Tag: Writing

  • Retired Flash Fiction Story

    (This is an experiment of a flash fiction story that I decided to retire from submitting. Enjoy.)

    Airbag

    There was light, and then there was darkness. Maybe there was sound, but I think all I can remember hearing was the fear in my brain; As I was scared. Or was I screaming? Broken glass? I think so, and if that was true, then I don’t know how I didn’t get cut up. I hit my head, and banged up my back. There wasn’t any blood that you’d expect.

    What existed after, most likely before if only I had paid attention, was the feeling of floating, up and away – of relief that I was here and not in some other place, even though no rational person would want to be where I was, and that’s because they weren’t fully/completely aware of being alive in this reality, but now, or at least then – in the aftermath – I was present.

    When I was a child, growing up in the Cold War, knowing that at any second one of two nations could blow up the whole world; so many people lived in the pool of existential threat every day. Life could end at the push of a button, as that was modernity. But what I fixated on wasn’t necessarily that all life could end, but having to wait for it to end. Being told the missile was on the way, that in a matter of minutes I would be evaporated, but I had to wait for my impending death. That count down is what scared me. Sure, if you knew you had one day left, then you could get some stuff done. But with five minutes – I would just be left with my thoughts. My awful thoughts. Even if I tried to be constructive with my five minutes, I’d most likely use four of the minutes deciding what to do, and that last minute wouldn’t be enough time to accomplish it. But I know me, and I would spend five minutes kicking myself for all the things I didn’t do. Hating myself as the doom, the bomb, the endless end drew nearer. Not enjoying what I had, but regretting what was.

    The darkness did give way to the light once again. I opened my eyes. I looked around and made sure I was alive. On the side of a highway, having spun around, I was alive. Excitable, juiced, sweating yet cold. The Universe had expanded, only to contract back to the same place, and I was still there. The blue gray interstate, an airbag deflating – I had the acknowledgement of time.

  • Updating My Site

    It was long overdue, but I have started the process of updating my website. It has been nagging at me for a while now – that my page is rather basic, and not the best showing of who I am. The more I blog, and submit stories, the more that I know that people will be coming by to see what I am all about. My numbers are up, by the way. I have equaled the total views of 2022, in the first six months of 2023. So, there is more traffic on my site. Sure, maybe half of it is bots for China and Pakistan, but still…

    Updating my website, and talking about myself are not my strong suits. Doing all of this makes me very self-conscious, and after a few minutes of working on it, I end up feeling frustrated and embarrassed. Frustrated because the look of my website never feels “professional” enough, and embarrassed because I can’t shake this thought in the back of my head that “why the fuck would anyone care what I have to say?” Now, I know that the more effort I put into the site, the better it will look, and who the fuck cares what anyone thinks?

    Oh! I did sign up for AdSense, so ads will now be on the site. I hate to brag, but after a day, I have earned nearly a whole penny! The other reason for doing this is that I haven’t found a good side hustle yet. I might start dog walking soon, unless the traffic keeps growing on this site, then all bets are off.

    In the end, I’m probably going to keep monkeying around with this site off and on for the next month. I’m open to suggestions of what to do, or who’s sites I should check out for inspiration, so drop me a comment or message. And you might as well “like” and “subscribe” while you are at it.

  • Monday’s (Unedited)

    Am I right folks?

    Actually, I have noticed that writing a blog on Monday’s has become harder and harder for me over the past 6 months. For two years, I was solid about getting a blog post done five days a week. Quality may have been one thing, but as for quantity, I was as constant as the North Star. Yet something happened, where now completely a blog on Monday by 11am is a near impossibility.

    Our family routine hasn’t changed in any major way, and I have not taken on any new responsibilities as stay at home dad. Still, I have lost the gap of time I used to have in the morning. I know the fault is with me, so I must conclude that I am drawing out my tasks and not making the time anymore.

    I am writing something today so it’s not like I have wasted my time.

    Still, I feel myself becoming a little less focused.

    I was planning on doing a Jami Attenburg “1,000 Words of Summer” type of project for myself in July. (It’s where you write 1000 words a day for 30 days. There is more to it than that, but that’s the gist.) my original intention was to see what 31,000 words on the same subject would look like, and to “complete” a large project. But now I’m thinking that I need to reaffirm some positive writing habits, and get back to working.

    Here’s to hoping for a productive Summer!

  • ODDS and ENDS: Goodnight Tottenham, Goals, and Memorial Day Weekend

    (Sorry, Tennessee)

    And thus the 2022/23 Tottenham Hotspur season comes to a close. Sadly, just as I thought, Spurs lost their last home match to a clearly on the rise Brentford. Though Harry Kane had one of the most amazing goals I had seen in a very long time, it was all for not… This Sunday the Premiere League comes to an end, which has Tottenham playing an away match against Leeds. Though Leeds is sitting at second to last on the table, they do have something to play for. If they get a win with a Leicester loss or tie, and Everton loss, then Leeds will avoid relegation. So, as per normal for this season, Tottenham will lose this match. Which is an awful thing to say, but on paper, Spurs should win this one, no question. But they seem to give away all the easy matches. Then the real humiliation would be Brentford beating Man City (And Man City won the League, so they have nothing to play for) thus causing Tottenham to fall to 9th. Oof! What a season. I guess I’ll wait and see what this Summer brings, with a new manager and players, and also, let’s see who sticks around. In the meantime, I got European qualifying, MLS, and the Women’s World Cup.

    I do have two small goals for today. I want to finish up two flash pieces that I have been working on. AND, I want to submit to a couple of more online journals. I’ve been trying to do this all week, and today is the day.

    Memorial Day Weekend snuck up on me. Actually, all holidays this year have snuck up on me. I feel like I am running behind on all of this stuff. But being as it is Friday morning, we won’t be leaving the City. Also, it’s Taylor Swift Weekend at the Meadowlands, so stay the hell away from the George Washington Bridge and Northern New Jersey. One day, I just might get my life organized enough to plan a getaway for the family, and make a four-day weekend out of it. Until that, I just might be drinking a beer on the roof of my building.

  • What Does Malcolm Gladwell Know, Anyway…?

    I will be house husbanding it today.

    I also think the words, house husband should be spelled “house-husband,” but autocorrect disagrees with me. English is a strange language which never stops evolving.

    And when I say that I will be house husbanding “it” what that really means is I have a bunch of errands to run around the city for the family. Every now and then, a day like is emerges and I have to put a bunch of other things that I would like to do on the back burner. Life is about trade-offs, and today, I will be living the trade-off.

    But, one thing that I won’t let myself skip out on is putting down at least 250 words daily. I have been a little lax on the blog since the start of the year. I would post Monday through Friday, with occasional holiday breaks. But since the start of the year, it has been closer to four post a week. I still journal every day, which is how I normally hit my 250-word quota. A good day is 1,000 words, and bad day is 250.

    You know, I started all of this back in 2019. I’m four years into this plan. Outside of my marriage, this is the longest commitment I have ever maintained. I started to think the other day that I should be closing in on my Gladwell 10,000 hours. Now if I do some simple math, like saying that I write about 3 hours a day, on average for 21 days a month, for four years now which means…

    I’ve put in 3,024 hours…

    So… I guess I’m still in my beginner phase.

    You know, Gladwell said that the 10,000 hours was just a guideline, not a hard rule.

    Yeah…

    I need to get going on my errands.