RIP Daily Post

I had a sad this morning to read that the Daily Post is going to disappear after this month. No more prompt words for poasts or photo bloggery, boohoo. I was late to the game, but I really enjoyed it when I participated, and I found lots of cool new blogs via the links. The site won’t go down, so we can still poke around and grab old prompts (which I’ve done on occasion anyway), but it’s not the same.

Disappear makes me think of ghosting, the trendy new word for dumping someone sans explanation. I have a novel in progress titled Ghosted, which is a complicated version of this concept, and it takes place over a few decades, involving the mafia, DNA testing, and a trip to Aruba (ear worm alert!). If you think I can’t conjure up a trip to Aruba out of my imagination, complete with a rock & roll band and mafia hit men, when I know nothing about any of that, then you don’t really know me at all, do ya? DO YA?

Of course it’s not totally out of my imagination ~ I do a whole lot of googling. They use me, I use them. We have a very symbiotic relationship.

But in order to get to that novel, I first have to finish my book of connected long short stories that I’ve been working on forever and a day. Got distracted with stuff and things. Life happens when you’re making otter plans.

Point is, I will miss the Daily Post. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Disappear

Advertisements

Exciting News!

One of my friends forwarded me a month’s free Movie Pass and I’m planning to pay for it through the rest of the year after that because there are a lot of movies I want to see. Since I no longer do the Book of Face to check in places and jabber about flicks, I’ll try to remember to say a bit about them on here. I’m not an in-depth reviewer with a bunch of pretentious gobbledy. Don’t know directors. Can’t compare this one movie to that Fronsh flick from 1967. Yada. I just like to say a few words. Same with books really. If you want splainy, I’m not your girl. If you want complainy, then you’ve come to the right blog.

Here’s my list of wanna-sees so far (will likely add more):

Book Club
Life of the Party
Ocean’s 8
Hereditary
Puzzle
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
The Spy Who Dumped Me
A Star Is Born
The Nutcracker & the Four Realms
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Girl in the Spider’s Web
Mary Poppins Returns

Can’t wait to get my card in the mail, d/l the app, and run off to the theater. Yes, I realize I will have to leave my apartment.

All She Wrote

It’s been a month since I created space to write in my free time again by deleting the bulk of my social media. This was tough to do and I lost a bunch of friends and fun chitchats in the process, which I knew would happen and so I procrastinated for a long time, but I’m a writer and I have to do Real Writing or else I get frustrated, angry, and depressed.

These very apt bitmojis magically appeared in my app today and made me smile:

I’m also smiling because I finished that poetry book I’ve been nattering on about for a kazillion years and it’s up on Amazon for sale right meow! Some of my awesome friends who have hung in there with me already bought a copy and reviewed it ~ one of them had this to say:

“YOUR NEW BOOK IS OUT!!!! IT’S A FREAKING TREASURE!”

How lovely is that? And I didn’t even have to pay her. ❤

I feel so great to have finished this book and it means a lot to me to have the support of my peeps. Some of the poems were painful to write (and probably to read, haha), but each one is important to me in its own way and represents something authentic about where I’ve been emotionally the last several years and how I regained my strength. I’m ready to dive back into some of my unfinished fiction writing and get those stories done now too. I feel so productive and fantabulous! Should have done all this ages ago, but I think I needed everything to simply percolate. This was the right time for many reasons, both to cut back on social media and to publish All She Wrote.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Authentic

A Glimmer Is Not Enough

I’ve been doing more deleting, my peeps. Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram were the big ones, but that was just the beginning of my webhousecleaning.

Actually, that’s not true. I began this back when I dumped all the dating sites for good in 2017. And I’ll tell you something: I do not miss them one bit, nor do I miss dating. It’s the most stressful thing in the world, not fun at all, and I’m sleeping so much better since I quit. Turns out, I do not have insomnia! I had dating-related anxiety. I sleep through the night just fine almost every night now just like back in the old days before I began any of it. Anyway, last month was FB & Co.’s turn to get the heave-ho. But what about the other sites?

I had a Meetup account since 2011 and over the years joined various groups ~ Scrabble, writing, walking, board games, etc.  But my favorite writing group never meets at a time that’s convenient for me now. New groups that sound interesting are always too far away or some other annoying thing. The rest of the groups are too sportsy or too young or too costly or too dating-related or whatever. Every week or so I look in with the glimmer of hope there will be something fun and nopety nope nope. Waste of time. Isn’t my new motto to quit wasting time on things that aren’t productive, healthy, or fun? Yes, I believe it is. A glimmer is not enough to justify time wastery. Meetup account DELETED.

Deleted some Yahoo groups for the same reason and quit getting email notifs from a few otter ones. Why spend time reading things that are of no value? That’s time wastery. For some of that stuff, there isn’t even a glimmer of a chance anything interesting is going to come of it. It’s barely one step above actual SPAM. People I don’t know jabbering about things I don’t care about. WTF am I reading this? Habit, a bad one.

And then I figured that it’s just Not Good to have random idle accounts sitting around “out there” due to nasty hackers, evil Russians, alien pods, and whatnot. So I went on a spree, whacking accounts like DISQUS, Quora, Ello, and various otter sillinesses that I don’t even use or waste time on but don’t need to have my name associated with either. Paranoia, it’s what’s for dinner. You guys forgot about Ello, dincha? 🙂

I’m debating Goodreads. On the one hand, it hardly takes up any time, so it doesn’t count as a waste of same. On the otter hand, I find it vaguely irritating. First it doesn’t let me delete my own books. I have unpublished a few (couple short stories I decided I don’t want as stand-alones, wish to edit them, and then have them as part of my book of longer, connected short stories I hope to have out by the end of this year). So, if you click on the links, they don’t exist. Of course this drives me bonkers. Why can’t I delete them from my bio there? That’s one thing. Second, GR makes me feel compelled to finish a book even when it’s bad so I can have that book added to my book count. Okay, that’s not Goodreads’ fault; that’s my OCD again. Regardless, that’s how it is and being on the site creates this issue. But perhaps this isn’t a bad thing? At least once recently I ended up enjoying a book I wouldn’t have finished otterwise. So, hmm.

Guess I’ll leave GR for meow, but they’re on the watchlist. I’m sure they’re terrified.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Glimmer

Notes to Self

Betrayed by expectations once again. Relearn. Remember. Keep the bar of wanting low. Desire little from others. Rejoice in small accomplishments and don’t agonize over failing to reach the stars. The stars will still be there tomorrow. Savor every cotton candy sunset. Nothing is more important than taking a minute to play with a kitty. Stay in the car to finish listening to a song. Jot down every poetic thought because you never know when one will take your hand and lead you to a path filled with starlight in the dark forest of the night. But don’t expect it.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Betrayed

App Gap

Ever since I deleted Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger from my phone last week I’ve had an “app gap.” What I mean is that I had two screens of 16 phone apps each, 4×4, all filled in, and now there are two missing from the bottom right of the last screen. I know you can all math, so yes I did “unbundle” my fitness apps or else there would be three missing. I also know you are all laughing at the idea that I have fitness apps. SHUT UP! I am planning on fitnessing at some point, and if that day ever comes, those apps will come in handy.

Initially I thought, hmm, I could d/l some innocuous apps I wouldn’t use much, like solo chess and another boring game, but that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? My idea is to spend less time involved in distractions from my projects. Without FB, maybe solo chess would suddenly become exciting. You just never know.

Then I had an epiphany. The adorable photo of Gatsby I use for my home screen had been pretty well covered up by my 4×4 app grid, but the two missing apps on the second screen reveal his beautiful golden eye and sweet little pink nose. Plus they remind me how I’m not wasting oodles of time on FB and Messenger meow. Win win! Embrace the gap! (You had no idea how OCD I really was, didja?)

*

On a related unrelated note, I stumbled across this article a few days ago (I have a lot more time to actually read the news now, go figure). The advice was written for men by a woman (or someone with a female ‘nym) and says to delete all your dating site apps because they are rigged, not fun, and a waste of time. I agree with this advice 100%, despite being a woman and allegedly having so many more opportunities than men on the sites. Maybe if I were 35 I wouldn’t say “allegedly,” but I’m not, so I am saying it.

If dating were a “numbers game”—if exposure to more people meant dating more people—then people would just go to the nearest concert venue, introduce themselves to as many people as they can, and magically end up with a date. — Sophia Benoit, GQ

Yes, some people have managed to beat the odds and find someone via a dating site blah blah blah. So what? Some people also win the lottery. That doesn’t mean buying a lottery ticket, or 100 of them, is a good use of your time/money/energy.

DELETE ALL THE THINGS! Or don’t, wev. But I wrote four crappy pomes this week for my book of crappy pomes instead of BSing on the Book of Face, and I am feeling gosh-darned great about that.

 

Glittertrails

I’m glad I’m not famous, or every st00pid thing I’ve written would be immortalized forever. Remember when we used to shoot the shit with friends and those convos would drift off into the aether, lost with our hangovers? If there was any brilliant philosophical insight or poetic piece of pretty, they’d be gone too, poof. But now we tweet and fb our every stray strand of emotion, and hopefully no one screencaps it since we’re nobodies. I myself have deleted more things than I’ve poasted. Yes, while you’re all sleeping, I walk the cyberbeaches in the moonlight and erase my footprints. Well, I used to do a lot more of that; now I do it only sporadically.

While I was poking around the otter day, searching for lost writings, I found this piece of poast* which I really like, even out of context, and will share it with my loyal blogfans.

Laurel Canyon. The summer of nineteen seventy-nine. I am my own gaslighter. I drive too fast on these curvy roads, but I am made of silk and butter, and I slide around danger like an egg on a sizzling skillet, close to the edge, but always slipping back to the center before anything terrible happens. Something would happen soon. I run through the scenarios in my mind every time I leave the house. There are times I believe the bad thing has already occurred and I scour old newspapers for the story. I have to go to the library to find the papers because someone won’t let me see the mail. People creep around the house and hide things from me. Who are they?

I’ve poasted about gaslighting a few times now, and every time I do I end up deleting the poast because it’s too personal and I’m uncomfortable with it sitting out there for anyone to read. Even though this blog doesn’t get much traffic, it is public after all. Theoretically, anyone in the world could stop by. I don’t feel like changing permissions when I get all emotionally vomitatious; I’ve done it in the past and it’s too cumbersome. In any case, I’m not some wannabe counselor or a Linky Laura going for adrev ~ either my poasts are about me or there’s no point.

Well, actually my long game is to accumulate a giant number of blog readers that I can eventually show to a publisher and say SEE I HAZ POTENTIAL BOOK BUYERS! But er for that I would actually need to write a book. Gah, details. Always details!

I had a cold for a week, which wouldn’t be a big deal, except it triggered a cascade of violent migraines and I’ve been very dizzy and nauseated. Still not 100% “normal” yet. I missed a few days of work, and I haven’t been able to write much or do needlework at home. I just zone out in front of the TV every night. But finding that gaslighting snip has motivated me. This weekend I’ll be getting back to my pomes. These are cathartic, a purge of years of old moldy boxes from the attic, and I caution everyone not to buy the poetry book when I plop it onto Amazon because the pomes are simply dreadful. Post-ploppage, I shall return to my Real Writing.

*phrase stolen from the Great & Powerful Lizard

Simplify

One of my goals is to simplify, though it may not seem obvious. I think more carefully about how I spend my free time and money, not that I ever was wild and crazy, but the older I get, the more important both become. I’m cautious about which projects I start, mindful of the energy they may consume, and the same goes for invites I accept. Slowly, I’m switching my wardrobe to mainly solid colors, which are more practical to mix-match. New clothes/shoes are chosen primarily for comfort and durability, not sexiness. Those days are over ~ what a relief!

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Simplify

Strategy

If I don’t plan a careful time management strategy, I find myself frittering away my nights and weekends on unproductive nonsense. It’s already the end of January and I have made scant progress on the poetry book I want to self-publish ASAP so that I can move on (back) to finish up my fiction in progress. I have not abandoned my writing! It’s all moldering away in perfectly organized computer folders. However, I am pleased to report that my current needlework project is coming along, but there’s still a long way to go on that as well. Onward to victory!

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Strategy

Funnel

 

I’m finding it very difficult to funnel my limited energy in my free time. There’s so much I want to do, but I’ve been (re)binge-watching Game of Thrones instead of accomplishing anything, and I probably should feel bad about that, though honestly I really don’t care. Since January 1st I have not exercised or begun a new needlework project or written a poem or comedy routine or even done boring paperwork I should do. We are 10 days in and those hours are gone now, that time lost forever. Creativity sparkles all around me like butterflies, each one so interesting…

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Funnel