The Sighs
For Free
I broke my arm in July and have been rehabilitating it. I’ve recently achieved doing pushups again. Proud of it, I went in and announced to my wife, “I can do pushups.”
She looked up. “For money?”
I thought about it. “Are you going to pay me?”
“No. I don’t think anyone will pay you to do pushups for money.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
I explained my purposes, but now I was a little down. I can do pushups, but nobody is paying me.
It’s like I’m working for free.
Sunday Stewing
- Argued with my muse earlier this week. She told me, “Write this.” I replied, “But why? This is going in an unexpected direction.” Her response: “Just write it.” It was the disdainful tone she employed that precipitated the argument. I was all, “I’m the writer here. I’m in charge.” She loosed mocking laughter in answer. Eventually, she told me that I was obsessing over the novel’s concept to the detriment of the plot, story, and characters. Ouch. Harsh words.
- This kind of novel-writing confusion often happens to me. Wait, what am I doing? Where am I going? What’s supposed to happen? I’m a pantser, not an outliner. I generally want to know where the story goes and leave the details to my muse (or muses) to fill in for me. I’m a person prone to overanalyzing matters, though, why often helps me confuse myself. Sitting down and doing a session to address where I’ve gone awry generally puts me right. I often indulge in several of these sessions while writing a novel’s first draft.
- We were doing the laundry the other day. The dark load finished washing. I transferred it to the dryer. My wife loaded the washer with a load of whites. The dryer finished with the darks. I pulled them out, then put the whites in and went off and folded the darks. My wife was busy reading, so when the whites finished, I pulled them out and started folding them. As I did, I thought, what does she do to these socks? They’re not very clean. My wife, looking up from her reading, said, “Did you do the whites?” Her question confused me. “No, you did. I just put them in the dryer.” “Um, were they wet?” I thought back: actually, no. Sheepishly, chased by her laughter, I put the whites back into the washer. This happened two days ago; she’s still teasing me about it and laughing.
- Cancer strikes again. Another friend in the hospital with some cancer variation. One of those things that elicit a long sigh even as I intellectualize, well, it’s life and death, isn’t it? Where we all end. Yeah.
- My formerly broken arm (the left one) continues improving. Did pushups this week. First was just a half one. Lot of quivering arm with it, some mild pain, greater worry. I think worry was holding me back all along. The arm just remains so thin looking, and the wrist still doesn’t move right. Hence, my worry. But I’ve done more pushups since. This morning, I managed two sets of four. Yeah, baby, progress.
- Wrote this post during the AM hours. Then sat on it while I drank coffee and wrote like crazy. Now time to run to the library. They do a door service. Books are put on hold; we go to the door where a table is set up. They come out, we identify ourselves, and then the librarian goes in to find the books for us, check them out, and return. After the library, drop off some muffins to friends, then back home to eat a late lunch and rake leaves. Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask.
Such Screwy Dreams
My dreams left me laughing and shaking my head. One involved food and family; the second was about military and ID (again) (but with changes).
In the first, my stepfather was there. ‘He and I didn’t get along’ is a loaded understatement. He was a large part of the unhappiest part of my life.
I knew that history in my dream, and even wondered, what’s he doing here. But I tried making nice, and he was being nice. My wife was there (she’d never met him), along with a couple of my sisters, and my mother.
First, weirdly, we — my wife and I — set up a television connection with the net to watch porn. Really. The plan wasn’t mine in the dream, and left me scratching my head, but I did as told. Then, lo, my stepfather and family sat down and turned on that porn. They were all laughing, asking, what’s that?
It was a flat screen TV. Distracting them, I spun it around so they couldn’t see the screw. Then I ran to the bedroom. Lifting the bedskirt, I located switches to change what they could see on the television. Then I dashed back, and turned the television back to them.
As they watched television, my wife and I prepared food for ourselves in the other room. I was having a Philly cheese steak sandwich; she was having a veggie version.
We went outside to eat. The food was on a plate. The house was on a busy corner. Some people passing asked if they could have a sandwich, offering to pay for it. My wife said, “Yes,” while I was like, “What? Don’t we need permits?” She was certain that we didn’t. Well, my wife and I started making and selling the sandwiches. Sales were great. We were happy, and sold them until we ran out of supplies.
The dream ended as my wife laughed, counted cash, and joked about doing it again.
The next dream took on a military spin. We wife and I were in temporary quarters, leaving a base. I think we may have been leaving the military. Well, we’re in bed when the door bangs open. Two guys walk in. I leap out of bed and rush across the room to confront them. I’m not big; they’re a good six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. But this is the military and I’m a senior NCO, and that’s the power I’m using. I brace them, telling them that this is my room and they have no business being there. They’re disagreeing, saying the rules changed. I haven’t heard about changes, so I don’t give a shit, you know?
But I tell my wife what they told me, that there’s been unspecified changes that shifts our roles. Then I go out to learn more. After a few minutes, I return and tell her, I’ve confirmed what I was told, that it’s changed. Sitting down, we discuss the changes and agree that they were overdue, but that they don’t really matter, because we were done, suggesting we were giving up our military ID cards.
Then we leave with our baggage, and the dream ends.
In both dreams, I notice that it’s about changes. In the first, my relationship with my stepfather changed. Then my wife and I were making food for ourselves, but changed and started making and selling food. In the military dream, of course, there were changes that seem to reference the structure and our roles.
Then again, my dreams are often about change these days.
The Distance
The distance didn’t seem that great,
just the width of the street.
But the space between hellos and good-byes
was more than could be breached.
Thursday’s Theme Music
My goodness, Thursday is already upon us.
Many songs have the potential to be the theme song for the COVID-19 season for folks locked up in their house together. We can get under one another’s skin, you know?
This 1983 Genesis offering came when I was contemplating should I eat one more cookie. We don’t usually have cookies in the house because we eat them. For cookies to successfully stay available for a while, they must be cookies we don’t like, or frozen and tucked out of view. As I’ll eat just about anything, it’s tough finding cookies that we don’t like.
But that whole should-I-eat-one-more thing brought about lyrics from “That’s All”, “Taking it all instead of taking one bite.” Phil Collins, the vocalist, delivers it with outrage.
It was an amusing exercise. For the record, one cookie was left. It was due to be my wife’s, but she came in and said, “You can have that last cookie.”
She’s such a nice person.
Also, for the record, this song always seems like it could be by the early Bee Gees or a Gilbert O’Sullivan song.
Closure
First, a commercial interlude. I’ve been watching Hulu late at night, streaming Fargo. Interesting commercials come on, then. One of them is about Peyronie’s Disease. In the commercial, men are holding up carrots, bananas, and cucumbers. The fruit and vegetables look straight, but the men then turn them to reveal sharp curves. A voiceover says something like, “Does your erection have an unusual curve or bump that it didn’t use to have? Your erections shouldn’t hurt.”
It’s eye-opening.
I never thought about what my erection looked like. Naturally, this commercial made me wonder. Also, my erections never hurt. It’s scary, though. Nothing is safe.
The things I learn from commercials. Maybe I should watch less television. (Sure, that’s the answer.) I pulled out my computer (did you think I was going to put another noun there?) and googled PD to confirm it existed.
It does.
Okay, on to the main event.
I’m a Do-It-Yourselfer.
I’m not a very good one.
Whether it’s writing a computer program or a novel, fixing a car or a wall, painting a house or building a computer — which are things I’ve done — I usually achieve decent results, but it’s a messy process.
I have a few reasons that I think is behind all this.
- I’m self taught, but I’m not a very good teacher.
- I’m an impatient person.
- Whenever I asked for help as a child, Mom told me, “Figure it out.” Like most moms, she thought I was smarter and more capable than I really am. I started believing her.
I was painting our kitchen when I broke my arm in July. Painting the kitchen can be violent, can’t it? What transpired is that our kitchen window is five feet wide and four feet tall. The window looks over the front proch.
A blind was installed for privacy, light, and all that. The blind is one of those that can be pulled up by a cord on one end, or let down by a different cord on the other end. I think the official name is something screwy, like two-way blinds. I don’t know. Look it up.
The thing is, when I re-installed the blinds with my wife’s help after painting the kitchen, one end didn’t get correctly placed in the bracket. Whenever you pulled the cord to raise and lower the blind on that end, the blind bent down. That irritated me. Thus, “I will fix!” I decided.
Climbing onto the counter, I removed the blind and discovered that the brackets weren’t properly aligned. Easy fix, yah? Off I went for the appropriate screw driver to loosen and adjust the brackets. Except, I couldn’t turn the damn screws. They…WOULD…NOT…TURN. But I’d reinstalled the brackets. If I screwed them in, I should be strong enough to screw them out.
Damn it. With rising irritation, I turned to jump down off the counter to get a better tool. When I did, I caught my foot on the counter, setting into motion the awkward crash that broke the bones in my arm and twisted my hand up against my arm, sandwiching it between arm and body.
After that it was pain, hospital, splint, recovering, therapy…
Here we are, three months later. That damn blind was still down. It was driving me crazy.
My wife and I had talked about asking someone to put it up or hiring someone. Neither had happened. She was out yesterday, socially responsibly visiting friends (masks-distance-outside on a private deck). I walked into the kitchen and saw that big window and the brackets where the blind should be installed.
Time to fix it, I decided.
First, a pep talk.
One, I had to be careful. If I fell and hurt myself, I should just face up to it and end my life, because my wife would probably end it for me.
Two, I had to be careful, because I didn’t want to get hurt. I was nervous, which didn’t help, because…what if I fell? I’d never live it down. (I imagined going to the Emergency Room. “You again?” they would exclaim. “What did you do THIS time?” It’s weird that I imagined that. I’ve only been there once in the fifteen years that we’ve lived here.)
So, I told myself, BE CAREFUL. Take your time. Stay in the moment. FOCUS, fool.
I did. The brackets were adjusted and the blind reinstalled. It took about fifteen minutes.
I showed it to my wife when she returned home.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“Just put on my splint, got the tools, climbed up there and did it.”
“Did you use a chair to get up and down?”
“Of course. I’m a professional.”
“Were you nervous?”
I smiled. “What do you think?”
It was very satisfying to fix the blind. I believe they call it closure.
Secretly
The sun is beating on my head through my hat. I’m just the help. It’s a role that I enjoy.
Some.
“Boss me around, baby,” I do NOT say. I stay mute, gloves on hands, left arm in its removable brace, hoe nearby, spade in hand.
My wife is the master, planting her garlic for winter. She’s serious about her garden. Fresh bulbs had been procured, along with the right soil and fertilizer. Potatoes occupy the usual garlic winter home. A new one is required. “Somewhere in the sun,” she proclaims with steely vigor, looking around.
A song spurts into my head. Oh, hey. Did you happen to —
“We need to move the compost bins,” my wife declares.
We’re in the side yard, where most of the gardening is done. Boo, the backyard panther with a white star on his chest (like he’s sheriff) (guess, that would be a floofriff) moseys along toward us, talking as he comes. One compost bin (previously emptied) is moved to a new location. With this happening, Boo retreats to the backyard He wants nothing to do with work.
I shovel the compost from the full one to the empty one’s new location. The song resumes it secret playing in my head. Oh, hey. Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world. And if you did, was she crying?
Yes, Charlie Rich is serenading my brain with “The Most Beautiful Girl” as I do as I’m told. (We’re now on breaking up the soil where the garlic is to reside.) I blame my mother for this song. While Charlie Rich’s voice and the accompanying music is coming off vinyl courtesy of Mom’s mohogany Magnavox console stereo, it’s Mom singing along along with Rich who is actually singing in my head. She used to frustrate me by singing this song when I was trying to talk to her about it. It was apparently funny to her. The song came out in 1973. I would turn seventeen that year. I’d left home a year or two before to live with Dad, but would return to Mom for major holidays. Dad, single guy that he was, didn’t do holidays.
Why did Mom sing that song to me? Why was I singing today? These the mind’s mysteries. At least, they’re my mind’s mysteries. I don’t know what goes on in others’ minds. I barely comprehend what’s happening in my own.
“Now I just need to water them.” My wife was finished. I was dismissed.
It was a good day. Time to go wash my wife’s car. Wonder what song will be playing?
Oh, wait, Rose Royce begins their 1976 hot song, “Car Wash”. I was stationed in the Republic of the Philippines when it was out. My good buddy Bopie introduced it to me.
At least this one is task appropriate.
Monday’s Theme Music
My wife made some delicious spicy chick pea soup for dinner yesterday. We both love soups, and she delights in finding healthy recipes.
It was good soup weather, coolish but sunny, with a blue sky that let us see the far mountains. As I sat to eat the soup, I regarded its contents and breathed its aroma. Spinach, chick peas, carrots…good stuff, made with her homemade stock. Warm ciabatta bread (we’re mad about ciabatta bread) was available. Dipping the bread in the soup and eating it as the soup cooled was almost orgasmic.
After tasting it, I said, “This is great soup. What a wonderful smell. Thanks for making it.”
She said nothing. After a few minutes of quiet eating, she offered, “This is good soup, isn’t it?”
I kept eating but I thought, is this a trap? Did she not hear me before? Is she fishing for compliments, or just being redundant? (That’s probably the wrong way to think of it.)
In the past, I may have sniffed, “I just said that.” This time, I answered, “Yes, this is great soup. Thanks for making it.”
But my mind jumped on a train of thoughts about comments I’d made throughout the day that didn’t gain me a reply, no reply at all.
Which took me to the Genesis song from 1981, “No Reply at All”.
Michael Seidel, writer 