Antidote

My blog is relatively little known, which is okay with me. I write for fun and because I’m partly a writer, partly a poet, partly an engineer, partly a … okay, you get my point.

But if I wanted to have a massive readership, I could. All I need do is write a blog post that contains the most outrageous claims that I can imagine, that makes promises and guarantees that no one could ever deliver, and in general is so unbelievable as to be laughable. Then I would sit back and watch twenty percent of Americans swallow it whole, believing every word. But ethics prevents me from doing that. Just from grazing many articles on the Web, it appears having ethics puts me into a minority of bloggers.

Oh, by the way, I had Covid-19 this week. I managed to get over it in three days by using a special formula I concocted from my years of studying chemistry and microbiology. It may sound odd that someone who is a writer, a poet, and an electrical engineer would also have studied chemistry and microbiology, but my interests are very wide-ranging. I’m like a modern-day Michelangelo except without the fame.

Anyway, my anti-Covid formula worked like a charm. Tuesday was the first and roughest day. I couldn’t eat; I was weak. I couldn’t get out of bed. My stomach was queasy, my sense of taste was shot. Late that night, I started my formula and each succeeding day I was better. By late Friday I felt so good I ate a BK Whopper with fries. That’s when I knew I had taken too much of the formula and I had to cut back.

To tell the truth, I did have some help concocting the anti-Covid formula. Tuesday night an angel appeared at the foot of my bed. He looked around my room and then looked straight at me and said, “Your bedroom is a mess. But that’s not why I’m here.” Then he told me how to complete the formula. I asked him why he was helping me and the angel said simply, “It is not your time.” And then he vanished.

I remember thinking, “If I write about what just happened, no one will believe it.” Then my next thought was, “Of course people will believe it. Twenty percent of Americans will believe anything. I bet twenty percent of Americans would believe the Washington Redskins could win the next Super Bowl.”

No, I’m wrong. There are some things that no one would believe.

Tech Support

Want a job where you don’t have to know anything? Then tech support is for you!

When I had DSL Internet, the service was terrible, sometimes going to a download speed of zero. When I called tech support, I always found myself talking with Indian-tech-support-guy, and so first there was a bit of a language barrier. But generally it went like this:

Me: “My Internet is broken. My download speed is zero.”

Guy: “Okay, first go to this website and take the speed test.”

Me: “I can’t do that. I can’t go anywhere, my Internet is broken.

Sometimes after a few minutes, the speed test page would load.

Me: “Okay, I’m at the speed test page.”

Guy: “Click on the start button.”

Silence for 30 seconds.

Guy: “Did you click the start button?”

Me: “Yes.”

Guy: “What does the speed test say is your speed?”

Me: “Zero.”

I have a friend whose DSL Internet ranges from acceptable to unusable. I can start a video chat with her and everything is fine for 15 minutes, then the picture goes to hell and the sound drops out. It will eventually come back, but then drops out again in a continuing cycle of “here it is—now it’s gone.” I complained to her about it so many times that she finally called tech support, even though we both were fairly sure it was probably pointless. She said she got connected to a tech support woman in Egypt.

The tech support woman told her that her computer was too old. My friend replied, “it’s not an old computer, it has Windows 10.” To which the tech support woman said, “You see, Windows 10 is ten years old.”

Windows 10 was released in July, 2015, so at this date it is almost 5 years old. Apparently the tech support person thought “10” was a reference to the year 2010 rather than a version number. It looks like the job requirement for tech support is you must be breathing.

More Strangeness

I’ve blogged a half dozen times about the odd things that have happened to me in this house. Today another odd thing happened. I can’t prove it happened; you’ll have to take my word for it. It’s a very mundane thing, and yet completely unexplainable.

I have a beard trimmer that I use a couple times a week to make my beard acceptable to regular society. It came in a case with some attachments and a little brush which I’ll call brush-1. I used brush-1 to brush the beard trimmings (shavings?) off the trimmer.

One day, brush-1 disappeared. I looked all over for it. I searched the bathroom floor; I searched the bathroom trash can; I searched the top of my bedroom dresser. But brush-1 was gone.

I had another little brush which I’ll call brush-2. It was slightly larger than brush-1 and was made to fill a different purpose, but it was small enough to make an ideal beard trimmer cleaner. In fact, I preferred it to brush-1. I kept brush-2 in the beard trimmer case, just as I had kept brush-1 in the case before it vanished.

One day brush-2 vanished. Once again I searched everywhere it might be. It’s not in the beard trimmer case. It’s not in the bathroom. It’s not in the bathroom trash can. Where can brush-2 be? Has it eloped with brush-1?

I was puzzled but I didn’t worry about brush-2. I began using an old toothbrush to clean my trimmer, and it worked just fine. In fact, I think it worked better than brush-1 and brush-2. Nice large handle, nice large brush head; it was perfect. I used it for a long time.

I have a video appointment with my doctor this morning, so I decided to spruce up a little. I opened my beard trimmer case, I took out the trimmer, and I selected the clipper guard that I wanted to use. I went to the bathroom and used the trimmer. I returned to my bedroom to replace the trimmer back into its case, and guess what…?! There, lying in the case, was brush-1. Brush-1 was back! But back from where?

Someone is going to say it was there all along and I just overlooked it. Lo siento, muchacho. Brush-1 was missing for over two years. It was gone! In all those times I used the beard trimmer, do you really think brush-1 was in the case and I just didn’t see it? I call that “reaching” for an explanation. No, it reappeared this morning and I don’t know where it has been nor how long it will stay with me this time.

Perhaps brush-2 will come home, too. I’d like to see it again, even if it returns only for a brief visit.

The video visit with my doctor is now two hours away. It’s going to happen over the phone. I just hope my phone doesn’t vanish before she calls. Come to think of it, where is my phone?

A Moment In Time

The world is changing and I just watch it change. It’s like floating down a river in a canoe. I watch the scenery go by, and sometimes there may be a small rapid that requires me to paddle strenuously, and then I go back to drifting with the current past high cliffs and low forest and under the occasional bridge, sometimes waving at someone on the shore, sometimes passing a small beach with people sitting in the sun. I look at them, they look at me, and a minute later they’re history. Sometimes I might take a photo of the scenery I’m drifting past, just to have a memento of my trip.

The history of nations and the history of humanity are not too different from that canoe trip. Sometimes in America there are turbulent times. Now is a moment in which many Americans are dealing with the consequences of their forebears’ actions. Some of those actions were evil in today’s context, but at that time they didn’t know it. Nineteenth century Southerners didn’t think of themselves as evil. The world was the way it was and they simply existed in it, like fish in water that cannot understand the concept that they are wet.

We can’t see the things we take for granted today that might be repulsive decades or centuries from now. As righteous as we may think we are, I can assure you we are not perfect and we are even now doing things that would embarrass us—or our descendants—in the future. Those who refuse to be embarrassed are simply stuck in time, like a canoe trapped in an eddy. They cannot make progress unless they can get out of the eddy, but most do not see the eddy or understand why they need to leave it. Only death can free them.

At some point I get out of the river, and another weekend, another month, another year, I put my canoe into the water once more. I remember where some of the rapids and eddies are located on the river, and I am able to avoid them. Every trip down the river teaches me something useful. Every trip down the river, in the spring, summer, and fall, in high water and low water, is different. Some trips reveal rocks I didn’t know were there until the water was low. The passing scenery on some trips is so different that the river looks like a different river. And on every trip, there is something to learn.

Mrs. Pulley

It’s Wednesday. The days are rushing past. It seems like only yesterday it was Tuesday. Where does the time go?

A female friend just “broke up” with me by text message. My phone was off and I forgot to turn it on until early afternoon. That’s when I saw she had sent, and then deleted, several text messages. The final message was the “breakup” message. “It looks like you don’t want to hear from me.” Etc.

Truthfully, I’ve had more than my share of female drama. ¡No más! (Spanish for “no more!”) Her native language is Spanish, of which I remember “sí” and “no” from high school Spanish classes. You see, when I was in high school, I learned enough to pass the exams (most of them) and not much beyond that. I remember “hola” and “adiós.” I tried to learn “left and right” but it was too complicated. They translate as “izquierda y derecha” for feminine gender and izquierdo y derecho for masculine gender. Spanish is full of adjectives and nouns that are different for different genders, so if you want to learn Spanish, you basically have to learn two languages. Good luck.

All I remember from my high school Spanish classes is the teacher. Her name was Mrs. Pulley, and even today she holds the record for the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in or out of high school. So I have this story.

I had a ball point pen that I used in class. On the upper half of the pen was a figure of a woman. The image was about an inch tall and she was wearing a swimsuit. But when the pen was upside down, her swimsuit slid off, revealing her nude body.

I was sitting in the front row as Mrs. Pulley was speaking to the class. I was absent-mindedly tapping my pen on my desk, and it was upside down. Mrs. Pulley looked down, and with supernatural visual acuity, she saw the naked woman on my pen. Her face turned red and she ran to the back of the room and sat down in one of the little desks with her face in her hand. The kids all around me turned to me and asked, “What happened?” I replied with a shrug and “beats me” and tried to put a look of bafflement on my face.

Mrs. Pulley recovered with no permanent damage. She took my pen and gave me hers, although her pen had no naked lady on it, which to this day I think was an unfair trade, but life goes on.

But regarding my former female friend, if she thinks she can hurt me by not speaking to me and not texting me, she’s going to be disappointed. I grew up in the era when people “texted” using Morse code, one letter at a time. I was a ham radio operator. I used Morse code. I often waited with anticipation for the next letter of the alphabet to arrive. So if a person stops speaking to me now, it takes me months to notice. Modern times. You can have a friendship when you go to bed and 12 hours later you don’t have a friendship because they texted you and you didn’t respond within 30 seconds. It’s just as well. I don’t need friends who are that quick to pull the you’re-dead-to-me trigger.

Nighttime Interloper

I was tired and I went to bed early: 8:30PM. About 5 or 10 minutes later a friend texted me to see if we could talk for a few minutes. I told her I had gone to bed. I rarely say “No” to someone who wants to chat with me, but I felt really tired. I went to sleep immediately after that.

Time passed and I awoke in darkness. I knew the electric power was off because the house was too dark. As I lay in bed, I saw a shadowy figure move silently past my bedroom door and enter the other downstairs bedroom which I use for storage. I couldn’t be sure he was real because the house was so dark, but then I saw the dark figure leave the bedroom and go back up the hallway toward the front of the house.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. I moved silently to the bedroom door, and I saw the stranger coming back down the hall toward me. When he got within range I threw a mighty punch at him. I connected only with air. The stranger had backed off and I had missed, but now he was aware of me. He came back toward me and I whirled a high kick at him—something you might see in a Kung-Fu movie. Incredibly, I missed again and whirled myself down onto the floor. Now what? The shadowy figure had the advantage. He was on his feet and I was on the floor.

And then I awoke for the second time. I was on the floor beside my bed. My dreaming body had thrown itself off my bed and I was on the floor with my bed sheet crumpled under me. I clambered onto the bed and switched on the lamp beside the bed. The time was 10:30PM.

The incident had really awakened me. I decided to get up for a while. And then, because I had nothing else to blog about, I decided to blog about this “nighttime interloper.”

It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. One night I was dreaming and I threw a powerful kick, and my dreaming body kicked the cast iron radiator beside my bed. That hurt! Another time I dreamed I was trying to reach something above me, and I jumped for it, with the result that my actual hand collided hard with the head of the bed. I’ve even thrown myself, along with my sheet and blanket, off the bed and onto the floor, so this wasn’t the first time.

Now I’m wide awake and it’s 11:15PM. Well, shoot. Might as well watch some YouTube. And I’m making a mental note: don’t eat chili dogs before going to bed.

Prophecy

Some days, I feel good. Some days I feel less good. Today was one of those less-good days.

After lunch I lay down in bed. I fell asleep. I dreamed a long dream, and it was a “normal” dream, as dreams go. I awoke. I could hear rain falling. The window next to my bed was open and the air seemed cooler.

I remembered the dream for a while. Then I fell asleep again and dreamed another long dream. This was a bizarre dream. I’m sure it had meaning, but dreams fade so quickly when we awaken that it’s usually difficult to decipher them. They’re like a picture puzzle with half the pieces missing.

The part of my dream that was most resounding was the end of the dream. I saw the protesters, I saw the fires at night, I saw police shooting at looters and peaceful marchers alike. And I heard the words repeating:

Nothing is going to change.

Nothing is going to change.

Nothing is going to change.

Monument Avenue

The mayor of Richmond, Virginia (capital of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War) has stated that the monuments on Monument Avenue are coming down at some time after July 1st. There are monuments to five significant men related to the South and the Civil War: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, and Mathew Fontaine Maury.

I have no say in this decision. Whether the monuments and statues are there, or whether they’re gone, it won’t affect my life. And truthfully, I doubt it will affect anyone’s life. If only getting rid of statues would remove racism and discrimination from America—if only it were that easy. But it isn’t. The day after the statues are gone, we’ll be the same people living in the same houses and working at the same jobs. For racism to disappear, the change has to be in our minds and hearts, not in bronze statues on marble pedestals.

Can we still call the street Monument Avenue when the monuments are gone? After all, Monument Avenue is relatively well known. It has a Wikipedia entry. The avenue is home to an annual 10 kilometer running event that is named for the avenue: the Monument Avenue 10K. The avenue draws tourists from other states who want to see a slice of history.

And there’s this: Monument Avenue is designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. A bronze plaque in the avenue’s grassy median states:

“This district possesses National Significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.

“This grand avenue retains a unique combination of commemorative sculpture, community planning, and distinctive architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

I would like to include photos of some of the commemorative sculptures, but at the moment they’ve been decorated with various colors of graffiti and they’re not looking so good.