Trusting

She’s riding her bike. Looks about fifteen years old. She’s in the bike lane. Headphones cover her ears. Her hands are busy with her cell phone.

Yes, she has no hands on her handlebars.

She passes in a flash, steadily pedaling. I’m both admiring and dubious. It’s a busy street and she’s going along a stretch with many business entrances and several intersections.

I admire her confidence but I’m a little dubious about her decision making. Ah, youth.

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: homenormalized

Today is Saturday, August 24, 2024. It’s a chilly 54 F this morning. I turn on the fireplace and open the blinds. Light rain peppers the greenery with some needed moisture. Sunshine emerges and steam begins rising. Today’s high will be an un-summery 70 F.

We’re back in Ashlandia, where the worries are palpable and the angst is regular. A second well-established restaurant is shutting down after years of business. This is a trend we don’t like.

Ashlandia is dependent on tourism. Drought, pandemic, fires, smoke, and economics have all tested our tourism. Each have contributed to a point where the ‘you are here’ dot is tiny and prickly. We’re home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It’s our major industry, abetting revenue brought in by being an outdoor adventure location for fishing, rafting, and skiing (Mt. Ashland) and what Southern Oregon University contributes. Under the impact of those big five factors of pandemic, etc., we’ve been in a slow downward spiral.

We’d already lost the seasonal business called the Water Street Cafe. It’d been a longtime draw but the owner passed and the survivors couldn’t make it work. It’s now a crepe place, and we have high hopes for that.

Last week, the Black Sheep Restaurant announced they’re shutting down. Now Cucina Biazzi is closing. We’re already lost many book stores like the Book Wagon, and coffee shops like The Beanery and Cafe Boulevard. In their place, we’re gaining used clothing stores, marijuana dispenseries, and tattoo parlors. This are not major draws when every other town is offering more of the same.

Being back home, I miss stepping out of the Waldport vacation house and into the seaside environment. I enjoyed going out there each morning and tasting the breeze, studying the tides’ levels, and gathering in sunshine and clouds. I do the same thing here, but it’s not the same with the ocean missing.

I begin another theme for the coming week today. The theme now is songs with time in their titles. Lots come to mind. The time theme came out of being stuck in traffic yesterday as an accident was cleared away. The first song offering from The Neurons is “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders from 1965. The fast-paced rocking roller is filling my morning mental music stream (Trademark delayed) like I was back in a neighbor’s Wilkinsburg basement listening to it on a 45 record. Actually, I think my memories have better fidelity than that little record player in use. I would’ve been about ten at that time.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue. Coffee has made itself comfortable in me. Time for the music. Cheers

Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

We went to Lake of the Woods Resort last night. The agenda was to dance, socialize, have fun, and unwind.

It worked as intended. Twenty-seven miles away up in the nearby mountains, we arrived in forty-five minutes. The smoke had retreated. Surrounded by tall trees, on the edge of blue water, the picturesque scene was fresh and sigh-inducing. Saucy was the band. They played pop, rock, and disco, like “Lady Marmalade”, “Rebel Yell”, “Life in the Fast Lane”, “Shut up and Dance”, “Bring Me to Life”, and “Honky Tonk Woman”. We ate barbecue meats with potato salad, cole slaw, and mac & cheese.

But the star was this little five-year-old in a red shirt. Up there on the steps to the stage, they entertained with Freddie Mercury and Elton John moves interspersed with inspiring air-guitar solos. Yet, the old man in me couldn’t help but think about the damage they were doing to their young ears, standing in front of a rock band’s amplifiers.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Rebelfeinated

TL/DR: It’s hot, liberty is in danger, Vote Blue, and “Come Together”.

Sunshine is slicing through the blue sky like a sword scything through air.

Today is Wednesday, July 3, 2024, and we’re looking at a hot one. 73 F at this intersection of existence, the hot temperatures will test us with peaks in the mid 90s. They’re just prepping us for the SHS – Seriously Hot Stuff – descending on us tomorry.

For giggles last night, I was thinking of a song called, “My Country, Tis of Thee”. Around for a while, many just call it “America”. Its second line is, “Sweet land of liberty.” With MAGA-led initiatives, an asterisk needs attached to that line. Not a land of liberty for book-reading in many GOP realms where they’re banning books in schools. Nor is there liberty if you want to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion, nor if you dare risk raising your voice to discuss climate change and its dangers. Not a land of liberty if you’re talking about using a name which you think fits who you are, nor is it a land of liberty for you if your gender isn’t exactly as stated on your certificate of birth. Don’t overlook the limits on liberty if you’re a pregnant woman, no matter how it came about, because in Godly Republican states, you don’t control your body. That’s the state’s job, so shut your mouth and do as they tell you. That’s GOP-style freedom in the MAGA dome.

Today’s music was created by the songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney. The Beatles released “Come Together” in 1969. Thirteen years old, I loved the freakin’ song. Fifty-five years later, The Neurons have brought it up in response to our political atmosphere and have it going in the morning mental music stream (Trademark united). Yes, some crazy messages are in that song but that basic vibe, “Come together”, is what The Neurons are feelin’. Come together and support President Biden and the Democratic Party in 2024. Come together to stop the MAGA train and its authoritarian destination. Come together to bring some semblance of a vision of America moving forward to a pinnacle where we all share equal rights and freedoms, regardless of our physical and sexual attributes, a place where we’re willing to negotiate and compromise as needed to improve life for all and protect the planet. Yeah, I may be a dreamer, but I know more are out there.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has crested past my lips and has infiltrated my body in a good way. Here’s the music. I choose a different version from the original but included a couple takes of the song for your viewing pleasure. Any buzz your neurons in a pleasure way?

Cheers

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Fridayitis

All things must pass, and so Thursday has passed into Friday, April 5, 2024.

It’s a rainy day. Was a rainy night. Clouds are blockading the sun. That’s April weather in the US, isn’t it? “April showers bring May flowers,” and all that.

Not an American idiom, though, but a British one. I looked it up on the net, so it must be true.

April showers bring May flowers

Adversity is followed by good fortune. An old proverb, it was taken more literally in days gone by, and in fact it appeared in a British book of Weather Lore published in 1893.

h/t thefreedictionary.com

So, be optimistic, I tell myself. I hold to hope even though sometimes adversity follows adversity until it’s an absolute train wreck.

It’s 38 F in my slice of Ashlandia. Expected to reach 52 F. Showers are also expected. But sunshine soaks the back yard and soars in through the southern windows. Papi, my ginger house floof, is engaging the sun in the yard. Tucker, the black and white house floof. is luxuriously grooming in sunshine through the eastern living room windows.

After feeding the two floofs earlier, Papi hunted me down in the kitchen. I was preparing my meal. (Floofs eat first. House rule. Not sure who decided…) Papi sat beside me and planted a level gaze on me. “What is it?” I asked. “Are you hungry? Need more to eat?”

Papi responded, “Meow.” I recognized that as, yes. Well, probably yes. It could also mean, no. Or, what? Or, maybe.

Taking it as one of those, I fed him again, since morning pate remained. He ate a thumble’s worth and headed for the back door. I believe I misinterpreted his meow.

We spent last night out with friends. First, food at a Medford restaurant, Tap & Vine. Then we headed to the Craterian Theater to catch a show, “The Simon & Garfunkel Story”. It’s a little story about the American folk rock duo, Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon. The story was interspersed with a cavalcade of their songs over the years.

What a cavalcade. “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “The Sound of Silence”, “The Boxer”, “Homeward Bound”, “I Am A Rock”, “Cecilia”, “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”, “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme”, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”, “Bookends”, “Mrs Robinson”, “Feeling Groovey”. I’m certainly overlooking a few.

Probably not a surprise, but the crowd was a mostly over sixty collection. One companion joked, “Gray hair is required to attend.” There was a significant quantity of gray in the hair among attendees. But Simon & Garfunkel songs peppered our youth. Yet, Mom knew them, too. I remembered her singing “Mrs Robinson” to me when I was trying to ask her some question.

The song that often stays with me is “Richard Cory”. Why not? A 1966 song based on the Edwin Arlington Robinson poem, “Richard Cory”, it’s a tale of envy and jealousy. A man works in a Richard Cory-owned factory. Cory is rich, a man about town, attending the theater, driving fancy cars, having big parties, etc. The worker singing in the song works in the factory, hates his job and despises his poverty. But it’s Richard Cory who ends up killing himself.

Ironic, isn’t it, we mock. The man with everything is the one who takes his life.

Anyway, this is the song which The Neurons planted in the morning mental music stream (Trademark illusive) on this April Friday morning. Hope it brightens your day.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue. I’m into my coffee already, thanks. Used it to wash down a buttered bagel. First course was canteloupe chunks. Fine way to start a Friday. Here’s the music.

Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: sated

Good afternoon. Getting around a little late to this posting today. I dibble and dabbled the morning away, dashing up and down the Interstate and around town during late morning and early afternoon before returning home for naps and reading for a few hours.

It’s November 11, 2023, Saturday and Veteran’s Day. Awoke to a new battle between a feeble sun trying to crawl through chilly gray fog to reach us. Finally worked after a few hours, lifting us from about forty up to a skin scorching 55 F. Bazinga.

As we went zipped about town today, we had lunch and then began joking about our energy levels. “We used to be younger,” my wife and I teased one another. Yes, we used to be crazy, and we used to be fun. Now we’re prudent from mistakes made and lessons learned. Well, with happenstance, we turned off NPR games to pop on the car’s FM radio, and there was Miley Cyrus, repeating our words back at us.

[Chorus]
I know I used to be crazy
I know I used to be fun
You say I used to be wild
I say I used to be young

You tell me time has done changed me
That’s fine, I’ve had a good run
I know I used to be crazy
That’s ‘causе I used to be young

h/t Genius.com

We laughed and my spouse mentioned how much she enjoys the Miley Cyrus song, “Used To Be Crazy”, which came out earlier in 2023. And then I started wondering, when exactly did we start talking about when we were young? I think it was when I was in my forties, which is now about twenty years ago, depending on where the marker in my forties is thrown down, but I can’t verify it without a time machine. But how often do we mourn the passage of our youth and the new people which we end up being? We reflect on how our metabolism drops lower and lower, and with it often goes our energy levels, and maybe our attention levels. I also mourn hair loss and how many body shape has change, and oh, yeah, that hair has grayed and thinned. Were wrinkles mentioned? I forget.

I won’t say that I’ll never be the person I used to be. Techology may surprise us in new ways, like cloning a new version of Michael that I can inhabit with life memories and acquired knowledge intact, which could be pretty cool. Or perhaps an invention that comes along which washes out old cells and blows us out clean and fresh once again, even tailoring the result into which age we’ll like to be. I think I’d like to be 32 again.

Oh, well. This is the shit that is us, and such is life.

Stay positive, be strong and brave, and keep leaning forward. This concludes this portion of my posting day. Here’s the video. Cheers

whi

The Organic Machine Dream

I had a plethora of dreams last night. This was one of the more interesting to me.

I was a younger man. I looked and acted like I was in my thirties, thirty years plus younger than my real life age. But I looked like myself from that time, tanned, thick brown hair, fit and sender.

Life was keeping me busy and active, reading, writing, playing softball and racquetball, hurrying around, doing errands and talking to people.

During all of that, I came to meet someone. I can’t describe them because I never saw them. Nor can I tell you how they sounded because I heard them, but they were speaking and not speaking.

They had interrupted what I was doing to tell me that I was part of a machine. Confusion was my reaction. Further explanations followed that they had created a machine which was wholly organic. I asked them if the were aliens but I don’t recall an answer to that question.

At that point, though, I was busy and just wanted to get on with everything and hustled off. Later, I stopped to get coffee. They accosted me to say again that I was part of the machine. I didn’t understand what they’d said, and asked for clarification. They launched a long and detailed explanation that they were using humans for many features in an organic machine which they’d created, and that I was one of two individuals who’d been selected as the brains.

While flattered, I thought they could have made a better choice for their brain than me, and told them so.

They countered that the functioning they needed from me was far above my conscious thinking level, or the subconscious. I first asked if drinking coffee with caffeine would affect the brain and the machine, and joked about their machine getting hyper from too much caffeine.

They answered that none of that affected it because the brain function they were employing was beyond an organic level.

That prompted me to retort, “Your organic machine is using parts of humans which aren’t organic?” I laughed at that.

They seriously responded, “Yes.”

I asked them if they were talking about the Id, ego, and super-ego, trying to comprehend it. They replied that it was beyond those levels as well, pushing me to ask what was beyond that level?

They asked me if I wanted to see the machine. Enthusiastially, I replied, “Sure.”

“You’re standing in it,” they replied.

Confusion and suspicions squirted up in me. I’d been outside, among trees and buildings, cars, utility wires, streets, and businesses. Now I was in a glistening pink edifice with tall, vaulted areas, reminding me of the inside of a pink church.

“How did I get here?” I asked.

“You were always here.”

That made me think of the movie, The Matrix. Before I could speak, they asked if I wanted to see my part.

“Yes.”

They told me to go further in. Not feeling anything but curiosity, I did, walking until I reached an intersection. Ahead were two pink tubes, which reminded me of short smokestacks. Five feet tall, they were about two feet in diameter.

“Where do I go now?” I asked.

“That’s it, you’re here. You’re the brain on the left.”

I looked at tubes. “Those are brains?”

“Yes, they just need the energy. We wanted to tell you and show you because as your brain changes, our brain will grow more powerful. As it grows more powerful, you will become more intelligent and powerful, and then, so will it. As each of you change and grow, you’ll feed the other. We thought you should be aware of that”

Dream end.

I have no idea what this dream was about. I woke up feeling surprised. Thinking about the dream, I concluded, “That was different.” I wanted to just dismiss it but instead felt compelled to keep thinking about it, as though I was preparing for more to come. Intrigued, part of me thinks, wow, some power is informing me that I’m going to go through great changes. A more cynical aspect thinks that’s highly dubious; it’s just random neurons firing parts of my brain as I sleep.

I’ll let you know if more of the dream ever does come.

Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

The net can be a dizzying roller coaster. Bad news headlines, followed by humor on a friend’s blog, then disastrous breaking news, chased by sweet floof photos, which give way to dire predictions, trailed by fascinating new scientific or historic findings, war and political updates, and book reviews.

I ride throughout the day, breaking off to soothe myself with my personal writing, and then releasing all the pent tension with a relaxing game or two (or four). You know, Wordle. Spelling Bee. Sudoku.

How different from my youth. We watched television together in the family room — ‘in color’ — so it was a consensus choice. Five channels were available: PBS, the big three, and one UHF channel that washed in and out on a sea of static. Sitcoms (“Green Acres”), dramas (“Gunsmoke) and thrillers (“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”) entertained us, or the Movie of the Week, delivering Psycho, Seven Days in May, and The Sound of Music, among a plethora of others.

Then I consider how different my mother’s childhood was. She was a little girl in Turin, Iowa, during the Depression and World War II, eating popcorn and listening to a radio with her family, or going to the hardware store to watch “I Love Lucy” on the only television in their small town.

Reaching further back, I struggle with visualizing how it was in my grandfather’s youth. He helped establish Turin a few decades before Mom was born. Guess I’ll surf the net about it and see what I find.

Once on the roller coaster, getting off it isn’t easy.

On Becoming A Geezer

For a friend…

Becoming a geezer, if I may be so bold,

is more about a state of mind than growing old.

Geezers look back on time with misty eyes,

lamenting the lack of truth and the growth of lies.

They’ll disparage the young — “This generation” —

they say with a grunt and a sniff,

“Does so little no wonder the country’s adrift.

“The way it used to be is so much better,

“Like communicating with loved ones with a postage letter.

“And the things which they watch,

“The things which they say,

“The way that they dress —

“That’s not my way.”

Then they break off with a mumble and words which aren’t clear,

And say to the server, “Please bring me another beer.”

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