Category: thinking

  • Half-penny thoughts — 29jul26

    Ever get that whole, “oh, piss on it all” moods?

    No angry so much as just exhausted by trying to live in a world that doesn’t seem to much care for you or what you do? A world that insists you stay in your place at the margins because your clockwork is not in full synchronization with all the other Barbie and Ken influencers that get paid to try to turn us into a commercial product (or, at least, someone who endlessly consumes)?

    Or, maybe just weary at being the only person who believes in holding doors open for another person (regardless of gender), or letting a car merge ahead of you in rush hour traffic (typically to get the bird flipped at you because you slowed down to do so)?

    Or maybe trying to do something other than what a prompt into an AI chatbox can do: music, writing, art, opinion, philosophy, (or, I don’t know, make the sparkliest rhinestone jacket anyone has ever rhinestoned), what have you — only to see people cheer on AI slop or write a “roses are red, violets are…” composition while you are greeted with crickets? And a jacket Liberace would have envied.

    Or where someone says “It’s been a while since we spoke,” acting as if it was more like “last winter”, but was closer to 20 years? And then thinking it will be as if it were last winter indeed, when you know for a near fact that you might not speak for another 10 years after they satisfy their need to say they kept in touch, or discover that you can’t go back after 20 years with the click of twin ruby slippers and chant, “there’s no place like home”.

    You get a choice most of the time: take one pill to buy into the delusion and conform. Or take the other pill and stay beyond the pale.

    Looking at one hand, then the other. Pausing. Contemplating. Navel gazing. Philosophizing…

    Eh, fuck ’em. Toss both pills over the palings, ignore everything and walk the thin, liminal places they ignore. Piss on it all.

  • Half-penny thoughts — 20jul26

    Giving name to a musical project should be easy, right?

    No. It never is.

    It’s worse than naming a character in your story. Or a fictional place.

    Everyone should be named Bruce and Sheila, and everyone should live on Main Street in Greenville. Sometimes I even write stories with placeholders like that.

    See how simple that was?

    But if I want to start a musical project… Eeesh. All the good ideas are taken.

    I swear this is the absolute truth.

    I bet there’s even a band named “Bruce and Sheila” (google tells me there are gospel groups performing under that name — several of them, in fact — so there goes that idear).

    If you were starting a band that did coldwave/darkwave music, what would you call it? Be silly. Be creative. Be deadpan serious. I honestly want to see your ideas below. It could be educational. I’ll even give you kickbacks after my first half-million if I use it.

    I’m sure Greenville is probably taken and isn’t all that coldwave, so don’t suggest it, please.

  • Campfire Sessions — 23jun26

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    Sometime I don’t feel very raven.

    You know how it is. Sometime you just feel a little more crow, is all. People think you have to feel raven all of the time, but piss on that. Occasionally I feel more crow.

    More than usual, lately, to the point that I wonder if I am maybe crow pretending to be raven. Or, possibly… a sideways shift…

    I might be fox, but three of them woke me up with their screaming last night under my window, so I’m not so certain I am not fox. Seems mighty rude to wake someone up when they are sleeping just to tell them they are fox. Yet — I feel more fox because of it and that’s because they’ve made my full yard their hunting grounds of late. Not that I can complain, except when they wake me up to say, “Hey, fox brother, come hunt with us after midnight. A juicy mouse for you if you come outside.” Except in blood-curdling scream in the voice of an 8-year old. And not in English.

    Crow is laughing at that this afternoon. “Goodness, kid. They got you to thinking they were just some neighborhood younglings when they woke you up. Best. Joke. Ever.”

    I flipped them off. More giggle fits.

    ”You know, I was meant to be working on being Stone. A spider told me so.”

    ”Yeah. About that. Fox, you see, had other plans.”

    ”Obviously.”

    “Well, sweet dreams. I hope the fox screams don’t keep you up tonight.”

    And they flew off, laughing.

    ”Well maybe I don’t feel very crow either,” I shout out at them. “Maybe I feel more fox than Raven, Stone OR Crow. How does THAT make you feel?”

    ”Sounds sensible to me,” muttered Mr. Waddles, the resident possum as he waddles away. “Fox has always got something up their sleeve. I’m not sure you can ignore them. Even if you try.”

    And then he crawled under the shed and munched grubs.

  • shake shake shake

    I’m trying new things, not all of them visible. Some, right now anyway, are exclusive to me. They are not secrets, just not established stuff.

    The story I’m playing around with, for example. That’s a bit of early chaos theory applied to writing. As I tried to explain in my comment is that the sentence structure is like driving in rush hour traffic and, at the very last second, swerving to take the exit. From four lanes over. Swerve fiction, if it has a name. It might have teeth. Probably not, but it had an interesting set of premises when it was brainstormed out and I like interesting challenges.

    I’m also getting back to physical media instead of digital writing. I’m playing around with mixing freeform writing with doodles. I’m no artist, but I’m trying to shake up the old thinking processes by messing with around with the mechanisms to break out of deeply ingrained habits.

    Other things as well. I need to shock that monkey mind.

    What do you do to shake things up?

  • Of solstices and bedknobs; leave your broomsticks at the door

    Summer solstice is nearly upon us and I am challenging my thought processes about the marking of the day like I have continuously since I started down this little tumble-worn path of mine going on close to forty years ago.

    Aside from October 31st, I have largely moved away from the merged eight-fold seasonal holiday structure and compressed it to observing the two solstices in my own way, and giving nod to the equinoxes when I can. The remaining three are a different kind of observed holiday than I am into embracing after all this time of serious pondering. Interesting in their symbolism, but ultimately not part of my crooked, winding path.

    That’s another thought for another time.

    (more…)

  • Morning blather

    I was thinking (dangerous stuff, that) about totems last night after waking up (this morning?) to use the toilet and after laying back down and trying to find a comfortable position to grab another ninety minutes of shuteye before dealing with the day.

    (more…)

  • Fragments

    I wonder, at times, if there are truly no new tales to tell or does everything always sound familiar? What does it take to break that glass barrier? Or is it a concrete barrier we try to push past and discover new tales or, at least, new ways of telling the old tales and speaking the old verse?

  • Half-penny thoughts — 13jun26

    I was joking around with my twin daughters last night about music and starting up a band (one more than a passable singer, the other plays flute and piano). They are toying around with starting up a cover band that does 80s songs in their own style and with their own instrumentation and in the middle of the discussion I smacked my forehead and cussed.

    “Total missed opportunity,” I said. “I wish I would have thought about it when I was playing with various bands when I was younger.”

    “What?” they asked, in unison.

    (more…)

  • Half-penny thoughts — 12jun26

    You know how it is when you are looking for something and you cannot seem to find it no matter how hard you try and then you stop looking for it and it suddenly appears?

    Maybe it is an object you lost.

    Maybe it is a social thing, like a new beau.

    Maybe it is a word on the tip of your tongue.

    Or a song you are trying to recall.

    You turn around and see it, whatever it is. You are in the shower and suddenly the fragment becomes whole. You sit in a cafe and a stranger asks if you have a piece of paper to spare.

    When we are no longer looking, it seems we find what we are looking for.

    Or maybe it is just me.

    Oh! Butterflies!

  • Anniversary

    One of the few personal milestones I mark on this site is the anniversary of my sobriety.

    In ways it is much like a birthday. If so, I am seventeen years old today. Happy birthday to me?!

    I am lucky that there is rarely any temptation, even around others when they are drinking with me in the room. I would say that I am only tempted a handful of times throughout the year, if that many. And, when those moments occur, I find plenty of reasons not to indulge. When I made the decision to go sober, I was pretty close to bottom. The elevator didn’t go down much further.

    I can’t say I recommend following my path to sobriety, if you or someone you know is looking to dry out. My path could have killed me (cold turkey without supervision or a support network). My body rebelled, heartily and I was physically ill for the better part of six or more weeks while my body adjusted to a new reality. Pangs of illness for another six months as the cravings kicked in. I didn’t use AA or other support networks. I went solo.

    It was pretty stupid all around.

    Anyway. I post to remind myself of how far I’ve come since those days, not to get all preachy on folks. You do you. As they say it, I won’t “yuck your yum” if you drink, nor do I judge people on that metric.

    I hope all of you are doing well on this Wednesday.