I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

I'm stuck home yet again, today--I seriously need to go shopping, but my foot is having other ideas--it's even prettier today than yesterday--the colours are all the way up to the ankle now, and the toes, as well....oh well, maybe after work tonight...I just tried tidying the kitchen--ouch! Almost had another blinking fall! Well, I'll keep trying...as usual, no one else is going to do it, so if I don't, it won't happen at all..and I can't stand living in a pigsty--well, for more than a few days, at any rate.

So, I'm just bored, and before I hobble back to bed, thought I'd throw a few things at you...truth to tell, it's older stuff, so you probably won't find it of much interest. My writing skills aren't exactly sharp as a tack, today, hence, my giving you old stuff to read. Sorry.

Loss

Short Essay about a visit to an opening at a modern art gallery:

My eyes roam around the neutral walls, and the first thing that draws them in is the colors. It looks like a display of art by some exotic tribsewoman. My mind whirls. A myriad of wall hangings positively spews the full spectrum of color. Quilted fabrics intermingle like the patrons who are viewing them. Looking at the single inch of the stitching patterns, is like trying to focus the eye on a lone butterfly in the middle of Times Square. The various fabrics and the multitude of textures and patterns, runs crazily together like a swarm of mad bees. No rhyme or reason prevails. It’s as if some mad quilt lady was doing to fabric, what Frankenstein did to his monster. The difference being, she makes this work.

A sharp contrast could be found on the opposite wall of the gallery. Here, a few pieces of art are displayed, which are the essesence of simplicity. They are meant, is seems to me, to calm the soul. Off-white, cloud-like images of marshes and other natural scenes, soothe the mind like spring sunshine after a harsh winter. I look at the one titled: “Redwing.” It stirs up memories of contentment and childhood. A song floats through my head, the song of the redwing blackbird, sitting on a dead cat-tail in the marsh below the highway. A flash of black wing smeared with red and yellow, the bend of the cattails on the wind, the musty smell of the ditch. I pause a moment longer, not wanting to break the spell, then I walk away, a mixture of sad and happiness in me.

Journal Entry from the early 1980's:

While out on one of my Sunday hikes, I paused beneath a stately spruce tree. I stood there silently in the dappled sunlight, in total awe of the way the sun reflected so brilliantly off the waving boughs, like a million white jewels. I swear that I fancied that I could almost hear the sun's laughter, as the branches swayed and rocked in the gentle breeze. The sun danced with the indivdual needles, sending down shadows to play around my booted feet. Long ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of his time with nature, that he was "happy to the brink of fear." That is true. But it goes beyond that even still. It's a moment that can almost stop time, and perhaps, in a way, it does. Because when I'm in that moment, that instant when I feel a genuine balance, a harmony with nature, I capture that moment within my heart and mind and soul forever. It never leaves me. I know that twently years from now, perhaps I won't have these experiences any longer...but, I have that one microcosm in time inside me. All I'll have to do, is remember, and the feelings will be as real and vivid to me, as the first time. The sunshine and shadows live on inside me forever.

Partial skit written as an exercise for a college class: (only found the first few pages)--it's stupid, but the project was ungraded so I don't think I spent much time on this, as I recall...

"Weather or Not"

The action of the skit takes place in the National Weather Center, located somewhere in the Mid-Western United States.

CHARACTERS:

MR. PRESIDENT: ........a distinguished gentleman, who's wallet is bigger than his brain.

RANDY:…..the weatherman in charge of a tornado study program. He’s an overly enthusiastic overachiever.

MARGO:….RANDY’S adoring assistant. She’s got more air in her head than a weather balloon.

CLYDE:…..MR. PRESIDENT’S Secret Service man. He gaily goes about the task of watching the president’s backsides.

FRANCINE:…..She’s just someone who was walking by. She’s a very nosy know-it-all.

SETTING: The “war room” of the tornado storm watch center. A computer sits on a desk, charting the track of a large severe thunderstorm. It is dimly lit, until MR. PRESIDENT and CLYDE walk onstage from stage right. The lights go up. They are followed by RANDY and MARGO, who hovers over RANDY’S shoulder.

RANDY; (Proudly) … Mr. President, here in the tornado storm watch center, I--that is to say, we, can track any severe weather that breaks out in the Mid-western United States right from that computer over there. If we think there’s a tornado, I simply push a red button and the alarm goes out instantly. This is what we at the National Weather Center refer to as the “war room.”

MR. PRESIDENT: (Stalks importantly around the room, followed closely by CLYDE.) We’re at war with the weather now? By gosh, my Homeland Security really gets around. Well, why not? If we can make a perpetual fight with terrorists…hmmm…not bad, not bad at all..but can we make any money from it? Well done, Randy…and..and..

MARGO: Margo, Mr. President, I’m his assistant, remember? We met two minutes ago…

CLYDE: (Towrds the end of MARGO’S line, RANDY Leans into the president) Psst--I think, in this case sir, that the term “war room’ is just an expression.

MR. PRESIDENT: (Momentarily dumbstruck. Whispers loudly to CLYDE) Huh? Wha? Oh…hrumph…uh yes, yes, Clyde..I know that! I was just tryin’ to sound…(gropes for word, lights up.)To sound..enthusiastic for these young people. (Conspiritorily) Not much of a room, is it?

(CLYDE looks around the room, tilting his head in appraisal)

CLYDE: Oh, sir, but it’s a cute little space, even if it doesn’t have any windows in it…with a little fixing up, the right color and furniture combinations, we could turn it into a den or a nice sitting room…

MR. PRESIDENT: Not now, Clyde.

CLYDE: Yes sir.

RANDY walks up to MR. PRESIDENT and guides him over to the computer. MARGO faithfully follows RANDY, almost tripping into CLYDE.

RANDY: If you’ll come this way sir, I’ll introduce you to ROCKY.

MR. PRESIDENT: Slyvester Stallone’s here? Hot-dang! Now there’s a guy who can fight terrorists!

RANDY: Uh--no, sir. ROCKY stands for the R-K 2000, the world’s most advanced weather supercomputer.

MR. PRESIDENT: Huh? Wha? Hrummph…Uh, oh yeah, I knew that…

MARGO: (Edging over to MR. PRESIDENT) Gee, Mr. President, can I just say how proud my boss and I are to have you here? I mean, it’s such an honor to have you here! For the last two weeks that’s all the office staff was talking about, having you here! And most of them didn’t even vote for you…except the guy from Florida…but he doesn’t count.

RANDY: Uh..Margo,

MARGO: All week long, It was the president this, the president that…and it was mostly all good stuff, for a change…

RANDY: Uh…that’s good, Margo. Why don’t you see if any new data has come in?

MARGO: Okay. (She walks offstage.)

RANDY: You see, Mr. President, ROCKY is the best weather forecast system in history.

See that big black button? Push that button, and you can instantly see where the most likely trouble spots are, anywhere in seven states. Go ahead, turn him on.

CLYDE: Ooo--that’s a job I’d like.

MR. PRESIDENT: Shut up, Clyde.

CLYDE: Yes, sir.

MR. PRESIDENT: Now, which button do I press?

RANDY: The big black one that says “on,’ sir.

MR. PRESIDENT: Hrrumph…uh, umm…oh yes. (He stares at the screen, puzzled.) Randy, what’s all of those there, big lines on the screen? They look like big squares, but they’re not all the same size or shape…

RANDY: Those are states, sir. The little lines are the borders…see, here’s where we are, Iowa, and there’s Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconson, Missouri, Oklahoma…

MR. PRESIDENT: I see. And what’s all of that there red, blue and green and purple stuff, covering up the states? All them colors is real pretty…

CLYDE: Oh, yes, they are pretty, Mr. President…

MR. PRESIDENT: Not now, clyde.

CLYDE: Yes, sir.

(FRANCINE enters from stage left, wanders around the “room,” looking around.)

RANDY: That’s weather being pickup up by our super-duper-doppleganger radar, sir. I can just look at it and issue an alert to all effected states in less than a second. Cool, huh?

MR. PRESIDENT: Did Homeland Security come up with that? The weather can be evil, and we hav’ta keep alert against evil…the weather is part of the Axis of Evil! I bet you didn't know that, Clyde, did you?

DAVID "Teninch" TENNANT: "Oh no! Not more screaming fan girls!?!...and they're carrying tape measures? I have to get a new nickname!"

Well, I know it was stupid bawling over a TV show, last night. Maybe I should forget about Dr Who for awhile...maybe I am getting too obsessed with it--I've never cried over not seeing a TV show before...how shallow is that?

Anyhow, I was really tired, depressed and in tremendous pain, last night. Might have had something to do with it, I suppose. First night back to work and all. Really hurt having to lose more than 2 days pay--at a time when I can least afford to. But, that's the way things are with me--when I'm down, life seems to delight in pounding me down some more. Life is a really nasty bully, the bastard.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to manage taking out the rubbish today...and tidy the apartment--looks like a hurricane blew through here--and, I've no clean trousers to wear, as I was so tired last night, I clean forgot to wash out a pair in the kitchen sink, before retiring. Ah, well, dirty trousers for me, then, today. At least my knickers are clean.

My sister called today. First time since New Year's. Seems my nephew is going to a home for delinquent boys (ASBO type kids) for his schooling, now. Sis is staying home until her SUV is roadworthy again--partner doesn't like her taking his car, well--that, and her partner is a neanderthal redneck, the type that likes his woman barefoot and pregnant, as they say. He made her get a boob job, for pity's sake! He said he didn't like her tits the way they were--and I should go 'round looking for a guy like that? No. I made the right decision, I'm thinking, to be an old maid.

Anyway, yeah, I'm not giving up Who completely, but I do think I"m going to back off--it's just a TV show, and love it or not, I shouldn't be obsessing over some British TV show--unless I was British, of course. I mean, it's not like I can do anything positive with DR Who, just watch it, and maybe talk about it sometimes--well, not now, as I won't be seeing any of the new stuff. But I can still talk about some of the old stuff, sometimes, as well. But really, getting all heartbroken over a TV show...not like me. Always adored the show, but...I don't know. I was really bawling over it, last night...that's not something I've ever done before.

So, (sort of)...goodbye Dr Who, I suppose.

What happened after actor David Tennant sniffed the insides of his trainers.