Rory’s S’mores

Another Guy Called Bloke Production!

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At what point in our lives do you think we think we are good enough?

Speaking only for myself… never! I wake every day knowing there are goals to achieve and improvements to make.

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In life, what do you consider beautiful?

Cats, poetry, art of various forms, nature (flowers, sunsets, birds, butterflies, etc.), and of course my family.

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Do you think that when we dream, we can dream within a dream? But if you don’t dream, why do you think that is?

Yes, definitely. I have dreamt about dreaming.

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How do you manage your stress or do you not suffer from stress?

It varies. I don’t handle stress well at all, so I try to eliminate it at the source ~ this is why I gave up dating, where others persevere through unpleasantness. I can’t tolerate the bad. It literally makes me sick. But some things can’t be helped; stuff appears out of the blue. I will get physically ill and have to deal with that. I’ll get migraines and take medicine. My sleep will suffer. Etc. I severely manage down interactions with people so that my stress is minimized.

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Are there things or maybe just one thing you wish to achieve before you die?

I did want to have success as a writer, but I don’t see that happening. I’m not talented enough, nor do I have the patience to endlessly slog away on a novel anymore when I can get instant feedback via short blog posts.

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Some experience many things during their lifetimes, but do you think there is something that everyone should experience at least once?

No.

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Are you afriad to be different? To stand out from the crowd, to push away your peers if needs be and say “I am ME!”

No. I’m more afraid of being one of them, though generally I blend in wherever I go, at least superficially. I realize that sounds contradictory, but it’s not. I blend in just enough so that no one notices/bothers me, and then I get away as fast as I can to be apart from them.

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Which do you think is easier ‘to hate or to love?’

To hate obviously. Humans are all about forming groups and excluding other humans in order to hate and possibly kill them.

Nose & Sose

Another Guy Called Bloke Production…

Talked to a complete stranger about life.

Never! Well, except for my blog blabbing and how I used to blurt stuff out to weird men on dating sites and…

Gone skydiving.

That is a 100% no way!

Got a tattoo.

Also nopety nope.

Had an allergic reaction.

So way. My parents called emergency in Chicago for me because I went into anaphylactic shock. The doctor said his best guess was a bee sting from handling fruit. But we don’t really know.

Cried while watching a movie.

Sure, all the time.

Gotten gum stuck in my hair.

I don’t think so.

Fallen asleep in the sun and gotten burned.

Yep. But not recently ~ I avoid bright sun because it’s a migraine trigger.

Over-plucked my eyebrows.

So way, as a silly teenager.

Been in a haunted house.

Only pretend ones.

Fallen asleep during sex.

I don’t remember.

Wore a whipped cream bikini.

No way.

Been to an “adult store”.

So way. The first time was funny. I went with a girlfriend who was too scared to go in, but I was fearless back then. I went in alone. This was in Wisconsin, I think, and I was 18. But once I was inside I lost my nerve a bit, so I just grabbed two paperback books and bought them. They were dumb, of course.

Felt the presence of “paranormal activity”.

I thought it could have been, but I don’t believe in that, so it wasn’t. It makes for good stories and poetry though.

Asked someone when they were due when they weren’t pregnant.

No way. Never. I avoid commenting on people’s body sizes and looks generally except to give bland compliments.

Seen a sex therapist.

Not as a patient, but I had a date with a man who thought he was one. Lolololol. Yes, another one of my wonderful dating experiences. 🤮

Burst out laughing at a really inappropriate time.

Often have the urge but can usually stifle it.

Called someone the wrong name.

I’m sure I have, but I am pretty good with names.

Walked in on a stranger who was butt naked.

In gym locker rooms, yep.

Said you were minutes away when you haven’t even left the house yet.

No. And it’s sofa king irritating how many Californians say everything is 20 minutes from wherever they are when LITERALLY NOTHING IS 20 MINUTES FROM ANYWHERE!!!!! Gahhh why do I even live here???

Fun questions. 🙄

In Other Words: Invisible

Not all disability requires a cane,

Who are you to question my pain?

Some diseases are invisible to others,

But that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer.

Try a little kindness for a change.

~*~

Prompt from Patricia

Daring to Share [SYW]

Lately it’s been rainy and cold (for SoCal), so I’d like to “share” that with you as a lead-in to complaining about migraines and aches and pains. Wah wah wah. I haven’t been very productive this weekend or worked on my novel at all because I felt like relaxing and goofing off in Blogland. Pffft.

Questions from Sparks

If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

– Read, write, watch movies on TV. Omg I’m so boring! But those are the things I like to do.

What job would you be terrible at?

– Anything that involves talking to people much more than I do now. Sales, customer service, retail, teacher, nurse, reporter, cop.

When was the last time you climbed a tree?

– 45 years ago?

Do you count your steps? 

– No, thank God, there’s one obsession I don’t have.

Bonus question (just because it’s really silly)   What’s the dumbest way you’ve injured yourself?

– There was the time I tried to open that stupid plastic on a bottle of Snapple with a sharp knife and it slipped and gashed my finger so badly I needed stitches. No, I wasn’t a kid. This was around 2010. 🙄

Melanie skipped the gratitude section, but I want to give a shout-out to my awesome daughter for driving down here yesterday with cutest baby so we could all have a fun visit at my place. 💖💖💖

FPQ11: Dr. Kevorkian

This week Fandango provocatively asks…

“Do you believe that terminally ill people should be allowed or encouraged to end their lives via physician-assisted suicide? If so, under any circumstances or should there be restrictions? If not, why not?

“Optionally, if you were diagnosed with a terminal condition, would you consider physician-assisted suicide for yourself?”

First, I want to thank Fandango for this FPQ. All of them are good, but just when I’m completely disgusted with liberals this week over the MAGA hat kids idiocy, this question reminds me of why I still vote straight Dem.

Because my answer is an enthusiastic YES! I am totally for physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients who wish it and for those who may not necessarily have a terminal illness but are in unrelenting prolonged misery that can’t be alleviated.

There should be restrictions, yes. Ideally, patients will have filled out a form when clear-headed, describing exactly at what point they no longer have quality of life and are ready to go. Of course they can change their mind. But even if they haven’t done the form, if someone gets a sudden diagnosis, and/or is in horrible sustained pain, they still should have the right to ask for help in ending their life and receive it. Maybe the rule should be they have to ask every day for a week or something like that. There should be more than one doctor to approve the request and to agree that the illness is terminal and/or there’s nothing more to be done to help the pain.

I am sure I would ask for PAS under various scenarios ~ I think about it now for gawd’s sake. Migraines, back pain, neck pain, yada. Every day. No break. If (when) more things happen to put me in even further discomfort, ughhh.

This is a huge reason I vote Dem ~ this and pro-choice. The Republicans/conservatives, for all their “small government” blathering, are always first up to tell us what we can and can’t do with our bodies. 😡😡😡

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.

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!

Lazy Poast

I swear I was gonna write a story or a pome today from the prompts, but I haz a wicked migraine due to the windy cold weather, so you get this. Like it or lump it!

Questions from the Queen:

1. What is something you always put off for as long as you can?

– Death (mine).

2. Has time sped up or slowed down for you as you have aged?

– Up.

3. What time period do you think you most belong in?

– Post-historical.

4. What book would have a completely different feel if it was set in a different time period?

– The Bible.

5. How do you like to waste time?

– You’re looking at it.

6. Have you ever killed time since reading or watching The Phantom Tollbooth?

– Don’t remember what that means.

7. You have two hours to yourself…how do you spend it?

– Plotting, planning, scheming, dreaming.

8. How often do you think about the Doomsday Clock?

– Not a lot.

9. Do you think we are nearing the end of times (for those who believe in it)?

– Not in a religious sense, but it’s definitely possible we could be close to a massive-casualty world war.

10. Armageddon is upon us…do humans survive?

– Probably some in remote areas for a while.

11. How will human’s time on Earth be up?

– War, famine, disease, no medical care.

12. What is your favorite quote about time?

– “Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.”

13. What is one song that makes you time travel?

– “In the year 2525…”

14. Speaking of Time Travelers… The Doctor (Dr. Who), Time Traveller (H.G.Wells, The Time Machine), Phineas Bogg (Voyagers!), or The Traveler (Star Trek: TNG): Who would make the better traveling companion?

– Idk these peeps. I’ll take my cat. 🐱

Question Jambalaya

I’m mixing all the questions I’ve been marinating in my drafts folder together in one delicious, deluxe poast for a Friday pre-Christmas jambalaya… yummy!

From Kristian:

1. What will you be eating on the 25th of December?

– That’s a good Q! I don’t know ~ I’m seeing the fam on Sunday and Monday, but No. 1 Daughter has to drive back to NorCal on the 25th, so that might just be me-time. Maybe a long walk to clear my head, then writing all day. Food, eh.

2. What would you like to see happen in 2019?

– Much less chaos/drama/craziness in every way and in every area of life… and if only our leaders could set a good example, but obviously they can’t or won’t… we can still strive for calm in small ways however and take steps to eliminate drama from our lives. I’ve been doing this for some time and plan to continue.

3. Name three things you are grateful for.

– Family, job, relatively good health.

From Tao–Talk:

1. Who is your favorite actress? What’s your favorite movie she is in?

– Meg Ryan. When Harry Met Sally.

2. Who is your favorite actor? What’s your favorite movie he is in?

– Tom Hanks. You’ve Got Mail.

3. Who is your hero(ine)?

– My real life friend Judene.

4. If you could live anywhere (and your family wanted to go with you and you could afford it), where would you live?

– NYC.

5. What’s your fondest memory from childhood?

– Visiting the Natural History Museum in NYC.

6. What’s your fondest memory from adulthood?

– Going to the fair with my girls and my mom.

7. If you could meet one celebrity who would it be?

– Stephen King.

8. Cake or pie?

– I’ve had so much cake that I… oh hell cake.

9. What’s your favorite kind of tree?

– Weeping willow.

10. Coat or layers?

– Layers, then coat.

11. If you could be one person for a day, who would you be and what would you do?

– Bill Gates, and he would decide to transfer half his money to me.

From The Haunted Wordsmith:

1. Smashed apples, peaches, pears, or bananas?

– Er, must I? Bananas, I guess… then I will make banana bread with chocolate chips!

2. What body part (of yours) has been smashed the most (keep your mind out of the gutter lol)?

– My head, when I squoosh it to try to stop the pain.

3. What world record would you like to smash?

– Woman miraculously cured of migraines and tinnitus at age 57! By eating c00kies! All hail the power of sugar! And butter. Don’t forget the butter.

4. Which two books would be better if they were smashed together?

– The Scarlet Letter and The Happy Hooker.

5. What two songs would be good smashed together?

– “I Need A Lover” and “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”

6. Which one would you smash together: US and Europe (wipe out the Atlantic Ocean) or US and Asia (wipe out the Pacific)?

– I don’t like smashing Europe bc then there’s no hope of the resurgence of Atlantis. “Down below the ocean…” But I’m a bit scared of eliminating the Pacific. What happens to Australia? I don’t want their scary snakes over here.

7. What foods are best served out of a blender?

– Idk, milkshakes?

8. What is your biggest pet peeve?

– People trying to sneak scary Australian snakes over here (glares).

9. It’s the Purge…do you participate? (If yes, what do you do?)

– Kill all the men, round up the sheep, and… oh wait, wrong movie.

10. You see a smashed window and an open store…do you loot?

– No. Could be loose snakes in there.

11. Have you ever thrown something through a window?

– So I could go looting? Good plan! Um no.

12. What movie would you like to see smashed into millions of non-repairable bits?

– Tusk.

13. Genghis Khan, Xerxes, Patton, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Alexander the Great, or Leonidas…which one(s) would be most successful at smashing the alt-right back into the time-out corner?

– All we need is… Retired Lieutenant Stan the Nazi-Fighting Man! 😀

Fandango No. 5 [FPQ]

It’s like Chanel No. 5, only a lot cheaper and won’t trigger a migraine.

So here’s this week’s provocative question (actually three questions):

“Is there a ‘blogging-you’ who is different from the real-world you? If so, how are the two ‘yous’ different? How has the ‘blogging-you’ evolved since you first started blogging?”

Yes. I am different here, but not just in Blogville.

There is an online-me who is somewhat different from meatspace-me. In the real world, I’m a small, older woman and I’ve been alone for many years. I have no one to back me up, physically, financially, emotionally, etc. So, I’m very careful. Extremely cautious. I am known as kind, sweet, helpful, by most. In fact, when people have met me in person after knowing me online for a while, they said I’m a lot nicer than they thought I’d be.

Online, I feel freer to state my opinions, to make jokes about whatever thing. To diss our horrible POTUS whenever I please, no matter who is around. I dgaf about people’s delicate feelings, nor do mine get hurt easily here. It’s words on a screen. Move on if you don’t like what you read. I do. I block racists on Twitter; I don’t cry over them. I also feel free to say no, to not do things I don’t want to, to simply fucking ignore irritating people, to ghost them, to delete, to mock, to parody… and there were years I used to troll the trolls. I’ve quit that though.

In meatspace, I don’t do most of that ever. I only make jokes when I am comfy with my audience. I did do a few rounds of stand-up comedy at a venue I felt okay about ~ it was tame comedy, relatively speaking. I usually don’t ignore people. I say thank you and no thank you and sorry, even to bums asking for money. If the gross guy dumpster diving at my apartment complex says good morning, I say it back. I try not to make enemies. I try very hard not to make anyone angry or displeased. When I fail, which is rare but it happens, I feel bad. Online, I don’t care.

Sometimes it turns out that characters on the screen and real people occupy the same space in the Venn diagram intersection, which can be tricky for me to deal with. It’s hard to go back and forth, and I haven’t fully mastered that task, since I am also a character of my own creation, continually evolving, except exactly the same person since I was 14 years old. Paradox. I think only one of my readers will possibly be able to grok this paragraph. No, not you. 🙄

That’s two questions answered. As far as the third, I have become much more discreet since I began my first blog. I say waaay fewer personal things now, hard as that may be to believe. But those who were reading Ultrablog know. Plus even this blog had much more daily life type stuff for a while. It’s not that I’m paranoid now, but more that my life has become such a bore there’s simply nothing to say.

I’m not complaining. You can have the “interesting life” fortune c00kie. After the drama I’ve had, I prefer boringness.