ByWord

Lots of thoughts swirling, bouncing, pushing, survival of the strongest idea? About flying for the first time off of the cliff.... about the calmness of the morning offering.... about posting some place new... where will I post this...

The volcano. It's quiet. Peaceful. It's so nice, it's almost as if the gods that control it have left. Like this is a test. To see if I would bring my offering or not. But I know better.

But I wonder, if I were not here, how would the wraths of the gods be satisfied? What if I were cast away on the sea? What would keep the world alive? I would need to travel to another island, one with a volcano, collect my offering, and again climb the side as high as I could, high up for all to see. And order would be maintained. Welcome my new island.

Rich turns to us, “He’s looking up the route to take us to the town. No one seems to go there regularly.”

“Si, tenemos” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. He looks at his wrist watch and then over to a large clock on the wall. His eyes turn wide, and turns to Rich, “Tienen diez minutos." He writes on a receipt, calculating the total, "Quatro boletos, Mil novecientos y cuarenta".

Rich turns to us to translate "We've got ten minutes before the bus is here. Great timing." Rich pays the man, takes our tickets, and thanks him.

Patty starts off, “Did that seem weird? No one goes to this town that he doesn’t even know if it’s on the route?”

I have the same feeling, “Yeah, and the next bus to take us will be here in 10 minutes.”

Rich counters, “Whatever. Look where we are! There’s not even people waiting for a bus. We’ve found one of the most desolate places ever.”

“So you’re saying it’s a coincidence?” Kevin asks.

"What else?! Brother, I’m telling you. There are tons of tiny towns around here. People leave them for school or jobs, but they’re only coming home for holidays. You guys are paranoid.”

Ducks are in the backyard. And I just saw another pair land over at the neighbour's.
I wonder what's going on. It's not unusual for them to visit, especially when we have so much water in the backyard, but my spidey senses tell me it's something else going on, something more sinister.

I blame Walmart. Seriously. There used to be homes like mine not far from here, a regular sized home on half an acre, some on even more.
But they're all gone. Now it's townhouses, condos and a Walmart. Just what ducks need.
And there is the Garden City lands between the Walmart and us. They are busy building paths for people. There is lots of heavy equipment. Probably not the friendliest place for a duck now. What a stupid time to do this, right when they are nesting. I wonder if there is a good time.

It fuels more feelings in me to leave this city. I wish I could take the ducks with me, show them another place.

Jack hides behind a tree. Crouching. The mob run passed, their faces wild with adrenaline. Jack runs. The sounds of their feet and bodies passing through the jungle, their sticks hitting the leaves and bushes, in the distance stop.
Jack stops.
"Jack, no more hiding. Tell us where you are!" one calls out.

Whispering to himself, "But I'm not allowed to tell."

It's been so busy. I haven't been able to experience a calm moment. I've wondered if I could, particularly with Dzoara and Chris visiting her family, I'm home all alone.

The house quieter, emptier, like when we are old. It reminds me of my grandparents. Walking into their home, seeing my Oma cooking at the stove, my Opa sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window, but maybe really looking somewhere into the past. I wonder if the silence of the house, if it's filled with the echos of life.

Our son. Our tremendous splash. How still our water's were before, never again, the waves and ripples filling and hitting the edges and corners of our existence, showing us the borders that we didn't even know existed, and some waves still riding, flowing to who knows where.

When I think of book reviews, I wonder about what I consider as two important things that should be used to frame the book review. These are, what were you expecting from the book, that is, before you even started reading it. What did the cover and the blurb on the back get you to think was on the inside. Did you read reviews? Did anyone tell you anything? Have you read anything about the author or by that author already? I wonder about this because I like to read reviews, and I've read enough reviews of people saying how it wasn't what they expected that I wonder what they really were expecting. Sometimes those expectations are tempered. My brother bought me a book, and then caveated that he hadn't read it yet, "it just looked good", so I had zero expectations (as opposed to someone saying "here, read this, it's a great book").

My other wondering is the conditions, the situation of the life of the reader, for what connections the book might be able to make.
I recently finished reading Pierre Berton's Drifting Home. It was the perfect book at the time, based on my conditions and situation. For example, my city has changed an incredible amount, and I miss how it was. Pierre did the same in how he spoke about the Yukon and how it and he are like museums. I felt and feel the same. Another example is how I was taking a writing course, and how elements of the course "came to life" in what I was reading in Berton's book. Course subjects like the connections readers make. To the point of my lamenting of what I miss, it perhaps hardened and quickened those connections, making them stronger. It was a great book, but I wonder, if those conditions were different, would I still think the same.

Leaving the station, I feel uneasy, like a kid having to cross in front of the house with the angry barking dog, will it be chained this time? Kevin, always calm and cool, closes his eyes and leans his head against the window. The swaying and rumbling of the bus also puts Patty to sleep, rocking her like a baby until her head drops forward, and then to it’s side, landing against Rich. Given the emotional rollercoaster, she’s probably the most exhausted.

I don’t notice any turns on the highway. It feels as if it goes on and on forever, but my watch says it's been an hour. The land is hot and dry, with sparse brush, and an occasional desert tree. And I don’t see any other cars, as if the highway had taken us to the edge of the world. There are a couple shacks by the side of the highway, and an overhead pedestrian crossing, covered in graffiti. The bus slows and pulls over. I see they are all boarded up. I don’t even see stray dogs. Only the wind. Patty and Kevin stir from the bumps off the highway. Without announcement, the driver opens the door, the engine still running. Where to? Why the urgency? I wonder. He doesn’t have any other passengers. Rich steps passed Patty to get to the driver.

“Y el pueblo? Donde? Aqui?” asking where the town is.
The driver lifts his arm and points behind Rich and out the door, his face looking in the same direction of his finger. Rich turns, squinting from the sun. From the bus we can see over the shacks, and in the distance is what looks like a town, one story buildings and homes.
“Gracais.” he says, looks to us, and gets off the bus.

I heard that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I wonder then, what is the opposite of hate? Is it fear and doubt? And going back to an earlier pondering of mine, what is the opposite of pride and ego? Humility? Listening with an open heart? Not judging?

And what is it about this not judging thing? I've heard people say that they try not to judge people. So far I've only found that what these people were full of bullshit. How do you like that! Bam! My gavel came down. Bullshitters! Judged and labeled! I labeled. Oh, labels. That's another good one, when people don't want to label or be labeled.. or there isn't a label for them. Isn't even that a label? Oh, and that logo and designer's name on your jeans, I guess that too was an accident. Or maybe you have the Rastafarian hair. And that cheap jewelry made out of deplorable factories overseas, you forgot that you are making some rich capitalist richer, but you overlooked that to make your own image. Let me guess, you are your own label! Everyone is a fucking brand! I wonder if coroner's reports ever say choked to death on irony. It's certainly suffocating me.

Sigh. I shouldn't judge. I know how hard it is to find ourselves while navigating a world where every decision does some indirect harm that can contradict ourselves. Naaah. Fuck that. I'm going to call them out. Not until the day that I find a person that is truly non-judgmental. And my quest, is to try to do this with humility and listening with an open heart. This is going to be a looong journey and some tough mountain to climb. If I can even climb it. Not to label or judge but... I don't think I'm the kind of person that can do this.

The path has no shoe prints, but I’m not sure if it’s from the windswept land, or from disuse. We don’t run into anyone on it. If it weren’t for the occasional piece of garbage, I might think it’s an animal trail.

“Hey, check this out.” Patty gives a glass pop bottle in the sand a couple taps from her shoe. “This is an old design. They haven’t made this one in years.”

We’re all staring down at the bottle when the howl of a coyote jolts us. We all laugh a little, but it’s with nervousness. But I'm glad to hear something other than the howling wind.

The brush is higher now, and we can’t see any of the buildings. But we can still see a hill, a huge rock beyond the town. I use it be keep my bearings, and know that we’re still heading in the right direction. I am watching it while we walk single file on the path, squinting to make out what I see in the distance. Birds. Perched. Huge birds. And they flap anxiously until they get above the rock and slow down, using the thermals to lift them. Do they see us? Are they coming this way?

The brush opens, the path ends, and we find ourselves next to a dirt road. 100 feet or so to the first of the buildings, and so we continue on. Tumble weeds rolling across the road in front of us, it feels almost surreal, like we’re in some spaghetti western. Walking down the made road, I look for signs that a car has driven here, but just like the foot path, there’s nothing. Maybe it’s the wind. It has to be.
The first buildings are boarded up. A home. A restaurant. A church. We come to an intersection. And there we see it, a one level brick building on the corner. With a neon sign on in the window. Psiquico.

Which one of us would be the first to enter? We all pause to soak it in, the psychic in the middle of a sleepy town at a remote part of the highway. The light from the sign glows. Patty steps forward, onward, and into the building. The rest of us scramble to catch up and file through the open door.
“Buenos tardes.” We hear. There is a leathery old man, with wrinkles on wrinkles, standing against a counter, looking into a jewelry box in his hands. His skins is tanned, and his hair curly and thin.
Looking up, he switches, “Ahh, hello? Is right? Welcome. Come in” He motions with his hands.

The tress have calmed down now. Just a few are gently swaying. Earlier they were all rocking out, swaying side to side. I like to watch the wind hit the trees. It's like watching a wave come in on the beach, except it's much much slower. It starts with one tree, moving just slightly. Then more. Then one of it's neighbours starts, also every so slightly and then more and more. At this point I have an idea of the direction of the wind, but it's not so straightforward. The wind curves. But in the city, most of the trees are grown in straight lines.

After the neighbour, more neighbours join the chorus, until they are all swaying it. Sometimes there is some distance to the next tree. The group of trees are swaying, and then later, that distant one finally joins. It's around then that the original tree that started the dance starts to slow its movements, followed by it's neighbours like before. All this while other distant trees start their dance. The wave has crashed over. Sometimes, like the water of a wave flowing back into the ocean, the wind seems to flow back from where it came. And then another wave of wind comes, sometimes changing its direction and course. And the so on.

Yesterday was the first day of a workshop on teaching children, young children like toddlers, to make music. They explained how we all have an aptitude to make music, but if we don't nurture it, we don't develop what they call basic musical competency. It was incredible. For me, life changing.

This program moved me for all sorts of reasons. One is the stark contrast to my current work environment. It's the complete opposite. This program doesn't believe that people have innate musical talent, but that we've nurtured their aptitude and that this nurturing is a journey that a best for a child and a caregiver, someone they love, that they are connected with. Whereas work, it thinks in terms of productivity, where they do think people have talent, but really it's just ego and pride. Things that you would never find in this program.

Another reason is the parallels between this program, my recent writing class, as well as a book about writing that I've read about (but not read).
This program, everything is for the child to help them explore or experience the world. Unless it's unsafe or causing harm, everything is acceptable. For the workshop we observed a live class in front of us, and there were things that kids were doing that the parents tried to get their children to not do. But the instructor, would encourage these children. Strumming the instructors guitar, yes, gently, go ahead! Shaking the maracas that way? Why not? Sing the song with the words blahgeewabegaga? Yes! Do it, explored! Experience it! And how does this compare to my recent writing course? This program is pure Appreciation.

Wow. There's more I want to say, but yikes, the time, I need to get going. I'm not going to have time after the class tonight, it's my birthday!

I thought of a friend yesterday. That was great because she thought of me. Thanks! I was in my class for teaching children music. One of the lessons used Greek music. I know this friend would know the name... probably the meaning and history behind it, the regional variations it comes from... she might even give me a test at the end. Ok, now I'm teasing. But back to about the class and the music. The piece was in septuple time. A meter of 7/4 or 7/8, I forget. When we, the class, danced around I was thinking of my friend. For sure moving to this beat would feel more natural to her. I might have looked like a robot. I also remembered how I always thought that the best age that I wanted to be was 5. Now I realize that even that is a a bit too old. These last two days have been as much educational as they have been therapeutic. Healing. Restoring. Joyful.

I was on the Oprah show yesterday. Ok. Not quite. But it felt like perhaps the closest that I will get to being on that show, not that I have or had any such desire or intensions (and also I don't think they make that show anymore). It was the last day of my training to teach a music program to children. Really not children but families. Community. But more about that another time. At the end of the training the group put arms around each other's shoulders and sang the good-bye song swaying back and forth together. Wow. Lots of teary eyes! My Oprah moment!

It was a great experience. I meet two amazing role models. Leann and Anna. Wow. Even adults are still learning, using what others model to us. These two were incredible teachers. The best advice was what Anna shared at the end of the class, to remember to follow whatever brought you here, follow that. It brought you here for a reason. Hearing her say that in my mind, I can instantly spring in my mind to another time, another day, driving to the office, and the song that I started to sing, the song that I followed. I'm not sure if I'm singing it now, or if there's an echo from that day, or there's a choir in my head... then sings my soul.

A couple days back I wrote about the parallels between writing and the course to teach children music, but I didn't have enough time to write about all of them. I thought this morning I would write about other aspects.

A mentor is guiding me with writing a children's story. I feel pretty lucky to work with him, he's an established children's book publisher. On our first session I came to him with a couple ideas, all of them with something that I had already written. And all had a lesson to the story.
"No lessons. No. You do not teach them anything. No morals. No lessons" he told me, with his typical directness, "You are giving them a life experience. That's all." (I almost want to give his voice exclamation marks, he doesn't hold back punches, but he's not loud or quite that intense to deserve those, yet if you are sensitive, his words can definitely sting)

And just like what my mentor told me, this is how this music program is. The teacher doesn't teach the kids anything. And neither do the adults that need to participate. All the teacher does is provide a safe environment and facilitates the group into making music, particularly the adults. Since the kids have a connection with the adult, someone they love, trust, they have an environment to explore, to just run with pure untamed appreciation. If they are young, they are chewing on the instruments - because that is how they explore! And the kids get to observe their loved ones singing and dancing... and copy them! These are not lessons, ok - play this note! ok - beat this drum! None of that. It's a life experience. It's the same as with Stories. These aren't lessons and morals, these are life experiences.

How to we write and read about these life experiences is another aspect. The second time I saw my mentor I had some material prepared, based on the feedback of that first session. No lessons! Ok. Got it. And again, in his typical directness, my material is slashed and slashed with this pen.
"What is this? Why would you say that? If you think that the mountain is big don't say that! Show it, don't tell me."
Show don't tell. If you read my project for the fundamentals of writing, you would see how lost I get in backstory, and how thin I am in describing what is going on. I was telling, and not showing. Here is a real life example: For the last two days I was able to get my one and a half year old to brush his teeth by me doing it in front of him. He's been protesting a bit. I told him, and he did nothing. I showed him. And he tried to do the same (and let me brush his teeth!). In the music classes, the teacher doesn't ask the participants in the class to do anything. They simply do something, showing the class what they are doing, making sure others hear what they are doing. The adults chose to do the same or not, but they typically do. It's crazy, that power, that energy to sing what others are singing, to drum what they drum, to join their dance (Plus, they paid money for this). That life experience is showing children a singing, drumming dancing community. Showing them, not telling them.

Speaking slowly while looking at a shelf filled with jars and potions, “I don’t have something like that. But I know someone who does. But you will need to speak with her. I hurt her feelings, somehow.” His eyebrows lift, tilting with the middle raised, seemingly to lift his shoulders, his long arms connected to some puppet string, and he flashes us a wide smile, filled with huge teeth, most with browning tips, with a couple of the back teeth missing.
“Where is she? “Where do we go to speak with her?”
“Oh, Is not hard friend, no. Is right ‘ere.” He answers, extending his long arm to his right, presenting with his palm a round table in the corner, covered with a dark brown table cloth, It’s near a window, but since it’s on the shady side of the house, little light comes through. And there are five chairs arranged around it.
“Si. Pleaze, ‘jes, come seat. I call her.”
We all shoot glances each other.
Patty is the first of us to walk over and take a seat, the rest of us a step behind and crowding around her. Mother hen.
The psychic takes his seat across from us, carrying with him a large leather bag, hoisting it up and placing it in the centre of the table. He opens the strings, and opens the top of the bag.
“Ha! Is long time I see her. She be surprised to see you” He takes his seat, closes his eyes and begins a series chants under his breath. He extends arms out over the bag, and makes motions as if he were cupping water and lifting it up, his chanting getting louder, the volume of someone talking. He stands, towering over us, cupping his hands and lifting them to the ceiling, his chanting getting louder and louder. Fine dust begins to sift through his fingers onto the table, the little sunlight that is in the room catching it. The dust falls and lands perfectly into the bag.

As if a big truck had driven by, one side of the building rattles.
He sits down in his chair and starts laughing, “Jes, Milda, is me.”
Rattle rattle. Another side of the house, and still no truck. Out the window, dust swirls by.
The leather bag floats slightly off the table, opening more, the weight of the sand holding the bag down, while something inside appears to be lifting it. The psychic reaches out to the bottom of the bag.
“Don’t touch me! You dirty hands.”
The psychic winces to the woman’s voice, pulls his hands back.
“Milda, we have guests,
“Ja, I know, I can see dat.” she says with a thick European accent, maybe German or Polish.
At the top of the bag we see hair, dark blond hair, tied in a bun, followed by her entire head lifting out of the bag. Her lips are pursed, her skin pale. Her eyes, big and blue, looking at Patty, followed by me on Patty’s side. She looks deep into my eyes, penetrating, and with curiosity. A tiniest of smiles. Politeness? Maybe with kindness? Or sadness? I wonder.
She moves on to looking at Kevin and then to Rich.
“Milda”
“Jaime” she answers, her head turns around to see him. They stare at each other, silence for a moment, and then she turns around back to us.
“My dear child”, Milda says to Patty, “how can I help you? Something troubles you. I see it.”

The truck is a 1980's Ford. Sharp right angle contour styling. It's covered in dust. I open the driver's side door, expecting things to fall out, rats, spiders, bodies, who knows. But nothing. Except for dust, lots of dust, the inside is clean. Patty opens the other side, not a creak. Even after sitting around for what looks like a long time. We wipe down the seats, dust spilling onto the floor boards and out onto the garage floor. Coughing. Rich opens the garage door. The wind is still blowing, and rushes into the garage, carrying in sand, but taking away the dust. I jump in on my side and close the door. Patty jumps in on her side. Rich jumps in after her and closes his side.
“Let’s find out if she still runs.”
“She’s a beauty, I know she will.” Rich says confidently, giving the dash two gentle comforting pats. The Car-whisperer.

“Like he said, go to the next city.”
“And where to go once we get there?”
“How about a hospice?”
“Hmm, we might need to wait for a couple days.”
“The hospital.”
“Yup, probably our best bet.”
“Or the police station. Or some other place with accidents.” Rich gives us the air quotes with his fingers around accidents.
They drive for hours, on this seemingly endless highway.Finally, signs of life. A town in the distance. And cars on the highway.
“Keep an eye out for accidents.”
<Maybe they can help someone, by the side of the road.>
“What’s going on there?” Patty points in the distance on the side of the highway, cars parked on the side, and several big tents and shacks.
“It looks like a circus.”
“Stop here.” Patty orders. “We’ll find him here.”
Kevin slows, and pulls over, the dust swirling around the truck, and creeps to a stop. Rich pulls out the shades and puts them on. They file out and join the stream of people heading into a circus, Rich tapping the ground with the cane, his left arm locked with Patty’s.

The show begins with classic clowns swarming the center ring, rolling, doing cartwheels, one getting a ride from another, whipping him like a horse. Another pair come in with one as a wheelbarrow. He stops in front of the first pretty woman that he sees, leans on his wheelbarrow, flexing his clown muscles and smiling and winking. A female clown from the other end of the arena stomps her feet, comes up behind him and hits him with a huge foam mallet. He falls back over his wheelbarrow, rolls backwards and stops sitting, his legs wide apart, his face with the exaggerated look of shock. The crowd roars with laughter. She picks up the clown being a wheelbarrow, he dusts himself off and bows to her, she smiles back, they lock arms and skip away. The crowd again roar.

“Is this a gladiator match? With horns?”
“No, not quite.”

A clowns enters the arena with a bicycle, honking the honk. Another clown jumps onto the moving bicycle, standing on mounts behind the rider, and climbs onto the riders shoulders. Another joins, created a stack of three clowns riding around the center ring. Two more, running on either side of the bicycle, jump on in unison, standing on one side, holding the hand of the second clown in the stack, and leaning away from the bicycle, with their other arm outstretched, making them look an airplane. The top clown pulls out bowling pins, and starts to juggle. After a lap around the circle, the top clown includes the wing clowns into the juggling, making this huge collection of moments, the juggling looking like a rotating propeller, moving the airplane.

An air siren goes on. And the lights dim until the only lights are the track lighting of the ring, and the light coming through the entrances into the tent. Clank! A spot light from the center ring turns on, sending up a huge column of light onto the roof top. Clank! Another spot light turns on, sending a second pillar up. The siren continues and the spot lights sweep the ceiling, searching.

A dagger flies, landing on the board right above an assistants head, followed by the crowd wowing, the people on the edge of their seats. The dagger thrower, he’s acting like he’s been drinking, staggering around. A person from the crowd even comes out to the centre ring, only to be stopped by staff and the announcer, assuring him that everything is fine.

Another dagger, this time on the right side of the head. More staggering. Another dagger, on the left side of the head.
More staggering, and while winding up to throw the dagger, a clown comes out into the path of the dagger. The thrower spins around and jumps at the shock of seeing the clown, dropping the dagger on the group. The crowd roars with a laugh. The clown motions with his hands to have the dagger thrower take the cork out of the bottle. More motions with his hand that they could have a drink of it afterward. It’s the same clown as earlier, his rose still in his shirt pocket.

The thrower shoos the clown off the set and regains his composure to throw. The wind up, and thump, between the legs of the assistant. Cheers from the crowd.

The trees turned green last week, around the Wednesday April 5th (2017) or so, give or take. It's a game we play every spring: See the green on the forest. This year it was incredibly late. And the forest is already quite thick, but not thick because of green leaves. All the brownish-reddish parts on birch trees, I'm not sure what their names are, but the parts to make new seeds, they have filled out quite a bit of the forest. And I supposed the trees in the distance, I can't see if they have green. But for the first couple of trees deep into the forest, some are finally getting their green. Some, it's the most slightest shades of green, but we see it. You have to spot it quick, because over the next couple days the whole forest will transform.

Joe's two houses are sold now. The small home, the one between our house and his, the one that he rented, I was over there yesterday talking to the neighbours. I've known them for 26 years. They are the only neighbours I actually remember. It's empty now. It has a lot of memories. A lot.
It turns out that this small house is 80 years old. Old Joe had the house moved to this property. He and Betty lived there, and years later he built his big house on the next property. When his kids were old enough, their families moved into the small house. I had heard about the kids but didn't remember them very well, they would have been my parents age. One son, I've seen him around, but I haven't spoken very much with him.

This son, he lived in the small house with his family, and his wife left him with two young boys. Fathers leaving families, we hear about it plenty, but mothers leaving, it's not the same standard that they get judged against, so it sounded surprising when I had heard the story. But there was more to it. I found out about it yesterday. When they lived in that house, they had a little baby, a little girl. She died of SIDS. It messed the mom up bad. Having a child the same age, I don't even want to try imagining how hard that would be, because I know it would be horrible. This is what happened to her. She took is hard, it messed her up, and she left.

That son, he's probably in his 70's, when he was over at the neighbours, he told them how he had a lot of memories here, and how his daughter died in that room in that back corner. My neighbour, she said she knew, that his mom told her about it. So sad.

I stand up and walk over to the desk. There are a couple empty jars. Nothing else. On the wall, I catch a glimpse of something on the wall, near the bookshelf. It’s a photo. It’s hard to see in the shadow of the bookshelf, so I remove the pin and hold it close to get a good look. It’s black and white, on cardboard. A young couple, smiling. It’s those teeth that I recognize. It’s Jaime. Thick dark hair with a slight curl. His eyes not deep in his sockets, but big and bright. The photo, it must be 60, 70 years old, but Jaime, he looks like 50, albeit a worn down 50. And the lady. Long blonde hair, and even though the photo is in black and white, the eyes are so clear in the photo, I can tell that they are blue. And again a smile that I’ve seen. Milda.

I’m lost in the photo, imagining that day, were they lovers, or married? I hear breathing. It’s Jaime, in the doorway. I don’t know how long I’ve day dreamed, how he’s been there.

“It’s a beautiful photo, precious. You’ve known Milda for a long time then.” I say, almost asking. I pin the photo back on the wall, being careful in my handling.

I think Lisa Cron is the answer. And there is another answer, but I can't remember it right now. But I think it had to do with something about feelings. Or maybe that is my gut feeling. At any rate, there is an answer. Or at least a vaguely defined path and a compass, but it looks like some turns are needed.

This is all about something I was writing weeks ago. It was advice - unsolicited advice - that I was wanting to give to a friend. And, but, since it's unsolicited, and I really don't know this person very well, I was writing it to my writing class, and really, to me, since what she experienced is a bit of what I experienced. Her crisis, if I can call it that, was about the last US election. She was going to write a blog about all sorts of things Left that she was supporting. I think she realized she was acting a bit Don Quixoteish, and I thought, really, I felt that she had bottomed out. Which prompted my writing about the futilities of her efforts. But I wasn't trying to kick a dog, because I knew that there was a way. A WAY I tell you. And right now, I think it's with Lisa Cron, and all the people who's research and material she drew from. If this friend wants to change the world, and really, if I want to change the world, one way is to write stories that evoke the emotions - in a good way - to people on the Left, and get them to feel emotions about positions on the Right, and vice versa, stories that evoke emotions to those on the Right, and get them to feel emotions about positions on the Left. Or stories that bridge any divide. This is not rocket surgery or anything new. We just need to look at our English high school curriculum, and look at To Kill a Mockingbird, cited as a reason that white people could empathize with the civil rights movement. Where is that Atticus now?

What is this writing? I think it's a scaffolding, breadcrumbs, to get back into that piece. But I see now that I had it all upside down. I was writing it like an academic paper, this plus this, plus this, conclusion. I need to start with Atticus. A quest.

Is this finding Waldo? Or finding a needle in a hay stack? Or what exactly? There are a couple options. The first one is they know where to go, but there are know obstacles, or surprises when they get there. The other is that they don't know where the end goal is, but they know where to go to find out more. I guess there is a third option, that they don't know where to go, but know where to go to find out more, but have obstacles all along the way.

I've been chipping away at a story of mine, and I've hit a wall. I'm not sure how the characters are going to do something. But I have this feeling that it's not just this that has got me sputtering out. I think it has to do with the motivation and conflicts of the story. It's pretty weak in that department.
As I wrote the piece, more ideas about what was going to happen, the plot, came to me, so the length of the piece grew. But now I'm at a point where I've written what I had intended earlier, and some more. Really, I've written at least what I had planned when I was in the writing class. I'm thinking that I'll close it out now, that is, get to the conclusion of the story.
That way I can do a couple things. a - I've contained the scope to what I originally thought, so I have an idea of how long that takes, b - I can say that I have a first draft, and then rewrite the entire piece - since I noticed lots of things that I wanted to change and add - and c) so I can add so much more to what I have. My characters are flat, I tell and don't show, and I'm weak on motivations and conflicts. Going through this, adding these dimensions, might help me go add extra parts that I've thought up.

It's early morning when we arrive at the office. So early, we’re the only car in the parking lot. We sit in the car. The tiny security truck drives through the parking lot and away.
“I can get us in. I have the alarm code.” The truth is, most people had, since it gave people the opportunity to work more.
We get out of the car, walk through to the entrance. Something starts beeping. I punching in the code on the wall and the beeping stops. We walk through the halls. There is the odd light on in cubicles, where someone hasn’t stopped working, and has stayed the entire night. People that worked so hard, they’ve forgotten that they have families. People with pales tans from the glow of the monitors. Through the maze, we finally arrive at my desk. The co-op, he’s there, in my chair still facing my monitor, leaning to one side. There are a couple notes left on my desk, next to my keyboard that the co-ops fingers are propped onto.
“This is it, let’s get a cup and hot water?”
“Where do we get that? Remember, they took away everyone’s coffee makers and hot water kettles when they get the contract for the coffee company, remember, it was the executives neighbor.
“How could I forget their militant zeal?!”

I finished my "first shitty draft". Really, I cheated and didn't include a lot of what I wanted to add so that I could get to the rewriting. And now what?!! I don't want to gum up my morning writings with editing and rewriting. Hmm, maybe the first 15, 20 minutes is new writing. And then I review the old with whatever time I had left.
I think this is where the magic begins. In the rewriting. I'll need to apply the techniques that Paul taught to my own work. I'll do this first, not because I think I'm good at the technique, but because I know the latter half of the story needs some serious spring cleaning before the others descend on it. Then I'll ask if the others if they have the time to give me feedback. Wow. Huge. This is what I wanted - a tribe. I knew I needed one, but now they are real, and the need is so concrete. This is great! I need to respond to them! And likewise offer my time to reviewing their material.

Clouds. Categorizing clouds. We might not like clouds, but they show us what is about to come. Catching rays of sun. Light clouds, almost invisible, turn white. Dark gray clouds. with a pastel opening. The light clouds have now turned to a coloured streak, pastel and golden, with a white opening. And now I can see that the white clouds are invading the dark gray clouds, and revealing the contours of the collision.

An orange beak, a green head, and large eyes, for a bird. Yellow feet. Wings with green feathers on top, with yellow longer feathers underneath. A tail with long yellow feathers with short green feathers underneath.
He's standing very still, staring, watching you or anything else that is going on. His big eyes move slowly.
He starts to rock side to side, blinking, and opening it's beak as if it were smacking it's lips, had it lips to smack. The owner takes a cracker and offers it. He leans forward and bites hold of it. The rocking continues, the bird crunches down on the cracker.

Hunger
Hate
Hard words

Fright
Fate
Final words

Light
Wait
Hurdling towards

I can't see through the woodlands behind our home anymore. The leaves have filled the trees enough. The white with black of the birch trees. The pale light green of their new tender leaves. At some point I can see through the woodlands, and at some point I can't. And later, in the fall, there is another point when I can see through them again.

Scandal! I missed a day of daily writing. And the crazy thing is I didn't even notice! I noticed by accident. When I was posting Saturday's posting I glimpsed the date of my last posting. Thursday? Thursday! So I went to bed Saturday night thinking I had missed a day. Friday.

My streak, my run. Over. Ended. My first hiccup. I wasn't as bothered as I thought I would be. Maybe because I figured what had happened. Work. I had early morning meetings that collided with my writing time. At any rate, it was bound to happen, and I guess I'm glad it wasn't entirely my fault.

But I had this doubt, about what had happened Friday morning during my writing time, so I did some investigating. It turned out that I didn't forget to write! But I did forget to post. Disaster diverted! I'm going to have two posts now. This one, and Friday's. Funny, the file name I used for what I wrote on Friday is "Vanished".

Yesterday there was so much that I wanted to write about. Where did it all go! Vanished! Zip! Nada. I blame work. It's invading my regular writing time.
Ahh. I remember some of the things I wanted to write about. <Wormhole!> I just fell into the internet for the last 20 minutes. I'm back! I "had" to do some research on the internet for one of these things that I wanted to write about. Sounds like an excuse

(This is Friday's missing post!)

January 24th to today
12 weeks, 13 tomorrow
I don't remember what date I set to use -

Snarled in rewriting and editing and stopping the energy, no, more like blocking, diverting the energy, the channel.
It will be 13 weeks tomorrow that I've written daily. I think I should celebrate this. It's been more than half the duration of the course that got me started with my daily writings. It's happy 12 weeks and 6 days of daily writings day!

After the course I finished writing that short piece using the dailies. Can I direct this time to another piece? I don't want to use this time for rewriting and editing. I know that short piece is going to need a lot of work and energy.

The forest has blocked out remaining gaps between the trees. It's full, lush, green.

I wonder what the weather will be today. It looks cloudy, a bit windy, will it rain? Maybe we can go to the park again.

My mind wandered off there. Playing out in my mind events that could unfold, but are unlikely to.

I've woken late. And my wife and son woke up early, thanks to her alarm clock that most have been inspired by the inquisition. And now my manager is messaging me, asking about my goals for the company for this year. I hate those goals. And I'm sure bosses hate them too. It's like being asked to jump through hoops. What is this - A dog show? But I shouldn't complain, I get to set how big the hoop is and how high it is off the ground. It's not like the other things at work, where they ask you to do stupid things and then switch it around into something stupider. I compare that to jumping off the high diving board into the pool of water, which they switch with a glass of water. <Sigh> I'm acting like it's Monday.

The park. It's supposed to rain. And same tomorrow. Unlikely that we can use the slides.

All sorts of clouds, fuller, lusher trees, birds chipping. Is this what I'm going to write about again today? How about a haiku? Or even a list? Or a haiku with a list?
How about what will be left as evidence when we've finished this planet and wiped ourselves off of it.

1. Gathering at intersections - it would appear, based on CCTV footage of intersections that we spent our time gathering at certain hours of religious significance (8am and 5pm), and yielded (bowed down) before the red lights.
2. Filling warehouse with forms, the kinds made by border guards.
3. Making, collecting, using plastic bags everywhere, like plastic to cover food and couches, spandex and condoms, and the island of plastic in the pacific.
4. Searching for things that we think we've misplaced, things like keys, Atlantis, alien secrets (the roots of our demise), and codes in the Bible.

It's not complete darkness, there is light, but it's hardly helps, flashes, making more confusion than anything. A dust storm in a desert? But there is no ground. And whatever ground there is, there are huge waves, falling from crest to troughs that make your stomach fall out.

Not sure if I'll be able to get much writing in today. Morning meetings again. And I can hear my son stirring on the baby monitor, which means I'll need to watch him white my wife does some things. I'll be applying for jobs this weekend. That will be great writing! And next week I start another online writing course. I will likely be using this morning writing time for assignments from it. I'm going to see if I can wake my wife now, without waking my son. Wish me luck.

Gus could feel the weather changing, his skin could feel the moisture, and the changes of pressure, he could feel it against the air inside of him. It was almost time. Wind was kicking up, leaves on trees shaking. Clouds would blow in, bringing the first drops of rain, the sign for Gus to leave. The same rains that he had feared his whole life. But now, he waited, his bags packed. He was leaving his home for lands with more opportunity. Food had become scarce among an increasing population. And it was under the cover of rain that he had to make this trip because Gus is a worm.

Charlie was a natural leader. Since a young age he had demonstrated this. But he wasn't young any more. He was actually getting rather old. And the system in place in his organization encouraged young, brash leaders and didn't recognize or have a place for the wisdom and experience he had. He himself knew this first hand, when he was a youth, and ousted the leader at the time. And now, he felt the stares of several youth, hungry for his position. There had been several attempts, but he knew it was only a matter of time before...

There had been several attempts, but he knew it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out. Maybe this is why the ad on the bulletin board caught his eye. Help Wanted. Need one confident leader for voyage across road during next rainstorm.
Confident. Leader. It was like the ad made just for him. It was so good he even suspected it as a trap by one of the up comers gunning for his position. You're acting like a paranoid nut Charlie! he told himself. This is fate. This is destiny! Rain never bothered him. And the road? He's heard countless stories of others that had crossed it. How hard could it be? He could leave on his terms, not by some humiliating defeat, and for something better - a life of adventure!

Lightening struck outside and lit the room. The thunder crashing a second after. This was the signal. The time that was agreed that Charlie would meet his client. Charlie looked around in the darkness, everyone was asleep. He pushed aside some hay piled in a corner and found the bag he had stashed away. He pulled it out and headed over to a loose board that he knew about at the side of the coop. He had to jump a little, and flap his wings to get to it. He turned around to see if any one was awake. And to take one last look before giving this all up. And then he jumped out of the coop. Charlie had flown the coop.

Gus' little room shook. Not much, but enough. Lightning had struck. The sign that he had agreed to to meet his guide. What if I don't go? Maybe my guide forgot and I'll be out there waiting? The excuses started to pour into Gus' mind. He looked over to his door. His bag was sitting there, along with a boat made out of a dried leaf, the stem tied it to string.

Rainy nights were like moving-day for worms. They could travel easier. But some can actually drown if there's too much water. At least that's what Gus had read, he is a bookworm after all. Everyone had told him that he was the kind that could float and swim, but he wasn't about to take any chances, so he'd made the boat.

Maybe there's only lightning, and no rain tonight? There will be no flooding of the road, and his couldn't make his passage across it. Maybe I'll just sit here in this chair and think about this more, he thought to himself.

"No!" he said, leaping out of the chair, his glasses nearly falling off his face. I can do this! I have to do this, I have no other choice. He pushed his glasses back onto his face. He slinked over to the door, holding his thin chest out. It's now or never. He picked up his bag and boat and was turning to look at his little one room home when he froze turned half way around. I know what it looks like, I don't need to look again, he said to himself. He tried to be brave, but he was afraid. A friend had told him a story of a slug that turned around to look back but was turned to salt. How sad! Gus thought, they could never ever be hugged by another slug again. He turned back towards the hole and slinked to the surface.

I have a little secret. Really, it's only a secret depending on who I'm around. And for those that might read this, for some of you, I must confess, it's a secret. But I'm going to tell you anyways. You might think differently of me after this. Or add depth to the thin pages that I've used to share myself. But at any rate, better to get it in the open now.

My little secret is that my favourite magazine subscription is to Forbes. For those that are unfamiliar with it, it's the political mouth piece of a billionaire, Steve Forbes, who made his money the old fashioned way - daddy. If politics is a football game, this magazine is like looking into the playbook of the Republican party. Seeing their playbook, layed out before me is what I like about the magazine. For those on the left, let me explain it this way: Imagine your favourite politician, Socialists, Greens, Progressive Liberals, what have you, and then imagine Stephen King has written about what will happen to them at their next convention. The honesty of the magazine can surprise the unfamiliar.

Two stories stand out as good examples. One issue, the cover showing the back of a person in a judge's robe with a bulls eye target on him, talked about efforts by the Chamber of Commerce in backing the elections of judges that side with corporations and not with plaintiffs. Darn activist judges protecting citizens rights! Another issue talked about the progress in removing regulations for the nuclear industry. Yes, if there is any industry that doesn't need oversight, wow... really, that one?

But here is the secret in the secret. Sometimes I like what I hear. Or I am - can I say - enlightened? And what does it say if I learned something from what some might call a benevolent dictator? Maybe I like the magazine because it puts me into that Stephen King convention, and my character is revealed as not being as nice as I thought. Uncomfortable. Unsettling.

Ugh. No sleep. Our son was sick. A fever with a rash last night. The joys of daycare. Not sleeping isn't hard. The thing that wears on me is battling my wife. If there is a single cough, a single dot on the skin, a tiniest of scratches, she wants to go to the doctor or emergency. My first line of defence is 811, the nurse hotline. It's a coin toss, with a 50-50 chance that we get someone on the other end that has a smidgen of experience with children. When we do, they say - but not in these words - chill out, relax, everything is going to be fine. The best was one time when the nurse told us what the "script" says they have to say - that is to race to the emergency - and then followed that up with their personal recommendation - chill out, relax, everything will be fine. We did relax. Or rather, I did because we spent the night at home and not waiting in the emergency department. And in the morning, my wife was fine.

My new writing class started this week. It's starting with us reading and talking about poetry. The course is required for the program that I'm taking. The teacher asks why we are taking the course. <Ahem> How do I navigate this one... One week in, there's been some interesting, enjoyable poems and readings.

I saw my sister yesterday. We haven't seen each other in about five months. We've spoken on the phone but for whatever reason haven't seen each other.

Gus made his way to the bottom of the pear tree. The blossoms had started to fall, and now with the rain, more pedals were being brought down. Standing there, with a bag over his shoulder as if ready to march off on an orders notice was Charlie, the captain of his voyage.
"Gustaf. Gustaf Von Worm. Is that you?" Charlie was squinting to make out Gus. Had you known the worms of this neighbourhood you would have been a bit surprised like Gus too. He was indeed a peculiar worm, with his hunched back, his thick glasses and his bow tie. But the truth is, the only types of worms that Charlie knew were fresh, juicy worms, and old, dried worms. But for this particular occasion he decided to try something different, of working with one.
"Yes Charlie, it's me" he replied, stopping to wipe the rain off his glasses. "Incessant" he muttered to himself.
"It's captain. Captain, remember?" Charlie was looking around and over his shoulder.
"Yes, yes of course captain. My apologies." putting his glasses back on.

Oh, what a night. In the book I'm reading the author explains how to pit conflict versus conflict (Eg: Internal versus external). Well last night is a great example of such conflict in my life.

My wife woke my son at 2 am to give him a teaspoon of Benadryl. He had a virus and there are tiny specks all over. They are not itchy, but his feet are sometimes a little sensitive when he walks, that is until he forgets about the discomfort and runs, climbs and jumps everywhere. He was totally fine just sleeping, and after the teaspoon took about an hour to put him back to sleep... fun.

The box of Benadryl has instructions that say to not use to make kids sleepy. My wife was aghast when she saw that. What kind of parents do this?!! Horrible! Hmmm. How about parents that have a doctor who recognizes that my son is fine and that the real patient is my wife who must have an answer and medicine. Those kinds.

Of all the viruses that I read about that this possibly could be, not one said to give Benadryl. My wife saw two different doctor at different walk-in clinics for my sons rash. The first had negative zero personality for dealing with patients, but he told her what most doctors would say, give your son plenty of rest and fluids. The problem with his advice? Simply how he told her, with an Eastern-European directness. The second doctor however, who I call the good doctor, is very pleasant, and said to give plenty of rest and fluids, and Benadryl. The difference in his advice? Its from the good doctor understanding my wife. This is the third time in a month the good doctor had seen my son, the last two times were within a week for different reasons.

So do I ask my wife which virus she read about said to give Benadryl? To expose the lie of the good doctor? No. I'm keeping this to myself. Because the good doctor knows how to deal with my wife. And yes, it's possible that the Benadryl does something, but it seems quite remote. So remote I'd put more confidence on a horoscope bet. Yes, we're giving Benadryl to my son, and all it will do is make him sleepy. What horrible parents!

The conflict - the balance of keeping my wife happy - knowing that there is a good doctor that knows how to help her. All the while battling her, and teaching my son not to be a borderline hypochondriac. And to take risks. She's teaching him to be afraid of his own shadow. It's too cold out! It's too dirty! He's just a baby! Watch his head! He's got a scratch, let's go to the doctor! She keeps him in a bubble and whenever I can I'm outside with him, climbing for the sky, with dirt and bugs in his hands (and sometimes in his mouth).

Oh to top the night off, I'm getting sick now, and woke up to the smell of a skunk that must have sprayed just outside. Thanks for this confessional. Have a great day!

I didn't write today. Well, except for this. I'm watching my son who still isn't better, and now I have what he has too. And yes, I could use the Benadryl, but since I was watching him I haven't. It was a tiring day. It felt like Murphy didn't just have my number, he had me on speed dial, throwing all sorts of trouble in my way. But still, I did have fun playing with my son. I hope it's an early night.

No writing today. Today has felt like the Gom Jabbar test in the movie Dune.

Today I cooked lunch sitting on a chair in front of the stove, like my grandmother did after her stroke and she was left in a wheelchair. Except I have the use of both of my hands. It was a humbling experience.

I've been hit bad in my hands and feet by hand foot and mouth disease. I have difficulty using my hands like closing them, slicing bread, opening a jar of pills. Typing is ok, but my time for doing that has been tight since I have to watch my son. He's almost better but still contagious so no one else can watch him risk they get it too, even the daycare where he likely brought it home from. And I'm using two canes to help me get around. That was why I was sitting down to cook, to give my feet a much needed break.

People get hit differently by this, and those that get hit bad have said how they wouldn't wish it on their worst enemy. I would agree. It's been hell. But it's also been a blessing. To be in so much pain and to be so immobilized and limited in what I can do, but just temporarily, really makes me appreciate what I have and makes me feel for those that live day in day out with pains and limitations like these. How strong and incredible those people are. It reminds me of Jonathan Pitre. That kid is tough!

Good morning! Good morning
That smiley is for me, shining it all back in on me.
Here, this one is for you
The storm has passed, leaving as quick as it came. It's amazing how quickly my body is healing. Soon there will be no marks, the only traces will be in my mind. Oh. And there has been an interruption in my Dailies. My sacred grounds, unvisited. I suppose I could have pushed myself, I was able to write. I did write some emails. For whatever reason, at any rate, a break has been had. Two days. Hmm. I maybe have to speak to the chief priest about this. I wonder - If I'm serious about writing and pursuing my muse, can I have a holiday from her? Will she question my other hobbies?

The sky is turning dark. I wish I could stay up late enough to see the stars. But even if I could, there are often clouds to contend with. There were so many new birds in the backyard today. Their singing and dancing was wonderful. Chris saw them all (Yes, Chris junior). He also shoveled dirt into a bucket all by himself. A week away from 20 months old. Sigh. So quick! Hmm, but soon I'll be able to stay up late, with him. And together look at the stars. That sounds so nice.

Tonight I've been catching up on my assignments for the writing class I'm in right now. The first two weeks have been about poetry. I found a couple interesting things. The first was an article about poetry that showed me aspects of poetry that I hadn't considered. Another was poetry that I enjoyed! I'm actually more surprised that I am surprised that I enjoyed the readings. And lastly, it got me to think about how I used to write poetry. And also lyrics. Wow, that was a long time ago, but I wrote quite often and quite a bit. And now I'm forced to write poetry and it's hard. Like those taps haven't been used in a while. Hmm, I'll need to use my daily space to turn those pipes on again, relearn that muscle.

I have to write poetry. I must. Resisting.
Summoning feelings. Images. Conjuring.
Coffee. Can coffee save me? Messenger of peace and hope. My default Messiah. Perhaps until the refill.
Can beams from the sunrise and melodies from the birds in a forest help me? Nurturing Mother nature lending a helping hand. No. I'm on my own.
Such a simple task and it feels like crossing an ocean. And now I'm making this dramatic.
It feels like getting a cat to move. Impossible. Almost. They do what they please and only what they please.
But they can be moved. To move the cat you must be the string. To move me, where is my string?

I wonder how Gus is doing. And Charlie. Captain. I need to reread those to get back into them. I think Charlie was about to ask if Gus was ready.

"Well? Are you ready?"
Gus started to open his mouth, safety measures for Charlie to consider, but really, subconsciously stalling and delay tactics. And maybe Charlie would agree to this whole plan being crazy. But Gus didn't realize that Charlie considered the future -that is, a future staying here- to be bleaker than suicide. But before one word came out, Charlie patted him on the back. It shock Gus so hard, his glasses bounced around, and the leaf - his boat he had been carrying - fell off.
"Let's get this show on the road. Oh, let me help you with that." and he picked up the string and threw the boat over his shoulder.
"Alright then. This way." Charlie announced, and he started marching down the hill to the road.
Charlie watched the boat bouncing around and started to share his concern but Charlie was soon getting to far to hear him. He straightened his glasses, stretched his neck and started inching down the hill after him.

I dreamt that people moved into my neighbour's house. I guess they were Chinese people, because that's who owns the house in real life. And also, because they some sign on their front door in Chinese. It was night time, and the lights were on. And there were several cars parked, people coming over for a house warming of sorts. One car parked in our drive way and so I went to speak with the guy. I don't remember what the outcome was, but I do remember that the next thing I saw was a tiger roaming around. My wife and I jumped into the backseat of my car. It sprawled onto the windshield. It tiger noticed a front door was ajar. While it was coming in, we jumped out. It was circus madness. We ended up back in the car in time to remember that my parents and aunt and uncle were coming over, walking. We backed the car up on the street, rolled down the windows and shouted at them about the tiger.

My wife is sick so she slept in the other room. I wonder what she would have said about my racing around and shouting. It's sometimes scary, sometimes entertaining.

Gus hustled - as much as a worm can - to Charlie. He was waiting at the bottom of the hill. Gus' breathing was so loud, he didn't hear the different sounds. Rain drops hitting something hard. The Road.

Charlie was looking around. His mind focused at the task at hand. He had heard stories of people that had come to the Road, but none from people that had crossed it, and returned. He was trying to think about how he would do this, and what he should worry about. Hawks? Dogs? Tractors? But his mind drifted off. Why did all those before him, that stood at this very spot, why did they cross the road? A moment of panic jolted him. What if all of those that crossed are there waiting for him in a new flock. What kind of a flock is this? The panic turned to anger. What kind of chicken leaves the flock? What kind of rejects! And then his anger turned to a kind of shame and fear. What kind of reject... like him.
His wandering mind was pulled back when he saw Gus there panting, staring at him. Charlie quickly resolved his long face with one of confidence, pushing out his chin, looking stern, and with a slight grin.

"Is <gasp> every <gasp> thing <gasp> al- <gasp> right?"

"Of course my boy! Just taking a look at the lay of the land. Surveying for the best launching site."

Charlie stepped onto the road. The water covered his claws and he could feel a slight drifting of the water both down and across the road. He took the boat off of his back and threw it to the ground.

Gus jumped a little, seeing his life vessel being thrown around so hard.
"Well, time to get in."
Charlie wasn't paying attention to Gus. He was looking back, trying to see the coop through the rain.
"You should never look back" Gus said to Charlie. "You'll turn to salt."
Even saying it gave Gus a shiver.
"Salt you say" Charlie said, barely registering what Gus said, his eyes still looking off in the distance.
Gus continued "Salt. That's what is on the kitchen table of the humans. Chicken soup."
He snapped his gaze and looked down at Gus. Gus was staring at him with an inquisitive look.
Gus turned the table around "Are you sure about this?"
Charlie looked down at the ground, but if he was looking off into the distance, his thoughts spinning inside himself.
"Captain?"

The Children's Place in Granville island was my childhood Mecca. On rare occasions my parents and I would go there. They would go to the alleys where there was fresh seafood. My parents love fresh seafood. And as a child it was also great for me to see the different animals in these huge holding tanks.
But for me, it was the Children's Place that I wanted to go to. My desire was drive by two things. The Comic Book store. There were only two locations; one in kits, and the other here. And one of the comics I collected, Robotech, was originally from Japan. Well there were stores that had those same robots. One year I got one, I forget the occasion. One year there was something else I wanted. A remote controlled car. I remember how happy I was the Christmas that I got it. And how upset I was how within ten minutes I broke it by crashing it into a table leg. My dad was unimpressed that it broke so easily and brought it back to get returned. I got a new one and don't know how long I enjoyed it, but it seemed to go the way of many toys - into the closet to collect dust. Thinking back now, I realized that I was a battery free kind of kid, playing mostly with legos or outside in our blueberry field, using my imagination.
Just a few years ago, I was helping in the church garage sale. I was a bit taken back when I found a table of stuff that my parents had contributed. Toys of our childhood, including my remote control car. I wasn't interested in taking it back, and hurried myself with the activities of the sale. But I did get to see two parents and their son walking out. He had the car in his arms and a big smile on his face. That made my day.
More recently, I was at my parents place. In my old room, now the computer room, among the bookshelves I found the remote control. I guess that little boy with my car now is using his imagination too.

"I was just listening, seeing if I can hear anything. Threats you know. Dogs. Tractors. Those sorts of things. Are you going to climb in or what?"

Gus pushed his glasses firmly against his face, and gave him another look before inching onto the leaf. He tried not to look over the far side of the leaf, already in deep water. He put his suitcase down in the centre and coiled himself next to it, wrapping his tail around it. He looked up at Charlie, and then across the road.

"Hold on tight" Charlie declared, and started walking. The first foot tepidly. And then the second foot growing his grin. One after the other. Steady.

The Road seems smaller when just looking across it, but now that Charlie was walking, he saw that it was longer than he thought. This was compounded by a deeply seated habit of stopping every several steps. There is something to eat! He closed his right eye, his eye for short-sightedness, so he could focus his far-sighted left eye.

"What are you doing?" asked Gus, laying low and holding his suitcase, not able to look to Charlie when asking.

"Surveying. Remember? Signs of dangers. Piles of salt from others that tried to cross but decided to look back."

Gus didn't appreciate the joke, but he looked up at Gus for a moment, and realized that with a Chicken's 300 degree vision it's pretty hard to not be looking back. What a life, Gus thought, so easy to look back. I wonder if that haunts them?

It was during a stop, with Charlie's right eye and in the ultraviolet spectrum, that he saw something . There was a rock a few steps down the Road with someone on it. A beetle of sorts.
"Hold on, we're turning." he announced to Gus, still coiled and gripping his suitcase.
"What?" Gus yelped.
Lurching suddenly down the Road instead of across it, Charlie brought them to a stranded beetle.
"Oh please help me!" cried out the beetle!

It's raining in summer. I actually like the rain. It feels nice. It sounds nice.

A crow is in the yard. Two of them. One watches from the perch off the ground, while the other combs the grass for something to eat. Maybe they are a couple and will be nesting soon.

I can imagine them being like a testy married couple driving around for a parking spot.

The one perched off the ground would call out "There's a grub over there"
"There? Where's there?"
"There!"
"I don't know where 'there is'. Just tell me"
"Too late, it's gone now. That Robin got it."
"Hmmph"

"There's another one! Over there! That side! That side!"
"Where? What side is 'That' side? I don't know what you are pointing at!"
"Over- too late. Someone else got that one too"

"Did you want to do this? And I can watch?"
"Do you want me to take over?
"I didn't ask that"
"It's ok. We're doing fine. We'll eat eventually."

If I had the choice, how would I want to die? An uncle passed away yesterday. Sadness, but also relief. He was immobile and didn't communicate anymore. He stopped eating for the last three days. And yesterday he stopped breathing. It was peaceful.
I worry about my aunt now. She's old, in her 90's, but works so hard. She's been working so hard day-in day-out to keep my uncle comfortable. But now, what will she do? Like a person that retires and has a heart attack from the stress of not working.

"What are you doing?" yelled out Gus, finally able to firmly look up at Charlie.
"That beetle is stranded"
"And? He can wait the storm out. I didn't pay for other passengers!"
"And I have a code that I live by. Charlies' laws. If a person in distress calls for help, I answer."
"This is my boat and we have an agreement."
"And we do. And since I'm pulling your boat, it looks like you need to let this captain do his job."

I'm reading tiffany watt smith's The Book of Human Emotions. It's a great bathroom reader since more entries are between a paragraph and two pages long. I'm really enjoying it. It's changed my perspective of certain emotions, like anxiety and apathy. And since I'm reading it alphabetically, realize that I'm only on the As!

Charlie was also thinking that the beetle might be tasty. He didn't bring any food along for this journey, and he was beginning to wonder just how long it would take to cross the Road. But this was all to the beetles fortunate, and none to Charlie that the beetle was just far enough away that Charlie didn't immediately recognize that the bug was a stink beetle.
"Hello!" Charlie greeted the stink beetle, gritting his beak.
"Oh. I'm so glad you came. Can I take me some place higher."
Charlie answered "Yes", while Gus answered "No".
Charlie and Gus eyed each other.
"Jump aboard little friend." as Charlie held the boat against the rock.
"Watch the boat. You'll damage it!" Gus barked.
"Thanks! I owe you my life." the beetle stepped slowly onto the boat.

I'm getting back on my proverbial bicycle. It started with being sick. Then a vacation. Last week we were back and I was jumping back on that bike. But then by the weekend, our son got sick. No one slept, so my early time, for writing was challenged. I was writing at night, tired. This morning, it feels good again to have this time.

====

"Hmph" Gus said to himself, but it was loud enough for Charlie to hear.
The beetle walked over to Gus, with his arms raised, wanting to give him a hug. His smile shrank a bit, seeing Gus coiled tightly, and talking to himself.
"Oh hi, hello!" he tried to get Gus' attention.
Gus' straightened his neck, and looked down at the beetle.
The beetle's smile grew back wide. "I'm Alfred," holding a hand out to shake. "But you can call me Fred."
"Oh, yes." Gus snapped, looking down at the beetle. "You can call me Doctor. Doctor Gustaf. I've paid for this voyage. And while the Captain has protocols to help people, we will resume course to our destination."
Gus' tail pulled his suitcase tighter to his coil.
Alfred's hand slowly dropped, his smile sagging again. He looked up to the chicken.
"Welcome aboard! Are you all right?" said Charlie.
Tiny Alfred nodded. He'd never seen a chicken so close. He feigned a big smile. I wonder, some chickens' eat stink bugs. They call it an acquired taste. I wonder-
"Don't worry little guy, I'm not going to eat you." Charlie called out, as if he could sense his worry. "We are on a voyage."
"Where to?"
"Across the Road."
"Wow! What's the Road?"
"It's the-" Charlie was stumped. "-It's the..." his eyes turning to Gus.
"It's what we are on right now. It's a border, between our world and the next. And dangerous to many of us when it's not covered in rain. Many have perished on it, trying to cross." Gus answered, a matter of factly. He turned his face to Charlie, a grimace on his face, and pushed his glasses tightly onto his face. "Can we?"
"Hold on everyone." Charlie announced, answering Gus with a smile, and started walking, pulling the leaf boat with the two passengers.

I saw my aunt yesterday, the first time since my uncle's passing. She looked so incredibly weak. She had been getting weaker and slower and tinier. She always said what was happening to her and we all saw it. But this time it was different.
My uncle is there no more for her, and that was what she used all her energy for, to keep him alive and comfortable. It wasn't a look of exhaustion, but rather that now that there was nothing to push for every day, the incredible strength hidden within her body isn't revealed. That strength. I've seen it before. It reminded me of my grandmother, my aunt's sister. An incredible strength, one I wonder if I'll ever see again.

My uncle. The house felt different without him. I felt that he wasn't there. There was an emptiness to the house that wasn't there before. But maybe because I knew this, I'm just playing some game with myself. But I didn't have that feeling inside my house, only yesterday when we were over there.

When I saw my aunt, my wife was helping her get a vase for the flowers. Seeing her shuffling, seeing her without her husband, it struck me, and I had to leave the room.

Mike told me how his dad died peacefully. He breathing got slower and slower. And then it stopped. My aunt told me how they knew in the morning that he was going to die that day. He didn't eat for the passed three days, he would push the food out with his tongue. Did he know what he was doing? Did he have enough? I imagine him now in heaven, dancing, moving again. Out of the bed that he'd spend the last months in. His smile.

I saw uncle today. Said good bye. But what I saw wasn't him, it was just that body that he used. But I don't know if I think that because I had heard people say that countless times before. But, at any rate, he is gone.

I haven't been doing my dailies because I've been using my writing time for the course I'm taking right now. I'll post the last assignment here. It's a Postcard story, needing to be less than 500 words. When I finished my first draft it came in at around 570 and so I pruned it close to it's now present form at 499 words.

Finishing the report left me unsettled and unsatisfied. Something unusual since the Coroner had always done a good detailed job. But something about this "death by accidentally falling” left me unsatisfied.
A young Mr. Dumpty was on a wall. He wasn't wearing his safety harness and fell. A doctor named Dr. Horse tried to help, as well as coworkers in the company, King's incorporated, but by the time the first responders arrived he was dead.
The first thing that struck me was how large Mr. Dumpty was. What kind of guy that size goes out on a wall like that? It sounded more like the stunt of drunken college students. I get told I take my job too seriously, but these pieces didn't add up, something I couldn't quite yet put together, but I knew I would find out.
I arrived at the office of King’s Incorporated. They built all the walls for the kingdom. The receptionist located the work crew and so I met them at one of city walls. They were all sitting around their wagon having lunch.
“So, tell me, what do you think happened here?”
They all gave each other uncomfortable looks, until one of them piped up.
“Well sir, you see, these walls are what we maintain. And they are awfully high. And well, this Dumpty kid, he was new on the crew, sent here from the head office to learn. And well, it’s like you have it, he just fell.”
“Do you think he should have been up on that wall in the first place?”
“Sir, that’s not my decision, and I can’t say what this kid could or couldn’t do, regardless of what he believed he could do.”
I went back to King’s office, to see who had sent him. The receptionist quickly dispatched the supervisor for the construction site.
“Yeah, Dumpty. That’s really sad. I hate to see any of my works get hurt. Good thing he didn’t have any family.”
“And you sent him to learn the ropes? Why is that?”
“Well, the boss, Mr. King himself took a liking to the kid. He was teaching him all the ropes.”
Waiting to see Mr. King himself didn’t take as long as I expected. He greeted me seriously, like a business man.
“Dumpty.” shaking his head. “He was such a quick learner. I didn’t expect this.”
Nothing I asked revealed anything. I returned to my office to contemplate. The pieces, they fit together too well. But something still wasn’t right. And then the answer came to me. A beautiful woman walked into my office, mascara marks from crying.
“I’m Nicole King. I was Dumpty’s girlfriend. Yes, my daddy owns King’s Incorporated. He hated my Dumpty. But one day he gave him a job. When Dumpty had the courage to ask for my hand, he told him, to prove that he was man enough, not some coward, he had to climb a wall. All that proved was that he was an idiot!”

This is another back post. I wrote some haiku on Sunday, but was busy posting assignments for my class to post anything here. It's two haiku, but one of them I've kept the copies I made when I am wrestling with the right words, from what I started with, to what I end up with when I'm done.

Suffocating home
Drowning in abundance
Some toys must go

====

Sparks teenage fire
Endless blasting energy
Can you share a cup

(changing the first line)
Teenage fire flows
Endless blasting energy
Can you share a cup

(changing the last line)
Sparks teenage fire
Endless blasting energy
Coals now smolder cold

(Two middle line variations:)
Endless bursting energy
Explodes endless energy

(Changing the first lines:)
Teenage fire sparks
Endless blasting energy
Coals now smolder cold

(I change the ending and middle)
Teenage fire sparks
Explodes endless energy
Coals will smolder cold

(And just now I change the ending again, I like how the E of embers follows the line of E words)
Teenage fire sparks
Explodes endless energy
Embers smolder cold

(I'm still not 100% sure, and will likely wrestle with this one longer. For example, I don't like words that end in S that are followed by a word starting with S)

My wife and I have fallen in love with La Paz. So we've set ourselves on buying a place there. Not right now, but as a goal that is planned out. The dream is to live there one day. But this worries me a little. We were there while on vacation, and so doing almost nothing, except for a walk on the malecon and a dip in the pool, were really all that we expected from ourselves. But if we lived there, how would we fill the day? I told my wife that whatever I do there, it needs to be something creative. This has kick started my creative goals. This can't be just some place to move to when we retire. This will be a complete change in life.

It's Karl's birthday today. He's 48. Happy Birthday Bro!

I'm back posting for Tuesday. Or rather, commenting that I didn't do my daily, but I did make time to do a writing assignment.

I saw the first leaves yesterday. From the tree in the front yard. That struck me, with my inside voice yelping "no, not already". I had associated the leaves falling from that tree as the sign that summer was over. And yet today is the first official day of summer.

The idea of this sign was formed from keeping bees. Because of them, when I looked around outside, I wondered what the bees were eating. In winter. In spring. All seasons. Constantly. And what I found was that most of the flowers would already have bloomed when the leaves from the false acacia started to fall. But I seemed to recall that these didn't fall until the end of July. I could very well be mistaken. It's the black berries that are blooming now, with the loosestrife still coming. Those are the last hurrahs of flowers for the bees (not including the best, but not always nearby Pumpkin flowers).

But maybe the trees know something that we don't. Or that because of the long cold winter, that plants don't have as much strength, or they are stressed from racing to bloom for a quick brilliant week, when we would normally get to enjoy two weeks of a relaxed show.

It's the first day of summer. And summer is over.

I became Hercules. Not the hero aspects of him, but when he goes into a crazy rage. Things were said that pushed my button, then I brooded over them, and then the thoughts boiled over and I lost it.

It spooked me a bit, a bit embarrassed, yes. But what worried me is about when I get older. I worry about becoming one of those seniors in a home that becomes one time aggravated, and so they drug up and have sit in a chair and sleep the days away.

Of the people with Alzheimer's that I've seen in seniors homes, it seems that if they had a gentle, or relaxed or carefree personality, that that keeps them at peace, even though they have no idea what's going on. And if they have an anxious personality, they continually grasp for understanding of their situation. On their face I see them almost figure it out, and then, like their memories, they lose it, forgetting what they were trying to figure out, or perhaps getting the answer, but forgetting the question.

And I worry about people close to me, that have a hard time hearing. I've heard how people with hearing loss have problems thinking and remembering. I wonder, went you don't hear the world, do you fill that space with your own thoughts. And do those thoughts crowd out thinking and remembering? And that brings me back to my Hercules moment. My thoughts crowded out my thinking. Thinking that would have caught the flaw in my thinking.

I didn't write yesterday. Early morning meetings crashed into my day and in the evening, I went to bed at the same time as my son. We went to the park with two kids from the prenatal class and their parents. We all had a blast. Seeing our kids having fun, their laughs. And of course comparing them, with as few comments as possible, and leaving the rest in our heads. This reminds me of a conversation with my niece, how has a 6 month daughter, about the hardest things of parenting. How about building expectations while at the same time not having any. Or maybe it's not building expectations, while secretly harbouring them.

It was a glorious day yesterday. Massages, coffess, treats and a walk around Steveston. Hmm, sounds like I'm a dog. Treats for me were waffles made by a Japanese and Belgium couple, my favourite flavour being Yuzu, Japanese citrus. Later, a nap and a BBQ topped with a bike ride. Oh, and I got a little lawn mowing in with my new mower - another delight!

Blackberry blooms are in force right now. And so is the loosestrife in the empty field nearby. The field is diagonally across an intersection from our home. When I had a lot of bees you could go to that intersection and see them flying through it, above the cars.

==========

Charlie was soon at his typical stride when he of course had to stop again, that habit was too impossible to stop. Again, looking around with his far distance eye, and then is left, and then off again, working his way up to his cruising stride.

Yet when he started walking again, Gus noticed how it was in a different direction. He called out to Gus, but it was no use, he could hear him with the wind and the rain in his ears, so he waited for when Charlie would of course eventually stop again.

And of course Charlie did again. It was while Charlie was looking around, while Gus was asking his question, that they heard a sound from the boat.
"Do you know which way you-"
<Crunch!> went the boat. With Charlie standing, the boat continued to drift, and drifted right into some pebbles that were on The Road.

I missed yesterday's Daily. I attended a course for the day and needed to be downtown in the morning. In the evening we went to my parents to see my nephew who was visiting.
It was great that the kids could see each other. They ran around the backyard following each other smiling, giggling. Parenthood is filled with vicarious moments.
Today I'm off to training again, and tomorrow I'm back to the grind stone. Looking forward to the long weekend!

This week has been so turbulent that I missed most of my dailies. Sitting here I feel like I have forgotten how to do these dailies! Yikes! Long all day training, long meetings that started early, and my uncle's birthday party yesterday - it's always a big thing.

The sun is already quite high. I can hear other things luring me. The dishes. Making breakfast. Do I put them in a jar to tune them out? Hmm, but I would like more coffee soon, bringing me dangerously close to all that. Oh no. And I thought about work that's needed on the house. My mind is going to get pretty cluttered with all these jars! Oh no! Clutter! The spare room. Ok, I'll refill my coffee and see what happens.

I made it back, though I cleaned some fruit for breakfast and put away some dishes. I felt like Indiana Jones hacking through the jungle. At least that was the music that was playing in my mind.

Oh. There have been other temptations. I looked at my computer's desktop and saw a work document that I should read. Work - although a major pain - has some interesting challenges. And just a moment ago I wanted to open my internet browser to look up some questions that I had. Hmm, I put that questions into the list of my To Do app on my phone, another land of distractions from writing, ones with strong powers of guilt. Ok, I think I can't sit any longer. I need to go to the bathroom.

The other writing course is over, and I was planning to take another one starting this Tuesday, but right now I'm having second thoughts. This course that I finished, it felt a bit pushed, forced up, because it was a mandatory course for the program. I did learn some things and I appreciate taking it, but.

Also, with so much going on, and not enough enjoying the summer, I'm thinking about taking this course in September instead. This will give me the summer to work on everything I've learned, and to return to my own writing for a while.

Or do I just pull the Band-Aid. It's only a four week long course. But ugh. With that kind of mentality, I'm only getting out what I put in, and if I'm going in like that, I'm mostly wasting time.

I'm back again. I fell of this bicycle called writing, but I'm back.

I can spend sometime thinking how it happened. I can remember the course that I took (one for work), and some early morning work meetings (always disruptive to my schedule), and then it was me not getting up early enough and recently getting my son ready in the mornings.

At the beginning of the month I was originally planning to take another UBC writing course, one on dialogue. But given how hard it was to find time for the last course (The Creative Writing Intro), I've pushed that off until September.

I thought it was better to focus on my writing, and in submitting some pieces that I think are ready, in keeping at the dailies and having a minute to enjoy the summer. I see that I'm not alone in missing the dailies, though I know that others write but don't always post. A moment to email them too would be nice.

Like boiling water, thoughts bubble to the surface. Many are the problems of work and life. So many things to do.

I wonder how my chicken is doing. I wonder how my coffee hunters are doing. What else to write about. Haiku

Fingers push keyboard
Letters emerge on the screen
I read the letters

<The rest of this morning's writing has been edited out, it's too unfocused and has the danger of turning into a todo list>

10 minutes 7:27 to 7:37

I feel joy today. My son. Incredible. What to write about. Him? My wife? The weather!

Rain today, the first of it in what a month. It will feel nice for me.
Maybe it will help calm me. Like walking on mossy trails in rain forests on the west coast, those are calming trails. But maybe it's also because they are so far from the hustle and bustle.
And yet there aren't that many people there. We should be seeing people line up to walk the trail as if it were a Starbucks.

<The rest isn't posted>

I wrote yesterday about green berries.

Gus started each sentence in a higher key, waiting just a moment for Charlie to give a response.
What was that?
What was that?!
What was that?!!

Charlie this time had to use all his focus to keep from looking sheepish. He knew the boat had grounded. He had to think quick.

"Fish. We're on water you know. It's just fish bumping into the boat. I've seen it once while travelling to Japan."

And for the moment Gus believed him.

Charlie didn't think he was lying. He had seen it. Thinking back he could remember how it was a glorious day. He farmer had let the chicken coop open and Charlie led the flock all over, making sure there weren't any stragglers. Besty and Fifi were always wandering in the wrong direction. They were by the small garden next to the farmer's house, when he went up to the veranda. Through the screen door he could see the living room. Couches. A radio. And pictures. With his far distance eye he could see a bug in one. A bug on a lily in a pond filled with koi. In the foreground was his farmer, as a young boy, and next two him were two other young boys. They were Asian looking and he supposed that they were Japanese. And that is how he came to know Japan.

I'll give it a gentle pull, and we'll be on our way.

Charlie gave the string a tug.
Nothing.
Another stronger pull.
Just the sound of the leaf grinding on something.

"Stop! Stop! You'll put a whole in the boat and I'll drown" Gus shouted.

"Hmm." Charlie said to himself out loud, like he was pondering what to do. But he couldn't think of anything. His chicken brain had no idea.

The stink bugs eyes opened wide, looked up at Charlie, "What are you going to do?"

Charlie looked at the two of them. It would be so much easier just to eat them both. But then what? Go back to the cope? The thought of his eventual demise twisted his stomach. But so did the uncertainty of this unknown future, this new leaf that he had turned.

"Gus, you'll need to climb up on me. You're too heavy.

"I'm too heavy? I'm not the extra passenger." his eyes squinted and his face grimaced.

"Yeah, but the bug doesn't weigh anything. Come on up." and he lowered his head and extended a wing.

Still grimacing, with his tail folded across his chest, "Fine!" and he shot a darting glance at the bug.

That tricky bicycle. I fell off of it again (The "writing" bike that is). We went away for a road trip. I even brought my laptop along, believing I would write, but I never took it out of my bag. We're home now. It's good to be home. We can clean up, get back into a routine.

Appliances of the future...
Today you can set what voice you want for your Computer and GPS when it speaks to you. You can use a woman's voice, a man's, high, low, with an accent. Even famous people. In the future, will there be a voice from the washing machine when it suspects that there is a napkin in one of the pockets. Maybe accusatory. Like Matlock - you're the villain that left a napkin in the jeans! How could you do it! How could you! Or maybe something more gentle, but irritating with persistence, like Colombo - but before you start, there is one more thing I'd like to ask you. Those jeans, what were you doing with those jeans the last time you put your hand into them? Was it "just the car keys"? Or was there a sneeze unaccounted for? That's something I just don't get...

TV personalities...
Sometimes I've met people that are similar to a character on tv. For example, I work with a guy that looks like a Simpsons cartoon character. It gets worse - it's Millhouse's dad. I got compared once. It was a comparison of looks and personality. Ouch. Seeing my personality on tv, it was both interesting and painful. I didn't see myself that way, but yup, that's who I am.

The vacation! What a trip!
Two nights in Harrison Hot Springs - relaxing.
A night in Lillooet - not much to do in the town. Seeing the Fraser river is amazing. Went on a train ride here. Amazing lake and mountains.
A night in Whistler - wow, didn't realize how kid friendly this place was. Looooots of kids and a great playground.

Gus inched his way up until he was on Charlie's back. The bug and the suitcase remained on the leaf, looking up. Charlie gave the string another tug. The leaf moved a little, along with the grinding sound.

"Give it a slow but sustained pull. Not this chicken peck of a pull!" Gus shouted out.

Charlie was getting frustrated by getting directions from a spineless worm. Without realizing it, he ruffled his feathers.

"Hey! what are you trying to do!" screamed Gus.

Charlie didn't respond, but instead back the string one more tug. It was off, or rather they were off. The leaf was off of the rock, no longer grounded. And so was the string. The leaf had cracked, and the string had slipped through it.

The sun is a dark orange ball this morning. The smoke has changed it's colour. It's so weird to see. I want to stare at it.

But I bet this isn't odd in history. Forest fires. Weren't the Appalachian mountains also called the smoky mountains, because there was always some part of them burning?

I'm going to go back to Gus and Charlie.---
--------

Charlie stood there, holding the string in his beak, while they both watched the leaf start to drift. Slowly at first. Charlie was proud of getting the leaf off the rock, and inside was beaming on this moment, when Gus interrupted his internal celebration.

"You idiot!" ranted Gus. "The boat is drifting away. How are you going to stop it - step on it?"

Charlie's face turned to a scowl, the frustration of hearing that worm again and again. Come to think of it, none of the chickens ever challenged him like that. He was probably just worried about his suitcase.

"And you'll have the fate of that bug hanging over you. It will be your fault."

But Gus was right about this. As in charge has he'd always been with the flock, he didn't ever have this responsibility. He helped get everyone awake and he kept the flock together, rounding up strays, but that was the limit of it. And whenever something bad happened, he simple chalked it up as an act of God. A hawk or dog. The ax of the farmer. Things beyond his control. As bothered as he was with Gus, he was going to have stink bug's life on his hands if he didn't do something quick.

"Do you think you can tie it back on?" Charlie asked Gus, as they watched the leaf start to drift further and quicker away.

I miss my dailies. I realize that it's also a bit of a confessional, to get things off of my chest.

I felt a bottom last week, but luckily it didn't last long. My wife had just found work - elation! And after her first day she told me how crappy it was - deflation! And that same day, in the evening, someone came into the neighbours' backyard - the house is abandoned - and was going to shoot up. Nice environment for my young family.

And now, as of yesterday, my mother-in-law is here. I'm glad that she can come spend time with our son. My wife gets much of her cooking skills from her.

My son. I think that I brought my parents some happiness as a child. I was the last of four kids, a love child, or an "opps", as they say. A mama's boy. And now I bring my son to them. He has a great time with them, and they tell me how they have such a fun time with him. Having children that grow up and have children, it seems like a treasure that brings a treasure, a second joy.

My mother-in-law that's visiting, it's like being in Dr. Seuss' Do you like green eggs and ham. She has a good heart and good intentions, but is incredibly annoying. I tire of saying "no, thanks" to her constant offers. She's been awake and in the kitchen for 15 minutes and I had already said no thanks to about 5 things. No imagine this for the entire day, and the entire week, for two weeks. And if I get tired, and become ungrateful in my no thank you's, I'm the bad one for being so rude.

I did some poetry this morning, about roots!

The red golden sun reminds me of winter mornings. But it's summer. It's because of forest fires burning that the sun looks the way it does. It's like those overcast days in overcast May, but it's August. It's so bright and hot during the day, it reminds me of an episode of the twilight zone, where the earth crashes into the sun. It gets hotter and hotter and people become more and more irritated. When the sun disappears like this, I could imagine how our ancestors thought it was the end of the world when things like this occurred. Better get offering to the gods! Dancing! Sacrifices! Typing!

I could see the stars last night. There was something deceptively refreshing about it, more than just being able breath and not have the taste of something burnt at the back of my throat. I was reconnected with the star. Soon I would be again with the sun. The deception though, is knowing that many other people, just some mountain ranges away are getting more of the smoke. The smoke is out of my backyard - and out of sight, out of mind.


This morning, I see the sun. Not perfectly, but she's almost there. Almost blue skies.

Good morning sun. It warms my face. A moments rest before climbing back into that hamster wheel.
I thought about possible spelling mistakes and started to fix what I had written. I can be good at stifling appreciation. Oh, wait. Was that what it was called? Or. Anyhow. I'm moving on. Or at least forward. Whichever direction this is. I will need to come back and look at my notes on the class. That might be what I need. Maybe that's why I haven't been writing regularly.

I have been writing some kids jingles, and working on a memory palace. That's been good. Berries and Little Birds.

Two days ago was one of those "click" moments with our son. We were at the park, and this time climbing the ropes he got it. The balance. How to hold them while he steps to the next rope. We still didn't let him climb all the way up, my wife helped with the last part - it's pretty high and he'll have to figure out getting off. But he got it. I wonder if he would have figured it out sooner. I wonder how much we hold him back and how much we push him. Things where we've get him in the bubble, and other things where we've pushed, where I've pushed, and he's picked it up. Hmm, like what. Holding the garden hose. Turning on the water tap outside. Hockey.

The stink bug, his eyes typically small, grew large as he felt the leaf start to accelerate. Charlie and Gus stared back. Charlie with his beak open, Gus grim-faced and serious.

He was about to raise one of his many arms, almost automatic-like, and shout for help, but stopped half way. They were well aware of his situation.

There was a strange feeling inside of Gus. Like the time he had crawled onto a rock, only to discover it was the shell of a snail. Where the ground was about to move, he didn't know to what direction, but he knew that he had to make a decision.

"Charlie. I'm the captain now. You're going after my boat and that stink bug. You're going to hold it with your beak as steady as you can. I'll inch down and I'll tie on the string. We can do this, but we need to work together."

Charlie blinked. But not the typical blink from a chicken. Inside he felt something strange inside too. If he had heard another roaster talking to him like this, it would be a threat. And there would have been holy hell to pay. That was just the nature of roasters and there was no changing that. But from a worm. He could gobble down Gus in a moment. Step on him and split him in two, just like that. There was nothing physically threatening possible from Gus. But Gus was pushing him to be in charge. Imagine that! A worm!

It's been hard getting back into my writing routine. Hmm. I think I need to wake up earlier. And not look for so many excuses.

What happens to Gus and Charlie.

Ok, here is 10 minutes. Write. Write!

Always something.

Momentarily

Wordlessness

Ending

There, are you happy now

How will we look in the future looking back. These times. The 60's so hyped, but really, that's it, just hyped. The good that it did, I always think of that line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where on a clear day you can see the high water on the rocky mountains, where the wave of the revolution crested, and then fell, and rolled back into the ocean. How about the 90's? 80? Any decade. Does the recent lens of looking back always need to spin what really happened, to make it more palatable? It at least will make it more fun (Ding! This is where it struck me, this last line. I never thought of The Past this way. Neil Postman said how everything was becoming entertainment. How about the lens of history! TV, radio, books, newspapers and magazines, how do they present the past? All with a sprinkle of spice to help us enjoy it more. And does it affect how we think back about back then? Our own personal lives?)

Speaking of looking back. Wow. It's almost been a week since my last daily. I've wanted to write, but it's been so hectic on the work and home fronts. There is no sign of it slowing.

I had a near death experience. You know, the comforting bright light and all that. And of course I walked toward it. And there, in the bright light was a line up. In front of me, also having her near death experience, was Margaret Mead.

"Excuse" I asked, "Are you Margaret Mead?"

She turned to me, looking a little shy. She had in her hands several shopping bags. Macys. Bloomingdales. More of the likes. Like everyone else, she was dressed and holding just what she was doing at the moment of her near-demise.

"Yes, yes I am Margaret Mead."

She caught me glance at her bags, perhaps my gaze was for a second too long. She glanced down too at the bags, "I would like to say that I was doing field research into consumerism, but I wasn't. I am, still, human." And gave a shrug and smile.

"I'm a great fan of your work. Can I please ask you something? If this is the end, considering all the cultures that you were exposed to, which was your favourite?"

She paused in thought, when a phone began to ring. "Oh dear! This is embarrassing. Now where is that thing." and she dug to the bottom of each bag looking for the cell phone. Even after finding it, as if it was an artifact from a tomb, or the discovery of the worlds largest pearl, she looked it firmly held in both hands before answering it.

"Hello? Margaret here. Oh. How are you? ... Me? I'm, well, both good and bad. Well, you see, I'm in the line up to heaven. But well, I didn't know I was such a believer. I know! I know! Here? Oh, why the line up? I asked around. Some believe it's because of a back log due to a war or natural disaster. Others said that the stars said it was an auspicious day to do anything and it's their own fault that they are here, while some think it's another form of purgatory. I know! Look, I should really go. It probably wouldn't serve me well to be on the phone when the cashier is St. Peter. I'll call you when this is all sorted out. Bye!"

It's time.
Time for looking at the clock again.
Now wait.
Wait just a minute.
And wait just a minute so you better look at the clock again.
And now it's time.
But really it's always been now, it was only suspended by you


We went away on the weekend to Savary Island. It was beautiful. The peace and quiet. The friendliness of everyone. The island time of things happening when things happen. When we let the host that was picking us up know that we were going to be late he said, ok, the sun and beach will still be here. And when I dropped the keys off at the overnight parking lot, and wanted to roll the windows up, the lady told me, that's ok dear, you're in Lund now. We didn't lock the doors to the suite. Sometimes they were open to let air in. It was bliss.
But back home, late in the night I had in my mind to check that the cars were locked. And that the house was locked. And the next morning was the first day of school so the road in front was extra busy. Noise. Sigh. I need that room like Roald Dahl had. But it needs to be on an island.

Lost crow wings flapping
Murder party left behind
Find a tasty snail

Just what did I say?
Maybe that's why we have such poor memories
And why we shouldn't have recording devices, to reveal what we actually said, what we really did see
Just what was I thinking? What did I really think?
Those thoughts are sometimes easily overwritten, with how we really wanted it to be.
And sometimes it's not so easy, to overwrite, or forget
Maybe that's why we have prayer. To help let go. To keep those seeds from festering.


Falls first rain
================
First autumn rains fall
Waking up deep sleep mushrooms
Under leaf blankets


Earlier drafts
==============
Falls first rain

First rains of autumn
Sleeping mushrooms spring to life
--

Autumn's first rains fall
Waking (up/) deep sleeping mushrooms
Leaf-top nursery

It's late, but I finally have a chance to write. I slept in this morning. Two days of good sleep. That felt so good, but not as good as having a good night sleep AND having the time to do my morning dailies.

<Writing omitted>

An Epic Haiku - Looking back, what will I consider sillier

One day when I die
My life flashes before me
Looking back, what will I consider sillier

Counting the syllables of my haiku to ensure they conform to 5-7-5?
The tradition of several hundred years of a planet that is millions, opps, billions of years old
Oh no, I missed a line here!

But this is all that life is
Someone dumb ape wore a path in the mud and all we did was follow it
Sometimes an ape took the path "less travelled" (even though they looked the same), likely day dreaming, lost, in a fit of rage, or drunk

Others followed, split between the two paths, and others yet again split off making new paths
The next generations either followed muddy paths, beating them down into smooth ruts or again split off new paths, again and again until today
We have many paths, a billion and one flavours to choose from

Some of our modern apes will say the path is a best practice (all because of some dumb ape!!)
Others will call it a deviant or immoral lifestyle
Others will say it's the right way to live

But with 50% of our choices being genetics, with an environment filled with well travelled paths, our choice (including well travelled paths that never existed 10, 50, 100 years ago), our choice is really a coin toss, a whim, or the change in the wind
And once we "pick" that path we hold to our chest that this is our path.
And as much as that path makes no sense, we hold it high and sacred and the only path for us, and we beat ourselves into fitting into that path, like play dough in a press, except we are doing it to ourselves, like the game with the square and round pegs, they will fit in the wrong holes if you use a hammer.

Flash, it's all over
This is what I leave with you
Five syllables please

I'm in an early morning meeting. This is the future for the technology worker. This time it's with Europe, 9 hours differences. It's the end of their day. I've had to start my day at 5am, or had my European counterparts work late into the evening. I'm more used to working with people on the East Coast or in India. With India, it's a reversal of the European scenario. Early mornings for them, and, or late nights for me.

My ear is in the meeting. First time quality was the catch phrase shared. They want this, but they also want things to happen as fast as possible. Accelerate velocity would be that catch phrase. Just putting these words down in my holy sacred space for dailies makes me feel toxic.

The other day I was thinking about when I went to BCIT. What I wanted to do, what I did end up taking, it's not what I'm doing today.

Meetings. It's hard to think of a more destructive force in the world, maybe universe. I think they are worse than the internet. With the internet, it's only your time alone that it swallows. Sure, there are ripple effects of how that affects the remaining time spend doing everything else. The quality of the time for everything else may be rushed, but still, it's only one person's time. With meetings, they crush several people's time. And they always spawn more meetings.

I just finished speaking with someone in Poland. I feel done for the day, but I need to head into the office and push emails around, attend - sigh - some meetings. I wonder what I'll have for lunch? Oh, I remember, a meeting. Sigh.

I just destroyed some words that I wrote. It was about that dark place I don't talk about (4 letters, starts with W, ends with K). I can see them fading away in my memory, an organ I've long been suspicious of. I think.

Power. Words. No, not Power Words. Power of words. The keys from my laptop allow me to wield letters like arrows flung high. Where will they land?

A backspace button. It's not a letter. What is it?! I think it will be renamed the mulligan button, redoing whatever.

Cut and Paste?!! Again, a key not wielding the power of a letter. What is it?!! The seamstress of time! Moving entire patches of the fabric around. Those words don't happen then, they happen here! Those words don't happen then, they happen here! Opps! Where's mulligan.

How many commandment have I broken? I know at least a few. Or maybe all? Probably. I went off just now to look them up, nope not on the internet but in a book! A good refresher. Going easy on myself, I'd say I have eight out of ten covered, no doubt. The remaining two, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it comes down to what "do not kill or commit adultery" is. Ha! If I ever encounter myself in situation like the movie A Matter of Life and Death - the guy is in front of a celestial court, trying to convince them to let him return to his love on earth - I hope my lawyer is Bill Clinton!

Ok. So. Let me back up a bit. Do not kill or commit adultery. I've always been faithful with my wife. But if I recall, there is a line in the Bible - ohhh there it is - he who look at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. Snap! You see that?!! And would this same logic then not also apply to the do not kill business? And let me tell you, I'm one of the nicest guys out there in the world, avoided fights, never hurt a fly, peace, love and all that. But if there is some messed up psycho serial killer that did horrible things to people, then yes, I do believe in the death penalty. Did I ever wish it? I donno. Maybe.

The book Mind Hunter gives some supporting evidence. It's a book by an FBI agent that profiled serial killers (BY an agent, not a fictional book about one, it's written by the agent). One of the actors that was in the Silence of the Lambs shadowed this agent/author to help understand his character for the movie. The author mentions how he changed the actors position on the death penalty thanks to playing audio records that some psychos made of what they did... records not of interviews.. but of the actual events. Twisted, fucked up shit. The book was the best horror book I ever read, keeping me awake at night, because it was real. Go read Mind Hunter and you too can break the fifth commandment with me.

Black holes would be gentler. Meetings this morning. The most destructive element in the world, perhaps universe.
I'm writing now, trying to.

Bing. A phone.

Pizza! My wife is reading to our son. The power of words.

I wonder if I'm in a shitty mood today because of not having written my daily. It definitely is the source of many day's elation.

I need to rest my head.

I've signed up for two more writing classes. Two is overdoing it a bit. But one is only four weeks, on writing dialogues. I do need to improve on this.
The other is on Visual Story telling. I think I'll enjoy this one. Comics! It is a busy time, but some normalcy is in process. This week is my son's birthday, so the planning and work for the celebration will be over. And my wife has started a new job. The last job was insanely toxic. I was thinking about the place yesterday, and the erratic, roller coaster and two-faced personalities and realized that it would be an ideal place for a reality tv show. The camera would have fueled the bosses monster ego. It was like they were trying to get people to vote themselves off the island, but then at the end of an episode and they are all gathered together, they are sad when you leave. Maybe this was playground politics, as in, when I throw sand in your eyes, it means I like it. It was crazy.

Now something different. I organized the tupperware.

When there is no physical world, it's all used or polluted, when we physically live in a box and experience existence through a virtual reality, hmm, there was something I was going to say about this, and it had to do with tupperware. Hmmm.

PS - It feels good doing my daily. A great way to set the day in motion. Have a great day too!

I remember what I was thinking about this morning about living in that matrix box, a movie I didn't like, mostly because I thought the idea was long overdue, but also because it offered an alternative to the world. So. Tupperware. When I die, and my life flashes passed me, I wonder how much of my life will be sorting Tupperware. And trying to reset passwords or getting access computers. And that was where I was going with that future virtual world and if an entire existence could be kafka-esque, going in circles trying to get access. How much of their life would flash passed them with them waiting, going in circles to get access to a door that opens to nothing. With today's internet, I think we already have that demonstrated, it's just not as shiny as that future world with Virtual reality and corporately owned parcels.

Time for two lines from the great Poet Jim Morrison:

Trade in your hours for a handful dimes

No one here gets out alive, now

"An abomination. An unfortunate happenstance of nature. You put me to the limit of how to describe you. You are freaks."

The words still echoed in Betty's mind. The sentence from the court still a shock. Exiled. Banished. In the name of the preservation of community order.

Betty a plastic lid, didn't have bottom container counterpart. She, and two other: another bottomless lid, and a bottom container with no lid were singled out in the last purging. The overseer declared "enough is a enough", whatever that meant, and proceeded to sort and match all lids and bottoms from the land of their existence, their home, the Cupboard of Tupper.

"This is all wrong. I'm at least still useful, I have a function, I can hold things, like keys for undetermined locks, or old batteries. I contribute to the community good!" pleaded Arnold, the lidless bottom. "Don't cast me with this lot" glancing over at Betty and the other lid.

"We have seeked out all known nations of Tupper, in the hopes that you are not alone, perhaps displaced and separated from your counterpart. We have found none. We have reached the limits of our powers, the council, to retain you. The ordinance from the overseer has been made, and you all must be cast out."

"Please! Please!" Arnold started to scream, as he and the lids were led out of the drawer, put in a plastic bag, which was then knotted.

"I, I can't, I can't breath!" stammered the lid.

"It's ok, here, I see a hole." Betty led the other lid over to the small tare.

"What are we going to do?" she asked between gulps of air.

"What can we do?"

I was writing this morning about my emotions. And work. And what I can do about them both. It's a hard spot to be in, thinking on one hand that the shitiness (it's not that bad) is really just my emotional reactions to it - in other words, it's all on me, while on the other hand, thinking about the emotional labour I need to put in, because of other people's poor behaviour. And really, the organization's poor behaviour. And to cap it off, the seed of doubt that if I go somewhere else to work, it's going to be the different, but still the same.

The bag was carried out of the kitchen, down a hall way, through a door to the garage. There, in a large box the pieces were flung out.

"Betty! Betty! Where are you?" cried the other lid, Petra, as the two lids and bottom scattered about.
"I'm here. It's ok. We're still all together."
"But. But where. It's! Oh my!"
She tried to make shape of where they were, but it was too dark. Out of the darkness Arnold spoke, "Yes, we are still together. All of us are together."
The words seemed to reassure and calm the lid, but Betty knew what Arnold was saying. They weren't alone in this box.

Betty woke to a loud voice "What are you! Why are you here?"
It looked like Arnold and Petra were already. In the middle of the box, taking up most of the space was the largest soft plastic see through container they'd ever seen in their existences.
"I am a plastic container. We come from Tupper, having served our purpose there, we've been send here."

Hundreds of little voices started to chatter amongst themselves
"Did you here that? Their purpose was complete. He's been sent to us."

Betty tried to get a fix on where the voices were coming from, there were so many that it was disorienting, but through the wall of the humongous container she could see them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of plastic. Some just millimeters wide, most no longer than two or three inches. All sorts and varieties.

"And what was that purpose?" came the loud voice.

"To contain." answered Arnold.

"To contain! Did you hear that!" Again, the hundreds of voices stated chattering, and retelling what they heard or thought they heard."

"Who are you? And where are we?" asked Betty.

The humongous container looked over to her. "Are you a container too?"

"I. Umm. I'm a. A lid."

The size and loudness put her off. She shook her head and focused.

"What, what are you? What is your name?"

"I am the Bucket, the All Holding Container. I keep all these pieces here safe and contained."

Betty peered again into the masses of pieces. Thousands of them. All shapes and sizes and colours. And some connected!

"These pieces? What are they?"

"They are my children. Because they were made from me. They are called bricks."

She whispered the name to herself, "bricks" and while staring at a car in the container, it finally clicked. The car was make of bricks, all connected together. She could see the lines of where one brick ended and another started.

All Hail The Bucket! All Hail The Bucket!

"W'w'Would we be safe, be safe, if we lived in the Bucket?" Petra stammered out.

"Safe in the Bucket. Want to live with us" hundreds of bricks said to one another, and passed it onto those deep in the recesses of the container who further passed on the message.

The Bucket looked long at Petra. "All who are outside the Bucket are lost. It is the only place safe."

"But what's so safe about being inside the Bucket? I mean, we're outside and we're fine" asked Arnold.

"Outside. Safe Outside. Outside. Safe Outside" the bricks said, passing on the message and seeming to get excited about going outside.

"It is NOT SAFE OUTSIDE" the Bucket said loudly to quiet down the excitement of the bricks. "Some have been left outside the Bucket. They've seen with their own eyes what happens to these pieces. The loud snorting bull, with a long hose that has all the winds of the world inside it! The bricks are sucked up in a flash! Sometimes the bull snorts a little, they perish in the belly of the devil!"

All the bricks were silent and wide eyed listening to the Bucket.

"A bu bu bull dev devil?" Petra got out.

"Should we be afraid of the snorting winds of the bull devil?" asked Betty?

Again, the long stare of the bucket came down. "You may have to take your chance. For bricks as large as you, there is another devil. A four legged friend of the human overseer, called the Dog! The enemy it has sworn to destroy is called a Frisbee. And unfortunately you have an uncanny resemblance to Frisbees. I don't know what they ever did to deserve the jaws of the dog. When he finished chewing them, he buried them half alive. "

And with that, the Bucket shuddered, making all of them shudder.

Today I start two UBC creative writing courses. I already want to withdraw from one (Visual Storytelling), or get my mind to hope that it gets better. The other course looks good (Dialogue). The instructor seems much more passionate, or at least, that's what I read

All this being said, I won't be writing here that much as I'll be using this time to do class readings and assignments. I'll still try, and may post some of my class writings here.

I complained to a friend about work again, seeking his advice about moving companies. He is a long time friend, and old drinking buddy, but he's living abroad, so I can't talk this over face to face. But by email he gave me some good advice. That I'd been taking about leaving for some time now, so I should either scratch that itch or put some ointment on it. I had forgotten about the ointments. This is one of them, this writing, here, it keeps me content, going with a skip in the step. And I have others, but I haven't worked on them. I've either been to busy, or been busy making excuses. Sigh

I'm fasting. I've wanted to do this for a couple years, and I finally decided on a time. I'm doing my own cleanse, no meat or gluten this week, a couple days of no dairy, with the end of this week (yesterday and today) being no food for a little more than a day. I'm doing it to clean my body, but also to remind me of what it's like to be hungry. And to be thankful for what I have. Probably the hardest part has been the psychological aspect. Food is everywhere. I helped with dinner last night, I open the fridge and see a full fridge of delicious. And when I'm bored or don't want to do the task at hand, my mind drifts to food to fill the moment. I'm not over weight, but it seems like snacking isn't to fill a little hunger, it's to do something other than what I'm doing, even for a moment. Oh, and to help with the detoxic, no drinking alcohol for the month. I know! Perhaps the hardest part

My fast is over. It was an interesting experience. I think out of the three aspects of this experience: Body, mind, spirit, the one that I experienced the most was of the mind, the psychological aspects. Everywhere is food. Our house is packed with food. The fridge is full as are the shelves. We live in a world of abundance, and it seems normal.

I've started my next "fast". No lights for the weekend. My wife and I did this several years ago, but over a long weekend and later into dark winter. At the end of the weekend we were so thankful for lights, another "thing" of abundance that we take for granted. I had to put tape of the switches because I was still accidentally turning the lights on. It was another mostly psychological hitter - with artificial light it's so much easier to fool the body into thinking it's still day tight. With no artificial light, well, it's kind of like camping in that you go to bed earlier. Sure, I could do chores by romantic candle light, but without the artificial light I feel tired.

A coworker did a similar experiment with my light experience. He lives downtown in a high-rise and he spent a weekend without power and water, as if there had been an earthquake. This in turn reminds me of the Serbia, but I'll come to that later. The thing he found out was how much cleaning we do with water. One solution for his emergency preparedness kit: paper plates and plastic utensils. But the thing that would be interesting is to see what happens when 1000 people in a high-rise don't have anywhere to poop (assuming they still have food) on account of the water pipes all being broken. Water and plastic utensils, more things in our abundant world we take for granted. Ok, now for Serbia. I had a classmate that was telling me "what was really going on" when the US and NATO were bombing Serbia (as opposed to the lies of CNN and Fox news). They were also bombing soft civilian targets: power stations, water and sewer treatment plants. Hmm, can't bomb the people directly, but sure can make them suffer. I wonder who got the contracts to rebuild all that.

It's already quite dark in the morning. I can see the sky is starting to brighten, but most of it is covered in cloud. I have a candle on.

Gong. The clock struck for the half hour. I have homework to do, and an interview that I want to do well on. I want to kill it. I'm hungry for this job.

It's a busy morning. 6 am meetings. I'm prepping for an interview, I've got homework for my classes that I need to finish by tomorrow. And I have work that I need to work on.

I would love to write more, but this will have to be it.

At other times I have this feeling that I have so much to write. And then there are times like this when I have just these words that I see. Maybe a coffee will help. It was part of my ritual. My dance to the top of the volcano. My sacrifice and my daily bread. These very words.

My two courses are a week in. One, the teacher was inviting, had passion, gave us interesting relevant readings and homework. The other, the teacher is, well, not uninviting, or without passion, but there was nothing but an assignment with no relevant readings. This is the power of words. How an online course can energize you, while another can leave you with ugh.

I have a phone interview today. I've been preparing. Wish me luck.

This week had the usual destructive forces of meetings, but I've also had some good come out of it thanks to the courses I'm in right now. My dialogue course, it's the second week and I feel that I'm already getting practical skills. And the other course, that one that I haven't been so impressed about. Well, I'm still not very impressed, but considering how busy I am, I'm pretty ok with the pace. Also, I was late for my first assignment and my instructor let me hand it in late - I had the wrong deadline! I suppose I owe the teacher the benefit of doubt, he is the teacher after all.

Ahhh. Coffee. I eyes look at the files on the desktop. An image and a word evoking thoughts. Like road signs. All contours sharp and boxy. Nothing sexy about it. Work will be there. No need to check.

Like a record player, I've been busy with work. And busy at home. We had my niece's daughter over last night. It was great to have my son and her together. She's younger, almost a year old, and she'll teach him how to share. I also had an interview. Checking out the grass on the other side. And my two courses are still going on. They are both working out well. This is partly why I haven't been doing my daily writings. But just partly. Next week will be the first week without early morning meetings. Maybe I can do my dailies again and write for my courses. We'll see.

Just checking in. Still busy with two courses. Enjoying both of them now.

Saw an elderly lady from church on the weekend. She's depressed and wants to give us things to remember her by. She's not that old and not that unwell, but I think she wishes it. She travelled and lived in much of the world. She gave us a wooden statue from Ghana and another from Tanzania. I told her that if I go to Africa, it will be her fault. The call, allure to go there grows. It's a seed right now, but I know that it will grow.

Just a couple words. Before my early morning meetings and the day gets too busy. One of my classes finished up yesterday. I still need to submit my feedback on the class and copy the notes. Except for meetings, I should be getting back into my morning writing time. The instructor was really good. So good that I'll be taking another course with him. It will be the last course in the program.

Last night I drew with my son with crayons. It was lots of fun. I kind of got lost in the moment drawing. Later I reflected on how much I enjoyed drawing. I know I want to do more of this and that I rarely do, but actually doing it was a powerful reminder.

I'm nearing the end of a book. It's been a great bathroom reader, it's a dictionary of sorts of human emotions, with each emotion being a paragraph to two pages. I'm in "R", covering words like Rage, Regret, Relief, Remorse...

My wife and I were expecting calls from companies this week about work, and neither of us did. No relief. I told her how we are suspended, we are not floating, little threads are holding us in the air, waiting, until when? We still don't know, but now we are suspicious too. Why didn't they call? For sure they were busy, or maybe sick, but maybe there is something they aren't sure about. This seed gets into the mind, and I push it out, I give them the benefit of the doubt, but the seed doesn't seem to leave the brain, but instead goes into the dark, ready to come back out again when I'm tired or not paying attention. These seeds. This is something.

There is a girl, from what feels a lifetime ago, a decade or more now. I think of her face, or when I see other faces like it, I remember how my heart would beat. There is this seed, and no matter how hard I try, I can't shake it, push it out of my head. Maybe I'm not honestly trying that hard. To forget something forever, is that possible? Or maybe this is a seed that the dark part of my mind likes to keep. Preserve it. Polish it. Keep it neat. And when I'm feeling wonderful, happy and content, it creeps out to say hi. Why does the brain do this? What would an evolutionary psychologist say is the reason a brain would do this! Maybe the application of regret was helpful for cave dwellers on not collecting enough nuts, or killing enough caribou, to push them to collect and hunt more the next season and survive, but it's been misappropriated by the heart. Maybe I need to, can I, go back to into the cave.

Kitchen Monday morning. I have no interviews (but I'm still waiting). I have a course, but no major amounts of homework. I have things to do on the house. I should renew my efforts. That's the thing. A storm passes, I catch my breath, watch tedx videos on achieving goals and not procrastinating and I'm ready to take it all on. I plan, strategize, goal after goal, until I have a million plans, and I make about two or three steps... in all of them. And then I go do more research on how I could do this differently, but it's still the same.

Renew
Think about this word. Full of hope and promise. Starting fresh... again. I hear the word at Church. And from my lapsing memberships. Is that the right word for them? And does the Bible even say that?

And is it 42 or 32? It's 42. That is the answer.

Hmmm. I think I need more tedtalk videos.

Good morning Vietnam! I'm going to start using my dailies to start chipping away at some of my next steps for writings. If I write something for private eyes, I'll drop in to say that and hi. Today I'm starting on a long overdue letter for my aunt and uncle.

Today I didn't write in the morning, but I did read. My son woke early and my nephew came over. I did do homework for my drawing class. It took a bit to get into drawing, but once started the juices really started to flow. It's much too late now, so I'm going to bed.

I did a little bit of writing, poetry. And I wrote down a bunch of ideas that had been bouncing around in my head. I think I got them all out. And I also read. I re-read the story of Noah. You know, the flood. I remember the 40 days and 40 nights business, but really that's only the rains. They are in that boat for a year! I'm thinking the real miracle is that they didn't kill each other being on a boat together for so long.

What are these? Mountains that I must climb. Volcanos. I must make an offering to each one.

I am trying to visualize where I want to be. My "corner office" is what I call it. It's where I am creative. And it's my company. It could be just me that works in my company. Really, it will only start with me. But I read somewhere, no, my boss, I remember, if you make a goal an audacious goal, then you might just get that crazy goal, or you're likely to get somewhere in between.

In my "corner office" I need to draw the goals that are the fruit of my creative labours. My book ideas are represented by rejection letters. It may sound negative, but I understand that I'll need to receive lots of these first, and if I haven't even completed the steps to getting one rejection letter, I think that's audacious enough. For my drawings, I drew the painting by Henri Matisse called the Olive Grove. There is an artist with a neasel in an olive garden. When I look at that picture (I've seen the real thing), I wonder if he wondered how long it would take to finish it. I wonder if he made an estimate, started an outline, re-estimated, finished the first "draft", re-estimated, kept on working and finished it and then looked back at home long the whole process was. I doubt it. It sounds like insanity. But that's what the corporate world feels like. I want to like that painting, where when it's done is when it's done. That's it.

These goals, these are talisman. Each is a mountain. A mountain that I will build, and then climb, and once at the top, it will open up and turn into a volcano, and I will have a sacrifice.

6:35 I don't have much more time. The family is waking up soon. And I still need to do my daily readings. Plus practice my readings for Church. I hear my wife. She needs to get up now. I hear an airplane. I hear the clock ticking. I hear the keyboard. I hear the highway, the tires sounding like a wind, I hear echoes of the plane. I hear engines. I hear something dripping, ever so infrequently. I fix that.

I like to write on the computer in a simple notepad text file. All the white But it's so bright, so

-I was interrupted. My son is awake. That was some great cuddling time in the bed. When I tried to get him up, he told me to "Go bed" and hit the pillow. So I put my head on the pillow and he smiled. And then we giggled together-

My computer desktop has lots of files on it that distract me. But when I make the notepad cover the desktop it's so bright, so I found an image of some galaxy. Wow, very helpful. I heard/read about changing our environment to help us with our goals. I think it was from Dan Ariely. This is what I'm doing, what I did with that picture of a galaxy, making my "corner office", that creative place.

It's the end of the day. I wasn't able to write in the morning, my son woke early because of the daylight savings shift. And now we're all tired and want to go to bed early.

I'm about to finish my visual storytelling course. In general, it was disappointing. The instructions were weak, feedback canned, but I think my disappointment was because I had greater expectations. What, I don't know, but definitely more. I felt like this with my recent job interviews. My set myself with expectations. Still, there was some positives out of the class. It got me drawing. And as soon as I was drawing I realized how much I enjoy it. How lost I get in it. And how my drawings are pretty good. They are fun. And authentic.

It's the end of the day again. I was up earlier than usual, for a meeting of course, but my son for some reason also woke up early. I guess it's still the daylight savings time shift.

I don't have any more early morning meetings for the rest of the week, so maybe I can do some more relaxed writing then. This feels forced. And rushed. And I'm tired and so ready for bed...

Worked on a personal letter today.

What more can I write. I'm done.
Nope. Nothing more. Fin.
(hehe, just joking)
I've been awake since 5:40, but my son woke around 6. I crawled back into bed to get him to go back to sleep.
Now it's a matter of how long he will sleep for. I hope he sleeps til 7!

My coffee cup is noisy! The chair is too, but not as bad as the cup.

I took a detour. The internet again. Just to see if... do I need to explain it? Probably not.

Another break. My son woke, but I spoke with him. I told him that he needed to help his stuffed cat sleep longer, so to lay there any help him sleep. Let's see how long that will last.

This reminds me of the workers schedule and the managers schedule. And how long it takes to get back into something after an interruption.

I wrote a bunch more (not posted here) on my baloney slicing ideas, with my son on my lap, wrapped in a blanket with his stuffed cat.

Today it's grey. It looks wet outside. What does my "corner office" look like. Small. Comfortable. My son has a trucks lined up side by side. A plane flew by, and inside it's calm. Fun.

I want to slice baloney. I want to take society, grind it up, horse tails and assholes and all, and serve it on a plate. I wonder, how do I make my baloney slicing like the course I just took on dialogue, where each person has an objective, and the sparks are where the conflict is between those people. Do I identify the audience as a character, with their objectives, so that I can create sparks against them? Grate, irritate, undermine, and show their other side? I will try this using the techniques I learned in the class.

Fun. Creative. Clever. My office. Clever.
Is "creative" worn out? We use the word a lot, does it mean what we actually want, or is it a catch all now? What a creative person? The creative process! Want to express your creativity? These all sound like rather large nebulous things. So you want to be creative... what exactly do you mean? How about creative bookkeeping? Creating something? Like a plastic toy? Creativity. Where did this word come from? And what Buddha would think of all this creating? Sounds like we've got a serious case of attachment.

How is the corner office today. It has a very comfortable table. It's cold outside, and I like the cold, but I think I more like the furnace, I can hear it running. That gets me thinking of repairs on the house. But staying on the office. I've got create coffee. And the kitchen that it's in is relatively clean. That can be the source of frustration, much like the house repairs -oh... and renos. I have another room in the house that I could use, but that would take some serious cleaning. All these thoughts are making me feel guilty. But! Time for excuses! This isn't time wasted. There words are a sacrifice. And it's not just the finish that is thrown in the volcano, it's also the journey. I need to remember this. Each step up the mountain. Of building it. Where I was a year ago in terms of my writing skills and efforts, it feels like plateau after plateau that I've been climbing to. Between all the books that I've read, the courses I've taken, and the doing, the actual doing... the doing, thinking about this now, I feel pretty happen. It's a nice corner office.

I didn't write yesterday. But that's ok. It's a long weekend. Yesterday and this today I spent my morning writing time sleeping instead. Sleep is always good. And perhaps the most important.

It's extremely windy right now. I worry around trees and powerlines falling, as well as loosing power to the house.

I was reading about periodic tables. These interest me because there are many periodic tables for the elements, each highlighting some feature or relationship of the elements. If these were a memory palace, would each be a different design? Would some be stronger than others in holding memories?

What a mix of emotions. My son's crib can be converted into a kids bed, one of the sides is replaced and he can now get in and out on his own. I had him help me convert it, getting him to use screwdrivers and Allen keys. He was so happy with his new bed, I saw him being proud of it and jumping in and out. This made me so happy, yet with a bit of sadness. It meant that he's not a baby, and not sleeping with us. We got him to sleep in his own bed, it wasn't hard, maybe because he's proud of his bed. But it was also hard for my wife. We usually pulled the crib next to the bed, and she did that with the newly converted bed, but I pushed it back against the wall. Not a cut of the umbilical cord.... yet... just across the room, but one step closer to that, to him being in his own room. And then another few steps and he's all grown up and out of the home. Happiness... and sadness. While we lay in bed my wife was facing his bed across the room, telling me how she was missing him.

I don't want to write. My head is filled with last night bouncing around, thoughts holding on to me, then being bumped by another, neither held long enough to grasp, ponder and build new ideas on, but enough to hold me stupid and captive.
--
I had to write this, it was the only way to get me writing. I ended up writing more, but it's private so it won't be posted.

Why do we need the Church? I'm think about the parts of the Church. Not like organizational bodies, or committees, or the names for the different parts of the building, but of parts of the body of Christ. Us. Paul (the saint, not the instructor... though), he talks about this in Romans 12, with the best lines, I think coming in verse 4:
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
...and in verse 6: We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

When I was a child, I remember singing hymns in Church, and there would be an elderly woman that would always finish one beat after everyone else. The singing and organ would finish, and she would carry on for a note, all by herself. As a child I thought it was funny and would snicker when it happened, I didn't understand what it meant to be part of the Church, or what it means to be old. When I did grow up, another elderly lady did that, who sat closer to me, my Oma, and so I understood.

But who is helping who? Are we - the Church, all helping, supporting that elderly lady, supporting my Oma. Yes, of course. Offering a helping hand, bringing comfort, helping them to rejoice in the Lord, even though it's beat late. But that one late beat, that helps us. We need that lingering note. We need each other, especially the weak, because that shows us strength, not in each other, but in the Lord.

I helped a lady with the stairs. I listened to someone that needed desperately to be heard. I gave a donation. I didn't do this. This is the strength of the Lord. I didn't do any of this. You didn't do any of this. We did this, and we are the Church, and this shows us the strength of the Lord. We don't need miracles to see the Lord in action, we can see his work every moment when we are in the Church today, helping each other.

We all have gifts. Maybe that gift is that note. And God's grace gives it to you and you can share it. Like the song, this little light of mine, that note, it's a candle that stands out for a moment on it's own, and let us remember that we are one. We can hear that one late note and say "A-ha! Late again." or we can say, the voice of that note is as much hers as it is mine, and it's beautiful, because the Lord gave it.

Are you all with me so far, because this is where we need to take a turn.

An elderly lady, these are people that are easy to want to help. However, we need each other, even the people that disappoint us. Knowing those people, isn't that a burden, a cross that we need to carry. We all have gifts, and maybe that gift is patience and an open heart, a minute of time to someone we really think is different, but aren't they really like that late note. We can't think us and them, we need to think of only us - together. How they are treated is a reflection of our body, the Church. Maybe you are the sinner, and maybe God needs you to show others how to try, to get them to open their heats. And maybe this shows each of us how we fall short, by how we treat each . And this little light, this one person, this sinner, each one of us is weak.

I'm not finished with this and need to wrap this up, but the day has started and my family is awake.

People do things not because it is easy, but because it is good. And when it's good, it doesn't matter if it's easy or hard.

I helped get rid of a deceased woman's stuff. She had lived for years, 30, maybe almost 40 years, in the house that she rented. And it looks like she didn't throw anything away. It was a great experience. It really makes you want to thrown things away. We have so much stuff. It seems like those are two guaranteed businesses: storing stuff and getting rid of stuff. A guy with a garbage truck came and took two loads away. The stuff! So much crap. And she was an artist. Pretty much every sketch, every painting, good or bad, saved. Boxes with boxes with boxes. And wood pieces from beaches fastened to a mount for the wall. Wow. It reminded me of that hoarders tv show. Wow. But the best part was when we found some crap that I'm sure I have the same thing of at home. Sigh

Cleaning that deseceded lady's possessions... is that what this is, some more stuff, just harder to see, and harder to look through to determine if there is any value. Hmm, really harder to see and easier to throw away. Heck. I have a file saved somewhere. It contains pure gold. But if no one knows about it. Gone. Just delete the hard drive, get rid of the accounts. I guess in that sense, my collections will be easier to purge.

It's a bad habit. I wake up during the week and immediately start thinking about work, emails I have to write, people I need to speak to. I need to pull out that jar, but a lid on those thoughts. And with those out of the way for the time being, other thoughts have their chance to sneak in. Church, and the problems there. And, out comes the jar. It's a pretty big jar because this one gets me worked up emotionally. And with that out of the way, I've got the million and one things to do around the house, for my family, or for myself. Hmm, is it still a jar? How big is this jar? Ok, maybe perhaps a bit blasphemy, but if I had Paul staring in the role of God, and he was giving me instructions, much like we have in the Bible's instructions on how big the Ark needed to be, what would this look like:

Paul: Chris, I will send white noise, and it will...

Crap, using the flood story as an analogy isn't going to work. I need to get rid of the stuff in the jars, not save them. Hmmm. Ok, start again.

Paul: Chris, these distracting thoughts, I will send them away. You must build a jar. It's dimensions shall be 15 cubits radius, by 50 cubits. And you will cast those thoughts in there, as many as can fit, and seal it with sheep's skin, so as to muffle the sounds of their cries.

Chris: But Lord. Where am I going to find so much glass material to make such a jar? I'll be more busy just building the jar than had I actually dealt with them in the first place.

Paul: You of little faith! Trust in the Lord! You have much of this material scattered around your house and yard. Collect such things and use them.

Chris: But much of that material, it's old window glass, and can't be used to make jars because it has a different melting point. I looked it up on the city's recycling page.

Shit. Even this story is making fun of the cleaning up I need to do around the house. I saved the old single pane windows a couple years back when we replaced them with energy efficient ones. I wanted to use them for my green house, but haven't. Just stuff, collected, for that day reaching messianic proportions, that fabled "Someday". Now do I end this with a Sigh or a Ugh? Hmm, I have taken on a positive approach at the office. Whenever I hear shitty news, I no longer complain but instead say "That's great". Hmm. How about,

"What is this?"

"Go on. Take it."

He took the sheet of paper that the young boy had stuffed into his hand, and held it about a foot from his face, tilted his head so as to have one eye closer, had they not been covered by bandages.

"A ha! I see. Hehehe."

"Hahaha funny. I mean, hold it, feel it. It's a drawing about the story you told me the other day. But since you can't see it, I glued pieces onto it so you know what was going on."

He put his right hand on the surface and gently touched until he found something.

"You tell me if I got the story right."

Two cardboard squares had been glued to the sheet. His fingers traced the outline of the squares. On the first he felt a plastic straw, bent at the top.

"This is the pole. In the garage of the firehall. Where I... "

He turned towards the boy, as if to look at him, and grinned.

"And this other piece." He traced his fingers around the cardboard, and then felt what was on it, a button, and several strands of string, "This is a flying saucer, and the nets they used to catch people with!"

"This is the game that you refereed. The time you fought at school!"

"Hmm. Can we change it for the aliens?"

The boy stood up, pulled the sheet out from his hands and sat back down with his head down, looking at the sheet.

"It's... This... Thanks. This is really nice." He slowly reaches his arm out, and finding the top of the boys head, gives is a rub.

A nurse enters the room, walking to the patience in the first bed. A minute later she is with them.

Mr. Anderson. How are you doing today?



(Pulls a button off his shirt, panics, saying I don't want to fight, aliens. Aliens.)

"Fine thanks."

"And how about your little visitor?"

He lifted his head up and faced her. "Fine. Thank you."

"Where is your mom?" the nurse continued while checking out the machines connecting to the patient.

"Oh. She's back at the car, you know, paying for more parking."

"Sir, do you need to go to the washroom, are you comfortable?" she asked while connecting a blood pressure cuff.

"I'm good. He already helped me go to the bathroom. So I should be good for the night."

"Ok."

She marked up the report at the end of his bed and continued on to the next patient in the room.

He reached his hand out.

"Can I see it again."

"I threw it away."

"I really like it... can I see it again?"

He slowly placed the sheet back into his hand.

---
"How old are you?" (Maybe that question gets asked next time)
He knew the question wasn't...

He traced the cardboard fixtures with his fingers.
"What's this?"

"That's the bell for the firehall. The one that your Uncle Mike let you ring. I think it's a Christmas decoration."

He held the bell under his thumb, and looked up, as if looking across the room, and had a grin flash across his face.

"Thanks. I mean, for this." holding the sheet with both hands.

"Even with the stupid aliens?"

"Even with the aliens. I didn't... I just..."

"You don't want me to draw you fighting?"

"It's more complicated then that. I wasn't thinking straight that day. I was upset about something, and that's why I made the bad call at the game. It's hard to admit."

"So maybe we just say that you were abducted that day by aliens, then it wasn't you that did that."

"I think that happened a couple times."

"Like when?"

"Hmmm. You really want me to spill my beans. Hey, what are you going to tell the nurse tomorrow?"

"You don't want to tell me any stories today?"

"I didn't... I was just... Ok. Very well then."

"Do you have any homework to do?"

"I finished it."

"Hmm. Ok. Let me think for a moment. Did I tell you the time about when I poo'ed in the bathtub?"

"Heheh, no. Why did you do that?"

"I was a kid when this happened, not like this was last week or anything. And I didn't mean to. I was playing and holding it and holding it and tada! I waited too long. I think you know what I mean. But the best part was that your mom, since we were still little kids, she was in the bath with me.

"Eeeuuuuu!!" he said followed by giggles.

"This is how it happened. I said "Jill, I think I have to go to poo. And she said 'Ok. Then why don't you go?' But I just sat there. She was in the front and I was behind her. And so I said again, "Ummm. Jill. I... I need to go poo" and she said, "I said already, why don't you go?!" and then I said "Umm. I... I think I went poo." She said "You what?!" and jumped out of the water so fast."

"That's a great disgusting story. Thanks. You and mom took a bath with poo!"

"Of all my memories of your mom, that's one is pretty old. And come to think of it, I think you even bathed in this tub. Do you remember Grandma and Grandpa's place?

"Umm. Is that the place with the umm... I don't know. What did it look like?

"Hmm. It has a big grandfather."

"Yes. I remember that clock. Tick tick tick. And there was a painting, it looked like a haunted house."

"A haunted house? Interesting. Yes, I think I know which one you mean, it is a pretty dark picture. "

"When I walked around at night, I was afraid of what I would see in that painting. The house looks like ghosts lived in it."

"I always thought that it was comforting. I thought there was a storm. But this house, someone was waiting to open the door. And the house was warm and there'd be warm food waiting ready."

"Did you eat enough dinner?"

"Yes.

"Are you hungry?"

"A little."

<aside: when he draws/makes the sheet with the contours of the bathtub, describe it as an upside down hat. And there will only be the pooh in the tub, no people in the picture. But maybe he'll also draw the scary painting, but with the door open>

There is a beautiful sunrise this morning. It started with a light just on the horizon. The sky looked like there was complete cloud cover except in the distance, and the light was so white I thought it was the moon, it was still quite dark.

And now, there is a great collection of colors. Bands of yellow on the horizon, from where clouds break up the sun. Above the home is blue sky with wispy clouds moving really quite quickly along. They light up yellow from the sun, and contrast with the dark blue sky behind them.

I was easily distracted this morning, reading some on the internet. I wanted to find out how Eileen Christolow did her drawings, particularly in her book "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" On her website she says she used color pencil, crayon, watercolor and ink. But on a website with an interview with her, they wrote that she used colored pencils and watercolor crayons. Watercolor crayons?!! This was a worm hole and a revelation. I must try these!

And wow, the beautiful sunrise, it's pretty much gone.

I'm tired and it's night time. And I remember late at night was when I used to write, albeit it wasn't regular writing like this. It was the writing of when I'm inspired, which was after enough drinks and such. I'd like a drink right now. It's not after my self imposed cutoff time of 9pm - ok, I think I just made that time up, or if I had a time it was much earlier and I'm not thinking hard to remember - remember I'm tired, but, at any rate, I'm ready for a drink, but I don't have any mix. I've got eggnog, but no rum. Ugh, that would be nice. Actually, I'm thinking about how that would be the best way to start Monday morning, with a slight rum hangover. I'm going to scour the house for a drop of rum, or preferably brandy.

Wow. About two hours later. I've settled on trying some Kahlua with my eggnog. It's a bit too sweet, but I'm still enjoying it. In the process I started cleaning a spare room. I've been on fire lately, getting rid of crap. I hope to keep this up throughout the Christmas season this year.

The morning. My preferred, regular writing time. I was too tired and didn't drink enough (only one drink) to get anything good out last night. Really, I could have used that time cleaning for writing, but I'm sure glad I did the cleaning.

...

"Want to eat my pudding?" he said, passing him the plastic container of vanilla pudding.

The boy glanced at the container and started scanning the room (with his eyes). The man stared facing the boy and heard the silence.
"What did you eat for dinner?" he said, while he reached to the same night stand that he had the puddings container, his fingers hopping across it, inch by inch until after the third or fourth try he had found the spoon.

"Macaronis and tuna again." he said, taking the spoon from Peter.

"Again. I'm beginning to think again is part of the name of the dish"

A grin flashed on to Josh's face, it otherwise being buried in consuming the pudding.

"Want to play another game of checkers?"

"You have that here?"

"It's in a waiting room close by. I heard them playing it earlier today, when they helped me walk around. Heck, I could use the stretch. Get my slippers and we'll go!"

The man leaned forward.

"You need to pull this railing down. There is a switch, I think it's over there, trying to point with his chin.

But the was boy already head down looking for the switch.

---

What color is that. Red. Pastel red. a hint of salmon, Pacific salmon when they finished spawning and are dead or dieing. That red. That was this morning's sunrise.


Aside:
"Are you sure? I mean, what if we see that nurse again"
"And then what? You better be ready for what you need

Click. The side rail slid down, the boy easing it so as to not drop. The man shuffled his legs over the side. His toes touched the floor searching for his slippers, finding them, and stepped into them. He stood up and adjusted his night gown.

"Here" said the boy, holding up his cane.

The man out his hands and the boy, holding the cane too far away, closed the gap.

With the cane was in the right hand, the boys shoulder in the left, they waked out of the room.

"We turn left. Before the end is a hallway to the right."

They waked the hall. It was empty, but from rooms they could here the occasional visitor talking. A nurse came out from a room and turned down the hall towards them.

"Good evening" the man said.

"Hi. Nice night for a walk." she responded.

"Hi" the boy said. She flashed a smile and a small wave while walking passed.

"What does she look like? That nurse."
The boy turned back to see the nurse.

"How did you know she was a nurse?"

"Her shoes. And" he inhaled deeply with his nose "her shampoo. She works the evening shift, along with the one that you already meet.

"Her shoes?"

"She walks like she's working, hussling somewhere. While visitors kinda saunter in and out."

The boy was sniffing, trying to find a track of odor in the air

"She doesn't sound very tall, average height I'm guessing?"

"Yes. She has one of those nurse uniforms on... the ones that look like pajamas. And she has her hair in a bun.

"In a bun!" the man started to chuckle, "she didn't sound that old. What color is it."

"Brown? Not blonde. But not brown. Something in the middle."

"Fat? Thin? Two heads? Three legs?"

"Yes. Definitely two heads and three legs. And I guess she's not fat."

"Interesting. Because of that shampoo, I always have a different image of her."

"Why's that?"

The boy steered the two of them down the hall to the right.

"It reminds me of someone. A friend of your mom's, back when she was in high school. She was in the school choir, and our mom would drag me to the performances. After the show your mom asked if we could give her a ride. I remember being tongue tied when she came up to us. And the whole car ride home, her shampoo was all I could smell. And in other performances, even in a crowd of twenty, thirty, girls, I could find her voice. It was beautiful. It's so strong, the memory, it's almost like she's down the hall in one of these rooms."

"Did you date her?

"No. I was too young. But we did meet again, when we were both in university. I almost didn't recognize her. There wasn't the shampoo. I'm not sure why... but the feeling about her, it was only when I was younger, when I had built a fantasy about her, that I felt someone about her."

"Did my mom know you liked her friend."

"She did. She told me to stop being a pest and to do play with my GI Joes or somethings.

An alcove on the left opened to a waiting area, chairs lining the wall, tables in corners piled with magazines, a muted tv on one of the tables. There was a cleaning lady there vaccumming.

"Do you see it anywhere?"

"No. Maybe it's under a pile. Let me look around."

The man stood with both hands on his cane, while the boy sorted through the magazine piles, then crouching on his knees and looking on the floor under the tables and chairs.

The cleaning lady turned off her vaccum.

"Did forget something? A bag? I just clean and no finding anything"

"We're looking of a game. Checkers. It was here before."

"Games. I no see any. But you look behind tv?" she walked swiftly to the tv, reached behind it. She handed Josh a box holding playing cards, then another box, somewhat larger that rattled. Then a couple playing boards that she placed on the magazine pile.

Josh put the cards on a table and used both hands to find out what was rattling. Letters. Scabble. But not checkers. He put the box of letters with the cards and flipped open each board game.

"Those don't sound like checkers." The boy jumped. He didn't hear Peter walk up.

"Scrabble".

"And the boards?"

"The checkers board is here, but not the pieces."

"We could play scrabble. This would be good practice for you wouldn't it?"

"Ok." he responded, putting the checkers board and playing cards back behind the tv.

They walked out of the waiting area back to the hall. The cleaning lady had moved on and could be heard again.

"Let's complete the loop. If we continue going, the halls loops around and comes back to the hallway my room is on."

They kept walking, turning to the left, following the corridor, and making another left to the first hallway with his room.

"Can you check that the pieces have the letter markings engraved?"

They stopped there at the end of the hall.

Josh opened the box and looked at several pieces, inspecting them, flipping them over.

"They have something. Do you want to see one?" he asked

"Sure, let me see" Peter responded with a small grin, and held out his hand.

He put several pieces in his hand and rubbed with his finger tip the surface of each piece. His hands were large and strong, from years of labour.

"With my fingers, I can tell that they are beveled, but the grooves of the letters, you might need to cheat and help me a little."

They put the pieces back in the box and continued down the hall.

"Mom's friend. In high school. What did you do? I mean, if you like a girl, how did you let her know that you liked her?"

"Hmmm. Two or three years difference in age make it harder when you are young. Sometimes your mom needed to practice with the choir in the evenings, and our mom would give her a ride to school. Well, when ever I heard that, I would say that I forgot something at school and if I could get a ride too, and that I would do my homework waiting in the auditorium. But I didn't. I couldn't. She was, like this nurse, not fat, not skinny, but amazing curves."

"Curves?"

"Ahh. Yeah. Umm. She, I thought she was really pretty. And her hair was nice a long. Not crazy hippy long, just long. And full. So I just sat there and watched. And out of the twenty, thirty kids in the choir, I could pick out her voice, her signing. I remember closing my eyes and only hearing her, as if it was only me and her there."

"Did she notice you watching?"

"No. Never. And this isn't the way to let a girl know that you like her. Stalking her like a deer and staring at her. That's not how you do it. I just didn't know any better"

"Then how should I- how... what... what should you do?

But I always had this feeling like my book did as much help as it did harm. And sometimes I didn't help either.

One Christmas I sent the staff at my uncle's facility a basket. Chocolates, figs, jams, hand creams and other goodies, but these were all a cover. Nestled among them all, was a bottle of shampoo. Odd for a gift basket, but among the hand creams and soaps, it fit in. And I phoned mom to find out what happened to that friend of hers. I tracked down the friend and called her. I asked her about her time in the choir. She shared how she loved singing, but for her it was more the time together with other girls that she most cherished. She was a only child with no close cousins.

"That's what friends are for, by Stevie Wonders. That was my favourite." she said.

And I asked her about her hair, and how I heard it looked so beautiful, and if it was the shampoo that she used. Amazing. Asking someone what was the shampoo that they used 30 years ago, but she remembered.

And that's how her shampoo and a best of Stevie Wonders CD made their way into the gift basket.

It was mom, weeks after Christmas, how relayed what happened to me. The gift basket was well received and divvied up among them. The shampoo and the CD ended up in the same hands, Bernadette. She was from Jamaica and large, with thick braded black hair. But she had a gentle voice and sometimes when I visited I heard her humming to herself. It must have been one of those times that she was humming, except it was a new song from the Stevie Wonder CD. My uncle came up to her and said, "My rose, my flower, I should have asked you this a long time ago. Would you like to dance?"

And because she was a good sport, she let him hold her. And she held him. And then she hummed a tune. They swayed and held each other.

When she finished the song she looked up at him and he was holding back tears. And he said "Thank you. Thank you Joanne."
She smiled. And told him to have a seat, that she would be back with a glass of water and his pills, but she couldn't, another nurse did it for her. She stayed in the nursing station, crying. She was married before and was a dance instructor once upon a time. Two dreams that had fallen apart.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hey Hey Hurrah! Hurrah to ByWord!!!

---

There was the sound of someone dropping a tray, dishes and glasses breaking, cutlery crashing and bouncing across the floor. We all turn and see someone upset, a manager letting it out on a worker. I cringe, thinking of the times when the book certainly didn't help. The time when someone pulled one of the fire alarms in his facility. It was quite a commotion, evacuating the entire building wasn't an easy undertaking. Everyone was fine, and when everyone was back inside, the worst was that the staff was irritated and intent on finding out who did it. Soon after, my uncle, book in hand, came to the nursing station, asking "Where is the alarm? Mike, he said I could ring it. I can't find it." And he continued with this for the week, until I got word of it from mom. They had no proof, but the seed was planted, and once people hear an idea, it's hard to shake it out. It was following this that my mom would often find him heavily medicated. She was always told he was agitated. It took about a year before the few staff members that doled out the medication were rotated to another wing, and we had a fresh chance with different staff. A year of acting like Don Quixote, fighting the wind. We learned what we could and couldn't do, and what others were willing to do or not. The faint smiles and shrugs from those that believed us, that cared tenderly for our uncle, but wouldn't put their jobs on the line to confront a bully or simply didn't have thick enough skin. And I learned that I needed to tell my mom which pages in the book to avoid, and which to take out.

I dreamt of my friend's father. He died about two years ago. In the dream, he was sitting in a lawn chair of sorts, and he was not paying attention to me, looking off into the distance, drifting off, as if he was dying. I shook him and spoke loudly to snap him out of it, and he came to and saw me. I had tears welling up in my eyes, that he nearly died, but also because I knew he was also already gone, in real life. He started talking to me about the camping truck that his son had bought. I've known this friend since, wow, kindergarten. They were going to go camping in it and we went and looked at it, parked among some other trucks. And there was someone else there, that I was speaking with, but don't remember who. I don't know why but I had a feeling that only my friend and his dad were going, as if my friend's wife, kids or mom (who had already passed away before his dad), were going camping. Something else was going on with the other trucks, I'm trying now to remember and explain. One huge truck was pouring something out into another huge truck. Scraps of metal, I donno. But it was around then that I woke to my alarm. And remembering my friend's dad, it was too powerful to go back to sleep again, so I'm up, which is fine. It's my writing time.

He died of a broken heart, missing his wife. He was a short, thin man, fit as a fiddle, and he used all his health and energy to care for his wife, my friend's mom. She had MS, a horrible way to go. After she died, he visited his home town in the country side in Serbia (though they were Croatians), and he bought a suit there. It was like a book or movie. A suit to be buried in. He started getting sick at the end of the trip, but didn't tell anyone. Some old people tell you about all their ailments, and some they don't want to bother you with anything. By the time they got him checked out it was too late. I forget what it was, a gall bladder infection, or something like that. Something entirely treatable, if early enough. It was probably hardest on my friend, both his parents within a year or two.

Last night I was reading about end of life, skimming through parts of a book called Handbook for Mortals. On the part about talking with people that are dieing, it had a list of things you might want to say and what you should say instead. Things like, "gee, it looks like no one can help you", shoud be said, "I'm here for you.". I have a similiar list at work, pinned to my cube call, on what to say at meetings. Like, never say "no", instead say that definitely has possibiliies. Or, never say "yes", but instead say "Let's schedule another meeting to determine who's going to do this." I've read lists similar to the one on people dying, but for people that have died. Ok, not the dead person, though there should be a list out there for that too, but I mean for the people that knew them and maybe loved them. All this list business, on how to craft the questions that we ask, I imagined a scene where work signed up an instructor to give such training, for how we ask questions at our stale bureaucratic IT workplace that is, but the paper work got accidentally mixed up, and instead an instructor for care givers came and gave training. I wonder how funny that could be! And if the "care give" workers can test the patience and understanding of the instructor!

What happened with yesterday's post? This is what happened...

Clouds on the horizon, mostly hidden by leafless birch trees, burning red from an unseen morning sun. Fading into pastels on their way to their fluffy white selves.

I hear a truck. I hear a plane. I hear my family in the room at the end of the hall. The spirit to move me, it's...

...

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Kevin O'Leary -> John Calvin -> Hitler -> Henry Buttle

Driving to work yesterday, I see the engine warning light. It's quite a bother, another "to do" item. It's a poor design, the engine light. I need to replace my gas cap. The car checks the pressure of the gas tank, and because the cap isn't sealing 100%, it triggers a warning. I've had it looked at by my mechanic twice already, that's how I know and how I've had the light cleared (no, he didn't get me a gas cap, it's a small shop and need to do it myself). And now, the light masks if there is something more critical wrong with the car. I mean, say I have no oil in the car and it's going to seize the engine. Is that as bad as, say moisture from the air accumulating in the gas tank over months because of that leak or old seal that it's triggering the engine light? There is no difference between bad-really-soon warnings and those bad-some-day warnings.

Hmm, this is a good tie in with something about work I was thinking about the other day. We have a new benefits package with a new benefits provider. This provider offers mutual funds. Whenever I think of mutual funds, I hear Kevin O'Leary from when he was on the business channel on tv, he called them bands of thieves, with what they charge you for managing your money. I've managed my investments for years and agree, it's robbery. Which got me think, which is worse, working for this benefits provider or working for my company, which is part of a huge defense contractor. It's kind of like that warning light, bad-some-day warnings vs bad-really-soon warnings. The mutual funds, they give a sincere smile about caring for your retirement, but really, in the end, thanks to their fees to pay for their bonuses and greed, there will be seniors, me! out in the cold one day. I'm hedging my mutual fund investments by finding out now which cat food I prefer.

Mutual funds, they trigger the bad-some-day warning. I consider it akin to what the theologian John Calvin thoughts about usury, fees for borrowing money, and how unfair they were to the poor. There are lots of things that we do today that are like usury, where the only reason for the fee is to make someone rich. There are also other things in life, like choices we prevent people from having, that are the equivalent to imposing crippling usury on to people, but I digress. I just want to compare mutual funds with... birthday/wedding present delivery systems!

This is what I sometimes call work, since sometimes that's how the company's equipment comes up in the news. Some caravan of people are going to a wedding or a birthday, and some missile strike comes along and kills them. That's my clever form of cognitive reconciliation, for working for a company that does evil things. We don't shoot missiles, we deliver presents, packages. It just so happens that the present/package kills. It's like the motto; guns don't kill people, people kill people. I can further creatively justify my working for said devil and the tragic loss of life by asking this: if you were invited to Hitler's birthday party, would anyone cry that a missile strike killed you? I mean, why kind of a person goes to Hitler's birthday party? You're a monster!!! (I know what you are thinking... what if he doesn't like the present!) My parent company, that's the bad-really-soon indicator. How soon? The kill chain, the process and time to make a decision to kill and have said target killed, it's getting shorter and shorter. I can just see the (future) news, a hypersonic missile, ones that can strike anywhere in the world within an hour, flew through a home's kitchen window while Henry Buttle was drinking his morning coffee, killing him, his family, and surrounding neighbours. Tragic, because the intended target was not correctly identified, the result of a typo. (If you haven't seen it, you need to watch the movie Brazil.)

So, which is worse, killing people quickly, or killing them slowly. Living a life with the bad-really-soon warning or a bad-some-day warning. Hmm. I think I'll have another coffee and look out my kitchen window while I ponder this one.

I didn't write today... my morning time destroyed by a meeting.

Until now!

The no-fun police arrived today...but that's another story.

I was on first base, and looking passed the pitcher, I could see my uncle arriving, parking his car behind the stands. I tried not to notice. My dad. Uncle Pete. Even his cousin all would tell me how every game is mental, and to keep my focus on the game. But I do notice. Uncle Pete had arrived by himself. I suppose that my mom had to work late. Or that Pete's cousin Robert was busy. He would typically come out when my mom didn't. That was why I didn't immediately start running after hearing the hit, the rising sound people cresting into my mind and snapping me back. I was slow getting started running to second. I made it, but barely.

I almost didn't write today...

I'm reading a book on writing. There are some exercises in the book, so I'll do them here.

What was that spark, that initial thought for a story...
What was I thinking when I thought of that story. I donno. I had this idea of someone who couldn't see and someone helping them build something - a book - that they could feel. I have an interest in memory palaces and have how blind people navigate the world. I thought that this would be something that might help them later in life. I was originally thinking it would be helping the blind guy, but I discovered that it was really going to be for the young kid, including when he's an adult.

I worked on the exercises from my book yesterday. And a bit more this morning. Just three exercises, and the third one has stumped me. It's to succinctly state what the "What-If" of my story is. I'm using my most recent idea with these exercises. Maybe the book helps, maybe it doesn't, but I've read a previous book by this author (Lisa Cron) and I enjoy and seem very receptive to what she says so. Last night I was working this last exercise in my mind, what is the "what-if" of my story? And it struck me that it didn't have one. It was just a jumbled up pile of events, some strange, some funny, but really, as Lisa Cron would say, all I had was a big fat mess. I then thought about another story of mine, the one I used for Paul's class, that I've put down until I had a couple more tools in my tool belt and it too, didn't have a What-If! Just a mash of events piled up. I went to bed pretty, hmm, what's the word, not down, it was a pretty good day, just meh, cratered by the shell. But also, I had a couple things crowding my mental landscape. Something at church was bothering me, festering. And I've been listening to a book, about some woman that is dying. So that can't be super uplifting. And of course.... am I allowed to say of course or is it entirely, if not mostly useless... at any rate, what the author describes about the conflicts in her life had me reflect on the conflicts of mine. Mine are nothing in comparison to hers, but there are sore spots none the less. I just backed up, the line venturing into these thoughts, but I do need to go there, not right now. In the end, it took a while to go to sleep, but I got a good sleep in. This morning is where I think Solomon's advice of sleeping on problem goes into effect. Damn! I never know if I'm using the right affect. That can be my 2018 new years resolution! So I'm here, doing my morning writing, and I'm thinking about my what-if, and you know what, it's starting to take shape. It's not easy, but there is something. I'm going to practice with more story ideas with this what-if business. For some I bet the what-if exist, I just need to think it through. For others, I'll find out.

This morning, it looks like a river of red, snaking through the clouds. More clouds get dabbed with the red paint brush.

---

I was at a course yesterday. And across from me sat a girl. She looked like a girl I went to highschool with. I just bumped into her husband at a restaurant for dinner just two weeks ago. She was the first person that I knew from highschool to die. She had a heart attack in her sleep. I forget, was that four, five years ago already? In her mid to late 30s.

This summer I saw my cousins. They have cousins that live in the same city and I. One I went to highschool with. He had a heart attack and died, maybe a year or two ago.

Fucked up. All this is fucked up. But I suppose there are worse ways to go. The worst part for them were all the people that didn't get to say goodbye. Am I not being considerate, what about the feelings of the dead?

At any rate, in the book I finished last night, she says how we are all a millimeter away from death, that being how far away she was once from getting struck by a car. (This reminds me of Robinson Crusoe, and how we don't see the hand of providence, is that what it's called, for all the dangers that we never experienced because they were kept away).

“Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” Yamamoto Tsunetomo

When did I last do a daily? I'm a little shell shocked. Monday and Tuesday I was downtown on a course. It was ok, but compared to being in the office, it was great. Wednesday was a long day, starting with a 6am destructive meeting, and ending with a meeting in the evening at church, and then preparing for the next day's early meeting. Thursday had another 6am meeting. Ugh. Ok. Done. Finished making excuses and whining. For now.

I'm reading that book on writing. I wonder. For me, since I haven't read that many books on writing (~4 or so), or taken that many courses (~4), there is much undiscovered land for me. And so when I write about what I'm learning, and you are reading this, I wonder if it's a bit like watching a kid learn to crawl, or walk, or chew food. And I wonder, when I get excited about something I learned, does it sound like a teenager when they discovered sliced bread. It's nice at first, but gets annoying quick. I don't think I've raved too much about any discoveries, but hmm, who knows.

Back to that book I'm reading. It's talking about the importance of the primary character in a story. It got me thinking. As a child I played a lot of imaginative games. I didn't realize the extent of it until not to long ago. I played tons of legos. It's a great toy, but I realized, if it wasn't with my brother, sometimes it was with a friend, but mostly I was playing alone. It's kind of like that joke about the gift you give a lonely child, one walkie-talkie. And we had a big back yard with trees and rows of bushes and for the wet half of the year, a swamp. With my brother we played in this yard many imaginative games, pretending to be all sorts of places and times. And at night, while I lay in my bed, I imagined alternate worlds. I remember most of them were possible futures, if the world went sideways. This reminds me that I should write about the movies I shouldn't have watched as a child, but I'll mention one of them now, The Day After Tomorrow, a realistic portrayal of a nuclear war. It gave me nightmares. Not right away, and still, it was a theme in my nightmares for years. How odd and funny that I just now realize, that the fear of the cold war shaped my dreams too. That I would dream about if there was war, and the ensuing anarchy and chaos, and that I would rise up as someone important, like a son of Sarah Connor.

Memories are funny. I heard that a memory is what you last think it is. That is, as you remember it, if there is changes or corruptions that moment of remembering, well, that's how it's rememberd for the next time. I'm thinking of this because I can't be certain about the other imaginative games that I played in bed. Opps, I realize now that I've digressed from the point that I wanted to make.

My imaginative playing. It was all world building filled with events. (We are space men on the moon, and this alien is attacking!) There wasn't any character development. So this character creation for me, for stories, is hard. It's a muscle I've never used before.

There by dragons!

Once upon a time a land was ravaged by dragons. While many people had never seen a dragon, they had heard stories from their elders about their existence, the death and destruction they bring, and what -if any- precautions could be made. These few steps in self-preservation where all taught to children, so that when the day came, all knew just what to do.

As time passed, the dragons got bigger and bigger, and fewer and fewer. Some ate other dragons, and some left to go to other lands. And over time, people infrequently saw dragons, and when they did, it was higher overhead, to see them on their way to some place where there would be enough food, like a migrating herd of caribou or whales.

This was also because of an edict passed long ago that people not pool their food or possessions together such that it would attract a dragon. Instead, food was stored in smaller silos dispersed so that the effort for the dragon to go to each silo and eat what was there was not worth the trouble and effort of hunting them all out. They lived like the saying "Don't keep all your eggs in the same basket".

But because of this law, there were few towns with more than a handful of people, since a town, or worse, a city, would require trucks and trucks of food to be delivered - easy targets for dragons! And there would need to be a warehouse to hold all this. A sitting duck!

But this also kept people from becoming overly educated. There were teachers in all the hamlets. And in the towns, a teacher and head teacher, but nothing more. They didn't have a chief head master senior professor of advanced higher learning. What is that! And sometimes people would venture into their lands. People from cities far, far away. And the townspeople would be dazzled, amazed, bewildered at the stories of what they knew - or said that they knew.

Once such person told them all about gravity, and how it keeps the sun and earth just how it is, not too hot and not too cold. And how it keeps the moon from crashing into the earth! Gasp! Could it do that?!!

This created a bit of a stir, people being afraid of things they didn't fear before. But some people grumbled. The well driller knew all about gravity. "If you don't dig your well straight, the bucket can't fall to the water." So did the builder. "If the walls aren't straight, your house falls over. If you build your walls thick and straight, you could put the moon on top and it wouldn't fall over! Gravity? My foot!"

As I was saying, over time, the dragons were less and less, until one day there looked like there was only one dragon left. She was enormous. Her feet were the size of a barn, her wings as big as clouds. When she walked through a valley, it was like a horrible earthquake. And if she flew overhead, there would be winds gusting for several days, followed by clouds and rains. She bought and changed the weather, so great was she.

One day, while the dragon walked in a valley, with gently rolling hills covered in tall grass, with her footsteps shaking all the houses and people, she decided to go to sleep. She gingerly stepped onto the hills of the valley, and like a cat, clawed the ground. Then like a dog, she turned once, twice, three times and found the perfect spot and perfect orientation. The sun was on her face, and down below, a river run right in front of her nose, filling the air with it's mist and gurgling. And her tail, laying straight out, went up the mountain, with the tip hung just over to the next valley, touching the clouds as they passed by.

I want to write about characters this morning. Or even a character. Or just soon, it doesn't have to be today. But this is a writing muscle, and imagination muscle I haven't used.

Let's call him Sebastian. Or maybe he's a Melvin. Or shit, maybe I shut up my inner critic for a minute and just write.

Sebastian. He's always lived in the village. His family came here when his grandfather's family settled here.
He's tall, with thin straight brown hair that gets into his eyes. He's strong, but it's hidden, he's not with bursting muscles. He likes snails. And frogs. He likes to spend his time next to a pond here the cows like to wander. For that matter, he likes the cows, talking to them.

Mel. I think he's Sebastian's neighbour.

These are words, right? I can back out, edit what I think about this character, what he really is, later, right? This isn't set in stone

--
Among the animals Sebastian relaxes and smiles. Among people he is stoic, and cautious with his thoughts and words. He doesn't open up easily to others, particularly new people or strangers. But once he knew a bit about someone, he remembered it. And at times he could be quite thoughtful with the people that he knew.

Mel. He speaks his mind. The gap between thinking and saying does not exist. Out it comes. And while with some people it could get them in trouble, since he is so smart, it typically doesn't. But it certainly doesn't endear him to others. Most see him as a know-it-all or arrogant, or obnoxious or annoying.

He has a droning voice, a bit nasally and monotone. He always appears like he's not looking at anything, but is instead lost in his thoughts. He's not as tall or strong as Sebastian, but he's bolder.

He's Sebastian's neighbour. And distant cousin by marriage, though this being a village, is not that unusual. His grandfather came to the valley with Sebastian's family.

"Sebastian. Sebastian." Mel called out. He was at the top of the path that lead down to the pond.

Sebastian was on his back in the tall grass closest to the pond. He lay there. When he heard Mel he just continued laying there.

Mel could tell that something had romped around the grass, but he couldn't be sure it wasn't just the cows.

He started descending, switching between watching his footing and scanning for Sebastian.

Sebastian heard his --- ouch --- this hurt. Rereading this, switching between Seb and Mel, that hurt.

---

Tony is almost 10 years old. Heavily freckled, with pale skin and a mop of sandy-red hair. He is a curious child. (but aren't all!) Honesy. Maybe too honest. And kind. Sometimes taken advantage of because of his kindness. Perhaps a bit gullible.

---

Robin is Tony's best friend. She is outgoing, upfront and not a bit shy. When his family had moved into the neighbourhood, she walked up to the front door, blocking the movers carrying the boxes and furniture, to ask if what his name was, how old he was, and if he could climb a tree. She wasn't overly tomboyish. She still really liked her dolls. She and Tony had negotiated that they would play dolls if they would also play space pirates. She was a year older than Tony, but she didn't think it mattered because someone had called her dumb, and the idea stuck, so she felt at ease playing with him, as if he wouldn't mentally challenge her. But it was probably because he as kind. When he heard that story of her being called dumb, he said that that person was dumb.

She has deep brown hair, with a hint of red. She was helpful. Loyal (what does that mean for a kid?).

This is the second Christmas holidays in a row where I've been sick thanks to the daycare. My head is ugh from congestion. I slept like shit because of my son waking up so many times, since he's still sick too.

Yesterday. Ugh. I was so tired, and my son wouldn't go down for his name. It was like he had caffeine. I just checked through the ingredients of a tea he drank and nothing seemed to have it. But the box doesn't say that it is caffeine free. And not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I do question the quality controls of the country of origin of this tea. Let me preface that. Hmm. Can I do that when I've already said it! Once I made my own label for a jar so I could travel with it. I was flying with only a carry on, and it needed to be less than 3 oz, so I found a jar that looked small enough and gave it a label. The airport security person was on training, and questioned it. Even her supervisor who was watching said, anyone could have written that. But I smiled and they let me through. From my years of travelling, the only consistency of borders is that they are inconsistent, including the application of the rules.

---
Sebastian had his eyes closed and was smiling. Laying on his back in the tall grass, the high sun had heated the earth and he felt it radiate into his body. He heard the grass stalks swaying, jostling in the gentle wind. And a dragon fly, cruising over the pond near by. The only sound to listen for were the cows, but they were silent. He knew they were under the tree, sleeping away the afternoon in the shade.

"Sebastian" he heard Mel call out. He didn't respond. He just lay there.

My brain is mush, still waking up, but it was good rest. The worst of my sickness should be over. Yesterday was the body aches and chills. Last night a fever hit. Fevers. I see them differently now. Or, hmm, I'm not sure what I thought about them before, something vague and that comes into the body, when really it's the body doing the fever. It's not the illness causing the temperature, it's the body giving it a good cooking, killing off the intruder.

My family, we're all waking up late today. I hear the last one stir. I have just a little more time.

...

Let's throw out some more names, or add what the characters I've started

Ralph. That's Tony's dad. A carpenter. His hands are firm. He would give you a good handshake, and would look you in the eyes. Slim, average height with a beard and a neat buzz cut.

Wanda or Alice. Those are good names. Which one would be a more fitting mom to Tony. Alice. I think she sould a bit hmm... plainer, practical, level headed. I mean, it still hides some adventure streaks, but Wanda, that's asking for hmm, not trouble, but just not as relaxing as a ride. It's like a Margo or Margrete. Hmm, but not quite. Margos or Margrets are always cool. Not that Wanda isn't, it's just that Margo's and Wanda's are appreciated differently.

The sky is clear. It reminds me of when I learned the stars. The winter stars were the best to see, but the conditions for being outside were the worst. But I prepared. I wore warm clothes. And sometimes had something warm to drink. It was around this time of year that I started.

It started with Orion, the hunter. And Cassiopeia. That's a fun one. I've never heard anyone pronounce that name the same way. Where the syllables would break and which was stressed.

I see clouds. No. I see... animal crackers. That's what the clouds look like. Fishes. A dinosaur. They're shape shifting now. Destroyed and reborn.

I'm stalled. My mind is not sure what to engage in. I have my million and one threads that I've started and not finished. There's all this new ideas that I've poured into my brain, from what I heard in the latest book that I'm listening to, since it's an audiobook. He touched on so many things. Neverland. Craziness. God. Patterns. Memories. One thing that was very intriguing to me was how our brain, if given incomplete information, would complete it for us, and we would be convinced of the complete idea, even though it was fabricated by our own brains, but without us knowing. And now he's talking about the power of story. Wars started. Opinions, morals, shifted. I just checked. 45 minutes of the book left. Hmm. I might listen to it again. I was sweeping and mopping during the religion part, and thinking about other things... lost in another story.

The distant horizon, it's quite clear, turning lighter and getting the faintest signs of color. The clearness, it gets my to look for stars, but I don't see any. There must be clouds, high, murky clouds, not the shapely volumous kind, no stars.

I read about Orion last night. I'm quite tempted to read more, my finger hovering over the icon to browse the internet. Browse. Sounds like of innocuous, innocent. So far, I've resisted.

I finished the audio book last night. It was a lot to digest and I am again a bit shelled out. It gave me a laugh at parts, but one of the last laughs was pretty dark. <I wrote up what that dark part was, but seeing that it's almost Christmas and I don't want to be giving a downer of a message, I edited it out>. This life is a fiction. We help write it, but forces unseen to us also write it. Our brain, editing our memories, our answers, our thoughts of ourselves, all without us knowing. I'm no longer stumped on the stories I'm writing, I'm stumped on how I write this life.

A deep red band that turns to... I didn't stop here. In the process of looking for the words and editing what I had written, the clouds that were getting lit up that deep red have changed. Now almost gone expect for the clouds now, light grey. What was 2 minutes before something so different. And now, it's all grey.

I have a new mug, from my sister for Christmas. It has a large letter on it, for my name. My son got the same letter and style, only a small version of it. Big and small. I made the request last night to family to be called Big Chris. We had a Big Willi and still have his son, Little Willi, an uncle of mine. That's what I was thinking.

I'm drinking a coffee from it. The coffee and this mornings sacrifice of words feel more satisfying. Like I'm trekking up the mountain with a talisman in my hand. And like my family is helping me up the side of the volcano. This idea. I'm trying to get my head around it. And the words. I think my thinking is blocking it's flow. The idea. It's that I need to make holy things. This world is striped of the sacred. I'll make my own sacred objects. It's all sounds a bit ridiculous, but it's like this: these things will be sacred to me, to my life, my story. These will be that inner purpose. I'm not crazy about that word, purpose. Torch? Guidon? Sometime more akin to these. I just heard the shofar. It was my son, through the baby monitor, declaring "Papaaaa". I know what he wants. He wants me to go to bed. To lay there with him and Mama, snuggled up under the blankets, three pigs in a row. I hear his breathing. He's sleeping again. He is my most sacred.

I turned off the alarm clock last night, just before going to bed. It was a good idea. Waking when my body let me, after much needed rest.

I see the red branches of bare blueberry bushes. They are so tall, they grow so fast, it's hard to keep up with them.

---

John had wanted a dog. He wanted one because he had to go on lots of trips to the far parts of the farm, alone, by himself. But mostly because he wanted a friend. He had found it hard in school to make any. So when his parents said that he needed to watch the neighbour's dog, he was elated. He liked the neighbours' dog, but he also knew that this was a test. That if he took good care of the dog, that he would get one too. This was why he was so distraught when the dog took off into the woods after a rabbit. He followed. And while he'd been through the forest many times, he followed so quickly and deeply, that he couldn't seem to recognize where he was. The trees were spread out enough to let in lots of sun light. And this deceived, as the sun was low in the afternoon, hanging on some of the lower branches. It was when that last ray of sunshine left, that John seemed to wake. His panic to find the dog had blinded him and turned off his brain. He realized that now. And the punishment he would get for the worry he would give his parents for spending the night in the woods. That is, if an animal didn't eat him, and he made it out again.

"What do I do" he whispered to himself, looking around the trees surrounding him. He remembered a rocky outcrop that he had passed, and doubled back to find it. Along the way he broke the branches off of low evergreen trees. He would use some as a shelter. He found a rocky outcrop, but not the same one. The mound of rocks towered over him. He propped his branches against them, and found that he still had branches, but couldn't see them in the dark. He padded the ground and finding two more branches, he pulled them into his lean-to.
"Was there a moon today? Will I have any light tonight?" No. He knew where the moon was, and he wouldn't see it tonight. He sat in the dark, under the branches, unable to close his eyes, hearing the sounds of the forest that he had been to busy to notice earlier. "That was just a falling branch. Or acorn. It must have been," he said to himself. He's not sure when, but in the early autumn night, he feel asleep. It was an animal sound, sniffing the ground, that woke him.

I got up late this morning. It felt nice sleeping in. I went to bed early, but then woke around midnight. I couldn't got back to sleep, and I had, how do I say this, I was on fire, inspired to write. So I wrote.

Today, I saw some family, over at my brothers. His kids are getting so big. It was nice for me, and great for my son, he had so much fun.

---

What. What do I want to write right now. It's not my usual writing time. Not really anything. I think I'd rather drink. I have some taste beer. And I'm mixing in clamato, which is a great excuse to mix in vodka, but I haven't. Yet.

I'm sure we've all heard people, successful people talk about how they achieved their success, and how they just did what they loved and was good at. I hate those people. If I had followed that advice, I would have been an alcoholic. I love drinking and I'm great at it. Fuck them. Assholes. Ok. I think this is the right time to add the vodka to my beers.

I'm struggling to figure out how I get my writing to the next level. How I add new skills and polish the ones that I have. Building characters. Characters with problems and ambitions. And then setting them on fire. Oh, and getting them talking. Dialogue. Or maybe my problem is my perennial problem. Focus. Distraction. Procrastination. Analysis-Paralysis. Excuses. God, I'm an unending well of those.

---

I think it's time for bed. Maybe I get struck by the fire again tonight. Oh, and last nights fire, I guess I'll post...

---

I stopped the car in front of the flashing railroad arms. It felt like perhaps the first time ever that I wasn't bothered by the inconvenience of the interruption. I sat listening to a country song on the radio, trying to figure out if the tempo of the ringing of the railroad crosses might fit with the twanging away into the night.

The woman sang of a love that she longed for, and why she left the one that didn't treat her right. It reminded me of Aunt Nancy, but we just called her Aunt Nance. During family gatherings she loved to play with us children. And we with her. She made us all feel so special. I remember how my sister said one time with a voice of surprise how was that she was so much fun but not a mommy. She had a special place in all our hearts.

She ended up marrying a German fellow, with two young children. As children ourselves, we didn't quite understand why she married him, he wasn't handsome or very personable, or why she didn't have any children with him of her own. It would be years later when I found out. She was married before. A handsome man. A fire fighter. And she did get pregnant. But she miscarried. And then it happened again. And again. How many times, I don't know. But it came out that the reason was because he was beating her. It took a lot of strength to finally leave him, but she did. She moved back to her parent's home town, where we still lived too, and she had the family's love and support. As for the German, the story of Jurgen, as it was relayed to me was that she had been through war, the personal war of her first marriage. And so had he, the very real kind, in Germany. It was something they didn't speak much about, but when they did they had the other's complete support and sympathy. That he had children was something she said was a blessing. From all the miscarriages she was no longer able to have children of her own. She poured all her love into those children. She made sure every day they felt it. Their biological mother was killed in the war, murdered by the Nazis because she was Jewish.

Blessing? I thought, that can't be right. Blessings? Out of the holocaust? My aunt wouldn't have used that word. Someone's tragic suffering and ending, her gain, she wasn't like that. Maybe I was still too young, but I had to wrestle to think how, why she would have used that word. I remember even asking my mom again when she told me the story, I can her voice even now.
"Yes, a blessing she called the children."
"Blessing?"
"I would call it that too. Think about it like this. If you were going to be killed, would you not think it a blessing that your children would be raised by someone that would love them as much as you, truly as their own, with no children of her own to split the loyalties, isn't that a blessing? And if you wanted children, but couldn't, but found someone with children without a mother, no ex-wife to content with, not adopted, children that you could make your own. Isn't that's a blessing?"

Thap. The sound on my windshield pulled me from my daydreaming. Thap thap. I looked at the rain drops drifting down the glass. These was ice in the rain drops. Tiny hail. Thap thap. Again, hitting the roof this time. The railroad arms had already lifted and the bell had already stopped ringing. There was no one behind me to honk.

I put the car in gear and start down the road, wondering if there are any songs about what a blessing is. I was never good in English.

It's dark. I hear rain. The clouds aren't nicely formed. It's just a blurring mass of greyness everywhere.

Ugh. I just got pulled into a - no, not the internet - a todo list. Refining. Reordering. Adding and trimming. Can I argue that a todo list is an example of living in the moment, or is there too much mind wandering about the future still going on. And maybe if I actually did something from the todo list.

Ok. Back again. My list was further pruned and refined. Why is that satisfying? I did nothing!

I've started two new audio books. One is called 10% happier. In a nutshell it's about meditation. It was recommended by a nephew. The author even declares himself to be a worrier, but I can think of worriers that I know that might appreciate it. The other is a book about editing, and the author's thoughts to help writers, called Stein, On Writing. I also have a physical paper book, but I've not been in the mood, the right head space to be enjoying it, it's collecting dust. It was really that book that gave me the kick in the gut about not really having characters. They just show up, with no history, no drive or ambition, no fears or failures.

Proof reading, I see that I wrote that the 10% happier book is about medication. That should have been meditation. Fixed that.

...

This is not a reflection. This is a living creation. But what if I want to kill it, just throw it away, delete it? I've heard advice to just do that. Wouldn't that be like drowning kittens or puppies? And if this is a living creation, why does the birthing process sometimes feel like the movie Aliens, where it tears itself out of the person's guts? Does this living creation, does it ebb and flow, it's energy, appear in one form, then shapeshift into other? What are it's boundaries? How do I explore its edge? Are these words the creations very own existential angst? Are these words now asking Why am I here?

This is not my regular writing time, but I need to write. I'm procrastinating right now with food. Such good things, so gluttonous. But it ties up my fingers. And easily distracts the mind.

---
I think I'm not ready to write characters. But I'll still plough away.

Milton. Terrence. Hugh. DeForest. Is that a usual name, Deforest? Barry. Ben. Burt. Here is one to work on. Bert. As in Robert. Bert to differentiate him from his cousin, also a Robert. How the cousin got Rob and he Bert, no one is quite sure. They just said that Rob fit Rob and Bert fit Bert. They were both named after the same grandfathers, but neither filled the name better than the grandfather.
Bert. How old is this guy? 22. He had gone to boarding school and was now in a college taking courses in drafting and business. He wrote his parents regularly, and saw them for the holidays. And he regularly wrote his younger sister, Abigail. When does he live? 1962. He was born 1940, and his sister in 45, after the war. His father was in the navy. His mother stayed home to raise the kids.

His fondest memories was when they were stationed in Guantanamo Bay, playing in the sun and on the beaches. But most of his youth was spent in Washington.

I am building a rocket. But I've never used the tools that are needed to build such a rocket ship. All I can do is hold me breath and fake it when people ask "is everything ok?" and I answer "fine", while letting out as little air as possible.

I am going to land it on a comet. By then I'll be just ashes. And the comet will be one that will pierce deep into a star, causing a spectacular solar flare.

The rocket. It might be built out of bricks. Odd, yes, I know. And the fuel. Well, whatever I make up that it runs on. Maybe something like magic, but something new. I know, I'll make a new word. A fuel that will send that rocket to the comet, and the comet will create the most awesome show that all the volcanos millions of light years away will all stand still in awe for the sacrifice. Satisfied, for a moment.

I was thinking about some people that I knew. I'm not sure why they came into my mind. I think it was from the book on developing characters, and an exercise it had on thinking of people that I knew. That and something my brother was talking about, of so much conflict being from people thinking they were better, bigger, more important than the other. And I think it ties in a previous book I read, about how we all, we all have inflated impressions of ourselves. Two people stood out that I wanted to write about now.
One was a manager I had in Seattle. She was effective, nice, and pleasant to my face, but behind my back expressed how she didn't like me, more over, she didn't want Canadians on the project. I came to see her as being very two faced. I was off the project for years, no longer even doing work in Seattle when I saw her. And she saw me, but we both pretended that we didn't. It was far away, and we were both with other people so it was easy to pretend. I had known that she had some health issues. Before, she was a tall, blonde, confident, proud woman who happened to hate me, who thought she was better than me, or at least, me being less important than other people closer to her. She was still the tall, blonde, but she was walking now with a cane. I believe it was a brain tumor or something like that. She didn't walk as confidently, but really, she really is stronger in my eyes having gone through what she did. Strange, I thought she was a bitch, but now, I'm not sure what to think of her.
Another person that came into my mind was my accountant's wife. One year, for whatever reason I was late. Typical of me, so no big surprise. It was in June that I was getting my taxes done, and for whatever reason, I think I was pushing to get them done, even though there was no big reason to do that, but I wanted them done before a certain date, and it came out that I was going on vacation, a holiday to Mexico. When I came to pick up my papers and pay the bill, he hosed me. The bill was huge. My accountant's wife, she managed the front desk and so I paid her. She was snickering, with this huge shit eating grin on her face. I was not imagining this. Had I played poker with her, she did nothing to hold back her glee in making me pay. Certainly my eyes popped out when I saw the bill, but I didn't kick up a fuss, and that was the last time I saw her. Seriously. I came back the next tax season, but she had died. She was in her 50's. Heart attack. It was for me weird to think that someone treated me poorly, and now was dead. Of all the many, many times that I saw her, and she was always pleasant, the only time that I can remember her is that last time.

Pink clouds across much of the horizon. In the gap in the tree line the clouds have a striped pattern, like a tiger or zebra. A zebra with a head rearing out of the earth, miles high.

...

Tony spent a weekend at this grandparents once, when his grandmother was still alive. He was alone in their big house, but they had tv. They let him watch a nature show, thinking the cartoons were too violent. On it he watched migrating animals crossing a river get eaten by alligators. And lions eating zebras.

When his family moved the second time, to the city. The school he went to was rough. He got beat up the first week he was there. He didn't think his parents had time for him, he knew that his dad and mom were extra busy with work, so he didn't tell them.

How did this fight happen? I'm leaving too much off the table... Ugh. And to this is all back story that I may not even use.

Clouds. That's my level of writing right now. The zebra is still there, but starting to look like skeletons. A deep red is just on the horizon.

I dreamt I was seeing a bunch of old friends, we were all going out. Among the friends were some new people that I met. One that I recall was called Juanito. He was big, with a body like a Matt Matheson, maybe bigger. I remember giving him a huge, and having a hard and fun time trying to get those arms around him. With all my friends, we went to some casino. And that's about when the dream petered out.

I had another dream. I was racing around the house getting clothes for my son together for a trip. We were going on a vacation, for some reason I think by a seaplane. The dresser, the rooms, they weren't were we live today. Maybe it was my parents house and the dressers there. I have this feeling like my wife and the pilot, or some host of sorts, was waiting outside, but I don't know outside of what. I wish I had looked in the mirror of the dresser, that would have been interesting. I wonder what I would look like in my dreams?

I just told my wife about the Juanito that I met in my dreams. She wonders if it was from my recently describing to her a coworker as well as the origins of the name John and Ivan. For coworker, I called him short and round, that if the lord of the rings had a black dwarf, it would be him. And for John/Ivan, according to a posting on the internet, as solid as that is, John came to English via German via Latin from the original Greek name, where was Ivan came to English via Russia from the original Greek name.

I didn't write this morning, my usual time was stepped on by meetings. I've been pretty good about writing most of this week, but I haven't posted all of my writings. I'll post today the ones that I missed.

I'm listening to a book on someone's experience getting into meditation. I think this is something for me, and also my wife, but for different reasons. I am always thinking. I recall a conflict resolution course with a lot of touchy feely type instructors that introduced me to words that described feelings. During a role playing exercise, one of the instructors asked, it was harder than asked, that I stop thinking. I'm constantly thinking about doing something, about what I'll be doing next. I have an ok to-do process that captures most ideas and things that I need to do, but I never, never have enough time to do the things from the list. And, I'm always remembering and reordering the things that need to be done. I prefer to think about doing things than actually doing them. I don't think I've acknowledged how much mental effort I use on all this. So, meditation, mindfulness and all that. I'm also doing this to have less stress, and to help open that channel, the flow, that energy that comes through me, when I write, create words.

Written December Saturday 30th
Sebastian and Melvin
Mike, Patty, Rich, Kevin
Josh, Peter
Tony, Robin, Ralph and Alice
Pyotr

These are people. Human beings. That might make my head pretty crowded. I better let them in slowly. I'm drawn, I don't know why, but to Pyotr. And also Tony and Robin. And Sebastian. I wonder who these people are. What they'll become. Where they will take me. I'm going to go take a nap and think about them.
====
Written December 30ths - Fire hit me while trying to sleep, I had to write

Tony raced into the back of the class to hang his coat. He had woken late. He didn't sleep well. His head was full of thoughts. Hanging his coat at the back of the room he saw Robin. He hadn't walked with her like he typically did. He wondered if she thought it was because of her birthday party the day before. When one of the clowns saw him give his gift to Robin, he said how her boyfriend was a real prince charming. He didn't know what to say. Were they boyfriend-girlfriend? He had never thought of her that way. But she was his best friend. What did it mean if they were? Robin answered the clown saying she preferred the clowns that didn't talk. Did that mean that they weren't? Or what?

Later, when they were playing tag and he was chasing Robin, the other kids shouted how her boyfriend was going to get her, and squealed and giggled. This time he said for them to shut up. He didn't like feeling his face getting hot.

She looked at him, smiled. "Hi Tony" and because class was about to begin, went back to her seat.

He went to his seat too and wondered if he would get a moment with her by herself, to ask about this boyfriend girlfriend stuff, maybe during recess. The teacher started the class, but soon he found himself drifting off thinking about what had kept him from sleeping. When he had left the birthday party, he found the clowns sitting in their van in front of his house, several down from Robin's. It was a dirty white van with paint marks on the back doors. And on the roof was a ladder. The side door of the van was open and the two clowns were there talking, one inside, the other just outside, on his front lawn.
"Those grubby kids, I just don't get why anyone would want them. You have to blow all your cash on stupid stuff like this." he was taking the paint off of his face.
"I donno. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be."
"Really? What about that pesky one, that kept pulling your suspenders?"
"Yeah. You're right. I wanted to smack that one so bad." he answered, stopping to light a cigarette.

They must have been talking about Trevor. He was the class clown and got into a lot of trouble.
The clown outside the car saw Tony standing there.
"Hey. What are you looking at? You stupid or something? Scram!" the clown said loudly, the whole time his cigarette bouncing in his mouth until it fell out on to the grass.
"You see what you made me do! Beat it!"

Tony bolted down the drive way into his house. He went inside and to the living room window, where he could keep watching them. He hadn't heard someone talk to him like that before. And what about the neighbours. would them talk with them too? Just what kind of clowns were these?

Five minutes later his day pulled into the drive way. The clowns were finishing changing and taking most of their paint off. He walked over to them and started talking. Tony watched closely. His dad seems his usual self. Kind and respectable. Not loud, but firm. Their faces, they didn't seem to talk any nicer with him. But he kept his face the same, a thin smile under his beard. When they finished talking, he saw a clown pick up a cigarette butt from their lawn, get into the front of the van and start it. His dad turned and walked toward the house. He looked up at the living room window. Tony ducked. He couldn't be sure if he saw him.
"i'm home." He hollered. Tony raced over to the railing at the top of the stairs.
"Hey champ. How are you? How was the party?"
"Ahh. Fun. Yeah. It was great. The cake was the best. Hey. What did you and the men outside talk about?"
"Ohh, nothing. Nothing in particular."
"Nothing?" he said, probing. He grabbed onto his dads arm and stood on his leg to slow him down while he walked to the kitchen.
"Well. I did tell him that I thought clowns without their two front teeth look funnier. But that was about it."
"Two front teeth?!" he repeated, giggling, imagining the man without those.
His dad opened the fridge and pulled out a plate. He was working another job in the evenings, but had enough time to eat and change.
He wanted to ask him what kind of clowns those were, but he knew his dad was in a rush. His dad hurried him to do some homework and to help out, his mom would be home soon. Just what kind of clowns were those? Between maybe having a girlfriend, and meeting clowns that were like nothing he had seen on tv, he didn't fall asleep.

The recess bell pulled him back from his day dream. Had the morning gone that fast?

---

Robin was with Melany during the recess. Maybe they would get a moment alone.
What did you think of the clowns?
I umm. I guess they were ok. I'd never seen clowns before. Is that what they're supposed to be like?
They weren't clowns. Frank, he hired them. He can't do anything right.
I'd seen real clowns and Jimmy's birthday. You wait and see. His parents make a huge deal.

Jim is the bankers son. They had played together once.

Written Saturday December 31st
Goooood morning 2018! Ok, not quite. I need to wait a day. 2018. Crazy. It's here. How about 2020, that's just around the corner. Yikes. Is that the year of the robot zombie apocalypse?
...
Tony and Robin
Tony has moved two times that he can remember. The last time was to a big city. Tony went to new school. He remembers the high fences all around, and there was no grass to play on, only concrete or asphalt. The kids weren't friendly with him. They spent a year there before they moved again. They left because his dad said that his boss was a crook and wasn't paying him all his wages, and never on time.

Before the city they lived in a town in a beautiful valley, with lots of mountains covered in trees. Tony liked it there. But just like the town that he was born in, the plant that his dad was working in closed down, and they had to move. They had lived here for two years. The first year the kids weren't very friendly, but by the end of the first year he and was starting to make friends.

Tony has a brother, George, who is 4 years younger.

Tony has one grandfather on his fathers side. He complains a lot and sometimes only speaks Italian with his dad. Tony has lots of aunts and uncles on his dad's side. They all treat him really nice and he like to play with his cousins.

Tony has both grandparents on his mothers side. The town they moved to it right next to their home town and they see them most weekends.

Robin lives with her mom and step-dad.

Written Thursday January 4th.
Dream
I was with some guy, and we were waiting for Irv, in what was like a restaurant in the lobby of a hotel. The guy was bothered that Irv was late, and I explained that because he's my friend, that's probably why I'm cutting him slack. Irv shows up and we go to a table full of friends, but I don't know anyone. For some reason I eat a dinner that someone started. I had no sense of desperation or anything like that, but I ate none the less. Late someone asks, complains about what happened to their dinner.

The dream change. I'm outside. It's dry, mountainy, desert like landscape. I'm with my cousin Ron. We see some horses and a deer that is connected to a wagon. The deer starts tearing down the hill side and I think some guy starts wrestling with it, something like that. Ron and I get on the horses and we bolt down the trail. Ron, I see him take out a rifle, we're on galloping horses, and he has a rifle in one hand like he's going into a battle. We stopped the horses and the owner caught up to us and we handed over the horses.

The dream changed again. Now I was by myself. In some sort of courtyard of a fort or castle, and I see a tunnel going under the castle or a mountain, the perspective is like a video, quickly (more quickly than a person can travel), going through the tunnel.

Written by January 6th, 2018
I've started to write my dreams down. This morning, when I woke, I didn't "just lay there and try to recall the dream" as recommended. Instead I started thinking about the day and didn't recall the dream and so I don't have a dream to write about. This dove tails into my other new exercise, meditation.

Today, just minutes ago, was my first meditation. I had meditated before. Last year I found a meditation that I liked, it was great for calming me at the office. And I suppose there is some meditation at the yoga place I've so infrequently gone to. But this was the first - that I recall - self-guided meditation - where it was myself telling to acknowledge thoughts and let them go, and return to my breathing.

Dream Journal
I was playing scrabble and pouting. There was a big group of us playing, but we weren't sitting down, everyone was all over, they were all younger (university age) and I didn't know any of them. I was able to get more tiles. I remember looking at the tiles. The characters were not quite the Latin alphabet (I heard you can't read when you dream). I checked with someone about the rules, and I think I had too many tiles.
The dream moved over to what was like an office cube. I recall at the end that I was looking through sheets of print outs. I think among the print outs was a recipe.

I dreamt was in a farmers market buying food. Next, I was in an elevator or sorts. It was a waist height white cage with gates, like a cherry picker. It was quite wide, and irregularly shaped, like a triangle with flat corners. In it were two people in wheelchairs, they had been waiting. People were doing repairs on it. The three of us go up two floors and I see a rivet coming loose. I shout out to a worker and he comes and takes a look. He has an Irish accent. I speak to him with a jokey Irish accent. He tells me that it's pretty good. I modestly tell him that it's not, and that I can mix it up with an Indian or Russian accent.

I am in a large empty space, maybe in a mall, I can tell that there was natural light getting into the area. I walk to a public washroom. A woman gets out of one of them. I can picture her face so clearly, a real babushka face, complete with scarf over the hair. She was not pretty. She had a plain oval face, her nose was bent. She did not smile. No rosy checks. No red lips. Just plain.

I entered the washroom, and this is where I awoke to the alarm. Too bad really. I had read that if you think about something before going to bed get you will have a good chance of encountering that in your dream. I've been trying this the last three days, wanting to see myself in a mirror. I don't know why, but I'm curious about what I look like. It was hard to wake up, I was up too late, but I was able to lay in bed and recall the dream. It was like I could feel them slipping away, but I just lay there and focused on them, not let my chattering mind start, and was able to recall the dream.

Last night I was ignited with some ideas, but by the time I got to the computer, the passion had evaporated. To get myself for bed, I listened to new audiobook of meditations. It started out not so well. The voice of the guide sounds like an Australian woman, and I remembered a friend recently telling me how those accents turned him off. Not me, but he didn't like them, and ironically, in an exercise to clear your mind of wandering thoughts, her voice was the problem. Then guiding was not very guided. I even looked at my cell to see if I didn't accidentally click pause. And there was no background music or sounds of nature or what not. Because of all the background noise - I'm under the flight path and have a busy street in front, even at 11pm! - and I suppose, because I'm not able to block that shit out, I realize I need that to cover the background noise. So, between the voice, the unguidedness and the background noise, I found myself being impatient with the meditation.

It's not my usual writing time. This morning got stepped on by an early morning meeting. Also, I had to wake quickly so I didn't recall my dreams.

...

It was a holy war I decided not to fight. My wife has ceramic mugs from Mexico. Gifts from her mom. They are beautiful. I really like them too. But she insists on hand washing them. I conveniently forget and put them in the dishwasher. The other day she asked me again to please not put them in the dishwasher. And again I said, ok, yes. But I find it ridiculous. I am so certain that these are dishwasher safe. I'm convinced that she thinks that because of all the other ceramic stuff that she is used to, but also because neither her mom or her very close aunt (like a second mom) have a dishwasher. If you never had to buy an infant car seat, do you know what kind of seat you should buy? Same here. If you've never had a dishwasher, could you tell me what dish is dishwasher safe?

But since I don't have hard facts, just what I feel I know, I looked the mugs up on the internet. The same brand. Every place that sells them lists them as being dishwasher safe. Just as I suspected. You see, pottery that is vitrified, hardened, glass-like and nonabsorbent, or, fired to a high temperature and glazed then will be dishwasher safe. Low-fire pottery is.... is... this is where I would lose you as a reader, you probably wanting to skip down. And this is where I would lose the argument with my wife. Where she would also stop listening. She asked me not to put it in the dishwasher. Ok. I got it. It would be like telling a person that believes the earth is flat that it is round. Ok. 2+2 is...

But wait! Living life with someone that has beliefs that I think are ridiculous, it grates on me. One, for example, is her mom's' belief that she will get sick from drinking tap water here. Yes, in her home country she will. But she claims she got sick here because of the water. And so, because of that, whenever she visits, we boil water for her and set it aside in a carafe for her to drink and cook with. I believe that she got sick, but that it was psychological. The reason I suspect this is because whenever I can, when no one is around, I top up her carafe with tap water. She's never gotten sick.

Certainly, I must have some ideas that she must think are equally ridiculous. I just don't know what they are.

I dream was walking along a board walk. It was a wide stone board walk. The sea was to my right. On the left was a road, two lanes each direction, and then stone buildings on the other side of the street. It was sunny. I was walking with a group of people.

The dream changed, and I was in an empty commercial high rise. Nothing super high, but more than 3 stories. The entire floor was empty. The shape of the floors make me think that the shape of the building was irregular, like a triangle with flattened ends again. I don't remember what was going on here.

The dream changed and I was on a ship. The ship was moving a lot, up and down, side to side, as if in swells, but the weather wasn't bad. It was sunny. There were two or three ladies swimming outside the ship. I could see sharks in the water, as if I could see passed the surface of the water. Some sharks I could see were deep, maybe 50, 80 ft deep, one was close to the surface, maybe 10-20 feet deep. The ship was under power and turning. I watched the large woman get into the ship.

The dream changed and I'm with some people in a room with a guy from the boardwalk. I think it's his office or quarters on the ship. He is a captain or something like that in the navy, because of his uniform and from something he says about a picture of his. I see his picture of when he was younger. I make some joke.

I can see his face. His face is a fat oval, but he doesn't look fat. Cream white skin with dark straight hair. A large mole on a check. It's situated on a part of his check that is looks good. He could be in his twenties, maybe thirties. He's plain looking. The Russian babushka in a previous dream, since she wasn't that old, he could be her son, but he doesn't look Russian and he doesn't have her nose. But he could have her eyes and lips.

---

It's been a beautiful morning. Waking without an alarm. Recalling my dreams. Meditating. A sky with a crescent moon and stars.

This morning's meditation, I found it to be the best. Each guided meditation has given me ways to discard the typical stream of thoughts. There were the bubbles, much like Anne Lamott's, who in Bird by Bird had the thoughts put in a jar. Yesterday, the thoughts came out my nose. And today, it was a bright white ball that the thoughts float to and disappear in. It makes me calm just thinking about these techniques.

The moon. It got me thinking of when I was in my twenties, teaching myself the stars. I did some photographs of stars and the moon. They were all pretty horrible. Because I wasn't using a telescope, the photos of stars were just a couple dots, so the photo lab wouldn't print anything saying they were all blank. I had to give instructions to have them printed, even if they were blank. I'm laughing now, wondering what the people thought when they printed these. Maybe I was taking photos of ghosts? I wonder if I still have them. No doubt, I've hoarded everything.

There is a new piece of furniture in the house. A free-standing IKEA coat rack. It looks alien, in both it's design, and in it's presence here in the house. And yet close by is a tree that's been cut and decorated, and it doesn't feel out of place. I officially welcomed the coat rack to the family the other day, much like we've done with some other furniture. Of all the "family members", the dishwasher is the favourite.

I dreamt I was walking on a wooden trail in a forest. I came to some big logs laying on the ground. This was my home, like I was an animal. I didn't see her, but I knew my wife was there, and we were doing something to the logs but I don't recall what. I think it was replacing the inside of a log with a clay pot of sorts.

The dream changed, and involved some grandparents, not mine.

The dream changed. I'm driving my car, and we (me, wife and son) are going to the swimming pool. I pull into a parking spot closest to the pool and office/entrance building. There are no other cars parked. I can see people are having a water volley ball competition in the pool so figure they were closed to the public. I get out of the car and check that I can park in the spot. I can't, it's only for staff. I get back into the car, and try to pull out, but there is a slow steady stream of people walking past us, behind the car. Someone falls behind me car. Some people get her up. She is a short lady, with dark curly hair, and has amputated limp, a foot, and I think a hand, I'm not sure how many. Some people picked her up. She had a smile on her face and said something like she was ok, and thanks. I eventually get to back up, saying sorry to some people that are walking. I remember one man that walked by. He had a hard look on his face. Stubble. Dark eyes. And he walked hunched over. I remember seeing his through my driver side window, and him looking at me, not changing his pace of walking, his facial expression unchanging. The hard look, it wasn't angry, but like it was almost bothered. Like looking at someone coughing at the symphony or talking in a library or quiet space. I could see him walking behind the car through the rear glass window.

I dreamt I was flying around Vancouver or some city that looks like Vancouver. I was holding on to straps like a backpack, with whatever those straps were connected to took me all over the city and ocean, my feet dangling, with the ocean or streets below me.

I was up late last night, so it made waking this morning a little hard. Hard enough to not recall my dreams so well.

...

Tony. I have some ideas for him:

He gets a knot in his stomach. What if we become boyfriend-girlfriend, whatever that means, he wonders, and he has to move again? The experience of the last unwelcoming school washes over him. He didn't keep in touch with anyone from that school. But even his friends from his first school, he hasn't seen or heard any of them. Would Robin forget about him? The knot grew. He felt like he was going to throw up, the saliva building in his mouth, his heart pounding away, harder and harder. Run. He could run. He was ready to run. He didn't know why but he had to run.

..

He was on the phone talking Italian. He must be talking with his grandfather.
Panino. Yes. Yes. I know. Listen. Listen Pa.
He continued on, talking in Italian. What were they saying? As hard as he concentrated, he couldn't figure it out, but he knew it was about him.

..

That night, while Tony lay in bed, ideas came into his head. Why does his Papa need to work? And why do we need to go all over the country to find these? Families following jobs, it didn't make sense to him. It seemed all backwards. The knot was there. Not growing, but just sitting there, deep inside him, waiting to grow, waiting for him to worry.

Notes:
Maybe someone from a previous school gets moved to his school? The kid can make up stories about Tony, or continue bullying him, or they could become friends, or maybe he becomes friends with Robin, before he gets to find out if they are boyfriend-girlfriend!

Maybe his grandfather comes to visit every other weekend to watch him? He can be the one that gives him guidance with his wishes or questions about the clowns. Maybe the mom takes up a cleaning job on the weekends and that's why the grandpa comes to visit?

Maybe Robin needs to move away!

I woke up to the alarm clock. That jars me from my dreams, and makes it harder to remember them. I remembered the end of the last dream and was able to lay there, and recall more.


I dreamt I was with Kurt, a coworker, high up in the food chain, who was telling me that I was doing things that I shouldn't, that either weren't my responsibility, or something like that.

The dream shifted, and I was with Pranab, a coworker/friend, who was showing me black and white photographs of his. One was of Steveston, with the boats tied at the piers. The perspective was from the river itself, maybe looking west, and there was fog so that you couldn't see the shore, or much of the river, just the cluster of the boats in the middle. He showed me two photos, and one made me laugh. It was a fun picture. But then again, he and I joke around a lot.

--

I have lots to write about Tony. Or perhaps rather he has lots to say. Or show me.

--

I once read a short story, written about someone's grandfather. The main character was the oldest of cousins and when they were still children, the grandfather had told them a fun playful lie. The main character caught the grandfather doing things to support the fabrication, smiling at him and asking him to be quiet about being found out. When I read it I laughed and enjoyed the lie, from the perspective of being that grandfather and of being those young cousins and enjoying the lie, because it was pretty fun, unique, certainly a cherished memory. But the main character continues with how he felt being lied to, of finding out, and the confusion about why his grandfather did that to him. It was well written, taking me from the funness of the lie, to the heaviness of a child discovering the lie. It concluded with how he reconciled the lie with his deeper understanding of his grandfather, but it got me thinking about the lies we tell.

I've heard similar experiences from friends and family, the common one being about Santa Claus. One nephew apparently was so upset that he questioned everything, saying "what about God, is he made up to?" Another family member, I think, I forget who, told a neighbour's kid about what happens when you die and how that kid cried so bad. I've navigating these waters now as a parent. I've already fabricated and instilled a couple lies into my son's world. The most innocent was to get my son to sit properly in his chair. We would reference the children's book 5 monkeys jumping on the bed for why he should sit properly, a book that he knows and enjoys. One time of the many times he was no sitting properly, bouncing around what not, he finally did fall down. He was ok. But I used the opportunity and called the house phone from my cell without him noticing. I answered it, saying that it's the doctor. The real doctor! And how she said that he's not supposed to bounce in the chair. It's helped marginally.

Going back to Santa. I think my dad's experience/discovery was interesting, saying, if you are young, you shouldn't know any better and should believe. But if you are old enough, then you should know better and shouldn't believe in Santa, unless you are a dumby. This is the power and pressure of peers.

I don't recall how I found out, but I recall knowing he wasn't real, but playing along. This is kind of how I'm going to handle Santa and the 3 Kings - the tradition in Mexico for who brings children presents. I'll tell my son that he doesn't have to believe in them and that some people don't. But if you don't then you don't get any presents. Hmm, am I planting the seeds to reward my son for lying to me? Or just not challenging the illusions of my reality? Ok, this is getting too deep, but these are all real concerns for a child. I wonder how Tony would handle them.

..
About Tony
Tony's grandpa once took him to an italian cultural festival and there were good clowns there.

Tony needs to miss laughing. Yes, something incredibly sad to say.

Maybe Tony gets sick, and meets a clown there? Or someone he knows, and while visiting in the hospital sees a clown? Maybe his grandfather is in the hospital? Maybe he dies?

Maybe Robin's step-dad goes to jail, and because of that she needs to move.

All these ideas, plot points, they are growing out of the ground like pillars, because of the characters. Forming, discovering, finding them and what they want.

Robin... what does she want? Probably a family.

What about Tony's parents and grandfather, what do they want?

Tony's pants are hand me downs from his cousin, exacerbated by him being so skinny. He's tall and skinny. He can run.

Tony knows that tigers don't eat zebras because tigers are in Asia, and zebras Africa. This can be the reason that he gets bullied in a previous school, for making a bully look stupid in class. That can be the same kid that also moves and shows up in his class in the new school.

Written Sunday January 14th morning
I dreamt I was at a concert. But there was something else going, maybe it was a camp ground, something else and while there a concert started. It had a stage and I remember two people singing, I think it was a song by the Rolling Stones. This place was connected to a thrift store. I was walking through it a couple times. Once because I needed to put something back that I didn't want. This last time, it was just before I was going to leave this place, my stuff was packaged, and I was carrying a shotgun, or maybe a low calibre rifle, all over the store like it was nothing.
The dream changed, and I was talk with Martha, a lady from the church. In real life she's turning 100 in a couple months. In the dream, I am taking over something that she was doing with some other volunteers. She or someone jokes that in order to do what she does, she gets there five hours earlier, and the other volunteers, they come even earlier.
The dream changes, I'm walking on a road and I see a friend's car, Bob, by a barn. I have a mini-horse (it's carrying they stuff from the concert) that I'm pulling by a rope, so I go in to say hi to Bob, but he's not there. There are other horses (regular and even smaller horses) and they all get excited to see my horse. A regular horse tries to mount my horse, and I'm trying to stop it. Bob shows up and also doesn't want his horse to do that and is bothered by the situation.

I was jarred from my dream by my alarm, I almost didn't hear it. It was hard to recall. It was a late night with drinks.

I dreamt I was cooking tomatoes. I couldn't remember my dream, I was laying there trying to recall it, but nothing was coming, and then, giving up the search, it's as if I turned around in my mind and there in front of me was the stove with the pan with tomorrows.

I fell back asleep after this and dreamt that I was with my wife in Mexico, in a city near the beach. At the end of our walking around we had to get tickets for a truck and trailer that we had. We went to someone in a booth, got the tickets. I remember having a US ten, and exchanging it. One piece of change that I got back was big and shiny. It took me a bit to get into the truck, my wife was already driving it and the trailer with a horse.

I did go to bed early enough that I could recall bits of my dreams, but this morning's writing time was destroyed by the forces of evil meetings.

I am reading Stein, On Writing. Fresh in my mind is what he said about point of view and back story. I realized that my Tony story, it's second line dives into back story. I'm going to choke up on the bat and do a re-write with it starting at the beginning of some of the back story.

..

Tony was still having fun at the Robin's birthday party, even if the clowns that he was so excited for were mostly disappointing, but their disappointing wasn't finished. He handed Robin her present, her broad smile stretching across her face, like a muppet's head about to swivel open.
The clown, watching the exchange, announced "Well look here. Your boyfriend sure is a real prince charming!"
Robin tried to hold in the smile and looked away. Tony froze. The redder he turned, the tighter his voice felt. Were they boyfriend-girlfriend? He never thought of her that way. She was his best friend.
"I thought clowns weren't supposed to talk" Robin blurted and sending the clown darts with her eyes.
What was that supposed to mean, Tony wondered. That they weren't boy-friend? He felt like he might fall over from his mind tetter-tottering and his stomach got that knot again.
"Thank you Tony." Robin said. She hesitated for a second and then hugged him. She never hugged him before. But did she want to?
He relaxed for briefest of microseconds, until the sound of the room filled with giggling came crashing in. Red, staring at Robin with no facial expression, he beelined for the bathroom.

He wanted to stay in the bathroom longer, if it wasn't for the knocking, away from the giggling, but more so to away from Robin. He didn't know what it meant to be boyfriend-girlfriend. It both excited and petrified him. What if they were? And what if he moves again? The knot in his stomach was growing. The giggling was finished when he came out, and he thought the worst was over, but it was just the seed. He chased her when they played tag. Each time he did, he felt a rush and a smile on his face. He knew she was a fast runner, but his long legs were no match. But each time he did, the other kids chanted how her boyfriend was going to get her, and squealed and giggled.
"Shut up!" he shouted, only to hear it louder. He didn't like the feeling of his face getting so hot.
"Shut up!!"

My dream recall. I woke before my alarms this morning, but started thinking. When I realized what I was doing, it was too late to drift back into the dream, but I was able to recall bits. I was in a bosses office. A wide office, with a wide wooden table, but I don't remember him, which is really too bad, he would have been a good interesting character. We were talking about when we were going to meet. I suggested 3pm, but he wanted me to come back earlier.
The dream shifted and I was outside, in a cobble stone courtyard like you find in shopping centres and I was looking or going to a restaurant.

When I was trying to remember, I felt like I had two compete thought processes. One was my brain trying to do things, like explain to me how I recall dreams, and the other process was the activing trying to recall the dream, but it felt pushed. I had the sense that the pushing - along with my brain chattering with it's commentary - was keeping the dreams from coming back. I want to use the analogy of muscle memory, of how your body knows how to do things you've done because it's performed those motions, but it also feels like peripheral vision, if I look directly I can't see/recall the dreams. Or like cats, if you want them to play with you, they don't, but if you ignore them, they come to you.

Written January 18th, 2018
I recall a couple dreams...
Antenna
I answered a knock at the front door. There was a man and his maybe teenage daughter. He was turned and looking away. I looked at what he was looking and he was saying that he was just watching something over there.
He was strangely quiet, saying more with his eyes. Maybe a small smile or otherwise neutral face, he looked my front lawn and was talking about communication towers.
I had to ask if he wanted to build one here and he answered with a smile. I asked how much he would pay, and he said it was something like 1400 a month. I asked for any info they had, the daughter took a sheet of paper that had their contact info and tore off a tab for me. I closed the door and went into talk to my wife about it.
I don't recall much about his face, body or clothing, but his communication style was so unique.

Mexico
There was something unreal about this other dream, like it was an animation/cartoon mixed into life. There was something - this animation/cartoon character/thing that wanted to travel and so they/we put them in an envelope and fastened, taped them to a bucket. Other envelopes were put on to until they were all collected and send away, animation/cartoon character/thing included. I was talking with my wife after this, we were in a room that was or looked like my old bedroom at my parents, and she was telling me that there was no point to having sent the animation/cartoon character/thing to Mexico, because my Aunt and Uncle would no longer be going.


Garden
My backyard was filled with outbuildings, and at the back were overgrown plants. The new neighbour had taken these plants and cut them into stalks that they had planted including a row of these plants on my side. In each row they planted groups of plants, logan berrries, together with two ir three other plants.

The alarm, going to bed later than I should and scurrying straight to meeting this morning made my dream recall difficult. I recall one person, a young Asian lady, but not much about the scene or events, just this feeling that she wanted something from me, or to be with me. And I didn't or at least was trying to avoid whatever it was that she wanted.

===

I'm rewriting that Tony piece I started, finding the spots where I'm telling and changing them to showing.

Written Sunday January 21st
I dreamt I was on one of the gulf islands. I crossed by bicycle the island from the landing piers to a party. I don't recall the party. I crossed back across the island to go to the landing but took a turn and kept going further to another part of the island. I arrived at a small beach between the trees with a few people and boats. I asked how to get to the landing and got directions back. I crossed back to the party and told the story of what happened.

I woke up a couple times this morning. Lots of dreams last night.

I was at a concert of sorts, where the seats were on a step hill side. I walked up and over the hill to go somewhere, the concession or something. When I came back to my seat, I realized that I had two keys of other people. I had the key of some older white lady, and a man, middle eastern looking, dark hard and eyes and pail skin, like a Soviet Muslim. I ran up the grassy steep hill to give them their keys - they weren't sitting together.
The dream shifted. The hill turned into a nuclear powered resort of sorts. I can't recall what happened here, but it shifted again.
I saw an ad about how Summerland is the next Osoyoss for real estate. I was looking for real estate here in the lower mainland. I went to river to find water front property. There was a popular hiking trail there so I went to the start of the trail. There was a new building for an exhibition and I went in. It had a tragic theme, like a disaster or genocide memorial.

Clouds without form. No sunshine. Wet, even when it's not raining.
==
My eyes see icons and file names on my computer desktop. An image, a word, runs the wire and an impulse fires in my brain to do something, like the early experiments that they made on frogs with electrical shocks. Those were to see if the frog had a soul.

We were at the nature park on the weekend. It's never busy and the signs of spring, a favourite time of year for me, are everywhere. They have tree frogs here. I told me son that our job this year will be to spot one.

The electric shocks in me from seeing those files, have I been trained and trained myself, like a cow that is prodded, to run back to the herd, like wires on a marionette. Work is rich with stimuli. In this rat park, it's a feast for my mind. This is why I need this. This moment and these words. Carved out and all mine. It's my own corner of the rat park, to build new bonds with what I want.

Chanting. I hear chanting. I look up, the volcano is waiting. Jungle vines coil around me, like serpents, the trees they hang from are calling to me, like sirens, pulling at me like a puppet. The high priest looks at me, nods stoically , and says "Love. Do it with love". The vines fall off, I take my words, piled high, and run up the volcano side. Another offering to the Gods to keep my island alive. I turn back to see the steep climb, it's all mine, my tiny island in the rat park. The sun, it's rising. Another day.

My father. I had some thoughts about my father that I had been carrying around, about the way he is. My brother, I saw him last night and he had a theory about our dad, why he is the way he is. It all makes sense now. While I was waiting for my brother, I was reading a book on character development, and the page was coincidentally relevant to what we talked about.

I've written more, but I've saved the baggage for myself.

Beautiful colours, sunshine, always at the horizon. Clouds overhead but nice far away. It always looks like that, doesn't it?

I woke up at 4 am and couldn't get back to sleep. My mind picked up an ax and started grinding. This, after meditating just before going to bed. Laying there, I focused on my breath, I tried filling my head with a positive things to think about, but my mind kept circling back to grinding that ax, so I got up. I had some other thoughts on my mind and got them all answered and listened to a guided meditation. I have a squirrel brain. I was able to get back to sleep until now.

Those answered thoughts
I infrequent a yoga place. Yoga does meditation and I've started doing that. So what's the relationship? Yoga is in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Interesting.

13 days. My grandmother, she would have turned 100 on the 24th. But she was born under the Julian calendar. Just a week later they changed it, giving her 13 extra days in the conversion. Had the other Gregorian system already been in place in January, her birthday would have been February 6th.

Chiang Mai. A friend is going there to live the "digital nomad" life. I read a blog - albeit just one - about the place. I mean, why the allure, why there? It sounds so far away from... everything. He's searching, finding himself. I guess we all are, but some of us make it look like something more practical. What do we want to fill our day doing? And when we can't fill the day doing those things, like work, what else should we be doing?

There is a quiet town by a sea, somewhere warmer than here. That's where I want to live. But what will I do? I'd like to spend my morning listening to the street fill with life, smelling the salty air, and drinking a coffee. And writing. Why writing? Because it's my mount Everest. I fill my time pushing myself, learning about myself and others, and it's much more practical.

The horizon. The sun is just about to inch into view, its rays strong, penetrating between stacks of clouds, gold nearest the ground, then oranges and pinks higher into the sky, in front of a backdrop of purples and blue. At this moment, waiting, watching, far away looks so much more beautiful. Isn't it always.

I have 7 minutes before I need to get my family up. 7 minutes. I have a new mental ax to grind. I will definitely need some time today to meditate to keep from grinding it.

My Tony story. Maybe a banker takes the first house of Tony's. Maybe that's why they need to move. Maybe the banker family, they act all pompous, and then discover that Tony's mom and the bankers' wife grew up together.

A patch of clouds openned, almost perfectly square in shape. Really, more like a parallelogram. Like a tile of a false sky had fallen down. How do people become that suspicious? And what beliefs do I hold that are on the scale of bat-shit-crazy to plain old conspiracies? I wonder if there is a test? If memory serves me correct, asylums would assess people by asking them who was the prime minister of England, on account of how long Margret Thatcher was in power. Or was that Ronald Reagan?

A doctor told me a story, about a lady that came in just before lunch. Aliens were watching her. But that was ok, because the CIA were monitoring them, ready to jump on them at a moments notice if they did anything to her. He explained to me that because the delusions were offsetting each other, and that she wasn't putting herself or anyone else in danger, that there was nothing he could do. He said that to her in polite doctor speak, like, take aspirin and see how you are in two weeks. He was, of course, eager for lunch.

I dreamt I went into a diner and saw someone I knew from elementary school, Navdeep, with his brother and friends. I went over to say hi and it turns out it was his son or his brother's son, but behind him was Nav. I said hi but kept on getting his name wrong. I told him about the last time I heard about what he was up to. I don't remember more.
The dream shifted and I was on a park bench with a friend inside a small park. There were lots of people standing around, most of them smoking, there were cigarette butts everywhere, like a halfway house or AA meeting was close by. In a clear plastic bag I had brought along a bottle of alcohol. Vodka I suppose. Cops showed up and I snuck away up the park path up a hill. The path got steeper and steeper, with steps that I had to climb, and there were townhomes on the path, and then the path dead-ended. I put the bag of alcohol down in a corner and walked back down. At one of the steep steps was a cop with a bunch of dogs. The cop of a chubby Asian lady. The dogs all sniffed me and she asked if I had been smoking pot. I said that I hadn't smoked any and said that I was visiting an aunt who lived at the bottom of the hill. Tante Anni lived at the bottom of the hill. I walked down to my friend at the bench. I can't be certain which friend I was with, but I think it was Matt. He said thanks for taking the bottle away from getting us in trouble or something like that.
The dream shifts and I'm in my aunts house, but it's not exactly her house, it's a jam-session guitar rehearsal place. There are many people with guitars, but they all clear out until it's just one couple, a pasty bald white guy about my age, freckled, and a petite Asian lady, maybe younger than the guy. They are putting stuff away. I picked up a small cable of sorts, and was about to steal it, and then put it back down.

My wife makes coffee like my grandpa did, it just has a bit of taste of coffee. I can tell when I pour my cup, the viscosity of the liquid. I may need to interrupt this to pour it out and make a new pot. The cream in the cup overpowers the coffee, so it's like I'm drinking creamy water, with a coffee after taste.

Happy Birthday to me! I don't think I said this last week, but I've been writing (almost) every day for a year. It started from Paul's class. I'm one year old in my writing life! What a wee baby

-----

A word was trying to birth, and I was not letting it. My thoughts were grinding an ax and I don't want to be writing about it. I was blocking the channel.

I'm considering taking a program, to finish my degree, but I'm not sure that it's worth it. Worth. I'm not sure about what I would have to put aside, have wait, while I did this. My writing. My other ambitions. What do I want to do? I know what I want, so I guess I should think about how much I want to interfere with that, and what I'll get out of that.

Time and Money. Some of these courses have been for time and money. To make me more productive at work, and make me more money. Time, I really didn't work less, so it didn't save me any of that. I think of a friend's poster of the Dali lama, about how we sacrifice time and health for money, to use our money for health and time.

Hordes of barbarians are at the gate. No, they're well passed it, running amuck in my mind.

I'm trying to plan the year and beyond and set goals, but I'm having a hard time giving it the attention to figure it out, the constant barrage of immediate tasks keeps piling. The things I want to do, what are they worth? Not dollars and cents wise, but of satisfaction and quality of life and I donno, how else might I value them? What I might do it throw in some goals of other people, oddball ones, just to help contrast what I'm planning, it might help my perspective of my own. Like become a stamp collector, or take a dog walking course, or take an accounting course. To someone else, these might be important, but not me. And what about the things in my life that I already have. I should plan keeping these, if for anything to better appreciate them. My family and home. There is a tv program coming up next month on how we are who we are, and how they can predict it. It'll be on the knowledge network. May it would help me with all this. Maybe it could have predicted it?!

Birds. I hear birds. Fitting. I've seen the tiniest of green on the ends of the jasmine branches, one of my favourite bushes. And the hazel nut trees, they surprised me, their tassels are already in full swing. They must have snuck out during the darkest and coldest of Winter days.

I am pushing through today's writing. I want to rush to other things. My daily meditation, which will probably feel as forced as this. And if I have time, on to an audiobook about goals. I feel a bit like an overweight person that bought the newest weight loss self-help hysteria book. A bit conned, a bit conning myself. But the goal book started with the right message, a story of a monk and a business man, the later babbling on about all the things he's doing, while the monk pours tea. The monk overflows the man's cup, and the man asks what he's doing. The monk says that his cup is too full. I can relate. I have too many things going on, too many things started and not finished, too many #1 priorities in life, all competing for my same finite time. And excuse me, I'm off to the next one

I slept well. I went to be by 10pm. I had dreams, nothing unpleasant, but I didn't try to hard this morning to remember them. The coffee machine was prepared last night. Everything is prepared.

I am reading a new book, and the author asks to find out what I did in the last week that was most meaningful to me. What if the most meaningful thing didn't happen last week? Or is the point of the exercise show that the roots of this meaningful thing can be found in any week?

What did I do last week that was most meaningful to me. Time with family in the community, having dinner. Writing. Walking in nature. I donno.

I was thinking about a coworker. He changed his name to help get interviews, from his Sikh name to an English one. He reminds me of another co-worker, another Sikh. He was really friendly, outgoing, and heard that there was a position on my project. I asked me boss and he didn't have spots available, and so this is what I relayed back. A couple weeks later a new guy was hired. Actually, a contractor familiar with the company and my boss. I knew him too, he was a white guy, a little older than me. He had been interviewed months before by my boss and our customer. The customer wanted him, but he wasn't available at the time. But he became free, and so was brought into the project. The customer had no idea that this coworker wanted to join it, and my boss (another old white guy) knew the contractor would do a good job, he had worked for him before.

I recall when my Sikh coworker meet the contractor. And found out that this guy was on the project that he wanted. It smelt like discrimination, like my boss and I didn't want him. I wanted to talk to him about the optics of the situation, but didn't. And so I'm guilty by inaction. The optics of a situation, from different perspectives, it's like that Japanese book where they look at a story from three different perspectives.

All this reminds me of another situation at work. I sat near a person who's boss ran, what we jokingly called the 5-year-plan. The boss was Russian and a micromanager and I had worked for him once. I would listen to my neighbour and him talk, the coworker sounded so nervous, blurting out all sorts of things. And the boss, since I knew him from before, would talk as calmly and patiently as possible, but it still sounded like he was secretly getting ready to crush him. But that was largely my imagination, knowing only the boss, and not the coworker. Fast-forward to today. This coworker now works with me, reporting to me. Nervous blurting is his default style. I've been meditating for about three weeks now and I find I am much better at listening to people and in remaining calm. I used to get amped up pretty quickly. Talking to this coworker once and getting frustrated with his communication, I found myself gripping the arm chair rests. I noticed this, and relaxed. If it was the pre-meditation Chris talking to the coworker, I would have gone into my previous default style: interrogation.

My point in all this. Perspectives, and how things can look so differently. And in being haunted by inaction. For the characters that I'm developing, not doing something can be as powerful as doing something.

I'm pushing. I can feel it. These words. I need to get out of my way. Open the channel. Usually I write first, but maybe I meditate and come back here.

If I sit, I would like to continue listening to my current audiobook.

I'm smiling, almost laughing. The channel is open now, I feel restored, realigned, but my time is going to be destroyed by the usual barbarian of my sacred space, work meetings. But I am seeing meetings differently this morning. Maybe I'm not letting my thoughts about meetings stir waves of emotions that might carry me away. Running off now. Bye.

I dreamt that I was with my wife and my parents, and we decided to go into a concert. Inside, we were looking for seats. My wife found some, but only two! I went to the bar. The concert was about to start soon so I was in a rush. They had new containers for cups. I had some cups with me, gave them to the bearded bartender and asked him if they would be better. They were like the cups that you get from the dentist, small and flimsy. The bartender was going to use his cups, but he had to go off. There were two other bartenders, a guy and a large lady. The guy had spiky salt and sandy hair, and reminded me of a t-bor. The lady was heavy. They were easy and fun to talk with. The lady was moving to Puerto Vallarta and the guy liked money. Then I remembered that I didn't get the two beers that I had ordered with the other bartender and asked them, but they both were pouring other drinks and ignored me. Then my bartender arrived, but was focused on pour some drinks, also ignoring when I asked for my drinks.
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Off to my morning meditation.