Oliver Herford: The Goat, for "The Crocodile," by Oliver Herford (1891)

Usual Long Morning’s Nap
A definite rhythm resumes as the vernal equinox and the end of this series nears. The sun, which could not even remotely be characterized as troublesome through the long winter months, turns pesky again, blinding me at my breakfast table and finally casting genuine shadows. Pruning season comes to find me unprepared, for I am the sole of the one thing not allowed in pruners: empathic. Pruning demands a loving heartlessness, a ruthless insistence upon reducing now for the purpose of enhancing later, but the timelines involved make the effort seem cruel. Our long Toodle from which we rightfully never returned, recedes into mildly unbelievable legend as the rightful rhythm returns. Max, our boy cat, melts into my lap when I sit in our enormous wing-backed chair to survey the world each morning. There, he holds on for dear life and purrs ecstatically while his sister Molly stands in the foreground window and surveys the budding morning outside. They’ll be out on their rounds within the hour before returning to the second-floor window, where they’ll cry for somebody to open the cat flap they’ll never figure out how to pass through unaided. I interrupt my writing to get up, let them in, and then cheer them on, for they are resetting my clock for this season that hasn’t quite arrived yet. They insist that hibernation’s already over before settling down for their usual long morning’s nap.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

This first iAlogue of this writing week describes returning after our extended Toodle. We did not return to from where we departed, but to to someplace in a future much better suited to us. We're Homed.

Edward Calvert: The Return Home (1830)
" … just as if anybody's future could ever be foreseeable."
—
This iAlogue considers the notion that after leaving, I'm NeverReturning. Not only can we never go home again, but we might also never be able to return anywhere we've been.

Jean Veber: Goya’s Return to his Homeland (1899)
" … remnants of ever more distant pasts …"
—
This iAlogue outlines how I tend to resolve Mystery. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, not even a halfway decent Dr. Watson, but I still catch my share of Mysteries I must resolve.

Hi Red Center: Canned Mystery (c. 1964)
"Once I've adequately flattened my forehead …"
—
This iAlogue considers questionnaires and concludes that the best ask no questions and the next best ask at most ThreeQuestions. What might those questions be?

Hi Red Center, Designed by George Maciunas: Bundle of Events (1965)
"Ask more, and I quickly become a bore."
—
This iAlogue considers the truly terrible, the typically tacit presumptions accompanying every attempt to accomplish something novel, The TerriblePresuppositions.

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley: The Birth of Fancy (1892)
" … the betrayals chance delivers …"
—
This iAlogue finds me struggling with my technology, Crashing, the rough equivalent of Shakespeare wrestling with a goose to acquire a fresh quill that he'll need to whittle before he can continue writing.

Oliver Herford: The Crash, for "The Bashful Earthquake" (1898)
"It's a wonder any story ever results."
—
This next to last writing week of this series followed me Home before I realized that I hadn’t actually come home again. I never have and doubt if I ever will. I encountered a reasonably standard Mystery that offered me the opportunity to consider how I tend to resolve the mysteries I encounter. (I’d later watch as I approached the damned thing just as I’d outlined.) I confessed to a deep dislike for questionnaires (notice the proper spelling includes back-to-back ns— I’d never noticed that before, just another reason to despise them) while watching myself design one. I introduced a common difficulty in this world, one only occasionally mentioned, what I labeled The Terrible Presuppositions. Once I started calling them out, I felt reassured when others acknowledged their poisonous presence. I ended this writing week Crashing, a perennially discomfiting experience. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz