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Amy
November Writing Challenge Day 16 Just another day. What’s “just” another day? Today? None are exactly the same…the all have a general theme of aggravation and reminding myself I’ve actually got it pretty good. But my day? My typical day starts between 5 and 5:38, depending on whether I get up at J’s alarm or mine. Today it was his. First things first, a quick shuffle to the water closet. I mean, this is full disclosure, right? If I remember, I take my vitamin, my allergy pill, and my blood pressure pill. I generally forget. And although some people think I’m lying, I make the bed. Ask Shug. With all 300 throw pillows (that he says he despises but secretly loves). If it’s chilly, I pull on socks and my robe and stumble my way to the coffeepot. If it’s summer, I just yawn and make my way to the couch. I scroll a little Facebook, maybe glance through emails while I try to wake up. I check the weather to see what to wear and if we can go forward with staining jobs or what have you. I think about how good Chick-fil-a would be for breakfast…or a doughnut. But maybe I should concentrate on the present and grab a Snapple and some Nabs (tip of the hat to you, Southwest Virginia readers. To the rest of the…
November Writing Challenge, Day 15 Just Walk Away I don’t know about you fellers, but I say this to myself a LOT. Sometimes it’s driving away. But seems like there’s always somebody trying to ruin my peaceful aura. Ok, that might be a bit of a stretch, but I do like to maintain a distance between myself and other individuals, whether it be in line at the grocery store or in traffic. It’s like, if I’m trying my hardest to give another person their space, the person behind me is determined to be taking up the slack between me and them. If I’m maintaining a safe following distance (two Mississippi’s) then someone else sees that as an opportunity to zip in. Jerks. So I have to breathe out Satan and walk/ drive away. Or hit them with my elbow and/ or purse, as I did in Kmart last week. And Panda Express two years ago. Can’t. Stand. It. If I flip my hair in your face and you don’t back up, prepare to become bruised. And as far as the driving goes, you’re very likely to be treated to a single finger salute and a trumpet from Patsy. I’ve heard that normal people use their horn only twice a year. I’m surprised I don’t have to replace mine with every oil change. Hey hey…
November Writing Challenge Day 15 Just walk away. You ever had one of those conversations that you knew was heading south (and why do we use south as an adjective for degrading??) and there was no way to redeem it, you were too far gone so you just had to walk away? I had a friend for over twenty years and I would get in these train wreck derailing conversations with her weekly. You couldn’t fight her. It got worse after we had said conversations over alcohol. I can’t tell you how many restaurants and bars I had to just walk out of. I’m surprised we remained friends as long as we did. But sometimes walking away is the only responsible thing to do, the only way to preserve your dignity. In retail, it was hard to employ this rule, so often I could be found behind the counter, slit-eyed and gritting my teeth. It was the closest to walking away that I was allowed. It’s surprising how many people are oblivious to pure hate. I love this meme. You can always walk away…
November Writing Challenge Day 14 The test results. When you’re little, it’s all about what the U.S.S.R. stood for and the capitals of the 50 states. Then it was what value did x stand for and please list thirteen characteristics of a positive neutron. {The first actual life changing test is taken at 16…some of us had to take it a couple of times. Stop signs are overrated.} And it all boiled down to what you scored on the ACT that would determine the rest of your life. Or so we believed. Oh, how our naive minds believed. What we didn’t know is that these were the easiest tests to pass…the ones we actually had some control over. On to college, the days of relentless testing of the essay variety. What did this particular poem mean to you and what is the most significant symbolism in Dante’s manuscript to his mother? And all for what? So we can get a job where they don’t even glance at our GPA or ask for verification because they’re gonna give you the bottom of the barrel position and tell you you’ll have to make your way up the food chain…or if you’re a girl in a man’s world you may get lucky enough to be told the truth: “There’s no ladder to…
November Writing Challenge Day 13 Water flowed My house is old, as I have mentioned a few times. We frequently have plumbing problems, especially in the sinks. I think we’ve got everything all fixed up now, after many years of not having a working bathroom sink in the bedroom, and then several of not having one in the main bathroom. That means brushing your teeth in the shower and washing your hands in the kitchen sink. The first year I ever cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving, I had a bucket under the sink until we could get Johnny’s buddy Scott the plumber over. I would have cried if it would have helped. Thankfully Johnny is pretty handy and has fixed all the issues that have come our way. Even when he had to cut the backs of the cabinets out and taking a saws-all to my pink bathroom wall. But it’s a small price to pay, I assure you. I remember when we were dating and he was working over in North Carolina, the shower stopped up. I had done everything I knew to do (pouring a gallon of Drain-o in the vicinity of the drain and praying) and it was just at a standstill. I was bemoaning my troubles to him even though he couldn’t do anything. I could clearly visualize the tub rotting and falling through the floor into the basement and then how would I get…
November Writing Challenge, Day 12 It evaded me. Being a bit of a flake, thoughts evade me constantly. Sometimes I’ll be smack dab in the middle of telling a story, get distracted by whatever it may be, and couldn’t tell you for love or money what I had been talking about twenty two seconds prior. I also keep the dictionary app open on my laptop when doing any writing because I can almost think of what I want to say….almost. So if I can put in the word I can think of, I can usually come up with the one I can’t. I’ve never been a hunter, other than that one time, so I don’t have any thrilling stories of how my prey evaded me. What? You wanna hear about the one time? Well sure, I have nothing else to do, besides read a 291 page book by Wednesday for book club. I was in 5th grade and had just completed the Hunter’s Safety Education Course with the rest of my classmates. We’d went out to the dam and shot clay targets with a .410, which was not a big deal, since I’d grown up around a bunch of men that were outdoorsy. Uncle Dale had had me shooting BB guns since I was about 5. (But I still don’t bait my own hook). Anyway, he’d had this…
If you’re one of those readers who has to have a character you identify with, or at least like, this book is not for you. Come to think of it, Gillian Flynn is not for you. The book dragged for me in the middle, hence the four stars. Otherwise, probably her best one. What a tangled web of deceit she weaves! But beyond depressing. What is it with these families in Kansas murdered in their house? Maybe it’s just because I finished In Cold Blood the other day. I do appreciate Gillian Flynn for giving us answers and tying up loose ends…even if they aren’t the answer or the ending you want…
November Writing Challenge Day 11 Walk the dog. I’ve never lived in a place where I had to walk a dog. I did, as a child, have a Greyhound that I entered in the dog show at the fair because I couldn’t enter my Chow Chow; he was a little temperamental. So I walked her in a circle and won a Purina dog bowl and a blue ribbon. She won best in class because she was the only Greyhound anyone had ever seen. Sevier County in the days of yore aren’t like today with all these rescue groups. The majority of dogs spent their life on a chain. The good life meant they had a fence to run around in. One that lived inside was a novelty….and people whispered behind hands not to eat what they brought to dinner, because “they had a dog in the house”. ☺ Now you’re weird if your dog lives outside, and hated by your neighbors if it’s tied. On the other hand, my momma is a yo-yo queen and she can Walk the Dog. All I can do is get tangled. …
November Writing Challenge Day 10 Used tea bags. Are you kidding me with this? What weird little topics they’ve come up with. Well, I do have one thing to say: I do think about reusing them. It seems such a waste to just use them the one time. Especially since I buy the big pouches for the gallon size container. But I also know that tea will mold if left out of the fridge….although I guess I could put it in the fridge but that’s too much aggravation. Then it would be like the half-onions that accumulate in there that grow things after a time. I’ve also heard they’re good for under eye circles but I haven’t tried them. I liked those little fabric cucumber slices that you could keep in your fridge for that. I don’t think anything works but Rodan + Fields, honestly. Their lash boost has made a believer out of me. So. Used tea bags. Hmm. That’s about all I’ve got to say about that…
November Writing Challenge Day 9 No, you don’t. This morning I had a conversation that has haunted me all day. I have the feeling it’s going to last a lot longer. I knew part of his story, but not all. This is the story of a man who changed his life twice. He was a young man with a good job, working as a team lead in the receiving department of a sizeable company. Benefits, decent wages, and a workable schedule. He had a girlfriend with a baby on the way. Not a glamorous life, but an honorable one. And then, as things do, something happened. He met the wrong people, went to the wrong places, and began to do the wrong things. He started selling drugs, which led to doing drugs. He lost his job. He sold a sports car for eight pills. (The equivalent of $200). He lied. He stole his momma’s laptop to hock for drug money. She let him come back. He fleeced her for $350.00. She let him come home. He stole his daddy’s pistol, and that was the end of coming back home. He had changed his life. His path was no longer clear. He lived under a bridge off Broadway, where the KMart used to be. His mother came every day and picked him up and took him to the Pilot to take a hot shower for $7.00. He got so cold at…
