891 – Jet Stream Adventure

EPISODE 891 – Jet Stream

 

[START OF RECORDING]

SCOOTER: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, and all of my patron peeps, thanks for keeping the show going, patron peeps.

 

INTRO: [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether it’s thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, changes in time or temperature.  Things on your mind; that’s one thing that keeps me up, thoughts that I have about the past, present, future, or…say, indeterminant time periods.  So, thoughts, feelings, anything physical coming up for you or emotionally, changes in temperature…that happens to me a lot.  It could happen to everybody.  You could have…you could be on the road, you could be someone that works a second, third shift.  Maybe they’ve invented at your workplace…great news, everybody.

 

Gather round.  We, here at, you know, Whatever Enterprises, have invented a fourth shift that’s even less…my podcast could help you with that.  You say okay, well, I thought…I say, I’ll help you adjust.  We’ll get the curtains, you get Scoots on, and I’ll help carry you off into dreamland.  It could be something else but whatever’s keeping you awake, I’m here to take your mind off of that.  I got a safe place set up here, set aside.  It can also be instantly delivered to you, accessible…accessible or accessible, whichever you prefer.  Nuclear, nuclear.  You say, you know, any of those things.  The podcast…you could have it whenever you need it.  It’s here for you.  Then what I do is I send my voice across the deep, dark night, use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones.  Oh, so creaky are my dulcets.  You say well, I’m not sure how do you describe Scoots’ voice?  You say well, hm.  It’s not like anything I’ve really heard before.  I mean, you’ve heard it before; have you ever driven through a bog or within…near a bog before?

 

You know the sound aging trees make in the wind?  I think that was once a…what are those things called?  Those short poems with syllables in them.  Sometimes my brain also blanks out.  I say, that was part of it.  I was gonna say a soliloquy but oh, I almost had it and then it vanished again from my brain.  But yeah, the sound of an aging tree in a strong wind.  You say, what does creaky, dulcet mean to you?  I’d say well, that.  It’s actually not bad…the reason I say that is ‘cause that’s not bad if you’re kicking back somewhere and listening to that in the right place.  There’s other ways…you say okay, well, I’m comfortable.  I kind of like the sound of that tree.  If I was trying to take the SAT or something or concentrate on…I’m not necessarily gonna listen to it at that moment but at bedtime.  I’m gonna send my voice…creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  You’ve already got a little taste of those.   I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna get mixed up, I’m gonna use…not only am I gonna use filler words; I’ll probably get caught up in filler words and pauses that are not pregnant with meaning.

 

They’re pre-cog…they really are.  I don’t know, maybe not.  They’re de-cognition.  Or it’s like when you’re trying to start a thought.  So, pre-ignition.  You say, I wonder if this brain’s gonna start on me right now.  That was what some of the pauses in the podcast say.  Anybody that’s had a car or…this has been experienced with a lot of vehicles I’ve owned.  Did you know…once upon a time, kids, cars used to start with keys and not buttons.  I guess with the button, it kind of takes out…the button, they said…the car’s manufacturer’s said, let’s give them a little less…we’ve given them…these car drivers way too much control and they’ve just run rampant with it, driving around everywhere.  Let’s just give them a button and see…I wonder if there’s someone doing studies of that.  But so, back when you had a car and you…if you were in a position like I’ve been in at times, it’s like you’re not 100% sure your car’s gonna start, before you turn the key, sometimes you talk to your higher power, sometimes you mutter or your lower power or whatever; your base power.

 

That’s what I’ve been in touch with, holy moly.  But a lot of times you just pause there and that’s kind of what it is when I pause in this podcast.  I wonder if my brain’s actually gonna start up with some new thoughts.  I’m always trying to start my brain up and wind it to help you wind down.  If you’re new, welcome.  Thanks for coming by.  Sorry it took so long to say hello.  Come on in.  If you’re new and skeptical or doubtful or unsure, that totally makes sense.  Why wouldn’t you be?  Here I am with a person…first of all, you say, you’re the first person I met with a brain that needs a key to start it up.  I say yeah, I got…believe me, I’m not even sure what kind of starter they gave me.  Yeah, I don’t have a button.  A lot of people have that, the old button-brain.  Built-in button; you just think of something, poofy-poo, it’s there.  My creaky, dulcet tones do sound a bit like a car trying to get started because of the same thing.  You say, how many times are you gonna talk about this?

 

How many ways can I talk about this analogy?  I don’t know.  If you’re new, here’s a couple things to know; if you’re skeptical or doubtful, a lot of listeners…I don’t even know, millions, hundreds of thousands, I don’t know, came to this show very doubtful too, very skeptical.  Probably, I don’t know what percentage of them headed off…back off that way, but actually, millions have stayed, too.  They said hey, this podcast, I’m gonna give it a second or third try.  Suddenly they said, this is great.  This is right what I’m looking for.  It’s something I don’t really have to listen to.  It’s there for me to listen to but I don’t have to listen to it or engage it with my full attention.  It’s intended to put me to sleep but also be barely listened to.  That took me a few tries to…this is…I’m just generalizing what I hear from listeners.  It took me a few times to understand that I could listen to Scoots or I could barely listen to Scoots.  It’s gonna make the same amount of sense.  If I try to really listen though, I’m not sure it’ll work.  Kind of give it a few tries when you first get here but realize you don’t need to listen.

 

There’s also no pressure to fall asleep.  I’m here to keep you company, essentially, as you drift off which is a little different approach than most things.  A lot of things are intended to just put you to sleep.  Here I am, I’ll take your mind off of stuff, keep you company, be at your…be in the vicinity of your bedside or wherever you’re snoozing and keep you occupied, just barely.  The reason the episodes are about an hour is so you have plenty of time…or alternatively if you can’t sleep, you got somebody here for you.  You say okay, well, at least I got Scoots to talk to me about some stuff.  Those are a couple things to know.  Other things, if you’re new that can throw a new listener off…I want to give you as many heads-up as I can, though they always come too late.  The thing is, this podcast does not work for everybody.  I said that.  Oh, structurally, this can…this is definitely where the show deviates from the norm.  The show starts off with business.

 

That’s really how we keep it free for everybody.  It’s not free to make or distribute the show but I want it to be free for anybody that wants it.  We do that between listener support and advertiser support.  I don’t know, that’s something I’m actually very proud of because the people that benefit from the show help keep it there for anybody else that’s not in a position to do that or that just…you know, that you don’t need to.  That’s the business but that’s only about four or five minutes.  Then there’s about eighteen minutes or so of me just talking which I think we’re about six minutes into that, where I just kind of introduce the podcast and then I get [00:10:00] distracted.  Then I go back to introducing the pod…we’ve seen that so far in the last few minutes.  Then I’ll start talking about something else, then I’ll go back to introducing the podcast.  Eventually, around twenty minutes or so, the intro will end and then we’ll have some business, then I’ll tell you a bedtime story.

 

You could skip ahead to twenty minutes.  What I would recommend is listening to the podcast a few times to see how it works for you ‘cause most listeners listen to the intro.  Some of those listeners are listening as they’re getting ready for bed or some listeners are listening as they’re in bed and falling asleep.  Some people fall asleep during the intro but most listeners kind of listen to the intro.  That’s why it’s like, fifteen to twenty minutes to wind down, let the day fade away behind you and just listen to old Scoots Magoots as I make up my own goofy names, here to keep you company.  Then the show ends with some thank yous.  That’s the structure of the show, a podcast you don’t need to listen to, no pressure to fall asleep.  I make the show because I’ve been there.  I’ve been there tossing and turning, mind racing, trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep.  Trouble getting up…how about this one; getting up too early?  Here’s my situation right now.  I say, my daughter doesn’t have school this week when I’m recording this so I don’t need to get up at my usual very early time anyway, so here’s what my brain decides; let’s get up fifteen minutes earlier than our alarm would go off, just naturally.

 

I say well, but I’m going to bed like, forty minutes later so what’s up with that?  That part of me says, I don’t know.  Just woke up.  I said well, can I get…well, you could try to get back to sleep.  Yeah, you don’t even have an alarm set, huh?  That’s what I’m dealing with this week.  But I’m dealing with it.  Honestly, maybe I’ll take a nap.  I don’t know, maybe I got enough sleep anyway.  Maybe I’ll try to go to bed earlier.  But I make this show because I’ve been there in all those situations and it’s frustrating, right?  You could probably hear it in my voice even though that one is not as bad as not being able to fall asleep or waking up…whatever it is that’s going on with you, it’s important and it’s not allowing you to get the sleep you need.  What I believe is you do deserve a good night’s sleep.  Not only that, that the world will be a better place with you resting in it.  Your world, your personal world, will be better.  You’ll probably be better equipped with everything you come in contact with.

 

It’s not trite to say it.  That makes the entire world a better place and the opportunity for you to flourish, having a reliable place of rest, that’s really what we want.  Isn’t that what we all want?  That’s what I want for you.  Now, the catch with this show is that it just doesn’t work for everybody.  If this show even worked for like, 50% of the people that listened to it, I would not be…I would actually already have some proxy doing the show.  I would be on a yacht somewhere.  I do wish it worked for everybody.  It’s just, this show’s a little bit different.  If it doesn’t work for you, I mean, test out different stuff.  I have an air purifier that’s pretty loud when it’s on high and a box fan.  That’s one thing I try.  Then I’ll try something else; I’ll try an app, I’ll listen to an empty bowl or try to test out another sleep podcast or I’ll meditate, or I’ll go for a walk.  I’ll sit outside.  But hopefully Sleep With Me kind of can become your bedtime…your bore-friend.  That’s really the role I’m applying for, your bore-bud, your bore-sib, your bore-bae, your bore-bestie.

 

I’m here to keep you company and be at your side.  I don’t know, that’s pretty much it.  Usually these intros kind of go into a much longer ramble but I really just want to help you fall asleep, if I can.  If you like, give it a few tries and see how it goes ‘cause I really appreciate you checking this show out.  I appreciate your time.  I work hard and I yearn and I strive to help you fall asleep.  Here’s a couple of ways we’re able to keep this podcast free for everybody.

 

Alright everybody, it’s time for a story.  We’ve visited the universe of Cloud Tower a few times in a couple episodes over the past few years but I heard a tale when I was up there.  I can access it.  The easiest way to access or access the secret of success is pronouncing ‘access.’  But if you’re ever wondering how to get a little bit of a taste of life at Cloud Tower, that’s the world above the clouds.  It doesn’t get any press.  I don’t know if there’s any other works of fiction celebrating that world ‘cause people say, I don’t see it when I’m in a plane or on radar or any…Google Eye or whatever it’s called doesn’t show it.  I say okay, well, I don’t know.  I don’t remember Alice in Wonderland asking any of these questions but these are good questions so I’ll tell you right now; in spring or summer or fall, possibly in winter, you could just lie down and you kind of get comfortable.  Maybe you could imagine you’re doing it right now in your bed.  There’s nice, comfortable grass, maybe there’s a blanket, a comfortable one between you and the grass ‘cause you say oh, that’s nice.

 

There’s a tree offering you comforting shade.  The air is just warm enough, the breeze is keeping the air moving but it’s a warm breeze, not a hot breeze.  The hot air only Scoots will provide.  You could look up there in the sky, maybe through the branches of the trees, and start to wonder.  You might even wa-wa-wonder at what’s going on up there, way up in the clouds where, you know, there’s stuff going on up there.  There’s a whole world.  We’ve only visited the transportation hub when…back in the day, in those episodes.  But I heard this story about a simple road trip which was hands down…I said, I gotta make a podcast about this because…just ‘cause I said well, this is interesting to me.  It was a tale of a few youth, Cloud Tower youth, whose names I’ll change now and try to think of.  Fluffernutter was one of them.  Shaeshese was another and Karl was the third.  Then Seagreed…Seagreed…we’ll say Seagreed, like Seagreen.  Those are the names I just thought of to change their names.

 

They were cloud…CBYs, I call them; cloud-based youth or youth-based…no, youth…cloud-based youth.  They were in that strange phase of life for a cloud or anyone where some would say you’re an adult but you’ve crossed over the old official…what is that called?  The entryway.  There’s a fancier word for it.  Into the world of adulthood but that’s just…it’s foisted on you.  Clouds don’t like foisting but it’s a part of the process.  We all are familiar with it.  They say, you’re a grownup now and you’re in the world of grownup things or you’re almost in the world of…in this case, it was almost in the world of grownup things.  They were all training together, learning as part of the…this world that has a pretty…well, let’s just…trying to give a short version.  But they were in higher education, kind of a liberal arts-type feel, like a broad-based thing preparing them but also learning tangible things at the same time.  They knew that in some worlds, courage was confused with other things like braggadocio and those.

 

So, trying to teach people tangible things so they’d feel comfortable in their own clouds.  These four youth, maybe whose names will escape me, they knew that just pending was their release into the…for a cloud, into the big air, the big sky, the whole world up there.  Whatever, I don’t know if it was the stratosphere [00:20:00] or the mesosphere.  I have no idea.  I say well, I always thought I was an altocumulus.  They said well, that’s what you always dreamed of, eh?  Or this is gonna be…I want to be a thunderhead.  I say well, every thunderhead starts out yadda-yadda-yadda, evaporative…I don’t know.  Maybe we say well, does it start out as H2O or was I just a hydrogen…two hydrogen and an oxygen or one hydrogen and two oxygen?  Where did it all begin?  These four young people, they were getting ready for that transition and they wanted to have one last fun time.  They were on a break from school.  Relationship-wise, so who was there?

 

There was Shae and Fluff, we’ll call them for short.  They were friends.  They had been friends through all of higher ed, they had even lived and worked together in the summer times.  They were really close.  They had a third friend.  Seagreed was friends with the other person whose name I forgot, the other cloud-based CBY, cloud-based youth or cloud-based being.  You could be both, obviously.  I’ll just say Zay because I can’t think of…so, Zay was friends with both Shae…well, that’s nice that it rhymes, and Fluff.  The other side was Seagreed who was kind of friendly.  Everyone was friends but just the closeness factor was not…but out of all of them, Shae was the one who was the most extraverted, confident in a positive…positive confidence.  Because Shae had such confidence, they would…they were comfortable venturing out and pushing people…not foisting them but saying hey, why don’t we try something outside our comfort zone?  They all said, okay.  So, one day, Shae said I’d like to have a talk to the four…the three of you.

 

The four of us, I’d like to have a meeting.  They said, what’s up?  Shae said well, I have this idea where I have this break coming up and we’re getting ready to transition into this world of mature clouds.  I think we should have one last good time, a little bit outside our comfort zone, though.  Then they got distracted because the fourth…oh, Seagreed said well, what about radio?  That was like, a long talk about radio.  Then Seagreed said okay, back to you, Shae.  You take back over.  Fluff was the quietest.  Fluff was the tallest and most physically attractive and imposing cloud.  Well, not really imposing.  Kind of a dreamy cloud.  You’d say wow, that fluff doesn’t say much but projects so…and then, so, we talked about Shae…was kind of…had all the qualities, kind of someone most people would have been jealous of if Shae wasn’t just so kind and charming.  Then Zay was just a good friend, really…I mean, a lot of other positive qualities but funny, kind, driven and focused but not in a way that impacted Zay’s friends.

 

Then Seagreed was a little bit like someone that would make a podcast or you know, a little bit different but still a good friend and a different sense of humor.  But they were all friends.  Eventually, they said…Seagreed said cue back to you, Shae.  Tell us what the plan is.  Shae said well, are you familiar with these jet streams that people talk about?  The rivers of air in the upper atmosphere that go through.  We’ve learned so much about them.  We’ve even done some traveling but Shae said, and we’re not equipped to just go out there and just travel on a jet stream.  It takes proper cloud equipment and all those things.  But Shae said, I have an uncle who’s looking to move…it’s tough to explain but there’s cloud-based beings and then there’s…for a generalization, CBE, cloud-based equipment or structures, CBS, you could say.  I don’t think they would say that.  They’d say but Scoots, please…I’d say well, that was…yeah, so cloud-based CB…oh, that’s still…cloud-based stuff I was gonna say.  Shae’s uncle had a cloud-based thing that had…what would be the equivalent of…on Earth, maybe a ship or a boat or a car or a dirigible.

 

A little bit different than a dirigible or a balloon.  What are those things called?  An airship.  But similar to those things, a form of…a large form of transport.  Shae said well, my uncle’s gotta relocate this…they called it the zephyr, from not that far off, somewhere we could get to, to somewhere where it’s nice and warm and sunny.  We’re gonna be out in the open jet stream out in the open air.  We’ll be working for my uncle just for a few days and then we could stay on the zephyr and enjoy…this was somewhere down where this…where the air is even warmer and pleasurable.  Maybe there’s even pockets of…moist air pockets, so kind of like swimming.  Kind of like their ocean; great views.  At first, there was like, you gotta be kidding me, this sounds awesome.  Fluff just didn’t say much.  Said mm, sounds cool.  Cool, I’m in.  Then Zay said wow, this sounds great, really.  We have a plan and how much is this gonna cost.  Shae said, we’ll be free.  It’s almost like we’re getting to stay on there for free by helping relocate it.

 

Seagreed said well, I’m not so sure about this.  What about…?  They said, don’t worry.  It’s not like the humans have their airships.  Ours are big and puffy and wide.  There’s places to lie down and relax.  It’s gonna be such a…we will learn so much, we’ll become closer friends, we’ll have an adventure, then we’ll have a vacation.  What could be better?  Everyone said okay, great.  Then they prepared.  They had to journey to where the zephyr was and they met Shae’s uncle Breeze.  Now, they had also said well, we don’t know anything about zephyrs or anything like that.  Shae said don’t worry, my uncle will be working with some professionals.  We’ll just be the crew.  They said okay, sounds good.  But when they got down to meet Uncle Breeze, Uncle Breeze said well, you know what?  I found out that the…we were gonna be the crew and there was gonna be a captain but I’m gonna be the captain now; Captain Breeze, and you’ll be my crew.  We’re just gonna take a simple journey.

 

We’re gonna come out of this little pocket we’re in here and we’re gonna get into the jet stream.  We’re gonna take the jet stream for thirty-six hours and then we’ll arrive at what is known as Paradise Cove up here in the clouds.  That’s where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer vacations.  We’ll pass the arms of Morpheus.  It’s gonna be legend.  These are high-altitude birds.  We’ll probably even see some humans flying.  They won’t recognize us for anything more than puffy water vapor but we know better.  They said, okay.  One other thing was Uncle Breezy was a little bit disorganized.  Didn’t quite have their act together but they said…you know, everybody was confident.  They said no…nothing to be concerned about.  We’re going on an adventure; don’t forget that, Shae said.  The next morning, bright and [00:30:00] early, they got up and they got onto the zephyr.  They had slept…maybe they had slept on the zephyr.  I guess they had and they got up, they had some breakfast, and they headed out.  They were in this big, big cove.

 

I don’t know what it was called.  Oh, Tuber Town, that’s right.  Thank you.  It took a few hours just to get out of Tuber Town and they all took turns learning how to…how you steer an airship.  Even if it’s made of clouds, it’s a slow-moving thing.  The breeze was fresh and the sun was shining.  They said wow, we’re really on the beginnings of an adventure, eh?  The uncle said oh yes, we are.  We’ll be carried by the jet stream.  We do have an engine and we have a sail very similar to a boat but mostly we’re just gonna be cruising.  They even saw some high-flying raptors that looked at them.  It was like something out of the movies.  They were slappin’ each other cloud-fives and dancing and smiling and it was really, really…and then they headed out of the cove there, Tuber Town, into the larger jet stream.  As they got out there, the…Uncle Breezy and Shae said, we want to learn while we’re out here.  This isn’t just an adventure.

 

Nothing was gonna…if we just got in the jet stream and we headed down there, it wouldn’t really be…it wouldn’t be much.  We would just be that…we would just be…relaxation.  You’re gonna relax when you get there.  I would’ve prepared some things for you and the other three cloud-based CBYs.  The other three CBYs said, okay.  Then Uncle Breezy said, are you familiar with Venus and Bacchus and their stories?  Everyone kind of just stared at them and said huh, well, I’m sorry.  They said, we know Bacchanalian and…then Breezy said okay, I’ll have to come up with something different.  Breezy said, for your opener, for the opening thing, we’re gonna not use any more of the engine.  This has a solar powered-based…I don’t know if it converts ions or something but Uncle Breezy said no, we’re not gonna use it, so shut off the engine.  What should we do if we don’t have an engine…?  We’re in the jet stream; we’re flowing with the jet stream.  In your brief time, what did you learn?

 

They said well, we should put up some of those sails.  Now, this particular airship had two sails.  It didn’t look like a…it looked like…more like…I don’t know if you’ve ever gone to a sushi restaurant, right.  They have these gigantic sushi boats, like the Sushi Deluxe boat.  Sometimes those are wooden.  They’re pretty wide.  You say well, I’ve never seen a boat that wide before but it’s meant to look like a boat.  That’s what the top of the air…where the people are on the airship looks.  But then the bottom of it looks like a puffy cloud, like an airship with a flat boat top almost, because it’s a cloud and not a helium or hydrogen balloon.  Then you could go down and sleep below inside the cloud.  When you’re a cloud, it’s a different…you have a different relationship with the…all things that we…it’s tough for us humans to understand but we could kind of create a line of example.  It’s structured differently so if you’re just on the surface, it kind of seems like you’re on the deck of a ship, but it’s much wider and calmer and more roomy and balanced.

 

It gives you a sense of…you just stay relaxed ‘cause you say oh, there’s plenty of space here, holy moly.  But it also has these two masts for sails or a third thing in the front.  I don’t know, it’s a spinnaker or whatever.  They said well, let’s put up the sails.  Then Uncle Breezy said okay, that sounds like a good idea.  If we don’t have an engine, let’s put up the sails and go by the power of the wind.  They put up the main sail and the boat began to move under…it gave it purpose.  They said okay, now where we can…we can control where we are in the jet stream here and be a little bit more intentional.  Then they put up the next…the second sail, a little bit smaller, a little bit towards the back.  They said okay, let’s do that one.  That sounds good.  There they were and then Uncle Breezy said okay, now we’re traveling, right?  We’re being propelled by the wind and the jet stream.  We’re traveling in the jet stream.  A few hours had passed by but then they were again taken…this wasn’t the first time they had tested out in Tuber Town using the sails.

 

Then Uncle Breezy said what about Dr. Hoomst?  Anybody familiar with Dr. Hoomst?  They said, doctor who?  That’s what Seagreed said.  You mean, Dr. Who, the…it’s one of my favorite human HBE, human-based entertainments.  Uncle Breezy, Dr. Breezy, we could even call him, said no, no, no, that’s like the concept of who’s…who are the doctors among us?  Whomst will help us solve…one another, the golden rule; empathy, compassion.  They all said oh, that sounds interesting.  Then unexpectedly, the weather changed and the wind started to pick up quite a bit even there in the upper atmosphere.  At first everyone was…Uncle Breezy said don’t worry, we’ll lower down the main sail there and we’ll just continue with the back sail.  They did that and the boat started to move a little bit slower and then it still had some purpose.  Then Uncle Breezy said well, here’s something unexpected.  Then the spinnaker, the whatever, foresail, it came away from its moorings and actually filled up with air.

 

It caused them to kind of…the boat to move without purpose because it was just under the control of the wind.  It wasn’t tied to anything.  Then they had to send Shae and Shae kind of cut the sail loose.  They said okay, that was good.  That was Shae’s idea.  Very, very good improv.  Then they said, look around.  Then they looked around and they realized that where they were in the jet stream, they were surrounded…there was like, a stream…there was clouds on either side but they were in a river of perfectly clear atmosphere.  It was cloudy banks and it was really beautiful.  There was even clouds above them.  Again, they just were going by this one back sail and they had even lowered it a little bit ‘cause they said well, it’s even a little bit too windy for us.  Let’s go a little bit slower.  Then Uncle Breezy said okay, let’s test out another idea.  We’re going just by the back sail.  What if we were to take apart this mainsail?  Actually, they took it apart.  They took the boom from the mast and the sail and they used them to…they played a game a bit like…it looked like giant Q-tips.

 

It was some strange cloud-based game.  Humans, I guess you could say…what, are they just chasing each other around and tickling each other with giant Q-tips that used to be a boom and a mast?  That was a few hours of giggling and chasing each other.  I think that’s what they were actually doing but I’m not positive.  Again, I guess they’re more comfortable.  They say well, we’ll chase each other around and tickle each other.  Subtext or not, we’re happy with it.  Then they were all tired and they said oh boy, this has been a full day.  It was evening and night [00:40:00] had set.  They said well, we’ve learned a full thing.  We’ve had these challenges but still, we’re heading in this jet stream and we have this back sail.  They said okay, now we’re gonna take turns guiding the ship in the night.  You just guide it by the compass.  They had a very…similar to a compass except it was a glow worm.  It basically looked like a compass with a dome and things but instead of north, south, east, or west, there was just this glow worm.

 

I think you initially whisper to the glow worm where you want to go but you actually have to do your…something similar to longitude and latitude.  You can’t say take me to this zip code.  The glow worm doesn’t know that.  They just told the glow worm basically head in the general direction ‘cause this was another thing Uncle Breezy said.  Well, I noticed we don’t know exactly where we’re going other than in the jet stream and generally sticking to it.  Maybe we should just do that until the sun comes up again and then we’ll just see where things are in the morning.  We’ll take turns while we rest ‘cause we’re so tired from tickling one another with puffy Q-tips.  They all agreed and they agreed that they would take shifts taking turns watching the sea and keeping an eye…you say okay, one person will watch just the glow worm ‘cause it’s kind of hypnotic and just steer the ship in line with the…where the glow worm is saying the direction to go.

 

Another person will make sure you don’t fall asleep and keep an eye out in general, more…broader awareness.  It was raining on and off.  It had started raining even up there in the upper…I don’t know when rain starts to go upward or downward or sideways but it could have been doing all those things.  But it was there in the deep, dark night that they really found that it was the vastness…they could see the stars sometimes and sometimes it was cloudy above them.  They could see the vastness of space above.  I guess this is something humans…we really don’t really get it unless we’re in a transparent plane, so maybe only Wonder Woman has had this experience.  But they could see the vastness below sometimes, too.  Sometimes it was cloudy below and sometimes the jet stream was clear.  Sometimes they were passing over parts…the populated parts of continents and sometimes it was not as over ocean.  There was constellations of light below.  It’s not like they were in a jet plane.

 

I don’t know the exact speed of the jet stream with one half-sail up, but that’s about the speed they were going.  They noticed as they were taking turns every few hours, switching on and off and then they also noticed it was like, they were tired but it’s also strange to sleep when you’re out there in the big, puffy world, as we said, and knowing this vastness.  Even though they had this nice, comfortable zephyr they were traveling on, it was a little bit…for them, it was real and this…they were living a metaphor.  The vastness of the world awaited them, too.  I don’t know if that was Uncle Breezy or Shae preparing them to say well, sometimes it’s just not comfortable, right?  But they all had an opportunity to talk about it so soon they found themselves in and out of sleep saying huh, this is a strange experience here at sea.  They called it at sea, or ‘at cloud’ I guess is the technical term.  We’ve kind of given up our main sail and our engine.  Huh, is that…it feels like an adventure but also it feels good and not good at the same time.

 

But because they were having a shared experience, they were able to confirm it with…oh yes, I could see you feel that way or I feel this way which is similar.  But in my own words it might sound different to you.  Then they would experience it, go back on the deck of the zephyr, and experience it again.  Then they would…started talking to the glow worm about it.  Even though the glow worms in this case…not like these Hollywood glow worms you hear all about back in the 80s that got all the glory and then got rebooted probably a few times.  Probably could use one…if I was a smart speaker manufacturer…hello, opportunity for a goodnight friend.  But anyway, these glow worms were working glow worms.  Again, don’t try to project Earth-based under…EBUs onto this.  Kind of like in a form of high-focused…what do you call that when you’re sleeping?  High-focused sleep or something, a sustended state of…not a suspended state of animation but something different that we don’t experience here on Earth.

 

The only thing would be like hibernation but that’s different which I couldn’t think of.  It took me three minutes to think of that word.  The glow worms were mostly just, again, another place for them to project but the constant glow of the glow worm against all of the night and the fact that the glow worm consisted of colors that could be…were more comforting like hot neon pinks and greens and blues.  Compared to the colder stars in the sky or the ones on Earth, you say well, LED or incandescent or whatever the other ones are, it’s phosphorous.  I don’t know what the heck they’re called.  They all have a different spectrum on the…they’re not as warm as the light of a…by the light of a glow worm.  One of these youth could probably write a book by that.  But so, they could sit with the glow worm and say glow worm, maybe some of the other youth were asleep.  They said glow worm, there’s something about all this that is unsettling but yet stirring something in me.

 

Do you know what I’m feeling, glow worm?  The simplicity of just steering by the glow worm helped.  But it may have also given them discomfort that they all started to do that for a while as the night wore on.  I think they were just traveling…I don’t know what direction they were traveling, if they were traveling into the night or out of the night, ‘cause I don’t know if they were using the jet stream that gets all the love in the US.  Again, if you’re saying Hollywood glow worm, you might have to say Hollywood jet stream, too.  You say oh, your Western jet stream…I say okay, well, I’m not…I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure ‘cause I was only up in the clouds for this story.  I couldn’t see and my geography’s…I have US-based geography knowledge.  Then as they were all sleeping, they heard Uncle Breezy.  Dr. Breezy was up on the deck of the zephyr with Zay.  Dr. Breezy said, Zay…everyone was kind of, again, listening and sleeping.  Are you ready?  Zay said, for what?  Dr. Breezy said well, dawn’s here.

 

Maybe we should start steering the ship in a more specific direction.  Maybe I could look at my charts and figure out where we are.  Zay said Dr. Breezy, you don’t know where we are?  Dr. Breezy said well, we’ve been traveling for about ten hours just generally headed in the same direction as the jet stream, so I don’t really know.  Zay said Dr. Breezy, I’m noticing I’m not…I don’t feel like I’m controlling and steering the ship anymore.  The zephyr kind of seems to be just moving on its own.  Then Dr. Breezy said, let me try.  Dr. Breezy said Shae, you better get up here and check things out.  Dr. Breezy said to the youth after everyone was awoken and brought up to the deck of the zephyr, now we try to manage without being able to steer.  What do we do now?  We’re in the jet stream and we’re moving.  [00:50:00] What do you think we should do?  At first, they had been through a night with the vastness of the universe and their impending adulthood, these existential questions that clouds ask themselves.  They had talked to the glow worm and they’d also heard…we don’t even really know where we are.

 

Part of their brain was willing to accept that this was a metaphorical experience and part of their brain was like, how can an actual experience also be such an apt metaphor?  They actually discuss that for a while.  They say well, if we can’t really…we might as well bring the sail down because the back sail…because if we can’t really steer, we won’t really need that, obviously, because we’re just drifting in the jet stream.  Then they tried…they went through and kind of tried to think about different songs that would be apt…if they could think up songs drifting in the jet stream but they realized that there’s probably a lot of pop songs about that.  They said well, what shall we do?  Shall we drift or not?  It was Shae who said we should throw down a slow-down…a heavy cloud, they called it; a cloud of heavy water and slow or stop our movement.  Dr. Breezy said, what do you all think about that?  Fluffy or Puffy and Seagreed and Seagreen or whatever, and Zay said yeah, okay, that sounds good.

 

Then Shae went to the front of the deck of the thing and threw the heavy water cloud overboard, similar to an anchor.  But after they threw it, they realized oh, the anchor was not attached to the zephyr which was another lesson.  That was Dr. Breezy’s lesson to learn, that you probably should keep your heavy water…slow it down or attached to your ship.  That went over and then they said how…what is this…what kind of life lessons is this Dr. Breezy trying to teach us?  They said okay, well now we’re fully adrift.  We have a little rowboat…heavy…for our…we can throw that overboard and that’ll barely slow us down a tiny bit.  But Dr. Breezy said, what are we gonna do?  Then the lessons had progressed because the youth had gotten to the end of Dr. Breezy’s…they said but Dr. Breezy, you didn’t have your heavy water slowed down or attached to your boat and you don’t…weren’t you gonna look up where we were?  Dr. Breezy said, I don’t really know how to do that, as a matter of fact.

 

I thought I had a glow bot which talks to the glow worm and it’s not charged.  They said Dr. Breezy, that’s not acceptable.  They said, we’re going…we’re not really having tiny muses, which is a term there for when you sing and you take over captaining of the ship; they call it a tiny muse ‘cause there’s a special tiny muse song.  But they said yeah, collectively, the four of us are going to use our collective knowledge and not use yours.  You could take a secondary role now.  Of course, Dr. Breezy smiled knowingly to Dr. Breezy’s self but the cloud-based youth did not know that at the time.  They said, what are we going to do here?  They said by the way, Dr. Breezy, you’re our advisor though, so don’t…pipe up if you know anything.  They said well, we don’t know where we are and we don’t know where we’re going other than generally somewhere.  We don’t have control of our destination.  Then we have these layovers from all the vastness from last night.

 

We’re unsettled but in this case that was a good thing, right?  They were unsettled in an empowered way.  They were unsettled with the supposed leadership of Dr. Breezy.  They said, what are our options here?  What are our options?  Then he said well, we…well, we kind of…we did the tiny muses thing but it sounds like we just…we can’t…we’re trying to get help from Dr. Breezy who’s not super-helpful except in a general way.  I think it’s time to ask for help, like a broader help.  Up in the cloud world, obviously, the arms of Morpheus…in the arms of Morpheus are what live in the Cloud Tower or also are the Cloud Tower overlooking all things in the cloud world.  I’m sure there are other higher beings up there but they said we’re always…one thing we kind of forgot last night is up here in the cloud world, we’re always in the embrace of the arms of Morpheus.  Awake or asleep; when we go to sleep, we’re supposed to remember that but we didn’t really sleep good last night so we forgot that.

 

But also in our belief system, also for real, Morpheus is a tangible being and system.  We just have to ask Morpheus and Morpheus’s representatives for help.  Every zephyr was required to have three ways to contact Morpheus…Cloud Tower, actually.  Well, two ways to contact Cloud Tower; the main way…they said Dr. Breezy, where’s…can we use the main way to contact Cloud Tower?  They tried that for a few hours but they were getting no response.  They said Dr. Breezy, aren’t you required to have a secondary backup to get ahold of Cloud Tower?  Dr. Breezy said not only do I have one, I have one brand-new in the box, a portable one.  They opened the box and they said Dr. Breezy, when you buy a brand-new portable Cloud Tower contact system, the batteries don’t come charged in the box.  Dr. Breezy said oh boy, you’re right.  They said okay, that won’t work.  Then the third option was just this magical…this tube that had…it was…that you would sing into.

 

All of them had to stand on the deck of the zephyr except they didn’t include Dr. Breezy.  They sang into it and they kind of sing the special song where you call to Morpheus.  It translates into please embrace me, oh Morpheus.  If sometimes I forget…these are different parts of it.  The vastness of the world is all contained in your embrace which can also just contain your arms around me in a warm hug.  That makes me feel safe and I can ask you to pat my back if needed which I could use right now, oh Morpheus.  Please hold me in your loving embrace and also, we’re asking for a hug because we want to ask for more help because right now, we’re…we don’t feel adrift.  We are adrift.  We could use some guidance.  Of course, Morpheus responded and Morpheus said, hug one another for now.  They said, how could we forget that?  They hugged and held one another and even Dr. Breezy, they embraced one another.  Morpheus said wait, help will arrive.

 

Eventually, these other cloud…smaller cloud-based zephyrs came and said hey, we’re here from Morpheus.  We heard you were adrift and you were trying out an adventure.  They said, you’re on adventure with Dr. Breezy, eh?  They said, what did you learn on your adventure?  They kind of sum…to sum it up, they said well, the adventure’s a mix of things good [01:00:00] 30and outside of what you would define as good or pleasurable.  It’s exciting, it’s tiring.  Sometimes you don’t know that it’s not easy, that a lot of times in the midst of the adventure you forget the simpler principles of Morpheus.  But also, that it’s like wow, that is a thing; Morpheus’s embrace is a thing, so is the vastness of all things and that sometimes you gotta ask for help and reach out for help, or provide help and comfort to one another.  Sometimes you gotta do all those things.  They said, great.  Well, we’ll take you to your vacation now.  They said well, can’t we just turn everything on that Dr. Breezy…they said well, Dr. Breezy was giving you…only a 10% of that was intentional.

 

But a lot of it was just accidental genius of Dr. Breezy.  They headed off actually, in this case, into the sunset and they rested and then they were changed forever.  But it was a lesson again they would have to keep learning.  But in those times, they could remember.  They could hold themselves, they could ask to be held, they could remember they’re being held within the vastness of things just by being there and breathing and imagining the presence of Morpheus.  But they also knew oh, okay, always ask for help.  Adventures can be uncomfortable but we’re also okay.  They rested so well that night and then they had a brilliant time, a vacation for the ages, those four cloud-based youth.  Goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

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