Boats on Sky Water (Photo of the Day)
NaBloPoMo Day 18: Contrast
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Do you always ask permission of the subject before you post pictures online? Why or why not?
Yes, although to be fair, since I never take photos of people, it’s not an issue. Very rarely I’ll have a photo of my wife that I think should be posted someplace, and I’ll ask her, but other than that, it’s not something that occurs.
And let’s be clear: my wife is gorgeous and should be photographed often. But the context in which I usually post things isn’t one that involves pictures of people.
That said, if I happen to be doing something social and have a camera with me and there are photos with people in them, I WILL share those photos with folks, but only privately. I try to be sensitive to social media. I try to think what it would be like if someone took a photo of me, and then posted it someplace and some ex of mine decided to use it in a voodoo ritual. Now, personally, I wouldn’t mind, because all of my exes are nice people and would only be doing voodoo in the pursuit, I’m sure, of something noble. But I can’t know that about everyone, so I only send them things in such a way that only they can see them.
Examples include a recent wedding I was at (made a CD for the bride afterwords) and a trip to the state fair (sent the friends we were with a nice e-mail).
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Contrast
Run, Friends, Run
Postaday for May 17th: It’s My Party. You’re throwing a party — for you! Tell us all about the food, drink, events, and party favours you’ll have for your event of a lifetime. Use any theme you like — it’s *your* party!
My wife threw me a pretty good party when I turned 40. We rented a space, invited everyone, set up an open bar, and a microphone for people to do stand-up comedy. That worked out pretty well. I love it when people have to listen to me. (Why do you think I keep a blog?)
Earlier in my life she threw me an “orange” party for my birthday. It turns out that a lot of the things I like to snack on are orange: carrot sticks, doritos, candy orange slices, etc. So she got orange M&Ms, oranges, mac n cheese… lots of other stuff. Folks came over to the house, and we played Guitar Hero till our hands were numb.
Hard to trump those things. If I have any faith in my wife, I’m sure she’ll find a way at the next milestone birthday. Me, I’m not so good at planning that kind of thing. For her 35th birthday I tried to rent a space, but wound up renting it for the wrong day. I’m not a clever man.
So it’s hard for me to say how I’d throw a party for me. I like chicken wings, so there should be chicken wings at my party. I also like beer. I also like surf-guitar music. I also like running. So how about a running party? Me and everyone I know would run together from my house on one of my favorite running routes. Let’s make it the 10-miler.
Yeah, I like where this is going. So, we’d all be wearing blue-tooth enabled headsets and we’d all be listening to the same music as we ran. We’d head out and do a mile warm-up, hit the Interurban Trail and take that to 200th street, then cut over to 10th Ave and head back.
The best part would be when we get to 10th and 155th. We’d slow down for 2 blocks, then turn left on 8th. The next half-mile would be a sprint, slightly downhill. Daikaiju’s Zombie Harem blasting in our ears as we took over the street.
And then back home for BBQ wings, beer, more surf guitar, and gathering around each other’s GPS-enabled watches to compare times.
That would be an excellent party. And it would never happen. But I can dream 🙂
Space Flowers (Photo of the Day)
NaBloPoMo Day 17: Surreal
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Free Write
John is having a pretty good day. Actually John is having a truly awful but the last few minutes have been pretty good. He’s peeling a hard boiled egg and it is coming off perfectly.
Gloria had made hard boiled eggs a few days before and John thought they were all gone. But then he was rummaging in the refrigerator and found one hidden behind a half-eaten cup of yogurt, he didn’t remember ever eating the yogurt but Gloria HATED yogurt so it must have been him.
And rummaging was the right word for it. As John remember, once, before they were married, Gloria had said, “I like you. You’re the kind of guy who would use the word ‘rummage.” And it was true. He never had, in fact, used the word, but only because it had never come up. To think of that, thirty odd years of life, and John had never had occasion to use the word rummage.
Until now. Except that he hadn’t been speaking out loud. The house was deathly silent. John didn’t want to wake Gloria, who was upstairs in bed. Every window in the house had black-out curtains. And even though she was upstairs, John still winced when the light from the refrigerator pierced the gloom.
Gloria had never said it, but if she thought of it, she would have agreed, that John was the kind of guy who would have said the words “pierce the gloom.” Although, again, he never had., But he would if it was something that needed to be said.
Took the egg out and closed it and sort of waited for his eyes to readjust to the darkness,Navigated by touch and the bits of gray light that made it round the curtains. Took that egg to the counter and gently softly quietly started to crack it. And the peel just came off.
Not all at once, of course. John’s awful day was a pretty good one but not THAT good. The peel came off the egg in a slow winding trail of connected eggs parts. Until the white thing was naked. He dropped the egg shells (shell!) in the garbage disposal (”never put eggs shells in the garbage disposal john!” and rinsed the egg off under the water faucet.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Surreal
And I’d Tell Her: Keep Up the Good Work
Postaday for May 16th: Singular Sensation. If you could have a guarantee that one, specific person was reading your blog, who would you want that person to be? Why? What do you want to say to them?
(This reminds me of the prompt we had back on January 12th, but in the interest of writing fresh, I’ll try a different tack.)
I have to believe that Mark Zuckerberg knows the impact he has on liking things. My gut wants me to want Mr. Z to read my blog, because on my blog I mention the book I wrote, now and again, and then he might read it, and might like it, and might mention as much publicly, and BOOM! I’d be a best seller.
And that’s pretty selfish, but hey, my blog’s a per-blog, or perblog, or personal-blog, or exercise in extreme me-focusing blog, or whatever it’s called. Still, as they say in the Spiderman flicks and parodies thereof, with great power comes great responsibility. If I knew I had Mark Zuckerberg’s ear, (eye, since he’s reading; you know what I mean) it would behoove me to do more than just champion my silly novel.
Right? I’d have to bring up the ills that face the world and make sure he knows about them and their importance. Since he’s so powerful and can solve problems easier than I can.
But wouldn’t he know about those things anyway? I mean, could I really tell him something he didn’t already know, unless it was about me personally?
And yet a man who runs a $200 billion business still only has 24 hours a day to deal with. Who am I to take about even 5 minutes of his waking 960. That’s half a percent of his day. That’s a billion dollars. My stupid book is not worth a billion dollars.
So, I guess I’ve talked myself out of answering this prompt with “Mark Zuckerberg.”
Charlize Theron, on the other hand, seems like a nice person. And she works so hard. If she read my blog everyday, and was somehow entertained, and let slip a “bukkhead” during an ad-lib moment in one of her films, that would be pretty darn cool.
Stone Cherub (Photo of the Day)
NaBloPoMo Day 16: Filter Me This
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Free Write
Anxiety is John sitting in church and suddenly realizing his t-shirt is on backwards. He’s choking, obviously, because the collar on the back part of a shirt would naturally over time become higher and the front would become lower, This is why the back of his beck is freezing to death and the front is strangling him.
John is sitting next to Candace who tricked him into coming, again, like she does. John doesn’t believe in church because God has been a jerk to John for most of is life. This morning, for example. The phone rings. He picks it up. It is Candace. She says meet me. John says okay. He gets dressed in the dark so he won’t disturb his wife. Finds clothes by touch. Starts with this t-shirt and it all goes down hill from there.
What kind of God creates a man like John, introduces him to a woman like Gloria, and then to a woman like Candace? John can’t breath.
There’s nothing he can do. He’ll just have to get up and go the bathroom and change. He stirs. Candace whispers what are you doing.
I have to go to the bathroom he whispers back in a throaty whispers that barely squeaks out seeing as how his shirt is on backwards.
Not during the homily damn it.
This isn’t the homily.
Whatever you call it.
Don’t say damn it in church
It’s my church not yours.
John unstirs. Its not like the pew is full. It’s not like it’s even a pew. Just a bunch of chairs. Most are empty. And everyone is dressed so casual. Lots of blue jeans. Lot’s of sneakers. John himself is in cargo shorts. Lots of t-shirts. None of them backwards like John’s though.
Casual, John thinks. That’s the key. He can’t take it anymore. He rips off his shirt.
At the altar the pastor stops for a moment, then continues. No one seems to notice. John can breath again.
Next to him, Candace says, you have a tattoo of a cross on your arm.
John ignore her. The pastor is saying something about mustard seeds.
That doesn’t make you better than me, she says, and gets up, and leaves.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Filter Me This
I Hate You. But Not Really.
Postaday for May 15th: Green-Eyed Monster. Write an anonymous letter to someone you’re jealous of.
Dear So and So (I forgot your name, sorry).
I’m a pretty good writer. But you’re a better guitar player. If I was rated a 5 on a scale of one to ten for writing, your guitar playing would be a 10. If I was rated a 7, your ability to play would be a 12. If I was somehow granted a 9 on that scale, your facility for just picking up anything with strings and making it holler would be a 19. And I hate you.
Okay I don’t really hate you. I met you at my cousin’s bachelor party. You were some guy he knew back in the day when he was a rock and roll star. Back then, you guys would play music and drink and do drugs and get laid and do pretty much everything I wasn’t doing while I got on with my life. Not cause I chose to, but because I couldn’t do anything else. I can’t hold my liquor and drugs terrify me and mine’s not the type of essence that makes the ladies eager. But hey I’m not complaining. Not about that.
I’m not jealous of all the fun you guys had. Not at all. I swear to God I’m not. I’ve got a good life over here. Listen to me, you little shit. I am not jealous of the things those magic fingers bought you. I’m jealous of the fingers and the fingers alone. This is the truth. In fact, if I had fingers like that, I’d have no time for sex and drugs. Just rock n roll.
Is that why I don’t remember your name? Why you were at the bachelor party, but not the wedding? And people don’t know where you are, if you have a job right now, a roof over your head, a warrant out for your arrest? Because all you do is play all the time? You pick up your guitar and just work the strings for a few hours and hum to yourself while the world spins and crashes and burns around you? Sign me up. That’s what I want.
I have music in my head all the time. And I have no way to express it. I think maybe it’s the opposite for you. I think maybe there’s nothing in your head. Or at least not much. Look, I know I’m no Mozart, but then neither are you. You’re a guy with fabulous muscle memory. You’re a guy for whom the logic and science of music has been hardwired into the very fibers that run from your brain to your fingertips. I guess I should take solace in that. If you’re no Mozart, I don’t have to be a Salieri.
We hung out for a few days and I listened to you play and you were amazing. I asked you about bands and songs and albums and you sort of shrugged it all off like it was no big deal. No big deal! You should be locked in a room, with nothing but bread and water and a pot to piss in and about a thousand digital tapes to record on. People who can do what you do don’t get to shrug it off.
Look, you were a really nice guy, actually, personable, good sense of humor, listened to my stupid jokes and responded with genuine laughter. All things considered, I think you deserved to do all that partying and womanizing back in the day. Somebody’s go to, and it might as well be a decent fellow like yourself.
But god damn it, I wish I’d never met you. That’s a lie too. I’m lucky I got to see you in action. I hate you. You’re amazing.
Rock Bird (Photo of the Day)
