Today was supposed to be free writing. I did do a bit, but really hadn’t finished.
When I started preparting to write this year, I started through my archives, looking for writing ideas.
I think I was looking for NoJoMo 2012, which was the next-to-last one I did on The Open Diary.
Yes, there was a 2013 there, too, but I think I’ve sampled from that one before.
I don’t know. I should have written my prompts ahead of time. Things were crazy in October, though, nad I’m just so spent by the end of the week, that I can’t bring myself to dedicate
So, stuff I’m recycling from 2012.
What has been your biggest accomplishment in your life so far?
1. What do you desire most in your life? What is holding you back from obtaining or achieving your heart’s desire?
2. What is your strangest tic or habit? For example feeling compelled to sniff your food before eating it or always counting steps when you go up or down stairs
Are you listed as an organ or bone marrow donor? Why or why not?
There will be more, but it’s been a very long day, and I’m having trouble focusing.
Month: November 2017
11.14.17
Is there somewhere specific you like to go when you want to come up with ideas?
The place where I normally come up with good ideas is in the shower. I know that may sound odd, and I can’t really explain it, but it works. Maybe it’s because it is the one place where I left my guard down fully (cue the music from “Psycho”).
I also like to come up with ideas when I am driving. It helps me clear my head and gives me a chance to shut off and escape from everyone and everything.
On occasion, a great idea just pops up out of nowhere, when I am doing something completely unrelated. If I don’t write it down, I forget it five seconds later, and then spend hours agonizing about what I great idea it was, even though I can’t remember it completely.
Until tomorrow…
14
Another day where I was too busy to even glance at this.
Listening to Mouthy Broadcast probably isn’t terribly helpful to writing…..
No, my Fitbit band doesn’t stink, but then, I have to lock it up when I’m at work.
Favorite way to annoy/tease your significant other?
I’m guessing that the aim for this one is my propensity for earworming. If I only had a brain.
I do hit on things from time to time.
And after a ten minute break to watch Beavis and Butthead videos on YouTube, it’s back to Mouthy Broadcast and writing.
Tomorrow is free-write. Halfway point right now, so some analysis of this session. Heh heh mmm heh analysis.
I’m being tasked to cook turkey this year. Hmmmm….
I need to ask my wife to find my flavor injector. Huh huh huh injector.
I do think that I’m slowly circling back into the swing where I am. Let’s see how long it lasts.
Would I rather be somewhere else? You bet. Am I trying to do good, right, work? Yep.
It’s doubly-frustrating in that there’s lots of stuff at home that I’m excited to play with, but I can’t because I’m not there during the week.
So it goes…..
11.13.17
How do you feel about people’s need to post every detail of their relationships on social media? Are you guilty?
I don’t believe people need to put every detail of their lives on social media. It is usually a bunch of lies anyway, just a way to make their lives look ideal. Does everyone need to know about every fight, gift, or hard time you have? I feel as though after awhile, people just start resenting each other and I don’t see the point to it. To me it is a great way to ruin your relationships.
I don’t post much on social media as it is, so it is rare when I put anything about my significant other. I just feel like our life is ours and it doesn’t need to be shared with the rest of the world. Not all the time at least.
Until tomorrow…
13
What an evil number.
I didn’t even have a minute to devote to hammering on this today. I don’t know what to think about that.
How do you handle someone being inappropriate?
It really depends on my relationship to the person who’s acting inappropriately.
Friend: Privately ask what’s going on.
Equal: If there’s someone I’m sure was offended by the inappropriate behavior, apologize privately to the offended, then ask the offender why he/she was acting that way.
Subordinate: Apologize privately to any offended, correct privately, and ask him/her to offer apology.
This stuff isn’t rocket surgery.
My head is kinda spinning, so I apologize.
Work
HRT Paratransit, and my troubles with it
My health issues
So, yeah, nothing really to say right now. Maybe that’s not good considering I’m planning a free write session on Wednesday….
But, for tomorrow, Favorite way to annoy/tease your significant other?
…
My incredulity tomorrow.
11.12.17
Do you prefer background noise or silence?
It depends on the situation, but I generally prefer background noise. If I am just doing stuff around the house that doesn’t require much thinking, I have to have something to listen to.
If I am trying to concentrate, I either need silence or instrumental music.
Until tomorrow…
12
Have you ever had a strong belief completely disproven by facts and evidence?
Maybe it’s that I don’t have a lot of strong beliefs, but no.
Have there been things I’ve changed my conclusion on in light of new evidence?
Yes.
The list of things I’ve change my mind on is pretty lengthy.
I try to listen especially, to views that differ from mine.
Am I perfect in doing it? No.
Are there some arguments that I’ll reject out-of-hand? Sure.
If you use Chomsky as your backing evidence, I’m going to critique it incredibly harshly. I remember listening to a podcast once where this thirty-something wouldn’t answer a question because he wasn’t sure what Zinn had said about it. My neck is still sore from my head shakes months afterwards.
And I get sidetracked, stumbling on this.
There are things that aren’t worth debating; maybe the Flat Earth Society still exists. I don’t care to look.
For tomorrow: How do you handle someone being inappropriate?
I don’t think this prompt was written recently, but in light of Weinstein, Louis C.K., perhaps the right answer is to move the plant so it obscures the view more…
11.11.17
How do you feel about the reality gap between civilian and military families?\
This has become more obvious to me with the recent events. Most Americans don’t know anyone in the military. I am completely confused by this since I am surrounded by people in the military and wanted to join the military myself.
There have been several occasions where people make me shake my head at people who don’t seem to understand what the purpose of the military is or what they do. Here are a few:
- A neighbor once told my dad that she thought people in the military just sat behind desks all day, while we were living a few miles away from the largest naval base in the world.
- The people who call for complete transparency about certain operations in the military (in the case of the special forces, the families don’t even know what they are doing, why should the entire country be informed about it?)
- People who don’t know what a gold star family is (a gold star family is a family who lost a loved one serving in the military).
So yeah, these people just irritate me. You want to know why you can run your mouth about everything that is wrong with this and that in America? It’s because of the people in the military who serve this country and protect your freedom.
So, on this Veteran’s Day, thank a veteran for their service! Thank ALL the veterans!!
Until tomorrow…
11
Ninety-nine years since the end of World War I.
Somewhere along the way, the Armistice was translated into “Veterans’ Day” in the US. Given that our participation in that war was comparatively short, it is sort of understandable.
Also understandable is the desire to further obscure the lasting disasters on the world that stemmed from .
Look too unfavorably at the guy on Mt. Rushmore? A good Democrat? No. Let’s not take a look at the fact that he was a racist, his Administration carried out raids on political opponents, he urged the sorts of racial purity measures that’d so disgust people coming out of Germany twenty years later. NO. Stop with that crazy talk. He was a hero of enlightenment.
As I’m working through my backlog of Podcasts, yesterday I heard one discussing the Jones Act, and how it was hampering cleanup from the storms in Puerto Rico.
If you guessed that it was signed by the same guy who wrote the Treaty of Versailles, and employed A. Mitchell Palmer, you’d be absolutely right.
Anyway, World War I shaped a lot of what’s happened since it ended. A Fark headline recently mentioned the Battle of Jutland. I got an alert, because I still have my app set to alert on “Navy.” Go looking around for information on it, and there’s next to nothing.
Down
The
Memory
Hole
Just like the statues of Confederate Generals likely erected by Southern Democrats who thought Wilson was a hell of a guy.
As for the military, my father wanted to be an Army officer, just like his grandfather who’d sailed for Europe to back up the British and French in 1917. My dad bypassed an appointment to the US Merchant Marine Academy to go be an Army officer.
I don’t know the full stories, and everybody’s dead now, but I don’t know that my dad spoke to my Merchant Marine grandfather very much after that point. My grandfather isn’t in any of my parents’ wedding photos, if that says anything.
Both of my grandfathers were Navy during the period between WWII and Korea, but were exempt from going to Korea because they’d married and had kids.
My dad was in the Army for 24 years. He was commissioned just as Vietnam was coming to an end, but his unit was moved to Okinawa while he was in Infantry Officer Basic. He, along with many others, had been branch-loaned to Infantry as they were trying to fill out the front line units. He’d been commissioned into the Transportation Corps. He served as an Infantry officer until the late-70s, when he was pulled back to TC. He retired in 1997 as a Colonel shortly after I finished high school.
I was recruited heavily by the Navy and Air Force on account of my ASVAB score (94, if memory serves) I won an Air Force ROTC scholarship coming out of high school. My vision was starting to go, already, by that point, and they weren’t going to let me fly. They were also going to tell me what my college major was going to be. I was going to be on active duty for four years after I graduated, but they could keep me up to eight involuntarily. I would also have to do four years active reserve following my period of active duty.
I decided to go and do what my dad had done, and get into the Army. After a year of Army ROTC, it became apparent that I wasn’t going to be commissioned, and the solid B I was pulling in Military Science was hurting my GPA, so I dropped out. I started working in TV not long after, which led to radio, which led to actually getting paid for IT, and…
Looking at my friends on FB…
Navy
Air Force
Navy
Navy
Navy
Army
Navy
Air Force
Navy
Navy
Air Force
Air Force
Navy
Navy
Navy
Air Force
Army
Navy
Navy
Navy
Navy
Navy
Navy
Navy
Army
By no means is that definitive.
My FIL was a Navy “Mustang,” which is someone who’s commissioned while on active duty. My BIL was Navy.
This is different than many Americans.
I just wrote, and deleted, something rather unkind, so I’m going to stop. Thank you to all who have and do serve. You are appreciated.
For tomorrow: Have you ever had a strong belief completely disproven by facts and evidence?
In short, no, but I’ll elaborate more tomorrow.
11.10.17
Are you swayed more by logic or passion?
Logic, hands down. I like someone to be able to prove their point and not just make noise like a boiling tea kettle. You can make an argument just about anything, but if it has no substance to it, it isn’t a very good argument is it?
I get a lot of this from the relative who is an avid anti-Trumper. She spouts off whatever her “real news” spokesperson tells her to, trying to convert me from my wicked Republican ways, much like how Jehovah’s witnesses try to convert non-believers.
The problem with this is I don’t like Trump, didn’t vote for Trump, do not consider myself a Republican, and therefore, don’t need to be converted. The other problem (for the relative at least) is that I don’t like Hillary Clinton, therefore I am an evil Republican.
Until tomorrow…