let’s talk about the weather

I was just looking at some of my old posts and made a good observation some time before and after the main block of time defined by the pandemic:[*]
https://mattqmcgovern.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/tea-ceremony/
https://mattqmcgovern.wordpress.com/2022/11/23/tea-for-melpomene/

*[Side-stepping the fact that the block of time defined by the pandemic varies widely for most people, not excluding the fact that for many there is no “after” to it.]

What I find most interesting is that both posts were about tea. I don’t remember doing that on purpose when I wrote “Tea for Melpomene”. I just remember being relieved to get ANY post written after three years.

Before the lockdown, I was looking for the space – for the ceremony – for the escape. In 2019, I wrote about “thinking of characters in my head that are saving the world somewhere involving the preparation of food on a windy day”.

In the latter post I wrote in italics my thoughts on how a societal lockdown should have been a personal heaven for me:
“We hammered away at the ice wall until the window above the door was visible.
In time we were able to pry it open, our hands bleeding and frozen.
After squeezing through, we moved the weakest of us into deeper chasms to be given aid and manufacture warmth.
The weakest were the first to fight and some would not stay long inside.
Our preparations were more than adequate though we needed to remind ourselves of this.”

Here in 2023, I find myself continuing a ceremony/ritual that I had started, remarkably enough, in 2019. I decided to take time off the week immediately following the clock change for daylight savings. The first time was in 2020 and I took the whole week off. This ended smack dab right before the lockdown itself. I actually went back to work to an empty building and city center in Philly before going home later to work remotely.

The next time I did it was this year, taking 3 days off to go to New York. It’s like I’m almost celebrating a ritual of changing the clocks (that every single person I know hates) and going somewhere to acknowledge it. It would be cool if I had a clock in Queens or somewhere I had to manually change.

Lately I find myself needing to do more than schedule time to go to New York. I need something every day sometimes. A ritual or ceremony to remind me of it, bring me closer to it, etc.

That quote of mine in November of 2022 touches upon some important topics and looking at the two posts emphasizes their importance. I need to take more time to devote to this awareness, this practice, this space where Melpomene is a local lady from South Philly who visits me when I feed the feral cats in my backyard and wants me to write and be well. #pomeeni #phillyaccent

I had originally wanted to dump an idea for mental health awareness into this space, and how I liken it to awareness of the weather for ancient ship captains. Before apps, radios, and engines, those old sea salts would just look at the sky and feel the wind to determine what the weather would be like the next day. Making the correct determination and charting their course appropriately could be the difference between life and death back then.

I see individuals today as those old sea captains were back then…with a need to look to the weather to determine the right course.

This isn’t just something to do every once in a while but more often.

Melpomene in the Vatican. Hopefully I get to see her in August.

“I wanted to be with you alone
And talk about the weather”
-Head Over Heels, Tears for Fears

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some posts from another place

Here’s a compilation of some of my transmissions to another world.

Sometimes dumplings pretend to be ravioli, and little dumplings pretend to be tortellini. If you eat them in alfredo sauce you’ll see what I mean. (disclaimer: I know ravioli doesn’t like to admit this)

Something I’ve noticed in the “return to office” this year is a lack of office ettiquette, which I supposed is to be expected.

One that gets to me is laptop meetings on speaker. This company will give you headphones for free, but even if it didn’t it’s still up to each person to sensibly realize that the rest of the people around you don’t need to hear your meeting.

I can understand a support emergency where multiple people surround one person and their laptop, but I swear I’m surrounded by people who apparently don’t give a sh!t.

So after several days and a few looks at people I finally say something and I swear the guy looked accosted and leaves shortly afterwards. Lol. I guess I must have looked intense when I told him I couldn’t hear myself think.

There was a day where Yeti became a popular theme. Someone posted a comment elsewhere on social media and it reminded me of the email scams I see with the name Yeti and I went from there. Each time I comment to various separate posts I would bring in the Yeti somehow.It’s neat to know that some people out there get what I’m doing and I don’t feel like I have to explain.

Separate thought: the coca-cola bears would kick the shit out of a yeti, especially since they’ve once been trained by Ronda Rousey, even though she’s working for a gaming world now.

Some thoughts on my way to the Yeti:

need to deify a Yeti that roams south philly and south jersey looking for nepalese and tibetan cuisine.
also, black-eyed children and aliens and similarity to Fae? (topic from an old radio show)
I need to stick to a more consistent format. React to a real life thing and put it on the stage. Keep it short. Maybe always end with reality or at least have the tags to follow.
It may also be best to not jump around too much with new stages/settings.

The Irish Pub probably run by the Fae is a good setting, with various characters/creatures/entities working there or visiting, etc.
I need to know how to refer to one of the Fae individually. Faery is the non-gendered evil version of fairy (also non-gendered).
Some Firesign Theater influence, maybe look through some old podcasts
I don’t always have to talk about things I want to attack because then I’m just complaining. I also don’t always need to be comic. Regardless, my identity being original means being creative with these little snippets.
I could use some examples of non-comic and non-complaining snippets.

Sarcasm is always welcome as long as it isn’t too negative. I see so much examples of various “proposals” in social media (usually to women), I want to make one up for me since I never get those kind, just the spam kind.

I had to pick a new electricity supplier since my current one had just expired. I found a cheaper option using renewable energy with a fixed rate from a curious numbat named Xabe.

Normally these marsupials eat only termites but Xabe and his sister changed their diet almost exclusively to pistacchio nuts because of the lack of termites in south philly.

I didn’t want to offend Xabe or his sister by wishing a dearth of termites in my neighborhood for obvious threat-to-homestead reasons, but he said they generate more energy with the pistachio nuts.
They eat the shells AND the nuts though they still have to individually shell them like we do which I found interesting.

So, this whole task made me have to think of things like:
-refresh my memory so I can try to remember just what the hell is my electricity utility and supplier and what are the terms, rates, fees, etc.
-where can I log in to all these things and will I become upset because I’m too late because it’s already renewed and now I have to pay more
-if I pick a new supplier will I get a cancellation fee from the current one
-what worst case scenarios can I dream up that will keep me from picking any new electricity providers because of some fine print that I haven’t even thought of looking up yet
-how can I personify a volt so I can creatively complain about all this later?

Hopefully it works out cleanly, the switchover will happen in the next week.

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muse intern shift

Too much peppermint syrup again. Maybe it’s time to stop going to that coffee shop, he thought to himself as he changed into a raccoon.

Wow, I’ll be able to eat hot dogs again, he thought as he wondered if he was still a he. He? looked down to see and unsurprisingly forgot all about his internship that technically was over moments earlier.

Much more covered in fur than he was a minute before, he/she couldn’t tell so decided to ask one of the very shocked looking customers in the waiting room in front of him/her/it.

“Are raccoons sex easy to figure out?” he asked the room.

“Does this mean you’re not going to look up my existence account?” a large and very newly hatched bird with a polar bear’s head said, her cracked egg all around her.

“What’s wrong with it…” the raccoon said, running a hand scanner over the sheet the bear-bird left on the desk. “Ah yes, you definitely exist. Or wait, you DID exist. Roughly a hundred million years ago. Do you know anything about raccoon gender?”

The bird bear’s eyebrow shot up.

“Pomini gonna be pissed if you leave and there’s birth fluid all over the floor.” ArJee the possom from down the hall said, carrying a filebox into the room.

“Hey, my internship ends when it ends. I don’t control when I change, I was a cat a minute ago.”

“Whose fault is that, probably the same fault as baby bird-bear there. They making realities off schedule again and you’re here so you know what Pomini say. Hey, this my song.” ArJee turned up the computer speakers to Nine Inch Nails’ Pinion.

Knowing Pomini, officially known as Melpomene and one of the original Muses, firmly believed in the mantra “You broke it you bought it” and used it liberally, if not always correctly. It happened on your watch, it’s your business.

“Are you a bird or a bear?”, Raccoon said, turning down the music and sitting down at the computer.

“I started out as a bear, next thing I was in this egg. And my papers are no good they said.”

“Ok. Here’s the bathroom key, clean up and decide what you want to be, I’ll get your paperwork squared away as soon as I figure out my gender. You sure nobody knows a raccoon’s gender?”, Raccoon said this last to the room and looking down at the computer

“I’m told not to get close enough to find out, they’re supposed to be wild. And you’re a lady raccoon.” this voice came from the tall german shepherd, watching the bear move off into the bathroom, dripping egg fluid behind her.

Finding this out was welcome, but the smart-ass dog knowing it first was annoying. “Damn right we wild, not like you ever gonna find out, pup. Whoever’s putting their own reality in the gallery, are they signing their own name at least? And where’s there a hot dog cart?”, the raccoon found it easier to get settled into her new reality when an attitude was percolating. Some things didn’t change at least.

“You’ll have to ask the hot dog vender hisself, out in front. He’s your reality forger.” the dog said, jotting something down in a little notebook, and walking toward the door.

“Oh, a detective then. Before you arrest them, can you hold them so we get our existences filed, also I want a hot dog.”

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Artful surroundings

One project that I had been looking to start since I bought my house was that of finding new art to put on my walls. The stars and planets align favorably for this project (my budget is good right now) so I have begun. I’ve been telling a friend of mine for several years that I would buy her photos when I got a house and now the time has come to do that.

These particular photos are of animals at the Philadelphia Zoo, and it just so happens that some of these animals figure largely in the novel I am still developing. I don’t know the future of this novel manuscript; my advice varies from splitting it into two novels to downgrading the age of the main characters (overhaul). Regardless of what I do, seeing the animals on my wall will always have an influence on me. They will remind me of what I thought the characters saw once upon a time when they were wide-eyed and imaginative, and then later after they saw and experienced.

It’s not the first time I’ve regarded the path of the characters with that of my own as a writer, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The rest of my art finding will take some time as I am still learning where the best places are to buy art online and which artists/galleries/sites sell high quality images or the frames themselves, etc. I think any selection needs to influence my own creativity, add something I like to look at on my walls, and maybe even inspire someone else’s imagination.

Lastly, these artful surroundings are a reflection of me. When people come to my house and see the art I have on my walls it may spur conversation about it. Some of those conversations are bound to yield fruitful art observations. 🙂

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