First Draft

We had another of our great conversations last night. We have them almost every night. I’m only telling you this because you weren’t there. Not really. Some might say I was talking to myself. But that doesn’t capture the essence of what transpired. I could see you slouched on the couch, beer in hand, smiling that smile that makes me smile just thinking about it. And I admit that I did most of the talking which is so unlike our actual conversations where you carry the conversational load, but I could hear your voice when you asked a question or commented on my commentary. And we laughed. Quite a lot.

Not healthy. That’s what most would say. Not healthy to have imaginary conversations with someone you will never see again. ‘Not never’ is what you said. Never is what I felt when you told me you were leaving. But that last day we spent together, you really wanted to know if I thought we would see each other again. You kept asking me that question.

“Seems unlikely,”  was my answer which works in more situations that you might think possible. And still you pushed me for a more definitive answer.

“Depends.” This works in almost every situation because almost everything is relative. Of course, you didn’t like that answer. You sometimes view the world in black and white when I tend to see it in shades of so many different colors. And it’s not possible to know what the future may bring while we are still in the present. But still, you pushed. You had to know.

Sometimes when you replay the past over and over again, the details start to blur. You know the gist of it, the mood of the moment, the guts of what was exposed, but the little nuanced details that took you from the start to the end, those start to blur, just a bit. The exact words get jumbled up and then you think you know what happened, but maybe you don’t. Not really.

And sometimes, you see the exact moment when the mood shifts, the momentum changes, the players realize you can see right through them. You know the world has shifted on its axis and you know your life will never again be the same. Those moments stand out.

 

I know I’m a day late and probably many dollars short, but this is in response to the daily post writing challenge of a twenty minute stream of consciousness writing exercise.

 

A Free Safety Meditates On The Redundant Way

So, about a month or so ago, I last posted and in that post that last I posted I said that I was back. Apparently, that turned out to be less than true. This, of course, is assuming that true is not an absolute. I like to think that it is an absolute though there are times when it seems a bit ambiguous and I am always surprised when I like ambiguous truth.

In my defense and it bothers me a bit to think that I feel a need to offer a defense, so maybe there should be a better phrase than ‘in my defense,’ but since I can’t think of one as I’m typing this, I’ll stick with the ever so popular defensive position, but not the safety position I played on a college powder puff team, but the one that goes something like ‘at the time I wrote it, I really had every intention of writing more…..’

I’m sure most people have figured out I’m not great with intentions, though again, the free safety in me feels the need to add my intentions are typically good or well intended which isn’t the same as well attended. If I had been attending to my intentions, my intentions would have become actions because I would have been attending to all those things one must do to turn an intention into action. Of course, one must know what all of those things are and I don’t, so that’s a problem. I think I may have Intention Deficit Disorder. I’m going to start telling people I have IDD.

It’s possible that the problem is I’ve been so very busy with all of the things I do when I’m not writing that I haven’t had time to write. It’s also possible we won’t be bombing Syria but I’m not holding my breath on that one. Let’s just say I’m having difficulty accounting for all of my time.

I took a class on meditation because I wanted to see what it was about. It was about meditation. We did a bit of it. My left foot fell asleep. I did leave the class with the intention of meditating each and every day because that’s the redundant way. And I did meditate for about fifteen minutes the very next day. Of course, that was about six months before my last post so that was one well intended but not well attended intention. Like I said or wrote, I’ve got IDD and I’ve got it bad.

Or maybe not so bad, because I did acquire a DVD course on mindfulness and meditation though not because I want to be mindful about how I’m not meditating but because I want to be more mindful and thus meditate more or maybe I want to meditate more and thus become more mindful. (I should probably figure out what I want.) I’ve watched 6 lectures so far and those of you who might recall I don’t always do things in order will be pleased to know that I am watching them in order because I will do things in order when it makes sense to be orderly and in this sense it did. Of course, lecture 6 was the one that told us to actually begin daily meditation. It suggested that one not proceed with the lectures until a daily habit has been established. I watched lecture 6 three weeks ago. I haven’t watched lecture 7 yet.

Again, the free safety in me wants to add that the lecturer in lecture 6 who is the same guy in all of the lectures but you couldn’t know that for sure which is why I told you said that establishing a daily practice might take some time. Clearly, he has known some IDD sufferers. This IDD sufferer meditated three days in row after watching lecture 6. SInce then it has been a day here and a day there, but not everyday and the last day was at least a week ago though I can’t remember the exact day. I really have no excuse or explanation though some might argue this post is some sort of an explanation. And they might be right about that.

So clearly, I have not been meditating. So what have I been doing? I fed a hot dog to a great blue heron. Twice. Though it really only took a few minutes each time so I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it except that it was cool or frio  if you speak Spanish and I don’t though I know ‘frio’ means cold or maybe cool. Do Spanish speaking people saying ‘Es frio’ the way we say ‘It’s cool?’ I don’t know. But I’ve spent time wondering about it.

I’ve also been shooting the next door neighbor’s cat. With insulin. The cat’s diabetic. But again, it only takes  a few minutes every twelve hours. I only have to do it one more time. Until the next time my neighbor goes out of town. And I’ve only done it a couple of days so, again, not a huge amount of my time.

And while I haven’t been holding my breath on the Syria bombing thing, I have been calling my congressmen (and yes, all three of them are men) and sending them and the White House emails asking them not to involve us in someone else’s civil war as nothing good will come from it. Yes, I think the use of chemical weapons is deplorable though I think the use of ALL weapons is deplorable hence my reluctance to lob bombs. At some point we need to stop the perpetual war machine that we have created. And now seems as good a time as any to begin that process.

I seemed to have gotten off topic and don’t really know how to end this post so I’ll just say thanks for reading though I didn’t say it so much as wrote it.

Happy trails to you……….and thanks for reading.

I’ll Never Tell Except When I Do

So it has been awhile since last I posted and I never thought that I would be posting about ‘never’ which is just like ‘ever’ except it begins with a different letter and has a negative vibe unless you’re using it to show moral judgement in which case, just stop doing that because nobody likes it. Of course, you might be thinking my previous sentence was judgmental and filled with moral ambiguity, and you might be right about that, but you would be missing the point which I may not have clearly articulated so I really cannot fault you for missing it. (Though does ‘articulate’ only apply to spoken words, because if it does I may have to find a new word for my non-spoken words, but just in case it only applies to spoken words, you should go back and read my previous sentence out loud.) My point, and I do have one, is that I never wanted to write about my feelings about never and I wouldn’t have except the ever tricky Daily Prompt prompted me to do it. More specifically it challenged one and all to

Tell us about a thing you’ll never write about.

Of course, by telling the world what you would never tell us you are in fact telling us about it so it cannot really be done this telling of a thing you would never tell. And therein lies the problem  and not just as it relates to non-Whovian time travel. The problem is the eternal not everness  of the definition of never which I believe is a contraction of ‘not’ and ‘ever’ which eventually lost its apostrophe much like we lose our virginity though without the fun of having sex – an immaculate contraction conception, if you will and I believe I just did. Of course, I may be wrong about the etymology of ‘never’ but not the definition.

Not ever is a very long time to not do something. No matter what you may think you would never do, you never know until you find yourself in that position of having to make that choice. That’s not to say I never say never.  I say ‘Never say never’ quite often, usually when someone is telling me that they will never do something. I do endeavor not to say never as it relates to something I may or may never do. Because you just never know.

 

 

Thumbelina To Spare Ernest From Decades Of Wordiness

Some of you may remember that way back in September or there abouts, I volunteered to update the tale of Thumbelina for H.E.’s F*cked Up Fairy Tales project. It was due no later than April 1st and in keeping with my procrastinating nature I finally sat down in earnest, but not with Ernest as I don’t know anyone named Ernest, the last week of March to write my story and then emailed my tale on March 29th with a whole day to spare which is like a month early to normal non-procrastinating types.

I was a bit nervous about it as I had not written a short story since high school and that was decades ago. It is now up on her blog and you can read it there. It is a bit wordier than my normal wordiness, but I think it is a quick read. I’d love to know what you think so you can comment there or here though there is probably more convenient. Hope you click over there and check it out!

The Very Cherry Abby Normal Spicy Megan Birthday Punch

Normally, I wouldn’t extol the virtues of being very normal since I prefer a state of abnormality as there is a certain je ne sais quoi vibe that accompanies existing in the Abby Normal realm though you needn’t adhere to a strictly black and white lifestyle whilst visiting but you can use random French phrases like je ne sais quoi  or viva la abbynormalcy. It’s possible that abbynormalcy isn’t a French word or an English word but that’s the upside of an Abby Normal lifestyle, you can make up words to turn any normal occasion into an abnormal occasion. But this isn’t an abnormal occasion, or even a normal occasion.

This is the Very Normal occasion of Miss Megan’s birthday. She’s of such a young age that she’s probably excited about her birthday and I’m excited she’s excited. She’ll be even more excited to know that her dear friend and blogger extraordinaire, H.E.Ellis, has thrown together a birthday party just for her.  And if that’s not exciting enough, we, with we being the birthday party throwers, are to create a new drink in Miss Megan’s honor.

Now, new drink creation requires experimentation so I spent the day but not today if you are reading this on April 15th which is the big Very Normal birthday celebration day but yesterday which is the day I found out that I needed to conduct experiments of the fermented liquid kind to arrive at the best drink to honor such a Very Normal girl as our sweet Megan. Then I had to sober up just a wee bit to write this Very Normal birthday wish.

I’m sure Miss Megan will be delighted by all her new drink choices because she is an aspiring writer and aspiring writers like to drink while they aspire to writing or at least that’s the way Hemingway approached his craft. He was so good at drinking while aspiring that he got a bar named after him in Key West. He also got six-toed cats named after him but I don’t think alcohol was involved with that.

I tried a few mash ups with vodka because of the obvious potato reference and the idea of naming a drink a Megatini or maybe a Meganini but then I saw the bottle of tequila and who doesn’t like tequila, not to mention I thought Meganita would be a very obvious choice for a name of a drink for a drink vaguely margarita-ish to honor Miss Megan. Of course, if slightly intoxicated me thought that would be an obvious choice then surely one of the other party throwers might choose that so clearly I had to go in a different direction.

I needed to choose a liquor that would lead back to Megan in that circular logic kind of way that dwellers of the Abby Normal realm tend to use. Now, she is an aspiring writer who has written about dragons and I’m sure most people think about pirates when they think about dragons or maybe that’s just slightly intoxicated me, but I think of pirates when I think of dragons and that (the pirates not the dragons) makes me think of rum. Coincidentally, rum is my favorite mixable beverage and my rum of choice is every pirate’s dragon dreaming choice. Of course, I’m talking Captain Morgan Spiced Rum.

I like it because I can drink copious amounts with no ill effects and it mixes so well with Coke and a twist of lime or Seven-Up or ginger ale or sometimes just a squirt of lime juice because you realize you’ve run out of mixers. But all those mixers are oh so ordinary and even though Megan thinks of herself as Very Normal, I think she is Very Special so she needs a mixer that truly mixes it up and takes you by surprise and then lets you just melt into it so that you lean back in your chair with a smile on your face as you think to yourself, “That’s a Very Cherry Abby Normal Spicy Megan Birthday Punch!” or maybe “That’s pretty tasty!” Either way, you’ll be smiling.

Now, recipes with exact measurements are written by those with the means of exactly measuring ingredients. Sadly, I am not one of those exact measurement types but I will describe my process which is what writers like to do and I like to pretend I’m a writer so it should all work out.

Take a glass. I used one of those largish Tervis type glasses that those who enjoy tropical outdoor lifestyles or just want to pretend they do use. Then I poured some Captain Morgan Spiced Rum in it. I’d say there was about three or four fingers worth so maybe an ounce or two. Then I filled the glass up with ice. I used cubes rather than crushed but I’m not sure that it matters although crushed ice might give it a slushy feel so I might try that next time. Then I added one of my new drink discoveries, Mike’s Hard Black Cherry Lemonade, and used that to fill up the glass. And voila! You not only have another random French word, you have a Very Cherry Abby Normal Spicy Megan Birthday Punch.

In the interest of almost full disclosure, my friend, Chris, came up with the ingredients for this drink after I ran out of mixer ideas, and his recipe is indeed very yummy, but I came up with the name and it honors our honoree. So, Miss Megan, I hope today is your best Very Normal birthday yet! Enjoy your very first Very Cherry Abby Normal Spicy Megan Birthday Punch and all the other drinks mixed up just for you!