The Daily Prompt: 01 April 24

Daily writing prompt

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

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Hmm, that would be me stumbling out of bed and trying to find something to put on my feet so I can haul ass to the bathroom and pretty much running on autopilot when opening the blinds, turning on lights and the TV in the back room so that I can try to catch the day’s weather as I address the sleepy-looking guy in the mirror.

Get the water the right temperature so I can flush my feeding tube; some intense staring at my neck and throat area for any signs that the radiation treatments I underwent are trying to leave me any surprises. Wash. Put on my daytime “makeup,” which is either some cooling and soothing Cera Ve, the oilier Eucerin or the Vaseline-like stickiness of Aquaphor.

Stumble back to the bedroom to get dressed – and in a onesie if I don’t have any appointments; grab glasses, iPhone, iPad, put slippers on then on to the dresser to get the day’s medication – and all without waking my lady up.

Stumble out to the living room to put my stuff down and into the kitchen to put my bottle of water back in fridge and… coffee time. It’s taken me a half an hour to get to this point (and less time if I have an appointment); armed with coffee and a Carnation Instant Breakfast, I go into the back room and take a seat at my desk to wake up the desktop and get to checking for updates and reading the overnight emails before opening a browser to see what might be interesting in the news – then off to check the forums for anything of interest…

Then opening WordPress to read new stuff and to do some scribbling. That pretty much takes care of the first hour and it’s the same thing every day but, of course, every day is different; today, I didn’t stumble to the bathroom but kinda limped to it because my right ankle decided it wanted to fuck with me – and then I open the blinds to look outside and, yep, okay, it’s raining – that explains a few things. It’s the first of the month so I add paying my bills to my computer stuff.

Kinda/sorta pay attention to The Weather Channel; sometimes just sit in the quiet of the early morning – and sometimes wondering why I’m back to getting up to wake the chickens again – and maybe spend a few moments contemplating my navel. Crack open the Instant Breakfast; take medication… and, yeah, why do they make vitamin pills that damned big?

I remember back when I retired and talking to one of my cousins about having retired and she asked me what was I going to do now that I didn’t have to go to work – but, at the time, I was looking for another job and had gotten one but… the stroke fucked all that up. Anyway, I told her my “retirement plan” of doing a lot of nothing and she frowned and suggested that I should volunteer to teach youngsters and older folks computer skills so that they can function in the technological world, and it wasn’t a bad idea except for two things.

The first is I don’t like to teach and the second was I felt that would be too much like working – and I just retired from working. Then the stroke happened and the one thing that stuck in my head was my neurologist telling me to avoid stress at every turn and at all costs… and I was seriously down for that so I’m not of a mind to do anything that’s going to raise my stress levels.

I don’t remember who I was talking to, but they had asked me what I do all day and my answer was, “A whole lot of nothing!” which had them giving me a funny look. “I watch TV, read, do stuff on the computer, play games on my Xbox and in between, mess with my lady and more so when she “doesn’t like” me messing with her – but it’s my job, we both know it, and it’s a lot of fun.

Whoever I was talking to wanted to scold me for not engaging in productive activities and I said, “Like what? I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do -what I planned to do – when I retired… and don’t you have to go to work?”

So many first hours of the day; so many of them the same as the day before but not really because the differences can be subtle or rather overt. I sometimes catch myself being on autopilot in that first hour, which is pretty funny most of the time; sometimes the routine gets disrupted because I’ve done something “out of sequence,” like I’ve grabbed a straw for my liquid breakfast before I’ve taken it out of the fridge, which can be rather eye-rolling because routine isn’t supposed to deviate like that… is it?

And all throughout that first hour, I am thankful and grateful to be able to go through another first hour of the day.

 

The Daily Prompt: 20 March 24

Daily writing prompt

What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?

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That’s the real question for me. I would love to get not one but two more tats to go with the fourteen I already have (seven on the left, seven on the right).

What I don’t know is what I’d want or where I’d want it. For the longest time, I had visions of getting a nice back piece until someone I know told me what he went through when he got his and… okay, let’s not do that and say we did because I very much remember the pain experienced when I had the dragons inked onto my chest and, okay, not gonna do that again.

Every tattoo says something about the person wearing it and has great meaning to them – and even if no one else understands the significance of the tat… or why you’d do this to your body to begin with. Ah, yes, I remember being stunned when my youngest son comes home from the Navy and he’s showing me his tats; he says that I should get tatted and I’m insistent that it’ll never happen… but we go to the beach on vacation, it’s just me and him hanging out with nothing to do and… let’s go get a tattoo!

“Once you get one, you’re gonna want another one,” he tells me as we go into the parlor and I’m thinking that if I get one, it’ll be the only one.

Thirteen tats later and I’m still thinking about getting two more but cannot “feel” what they should look like, let alone where they’d go. I don’t think that I have the… patience to sit through elaborate pieces; I have tats on my chest and both arms and, yeah, okay, if I did get two more pieces – and I’d have to in order to maintain the balance – where would they go and more so when I’d want them to be where I can see them, too.

It’s the only two things that continue to stop me from doing it; not knowing what I’d want the tats to say about me and my life and where the hell they’d go that wouldn’t make me want to kill the artist. I mean, sure, I know they’re going to hurt and, believe it or not, that’s actually part of the fun of getting inked and getting that endorphin rush… but I don’t know how long I could sit or lie still to get inked with something that I still can’t envision or, again, feel, because tattoos, I believe, have to speak to you and… I’m not hearing anything.

Yet. Stay tuned…

 

The Daily Prompt: 17 December 23

Daily writing prompt

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

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Hell, no, it isn’t. No way I could have foreseen going through what I would wind up going through and if you had told me a year ago that I would have cancer and I almost didn’t make it, I probably would have asked you to share whatever you were smoking and tell me where I can get some of my own.

It’s funny to think that all things are possible but, then again, they aren’t until they actually happen; or there’s a level of detachment to know that someone has cancer and fighting the good fight… but it’s not you doing it. It doesn’t make you less sympathetic about the situation, but it just doesn’t get real until it happens to you – and you never know if it will or not.

I can honestly say that on 17 December 22, I wasn’t thinking past that day; I wasn’t thinking “what if” kind of stuff and the biggest thing on my mind was probably what was for dinner. I always had a problem answering questions like, “Where do you see yourself five or ten years from now?” when the truth is that I don’t know if I’m going to be here tomorrow… or five minutes from now. I could fall and break some stuff that I’m sure I wouldn’t want broken and, who knows – that could affect where I saw myself an unimaginable five or ten years down the road.

No, my life today isn’t what I could have pictured a year ago because there’s no way I could have known or predicted or even anticipated what would happen, oh, ten months and ten days later. It hasn’t been two months since “The Event” happened and I’m still picking up the pieces from that and just – and still – trying to make it from one day to the next.

 

The Daily Prompt: 01 December 23

Let’s see… how do I feel about eating meat?

Not bad at all. I understand what vegetarians and vegans say about it and I very much understand and appreciate where meat comes from and thanks to having spent some time on my great aunt’s farm when I was younger; the chicken being fed in the morning would be in the frying pan for dinner that evening; ditto for the pig they were fattening up and one who’d get carried away in a truck and came back as pork chops, bacon, ribs, trotters, chitlins – you get the picture.

Being in cooking school and learning how to butcher things and breaking them down into their different parts and having to be hands-on with things – then learning how to take the parts and turn them into delicious things to eat.

I understand sustainability; I understand the need to look into alternative food sources, oh, like bugs, for instance and trying to rely on more vegetable-based foods and sources of protein but I don’t see myself giving up on cheeseburgers or not being able to enjoy meat. “Vegan fried chicken” is a hilarious oxymoron to me, and they say that you can’t tell the difference between this and real chicken and, okay, maybe it’s me but you’re not going to be able to convince me that TVP – texturized vegetable protein – is chicken. Or any other meat. It’s not just about taste – it’s about mouth feel or how things “taste like chicken” but they’re not chicken. I know how meaty portabello mushrooms are… but they’re not meat but, sure, they taste great and… they go good with a nice steak, too.

I watch a lot of cooking shows that often highlight vegetarian and vegan foods and people saying that they don’t miss meat and, well, that’s them and even if I had to stop eating meat, I would still miss it… because I’ve gotten so used to eating it.

I also see shows where insects are what’s for dinner and, okay, I understand that that wriggly tree grub is chock full of protein but… it’s a grub. Andrew Zimmern, of “Bizarre Foods” fame, is a good dude to listen to about eating insects and he’s quite honest in his assessment of some of them as in seriously an acquired taste – but even he says that we should be eating more insects.

That’s okay – I’ll pass on that for now. I’m still okay with eating meat as a source of protein and amino acids that you can’t get from plants. Right about now, I’d love to get on DoorDash and get me a burger with cheese, bacon, and avocado… because I can’t eat one. Or go get me a nice, juicy fried chicken breast and just get all in there on it but even chicken is proving to be hard for me to eat… right now. And the problem isn’t actually eating it: It’s swallowing it. When you are medically relegated to liquids and soft foods, you bet your ass that I’m missing a big plate of my smothered pork chops, rice, and broccoli as a vegetable.

Like, I’m probably going to have mashed potatoes for dinner… with real butter. I know I’ll be having tomato basil soup for lunch. I’m missing meat like you wouldn’t believe and, no, I do not feel bad about it.

 

The Daily Prompt: 16 September 23

Daily writing prompt

How often do you walk or run?

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Not as much as I used to and definitely not as much as I’m supposed to.

The stroke I had years ago now really fucked up my ability to walk. Having to relearn how to walk was a bitch and being left with a limp and that my right foot doesn’t work like the left one does in terms of motor control. My balance ain’t worth shit and I can’t walk at the speeds I was once able to move at.

My doctor gets on my case about exercising even if I just go walking – and walking for me is an adventure to begin with; then factor in that where I live, people have… dogs and they’re not always on a leash and in accordance with county laws and… I can’t run. Even having a treadmill doesn’t do me much good because I can only navigate one at its lowest speed; any faster requires coordination that I no longer have and… I don’t do falling down.

Then factor in whatever the fuck is going on with my right ankle other than some mild osteoarthritis. I have an ankle brace that helps… sometimes and in other times, it just makes shit worse and I’m better off not wearing the damned thing. Prior to going to Mexico back in June, it hit me that maybe I’d better get a cane and, preferably, the kind that folds up and not the wooden cane I already have – and it’s a good thing I got one because I sure as fuck needed it when my ankle decided to act up.

I get aggravated with my doctor because he insists that I go out walking but that’s easy for him to say because he doesn’t have the problems I do when it comes to walking. I mean, sure, I do walk to go get the mail, when shopping, going to other doctor appointments, because I’m not ready for a motorized scooter or wheelchair and I hope that I never get ready – and it galls me that common sense mandated that I get one of those walker-thingies with wheels on it because it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

I look at it every day and say, “Fuck you…” to it – but I’m not being all that hard-headed about it but as far as walking/running for exercise? Ain’t happening. Like, I know I have some upcoming appointments with my new cardiologist and, at some point, he’s going to want to stress test me… which usually involves being on a treadmill and, yeah, I’m not doing that because I don’t want to fall and/or injure myself so it’ll have to be done chemically and that… feels too weird for my liking but, yup, a necessary evil.

It galls me not to be able to walk, run, and be balanced because I spent years as a martial artist and my ability to move and be supremely balanced was honed and instilled in me and to the extent where I could run on railroad track rails and not miss a step or wobble off-balance.

Not anymore and not because of my age. I’m almost physically unable to exercise this way safely. Sure, I can grab my cane or, fuck, take the wheelie thing and go for a walk – and I might have to but my damned ankle is going to be a problem and at this time, I don’t know if it’s something that has to be surgically repaired or not (and that reminds me that I need to make an appointment with my orthopedist, damn it) or whatever she’s gonna have to do to make my ankle stable and pain free.

A potential message here is… do not take being able to walk or run for granted because you don’t have to get old to have it taken away from you…

 

The Daily Prompt: 03 September 23

Daily writing prompt

Why do you blog?

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Years ago now, a friend (who is no longer with us) suggested that since I had a lot of cool things to say about sex and sexuality, I should do what she was doing: Writing a blog about similar things on WordPress.

I’d been recovering from a stroke and blogging had a lot of benefits other than getting stuff that was in my head out and that period in my life proved that I had a lot of stuff in my head that I desperately needed to attend to and for the sake of my own sanity and given the level of pain I was in.

Blogging helps me focus; it helps me “not pay attention” to the pain and discomfort I feel when I’m typing but it also gives me a platform to write about something that I’m very passionate about: Being bisexual. There are other things I can and have written about because when I created this blog and was faced with having to entitle it, well, it’s about what’s in my head and, many times, exactly as I’m thinking it and, importantly, remembering because one of the things I had to cope with was knowing that… I’m brain-damaged and my memory affected.

And I found a topic of discussion that not a lot of people were talking about. Sex blogs galore and some with “hints” of bisexuality but no one really talking about it and in real-deal, no-nonsense terms. My now-late friend said it was cool that I, in effected, outed myself as a male bisexual and for all to see and we both were writing about sex, sexuality, and the swinging lifestyle and what’s good and what’s so seriously fucked up about it – and like we’d both been doing on the swinging website we both belonged to.

I loved her “tell it like it is” way of writing and, well, I can do that, too. Blogging kept the depression and despair away and blogging gave me purpose and at a moment in my life when I felt like I no longer had purpose. Blogging didn’t as much “save my life” as it saved my sanity and of all the things I could right about, um, sex and sexuality were two things I knew a whole lot about and as I’ve said, someone has to do it because if not now when? If not me, then who?

And understanding that I was in a unique position to write about these things because I’m from “the way it used to be” as well as to put it out there that if you’re bisexual or feeling like you are, you are not alone and you never were. I made a lot of new friends, a few frenemies, but it was all good. I wasn’t blogging to get loads of likes or to have a slew of followers: I was blogging because it was doing me a lot of good… and learned that what I was writing was helping others deal with the confusion that bisexuality brings to the table.

I write about the sex… but not to excite or arouse but, um, okay, if someone finds it arousing, I do hope it encourages them to rub one out… because, why not? As confusing as bisexuality can be, it’s a… celebration of a great many things that can be discovered and uncovered when you can successfully move away from the way it’s supposed to be and, as I’ve written time and time again, I’m living proof that one can be bisexual and… life is good.

It’s not the only stuff I write about but it’s… about what’s in my head more than anything else…

 

The Daily Prompt: 24 August 23

Daily writing prompt

Where did your name come from?

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I honestly don’t know which one of my parents named me, but I’m named after my father. I remember asking them which of them stuck me with this name and… they just kinda looked at each other and gave me the impression that my father named me… and it wasn’t the name my mother might have had in mind and, no, she never told me what that might have been but she did tell me that if I had been a girl, I would have gotten my sister’s name before she got it. Ew.

And they told me a story about what I could have been named if Mom had wound up giving birth to me in her home state and I actually thanked her for making it back home and giving birth to me here because if I had been named “Obidiah,” I might have grown up and sued them. Not that I was a fan of the name I got because I’d get confused with my father and… I fucking hated being called, “Junior” and my father knew it and called me Junior at every turn until, one day, I reminded him that it doesn’t say “Jr.” on my birth certificate! Indeed, on the original, “Jr.” was typed in and then X’d out and replaced with, “II” for the second.

My father gave our name… a bad name. I had to realize that, yeah, we have the same name, but I had to put my own significance on it or, crap, I had to own the name I had no say in getting. And letting the few people who thought that just because I was named after my father, I was just like him… and I sure as fuck wasn’t. Believe me, I got tired of the cops rousting me because they didn’t bother to pay attention to my date of birth or, as I told one cop who was trying to arrest me for something my father did, “Do I look like I was born in 1933? And my license says I was born in 1955.”

Oh. Sorry about that. I knew where my name came from; I just wasn’t all that happy about being named after a man who brought no… honor to it. I might be my father’s son and we have the same name… but I’m not him.

 

The Daily Prompt: 21 August 23

Daily writing prompt

What do you enjoy most about writing?

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When I’d started junior high school, there was a girl I saw and had an instant hot crush on her and I’d gotten up the nerve to start talking to her but I didn’t know how to tell her how I felt and it bothered me so much that when I got home from school, my mom noticed it and asked me what was wrong.

Forget that she was trying not to laugh at me having a crush on the girl, but she said, “If you can’t say it, write it – write her a letter!” It made sense and more so when I had an English teacher who was making us write book reports and stuff and whatever wrote had better made sense.

It took me almost three hours to write that letter to that girl because I’d write something, didn’t like it, started over again – I went through a lot of notebook paper before I’d written down my thoughts and feelings and as best as I could.

She loved the letter; she liked that I was able to write about my feelings and that I was writing to tell her about them but didn’t want anything from her. Well, um, we did have sex but that’s not the point: The point was that I found the perfect way to really express myself when I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. Or I could but, later, I had something else to say so… write it!

I got hooked on it and when I met the girl I would eventually marry, we got cool stationery so that we could write to each other… even though we saw each other every day. It helped having to write stuff for school and more so in my career where I had to write reports, technical documents, stuff like that and then, I found blogging.

What I enjoy about it is being able to… empty my mind of any thoughts I might have. The way the words can flow from my mind to my fingers, picking and choosing what words to use – and I can take all the time I need to write whatever I’m writing, like, getting up and doing something else or in those moments when my train of thought gets derailed.

Writing has always been fun and a skill my junior high school English teacher pounded into our heads as being necessary skill to be learned and mastered as best as possible. Technical writing involves a lot of precision, has its own language, terms and phrases that when you’re used to seeing and writing them, has a certain eloquence but, yeah, are a pain in the ass to write sometimes and can be many, many pages long when printed or even read as an attachment to an email.

Then there’s the way I write my blog; if it’s in my head, I’m writing it and, usually, exactly how I’m thinking it which, um, gets interesting and even I’ve gone back to read something previous written and… I’m laughing my ass off or scratching my head over the words on the screen.

But I love to write. Today’s technology makes it easy to write but there’s also being able to put pen to paper that still means something… if I have enough paper.

 

The Daily Prompt: 13 August 23

Daily writing prompt

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

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My father told me, “Boy, you better learn how to cook because if you depend on a woman to cook for you, you’re going to starve!”

So, I went to school in the Job Corps and learned how to cook and found that cooking is both hard work and it’s fun.

I love ramen. From the Top Ramen packs to having had real deal ramen when I went to Japan. If I were going to open a shop, it would be a ramen shop and I know how to make the different broths and, um, fairly sure I could make the different noodles – but I’d love to have a shop where I could not only share my love of cooking with customers but my love of ramen and, yeah, I could eat it any time of the day… and this prompt reminds me that I need to order more of the new ramen I came across and created by the notable chef, David Chang.

It’s just that I also know that starting and running a restaurant isn’t easy and, whew, if you’ve never worked in a professional kitchen, well, if you’ve seen “Hell’s Kitchen,” yeah – it can be like that and right along with the executive chef yelling and cussing like Gordon Ramsey. That show, by the way, brings back a lot of memories and it also makes me cringe because I know what it’s like to be on the line and under the pressure of doing it right every time and getting it done at the right moment so the whole dish can be served at the same time.

Which also makes me wonder why I’d want to open a ramen shop. It’s a lot of hard work; it’s a lot of hours standing on your feet in a stupidly hot environment that laughs at air conditioning. The business side of things makes my head hurt just thinking about it from doing all the financial stuff to hiring staff, getting the needed licenses, ordering products, determining food costs and item pricing… and I know how fucking hard it is to keep a professional kitchen clean and I do mean eat off the floor clean and 100% spotless and sanitized and… yeah, if I could I would but it’s too easy to get ramen from those who have made the decision to open a shop.

Being a cook wasn’t the profession I wanted to be in – but it was a job that I learned to do and because of what my father said – and he was right, by the way. I remember the day I decided that I didn’t want to be a cook anymore: I was on my way home after being in the kitchen since six in the morning and I’d heard a noise behind me and when I turned to look, a bunch of cats were following me, and it took me a moment to realize why: I smelled like food to them. I was “covered” with the smell of food and stains from cooking – and I had cut myself earlier in the day and to make things worse.

If I could open such a shop, sure but, um, let’s not and say I did.

 

The Daily Prompt: 11 August 23

Daily writing prompt

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

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This one is easy: I’d love for my blog to change the world’s mind about bisexuality and see it as being 100% natural and normal and to stop vilifying it because of what religion says about homosexuality.

Short and sweet…