So it’s May, and the A to Z Blogging Challenge is history. I didn’t to well this year, falling down on the visits, and I’m not sure if I’ll do it again next year.
But that is quite a way away, so we’ll see.
The blogging part went OK, I basically wrote mostly what I would have written anyway, given the mood, so that’s good.
It’s a quick one today, April felt long and short all at the same time, and while you’re missing me (how could you not be?) check out my books.
Before we talk about how I am it, can we talk about what a great word “lackadaisical” is? Despite being nearly impossible to spell?
It is, itself, nearly musical in its tumbling lazily toward its finish. Lackadaisical. It’s careless and it doesn’t care.
Which, I suppose, is the crux of being careless.
I, on the other hand, do care, but I also nearly forgot to blog today. Just as I nearly forgot it was #AccountaClub yesterday.
Wherever the ball is, I am not on it.
But I may have made a discovery. I was talking toothpaste with my father, as one does. He’s a doctor, and I told him that the one I use has potassium nitrate in it.
Nitrate.
Which is a migraine trigger. “Eureka!” he exclaimed.
Well, he didn’t really but it makes for a better story.
Is it possible that my scrupulous oral hygiene has set me up for these headaches? We’ll soon see. I’ve changed the toothpaste.
Don’t worry though, my lackadaisiality doesn’t extent to brushing my teeth.
So I’ve been a terrible comment-responder and blog visitor the last few days thanks to a long-lasting and constantly-evolving headache.
Not sure what, exactly, triggered it. Last week much of it was weather, I think, which is frustrating as I’ve yet to figure out how to control it.
The weather, I mean.
I promise to try to catch up today, as so much of A to Z is the interaction.
My headaches form this annoying, attention-demanding creature who lives inside my head, making me dizzy, making me squint at the light, clouding my thinking so it comes out in dribs and drabbles.
Not a fan.
I’d love to make them vanish, but nothing much works aside from avoiding the triggers in the first place. Do you hear me, weather??
I’m sure I’m not alone, we all have those body quirks. All we can do is try to work around them.
If only they weren’t so determined to be in the way.
(Photo by David Hablützel from Pexels)
On day 2 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I was overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of B words. So I used a random word generator.
And the very first word was “begin.” Which is cosmically perfect.
There’s so much promise in “begin.” So much new, so much that can come from it. The first step to everything that ever was.
Begin.
For those of us A to Zing, that could mean this challenge. We only have to start, and the letters will unfold, one day after the next, until we reach Z.
But that’s not all.
We can begin anything at any time: that novel; that fitness program; mending fences; meeting new people. It’s a word that is limited only on the one side.
The possibilities of the other are endless.
What would you like to begin?
So I have a few minutes while out and about, and figured why not get a blog post in?
Look at my efficiency. LOOK AT IT.
Thank you.
I’ve marvelled at it before, but the ease of technology still gets me sometimes. I can sit here and talk to you from practically anywhere.
With a WiFi connection.
Kinda need the WiFi.
But that’s the way of the world, things that would have been inconceivable a few years ago are routine now.
The imagination abounds.
Anyway, have a marvelous Thanksgiving if that’s your thing and I’ll probably post our photo prompt tomorrow if not or you have a few minutes to play.
And immediately the universe responded in the form of a new editor for WordPress. I’d clung to the previous previous editor for far longer than necessary, enjoying something about its clunky awkwardness, as perhaps we had a bit of a kinship.
So a few days ago I’d noted to myself how I’d adjusted to the newer-to-me editor, and couldn’t remember when I’d made the full switch. And kaplewie, an even newer text editor.
(Keplewie, if you were not aware, is the sound new text editors make upon arrival).
Here’s the funny part in all of this. I love technology. I love new technology. I love bells and whistles and buttons that look cool and take a while to figure out. Yet when I think blogging, I think page, words, picture, done.
I’m also quick to adapt to new technology. So why the reluctance?
I couldn’t say. I can say that I just discovered how you can edit paragraph to paragraph in this new “block” interface, and I think I kinda love it. The previous interface was sparse; I find this one clean.
So I got a change, almost on demand, took it, and I think I like it. One tiny change is still a change.
Now the real question is if it will keep giving me blog topics, because that would be the best feature of all.
There’s so much Monday in this Monday, I’m Mondayed out, and it’s not even 11 AM. Nazis are trending on twitter, and I got some “both sides” nonsense in the comments.
Yet another no.
There aren’t “both sides” when one of the sides is comprised of actual nazis. Nazis pushing conspiracies about Jews right on the heels of a mass murder in a synagogue which may not have happened had trump not dissolved the unit that tracked white nationalist domestic terrorist groups.
“Both sides” don’t put children in concentration camps or shrug when a journalist is brutally murdered and dismembered. “Both sides” weren’t sending pipe bombs or finding black people to murder in a grocery store when a black church was locked.
“Both sides” aren’t saying they want to kill gay people, but are willing to do it “humanely.”
There aren’t “both sides.” They are not the same. Nodding politely at such garbage normalizes people who intend to do grievous harm to others, who have done grievous harm to others.
It gives cover to such people. And in doing so, you become one of those people.
Do you want to be one of the people committing grievous harm on others? If you do, this is not the place for you.
If you don’t, it’s time to reconsider the way you filter information.
Like my political side? Read my opinion pieces here.
Check out my full-length novels:
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended)
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!
I kinda feel like Wednesday blogging is when I hit a lull. Of course, some blogging weeks are tougher than others, but it seems like, for a while now, I get to Wednesday and wonder hey, what do I have to say today?
Hopefully something.
Let’s keep going and see.
There’s no doubt about it, sometimes things are more of a slog than other times. No rhyme or reason, really, either, it’s more like the entire energy of the universe is different solely because the universe feels like it.
We’re all entitled, I suppose.
But it’s a moody, moody universe.
I’m trying to get out of my head and back into my head, which sound kinda like contrary concepts, but I need to clear out the fire and the gloom and the urgency of the world so that I can get back to my pretend worlds with their own fire. As you know, that’s a huge struggle for me. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’ve got to get it done.
So that’s where I am right now, here on a Wednesday. Present but not present.
Like my political side? Read my opinion pieces here.
Check out my full-length novels:
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended)
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
In this era, so much of what we say seems preposterous to have to say. Combinations of words you never thought you’d have to utter aloud, let alone to a bunch of adults.
Yet here we are.
And now here we are on this blog. As you may know, on Thursdays, I post a photo prompt for a 10 word story. This week, someone made a comment about tiresome, boring things “across the pond” and linked to a 10-word story that, at best, poked fun at sexual assault survivors; at worst, called into question their integrity.
No.
Absolutely not. I deleted the comment, replaced it with my own, and blocked that user from this blog. No second chances, no explanations, no “lighten ups” and no “it was just a jokes.”
Utterly unacceptable.
If you cannot treat other people with dignity and respect, I do not want to play with you. And that means treating everyone with respect, regardless of race, religion, orientation, gender identification, all of it.
This is a fun place, a respite and all are welcome here. If you think it’s fun to make people uncomfortable or to poke at people’s pain, you are not welcome here.
I know statements like this tend to bring out the trolls who want to test the system. In fact, I suspect that story was the work of a particular troll who doesn’t think I see him.
Oh, but I do.
So let’s continue to have fun and treat everyone with dignity and respect. I know that seems to be going out of fashion, but not here.
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
Blogging this week has felt like a real challenge. It’s weird for me; sometimes it’s like water, it just flows, I sit down, my fingers move, and a few minutes later there’s a post, done and dusted.
Other times, not so much.
I’m tired this week, so that could be it. It can’t possibly be because I have nothing to say. When do I ever have nothing to say?
There’s so much happening right now, it seems to be taking up a huge chunk of my mental resources. Including the bloggy part.
Basically, we’re in the middle of history happening, unfurling in front of us. Some day, this will all be settled fact, we’ll know the outcomes of the trials. In the words of Shakespeare, who really did get everything, “The truth will out.”
But right now, the truth’s still pretty in.
And I’m obsessed with it.
One of the things I’ve learned from yoga is accepting what is. And so right now, blogging is tough. Who knows what tomorrow holds?
(Actually, I do. It’s a photo 10 word story prompt. See you then!)
Like my political side? Read my opinion pieces here.
Check out my full-length novels:
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended)
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!
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