Luck? Or Something Else.

Constantly I am looking for proof, a sign, or some sort of something that tells me there are forces in this world beyond what I can sense with my silly short bus human brain. Tonight was one of those nights where I just had to smile and say, “Okay.” Let us start about two hours ago.

Come on! Hop in the Delorean, let’s go!

Whoooooooooooooooooooosh! pzt bzt pitsh bachowwwwwwrrrrmmmm

I decided it was time to finally sit down and tackle the problem a lot of us are facing. Debt. The cruel mistress and price of my greed for toys was piling up along with the anxiety of not knowing where I am at. So I figured it all out and figured out a reasonable payment plan to make it all go away. Every expense I have per month, what was left over, and what I had to live on was all planned out and calculated. So now I’m on the road to freedom.

Now, after a person figures out these things the last thing on their mind is spending money. However the hunger was setting in and I desperately needed some household items. So I turn out the pockets and the wallet to discover I’ve got $12 cash money, solid green backs, hard earned bones, mother effin’ doe ray mine. I look at my desk and scavenge the quarters from this weeks pocket change. I also open the junk drawer on my dresser looking for quarters; there were none, but I took a dime and two nickels just so opening the drawer was worth it. Tally before I left the house $13.70!

I decided to go to the only place I knew that could stretch money for days, Grocery Outlet. Trash bags took a solid chunk of the money at $6 bucks but I grabbed dinner and a loaf of bread anyway. The math in my head said I would be close but I should be alright. It isn’t like I don’t have any money in the bank but I wanted to see how far the cash I had would go. It was close! Way close!

So close I just had to say, “Thanks Universe!” You rock my world again!

Evolution and Documentation

Since about the age of nineteen I’ve prided myself on keeping memoirs of my life. I’m twenty five now so that is a few solid years of documentation. Depending on how my life is going I’ll make anywhere from 2 – 5 entries per year. When I was in college most of my entries were done around Christmas time while I was home from school and feeling the most reflective. Now I find that entries take place when I have been faced with some life altering realizations or some sort of trauma. The memoirs are a glorified high school girls’ diary. I can boohoo, curse, dream and fantasize about everything and anything. Last night I was making an entry (last one was in May of this year) and I found myself flipping back through time.

The beauty of the memoirs is that I place no rules on them. Some of the text is just blind jibberish where I could not be bothered with corrections at that time. Essentially I have been able to capture a snap shot of my mind during some of the most important events in my life. Reading back I started to notice there was no pattern. It is as though each entry was written by a completely different person. If it wasn’t for the consistency and actual follow up to previous entries you would think it was some sort of anthology where every author just tore a page out of their own personal journals.

I’ve always been on the quest you see. The quest for complete self definition. Consistency in this pursuit is evident at the root of every action, relationship, conversation and intellectual pursuit I’ve ever undertaken. I will only do things in life where the reward for failure is equal to the reward of success. Chew on that carefully.

My memoirs tell me that I’m always changing. Five years is beyond habitual abuse or even addiction to change; it is now a part of who you are. I think there is only one thing to do and that is to embrace it. Be comfortable with who you are today and be prepared to meet the new you tomorrow. We are all suffering from the exact same mild case of personality alzheimers.

Character Sketch to Flash Fic – Brandon Garcia

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I pulled another cassette from the old box.  Things were beginning to go in slow motion for me now during these listening sessions.  I imagined the classical ambient musical score at the end of a war film.  The brave solider you fell in love with getting killed in a hail of gunfire.  Red mist exploding from each new bullet hole as the actor convulses from the supposed inertia of it all and you living that split second of life in minutes on film.

Bach’s Cello Suite One in G major suites me just fine.  I hear it, as my hand clutches the plastic  tape of the blind man.  Each quick pull of the cello’s bow resonates within me and I slow my breathing.  I rub my thumb on  the pattern of scratches in the plastic.  None of these tapes have numbers, just a series of scored  hash marks to indicate their order in the sequence.  I put on my headphones and push play.  Bach fades out and the black curtain descends as the blind man once again narrates our life.

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100 Words – They are little people, not midgets.

Weekly Challenge #163 – Death by Pineapple, Revenge shall be mine, failed Wolfram Alpha queries.

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We are little people.

My Father never hesitated to point out the things we weren’t capable of.

The constant mental abuse battered against my Mother’s mental ramparts.

She might be a small midget, but her pride was as large as a full grown man.

Smuggling a syringe from her work, she would make him a special Hawaiian pizza that night.

I typed the word ‘arsenic’ into the WolframAlpha frame work after we got back from Dad’s funeral.

No results were returned about it killing anyone.

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Danny says –

1) I’ll record the audio for this story later today.

2) Give Blood and Thanks is postponed until tomorrow night.

3) Working on a REALLY cool story that I need to get finished up for GreatHites.

4) I’m going to do NanoWriMo this year.  So the time  has come for me to kick around ideas and start outlining.  Click the link to learn more about NanoWriMo.

5) I’ve got so much crap in the hopper right now it is disgusting.  I need to get the word count up and that is all there is to it.

6) I love you guys

Writing Tips – Stick with it, be ready for new challenges.

When you really get into writing and decide to make it part of your life you start experiencing the real hurdles.  You think, “Man, it was hard enough to actually decide to do this and now it just gets harder?” (insert tears and brain pains).  I’m a new writer, I would classify myself as an infant even, and new challenges are thrown at me everyday.  Today I scrapped a solid effort and it was sad.

I wrote about 2,500 words for a piece I was hell bent on submitting for a contest and I scrapped it all.  It was about five hours worth of work and I got to a point where my story lost all focus, and got so far gone, there was no saving it.  Writers count words like the calories of a fad diet, every single one matters.  A few months ago I would have pushed forward with it, thrown my ideas down and called it good, words didn’t matter so much to me then.  While I feel that is extremely valuable for brainstorming and word vomiting ideas that are not quite flushed out, it has downsides.

As you grow as a writer you start to loath the tiresome process of editing.  Sometimes if you write something to horrendous and incomprehensible in the beginning, you will spend twice or three times as long crafting it into something readable.  I’ve discovered that the more I write everyday the easier it is to recognize bad writing as soon as it hits the page.  Just like with any skill, writing is practice, practice, practice, so hang in there.

This is the opening paragraph of what I wrote today, the rest of the piece didn’t carry this tone at all.  I thought I would be able to introduce my characters and come back to this, but it never happened, so it was cast into the ether to die.

“…The riddle of the century was asked of me when I was only twenty-two years old.  Smoke filled lounges, liquor stained carpets, and counter tops with sugary adhesive puddles were to be my world for the next two days.  Revolving bundles of fruit set in motion by hands on large levers make loud dings as eyes light up around the room.  Each one of those hands attached to an individual dream, a life without hardship, the new American Dream.  Faces beaming with smiles or barred teeth are illuminated by the flashing sirens of blue, red, yellow, and green.  What was that riddle? Where is the only place where you can be anyone but yourself? Where what happens supposedly stays for eternity?  This is Vegas baby, the new gold rush, land of the free, and home of the destitute…”

The battle was lost today, but victory was gained on another front.  I learned quite a bit about what it will take in the future for me to stay on track.  Onward!