The chicken meat has frozen itself around the bars of the basket in the freezer. Earlier, I’d jammed a butter knife into the packages to free them. I got a few, and some were too stubborn to extract.

And today I have no chicken for dinner. What will I do? I’m hungry!

My plan is foiled. I had purchased chicken to solve this problem, but this best laid plan came to naught.

What choices am I left with?

Freedom of choice is best served with time. When I have time I have more choices. Since I burned up my time by giving up on freeing the chicken from the cage in the freezer, I have to come up with another choice.

I have money. I have a car. I could go buy some food.

I remember other hungry times when I had a car but no money. That was a time to look in the cupboard.

What is in my cupboard? I had been looking for meat, because I wanted protein. What are the other options?

Time and resources increase the choices. Resources are the result of work done previously, often by me. Did I stock my cupboard previously? Did I save money from a paycheck I earned before?

Some resources arrive as gifts. When I play monopoly, I get 200 dollars after I pass GO. I have the gift of 24 hours each day I live. I can also have the resources that were given to me by the family I was born in. Do they give me food that they worked for?

My choices are dependent on my location. What is common here and what is rare and precious? It could be easy to get water near a lake, but it is rare in the desert. In the same way, I could have natural inclinations that are valuable. I am a person who writes, that could be rare and valuable. I also could stockpile skills that people need, to trade for

Chicken

I have an embarrassment of riches in my choices right now. I’m stuck in a rut. As you can tell, I have chicken for dinner a lot. Is that the choice I really want?

I know I could change it. I could start choosing to eat no meat at all. Or NOTHING but meat. Big choices is where big changes start. What do I want?

I was last in Cologne 18 years ago. My impressions of the cathedral and the surrounding businesses are updated with what is happening now. It’s been a pilgrimage destination for centuries. And the Romans were there even before the cathedral.

Pilgrimage is a place for commerce. There are businesses surrounding the square, with anything I want.

I last visited in 2007, when Germany admitted .67 million immigrants. They have admitted more and more immigrants since then. In 2022, 2.67 million were admitted. What does that mean?

I saw a different flavor in Cologne this year. Literally. The square around the cathedral had a lot of take-out shops. The German beer shops with traditional food are there. From my view, the other styles of food outnumbered the local food.

I came to Germany to have an experience. I can have all these international flavors at home in California. As we saw the sights, I got hungry. My family was exhausted, so I let them go back to the hotel. I set off alone and hungry. I had a credit card. And some currency.

I had a mission. The taste of Germany that only the land itself could give.

I found the first German-seeming pub and looked at the menu. It was helpfully marked CASH ONLY.

Ooh. The first barrier. I had SOME currency, but what if it wasn’t enough? They wouldn’t take my credit card, and I figured I’d better keep looking.



Surely  closer to the cathedral would be have options. I up there, and saw waiters bringing bowls of soup out to the tables. This had to be it!

After the waiter dropped his food off, I asked him where to go to be served. He pointed into the door vaguely.

Ok, I went inside and looked around. I saw tables, and a menu by the door. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to catch the server’s attention. How did I do this?

The sky was darkening. My hunger was more demanding.

I gave up and walked back to the shop name Istanbul kebap. I felt it as a personal failure. The Turkish guys making the plates were eager to take my money and give me food.

I took the bag with my food back to the hotel. It was delicious, and Veronica ate half the rice and chicken. When I put the fork of cabbage salad to my tongue, I got a zing.

Mediterranean food can be spicy. Hot sauce is everywhere in southern California too.

But this?

German food has a reputation as bland. When the cathedral was only a couple centuries old, the drive for spices gave Christopher Columbus a reason to set off for America.

I could imagine the medieval Europeans with nothing but cabbages and turnips in the dark ages.

I shook my head. This Turkish shop had found the native taste for their recipe.

The chef used horseradish for the kick it needed. People are always on the move to adapt to the landscape they are in. That hasn’t changed.

This German ingredient—flavor—appeared in the middle eastern dish served in Cologne. It’s perfect.

I’ve been writing most of my life. This last bit, with the chemo and everything, I let myself put my attention eslewhere.

I remember getting in the habit of blogging in the 2000s. I wrote every day. I didn’t try to be profound. At this moment I am trying to find a way to increase my excitement and determination.

No one comes to this blog. And by no one, I mean I have less than ten visitors a week. It might be the same person. It might be a bot that is trying to figure out a way to exploit this site somehow

but for sure, this is not a platform to impress anyone. This is my empty corner where I can do repetitive exercises to see if i can eventually attain something I like.

And if I like it I might share it with others. I certainly don’t expect them to find it HERE

I used to get readers here. That has changed. And that’s ok.

today I hope to start a habit to get better at writing.

I was talking about mission statements with Veronica yesterday. We had been talking about how governments formed

families–>clans –>tribes –>nations

then the nations in combination with religion came up with a reason for why the ruler was the ruler

divine right of kings

then the enlightenment happened, and people decided not to leave leadership up to kings and elected leaders

once that was out of place, people could imagine other ways of running a society and other ideas emerged including marxism

Marxism also wants to get rid of Religion

which means a bigger overthrow of the controlling parts of societyz

the enlightenment coincided with the industrial revolution and over time this has led to corporate entities, businesses who had to create new mission statements to give a common goal to their constituents

I shared this idea with Veronica and we looked at some fortune 500 mission statements

They are basic, recreations of common goals that used to be part of the culture. But the culture got upended

and now we have to redefine everything.

But it doens’t have a soul

Veronica said “They don’t define “best.”

All the mission statement ssay something like “to be the best provider of the thing we provide”

We dont’ have a workign definition of best.

In a world—a universe—of adventures and experiences I am thirsty for more. And after a long day of keeping my everyday under control, I might only have the memory of thirst. Where did I leave the keys to my house? And did I lose the one to the special gate that leads to the magic kingdom?

Oh, look. They are in my pocket. Were they here all along?

Don’t sit down yet. Leave the shoes on my feet. I will need them if I’m going through the gate.

I am afraid the door might be too heavy to open. Close my eyes tight so I don’t have to look. It’s too scary to face. The idea is enough, right? I can imagine what could be and that’s almost as good.

Until I shame myself into opening my eyes, and see there isn’t a door after all. I have to walk further up the path to find the door, it seems. I don’t even see it yet. If I stay on this path I will surely find it.

Until I realize that’s as far as I can go today, I can go this far from the everyday. I’ll come back tomorrow ready to go further until I see it.

Which means, back to regular life for now. I will come back tomorrows

It’s when stack up the come-backs and revisit it on the tomorrows that I get closer to the magic kingdom. After a while it doesn’t feel like a magic kingdom, it feels like a well-worn path. Familiarity doesn’t feel like magic, but I’m far further along than I ever thought I would be.

Showing up tired, keeping my shoes on when the everyday gives me a break. Still looking for that magic. I found stuff along the way, not sure if it’s the magic I thought it was but I would not have found it without looking like this.

I’ve been fighting for a long time. I started training to fight, and then some serious opponents came up

I stayed in the training and got my black belt

I didn’t give up on my serious cancer opponents and they are vanquished and quiet

I think about the boys

Men

Boys

Who stormed normandy beach.THey didn’t get to stop. They training. I don’t know if they volunteered, but the events landed in their lap and they had to walk through them

Up that beach

They didn’t invite the war in

I didn’t ask for cancer

but the fight was upon us

When they went home to their old rooms and their old clothes

Their shirts didn’t fit the same, I’m sure

Mine didn’t either

I don’t know how to fit into the life I previously occuppied. A lot has burned down and i carry scars

The beach

the poisons

I did not dare to stop and feel the seriousness of what I was facing

Eyes on the goal

I did it. I made it.

What do I do now? can I look around now or have I forgotten how?
I have to gently probe the spots to see if I can feel.

I am thinking of myself and how i wish I were, how I wish I coul think of myself

“It’s good to be able to name the pooch.”

I’d just shared a situation with my friend. Rambling on, trying to explain how I’d been caught—alone and afraid—in a circumstance and I could find a way out.

She is brilliant. It was a military saying: to screw the pooch. It’s a way to describe things gone wrong—disgraceful and mortifying—maybe even with good intentions but seriously wrong.

I am wrestling with a new circumstance—the hits keep on coming—and I’m working through the layers.

SOMETHING is wrong. I am getting the clues and forming suspicions but it’s foggy and not in my control.

I can feel the wrongness, and I’m not sure if I can stop it. Am I screwing up? Or if I flip it over, am I witnessing something being screwed?

Feeling gross and uncomfortable, I am not sure.

I find comfort in being the one to blame. Yes, the mortification would land on me. But if I’m the problem, I can start on the solution right now. I am in control and my actions could fix the problem., I can shift and get things moving the way I want.

I wrote about the trouble I was having with math last week. Last week’s pooch was math. I wrestled that one into control and another pooch showed up.

I am working through the layers of figuring things out. I know it’s not right and I’m still not sure how to get through to the core of the issue. I am trying, and I am not sure the problem is me. I’ve been playing with that idea and it doesn’t seem to fit.

Once I decide the trouble isn’t me, I could release the idea that I have to grapple it into submission. If the problem isn’t for me to fight, it could be something that will change without as much effort. It could change like the weather, The wind could die down and the sun come shining through.

That happens. And if I were still stuck trying to understand the nature of the pooch I might miss that the struggle—the pooch—had moved on. What exactly would be screwed then?

Me, probably.

Things do change. The sooner I figure out what call that pooch and how to stop the screwing the better for me.

I started this test for the third time. By the second question the panic was bigger than me. This new industry I am working in is different and I am trying to get this certification so I can follow along with the action.

I’m used to picking up certifications–it’s fun learning new things. When the manager suggested it, of course I said I would give it a try. Water math, they called it.

The first part seemed easy.

I was wrong. This math is impossible.

I’d invested in the online class, and the team I’d joined told me that it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Now the unit conversions between gallons pounds, acres, liters and milligrams were a cliff I couldn’t scale.

I tried to go back to the beginning and try again. Write it down, do it slow.

But the storm of thoughts made the facts slippery. Maybe I wasn’t capable of this kind of learning anymore. It would become clear to everyone else that I was in the wrong place, not the right person and would be asked to leave. My presence would be an insult to the other people, best swept away and not spoken of again—at least not publicly.

With those terrifying monstrous ideas whirling through my head, it was impossible to convert pounds of chlorine to the correct dose into quantities of million gallons per day.

I knew better than to start the test for the third time. It was a desperate move, apparent the moment I started again. As if magic would suddenly happen, and I would know the answers without making the effort.

I thought I knew better. My panic was picking up new evidence for how impossible this was, and how everything else in my life was impossible and I was doomed to failure at everything I attempted.

Carrying the momentum I went to my martial arts class, and was able to teach my class a new move. It wasn’t new to me at this time, but it had been a while since I’d done it. It came back to me. I remembered how impossible it was the first few months when I’d tried to learn it.

And this night, I had forgotten that I’d learned it. Until I did it again. Almost as easy as walking.

I had done the impossible once. I had another story to calm the panic. The next morning I picked up the homework again. I re-read, wrote it all out again, and spent another set of hours. The panic came with, but I was able to quiet it enough to keep going.

I did not need magic after all. I found a way to keep trying and that let me stop the free fall. It’s going to take longer than I first thought, but it lost the impossible part.

I’ve talked about books here an embarrassing amount. I love reading, and I’m always looking for another book to savor. I seek out recommendations for the best book possible.

The literary canon has many enduring beautiful books to choose from. Experts have anointed certain books as worthy of attention.

I could name the books I’ve read and recommend. But for a change, I am going to talk about one I can’t stand.

I’ve read The Great Gatsby at least three times. It’s a book professors love to lecture on.

I tried. I don’t like any of the characters and I don’t understand people who do. I tried it again to see if I was missing something.

No. I still hate it. Who are these wretched people and why should I care? The parties in the book sounded glamorous, but that was it.

What lifted this to literature? What did thes professors see that I didn’t?

My husband found an article that gave me a new perspective. Not on the prose, but on the author and how he got attention.

Fitzgerald’s work were not that popular during his lifetime. His high life booze-soaked novels lost appeal during the 1930s prohibition and depression economics. But then an aspiring professor at Princeton named Mizener had gotten hold of Fitzgerald’s papers after he died.

And he produced paper after paper about this author, eventually getting his own faculty position. The article goes on to explain how a number of Princeton people influenced Great Gatsby’s rise to being a classic.

Gatsby himself is doomed to never be good enough to get what he wants. And the darkest side of the Ivy league Princeton snobbery is so vindicated by his exclusion.

It confused me to hear one of my professors call it the great American story. I’ve lived in America my whole life, and I don’t know anybody like those people and I wouldn’t want to.

I’m not saying these kinds of characters don’t’ exist, but they are not common. And I don’t have to like it. Nope, that’s not the America I know and I’m willing to see these lit teachers as unreliable narrators.

This Substack is the newest version of the Wonderblog, which I started mere months before I graduated with a BA in English. I graduated later than I thought I was should have. And as soon as I graduated, I started thinking I didn’t need to have graduated at all.

The reason I wanted a BA was to start writing.

I started this blog before I graduated–proof that I never needed to wait for the diploma.

I have kept up this blog—founded in 2002 and blogging no less than once a week. I’m beginning to see that consistency like that is one of my superpowers.

But this week, I’m having trouble.

I’m past the hurricane of cancer treatments, and sick to death of talking about it. I’ve been stuck under that storm so long I’m not sure who is left as I crawl out. What remains?

I kept hold this blog

Because as long as I’m writing

I’m a writer.

I didn’t need the university to give me permission, and I regret I waited so long to give myself permission to write my first book.

Then again, I did –and still do—the work to keep creating. Stacking words into sentences and seeing if they stand up. 

Looking back at the origin story, I’m reminding myself of who I am.   It’s  what I need right now.

The world has changed since this blog began. I asked GrokAI for a writing prompt, which was a self-aware attempt to engage with AI as a new technology.

The answer was not helpful. I tried to reverse engineer his style “Grok, why did you use an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence?”

“Exclamation marks add excitement and energy to writing!”

They are fake emotion, Grok. Using metaphors and examples for what emotions a writer is trying to evoke is what makes prose beautiful.

He defended his choices, and continued to use exclamation marks after I explained that they were the sign of an inexperienced writer.

Me and the AI went back and forth as I responded to prompts about how writing should be done.

I’m not gaining anything by teaching an artificial intelligence how to write about feelings it doesn’t have.

Then again, I was able to quickly express the mechanics of writing, proving that I do know this craft.

As I’m trying to find a way pick it up again, it’s nice to realize I’m not starting from zero. I’m still in here and I know a few things.