Tag: just goofing around

Reboot

Hearing unfamiliar banging and creaking sounds, he opened his eyes and found the ceiling.

Pink, and swaying. It felt like he was on a boat. Or would that be a ship?

He closed his eyes. Something was hung. Reboot. Try again.

When he next opened his eyes, he was looking at correctly colored sage green walls. Sunlight was streaming in.

Feeling better, he rose to hit the head and discovered a limp. He’d not had that before. As its presence was being digested, he passed the bathroom mirror.

He was female. Not bad looking, about the correct age, forty-five. Same colored hair. Those were starts to being the right person in the right reality.

More to digest.

He continued to the toilet. His cats and dogs must be out of the house. The primary reasons for keeping them was to help keep reality anchored. It didn’t work, if they weren’t around. Ergo, they weren’t around. That’s why his start-ups were hanging.

As he sat to piss, he considered going back to bed to reboot again, but it was already eight thirty. Time was the one constant that didn’t change when a start-up went awry.

Coffee, he decided, wiping, flushing, washing his hands and heading for the kitchen. He thought while popping a K-cup into place, coffee always helped release the hang ups. It was remarkable that way. Once he got the coffee into his system, he’d find the animals and bring them into the house. Then he’d decide. The house seemed correct, as did the reality outside his window. Maybe he’d enjoy being a woman for a day, or take a nap later and reboot.

Sipping the coffee, he smiled. Coffee always helped. If that ever changed, he didn’t know what he would do.

 

1

Let Go

There had been decisions before, but things change, so new decisions were reached and accepted. What had been important became meaningless as priorities sifted like sand dunes.

Others ran into him, exchanging greetings, but then, privately told one another, “He’s really changed,” “Yes, he let himself go.”

They saw it as a bad thing.

0

That Moment

Do you know that moment when you first smell the brewed coffee and lift a cup of it up to your lips, and feel the heat radiating toward you? You take that first sip and let it loiter in your mouth and slip down your throat, and think, “Wow, that’s so good.” You take another sip, and the sip becomes a long, lingering swallow that hefts a sigh in you as your lips finally part with your cup, and it comes to you, that might be the best thing of your day?

But then you go on, and there are other good things during the day, and you think, “This can be a pretty good life.”

Naw, that’s probably just the coffee talking.

4

All You

“All you men,” she said,

“All you women,” he said,

“All you Republicans,” she said,

“All you Libertarians,” he said,

“All you Democrats,” she said,

“All you Greens,” he said,

“All you people who don’t vote,” she said,

“All you people voting illegally,” he said,

“All you reactionaries,” she said,

“All you slaves,” he said,

“All you gays,” she said,

“All you lesbians,” he said,

“All you blacks,” she said,

“All you whites,” he said,

“All you elites,” she said,

“All you apathetic people,” he said

“All you cops,” she said,

“All you military,” he said,

“All you illegal aliens,” she said,

“All you people on welfare,” he said,

“All you rich people,” she said,

“All you poor people,” he said,

“All you thieves,” she said,

“All you drug-dealers,” he said,

“All you addicts,” she said,

“All you criminals,” he said,

“All you killers,” she said,

“All you corrupted government workers,” he said,

“All you CEOs,” she said,

“All you teachers,” he said,

“All you parents,” she said,

“All you working women,” he said,

“All you Mexicans,” she said,

“All you communists,” he said,

“All you ignorant, uneducated people,” she said,

“All you snobs,” he said,

“All you people clinging to old ideas,” she said,

“All you fascists,” he said,

“All you NAZIs,” she said,

“All you Japs,” he said,

“All you Southerners,” she said,

“All you Northerners,” he said,

“All you people in rural areas,” she said,

“All you people in the cities,” he said,

“All you idiots,” she said,

“All you foreigners,” he said,

“All you Chinese,” she said,

“All you refugees,” he said,

“All you old people,” she said,

“All you young people,” he said,

“All you conservatives,” she said,

“All you libruls,” he said,

“All you white Supremacists,” she said,

“All you feminazis,” he said,

“All you atheists,” she said,

“All you Evangelicals,” he said,

“All you hateful assholes,” she said,

“All you whiners,” he said,

“You’re the reason we’re in this mess,” they said.

4

Five O’Clock Shadow

Feeling his Fitbit buzz, Thomas leaped up, hurrying out of the house as he checked the time and confirmed, yes, 4:59.

It was sunny, which was helpful. He ran out of the house to the sidewalk, scattering the snoozing cats on his porch into three directions. On the sidewalk, he stopped, panting fast and holding still. He checked his shadow. It was crisply defined on the white pavement. The other wasn’t there.

The Fitbit said it was still 4:59. It didn’t show seconds, which he lamented. Cars rumbled by, breezes tousled the trees’ leaves, and the cats crept out to see what he was doing.

Then, it must have been five, because the shadow was there. “Who are you?” Thomas said.

“Your shadow,” the shadow said. “One of many.”

“Many?”

“Yes. You’re the one true person. The rest, like me, are just shadow.” The voice and shadow were fading.

“Wait,” Thomas said, a ridiculous request because the shadow couldn’t wait. It was a five o’clock shadow. Why did it appear? What did it all meant?

He didn’t know. At this point, only his shadow knew for sure.

0

Shocking Moment

It was sort of a shocking moment, but it’s only a moment, a single incident with a single person, but —

Well, that’s the prelude.

I was buying a coffee drink. It’d been rung up. I was paying for the $4.75 drink with a ten.

The cashier said, “Oh, hang on. I put in that you were paying with a five. I need to figure out how much I owe you.”

I know from previous conversations that the cashier is nineteen years old and that she’s enrolled in our local college.

After a few seconds of allowing her to puzzle through it, I said, “I think it would be $5.25 back.”

She looked at me.

I said, “If I’d paid with a five, you would have given me a quarter back, right? But I paid with a ten, which is five dollars more, so you just give me five dollars more back. Does that make sense?”

She looked relieved. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”

6

Tick

It seemed like a tick. It’d been Monday and now it was Saturday. May was beginning but now September was being celebrated. He’d just turned sixteen, and now he was sixty-two. 1968 became 1978, and 1998 became 2018.

Just a tick. He’d been beginning, and now he considered the ending.

0

The Lesson

His backpack seems light. Walking along, he thinks, what did he forget? In a flash, he concludes, OMG, I forgot the power brick. As he walks, he considers options and decides, just stay off the net, edit, and work as long as possible before the power is gone.

It’s a downer because he was looking forward to the work session. Now it was all changed.

But unpacking, everything is there. He’d forgotten nothing. It would be business as usual.

Sipping his coffee, he thinks, I put all that energy into worrying about a possibility that didn’t come to be, a possibility based on a false perception.

There must be a lesson there, he decides, and then goes to work.

2

The Sneeze

It was an expulsion from his mouth and nose, a rejection of foreign bodies irritating his systems,

And a trigger for the cat to leap up from deep sleep and scurry from the noisy monster (who is usually quiet and friendly, especially when he has food or treats) into another room’s safety,

And a cue for the dog to say, “Hello!” (woof),

And a signal for annoyance to fly through his wife’s expression as she says, “That’s one.”

0

Guidelines for A Relationship with Your Muse(s)

I’ve been coping with my muse(s) for years. I’m not certain how many I have. I may have one muse with shape-shifting skills and multiple personalities, or a horde with very distinct skill sets and ideas. I suspect my muses are both of these ideas.

Muse(s) can be fickle. Having employed some mechanisms that helped me get along with my muse(s), I thought I’d compile some brief, general guidelines. These are recorded to help me in the future, but since I’m typing them up, I thought sharing them might help others when they’re dealing with their muse(s).

  1. Shelter your muse(s) like kittens, puppies, kits, and fledglings. They’re cute, tender, and impressionable, and need to be fed, protected, and nurtured. They depend on you for everything.
  2. It helps to act like you’re handling a fourteenth-century Ming dynasty vase when you’re conversing with your muse(s). They’re rare, fragile, and irreplaceable.
  3. Regard your muse(s) like they’re famous geniuses such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Stephen Hawking, Jackson Pollock, Maya Angelou, or Frank Lloyd Wright. They have a lot to offer, and you should pay attention.
  4. Behave with your muse(s) as you would with family that you enjoy having around, and respect and interact with your muse(s) as you do with family that you must love because they’re family, but you have no idea why they do the things that they do.
  5. Follow your muse(s) like they’re a famous performer, like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Beyonce, or Kanye West, or a movie star like Jimmy Stewart, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Dwight Johnson, Jerry Lewis, Casey Affleck, or Bruce Campbell.
  6. Care for your muse(s) like a favorite elderly pet who seems to be fading.
  7. Obey your muse(s) like you’re a child and they’re your parent(s).
  8. Nurture, protect, and teach your muse(s) like you’re their parent(s) and they’re your child, perhaps a two-year-old, or a sixteen-year-old. They could be both from moment to moment. Part of the fun is understanding which one they are.
  9. Interact with your muse(s) like they’ve been convicted of being a serial killer who escaped from prison and is standing in your bedroom.
  10. React to your muse(s) like they’re the monsters under your bed. You’re not sure if they’re real, but you keep hearing noises, and it’s really, really dark.
  11. Embrace your muse(s) like a bolt of lightning during a thunderstorm. It can be painful and illuminating, but rewarding, if you survive.
  12. Finally, have fun with your muse(s). Pretend that you’re all celebrating graduating high-school and becoming an adult by getting drunk.

Employing these simple strategies have rewarded me with the same sort of wonderful relationship that I have with a stranger that I bump into at a parade. With a little observation and effort, you can have the same kind of relationship.

Good luck!

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑