The Goal
I’m swearing about modern technology again. It’s all so easy, so taken for granted, they have groomed me to complain.
Today’s target is my Fitbit. It needs recharged, again. Every few days, this takes place. I wear the thing almost 24/7, removing it only to save it from the showers. The rest of time finds it hugging my right wrist, monitoring my activity. Sure, it sends me an email when it needs recharged. That email arrives at 1:30 to 2:00 AM. I supposed, if I’m more rigorously disciplined and attentive, I can train myself to check it each night when I’ve reached my goal and see how much remains on the charge. Yeah, I could, but I’m lazy.
“It wouldn’t need to be recharged so much if you didn’t keep using it,” my wife observes.
A growl is given back. This is not time for humor. Charging the fitbit means removing it from my wrist and waiting while it charges. While it charges, I’m not collecting steps. My goal each day is twelve miles. It’s a new goal every morning, achieved every night. No, I haven’t walked it, didn’t run it, swim it, bike it; it’s an accumulation of twelve miles of activities, twelve miles achieved each day, something tangible.
Writing is different. I use word counts as mileposts but they don’t matter. I may have added words but the novel isn’t finished. I’m not certain how close to being done it is. I have guesses which makes sense, but I know, even when it’s ‘done’, it isn’t done. It needs revised and edited. Even then, it’s not done. It’s not published, not finalized in some concrete form. Until it reaches that final moment, it remains a work in progress. It’s like going from Earth to Mars; it’s gonna take a while.
So, I pursue my twelve miles every day, a goal established each morning, something achieved each night, something to make me feel good, damn it.
Crushing It
The Fitbit buzzed. “Time to move!”
Well, he had to feed the cats anyway as they were delivering their most intimidating laser stares. He walked into the other room, opened a cat, spooned the food in, and set the bowls down.
The Fitbit buzzed. “Crushed it!”
“Crushed it. I sure did.” The man was being sarcastic. He’d used thirty seconds and what, twenty movements?
“I don’t think so,” one cat said with a glance up.
“No.” The second sniffed with disdain. “You didn’t ‘crush’ it.”
“Right,” said the third. “We could have fed ourselves, if we had thumbs.”
Nodding, the cats resumed eating. Muttering at them, the man returned to us chair.
Talk about crushing it; someone had, and it wasn’t him.
Thursday’s Trinkets
- Feels like a Saturday. Odd, for me. I haven’t worked for a company where I kept a schedule for several years. You’d think the days of the week would’ve lost their feel by now.
- How does Saturday feel? Less structured. Freer. More relaxed and less stressed. Comfortable as a pair of your favorite shoes. Full of expectation that something good is just about to happen.
- Mood was dark earlier in the week. Ah, the standard black cycle. Went into a snarling depression. Thinking about what/how to write a scene, I sulked. ‘Thoughts went, I’ll be sixty-five years old next year, struggling to finish a novel. Written fifteen. Published four on Amazon to no great success. Agents are barely interested in what I submit to them, and I don’t pursue getting published with any great energy. Why am I wasting my time with this shit?’ Then I went mumbling away, did some other things, and thought, oh, this is what happens, and went back and resumed writing. Mine is a fickle mind, probably like most people. The fact is, I enjoy writing, and employing my imagination to create puzzles for my mind to solve, then scrambling to find he words. That’s writing, innit?
- Some of the week’s hours were spent helping my wife. She belongs to an exercise class. They meet every MoWedFri at nine AM via Zoom. Pre-COVID, it was an hour earlier at a gym. The instructor has been teaching this class for forty years, and my wife has been going for fifteen. We’ve made many friends through the class, including the instructor and her hubby. The class also launched my wife’s book club. Each year for Christmas, the class members take up a collection and sign a card for the instruction. Well, hard to do that this year. So I set up a private Gofundme for them. We worked with the Y on a letter that was sent to the members. Then I created an eighteen inch by thirty inch prop check for my wife to use to present the collection to the instructor. The prop came out okay, although elements reminded me of a fifth-grade project. But we had to use what we had on hand. It’s the thought that counts, right? The class took up over eleven hundred dollars. Knowing the instructor and her hubby, who aren’t in need, they’ll share it with others who are in need. They’re quite generous people.
- Setting up the Gofundme was extremely easy. It impressed me with how simple it was. Which had been my impression, leading to why I helped my wife. She and her friends were thinking it was technical and required computer savvy. It doesn’t.
- Reading Bill Bryson’s book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants. It’s rich with history and details. Great expanding knowledge. I’m not as intimate with my body’s functioning as I’d like to be. That’s one reason why I selected this book as a read. As I’ve aged and endured some minor health issued (enlarged prostate gland, broken arm, high blood pressure), I wanted to know more details about myself. I’ve been reading on the net, pursuing symptom after symptom, organ after organ, getting more granular with processes and functions. I suspect many people take up the same pastime of learning more about their body as they age. I keep thinking that I should’ve paid more attention when I was younger. You know, before things began giving me problems, right?
- Ran into a friend at the grocery store. I was checking out, he was coming in. About eight AM on Wed. We were both masked and had hats on. I said, “Pat.” He stopped in front of me, six feet away, and stared. “Who is that?” “Seidel.” “Michael!” A smile lit his eyes. “Didn’t know you. Hat. Mask.” We chatted for about ten seconds, and then pressed on. Not great socializers, either one of us, but it was pleasant encountering him.
- Watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom last night. Fraught with dialogue, tension, and foreshadowing, the film kept me focused. Strong characters…well, strong in every area and value. Viola Davis is on the shortlist of actors that always shade my opinion of a movie. If she’s in it, I’m more likely to be drawn to watching it. All that I’ve seen her in, she impresses me. Chadwick Boseman had also joined the list so it was crushing to hear of his death. Gotta say again, though, white people are often cruel, greedy assholes. Which, as a white person, pisses me off.
- It’s been a windy week. My cats DO NOT LIKE WIND. Tucker refuses to leave the house. His position is fine with me; he’s safer in the house. Boo the house panther likes to go out in the morning for a few hours in the back yard (if there’s sunshine) and an hour in the evening on the front porch. Papi, though, (aka the ginger boy, Youngblood, and Meep) despises the wind. He goes out the back and returns to the front, banging on to get back in. Does this six to eight times a day. Bored in the house but too bothered by the wind (and the cold) to stay out. Poor boy. I wrote about his feelings about the wind last month in The Despised Wind.
- My Fitbit report said that I did eighty-seven miles last week, three less than the week before. I thought, bullshit. I don’t know how that thing counts. Yes, I know the principles they employ; I’m just dubious of the results. Still, I keep trying to maintain a twelve-miles-a-day average. Need some sort of goal to focus.
- Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. Happy holidays, whatever one it is which you recognize or celebrate. Remember, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, social distance, and get the vaccine. Cheers
Friday’s Fumbles
- Well, the Pittsburgh Steelers lost. Not completely unexpected. A loss isn’t the end of the world. Now riding eleven wins and one loss, they should have won the game. They had a lead, blew it, and then couldn’t come back, leading to a lot of teeth grinding on my part. What’s most disturbing is that the issues that fans like me were worrying about (the inability to execute the run game, dropped passes, offensive predictability) bit them as expected, the second week in a row. This time, they couldn’t overcome it. The question before Sunday’s game against Buffalo: can they address these issues? They have their #1 RB back, and DeCastro to the lineup. Those two things should help. Over on Defense, though…injuries thin the roster. It’s a hold-your-breath game this weekend. Most experts are predicting a Steelers loss. Which pleases me, as they seem to play better as underdogs.
- The lawsuit to overturn the results in four states disturbs me. It’s being led by Republicans who always insisted that states’ right are paramount, on behalf of a president who always insisted that states’ rights are paramount. Their rank hypocrisy and desperation to overturn the democratic process is revolting.
- Meanwhile, the writing days are going great. Always uplifting to have that going. Not going fast as thoughts are weeded, characters formed, pacing is monitored, and the story is honed. Very rewarding, though, satisfying. Writing for me is often creating and then solving complex logic problems, over and over again, and that’s fun. I hope I’m not jinxing myself by putting this out there.
- We helped some folks out with an online order. It’s an interesting situation. These people are twenty-three years older than me. Grandparents, their daughter and her family live down in LA (we’re ‘up’ in southern Oregon). Daughter (L) brings her children to see their grandparents every year for Christmas. That means…L and her family have no Christmas decorations! Amazing, right? So, the grands wanted to order something to decorate their grandchildren’s home. One of those blow up lawn ornaments would do. Being older, with vision issues, they struggled with the net. My wife and I stepped in to help. We found one, recommended it to them, then ordered it for them. The package was delivered. Except…the daughter said that she didn’t receive it. No, nothing there. WTF? Were we ripped off?
- The delivery company said they gave it to a resident. Our friend called her daughter to talk it through. “You didn’t get it? It’s a big package addressed to all of you.” Well, no, it was a big blow up ornament, but the shipping package is only ten by ten by seven inches, and weighed only seven pounds. And, no, it was addressed only to the daughter.
- Why, yes, that package did come. Daughter didn’t know what it was, and just set it aside and forgot about it. Whaaat? It seems strange to my wife and me. When we receive a package, we basically vet it by looking at the address, seeing who it’s for, wondering what it is, and then opening it, you know? This idea of setting a package aside and forgetting it is foreign to us. But then, perhaps our military background plays into it. An unexpected or unattended package was treated as a threat. Could be an explosive device. That was drilled into us through my twenty years plus of service. Also, getting packages always feels like a special moment for people of our generation. These young people…smh.
- So now, two friends are dealing with cancer, one local, and another across the country. Oh, that cancer. It’s not shying off just because of COVID-19. Both friends are coping, as are their families.
- Fitbit has notified me that I’ve done one hundred three consecutive days of meeting my walking goal. I enjoy receiving Fitbit’s weekly report on what I’ve done. It’s tangible. I’m maintaining a twelve mile a day average. I usually do eighty-five to eighty-eight miles per week. It gets harder to do twelve on some days. I’ve found that the eight mile mark is particularly challenging. If I make it through to nine miles, the other three miles seem pretty easy. Guess eight miles is where my wall comes up.
- This week’s soup was a vegetarian chili, but not the one I was hoping for. No, I’m not complaining, really, just commenting. I wanted the black bean vegetarian chili; she made the regular vegetarian chili. The one made incorporates chickpeas, black beans, and kidney beans, along with onion and green peppers. Very tasty on these cold winter days. She also baked cornbread, because chili must have cornbread. Yes, it was awesome. I had it for dinner on Monday, then lunch the rest of the week. Love it.
- Made fresh coffee. Time to return to writing like crazy, at least one more time. Please, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Others will thank you. Cheers
Saturday Strings
Haven’t mentioned a few things (skunk, arm, Fitbit) in a while. Being egocentric, I thought I would today.
- Oh, the skunk. She (my wife is certain it’s a female) has gained the upper hand on we puny humans. She thumps the board aside (I keep it there so I know she’s coming and going) and does her business.
- Last night, however, came turmoil under the house. Thump, thump, at first, rousing me from my television viewing. My wife had retired to bed. The cats were slumbering in preparation for their three A.M. rounds. I was watching “The Expanse” (the UN has just declared war on Mars and the Roci is heading to Io). The thump was singular and distant at first, causing me a “WTF, did-I-really-hear-something” pause. The show was stopped and I listened, counting cats (two were with me) when I did. Yep, the thumps repeated, more numerous and louder. Pushing the cat off my lap (he was listening, too), I leaped up, checked on the third cat (Papi, sleeping in the living room), and traced the sound. Finding its general area, I began thumping around in retaliation.
- The thumping underfoot increased in volume and frequency. My wife called, “Are you hearing this, too?” Uh, yeah. The sounds from beneath gravitated toward the front. Grabbing the flashlight, I turned on the front lights and headed outside.
- I arrived just in time to see the skunk exit the crawl space and bolt down the sidewalk, down the driveway, and across the street. Its perfume filled the air.
- Returning inside, I learned, we’ve been gassed. I reported my findings to my wife. The smell was mostly gone this morning, probably aided when the furnace kicked on and circulated the air. (The garage, though…you can spoon it out like Jello in there.) (Skunk Jello; that’s a thought.) As to what happened…it’s another of nature’s mysteries. I put the board back up this morning.
- My broken arm’s recovery continues. Rotation, flexibility, strength, and dexterity improves by day. I can now use ten pound weights to restore my arm and shoulder strength. I try twelves, but my wrist barks with sharp pains, so I cease. It’ll come. Persistence and perseverance. Raising my arm over my head (to put on a shirt, for example) taxes my shoulder. Yeah, working on it.
- Can’t do any pushups or chair-dips with my arm/wrist, though. Well, I can do modified pushups, where I’m on my knees. I can plank, and that’s up to three minutes a night.
- Meanwhile, Fitbit has congratulated me on hitting my distance goals every day for seventy-eight continuous days. My daily average is twelve miles a day. Although that pleases me, it comes with caveats. I only seriously walk outside three or four days a week, heading up the hills around my house, typically for one to three miles. Most of my daily stuff is derived from running around the house or jogging in place. I have several routes in the house, doing figure eights around the dining and living rooms. I’d like to walk outside more, but darkness comes early, and it’s wet and chilly, and I’m essentially a cream puff. I’ve considered walking in the morning or early afternoon, but that interferes with writing and housework. Priorities, don’t you know.
That’s all that’s fit to print. The cats (Boo, Tucker, and Papi) are all healthy and doing well. Tucker has said no to going outside, which is fine by me. Boo likes to go out in the morning and evening to do his business, but those turns are getting shorter quick. He resorted to the litter box last night. (Um, yea?) Papi, though, is a youngblood, and must roam the night. As its cold, his outside visits are getting shorter, but then, he’s bored, and wants to go out (or have me stay up and play with him, which ain’t gonna happen). Can’t wait till he matures enough to stay inside more.
Hope your life is going well. Take care.
Cheers
A Day Without Writing
I didn’t write write yesterday. I had a full schedule of other activities planned. Yes, it’s rare that I take a day off writing. I think there are usually six days a year that I don’t write, and they’re usually sick days, travel days, or holidays. Might as well face it, I’m addicted to writing.
When I say that I didn’t write, I mean that I didn’t sit down with computer, crayon, or paper and pen. I wrote, but it was all in my head. I’ve noticed before that not writing and breaking out of my routine to do other things stimulates my writing. Same thing happened yesterday. I was writing fast in my head.
After getting home close to midnight last night (and with over twenty-six thousand steps on the Fitbit), I had a lot to write this morning. The writing session was one of those intense, fast-paced, and focused affairs that I so love, one where I take one or two gulps of hot black coffee as prelude to the process, and then unleash the muses. An hour or two later, butt sore and with half a cup of cold coffee still available, I stop, spent like a marathon runner.
It’s been an excellent writing week. Having discovered that simultaneous submissions to agents are now considered normal (yeah, you probably all knew that already, didn’t you?), I’ve submitted Four on Kyrios to six agents. I’ve taken my writing approach to procuring an agent. With writing, I write and press on, and with agents, I submit and press on.
Meanwhile, I’ve jumped into a new novel-writing project, April Showers 1921. As always, it’s great fun here in the beginning, when ideas spin like polished, multi-faceted gem stones, letting me think about all the possibilities. Often, though, as I contemplate the facets, the muses say, “Here, we’re going this way. Come on.”
That’s how it’s been. I’m not arguing with them. Fools argue with muses, because mortals always lose any argument with a muse. That’s just fact. I looked it up on the Innertubes, and found a Youtube interview with Shakespeare about it, so you know it’s true.
Now, though, I’m at the après writing juncture that requires me to stop. Don’t really want to stop because it’s been great but I know that I’m finished for the day. Other things remain to be done, my energy is shifting, and my body is saying, “Excuse me, but can we move? Would it be possible to bend and stretch, reach for the sky, stand on tippy toes, and all that?”
Sure, body. We’ll go do some of that. Time to stop writing like crazy, for at least one more day. Just let me gulp down this cold coffee and we’ll get out of here.
Waste not, want not, right?
The Speed of Time
I’m returning to a favorite topic, the speed of time, because I’ve discovered more about about it.
The speed of time is not universal. As everyone knows, according to the School/Work Principle, time’s speed isn’t constant. When you’re waiting for the school or work day to end, time not only slows, but sometimes goes backward, forcing you to repeat several minutes. Some movies, are like that, too.
Learning of this, the NFL manages to employ this in their football games. The last two minutes of an NFL game often takes as long as most of the rest of the game. My wife can attest to that. She’s endured it. “When are we leaving?” she asks.
“As soon as this game is over.”
“How much is left?”
“Not much.”
That waffling, of course, warns her. “How much time is left?” she asks.
“It’s the last two minutes of the fourth quarter.”
“Okay, I’m going to go bake some cookies.”
Using that as a basis for my research, I confirmed that traffic-jam time drags almost as slow as the final two minutes of an NFL game, or the last ten minutes of work or the school day. Shopping time remains the slowest of all, though. Even the NFL has not been able to slow time like shopping will do. Figuratively speaking, shopping time can literally last an eternity. I’ve endured several election cycles while I’ve been shopping. I found that having a Fitbit helps deal with shopping time. It doesn’t change the rate of speed, but I can get a couple of million steps in while I’m walking around, waiting.
Waiting in line time is almost as bad as shopping time. I’ve had clothes wear out while I’ve been standing in line to pay for my purchases, especially at Costco. Costco cashier lines exist in a weird time zone of their own where time gets very sluggish. I’ve spent hour-minutes in line, gazing at what others have bought and comparing them to our purchases.
On the other end of it, I’ve discovered some periods of time that pass quickly. Sleep time is very fast. I don’t know how many times I thought, I’ll just sleep for a few more minutes, and then close my eyes, and, snap, forty minutes have elapsed.
Writing time is frequently often as fast. I have three hours to write, I think, and a cuppa coffee. Then I begin, and the next thing I know, writing time is ended, and I still have coffee.
Which is sort of weird. Coffee time by itself seems to flow at an ideal pace. That’s not true for all beverages. I can tell you, beer time goes fast. Sit down to have a beer, and next thing you know, it’s hours later.
Fitbit Progress
Reviewing my Fitbit YTD, I found that I’ve walked over twenty-eight hundred miles, averaging 7.85 miles a day.
I was wondering about it today because as I went to walk, part of me whined, “Do we haft to?” in its best three year old voice. “Can’t we take the day off?”
With a grudging grimace, I imitated Mom and said, “Let me think about it.” That quieted the quitting part of me while I checked my numbers. I hadn’t done that in a while. Yes, I check daily to see what I did the day before. Once in a while, I look at the weekly total. I always have a general feel for how much I’ve done without getting into details, but I don’t really look at the ongoing cumulative numbers.
After checking the numbers, I felt pretty good about my average and agreed to the partial day off. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Maybe with an extra cup of coffee in the afternoon, I can make up today’s shortfall.
The Day
He put his dirty clothes in the recycle and tossed his used tissue in the laundry.
Returning to his study, he reached for his coffee, and remembered, he’d gotten up to get his coffee.
Leaving his study, he realized he put his dirty clothes in the recycle. Getting them out, he found the used tissue in the laundry, blew his nose into it, and threw it in the trash.
Then he fed the cats a few treats and went into his study to read, where he reached for his coffee.
Remembering, he’d gotten up to get his coffee, he laughed at himself. At least he was getting a lot of steps in today. He checked his wrist to look at his Fitbit —
Where did he leave his Fitbit?
Getting up to go find it, he left his study, went to the kitchen, and made a cup of coffee with his Keurig. Satisfied, he returned to his study with his coffee to read, and then checked his wrist to look at his Fitbit —
Where did he leave his Fitbit?
Then, he remembered, he’d put it in his shoe.
Leaving his study, he went into the other room, fed the cats a few treats, and made a cup of coffee.
This was going to take some time. Coffee would definitely help.
Michael Seidel, writer 