Tag: haircut

Mundaz Theme Music

Munda, September 15, 2025, has settled in against a backdrop of clear blue skies and warm sunshine. Summer is hanging on, taking us from overnight lows in the lower fifties to an 85 F high. All things end, though, and summer’s last days are coming on in the northern hemes.

I spoke to Dad this morning. He’s still in the rehab center. His voice was not strong. This latest ordeal really seemed to suck his life energy out of him. But…it might also be that he had just gotten out of a very hot shower and said he was sleepy. On a more positive side, my wife seems over her illness. She ate yesterday, picked up a book and read, and went to exercise class this morning.

Had a storm of dreams again last night. Went from being in the military trying to get a haircut to being in charge of a process with IBM and ISS, the Internet security companies where I worked, to recover and shut down security equipment. The latter was a messy, disorganized affair, and no one had done anything, so I was taking it on. Out of the blue toward the end, three young women, teenagers, really, appeared to help me with the computers. They weren’t much assistance at first, as they lacked knowledge but they were eager and energetic. With their help, I began wrangling the mess into something bearing some coherency.

Back to some rock ‘n roll for Munda. I was singing “Honky Tonk Kitty” to Papi this morning after he chirped appreciation for the food being delivered to him. Naturally, my song inspired The Neurons to fire up memory of the Rolling Stones tune in the morning mental music stream, as it’s quite similar to what I was singing.

Today’s project is about getting tree branches cut back from the neighboring apartment complex. I’d do it but realized that some of the branches are higher than my reach, even if I’m standing on a pile of books on top of a ladder where they tell you not to stand because it’s unsafe. I’ve reached out to the apartment complex to start a dialogue about my needs and intentions. They were out of office, so I left a message. Next steps would be to talk with them and then get estimates and get ‘er done.

Hope peace and grace find and lift you up today and every day. Coffee is doing some heavy lifting in me today. Time to bounce on into the day. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

I had a haircut earlier this month. Really? Which one? *tish*

My wife said, “You look nice. Your hair looks really good.”

“Thanks,” I answered. I was leaving for the coffee shop. “I have a campaign to look less homeless. My hair is too short.”

“Looks good.”

“Too short. It’s shorter than it was when I was in the military because I have less of it now.”

“It looks good.”

“It’s too short.”

“It looks good.”

“Agree to disagree. See you later.”

“It looks good.”

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Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts

“Easter is a week away,” my wife said. “You need to get a haircut.”

I just got one last month. Her observation annoys me. I spent twenty years in the military. Keeping your hair cut and neat was, like, an actual regulation. After being freed from military constraints, I’m not interested in being so neat and tidy when it comes to hair. I will lose this discussion, though, and cave. Being neat is extremely high on my wife’s list. She is also adept at being severe and disapproving.

“Want to hear my sister’s text?” I ask.

“Go ahead.”

I read my sister’s updates from Pittsburgh. She’s buying her daughter a new phone. Several features on her present phone are failing. Replace it before Trump’s tariffs add hundreds, she reckons. She used the same logic to replace her eight-year-old ride. She also cashed in her small 401K and put it into certificates in December because she believed Trump was going to trash the economy. She tells me about my other sister’s financial worries.

Four sisters share Mom. Two of them are extremely responsible. The other two are not exactly flighty but they seem to have many crises and make choices that cause more problems. I probably would make more choices that aren’t wise ones, but I’m married to a diligent person.

My sister also comments about how expensive everything is, and how hard it is for young people like her twenty-something daughter these days.

My conversation with my wife swirls into a new zone. “Mom should be using red-light therapy to help with her healing, injuries, and inflammation.” My wife and I both champion red-light therapy. It has helped us in numerous ways. Besides that, NASA, soccer leagues, and the NFL are all red-light therapy true believers.

My wife tells me that Jan approached her for help with another person. The other person suffers Renaud’s disease in her feet. She’s been warned that she might lose her feet if she doesn’t get treatment. The woman doesn’t like going to the doctor. Almost has a pathological fear about it.

Renaud’s has plagued my wife for years. She once showed me her finger. White as a candle, bent and misshaped, horrifying to look at. She aggressively applied red-light therapy and resolved the problem.

“I told Jan to tell her friend about red-light therapy,” my wife says. “She can at least buy a belt and try it.” Pros and cons are discussed for a few more minutes. My wife complains about friends who were told about it but haven’t tried it. She doesn’t understand their reluctance.

I text my sister to ask her if Mom has tried red-light therapy. Then I get online to make a haircut appointment.

There are some things which must be accepted and done.

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Two Clothing Dreams

Two clothing dreams were experienced. One ended positively.

In the first clothing dream, it’s my classic anxiety dream. I’m back in the military, and oh, no, I’m not in reg. My hair needs a haircut and I don’t have my cap. We’re expected to be ‘under cover’ when we’re in most situations outside so not having your cap is a large, visible no-no.

And my hair! I was a senior non-commissioned officer. I’m expected to set an example, etc. But in my dream, I said, I can fix this.

I knew I had caps. I just needed to find them. And for the hair — show me a barber! That last was fixed almost immediately as I headed toward the Base Exchange complex. There’ll be someone to cut my hair there. As it’s an anxiety dream, you’d think I’d encountered difficulties with that, but nope! They were open, a chair was available, I had money to pay…it all went great.

Next, the hats. I went to my quarters and pawed through my gear. Yes, there was the proper cover for this ensemble selection. In fact, as I thought I knew, I had two.

Both were filthy, though. Well, hell, no problem. Soap, water, scrubbing, and they were clean and serviceable within minutes.

Dream end. Reviewing the dream, I was pleased. Had anxieties, but problems covered. Heh. Sorry ’bout the pun.

As frequently in my dreams, I was again a young person. One of my best friends during that period was my cousin, and he was in that dream. We were the same height but I was broad-shouldered while he was narrow. Within a few years, he would grow taller, becoming eight inches taller than me. As he swerved toward the right wing, our friendship split apart.

My aunt, his mother, was also in the dream. She was telling that we needed to get ready. With some fast dream talking and thinking, I realized some formal event was happening. I needed a suit and didn’t have one. Somehow I got hold of my cousin’s suit. Sky blue, the suit was a standard American classic cut but made of an unusual fabric that reminded me of a nylon scrub pad. I folded the suit up and put it in a machine that looked like a carrying kennel for animals. Withdrawing it after a few seconds, I discovered that the arms had shrunk, becoming narrow and short. The suit would now fit neither of us. It was also soaking wet, which puzzled me. It hadn’t been my intention to ruin the suit. Now feeling terrible about it, I started walking around wandering, where can I get two suits now?

That’s how and where the dream ended.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Mood: waitinitis

Tuesday has slid in safe on October 8, 2024. Autmer continues holding the skies. Temp now feels like it’s 65 F but it’s only 56 F. What kind of madness is the weather doing to us, making the temperature feel so different from its actual temp? Makes me suspicious of the weather. Next thing you know, it’ll be raining but will feel like snow. Or it’ll be snowing or it’ll feel like sun.

The high will reach for the upper seventies and maybe get to the low eighties. Depends on its reach. Who knows what it’ll feel like? I think it’ll feel pretty good, no matter what the final temp. That range is ideal to me. Sky is again solidly blue. Yellow and red leaves are drifting from trees. The mood is shifting toward fall. People are decorating their houses for Halloween. So really get into it, but we’re more circumspect.

The price of candy is shocking us. My wife pointed it out at BiMart the other day: 5 pounds of candy for almost $40. Wow! Costco has 30 candy bars on sale for $32. Like, those are crazy prices to the boy who first began buying candy bars as a nickel treat. A nickel now won’t get you within smelling distance of the wrapper.

But this is change’s nature. Older friends talk in amazed tones about how the housing prices have changed. One was offered the chance to buy 6 acres for $50 grand decades ago. The deal outraged him. “Are you crazy?” he asked his friend. “I thought you were giving me a deal.”

“That is a deal,” the friend replied.

My buddy eventually bought a decade later for much, much more. Divided into quarter acre lots, those lots were now going $20 to $50 grand each. Things change, and prices are part of it.

Since I’m on my box and ranting, used to be that I got a haircut for one dollar. One dollar! Now I exit $25 to $30 lighter.

Housing, of course, is center stage in the price debate. Out here, ‘affordable housing’ is jumping over $200 to $300 K. Solution: built more housing. Problem: land. Water. Infrastructure. Rising costs of building more getting pushed further up by the rising need to build more.

Like many, I’m watching Hurricane Milton ploughing toward Florida. Was a cat 5 but has weakened to a 4 and may be a 3 before it hits, thank goodness. Fingers crossed.

Forgot to mention the SOU Pride Parade which took place the other day. I was kept from attending by other plans but I hear it went well. Here’s a link to the Ashland.news coverage with some pix. We also didn’t attend the OSF Gala but we heard from friends who didn’t attend that it was fun and raised $750 K for the festival’s 100 year celebration coming up.

We’re down to 28 days until election day. 28 days. We could make a movie about it. Call it “28 Days” or “28 Days Later”.

Thinking of that gap from here to there and the waiting, news, campaigning and hyperbole which must be endured encouraged The Neurons to fire up Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “The Waiting” from 1981 is rolling through the morning mental music stream (Trademark delayed). Wikipedia’s entry quotes Petty as being inspired by something Janis Jopin said.

Frontman Tom Petty explained that the song’s title was inspired by a quote from fellow musician Janis Joplin, who once said of touring, “I love being onstage and everything else is just waiting.”[4] He recalled:

That’s where I think I got it from … [Roger] McGuinn swears that he said it to me. Maybe he did. I don’t think so. I think I got it from the Janis Joplin quote. That’s where it stuck in my mind. I don’t think she said, ‘The waiting is the hardest part,’ but it was something to that effect: ‘Everything else is just waiting.’ And so that’s where that came from.

Got me to thinking…imagine Tom Petty and Janis Joplin performing live together. Would that have been cool or what?

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee has cast its magic in me. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: petulant

Good morning. Today is Saturday, December 2, 2023.

I am so aggrieved today. Not due to the weather. 41 F with a high of 48 F in our sights, it’s been raining, and snow tops the northern ridge that marks our valley’s boundary. So, the weather is standard late fall trope for our area, cold, misty, dull and wet, something worthy of being the backdrop for a dystopian trudge as the earth’s course leads us around the sun and into winter.

No, the issue is that it is December and the parties and activities commence. We’re due to appear at several already, all due to my enchanting wife, who has a strong friend base who likes her and enjoys her presence. As several are couples things, I’m invited, too. I know most of the people, so they’re not strangers, and I want to be the right person, supportive of her as she is for me, but that means leaning way out of my preferred mode of being alone and writing. It also means I must play reindeer games, the term I coined decades ago for cleaning up and dressing up for December parties and activities. Top of the list is a haircut. After being required to have haircuts all the time for the military and then frequently when I was in marketing, I dislike worrying about my appearance. I tell her that I don’t need a haircut because I’ll be with her, and everyone will be looking at her, but she’s adamant that because I’m beside her, I must look pretty, so I will do so.

Yes, on the one hand, I’m being petty, complaining about being forced out to social engagements, truly a first world whine. On the other hand, going to these things is completely against my nature, and uncomfortable for me because I’m socially awkward. Yeah, that’s my problem.

Today’s music starts with making the cats’ brekkie. I’m cleaning bowls when The Neurons remind me of the movie, Twins, with Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny DeVito as the starring twins. From there, The Neurons poured the airplane scene where Arnold’s character has left his island home and is off to find his twin. Exposed for the first time to rock and roll, he’s listening on headphones and singing, “Yakey Yak” out loud, disturbing/slash amusing the other passengers. Now that’s song in my morning mental music stream (Trademark cyclical).

The song by the Coasters came out a few years after I was born in the late 1950s. I guess I heard it on the car radio, and the melody, lyrics, and voices appealed to me, because those words are seared in my mind. Some of them were used by Mom, “Don’t you give me a dirty look,” or variations such as, “Don’t give me that look.” She also liked to sing the song to me when I went to her with a request sometimes, depending on her mood.

Lean forward, be positive, and stay strong. Happy holidays. Just had my Saturday morning coffee. Here’s the music. I’m off to get a haircut. Cheers

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The Wife Dream

My wife and I were young people, in our early twenties, staying in a hotel in Korea. We had separate rooms; I don’t know why. It was a busy place, with chaotic rules that I couldn’t grasp. I was also constantly trying to change my underwear. Whenever I’d get somewhere private where I thought that I could, others would barge in on me, lighting up the high exasperation warning light.

My wife and I finally met in a crowded hallway outside of my room. We made plans to go see the sights and such but I first wanted a hair cut. I went down to the barber. One woman took money from me and gave me a chit. Another took the chit and gave me a second chit. A third took that chit and ushered me into a queue. I decided to wash my hair while waiting, thinking that would make it easier to cut. When it was my turn, they rinsed off my hair and sent me on my way. I asked my wife what she thought of it, and she replied that it was worse that before. I saw my hair in a mirror; it was long, thick, wavy, and black. I needed to have it cut but my wife was impatient to go on.

We heard people talking about going to Singapore. The way they talked, Singapore was an immediate neighbor. I was surprised; in my opinion, Singapore isn’t close to Korea and would take some hours of flying to reach it. I decided that my geography knowledge was wrong.

Acting listless and irritated, my wife kept wandering off and doing silly things, like snatching papers from other people to read, then throwing the papers aside. People were getting vexed with her, and so was I. We went outside to get a break from the crowds. Going outside, we ended up on a cliff path.

A gorgeous, lightly clouded sky was overhead. The path cut through thick green bushes that were waist high. She ran ahead when my back was turned. When I saw what she’d done, I ran after her. As I was catching her, she went off on another path, like she didn’t want me to catch her. Saying, “Screw it,” I kept running. Let her try to catch me. After running another forty yards, I stopped and looked back. I didn’t see her. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would show. When she didn’t, I shrugged.

It was time for her to start looking for me. Turning, I walked on.

The dream ended.

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Wednesday’s Whickering

  1. Writing was so intense today. Been seeing this rainstorm for this shithole where my characters arrived. It’s a bleak, rocky place, no green, no insects or birds. There are dogs and people (and rats). I wrote the scene today, shivering behind my laptop as I imagined the cold, hard rain slamming my people. Had to pause and pace, and get more coffee to warm myself several times.
  2. Love that intensity when it happens, but it’s also a distraction. Too much writing energy builds up. Fingers and mind can’t keep up with the story-telling stream gushing out. My abs get knotted and my arms tremble. Nobody ever mentioned this at the writing conferences.
  3. Wife made this wonderful pumpkin doughnut muffins yesterday. Rolled in sugar and cinnamon, they’re like doughnut holes. Man, those things are mega excellent. Each time I go for coffee, I want to eat another.
  4. When I pause in my writing, I spy on my neighbors. They’re up to something next door. Don’t know what. He’s like that, though, quiet, rarely seen for several months, then, boom, the sudden center of crazy, with cars and peeps arriving, and things being carried back and forth, and slamming and thumping noises. He’s a nice guy but when I hear this things, my mind paints him as someone nefarious doing some devious misdeeds. Being a nice guy is always a good cover for being an evil genius.
  5. The cats and I took well to the hour fall back. I much prefer it to the spring-ahead hour change. Really rather do without either, though.
  6. Watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Really well done. The young lead actor, Anya Taylor Joy does an excellent job, but all are well-cast, and the production values are super. I’d not been aware of the novel. It came out in 1983, I read. After seeing the television show, I want to find the book and read it. It’s at my library, so I put it on my shelf. Didn’t want a hold. I’m already way behind my reading.
  7. Being behind on my reading is a constant thing. Reading stirs my writing. I enter this cycle of reading two paragraphs, write two sentences. Writing progress is made because this is in addition to my devoted writing period. Reading gets serious hampered. I’m eventually forced to focus on the reading and push to finish the book, which is a damn strange way to entertain myself, innit?
  8. I cut my hair yesterday. It’s the second pandemic cut that I’ve given myself. I think it looks good. Of course, I can’t see the back. I did what I could through feel. My wife is reluctant to cut it. I don’t know why. I have guesses but I’ll keep those shelved.
  9. Okay, got more coffee. (The pumpkin doughnut muffins were avoided.) Time to resume writing like crazy, at least one more time.
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The Luggage & Shoes Dream

First, the dream was in two parts. I dreamed part one, awoke, returned to sleep and had part two.

Second, it again involved military. I understand more about myself, though, like I’m terrible at socializing. The military with its rank and structure gave me a niche where I was comfortable.

In both dream parts, I was in civilian clothes and traveling alone (which I often did in the mil and civilian life, because of my specialized roles).

Part one had me arriving at a hectic place lousy with Army personnel. They were arriving and staging. All of them were in uniform. Many had down time and were waiting to move on. It was all out doors, and it was a mess.

For my part, I’d arrived, found a place for my two bags, left them, and headed off to find food. Then I’d figure out where I was to next go.

Well, after eating (which happened off-dream, apparently), I went to use a can. All the cans were out of order, which pissed me off (no pun intended). I wandered for a while in search of working facilities. I did find and use a shower, and then eventually discovered a working but filthy latrine.

I’d wandered a long way and had lost orientation, with no idea where I’d left my bags. I began that search. After a bit, I went up on a hill.

A person who used to work with me waved to me from up there. She came down to chat. She was traveling on a separate mission. I told her that I’d lost my bags and had to go look for them. Bored, with time to kill, she volunteered to come and help.

We went down the hill to a sort of ad hoc intersection. While there, she spotted a piece of paper fluttering on the ground. It looked like a set of orders. Picking it up, she read my name off it. She realized that it said something about what’d happened with my bags. With her leading, we went to see a man. She gave him the paper, and he (complaining as he did) gave me one of my bags. I was thankful, but she had to go. That was okay, though, because suddenly I completely knew where I was and went right to my second bag.

Awakening at that point, I thought about it all. The dream setting’s chaos and messiness bothered me, as did the fact that I couldn’t remember and find my bags on my own. I went back to sleep.

I was back in the same place, but order had been established. With chairs set up, all the troops were sitting in order. I had my bags, and the toilets were working. I also had food. We’d been provided with box lunches on the long flight over. I’d not eaten mine, so I had two big sandwiches along with other things to eat in a clear plastic bag that I was carrying.

On arriving, my feet hurt, so I removed my shoes and set the to one side. I had a rental car so I was basically going to eat and use the facilities and then hit the road. As I walked around, though, I worried about my hair not being in reg (I was notorious for that back in the day). I found the barbershop but it was busy. A commander and his staff passed by me. After deciding that I couldn’t do anything about my hair, I decided to eat and leave.

First, I wanted my shoes. I knew where I’d left them but they weren’t there. Irritated, I started searching for them. I spotted them in the middle of a wide, beaten dirt road. As I went to get them, an army PFC (female) was crossing the road and kicked one of my shoes. I yelled at her for that; she gave me a dirty look. I then got my shoes (loafers, as I was still in civies), put them on, and went to a table, where I sat down to eat.

End dream.

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