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: 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: 07 August 23

I actually “missed” the one about how you got your nickname. Well, okay – I didn’t miss it but I was just too lazy to write about it at the time.

I have been KDaddy for, wow, like maybe ten or fifteen years. I got it from a young (but legal) guy I’d met on that app and when we were getting deep into why he seriously wanted to have sex with an older guy like me, he took my app name, which begins with a “K” and started calling me “KDaddy” because he really was looking for a daddy and not in the sugar daddy kind of way.

This guy could make me blush talking about how he wanted me to have sex with him and had admitted to me that he did have unfulfilled daddy issues that no one else seemed to understand but he figured that I would since I was an older guy. Interesting leap of logic on his part but, sure, I understood him and how not getting any attention from his absent father had put him on the path of being gay and hunting for older men who could not only give him the sex he wanted but would also understand him as a person.

And… the nickname just stuck with me. We never did hook up and we’d stopped communicating and while I knew, then and now, that I could drop this nickname and never look back at it, um, yeah, let’s just leave it as-is. When I signed up for WordPress and had to name my blog, I didn’t hesitate to use the nickname he gave me because it was easier than sitting and trying to think of something else and thanks to my conversations with him, I had become… KDaddy, you know, that older, wiser guy who knows some stuff about some stuff. I felt that, in a way, the nickname fit me because it wasn’t unusual for me to get hit on by guys who were younger than my youngest child – but legal adults – and they were either looking for a sugar daddy or looking for someone they could resolve their daddy issues with and, um, yeah, usually with a hard daddy dick in the mouth and butt.

One such “kid” said that my nickname told him that I know something about disciplining children for being bad and he was seriously a bad “child” who really needed to be disciplined for being gay and, okay, that’s not something I would do but through these guys, I got to learn something that, admittedly, I’d not paid a lot of attention to, like, duh, how younger guys want to look to older guys to learn how to be… older guys themselves. Not just showing them the “usual” ropes of being an adult male but showing them the ropes connecting the things that adult males shouldn’t be interested in.

His idea of being disciplined was more in the direction of D/s stuff – and stuff that I know I’m not cut out for but, yeah, he asked me if I’d spank him for being so disobedient and when I asked him why – and outside of what I thought was obvious – he said, “Because I didn’t have a father figure who’d teach me the right way to be a man and in the times when I really needed to have my ass spanked.”

Um, okay. I actually understood that but let him know that I wasn’t into that really physical stuff, but I did understand him. “KDaddy” had gone from a nickname to, well, being more like a real person – that older, wiser guy who knows some stuff about why there are a lot of men who aren’t heterosexual and both the good and bad of it all. That guy would tell me what a good spanking did for him and not just because it’d make him cum and now I found myself immersed in the psychology involved concerning guys who had real daddy issues and, yeah, some guys who were “rebelling” because they wanted that kind of love from their dad – and weren’t ever going to get it and for obvious reasons…

So, finding a surrogate daddy was what they needed… and my nom de guerre is KDaddy. Duh, right?

And, yeah, sometimes, I get to ask, “Who’s your daddy?” and it cracks me up but, at the same time, the nickname brought a lot of awareness to those men who had unresolved daddy issues that they believed was directly responsible for them being the way they are.

One guy told me, “You need to come over and punish me with your cock because I really need to be punished for not being a real man…” and, well, son, a man is going to be as real as he can be and no matter what it takes for him to discover his realness and if it’s through sex, it is what it is and it doesn’t make you any less of a man to suck dick and to be fucked since even I learned that you need some very manly balls to go to a place that scares the shit out of a lot of guys.

I’ll tell you that I did have sex with him because he wasn’t my idea of an asshole. I will tell you that how it went… disturbed the fuck out of me and that’s not an easy thing to do. I spent more time talking to him than having sex with him because he needed to be told that despite what people think, he’s not doing anything wrong by being the way he is and wanting to enjoy intimacy in this way.

I had to let him know how much it bothered me to hear him saying, “I’m sorry, daddy…” over and over because the reality is… I’m not your father and if I was, you might still be gay but without the baggage he was carrying and all because he didn’t have a father figure in his life. I told him, “If you really want to be a man, stop apologizing for shit that you don’t have to apologize for, and I mean stop it right now because you’re really freaking me out with this.”

And even though I’d told him what my real name was, he always called me KDaddy. I felt that I’d gotten through to him in that, okay, some guys really do have daddy issues but if there was nothing that could be done about them then, does it make sense to hold onto them and especially when you might not be able to have a conversation with the father who gave you these issues? He said that he’d thought about what I’d said when we were supposed to be focused on having sex and he said, “You’re one of the good daddies and you’ve helped me understand some stuff about myself and I know what I gotta do to be a better man.”

A young gay man with daddy issues gave me this nickname and it’s one that I’m proud to have and I wouldn’t trade it away for anything.

 

The Daily Prompt: 23 March 23

Daily writing prompt

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

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I have 14 tattoos. Funny story about that.

My youngest son had gone into the Navy and he’d come home on leave and brought his wife and son home with him. The morning after his arrival, I’m making coffee and he says, “Hey, Pops – check this out!”

He takes his shirt off and… he’s got tats. Especially on his back! I was surprised but, then again, not really because, duh, he’s in the Navy. By the way, every time I told someone that my son was in the Navy, I kept hearing that song by The Village People and trying to keep a straight face. Anyway, he tells me that I should get a tattoo and I gave him the same look I’d given my late brother when he’d gotten his ear pierced and said I should get an earring, too.

My, “You’re kidding me, right?” look.

He’d comes home in time for us to go spend a week of vacation in a condo we’d rented at the beach, and we had a blast. One day, everyone else was out doing… something, leaving me and my son to our own devices. He asks me what I wanted to do, I’m asking him, and he says, “We should go get a tattoo!” grabs the local phone book and finds a parlor.

I say, “Why the hell not?” and off we went. Why did I say that? I dunno. Sounded like a good idea at the time. Well, it took us a while to actually find the place but once we did, he’s with me as we’re going through the flashes – huge books of artwork that contained “standard” tats and work done by the artists. He tells me that I should start with a small one and I pick the Chinese ideogram for “Power.” He’d explained to me that tats are… personal; they tell a story and usually about the person’s life, and like the one he had on his back – a pretty big dragon but at the tail of it, there were items that he said he’d gotten inked in honor of me.

Well, after he showed and told me that, how could I not get inked even though he said, “Yeah… it hurts…”? Twenty minutes later, I have the ideogram for power on my arm, it’s now pleasantly hurting – but that outlining thing was a bitch. We’re heading back to the condo, both of with new tats, and he says, “Now that you have one, you’re gonna want more!”

I said, “Yeah, not gonna happen.”

Well, it did. Thirteen more times. Seven on the left, seven on the right and the story it tells is one of balance because my Zodiac sign is Libra (The Scales). Getting inked causes quite the endorphin rush; it hurts but it hurts so good! After getting my first one, my “stepson” – my poly wife’s son – my daughter and her husband are getting inked up; I guess I started something. Anyway, the last tattoos I got was the tattoo of a gecko on my right side (wrist) when I was in Hawaii and when in San Diego visiting my sone and his family, another dragon on the left (inside forearm) and I kinda didn’t want anymore and especially when my favorite parlor either moved or went out of business.

But I do want another one. A back piece. A nice big one, too, and one that speaks to… balance. I haven’t gotten it yet… because I don’t know what it should look like, what part of the story of my life it should tell. I know it’s going to hurt like fuck; I’d gotten twin dragons inked on my chest and while the first one didn’t hurt that bad, the second one hurt so bad that I told the artist that if he didn’t stop so I could take a break, I was going to hurt him worse than he was hurting me. Compounding the years-long delay is… I take Plavix. A blood thinner but, technically, a platelet inhibitor. I’m… concerned that if I start bleeding, the artist is going to stop the work and act like I have hemophilia, which I don’t but normally, if I get a cut or a scrape, it doesn’t bleed for very long – Plavix inhibits my blood’s ability to form clots and, for example, nose bleeds get pretty messy for me.

I know that if I’m going to get a back piece or any other tat, I’m going to have to stop taking the Plavix; the size of such a piece that I want is going to take longer than I can safely stay off of Plavix so… I’ll probably settle for two smaller pieces somewhere, on the left, one on the right, because balance must always be maintained… but if you were to ask what they’d be, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

 

The Daily Prompt: 22 March 23

Daily writing prompt

What is one word that describes you?

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This thing is acting weird today but I gotta say that this question makes me get a look on my face. During my career, jeez, we’d often have seminars and other classes that, somewhere along the line, would ask this question and… I have never been able to find a lone, single word that accurately describes me.

It’s like asking me to count the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on a beach. I would think that… this is a trick question but one that makes you think about that one word and, for whatever reason, they want to know how you think by asking you a question that isn’t easy to answer, you know, given how multifaceted humans tend to be.

It’s taken me awhile to respond to this prompt because I was coming up with a lot of words but, of course, the Prompt is asking about one word. So here’s what I came up with:

Human.

Now you get to figure out what that might mean. Good luck with that and have fun with it.