The Daily {W}rite December 2018 wk 04

Aaaaah! The last week in the month of December . . . Oh! It just popped into my consciousness! It is also the last month in the year 2o18! Madness how time can creep up on ya, stroll by ya as if you weren't even there. Our lives. Not even the splinter of a shadow to time.

I've been sluggish all day. Did get out of my robe, but never set a foot out the front door. Kept dozing off all day. The landlord got me a space heater for the apartment, some kind of industrial looking thing on a 2x4 platform and . . . it heats the apartment for shit. Woke up in the middle of the night freezing! Legs, arms, sticking of the blanket . . . My back screaming from the pain . . . Got up and turned the stove on. Couldn't get back to sleep. But like I was saying sleep kept jumping on me making me crawl into sleep for maybe a half hour at a time . . . all day long.

Sunday, Dec. 23, 2o18
David's sick. Not unusual at our ages to get feel a little punkie after being out and about in the cold weather. Yeah, I'd like to blame it all on the cold but we both get worn out pretty fast no matter the season. David's got another doctor's appointment on Wednesday the day after Christmas. David's my best friend. We both sort of take care of each other. That's what old, bachelor types do. We sort of team up on life hoping that when one is sick the other is well enough to take care of the sicko. {smiles}

10:30pm
I've started work on the first poem for 2019, which I should have ready to post by New Year's Day. My God! The new year begins in nine days! I got lots to do . . . the poem . . . top ten movie list . . . Much to do!

Anyway, would you like to see a little bit of the new poem? Remember, it's a work in progress:

A wintery blister gathering inside my head,
every limb of thought, every memory
collected and store away in the cluttered
memory closet. Each New Year a promise
to clean up in there and, of course I never do . . .

No, no, I told you. just a taste. I'm really gonna spend some time on my poetry this next year, and if I can, get my "work" published and heard by more people. {smiles}

Monday, December 24, 2o18 ~CHRISTMAS EVE~

Well, here it is . . . Christmas Eve. And I've fallen into the same mood as many of my Facebook friends . . . I'm depressed. The Christmas Blues some people call it. It's not unusual, really. All of us are carrying around in our subconscious back-pocket a Jacob Marely like ghost or two (for some of us many, many more than two measly old ghosts! ) that stays pretty much undercover until some moron TV station executive decides to show Alistair Sims' 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, which even now at 70 years old makes me cry  and start thinking about how sad, lonely and down right icky my whole life has been and will be forever and ever.

Tuesday, December 25, 2o18 ~CHRISTMAS DAY~

Christmas Day. Finally winding down. As I said above for a lot of us, many of us older folks, Christmas tends to be a  . . . very depressing time of year. As I read the sadness of one of my Facebook friends . . . who shut herself away today, didn't see anyone, didn't watch TV or even call anyone to just say Merry Christmas . . . I got to thinking the book, A Christmas Carol, and how it really does express the concept of "The Christmas Blues." Yeah Dickens hit it right on the head with his story about ghosts, how memory is the real ghost that haunts us. That haunts us all.

But I have to say, Christmas Day this year was for me a very joyous time. I went with my friend David and his son Michael to have Christmas dinner/lunch with Brendan and Mabry Agnew (Mabry is David's daughter) 

and their daughter, Marian, and Brendan's parents and his sister who brought a "boyfriend" to the feat. And of course, Robin was there in a chair, quiet as a shadow . . . very sick she is. I'm hoping she'll be on her way to a full recovery soon.

And yes, there were a few dramas, something that was being cooked was not cooking fast enough, some people were a bit slow getting to dinner on time and someone left the door open and Alistair (the dog) got out! But he was captured and returned to his pen without getting hit by a car or killing a cat or something . . . and the dramas were short lived and we all sat back, opened presents. The presents were given out one at a time in order of age, which meant that I was last each round! But that I was the older person there did not kill my Christmas spirit . . . And the food! Wow! What a feast! I mean, really, it was delicious. It was a good day, a good celebration of life with a group of good friends. You know, this is all I'm going to write for this year. I won't start writing on the blog until 2019. So as Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one." {smiles}

The Daily {W}rite December 2018 wk o3

DIMENSIONAL ME

This has always been a splinter in my mind . . . the imagination as the fifth dimension of human existence. Aaaah! I will explore this more a little later on. But not right now.

Yep! Back again After a delightful movie about tanks the size of a huge city that chases down and destroys smaller tanks which are made of smaller cities! Great fun.

Okay, so I began spilling my intellectual guts onto the electronic page about the imagination as the 5th dimension in what we often think is only a 4 dimensional reality. And I also remember that I told you I'd be back later on to explain the theory of the imagination as a dimension and . . . Well before I get into that . . . I better think about it. Explore it personally before I go off on a philosophical rant . . . Okay, granted. Most people don't think about or experience in real time the philosophies, religious points of view  that they demand we adapted to own lives without explanation. I am not that type of spiritual guru. I want to think about live in my philosophy for a period of time and THEN force you to see life the way I perceive it. That's the kind of guy I am. {smile}

11:18pm

Browsing through an old GIF file and found this animation I did last year. Really forgot all about it. Actually, it feels like one of my best. I love Norman-town. Love walking its streets, eating at its restaurants, going to movies in its one theatre. And OU campus. I don't go over there much anymore. I loved studying at OU, being a college student. Yeah, I'm gonna stay in Norman-town forever.

Sunday, December 16, 2o18

It appears I'm a trouble maker, riff-raff, instigator, traitor, backstabber . . . I take great offense to last metaphor. If I've ever stabbed someone  in the back, I've done it while standing in front of him . . . her.

My problem is, my "kill them with logic" button is always activated by absolutism.

Absolutism: Noun: The acceptance of or belief in absolute principles in political, philosophical, ethical, or theological matters.

Yep. Nothing drives me crazier than people with their absolute answers to any question. My science friends are possibly the worse offenders. "If science says there is no god, no afterlife . . . then, by God, it's so!" And I do understand the opinion that everything in religion (specifically in Christianity) is just hokum, bullshit made up to keep the masses, the slaves in line, in their place as property of the rich and powerful. BUT science, in its defense of those who do not want to be enslaved by religious zealots, has become the thing that it says it's against, a totalitarian approach to life and governing others. I wrote a poem about this Hitleresque approach to logic, science which you probably have already read since I'm sure, dear reader, you follow ALL of my writings with a teenybopper fanaticism for anyone with a "rock-god" stature . . .  Hell! Here's the poem . . . P.S. IF it's too small, click on the image to enlarge. P.S.S. you do know I'm talking about the poem, right? {smiles}

Monday, December 17, 2o18

Went to see The Mule. A sad little movie with Clint Eastwood (Starring and directing) that should have been a lot more interesting than it was, sorry to say. I am biting at the bit to see the animated Spider-Man that everyone is raving about! One of my movie reviewer friends says it's the BEST superhero movie . . . EVER! Hmm! We will have to investigate that outrageous statement. Why does everything have to be better than for us to like it? Sometimes our egos get involved with our critiques of other people's art.

Tuesday, December 18, 2o18

It's four in the morning here in my apartment . . . in Norman-town. As I type these words into my computer, the National Geographic TV show is airing a special on . . . God. Good. God is better contemplated when it's early in the morning before the world wakes up into a new day of sunlight and shadows. Best time to dream, wide eyed open to Him . . . or She. In fact I had a debate about God with a Facebook, scientist friend. Science people are very  . . . very . . . well, they are always, the ones I know, very . . . may I say skeptical about the existence of a God. But the are particularly stubborn about their believe that there is no God when they are talking with a Christian . . . and yes, I admit it! I am a Christian.

3:50pm

I'm blog rambling again. I do it all the time when I'm "talking to myself" on the laptop. I try NOT to ramble when I'm in conversation with another human being, face to face, voice to voice. I do often enough take over a conversation and am hard pressed to give it up to other people, who have their ideas too on whatever subject were involved with. But of course their ideas are NOT as important as my own ideas. See? That's what happens! I say something like that, "But Woodie, you do think I have a right to my own ideas, don't you?" "Of course you do! As long as they don't contradict my opinions, my ideals, my philosophy!" {smiles}

Wednesday, December 19, 2o18

So, it's a mild winter so far in Norman-town, but it is still cold, uncomfortably  cold  and cold enough to be a bit dangerous for the older folk . . . like me. And guess what happened today? The pilot l ight went out on the gas heater. But no problem to light it up . . . well, okay, a bit of a chore for my old, somewhat portly body to get down on the floor, lay down on the floor actually, and push the pilot light knob in, light up the pilot light and keeping pushing on the knob for about 60 sec. and that's what I did . . . but the pilot light wouldn't stay lit. I tried a couple more times and still it wouldn't hold. Finally, my neck and back started aching and I stopped trying. Called the landlord, got his message app. and I told it the problem . . . and he didn't come. Around 10pm he did call and I told him the problem and I suggested he come by tomorrow and he said he would. So, everything is fine and I'll have heat tomorrow and . . . and . . . I'm just depressed as hell. Such a little thing like a pilot light going out and I'm losing it. It's not just the heater . . . well, it was sort of the last straw sort of thing, right? the straw that broke the Woodie's back? Exactly that, yeah. My whole life sucks . . . from the day I was born.

Thursday, December 2o, 2o18

Today is  my best friend's B-day, David Slemmons. I'm trying to wake him up so we can go celebrate . . . but waking David is sometimes a lot like trying to wake the dead. Hmm. Probably at our age (70 years old) we shouldn't joke about . . . the big D, biting the big one, the dirt nap, the sleep of forever . . . Actually, I probably shouldn't use any of those colorful phrases.

1:00pm -Two hours later and I still can't get David on the horn. Oh, well. A rather rowdy wind kicking up out there. Comes and goes, really. Sometime that southern breeze goes all mime on me. Not word from it's invisible mouth. And then . . . WHOOSH! A very load, boisterous rattling of the elm trees that line the curbs on the westside of Trout Ave. The leftover autumn leaves take flight out of the gutter graves they've inhabited for the last two months and tumble, fly like ancient angels down the asphalt roadway.

         ~INTERMISSION~

A Winter's Poem

The truck was far more excited about
sliding down the icy road that
leads to town than me and why not?
It's fossil-fueled engine -Yes, I know you always say,
An electric car would work better! -kept it warm
while I shivered in the cab 'cause the heater
never works . . . except in the summer.
But, you joked, our love is passionate! True, or
at the least, obsessive enough to keep icicles from
forming on my hands as I swerve and skid
toward the closest grocery store just to buy
a quart of milk for your morning tea.
And yes, there's something (sort of) comforting
in the knowledge that when I finally make it back
home and alive we'll wrap ourselves up
in that huge quilt you made, sip a hot cup of  cocoa,
smoke a couple of cigarettes (and maybe
sneak a chilly kiss or two) while I
wait for my for my frozen feet to thaw.

Friday, December 21, 2o18 12:39am

Finally got a hold of David and we did go out to celebrate his birthday a bit with coffee and a late lunch at Panda Garden. It was nice. But tonight we are going over to the kids' house for another celebration because Michael, David's son, is in town. Oh! Today I was wondering if I would ever get to see the new Spider-Man animated movie. David wouldn't go and I'm not sure my sister would really be into it, she'd rather see Aquaman because . . . well, it's got Jason Momoa in t the lead so  . . . anyway, I just got out of my street clothes when the phone rang.
Woodie: Hello?
Brendan: Hey! You wanna go see the new Spider-Man Movie? Robin was going to go but she wasn't feeling too good and I got a spare ticket . . . you wanna go?
Woodie: Oh, hell ya!
Brendan: Pick you up in ten minutes!
Woodie: Yep! I'll be ready.
And so, I jump out of the robe, got back into the my street clothes and we drove off to The Warren to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and  it was wonderful!

The Daily {W}rite December 2018 wk o2

Ten o'clock at night and I'm already dressed down for bed. My breathing has been a little rough today. Shortness of breath occurring by just walking from the living room to the kitchen. Damn it.  Need to go to the doctor's and get a prescription for a "rescue" inhaler.

Reinventing one's self. What? at 70 years old you figured out that you're a life fuck up? And change, really? You believe it's possible to "change your ways?" I often hear that when a person has good conk on the head-bone that they lose all memory of who they where and it's possible when you have total amnesia that you can create for yourself a new reality. But without that smack to one's consciousness, can you forget who you are and create a new you? Maybe. But maybe there's not enough parts to totally restore a human creature to its . . . natural state . . . that time before the world shaped his existence into an image that more resembled its selfish self.

Sun, Dec o9, 2o18
Find a new tune. Sing it with all your heart. It will lead you to another tune, another song. Don't forget the old songs but continue to add to your song list.

I've trapped myself inside myself, inside this apartment. I have good reasons for not getting out of the house, out of myself . . . no, not reasons . . . excuses. "It's too cold out there, I'm too tired to go out . . . etc." How do I create a better me if I don't venture out to find a new self? All I have in this room are a bunch of worn out memories, memories that have kept me here inside this . . . this . . . make-believe existence.

11:35pm

It begins quietly. Long strings of shadows from the setting sun peeking through the bare limbs, branches of the winter elms . . . a weaving of shadow threads that climb up the side of my apartment building to the window ledge of my bachelor's apartment. And there it sits watching me trying to say something  . . . worth the time of the few friends who take the time to read my . . . words.

Tuesday, December 11, 2o18

Twisted by an internal wind . . . the human question mark . . . thunder beneath, above the gray rains stomp the dead into living, existence  . . . rinse . . . repeat . . . I'm not half the man I used to be; I've never been half the man I used to be. Mother would spread the jam across the whiteface bread . . . a sip of cold Hamm's beer . . . on to the peanut butter layer . . . I skinned my knee once . . . odd phrase. I'll never be that. a hunter  . . . murdering then skinning the already naked.  I heard a song once. I heard a voice once . Male, Female? I've no choice in the matter. But I do hope it is a woman who searches with a whispered tune for that little bit of loose change, of love that this world still offers. The melting has begun . . . No. It began long before this moment on that day when my eyes opened . . . the dark mother . . . great waves of sweaty tears . . . the red nurse covering up her blemish  . . . all in white  . . . her hands cold . . . I may sleep now. I may stroll away as if all this, all this had never happened. I will follow the sand drifts . . . pilling up along the forgotten coastline . . . in silence, silently in slippery slippers . . . that cats wear on the colder mornings. I will touch their whiskers, gentle fingers floating towards the snout . . . they may well believe that my fingers are nothing more than passing clouds . . . on their way to whatever hell they're willing to drown in.

Wednesday, December 12, 2o18

David had to go have blood taken from him. I don't know what doctors actually do with blood, what can they see looking at a persons . . . blood? Oh, I'm sure they have their reasons, but they took a hell of a lot of redrum out of my buddy and they took a very long time getting it out of him.

While David busied himself giving the hospital vampires all his blood, I sat in the lobby, in an uncomfortable chair and read The Handmaid's Tale . . . and kept falling asleep. I keep falling asleep every time I sit down somewhere to read . . . I mean, I feel fine at first and then . . . Zzzzzzzzzzz!

I don't like David's doctor's office. Too many old people in it. And most of them  . . . seem very sick and fragile. One couple came out of the exam room area, the old man caught me looking at him and he stared me down to a point where I just couldn't look at him anymore. He was doubled up, bent at the waste, his legs wobbly from the weight of his extremely skinny body. If it wasn't for his wife propping him up, he'd have folded over and just laid on the floor. And she seemed to be older than him . . . but definitely not in as bad shape as her husband. They stopped about 4 ft. from the chair I was sitting in. The old man looked around . . . "Where's the door to get out of here?" The wife raised her hand, pointed to the left. The old guy nodded and they . . . walked off. Yeah, the story is a little sad if not just down right depressing. But that's just if you see two old people and not two people who are helping out and caring for each other. When I thought about that, that . . . beautiful gesture of love and compassion, my initial sadness turn into a smile.

Thursday, December 13, 2o18 

Loud rushing sound grabbed my ankles and dragged me out of the dreaming I was dreaming and . . . first thing I see when I open my eyes . . . the white-shadow expanse of my apartment's ceiling. That rushing sound again . . . a deep sigh jumps from my lungs . . . thankful that I'm not dreaming. To the west window . . . pulling the blinds open with one sharp, fast pull of the cord . . . and there's the culprit . . . a morning rain. Well, not the rain by itself . . . it's a gentle rain, a quiet rain . . . making the streets just wet enough that every time a car passes by  . . . its tires make that rushing sound that woke me up . . .
like an ocean wave, as aggravating as a dripping faucet.

Thursday, December 15, 2o18
You know it's cold because I always seem to have the weather on my mind when I start an entry in the blog . . . because it's cold! December Art Walk was a bit of a bust because of it. I heard some weird gossip about Art Walk. Seems like the police have stopped the street vendors from setting up shop on the sidewalks, something about "public safety" they're saying. I mean, man, the Art Walk is all about the vendors on the street selling their art, their crafts . . . yeah, of course, there's the big whoopie with all the housed art galleries in the area . . . but the heart of Art Walk are the street vendors, the independent artists that don't get the fancy shmancy gigs The Norman Arts Council backs. Anyway. Here's the last post in this week's blog. Hope you enjoy it. {smile}

The Daily {W}rite December 2018 wk o1

Still sick a bit. David too. Not sure what's wrong with him. But if he misses going to the corner to watch the game . . . something is really wrong. Bush 41 died yesterday. very sad day. They showed a lot of clips of him back in the 80s. I loved him a lot because he refused to put the military in dangerous situations by NOT invading Iraq during Desert Storm. Bless you Mr. President . . . Oklahoma barely squeezed a win out of their performance against Texas Longhorns: OU-39, Texas-27.

Monday, December o3, 2o18

Last Friday night, Santa Claus was hit by a car as he and Mrs. Claus were on their way to see an OU's production of A Christmas Carol. It was a bit of a shock to hear it since Santa Claus (Aka, Donn Mason) is a friend, a mentor to me and a bunch of other OU drama students. Coopie too worked at OU and was a big, BIG part of my learning (very little) about costume construction. Anyway, what little I know about his injuries (which is nothing) he seems to be on the mend in Norman Regional Hospital. The guy who hit Santa while Santa and wifey were crossing the street in a crosswalk, with the right of way . . . well, he probably is feeling like crap right now. Good for him!

I mean to write yesterday, all day . . . but I didn't. I meant to get up early and write all day today . . . but I didn't. I'm using my advancing age as an excuse. the truth is . . . I just suck as an artist.

I was suppose to wake David up today and we were going to go sit in a coffee house and write and drank coffee for a few hours like all the great poets before us. "I'm too tired," David said when he answered my phone call at 11am, "call back in an hour." And I called beck at noon and the response was . . . "I'm stuck on a mountain in a dream . . ." which translates to, "I'm going back to bed."

I did get a poem out of David asking me to write poetry for a character ( The Poet) that I'm playing in his movie. I asked if I could use my own poetry, and David said sarcastically, "No, you gotta use fake poetry!" And that negative response prompted me to write: "This is a fake poem/written by a fake poet/from a a reality that's just as fake/as said poet and poem./You may say it can't be fake/because it does exists as does/the poet who may not be/a very good poet but/all the same is still a poet." More to come on the real/fake poem. [smiles}

Tuesday, December o4, 2o18 1:18am
These first days of December I haven't been in a writing mood. I'm having force myself to write . . . well . . . anything. But it's close to 1:30am and I will write . . . something . . . if not much. There's a slow steady rush of car tires passing by my window . . . and then gone . . . as if the sound was never there. I gotta get out of the apartment tomorrow . . . even if I can't get David to go out with me. I'm not mad about it. I know he doesn't feel well, and yeah, I've had some days too where all I wanted to do was stay asleep or just lay on the couch and watch TV. He does get out more than me . . . late at night he's out and about chasing Pokémon or listening to the bands that play the Deli.

Wednesday, December o5, 2o18 12:44am
It's a good thing that David called and said he was up yesterday and wanted to get to the store because I was planning to go out on the bike to fetch a few groceries and THAT would have been a big mistake because Yesterday . . . IT WAS COLD! And I'm saying that cold that just eats through every layer you're wearing and just sinks its icy teeth into your bones. And here it is after midnight and still cold, cold, cold!

10:10pm
Spent most of . . . okay, all day watching the 2nd season of The Handmaid's Tale and I am NOT sorry.

My wall heater has been on all day and barely does the apartment get warm enough for it to shut off. All day long I've been hearing the heater hissing its warm breath into the front room. It just struck me, its steamy voice sounds like the hiss of a Gila monster. Scary looking lizard. Keeps all its bodily wastes in its tail and releases all that "crap" through its mouth when it bits down on something. Yeah, I said it. Scary mofo is the Gila monster. 

Thursday, December o6, 2o18
A light wind outside. As it passes through the bare winter limbs of the elms that line Trout Ave., it makes the sound that tin foil makes when you crumble it in your hands. It's going to be a cold winter.

I've actually forced myself to write at least a small paragraph or two for this week's blog. I'm proud of my forcefulness of will that I conjured up and focused towards the angry gods of my own apathy. Hee! Silliness.

Friday, December o7, 2o18

1. Went to see Ralph Breaks the Internet. And though it is a very much a "kid" movie . . . me and David laughed . . . a lot. Well, produced, relevant and full of pop references. Good show.

2. Went to Walmart after the movie to pick-up a few things like batteries for my TV remote, my computer's mouse and . . . well, that's about it. I started to get tired, hard to breath so we cut the day short and I hurried home to use the nebulizer. I gotta get a rescue inhaler. This running home because I can't breathe . . . it's getting old.
3. We met a sweet girl working at the diner in The Warren named Xiggy (pronounced Ziggy). Always a surprise to find if you just walk out of the security of your apartment.
4. And so I'll say goodnight to this week's blog entries. Not much here, I think. But then again what do I know? Maybe I "accidently" said something profound with these words. Perhaps, something about myself that I didn't even know existed within me, perhaps I subconsciously told you something, whispered it to you through the computer, something so telling about what I am as a human thingy living and breathing in this . . . this particular fleshy existence. {thoughtful smile}