The perfect space doesn’t exi…

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?

This image was created using DALL-E, an AI program developed by OpenAI, based on a text prompt describing a customized reading retreat. The image is AI-generated and subject to OpenAI’s usage policy.

This is an interesting question, largely because I have been wondering this myself a lot lately. I used to read constantly, and I wrote a lot more as well. The fact that I do not do so as much now bugs the hell out of me, and I occasionally have spurts where I try to get back in the habit of doing both.

I have, for example, been using my phone to compose posts for this blog. For some reason I am finding that particularly frustrating this morning, but I think I just sorted out why. Anyway…

My perfect space for reading and writing would start with a chair I can sit comfortably in for long periods. I assume that sounds basic, but the fact is I have not been able to find one in a very long time. Either the chair starts to hurt my back after a while or I cannot hold a book at the right angle.

It would have a small fridge for beverages and snacks, and (of course) a coffee maker. Preferably one attached to a water line for minimal refill effort.

It would need to be cool and cozy. A fireplace would be nice. A room with a nice view where I could contemplate nature when I felt the need to pause and reflect for a few. Someplace quiet, with minimal distractions and perhaps built inside of a faraday cage so the internet would not follow me in.

I suppose none of this is terribly original but it sounds pretty great to me.

You never forget your first

What is your all time favorite automobile?

This image was created using DALL-E, an AI program developed by OpenAI, based on a text prompt describing a white 1964 Chrysler Newport Sedan. The image is AI-generated and subject to OpenAI’s usage policy

My first car was a white 1964 Chrysler Newport Sedan. It was my best car.

I “inherited” it from my Grandfather sometime in the late 90’s. If I had to guess I would say it was 1988. My Grandfather was still alive when I got it, but the family had removed it from his house when he wouldn’t stop driving despite the fact that he could hardly hear or see.

The last time I rode in that car with him was quite the experience, let me tell you. I distinctly remember my grandmother yelling at him what the color of the lights were and when he needed to stop.

I learned how to drive in that car. Not legally, mind you. When my Mother and her partner would leave town I would take the car out, pick up my friends, and go joy riding. I eventually got busted for doing this because they checked the odometer against the mileage that was on the car before they left.

Another interesting side note to that – I still straight up lied about it and refused to take responsibility. I was quite the asshole as a teenager.

In any case, when I was legally able to drive I was given the Newport. I promptly dubbed it Bessie, the Hungry Heifer, because fuel efficiency was not a thing that mattered when that beautiful beast was built. My Grandfather had taken immaculate care of that car and everything still worked, up to and including the totally awesome PUSH BUTTON GEAR SHIFT.

Retro Sci-Fi console vibes galore, my friends.

I have probably told this story here on multiple occasions, but the abbreviated sad end to my time with Bessie was when I completely totaled it by driving like an asshole. I almost killed a small child in the process, not to mention the three passengers that were in the car with me, but Bessie was the only actual casualty that day.

I have always wanted to replace that car, but of course as the years have passed that has become more and more of an increasingly expensive pipe dream. Still, no car I have had since has come close to being as awesome as The Hungry Heifer.

An Unexpected Party

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

Image created by OpenAI’s DALL·E, an AI model designed for generating digital images. The image depicts an older man handing a boy a copy of The Hobbit. Only their hands are visible.

This kind of question is complicated for me. My father left home when I was very young, and while I have fond memories of him because of our interactions when I was in my twenties, he really did not have much of a positive impact on my life.

Then there was Dick, the man my mother spent over two decades with but who never got off his ass and married her. My feelings about Dick are complicated, but I will give him credit for trying. He came into my life when I was a rebellious teenager and did his best to “whip me into shape,” but most of his efforts were not only ineffective but had the opposite impact on me (I rebelled more).

In between the two, though…We had a very odd extended family during those years. My Mother was a bartender, and she built a village around us of “aunts” and “uncles” who all contributed in some way to trying to help her raise her kids. Make no mistake, these were hard-drinking party people who, for the most part, would have made horrible full-time parents. As a collective, though, they helped form a community around us that was loving and warm and full of joy. When I think of “family” I think of these people. I only think of my biological family in terms of the events they came to with my “real” family.

An example – The one Christmas tradition I miss the most is Christmas breakfast. Mom opened her house to the tribe, and spent the entire morning cooking as they wandered through. It was amazing. Laughter and good food and (of course) plenty of Bloody Mary’s. That was Christmas.

During this time a lot of men helped to step in and be “father” figures for me. Taking me on camping trips, helping with school projects, talking to me about “guy” things. That kind of stuff.

The man who made the biggest impact on me during that time was Jack Chinn. He was a standard member of that group. Hard drinking, chain smoking, partying so hard he put himself into an early grave.

But he was also a big geek. And he recognized me as one of his own.

Jack gave me my first copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy,

I do not remember which birthday it was, but definitely in my early teen years. He told me at the time to read The Hobbit but to hold off on the others until I was older (he was dead on about that…it was not until I was much older that I could truly appreciate the other novels). Jack opened my eyes to a whole new world, and there was no turning back.

Jack also took me to see Flash Gordon. He exposed me to many different genres of science fiction and fantasy. His influence sparked an interest in Dungeons and Dragons, and my love of role-playing drew a direct line to my acting career.

Amusingly, I stumbled across his Gor novels at one point. Thankfully, he quickly steered me away from THOSE (I found them on my own when it was age-appropriate for me to do so).

There are a lot of men who had impact on my life, but Jack was one of the standouts. I miss him, and wish I could have gotten to know him better as an adult and friend, but as one of my many father figures he was damn near the best.

Daily Writing Prompt 12.11.2023

What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?

Walking. There is no other answer. This was easy.

A picture taken during one of my morning walks.

Every time I have hit and maintained a weight goal in my life it was during a time I walked daily.

I have much more mental clarity on days that start with a one hour walk.

I spend my time walking listening to audio books or podcasts that entertain me or enrich my life (or both).

The time I spend walking is 100% self-care and it makes me feel as though I am taking care of myself.

I also get a lot of work done while I am walking, and my notes to myself frequently result in a lot of productive activity during my work day.

I love lifting weights. I love running. But walking is the world champion of exercise in my eyes.

Daily Writing Prompt 12.09.2023

What’s your favorite cartoon?

Oh, wow. This is hard. Are we talking animated movie or cartoon show? Individual episode or series? Character? Gah! So many choices.

I think I am going to have to go with Star Trek: Lower Decks. It was a toss-up between that and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I could also have picked from any number of animated shows I have watched throughout my life, but those two are the ones I immensely think of when I think of cartoons I love.

Lower Decks is, quite simply, some of the best Star Trek content that has ever been produced. It is smart, funny, engaging, and a love letter to the franchise that keeps getting better every season. My wife, who is not big on animated stuff and only got into Trek recently, agrees.

As far as Spider-Man is concerned? He has been my favorite hero since I was in my early teens, and Into the Spider-Verse was quite simply the best representation of the universe outside of the comics in my opinion. I also saw it in the theater with my son, so it has a special place in my heart for that reason as well.

Daily Writing Prompt 12.02.2023

Are you more of a night or morning person?

These days? Definitely a morning person. Although I honestly think I was always a morning person who simply lived a life that included a social life that was not conducive to being one.

When I was in my teens and early twenties I was definitely a night owl. I would stay up late gaming, going to late-night movies (RHPS cast member because of course), or dancing. I was not much of a “party” person, but that did not prevent me from seeing the ugly side of twenty-four hour diners on many occasions.

When I become a parent that started to change. I was the overnight feeder, so I would still spend a lot of time in the middle of the night online, but the necessities involved in being a father required me to be up earlier in the day. So, eventually, did my Monday-Friday, 9-5 job. But I tried! I spent many years getting only 4-5 hours of sleep because I was up too late with my night owl friends.

I take after my Father now. When he was in town (Coast Guard deployments) he was always up before dawn and making breakfast (regardless of how much he drank the night before). He was raised on a farm and that was just what you did. I started transitioning to that kind of schedule back in 2019, and the pandemic allowed it to really solidify. These days I am usually heading to bed by 7 and up by 5.

Unfortunately because of that whole cancer thing I am still tired all the time.

Daily Writing Prompt – What positive emotions do you feel most often?

Daily writing prompt
What positive emotion do you feel most often?

Yes, it’s a new experiment. I’m trying (again) to get back in the habit of writing more often thanks to the fact that I’m reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. I figured I would use the daily writing prompts from WordPress to help out with that.

Ok, so. The positive emotion that I feel most often. That’s a rough one to answer, because the last few years have been dominated so heavily by negative emotions. I’m also back on Wellbutrin right now, and have been for a few months, so my emotional state is for the most part pretty neutral/ambivalent.

I literally just had to search for “positive emotions” to get a list of them to help find the one I’d select, but it worked.

Contentment

Despite all the chaos of our lives, and all the challenges we’ve faced together, I spend a good deal of time feeling very content. In many, many ways I feel we have built a very satisfying life together. It’s not thrilling and filled with adventure, but it’s nice. It’s comfortable. We have good friends, a lovely home, and the ability to enjoy our time together. We have regular “rituals” that we enjoy. We don’t want for the necessities. We can afford to take vacations when the opportunity arises or make the occasional indulgent purchase without worrying about how we’re going to pay for it. We are planning for retirement and confident we’ll be able to when the time is right. It’s a good life, and I’m happy it’s ours.

A very brief health update…

My first biopsy was negative (thyroid).

Next biopsy is Monday (liver/pancreas).

I am still asymptomatic for anything related to cancers in that area, but they saw a cyst big enough to warrant further investigation.

I feel like the iron supplements are starting to work and my energy levels are beginning to rise again. Still confident the ultimate issue is just going to be that I give blood too often, but will not be 100% sure if that until September after my Upper and Lower GI tests and my next set of labs.

Mentally I am drained but still feeling positive about the whole thing. Lisa combines her medical experience and research skills to be able to provide contextual answers for me when I rabbit hole too deep into bad “what if” scenarios. She also has a whole laundry list of questions she wants me to pose to our primary care doctor when this is all said and done about our lifestyle choices and what we might have done differently to prevent some of this. I strongly suspect my coffee intake is going to be an issue but for now I am refusing to acknowledge that possibility. I will cross that bridge when I officially cross into my 50’s this November. Damnit. In any case, she has been by my side through all of this and her support, as always, is a major contributor to my mental health.

This was not as brief as I intended it to be, but there it is.

Momentum

Perfection is the enemy of good. That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it? I’d take the time to look it up but that’s kind of antithetical to what I’m writing about today. As is typical for me by now, when the year rolled over I glanced at my neglected network of blogs and committed to do better by them in the coming year. I even created a Trello board called “editorial calendar” that has three lists of topics, and I promised myself I’d write three posts a week.

That was three weeks ago. As you can see, no blog posts as of yet.

I almost opened up my editorial calendar to see what I should have written about in this blog on Monday three weeks ago, but I decided not to. I just wanted to get some words down. Get things moving. Get some momentum.

That would certainly be a nice change after 2020.

Don’t get me wrong. In a lot of ways, if I’m being honest, 2020 was pretty good to me personally. I lost more weight. My wife and I committed to making some serious inroads into our financial future and we have done so. I kept up my walking routine and completed a good number of virtual distance challenges. I’ve remained alcohol-free. I listened to a lot of books and podcasts. My team and I have received many accolades and are held up as being highly influential employees in the organization. I’ve continued to go to therapy every two weeks, and I’ve really learned a lot about myself as a result.

But, of course, 2020 was 2020. Pandemic. 45. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. We’re coming up on a year since the lockdowns began, and all the related factors are of course impacting all of us, and I’m not immune to that. The virus has mutated and that version is making the rounds, so it looks like another extended period of extreme lockdown.

I’m also writing this 10 days before the second anniversary of Christopher’s death, and almost a week after what should have been his 20th birthday. We continue to do our best to heal, to be there for each other, to figure out what life is supposed to even look like now in what we refer to as the “after.” It’s been hard. It will continue to be hard. Most of the people around us probably don’t even think about his suicide when they think about us, and that’s completely normal, but it’s still very much a part of who we are now. Part of who we will always be.

I don’t mean to be maudlin here, and I don’t feel like what I wrote above doesn’t even qualify for that if I’m being honest. It’s not a sad fact. It’s just a fact. It is, as my step-son says, what it is.

So there is a post. I hope there are more to follow. That I keep up the momentum. At this point I have to agree with my Mother, who loves to say that as long as she keeps moving she keeps living. She’s living proof that is true, so all I can do is hope to emulate her.