I inhale the sweet scent Of your fragrant bouquet, With the promise it implies Suffusing my mind. Surely no man who Gifts this exquisite display Could be anything but Reliable, gentle, and kind.
~*~
Image is mine. Poetry form is double quatrain.
Welcome to my Friday afternoon paint chip prompt. There are other paint chip prompts out there, but they’re very precise in what they ask for. Mine is open ~ write a poem, a story, a memory, whatever you like. Take your inspiration this week from Valspar’s “fragrant bouquet” and/or “promise.” Tag your post Paint Chip Friday, or PCF, if you wish. Prompt will continue until December 31.
He is mostly sweet and cuddly, A soft and friendly buddy, Who purrs and chats, A lovely cat… Yet every so often He launches a stealth attack, A furmissile of teeth And vicious rippy claws, Once, twice, and done… Then back to being my Little boo boo honey bun.
A summer fair: Skin against skin, Rigged games never win, Sticky hands at dusk, Popcorn and popsicles, Candy apple lust. Ponies going up ponies going down; Stardust wheel spins round and round.
Funhouse mirror dream distorted: What you want baby I want now. Purple twilight lemonade— Shadows bend a promise fades, Ponies rocking round and round, Stardust wheel coming down.
A fair summer one and gone; Winter bleached to the bone.
Happy first Monday in October! Melanie treats us to a new set of questions..
How do you feel about sharing your computer or phone password with your partner?
I feel extremely negatively toward this idea, from my direct experience with an ex spying on me and, unfortunately, vice versa. It was a disaster in both directions, solved nothing, and only created more trust issues, though it is fair to say the relationship was doomed regardless.
With another ex, I voluntarily gave him a few passwords, in order to help him feel more secure, but you know what? When you’re dealing with a paranoid lunatic, NOTHING is ever enough. It makes no difference how much of your privacy you relinquish, when someone is horribly insecure and neurotic, they will always find something to freak out about. It’s simply their nature.
Here is another problem with allowing them to snoop ~ you are also compromising the privacy of everyone else who communicates with you. In my case, I don’t want some man poking around in my messages from my daughters. They haven’t agreed to randos reading their texts. This is a terrible idea, from start to finish.
What is the greatest struggle you’ve overcome? (This isn’t meant to be invasive, just use general terms if you’d like. Or if not, feel free to pass on the question. That’s allowed too).
My divorce and everything that entailed, such as selling two properties while in a hostile situation, was pretty tough, not to mention that the process of splitting up went on for around 10 years total, including while we were still living together. It was a slow motion train wreck.
If heaven is real and you died tomorrow, do you think you would get in? Why or why not? (this is purely speculation, no bias if you don’t believe)
I tend to think that I would not get into any kind of heaven. I had a 2.5 year affair with a married man, and that can’t be OK in any set of rules. That’s not the only bad thing I’ve done, but I feel it’s probably the worst. Luckily for me, however, I don’t believe in an afterlife.
What makes you feel like you really need to be alone?
Being with people! Actually, I enjoy social events, but I have limits. For every hour I spend with others, I need “recovery time” to recharge. It’s stressful for me to spend day after day socializing, so I take significant breaks to chill by myself. Family is different. I enjoy being with my daughters for however long we can. This isn’t to say that my grands don’t tire me out, but that’s more physical than emotional.
Do you have any traditions around this time of year?
When my girls lived with me, we would decorate for the season and also make sure to have pumpkin pancakes at least once before December. But on my own, nah, not really. Some years I have worn a costume for Halloween and gone to social events, but it just depends on what friends are doing and planning. This year nothing seems to be happening on Halloween weekend, so maybe that will be my me-time to recharge!
Jim Adams takes a cue from Fandango this week and has a provocative theme for Song Lyric Sunday ~ sex, doing it or discussing it. As befits my status of an all talk, no action kinda gal, I’m going with sex chat, specifically “Love Child.” This 1968 Diana Ross & the Supremes’ hit was a departure for the group. Their previous hits were peppy love songs, but “Love Child” presents a message. It’s from the point of view of a woman who is being pressured to have premarital sex. She desires her man, but she herself was a “love child,” born outside of wedlock, and consequently grew up poor and feeling judged. She refuses to subject a possible baby to that fate and she tells her man that “this love we’re contemplating is worth the pain of waiting.”
Back then and even now birth control does not always work perfectly and some women wouldn’t consider an abortion ~ this was pre RvW (and pre birth control pill), and we may be there again soon. Already some places in the US are de facto wastelands of choice, which I’m sure makes some readers happy, but I think it’s terrible not to have the choice to terminate, at least early on. Contrary to what some people believe, termination is often a difficult decision and not one made only by young, single, irresponsible girls. Older women have abortions too. Married women have them. So do moms who are overwhelmed with their current lives. It’s no one else’s business! Anti-choicers forget that there is always a man involved in the pregnancy situation, but it’s the woman who has to bear all the physical responsibility, not to mention the financial one if he disappears.
This is one issue I have felt strongly about for decades, and I’m not going to host arguments in the comments. This is my opinion and if yours differs, post it on your own blog. Kudos to the women marching this weekend for our disappearing rights!
In any case, we don’t know the outcome of the “Love Child” story. We hear Diana Ross forcefully state her convictions, but does the man end up agreeing to wait until marriage, or will he leave her for someone more adventurous? Does she end up giving in to the pressure for sex, as women have done throughout history? Perhaps they simply run off and get married… maybe they will end up living happily ever after. We have to imagine how the story ends. But we don’t have to imagine how well the song did on the charts. It knocked “Hey Jude” from the No. 1 position that song had held for 9 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and “Love Child” sold 500,000 copies in its first week and 2 million by year’s end.
Writing credit goes to R. Dean Taylor, Frank Wilson, Pam Sawyer, and Deke Richards. Bit of trivia ~ the “Supremes” did not actually sing background vocals on “Love Child;” background vocals were provided by The Andantes, a Motown female session group. This was the case for most of “Diana Ross & the Supremes” singles. [Wikipedia]
No, not mine! I had the pleasure this past weekend to be a guest at the wedding of two dear friends. I’ve known the bride for almost 10 years and the groom for about half that. It was an honor and a privilege to share this very special occasion with them, and they gave me the honor of making a little speech as well.
Everything was perfect. The bride made her own dress, which was absolutely beautiful. We watched a sweet video of the story of their romance, ate tasty food, chatted with good friends, and enjoyed a fun selection of music. I teared up at their vows, which they wrote themselves, and I am sure others did too. The cake was gorgeous and delicious. As many of you know, I consider the cake to be the most important part of a wedding.
We even snuck in a round of Codenames while people were dancing! It was truly a magical experience… and it is my smile for the week.
My dear friend Peggy joked on the Book of Face [in 2018] that she had just seen one of my memory posts, and I asked her if it was a poem about my hair. She said it was. The reason I asked is because I wanted an excuse to remind myself to share another blast from the past. I wrote this when I thought everything would last forever, in the Spring of 1989…
the day my hair went flat
permanents aren’t permanent: they fall out in six months. i had one the week before my wedding–got married with hair as full as miss america’s, skinny blonde highlights dancing up and down my head. but soon i noticed my head was getting smaller, which made my body look too fat, and after that the color went. i screamed at my reflection, but that Golden Glow just disappeared. and so did my husband– the day my hair went flat.
~*~
Image is mine. Poetry form: concrete (blonde lol).
The above is a well-known quote from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. Many people believe that it means “where are you?” but it doesn’t. It means why, as in why are you named Romeo and not some other name, from some other family, because then we could love each other in the sunshine without this silly family feud hanging over us. It’s from the same soliloquy as the thing about a rose smelling just as sweet if it was called something else. Juliet wasn’t asking the gods to GPS her boyfriend; she wanted him to change his name.
This wherefore confusion was a vocabulary question on OKCupid, back when I was still looking for someone. I not only answered it correctly, but also I marked it as “very important” that any man I matched with also got it correct. There were also math and logic questions that I thought were simple, so I marked those as very important too. What about the questions regarding love and relationships? Eh, I marked those as low or moderately important because I wanted to be open-minded. But math? No way could I ever be interested in a math slouch!
So foolish. And I never learned. Through my very last dating disaster, I believed I could only be attracted to someone highly intelligent and witty, and I kept ignoring the fact that these guys often had no clue how to behave decently. (I don’t mean YOU, of course, lol.) And I am not saying all the dumb men were angels… of course not. But I persisted in placing the highest value on all the wrong traits.
Even as I became aware of this and consciously tried to change my preferences, whether on OKC or anywhere else, I found myself unable to do it. Time and again, I’d get entangled in drama with some smarty-pants jerk. Finally, I decided that I could change one thing about my own behavior, which was to quit dating altogether.
I am now coming up to my 5-year anniversary of dating “sobriety,” which is November 20, always right before Thanksgiving. This is convenient because I have something to look forward to (family time) whenever I get deluged with the sads in the fall. Yes, I met a few men after that, but they weren’t really dates, just first meets that went nowhere. All that tapered off to nothing by mid-2017.
Much like an addict who occasionally misses the high, I sometimes miss the excitement of meeting someone new and feeling that first sizzle of attraction. There’s nothing like the euphoria after the first kiss when everything seems possible. But it never turned into reality for me, or when it did, on rare occasion, the good feeling didn’t last. And when I came down from the high, the crash was horrible. I need to remind myself of the pain periodically, to keep myself on the sober path. The high is not worth the fall.
PS: Advice is unwelcome, while commiseration is appreciated. Comment (or not) accordingly.
They were not sentimental people, and they had many differences. He grew irritated over her lack of interest in the arts; she snapped at him for being so unhelpful around the house. They didn’t bother buying gifts for each other. You would never find them exchanging Valentine’s Day cards or candy. In another era, they might have divorced, but they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary before she died. When he moved into Assisted Living, the attendant asked his secret for so many years of togetherness. He said: “Find the most beautiful girl in the world and make her happy.”
I had a big smile today when I saw Fandango’s flash fiction challenge because it reminded me of a poem my high school bestie wrote. It was about a woman seeing her reflection in various sections of a chandelier and wondering which face she’d put on “for him.” Fantastic poem, Elizabeth (if you’re reading this) ~ I have never forgotten it!
Is it fair to glom onto Fandango’s post with a link when I’m not actually writing fiction in this post? I guess that is for him to judge. Anyway, there are already some good responses to the prompt and my first thought upon viewing it related to the horror show of my relationships, which probably wouldn’t hold a candle to those other posts. Maybe you suspect that I exaggerate a bit when I periodically mention how terrible dating was for me, but rest assured that, if anything, I have understated the whole debacle. It was literally a nightmare.
I’ve begun doing Happy Color again. Never really quit or deleted the app, but I guess I got tired of the pictures when they themed them to Disney or other cartoons. But I’ve found some gems lately (like the one I used here), especially the “pictures within an image,” which I really like. For example, they’ll have a wolf outline and the body will be full of trees, plus a night sky with the moon and stars. They also have countries, which are fun too.
I can’t believe it’s already noon! Half the day has gone and tomorrow I return to the office, not that I mind working. It’s so great though to have a 3-day weekend… I feel I’ve accomplished a lot, but right now my mind is blank, so idk what I did. Watched 2 movies last night, which I suppose I’ll review in a Quickie. Bloggers don’t seem to comment much on those posts, so idk if I’ll keep them going much longer. Had a whisper of an idea to work on one of my incomplete books. We’ll see. Soon, it’ll be actual fall, pumpkin time, with less and less daylight ~ sometimes I write more prolifically then. Not sure why.
Speaking of my books, someone clicked on a link today and bought Going Dark. Thank you! I hope you enjoy it.
