Holiday Greetings & A Progress Report

First, Happy New Year to all who will read this blog, wherever you may be. And I hope you all will have a healthy and prosperous 2013.

Second, I hope all of you had a merry Christmas/Hannukah/Kwaanza/Yule/Saturnalia/Festivus/whatever you celebrated earlier this month. I had a decent one. I spent Christmas Eve at my older brother's house with his family, his wife's family, my younger brother, his wife, and their son. 

Food was served, but I filled myself with appetizers and ate only one ham sandwich and no turkey sandwiches.

I also got a $5 gift card from Sears at part of an exchange.

Since Dec. 25, I've stayed around here and mostly gone out for errands and runs to the local library. I plan to stay in tonight because there is a weather advisory until 7 a.m. Tuesday; from 1.5-4 inches of snow could fall.  

It also will be amateur night for those who drink when intoxicated.   

But starting Wednesday, I plan to become more active and get out of my apartment and my city of residence.

One notable thing has happened between the last time I posted and now. I was awake around 1 a.m. Dec. 16 and had just peed when the phone rang. I thought Oh fuck what is THIS about? The only thing I could think of was that one of my brothers or a member of their families were in critical condition -- or worse.

Calling was a woman looking for a man with my true name. She asked me, "Are you X------?" I said yes.

She asked me if I had a sister named Michelle. I said I didn't. (By the way, I don't have a sister.) 

She also asked me about my cousin Philip Falls. I told her I don't have a cousin with that name.

She apologized about calling me at that time of night, but added she had bad news that he had to be told then.

I wonder if she ever contacted the man she was looking for.

I've also been trying off and on to delete some of my posts, but Blogger has changed the ways the posts are made and deleted to a more complicated process than the one that I was using when I was actively writing here. So I'll leave a lot more posts that I thought I would.

I've established on the net a site where I can let it all hang out as loosely as I want. I've posted a few things and have yet to post what I truly want.

So, goodbye until the next post, whenever that will be.

Farewell, More Or Less

After I thought about it for a day I decided to more or less stop posting regularly in this blog. My reasons for stopping are in the post below.

I plan to go through some notes that I had for some stories, write/organize/edit them, and then post them here; I just need to review them.

I also will keep some of my past posts, because I'm proud that I wrote them and someone might come across and read them. But I will delete many of these posts which will leave a small and reduced blog.

So, farewell for now. If you ever read this blog or any of its posts, thank you. I only wish you had left some comments. The comments I got after four of my posts were spam.

 I only told one person about this blog: An old friend who looked at it about a couple of years ago and liked a few things about it.

I Don't Even Know...

why I bother to post at this blog, let alone keep it active.

This post will be the 43rd of this year that I've made. Last year, I wrote 59 posts. So it's not like I've been burning to post. I've just lost the desire. At least here. I've found another forum to post things and I get some readership, even though it's not a lot.

So I'll start another hiatus. This time, though, it might just be the end. 

If I stop this blog, I'll let you know. I'll make it formal with an announcement.

In the meantime, watch this space.

What Every Home Could Use

I was going to post something... anything... in this blog, because it's been seven weeks and one day since I last wrote here.

(FYI, what had kept me from posting was a serious depressive episode. There were days I didn't shower or shave: Sometimes longer than a week. I decided yesterday that I would kick it today.)

I was up around 4 a.m. this morning. A heavy thunderstorm with strong lightening was happening. That, a thunderstorm late Friday afternoon, was the first rain that had fallen in my area for a while. If I find how long, I'll put it here later.

The storms had stopped a dry spell that made this June one of the driest months in the state's history. As of Friday only 5/100th of an inch of rain had fallen this month.

I was on the internet around 5:20 a.m. when the electricity went out.I went fumbling for candles and flashlights so I could see in the dark. Thankfully, the sun would rise soon.

Then I thought of this things that I recommend for every home, be it house, apartment, or whatever building you can think of:

• A big box of wooden matches, preferably Ohio Blue Tip, with the match stick around an inch long. Having smaller boxes of smaller matches would also help.
• At least one candle nine inches or taller.
• Several tea or votive candles.
• At least one flashlight with batteries that work.

While those are good for emergencies, I also thought of these things that every home should have:

• A ball of string.
• A pack of playing cards.
• A pair of dice.

Take if from me: You won't regret having those items.

And at 8:05 a.m., the power returned. I got back on the net and wrote this after I did some chores around the apartment.

Say Cheese

i'm browsing through thousands of single slices of cheese.

to be exact, 2350 of them.

of that number, 560 are swiss. the rest are american.

i'm putting them in chronological order: which ones to eat first tomorrow afternoon and which ones to eat every day after that until two months from next thursday.

thanks for your offer to help me but i don't want it now. counting the cheese slices and putting them in order relieves my mind of my sorrow at the mediocrity and mendacity of everyday life.

New Year, New Entry, New Efforts

First, I hope you all had a happy holiday season and so far are having a good, if not great, 2012.

Second, this is my first entry in this blog in about three months. I've decided to restart it after a big change in my life.

I moved out of the apartments where I had lived for nearly two decades to a apartment complex in my home town. It's on the western outskirts, halfway in the country; you can tell when the winds roar from the west, as they have during a few nights last week, with no buildings to stop them.

It's about 11.5 miles southeast of my old residence, but seems like a county or two away from my old haunts because I'm not as close to Indianapolis as I was before.

I finally got tired of living there because management -- and this is the second or third management group -- has promised but hasn't acted on improving the complex. Plus, the complex was filling up with white trash.

Someday, I'll write more about the situation, but not now. I need to get more details.

I'm writing this at a computer terminal in my new local library; before, I had posted from my home. But I'm in the middle of unpacking and trying to determine if I currently have phone service or internet access.

I also have too much furniture and need to sell or give the extra pieces away. I must determine how and when and where to do that.

I also plan to write more about my life -- my past and especially my present. As of today, I'm 58 years, 3 months and 19 days old, and the 40th anniversary of my high school graduating class will be later this year.

(UPDATE AS OF FEBRUARY 3: A 40th-year reunion is being planned for some time in October.)

Because of my age, I've decided to take more of a review of the whole process, but after I get hooked up at my new apartment.

Therefore -- watch this space.

interview/innerview

and for what reason do we owe this interview ... or innerview, if you will?

i had published a list of gas prices at several locations in the area. it was the first post in this blog for about six and a half weeks. and it was made for two reasons: i wanted to get something in the blog during may; and it might as well some sort of news report.

as i finished it, i realized that i had started put put aside this interview ... or innerview, as i will.

what was the question you were asked to start that?

in the middle of may, i turned 57 years and 8 months old. my birthday will be in the middle of september; i'll be 58 years old then. and in 2012, i'll be marking the 40th anniversary of my graduation from high school. and i'm not looking forward to it.

why?

time. it passes. and regrets. and it's true. you have more regrets for the things you didn't do. and i haven't done a lot of things.

what are they?

too many to list here. probably later. if ever.

why not do them?

again, age. they are things i wish i had done when i was a younger man. a man my age doing them seems foolish. and i didn't do them because i was psychologically crippled. unfortunately for me.

at times, i feel like i'm stuck at a certain age mentally: like i'm back in high school and i haven't gotten any older. substance abuse counselors and experts say a person gets frozen at a certain age when he or she starts abusing substances, especially alcohol. i might go into the reasons why i feel this, but later, as i said.

and location. this is indiana, where offbeat things and people aren't truly appreciated. i'm tired of anticipating a beforehand explanation of myself and what i do. i'm not doing anything illegal. so shut the fuck up and leave me the fuck alone. and definitely do NOT try to stop me.

you haven't posted that much this year as you have other years. why is that?

i've found other things to take up my time. but i've lost a lot of interest in this blog. plus, i'm going through a nothing-matters-much-so-why-do-anything mental outlook. it might just be a hangover from dealing with the death of my parents.

i've been halfway tempted to delete a lot of these posts and leave just a few remains. i don't get a lot of traffic here, i'll admit that. few people will miss them. many of them don't add that much to the internet conversation. but i they are a lot better then some of the blather i've read in some blogs -- especially the political ones.

but there are four things i'm proud to have written, and i'd leave them here:

• my story about Batman and his discovery of bagels;
• an observation i made of what i call the egoless i;
• my short story 'a few things as the gas and go.'
• and a conversation between a man and his friend named saunders.

jesus, i'm even too fucking lazy to post links to them. prowl through the labels at the right side of this blog; you'll find links to them there and possibly other posts you might enjoy.

so ... what now?

i don't know. i'll just leave this blog here. possibly delete some posts. maybe come back to it later ... definitely by july the fourth, if not before then. because i don't want to delete all of it.

plus, i need to get a new computer. i bought this one in 2004 and it's starting to get slower because it's old.

i noticed you don't have any capital letters in this post, as you did when you first started. any reason why?

i like the look of all small letters.

any last words for today?

gentlemen, whatever you feel for a lady, don't call it love if you just want to get laid.

also, frank wrote me lately. he had this line i want to quote:

be grateful you're alive. and don't be grateful if you're dead. do you think jerry garcia is happy?

ADDENUM: for the record, this is the 570th post in this blog.

Cell Division, Explained Pictorally

Someone on the net showed us one way to explain cell division:

o

0

8

oo
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ADDENUM: With this posting, I've decided to add emoticons as a new label for my posts.

I've seen them...you can't help that if you're on the internet...and I like them, but I don't use them often because I find them juvenile. That's just me.

It's Been A While...

About three and a half weeks, since the last post.

Here's one reason. I haven't given a shit about posting because I've been in a deep funk lately. I have my reasons and beliefs why, but I'm not willing to tell you, dear reader, and the rest of the internet..

Here's another reason. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, thing before me is the state of my apartment. It hasn't been cleaned thoroughly for at least five years. I'll admit to that..

Cleaning this place is like a combination of two of the twelve labors of Hercules: Cleaning the Augean stables, which seemed impossible to complete; and killing the Hydra, because when one of its heads was cut off, it grew two more to replace it.

And since this blog isn't a job or duty or obligation, but something I do for my own pleasure, I've done it when I felt like it.

I'm still in this funk, and the apartment just sits here untouched. But I decided, after I went through some of my notes, to start posting again. Or at the least, post this one thing.

As part of my return, I present this slice of cheesecake to mark the end of the summer:

Update

Posting had been limited for the past two weeks because my computer had some problems. Several bugs had infected it; Unfortunately, they came right after each other. So I had to keep taking it back for maintenance.

Now that the problems have been solved, I'll be posting more often.

And so ... onward.

An Ongoing Novel

I've posted in the blog the differences I see in posts I entitle vignettes, like the one written before this one (and located after it, because that's the way the internet works), and those I entitle short stores. If you want to find the differences, please click here.

Also, these vignettes are like scenes from a novel that's been going through my head. Someday, I might organize them.

Some Comments On The Final Four

I was going to post about the NCAA Final Four, which was played last weekend at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis. But last Tuesday, I had Final Four illness: Too much talk about the movie Hoosiers, David vs. Goliath, etcetera and etcetera and etcetera.

It was as if I was sick from eating too much of one food at one time. But it was a mental and psychological sickness from too, too much hyperbole.

Then I was going to post my views on it no later than yesterday. But I changed my mind because too much time has passed since the event . If you want more details, type "Butler Basketball" into the search engine of your choice and go at it.

By the way, Duke beat Butler 61-59 in the title game last Monday night. Bulldog forward Gordon Hayward missed a halfcourt shot with one second left. If it had gone into the basket, central Indiana would still be reverberating from the win.

I honestly didn't expect the Bulldogs to get through the regional, but they defeated Syracuse and Kansas State to get to the Final Four. Then they defeated Michigan State to get to the title game.

I was cheering on the Bulldogs to win, for this main reason: My parents met as students at Butler after the Second World War. If they had not met, they would not have married each other. And from that, I would not have been born.

Another reason was the fact that they ARE a local team, after all.

Because of those reasons, during the tourney I wished my parents were still alive -- or at the least my father, because he would've appreciated it more.

As one last comment about the tourney, please read this link for some comments from deadspin.com, the one sports site on the web that I read every day. Warning -- it isn't for those who can't appreciate irony -- sarcasm's cousin with a liberal arts degree.

Since the tourney is over, I doubt if I'll post any more about sports until the fall, when football season starts. That is, if I post about sports at all in the future. I have my misgivings about spectator sports. I plan to post something about them later.

Some Changes And An Explanation

In this post, I'll write about a change I made in my blog.

I've posted fictional pieces in this blog and labeled them vignettes and short stories. Here is the difference between them.

A vignette is a short scene that usually has no context. It's like a snapshot or a frame from a movie.

A short story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's more like a movie.

Super Bowl Post Update

I've updated my post on the Super Bowl. I've intermingled the new additions with the old ones.

If you want to read the revised post, please click here.

Damn Weather Again ...

As of this afternoon, the National Weather Service is forecasting another heavy blizzard. It is predicted to be much like the one last week. You can read the details about that storm here.

The latest snow will start falling about midnight tonight and continue through Wednesday afternoon. The amount to fall is forecast to be between five to eight inches.

Roads will be bad because winds will blow and cause drifting.

Last week's snowfall didn't hit central Indianapolis as hard as Washington and other places on the East Coast, but still ... I'M GETTING GODDAMN TIRED OF IT!

This will be the last posting for a while. I'll be away from my computer and at a place where I can't post because it has no computer connection.

Goodbye for now. And watch this space. More posting to come.

Moving Forward ...

I thought of posting about the death of my parents, and had planned to do it before today. However, I've found that I just won't go through some notes in a folder about that.

I didn't post anything else except for the one above this one until today out of respect for their deaths. With that date here today, so I'll post more often.

I found this on the Internet. I post it here for you and especially for me. I'll try to remember them. Better yet, I will try to do them.
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You are not alone.

Join us.

Many of us will NOT give up.

Hope is still alive.

Somebody somewhere loves you.

Pass this along.

How I'm Feeling Nowadays

This picture is a perfect example of how I'm feeling nowadays, as summer turns to fall.

I might tell you why someday. It's too long and complicated to get into now. Besides, I must organize my notes about it.

So -- screw it. I'm getting out of here.

I'll post later. Don't know when. Until then ... take care.

Some Cheesecake And Some Details

Before you is the latest piece of cheesecake from my blog's bakery and kitchen.

Her name is Marcy Hanson. I found her picture on the net and downloaded it my hard drive.

I put it before you because I've written 12 posts today --that's a lot more than what I've written during the last few months -- and I bet you could use some sweetness in your life. I know I do.
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Posting will be irregular in the future -- at least for the next month -- because I'm still involved with matters -- some personal, some related to the health of some relatives -- that keep me from my home base.

So this is all for today and probably for sometime soon.

Goodbye for now.

And please -- keep watching this space.

A Lack Of Posts, And Why

I haven't posted since April 14, a little more than five weeks ago, because of matters that are more important than this blog. Some were personal. Others involved the health of some family members.

When things get back to how they were before, I'll post then. I might even post about those matters. At the least, I wanted to post one item this month.

In the meantime, watch this space. And enjoy the Memorial Day holiday and all the days of this summer.

Changes, Starting Today

I have decided switch from all lower-case letters in my posts. From today on, I'll use upper-case letters when it's appropriate.

I just thought this blog could use a change. Also, it was time to get more serious and less whimsical.

I'm not going back to apply this to all of my past posts. That would take up times better spent on this blog and other things. But I applied this to the posts I wrote earlier this month.

Also, I've created a new category for some posts. It's called Promes. They are posts that live in the gray areas where poetic prose or prose-like poetry meet.

Today, I've given some vignettes that label. Other changes might come later. I need to check some posts that could fit the new category.