NaBloPoMo: Crushed?

NaBloPoMo Prompt for Today: Make a list of everyone you've ever had a crush on in your life, then choose one from the list and describe him or her in great detail.

My Response: I didn't have to make a list. I remember being in either 5th or 6th grade when the teacher introduced a new student to the class. I remember falling in love with her at first sight. I think it was because we both happened to be very small people compared to our classmates. She was also the mayor's daughter so my young silly mind equated that to royalty.

(While doing research today I found out that she is married to someone who was the mayor of the same town as her father. So yes, I was right all along, royalty!)

I was fairly introverted as a child and most of my attempts at communication with her were met with calamity and disaster. I remember one time pouring something on her friend while they were walking down the sidewalk, all the other details are gone but I remember thinking, man, I was stupid. I thought, why can't I just talk to her?!?!? This is really ironic because practically all my friends are women in my adult life. I am no longer introverted as well. (Metamorphosis?)

A few years later my older sister and her were in band and both happened to be the oboe players. She had the first chair and my sister the second. I remember my father saying some unkind things about the situation, but I am sure it was just his ignorance talking. The neighborhood kids would tease me about her, especially Jimmy from across the road. Jimmy is also the person who told me that mayors were rich!

I remember the best days at the swimming pool were the days she happened to be there.

One time at a Boy Scout meeting her mother was there, and I introduced myself. She had brothers. (I later learned just a few years ago from her father's obituary that all of the children in her family had their first name start with the letter P.) At the Boy Scout meeting I think I told her mother that I wanted to marry her daughter someday. I don't remember her reaction.

These were all events that took place when I lived in South Dakota. My parents moved me to Texas in my teenage years and I was crushed by that experience, a negative crush quite opposite of the romantic kind. But I decided to try to maintain contact with some people, and I have stayed up with person P over the years. We chat every few years by phone. I haven't seen her in nearly 40 years except by the photographs that are online and the several news articles about her.

She wound up getting a music degree and then advanced degrees in business and education. She worked in several countries before making it back to the states to become a college professor, and then the dean of a department, right back in "our" hometown in South Dakota. She is also a marathon runner and has been in several big name races multiple times with her husband. I can relate to that as a person who sells high performance running shoes. I just need to spend more time moving, but doubt that I am a 26 miler.

I remember seeing a bumper sticker on a car a few years ago that had "Got Oboe?" and smiled and thought of her. She got a kick out of that when I phoned later in the day.

So I hope she either forgives or has forgotten all the times I was mean to her. She is a wonderful person, very busy in her community, college and beyond; 

a blessing.

2011.11.11 11:11:02

2011.11.11  11:11:02

You would think I would be happy on a numerically symmetrical day.

You would be wrong.

I had a very bad dream. Someone kept pushing sideways on my leg and I couldn't get them to stop. I was in severe pain. Finally I screamed or yelled very loudly. I woke up. I heard my wife ask me a couple times, "Did you just scream?", because I had woke her up with my audible. I had been awake very late into the morning thinking about wishes. I didn't purposely try to stay awake. I went to sleep well after 3 AM. Maybe that's why I had the bad dream around 4 o'clock.

I am a scientist by training focused on chemistry and computers. I try to avoid wishing and hope. I just try to live in a practical logical reasoning eXistence. So for today's assignment I have this NaBloPoMo question of what I would do with three wishes. My first thought was give them away to someone who might want them. I most likely would sleep better.

Long before the scream dream I asked my wife what her three wishes were, and she immediately gave the first two and said she would think about the third. When I asked her if she would share them in this blog post, she gave me a definite italics bold verbal "NO !!!".

I am far from rich, but I don't want money or things that I haven't earned. So the opposite of that would be I would like the people who are currently stealing from me to stop what they are doing. Is this going to happen, by wishing, um, no, and so I won't even waste a question mark by supplying the answer so that it is no longer a question. They don't see themselves as thieves.

I suppose I could wish for tobacco or smoking in general to magically disappear. But people are already hurting and killing themselves slowly with so many other substances, while making a small group of suppliers fabulously wealthy, enabling more killing. Plus governments collect taxes on the activity. Entire regions cultivate feedstocks, so they logically try to justify their existence. I read something yesterday by a marijuana advocate who made the illogical stance that no one has ever overdosed and died from marijuana, and therefore it should be legalized. Please, get real.

I suppose I could wish for my son to come home from his current employment. I miss him terribly. He is my humor. He is gone for most of the calendar year in a large block of time and out of communication. But I know that if he can stay alive he will be finished in a year and a half from now and then be near me, hopefully for good. 

I guess my main wish, if I could have all three wishes rolled up into one so that it would really come true,  would be for the people of North Korea to be free. Maybe if I keep it that simple and concentrated it will come true. I know if enough people wanted that one thing, it would come true. But I'm reminded of my favorite 'Change the Light Bulb' joke. 

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light blub?

ANSWER: Just one, but first the light bulb has to want to be changed.

Forget all this stuff about North Korea. I just got a call from a telemarketer. I want all telemarketers violently and publicly destroyed and rid this ear-rot-tation from the face of the earth. I want to smell the smoke and see the flames and hear their screams.

Joy.

NaBloPoMo #8

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question: When was the first time that you realized that your home was not like other people’s homes?

My Response:

This is the fourth version of an answer to this daily question. I didn't like the first two that were about my autobiographical home experiences and the third one took an entirely different approach, inspired by a bit of salsa on a chip at lunch today, this one fictional, that I loved so much. I decided to save it for later when I wanted to write something completely fictional, longer, slightly dark yet funny and spend a great deal of time and planning. Yes, I do that some times, really!  So the fourth one is about my home away from home, my mother's place.

My mother lives far away but manages to, through kindness rays, gravitationally attract some of her children to live near her. Perhaps I have figured out the UNIFIED FIELD THEORY that even Einstein never solved! Within a 20 mile radius of her home are 3 of her 7 children, with another not too much farther. Yet her home is far away from any of our childhood homes. My inner orbital siblings all do a very good job taking care of her and I visit by phone often. They do call me when they need a computer fixed. I am planet tech support.

This is the second time that my mother has lived in this particular small town, moving back within a couple blocks or so of the old first place. She moved there originally following my step-father's retirement. Near water, near fish was his original wish.

It was a rather convenient spot, because several miles north on one interstate were all three of her step-children in the same city. In the opposite direction south about the same distance were all three of my mother's adopted children and grandchildren. And then west the same order of magnitude distance were her 4 natural born children and family, planets and moons. But this arrangement was brief, the universe changes and there are pressures, spinning, collisions and the alignment of the plain nuts fell out of perfectional direction. People die, people divorce, people supernova. Now there is actually one child on the east side, the T-shape overall pattern gone, on down another interstate eastwardly. (Balance?) 

But mom is back in the middle of the Big Hang In There Theory and has a bunch of her kids close, that is nice. Siblings, there is a warm spot at the middle of our you and I in verse.

NaBloPoMo #7

NaBloPoMo #7  -  National Blog Posting Month

Question: Has anything traumatic ever happened to you? Describe the scenes surrounding a particular event 

My Response: One of the early traumatic events of my life was finding out that I wasn't me.

Today was also traumatic enough through the mere act of eXamining my whole life in order to answer this question in an entertaining way without telling you about:

A) watching my brother get ran over by an automobile while riding a bike (he survived)

B) watching someone die right in front of me at work from a massive heart attack while the paramedics tried to save her 

C) slowly come to the realization that one of my relatives had most likely been murdered by his wife from an overdose of his medicine

On the first day of first grade I discovered something about my first name. I wasn't an Ernie. Legally. For the previous 6 years of my life that was the name everyone called me every single time there was a "me" calling.

The first grade teacher had gone to the trouble of making paper crowns with our names on them in pencil. Then we, who hadn't learn to write yet, were instructed to trace the lines of the letters with Elmer's Glue, in order that they could be sprinkled with glitter. Then the teacher would adjust the piece of paper to the child's head size and fasten it, probably with a stapler, I've lost that level of detail.

But, she couldn't find The Ernest in the room. That wasn't MY name, so I naturally didn't answer. I knew that Ernest was my maternal grandfather's name. I found out later that it was actually his middle name. His first name was Champion. Ironically he didn't like his real first name either. So I was eventually thankful, many years later, that I was named after his middle name and not the first, The Champion.

BUT I was not pleased at all when the teacher somehow figured out who I was and what my legal name really was.

I was  c r u s h e d.

NaBloPoMo #6

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #6: How do you balance your children, relationship, and work life? 

My Response: This one is kind of easy. There is essentially only relationship left of those three. My children are adults, gone from home now a couple of years, and my corporate job of nearly 29 years evaporated, so that leaves only relationship, mainly one in particular. But I am only semi-retired, a whole bunch of things have replaced my job, tightly knitted into relationship.

Key word: Balance

But relationship has become complex because now the daily "efforts" and time that previously went into the children now go into my dog Cooper. (((I have never had a dog quite like Cooper! My sister-in-law says he's really a person in a dog's body.))) My job has been replaced with learning the HVAC business and helping my wife with our businesses, retail products and services, that keep growing like crazy. Now if they would just turn a profit, eventually, that would be nice as well. 

The essence of today's question is balance. I try to have balance by doing the most important thing, whatever it is, without getting sidetracked, and finishing that task to completion. Try. I constantly look at the big picture and long time frames. I invest. 

When I feel it has been too long without communicating with my children or my mother, then I strongly focus on that issue. I am in constant communication with my wife so most of the time that is not an issue. I do like having some alone time with just Cooper and housework, hobbies, reading, and writing. I love to groc shop because it is a time to eXplore and a social "see a bunch of friends", because I am a small town soul now living in a slightly larger town than at any time of my childhood.  

I grew up in a large family of 4, then 7 children, when my parents suddenly adopted three younger cousins. My childhood was either a rural setting or very close. I was outside a lot, playing, exploring, bicycles, building tree forts, constantly in my father's tools. I find myself always talking to people when I am in public. I was never taught the "Never Talk To Strangers" rule as a child, and if I was (?), my parents would have been hypocrites! But I go beyond mere talk to entertaining folks with stories and jokes. 

I now sell shoes! Who would have EVER seen that a year ago?!?!? I have never been a salesman in my entire life before this last year. But I love bringing Vibram shoes to the people of Borger Texas.

I hug a lot   I help a lot   I have a big heart,  I care

Balance? I know enough people who think I am probably UNbalanced mentally, (hah!) but they don't even begin to know the real me. But I have had a few people on eXtremely rare occasions tell me I'm a super genius. (again, HAH! - fooled them as well) ... So I round up this whole mess and message that is me, and mash it together, and

[-poof-]

out pops my writing.

NaBloPoMo #5 Point Nothing

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #5: How do you feel about national writing contests that can't seem to get their act together and give their writing prompts in a reasonable time frame?

My Response: The real fifth question has not arrived yet from NaBloPoSLOWPokes so I made up a question of my own. It is now well into the day at 7:30 AM and there is no prompt question from their system and I am tired of waiting. I guess I will offset the days and -hopefully- give you the real fifth question's answer tomorrow.

Update: 8:30 AM - still no prompt, and to think they actually encourage the participants to do their blog post early in the day. I wonder if that is why my dog woke up this morning? He came in the bedroom and made his normal Iwanttogooutsidenownoise but when I arrived at the living room he stopped there AND the wife was already up. Ah, how sweet, togetherness! (actually semi-grumpy me went back to bed. He did come back to bed to warm my feet an hour later, so all is forgiven. I did give him a Beggin' Strip earlier as well.)

Update: 9:30 AM - nothing new, no prompt yet.

Update: 10:06 AM - sorry, I finally read the fine print. There are no updates on WEEKENDS. I guess they aren't creative enough to have daily prompts be every day. It appears there is no 'system', just a human who types something once a day, no robotic program. And I was so hoping for a robotic failure. Possibly they ran outta questions? November has thirty days, only 22 of them are weekdays this year. SO ... now ... what to do, what to do, hmmm, I decided to make you a chart so that the next time you have a November you can know how many weekdays (Mon-Fri) there are in the month of November based on whatever the first day of the month is. I also added what date in the month the fourth Thursday is, for Thanksgiving in the United States of America.

21 - Sun - TDay: 26

22 - Mon - TDay: 25

22 - Tue - TDay: 24

22 - Wed - TDay: 23

22 - Thu - TDay: 22

21 - Fri - TDay: 28

20 - Sat - TDay: 27

NaBloPoMo #4

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #4: When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?

My Response: The question didn't specify what I was writing, just the mechanistic method, so I am not restricting my answer to just blog writing.

When I am making my groc store list I use a pen. I love to be creative with fonts. I sometimes write left-handed for the fun of it. My pens are eXtremely fine point gel pens.

MITSUBISHI uni-ball Signo bit, size 0.18 mm

I have a whole buncha colors, maybe 14 or so, a mixture of size 0.18 and 0.28 mm. I draw cartoons with pens and pencils. There are also strange, surreal landscapes. All other times my writing, such as blogging, is performed almost eXclusively on my iPad. My favorite computer font is Trebuchet. My margins are usually justified, unless it's poetry, most of that is centered.

By pen I write a few personal letters per year (3 to 12) that go by regular mail. I usually write to either my mother or my longest term pen-pal, my best friend from childhood who lives in south Texas. My current local best friend lives near by and she never receives paper letters, only electronic media.

I spent about 8 months of my life making daily to-do lists for projects in a certain elaborate manner. This was during my final days as a chemist. I wrote on plain unruled paper, but there was a framework of lines and margins on a template sheet tucked underneath that allowed for beautifully spaced writing.

The to-do lists used a system of rotating 4 color pairs which I stepped through daily in a pattern of

Day 1  A-B

Day 2  B-C

Day 3  C-D

Day 4  D-A

Day 5  A-B

.

.

.

I had so many colors that I don't remember eXactly which 4 colors belonged to letters A,B,C, and D.

The first color would be used for the chronological header, then alternate with the second color for each item on the to-do list for the day. Color A was the first header color alternating with B, then the next day color B would be the header color alternating with color C for that day. Then I would continue on through the pairs cycling every four days back around to A-B.

One day before morning meeting someone asked me if my "notes" (to-do list) were printed on a computer. I thought my to-do list was elegant and organized, but I didn't think they looked quite that good. But I was flattered. I remember my elementary grade teachers telling me that I wouldn't be able to print when I got older, that I would have to use cursive. Hah!

When I lost my job I left behind approximately sixty-six 8.5x11 inch beautiful pages of to-do lists. They were most likely destroyed by barbarians. The pens were my private property so they were eventually returned to me. Our group secretary had refused to buy them for me so I found my own at Jet Pens.

Pens are available at Jet Pens: www.jetpens.com go to "Gel Pens" category

NaBloPoMo #3

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #3: “Can you listen to music and write? What song did you hear today?” 

My Response: No, I never listen to music while writing. I want dead complete silence.

I tried very hard to remember if I heard any music at all today and the answer is zero nothing no. I didn't go shopping, never play my automotive sound system, and only ventured out for supper at a restaurant which had no music. bam-WRONG-bam!!! I suddenly remembered that the long table of people in the far corner sang the Happy Birthday song to someone, but I was at the cash register paying out, so I didn't see them. I also "sang" Happy Birthday to the state of South Dakota shortly after midnight TWICE because it has two time zones. SoDak turned 122 years old today. So quite by accident the first and last song of my day will be the same one. There was no music in between unless you count my cell phone ring tone, the noise of the dishwasher, clothes washer or dryer. I do not.

See blog post H.B.S.D. for SoDak's birthday story

NaBloPoMo #2

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #2: “If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?” 

My Response: I would want it to be a tiny nuclear powered reactor capable of [-safely-] energizing my body for an eXtremely long time period. I just wouldn't want to be the physician somewhere down the road in the future dealing with my nuclear waste, or my nuclear waist. Or would I need to see a physicist? (Note to George W. Bush: if you are having trouble with that foreign sounding looking word, its your "new-que-lar")

NaBloPoMo #1

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

Question #1: “What is your favorite part about writing?”

My favorite part about writing is that my entire life [almost] seems to revolve around it.

Writing is my constant eXperiment.

Writing feels effortless and stressless.

Writing feels so wonderful when you perceive a project's flow and then completeness.

It is cool when you can look back on your body of work and say, yes, that was an interesting mental journey, yes, I created that poem, that song lyric, that mental image, that photograph, that piece of art.

My blog in all its grand silliness: Is me

I hope you are always entertained and sometimes enlightened, that was my main goal.