WordPress declared January as Bloganuary. I didn’t even find out until 2/3s of the way through the month. The idea is that one takes the prompt, writes about it, and attaches the Bloganuary tag.
Well, that’s not how I can blog these days, wake up to see what random suggestion I might take to. I suppose when I was first doing this in 2005, I would have leaped at the opportunity. Still, I liked some of the choices, so what the heck.
Write about a dream you remember
I’ve been writing about dreams periodically. One I had in January involved bowling. The ball landed in a manner that, when it reached the pins, it bounced, taking out the back pins first then the ones in front.
I’m sure it related to watching JEOPARDY and seeing this clue. “In 2021 Anthony Neuer, ‘The Ginger Assassin’, converted the first of these splits in a live TV bowling match since 1991.” Well, I have no idea who Anthony Neuer is. But I know bowling. It HAD to be a 7-10 split, and of course, Amy Schneider answered it correctly. I always wonder if others had rung in earlier whether they might have answered it correctly.
Write about what makes you feel strong
I generally know when to ask for help. I found myself in a very frustrating situation, not of my making. It absolutely took up far too much energy in my head, so I had to identify someone with whom to talk about it. I did converse with my wife, who knew about the situation, but then also found a need to vent to someone else. And it helped. A lot.
What is your favorite part about yourself?
I suppose my intellectual curiosity. Without that, I couldn’t write this blog at all. If I went into writing something on a daily basis knowing that I ABSOLUTELY know how I’ll feel in the end, it would not be that interesting to me.
What They Said
What is your favorite quote and why?
After a ridiculously LONG thought process, I’m uncertain that I have one. Surely, I’ve been known for quoting lines from songs.
Cockburn: The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
King Crimson: Talk, it’s only talk
Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker
Brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo
Paul Simon: Slip sliding way. Slip sliding away. You know the nearer your destination the more you’re slip-sliding away… God only knows. God makes His plan.
MANY others. And most of them are not particularly uplifting, unfortunately. Inspirational quotes I have largely soured on, from ML King to Spider-Man, from vast overuse.
Movie quotes I used to do all the time in the 1980s. “What we have is a dead shark” or “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges” or “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” The only one that I know I’m using regularly now is “I’m walking here!” from Midnight Cowboy.
I considered Bible verses, but nothing grabbed me.
This can’t be this difficult…
Maybe Doris Day? OK, I’ll pick Maya Angelou. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
A variation on the theme: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark