An infinite number of monkeys with and infinite number of word-processors will supposedly eventually type out everything I have ever written and everything I am going to write… As well as everything I will ever write with a random word misspelled or replaced with the wrong word. It would be an infinite mess. After all, infinite monkeys and infinite word-processors would fill infinite space and leave no room for infinite bananas. The monkeys would all starve after the initial typed manuscripts are completed, and any surviving monkeys that randomly evolved an ability to eat word-processors would die from exposure to infinite rotting monkey corpses. The whole thing gets gruesome after a while.
But let’s get serious for a moment. (Something that is generally difficult for Mickey.) Monkeys with type-writers will not solve my essential problem. I will not run out of stories before I run out of time for story-telling. And I find it totally creditable that my time is almost gone.
I am ill again, with a viral infection that gives me headaches, low-grade fever, and a wicked cough. I feel horrible. I had chest pains last night that led to a serious debate yet again. If it had been a heart attack, that would’ve been the end. I cannot survive economically another hospital bill. So, I have to go on the theory that since the last heart-attack scare was only arthritis in the ribs and the strange effect that has on EKGs, this one must also be the same. I can’t afford any other conclusion. And since I am still alive to write this, it was obviously the correct conclusion to draw.
The titles I have listed above, still in my stupid old head, are eleven more books I will add to my growing list. This is, of course, entirely dependent on how much longer I have before the darkness claims me for all time. I have writing to do. No more days off. And if I get five more years of two books a year, I just might make it. But last night convinced me that the effort may end at any time. So, though I am sick, I better get busy and write something.
Let me begin by reminding you that the only head I have to explore as an example of what I am talking about in this essay is my own stupid head.
So, this is not an insult post. This is self-deprecating humor. And therefore, the contents of your own stupid head are completely safe.
Now, there is considerable evidence in the books already that Mickey is not, and has not been, particularly stupid for a large portion of his time on earth. He got college scholarships based on his ACT and SAT scores to get his undergraduate degree for free (in the 1970’s when it was significantly cheaper than now). And he has been both a teacher in a gifted program and the middle-school coordinator of that same gifted program. So, Mickey has effectively fooled everybody into thinking he is not stupid. But consider for a moment where the laughs come from when watching Stephen Urkel on TV, or the four nerds from Big Bang Theory. Smart people do stupid things and are very awkward at times, proving that, no matter how smart they are, smart people are capable of being quite stupid.
What, then, is the stupid thinking in Mickey’s stupid head?
Well, there are a number of things. Mickey is, as you may know if you read any of his nudity blogs, obsessed with nakedness. He was assaulted as a child in a way that caused him to be afraid of nudity and slow-developing in sexuality. As he grew older, he had to compensate for this lack of natural development. So, he has reached an age where his brain stupidly rejects guard-rails when talking about nudity and sex. He has convinced himself that he wants to be a nudist, and writes about nudity constantly, as evidenced by this very paragraph. When Mark Twain was in his seventies, he did leave the house without remembering to wear clothes more than once. The neighbors did not compliment him for doing that. That and worse is probably in Mickey’s near future.
And sex, as a subject sloshing around in a brain awash with hormones and other nightmare chemical imbalances, leads to a rash of stupid decisions. Of course, Mickey is old and has had chronic prostatitis long enough to eliminate the possibility of making a stupid decision about infidelity since those body parts don’t actually work anymore, but it leads to buying numerous things sold by marketers using sex as a way to sell things. Cabinets full of hair gel and cologne and Herbalife products that can never be used up is the result. And the wife is frustrated with the foods Mickey is constantly addicted to. “Why so much chips and salsa, Mickey?” Chips and salsa? Hubba hubba!
And Mickey’s old brain, full of a vast quantity of useless trivia-type knowledge, random wisdom floating around in a disconnected fashion, and prejudices formed by a bizarre obsession with things like nudism, Disney movies, comic books, model trains, and doll-collecting, becomes strangely creative. He begins to believe weird things.
For example, he thinks rabbits, if they were suddenly transformed into people, would make better people than people ever do. They are mostly quiet most of the time. They eat an all-vegetable, healthy diet. And they don’t vote Republican.
He obsessively also thinks about how his mind is working and how thinking about thinking is likely to improve thinking. He even realizes that the map of his head, provided above, doesn’t accurately reflect the many branching corridors and dead-end hallways of his actually-complicated-yet-stupid mind. He thinks that thinking too much about thinking makes you stupid.
I have illustrated this entire piece without uploading any new art… What a stupid thing is that?
And finally, Mickey is left with a sense of wonder about how it is entirely possible that everybody is stupid at least part of the time. And he wonders what possible things that you, dear reader, are thinking about that you consider at least somewhat stupid? You are welcome to tell him in the comments. But remember, this post is about stupid thoughts in Mickey’s head. You are perfectly free not to worry about your own stupidity.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking I have any advice to offer about how to do what I am doing. First of all, I can’t claim to be successful at it. Also, I am doing it all by instinct, not by study and planning. All I am really doing this for is to show you my favorite pictures.
for The Boy… Forever
I basically draw the pictures before I write the story down in paragraphs. The story exists already in my head, and the pictures help it gel in my mind before it comes out in fiction form.
An illustration for AeroQuest 2; Planet of the White Spider
The Baby Werewolf
I particularly enjoy drawing the characters, giving them actual, physical substance so that they exist not only in my stupid old head, but also on the page or on the screen to allow them to be in front of my eyes.
Snow Babiesfrom Superchicken From Sing Sad Songs
The Book Cover itself
Being able to illustrate can be a way into producing covers for myself that have as much chance at catching the reader’s eye as anything else that I do.
People tell me that my artwork is enchanting and that they like it.
They are, hopefully, not all lying when they say that.
Magical Miss MorganRecipes for Gingerbread ChildrenThe Bicycle-Wheel Genius
This will be used for several things. Most importantly it will become a part of the cover I make for my Work In Progress, The Boy… Forever.
The villain of this story claims to be an undead Chinese wizard. It is a claim that may be totally bogus, but it is a part of the idea of his villainy that needs to be illustrated to help me get to the roots of my theme; “No man lives forever. But if they accidentally do, it helps to be secretly a dragon in human form.”
Rowan, Iowa is a place full of memories. I was a boy there, from the time I was four and began remembering life until I was 24 and life in the real world moved to distant parts the focus of what I called “Home”.
As my life continues, long past the time I figured I would be allowed to live by my six incurable diseases, I find myself living more and more inside my own head. Truly, my failing physical health has isolated me more and more from the people I know and have relationships with. Instead of spending hours upon hours at work every week, I find myself confined to my bedroom where I maintain breathable air, doing little beyond reading and writing, watching movies and shows on Netflix, dreaming, remembering, and imagining. My “real-world” life has been ever the less active and ever more confined to a small space. But in my head, the opposite is true. I have lived in memory; revisiting places that have been changed or torn down since, and spending time with people whom I still see as children even though they are now grown in real life with children of their own, and spending time talking to people who live no more, anywhere but in my memory.
Some of those to whom I am talking are actually me, fictionalized versions of me, imagined as if something different had happened to me, or I had chosen different roads less traveled than the ones I actually walked upon.
Some are, naturally, people whom I have loved, seen through different colored lenses than I saw them when I saw them with my physical eyes.
And it is most definitely possible to see and re-interpret the things that happened to us in a very different light than the ones I saw it all in during the 1960’s and 1970’s. It helps to be able to put on the old time-traveler’s glasses to look again, not at how it really was, but how it really ought to be.
Everything I have just rambled on about in run-on sentences of purple paisley prose, is writer-thinking. It is the very thing that most probably goes on in your head too, since you are likely only reading this blog post because you are a writer too, and you find value in the ramblings of an old man who used to be a writing teacher and is now, very definitely, one of the goofier varieties of writer whom you can learn significant lessons from (even if only what not to do, because you are not as stupid as I am when it comes to writing).
Many of the things that happen now in my silly, stupid old head happen in places like the planet Mars or on board a star-ship headed to other parts of the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.
I often live, as well, in the part of my head that is entirely made-up from galvanized, sauteed, or even moldy pieces of imagination. I live in places like the Mothership of the Telleron Explorers now in orbit around the planet Galtorr Prime. Or Animal Town in the middle of the country of Fantastica where I met my wife, seen here as Mandy Panda from the Pandalore Islands.
Or even in the Willow-Tree Fortress known as Cair Tellos, the Capital of the Fairy Kingdom of Tellosia in Wright County, Iowa.
Living in the world when your body betrays you constantly can be horrible and hard. But living inside your head is easy. And I actually plan to do more of it before the final page is turned in the Book of my Life.
Naylund Smith was dressed in a formal
silk jacket with an embroidered Japanese-style phoenix raising its wings across
the chest and turning to flaming ashes on the back. A white chord ran down the left leg of the
blue silk pants and ended in an embroidered white spider, the first time Ged
was to see the White Spider’s personal logo on anything.
Ged couldn’t help
but admire the strong-looking, erect posture of this amazing man. He wore a gold earring in his left ear; his
head was shaved and hairless except for white eyebrows, a white bun at the very
back of the head, and a white goatee.
The man’s iron-gray eyes glared like the stare of an eagle. Only the golden walking stick hinted at any
weakness in the man, and he never seemed to lean upon it.
“The web of space
is locked in an ever-expanding spiral dance,” said Naylund as ceremonial armor
was strapped to Ged’s arms and chest.
“The spiders that move from strand to strand are merely a counterpoint
to the great dancing flow of the web itself. When spiders contend for space on the web,
then the dance reaches its most violent and most beautiful point. I cannot help you with the next few steps of the
dance. The prophecy says that you will
be victorious, but no prophecy is ever absolute unless it can be proven to come
from God himself.”
“You sound like I
am about to have some kind of duel,” said Ged cautiously. “I thought this was just a welcoming
ceremony.”
“It is that. It is also deadly serious.”
Little Ham Aero
Junior was brought to Ged dressed in a milk-white kimono, and an embroidered
white spider picked out in light blue covered the heart. The female attendants left him with Ged.
“I am to stand
with you, Ged-sensei,” the boy said.
“Did Frieda teach
you to speak so well?” Ged asked the little Nebulon.
“No. I learned your language long ago by telepathy.”
“Why didn’t you
ever teach it to your mother?”
“She hardly ever
spoke to me. I was nothing but a
reminder to her of the shame of her servitude.”
“I’m so sorry for
you, Junior.”
“Don’t be. Now I belong to you and you belong to
me. I will stand at your side and die
rather than leave you.”
“A very handsome
and noble child,” said Naylund. “He
deserves to be treated well by you, Ged.”
“Don’t worry,
Naylund-sensei. I am learning to love my
nephew too.” Ged smiled at Junior.
Naylund motioned
to Ged to leave the tent where he had been dressed in armor. He was now done up in the armor of a Japanese
daimyo or feudal lord, a samurai. He had
everything but the demon mask on him.
As Ged, Naylund
and Junior stepped out into the arena, 40,000 people cheered. Ged was stunned to see so many people. Being a spacer meant being alone more often
than with other people. He’d never in his
life been with so many at once.
“Behold! The so-called White Spider,” said a man
across from Ged in the arena. He gestured
with a silver katana sword to Ged and his two companions. “What do you say that I test this
gaijin? Do you really believe he is the
white spider?”
The crowd roared
that they did believe.
“Well, we shall
see,” said the man, drawing his katana in front of him.
“He will now try
to kill you, Ged,” said Naylund. “If he
succeeds, he will kill the boy and me as well.”
“But, wait!” said
Ged. “I am unarmed!” He sounded panicky.
“According to
prophecy,” said Naylund, “that’s not supposed to be a problem.”
“I am the Black
Spider,” shouted the man. Ged noticed
his black silk robes bore a red spider-symbol on the chest. “I will kill you now, Ged Aero!”
The man charged at Ged with lightning speed. He was obviously martial-arts trained, and knew precisely what to do. Ged tried to dodge, but the katana came down on his right shoulder in a perfect arc. Ged’s right arm was neatly severed at the shoulder.
The crowd
gasped. Ged fell to his knees gasping
also. Junior tried to run to him, but
Naylund grabbed him and firmly held him.
“Patience, little
one. Ged must pass this test himself.”
Ged’s mind swirled,
but fixed on an image from his mind implanted there when Tara helped him return
to his rightful form. His inner eye
sharpened and fixed the image with crystal clarity. Immediately the arm grew back into
place. The crowd was silent with shock.
“So!” said the
Black Spider. “You are a magician! It will help you not! I have killed many magicians before you.”
Ged didn’t bother
to listen. Power was surging through
him. He could feel the rightness of each
shape as it came to him.
“Tara?” said
Junior, amazed at what he saw. Ged had
changed first into the lithe figure of Tara Salongi so that the bulky clothing
and armor would fall away. Then, as the
nude female Ged stepped free of the binding clothing, he was already turning
into the fearsome raptor dinosaur from Don’t Go Here.
“Try this!” cried
the Black Spider as he leaped onto Ged’s scaly back and tried to sever the
saurian head. Ged’s clawed foot nimbly
came up and swept the attacker off, as easily as a horse knocks flies off his
flanks with a twitching tail. The other
clawed foot found the Black Spider as he hit the ground, the wicked hook
slicing into the flesh of his stomach.
The Black Spider
wobbled to his feet again, defiant and angry.
His intestines began to droop out of his wound. “Good trick, spider, but
I’m not beaten yet!”
Even as the Black
Spider was bragging, Ged remembered one other beast he had been forced to kill
and eat. He morphed almost immediately
into a Samothracian Shadowcat, one of the most difficult creatures he had ever
hunted. On the colorful planet of Samothrace,
with its many xeno-flowers, shadowcats had developed the ability to change
color so masterfully; they could practically disappear from view. As soon as the first paw touched the sand of
the arena floor, Ged shimmered and disappeared.
“What? Where…?” cried the Black Spider, swinging his
sword wildly. Attacks battered him from
three sides. Ged it seemed, had turned
into the wind. It looked like puffs of
air were slashing the Black Spider; until finally, the sword fell from his hand
and the Black Spider fell dead and thoroughly bloodied. Ged remained invisible so as not to disgust
the crowd as he replenished himself by feeding on the flesh of the enemy. He also ate his own severed arm before he
finally reappeared in his own form.
Naked, he quickly
dressed in the samurai armor once again, though not bothering with the many
straps and ties. The crowd was utterly
silent, which left Ged wondering what it meant.
Shen Ming
approached solemnly, holding two sheathed swords in his hands.
“You have done well,
my son. Take your swords of office.”
Ged humbly
received the swords from Shen-sensei. He
bowed. There was a beautiful silver
katana with a white ivory pommel and a smaller golden wakizashi with a blue
woven pommel. The crowd now began to cheer
riotously.
“I have defeated the Black Spider?” asked Ged of Naylund.
“You have defeated the first of many Black Spiders, Ged-sama. We will never be at a loss for villains.”
As a new week begins and a new month begins tomorrow, I admit, I have been under pressure. But now the monsters are temporarily under control, either beaten back, or caged.
As you can see here, I have tightened up the cover design for part two of my novel re-write AeroQuest. The work on that has picked up pace. And the pressure is off because I have already completed and published the novels most essential to my writing life to finish before I die. But there is still the pressure to produce more.
My health has reached a point where immediate worries of death have been pushed back enough that the pressure is off. At least for now. My heart is still pumping properly in spite of the 2017 heart-attack scare. I still can’t afford insulin for diabetes, but careful attention to diet is still reducing the times I have to take to my bed all day due to high blood sugar. I have taken positive steps to secure a position as a substitute teacher in the local district. After next Tuesday I may actually be back in classrooms again, doing what I was born to do. Yes, I mean babysitting middle-school monkey-house denizens. I love it, and I have missed it. You may have noticed (if you’ve looked at any of my novels) that all my books are about school kids. Old teachers never die. They just lose all their class.
Money worries have loosened their grip on my heartbeat as well. Texas legislators were turned more friendly to teachers and retired teachers by the Blue Wave election of 2018. I got a healthy cost-of-living increase paid to me in September. I got a refund of a tax penalty that I paid to the IRS and didn’t actually owe. I was able to buy the new prescription glasses that I have needed since last January and wasn’t able to afford until now. I can actually see again.
And, assuming I can actually teach again, money will be coming in as a substitute. And when I don’t feel well enough to teach, I don’t have to.
The thing is, I will still be preparing for future bad turns of fortune. Good times never last for long. And I am naturally a pessimist. But even though I will always be living under pressure, that is not a bad thing. The fire in the forge tempers the metal as it is hammered. And in that metaphor I find my strength.
What is the use of Kartoon Kops? I mean, why do we possibly need cartoon policemen with rubber whack-bats, squirting ink guns, and face pies? Why, to control cartoon misbehavior, of course.
If I work on the roof of the house because the shingles are weather-damaged, and then I walk off the end of the roof, and I just stand there in the air because I know better than to look down, I am breaking the law of gravity. I deserve a strawberry pie to the face for that crime. (Not blueberry pie, though. I’m allergic to blueberries.)
If I run in place and my legs go faster and faster until they look like blurred leg-colored circles, and then I take off, faster than a speeding bullet, leaving only poofy clouds behind, I am breaking the law of acceleration and inertia. I deserve a blast of black ink in my face for that.
And if I put an extremely hot towel on my face, and Bugs Bunny is my barber, my face will come off in the towel and leave the space on the front of my head blank. I will be breaking the law of… of… well, keeping my face on in public. Rubber whack-bat bruises are in my future for that.
“But, Mickey!” you say to me, “The real world doesn’t work that way!”
“Well, duh! Didn’t I tell you this was about cartoons from the start?”
Good things are happening right along. I got the job as a substitute teacher. The IRS investigation turned in my favor. I got money back from them because they charged me penalties I didn’t actually owe. It was THEIR fault that they didn’t register my previous $400.00 check. I dutifully made demanded payments during the 90-day investigation. Even though it hurt economically. And, miraculously, they admitted the mistake was theirs. I have been able to write more fluidly and well than I have in a long time.
You can see that I have had some success making illustrations for the next AeroQuest re-write book in spite of arthritis in my hands.
But everything has a price. I have had to scramble to do the online testing for qualifying to be a substitute teacher while the internet access in our house has been going in and out of order. I called the provider and scheduled a technician’s visit. But the thing fixed itself mysteriously before the date of the work arrived. I finished my testing even before I called Spectrum to cancel my appointment.
I ended up having to split the refund check with my wife. The bank would not let me put the check entirely in my personal account unless she was there in person to okay it. So, even though the penalty payment came 100% from my account, I had to give her 40% of the money because her bank will let her do what my bank would not. It’s not like that was a major fight between us, or anything. But she had originally agreed to sign the check over to me 100%, and then bank rules fudged up that agreement for me.
And this morning, the Princess had a nosebleed on the way to school. I was picturing a major emergency-room expense wiping out everything. There were, after all gushers of blood enough to soak five paper towels before the bleeding stopped. She made it to school on time in spite of the necessary clean-up-and-stop-bleeding time we had to put in.
So, I am not cursed with only the blackest of bad luck. But I am not blessed with purest white of the good luck either. And for those of you who will remind me, “Mickey, you don’t believe in luck!” I will remind you that, “Yes, I don’t, but you have to explain these bizarre random rewards and punishments somehow.”
The city of Kiro, Gaijin was a
heavily populated place. The city was
full of high-rise pagoda towers and Kyoto-style castles. Dominating the skyline was the huge obsidian
sculpture of a Black Cat atop the Temple of the Four Pillars of the Secret
Way. Naylund Smith explained it all to
Ged Aero as they made their way through the ornate city.
Ged and Dr. Smith
were accompanied by the two children and Xavier Tkriashav. Tkriashav’s young nephew, Friashqaztl,
trailed behind the group, timid and shy.
All the newcomers were overwhelmed by what they saw.
“This place is
more beautiful than anything I ever saw in my visions,” said Tkriashav.
“Do I understand
correctly that you are the Master Telepath and Psion?” asked Naylund Smith.
“Yes. I am a powerful telepath, teleport, and
clairvoyant. I am not the most powerful
of my people, however.”
“Perhaps,” said
Dr. Smith, “but you figure prominently in the Prophecy of Shan.”
“If that is a book,
I’d like to see it,” said Tkriashav.
“In time. It is a holy book to these people.”
All around the
small group, silk-robed people had been gathering to watch as if the six people
from the space ship were a circus parade.
Many shouted “White Spider!” as if prayers had been at long last
answered.
“Can you tell me
why I am supposed to be this White Spider?” asked Ged as he took long strides
to hurry past lemon-yellow-skinned admirers.
“It is
destiny.” Naylund smiled and nodded his
head indulgently. “The web of outer
space has brought you to us to pick up the threads woven by the last White Spider. The last spider wove this world and its
society. You have come to link it to
other webs and expand this world’s reach back into the stars.”
“You talk a lot of
poetic nonsense.” Ged looked away at the
sky.
“Poetic nonsense
is also sometimes Truth,” said Dr. Smith.
“I will help you to learn that in time.”
Finally, they
came to a beautiful castle made of white stone and Gaijinese Teak wood, inlaid
with bright blue sapphires. It appeared
to have been their destination all along.
“This,” said Dr.
Smith, “is the Palace of a Thousand Years.
It is your new home.”
“We will live
here?” asked Junior.
Dr. Smith looked
at the blue boy. “It is the palace
belonging to Shen Ming. It is the
traditional home of the White Spider. It
is the place where the last White Spider, Shan Sasaki once lived and worked.”
“Do you expect me
to give up space travel?” asked Ged.
“It’s the only life I’ve ever really known.”
“It will be part
of the life you will lead as the White Spider.
It is the work you are expected to do for us.”
“Hmm.” Ged stared up at the curved roofs of the
Palace of One Thousand Years.
Naylund Smith led
the way into the palace through a large wooden gate. Inside they came into a courtyard that
bustled with activity as if it were a small town all by itself. The courtyard had an ornate Torii arch that
marked the center of the great building.
There were practice yards there where groups of children under the care
of a schoolmaster were learning martial arts, probably karate. There was a large oriental garden for quiet contemplation
inside the palace, as well as the entrance into a riding stable filled with
two-legged llama-like mammals called kians.
Naylund pointed out
the two master towers where the instructors lived. There was a massive central building which
Naylund called the Akito House. It
contained the vast White Spider library, a place that had almost as many bound
volumes of books as books on computer memory crystals. Finally, he pointed out Shen Ming’s Hall,
which, he informed them, was the White Spider’s official residence.
They entered Shen
Ming’s Hall through a double door that proved to lead to a huge indoor bathing pool. Naked yellow men, women, and numerous
children were all bathing there. Junior
Aero would’ve blushed if his skin hadn’t been blue. Ged’s skin turned crimson.
Up a marble
stair, they came into the Administrator’s Hall, and a large, stately office. Behind the desk was Shen Ming himself, looking
spry for a man of nine hundred years. He
was bald as a cue ball except for a single top knot at the apex of his head, and
he looked like a wrinkled Alfred E. Newman.
“Honored
Shen-sensei,” began Dr. Smith. “I bring
before you Ged Aero. He is…”
“I know, Naylund-sama,
I know. He is the new White Spider. I would know him anywhere! He is just as Shan-dono described him in the
Prophecy.”
The silk-clad
ancient moved swiftly out from behind the desk and took Ged’s hand. He placed it on his own hairless head. His ridiculous lop-sided smile made new
wrinkles blossom across his wizened face.
“I pledge to you all that I have, White Spider,” Shen Ming said in tones of awe. “I will serve you all of my remaining days.” Ged couldn’t begin to speak. The place and the situation filled him up. Tears welled up in his eyes
Catch a Falling Star 
What Stupid People Think About
Let me begin by reminding you that the only head I have to explore as an example of what I am talking about in this essay is my own stupid head.
So, this is not an insult post. This is self-deprecating humor. And therefore, the contents of your own stupid head are completely safe.
Now, there is considerable evidence in the books already that Mickey is not, and has not been, particularly stupid for a large portion of his time on earth. He got college scholarships based on his ACT and SAT scores to get his undergraduate degree for free (in the 1970’s when it was significantly cheaper than now). And he has been both a teacher in a gifted program and the middle-school coordinator of that same gifted program. So, Mickey has effectively fooled everybody into thinking he is not stupid. But consider for a moment where the laughs come from when watching Stephen Urkel on TV, or the four nerds from Big Bang Theory. Smart people do stupid things and are very awkward at times, proving that, no matter how smart they are, smart people are capable of being quite stupid.
What, then, is the stupid thinking in Mickey’s stupid head?
Well, there are a number of things. Mickey is, as you may know if you read any of his nudity blogs, obsessed with nakedness. He was assaulted as a child in a way that caused him to be afraid of nudity and slow-developing in sexuality. As he grew older, he had to compensate for this lack of natural development. So, he has reached an age where his brain stupidly rejects guard-rails when talking about nudity and sex. He has convinced himself that he wants to be a nudist, and writes about nudity constantly, as evidenced by this very paragraph. When Mark Twain was in his seventies, he did leave the house without remembering to wear clothes more than once. The neighbors did not compliment him for doing that. That and worse is probably in Mickey’s near future.
And sex, as a subject sloshing around in a brain awash with hormones and other nightmare chemical imbalances, leads to a rash of stupid decisions. Of course, Mickey is old and has had chronic prostatitis long enough to eliminate the possibility of making a stupid decision about infidelity since those body parts don’t actually work anymore, but it leads to buying numerous things sold by marketers using sex as a way to sell things. Cabinets full of hair gel and cologne and Herbalife products that can never be used up is the result. And the wife is frustrated with the foods Mickey is constantly addicted to. “Why so much chips and salsa, Mickey?” Chips and salsa? Hubba hubba!
And Mickey’s old brain, full of a vast quantity of useless trivia-type knowledge, random wisdom floating around in a disconnected fashion, and prejudices formed by a bizarre obsession with things like nudism, Disney movies, comic books, model trains, and doll-collecting, becomes strangely creative. He begins to believe weird things.
For example, he thinks rabbits, if they were suddenly transformed into people, would make better people than people ever do. They are mostly quiet most of the time. They eat an all-vegetable, healthy diet. And they don’t vote Republican.
He obsessively also thinks about how his mind is working and how thinking about thinking is likely to improve thinking. He even realizes that the map of his head, provided above, doesn’t accurately reflect the many branching corridors and dead-end hallways of his actually-complicated-yet-stupid mind. He thinks that thinking too much about thinking makes you stupid.
And finally, Mickey is left with a sense of wonder about how it is entirely possible that everybody is stupid at least part of the time. And he wonders what possible things that you, dear reader, are thinking about that you consider at least somewhat stupid? You are welcome to tell him in the comments. But remember, this post is about stupid thoughts in Mickey’s head. You are perfectly free not to worry about your own stupidity.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, foolishness, goofy thoughts, humor, Mickey, Paffooney, satire, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Metacognition