Tag: humor

Whensday’s Theme Music

Mood: bubbly

Hello, fellow travelers. Today is Whensday, January 24, 2024. For some reason, when I started typing the date, the autotype tried changing the date to December 19. WTAF?

Moody gray clouds tease rain threats and wrestle with the blue sky. Sunshine shoots between them as the clouds jostle to takeover. There may be factions up in the troposphere, arguing over what the weather should be like in Ashlandia, where the deer are numerous and an annual subject for disagreement in our burg. It’s 52 F and mostly cloudy, and the high should have the thermometer pausing at 56 F. It’s rained and it’s windy and more might be on the way.

Reading some emails this morning, an update from Scottie’s Playground came up: Jesus 2.0/Christopher Titus/Armegeddon Update. Seeing that headline, The Neurons instantly shuffled “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). As Titus mentions, evangelicals have appointed DJT as their own personal Jesus. They tolerantly overlook his lying, cheating on his wives and affairs by declaring, “Everyone has a past,” and threat of violence, and snarl at the rest of us to stop being so mean to TFG and them. They’re just promoting this guy to make the world better, and they know this because god sent him!

While I cite the original Depeche Mode version of “Personal Jesus”, I also recommend and include the 2002 Johnny Cash cover. As his health was falling, JC — that’s Johnny Cash and not Jesus Christ — thoughtfully covered a number of rock songs, bringing a deeply personal delivery to them that makes ’em worth listening and thinking about.

In the means’ while, this is Whensday again because I’m weary of holding my breath and waiting for things to resolve, asking myself (drum roll), when will this be resolved? ‘This’, of course, is the Trump led, MAGA fueled, GOP supported, 3% funded effort to end Democracy in the United States. Whether that’s hyperbola is part of the whole Whensday question. We already know from experience that DJT was a sadsack of a POTUS, but weirdly, the MAGAs believe he was brilliant. I attribute a chunk of that to asymmetrical expectations.

Asymmetrical expectations were pointed out on Pondering Politics on Youtube when they dissected Gavin Newsome’s recent appearance on Bill Maher. Jessiah points out how differently the world, including the media, responds to the political parties in the US and their leaders when the MAGA segment unleashes a cruelly flavored shit storm versus reactions to when the Democratic side points something out, and Jessiah, our political nerd host, brings receipts. It’s worth a listen, IMO.

Stay pos, be strong, and keep leaning forward. Coffee has been sampled and approved, and is now being guzzled. Here’s the Cash and DM videos. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

It’s a first for me. Today’s coffee shop crew is all male. I’ve seen all-female crews several times. As I wrote, this is a first. Wondered if it was planned, a response to females noting that there’s often all-female crews, or just happenstance of the schedule. I suspect the last one.

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Floofsicle

Floofsicle (floofinition) – Animal who is very cold. Origins: early 2000s, worldwide web.

In Use: “One thing Marta learned early about Felix was that he didn’t like the cold, and would do anything to avoid becoming a floofsicle, from climbing under her bed covers to sleep against her at night, to trying to sit on top of the wood-burning stove, scaring her every time.”

Recent Use: “Severe cold weather often brings stories of floofsicles being saved by other animals or by people, such as the news article from 2019 telling about a black kitten rescued from freezing conditions, or the time a dog was found in freezing weather protecting orphaned kittens.”

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

When Blackouts: A Novel by Justin Torres won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2023, I read a summary of the book and thought, oh, I want to read that. I went online to my library, put a hold on it, and learned that I was number sixteen. My wife then told me that she’d put a hold on it and was number seventeen.

Yesterday, I received a notice that the book was available for me. My wife, being nice, offered to pick it up when she was downtown. When I came home from my writing session, I asked her where it was.

“I’m reading it,” she replied. “But they told me that my copy is available, so you can go pick that up.”

Duped again.

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Floofadverse

Floofadverse (floofinition) – Persons or places who are unwelcoming to animals.

In Use: “Despite being public places designed to enjoy nature, parks are often floofadverse, without irony posting signs declaring that ‘no animals’ or ‘no dogs’ are allowed in the park.”

In Use: “One of the apartment building’s other inhabitants was hugely floofadverse, screaming that the tiny gray cat was the devil and on the verge of attacking her, even though the six-pound animal was six feet away and cowering from her screaming.”

Recent Use: “With the rise of service animals, many establishments in the U.S. are relaxing their floofadverse stances, although they frequently had to deal with health and safety regulations which prohibited animals.”

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

He was busy typing at the coffee shop when a young woman approached. He’d been observing her as part of everyone in his orbit, just tracking people and their behavior, wary of anyone becoming a threat. Call it habit or training, it remained as a leftover from his military career.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I have what probably will sound like a strange question.”

“Why are you bothering me?” he bellowed. No, not really; instead, he said, still typing, “Yes?”

“I need to go back out to my car because I forgot something, but I want to save this table.”

“So?” he roared. “What’s this to do with me, you puny human?” But he didn’t do that. He just tilted his head and typed.

“So I was wondering if I might borrow your hat to put on this table to save it.”

“How dare you disturb me with such insolence. No, you may not have my hat,” he retorted. “Don’t touch it.”

In reality, he kept typing, nodded once, and answered, “Yes, go ahead.”

He was still typing when she returned ten minutes later. Moving his hat from the saved table to his location, she said, “Thank you.”

Continuing to type, he replied, “You’re welcome.”

Then she went off to a different table.

He stopped table and watched, wondering, why did she change tables?

Was it something he said?

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The Writing Moment

One important matter that many new writers overlook is, what does their muse want?

The muse can fill a critical function in the fiction writin’ process, so identifying them and learning what they like — and DISLIKE — can be a significant component of your personal process. Sometimes, as it is for me, it’s more than one muse, so the aspiring writer must pay attention to who the muses are and what they do. Fer ‘nstance, my muses love coffee. Don’t try to pawn tea or chai off on ‘em; they’ll inform you with seething disgust that they’re not the same. However, some of the muses are more impatient and arrogant than the others. Some of them read someone else’s fiction and immediately scream into my ear, “Write something like that!” I’m always coping with them doing that. The way I do so, with more patience and caution that touching a sleeping cat’s belly, is to gently promise I will write something like that after I finish this (whatever this is) and hope they accept and quiet down.

BTW, don’t try to overlook the grammar and punctuation muses. They can be wrong but they will push and push for a decision about a comma, period, tense, noun, verb, and so on, until they’re satisfied (at least for the moment).

My muses are not fond of writing at home, cuz cats, spouse, phone – well, environmental distractions. (Yeah, we still have a home phone, althought it’s VOIP.) My muses like it in a noisy coffee shop where nobody pays attention to them and they can write in peace surrounded by people bustling around on their business. As I have multiple muses (sometimes called musi in the more traditional plural spelling) (yeah, just kiddin’ ‘bout that), I need to ensure the right one shows up on time. Little is worse for me than entering a revision session only to have a ‘new project’ muse enter to help, suggesting the concept for a new novel, novella, short story, movie, song, play, or essay.

Last, my musi demand time and focus on them everyday. If they don’t get it, they spoon crankiness, exasperation, and irritation into my mood. So, every day, no matter what’s happenin’, they want me to sit and write or edit. They don’t care if zombies are overrunning the neighborhood, a blizzard is underway, or nukes are falling. Nor is being hungry, sick, or social engagements a concern for ’em. They want their writing or editing time. And don’t think that research is good enough for the muse. I’ve tried mollifying them with research; my muses don’t buy it and will sometimes go off and sulk, leaving me without a muse to write. I can do it, but it’s a bit like having problems with a bowel movement.

Now, back to writing. So sayeth the muse what’s in charge.

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Mileage

My floofy, Tucker, is a mix of long and short black and white fur. Thought a passionate and diligent groomer, he easily mats, so I have a routine of brushing him every night, which he loves, of course: the attention, the brush, oh, the purrs.

Despite all that, he frequently drops clumps of fur as he walks around the house. Watching him ten a dozen steps, I discovered three clumps of fur left on the floor behind him.

Poor thing. Only gets four steps per clump, but he’s a big boi. Your floof’s mileage will vary.

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