Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Nursing a coffee
nursing a care
marshalling thoughts running
like cats
here and there
trying to make a semblance of sense
trying to move into the present tense
on the outside I look to be comfortable and free
on the inside I hope no one else is like me
wrestling emotions cause they’re stealing my soul
wrestling hopes and dreams, writing down goals
another day living, another day spent
another day wondering where time and energy went
Got “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band (1982) stuck in my head. I awoke with the song in my head after a dream. After thinking about the dream, I returned to sleep and dreaming, and then awoke with it again in my head. Then…well, one more time. By then it was almost six thirty.
I don’t know why this song came with those dreams. One dream was about my cat, Tucker. The other two were about playing games. Nothing earthshaking, although the Tucker dream had him being forced to do something. Experts thought they knew what Tucker would do in response to stimuli. I was like, “Nope, you don’t know Tucker.” The big black and white floof ball was becoming annoyed by another cat in the dream, and not distracted by the stimuli. Recognizing the signs, I intervened right before he was ready to pounce on the other animal. When Tucker pounces, it’s not to play.
Hope you enjoy the song and it brings back memories, as it did for me. Remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers
Yes, this song was featured as theme music back in 2016. Four years later, it seems more appropriate.
“Riders on the Storm” by the Doors was released in 1971. I was ninth grade. The baseline, lyrics, and keyboard mesmerized me. I later ended up taking a philosophy in pop culture class in Japan where this song and its line, “Into this word we’re thrown,” was discussed. Ah, good times.
Seems like we’re riding a storm of uncertainty now as much as ever. The song came to me in the middle of the night, when I surfaced out of a dream. While I was reflecting on the dream, the song just rose up as a soft, subtle background. Later, we were out shopping just after sunrise. The song came to me again as I stepped out of the store into the silent parking lot and faced the sun illuminated the valley, mountains, and valley to the north. After I was home, I listened to it.
It’s an evocative tune. Hope you enjoy it. Remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear your mask. Cheers
I awoke in the early hours with a cat tapping at the pet door and a dream lingering in my head. After peeing (my bladder said, “Well, since you’re awake,”) and drinking some water (because I’d just peed, obviously, right?), I returned to bed (after letting the cat back in because it was cold outside). In the moments before falling asleep, I thought about the dream I’d left. In that time, too, my brain started singing, “When you close your eyes and go to sleep, everything about you is a mystery.”
It took a few moments of sleep-fogged thinking to identify it as The Romantics song, “Talking in your Sleep”. I thought it was released sometime in the early 1980s, which led me on a mental chase of other facts from that era to pin it down. (Like, where was I living when I heard that song? Okinawa?)
I looked it up this morning because I needed to know (1983). So, that’s the music for today.
Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers
My subconscious and its dream offerings gave me a laugh this morning. As I emptied the dishwasher, I thought about them, and realized three things emerged from the dreams.
Clichés, am I right? Here’s how it unfolded.
In the beginning… I was preparing to travel. I had a large gray garment bag, which was a problem because there was a small car, being shared with others. I can fold my bag, I thought. But I couldn’t, because…my arm.
Yes, dream logic. It made sense in the dream. Perhaps I’ve lost grasp of some details that made the logic fit. In the dream, though, I thought, yes, I can fold the bag if I can protect my arm. From somewhere (the air?) I found a coil of clear, semi-rigid plastic. I could wrap that around my arm and protect it.
It took a few tries with the coil, but it was finally done. I folded my bag and put it into the back of the hatchback, off we went. Stops ensued. More people joined us. Some left us. I didn’t know any of them. We were just travelers going a common way.
My bag again became an issue. An older woman was trying to fit luggage into the car. My bag dominated. Everything else couldn’t. I told her, “No, just fold it in half.” She wouldn’t. I again went through finding the clear plastic coil, putting it over my arm, covering my arm to my elbow over my shirt, and then folding the bag in half.
I was now at work. I was the new man, not certain of where to sit or my role. But they were expecting me. I was warmly greeted. A boss (a white male) came by to show me where to sit but then was vague on what I was to do. It was something about writing on a computer. We seemed to be a sort of publishing organization.
I went off, doing dream things. When I came back, my stuff was moved. Minor annoyed (and worried, because maybe this was a sign that hiring me was a mistake), I found my stuff, then sought the boss, looking for an assignment. “Just type,” he told me. “Just write.”
About what? I asked back, but he waved me away and went off to do other things. I wandered, asking others what they’re working on but everyone was busy typing. I returned to my desk.
Everything was moved again. That worried me anew. An assistant came by. “Oh, you’re over here, now. We put you over here with like people.”
Following her, I grumbled, “Really? I’ve been moved three times? I haven’t even be here that long.” She laughed. “But three times is a charm, isn’t it?” Then she showed me my new space. It was much larger, cleaner, and…well, newer, than the other places. Not that they’d been bad, but this was a huge improvement.
Pleased, I sat down. My co-workers greeted me, which is where that segment ended.
I was next at another work office. As part of our routine, we were to play at mock fencing. That’s about the only way I can summarize it. I understood it in the dream — it was a long-standing tradition — but outside of the dream context, it makes little sense. I was searching for the right weapon to use in a duel. Pointed sticks were available, but I thought that would hurt others. I tried fashioning a foil out of tin, but it was flimsy and failed. Someone suggested I use a pencil. I wouldn’t, as I worried about lead breaking off under someone’s skin.
The boss (a white woman) needed to leave for an appointment. She had clients with her. I wanted to duel her. She was willing but we couldn’t find suitable weapons, and the clients were there. I began helping her with the clients, just retrieving stuff as she called it out. During this process, I came across areas thick with spider webs and cobwebs. As clients were there, I surreptitiously cleaned them up. Looking more sharply, I realized that such webs were all over the place. I decided, as soon as the clients leave, I was going around and cleaning them all away.
The end.
It’s a cold, wet, chilly, dull, day. Yeah, I know that cold and chilly seem redundant. I think the day calls for it.
Like, where is the sun? Out there somewhere, I surmise from ambient lighting. Just not breaking through. Not warming us up.
We’ve been wanting rain, so complaints are moot. We’ve been enjoying an October and November warm spell. I like that expression, ‘warm spell’. It was in the low seventies here last week, down into the mid forties at night with, as Alexa puts it, “a lot of sunshine throughout the day”.
Of course, we needed rain and wanted rain. Actually need snow to build up our Cascades snowpack. The snowpack is our summer water supply.
But I’m a ranter (which reminds me of the ol’ Dr. Pepper commercial, “I’m a ranter, he’s a ranter, she’s a ranter, wouldn’t you like to be a ranter, too?”). With that done, naturally, my head turned to music. What music speaks to me from this weather and this rant?
Why, the Rascals with their 1968 song, “People Got to Be Free”. Yeah, that makes total sense. Who else do you think of when all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, right?
I think the Rascals song arrived via a Venn splice in my mental stream, where dreams, current events, and music came together. One dream featured a 1968 Camaro. I had one, once, pushing the nostalgia buttons. That may’ve called the song up on the mental shuffle.
Politically speaking, the song fits the times.
You should see, what a lovely, lovely world this would be
If everyone learned to live together
It seems to me such an easy, easy thing this would be
Why can’t you and me learn to love one another
All the world over, so easy to see
People everywhere just wanna be free
I can’t understand it, so simple to me
People everywhere just got to be free
Ah, ah, yeah . . . ah, ah, yeah
If there’s a man who is down and needs a helping hand
All it takes is you to understand and to see him through
Seems to me, we got to solve it individually
And I’ll do unto you what you do to me
h/t to Metrolyrics.
These are, of course, socialist thoughts that progressives like me push, that so many others fear. Helping others? Everyone equal and free? Why, how barbaric.
Have you read this far? Then, thanks. Have a good one. And wear a mask, please. For all of us. Merry Christmas.
What, too early?
Not much thought to today’s choice. (Like there’s ever much thought behind my song choices, right? Right.)
Cats aren’t involved in this one. My dreams are. Multiple dreams, all very uplifting. In one, a man gave me a bag, telling me, “These are for you.” Inside were gold coins. Must’ve been hundreds, and all shone like Coronado’s gold. I was so happy and pleased and excited. “Why did you give me this?” I asked the man, but he was gone. Another guy came up, though, and surprised me with a gift of gold ingots. It blew me away. “Oh my God, what I can do to help the world with this.” My head was spinning.
But it wasn’t over, as another arrived with gold jewelry. Without saying a word, he put it in my bag. Gaping as I took it in, I said, “I have gold coins, ingots, and jewelry in this bag.” He answered, “Yes, you have it all.”
See what I mean about uplifting?
So, puttering into the morning, feeding the three fur beasts and dressing, I hummed a remembered song that drifted into awareness. It turned out to be “Ventura Highway” by America from 1975.
Ventura Highway in the sunshine
Where the days are longer
The nights are stronger than moonshine
You’re gonna go
I know-uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh
‘Cause the free wind is blowing through your hair
And the days surround your daylight there
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air
h/t to Genius.com
Those lines are uplifting to me, like my hopes.
Like my dreams.
My dreams of late are circling a depressing track of not being seen, not being heard, confused identity, missed opportunities… I suspect it’s a lack of proper external stimulation, beyond vicariously encountered through the net and television. Although I often live like a hermit — it’s a function of who I am — I do enjoy and need some social stimulation. I’m otherwise trapped in my own woods, and the trees close in.
The first song slipping into my conscious stream today was “I Wanna Be Around”. This sixties pop music staple inundated television and radio throughout my early youth. Versions by Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Aretha Franklin, and others drifted through. Most of my fixation was on the lines, “I wanna be around to see how he does it, when he breaks your heart to bits. Let’s see if the puzzle fits so fine.”
After playing that loop out, M
Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” (1985) entered the stream. I thought it a better theme song for today.
Take these broken wings
And learn to fly again, learn to live so free
When we hear the voices sing
The book of love will open up and let us in
h/t to Genius.com
Yes, it’s a repeat — I may have done it twice before — but it suits my rutty mood. Hope your days and world is going better. Please wear a mask. Survive. Endure. Thrive.
Cheers
A night of intense but entertaining dreams had finished. The day was beginning with the emptying of the bladder and the feeding of the cats. They’d surrounded me and, despite bowls of kibble, were claiming starvation.
The activities engaged are the automatic sort, not much thinking required, leaving me free to ponder the dreams. That led to a Queensryche line from “Silent Lucidity” (1991):
“Your dream is over… or has it just begun?”
I mean, my dreams had been unfathomably lucid, where I as myself in my dream was interviewing the me having the dream, about a dream which was still taking place. So, I ponder, were there three dream version of me happening simultaneously, which led now to the conscious ‘real’ me pondering those three dream people? Or was this another dream?
Here’s the music.
Michael Seidel, writer 