Rainy Reflections

 Okay, okay, okay. I just had a random thought: I just realized that aside from temporal location, stature, and radioactivity, C.H.U.D. and the Morlocks from HG Wells' "The Time Machine" are exactly the same thing. Okay, that's weird and a bit gross. Let's try again, shall we? 

Have you ever watched The History Channel's "Life After People" documentary, showing the fate of the Earth if we all suddenly disappeared? Not only that, but we supposedly left everything intact? Yeah, right! Knowing my own species as well as I do, I call bullshit. We wouldn't be so gracious as the dinosaurs were. When or if we leave, we're taking the planet with us. We'll be like jealous ex lovers. "If we can't have you, nobody can!" As far as for rulers of the planet, top of the food chain, yeah, I've got a feeling we will most certainly be the last. Sometimes, I think we're more natural than we realize. It is something else to think about existence, of what we are, of what I am, that we're merely animals, albeit the smartest animals on the planet. All the science, art, and abstract thinking, but yeah, we were still animals all the while. You see that fact in moments when society breaks down. Sadly, we are not exactly gods, even if technology has given us a few godlike powers. Mostly.. If I truly were a god, I would have never let something so paltry as death take the people I love away from me. So, we're not gods. We're just intelligent primates who happen to rule this planet. Well, intelligence may vary, and most of us are the minions, rather than the rulers. I wonder, in fact, if intelligence and one's level in the chain of command happens to be inversely proportional. Look at some of our leaders, and you be the judge. If aliens were to land in my backyard and say, "Take me to your leader," I'd be too embarrassed to do so. There is so much irony in how we can harness the power of the atom, yet put that power in the hands of the most incompetent among us, Of how we have created wonders, yet can't even seem to keep ourselves in line. We let the close-minded people fan the flames of hatred loose on the world and refuse to realize we are being manipulated, herded in our thoughts like cattle on the prairie. We refuse to realize that there are bad apples amongst the good in every variety of people, that it is the mind/heart and not the outer appearance that determines superiority or inferiority. And as if this were not enough, we have the ability to destroy ourselves in the worst possible ways. Wow, what a grim subject I have gotten on! I think it's time for (You know it, baby). Clean cup move down.

Okay. I have been working on my games setup again. I have 3 versions: DOS compatible, Win32 compatible, and GZDoom (plus everything else requiring fancy video modes). My DOS version, which I have set up inside of DOSBOX, actually goes all the way back to the mid-1990s when I actually used real DOS. Yes, some of the files go back 30 years. The most recent were from just yesterday. I have been adding to it on and off for many years. It is the place to party like it's 1999. My Win32 version contains much of the same, but using source ports and containing several levels and add-ons that will not work in DOS. The DOS version also includes some games and levels that will not work on Windows. Basically, all three versions have aspects unique to them. This is just one of the things I do to keep my mind occupied. I find I enjoy getting these old games to work, even more than I enjoy actually playing them. It's like I am putting together a virtual universe with many worlds and realms. I can be a sort of Cyber Merlin, a powerful wizard in the land of ones and zeros. I am merely this imperfect human animal everywhere else, yet in a world of helplessness and futility, there is one tiny realm where I reign supreme, where The Humongous will not be defied As Job The Lawnmower Man once said, "This universe is mine. I am god here."

Okay, okay, okay. Enough delusions of grandeur already. I guess it's back to Earth for me, space cadets. My weekend was the least productive in over a month. I just couldn't bring myself to go outside with it 102 degrees. Didn't want a heat stroke. Then today, there were free cookies at work. I used what restraint I could, but still fear I might gain a pound or two. I'm going to try to make up for it by skipping lunch if I can. I haven't decided. It depends on how viscous the hungry monster will be. I may also try to do something out in the yard this evening if the rain somehow misses us. Speaking of which, I've got to watch the weather a little closer this week because there's a hurricane heading this way. So far, they have it going to the east of us, meaning rain and a bit of wind, but they also had Michael missing us back in '18 and we took a direct hit from that monster. I damn sure don't want a repeat. That was a waking nightmare. I don't want any storms, but I'd sure love to see some rain. It's been hot as hell, and not a single drop has fallen in more than a week now. This ain't supposed to be the Sahara. It's the 850, damn it. This heat has been damned tough to live with. It's just been rough. I hear the rain is supposed to move in later today. Even without the rain, a bit of cloud cover to block the sun would make temperatures much easier to bear. Bring on the gentle rain, but keep those hurricane force winds elsewhere. I feel bad for those folks east of here. We took our hit in 2018, and it was hellish. The road in front of my house was a horizontal forest. Couldn't leave the house for almost a week and no power for nearly three weeks. I lost a bunch of frozen food, though I was able to save some by cooking it over a homemade grill by using cinder blocks and an old stove rack. We ran out of food by the end of the first week, but the roads were cleared enough to allow help to get to us. A firetruck from all the way down in Miami stopped by with a box of MRE's, and their timing was perfect. Actually, there were first responders from all over the country helping out. There were also some kind and generous strangers from central Alabama that brought us a lot of helpful stuff. A humongous tree barely missed coming down on top of my house. Another tree ripped the power box right off the side of my house, and the folks that fixed it didn't wire it back correctly. My wiring is still all wrong. I haven't since been able to use my oven because of it. However, when it was over, my rickety old house was still standing. So, you could say I was lucky. Though I must say that 2018 was the start of a run of some very shitty years. Just before the storm, I got served with papers with my ex suing me over some frivolous bullshit that I eventually fought in court and won. My blood pressure went totally nutso, and I was hospitalized. I broke my wrist, trying to clean up debris. My father was diagnosed with colon cancer. All of this happened before 2018 was over. 2019 was all about my father's treatment, which was ultimately successful, and dealing with my oldest apparently being too good to finish school. 2020 was the whole pandemic thing, though my job was declared essential, and I therefore avoided a layoff. 2021, around July, my mother's health went down , and my sisters and I had to stay with her. Dementia is a nightmare. She later had to stay in a rest home. We did our best to avoid that, but we were simply not enough to help her. 2022 was the worst year of them all. On January 23rd, I lost my baby sister. Her death was sudden, as in I was talking to her normally just the night before. On March 25th, Momma died. She had been in such misery, surfacing just enough to realize she had lost a daughter. 2022 is a year I will hate forever. I will curse 2022 until my dying day. Fuck you, 2022! Depression is a hell of a thing. There was a long time when I just withdrew into my own little world, letting anything and everything around me go to shit. Now we are in the latter part of 2023, and I've only recently begun to come out of my shell and finally started to do things again. I am more like my old self than I have been in a long time. I still miss Marsha terribly. This universe seems broken without her. I will always miss my baby sister. The same is true for my mother. My world is not the same, but I seem to be healing somehow. Wounds become scars, and those scars are just a part of my new self. Missing her is simply part of what I do every day.  Sometimes life is like the tide, just gotta endure the lows, knowing that high tide is gonna happen. Other times, events seem like rocks thrown into a still pond, especially if it's late at night, you're trying to still your thoughts like said pond, but there are ripples, and the 'ol brain decides to pull a Casey Kasem and wanna count them down. 

"Hi, this is Brainy Bracem, and we're counting down the top ten memories you'd like to forget! Now let's begin with a long-distance dedication......"

Damn, I need an off switch. Dreams are weird, man, especially mine. When an unmistakable voice, sounding like a long distance call from back in the day, background static included, tells me that she is okay, that she's not gone at all, that it was nothing but an illusion. I guess this must be something surfacing from my subconscious. After all, that's what dreams are, right? That's what the logical mind would deduce, right? Still, there are times when the heart gives much better council. After all, that is what I want to believe, That somewhere in this universe, be it matter, be it energy, be it space, be it time, that she really is okay, and more importantly, happy, at peace. And it's all for nothing if I tell myself it's all in my head. Sooooo. Brain, you take five, and Heart, you take the drivers seat. For a human being, logic and reason will never be enough.