In other words, dancing

The streets shimmered in neon waves, and I wore borrowed clothes and a strange golden boldness.

Summer’s heat lingered long in the air, yet we still wandered in search of something unnamed.

In a dark bar, last call, slow music played, and on a whim we approached the uneven floor.

Two friends, we were warmed by the day, drunk on each other, dancing together, sway by sway, closer and closer.

That was the night everything changed.

~*~

Prompt by Patricia

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Sharing is Baring [SYW]

Questions from Melanie (who got them from some man but like who cares?)…

1. You’re walking in a forest and you find a black suitcase.  Inside it is one millions dollars and a piece of paper, stained in blood and bearing the single word “Don’t!”  Would you take the suitcase home or leave it?

– This is from Plots R Us. Greedy Gertie takes the money, which is marked, and then she’s tracked and murdered. No thx. Leave it alone. (PS: I wouldn’t be walking in a forest ~ that sounds waaay too much like a dreaded “hike.” 🙄)

2. Imagine you lapsed and cheated on your partner. You feel horrible and you know you’ll never do it again, because the feeling is so awful. Would you confess?

– No. Keep quiet and live with the guilt. That’s the punishment. Why make a second person miserable? Also, wait a few days and you’ll feel less horrible, just sayin’.

3. Would you live your life differently if nobody ever judged you for anything you did?

– Yes. Pesky judges, and juries too. I WUZ FRAMED!

4. Would a fly without wings be called a walk? No? What would you call it?

– A disgust.

5. What’s something that brought joy and lightness of being to you this past week?

– Pepperidge Farm c00kies.

Before Cell Phones

We parted with enmity

And now he is gone,

Left without a kiss,

And sailed off at dawn.

I shall write him a letter,

Include a photograph too,

And stuff them in a bottle,

Toss them in waves of blue.

As he sails round the globe,

My love note behind him,

Fate may have to intervene,

For this message to find him.

~*~

My Own Worlds (200 words)

My father was never lost; he just took the scenic routes. This infuriated my mother, who had created plans and made motel reservations. She would read the road map while Dad meandered along a new route in a strange state until she got a headache. Eventually, he’d get to where we were supposed to be, accompanied by a lot of shouting, his good mood disappeared and all of us starving. Luckily, we never had to sleep in the car.

In the meantime, I tuned my parents out by curling up in the back seat with books, immersing myself in new worlds with new characters. I let the scenery whoosh by my window unobserved. I wanted to escape into my mind, into a fantasy land where people weren’t screaming over maps and whether we were lost.

I was lost in a kaleidoscope of fiction. Sometimes the newly spun world was a doggie story and later they became mysteries. In my teen years, I got hooked on romance novels. Eventually, I began to wonder if I could create my own worlds of words, spin my own colorful tales for others to lose themselves in. It all began during those stressful driving “vacations.”

~*~

50-Word Thursday (sets of 50)

Three Things Challenge

One-Liner Wednesday

Quote from Goodreads.

This is undeniably true; only a psychopath could witness certain kinds of horrors and stay serene and unaffected. I also believe that depression should be considered a normal reaction to experiencing profound grief. Why do we have to think of it as an illness? Whether medication is necessary or desirable is a separate topic. I’m only talking about the way we think about dark and prolonged sadness.

People don’t want to know. They want to see the phony smile. They want the bland “good” in reply to their meaningless “how ya doing?” They put artificial time limits on other people’s grief or heartbreak. A year is “long enough” to mourn, or you can’t be that upset over him ~ you only went on a handful of dates! Oh. My mistake. I’ll just take my ball of sad and go home.

Anyway. I think it’s good to remember that people can have different reactions to the same situation. We aren’t all carved from a monolithic mind.

~*~

One-Liner Wednesday

FPQ9: Struggle Bunny

This week Fandango asks two (2!) provocative questions, and we can answer one or both. Or none, if we’re party poopers. But I’ve always gone for extra credit points, so both it is!

“What are you struggling with the most right now?”

I’ve been trying to lose the five pounds I gained last year and it’s a struggle. I’m not used to dieting these days, plus the fact that I don’t eat that much to begin with, so it’s very difficult to cut back from my normal small meals. What would have been best is not to have gained in the first place. 🙄

Fandango sez:

Some of you might be uncomfortable answering such a personal and possibly intrusive question. And that’s why I’m going to pose an alternative question:

“As a blogger, do you enjoy ‘virtual relationships’? Do you consider them to be real?”

First, let me laugh at the idea that I would not answer a personal and possibly intrusive question… 😂😂😂

Second, yes and yes. I enjoyed virtual relationships long before I became a blogger, so blogging has nothing to do with it. The minute I discovered the internet and found a universe of weird funny punny writing type people who wanted to discuss topics other than baby food and carpet samples, I was into VRs. (Later, I found more interesting people in meatspace, but that took a while.)

I liken virtual people to the Velveteen Rabbit from the children’s book. They’re all real to me, as they exist in their own worlds and the internet gives us a way to connect. I imagine they view only certain aspects of me, not me as a whole complete bunny, and that’s okay. It’s not like people in meatspace get me all that well either ~ sometimes a lot less actually.

But here’s the weird thing: many times I prefer the virtual relationship. It’s more cerebral, it’s all in chosen words, and it’s easier to walk away from (if necessary). I like a relationship made of writings to savor and reread. I like creating my part of the relationship, thoughtfully, out of words, not awkwardly out of blurty speech and clumsy actions. And I like being able to delete it completely when I’m done.

And Fandango thought the first question was more personal!

Philosophical Musings [SOCS]

‘Sup peeps? It’s supposed to rain here today, which is good. We can always use rain in SoCal. Some friends are planning a local hike and I hope they won’t be disappointed if they get rained out. Either way, we’re still meeting for lunch, which is the important thing.

Bailing on a hike years ago cost me a friendship. There’s a bit of gossip for ya. No biggie, since I’m not naming names. Yep, I went on one hike, did okay, confirmed the next one, and then I bailed. I’m just not good with hiking. I have a bad back and migraines that get triggered by whatever. Chronic pain sufferers can probably understand why doing okay on one didn’t mean I felt confident to do another; it felt more like, hmm, good, let’s stop here. So, I changed my mind, nixed the outing, and got jettisoned from the person’s life. Hey, it happens.

Not gonna deny it hurt though. I’ve been tossed aside for other reasons from other relationships over the decades and I’ve found it’s best to accept the feelings of loss, sadness, anger, etc., rather than pretending I don’t care. Pretense haunts you later, is my philosophy.

I pretend a lot though, in daily interactions, to get along and not make a fuss. I’m a nice person, much nicer than I seem here. Most of the time. I can separate my feelings of perpetual outrage about politics and “how things are” from my need to just make it through the damn day. Sometimes this makes me feel like a fraud, but we can’t spend all day confronting everyone about everything. I think we all fake it somewhat, depending upon how much we have to deal with other people. That’s different from denying your feelings to yourself however.

Every so often I make a nice cup of tea and have a long chat with myself to make sure we’re in sync about where we stand on All The Things. I highly recommend it.

FPQ8: Last First Time

Fandango has posed another one of his provocative questions:

“When was the last time you did something for the very first time? What was it that you did?”

In June of 2018, I became a grandma for the very first time… and so far it’s the last time I’ve grandma’d, but it’s only been 7 months. ❤️

Now, technically I didn’t do anything but wait, but that’s something. Plus I nagged a lot, partially planned the baby shower, and generally made a nuisance of myself. 😂

For the record, I enjoy being a grandma and would be happy to grandma again, in the near or far future, whenever the opp presents itself. 👍🏻

Staying Positive 🎉

I’m taking a cue from Revolutionary Musings and calling my plans for 2019 “goals,” not “resolutions.” When I think about the word resolution, it makes me feel I’ve done something wrong and need to improve. There’s the constant worry and pressure that I’ll fail ~ and isn’t that what so many people say? They’ve failed to keep their resolutions. Or they don’t even make any because they know they’ll fail. I want to be more upbeat this year. ☀️

Goals are positive. Even if we don’t reach them completely we can say we’ve made progress, and progress is good. Last year, I wrote/finished two new poetry books and they’re up for sale now on Amazon, and I completed the NaNoWriMo 50K word challenge. I’m proud of myself! 😀 Did I complete all my 2018 goals? No. But I don’t feel like a failure. I’ve made progress and will continue to do so.

For 2019, I want to finish my novel Ghosted. A novel is harder than poetry or a book of short stories, since when working full-time it takes an immense amount of focus day after day crammed into bits of free space. If I break my concentration for a couple weeks to “have a life,” it’s difficult to get that focus back. But this is the plan and I anticipate finishing my novel by the end of the year.

I also want to exercise more, which is a thing I say every year, and each year I feel worse and do less, but that doesn’t mean I should abandon the goal. This past year I was not very active at all and though I can’t do a lot, I can do a little, and I want to do that little bit. Realistically, there will be days I can do nothing but slog through from morning to night and congratulate myself for simply existing with chronic pain, but every day isn’t like that, TG. Those better days are days I can exercise.

Forex today. I planned to take a long (for me) walk to start the year off nicely. But I awoke with a migraine ~ not from booze, lol. I don’t drink alcohol. But I stayed up very late and it’s crazy windy too, both of which are triggers. Anyway, I’ve taken meds and later will exercise to a video instead of going outdoors. This is just how it is ~ I have to accept it and work within the parameters instead of giving up. 👊🏻

Regarding blogging. It brings me great joy, both writing and interacting with people who love to write. Those last three words are key though. I’ve culled some blogs from my list recently that weren’t much about the joy of writing and only about getting us to click links. No thx.

But there’s more. I like participating in the prompts; however, I don’t understand why some of them require so much kooky hoop-jumping. Linking back to the prompt post should be enough. I have created a few new tags for my faves, okay. But I’m not going to click frogs or create more tags or follow a pile of arbitrary rules just to bring more readers to the prompt host. In the end, it’s the host who gets the clicks, let’s remember this. ✅

My goal for 2019 is to get more reading and writing joy out of every minute I spend immersed in the world of words, so things that contribute to this goal have a solid place in that world… and things that don’t or that gobble up more time than they’re worth, do not. 👎🏻

Going along with this goal is reading less news. Most of the “news” isn’t really news ~ it’s tabloid type crap and a waste of my time, more of an addiction really. He said/she said, insults, rehashing, garbage about celebs and the royals, blah. It’s only going to get worse with the 2020 election coming up. 👿 I don’t need to read every scrap of nasty gossip and all the hot takes on what someone else said and who is banned from where. It’s simply tiresome.

I may begin doing some photos again, with a catch ~ they’ll be new photos. No more spending gobs of time trawling through old albums taking photos of photos. Bleh! If I happen to catch a shot of something that goes with one of the City Sonnet themes, cool. This aligns with my goal of having fun blogging and interacting with bloggers, but not wasting time doing boring, obsessive stuffs.

Onto forming happier, more productive traditions!

2018 Wrap Party

This was an interesting year.

I gave up both Facebook and dating sites early in the year. Spent 2017 depressed about both, ostensibly for different reasons but ultimately the same ~ I had devoted a huge amount of time to the pursuit of long-distance friendships and local relationships via both those venues and the end result was similar: meh.*

What’s that BS about how you get out what you put in? Yeah right.

Anyway, I decided to splurge on myself by reclaiming my time and emotional energy, and this was a great gift. I’ve been so much happier and more productive since. In April, I released a poetry book that I finally had time to finish… and yesterday I just released another one. I hope you’ll check them out: All She Wrote (April book) and Monochrome (December book).

In June, it was my absolute joy to welcome my new baby granddaughter to the world. She brings total love and sweetness to my life, and I’m thankful for all the wonderful family time I’ve had this year.

At some point during 2018, a WordPress prompt site closed up shop. Zillions of us who love to natter on about nothing had the big sads. A handful of bloggers stepped up and created their own prompts, which was very cool of them… but then a weird thing happened. Instead of popping over to the site, grabbing the prompt, and writing to our same audience, we began to actually interact with these new prompters and their followers. We started to play more writing games and follow each other and turn into a supportive creative community of awesome!

In October, I was lucky to be able to take a week off from work to help my daughter in NorCal. Also, I got to bond with her new puppy. Last week I had an amazing time with both my daughters, their hubbies, and the baby. Family rocks!

On Thanksgiving, I had a super fun time with friends at the LA Zoo, and yesterday we went up to Simi to visit the Reagan Library. I hope to visit more museums and local points of interest in 2019. Though I was into movies for a while, I find lately I’m feeling rather indifferent toward them.

I have tons of books to read! Not literally, since most are on my Kindle. And now it’s time to begin integrating the mess I wrote on Ghosted during NaNoWriMo with my main novel document. Oh fun. After that, I have to write “the ending,” by which I mean the last third of the book.

And to wrap up the wrap, for the past 7 years, I’m beyond lucky and grateful and thankful that I get to share my life with this amazing lil dude. ❤️🐱❤️

*I treasure my friendships that transcend FB. Not talking about you great folks.