I was checking the temperature for our area via Wunderground. It said, “104.3 F.” Underneath, it said, “Feels like 78 F”.
We wondered where they were, that they were so optimistically cool.
Feels Like…
Today’s Theme Music
Today’s music, from two thousand eight, is by Lady Gaga. When I hear a song, I try understanding what’s being sung and the words’ meanings. “Poker Face” seemed ambiguous, at once about sex and gambling. I liked the combination because sex and love is a gamble taken, a roll of the dice, and relationships often become efforts in reading others’ expressions to discern agenda, meanings, and truth.
I later read that Lady Gaga wrote the song about her rock and roll boyfriends. That knowledge didn’t answer all my questions about the lyrics. Still, it’s a good song to stream as you beat the street in the heat.
Cynical Me
“Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac.”
George Carlin had it right. I stew behind other drivers, awaiting the day when they will be in a self-driving car, leaving me to self-righteously and serenely pilot my car around the roads the proper way.
I have categories for “them,” the other drivers that irritate me. Probably at the top of my list are bizarro drivers, employing a secret logic for their decisions. “School zone with a speed limit of twenty? I’ll go thirty-three. Residential area with a speed limit of twenty-five? I’ll go thirty-three. Country road where the speed limit increases to thirty-five? I better slow down to twenty-eight.”
WTF? I canna fathom their thinking. I’ve written it before and will do so again, their brains are wired backwards. Further proof of this is how they treat yield and stop signs with the exact opposite behavior directed by the sign, and the law behind the sign. It’s a yield sign, so they’ll stop. It’s a stop sign, so they’ll roll through. When “their lane” is ending, they don’t make an effort to signal, move over, merge and integrate, oh, no, that would be too logical. They just keep going straight, hanging onto their lane until others are forced to give way and let them in.
Arrrrrrr!
Let’s not even consider what the hell happens in traffic circles and parking lots. Both of them are like driving in the Thunder Dome. Add rain to the mix….
What is it with rain that it seems to make so many drivers frantic and more erratic? It’s as though the rain causes them to think, “Which out, it’s raining,” and their backward wired brains trigger the opposite of safe behavior. “It’s raining, let’s speed, and not use turn signals, and drive down the road straddling the dividing lines, because we want to be safe.”
Madness, I tell you, frigging madness. Add in some distraction, and OMG. The distraction need not be much. Construction in progress and police cars with flashing lights going off to one side, I can understand, but why are you slowing down to look at people walking dogs? Have you never seen people and dogs before? Are you looking for missing people or missing dogs? Are you not familiar with creatures walking?
This bizarro behavior afflicts cyclists, too. More than half of the cyclists that I encounter around our little town are on the sidewalks. All those great bike lines and bike paths? They seem to treat them like they’re lava zones that will kill them if they enter.
No, I don’t understand. But then, everyone else is an idiot or a maniac. I’m the only sane nut on the roads.
Routine Changes
I like patterns. I dislike calling them routines.
They probably are routines, or habits. For writing, I go to the same place at roughly the same time every day, and order the same drink. It might also be a habit. As parcel to this pattern, I walk.
Variations exist. I prefer writing in mid- to late-morning, so I tend to arrive between ten and eleven. A musician friend of mine is usually leaving as I arrive, so we have a private comedy routine we engage in about changing shifts, ha, ha. Sometimes, I don’t arrive until early- to mid-afternoon, driven back by other commitments.
I sit in about the same area, but at different tables. Yes, I do have a favorite and try for it.
This was all deliberate. When I began writing in earnest, I needed a structure to encourage discipline. Now the structure is just comfortable, and convenient. By engaging in this process, I free myself to write without letting small details interfere.
None of this is new. What is new is that potential change is crowding the horizon.
This writing location isn’t my first choice. It’s a decent coffee shop, with decent writing vibrations. Service is wonderful and the owners are pleasant, polite people. Prices remain shocking, but that’s the modern world’s nature, what with supply and demand, wages and energy costs. Overall, it works.
I came to this place when my previous writing location abruptly ceased doing business. That forced me into a hunt. I tried every coffee shop in town to begin in search of my new haunt. After narrowing the list down from seventeen to three, I frequented each several times.
I have a set of requirements for my writing place.
- Space to write
- Good writing energy
- Wi-fi
- Good mocha drink – something chocolately, with three or four shots of espresso
- Reasonable prices
- Decent service
- Convenient location
- Clean enough not to be offending
All of this has come up because a new place is to be opened. After three years of inactivity, a new coffee establishment is opening where my previous preference was in business.
Friends familiar with my routines want to know, “Will you start going to the new place?” Well, if it meets my eight needs listed, probably. Right now, this location falls short on good writing energy and convenient location. A little over two miles from home, I often hop in the car, drive closer, and then walk.
This is a compromise. I’m not fond of it. But I have other things to do and can’t always plan to consume that time to walk down there and back.
That’s excuse number one. Excuse number two is weather. We have many days over one hundred degrees in the summer. Winter walking meant enduring rain, snow, ice and wind. It just wasn’t pleasant, and was countering my desire for a walk to shift into the writing mood.
Mind you, my coffee drink’s flavor is important. I’ve tried multiple drinks before deciding that mochas work best for writing. I think that the coffee, sugar and chocolate combo stimulates my creativity and focus.
The new place is much closer. At just under a mile, it’s a fast walk. Variations can be followed to extend the walking time. I found that walk down was perfect for setting the mood to write. Then I could trudge and tramp around afterward to decompress, think and shift back into the real world.
I will try the new business and see if it works. I’ll do back to back comparisons between the two.
Space to write and writing energy are the most critical components. Everything else pales. So we’ll see.
I’m going to do what works for me.
Today’s Theme Music
Trump is attempting to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Some say, including lawmakers, say, “It doesn’t matter, God will save us.”
Better get started with your praying then, because where are you going to run to when the water is rising, and the rivers and seas are boiling? Here’s Nina Simone with her powerful rendition of “Sinnerman” to get things rolling.
Sinnerman, you ought to be praying.
May!
Hey writers, it’s May!
You didn’t know? Sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you. Guess I should have included a spoiler alert.
I’m lovin’ May so far. Here in Ashlandia, the rain has ceased. We’re in a delightfully pleasant crease of weather, greenery, fresh air and blooms. ‘Spring’, some call it.
Whatever, the days are longer and sunshine rich. The furnace didn’t kick on last night, one of the traditional signs of spring arriving here. That warmth, long days and sunshine platter feeds my writing and creative energies, enabling a surge of writing like crazy.
How ’bout you? Do you find the seasons, weather or daylight affects your writing?
Partly Weather
Our weather terminology needs a refresh. It’s partly cloudy today, they say. Walking through it, I agree, but it’s mostly sunny. It’s partly chilly, partly because of that breeze when you’re in a shadow. It’s also partly warm, with a partly warm breeze sneaking in. It looks like it’s mostly spring, but partly summer. It seems like it’s partly March, mostly April, and partly May.
What you experience might be different. That might be partly my fault for telling you what I’ve experienced, but it’s partly your fault for believing me.
Today’s Theme Music
Another song was lined up for today’s theme music but the streaming cortex bumped into shuffle.
Stumbling and mumbling through dream fragments scudding across my thinking, the routines of feeding cats, pondering cold therapy, and contemplating breakfast and rain, a wash of first world self-pity swept me. Out of the melange of thoughts emerged an old familiar:
“Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again – wheel turning around and around. You go back, Jack, do it again.”
Yep, let’s go back, Jack, and do it again. Let’s do it all again. Here’s Steely Dan with ‘Do It Again’ from 1972. Maybe it’ll alleviate some first world rainy Tuesday blues.
Today’s Theme Music
Today’s music is dedicated to Tucker and Pepper.
Tucker is ‘my’ cat. Sick, hungry and lost, he came to us through the smoky summer haze a few years ago. We were in a drought. Wildfires surrounded our valley. Temperatures were running one hundred degrees Fahrenheit plus. Going outside without a mask wasn’t recommended. Two of my cats were dying with cancer, as was one of my best friends. It was a challenging period.
Tucker is sweet but he fights other cats. They know this and fear it. We’re vigilant to keep him away from all of them except Quinn.
Enter Pepper, the long-haired black and nutmeg calico with a black face and green eyes. Pepper lives next door but enjoys our porch. She’s always hanging around the front door. Although she’s well-fed and healthy, she begs for meals. I feed her because, as my my wife claims, I’ve never met a cat who doesn’t need a meal.
Pepper terrifies dogs, raccoons and other cats. She has the battle cry down, loud and furious, like she’s going all ninja cat on them. She rarely fights, issuing the cries and making a lunge or two. It’s enough to intimidate other cats.
Except Tucker. He and Pepper sit side-by-side on the front mat, peaceful and relaxed. Open the door and they lift their heads and look up and back over their shoulders with synchronized perfection.
It seems like a strange little love affair. So for them, from 1972, is Billy Paul performing Me and Mrs. Jones’ on Soul Train.
Another Volunteer
My mental writing garden is such a messy place. I’m a gardener way behind his duties. Books need advertising and publishing in other venues. Finished drafts that have resided in drawers for years require editing, covers, publishing. More books are planned, others in progress. I feel like I never write enough nor do enough. There’s always more.
But into this blow the volunteers, ideas that land and begin sprouting. I already have dozens of those sprouting as potential products. From a conversation last night came another.
We were at dinner at Pie + Vine (I had the pomodoro with chicken – excellent – with a glass of Chianti). A blizzard was blanketing the Ashland evening. We thought we were done with that winter mess but it started raining – snowing – blowing between dazzling displays of sunshine earlier in the day. Now the snow had resolved to be serious. The temperature dropped and the white stuff stuck.
Another couple was with us. They were just back from Hawaii. The plan was to have dinner and catch up and then attend a preview presentation of the OSF production of ‘Shakespeare in Love’. They were talking about properties in Hawaii and asking if we were interested in becoming a fractional owner in one. Then they began speaking about ‘the January tenants’.
OMG, ‘The January Tenants’. Doesn’t that seem like a natural title for a movie or novel? It could be black comedy, mystery, thriller, or a combination of all. How about a YA zombie combination of the rest? Such possibilities were exploding. My writer leaped forward to begin writing up a concept.
“Shhh, shhh, not now,” I told him. “I’m at dinner. I’m socializing. Besides, there are so many other projects ahead of you – get in the queue.”
He wasn’t happy.
Bugger him. Writers are rarely happy, in my experience. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 