Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I’m curious about life after death.
I’m curious about life before life. I’m curious about how life began. I’m curious about how our planet will end.
I’m curious about why we exist, if we exist.
I’m curious about reality.
I’m curious about what my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were like as children. I’m curious about how my ancestors came to the United States. I’m curious about their lives before then.
I’m curious about life on Mars and other planets. I’m curious about the nature of the universe, the nature of energy, the nature of time, and quantum physics.
I’m curious about what is faster than the speed of light and if we will ever find that out.
I’m curious about what life would be like on an atom.
I’m curious about Zeno’s Paradox and other paradoxes and thought experiments.
I’m curious about how technology affects our brains and societies.
I’m curious about what life was like on Earth three thousand years ago.
I’m curious about what we’ll be like in another thousand years.
I’m curious about the dark side of the moon and the far side of the galaxy.
I’m curious about Earth’s first years.
I’m curious about the psychology of people. I’m curious about why the wealthy and powerful want or need more wealth and power. I’m curious about what causes such hatred in some people and why anger and hatred drive people to kill others. I’m curious about why others can be so indifferent to people’s suffering and children starving.
I’m curious about what it is that makes some people so brilliant.
I’m curious about why I struggle to remember scientific words.
I’m curious about charisma.
I’m curious about how the human body works, and how animal bodies work, and fish and birds and plants.
I’m curious about what rocks think and remember.
I’m curious about why we need to sleep and why we dream.
I’m curious about what my dreams mean.
I’m curious about what my cats are thinking when they look at me.
I’m curious about what my wife is thinking, feeling, planning, and remembering. I’m curious about what she really thinks of me.
I’m curious about why art, music, and literature can move me so deeply.
I’m curious about why I like coffee so much.
I’m curious about why I and others are driven to write fiction and tell stories.
I’m curious about the truth behind our world history.
I’m curious about what happened to Atlantis and other ancient places and peoples.
I’m curious about mystery spots and the illusions behind them.
I’m curious about what makes some people so wildly successful while other talented people work hard and remain in the shadows.
I’m curious about fate and destiny and the future and the past.
I’m curious about what the first people who looked up and saw stars thought.
I’m curious about why, what, how, and when.
Other than that, I remain a pretty incurious person.
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
I’m addicted to people watching. People fascinate me. The way they move, talk, walk. Too often I only know their surface. So, I love it when they share me.
Today, one of my favorite baristas informed me that Monday is her final day. That surprised me; she’s been here for a while and went through the training to become a Starbucks manager. Now she’s moving on to the Medford Police Department as a community liaison officer.
Since she engaged me and made the revelation, I pecked at her with questions. She willingly volunteered that her family is part of the law enforcement community. Mom is a homicide detective with twenty-seven years of experience. Dad is the chief of police. Like, wow. Her ultimate goal is to be a forensic psychology. She’s in a master’s program to that end, although it is an online course. She ultimately wants to help people traumatized by crime and testify as an expert witness.
I’ll miss her, yes, but it’s wonderful to learn more about people and witness them reaching for their dreams.
In this dream, I was in my early teens. Our school had a football team. I was not very good but they let me be on the team. I mostly played the bench.
We’d traveled away for a game. I suddenly had a feeling, I was going to play, and I was going to score a touchdown. In fact, as I thought about it, I became convinced that I was going to score three TDs. Moreover, I knew that one of these touchdowns would be on offense. The other two would be defensive scores.
The game began and I was not playing. Both teams were lackadaisical and the game was boring. I kept waiting to get in. Then, halftime arrived. The team sat around, joking and being silly. This frustrated me. I wanted the game to get on. I wanted to be in the game.
Halftime ended. Instead of continuing the game, a disorganized and chaotic scene ensued. I kept waiting for us to get back on the field. I didn’t know why, in accordance with the game’s rules and everyone’s established expectations, this wasn’t happening. But finally, yes, word came, the teams were to take the field. And, lo, I was sent out onto the field.
Some fast, intense violence, aka football, followed. I was playing okay. Then, I was on defense when a pass was tipped. I rocketed forward and got a hand on the ball. I meant to catch it and run but I instead batted and juggled it for several intense seconds as other players closed. Finally, just as someone was about to slam into me, I got control of the ball and raced into the end zone.
Then, just a few short plays later, I was on offense as a slot wide receiver. The ball was snapped. I stepped out right and cut sharply in toward the center of the field on a slant. The quarterback hit me in stride, and I was gone, and scored my second touchdown, my first on offense. Confusion swirled among my team mates. Some were asking, “Who was that?” Others were trying to confirm if I was the one who scored on the previous fumble recovery. A few were congratulating me and complimenting me on how well I was playing that day.
I was kept in the game on the opponent’s next drive. We were behind in the score by a few points. The other team’s offense set up to drive the field. But reading the play, I intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown as the game ended. Amidst the jubilation, a reporter came up for an interview and confirmed that I’d scored my team’s only three touchdowns and asking me for my bio and playing info. While still on the field, sweaty and in my yellow and black uniform, I was shown a newspaper with a photo of me making the interception.
It was all very cool.
I was set up to run. I learned that there were four courses.
All were unfamiliar to me. A young man, this was a competition. Someone else signed me up for it. Their faith in me — and I don’t know who signed me up — flattered me. I vowed to do the I could.
The four courses were laid out over the course of several green hills. They were long distances but we were expected to sprint over them if we wanted to win. As I chugged over them, I discovered various degrees of muddiness despite a wealth of sunshine. Other competitors were encountered but all of us were focused on learning the courses and practicing our runs. Dressed in dark shorts and a white tank top, I did this for three or four days in a row. Then, while running on another day, I discovered crowds gathering to watch. As I ran by them, I heard some exclaiming to others, “He’s running the race.”
From other comments, I learned that everyone else had quit or had been eliminated. This fueled me to go faster and try harder. But I also learned that many people thought the competition were over. They were crossing the courses, forcing me to go through crowds. Seeing me still running, though, some of the people acted like officials and cleared a path for me. Some now began applauding and cheering. Others said, “He’s going to set a new world record.”
I awoke as I began the final course. I felt strong, exhilerated.
Cool dream.
Yes, I have two more DIY successes to brag about. Hope you’ll indulge me in this. I celebrate the little victories because there just ain’t that many big ones. Don’t wanna dwell any more on that.
First one was actually a DIY for friends. They have a Roku television. Bought it about eight years ago for their bedroom. Asked me to set it up for them. Which I did.
Said TV started malfunctioning a few weeks ago, showing them a ‘No Signal!’ error message on startup. Naturally, they called Spectrum because Spectrum is their Internet/Phone/Cable provider. Spectrum sent out a tech. That tech replaced all the Spectrum pieces. That didn’t resolve the issue.
Another Spectrum tech was sent in and basically did the same. Didn’t fix the problem.
Third Spectrum tech was deployed. This one told them it was their television. “You bought a cheap one,” he claimed. “And it’s failing.” He couldn’t fix the problem but suggested that they could hire him on the side and he could probably fix it then. He also complained that techs had to keep coming out to fix their television when they had other issues to address.
What wonderful customer service!
So, I received word through my wife, would I mind coming out and taking a look?
Well, I was dubious. If the pros couldn’t fix it, what could I do? But I went. I studied the cables. The Spectrum setup didn’t make sense to me. So, being me, I just changed them to what I thought would work.
And it did.
I suspect that Spectrum actually had a failing piece, which they replaced, but then screwed up the connections. That’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it.
Second DIY success came yesterday. I’m a little embarassed about it even as I’m bragging. See, we didn’t have a blower in our gas fireplace. I’d looked at it before but…well, it was a different area for me. I didn’t have experience with gas fireplaces and blowers. I let myself be intimidated.
Beginning of January, I basically declared, screw this, I’m not acceptin’ that no more. I researched and studied and measured and ordered. The Infinity blower kit arrived yesterday. Including opening the box, reading the instructions, familiarizing myself with the pieces, and disassembling some of the Heatilator gas fireplace for access, the installation job to put in the blower and put the furnace back together took less than fifteen minutes. Full credit for that goes to the involved manufacturers. Everything was set up for a blower to be installed, and the blower manufacturer made it super easy as well, providing absolutely everything needed. So while I’m crowing about my victory, I’m eating crow that it took me so long to do such a simple thing.
Hopefully, my ‘tale of success’ will encourage others.
I was a young man. And I was at some kind of car race where I was to be a participant. Several emerging factors swirled and fell and rose. Nobody was expecting me. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I then confirmed, gosh, I am in this race.
Employing strange dream logic, the race was sometimes played as a card game with a board track. Other times, it seemed like a slot car setup, but then it was sometimes full-sized race cars. I’d seamlessly skip between those motifs but the dream itself was mostly centered on race control where I’d check the time sheets, find out where I was on the track, and learn my position. The people populating race control were all tall, older, and white. Most seemed British. I never saw any of the cars so I can’t comment on their colors or livery. But I would identify them. Like I told some once that another driver was piloting a Porsche 917 and another was driving a P3 Ferrari. Someone else was wheeling the Silk Cut Jaguar XJ9.
I swapped cars. I don’t know what I was driving but I suddenly announced, grinning, “I’m driving a Ford GT.” This is a car which won LeMans and the world championship in the mid 1960s and helped seduce me as a racing fan when I was nine. I didn’t specify which variant I was driving.
I learned that I’d qualified fourth but some bureaucratic snafu shuffled me to the pack’s tail end. That didn’t bother me; I shrugged it off with a grin. I was confident that I would win, as I’d qualified fourth with minimal effort. Now, recalling, I actually did have one segment where I was in the car, on the track, during the race, passing clusters of other cars. I then left the car, blink, and was back at race control to check my standing. They didn’t know who I was. I was certain I was leading but they dismissed it. I was told that I’d done something incorrectly and my laps hadn’t been counted. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that, I protested, but that wasn’t their issue.
None of that fazed me. Grinning, I told them, “But I have all these chits.” The chits were small red paper rectangles, like the old-time ticket stubs given at movies in decades past. I received them every time I completed a lap. As I told them about the chits, I held up a fistful of them. Expressing astonishment, they counted the chits and announced that I was in the lead.
I met the news with a happy grin and readied myself to keep racing. Dream end.
I enjoyed discovering this footage of the 1966 LeMans race featuring the Ford GTs. Nice to hear the voices of Bruce McLaren, Dan Gurney, Denis Hulme, etc., and see them. Of course, the staged Ford 1-2-3 finish was made famous in the movie Ford vs. Ferrari, where Ken Miles (played by Christian Bale) was first across the finish line but was deemed not to be the winner because another car started further back, so it covered more distance.
Michael Seidel, writer 