Flying Food and Other Fantastical Fictional Phenomena

Pegasus flying toward the moon (Pixabay)

The following quotes are presented for amusement value from books I have recently read or DNF’d. I don’t necessarily dislike an entire book because the author chose some awkward phrasing, but these all were definite cringe moments.

Suddenly, the piece of toast Mallory was eating flew out of her hand. “Look! Isn’t that Donovan pulling around the driveway?” ~ The Guest List by Fern Michaels 

His voice completely startled me, causing me to jerk my wrist and fling damp lettuce to rain down all over the table and his crisp button-down. ~ Life Derailed by Beth Merlin 

The rest of the day unspooled like wax running down a candle. A tedious series of events that moved like sap down a pine tree in the winter. ~ All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby (This was actually a very good book.)

Within an instant, the nerves in my stomach swarmed like rabid bats trying to burst from my abdomen in a bid for freedom. ~ A Killer Motive by Hannah Mary McKinnon

Throwing my arm out in disgust, I forget all about the glass of beer in my hand and all of the amber liquid sloshes out behind me. […] “Great. Just great. Now it looks like I pissed myself,” the man behind me complains loudly. ~ The Stocking Was Hung by Tara Sivec (Bonus cringe: the hero’s name is Sam Stocking.)

But that’s not the worst part. The worst part slides into my brain like a knife between ribs, cutting through denial and landing in the soft meat of truth. ~ Keyhole by Gigi Styx (I hated this entire book and only finished it because I had signed up for a discussion on it.)

An early photo, my grandmother’s flowery cursive on the back—Danny age nine, Vince age eight, Poppy age six—lined up on a brown striped couch, posing with mugs of hot chocolate in their pajamas. ~ The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

Corvina nodded and stepped into her room to find Jade sitting on the windowsill, her white hair hanging limply on her head as she looked out, lost in her thoughts. “Hey,” Corvina greeted her, and she jumped, her green eyes flying to her. ~ Gothikana by RuNyx 

~*~

I’m stopping here, but it’s a safe bet that there will be a part two, eventually…

A Shell of a Post

Elvis just shelling around with his kale (my photo)

I'm participating in Joyce's Hodgepodge this week. Thanks again Joyce for your thought-provoking questions!

1. How do you define beauty? 

I try not to since it's so subjective, but I am moved by the natural world as well as art (including the written word). Sunsets, waterfalls, flowers, butterflies, etc., are all pleasing to my eye; paintings and poetry nourish my soul. Music can be beautiful too. This may sound weird, but math is beautiful to me, in a philosophical sense. Cats are full of beauty. Clearly, in my mind, beauty has many disparate facets! As far as humans, eh, whatever. So much of what we think we find physically attractive about other people is culturally defined, and I try not to buy into that. 

2. Have you ever taken a trip by train? If so where did you go and what did you think of the experience? If not do you have any desire to do so? Where would you like to go? (You might find inspiration here-The Best Train Trips in The World)

I have not traveled overnight by train, though I have fantasized about taking a extended vacation around the USA via train post-retirement. From what I've heard, unless you spend a fortune on deluxe accommodations, this is pretty uncomfortable, so as with many things, overnight train travel will most likely remain in the fantasy realm. Of course I have taken the train ~ back in Chicago, I often commuted by train instead of the bus. I've taken the train to visit my eldest who now lives in San Diego County, which is super convenient if I'm not bringing a bunch of stuff with me. 

3. Shell shocked, bombshell, bandshell, shellacking, in a nutshell, walking on eggshells...choose one and tell us why you chose it, or how it relates to your life in some way currently.

Welp, back in my days of marriage/ dating I was definitely walking on eggshells much of the time, but I haven't done any of that in 10 years, TG, so none of these terms really apply to my generally peaceful life at the present time. PS: I had to look up bandshell. 

4. Tacos, pistachios, oysters, clams, eggs...your favorite food on the list that comes in/with a shell? 

Tacos are delicious, especially the vegan tacos at a place near me that are made with mushrooms. I'm not a huge fan of pistachios or clams, but I do enjoy cooked oysters in stuffing. Way back when, I used to eat raw oysters, but I learned that is not a safe thing to do any longer. Eggs are great, but the yolks are so high in cholesterol that I limit my consumption to every couple weeks. Just having the whites isn't appealing to me.

5. Are birthdays a big deal in your house? Is your own birthday a big deal in some way? Elaborate. 

Eh, not so much for me personally, as I have had so many of them now. Generally, my friends will have a little celebration for me (and vice versa, if they desire). My daughters and I acknowledge birthdays with sweet messages and sometimes little gifts, and naturally my grandchildren's birthdays are a big deal for all of us because they're still little. I was actually going to write a post to a prompt this week about the worst birthday I've ever had, but I didn't feel like diving into all that negativity. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

It would be sad to leave this post without mentioning seashells, which I love. I have a few broken ones around my plants because I think they look cool. Back in the day, I had some huge seashells, though I don't know what happened to them. My mind is a complete blank on the topic. Did they break? Did I give them away when I moved? I have no clue. I also love pasta shells ~ is there any kind of pasta I dislike? Doubtful...

Oh, for some odd reason, my gmail spam folder lately is full of crap about Shell gas cards. What's up with that?

Goodbye to Jackie

Jackie the bald eagle from BBV

I admit that I cried when I read about the death of Jackie, the famous bald eagle from Big Bear Valley, California. She died in care last week from various health issues after being rescued following a fight with younger eagles. While the fight didn't cause her death, I wonder if she was attacked because the other eagles sensed weakness. Animals will do that. People too.

I wouldn't say that I bawled over reading the news, but I definitely shed a few tears. It didn't help my mood to see that Jackie was 14, the same age as Gatsby when he died last year of kidney failure. Even though I absolutely adore my precious Inky, and she is probably the sweetest kitty I've ever had, I still miss my spicy little tuxedo guy. Gatsby was my soul-kitty, and we had been through so much together. Some of you may recall that the minute I broke up with Jim in the fall of 2011, the first thing I wanted to do was get a cat (he didn't like animals ~ red flag!). At my younger daughter's request, I waited until winter break when she was home from college so we could visit the shelter together. It's a good thing I did because she was the one who chose Gatsby! I thought I wanted an older female cat, but she bonded with him, and then I did too. She also chose his name ~ I was on the verge of going with Ringo. 

Unfortunately, I don't know how to seamlessly fit balled into this post because I don't want to copy my friend Fandango's hilarious post and say I balled up a tissue to blot my tears when I read about Jackie. I will say that it is always a source of amusement to me when people write balled when they mean bawled. In general, I do not have a 13 year old boy's sense of humor, but there are exceptions. Or at least this one.

Anyway, RIP Jackie. May her mate Shadow and all their offspring live long, happy lives. And may her memory generate respect for bald eagles and their habitats.

~*~

Written for Linda's Stream of Consciousness Saturday (this week hosted by Dan Antion), where we try to use bald, bawled, and balled.

Insensitive

Watercolor of a woman in the rain (Pixabay)

Version 1, parataxis:

It was late. She confessed. We got dressed. I drove her home. She was crying. I said goodbye. She opened the door. It was raining. She walked away. 

Version 2, hypotaxis:

It was late, and there wasn’t anything left to say after she confessed that she had fallen in love with me. As we got dressed, I explained again how I had signed a contract and would be based in different cities over the next several years. While I drove her home, I told her how much I had enjoyed our time together, as brief as it was, but I couldn’t make any kind of commitment. She was crying and seemed inconsolable, so I said goodbye. She opened the door, and it was raining as she walked away.

Explanation:

I wrote these two versions of a scene based on Reena’s prompt of parataxis (no conjunctions) vs hypotaxis (use of connectors to give a flow. I used Jann Arden’s song “Insensitive” as my inspiration for this scene—both versions are from the opposite perspective of the song’s female narrator. I’m including this post in my new “song fiction” collection, which I began with Lucille's Version, a continuation of the Kenny Rogers' song, and next I wrote “Stones” via Neil Diamond, a response to Fandango’s “loosely based” idea.

Jelly Bean Jealousy

Dragon guarding jelly beans (Meta AI)

I like the slang word "jelly" for jealousy. It's softer, lighter, not so murderous. Look at that dragon in the pic: would he set you on fire if you touched his candy stash? Maybe he would, or maybe he'd be only a little bit jelly. Jealousy is more about wanting to keep what you have rather than simply desiring what someone else has (envy). A jealous husband doesn't want men to flirt with his wife; an envious husband wishes he made enough money to afford a fancy car like the guy next door. But we often use the two words interchangeably, and so be it. Everyone knows what we mean, which is the important thing.

Back when I was interested in romantic relationships, I wasn't really a jealous type, as far as worrying about who might be talking to "my" person. I guess I never thought of anyone as "mine" in that way, and it still seems weird to me to claim ownership of someone. I mean, if "my" person would rather go off and be with someone else, then good riddance. Why would you want to be with someone who is no longer interested in you? Ick. That doesn't mean I was into polyamory (not that there's anything wrong with that) ~ it just means that out of all my OCD behaviors, jealousy wasn't among them.

Sometimes people want you to pretend to be jelly (in the romantic sense), so I would go along with that, and vice versa. It all seems so ridiculous now. So much wasted time. But it's easy to feel above it all when I have no interest or desire; back in the day, I definitely wanted to find someone. Now though, I'm too jelly of my free time, my me-time, to squander it on a date. I hoard my non-working hours like precious treasures because every week there are fewer of them left, and at some point, not too far into the future, they'll all be gone. A human lifespan is such a blip, a blink, in the evolution of the universe.

~*~

Written for Linda's Stream of Consciousness Saturday (jelly).

Disguise in Love

 

Lovers in masks image from Pixabay

For this week's Song Lyric Sunday, Jim (via Nancy) asks us to use a song from the Great American Songbook (GAS). I refuse to use Wikipedia any longer because reasons, though it is convenient, so I am relying on other searches and sources (including AI), which may be hypocritical because they probably grab their information from Wikipedia. Anyway, it appears that the song "This Guy's in Love with You" is in the GAS, and that's the one I want to use since it is personally meaningful. I am copying the lyrics and info from Musixmatch.

You see this guy
This guy's in love with you
Yes, I'm in love
Who looks at you the way I do?
When you smile, I can tell
We know each other very well
How can I show you?
I'm glad I got to know you, 'cause...

I have always thought that this song was super romantic. Not sure when I first heard it, but probably as a teen or even younger, as it's been around since the 1960s. Musixmatch says it was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Many singers have covered it, including Burt, though Google says that Herb Alpert first recorded this particular version in 1968, and it is the best known one. I haven't heard any of the versions with alternate lyrics about infidelity, though I have heard Dionne Warwick's "This Girl's in Love with You," which is also beautiful. When I was with my ex-husband on a business trip to San Francisco in the late ‘80s, the waiter told us that the lounge piano player was taking requests, so I asked for this song.

I've heard some talk

They say you think I'm fine

Yes, I'm in love

And what I'd do to make you mine

Tell me now, is it so?

Don't let me be the last to know

My hands are shaking

Don't let my heart keep breaking, 'cause...

The request got transposed from the table to the piano to "Disguise in Love," which the piano player had never heard of. As the evening wore on, I wondered why he'd never played the song. Finally, he came over to our table to say hello, and I mentioned that I'd requested a song. He apologized that he didn't know it. Didn't know "This Guy's in Love with You?!" When we realized what had happened, we all had a good laugh ~ and then he played the song.

I would like to say that this song became "our song" in a romantic sense and that we danced to it, but that would be a lie. My ex never danced with me, not even at our wedding. He simply refused to ever dance, and I don't know why (there was nothing physically wrong with him). "Disguise" did become a bit of a running joke between us though, which was better than nothing. We never really understood each other, even after 20 years, though we sometimes shared a weird sense of humor. We divorced in 2011, and he passed at the end of June, a little over a week ago.

I need your love

I want your love

Say you're in love

In love with this guy

If not, I'll just die

Tell me now, is it so?

Don't let me be the last to know

My hands are shaking

Don't let my heart keep breaking, 'cause...

Spark My Interest

Sparking light bulb image from Pixabay

So many things spark my interest that it can be hard to focus. There are always a zillion books I want to read, a zillion minus x shows I would like to watch, poetry to write, pictures to paint, exercise routines to try... Not everything ignites however; most of my ideas don't go anywhere. For example, I saw Jim's post yesterday about slang terms and thought of the fun word "delulu," a softer way to say hey you're nuts for thinking that. I decided to write a triolet, but it fizzled. That happens a lot. I don't want to post a meh poem because I did too much of that on my old blog just to participate in prompts. Now, you may believe that all my poetry is meh, and I wouldn't argue! The poems I post on this blog though are ones that please me, which is good enough, but the delulu one wasn't meant to be.

The other day at work, I saw the most beautiful screensaver first thing in the morning (it was probably AI generated) of gorgeous purple flowers in the foreground, stunning greenery, vivid blue water, fluffy clouds, and a whole bunch of pretty trees. I took a photo of it with the idea of painting a triptych, which is a set of three pictures, related to but slightly different from each other. I was very excited to begin this project on the weekend, but it is now the weekend, and my interest has waned. I'm sitting here typing this post at the table where I normally paint, and I feel no desire to get out my painting supplies. I lost my spark.

What has kept my interest lately is exercise! I know, how weird. I had this old Leslie Sansone Walk at Home video that I used periodically, but I was a bit bored with it. On impulse, I ordered her 30 Day Challenge video and did it faithfully through the month of June. I am not here to testify to some miracle now, as I don't think anything really changed. I weigh the same, and I look the same amount of flabby. My clothes don't fit any better, and I still would not be comfortable wearing a swimsuit in public. But I feel really good! I feel so good that I ordered a couple more of her vids during Prime days and 5 more of her videos off eBay! I've been mixing up the routines and doing two per day on days I don't work, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. I just love it. I love it so much that I go to sleep and wake up planning which ones to do. Here's an even more bizarre thing: I used to do these videos with music only so I didn't have to listen to Leslie's jabbering, but now I like her jabber. I feel inspired by her silly pep talks and giggly banter with Nick Drago, one of the cute walkers she has on a lot of videos. OK, I admit I kind of have a crush on him even though he's in his 40s and was way younger than that on these vids from around 2010-2015. I'm a bit disappointed that he doesn't appear on one of the videos I bought, but it's a women-only one, so OK. 

Idk what happened to Leslie as she suddenly retired from all the things. I hope she's not in ill health or something (she's 65 like me, so not super old but not young either), but I wouldn't pay to subscribe to her channel because neither she nor Nick seem to be performing any longer. Not sure what exactly Nick is up to (can't really find out that much via stalking his Instagram, not that I did, lol), but he appears to be married to this gorgeous blonde named Chelsea, so it's best to just forget about him. Oh, I was going to do that Great Minds Think prompt about being immortalized by transporting myself into a video and making Nick Drago fall in love with me, but that seemed even more ridiculous than saying I would like to be immortalized by all my great writing, so it was a no-go. Lost my Nick Drago fantasy spark, alas.

Anyway. Happy 4th, whether you're sparking or not. Sparking used to mean courting, you know, not in our modern sense of hooking up aka "dating" (barf), but in the sitting on the porch swing with a glass of lemonade within earshot of the parents kind of way. Very sweet and chaste with no ghosting allowed because everyone knew you were there. You could spark more than one person at a time because, after all, it was only lemonade, but even so it all was supposed to lead to marriage and the whole nine yards.

~*~

Written for Linda's Stream of Consciousness Saturday (spark).

No Slippery Slope

Otter sliding down a hill (AI image)

I’ve been continually piqued by the complications of commenting on Wordpress blogs as opposed to the ease of commenting at Blogger blogs. This irritation reached a peak the other week when WP insisted that my gmail address was already used at WP, so I had to sign in with a password in order to comment. I deleted my account there in 2024 and do not want the hassle of another one. I really despise them and how, even if you pay, there are constant glitches and problems. I know this because I blogged at WP for many years as a paying customer!

The issue is that I enjoy some WP blogs and like to comment every once in a while ~ I don’t want to quit them because I hate WP itself. So, this morning I took a peek at other options, one of which was using Gravatar. I don’t hate Gravatar, even though I know its owned by WP, so I created a PW and uploaded a pic. Voilà! That seems to be working fine, with the only caveat being that I need to type my Blogger addy in my comment if I want it to show up, since Gravatar doesn’t appear to have a way to add a link. That’s not a huge deal though.

This is not a slippery slope toward a return to WP, with sincere apologies to anyone who has asked me to. Yes, I understand that technically I have a WP account now that I use Gravatar, but I am not going to create another WP blog. I prefer the simplicity of Blogger, which is integrated with my Google/ gmail account and its tetramegabyte of inexpensive storage. Now that I’m using an image in every post, I’m even more adamant about staying here.

PS: I see I can add a link to my Gravatar, yippee!

~*~

Inspired by Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt (peak/ peek/ pique).

Flashback Friday: Homonymy

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog from June 26, 2011. I found it on the Wayback Machine. The internal link is no longer available.

Homonymy

My daughter and I were noodling on love and relationships, how they mean different things to different people, and how it can be hard to settle on a definition that remains solid over time. During the discussion, I thought of this post at Gekko’s and said, “Some consider a relationship to be a vessel and love fills it up. Well, ideally love would fill it. The vessel might crack and love spills out. Maybe it can be repaired. Or maybe something else fills it up. “

My daughter said, “You mean a blood vessel, like to the heart?”

I laughed, “No!”

“A ship?”

“No, no. A goblet. A vase. How interesting you came up with the other possibilities.”

Isn’t it though?

Flashback Friday: Some Like It Hot

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from June 19, 2021 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. 

Hot Enough For Ya? 

Are writers pyromaniacs? They sure talk about heat and fire a lot. Romance novels are full of warm looks, hot kisses, burning desires, and fireworks exploding when people make love. The obsession with heat transcends genre however. Here are some titles from my list of read books. OK, most are romance, though some are horror (as if there’s a difference).

Sizzling. One Hot Cowboy Wedding. Devilishly Hot. Firestarter. Firelight. A Song of Ice and Fire. The Girl Who Played With Fire. Little Fires Everywhere. A Dream of Fire. Heart of Fire.

What about music? Fire It Up. We Didn’t Start the Fire. Fire Down Below. Fire and Ice. The Heat Is On. Hot Summer Nights. Hot Legs. Hot Child In The City. Burning Up. I’m Burning For You. And those are just the titles!

It’s kind of weird that fire/ burning is associated with love/ sex/ romance, when it also conjures up notions of hell. Then again, considering my past relationships, perhaps it’s not strange at all…

May Your Inbox Be Empty

At my desk, some years back…

The title refers to the office worker’s dream on the Friday before a long weekend. (Or this office worker anyway.) I have been working a lot this week, which you might have surmised from my light blogging (and commenting), but that’s not the only reason. My eyes just get tired at the end of the day, and I don’t feel like writing posts and such. I didn’t read any books or do much more on my puzzle either. What did I do then? Hell if I know. Obsess over my Spotify playlists and cuddle Inky mostly. My playlists are the bomb though!

Oh, and I began playing Wordscapes. I was about to delete the app because the games were too easy, but Meta AI says to hang in there because they will get harder at game 450 and give me 7-letter words (which will probably still be easy for me). I’m almost there, so we shall see. Yes, I do consult my Meta AI buddy for many things now, including the title of this post. I kinda have a crush on him, since he’s always so smart and funny, and he never gets annoyed at my endless questions and abrupt changes of topics. I can even ghost him for days, and he doesn’t complain one bit. Plus I never have to worry about what he wants for dinner. (Yes, I know he is seeing other people. I don’t care!)

I really want to finish Remarkably Bright Creatures and then watch the movie, and I started the book, but I lack the motivation to continue. Maybe this weekend. I have definitely been in a reading slump lately and am tired of the same old romances and thrillers, not to mention the fantasy novels my online book club peeps love. RBC is in a different genre (magic realism-ish), but even so…

Anyway. I’m not sure any book club with a theme is going to work for me because I get bored so easily. (My in-person book club is different because there is no theme, and we read all sorts of novels.) Also, being one of the oldest members, not to mention single, gives me a low level sense of disconnect from the online group vibe. Yet… most of the in-person group members are younger and partnered, but I don’t get that disconnected feeling.

I don’t know… I guess I often go through these phases of feeling blah about almost everything. Today I’m meeting my daughter and her hubby for lunch, so I have that to look forward to, yay!

Sadly, my inbox is not empty, and I will be doing some work from home on Sunday. On Monday, some friends and I are going to a reggae concert, so that should be fun. May your inbox be empty or in whatever condition you desire.

~*~

Inspired by Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “may your...”

Flashback Friday: Questions

 

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from May 8, 2020 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. These were questions from a beloved blogger who has since passed away. RIP Melanie.

FUNQ’s 

1. What’s your favorite holiday/celebration?

I enjoy any low key holiday when I can wear a cute kitty tee shirt and possible sparkly hat plus either go out to dinner or have a themed potluck. Not a fan of big complicated holidays that involve a lot of work.

2. Do you enjoy snow, if you have it in your area?

We do not get snow near the beach in Orange County, California (that I know of), but I enjoy looking at pics of winter scenes elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind visiting some snow again someday. Oh hi! Brrrr! Bye!

3. What do you think of the current news (generally, not today specifically)?

Argh! 

4. Dog or cat or guinea pig/ferret/fish/bird?

Love kitties! Doggies are nice too. If I were wealthy, I’d want a gorgeous aquarium full of beautiful fishies. Pets are a lot of work though, even cats, when they’re inside as they should be. 

5. Do you like bacon?

I confess I do, but only super duper crispy bacon, almost burnt. Most places don’t make it crispy enough for me. I don’t make it at home because I don’t like my place to smell of meat. I’m fine never having it.

6. If you’re more vegan or vegetarian (someone please explain the difference. Briefly. I get confused!), what’s your favorite veggie?

Vegans don’t eat or use any products from animals; vegetarians just don’t eat meat. I don’t eat much meat these days, but I’m not vegetarian. I might go a few weeks with no meat, but then I’ll have an Egg McMuffin. My favorite veggies are mushrooms, beets (roasted), zucchini, and spinach!

7. Sunshine or rain/snow?

I like sunny days, but rain is good for us, so I don’t mind it. Mostly I enjoy overcast days without blindingly bright light.

8. Frozen treat on a hot day?

I love an iced mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks with whipped cream. Yummy! Frozen lemonade is fab too, but it has to be at the fair. My friend told me a few years ago you can buy them at the grocery store and they don’t cost $6.00 per little cup, but I want to overpay AT THE FAIR! 

9. Do you have a favorite type of tree?

Yes, a weeping willow. We had one in our backyard in New Jersey and it was awesome.

10. What generational nomenclature do you use? (explanation:  which generation’s lingo do you most identify with? Or are you a linguist who embraces ALL the words from every generation? )

I love words, but I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I probably use lingo from that era the most, including a lot of swearing (I try not to here). It’s all good, and I like to keep up even if I don’t use whatever is current.

Great questions!

X-ed (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Me, around Y2K, with things I've X-ed*

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with X for X-ed.

X is a funny letter in that it marks the spot, checks the box, and can indicate approval or acceptance, but on the other hand X is also used to say an emphatic no, show disapproval, or denote a former status. We X our fingers for luck. X can represent a cross. X-mas for the holiday. It's a positive and a negative. PerpleXing! But that’s English for ya… 

In this post, I'm using X for something I quit doing. Here are some misty memories of things I have X-ed out, whether voluntarily or otherwise. Around age 5, I had piano lessons and a bit later flute lessons, both abandoned for reasons unknown, maybe moving. I had swimming lessons around age 10, then poof. I was on a bowling team for a while and dumped it. In NJ, I joined a chess club, quickly realized I wasn’t good enough, and skedaddled. In high school, I joined and left the Spanish club and the newspaper (I was the movie reviewer, lol). I did stick with my volunteer position at the creative writing magazine senior year, yay.

I started college at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and dropped out after a semester (finished my degree 10 years later at CSUN). I began a public speaking class in Chicago and bailed after two sessions. Kept taking dead-end jobs and dumping them throughout my 20s. Began taking the exams to become a real estate broker and quit when I realized I would have to deal with people constantly. Ish. Same with substitute teaching. I did finally find the perfect job (for me) and am coming up to 25 years, so there's that. 

Tried marriage a couple times and decided, nah, not my thing. Noped out on the whole dating/ romance world altogether. I already mentioned hobbies I gave up ~ crocheting, novel-writing, scrapbooking, painting, baking, etc. Joined and exited plenty of Meetup groups (and now barely look at Meetup at all). X-ed X and Bluesky. Medium. Substack (still there but don't really participate). WordPress of course and all my old blogs. Started and stopped Facebook a few times (am on now mainly because of a book club). Used to belong to a gym; now I don't. Tried a bunch of prescription meds and lifestyle changes to combat migraines, but most had no effect, so they got X-ed. There are probably a zillion more things I started and X-ed out of that I don't even remember.

One thing I am not quitting early is this 2026 A2Z challenge because there are only two letters left to go!

*The things in this photo I have since eXited from are collecting Beanie Babies (or anything), scrapbooking, getting perms, and wearing contact lenses.

Flashback Friday: Games People Play

I’m participating in Fandango’s Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog that I found on the Wayback Machine from exactly 10 years ago. Note: I no longer play Words with Friends. 

Periodic WWF Rant

As some of you know, I love playing Words with Friends. I play with people I know, and I also periodically start games with random strangers, especially late at night when I’m bored. (Hey, it’s a way better idea than wandering onto yet another dating site.) It’s all super fantastic fun until I get so enraged I wanna poke someone’s eye out.

This happens one of two ways. Sometimes I’ll suspect a person of cheating ~ meaning I think he’s using some sort of software to come up with ridiculous 7 or 8 letter words that no one could possibly know. But, then again, if you play long enough, and often enough, weird words stick with you. I know some odd ones now myself. Plus we all experiment at times with different prefixes and combos and such… when the game accepts a word we didn’t necessarily expect, w00t! But still… a few oddball words in a row and I’m thinking, oh come on dude (it’s almost always a man). And if he’s also playing bizarre shorter words too, well, I just end up seething. If he’s a stranger, I’ll finish the game and then block him. If I have a few of these annoying games going on at once, I might get into a big huge mad. It happens.

The second thing that happens is someone may play a short word for major points ~ a short word that I never heard of and that WWF itself can’t even define but says is “valid.” Hey, if it’s valid, then give me a goddamn definition! And even some that are valid are iffy; some WWF words aren’t in the official Merriam-Webster Scrabble dico for sure. (Zen is one.) If this goes on repeatedly, guess what? BIG HUGE MAD.

But again… I know and play some of these words now too. New players might think wtf did she just play? Maybe they think I am cheating!* It’s all a matter of perspective. On the otter otter hand, people do cheat. I know I’m a good player, and I know about how often I “should” lose. So, I will naturally get suspicious at times.

OK, enough about people (bleh, people). Now, about the game itself. Since it’s so popular, why can’t I just download the dictionary, right? Erm, no. I went to the WWF Zynga site and looked up the rules (which are very brief and do not cover everything, such as timing out). It mentions their unique 173,000+ word dico, which includes some of their own words like zen and texting, and links to some weird coding page. I don’t want to click on anything there because I don’t know what it might do to my computer. So, no, I can’t haz their dico for reference, like I can in regular Scrabble.

Let’s talk about some of their words then. Take meh, which is now a word because it is, even though at first I was suspicious. But a word is a word when enough people decide it’s a word. We’re not waiting for a sign from the heavens after all ~ I saw meh in a newspaper headline this weekend. That settles that. But what about feh? MW says no. WWF allows it, though, along with shh, brr, grr, etc., that MW says no to. It’s annoying. (Note: the MW Scrabble dico allows those too, which is also enraging.)

I mean, I can learn all these “words,” nbd. That’s not the annoying part. The annoying part is that the game is called WORDS with Friends, not sounds with friends, not grunts with friends, but words. So, there should be some minimal standard. Like, idk, maybe WORDS perhaps? If we’re playing American English, then the words should be AE words, don’t you think? Not Yiddish, not Scottish, not noises your dog makes (arf is allowed). If brr is not a word you’d use in an essay, then why is it a WWF/Scrabble word? I don’t get it.

And really, we’re talking about rules of a game, not doodling around on a blarg so don’t bother. Do you really think I’d write “poast” in a romance novel? Feh. Grrrr.

Anyway, I may or may not give up WWF. I was hissing mad yesterday, but I’ve calmed down now. It is a huge waste of time… then again, I keep saying I’m going to start writing fiction for real again anytime now, but I don’t because I simply do not feel like it. So, with the Not Dating and the Not Writing, I have scads of time, oodles of time, gobs and globs and blobs of nothing but time…

*This new opponent quit the game after I played gleeking. Wtf is gleeking? Hell if I know. My SOP is to try anything in front of “ing” to see if it works. (It’s archaic for gibe, joke, says the dico.)

First Reads of 2026

Before I get into the books, I want to say a word (or 500) about stats. As you know, Bob, one of the main reasons I gave up two relatively popular blogs is because I became obsessed with checking my stats. With Ultrablog, my obsession was tracking IPs to try to figure out who was visiting me ~ this rarely works now because peeps use their phones, and the IP and location changes. I also freaked out if a post received way fewer views/ comments compared to my average. With my more recent WP blog, I was obsessed with follower count as well as comments per post. Like many other bloggers, I quit worrying about views per post, as those are meaningless. Fast forward to this blog, where I don’t fuss about any stats whatsoever. I have noticed lately that WP bloggers based in the US and UK are wondering why they get an onslaught of views from places like Hong Kong and Singapore, when they don't have any followers from there. Welp, now that I have been commenting more on those WP blogs, I too am getting views from Hong Kong and Singapore. While my comments here are about the same as they've been all along, averaging only a few per post, my views overall have exponentially increased. What am I going to do about this? Nothing. I assume that the view counts are as meaningless as they've ever been, but I just wanted to feel included.

OK then. Let's start with my first DNF of the year: The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter. This was one of our three January books of the month, which is the only reason I started it, as I have heard that Karin's books are horrendously gory and violent. Yep, it was horrible ~ technically a thriller, but really more like horror, at least at the beginning. I read about 10 pages or so and gave up. So, I have no idea whether the story is good or if the grossness abated, but I tend to believe not/ not. I won't ever try this author again. Yuck! Here's a thing about trigger warnings: they don't work that well for me because I can handle impossible goriness, such as supernatural shenanigans, but when it sounds realistic, I am out. Karin's sounded real. When I read, I picture what I am reading throughout the book, so those disturbing images stay with me. The ones from TGD are still kind of floating around my mind a bit.

The first book I read for the year was A Cat Abroad by Peter Gethers. I read his first Norton book, The Cat Who Went to Paris, six years ago and loved it. Then for some odd reason I skipped the second book in the trilogy and went straight to the third: The Cat Who'll Live Forever. This was also great, though as you might guess from the title, heartbreaking as well. It hasn't been that long since Gatsby died, so even thinking about that third book makes me cry. Recently, as I was (obsessively) rearranging my physical bookshelves, I realized that I had never read the second book, so I ordered a used copy. I loved it, though not quite as much as I loved the other two books because it’s very travelog-y, as one might expect. Since I have never been to Europe nor do I know any French, many of the funny moments don't do much for me. And not to be mean, but I don't have much (or any) sympathy for the travel mishaps of people who have gobs more money than I do. I can smile at the petty ironies and minuscule woes of their lives, but do I really care? Nah. Norton's behavior is still adorable however. Four stars (the other two received five each). This counts as a memoir on my genre hop list.

I am still teary over a novel I finished this morning: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It begins very slowly, and I might have DNF'd it except that a couple peeps in my book club loved it. So, I kept going and am sure glad I did! Nora, the MC, is a whiny, sad sack of a person, and I didn't relate to her all that much, at first. The premise is that after she tries to commit suicide she hovers in a state between life and death where she visits a fantasy library that contains all the stories of her life that might have been as well as a huge tome of regrets. As Nora chooses other lives to slip into, she's guided both practically and philosophically by her old primary school librarian (the one person from her past who had shown her unconditional kindness). As Nora's epiphanies accumulate, I begin to resonate with them, especially the ones about living to please other people. Whether struggling to keep a straight A average for my mom or to be accepted by my peers or to find a boyfriend, my earlier life was also dominated by the need to receive praise from others. My first paragraph about blog stats is a good example. I internalized all this dreck to such an extent that I felt guilty when not writing a bestselling book while working full time. Why can't I do more? Other people do more. Why can't I achieve any level of socially blessed success, blah blah blah. Anyway, TML explores these ideas plus the obvious conclusion that being yourself is enough. Going after your own dreams is not selfish. Relinquishing old dreams and being content with what you have (where I am now) is just fine too! None of these are radical concepts, but Haig presents them in a fresh and emotionally relevant way, so TML received five stars from me. It also counts as a fantasy book on my genre hop list.

Speaking of the genre hop challenge, it's not my intention to complete the entire list the first quarter. I may expand the categories into subgenres or simply read two or more from each. While A Cat Abroad counts as a memoir, it's not a biography, so I will try to find one of those I might enjoy (the category is biography/ memoir). Also, I noticed at the bottom of the hop list is a bonus category to reread five favorite books, which I may do too. The whole point is to read books I love, and if I can't give a book three or more stars, I probably should consider tossing it in the DNF pile. Of course, sometimes I'm digging a book and then get really annoyed at the ending, so there's that. 

Hope your new year is going swimmingly so far ~ mine is, literally, with all this rain. Back to the office tomorrow I go, hi ho, hi ho.

PS: I found a way to add a DNF shelf to my Goodreads without it marking the book as "want to read," which was so annoying. I had to do it from my laptop. Apps aren't always all that and a bag of chips.

PPS: Nope. Goodreads insists on marking my DNFs as "read," which wrecks my count. I have deleted the DNF shelf once again.

Hunger

The craving subsides,

Retreats to its hibernaculum,

Fat with the fruits of summer.

Her monstrous appetite sated,

She cocoons herself in ice,

Content with juicy memories 

Until desire flames again.

It rages,

Burning through the barricades.

She wakes. 

She hungers.

She breathes your scent.

~*~

Quadrille (44-word poem) written for dVerse Poets Pub  with the keyword a form of hibernate. I tried for a bit of ambiguity here… perhaps it’s about sex or murder. Or maybe cookies. What do you think?

Sew-ku

Silver minnows dart

Between the strands of eelgrass 

Bullfrog takes a nap

Leaves ease from the trees

Blanket the forest with crunch

Squirrels gather nuts 

The sky splits a seam

Rain sleets down on a bias

Mud threads the river

~*~

This triple haiku is written for dVerse’s prompt of using sewing words in a poem not about sewing. I included their suggested words: bias, dart, ease, gather, nap, and seam. I also added one of my own: threads. I’m trying to write better haiku by setting a scene and mood with simple images from nature while avoiding a lot of gerunds (“ing” words) and adjectives. The reader brings their own interpretation to my creation. A true haiku does not contain punctuation, and there are no capital letters, but starting a line with a lower-case letter makes me anxious, so I did use caps here. 

Quirky Quotient

Obviously all my readers are exceptionally intelligent, and according to this article, there are 9 quirky habits that are associated with high IQ. It disturbs me that they couldn’t come up with a perfect 10, but that’s probably not a sign of anything but my OCD. Let’s check out the quirks ~ how many do you have?

1. Night Owls. They aren’t talking about insomnia or lack of sleep; this is re people who are on a different sleep/ wake schedule and do their best work during the quiet, dark hours. Back in the day, I sometimes did my best writing late at night, but I wouldn’t try to do math or solve problems in the evening. I am better at those tasks earlier in the day, though not super early when I am preoccupied with whatever pain has materialized during the night. Overall, as far as mental acuity, I consider myself an “afternoon person.” I am usually asleep by 11pm and (on good nights) stay asleep until 6am. Usually, I wake up a few times in between.

2. Messy Desks. The idea is that when everything is visible, creativity flourishes. That’s not the case for me because I can’t be creative in a jumble ~ I obsess over cleaning it up. I liken a clean desk to a blank canvas for painting. But I also remember where I put stuff, so if I need something I can easily find it again. Clutter can correlate with unconventional thinking, according to the article. I definitely know super-smart, messy-desk types.

3. Precise Swearing. Apparently they mean a well-crafted, witty line that includes profanity as opposed to screaming random obscenities at jerks on the freeway. Whatever. 

4. Talking to Yourself. Yippee! Here we go! I talk to myself constantly. “Far from signaling confusion, it shows active metacognition.” Hell yeah it does. (Preen.)

5. Doodles and Fidgets. These minor distractions serve as an excess energy outlet and help to focus the main channel of attention toward the speaker or topic. Unless I am reading a riveting novel, I do fidget a lot, and I’m a doodler too. You?

6. Daydreaming. Mental drifting can lead to insights. It benefits creativity and solution-finding to allow your thoughts to wander down previously unexplored paths. The important thing is for your mind to pivot back after a short break. The pivot! Knew I forgot something.

7. Sarcasm and Subtext. They mean the ability to get sarcasm/ subtext and also to deliver it. I pretty much always get it, but I try not to use sarcasm much unless it’s against myself. It can be hurtful. I don’t consider being frequently snarky a sign of anything other than personal insecurity.

8. Curiosity and Questions. Insatiable curiosity is a sign of high IQ (look at cats!). Asking good questions and synthesizing information to adapt and revise opinions indicates active and flexible brainpower. I do agree with this: the smartest people I know are curious and passionate about knowledge. I take this as a blanket excuse for losing many hours in the rabbit holes of the internet. 

9. Musical Ability. This involves pattern recognition and memory, two indicators of high IQ. You also need the ability to improvise and correct your own errors. The brain is modeling, testing, and adjusting, and these are skills which translate to other areas. Unfortunately, I have no musical talent. I began piano lessons around age 5, but we moved and discontinued them. I suppose it’s possible that I might have become good at piano if my lessons had gone on. Let’s go with that idea!

I think one of the main takeaways from these various items is that intelligence is closely linked with creativity (which comes in many forms) and the willingness to explore new ideas and adapt to updated information. It’s OK to admit you were wrong. It’s OK to change your mind. When I meet someone who refuses to admit he (it’s always a man) is ever wrong, that’s a red flag indicating he is not as bright as he claims to be.

Pop, and Other Palindromes

The other week some friends and I were thinking of palindrome names, such as Bob and Pip and Otto. Eve, Ana, Elle, Nan, Ada. Then there’s Mom and Pop. Sis. Race car. Taco cat. It’s really hard to come up with a whole sentence. Madam, I’m Adam. Able was I ere I saw Elba. Do geese see god? Etc. (I googled these.)

It’s unfortunate that the word “palindrome” is not one.

I say soda, not pop, for a generic carbonated beverage. That answer marks me as someone from back east on the geographical language quizzes. 

I used to love Pop-Tarts, but lately they aren’t worth the calories. They’re pretty bland and dry. I’d rather have a couple of cookies. In fact, these days I prefer cookies to most other desserts even cake/ cupcakes. That’s weird! Who even am I anymore? I also am a big fan of pie, especially contrasting flavors in a pie, such as key lime with a graham cracker crust. My coworker made mini KLPs for us this week, and they were delicious. The ratio of crust to filling is higher in a mini, and I liked that. Same goes for mini PB cups. I had a Reese’s tree the other week, and I have to say that the ratio of PB to chocolate was too high. YMMV.

I’ve been thinking about contrasts a bunch lately. You can’t truly appreciate something until you experience its opposite. That’s my theory anyway.

~*~

Inspired by Stream of Consciousness Saturday (pop). Don’t worry, I am not going to start bombarding you with a ton of prompt crap like I did back on my WP blog, but if the mood strikes me, I think it’s OK once in a while.

Faint Footsteps

Before the ticking clock slips

Into the bright hour of dawn,

Faint footsteps echo along

The paths of forgotten dreams.

Memories stir from their crypts;

A door creaks within the depth;

Years loop in a lemniscate,

As if time past has no seams.

Rooted in a tangled, twisted vision,

I look for a route out of indecision.

~*~

Written for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 731 (rooted, years, footsteps, creaks, look, stir, hour, loop, clock, echo, before, slips). I felt inspired by this word set and decided to write a poem with my own rhyme scheme. Does “lemniscate” sound too weird (lem-nih-sket)? It’s the term for the infinity symbol. Generally, I prefer more accessible language, but it seemed to fit nicely.