00480401
She was at 90 degrees again but at least she was in the right time this place and not 3 years in the past. She’d caught up with him: Dr. Tom.
He was watching one of his patients dance, inappropriately enough, ‘nuf said about that. We’ve visited this location before. The land of the purple cubes, purple in general. Couches and all. ‘Nother one. This is the touristy part; we probably don’t want to know what goes on in other areas. A captured pawn (one (Alpha)) falls off the table between chess playing Fisher and Rigg. Oregon.
And we have a name, thanks to Delaware: Little Hell. Yes, Dr. Tom fits right in. (TBC)
00480402 (Gerald in The Pool of Waters)
He was finished with Little and was ready for Big. What a fine specimen of a man, Dr. Alexis thinks while he passes and disrobes again at the larger of the 2 pools in this area of the temple, a tag-along colleague of Dr. Tom and also somewhere where she wasn’t suppose to be. Studying bodies in the wrong way, non-scientific that is.
“Ladies, mind if I join you?” he asked while dipping in, eliciting girly titters all around.
She didn’t even know the name of some of the body parts where his scars were located. Perhaps a quack as well? (TBC?)
00480403 (where do *we* end?)
And so the real world smacks us in the face, the ear, turning it blue. I said it’s a lobe cyst and the doctor said I could have it drained or just — his recommendation — leave as is. It still itches. The man before me doing the metaphorical slapping seemed a nice enough fellow otherwise in an odd way, but maybe an odd good way? Intelligent for sure, but does he having a beating heart, a true conscience? He *couldn’t see the pond*. I’ve been studying his choice of profession this morning a bit, what I can understand of it. Works to streamline the health care billing system which drives down payments on both patient and provider sides. What a mess this country is in. Would his business suffer if we, as a whole, moved into some kind of universal health care model following all other 1st world, high income countries, simplifying the process? Probably — unless this potential change is baked into its plan. I try to put myself in his shoes, see affordable health care for all while keeping the business side solvent as an attainable goal and not a pipe dream some make it out to be. Socialism — worse: communism. Do the majority of people in his business see it this way? Or is this just a pure capitalist, profit making affair? I don’t know. Again: the mess. Nothing is pure capitalism, nothing is pure socialism. Neither can work alone. That’s why we have government bailouts at the inevitable recessions, and so on. But I’m not a businessman. I think it starts at the top and works downward. If businesses are to be treated like individuals then they, too, must find their heart, the conscience — the caring for the others and, turning to actual individuals again running the businesses, not just some immediate family situation; preserving the bloodline. Taking care of those who are like you and have chosen similar paths in life and are doing well in the current, top bloated economic situation. Trickle Down doesn’t work without checks and balances to power-grabbing. You can’t keep giving people at the pyramid peak all the breaks, the piled-up advantages.
My whole way of life has been upended — NOT. I’m in excellent health for my age. I can walk up and down and sideways on hills with no problems now, unlike this past winter with the hip issue. I can go go go and I’m taking advantage of it. But… has it finally caught up with me, this boundary stretching lifestyle of mine? I have problems with them. That’s why this blog has been labeled purely educational and out of the profit loop. We have pensions and other retirement incomes, especially when we’re both past 66 and ss fully kicks in, which will happen soon. We’ll be okay. I’m thinking more of others. I pity the younger folk of not only this country but of the world. I’m bouncing around, I know.
Boundaries — I want a world where ALL generated societal information is free and open to use. Creativity ultimately lies in the psyche of the collective and not the individual working within it utilizing smaller goals. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. We build up from the past, coral-like, to make our future to be continued. We are never alone and never have been. We are all ONE.
00480404
And so we begin at the end, 561 steps from. Walking down, we’ve returned to the ONE but with nowhere to go but back up.
“NEXT!”
00480405 (Athens now)
Well it was absolutely the worse place Lexi and I could have gone. The slurping the slurping! We could only stand it for a second then had to mute the whole location. We’d have to read lips from now on. Luckily lips are like one pink and we had no problem with it. Carrcass+1.
“About the dandelion!” I said if only to others, the words understood as mere vibrations to myself physically and in my head mentally. Lexi couldn’t take any more and exited the scene stage left, not even being able to stand just visual. Those mouths those mouths!
“Yeah, what about the dandelion!?” responded the waitperson closest to me, 2 plates in his hands and one spinning on his nose, just kidding about the nose. But as deftly as he was handling those plates with 3 bowls apiece full of steaming hot noodles he might be able to pull it off. I could tell he could pause only for a second, which was reinforced when he said, “Hurry up, man!”
I hesitated again and he was gone. Waitress I’d had my eye on next. “Miss, oh miss!?” She presently had 3 drinks in her two hands and one arm, that 3rd tucked behind one of the ones in the hands, reader’s choice. Not a nose once more but pretty impressive still. “Hurry it up, bud!” she said, kind of mimicking the man. “The dandelion… what is the signif—!” But she was gone with the “…”. I had to learn from past mistakes! We’ll… 2 of them. Dammit!
Next: the ramen cooker. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro I learned, an Italian by way of Stockholm and Lima. I had to lean in real hard from my stool at the crowded counter to get his attention back in back. “About the dandelion!” I pointed almost straight up now to the most significant card picture (to me) attached to the metal partition encircling the kitchen at the center of it all instead of forward like before. “Significance?!” I uttered as simply as possible but still with perhaps too many syllables. Caught him right at the start of his break. And, big break, he was a big fan of restaurant lore. *My* big break.
15 minutes and 15 seconds later, we got to the mention of “tartar mosquito” in that badly translated Tripadvisor review which led me here in the first place. Success! (TBC)
00480406
He told me to back up a bit more and I finally saw it, the double vision he spoke about before locking into place like a renegade magic eye. 2 halves of the restaurant directly overlapping each other through a crossing, slots in one seeming to be perfectly filled by the other.
The ears of the mirrored central woman with the flaxen hair is whispered into by the dark hard woman on either side, perhaps the most obvious communication between the now combined spaces. I could even make out the hushed words they shared: “I am instant.” With this, the two instantly became untangled, the special vision was over and the restaurant returned to mundane, like a master magician snapping one out of hypnosis. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro was back at his noodle cooking station inside the customer encircled kitchen, unable to be spoken to any longer. He was never here in the first place. But what was said before the transfer knocked me on the floor, kicked me in the shins, insert whatever idiom for shock and awe you wish here. Fortunately I made sure I recorded at least the meaty part of our imaginary conversation. 🙂
Looking around to doublecheck everything remained stable, I went into the men’s bathroom to play, making sure noone else was in it; just couldn’t wait. I killed two birds with one stone (another idiom!) while sitting on the commode. PRESS
ME: Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (pause) You were talking about the origin of the restaurant’s name (I prompted). (longer pause) Albertville?
I cut off the machine along with the pee. Something went wrong! (TBC)
00480407
I stumbled out of the Athens restaurant, trying to get away from the doubling and the confusion as fast as possible. The tape wouldn’t work, the tape wouldn’t *work*! And I didn’t know where I was; it was all a maze of streets and jumble of people, people everywhere going in all directions at once. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt I was going to scream. I did. I wake up.
—–
He’d heard about a bar up the coast under new management and decided to check it out. “Pirates,” he muttered while pulling in and seeing the treasure map graffiti on the outer wall. But some of them are okay, he remembered. Like Randolph, which started him wondering where in the heck *is* Randolph the Bastard Pirate? He hadn’t seen him in years, it seemed. Anyway, he thought, better head in. Gotta get past that outside pirate first, he he. I’ll bump him real good to make sure he knows who’s the boss. “‘Scuse me fellow.”
Hmm, just passed right through the guy. One of those lifeless flatties, he thought.
And then, inside the bar, more flat, a haircut this time, apparently ongoing judging by the proximate hand with buzzing razor.
“Corona Ultra then, lady,” he ordered after picking his seat and getting the name of the house brand. He needed more alcohol to deal with the strangeness here, but then was greeted with: “We only got Non. No actual booze here, not after the attack by the alcoholic sea monster. Don’t want a return,” she said flatly, as was her overall style and the overall style of the bar as a whole, starting with the flat treasure map, the flat pirate flattie leaning against the front door outside.
“Oh. Okay. A Non, then, I guess. Do I still have to–?”
“Yes,” she said, anticipating the end of his question about paying for the thing he doesn’t desire. She’d heard it before. Several strangers coming here and asking the same. Like Peet Pelican over in Juho. Like Sachie B. from Vortexville, Raymond from Redwoods, Stillman from Stiletto Heels Hills. Drinkers like to drink what they call the real stuff, the real thing. But she’s aiming to change all that with a Non brew that will knock them off their heels, especially Stillman with his stiletto shoes I suppose.
While he was waiting for his drink he didn’t really want to pay anything for, the man simply known as Biker further inspects the place. “What’s with the robot?” he queried.
“Oh, came with the place,” she said while pouring. “I guess that it dropped down from the hillside above sometime during the renovation and just got lodged inside. So I set it upright, let it walk in place again. He’s harmless. I think. Anyway, I haven’t decided if I want to keep him or not. There’s another one, another robot — smaller — still up on the hill about to tumble over the side too. Maybe he’ll join him soon. Dunno, in summary. I call him Clocky but he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have any soul that I can tell. Maybe he just needs reactivation.”
“I see.” (TBC)
00480408 (NEXT!)
00480409
Philip hadn’t been playing pinball long when he remembered to tell Frank the big news. “Lexi said, get this, the bar’s opening back up next to her house this morning,” he said after finishing the first game, normally a low point of the day since he gets to the higher scores later. “The Hole in the Wall is back in business, baby,” he summarized, and then is about to insert the next quarter into the machine when piano and Spongeberg inventions weary Frank stops him. “Halt!” I believe he said, then: “Go!” And so they went.
—–
“Be with you in just a moment, gents,” she said after glancing at them over her shoulder. “We’re not actually open back up until 2, but that’s fine. Gotta take a break and clean sometime. Working alone right now, until I can get my mechanical man over there fixed up so he can pitch in. That’s a joke, btw.” But then Daisy Flathead thought: Is it?
“We’re fine, ma’am,” said Frank. “Just glad to see the bar up and running again. Place was pretty much wrecked when Lexi had to quickly raise it 100 feet in the air because of the alcoholic sea monster and all. I know she was trying to be careful but… that mouth, so big, so close! But…, erm…”
Daisy guessed what Frank was going to ask; she’s good about that with people. “How can I serve booze when that monster is still out there roaming the Nawt Vaya waters, biding his or her time? I can’t. Never mind all those taps. I only got one. Corona Non… until I can brew my own Non. Mind you, Corona Non’s pretty good. But I’m conjuring up something special. *Special* special. Our Second Lyfe residents won’t know what hit them because it won’t. They’ll — collectively — wait and wait for the kicker, thinking how tasty the drink is. Then they’ll go home perfectly sober but also, strangely, perfectly satisfied. The wives of the normally drunk-ish, boor-ish husbands will thank me and shower me with money so that I can advertise the brew even more, ha. The husbands of the wives might complain a bit about the lack of buzz but will keep thinking of the taste and come back anyway. Taste, my friends. It’s all about the hops. And I have a secret weapon. Flathead.” She points to her own flat hair topped noggin with this. “All in here. And… there. I’m done dusting. So, Non beers all around? That’ll be 5 dollars each.” (TBC)
00480410
ALBERTVILLE: Yes, it comes from the movie “Tampopo,” which literally means Dandelion (in Japanese). It’s a film about a woman, a cook like me, trying to create the perfect ramen; believe it came out in 1986 (sic: 1985). Her restaurant in the movie has the same name as ours. *We* are seeking the perfect ramen.
ME: Hold on. I think we’re having some technical difficulties. Yes, my power cord was loose, sorry (PRESS). Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (TBC)
00480411
title: one last gift from a ghost store
location: Blue Mtn. Mall (10/30/25) superimposed with Wubble Moll (c.2017)
model: Peppre A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFejbwR2XfE
00480412 (in your face to-)
00480413
Things were a bit different on Nawt Vaya Free State land when Biker Mann returned to the revamped, reopened Hole in the Wall several days later in the month. And he hadn’t even met the red tie man within.
He looks out at the water, notices more different. A big, orange tile roofed building sticking out of the Nawt Vaya Sea. Related to the ties? he thinks. Turns out it’s related to the also new ties, yes. Red tie man hopefully will explain.
And what about the poor robot in front of him (!). Kicked out of the bar, but why? Inside now.
—–
“Biker, meet Barry. Barry, Biker. I think you two have a lot in common. Tell him, Barry.”
“We’re dreaming.”
Biker wakes up. He wouldn’t actually revisit the Hole in the Wall until day after today’s tomorrow. No ties will remain, but Barry is still inside. Daisy Flathead restates her introduction from the dream.
“Biker, meet Barry.” Biker gasps, only recalling the dream at that point.
“Am I dreaming again?” spoke Biker.
“Wait a minute, Biker Mann. I haven’t finished my lines. “I think you two have a lot in common,” she continued as before. “Tell him, Barry.”
“Not this time,” he answers Biker’s question, indicating both are awake now. He’d checked before he left the cottage to the left, up on the hill. No tie, unlike before.
before
Barry’s live-in girlfriend Wendy suddenly appears at the door, out of breath from running over. “I got here as fast as I could. Wake up Barry!”
But it was she who was asleep this time. No clothes.
“I have a spare dress in back, sweetie,” said sympathizing Daisy, who’d had her share of naked-in-public dreams. “Just for this kind of occasion.” TBC
00480414 (an experiment)
Bringing back one of the old Moard Ling structures to my land: The Temple of TILE, along with an attached palm pool. Pretty bulky and clunky I know, but I still like it and think it has potential for further development. So I moved whatever else was in my water up in the sky to live, at least for a while. The parcel is private for now while I work on the project.
Excited to see if I can get Carrcassonnee’s running mouth motored up again, but perhaps I should find one for my boat first.
And she’s at the pool too (!), albeit without eyeball in that manifestation. Something else to work on. TBC
00480415
“Snowlands, huh?” Frank Lynn repeats the location where Clucky says she’s moving to… 5 sections of a photo-novel into the future.
In the present (and just after the move):
“The temple and attached pool don’t seem to be much of an eyesore from here,” Frank Lynn talks only to himself now while staring out from the View at the view. “Must be something about Clocky instead. Maybe *he’s* still somewhere in the area and can be properly talked to.”
“Clocky?” Daisy Flathead answers him when he then walks down the hill to the revamped, reopened Hole in the Wall bar parallel to and in synch with the newly placed temple/pool complex and asks about the robot’s current location. “Kicked out by the ties.” Like tiles but different, Frank Lynn understands. Along the same lines.
“So he’s not going to be your bartender or anything?”
“Dunno, still. He *did* say he has experience, I’ll give him that.”
experience
“Tell me more about the tiles, I mean, ties,” Frank Lynn requests, taking another sip of Corona Non, his 3rd of the day. Can’t get enough of it! So tasty. Daisy picked the right Non for the house drink fer sure, he thinks.
“Ever heard of the band Tally Hall?”
“No,” he answers flatly. “Enlighten me.”
“Ever heard of the song ‘Banana Man’?”
“No again.”
“Their most famous. Probably. Unless it’s ‘Ruler of Everything’.”
“Sounds like you’re a fan, Daisy.” And here Frank Lynn starts thinking about her hair and its flatness. And it’s frizziness. Is she at least part African-American? Got him thinking along other lines too.
“Kind of,” she answers about the fan part. “But they wear ties — red, yellow, blue, green and also a gray to unite them all through drums. You have to have drums to complete a proper rock band. 4 isn’t enough in this case.”
“Hey, doesn’t Barry De Boy up on the hillside wear red ties?”
“Not when he is awake,” Daisy answers, and then Frank thinks she winks at him. Her hands move closer to his on the counter.
“Oh,” Frank says, and looks down. The 2 sets of hands get closer closer… overlap (!). (TBC)
00480416 (blocked View)
And so I think this is as good a place as any to end section 04 of the current photo-novel: a giant picture of Tally Hall on one side of a mega-prim that also pushed physical object Clocky the robot out of his walking-in-place spot in the Hole in the Wall bar at its bottom and into the Nawt Vaya Sea below a couple of days back. With the error spotted (and mega-prim deleted), will he return to land and re-claim his position beside bartender Daisy Flathead, potentially taking her place and allowing her to manage more from afar and maybe do some of that travelling about Our Second Lyfe she’s always dreamed of? But I guess now there’s Frank to think of: Frank Lynn up in the castle in the sky above it all, a potential *boyfriend*. No, her heart will probably tell her brain than she needs to stay in the area, see what develops on that front. Meaning that 8 prim Clocky will most likely remain pushed away into the waters of the Nawt Vaya Sea, gone if not forgotten. Interesting parallels here to the photo-novel 46 story of fellow marching-in-place, physical object robot Tobor a couple of sims west along another shoreline come to think of it, the ocean surrounding the continent of Jeogeot in that case. Hmmm.
More than just mere parallels? A synchronicity, a link between 2 events through time and making them become *one* event. In 2 places? Could be.
Sunklands 