Does the moon hesitate because you’ve just broken up with a beautiful girl? No. The cosmos rolls on.
Misalignments are human. The glitching is what keeps us non-linear.
Remember when social media was social. Where the water cooler in the cloud was fun. We could follow and stay connected to our extended family. We imagined we had some control over who or what could be sampling our images. We failed to read the fine print. “Any image or text uploaded to our platform can be used, repurposed without attribution, and used for any purpose by the company, Facebook, err, Meta.
If you upload it to the cloud, it’s gone. It’s training data for AI. It’s mine.
The earlier version of this was CA, Communication Arts, the beautiful graphic design and art magazine, often kept for years by librarians and designers as a resource for inspiration. Today, there are infinite resources for inspiration, but are you paying attention to the right ones? Is your entertainment an escape? Or can you rewire that energy of escape and celebration into something creative: music, art, writing. Paint your fury. Sing your sadness about the girl who got away. Listen to the voice in your own head more than the Instagram wisdom you keep quoting without comprehending.
A zen koan is nice. It makes for good meme or clickbait ideas. It does not help you along your path at discovering something about the sadness and suffering of the world. Most humans avoid looking at the pain and anguish happening around them. It is essential to block out the war, the cockamamie administration and flock of White Walkers, not the Game of Thrones variety, but something different. Zombies of privilege and wealth. With lifetime healthcare for them and their families. And *nothing* for the people. Let them eat Obamacare and Medicare. Let them earn their retirement by working until 79.
We need term limits on all political offices. Those old fuckers supporting the orange fucker, are in the process of escalating World War III. How do you define a “world war?” How many countries have to be involved. What if it is a battle between three greedy tyrants, dividing the world’s resources as if they were setting up the opening of a game of Risk.
This is not a game. The lives being torn apart, blown apart, are humans, not robots. Humans with children, dreams, and jobs. Now, upended by a war of some superpower bullshit, oil, minerals, water. It’s all going to come down to dominating the resources of the Earth. Elon is well on his way to securing his lithium for batteries in any process, regardless of environmental impact.
His EV company, Tesla is being sued in nearly every state they operate a factory. He’s not looking out for you. And, actually, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, he’s quite high on ketamine. My son, says it’s pretty good at certain doses. He would know. Wait, would he? Fuck that noise. Not diving down my son’s rabbit hole of despair and loose weaponry.
Underneath it all, the anxiety on the planet has climbed a few octaves higher. We’re all worried. Even the super-rich, The Zucks and Fucks of the world.
It’s never too late to brew yourself a better cup of coffee. Add complications to the ritual that brings you so much energy and delight. Grind your own beans. Use a French Press or a high-tech pressure device. Or a fully-automatic (grind, brew, steam, empty the puck) Espresso machine. [NO. That one is actually going the wrong direction.]
My coffee is challenging. Today, remoting at Whole Foods on Lamar, they don’t take cash at the cafe vendor. Fuck. A few days ago I walked across the street to the other corporate evil empire establishment (fighting human unionization) Starbucks. For six dollars, cash, keep the change, I got a drip brew of Pikes Peak with room for whole milk. A touch of cinamon would’ve been nice, but not that day.
In a world of frictionless commerce, at the time when pennies are being eliminated from our currency because the metal is more expensive than the fiat currency. When frictionless means give me your email address for 10% off. Oh wait, we also need your phone number. Unsubscribe at any time. Um, I’ll keep my privacy instead, thanks. In fact, I see your manufacturing in Vietnam, yeah. I don’t need it.
We’re going touchless. Everything is touchless. Only a few professions still involve human contact. Hair stylists. Physical therapists. Massage therapists. I thought once of enrolling at Lauderstein Conway massage school. My fatal flaw, I only want women clients. And pretty ones. Damn, that’s not going to work out for me.
As it goes, I’m searching for my massage partner again.
She’s discovered some truth about me. It shut her right up. No more, “We had such a lovely first few weeks…” Yeah, sweetheart. Tell me what happened.
I won’t chronicle it here. I think Soul Love has all the clues. That love story has been taken offline due to some emotionally disturbed family drama. I guess if it’s over, the NDA is null and void. (chuckle) Sorry, that’s mean. None of it is meant to be mean. None of it. She can’t hear that. That’s okay. And this evening, it’s no longer about her. It was. I was.
{soundtrack.queue.I could have loved you forever.live.2007.monte.montgomery}
“You are the best I’ve ever had,” I said. Now, looking higher. Single would be good. Dating a married woman is contraindicated and risky for all the reasons you might imagine and many of the ones that will confuse and frustrate even the most patient and understanding. Again, mute this thread. (As much as possible.) It will be back. She may not be. Moving on up.
As I write though my days, the writing changes me. Each book offers steps up, shoots and ladders, and double-roll boosts, or the dreaded Draw 4 card of Uno. I wasn’t meaning to describe the burning building I was trying to make love in. It just happened that the descriptions, though accurate, showed her loveliness in a less-than-flattering light.
“Why did you say all those mean things about me?”
“Stating the fact that you are not divorced yet, is not mean.”
“I thought we had something special during those first few weeks.”
“Yes. We had unlimited time, energy, and consideration.”
“It was a lie.”
“It was not a lie. The book is not about cataloging the truth or the evil girlfriend. ‘The crazy ex’ thing, that was your meme cycle not mine.”
“You were cruel.”
“Was I?”
“You said all those mean things.”
“Facts.”
Our misalignment is complete. She’s discovered something even more terrible about me. More than my “leaving her” over and over. Worse than me writing about her in an unflattering light. Publishing the book-in-progress on my sandbox site. About five readers. My storage and working library of projects and flights of fantasy.
I am expanding my own writing beyond what I had imagined from Creative Writing class at the University of Texas, where I met George Ray. (Need to ping him on text again, he’s not responding.) He was a lovely friend. We would often go see the blues after class on Thursday nights. Or grab a Nacho-average Cheese Burger from The Tavern on Lamar, just down the street from the original Whole Foods and the 2nd and 3rd mothership buildings.
Writers need community. I’m working on a project for that too. At this moment, I’m cultivating a new writer connection and feedback loop. David. My poet is also David. David J and David R. In the our recent dance performance, David R was a dancer. There was also a David P. A lot of Davids.
My new gig, has a young team of Jon and John. If it goes as planned I will head up the J3 group developing marketing and AI-optimization strategies. We shall see. The power is still off at my house. Wheels are turning. My taxes are done. Refund is small, but will help. My accountant has another few weeks to finish the review of my 2024 return, where the IRS is withholding $2,000 until further documentation is provided. And my unemployment from Whole Foods Market and Amazon will reach a hearing, an appeal sometime this year. Gum up the system. Like The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward (Desert Solitare) Albee.
I don’t want to be an anarchist. I am a revisionist. A catalyst. A fighter for human liberty and creative inspiration. Imagine if Leonardo had invented a religion rather than a flying machine. Or if Frank Lloyd Wright had architected mass inexpensive housing, like Bucky Fuller did. Or Elon, what if he’d put 44 Billion into Amtrak and making mass transit country-wide more affordable, comfortable, and reliable. He could’ve gone down in history as a good guy. Now, he’s an evil character from a bond movie fighting for the Joker and the Penguin in the White House.
Oh, snorting pink cocaine off one of his concubines, hoping to get pregnant, the ultimate golden penis ticket, and a seat on the rocket ship to Mars, filled with women and children that would make Heinlein blush. I tried to re-read Stranger in a Strange Land again, and it’s rough. Sexism is rampant. Lots of hippie love. It’s like an original genre, Hippie Science Fiction. Like Dark Star and Red Dwarf.
dig into the deeper meaning with the Cloud Pilots
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Look >> There’s a new Facebook Group on *hyperfiction*
© 2026 john oakley mcelhenney, all rights reserved
*conundrums unsolvable
dig into the deeper meaning with the Cloud Pilots
> back to index: proofs of life
Look >> There’s a new Facebook Group on *hyperfiction*
© 2026 john oakley mcelhenney, all rights reserved
