Don’t you love it when you’ve parallel parked and the cars in front and behind you have each left your car two inches to maneuver? Saw a man assessing that as he arrived at his car today, and felt his frustration.
Alphabet Issues
Time for a Sunday rant. I have good reason for it. I know; everyone who rants say they have good reasons for their rant. Let me state my case, and then you can decide.
Alphabet Inc. is trying to gaslight me.
Alphabet Inc. was created as a holding company for Google and its multi-tentacled endeavors. Google wants to be everything for us, substitutes for television, Netflix, Amazon, a dominant world force that we can trust. But the delta between what they promise and what’s delivered grows every day.
The three primary Google products I use are Gmail, Chrome, and the calendar. (I also sometimes use Google search, but it’s so damn commercialized, delivering the same results as different entries, that it’s become better to go with other search engines. They’re not much better, though. *Where have all the good searches gone?*) They’re three products that have been around for enough time for them to stabilize and cross that chasm from being bleeding edge to cash cow. When a product reaches the cash cow stage, it’s expected to be reliable and free from significant bugs.
It ain’t so with Chrome and Gmail.
I use the Inbox app to manage my Gmail. I write “manage” because that’s what they use to describe it. Inbox manages my mail as well as a toddler manages the bath water. Emails that have been read and deleted consistently haunt my inbox as unread, causing the frustration and irritation of wading through the past several days worth of mail along with today’s deliveries.
This is where the gaslighting comes in. Gaslighting is an old expression about conning people and confusing them about reality. “Didn’t I already do that?” they ask in old movies.
The villian laughs. “No, dear, you said you were going to. Honestly, were is your mind, my precious?”
That’s how it is with Gmail. “Didn’t I already read that?” I ask myself as I peruse the Inbox. “Oh, God, I thought I answered that yesterday.” I certainly meant to answer it. Where is my head?
Well, hell, it’s not my head, it’s Alphabet Inc. and their Gmail product. I have read, answered, and deleted these emails. Alphabet is just putting them back in.
Thinking it might be Inbox instead, I used Gmail without Inbox, as an experiment.
Nope; same results.
Don’t get me started on what’s going on with Chrome. It is very effective for administering my daily dose of first world blues and frustration, and is a wonderful impediment to having a good mood as I surf the net.
I would switch from Gmail, but our email addresses have their tentacles in every aspect of our lives. Extricating ourselves is a long and complicated process. It’s getting as involved as doing taxes in America or determining if it’s a catch in the NFL.
Herding Cats
You ever have a morning where it feels like you’ve been herding cats, and the cats just don’t want to be herded?
Yeah. More coffee, please.
Anger
Have you ever exploding with anger without understanding why you were so angry, and then walk away and wonder, what happened?
No, me neither.
Omichi Dream
I don’t know what omichi means. I dreamed of it, though, using it myself throughout the dream, and spelled it for others’ edification during the dream.
Succinctly, I was in school. I was by far the oldest student. I didn’t see or hear of any teachers, professors, or instructors. What I remember is that the other students were teenagers or younger. They were rude, and they deliberately ignored me even as they sometimes discussed me. It vexed me that I would attempt to explain things to them, and they wouldn’t hear – or pretend to not hear – and go on, even as my explanations would help them. Kids, right.
One particular problem or issue was bothering many of them. That’s when omichi struck me as an idea. “You can use omichi,” I told them, spelling it. “Use omichi.” I spelled it, and then explained what it was, apparently showing them a small device that eludes description for me.
I was ignored. Exasperated, I tried leaving the place and found I couldn’t. The next best thing of the activities available was to sleep and wait. Finding a place on a white concrete bench, I stripped down, tucked my items around me, and attempted to sleep. I experienced mixed results. Despite sunshine, it was cold. The kids made too much noise, and again, would come up and start talking about me like I was there, but inorganic, which infuriated me.
Then, they became worried: someone was missing, or could be missing. They weren’t sure. Hearing of the problem, I rose and told them while dressing, “You can use the omichi. Set up the omichi as a spiral system to notify one another.”
Silence met this suggestion. I give up, I decided. As I decided that, a young boy said, “We can use the omichi.”
I turned on him. “That’s what I just said. Set it up as a spiral system.”
The boy, about eleven, white with brown hair and glasses, wearing a green striped shirt and pale shorts, said, “Set it up as a spiral system.”
They decided that’s what they would do, leaving me flabbergasted and dejected, which is how the dream ended.
A Dream of Lost Identity
After twenty years in the military, I suppose it’s not surprising that my identity is linked to my time in the ranks. I’ve been retired for more time — twenty-two years — than I served — twenty-one years — so my continuing dreams about identity and being in the military disturb me.
In this latest one, storms were raging. I was the new MFWIC – mo-fo who’s in charge — and was geared up and entering a tense situation. Everyone was waiting for me. But arriving there, I discovered I lacked my military identification card. I knew I’d forgotten it. That embarrassed me. I fumed about the loss without saying anything, but none dared approach me, as all were aware of the situation. All I could so, though, was stew with frustration while waiting to go back and get a new ID.
Returning to the staging location, I didn’t need to say a word. Nobody else did, either. Everyone was waiting for me to get there. As soon as I did, a young female airman in old BDUs wordlessly went about providing me a new ID card. Once she did that, I turned to leave and begin again, more than ready to do so.
And the dream ended.
Spiteful Stuff
Okay, everyone harmonize. This will be a self-pitying blues ballad. Sing along if you want.
Some days I feel like the universe hates me. It’s not really mean, just spiteful. Exhibit number one.
The week before leaving to take care of family business on the East Coast, we were shopping. The wind wrenched the door out of my hand, slamming it into the car beside me.
There weren’t witnesses. I could have driven away.
I could see a small ding on the crease line. The Hyundai Elantra wasn’t a new car but a recent year. From the tags, someone had recently purchased it.
My deductible is a grand. I knew this would be less than a grand. I wrote a note, apologizing and providing my contact information. As it happened, I came out as the other drive was leaving. She hadn’t noticed the ding or my note, so she drove off, saw the note, parked and got out to look. I hurried up to her and talked about it.
Now, back home, I’ve received the bill: seven hundred forty dollars for a parking lot ding. Ouch.
Exhibit number two.
I had four flights scheduled for my trip, covering the travel there and back. There were all with United Airlines. I took two of those four; the rest were canceled or missed because the flight before it was late. I ended up on six flights, total. I was re-booked on four flights that were cancelled. None of the flights took off on schedule. None arrived to their destination on schedule. One hundred percent failure in both of those areas.
I spent one night in the SFO airport going, and a day there coming back. I was supposed to be in that airport for about two hours, instead of eighteen.
One flight that I took was a re-booked flight to cover one of the cancellations. Going through Chicago, they couldn’t provide me a seat number for the next flight. “See them at the gate when you get there.”
We did that. The first agent told us we didn’t need another boarding pass or seats. We would use the same ones, and the same seats.
He was wrong.
The next agent got us seats but we weren’t together. We couldn’t get seats together. That was another recurring theme in this flying fiasco. Originally booked side-by-side, it took a lot of cajoling, talking and visits to agents at the gates to make it happen, and it failed sixty percent of the time.
So, the universe and I aren’t getting along well right now. I don’t think it’s me, personally, that’s making the universe spiteful. I think it’s weary of the world’s bullshit as much as I am. It’s tired of trying to be reasonable in the face of insanity. I understand, in a way, but I don’t like it.
To the universe, please let me know what I need to make it up to you. I’d really like to return to being on better terms with you.
Today’s Theme Music
Songs are bouncing through my head. Why today and now?
I don’t know.
They’re happening against the writing, dreaming, holiday, marriage, and life background. Each of those arenas inject their own spectrum of influences. All feel equally strong this week but writing is affecting the others. I’m deeply involved in the novel writing process, so much so that I’m losing track of the calendar and holiday, and I’m withdrawn into my thinking and writing. This, unsurprisingly, triggers my spouse’s deep irritation and some resentment.
I see her point. Yet, that is me, an emotional cripple, and a writer. I write to explore what I think but also what I feel. It leaves me at the crossroads at midnight, waiting to consummate a deal with the devil. I can’t abandon thinking about the novel and its elements of chi-p, Pram, Brett, virii, time-travel and the like. It’s too late for that; the novel’s presence is embedded in my psyche and will likely remain there until the story is fully told.
Yet I look for the leap from my life cycles to the song cycles. I wonder how songs are connected to smells and smells are connected to sights and sights are connected to emotions and emotions are connected to intelligence and intelligence is connected with memory and memory is connected to songs. It’s all wired together but something charges the wires, making some wires come alive, opening and closing switches, and taking me to unexpected places.
Like these songs.
Against the backdrop of writing and living, I’d been thinking about Mike Posner’s song and his lyrics.
I took a pill in Ibiza
To show Avicii I was cool
And when I finally got sober, felt 10 years older
But fuck it, it was something to do
I’m living out in LA
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes
But you don’t wanna be high like me
Never really knowing why like me
You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone
You don’t wanna ride the bus like this
Never knowing who to trust like this
I was particularly hooked on the lines, ‘But you don’t wanna be high like me, Never knowing why like me’. From there, drifting through the lyrics last night, I awoke today singing:
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It ain’t kodachrome and it isn’t black and white
Take me for a fool if you feel that’s right
Well I’m never on my own but there’s nobody in sight
I don’t know if I’m scared of the lightning
Trying to reach me
I can’t turn to the left or the right
I’m too scared to run and I’m too weak to fight
But I don’t care it’s all psychobabble rap to me
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It’s in dolby stereo but I never hear it right
Take me for a fool well that’s alright
Well I see the way to go but there isn’t any light
That song is ‘Psychobabble’ by the Alan Parsons Project. The album containing the song was released in 1982. I listened to it on cassette tape while I lived and worked on Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.
I can see how the two songs, Mike Posner’s ‘I Took A Pill in Ibiza’ and Alan Parsons Project’s ‘Psychobabble’ fused in my mind. There’s a thread of questioning identity in both and reflections about our minds and choices. It’s more a question of why those songs nestled into the thinking and feeling about everything else this week.
And as I wrote it, I saw it. These songs arose from the morass because I’m conflicted; because guilt assails me. Because responsibilities and desires are torn and my frustrations are running high.
I thought one of these songs should be today’s theme music for my day. I finally decided to go with ‘Psychobabble’ because it’s more recent. See, it’s the latest one that I’ve been singing.
In my mind.
Dark Day
Somewhere in the middle of the night, the black steamrolled me.
It may have started with a series of disturbing dreams. I was with a group, a class of sorts, and a woman poured coffee onto my computer keyboard as a joke. I cleaned it up as other actions began. Then, in dream fashion, I was vacuuming dry autumn leaves up in the living room with my father…what…? Then I sat on a sofa to rest, and felt a force trying to lift me up from the sofa and move me…. I decided to let it. It took me across the room and set me on the floor.
A cat puking on my chair and demanding let out at 4:15 AM disrupted the dreams and may have contributed to my black mood.
Stepping in the puke could have been a catalyst to further darkness.
Writing in my head as I returned to sleep became a slamfest. Self-esteem drained out as my inner critic took over. “That stuff you’re writing is unimaginative, weak and turgid. That crap you published is a disease to humanity. Chuck it all. Find a useful hobby. Knitting, or water painting. Take up baking. Don’t write, please, for all that’s bright and beautiful in the world, don’t write.”
Sleep was recalcitrant after that, telling me, “I don’t want to get anywhere near you, with that mood coming up. I’m reading the signs, and a bad storm is rising.”
This black is a greatest hits compilation. Low self-esteem, depression, weariness, anger, irritation, resentment, then another cover of depression.
‘It’s okay not to always write,’ I read in another blog.
Maybe I’ll take the day off. Either that, or open any vein, and see what comes out.
Michael Seidel, writer 