No, I’m in Ashland. It’s August 16, 2022, right? A Tuesday.
It’s a gorgeous day here, if blue skies and sunshine spell gorgeous to you. Sunbeams broke up night’s hold at 6:19 this morning. 8:10 PM will find the night returning as the world’s spin does its thang. It’s a comforting 64 F now but highs will take us to 93 F.
The Neurons implanted Joni Mitchell in the morning mental music stream. She’s singing her 1974 song, “Help Me”. This is cause of freedom. I said to my wife, “Well, we have the freedom to do what we want.” I was talking about a road trip we’re undertaking. The Neurons gloamed onto ‘freedom’ and started singing variations of the chorus, “But not like we love our freedom.”
Yeah, we’re on a road trip. Let me coffee up and get out there. You be safe, test negative and think positive. See you on the coast.
Yeah, it’s Monday. Causes many to face a need to wean themselves off the weekend. Yeah, there are a few lovelies who enjoy their job so much that they don’t need to be weaned off the sleep and relaxation the weekend provided. Also, retired people care less about Mondays and need less weaning. Shiftworkers, too. Their Monday varies. It’s not usually the same Monday the rest of us experience so far as the calendar takes us, but they have the same dilemma, getting weaned off of their time off and relaxation as they clean up, dress up, and press on into work.
It’s mid August, 2022, the fifteenth if you’re scoring at home. Time’s sprint through the year continues for me. The shadows and angles of sunrise and sunset are shifting. The southern windows are given more light and earlier exposure, a fascinating aspect to meditate upon as the orbital dance between the Earth and Sol continues.
6:18 AM slipped up on the clock as sunshine breached the horizon and gave light to the sky. I expect the sun to get left behind as the Earth turns at 8:20 PM. We’re currently measuring air temp at 19 C. A high of 91 F might be reached. I’ll take this cool, comfortable morning under a cloud-free blue sky. Good coffee weather.
Last night’s outdoors scene was sigh-inducing. A waning full moon skipped over the southern hills and mountains, flashing its silver-white shine through the trees, blessing the backyard with a fantasy glow. I expected fairies to edge out and start zipping about. A blanket of stars and relaxing chill breeze completed the experience.
Wean music isn’t much for actually weaning you off unless it lifts your mood and distracts you. I think this song does it. The Neurons slipped it into the morning mental music stream when I wasn’t looking. They fed off an idea about chasing the sunrise. “Lay Me Down” by The Dirty Heads came out in 2010. I often think that it’s Jack Johnson playing and singing. Has that same mellow surfer vibe that Johnson incorporates in his music.
Stay positive and test negative. Have some coffee, if you’d like. Plenty here, at the moment. The ginger prince is singing to me. Don’t know what that song is about. He’s already eaten and we’ve played. He was groomed and petted, and scratched, and adored. Probably just wants more of the same. Here’s the music.
Late log in on this August 14, a Sunday in the common era human year of 2022. That’s the date according to the instruments. Looks like a decent world. I’ve already sampled the drink which they call coffee and sent a glowing report back to headquarters. Feel like I can fly back there without a ship after drinking that coffee!
Greetings from Earth! I made it. As expected, the situation for humanity is swiftly deteriorating. Few of them should remain in another five hundred of their years, making our conquest very easy. I am looking forward to it.
The data specifies that I’ve landed in a small town in the Rogue River valley in Oregon in the United States on North America – their terms. Sol, their local sun – they only have one – passed the eastern horizon as the world turned at 6:17 this morning, using their time reference, shortly after I touched down. Air samples revealed the fresh, oxygen-rich atmosphere that we’d anticipated and a temperature of 22 Gluck, cool for us but a comfortable temperature for humans and most other life firms of this small rock. I’ll stay here, where the temperature will reach 30 G until the sun sets. I want to see a Terran setting sun. I heard that pollution makes them very pretty. That sunset will take place at 8:13. Then I’ll take off and continue to my final destination, Mars. It’ll be interesting to see how Mars as changed since I’ve last been.
Meanwhile, I’ll drink coffee and listen to human music. Influences of others who’ve been to Earth are felt. Although a large spectrum of music is available, the genres and its offspring known as rock and roll most please my neurons. There seems to be a mental musical stream which this music has ignited. I have one particular song, which I’ve learned is called “Crossfade” by Cold, playing in this stream. (Sorry, I have that backwards. I don’t understand this aspect of their terminology, and why Crossfade is the band’s name and “Cold” is the song title. Perhaps I’ll study it while I’m here.) I find myself inexplicably humming this song, “Cold”, off and on as I do other things. The song came out about one hundred years after I hatched, which would make it 2005 on Earth. I do not know why it continues to play in me in this way. I’m not the first to experience this, of course. Elvis warned us about it in his report, for example.
I am going to drink more coffee now. As always, my Lygers, stay positive and test negative. Hope to be home again in a mersoon. Meanwhile, please enjoy this song which is trapped in my head. See what you make of it.
A small orange striped creature which humans call a cat is approaching. It seems to know our language! I will provide an update later.
Cool air is washing in through the windows as crows caw and talk a few blocks away and a small prop plane drones over the valley. It’s Saturday morning. When I was a nine-to-fiver, I’d jump out of bed on Saturdays and be out of the house by seven. It was all me time, private time. I’d be returned by ten and then the chores and errands kicked off.
So, just to clarify, I was never a nine-to-fiver. Just a term to express working a Monday through Friday work week. I generally started at six AM and was done by three PM. I preferred early hours. More was accomplished in the office before others arrived than at any other time of day. When I had really large projects, I usually went in on Sunday nights and worked on them, because nobody was there to disturb me.
Today is 8/13/2022. The sun quietly cruised into position in the eastern sky at 6:16 this morning and will cruise out at 8:15 PM. Someone posted yesterday on social media that “today is the last day that the sun will set after eight PM if you’re in the northern hemisphere.” No, my friend, it’s not that universal. Wide variances just by traveling a little north and south.
It’s currently 61 F but we’re looking for a high of 25 C. Not bad. Purple Air says our air quality is lime green today, hovering around the border between the yellow and green zones. Not too bad.
The Neurons have put a song called “Sisters” in my morning mental music stream. I asked, what the what? They sniggered. Written by Irving Berlin, the song gained wide popularity after it was included in White Christmas in 1954. Weirdly, these are things I know despite being born two years later. But White Christmas has been shown on television for most of my life. “Sisters” is a song my wife likes, so she sang it frequently. All that prompted me to learn more about it years ago. No clue why it’s in the morning mental music stream.
I rejected “Sisters” as my theme music. I also rejected “Mother” by Danzig. It was featured on Paper Girls, a Prime series which we’re enjoying. Instead, I repudiated Le Neurons by pulling “Tusk” out of my mind and put it into the morning mental music stream. I told my neurons, you’re not the boss of me. I’m not gonna let you tell me what to do, so there. “Tusk” is by Fleetwood Mac. Released in 1979, I find its percussion and the way the lyrics are sort of barked out to be soothing. Plus, it irritates The Neurons, ha ha ha.
Okay, going off on the coffee run to make it up to The Neurons. Stay pos, test neg, etc. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the music, life, and Saturday. Cheers
Take a deep breath. You can smell it in the air: Frieday has arrived.
It’s Frieday, August 12, 2022, but it is Frieday, Frieday, when you can sit back and enjoy some frybread, or crispy and sizzling fried bacon, or hot breaded fried chicken, fish, or shrimp.
That’s how many come to Frieday. Others arrive at Frieday feeling or looking fried. People tell them, “Man, do you look fried.” They answer, “Well, it is Frieday. I’m looking forward to the weekend. I am going to go nuts and do nothing.”
Doesn’t look like our town will fry today. Sunrise started the sizzle at 6:15 AM. Today’s sizzle won’t be much, a low burn high of 86 F. Now it’s a cool 18 C as the mountains bath us with morning air from their tops. Just sixteen hours and one minute from sunrise, the turning away will commence. On the bummer side of this Frieday, air quality has gone down with air particulates pushing the air into the red, scratching the blue sky with brown streaks.
Dreams were long and complicated. I emerged from them feeling good about myself. As I fed cats and ran the morning bifloofalon, I thought about my self-esteem. Those thoughts encouraged The Neurons to break out “Self Esteem” by The Offspring from 1994. A little Youtube scratching found this video of the group performing the song in 1999. I prefer versions where I can see the group playing the music and singing. Doesn’t usually sound as polished as the studio albums, but I like the reminders of the time given by the band’s appearance, the stage, setting, and audience. Feds the flames of nostalgia, yeah?
The boiled black brew is reading for its Frieday tasting. Stay positive, test negative, have a good Frieday and a most excellent weekend, your excellencies. Here’s the music. Cheers
The wheels of time rolled through another day into Thirstday, August 11, 2022. Thirstday, the time of week when you pause to think of the things for which you thirst. Maybe it’s unrequited love. Or something simpler and more personal, like a cancer cure. Perhaps you thirst for food security and shelter, social justice, or equality. It could be that you thirst for another time, when you knew yourself as a younger person with a wide-open horizon before you. Our thirsts are different, Thirstday reminds us.
Sunshine tore the night covers back at 6:14 AM. The sun’s valley reign will go on to 8:17 PM, taking our temperatures from 18 C where we now sit to 90 F by late afternoon. A wondrously blue sky highlights the day’s placid nature. Everything looks calm, peaceful, and serene. Only arguing jays break the morning stillness.
Wasn’t so a short while again. The house floofs love this weather. Papi turned in a record mad dash as the halls and rooms became LeMans. He took the Mulsanne Straight chicanes flat out, demonstrating mind-blowing speed and control as Tucker watched with bristling white whiskers.
The Neurons have turned to Bill Withers, sliding an old high-school favorite by him from 1972, “Use Me”, into the morning mental music stream. I understand The Neurons’ reasoning. It’s a dream thing which I’m still unknotting. It’s a good song to hear again, to help look back on things in a quiet pause between more urgent matters. Though we never knew one another, Bill and I lived in the same town, Beckley, WV, for a few years. Yeah, it was separated by about six years, so meeting him was remote. Did see him in concert once and have great admiration for him.
My Thirstday coffee is a-calling from the kitchen counter. Stay positive, test negative, etc., endure, survive, and go on to thrive. Here’s the music. Cheers
Whensday, August 10, 2022, slipped in when our backs were turn. Looks like he’ll stay a day. Maybe two.
You feel that it’s Whensday, a day when questions rise like a two-year-old learning to talk is following you around. Your neurons bombard you with questions. “When is the pandemic going to end? When are things going to get better? When will I be able to relax? When is my package arriving? When is dinner?”
Yeah, I feel very Whensday today.
Sun arrived like a teenager sneaking into the house at 6:13 AM. Won’t go away until 8:19 this evening. I cannot help but notice the reduced time allotted for sunshine in my valley, the product of the orbital spins and revolutions. Temperature is cool but pleasing 18 C. Only anticipating the heat to push the mercury up to 86 F today. Our air quality leaped into the red zone yesterday. The air red zone isn’t the same as in American football. Air red zone means it’s starting to be unhealthy for breathing creatures. It’s dropped back down to the moderate zone this AM. All depends on the winds. Yes, the answer is blowing in the wind.
“Young Americans” by David Bowie (1975) is circulating through the morning mental music stream. (The stream, BTW, is like a rambunctious labyrinth with several connected levels. It’s a boulder strewn rockin’ place.) It arrived after reading through news stories and then taking a contemplative stance to question, “What will the future be like?” What will the young Americans be like? Will real and sustained change arrive. An eternal optimist, I reply, yeah, but it’s gonna be messy. Won’t be straightforward, will be more like a shuffle back and forth, left and right, up and down, just like most of history has been.
Anyway, here is the song. Hope you enjoy it. Speaking of enjoying, I believe young coffee is patiently waiting in the other room. When will I drink it? I think now is the time. Stay positive, test negative, etc. Cheers
We’ve now reached Twosday, August 9, 2022. Twosday is really Tuesday, of course, but there’s a tale behind Twosday.
A poor young woman in France was desperate to feed her family. One morning she went to the market. As she browsed the displays with a rumbling stomach, keen to help her starving siblings at home, she overheard merchants talking about the day of the week. Realizing it was Tuesday, she convinced others that the day’s origins came from Two-day, a day in which people could buy two items of fish, bread, and produce for the price of one. Inspired by her desperation, she passionately implored the shopkeepers to restore this tradition, and won the day. Eventually, Two-day fell out of use, becoming known as BOGO, or Buy One Get One free.
She went on at a young age to become a military hero. Her name was Joan and millions followed her. That’s right, this young woman later came to be known as Joan of Arc. And now you know the rest of the story, which I just made up.
It’ll be a warm Twosday here in the valley, with temperatures rising as soon as the sun slipped into the valley at 6:12 this morning. It’s 21 C now but we expect to achieve 97 F again. The sky is blue, the air is smoke-free, and finches are sitting on a telephone line singing. Sunset will be at 8:20 this evening.
In honor of Twosday, we — The Neurons and I — will give you two theme songs. One is from Olivia Newton John. ONJ passed away this week. As soon as The Neurons read the news, they began playing, “Physical” (1981), and it’s been in the morning mental music stream since. Part of that is because network news all played the song while talking about ONJ’s career and passing, reinforcing its presence in the MMMS, and keeping songs such as “I Honestly Love You” and “Please, Mister Please” out.
But as I typed this morning, a train passed through town, blowing its whistle to ensure we all knows it’s rumbling through. The train whistle prompted some of The Neurons to begin Johnny Cash’s 1955 song, “Folsom Prison Blues”. It came out the year before I was born so I’ve known that song my entire life. That I know it despite not yet being conceived when it was released is a testament to how often it was played in various media venues throughout my lifetime. No doubt, a large part of that is because it’s memorable.
Well, I have a coffee appointment which I need to get to. Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Here’s the tunes. Enjoy them both. Cheers
Today is Numbday, August 8, 2022. What makes it Numbday is personal. For some, it’s because of the work grind that commences with Monday. Others find the news creates Numbday — they just can’t take it anymore! Like when Trump was said to say that he wished ‘his’ generals were more like Hitler’s and denied that Hitler’s generals ever tried killing Hitler.
Price shock causes some Numbday reactions when folks buy a bag of groceries for $75 dollars or fill their car’s gas tank for $100. Smoke and heat exhaustion, flooding, and other weather events can cause Numbday. Revelations about a loved one’s halth or a deep personal betrayal have also been known to cause Numbdays.
My Numbday is caused by one of the oldest and most basic reasons: not enough sleep because of sleep interruptus CAUSED BY A CERTAIN FLOOF — yes, I’m talking about you, Tucker, and don’t you try to pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about — and the need to get up early for an appointment. Woof.
The sun sprang up as if it were not a day over a billion, leaping into the sky at about, um, 6:11 AM, where it’ll stay until 8:22 PM, if standard rotation and orbital mechanics follow, which they should, unless there’s suddenly a black hole the size of a bowling ball coming into the scene. More on that later. Our temperature is a weirdly warm 68 F (20 C). We’ll be creeping up to 97 F today, so a little cooler than yesterday. Yeah, fires still rage out there, but our air remains clear. Fingers crossed, etc.
It was a bright moon last night, lighting up the local night as it waxes toward its full greatness. Out in the backyard to admire the night sky, because the moon was rendering it difficult with its light in the front, I caught a meteor’s streak. Blink and its gone. That kept me there for a few more minutes, hoping for another. No luck.
It did cause The Neurons to erupt with “The Reflex” by Duran Duran (1984). Simon and the lads remain in the morning mental music stream, a reflexive song in response to my reflexive need to try to see another meteor. Listening to the song, I often end up wondering, what exactly is the reflex? I know it’s a lonely child, yeah, I hear that, and it’s waiting by the park. Then there’s that chorus.
Oh, why don’t you use it? Try not to bruise it Buy time, don’t lose it Oh, why don’t you use it?
Is it the helping hand or the reflex that I’m thinking about using and trying not to bruise?
Well, some volunteer coffee has arrived to go down my gullet and lift my energy. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, etc. Here’s the music. Enjoy your Numbday. Cheers
This is it, Sumday, the beginning and the end. The circle remains unbroken, and here we are at the culmunation of hopes and prayers, work and play, getting ready and relaxing, all in one. For some. Your day might be different.
August 7, 2022 is upon us. For me, a wedding anniversary; we married at Wright-Patt AFB in Ohio on this date in 1975. Yep, still going, for better and worse, etc.
It’s about 22 C right now, a climb from 65 F. 100 F is anticipated for today. Sunrise punched in at 6:10 AM. As the world turns, the sun will depart our sky at 8:23 PM. The clouds have taken the morning off but a mass assembly is expected in the late afternoon.
Air quality remains excellent. I slipped out last night just after sunset to do a visual of the sky. All looked good except the northwest sector, which glowed with dirty purple and red malevolence. Nothing has come of it, so far. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc. Fires still burn in the area. Containment is growing but the rising heat makes everyone worry. Might not surprise you to learn that the wildfires thrive on hot weather.
I traipsed out again later to enjoy the cooling, silent night. The clock was leveling midnight and the moon was cruising low in the western sky, perhaps pondering a landing path into the mountain’s trees. White with silver icing, it was shifting toward three-quarter fullness, an inspiring sight against the blackened blue expanse. Light pollution was low. Stars, galaxies, and planets were all sailing the nocturnal firmaments. I watched for a while, thinking about photos sent back from the Webb telescope, contemplating history and science, the future and now. The Neurons brought out no songs. I wondered if they were napping or out of the office for the night. They hadn’t said anything to me about leaving. I’m always the last to know when The Neurons leave.
Thoughts continued into the novel-in-progress. That brought The Neurons back. They kicked a song called “Between Something and Nothing” by The Ocean Blue from 1989 into the mental music stream. The song is lifted from that late 1980s and early 1990s era of softly glittering electronic music and high questioning voices. What a time, but then, weren’t they all?
Stay positive, test negative, and so on to do as needed to protect and sustain yourself and others. The coffee truck is ringing its bell and coming up the street. Got to grab some money and dash out to get a cuppa. Have a peaceful one. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 