Catch a Falling Star

Normally people portray themselves as successful, competent, and worthy human beans. I confess to doing that too, especially when protecting my teacher-reputation. And those nice things that you say about yourself on Facebook, Twitter, Tik-Tok, Instagram, WordPress, and… (Not Truth Social, cuz Trump’s Twitter Clone is only for insulting people and claiming Democrats are pedophiles,) are not entirely (but mostly) made up of lies. And somebody who is trying to be a humorist will talk endlessly about everything that is wrong with that hairy, stupid tramp in the mirror. So, this essay is not about the good stuff Mickey does (if there is any,) it’s about the dumb stuff and the bad stuff and the goofy stuff Mickey does that we probably all do.

One thing Mickey does that nobody should ever do is write two books at the same time. Mickey thinks it is like baking a cake in the oven (the primary work in progress, He Rose on a Golden Wing) while, at the same time, boiling soup on the stove top (the novella, The Education of Poppensparkle.) Seems simple enough. But it is simply not simple. At the same time Golden Wing is baking, the sequel, (or is it an equal?) is taking shape (Kingdoms Under the Earth happens during the time that Golden Wing is set and involves characters from both novel and novella.) So, the potatoes on the stove top has some peas and carrots from the soup in it, as well as some frosting from the cake. And at any moment, something on top of the stove or inside the oven may explode. That is no way to cook a dinner.

And another thing stupid Mickey has been trying to do is to fix the plumbing in our old house by himself because he doesn’t have enough money to replace every disintegrating 1960’s lead pipe in the whole house’s plumbing system. When we finally called a professional plumber because there was finally a toilet clogging that Mickey couldn’t handle, (after sweet-talking three erratic toilets and occasionally hitting them with hammers for five years to keep them running,) he paid three hundred and ninety dollars to find out that it would take nine hundred dollars to get even one of the toilets working again by digging up the floor of the house and putting in PVC for rotten lead.

So, Mickey paid the pirates’ gold to the plumber and promised to call him again if ever Mickey could afford to fix a single toilet. And the family reverted to a plan of peeing down the bathtub drain (not connected to the toilets’ sewer link,) and going to the nearby grocery store any time we need to have a poo.

And Mickey continues to write both YA novels and nudist stories (because the nudists on Twitter are the only audience that reads his stories at present.) He longs to be a nudist. But in the house, he can only do that in his bedroom with the door locked to avoid offending she who must be carefully and completely obeyed or scaring the dog. And any and all attempts to return to the nudist park have been defeated by bad weather, allergies, a raging pandemic, and interfering responsibilities at .home (mostly due to spurting plumbing leaks in new places.) So, for the time being, naked Mickey is only a pretend nudist.

So, Mickey is not the wonderful person he portrays himself as on Facebook, or the good little nudist he pretends to be on Twitter. But he knows what the problems are. And while he may never defeat that warty, hairy guy in the mirror, he is okay… and still trying to make you laugh as he continues to laugh at himself.