Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
When I say I’m alright
I might just be okay
But there could be such a heavy load
That it takes too much to say
You can look for clues in my face
These things usually leave a trace
But what’s going on in my inner space
Is really not in play
I need time to process
To evolve an understanding
Of where I’m at and who I am
After this last round of changes
So when I say I’m alright
I might just be okay
Then okay, I could be miserable
I just don’t want to say
Some days, shit is happening, and all you can do is pretend to pursue the normal aspects of being. For one, war is hettin’ up in the Middle East or whatever you want to call it. It’s been a war zone for years. It’s usually a matter of who is going to strike back, how, and when. There will be violence, death, and destruction. The Middle East quagmire of religions, history, and tribes and factions are overstocked with tendencies to war.
Personally, dispiriting matters keep piling up in my world. I don’t write about all of them. Not going to start now. My basic bottom line which I return to again and again, is, this is life. Many of us — hell, I’ll go out on a limb and declare that most of us — go through this shit. I can only imagine how worse the shit is magnified if you’re suffering from serious diseases, homelessness, racism and other prejudice, discrimination, or hate. On paper, I have it pretty good but life is lived on a spectrum. We slide up and down it. I’m on the down side today.
We watched again a Neflix series on the gut and the biome’s influence on our brains and pains.* As part of this show, they talked about fecal transplants. Transplants were done by people who had problems and were seeking solutions. One woman used her boyfriend’s fecal material as her transplant source. She noted that he has ‘mental issues’ but didn’t specify more. Or maybe I spaced on it. I did catch her say that she began acting and feeling like him, emotionally unstable, anxious, and depressed. She quit using his shit and used her brother’s shit. After a week, she felt much better.
I imagine a future of routine fecal transplants. A partner on the computer says, “I’m ordering some groceries and things. Is there anything you need?”
“Yes, get me some new shit. I’m almost out of shit and I’m feeling it.”
“What shit do you want?”
“Same shit as last time. It should be in your order history.”
“Is it the Tom Cruise brand Improved Shit?”
“Yes, that’s the shit, but get a big jar. I’m really feeling it.”
“You got it.”
I think about whose shit I might order. Maybe Taylor Swift, Tom Brady, or Patrick Mahomes. I pity the fool who tries mine. But then again, I know people with some shit that’s a lot worse.
*The Neflix series is You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment
Dreamland hasn’t been a happy place recently. Dreams featured me being lost and struggling. Maggots coming out of my skin. Being a broken robot. Etc. Different nights. Each brought a new horror of who I was. I disliked those dreams.
The Neurons flipped the script last night. In this one, a young and vigorous me was starting a new job. In medical device manufacturing, as I did for a few years. I was a mid-level manager. Working alone, as, again, I often did. But I had a great cast of supportive, friendly co-workers. They checked in on me. Helped me set up an office. Joked with me and came to me for my opinion, advice, and insights.
There were some messy moments. Like, my clothes became filthy from an office accident that didn’t otherwise involve me. I felt that I had to get out of those clothes but what was I going to wear? Co-workers came through with clothes they had available. Stuff planned to work after work for the gym, golfing, and dating. They willingly gave me those clothes.
I received a phone call. There was a family emergency. I needed to get somewhere that night. But my car was in the garage. A real-life friend from now, Ron, showed up. Turned out he was a co-worker. He asked me about my problem. “I’m going that way,” he said. “I can give you a ride.” We cemented arrangements.
I was so pleased. Then, chaos broke out at work. Problem after problem. While I worked to solve them, co-workers consistently came through with tools, insights, and helping hands.
The message I took away was, yes, life is messy and chaotic. But don’t worry. Others are there to help.
It was a message I really felt like I needed to hear.
Feb. 10, 2025, is a wintry Mundaz in Ashlandia. White sky holds no promises. White sky offers no sun. White sky offers no solace.
No precipitation is falling but we’re hovering at a toasty 23 F, ten degrees below our average low for this calendar date. Snow that fell last week still has a meaty white presence on the ground. The pine trees have finally shed that winter weight. Last week’s snow and ice had many pines bent to half of their height.
As for today, ‘they’ tell us that the sunshine will overcome the white sky and take us to 43 F, ten degrees below our normal average high.
Sorry that KC Chiefs were so dominated by the Philly Eagles in the SB yesterday. Unfortunately, PINO Trump predicted they’d win. That doomed them. As we’ve seen repeatedly demonstrated, Trump bestows the kiss of death on everything.
The Neurons surprised me with today’s music. It started as a tangent off some floofcourse between me and my felines. I asked them, “What’s wrong now?” Their answer came as pouty stares and circling watchfulness, which just dumped Les Neurons into bafflement. As I shifted to news reports with growing, heavier sighs, I thought, “Too many problems.”
A song began in my morning mental music stream. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong now? Too many problems.” As it pulled up volume and melody, I hunted the who, what, whens behind it. Unable to answer those myself, I turned to the net. It educated me that the song was “Nobody’s Home” by Avril Lavigne from 2004. I guess I heard it in the car. Back in that decade, I moved to Ashlandia and began doing regular I-5 commutes from my place in southern Oregon to visit with my team in Mountain View, between SF and SJ on the peninsula. Guess I heard it then.
Hope you can get positive that something good will come about and it won’t take a miracle from some deity or an eternity to happen. Coffee and I have embraced again. Off we go, into the wild white yonder, a fresh start on another day.
Cheers
I’ve read others’ comments about comments getting rejected by WordPress. Last week, it struck me. I’d type up a comment, click comment, and WP replied, “This comment couldn’t be posted” or words to that effect.
It doesn’t happen with everyone’s blogs. It’s irritatingly random. First time, the poster had written about bowel movements and their poo. I commented and added a facet about menstrual cycles. When my comments were rejected, I wondered if it was about the subject or my word choices. But since then, I’ve had comments rejected about car repairs, animals, food, news, and politics.
Just one of those mysterious afflictions which sometimes strike modern technology, I suppose.
It was a strange coffee shop morning. My back against one wall, the tables were full of chatting couples. Eavesdropping, I realized that of the four closest tables to me, all four couples were generally a counselor meeting with a client doing therapy sessions. I’ve noticed three of the couples at the coffee shop before. Heard several of them talking about their partner’s drug issues or their own health issues, both mental and physical. I rarely feel a need to talk to another about my issues. Then again, I often write about that shit.
Guess that’s my therapy.
One of several favorable impression I have about WordPress is, they respond fast. Once something broken is uncovered, it’s been my experience that they fix it fast. I really do appreciate that about them.
In this case, it’s about the ability to add tags. Just a few days ago, the bug appeared in my blogging attempts. It was still there this morning. Bang, gone now.
Hurrah for WordPress. Wish more companies were as prompt and responsive.
Mood: Percoffeecatiated
Happy Mother’s Day in the U.S. Hope all you mothers enjoy of celebration and joy.
Today is Sunday May 12, 2024. Clouds without breaks occlude the sun in the Churchill Valley where the cities I’m visiting are located. It’s 50 F now. Weather elements will lift our temp to 65 F. That sullen winter taste in the air has melted away. We’ve returned to a cold, wet, spring essence.
My Mother’s Day mental perambulations are searches for how to help Mom. She’s tired, often in pain, fighting to moving and thinking, but everything tires her to deep levels. She wants and needs help. Finding it is now my mission.
There are agencies to help. They’re mired in bureaucracy. Nothing has an easy approach or quick timelines. Phone calls, emails, and chats will be the upcoming week’s norms.
Her own habits, experiences, and expectations are a significant obstacle. She expects to bounce back but the bounce is gone. She wants or needs, which I guess should be married as a word, waeds, to do the cleaning she has always done, to be hygienic and neat. These things take hours and hours. Her zip has diminished to a lumpy trundle.
Her decline has been going on a while, since ‘The Fall’. That seemed to trigger everything; she’s been fighting against its ripples for over a decade. Classic story, definitely in America, probably in many other countries as well. She confided to me last night that she fell hard five times in the first three days after returning home. That is no good.
The morning mental music stream (Trademark flailing) has a song called “Paralyzer” orbiting it. The Finger Eleven beats started my mental journey while I was still abed. My brain was gyrating around the things wanted and the things needed, and the destinations and journeys of all the players when the 2007 tune kicked in. It’s not an even matchup between the song and the morning, except I was dealing with a sense of paralysis and a resistance to moving. Then I told myself I’d treat me to a cuppa coffee if I left the bed, dressed, and started doing things. I’m a sucker for a promise of coffee.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward against the winds of resistance, and Vote Blue in 2024. The promise of coffee has been fulfilled. Here’s the music video.
Here we go. Cheers
My wife, SIL, and I needed to take a trip. I procured a car for us, paying cash for it. It just happens that it looked just like the 1968 Camaro RS I owned in RL in 1975, complete with stripes and black vinyl top, a fun, reliable, and sporty car. In the dream, I didn’t know that it was like my Camaro of my youth because we were youths.
I don’t know why we were traveling by car, other than going from point A to B. Tucker, a current RL cat, was traveling with us. My SIL and I took turns driving, although I did most of it. At one point while I was driving, I suddenly couldn’t control the speed. I was telling them that in the car as I tried braking, kicking the accelerator, and then trying to take the car, an automatic, out of gear, attempting to put it into neutral. When I couldn’t move the center console shifter, I concluded, “I think we’ve lost the transmission.”
I managed to get the car stopped. We got out to talk and stretch our legs. My wife was inattentive and left the car door open. Tucker immediately leaped out. I caught him and then scolded her for leaving the door open and letting Tucker out. She dismissed me and what had happened, which irked me. We decided to go on. I thought for a moment that she was going to drive, which I didn’t want for some reason. I then drove again.
We arrived at a hotel and in a dream blink, we were checked in and up in our room. I think it was in Chicago. It was a large, lavish suite, which included a butler of sorts who was also pressing us to eat or drink, telling us each time, “It’s free.” I didn’t think it was free, but included in the room. At one point, we discussed going out to dinner. The butler started making suggestions about where to go. My SIL was reading about our room during the conversation and asked, “Do you know what floor we’re on?” As my wife replied, “No,” SIL said, “We’re on the 668th floor.”
I went over to the huge windows and looked out. Seeing how high we were, I gasped. “Wow. Why are we so high?”
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 