Category: Generic

You Can Have it All… Or Can You?

Daily writing prompt
What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
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It’s 12:02am here in the Eastern United States. My alarm is going to go off in less than five hours. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write a post again, so I am doing it right now. Finishing something early? Me? No way!

Having it all. Do I have it all? Could I, if I don’t?

I have a wife whom I adore. Two step kids whom I adore. A job I enjoy that I am also not too terrible at. A house, two cars, two cats, four Gibson Guitars, and three Fender amplifiers. When you put it like that… what else is there? Yeah, I kinda have it all.

Then again, my house is not on the Pacific coast of San Diego, CA. My cars are nice, but they aren’t luxurious. My cats are freakin’ nuts. My salary isn’t in the Nine to 10 figure range. I guess I don’t have it all.

The moral of this story? Even when you do have it all, you’ll find something else that you don’t have. So what do you do? Be happy with what you have. Life will be so much better if you do.

Philosophy for the win, babie.

Let’s Talk

Daily writing prompt
Who would you like to talk to soon?
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Ever since the Covid lock downs hit I’ve been pretty isolated from the world. I keep in touch with folks, but outside of family it’s been tough. Because of that, I don’t talk to very many people as much as I should. So the broad answer to today’s question is pretty much everyone.

More specifically, I would like to talk to the kids. Any time, any place, any reason. Both of my step kids live three hours away now. I miss shooting the shit with them. I’m always looking forward to the next talk.

I need to talk to my dad more often. I am such a terrible son. There are so many times where I’ve thought about just giving him a call and I haven’t. There’s no excuse. I’m just awful. I am going to call him this morning before we leave for the vacation. I promise.

I’d like to talk to my mom. We lost her two years ago. She was dealing with dementia for a lot longer than that. I just miss her.

I’m in the cellar right now, eating breakfast and typing this literary masterpiece*. My wife is upstairs. I will be going upstairs within the next 5-10 minutes or so. I am really looking forward to talking to her. It’s been over 40 minutes since we’ve spoken. Eternity.

*Sarcasm, of course. I mean… duh, right?

Materialism

Daily writing prompt
What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
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Not the same question as yesterday, but sort of in the neighborhood.

Do I hold any possessions dear? I don’t know. I guess the real question is how do you define holding something dear?

Our house? Our cars? Life would be pretty tough without those. My glasses? That’s a possession that’s pretty super important too. Do I hold them dear? My computer, my iPhone, my guitars, my cameras, my TV, my turntable? The fly swatter I used to finally nail that little buggie bastard that has been buzzing me for the last 20 minutes or so? All of those things are important. Many of them are special. Do I hold them dear? I don’t think so.

I hold relationships dear. I hold people dear. I don’t know if I hold any possessions dear.

Maybe I just don’t understand the question, you know?

The Collector

Daily writing prompt
Do you have any collections?
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Collections? You mean like, do I collect bad decisions? Failures? Things like that?

I was a baseball card collector when I was a kid. I was pretty obsessed. I still have them all. They are in a box somewhere in the cellar. I haven’t added to the collection in ages though. I can’t really say I still collect them. I collected music on vinyl/cassette tapes/CDs. Most of them are gone. I had ripped them all so now all of that music lives simultaneously in a hard drive and in my iTunes Match account. Is that even still a thing? Streaming services are pretty evil (from the musical artist’s point of view) but they are so effin’ convenient from the listener’s perspective that I can’t really stay away. I want to, but I can’t. Thanks, Apple Music. I used to have a pretty significant collection of books. Mostly paperbacks in the horror genre. Thank you, Stephen King and Clive Barker. Almost all of them are gone now. I used to have a significant VHS/DVD/Blue Ray collection too. Almost all of those are gone too.

If I had to fess up to having a collection of anything these days it would probably be electric guitars. I have four. They are all Gibsons. A 1978 Les Paul Custom, a 1979 ES-335 Pro, a 2017 SG Standard, and a 2020 Les Paul Standard ’50’s. I would very much like for this collection to grow, but it’s so expensive. I could extend this to guitar gear in general as I have a few amplifiers and a slew of effects pedals. It feels cooler to say that I collect guitars though.

I could also say that I collect office desks. I have four, technically. One for personal computer stuff in the cellar. Right next to it is a work from home desk that I don’t use very much anymore. Another is upstairs in my step son’s currently unoccupied bed room. That’s where I work from home for the most part. Then there’s one in the actual office. I’m sitting at that one right now.

We have two cats… does that count as a collection? Probably not.

Yeah, let’s go with guitars. That’s my answer for today’s question. Thank you and good night.

Sick Day

I tried. I tried to finish the work day but my stomach just kept getting worse. Not as bad as three weeks ago, but bad enough that I couldn’t sit up straight or concentrate on work. I laid down around 2:30 after trying and failing to have a bite to eat for lunch.

Now it’s four hours later and I do feel a little better, but we are back to the old question: is there something wrong with my stomach or am I hungry?

I think I’ll try to drink a little water. Duck and cover, boys and girls.

Haiku for You #192

Today’s haiku for you is brought to you buy the bird house with the clear back wall that I had stuck to the window near my work-from-home desk.

Bird house disaster.
The window house has fallen.
Failure all around.

To clarify, the bird house was completely ignored for weeks. Today, while I was on a conference call, a bird finally noticed it and tried to land on the perch…

…and it immediately fell off the window.

A Legacy of Rock

Daily writing prompt
What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
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100 years from now some archeologist who probably looks a little like Indiana Jones is going to stumble across my alonetone account, listen to all of the music I have posted there and decide that it is some of the greatest music created in the 21st century. My songs will be studied in universities, splashed across all social media (because there will still be social media 100 years from now), and deftly woven into the fabric of 22nd century society. You can bank on it, folks.

What legacy will I leave behind? A Legacy of Rock.*

Okay, now that you’ve stopped laughing…

I don’t know what my legacy should be. Hopefully it’s our kids, Harry and Bellana. Hopefully they continue to be good people who always chose to do the right thing. Hopefully having me around for most of their lives has had some small influence on them that helped lead them in that direction. Hopefully they will someday have kids of their own (no pressure though) and they are able to pass on whatever tiny influence I might have had on to the next generation.

That would be enough for me. I would be proud to leave a little legacy like that. Proud and honored.

*If I don’t use that as the title of my next album, Spinal Tap should.