Ten Almost Interesting Things About Me

Day 4 of 30 Day Writing Challenge – 10 Interesting facts about me

1) I ride a motorcycle. This would not be interesting if I were a man. I’d like to live in a world where riding a motorcycle wasn’t interesting. MOTORBIKES AND SCOOTERS FOR EVERYONE!

2) I was a motorcycle courier in Los Angeles some time ago. That is interesting no matter who you are. No, interesting, is too mild a word. Insane. Yes, that was insane.

3) My favorite writing implement is a fountain pen. I use fountain pens almost exclusively. They can be messy -worth it though.

4) I visited friends in Anchorage, AK once and stayed for four years.

5) I have an irrational hatred of Drake’s face. I don’t mind the man so much, I don’t follow celebrity lifestyles or gossip so I could care less about what he is up to. His music is okay, for the most part. But I see his face on the internet or on a magazine and I just want to punch it. No good reason why. Maybe it’s that beard with its too crisp lines? The eyes? Eyebrows? Forehead? I dunno.

6) I have characters that live in my head and sometimes step forward to give a running commentary on stuff going on in my life. For instance when I watch a heist movie, I’ve got a couple of characters that are of that roguish nature that will critique the movie character’s methods. “No, no, no. All wrong. You wait before you spring that bit because it’ll give you more time on the back end to…etc.” I think this is a common thing for people who write or are storytellers.

7) They say high school is the best time of your life. Lies: high school was a gray and featureless dream. I never went to any high school games or dances or events. No prom. No homecoming. No friends. Nothing.

8) I fall in love about 2x a day. People fascinate and enchant me.

9) I don’t give up. Not in that fiercely heroic and defiant way. More like a zombie or headless cockroach kinda way. Its like I don’t know any better. I keep getting up when perhaps it would be wiser to stay down or find another way

10) I named my cat after a motorcycle

Earliest Memory

Day 2 of 30 Day Writing Challenge: Earliest Memory

The little metal car in my hand is a fuschia dune buggy with a classic daisy sticker on its hood. There are various dents in it and the paint is scratched enough to show the metal underneath. Its a well worn toy but it is new to me -a new found treasure.

I’m sitting in the sand of the playground. Behind me are the swings, and not too far behind that an apartment building. All around me are stray sounds of the apartment complex: talking, singing and dogs debating across lanes.

It is late summer or early autumn perhaps; well past the hot part of the day. Its the shift change where the lazy afternoon leans toward the golden hours.

There is music coming from the building behind me. I like this song -almost as if on cue the volume increases. I look over my shoulder. The song is coming from the corner apartment upstairs. The door is open. My mom is cleaning. Later I will learn that this song is called Ob-la-di Ob-la-da by the Beatles.

I play alone -but there is life all around me. I have a sense of well being and rightness of this world in the moment. It is not quiet but it is peaceful.

This is the only memory I have of this place. It feels like home should feel but I did not grow up in this vignette. Home to me is a world away from this idyllic dream.

30 Days in the word mines: Day 1

YOU CAN DO THIS.
Trust Me.
Prompt taken from Chuck Wendig’s 30 Days In The Word Mines:
 

…Okay. Yes… That’s good. Thanks!

…

That’s it, then? That’s really your prompt, Chuck? Because it kind of sucks. It’s more like an affirmation if anything. Not a very specific one at that.

But -hey, we all know that I need that punch in the arm kinda thing. Shit, it’s a helluva lot better than what I get from my cat and my five year old (thankless little assholes, both) so:

Fuck yes, I can do this! I mean, look who you are talking to: A-Fucking-Greenwood, that’s who! *cracks knuckles*

…
*stare*
…

Well. That was quite the workout. Whew! Good game, guys. Good game. High-fives all around. Time to hit the showers.

So how’d we do coach? What’s that? 128 words on a day where I thought I was going to do none. HAH! SUCK IT TREBEK!

You know what, though? I think its a trap. I’m just gonna yammer on a bit because I wasn’t given specific instructions and then somewhere there will the be instructions that I missed and this stream of consciousness shit is going to look pretty asinine.

Ha! Like I even have to try at being asinine. Man, I put the ASS in asinine!

…
I know there’s not an ‘ass’ in asinine. I know- Shhhhh.
Just hushhhhhhhh.

[Edit: NEWSFLASH-TO-ME: 30 Days In The Word Mines is not 30 writing prompts. Turns out DAY 1 was exactly as it seems: an affirmation.  I bitched out Chuck Wendig for believing in me. And my trend for idiocy continues! Nyahaha…heh…*sigh*

I will continue to enjoy 30 Days In The Word Mines and perhaps share my thoughts about it as I go but I will also find a word-prompt thingy and set forth with writing a thing a day (as I had originally intended) ]

Five problems with social media

Day 1 of 30 Day Writing Challenge: Five problems with social media

Oh, there’s problems with social medial, alright but I wonder if the problem isn’t with us.

 Social Media is there, like television is there, like intersections and borders are there. WE are the ones interacting (or not) there.
But yes, lets examine five problems with Social Media
1. The human element of the spoken word is missing. This is true of any thing typed out. Emojis can only go so far.
2. There’s that dehumanizing dissociation thing that happens in the social media arena that allows humanity and compassion to take a back seat to anger, fear and cruelty. I have caught myself typing out things I would never dare say to someone in person -let alone look them in the eye while doing so. The important thing is that I catch myself. This is not who I am! This aspect of social media enables us to forget who we are and that is a problem.
3. It is a garden, and that garden must be tended. Fed, watered, pruned back. Ignore your feeds, you’ll get weeds.
4. For some people (me) it’s hard to engage and be social on social media. Real shocker, that.
5. Time. It takes time to make it something worthwhile that gives back. Again, another shocker. (I for one, do not put enough time in.)
The above are things I find to be problematic with social media but at the same time, I know that these are not problems that are exclusive to social media. They apply to several arenas in life. The one that bothers me the most -disconnection and alienation- is the same thing that leads to road rage. How is it that we can forget who we are when we put something as innocuous as a please of glass between us? Oh, here’s a thought: That sheet of glass isn’t a window, it’s a mirror. Social media isn’t the problem -we are.
But we are also the solution. Social media is a only a tool. We can use it to lash out and hurt or we can use it to reach out, connect and lift each other up.