Fantasy, Reality, and the Unreal – Thoughts from July 12 and 15, 2023

July 12, 2023

Listen up, people. I’ve got something to say. Just kidding. If I had something to say, I would just say it. I don’t like it when people introduce what they’re going to say. Patti does this quite often. She says, “I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise not to yell.” First off, I’ve yelled around Patti, but never at her. Sometimes, she tells me what she’s going to talk about and says she knows what I’m going to say. Her prediction of my words is never correct. It’s especially fun when she does her impression of me. It is the same impression she does for every man she impersonates. We all sound like big, dumb, and angry monsters. Leave the introductions for your lecture series out of a regular conversation. Just say what you have to say.

I finished listening to a fantasy series today. There were five books in the series and each book was about eleven hours long. I teared up metaphorically at the end. The series was Fablehaven in case you care. It combined fantasy creatures and beings from several different mythological stories and invented a few new ones. It was a modern fantasy. Cars, computers, and big screen televisions exist along with dragons, fairies, and unicorns. Many creatures can also transform into humans. My biggest complaint was the use of evil to explain many creatures’ behavior. Some creatures in the series were evil just because they’re evil. I need more of an explanation than that. In the fantasy novels that I write, I will have no heroes or villains. Evil doesn’t exist, just like in real life. In my stories, I will explain all the truly bad behavior through understanding the character’s point of view.

It’s my Friday today. That means I’m off from work tomorrow and the next day, but today is actually Wednesday. There are several things I need to do and other things I want to do. Patti wants me to pull up the carpet where the water heater leaked, but I’m not sure that is necessary. I will check it out before I make any decisions. I’m weird that way. Doing research is a part of every decision I make. When I do something, I need to know what I’m doing will not make things worse. I’ve learned many things from writing these Thoughts papers. They will influence all of my writing, including my works of fiction.

July 15, 2023

I don’t know how to begin today, so I’m just going to start typing. We have been seeing ups and downs with Quest. She has gotten very skinny, her fur is shedding more than ever, and she still has problems with pooing. Now, she is completely blind. We have tested her in different situations and watched her alone and we can’t deny the reality. If she doesn’t smell or feel something in front of her, she doesn’t know it’s there. She can still hear us so we make sure we talk to her when we go in a different room. I hope this is temporary, but I’m not counting on it. We put flea medication on all the cats. It could be a coincidence that we started noticing how bad Quest was right after, but I’m wondering if the trauma of her struggling when we put it on had something to do with it. It was the final stress on her already worsening eyes. Even if it is temporary, she still has all her other problems to deal with.

I’m listening to the second of two Nora Ephron books. I found out in looking up her age that she died in 2012 at age 71. She was a writer who could afford to live in New York. She had money. Complaining about a law that removed rent control for people making over $250,000 a year gives you an idea how much money. People, especially in New York, who have that kind of money have rich people problems. They also have several divorces, reconstructive surgeries, and a warped sense of the world. She fell in love with her house while people came and went in her life. My parents raised me in a well-to-do home, we lived on snob hill, and I had more toys than I knew what to do with. We were never rich, though. My parents also went through a bankruptcy. That helped ground me and kept me from being a rich A-hole.

If you’re reading this in my third best-selling book someday, I might be rich. If I am, I will never be more than Nora Ephron’s level of wealth. One thing I can assure you, I will never move to New York. I may visit it more than the zero times I have visited thus far in my life, but it is not somewhere I could live. Every time I see people filming on the streets there, the people look dead until they realize there is a camera on them. To survive, you must ignore everyone around you. That’s not the life I want to live. It’s similar in Los Angeles, but the weather is better in California.

Patti texted me and we talked about Quest. She said I was blaming her for Quest’s situation. I told her I didn’t blame her or myself. I just want to help her as much as I can. Whether or not I believe it myself is a different matter. Patti’s smoking is always on my mind and I’m sure it is for her as well. I blame Patti and myself because no one else could be to blame but us. She was the last one we took from her litter and she will be the last one to leave us. I was tearing up when I was talking to Patti and I’m tearing up now. I would say more but I’m tired of crying.