Absolutely not! In particular, most hurtful opinions should be swallowed not spit.
2. Whom do you miss more Freddy Mercury or Prince?
The fabulous Freddy! 🎶💔
3. If you could only email or text people for the rest of your life (no other form of communication), which would you choose?
I used to love long, winding emails, but since most people prefer text (or messenger), I’ll have to give that the nod. I’m starting to prefer texting too, since it feels more immediate.
4. Would you prefer to work the midnight shift at a really creepy out of the way motel OR work alone for eternity?
Easy one: alone!
5. Bonus question because yes, these are a weird bunch this week: What’s one secret you’re still keeping from your immediate family? (no details required. You could say something like “The lost weekend in 1982”. You can also answer “Why I NEVER keep secrets from my nearest and dearest!”).
I don’t keep secrets from my daughters. Secrets create stress and distance, and my overriding goal is to be close with my girls, always. Oh wait, I have one, lol.
6. Please feel free to share something uplifting that you’ve experienced so far in 2021.
Welp, Rory is at it again, folks, and has really outdone himself this time with a great big enormous mountain of Q’s. Let’s get to it, shall we?
1. What really makes you angry?
Having to answer a million questions on a beautiful Saturday afternoon when I could have been lounging at the beach in my designer swimsuit and chatting up celebs. Grrrr!
2. What is your preferred mode of transport from the following: walking, driving car, train ride, or riding a bike or something else entirely?
Being chauffeured in a limo.
3. Which would you rather do: wash dishes, mow the lawn, clean the bathroom, or vacuum the house.
I don’t mind washing dishes or vacuuming. They’re both soothing to me, maybe dishes the most because my hands get to immerse in hot water.
4. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
8. What or who got you into listening to music first?
My parents were big music fans. My mom loved Johnny Cash, my dad loved the Doors, and they both loved the Beatles. We had lots of rock records, the album from Woodstock, and soundtracks from musicals.
9. Who were some of your favorited bands/artists as a youngster?
I’ve always been partial to Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, and the Supremes.
10. Which decades of music influenced you the most as a youngster growing up?
The 1960’s and 1970s.
11. Did your parents listen to a lot of music when you were living with them in your younger years and did any of their listening influence your own musical tastes?
Yep. Beyond the music listed about, they also got me interested in the Rolling Stones, the Mamas & the Papas, Stevie Wonder, Jefferson Airplane, Elvis, Glen Campbell, and soundtracks from Swan Lake, Zorba the Greek, Hair, My Fair Lady, etc.
12. Can you list your Top 5 musical genres that you listen to frequently today?
I listen mostly to old rock and old pop from the 1960s-1980s. Some grunge, some country, some classical.
13. Aside from listening to music, have you ever learned to play a musical instrument or sing or take part in the musical entertainment industry?
Nope. I’m literally the worst singer ever and have no musical talent at all.
14. What is it you most like about music and how does it make you feel when listening?
Two things. For most songs, I am hugely interested in their lyrics. That’s the most important aspect to me and it’s why I like country music a lot. People are surprised by that, but often country lyrics are really funny. If I can’t understand the lyrics, a song is pointless to me (aka rap, heavy metal, etc.). My enjoyment is more intellectual than emotional, though there are a few songs that give me the feels because of the mood their sound and lyrics create in combination, not to mention the skill of the singer. And then there’s classical music without any lyrics, which makes me feel calm and centered.
15. Which decade of music throughout your years to date has influenced you the most with regards to your listening today?
Didn’t I answer this already? The 1970s!
16. Do you listen to music daily? If so, is that all day or only at certain times? If not, when do you listen to music?
I mostly only listen to music in the car when I’m commuting to/from work or errands or whatever. I generally do not put on music in my home, though occasionally I get in the mood for it and listen for a while. If I’m alone at work, I sometimes play music on my phone.
17. Do you ever sing, whistle, hum, or dance to any of the music that is playing?
Usually not.
18. Do you have music playing when you are writing or creating? If so, does it further inspire you and help to juice up your imagination, or do you find music can knock your concentration levels off?
When writing creatively, I prefer silence. For other types of work, music on a very low volume is nice sometimes, though I usually don’t think of putting it on. If it’s loud, I can’t focus.
19. What was the very first concert you ever attended and also the last one and how many concerts have you seen from the first to the last in total?
First, Journey. Last, Hotel California (Eagles cover band). Maybe a dozen in total.
20. Do you prefer to listen to music and appreciate it that way or are you more likely to be more physically involved as in dancing?
I’m never likely to be physically involved in anything!
21. What sort of system do you have to listen to music at home and do you “collect music” or purely listen?
My system is to stick a CD in my player or find stuff on YouTube. I do buy music occasionally and have a lot of CDs, both pre-packaged and homemade. I hear there’s this newfangled thing of storing/finding music in the cloud, which sounds magical and mysterious. I’ll look into that someday…
22. How important is music to you?
I think you can gather from my answers that while I enjoy music, it’s not that important to me. I’ve met people who are absolutely consumed by it, and that’s not me at all. Sometimes, in the car, I prefer silence so I can concentrate on the crowded roads and also my own thoughts. Of all the arts, I rank literature and poetry at the top, then painting, sculpture, photography, etc., and music last.
This was moving day 2013 in Huntington Beach. I initially snapped the photos (day before and early morning) because of the reality reflecting the art, or is it vice versa?
But it’s also perfect for Dan’s Thursday Doors prompt, as it shows how we’re saying goodbye to our apartment. The door symbolizes leaving. This was where my girls each lived with me for a while after their dad and I split up before they began their adult lives elsewhere. I began my new single life here.
However, we’re also saying hello to a new life in a new city, just me and my cute kitty. The open door symbolizes beginnings…
S is for smiling summer sisters, sloppy silver sweatpants / sky blue sweatshirt, sentimental scrapbooks, sweet scented soap, and San Francisco sourdough!
Something weird is happening to me as I approach the Big Birthday. I used to laugh off the angst people express about bday numbers… when I turned 40, I didn’t care at all. I looked way younger than my age, felt great, and wasn’t fussed a bit.
But then 50 came around. My big deal about turning 50, or so I told myself, wasn’t the number or how I looked (still okay), but how 50 would be perceived by Other People, namely men. At 50, I was still on dating sites and hoping to find my soul mate. It sounds so ridiculous now, but I was. I knew (because they said so) that men in my age range often cut off their search for women in the upper 40s. Even 60 year old men preferred women in their 40s.
I got extremely sick over the weekend of my 50th birthday. I thought it was because I had some ice cream with liquor that Friday night, but it was only an ounce or so and doesn’t explain throwing up for 24 hours. My daughters were taking care of me and were certain the 2-day sickness was a psychological reaction to turning 50. Nah, I said, that’s silly.
But over time I realized they were correct.
Even before I became a grandma, I began to feel old. Besides receiving dramatically less attention on dating sites, I felt achy and tired, increasingly so, and knew I was rapidly looking older. A few years later, I gave up dating completely, figuring that was the end of worrying about age.
Wrong.
I still think about it ~ a lot. Not because of my failure to find a soul mate but because of the whole retirement and death thing looming. While many people live into their 90s now, lots don’t. My parents didn’t. It’s not unreasonable to believe I may have less than 20 years of natural life left (assuming I don’t die much sooner in a dumb accident). That’s pretty daunting.
The mind works in strange ways. Mine keeps screwing up age-related math. I keep forgetting how long ago the 1980s were. It doesn’t seem right. The other day I posted that 1971 was 40 years ago. Today on FB, I couldn’t do the simplest math to find the number one song on my 21st birthday.
It’s really weird. When I’m not actively stressed about aging, I seem to be floating in a bubble of denial. I think I’m actually pretty upset about my birthday, which I’ve been thinking about a lot more than I want to. Might as well admit it. I do feel old. My body hurts all the time and I no longer look younger than my age.
Hopefully after the day passes I’ll be able to shrug off the number. Not looking for compliments, only mutual commiseration from other oldies.
The grey days of winter crash and foam, one much like another. Memories sprout like tender green buds under a warm yellow sun. You thrived in spring, with your hands in the dirt, coaxing forth a rainbow of blossoms.
These empty blue rooms
Echo my silent crying
I miss you, Mommy…
Melanie starts the second week of February with a new set of Q’s…
Do you feel you ask enough questions or do you settle for what you know?
It depends on your definition of “ask.” I look stuff up online all the time and like to have multiple legit sources for important things. I’ll ask questions at work in order to get my tasks done properly. And I love to jibber jabber with my daughters and SILs. But I am not a huge fan of random opinions on stuff that matters to me and I really don’t understand this bizarre thing some people do of throwing medical questions onto FB. I mean, wut? Are you really going to follow the advice of some rando? I guess I’m lucky because I have real doctors as friends…
When did you fail to speak up when you feel you should have?
Omg, a lot, I’m sorry to admit. I try to avoid confrontation and so I’ve kept silent at bad “jokes” and during other tense times, and this unfortunately includes sexual types of situations where I ended up doing things I didn’t want to. Add to file: the millions of reasons Paula has given up dating.
