Tag: dailyprompt

I Am Old

Daily writing prompt
Do you remember life before the internet?
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I’m 53 years old, of course I remember life before the internet.

I graduated from high school in 1989, which means it was still the 70’s when I started school. We had things called libraries that were full of books you could use to lean things. We had newspapers. I actually had a paper route for a while. We had news on TV that wasn’t propaganda for a political party. You could actually almost trust what you heard on the news. Most of it, at least.

When you wanted to meet new people you had to leave your house. When your phone rang you had to answer it. Can you believe that shit?

When you wanted to watch a TV show you had to wait until a specific time when it was being broadcast, and you had to tune to a specific channel on a television that had an antenna on it.

Yeah, there was life before the internet. I was there. It was oaky, but the internet is better. I mean, you wouldn’t be reading this literary triumph of a blog post without it, so clearly having the internet is better, right?

Right?

My Skills

Daily writing prompt
What are you good at?
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Here is a list of things I am good at:

  • Saying the absolute wrong thing at the utmost inappropriate moment
  • Guilt, mostly when directed at myself
  • Talking endlessly about weight loss surgery recovery to people who don’t care in the slightest
  • Imposter syndrome. Frankly, Miss Scarlet, I am the King of this
  • Low self esteem. Oh yeah, that’s the stuff
  • Pomposity. Especially when it’s undeserved or unwanted or unnecessary
  • Absent mindedness
  • Typpographical Erors.
  • Being a music snob
  • Sarcasm

There you go, friends and neighbors. There’s a list of some of the things I am really good at.

You’re welcome!

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.

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.

Hate

Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
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It is so ironic. I live in New England. It’s a place that it sort of renown for it’s winters. Yet, despite the visual appeal and all the fun winter sports and all of that, I friggin’ hate the cold. I hate it with a burning passion. Burning… irony, eh?

As the saying goes, I live in a place where the air hurts my face. Why do I live in a place where the air hurts my face? The reason is because I’ve always lived here and everyone I know and care about lives here and all of the things that are important to me are here.

I never considered moving away, but our honeymoon changed that. 15 years ago this week we got married. We started our honeymoon in Vermont, then went to Washington, DC for a few days, then went to heaven. Shangri-La. The promised land. The place I want to go back to and never leave. San Diego, CA. Goodness gracious me, was it beautiful there. I loved everything about it. And the best part? It’s not cold there in the winter. Oh, the bliss.

I hate cold, yet I live in a place where the winter starts in September and doesn’t end until May. Oh, the painful, brutal irony. Save me from it, please.

Bones

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever broken a bone?
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I’ve broken a bunch of bones in my time. Only one as an adult. Let’s see if I can remember them all.

  • When I was in first grade I broke my first bone. We were sledding on Munster’s Hill in Tewksbury, MA. Don’t look for it, it doesn’t exist anymore. I was on a circular sled thing and bombing down the epic slope. I hit a bump and grabbed some air. The sled spun off to one side (I think it turned left, but it was 1977 or so, so who knows) and I kept going straight. I landed on my right shoulder and broke my collarbone. I had to wear a brace for three weeks.
  • The second broken bone incident happened when I was in seventh grade. This will put us in or around 1983 or so. I was in the driveway in front of the Tewksbury Junior High School, which is now called the Griffin Middle School, I think. If the weather was nice we could step outside in front of the school for the last few minutes of our lunch period. There were a few of us killing time together. As were we being herded back inside a girl in our group whose name escapes me at the moment was walking in front of me. For some reason she stopped short and elbowed backwards. Someone must have said something stupid or something. It might even have been me, but I doubt it because I would have been utterly terrified to talk to a girl, even if she was a friend. I put up my right hand to block her elbow and she caught it just right. A bone in my right pinky finger’s knuckle broke. The doctor said it was on the growth plate, whatever that means, so there was some question whether or not my finger would have trouble growing as puberty took over, but it all worked out fine. I had to wear a splint for a few weeks.
  • Fast forward to eighth grade and we’re in gym class. We were outside behind the Junior High School and the class was playing football. I was tossing a ball back and forth with someone else, I don’t remember who, and because I suck so badly at all things football I caught the ball funny and broke a bone in my left ring finger. After the previous year’s experience I knew exactly what happened the instant it happened. I walked over to the gym teacher and told him I needed to go to the nurse because my finger was broken. This one also required a few weeks in a splint.
  • This is the last one and it’s embarrassing because I am a stupid idiot. It was 1997 or 1998 or so. I was an adult which is part of why this is so embarrassing. I was in the kitchen at my parents’ house in Tewksbury. I was going to make a tuna fish sandwich for lunch. I don’t remember what else was going on, but I was definitely having a bad day and was super stressed out over something. I was back in college by then and was probably worked up over a test or something. I opened up the can of tuna and stood over the sink to drain the water. I pushed down on the cover to squeeze out the water and some of it splashed up onto my shirt. It was the idiotic straw that broke the camel’s idiotic back. I threw a very brief temper tantrum. I turned around and punched the wall. What a douchebag. I broke a bone in my right hand just above the wrist. Moron. I didn’t have health insurance at the time so I went to a walk in clinic where the doctor laughed at my stupidity and put me into a cast. Like I said, moron.

And there you have it, folks. My personal broken bones history. Normally I wouldn’t share my personal medical history, but given how often I write about my weight loss surgery I would say that no one is getting anything out of this crap that is any worse for sharing than any of that stuff, right?

The moral of the story is… keep your temper under control and don’t be stupid and punch walls. Don’t be an idiot, like me.

We’ll Let You Know

Daily writing prompt
How do you balance work and home life?
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I often find myself thinking in song titles. Sometimes it is movies or TV quotes, but often it’s song titles. It just happened to me as I read today’s prompt. King Crimson has an improvised instrumental track on the Starless and Bible Black record called “We’ll Let You Know.”*

When we figure out how to balance work and home life, we’ll let you know. When I am at work I am working. When I am at home I am not working. Does that make sense? That’s how it should be, shouldn’t it? Why is it so hard to do? Why is so much at home time spent thinking about work and so much at work time spent thinking about home? What’s the deal there, Robert?

It’s a problem, but it’s more of an existential problem as one rarely gets in the way of the other when something important comes up. In priority situations I am able to keep the two separated. It’s the quiet, non-priority moments that the mind wanders across the divide.

So like I said, if I figure it out… I’ll let you know.

*Just noting that both the guitarist and the drummer on this song had birthdays this week.

The song is an instrumental so there are no lyrics to tie into this discussion. Also, it was improvised on stage so they probably only ever played it once. There’s a moment in this when the bass and the drums lock together in one of the sickest grooves ever.