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 |   Second blog -- answers to an ocean of prompts |
 "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." CHARLIE CHAPLIN  Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. David Whyte        This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts. |
| Prompt: I was reading a writing prompt on Writing.Com when suddenly... ------------ I was reading a writing prompt on Writing.Com when suddenly I found myself inside the novel, Armageddon by Leon Uris, that I had pledged to read in "CLOSED!The Monthly Reading Challenge"  .“Between friends,” the Russian said with his thick accent, “this whole squabble is becoming costly. I hate that you Americans made us impose a Blockade, but you can’t continue on with the Airlift during the winter.” “What?” I was flabbergasted. “Where am I? What do you mean by blockade and airlift? And who are you?” “Hey, are you putting me on, Sean? I am Igor Karlovy, your Russian pal.” Igor Karlovy laughed, “This must be one of those doomed American jokes. Okay, I’ll go along with it. You are in Berlin of 1948, and you perfectly know what’s happening with the Blockade and your hopeless Airlift.” “That’s what you think. The Airlift was successful and your side gave up. I remember from my history lessons. Just why did you call me Sean?” “Because that’s what your name is.” “But I am a she!” “Okay…I knew Americans were fruitcakes,” Igor stiffened. “If you’re not Sean who do you want to be? You have to be somebody.” I had a choice? “Hilde,” I said. “Because she is so beautiful.” Then, I changed my mind. “No, I want to be Ernestine because she’s serious and a reader…” Igor tipped his fingers to his cap and he looked like he thought it was time for him to go. “Aufwiedersehen, Sean, Hilde, or Ernestine! Well, whoever you are!” Shocked by his abruptness, “Joy!” I yelled, “I am Joy.” “Yeah, sure!” he said as he was exiting. “And I am Cleopatra! Wait till I recount this conversation to Marshal Popov!” I was still hearing him talk to himself outside the door. “Crazy Americans! Bats in the belfry! With lopsided brains! Nuts! They’re all nuts!’ “And we won the Cold War, too,” I yelled after him. “What did you say? What happened with the cold war?” My husband said. “Are you talking to yourself, again?” And suddenly I found myself in our living room, looking at my laptop’s screen, at WdC’s prompts.  |
| Prompt: “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning” Louis L'Amour Write anything you want about this. =============== It is in human nature not to take endings well, especially if everything has been good to acceptable earlier. When something we cherish ends, we think it is the end of the world and we’ll never be happy again. That feeling usually dulls away in time. It is, therefore, a good idea to take a pause and look around when something ends to give ourselves time to grieve and to handle the shock. This may act like the time-out adults give to children who have succumbed to temper tantrums. If we miss the past and feel uncomfortable with the change, it may help to pour out those emotions, possibly through arts or by talking to friends. This is because endings and second beginnings aren’t clear-cut as they move by some effort and small shifts at a time. Then, a better way is letting go of that ending with an open mind, since when something ends, it ends, and it probably wasn’t in our hands. The next thing is to look forward and start something new. Starting anything new means feeling a renewed hope, instead of lamenting the hopeless ending. The idea of endings signaling beginnings first is noted by Lao Tzu, and as translated by Wayne Dyer, it says, “Amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.” This means it is the way of the world for things to end, only to signal another beginning, as change is the only thing constant in life.  Prompt: What is the most romantic thing you have done or someone has done for you? ========== In the most loving way, he rises like the sun to chase dark clouds away, with a hug or a kind word telling me not to worry for luck will smile again to make possible the smooth sailing of my tiny ketch as if it were a fancy cruise ship. No need for sappy things flowers and rings true romance is found in his being around. |
| Prompt: Do you think people can change as to how they view love as years go by? And how do you think they perceive love and romance in different stages of their lives? ------- Yes, people’s assessment of relationships and love and romance can change as they age. In the earliest stages, humans are usually influenced by hormones, but is that love? I doubt it. I think true love happens regardless of the body’s needs. Later on, the quality of the love-relationship becomes the issue. For the lucky few, it is a give-and-take situation. When it is only give or only take, the relationship loses its power and dies. Midlife is the most stressful time with all the offspring, work and money problems, and commitments outside the relationship. Luckily, in old age, people settle down and value their feelings and hold an appreciation for one another, despite the changes in health and other problems. At this time, their views of love have matured just like the ways they look at life. Love has these components in general: obsessive thinking of the loved one, craving for his/her nearness, euphoria or romantic sadness, increased or decreased energy, and the feeling that life is just that. People in love, at times or always, feel as if they have uncovered the meaning of life completely, and nothing else matters all that much. I think everyone’s view of love is different. I see it as being comfortable with each other’s company, feeling respect for and trusting the other person. This may be because I am in my seventies, although I can still recall the earliest feelings of love, the heartbeat, the excitement, and my dwelling over every action, incident, and word, when my beloved showed up at my door. Prompt: What impressed you the most in your earliest years that you believe may have had an effect on your writing? I mean things like the neighborhood you grew up in or the fairy tales and stories you came upon before you were in your teens. ====== My earliest memories are of newspapers, writings hung on the walls, and books in the house. All these things might have urged me to pester my grandmother to tell me the sounds of letters that were all around. So, it is no wonder that I learned to read at age 3.5 practically on my own. Another major effect on me was my mother’s spirituality. She kept telling me parables and fairy tales that changed according to her moods, and I loved the changes she made in her storytelling. Who’d think that Cinderella not only had her stepsisters to deal with but a scary person huge in size, living in the attic, who then mellowed and helped her with her prince? My mother would tell me her stories with all the theatrics she could muster, which impressed me even more. She also read to me, not only the fairytales but Rumi’s stories, too. Rumi’s stories are not linear; he looks at situations from all sides and sometimes the stories do not have a clear ending, which is usually on purpose. This did bother me, and I recall arguing with my mother over those stories. One of them involved a rabbit, and although the story had a great moral, the ending was left open. I kept insisting, almost in tears, “But what happened to the rabbit?” No matter which explanation my mother gave me, I didn’t grasp. Then, she said, “What do you think should happen?” So, those stories and her reading to me took on a different route. After she’d finish the reading, we’d make up our own ending, according to my whims. There were other things in my life that had an effect on my love of reading, writing, people, and all living things. We had lots of people coming and going into the house, and not only guests but the people who came to work for different things, gardener, cleaners, street vendors etc. I was very much interested in other people’s lives and in the lives of the animals. My aunt--who lived with us before she married--was a cat person. She’d take care of the street cats, and if they had kittens, we’d keep the mother and the newborn kittens in a spare room. She also had three cats as her pets. Then, we went to visit the many farms in the area since my grandfather was the only doctor within several miles and everyone loved him because he’d take care of the sick on a credit basis and sometimes he’d forgo their debts altogether. Those farm owners let me roam in their farms among the animals. I also loved the beach since the town we lived in was by the water. All these things and others that are too many to tell were happening before I had turned seven. So, when I turned eight, I began to write; however, later on, when my road gained many forks, I went many other ways.  |
| Prompt: The 2018 Winter Olympics are here! Are you watching? Do you have any favorite events? Do you think the Olympics still have any cultural relevancy in this day and age? =================== Well, if I say I’m watching it will be a lie, and if I say I am not watching, that, too, will be a lie. The situation, as it stands, is this. My husband is watching them and the TV is on all the time. I am not a TV fan at all, although there are four TVs in the house. They all serve dear hubby, and the internet, Kindles, and books serve me. Since hubby and I want to sit together in the same room, I brought my laptop and a couple of bookshelves to a corner, as he brought his laptop to another place in the den. Diagonally across, I have the full view of the TV, which necessitates earplugs sometimes, so I can read and write. I guess all events are good, but I don’t have a favorite. Still, I stopped to watch some of the couples’ ice-dancing and I screamed my head off when the Japanese girl fell. Then, today, I caught some of the ski race, which the Norwegians won all three places. As to the cultural relevancy of Olympics, I think yes. That I semi-watch in my haphazard fashion doesn’t mean that I don’t approve of the Olympics. Any event--excluding world wars--that can bring people of this crazy planet together is great and helpful to world peace. When I think about it, some of the countries competing in the Olympics may have disputes ideologically, militarily, socially, and economically. Yet, they stand on the same stage and compete. The numbers of athletes competing can be in the thousands, in addition to the numbers of people training and taking care of them, plus the people in the audience and those who are watching. It means, at least, for this reason, the countries and people of the world agree to watch the same thing and learn about one another, instead of arguing their differences. |
| Prompt: It's creation Saturday, I love this phrase # . Have fun with this phrase: He raised his goblet: "Cheers! Here's to Love!" She answered: "Define Love." ------------------ He says, “Cheers! Here’s to love!” finding a lovely inevitability in the evening, but she, with moonbeams frolicking in her hair, demands, “Define Love,” exercising her virtue but killing the moment and his tender spirit so into her. And, her words, irrevocable, shakes him, digging his heart a grave. What a mandate! Does love need defining? And aren’t all definitions valid? Prompt: "Where have you been?"----- Make up a creative reason for being late to an important function. ---------------- I am late because I was uploading photos to Facebook, and it seems Facebook has restricted the size of whatever one can upload. So I had to do it in pieces which took three hours extra. I didn’t procrastinate but did all that was needed to be done to spill the magical pixels from the camera onto the screen that told the crazy story and the epiphanies of my day… but FB could not grasp what it was missing and it told me “four megabytes only” this is the reality of agony with social networks and I admit to my lateness but through no fault of mine Prompt: Does your family have heirlooms that are handed down from generation to generation? ---------------- Yes, but some of them were stolen by the woman who was my mother’s caretaker. Then, I gave away everything to the younger members of my family. That is passing the buck, I know, but now they are the ones to fear what will happen to those heirlooms.  all the stitches laced in perfection on the family linen and porcelain cups, gifts from the Chinese emperor to great-great-grandfather grandma’s pearls and antique ring crystal chalices and old paintings, but the only heirloom is in my genes holding my ancestors’ love everlasting |
| Prompt: What's your “back in the day, we...” story? Write about whatever. ----------------------------- I don’t have grandchildren, except for those really nice ones in WdC who adopted me, and I am not going to bore them with any “back in the day,” story. But then, maybe I’ll relate an earliest memory or two, since while writing this, an incident or two came to me, incidents that may be suggestive of emotional blackmail.  1. If I didn’t want to eat something or other my mother used to tell me, “You have to eat that. Children in…. are starving. (fill in the blanks. In my time, first, it was China; then Korea won the lottery) They can’t even find a bite of what you’re rejecting.” That always made me sad enough to eat whatever I was served. 2. One of my mother’s uncles had a fancy garden that he was crazy over. Once, when I was three years old, we went to visit him. Before we went, my mother told me not to ever pick a flower or a leaf or anything because those plants in that garden were a family and anything I’d pick would be separating a child from his mother and I would be hurting the plants’ children who'd feel much pain. When we arrived there, the aunt told me to go out in the garden and enjoy the outdoors. I shook my head and said no and stood frozen. Then the uncle took me by the hand and led me out. His was truly a beautiful garden, probably one of the best privately owned that I have seen in all my life. I was very careful only to walk on the walkways and not to step on the flowerbeds. The uncle picked a flower and handed it to me. I think it might be a pansy, but no matter, I immediately began bawling and crying my eyes out. You can imagine what a surprised man he was because he himself was a lit teacher and knew a bit about child psychology. Yet, he couldn’t understand what got into me. By this time, the aunt had decided maybe the whole family should have tea in the gazebo since it was such a nice day. They were in the process of settling around the table in the gazebo. Hearing my loud wailing and lamentation, they ran to us to find out why I was sobbing and crying my eyes out. I can’t recall what happened after that, but her uncle must have told my mother how to handle me better or something because I recall that he took her inside to talk privately. That uncle was such a gentle, beautiful soul whom I grew to love and admire deeply over the years. He was only a few years younger than my grandmother, and he passed away before he turned sixty-four when I was in my teens. So, if anyone is wondering how and where my gullibility first took its roots, here is its possible starting line in the race of my life. |
| Prompt: Is there such a thing as good and evil? What determines an action as good or evil? Who gets to decide who’s good or who’s evil? Your thoughts. ======================== First, I need to define evil. Evil may be considered as the antonym of good, but the real antonym of good is bad, but not all bad is evil. Even in the justice system, there are degrees of crimes. Knowledgeable people and circumstances can help or even bad people through their own work can turn around to be better and reach to acceptability despite the dual nature of humans. This is bad turning to some degree of good. Evil is different. Evil cannot be fixed. To me, evil is irretrievable, irreparable, and permanently bad. It is harmful, inexplicable, and obscure. And you-know-who in religious terms, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as in Harry Potter, personifies evil. (As an aside, come to think of it, Lord Voldemort wasn’t really evil but really bad.) The dictionary defines the noun form of evil as “profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, especially when regarded as a supernatural force.” The adjective form of evil is defined as profoundly immoral and malevolent. Can we know evil when we see it? I doubt that. Evil is cunning, crafty, and sly. It approaches us in many forms, mostly in the forms of things or people we have been yearning for, and that is why we give in to it. From where I stand, mass-killers and murderers have done acts of evil but are they evil themselves? That, only their creator knows. We might call them sociopaths or psychopaths who commit terrible crimes, if only to explain their horrific acts. This may be acceptable only when the crimes committed are involuntary, which means these people believed in the wrong ideals or chose wrongly while they themselves were quite ordinary or even good people before those acts. In our time, the word evil has become what we call wrongdoers who cannot be injected with any form of morality and for whom all devices of justice are inadequate, and the word itself describes the limits of what badness we’re able to put up with. For such irreparable criminals, evil may be the appropriate adjective. As to good, it means all desirable virtues like morality, charity, peace, love, and friendship that benefit someone or something. Good is easy to see and to identify. As the opposite of bad, it forms the bright side of humanity whereas its opposite is our shadowed side. These two sides make up our dual nature. On the other hand, evil in its perfect meaning is difficult to pinpoint. In any case, I am not the one to decide who is evil as I don’t have the knowledge, insight, or the authority for it. |
| Prompt: What is betrayal to you? How many faces does it have? Who is to blame, the betrayed or the betrayer? ------------------------- A betrayal is a violation. It means the betrayer has violated a written, oral, or presumed confidence, contract, or trust. Its worst result is the psychological conflict, distrust, and cooling of relationships or negative retaliation. Betrayal takes many forms. At times, it means supporting a rival or a rival group. It may also mean breaking a social contract, airing a secret, wrongful accusation, etc. It is not only the people who betray one another but also the institutions. When a government does secret illegitimate acts behind its people, it is the worst form of betrayal. There is a kind of betrayal, which may be innocent. It is the kind when a person unknowingly or forgetfully discloses a secret without any intention of wrongdoing. Sometimes, we even do this to ourselves. For example, we may decide not to show anger and hold our tongues in certain situations, but then, when such a situation arises, we cannot help ourselves. Not trusting oneself has to be the most hurtful result of such a betrayal. More often than not, the betrayed learns of the betrayal much later than the action of it or, because it feels too painful, he decides to ignore the situation or acts as if it didn’t happen. As to the question of blame, I guess it goes both ways. If someone is betraying our confidence many times over and we go on spilling our secrets to them, then we are to blame for placing our trust in the wrong person. If we’ve betrayed someone’s confidence due to forgetting what they told us was a secret, we can be gentle and compassionate to ourselves for such an unintentional mistake, and save ourselves extra stress and inner alienation. To wrap it up, our examination of a betrayal depends on its size. For lesser betrayals, nobody is perfect. Maybe the betrayer is just desperate, looking for understanding, and wants to seem knowledgeable by throwing other people’s secrets into the open. Surely, we can loosen up more because things will go wrong sometimes. After all, it is the big picture and the long view of our relationships that matter the most. |
| Prompt: If there were an Olympics for writing, what are some of the events you'd participate in? Be as creative as you'd like...remember, this is a made-up thing, so feel free to make up any events you'd like. ============= Nothing all that clever here, but I’d participate in two events that would focus on free-flow. Event no:1 Carrying the Olympics Torch- Round Robin 7 people The event starts with three random words from dictionary The clock is set to five minutes. Everyone writes something with those three words during the five minutes. Then the first person comes up with three words, and during the given five minutes, everyone has to use those words in whatever they are writing, but the trick is their work has to be the continuation of what they started with the first three words. Then, the second person has his turn and everyone else takes turns. After the seventh person’s words are given and written for, everyone reads what they came up with to the group. Event no: 2 Solo performance Any number of people An idea is given to the group, for example, the word road or a sentence from a book Everyone is given five minutes to brainstorm and make a list of what they’ll write. There is no talking or sharing the ideas. Then the group is given a short amount of time, say half an hour or fifteen minutes. Using their brainstorming lists, they write something that includes every item on their lists. When the time is up, every piece is given a prize because all writers have to be given a prize. |
| Prompt: Create something with these words dictionary, have fun. freighter shoot sock cut hammer estimate psychology ============= Within me, a freighter carrying hammers for knocking out idols to sock or shoot them out with quixotic likelihood. In psychology’s estimate, this is a guise of self-esteem or the self taking off on its own. Which way you cut it, I get the short end of the stick not knowing everyone I love will be safe from my freighter or my hammers for knocking out idols or from the hole in my head. Prompt: You just stepped in the movie Groundhog Day, and everything in your life keeps repeating over and over. Is having do-overs a good thing or a bad thing? What will it take for the spell to break? ======== I would so hate that! I don’t read the same book twice. I hate rewrites. Edits I’ll take, but rewrites drive me up the wall. It is a miracle I lived with my husband for 52 years, to his credit, not mine. My life repeating over and over would just about kill me if I am conscious of it. Better, if someone hit me on the head and knocked me out. I don’t know what would make the spell to break. Imagining, I am in such a situation while I am aware of it, I would probably do something extraordinary or drastic to get out of it or else, it would have to be an interference from the higher power. |
| Prompt: "Memory is subject to a filtering process that we don't always recognize and can't always control. We remember what we can bear and block out what we cannot." Sue Grafton Your thoughts on this? ================ Basal Ganglia is to blame say the scientists for this peculiarity of the brain. It seems basal ganglia affect the prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking/rationalizing part of us. This means the whole thing is actually based on the body-science. Even so, who put together this thing in our brains that works like a circuit breaker, which protects a whole house going up in flames if an electrical short took place? Isn’t it impossible not to believe in a fantastic unearthly mind or a higher being who planned our bodies and brains? I think this is a big deal, a very big deal. Here, we go into the spiritual philosophy of things, which I stay away most of the time because of the fact that most of us may believe wholeheartedly in our version of a higher being and there are so many differences in the ways we believe. Whatever beliefs we may hold, this filtering of the memory is something I am thankful for. As an example, one of my cousins was hurt in a car accident some time ago. She says she doesn’t remember the accident at all. She was taken out of the car by the jaws of life and she has no recall of any of that, Thank God! Although she’s fully healed now, she doesn’t mention it and none of us remind her of that horrible occurrence. If she did remember, chances are she wouldn’t bear the memory of it. In the same vein, if we recalled every single rotten thing that was done to us and every single rotten thing we’ve done to others, we’d have no friends in the world and we wouldn’t be able to stand ourselves either. What we remember and feel bad about is bad enough as it is. Don’t you think? |
| Prompt: "Life was reduced to it's 4 basic elements: air, food, drink and a good friend." Sue Grafton What are your views on this? ========= Since a good percentage of the earth’s population cannot have those four elements and a certain percentage of the folks do have the first three but not the last one, ‘a good friend,’ the world has a long way to go for supplying all the basics to everyone. Speaking for myself, however, those basic elements I appreciate very much, of course, but without the arts, music, and writing, my alphabet isn’t complete, but then, Sue Grafton’s wasn’t either, although she almost made it with Y is for Yesterday. I’ll miss Sue Grafton. There was a time when I was following Kinsey Millhone’s exploits as if her shadow. Too bad for the letter Z. This is what happens when you are the last one waiting on line. |
| Prompt: To what degree are character and reputation related? Your thoughts… ================= An old English proverb says, “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” My take on it is that it is very difficult to get rid of a bad reputation. Still, a reputation is an up and down thing. On the other hand, once fully developed, a person’s character does not change. While a person may adapt to his surrounding conditions, his basic character stays the same. A person's character is the complex interwoven mental qualities, moral beliefs, and behavior in him.The character of a person determines how he responds to situations in life regardless of success or failure and applause or scorn. As to the relationship of reputation and character, with reputation, names have some weight. If you call someone a good name, he’ll try to live up to it. The name is part of a person, and he will try to live up to it partly because of other people’s reactions to it. It is a well-known fact that people with common first names fare better than those with unique ones, when employers pick resumes, for example. Then, a phenomenon called implicit egotism exists where people are unconsciously drawn to things, people, and places that sound like their own names. Yet, a reputation is more than a name. A reputation happens as the result of people’s experiences with one person, which is sometimes unfair, either way. This means a reputation can never be a hundred percent factual. Still, it is something to go by, since no one can perfectly predict anyone else’s true character. To put it in a nutshell, a person’s character is much more than his reputation because it is who that person is when no one is watching. Someone with a good character does the right thing intrinsically because it is right to do what is right and he doesn’t mind living or not living up to any reputation. |
| Prompt: “Your Calling Is More Powerful Than Your Resume,” says TAMA J. KIEVES in the January 12, 2018, issue of Signature. In what ways can you imagine your writing to be more powerful than your resume? ------------------- My resume is very close to my writing; actually, it does involve writing and a lot of it since it has been research work on languages and literature, but the irresistible obsession of writing poetry and fiction came to me much later in life. Earlier, that was something I did for myself on the side for the fun of it, and if someone published a thing or two, I didn’t keep records of it. I didn’t feel it was something I could depend on for life and didn’t need to because I loved my work immensely. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter what I did in the past. It matters what I do now, as the desire to write has always been in my blood. Writing, any kind of it, is important because through it, we interact with the world and more so, we may see what is there within ourselves. Through these interactions, writers--we average, normal people--share our truths in a pleasing, entertaining way, hoping something in them will signal the concern or love we feel for the humankind. Stories and poems, as imagined as they are, show the fundamental truths of existence. Through those dark or light truths and the love that flows from our pens or keyboards, we hope to make the world a better place or at least change a tiny part of it; although, the word hope is the key here. In short, writing matters because it has the power of hope to change the world for good. |
| Prompt: You've been commissioned by your local art gallery to come up with a painting for their next exhibit...but you can only use three colors and it has to be an inanimate, stationary object. What did you come up with and why? ============== My painting will have to be a Tiffany floor lamp with gray-brown, blue-green, and bright yellow colors. I could use the bright yellow for the light the lamp emits as well as a highlighter on the glass shade. I chose this lamp because a lamp lights up what is dark, and a Tiffany lamp itself is a work of art. Globe shapes are reserved for the floor lamps, and even the word globe has its connotations. Lighting up the globe would be a wonderful thought, and thoughts reveal how we make sense of the world and what we do in it and why. It is a matter of value judgment, I suppose. Then imagining further, a Tiffany lamp is a rare antique like some poets who sit in the gloom of a lamp sighing with a broken heart, while Sara Teasdale writes, “If I can bear your love like a lamp before me, When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness, I shall not fear the everlasting shadows, Nor cry in terror.” |
| Prompt: We all live a reasonably normal life, we have friends, we've got hobbies, and we'll gladly wander around a store looking for an item rather than ask a clerk where it is because then we won't feel guilty if we don't make a purchase. Reader's Digest claims that we're actually normal but we do have our fair share of idiosyncrasies. Do tell what are some of yours? Are you nuts or normal? ===== Who says I “live a reasonably normal life”?  Believe me, I never did.Okay, here goes an example. Palmetto bugs drive me nuts. I don’t mind little cockroaches, but when the cockroach is the size of a mouse, I scream. They disturb me so much that I can’t even kill them. I just run away while pointing a bug spray at them. Taking care of Palmetto bugs, dead or alive, is hubby’s job. On the other hand, with snakes, hubby and I exchange places. FL is full of snakes. Only six species are poisonous, though. So, I keep shooing the snakes out of the garage and the porch. This happens regularly every few weeks or so. Each time, I end up devising a different approach. Just a day ago, Ned watched a two-foot-long black snake slither from under one of the sliding doors of the porch; he was frozen and totally unable to scare the snake away. If I were there, it wouldn’t come inside the porch in the first place. Anyhow, I pulled out a wooden stick that was at the end of some cleaning brush and chased the snake out of an open door. I don’t hurt snakes. I never have. I just threaten them. I guess a snake can’t sue me for threatening. You think?  Prompt: Pick a fun fact you've come across this week and share it with us. ===== Florida State, in general, is a fun fact in itself. Let me count only a few ways of it. Florida has more toll roads and bridges than any other state. Florida has more golf courses than any other state and is home to the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Augustine. The Florida Everglades is the only place on the planet where crocodiles and alligators live together. Now we have unwelcome pythons, too. Florida’s largest river, the St. Johns River, is one of only a few major rivers that flow from south to north. Florida is the largest producer of watermelons in the country. It also produces the most tomatoes, strawberries, and sugar. All these are produced much more than oranges; although Florida still produces the most oranges. Made mostly of Florida pine, The Belleview Biltmore Resort and Spa, northwest of Tampa Bay is said to be the world’s largest occupied wooden structure at 820,000 square feet. Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city in the United States. Surprised? It is a fact. No dinosaur fossils have been found in Florida. We must have scared the dinosaurs away. Florida driving test doesn’t require parallel parking. Go figure! Prompt: 1500! Wow. Write anything you want about 15. 15 favorite things, a poem or whatever you want. ===== 15th century poets William Dunbar, was born around the time of 1460, he has left vivid images of Scotland in the reign of James IV. This is considered to be his best poem. To a Lady SWEET rois of vertew and of gentilness, Delytsum lily of everie lustynes, Richest in bontie and in bewtie clear, And everie vertew that is wenit dear, Except onlie that ye are mercyless Into your garth this day I did persew; There saw I flowris that fresche were of hew; Baith quhyte and reid most lusty were to seyne, And halesome herbis upon stalkis greene; Yet leaf nor flowr find could I nane of rew. I doubt that Merche, with his cauld blastis keyne, Has slain this gentil herb, that I of mene; Quhois piteous death dois to my heart sic paine That I would make to plant his root againe,-- So confortand his levis unto me bene. Another 15th century poet is Francois Villon who was born in Paris in 1431 and disappeared from view in 1463. He is the best known French poet of the late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. The Debate Between Villon And His Heart by Francois Villon Who's that I hear?—It's me—Who?—Your heart Hanging on by the thinnest thread I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid When I see you withdrawn this way all alone Like a whipped cur sulking in the corner Is it due to your mad hedonism?— What's it to you?—I have to suffer for it— Leave me alone—Why?—I'll think about it— When will you do that?—When I've grown up— I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it— What's your idea?—To be a good man— You're thirty, for a mule that's a lifetime You call that childhood?—No—Madness Must have hold of you—By what, the halter?— You don't know a thing—Yes I do—What?—Flies in milk One's white, one's black, they're opposites— That's all?—How can I say it better? If that doesn't suit you I'll start over— You're lost—Well I'll go down fighting— I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it— I get the heartache, you the injury and pain If you were just some poor crazy idiot I'd be able to make excuses for you You don't even care, all's one to you, foul or fair Either your head's harder than a rock Or you actually prefer misery to honor Now what do you say to that?— Once I'm dead I'll rise above it— God, what comfort—What wise eloquence— I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it— Why are you miserable?—Because of my miseries When Saturn packed my satchel I think He put in these troubles—That's mad You're his lord and you talk like his slave Look what Solomon wrote in his book "A wise man" he says "has authority Over the planets and their influence"— I don't believe it, as they made me I'll be— What are you saying?—Yes that's what I think— I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it— Want to live?—God give me the strength— It's necessary...—What is?—To feel remorse Lots of reading—What kind?—Read for knowledge Leave fools alone—I'll take your advice— Or will you forget?—I've got it fixed in mind— Now act before things go from bad to worse I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it. Happy 1500, BC!  Prompt: Watching "Heartland", Ty was training his horse and it wasn't going well. His girlfriend Amy's grandfather, owner of the ranch, said: "If you act like you just have 15 minutes, it will take you all day to train that horse. If you act like you have all day, you can have him trained in 15 minutes. So, with that in mind, what things have you done that took all day or just 15 minutes? What was your frame of mind trying to get these things done? ==== My frame of mind to get anything done is to just do it. If I don’t do something right there and then, it becomes a burden on my mind. So, whenever possible, I immediately do that thing or let it go. The things I give importance to I spend more time with; with the things that have to be done but are not of great importance to me, the resulting quality depends on luck. |
| Prompt: Since I am reading Adrienne Rich at the moment, here’s a quote. “Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.” This quote blew me off. If what we have been taught, believed, witnessed and agreed with were, in fact, assumptions, how in the world can we get to know our real selves? Your thoughts? -------------- Just imagine! What if anything and everything we believed about ourselves and our environment were to be fake, made-up, and false? I guess I wouldn’t be here and who I am would be a falsetto, which would mean my name, my family background, what I've been taught, what I believe in, my love for the people in my life, my love for reading, writing, and other things like that…The list is endless. Surely, I don’t believe my life is full of assumptions. But thinking about those things tosses me into a different reality as if I were suddenly thrown into the wild waters of an alien planet. This also means if I ever attempt to write a sci-fi story, I know where to start. Then, there is also something to thinking about the what-ifs of our established or taught beliefs. If we all truly did examine those by taking our present-day issues one by one, we’d get rid of our preconceived ideas, false presumptions and, most important of all, our biases. That wouldn't be so bad, don't you think! |
| Prompt: Everything has something that resembles it or is equivalent to it in some way. What is writing’s equivalent for you besides reading, which is its obvious twin? --------------------- Creativity is just as important to humans as the need for air because it gives meaning to living. Creativity also builds character, which means writers are creative people. At this time, and always, I thought writing to be the most creative and the closest to my heart. With that, there is no equivalent anything. As for my attempt at creativity other than writing, I studied the piano and then painting, at an earlier time. Then at another time, I put in and kept a vegetable garden and a rose garden with 55 rose-bushes. Now in my life, since I don’t live in that house with my gardens anymore, my interests have dwindled down to a few flower pots. Nowadays, on a minute scale, I am trying to learn photography. Also, sewing, baking, and cooking are what I do. Of everything I played with up to now, I miss painting the most, but it is difficult to deal with paints and such again when I have so many other things to do, especially writing. I have always believed that when we practice any form of creativity, we also express our reality by producing concrete things that result from our ideas. In addition, when the events of life can cause conflicts and may haunt us, working at something creative can be a therapy because while we create, we also build self-worth and face our fears of failure. As a result, we may learn to look at life through a more positive lens. |
| PROMPT: Write a funny/satirical entry describing something (or some things) you'd like to get away with now that the US government is in shutdown mode. ----------------------- Okay, since there wouldn’t be enough eyes to figure out my hidden desires through citizen spying and to see and hinder my resulting actions, I’ll sneak into the hangars and commandeer a space shuttle to go to any other place in the cosmos where there are no governments, shutdowns, political parties, infights or wars. Phew! Glad you guys are coming with me. Make sure you have some writing implements and stuff with you. Just maybe, we can form and live in a decent community elsewhere. If there are ten of us and each one of us writes a couple of books every year, we’ll have enough reading material to sustain us for some time. |
| Prompt: Creative Saturday, have fun with these eight words. spill // identification // curtain // chin // pool // wash // option // indication =============== Poor dear! She spills all over you, and pulsing with pleasure, you unclothe your body and mind. Now, you have no option but to lower your chin and jump into the pool, pushing hard against the curtain of water that rises up on contact. Her clear blue-green irises stare at you with a predictable indication of desire, tinged with determination. You, the flamboyant funambulist, boogying aquanaut, washed-out comic, float to the surface and turn from broadside to profile to revel in your identification of her applause, which sounds to me like a crack of doom on your ‘single’ status. Yet, you still think you are the barracuda while her hook has sunk into your wide open mouth. |
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