Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
It was a conversation between a man and a woman behind me as the Independence Day parade went by in front of me.
The man said, “That woman running for Congress – Jamie?”
“Jaime Mcleod-Skinner?”
“Yes. Did she go to school in Ashland? I went to school in Ashland with someone with her name — ”
“Yes, I went to school with her.”
“You went to school with Jamie Mcleod in Ashland?”
“Yes.”
“I went to school in Ashland.”
“Noel?”
“Meredith?”
Laughter.
Just what the doctor ordered,
none of them could say.
He said a lot about this and that,
if and then, but and why,
adding, “It depends on what the insurance pays.”
Then he bounded out of the room,
as he told them, “Have a good stay.”
Just what the doctor ordered,
became more bewildering throughout the day.
First a hot, black sip
and then writing like crazy
and a long, cold gulp
a twinge
becomes an ache
an ache grows into a throb
the throb develops as a relentless pain
the pain
becomes a fear
the fear grows into a concern
the concern develops as a constant worry
the worry
becomes a visit
the visit grows into a routine of meds
the meds develop as a constancy of life
the life
becomes a bore
the bore grows into apathy
the apathy develops as a decision
the decision
becomes a moment
the moment grows into a goal
the goal develops as an ending
Your silence tells me
something must be wrong
I can’t tell by your face
It’s blank as stone
It bothers me to hear you
staying so still
No matter what I say
Emptiness is all I feel
My words run dry
trying to dig something out
I don’t know where to turn
so I just walk out
there’s a distance in the feet between us
that can’t be measured or crossed
I feel my efforts are wasted
and our time has been a loss
Is it just me, or does anyone else want to strangle those people who proudly announce that they don’t vote, and have never voted?
Yeah, it’s probably just me.
He was mentioned as not being very talkative, but I found him loquacious. I mentioned the disparity to him.
“Well.” He shrugged. “I don’t talk much around my wife and family, or her friends.”
He turned his beer bottle by its neck. “I read a 2014 study about the number of words men and women use in a day. They always used to say that women talk more than men, but this study showed that men and women speak the same amount on average, about sixteen thousand words a day. Most of us filter it out. I talk more at work than at home because they filter more of my words out at home.”
“How do you do that? I mean, how do you figure something like that out?”
“Well, it’s all rough. There are a lot of factors. I set up a spreadsheet to figure out the average. I can show you on my phone.”
“Ummm….”
“Okay.” He laughed. “No problem. I understand. I’ll give you the executive summary for an average day, quote, unquote.
“I work nine hours a day. Monday through Friday, of course, with holidays off, all that. With commuting, I’m gone about eleven hours a day. I sleep about seven. That’s eighteen hours. So I’m awake and at home about six hours a day.
“Since I’m awake about seventeen hours a day, I decided that I average about nine hundred forty words an hour. I decided to call it a thousand. So I spoke about six thousand words a day at home. I figured that they hear about half of what I say. Three thousand words. They pay attention to about fifteen hundred. So, I’ve reduced what I speak at home to about a thousand words.”
“You speak a thousand words in six hours?”
“Yep.”
“But don’t the same rates hold? If you’re saying a thousand words, aren’t they hearing just half of those, and so on?”
“Oh, no.” He grinned. “Now, because I don’t talk much at home, they pay more attention to when I do.”
“That’s all pretty cynical, isn’t it?”
“Cynical? Or honest?” His grin turned rueful and his gaze turned inward. “Truthfully, I think they still pay attention to about half of what I say at home, if I’m honest. I think I’d rather be talking more and ignored, but I see them tune me out when I open my mouth.”
Shrugging, he lifted his beer bottle toward his mouth. “It is what it is.”
I’m right-handed. I’ve established a routine of doing physical activities with the opposite hand. I was initially just checking it out to see how well I could do things with my left hand.
I started with the usual stuff of signing my name, throwing and catching a ball, and eating. Then it became a challenge in motor dexterity and balance. As I’ve aged, I’m staggered to see how my habits and routines had trained and limited my body and its movement. Because of that, I expanded my opposite routines to shaving, dressing, and brushing my teeth. It surprised me how hard it was to dress doing things as though I’m left-handed. Putting on my boxer shorts was especially challenge.
Today I added one that I’ve never done before: I reversed how I wear my belt. Let me tell you, thinking through how to put the belt through the loops was funny as hell because it wasn’t easy.
What about you? Do you ever practice doing things with the opposite hand?
Someone asks for the time. You look at a timepiece. It’s 10:28. Do you say, “It’s almost ten thirty,” “It’s ten twenty-eight,” “It’s about half-past ten,” or “It’s about ten thirty?”
Or do you say, “Zulu or local?”
My wife and I read that coffee lemonade is the latest hot new thing. Sadly, no businesses around here are offering. People that I speak with are not even aware of it.
It’s sad to live in such a backward and remote part of the world. I guess I’ll need to travel to a metropolitan area to sample coffee lemonade.
Quick check: what alcohol should be added to coffee lemonade to give it added zest?
Michael Seidel, writer 