Daily writing prompt

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

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In my house we have a tradition that we used to call “flake days.” The kids were little and had all sorts of activities on the weekends and we would be running ragged trying to keep up with everything. Every now and then the schedule would work out and we would have a day with nothing scheduled so we’d take advantage of it by just spending the day flaking in font of the TV watching movies or playing games or just reading a book. Those were lazy and unproductive days but they were simply wonderful.

Now that the kids have grown up and moved out I still find the occasional flake day to be beneficial. They are definitely unproductive and I do often feel guilty about that, but Jen and I both work hard during the week and sometimes a quiet, unproductive Saturday or Sunday is just what we need.

I look at energy and motivation and drive as a sort of gas tank. Sometimes you need to take a weekend day off to let the tank fill itself up so that you are better equipped to handle what comes up during the week. Does that make sense? Is that me justifying being lazy? Probably. Do I care? Nope, I do not.

Daily writing prompt

When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?

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There are many types of success. I have one particular example in mind. There’s the success Steve Jobs had. He was massively successful as both a business man and in revenge. No. really. Think about it. He started Apple with two other guys. Built it up to be a major player in tech and then the company kicked him to the curb. What did he do? He started a competitor, watched in delight as Apple nearly destroyed itself, then when they were about to go under he came back and turned them into one of the biggest companies on Earth. That’s professional revenge at it’s finest. It’s not what I am going for in this post though.

How about Miss Swift? Her music makes me nauseous, but some how she has managed to become a galaxy sized success in an industry that literally does not exist anymore. The music business ate itself through stupidity and short sightedness and yet somehow she still remains as a giant standing above the ruins. How? Why? What does it all mean? It’s success on an unbelievable scale but it’s not what I am going for in this post.

Nope, the success I am thinking of is my parents. 55 years. My parents were happily married for 55 years. Yes, the last few were brutally difficult as my mother’s dementia progressed, but when she passed away in February they had been married for a smidge over 55.5 years. I call that success. That’s the kind of success I would like to have in my life, though if Jen and I are going to make it to 55 years I will be 93 years old so… yeah, not likely. Still, it’s a lovely goal, isn’t it?

So there you have it. When I think of success, this is what I think of. My parents’ marriage. May we all be so lucky.

Daily writing prompt

What makes a good neighbor?

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I put up a post called neighbors a couple of days ago. If I had looked ahead I would have known.

What makes a good neighbor? There are two answers to this. One is slightly more important than the other, but they are both incredibly important.

First and foremost, they need to be quiet. Simple. All but one of my neighbors are quiet. One likes to have pool parties on the weekend and they always include loud music and sometimes they include very loud karaoke, which is quite painful to experience. Other than that, they are fine, and they always shut it down by 10:00pm so it never becomes more than a slight annoyance. They are okay neighbors, but we’re asking for good neighbors.

The second requirement is harder to detect. I need my neighbors to not be fascists. I need them to not be nazis, whether in or out of the nazi closet. I need them to not be maga. I can’t handle having trump assholes living near me. The idea makes my skin crawl. I don’t know if any of my neighbors are fascists or fascist collaborators or even just fascist sympathizers, but it’s a 50/50 chance, right? The very thought of it makes me want to puke.

There you have it. Too simple little steps on the road to being a good neighbor. Amen and thank you very much.

Daily writing prompt

What could you try for the first time?

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I am going to try to come up with some new things for this answer. The prompts have been similar to this recently and old answers apply. In the interest of originality I am not going to re-use things like learning to fly a plane or becoming an astronaut. Can I come up with some new things to day dream about trying for the first time?

Here’s one that is hopefully attainable and may actually happen tomorrow. I would like to have a post-pandemic band practice with all four band members in attendance. We’ve had three attempts since our last gig on February 1, 2020, but they were all missing one guy. There’s a plan in place to try again tomorrow night but there’s been nothing but radio silence for the last week and I am starting to worry about disappointment. Cross your fingers, folks.

Here is one that could happen but might not but it’s a lot of fun to fantasize about. I would like to visit Europe for the first time. My step kids have gone a bunch of times. My step daughter lived in the Netherlands for the better part of a year. Jen and I tried to go to the UK once but the plans fell through. Her mother and step father were able to go and they had a great time. We both want to visit the lands of our fore-fathers, Ireland for me and Scotland for her. We also want to travel the continent. As in everywhere on the continent.

Okay, that’s two. Can I come up with one more? Schoolhouse Rock taught us that three is a magic number, yes it is. It’s a magic number. How about this… I want to drive across country. The epic West-to-East American Road Trip of legend. Do we take the northern route or the southern route? What stops do we add to the itinerary? How about all of them. That would be pretty amazing.

There, three things I’ve never done that I would like to try for the first time. Here’s hoping that at some point in the (preferably near) future I’ll be able to try them all.

ADDENDUM: The tentatively schedule band practice is THURSDAY, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is WEDNESDAY. Why am I convinced that today is Wednesday when it is Tuesday? I even sent a message to the band’s Facebook chat asking if we were on for tomorrow, as if tomorrow were Thursday when tomorrow is Wednesday. Ugh, I think it’s going to be a long, confusing day today.

Daily writing prompt

What principles define how you live?

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Principles? Things that define how I live? How the hell should I know? How about Don’t Be a Dick? How’s that one float your boat?

Okay… let’s see what I can come up with here… My family comes first. My wife and my step kids are put ahead of everything else in existence. After that comes my extended family and my job. Are those principles? I don’t know.

The more I think of it, don’t be a dick seems more and more like the correct answer to this question. How other people go about their day to day and live their lives is up to them. Let them do their thing. Live and let live. If you are happy in your life then I am happy for you and I will stand by your choices. Something like that. Don’t be an asshole, be an ally. Compassion and understanding above all, even if I don’t understand right off the bat.

Does any of this make sense? I doubt it but they are my principles not anyone else’s, so as long as it makes sense to me on some level then we’re doing okay, right? Right.

Daily writing prompt

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

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What have I been putting off? More like what haven’t I been putting off!

I am a procrastinator. I am a master procrastinator. I am a legendary procrastinator. I am the undisputed king of procrastinators. Everyone needs to find that one thing in life that they are really good at and I found that my one thing is being an epic procrastinator.

I procrastinate at work. There are projects that I have to do regularly that I just can’t wrap my brain around unless it’s the absolute last minute. I drive myself nuts when I do it, but I do it all the time.

Home improvement projects? Why do it today when you can put it off until tomorrow. Example: When Harry moved out he took his bedroom furniture with him. Jen and I have been planning to replace it so that he can have a bedroom when he comes home. There are four boxes worth of an IKEA bed in his room as I type this. Have they been opened and assembled? Nope. That’s actually my main project for today, but it could have been done yesterday. Instead I repeatedly fell asleep watching Doctor Who. Peak level procrastination.

Even my stupid little creative projects get pushed off. I promised myself I would take the cameras out for a walk this morning, yet here I sit right at the high point of golden hour typing this silly post. Also, when was the last time I played guitar? Last month. Why? Procrastination.

Like I said, I am the king. You’re going to get a photo of that IKEA bed today if it’s the last thing I do. There comes a time when procrastination must end, am I right? Sure. I’m the king after all.

Daily writing prompt

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

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I answered one of these daily prompts not long ago with a definition of imposter syndrome. That response works for today’s question as well. When was the first time I felt like a grown up? Let me answer with another question, have I ever felt like a grown up? Let me answer that one with yet another question, what does it feel like to feel like a grown up?

Who the hell knows.

I was a 26 year old college drop out working for peanuts in a warehouse. I made the decision to get my shit together and go back to school and get a degree so that I could get a real job and have a real career. It took seven years to achieve that goal, but I did it. Was the moment when I decided to get my life straight the first moment of grown up behavior? It might have been.

Could it have been the moment when I asked Jen to marry me? Could it have been the moment I spoke those marriage vows and became Jen’s husband and Harry and Bellana’s step father? Likely.

Should I look at this more abstractly? Is the difference between adult behavior and childish behavior accepting the fact that you cannot be in control of everything? If so then it would probably be the horrible night when we learned of Harry’s diabetes. We were in the ER at Boston Medical Center and we had to sit there helpless while he was in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and the doctor was basically spelling out the numerous things that were trying to take his life, and she could not assure us that we weren’t going to lose him. You may think you know what terror feels like, but unless you’ve been through something like that you probably have no idea. We were utterly and completely helpless. Was that the first time I felt like a grown up? Scared out of my skull? It might have been.

I think the real answer to this question is that there was no defining moment. There was no specific instance where I realized I was a grown up. Instead it was a gradual process that took ages to complete and really just sort of… you know… happened. Maybe that’s what growing up is? Things just sort of happening?

Deep, man. Deep.

Daily writing prompt

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

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Jen and I were just discussing this the other day. Was the daily prompt eaves dropping? I wonder…

With the recent Powerball lottery coming close to two billion dollars, we had a little bit of fantasizing about what we would do with the winnings. Giving to charity was high on the list of things to do with the money but it followed spreading the wealth to our families and friends. First we take care of the kids and set them up for the future. Then we take care of our parents, my siblings, and their kids. Then we take care of some of our friends and their kids. I don’t think we would give enough to set anyone up for life, but colleges and mortgages and things like that would never be worried about again. Then we would set up a trust for ourselves in an attempt to allow us to just live off the interest earned. Sort of like a salary for ourselves that would hopefully keep us at a stable point for our future.

After all of that gets taken care of, then we start giving to charity. Our day dream didn’t include an actual dollar amount to play with, but let us just say it was a cool million dollars, which sounds like a fortune, but once you get down to it wouldn’t be enough to enact any real change for any charity. It’s the thought that counts though.

I think we would focus on medical research. My step son has type one diabetes. Finding a reputable diabetic research group would be my primary goal. I would want to give the bulk of the mil’ to them. Anything that might have a chance to make his life easier in the future.

Another research direction to give to would be finding a research group working on dementia. After what my mother went through in her final few years… I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. If we could be even the tiniest bit of help with unlocking the mystery of memory then that would be money very well spent.

One more obvious point of focus would be cancer research. My mother’s problems started with a brain tumor. One of my friends lost his seven year old son to a brain tumor. We know a few people who are dealing with prostate cancer and different forms of leukemia. Research into any of those would be worthwhile research topics to focus on.

So there you go. If I had a million dollars worth of charitable donations burning a hole in my wallet, and assuming we had already taken steps to make sure our family and friends are taken care of, then those would be a few primary targets. Chances are I would give it all to diabetes research as that would do the most good for my step son, but any of these would be worthy of my money.

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

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This is a loaded question. I had to think about it for a while and I can’t decide on one single answer.

What would I try to do if I was guaranteed not to fail. My first thought was a career change. I would become a professional musician, which was my plan when I was 18 years old. Sure, there really isn’t a functioning music biz anymore, but if I was guaranteed success I would go for it.

After that thought I took a step back and tried thinking bigger. I mean, I could do anything with a guarantee of success, why think so small? I could be an astronaut. That would be sweet. Why stop there? I could be a physicist and an engineer and design and build a faster than light engine and then be the first astronaut to visit another solar system. Yeah, now we’re talking!

How about this one. I could become a tech entrepreneur, buy twitter back from that musk nazi putz, remove all of the nazis from the user base, remove all of the disinformation and make the content guaranteed to be factually accurate so that the fascists can’t spread their idiotic lies, and on top of it all I could make a Musk/Bezos level salary and then spread great big gobs of money around to huge numbers of people who could benefit from it. Yeah, that would be fun. Screw you, fascists!

After that I started thinking that I was outside of the spirit of this particular writing prompt. Maybe it’s more looking for one time events. A single thing that I would normally be afraid to try that if I were guaranteed to succeed I would give a shot. Skydiving. That was the first thing that came to mind. I would never in a billion years want to jump out of a plane, but if I were guaranteed not to end up squashed like a bug against the very unforgiving ground, would I do it? Probably not, but maybe.

No… the more I think of it, the more I would go with the successful career in whatever passes for a music business today. That’s where I would put my guaranteed-not-to-fail energies.