Tag: jealousy

Mundaz Theme Music

Munda, October 13, 2025. Rain cascading onto the roof and hammered me awake. 40 F outside with a high of 52 on order. I asked Alexa about the weather. She said it was cloudy. I asked her if it was going to rain. “It might rain starting at 9 AM but it should stop by 10 AM.” This was at 7:30 as the rain drove down.

Mom’s boyfriend, Frank, is in the ICU for afib. He’s 95 and suffering from multiple issues stemming from a fall down the stairs last week, but has cancer that predates his fall. Mom told my sister that she wanted to get Frank’s phone to see if he’d been talking with Joan. Joan was Frank’s best friend’s wife. When he saw Joan after his best friend died, Frank kissed Joan. Mom was furious and has claimed ever since that Frank is secretly meeting with Joan. Mom told sis, “If I find out that he’s been talking to her, then I’ll throw him out.” She then kept calling Frank’s daughter to see if she had Frank’s phone. Sis reminded Mom that Frank was in the ICU and may not live. “I know,” Mom answered. We’re not sure that she does.

Sister’s text exchange relating got The Neurons to play the Gin Blossoms with “Follow You Down” in the morning mental music stream. Don’t ask me what they’re thinking.

My wife has no energy today and seems down but it’s our day to do food deliveries, so here we go. May grace and peace find and keep us. Cheers

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A Pair of Dreams

I begin in off-white thermal underwear. I dance through town, this place in which I RL live. Early spring is in effect. I leap and pirouette, twirl and bow.

An artist brush is in my hand. I flicked colors at things, dipping my brush in the colors already available, making everything bolder, brighter, sharper. Although it goes on for a while, that’s all to the dream.

It’s a younger version of me, a hybrid between my teenage self and my middle-aged individual. I smile thoughout the dream.

I land in another dream. I’m with another man. We’re in blue hospital scrubs. I know, I’m a med tech. We’re in a small city. Situated on several hills, a bay embraces the land. It’s a busy place, full of hurrying traffic, vehicular and on-foot.

A hue rises from a hospital on the hill. One of my peers shouts, “It’s a success.”

I am jealous. I wanted to be part of that. I feel cheated.

But I congratulate him and the rest and spread the news of the success. It was an arduous and dangerous operation but the patient was doing well. We were pleased. We’d helped develop catheters which saved the patient. This was their first use.

A surgeon came, gloved and masked. “They worked well,” he said. “They want some at the other facility.”

“I’ll take them,” I declare, picking up a brown box of them.

The surgeon says, “They need to be cut, shorter, and narrower.”

“I’ll do that,” I reply.

I begin walking. Balancing the box, I employ a scalpel and start precisely cutting the pale white catheters. My peer follows, saying, “Let me do something. You can’t carry the box and cut the catheters.”

But I am, continuing as we weave our way through crowds.

“The catheters are bleeding,” the other tech says.

I nod. “That’s normal. These are partly organic. That’s why they work.”

End dreams.

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The Writing Moment

My writing moment came yesterday afternoon. I awoke in a grumpy mood yesterday morning and was in full curmudgeon mode before my first cup of coffee.

Some of it could be put on my reaction to some of my wife’s comments. I was feeling sour about my novel in progress. First draft was finished and now I’m reconciliating, slicing, and dicing. It mostly went well, but sometimes a section was encountered that forced a gag reflex.

My SO was preparing for her book club meeting. She always takes that as seriously as doing a doctoral thesis or presenting a business plan, devoting time, thought and energy to the exclusion of many other things. Extra effort was going on this time because she was the moderator. She owned responsibility for driving the discussion.

The book was A Friend by Sigrid Nunez. Each month, one member selects a book for the others’ reading and discussion. My wife suggested this book to another book club member. She’d read reviews, and after reading it for book club (twice, because she was the moderator), she raved about the book, author, and the author’s glittering literary career. Nunez is serious about writing (yeah, like most writers are not, right?) and has an impressive career.

My wife raving about Nunez’s success settled poorly on my wounded writer psyche. I’m not usually like that. I generally am just as enthusiastic as her about these things, or even more bullish on writers and their works and rewards. But circumstances threw dark shade on my own writing efforts, and her comments dropped me into a place where there’s little light.

That happened in the morning. Vowing to myself to do better and get through this, I went off to the coffee shop to slog through writing requirements. I knew there was a problem with the section I was editing, but didn’t know what it was. Then, pop, pop, pop, three epiphanies about the what-and-why arrived. Those epiphanies energized my writing and pulled my spirit from the gutter and set it on top of the world.

I’ve through those moods and endured that kind of writing low before. Nothing new. Nor is it something that other writers haven’t experienced. Happy I’m out of it.

Time to write — and edit — a little bit more, at least one more time. Cheers

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