Daily writing prompt

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

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I’ve read so many books in my life. Like, tons of them. I need to pick just one character? Not likely. I’ve read so many books that I can’t even think of single, specific characters. Huh. This is a tough one.

Most of the lead characters that come to mind are normal every day folks who find themselves faced with a supernatural something or someone (I have read a lot of horror and science fiction). Being one of those heroes wouldn’t be interesting, but being the villain might… although I don’t want to be the bad guy.

I’ve read a few Star Wars and Star Trek novels in the past. I could pick Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk. I could pick Harry Potter too but his young life has been a bit on the crappy side so I’ll pass on him. I could stay in the Potterverse and pick Ron Weasley. I won’t though. If you take out the magic you’re left with a red head who lacks self confidence which is pretty much me as a teenager already so… pass.

The one that keeps coming back to me is Gentle from Clive Barker’s novel Imajica. He was a super talented magic user type guy. He was a complete screw up in life, but could be redeemable. There is a bit of backstory that (Spoiler Alert – Skip to the next paragraph to avoid a potential spoiler) includes being a blood relative to a psychotic thing that thought it was… maybe… ya know… god. Yeah, I’ll pass on that baggage.

Okay, let’s go with Luke Skywalker. That way I could be a Jedi and any time I walk toward a super market’s automatic doors everyone would have to wonder if they opened because I hit the doors’ sensor, or did they open because I used The Force.

ADDENDUM: I just reread the question. I totally missed the part about “book or film” and only read books. Oh well. The answer is the same either way.

Daily writing prompt

What job would you do for free?

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If you do it for free is it a job? I think if you are doing it for free then it’s a hobby or a chore, not a job.

I am about to go outside and shovel yesterday’s snow and ice off of the driveway. I’m going to do it for free, but it’s not a job. If I went door to door and did it for the neighbors I would turn it into a job, but there is no way in hell I’d do it for free.

I would play gigs with the band for free, but it’s not a job for me, it’s a hobby. There are people around who do consider bar gigs a job and require the pay they get from those gigs for their living. If I did shows for free I would be taking work away from those people, thus literally taking money out of their pockets and food out of their kids’ mouths. No, I would not do bar gigs with the band for free. I will not screw up the very tenuous economy to indulge my hobby. No.

So is there a job I would do for free? No, I don’t think there is. Sorry, Charlie.

Daily writing prompt

How would you improve your community?

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The best way to improve my community, my whole country, would be to do the same thing the free world did during the second world war. Just remove the fascists. I don’t want it to take a war like it did back then. Let’s give them an island or something. They seem to be okay with their cult leader visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island so they would likely be fine with a nazi island. Then we let them think they are their own independent country and let them think they are able to sustain themselves, sort of the way many of the southern US states think they can operate without Federal funds that they get from the more liberal states they claim to despise. They can have their marches and their rallies and they can discriminate against anyone who doesn’t look like them and they can treat immigrants poorly (as if there would be any immigrants) and they can treat women like property (as if any women would go there). If they try to leave the island the rest of the free world stops them. If they get too big for their britches we slap them back into place.

Ahh, what a world that would be.

Of course I could never actually condone this because it goes against everything I believe in as far as personal freedoms are concerned. That sucks. I guess I have to stay true to myself. Bummer, eh? Still, a fascist free community would sure be nice, wouldn’t it?

Daily writing prompt

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

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When the lockdown started we got on board quick. We locked everything down and we locked it down hard. My wife and I were both overweight and pushing 50 years old (well, I was pushing 50 more than she was as she still hasn’t hit that “happy” milestone yet) and that was enough to justify our response, but more importantly to me, my step son has Crohn’s disease and type one Diabetes and there was no way in hell that kid was catching Covid-19 on my watch. We were all high risk but in my book his high risk out weighed everything else by far.

We still haven’t let up completely. Well… I don’t know, maybe we have. Maybe the mindset behind our day to day has changed so much that we can’t really perceive that we’re basically back to pre-pandemic normal.

We aren’t masking up every time we leave the house, but we are quick to put one on in some circumstances. If I have a sniffle I’ll wear a mask. We still hesitate to go out socially. Restaurants are few and far between. Doordash, Amazon, curbside pickups, they are all our friends. We’ve let ourselves go on a couple of trips. The last one was seven months ago and wouldn’t you know it, Jen and I both caught Covid. Shit. At the time I said to Jen that we needed to go on a trip right away after we recovered. We needed to get right back on the horse because if we didn’t we might never be able to bring ourselves to travel again. That was seven months ago. No one has returned to any horses yet. Shit.

So even though everything is steadily recovering and getting back to normal, we have adapted such that normal no longer feels completely normal, and we may never fully un-lockdown. I hope we can bring ourselves to relax, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull off that little magic trick.

The good news here though… my step son did not get sick on my watch. Mission accomplished.

Daily writing prompt

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

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Since having gastric bypass surgery I have been very reliant on routine. I feel completely out of sorts if I don’t follow a specific routine on a day to day basis. I was never like that before the surgery, but since I have become a creature of routine. I’m weird like that now.

I get up, put some clothes on, grab my laptop, and head to the cellar. I pick something to watch, a TV show or a movie or a queue of youtube videos. Today is was the season (series?) finale of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. I then jog (pronounced yog) in place for 45 minutes. That closes my Apple Watch Activity app’s exercise ring for the day and it also sort of wakes me up. It kicks my ass too, but it gives me a little sense of accomplishment to start the day. After that it depends on whether it’s a work in the office day or not. If it is not then I eat breakfast and that closes out the first hour of my day. If it is, I prefer to have my breakfast in the car on the way to work so I just head upstairs and take a shower or pack up my computer and my lunch/breakfast and all of that.

I do this seven days a week. Any day that I don’t do it is a mess, mentally speaking. Like I said, I am weird like that now. It’s a whole new world, I guess.

Daily writing prompt

Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?

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Is there a single thing that leads to uniqueness? Yes, I think, but it’s not something we can see or interact with. It’s not a trait or a characteristic either behavioral or physical. I am not the only tall, red haired, green eyed guy with a weight problem that required surgery to alleviate (or at least temporarily delay), who is a step father to two adults, who is married to the love of his life. There probably aren’t a lot of us who meet all of those things, but there are definitely more than one. None of those things, together or singularly, make me unique.

So what does make us unique? Easy. DNA. Genetics. To misquote Breaking Bad, as most of us do, Science, Bitch! Forgive me for feeling all sciency on this the most holy of christian holidays, but only one of the two topics is actual truth and it ain’t the one about the guy who is his own father who died and came back to life to save humanity from himself. Nope. Not even close.

Right then, let’s all take our unique selves and work our way through our unique days. Happy unique Sunday, everyone.

Daily writing prompt

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

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Why the hell would anyone in their right mind name something after a dope like me?

Given that I was named after my father you might think I had wanted to name a son, if I ever had one, after me. Hi, I am Robert, Jr and here is my devilishly handsome, hyper intelligent son (who clearly takes after his mother) Robert, III. Nope. No way. I would never subject any son I might have had to anything like that. Let’s just say that I would have lived through it so he would not have had to. I don’t have a biological son though (I have a step son who I love as much as anyone could ever love a biological son) so it’s a moo point. You know, it’s like a cow’s opinion. It’s moo.

I’ve seen a few people say they would like to have a street named after them. That’s a really good take. Unfortunately, I have a very common first name and a slightly less common but still very common last name. That means there are already streets in most New England towns with those names. Too late, Robbie. Too late.

As a guitar player one fun option would be to have a guitar named after me. I’d have to be super famous for that, but why not consider it? My favorite guitar is arguably the most famous signature guitar there is, named after it’s co-designer and jazz legend who is even more legendary as an inventor of audio recording devices and techniques, Les Paul. Most of the major guitar manufacturers make signature models of their common guitars or make signature models of new designs. I wouldn’t mind a Robbie signature Les Paul, or ES-335, or whatever. That would be pretty epic.

The best thing would be to have some technique or workflow named after me. Like when Captain Picard was on the Stargazer and he used his warp engines to travel a short distance and therefore appear to be in two places at once and fool his enemy’s sensors. That technique became known as The Picard Maneuver. Or when Commander Riker of the Enterprise started flinging his leg over the back of his chair before sitting down, thus creating The Riker Maneuver. Something like that. Maybe jogging in place (pronounced “yogging in place”) followed by a protein bar breakfast could be called The Robert Maneuver. That would be pretty sweet, don’t you think?