Tag: change

And Again, and Again, and Again

He talks to his wife across the house,

demanding answers that she doesn’t give.

She doesn’t hear him, and he gets mad,

again, and again, and again.

He trips on the cat in the dark,

and curses the cat for not learning.

He goes the same way, every time,

again, and again, and again.

He leaves the lights on and the water running,

and complains about the waste,

and argues about whodunit,

again, and again, and again.

He sleeps the same times,

and does the same things,

eats the same food,

and complains the same ways.

Goes to the same places,

listens to the same tunes,

watches the same tube,

and hears the same news.

Then he complains that nothing changes?

Again, and again, and again.

 

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The Leather Jacket Dream

Last night’s dreams were a crowded, cluttered mess of happenings and objects. They began with a leather jacket.

Someone gave me a black leather jacket as a gift. I was taken back. The gift wasn’t expected. Its style was not the style that I prefer (yeah, aren’t I the fashion plate (snort, right!)). It wasn’t the highest quality (indeed). But it was a gift. I was drilled by parents and wife to be gracious about accepting gifts. Don’t mock or deride them, but accept with gratitude.

Smiling, I accepted the jacket and began wearing it. The fit was better than expected, and I looked good. Within a few minutes, I find myself surprised that I genuinely liked the jacket. Going back to the one who’d given it to me, I thanked them with more enthusiasm.

You know what? I never saw anything of the person giving me the jacket. If I did, it’s wiped from memory.

Shifting in the way that my dreams frequently do — without a true transition — I found me and my wife in a new place. Guess what? Yeah, I was back in the military. I amused me in my dream that I was dreaming about the military again because it’s such a recurring pattern in my dreams. I also told myself in my dream, go with it. See where it goes.

My wife and I were sharing a large apartment with two other families. None of them were in the military. We each had a bedroom with a bathroom. The place was bedlam. My uniform was wrinkled, so I needed to press it but had to find the iron and board. A hundred things were going on, with people unpacking, sorting stuff, strewing it around, and also dressing and leaving for appointments.

With my uniform pressed, I went to shower. The largest bathroom had towels, toiletries and clothing strewn everywhere. It appalled me. I thought, even if they have so little regard for others ability to use the facilities, have they no sense of order and tidiness?

I considered tidying the bathroom but returned to my bedroom and discovered a clean but small bathroom. The problem with it was that windows allowed anyone to look in and watch me from multiple places. I discussed this with my wife. She thought only one vantage allowed others to look in, so I could shift and stay hidden. I pointed out an entire set of other windows where people could see me. But, I decided, screw them. Let them look if they wanted.

I showered and shaved without issue. Then I heard noises outside. Green towel wrapped around my waist, I went out to investigate. Somehow, I became disoriented and began wandering. Then I lost my towel.

Again, amusement struck me in my dream. We’re employing that cliché? Mais qui, bien sûr. Okay.

Now, I’m naked but still wet, and outside. Fortunately, this was the young version of me, when I was slender and fit.

Buses were arriving. Uniformed airmen were piling out. I kept walking around, trying to figure out where the hell my place was.

I wasn’t embarrassed. I knew what stripes I had, and the authority and respect they command. I’d learned how to wear them, and I was metaphorically wearing them while walking naked back to my place. Go ahead, I mentally encouraged the crowds and lines of airmen that I passed. Say something. I dare you. None did.

Without fanfare, I found my way and returned to my place, entered, and began dressing, which is where the dream ended.

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

John Mayer sang about his frustrations with the world and the pace of change, and the difficulty associated with it, back in 2006 in a song called “Waiting On the World to Change”.

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would’ve never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would’ve never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Read more: John Mayer – Waiting On The World To Change Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Pretty well sums up my frustrations as well.

 

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Public Service Announcement

Hear ye, hear ye, attend all ye interested in this news.

Anal bleach is now available at Walmart.

I find this news amazing for two reasons: one, who wants to bleach their a-hole? How do you reach that point, when you wake up one morning and think, time to bleach my a-hole? I can’t ever imagining awakening to that morning.

Then, they probably think, well, where do I get a-hole bleach?

Mind, I don’t know if that’s what it’s called. I don’t know what you say when you’re in Walmart and can’t find the a-hole bleach. What do you ask an associate? “Excuse me, can you tell me where the a-hole bleach would be?” Or do they already have them up on the little signs that tell you what’s in the aisle?

My number two to all of this is, a-hole bleaching is now so mainstream that Walmart is selling it.

Of course, I remember the ruckus raised when women modeled brassieres in the Sears catalog. It made the news!

A-hole bleach at Walmart didn’t make the news. Guess it wasn’t newsworthy. My wife read about it on some post. She shares my shock that people are bleaching their a-holes and the stuff to do it is sold at Walmart’s. It’s all about our age, culture, mores, and norms. Somehow, we just don’t think a-hole bleaching is going to turn out to be a good thing, but that circles back to our A-C-M-N, doesn’t it? I guess it’ll be real news when you can buy it at your local grocery store.

I think I’m going to go vape some green and think about what it all means.

 

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The Silent Dream

I dreamed I was walking on a sidewalk by a city street. It seemed familiar. Across the street was a cemetery. Heavy, old trees protect the graves and mossy, tilted head stones. Squirrels, jays, and robins dash around the cemetery lawn. The grass is high and rich with tiny, white flowers. I can see that the wind is blowing.

As I notice the waving grass and tree branches, I realize that I don’t hear anything. That disturbs me. It’s unnerving. I’m walking, and cars are passing, but it’s all a silent movie. I see birds but I don’t hear them. A jet flying overhead leaves chemtrails but not sound.

Turning a corner, I come up on an intersection and watch others walking and talking. They seem to be hearing. Cars and trucks pass without a sound. Red, amber, and blue lights flashing, a firetruck silently passes.

The wind grows stronger, and it’s more difficult to walk or even stand. I can feel the sun’s warmth on me. In fact, I feel too hot, and sweat sheathes my back. Ah, so not all of my senses are affected. I can feel heat and the wind, and I see everything going on.

Turning into the wind, I test my sense of smell. Rich odors of burning marijuana, baked goods, cut grass, exhaust gases, and wet earth reach me. I smile as I smell them. Relief creeps in. I can smell things. I’m only not hearing. Why can’t I hear?

A weird epiphany that the wind of change is blowing strikes me. As I stand and think about that, I suddenly hear everything going on. It was like the world had been muted, and now it was un-muted. Listening, I walk back toward the intersection.

So the dream ends, with me standing at the intersection, listening and watching everything around me, and thinking. When I awaken, I stay in bed, thinking and listening, going through a memory of the dream.

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April Showers

I picture April showers of stars at night, 

of singing people and loving sights.

Hopes of April showers of good luck,

keep me going when I feel stuck.

I remember April showers of another time,

when I was young and thought the world would be mine.

I want for April showers when people are less of a dick,

where we help each other

and stop being angry and sick.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

The season change has prompted thoughts of dancing, you know, dancing to change, dancing to the joy of warming weather, rising greenery, leaves on trees, and blooming flowers and buds. A lot of good dance songs exist but I turned to “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy. It came out in 2005, fourteen years ago, so does that make it an oldie? How long must a song be out before it’s an oldie, a golden oldie, and a classic? Any thoughts?

2

A Modified Process

I live now with a catheter in my bladder, draining my urine into a bag that I drain several times a day. I have a night bag and a leg bag. The holding bags and their tubes offer their own challenges about swapping and draining them. Given the catheter’s retention location on my upper thigh, it also makes bowel movements an interesting exercise. Bending and walking are also problematic.

Getting the catheter in was an experience. Living with it is another. Having it helps me respect the medical events and treatments that people endure. I’ve had it good as such things go. Although they sound like they’re something — broken and displaced wrist, broken neck, stitches in my skull, ear lobe stitched back on, hernia, toe-tip cut off by a lawnmower, bronchitis, mono, broken ankles, broken teeth, etc. — they’re small things in the greater order of existence and endurance. Better, they’re temporary, with end dates.

Our warfare kills on large, constant scales, and the warfare results in people without limbs, scarred by burns, and shattered by trauma. Many people endure chronic or terminal diseases, relentless illnesses that erode their strength and energy, chipping away from who they were and what they could do, haunting them until they’re dead. Others are abused and betrayed, resulting in destroyed mental and emotional faculties. Others are born with handicaps and genetic deficiencies. I’m fortunate. My afflictions are short-lived and allow me to observe and learn from them.

This catheter is expected to be in me seven to ten days. It impacts my writing process because I can’t walk as I’ve done for lo these several years. Yet, I have to write. I must find a way to sit down and put words into the computer. I’ve not written in four days. The need doesn’t go away. It builds as the muses feed ideas that I explore. Scenes explode into my mindscape. Dialogue is heard.

I originally developed the write and walk process to enable my writing efforts in my military career’s final year. I expanded on it when I was working for startups, and then for Tyco and IBM, the companies that swallowed the startups, carving out time for myself and putting writing as a higher priority in my daily to-do list. I needed a process to remove me from sales, marketing, and product development, and put me in a frame of thinking to create fiction.

A new process is needed because the dream and desire to write remains. Got my hot tea. I’m in my home office. A cat is snoring nearby. Another is asleep on my feet. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Nathaniel Taylor, an actor who I knew from his role as Rollo on “Sanford and Son”, passed away a few days ago. He was eighty.

Many actors, politicians, writers, and sports and rock stars have passed away throughout my lifetime, along with cats, friends, family members, and people that I didn’t know. Some of them were killed in ways that we don’t like to think about.

Nathaniel Taylor’s death was another death. We all understand that death is gonna get us. Now, what happens beyond the door that death opens, well, we don’t know. We have a lot of theories, and we think that we have intangible proof that once we die, that’s it, game over. Then again, many ancient people believed that the sun revolved around the Earth, until we learned how to prove otherwise.

The death of someone who acted on a show when I was young triggered a stream of thought about how time seems to pass and prompted me to think, wow, 1969 was fifty years ago. Ain’t that somethin’?

Not really, right? It’s as arbitrary as weather in March, 2019, predictable but still surprising. Thinking ’bout all that nonsense kindled reflections on the music from then. Pop goes the song and out came the Rolling Stones with “Honky Tonk Women”.

Seems ’bout right.

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The M.B. Dream

Someone from my past returned to me in a dream last night. They were helping me build a new home.

First, my wife and I discovered a place where we wanted to live. We were just out in another town having fun on a clear and sunny, pleasant day. We came across the house by accident. Partially constructed and all white with many arches, it struck us as gorgeous. We purchased it on the spot, eschewing all the standard real-estate requirements for buying a house. Excited, she went off with friends to move us to our new home, and I finished building it.

That’s when M.B. showed up. I haven’t seen him since 1990. M.B. was a friend, at first. We were assigned to the same squadron in Germany. A year older than him, I was a few ranks above him, and he was in a different section, but he lived across the street from me in military housing.

He was an interesting guy. Incredibly strong and athletic, his hand-eye coordination was fantastic. But he soon demonstrated unlimited arrogance, no empathy, poor communication and interpersonal skills, and was short on discipline and intelligence. He claimed to be an expert in everything and disparaged everything. We soon found out how little he knew, but since he didn’t want to admit that, he never learned. Besides all that, he was a reckless braggart. People were soon avoiding him. Although I tried being his friend, I began avoiding him. Being around him was exhausting.

It was surprising that he was in my dream, then. Not only that, but he was vastly changed and helpful. We worked on the house together. He knew what he was doing. The final touch was putting on a new front door. After going out and getting a door for us, surprising me, M.B. worked on squaring and installing it. I wanted to help but I was delayed by other things happening, and couldn’t assist. Then he had to leave. He left me with guidance on how to finish hanging the front door.

I was just beginning to do that when M.B. my wife and friends showed up with our furniture. Several of the guys helped me finish the front door and install it. I then began calling people on my cell phone to tell them we had moved. My first call was to our current neighbor. She asked, “Where did you move to?” I said, “Jacksonville.”

That was the first time that I realized that I was in Jacksonville, a small town a short drive from here.

The dream ended.

 

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