poetry

#WednesdayWisdom: We are strange creatures.

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(WordPress’s AI generated this image of a fuzzy monster in a field of flowers and I kind of love it)

We’ll finish out the week with the Exciting Conclusion to “The Day the Universe Stood Iffy,” which feels fitting to me somehow. It’s another gray one, humid, and I think it’s going to rain again.

We had thunder and lightning yesterday.

I’m thinking today about the thin line between being thoughtful and being callous, and how little effort it takes for the former, and sometimes how much more effort it takes for the latter.

We are strange creatures, we humans.

Or maybe I’ve just never learned how to be properly selfish, maybe I am the one who is strange, as I am often the one who is strange, and maybe I consider the comfort and feelings of others too much. Which is also certainly possible.

I’m a strange creature, even among humans.

No need to go into detail, as the general applies to so many more people than just weird old me, but if someone has an issue that has to be addressed to comfortably go somewhere, whether that issue is related to food, accommodation, noise, what have you, shifting that into an inconvenience is one of those callous things. It’s already inconvenient for the person who has to deal with it.

People without the array of problems randomly assigned to people without our input or permission often seem to think we have them to demand special treatment, to get attention, to make ourselves interesting or difficult. They rarely consider having to ask the same questions, time and time again, and rely upon the answers; only that single time that question is asked of them.

So my wisdom for the day is this: if you are the person someone must ask, make it easy to do so. If you already know, even better, plan for it.

Again, I’m not being specific because there are so many different situations to which this could apply. But a few seconds of being thoughtful over callous can change the tone of everything.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Heads just get crowded sometimes.

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It looked like it was going to rain and then it cleared up and now it looks like rain again. Who knows what it’s going to do. Certainly not the weather, I’d say.

Today my head is cluttered with unwanted things, not the least of which an earworm which has been there for DAYS. So much so I’m not even hearing it anymore when it starts up.

Maybe that’s the way through it.

My own personal head background music. That’s what you’re supposed to do when meditating, too, when thoughts arise. Acknowledge them, and let them go.

Maybe I need to acknowledge the song and let it go. We’ll see if that does the trick, at least in that aspect.

The other? Well, heads just get crowded sometimes.

Life moves and doesn’t move in ways you don’t expect and don’t always predict. That’s easier for some people than for others, we all handle things differently.

And yet we all get earworms.

You are correct, that doesn’t exactly follow but it only occurs to me now that maybe there are people who never get earworms? Is that even possible?

Probably. That’s likely amazing.

Sometimes it’s like an archeological dig in your own head, layers and layers, things shoved aside for “later,” and then later arrives. Our own personal epochs defining the strata.

Fossilized remains of our pasts long gone.

Sooner or later, I guess you have to get out the shovel. Do archeologists use shovels? Just imagine whatever tool makes the most sense here.

And with that, I wish you a wonderful Wednesday, with or without one of those brushes they use around the bones, whichever works for you.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If you have “not see” blank to accept people, you’re a bigot.

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It’s a very sunny day, though they told us it would be mostly cloudy, I can’t find a single one. It’s not warm, though but I guess that’s OK.

I’ve seen a lot lately online about people “not seeing color” or, now, a new one to me, the qualities that make one part of the LGBTQIA+ community. And if you think that description was awkward it absolutely was, it’s a difficult one to write without sounding like a terrible person, which should have been a clue to that person who tried to make it a thing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Everybody sees the differences among people. Everyone does. Because it’s how we experience the world, but the difference is whether people take those as lovely traits that round out a person or things that have to be ignored to “tolerate” the person. Negatives, that, through some “normal” “baseline” largess, a person pretends not to see.

“Normal” and “baseline,” in the eye of these people, of course being white, straight, Christian, cis gender, etc.

What’s interesting is how they would freak out if people turned the tables on them. How do I know that? Have you ever seen someone freak out about being called “cis?” Even though it’s scientific term also used to describe molecules?

Exactly.

The idea that someone is doing other people a favor by pretending not to see something that is the very essence of who they are is abhorrent. It’s not a compliment, and it doesn’t make you sound like a good person.

It makes you sound like a bigot.

Why? Because only bigots need to cut off whole chunks of who people are to view them as people. Only bigots need everyone to be like them to accept them, and if they’re not, they need to pretend they’re like them to accept them.

Diversity is what makes people beautiful, makes humanity beautiful. Our differences are the interesting parts, we should cherish them, not treat them like embarrassing secrets.

Anyway, that’s it for me this Wednesday, have a wonderful day.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Such is the nature of the tides of existence

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It’s another gray day in Chicago, though the sun might be peeking through. It seems undecided.

Nope, merely momentary.

Like so many things in life, even those things that feel huge and daunting and rock solid and permanent and unrelenting, all of those things, no matter how they seem, are momentary. Some moments do last longer than others, of course.

Such is the nature of the tides of existence, though more chaotic than any ruled by a moon, and far less predictable.

I’ve talked at length this week about the breach at Spoutible, about the racism surrounding the reaction to it. Not even “underlying,” because it’s not that subtle. About people’s enjoyment of mistakes when they aren’t their mistakes.

But today the breach itself feels done and dusted, completely resolved and more like a systems test than a violation of any consequence. Spoutible is stronger and more secure than it was; again, I have heard nothing about any accounts actually compromised; and if anything it highlighted room for improvement while “improvement” requires a relatively small scale for a social media site.

The hype about it is momentary, if for no other reason than in a few days or weeks or months there will be news of a breach that casts a shadow so vast and deep that anyone flapped their arms about this one will seem ridiculous.

Just looking at some of the past breaches and how long sites kept that information hidden should have curbed the flapping in the first place, but as I said, we’ve had a long chat about that already.

When a crisis hits, even the tempest in a teacup type, the walls around can feel very slick and tall and insurmountable, and the liquid level extremely low. Maybe all you see around you is porcelain.

But the cup gets filled, one way or another, often in some mind-bending act of physics by you yourself, and the sploshing calms. As long as it takes and as rough the tea seas, it’s momentary.

And in a week so far of long ones, today is, in fact, a bit to read. Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#FridayThoughts: You’re welcome in my weird bandwagon

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Thank you to (in order, clockwise from left: BMWillz; Dcroucher; and @Goose). Still in fog here, it’s been like this all week, though it’s slightly less blank outside the window. We’ve gotten to Friday in a week that seemed to have taken up more than its allotted time.

Someone should have a word with whoever enforces the laws of physics.

In the past week I’ve been accused of being “popular,” a word no one has ever used to describe me, and of having a “weird bandwagon,” which, if you saw any of the weird bandwagon art, you can tell is far more my style.

The truth is, though, that wherever I go I use my words in my voice. On Spoutible, more people seem to relate to both. It doesn’t make me popular.

Merely accepted.

It’s not difficult there, if you are your authentic self, if you are not awful to others, if you don’t thrive on conflict conflict conflict. Even if you’re not like other people, Spoutible makes a spot for you.

You’re welcome in my weird bandwagon. You have several to choose from, as you can see above. All the seats are comfortable, we have crafts and food and games and lovely times, and no one is too weird or too normal to join.

But some people, as I told someone last night, live in cages of their own making. That is also a choice.

Once again this week, I have lots of thoughts, no solutions, but I do think it’s easier not to be awful to people. It’s easier to have a conversation and not a shouting match.

It’s easier to be a person and not a persona.

Anyway, that’s it for me for this seemingly endless week on the cusp of ending. Have a perfect Friday and your very ideal weekend.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ChatTuesday #TuesdayThoughts: The sun is the sun.

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Happy New Year, my dear, dear hypothetical readers. Our first real post of the year, and it happens to be a Chat Tuesday.

How about that.

It’s bright today, and I can’t tell if there are clouds or blue sky, but it doesn’t seem to matter either way. The sun is the sun.

Here we are at the very start of a year that isn’t the least bit used up yet, and sometimes people like to make resolutions about what is to come, what they’d like to do. I am not among them, they seem to set us up for feeling bad about ourselves and I think we have more than enough ways to do that already.

Maybe this year we can focus less on whether it’s the best kind of sunshine, whether it’s enough sunshine or not enough sunshine, whether we’ve done all we can to take in the sunshine.

And just enjoy the sunshine.

For as long or as little as we want.

There’s so much around us telling us there is a perfect way of being, but that makes no sense for humans. I don’t know, maybe it’s AI telling us, which, well, that’s a whole other post.

But maybe this is the year we can entirely be ourselves, this is the year where OK is not only “good enough” it’s enough.

It’s enough.

I’m not saying we’ll all feel this way immediately or constantly or from here on in. I’m saying let’s just try it, a little bit at a time.

After all, the sun’s the sun.

Have a great Tuesday and a wonderful, joyful and fantastic start (and the whole way through!) to your year.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

June Undecided Sky

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There’s a moment, when the sky grows dark and grayness takes to the air, where it can go either way. It can rain, or it can not rain. You may sit, half-tensed and not even aware of it, waiting for that first crack of thunder.

I can see it, sometimes, the sheet of rain coming in the distance, spreading a haze of water a bit at a time until suddenly the whole air is filled with it. Sometimes the rain makes things quieter, muted.

Some days it starts and goes on like that for hours, going in rounds of misty rain and huge, intense drops. And other times it’s here and gone in a moment, an indecisive drizzle finished almost when it started.

But the funny thing is that the sky looks the same, sometimes. Heavy, waterlogged. It’s what the sky will do with it we never seem to know.

Try  Her Cousin Much Removed, or sign up for my spamless newsletter.

Download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Inside the Worm’s a Poetic Place

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This week’s Free Book Friday starts with a collection of poetry from Bonnie Mutchler. A quick collection of about 5,400 words, it’s a perfect start to the weekend.

Inside the Worm by Bonnie Mutchler. FREE from Smashwords.com
This is a collection of easy to read story poems that weave tales of fantasy, war and humor.

Self-Trust an Elusive Commodity

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I’m not sure why it is that it’s so difficult for us to trust ourselves. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, maybe there are people who plunge ahead, confident and certain.

I’m not one of those people.

For me, the world is colored by what ifs, by endless probabilities, by the dark edges of choosing wrong. People like me waffle. We hesitate. We never rest comfortably in the conclusion of a choice, because that choice or that choice might have been better.

Behind us we can see the missteps and the wrong turns littering our paths, half-buried in the sand, but still visible enough to to glint accusingly. And we can’t help but wonder if forward lies more of the same.

If only there was faith in good solutions. Not perfect solutions. Good ones.

Is It Anything But Winter Yet?

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Everything looks icy today. The ground, the lake, the sky; it’s all a uniform shade of dull white, the kind with enough gray in it to make it heavy.

It’s been a long winter, and there is yet more to go still. I’m told the groundhog saw his shadow. I don’t think we needed his prognostication.

After weeks and weeks and weeks of it, it awakens something in you, something ancient beyond the humanity of us, something that makes you want to take to a soft bed with a pile of blankets and a television loud enough to drown out the wind.