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Thoughts and takes on the way life presents.... |
| Thoughts and takes on the way life presents.... |
| Motivation Monday! Legendary guitarist Link Wray was born on this day in 1929, and once said "I'm not the same today as I was in '58, or '59 or even '71." How does not being the same as you were a year, five years, or twenty years ago influence you today? Seriously? I don't understand the question. Not being the same means you create each day based on nothing where everything and/or anything is possible. Right? The only thing I want to bring forward from my past are the foundational things: My family, my friends, my schooling, my skills. Everything else can be left in the past to collect dust. There are things that cannot be avoided like medical histories that influence my today choices, but for the most part, the future is limitless and abundant choice. Seems to me he was ahead of his time in understanding the need to live in the here and now and make choice based on what you are striving for rather than the what was. |
| I attended the funeral of my friend Richard today. It was so sad. Richard found out he had liver problems two years ago. I guess it was not enough of an incentive to quit drinking and quit smoking. He found out he had liver cancer a month ago. And we gave him his send off today. I don't know if a month is enough time to get your affairs in order, I just know he did not take the time given to do that which should have been done. And his disconnect with family showed when only about 20 people showed up for the service and not one of the speakers was a family member. Let me tell you about Richard. Richard was once a brilliant lawyer in Florida. For whatever reason, he decided that it would be a good idea to experiment with the drug of the day. At that time it was LSD. He managed to survive his last episode, but it left him with permanent tremors in the hands, increased desire for cigarettes and hard liquor, and severe forgetfulness. His career as a lawyer was soundly defeated. Street drugs took his home, his family, and his job. He was a trust fund baby, so he was not completely destitute. But in the end, his inability to control his habits, his alcoholism, his smoking, or his temper left him with just a handful of people who were willing to give him a send off. At the funeral, only his long term friend stepped up to lead the service,because the family would not even hire a rabbi or clergy to conduct the memorial service. Jan, his long term special friend, told everyone that it felt like her heart was torn out. And she could not even step in front of anyone and say that out loud. I could only sit there and shake my head in sadness. From this one service I learned that the people in your life are more important than the money you lust after or the things you covet. Knock it off. It's not worth losing even one of those people in your life. Make amends, speak the words, and live. No one knows when they are scheduled to exit Planet Earth, so make sure that you are right with God. It matters that much. |
| Prompt: What are the most unbelievable things in the books you read, excluding the genres' normally accepted style, form, or content? In other words, what made you doubt the writer’s literary sanity and know-how? If you wish, you might give examples from the books you’ve read. The worst book i ever read was called the Purloined Will. A woman was disowned when she married a pauper. When you live poor for any length of time, you get street savvy pretty quick. In this woman's case, as soon as the husband died, she went back to trusting everyone and losing everything through stupidly trusting thieves and con men. In this book it was one theft after another for this woman and the kid. Even after the mother died, the author went after the kid. I was not expecting a happy ending, and the author did not disappoint. But if you tell a sad story, at least have the decency to give the reader some variety in the way you torture the victims. I call it torture because it was a hard and not very good read. The victims were not really tortured, only the reader. |
| If you had the power to wish books out of print, movies out of theatres, or television programming would you ever use it? Why or Why not? What are the risks if that door was opened? I think I would be two faced and would be brought up on charges of censorship because I treat visuals differently than the printed word. I would wish all the movies to go back to the 1940s standards. Back when you could take your kids to the movies and not worry about the content. Let's face it, what you see can't be unseen. The same standard for television. If you can't keep your mouth out of the gutter, off the air for you. That does not pertain to books. Write what you want. The reader can stop or start by their own choice. No harm done. |
| Prompt: Karen Russell says in Granta, “I think that betrayal can often be a profound surprise to the traitor herself.” What do you think about this idea, especially when using betrayal in your fiction? So I am sitting her with allergy symptoms up the wazoo. runny nose, fatigure, cough, some might think it's a bad cold, but then everyone would "catch" it. I would not be sitting over here feeling sorry for myself all by myself. As for the prompt, yeah, being the villain requires an extreme amount of arrogance, almost like there is no conscience. So yeah, it would never occur to a con that even she can be conned. If that makes sense, we are all going to have a happy day. I need sleep in a work a day world. This is terrible. |
| So it is April 2 and I woke up to a light dusting of snow on the cars and a little peeking out of the grass. Every once in a while I see a snowflake drift to the ground. There must be a good reason for a relatively mild, yet seemingly endless winter -- I just don't know what it is. So now the Queen of Procrastination goes off to do the taxes. I might have hair left after this task is complete. Say a prayer or two for me. |
| I didn't know AJ personally. I only knew him through his mother and the love she had for him. I only knew him through his uncles who loved him and mentored him. AJ died yesterday. It looks like he took a drug and later had seizures that overtaxed his heart. If you use drugs, you are only as good as the people you run with. Can you really depend on them to get you to help when needed? The answer is no. The ones he ran with had the clarity of thought to get him to a hospital, but not to get him inside. They had the clarity of thought to drop him off at the hospital, but not to stay with him. Had AJ been taken inside the hospital he might have been saved, but by the time he was found, it was too late. If you use drugs, stop it. You will lose everything. AJ was homeless at the time of his death. The only friends he had were the ones who supplied his drugs. The only ones who loved him were his family. The only ones he could trust were his family, but he refused to see them because they would not do drugs with him. No family ties, no home, no food, no communication, no money. Drugs really do take everything from you. Every last thing. And in the end, drugs will take your life. |
| A lot of strange yet funny things in my neck of the woods. It was one of those weeks. My boss’s landlord came back from his summer home in Florida. This is a work-where-you-live type of buildings. I knew that somehow I would be blamed for something because when Mark the landlord yells at Larry the tenant, that is Larry the boss’s permission to yell at Cheri the Admin. Larry demanded that I do filing. I gave him a blank stare. Where? There is no room. Every time I make room, by pulling the old files and putting them in a box, he grabs the box and hides it. Can you believe that? Laws change every five years. He cannot reliably count on the stuff that’s in those ancient files. I think he has a love affair with paper. I really do. He has books stacked waist high because he ran out of bookshelf space. Imagine a hall lined with built in bookshelves (Victorian beautiful and I’m not kidding) and the other side with just one built in. So with all of those filled to capacity and he still has to stack books from floor to yea high -- oh, yeah, it is fun where I work. My favorite so far is Larry flinging himself in a chair and saying he’s doomed. I mean, this is the second time that Mark made Larry do a hoarder’s clean out. The previous time, it looked like we were being evicted. It’s also the time that Larry demanded that I throw out all the old draft files that I kept. He does not remember that and now wants them back and the world will end if he does not have them. This time, it just looked like they were taking a trip to the dump instead of to the warehouse (aka Larry’s house). It should be fun to see the fall out from this clean out. I tried to tell Mark to back off because Larry was yelling at me. But he yelled at me too. In a nice way. He was venting. He was not mad at me, although one could get that impression. But I am secretly doing my cheerleading dance. At least all the excess paper got moved offsite and it looks minimalist for a change. Larry is not so happy. He had to part with his 700 magazines and all of his broken trophies (i.e. lamps, radios, anything that once used electricity that he paid money for therefore cannot part with). I told Mark that Larry was going to start looking for a new Admin. Pretty soon. He looked at me and said: He can’t fire you, you’re the only one who knows where everything is. That was sweet. Not true, but sweet. So the next thing on the pink slip gravy train is that I told him that I somehow managed to screw up the Quickbooks because I was not trained in it. He needs to either hires a decent bookkeeper or put up with the mess I make. Either that or it will be a good excuse to retire. This should be a whole new level of fun. On top of that, I got a backbone and demanded that he do standardized billing and showed him what set pricing for specific tasks looks like. Maybe he will see the wisdom in doing this. Maybe not. Sorry this is so long, but there was a lot to tell in the Twilight Zone that I live in. It is quite convoluted, so ask the questions that will bring it into clarity for you. Sometimes I assume that people know what is going on in my head which is another level of scary for all participants. So that’s all. |
| Prompt: Have you ever read a book and the setting was a town you lived by or a town or city you have been to? Was the author from the town near you? Faith Sullivan wrote a story called THE CAPE ANN. This story was set in a town that I grew up in. Even though the names of the towns and people were changed, we all knew exactly what and who she was talking about. The little boy named LeRoy is based on my dad. Ms. Sullivan actually spent a few years in the town when she was little. And she kept the layout of everything just the way she remembered. Not to mention it is a dang good story. You will like it. |
| Creation Saturday! Your blog is going to be adapted into a movie or musical. Who would play the main characters, what would the plot consist of (would you base it around a specific entry, or a general theme), and what would the theme song be? I remember this old Brit sitcom called Keeping up Appearances. In that show, there is an underlying theme of nothing works out or throw a tablecloth on it to cover up the dings and dangs. I'm the American version of that. My character would be Shelly Long. The hubby can be George Clooney. Let me sit with that a minute. So a theme song? Dream on by the Oak Ridge Boys, maybe just the instrumental version of it. Come to think of it, that would be a good title for the show. Excuse me a minute, I keep drifting back to my male lead. Never mind. This may take awhile. Go back to what you were doing. Later, |
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