The Environment

 First, I have to say that every time I see the word, environment, I remember an incident that happened with my wife at the grocery store where she worked some years ago. She told me this. She was walking with the store manager and pointed out to him that a huge banner on the wall behind the customer service desk read:

ENVIROMENTALLY SAFE DRY CLEANING SERVICE

She said to him that "environmentally" was misspelled. He said that was OK, that he'd leave it like that so people could feel good about themselves when they spotted the error. To which my wife replied that she wasn't particularly proud of remembering something she learned in the fifth grade. 

That has nothing to do with anything, but I enjoy thinking of it. Personally, I didn't like the store manager, but I didn't have to work with him, so that was OK. 

Today, the environment we're talking about is the one in which I do my writing. It's in the finished basement, and not all that well lit--there is one east-facing window--but, you, know--lamps.

I spend a lot of time here--too much probably--because the S.O. works on her book in the spare bedroom upstairs and I have this free time, so . . . 

The nerve center of the basement.

Yeah I know.  Who has a big stupid computer tower anymore? At least it doesn't have a noisy fan although when the power goes out, it does suddenly feel eerily quiet. And I got this great big screen so I can maintain denial of needing reading glasses. 

Hatch Act Being So Unfair

Trump has hinted that he might make his Republican nomination speech from the White House. He says it will beneficial because 1.) it’s safer for him not to travel, 2.) it’s easy, 3) it will save a lot of money. Nancy Pelosi and others, including many Republicans, are pushing back. They say it is not legal for most who will be involved, and that it goes against tradition and respect for the White House--the idea that you shouldn’t use the White House for political functions. Since, like, forever. 

 I have an idea. Trump could make everybody happy, including, I am guessing, even himself, by making his speech from the golf course--that is, any one of the golf courses he has used, combined, about 268 times in just this year. 

 Why is this good? Well, 1.) he must have determined that going golfing is safe, else he wouldn’t have done it so much, 2.) it’s easy. Seriously, everything is easy for Trump. He just walks around, or rides around, and everybody else does all the work. It’s part of being President. Then 3.) it will save money, probably. Trump is obviously worried about saving taxpayer money, and since he has gone golfing 268 times in just this year, I think we can assume he has determined it doesn’t cost a lot of money.

 Except according to the web site www.trumpgolfcount.com, his golf trips, combined, have cost the American taxpayers $138,000,000. But, you know, what’s one more golf trip? Plus, he can get in a few holes before or after the speech. Actually, since he’s going to do that some time soon anyway, if past behavior is any indication of future behavior, that means the speech will cost zero dollars over the normal amount of taxpayer money Trump spends. Win-win.

person woman man camera TV

I can't help but be slightly amused at President Trump's preoccupation with his mental competency test "score." I'll allow that he performed well enough that he was deemed not to have a mental impairment like dementia, but I still wonder at the childish and amateurish way in which he defends himself against his detractors. The test he took, which was probably administered by his personal doctor, is meant to determine if the patient is suffering from any kind of cognitive impairment--it is not an I.Q. test by any means, and to pass it means you're OK. Trump, Einstein and  Forrest Gump would most likely all score the same. The real question should probably be, why did his doctor give him such a test in the first place?

Full disclosure: I probably wouldn't have remembered all the words in order on the last question if the tester really asked me again fifteen minutes later.

Remember the old Ben Casey TV show's opening sequence where old Dr. Zorba drew symbols on a chalk board for the words, spoken slowly and deliberately, man, woman, birth, death, infinity? Yeah, I had that thought, but to invoke a TV show from the 50's is too much like one of those Internet memes that start with, "If you were born after 1952, you probably don't know these things."

Anyway, if you're interested, you can probably google "youtube trump barbara walters interview" and you can see that he hasn't changed a bit with age . . . and I mean that in a bad way.

Well I feel kind of mean, writing all this, but I guess a president is fair game, and anyway, the question was never about how well Trump thinks, but, what he thinks about.

Leaving

Blowing this town
Peeling out, going through the gears
blowing cigarette smoke out the window

Ignore the man behind the curtain
There's no place like home
There's no place like home

And of course you quit smoking some time ago
and home is gone.

Tuesday, March 183rd

I'm finding that listening to the sound effects of a busy cafe while I try to write is really not working that well for me. Although I must say it is better for writing than actually sitting in a coffee shop, which I've tried to no avail. Anyway it just seems like the covid-19 social distancing shut-down culture is causing me to slowly but surely go nuts.
I should be working on one of my two books. Yeah, two. Why not? It's like working on your "second million" after giving up on the first million. So, the phone company book is deceptively difficult to write because I think it's important, when it actually is not. So, then, placed in its proper perspective, that it's not important, it turns out it's just kind of boring. At any rate I can't muster the enthusiasm required to transmit any kind of interest, either within me or any imaginary audience.
Back to The Busy Bee Cafe. Too grandiose a theme, really, what I have in my head. I should narrow it down.
Just had an idea, a thought, as it were. You thought you smelled something burning. Why not accept the premise of the Busy Bee Cafe and the Alternate Reality Generator (the "ARG") which activates itself at random intervals to change the local reality (phrase supplied by Don, who is more technically oriented,) forcing the customers and staff of the Busy Bee to cope, in some fashion, all the while being pursued by sinister men in black suits whose numbers slowly but ineffectively diminish one at a time as they encounter the red haired, gun-toting waitress, Denise, who has a crush on Laslo, the one character who consistently sees the changing realityscape for what it is. Why not accept that premise as background, and tell the stories, one at a time?
It's a bit like miscwritingville, if you remember that. I loved that.
And now there seems to be a break in the weather during which we plan to drive to the city and pick up a clock that has been repaired, and then try to find a place to eat lunch. It's always drive-thru. We are still a long way from normal around here, not even counting Trump's evolving dismemberment of Democracy-as-we-know-it, which is veering farther and farther from normal by the day.
Later.

Magic

The following is my response to the "Thursday Inspiration" post put forth by Paula in her blog, Lightmotifs. The prompt was the word, magic. I would never consider myself much of a fantasy genre writer, but this was fun, if a little simplistic, I'm sure. Since I don't use Wordpress to blog, I can't really play properly with the folks over there, but this is my attempt to crash the party. I promise I won't do so very often, if the number and frequency of my own posts is any indicator. 

Magic Class

The instructor looked at the crowded classroom through glasses that rode low on his long nose. The action caused his head to tilt back, giving him a haughty demeanor. The children, all ages, for this class, shifted in the seats attached to their desks, or coughed, or looked at their shoes and the tile floor around them, or at the clock high on the wall over the instructor’s right shoulder.

He spoke in a somber tone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this is the advanced class, as you know, so I will expect all of you to take personal responsibility for completing the assignments in class as well as at home when I so direct. There will be no hand holding on my part. I am told all of you are ready for the material I plan to cover here this semester. Open your books to page three.”

A soft, crinkling susurration of turning pages punctuated by gentle thumps of books spines on wooden desktops filled the room and then ended slowly, fading away like the sound of a passing carriage, until there was silence.

The instructor turned so that he faced the blackboard on the wall, his back to the classroom. "Professor Mandrake," he said in a conversation tone, his back still turned toward the class. "You haven't opened your book." He turned back and glared at a small girl who sat in the first row of desks in the very center.

"I don't need to," said the girl. Her voice was sweetly high and she had a slight lisp. "I wrote it. Now change us both back. You will certainly get an A in this class, but you are trying my patience."

Later, That Same Month . . .

I kept thinking that I should post something on here just for form, as it's been--what?--about five weeks now. But I'm not much interested in documenting my somewhat boring life, and, besides, I don't think anyone reads this thing. A couple people, I guess. And you know who you are. I appreciate you!

So, this feels like I am writing a letter instead of a blog post. How are you?  I am fine. This was how I was taught to begin letters. This is still how I write emails, more or less, especially nowadays. Are you dead or hideously compromised by the Covid-19 yet?  And, I'm still alive and kicking--so far so good. And this is all important information.

My girlfriend and partner and house-mate (all one person) and myself have a routine where she works on her book in the morning, during which time I pretend to work on my pretend book.  It seems to be more fictitious than fiction, but whatever, and then we go to lunch and then try to walk for a mile or two. For lunch, if we don't eat at home, and we usually don't, we go to a drive-thru somewhere. I have always hated drive-thrus, but now I'm getting used to the idea, and I kind of like sitting in my car, eating and talking and/or listening to the radio. I may not like it when we return to sitting inside places to eat--although I miss some of the places we used to go to that don't have drive-thru. Sometimes certain food just isn't conducive to eating in the car, like Italian. Sometimes I think we may never return to normal, but that's probably being a little too pessimistic.

The other thing we do that we didn't do so much before is read news.  I bet I easily read more news than President Trump does. Well . . . never mind.  Too easy.  Anyway, I read a lot of news from different sources, being careful not to create an information ideological bubble (read: I try to stomach my way through Fox News until the gag reflex kicks in.) We spend a lot of time talking it over. I'm not trying to brag or anything.  I don't feel any smarter. In fact, I feel more than ever that I am sorely lacking and ill-informed in many areas now so conspicuous in the news of current events.  But, it's something to do.  And, I'm learning.

Two book ideas.  One, the same old one, can't get off the ground, and the other, a book about my working career at the phone company, is sort of stalling and lurching and grinding to halts in turns. Trouble is, I can't imagine who would be interested in reading about "life at the phone company," which is really not even the working title. Probably more like, "Bell, Schmell." But, I digress.

Which is my problem.

Later.