Cold Stop

In the radio biz, a cold stop means a track that ends abruptly rather than fading out. It’s synonymous with “cold turkey” for quitting a habit right now. It can also mean a sudden stop in motion, or stopping in one’s tracks.

Nothing positive ever keeps me awake. Even when anticipating something good, anxiety over what could (but probably won’t) go wrong will rear mightier and scarier during darkest night than is possible in the light of day. I don’t remember what I used in nights before I took the picture at the top of this post; it was snapped during 2016’s winter off Dallas Road and I’ve wrestled with nocturnal demons for years. But I recently found myself wide awake and freaking out around three in the morning; desperate to silence the internal screaming, I somehow managed to conjure the red lollipop in a blizzard and issue the mental command: STOP!

Imagery is power. My best defence against nausea is to picture brittle blue skies, silver-frosted streams, and glistening sun on ice-coated branches. Imagining the blistering cold of ice on my tongue and snow on my face is a sure fire means to quell the roiling threat of flu or food poisoning. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the picture of a snowy stop sign, accompanied by a firm declaration, startled my hysterical mind into silence. And in that instant, I was able to redirect my thoughts to something more pleasant.

Well, the only fiction that interests my night time mind is dreaming up the worst possible outcome in a real-life predicament – a scenario of which there are countless versions, might I add. It’s not at all compelled to consider writing the next scene or developing a new story idea. Ironically, there is no creative value in lying awake between midnight and six a.m.

So when I next find myself tormented by the insomniac game of “Worst Case Scenario”, I’m calling in the cold stop and going back to sleep.

Seen Through a Coffee Shop Window

not my view, but a reasonable facsimile

I took myself down to the local coffee shop one workday last week, fully intending on drafting this weekend’s blog post. I had no idea what my subject would be. Life of late has been more about living and less about musing—you might say I’m gathering material for future posts—but I reckoned that, surely, inspiration would strike once I assumed the position.

Armed with a Mumbai chai, I took a seat in the window, opened my book, uncapped my coloured Sharpie ... and nothing came. Nada. Zip, zero, zilch. The blank page leered up at me, daring me to mar its pristine whiteness with my purple genius. I stared back, immobilized, though not with fear. My mind was merely as blank as the page in front of me.

My Zen homework has taught me not to panic at a writer’s block. Sometimes it’s just not meant to happen. On another day, my genius will blaze brighter than the halogen high beams on an Audi. Just not today.

Sigh.

Rather than forcing the matter, I decided simply to enjoy my tea and watch the street action through the window. I kept the book open, though the cap went back on my pen. My cup was almost empty when I noticed something so typically incongruous of a First World society that I had to write it down: a white Porsche Cayenne pausing at a crosswalk while a homeless man pushed a shopping cart laden with all his worldly goods in front of it. Wealth and poverty in a single, poignant image. I wished I’d had my camera with me.

Then I realized I’d had a ton of impressions in the past half hour; seen countless vignettes worthy of note (to me, anyway):

A lapdog wearing a raincoat.

Tourists carrying shopping bags.

An older couple strolling arm in arm.

A sleek and shiny Tesla—twice!

The bus ballet (they really do a dance, merging around and into traffic from the stop outside 

the window).

A quartet of orange umbrellas bobbing in a cluster along the far sidewalk. They stood out so bright and cheerful in the grey drizzle, I christened them “orange blossoms”.

The faces on passersby: grim, worried, anxious, vacant, lots of frowns and not many smiles. Sad.

A toddler pushing a stroller while his mother steered him from behind, and the tiny hand lolling from the stroller itself as the occupant enjoyed the ride.

A hipster girl wearing a backpack as big as she was, pausing to read the “we’re hiring” sign in the coffee shop window.

Soft jazz on the shop’s sound system, followed by a cool cover of Roxy’s “Love Is The Drug”, then something by Florence and the Machine (her voice is so distinctive).

The store manager came by to tidy the tables behind me. “On your own today?”

“Just hanging out,” I replied.

“Killing time?”

“Nah, I was doing that in the office.”

He laughed. I said I’d see him tomorrow, then I packed up my stuff and went back to work.

It might not be genius, but I got my post after all.

Canon Fodder

Ru's New Toy!!!!

I got a new camera for my birthday, and as it happens, the test phase coincided with Moon Pie’s determination to follow Ter on her outing this morning, starting with trying to hide in her purse …



Hm .. will I fit?

Busted!

Failing that, he decided to follow her down the stairs …

Changed his mind and tried to climb back up again …

Got close enough for me to pick him up …

... though I had to pry him off my leg when he got there.

So he contented himself with watching from the window as she drove away …

Now he's playing safely with his buddies while I play some more with my camera.

Ter goes back to work tomorrow, but I have another week in which to memorize the second half of the user's guide and attack Shade. The carpets are being cleaned tomorrow afternoon; after that, my time is my own ... unless Moonie decides to get into more mischief ...