Daily writing prompt

What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?

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Ah, luxury.

Is there anything in my life that can be described as a luxury? I bet there are some things that I take for granted that other people would consider a luxury item. I do live in a very privileged society after all.

Our house in the woods(ish), our two cars, my computer, my iPhone, my multiple electric guitars and amplifiers, our two cats, our mostly quiet suburban neighborhood. I guess to some those would all be considered luxuries. To me they are just normal stuff.

Do any of them rate as things I can’t live without? The house and the cars do in a way. I can live without our specific house (though I love it and never want to move away from it) but I don’t think I’d do very well without a place to live. Does that count? Same with the cars. I could live without these two specific cars, but without some motorized transportation that can get me where I need to be… that would suck. Losing the rest of those things would eliminate sources of happiness and productivity and whatnot, and make life more difficult, but would I be able to get along without them? Probably. I need a computer for work, but I don’t necessarily need my current personal computer, if you get what I mean. I could use it for work in a pinch, but I don’t have to.

I don’t know. There are a lot of things in my life that make things easier and (dare I say it) better, but if push came to shove I could probably get through my day to day without them. I wouldn’t want to, but I could if I had to.

Now let’s just hope that I didn’t jinx anything with this over confident, white male American privileged post. Duck and cover, Robert.

*Tell me you remember the 1970’s without telling me you remember the 1970’s.

Daily writing prompt

If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

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I would not have a tagline or a catch phrase or anything like that. Nope, not me.

The best I could do would be to steal something from a movie, a book, or a song. I’m not interesting or important enough for anything more than that.

• “There can be only one” from Highlander
• “Lookin’ real good” from Better off Dead
• “I have a bad feeling about this” from Star Wars
• “No kitty, that’s a bad kitty!” from South Park
• Literally every line from Spaceballs
• Literally every line from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• “Spinning, whirling, still descending
  Like a spiral sea, unending!
  Sound and fury drowns my heart
  Every nerve is torn apart!” from a little ditty by Rush

You know, something like that. Something subtle, right?

Daily writing prompt

What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

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Which branch of science was it that defined the three basic needs of life as food/water, shelter, and clothing? Was it psychology or sociology or philosophy? That’s the real answer to this question, right? Take away one of those three things and the good life gets pretty shitty, pretty fast.

What can we add on top of that to make life aces? Let me list a few things and then one final thing that outstrips them all.

• A job with an income. You know… so that you can get the things that you need to get through your daily stuff… and stuff.
• Transportation to get you to where you need to be to get/do the stuff you need to do.
• Music. Speaking for myself, which should be obvious gievn that I’m the red head who is writing this idiotic crap, life would be pretty much garbage without music. I’m including listening to and playing music in this statement as both are mega important to me.
• People to share life and experiences with. Friends, family, strangers. This is hinting at the one thing I will write about when I sum up this whole post, but really it’s about in good times and bad times I’ll be on your side forever more. That’s what friends are for. Right?

Which leads me to my summation. The one thing that supersedes everything else. For me, personally, in order to live a good life I need four things. Four basic needs, not just three. Food/water, shelter, clothing, and Jen and the kids. Take away all of the other stuff and leave me with those four things? I’ll be pretty good with that. That works for me.

Daily writing prompt

Who do you spend the most time with?

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I live with her. I travel with her. I have dinner with her every night. I spend as much time as humanly possible with her. I hate being away from her at all, even when I have to go into the office for work, or go to the store, or whatever.

Yes, kind readers, there is only one possible answer to today’s question and it shouldn’t be hard to guess who I’m talking about.

I spend the most time with the love of my life, my wife. Jen. My dream come true. No one on Earth even comes close and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Daily writing prompt

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

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Back in high school my band played at the annual Greek Festival in Lowell, MA. This would have been 1988, I think. One of the guys in the band was Greek and he set it up for us. He told us that, for appearances sake, we should all pretend to be Greek. We decided to each come up with a fake, Greek sounding last name. We then proceeded to argue over which of us got to use the name Papadopoulos. Our drummer won out. That is the only time I’ve ever even thought about using a different name.

Years later I went through a period of obsession with playing EA Sports NHL games on my Playstation 2. When the game introduced the ability to build your own players I made one with my name and put him on the Bruins. At some point I made a bunch of players for various teams (all very tall and very overweight with red hair, wearing number 71 (because I was born in 1971, get it?)) and used my first, last, middle, and confirmation names in various order to give them all unique names… because I am the king of friggin’ nerds.

I’ve never even thought about a different name. I am named after my father. That’s the only name I’d ever want to use. If I were forced to use a different name? How about Luke Skywalker? That’s a good name. How about James Eric Beck (as in Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck, get it?). How about Alex Neil Lee (as in Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, get it?). How about Robert Papadopoulos? I bet that name would get me a gig someday.