realized he’d dropped both into his mouth, and laughed. How silly he was getting as he got older.
It wasn’t so funny the next time he did it.
But the third time…well, the third time, it wasn’t even noticed.
Upcoming Women’s Marches
A disturbing new movement is taking place in the opinion of this average white heterosexual male. After watching women of color under the Democratic Party banner win Congressional seats in the mid-terms, stories are emerging about why women shouldn’t march or wear pink during marches, or support and attend these marches. Three different reasons to date have been raised, about women of color not being involved and the marches being too white, about wearing pussy hats because that’s excluding or offending some, and now, the latest, that the group is anti-Semitism. Because of these stories, fewer marches are being planned. This year’s turnout is projected to be much lower.
I suspect that other reasons for not supporting the women’s marches will be raised in the coming days. I’m suspicious that the unification of women and their rise are terrifying the established powers — like the Koch Bros. and the white, male-dominated GOP, groups that prefer that women, no matter their education and accomplishments, their religious beliefs, or color of their skin, need to be kept in their place — and they’re fighting back through a whisper campaign to divide women.
Women’s success in the 2018 elections buoyed my hopes for the future. I love hearing and seeing women raising their voices to promote equality, justice, freedom, and democracy. Men have been dominating our politics since our nation’s founding, and look at the state we’re in. Look at our priorities and how ineffective our government has become at the highest levels.
I hope women keep strong, rally, stay united, and overcome these issues. If not, our country will be set back, yet again, at a time when we really need to push forward. Please, don’t let them break you.
Resist. Fight back. We need to change the status quo.
Mirrored
He had no sense of direction, she noticed, but then she observed other oddities. When he entered a room, if the door was closed on his arrival, he left it open. If the light was off, he turned it on and left it on, and if it was on, he turned it off.
As she realized these things, she also saw that he was always confused about which pull to use on the up/down blinds, lowering them when he meant to raise them, exclaiming, “I don’t know why I can’t remember which one of these to use. I’m always doing this.” Of course you are, she thought without telling him. When she asked him to look right, he looked left, and when he was told to turn right, he often began turning left. Sometimes, she heard him tell something that he’d said as something that she’d said, insisting that the false memory was true.
With these traits piling up, it didn’t surprise her to realize that he always thought that lies were the truth, and that truths were lies. It was, she decided, that he lived in a mirrored world. With that observation, she understood him much better, and could use words to get her way.
And she lived happily ever after…
Love and Time
What about the speed of love? she asked.
Raising his eyebrows, he laughed. You can’t measure love’s speed.
Why not?
Love is beyond classic physics and quantum mechanics. Love exists in a reality of its own. Time bends love, and love bends time, and if you try to understand that, you’ll bend your mind.
She said, The Rolling Stones said time is on our side.
The Rolling Stones were wrong. Time doesn’t take sides.
Michael Seidel, writer 