Month: September 2017

Around and Around

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I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m cheating. But it’s a lazy Saturday and I’ve already posted twice today. So deal with it.

How am I cheating? Well, when I saw today’s one-word prompt, “circle,” I immediately thought of Joni Mitchell’s song, “The Circle Game.” But then I remembered that I had already used her song for another one-word prompt, “carousel,” a few months back.

So I tried to think of another way to incorporate the word “circle” into a post, but my mind was stuck on Joni’s song. So I figured, what the hell, I’m going to recycle that earlier post for today’s prompt. If you like Joni Mitchell, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, even if it is a rerun. If you don’t like Joni Mitchell…well, you obviously have no musical taste, so who cares?

The older I get, the more I feel that the years are going by as quickly as revolving doors or merry-go-rounds.

In fact, I’m reminded of Joni Mitchell’s classic song, “The Circle Game.” You know the lyrics, right? Sing along:

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

If you’re not familiar with this song, take a moment to listen. You won’t regret it.

Day 30 — It’s a Wrap

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IMG_2619Today is the final day of Suzanne McClendon’s “Back Where I Come From” September Challenge, so it’s fitting that the last question is a “reflection” question.

Day 30: What did you think of this challenge? Did you enjoy it? Do you have any suggestions for 2018’s challenge song?

First, I’d like to thank Suzanne for this challenge. I truly enjoyed conjuring up many mostly long forgotten memories of my youth and the town in which I was raised. That has been fun. And most of all, it was great to read how other bloggers who also participated in this challenge answered these same questions.

That said, though, I am a private person, so revealing some of the details from my youth did cause some discomfort. Also, there wasn’t anything special, unique, or even interesting about either my youth or my hometown. I couldn’t help wondering why anyone would want to read posts about the place where I was raised. Still, I’m glad I participated.

As to a suggestion for next year’s challenge, I got nothin’.

SoCS — Do You See the Dew?

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E1E0FEAD-5BA6-44E7-9051-764476758B21“Do you know exactly how much is due?” George asked his wife, Alicia, who was staring out of the kitchen window. When she didn’t respond, he said, “Earth to Alicia. Hello? Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said. “Were you saying something?

“Yes, I was asking you a question, but you appear to be transfixed on something,” George said. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh George, come see this. It’s beautiful.”

Reluctantly, George got up from his desk and joined his wife at the kitchen window. “So, what’s so fascinating?”

“Do you see the dew on the grass?” Alicia asked. “The early morning sun is glinting off the dewdrops. It’s as if each blade of grass has tiny little crystalline pearls hanging on them.”

“Yeah, very pretty,” George said sarcastically. “But I gotta write a check to your dentist, so if you can take your eyes off of the dew, do you know how much is due?”

Written for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. This week Dan Antion subbed for Linda, who is on a book-signing tour. The prompt for today is: “do/dew/due.” Use one, use two, or use all three.

Fishing For Compliments

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58E1A47C-87FF-465F-B530-A6159BF5C2D0When my wife read my response to today’s one-word prompt, “witty,” she chastised me. “That was an obnoxious post,” she told me.

“What? Why would you say that?” I asked, honestly having no clue what she was talking about.

“You blatantly and shamelessly fished for compliments,” she said. “You were just begging for people to read you post and tell you in the comments how funny and witty and humorous you are. Admit it,” she insisted.

“No, I wasn’t fishing for compliments,” I protested. “I was just being brutally honest and confessing that I’m just not that witty.”

“That’s bullshit! You are so transparent. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“No!” I said. “I was being sincere, genuine.”

“And delusional,” she said. “I’m going to stop following you blog. And for what it’s worth, you aren’t very witty.”

Damn that’s harsh.

I’m kidding, of course. I’m very witty and my wife loves my blog. She just has no sense of humor!

#writephoto — Snow Day

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E46FDEF0-53D9-480E-A3CE-D15234A2DBDFSam and his young brother, Tom, were thrilled that it had snowed enough the night before to have covered the ground with a few inches of fresh, soft, fluffy snow. And more important, the snowfall was enough for schools to be closed for the day.

After getting the blessing from their mother, who had to begrudgingly stay home from work because of the school closings, they headed out to the woods a few blocks from their home.

The boys were running around, trying to make snowballs to throw at each other. But the snow was too dry and fluffy to make good snowballs, so they decided to go exploring deeper into the woods. That’s when they saw something strange in a small clearing in the forest.

They both ran toward the object that attracted their attention. “That’s weird,” said Tom.

Sam looked around. “Hey, there are no footprints in the snow around this thing, but there’s no snow on it,” he said.

“So what does that mean?” Tom asked.

“It means that it was put here after the snow stopped,” Sam answered. “But how did it get here? Who put it here and didn’t leave footprints in the fresh snow?”

Tom looked at the object on the snow. It had three animal skulls, antlers intact, on something shaped like a yield sign. “I don’t like this,” he said to Sam. “I think it’s a warning. Let’s go home.”

“Don’t be such a wuss, Tom,” Sam said. “I want to find out what it means and who put it here. Are you with me or not?”

Tom could feel the stream of urine trickling running down his leg. He was as scared as he’d ever been in his young life. “No I’m not with you. I’m going home. Are you with me?”

Sam looked at his little brother. “Fine,” he said, “but one of these days you’ll have to develop a sense of adventure.”

When the boys walked into their home, their mother was sitting at the kitchen table sipping some coffee and listening to a news bulletin on the radio. The announcer’s voice conveyed a sense of urgency.

Authorities are urging people to stay away from the woods just east of Carroll Township, where police found three deer carcasses in what appears to be some sort of ritualistic ceremony. The animals were apparently decapitated and their heads are yet to be found.

Sam and Tom looked at one another. This time it was Sam who felt the trickle of urine running down his leg.

Written for Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.

Wit and Wisdom

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1907F819-E056-4901-80DD-AF8D55E10FB6.jpegI like to think of myself as a witty person. I try to infuse humor into my posts and I attempt to keep things light in real-world conversations by injecting jokes, some of which induce chuckles, while others solicit groans. Or facepalms.

66A21074-63BD-4807-8585-81073939EA3FBut am I as witty as I think I am? Probably not.

I looked up the word “witty,” and, according to Dictionary.com, a witty person is “amusingly clever in perception and expression.”

I spend a lot of time inside my own head, which I find endlessly entertaining. But when it comes to expressing what I am thinking, whether in writing or in conversation, my wit is probably best described as, at best, mildly amusing. It is, is dry. And sometimes sarcastic. There’s nothing especially clever or uniquely amusing about it. That’s just the way it is.

So, to put it another way, my wit is not witty enough to make money off of it, so I’d better not quit my day job.

Wait, I’m retired. I already did quit my day job.

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “witty.”

Day 29 — Read and Listen

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IMG_2619Day 29: Does your hometown have a newspaper? Does it come out daily, bi-weekly, weekly, or some other frequency Does your hometown have its own radio station?

Living in a suburb of Washington, DC, the newspaper of record was what used to be The Washington Post & Times Herald. At some point, the paper dropped Times Herald from the masthead and it was just The Washington Post.

A big city paper, the Post was published daily. There was also a county-wide paper, The Sentinel, that was published either weekly or every other week, I can’t remember.

As to radio stations, I used to listen to WDON, from the neighboring town of Wheaton. It was an AM Top-40 station that was daylight only, meaning that when the sun set each night, the station stopped broadcasting.

WDON switched formats from Top-40 to Country & Western around my senior year in high school. I am not a fan of country music, so I stopped listening to WDON after the switch.

Written for Suzanne McClendon’s September Challenge, which consists of 30 questions (one for each day of this month).

To Control or To Be Controlled

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This is not my first blog. In fact, when I decided to launch this blog four months ago, it was the fifth blog I launched.

I started my first blog in 2005 on Blogger. It lasted for maybe 18 months and ended when, between work and family, I just got too busy to post consistently. Not that anyone would have noticed. My blog had no followers.

In early 2008 I started my second blog, which lasted for less than a year. That time around, I was using the blog hosting site, TypePad. I ended this second iteration because I lost my motivation. This second iteration had only a few followers.

About a year later, I started my third blog. It, too, was on TypePad, but because I wasn’t getting much traction on TypePad, even after four years, I moved my blog to WordPress. Within a year on WordPress, though, my blog soared. I had accumulated close to 3,000 followers and was averaging around 500-600 views a day.

While every blogger wants a following, that relatively large following turned out to be a curse. I became obsessed with creating an even larger following. I felt compelled to post multiple times a day and to respond to each and every comment anyone made on my posts. I “liked” and commented on the posts of my regular readers.

And so blogging consumed me. I sacrificed time with my family. I spent more time blogging than doing my job, which hurt my job performance and reputation. I hardly ever ventured outside because I didn’t want to be away from my computer for long periods of time.

I even resented having to go to sleep because it meant I couldn’t be composing a new post, responding to comments, or reading those posted by others on their blogs.

I was addicted. Not to drugs or alcohol or tobacco. I was a blog addict. And I needed to change my behavior before I completely lost myself and my real world identity into my blogging persona. With the help of, and encouragement from, my wife, I stopped blogging cold turkey in early 2015.

In early 2016 I started another blog on WordPress. I wrote my observations on the presidential race. But I kept that blog private because I was primarily writing for my eyes only. That fourth blogging go-round never saw the light of day.

This past May I decided, once again, to dip my toe back into the world of blogging. I told myself that this time I would not become obsessed or addicted. I would post periodically and I would not feel compelled to focus on getting a bunch of followers. I would post only for the purpose of writing down what I observe, think, feel, and experience.

I named my new blog “Fivedotoh” in recognition of this being my fifth blog.

And now I am, once again, consumed by blogging. I just need to make sure that this time around I can control it and that it doesn’t, as it did once before, end up controlling me.

Friday Fictioneers — For Lease

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6C857F9E-E490-4266-8FB3-8015570EFCC5So this guy says to me that he doesn’t think it has the right vibe. Can you believe that two-bit ambulance chaser? I’m a commercial real estate genius. I lease office space to, you know, high class professionals. The right vibe? Seriously?

Then he complains about the tin roof, the broken windows, the chain link fence. Says it looks more like an abandoned prison than a law office.

So I tell him if that’s the case, his clientele should feel right at home. So he bails on me.

I tell you, my friend, some people just have no vision.

(100 words)

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

Day 28 — Family and Strangers

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IMG_2619Day 28: Was your hometown like one big family or just a group of strangers?

Both, actually. Our subdivision, which consisted of around two square blocks with about 60 homes, was like one, big, mostly happy family. Almost all of the families were white, suburban, middle class families and many had kids around the same ages as me. So most people in the subdivision knew one another.

We had quarterly block parties, large neighborhood cookouts, and neighborhood gatherings at the local recreation center. Everyone seemed to care about and look out for their neighbors.

All of us kids went to the same public school except for the handful of Catholic kids who went to the Catholic school. But after school, we all hung out together.

Once outside of our two square block subdivision, though, it was more like a group of strangers. We knew kids we went to school with who lived outside our immediate neighborhood and we were friendly with them, but we were never as close with them (or their families) as we were with those who lived in our subdivision.

Written for Suzanne McClendon’s September Challenge, which consists of 30 questions (one for each day of this month).