Posts about stuff
Let’s be honest: I have no idea when this thing about political correctness started. It was nonexistent when I was a kid in the 80’s, and by the time I was in high school in the 90’s it was making itself known. This is PC, … Continue reading Do I really think political correctness is necessary?
Tooth,
Claw –
Despite fear,
Regardless of outcome,
The struggle is our heritage.
No innovation will erase this proudly worn badge:
The triumph of will through incredible reluctance to claim the world as ours.
This week’s post was prompted by the Trifextra writing challenge: 33 words using the word tooth but not about losing a tooth.
Now that’s a sensitive question. Despite how tough and rugged people must think I am, it turns out that I am quite a sensitive person. There are times when just some music will start to choke me up, but I will usually find the fortitude and manliness to fight it. For that reason it’s hard to say if something counts or not, so I will choose something of significance – something that I just cannot deny.
I remember…
I was moved to tears when my daughter was born. I couldn’t help it – everything was so intense! We were going to do it without drugs, but the doctor insisted on Pitocin and then my wife insisted on the painkiller that goes with it. We dodged the epidural, then my wife changed her mind when it was too late. Fortunately, my mother-in-law was there to help us through the delivery. She was definitely great for the moral support. I was supposed to cut the umbilical cord, and then because I was helping out at the top of the bed it came down to the doctor having to do it. Dang.
No matter how much I tell myself I’m not going to do it, I know I’m going to and there’s no escape. So I try to think of other things – baseball, parasitic wasps, foot-long hotdogs – can’t explain that last one, but it works. I’m pretty sure that I’m just coming off as really flustered. Really confused. Out of my element, as any guy should look when fully immersed in a woman’s demesnes of experience, even though I was fairly confident about what I was getting into; and of course, I had no clue about some of the particulars.
I cried many times after that, mostly out of frustration. My daughter appeared to respond to everything with the fear of a feral creature. We had given birth to an opossum. The first time I had her to myself for a couple of hours I thought I would go old-school, H.P. Lovecraft, I-just-looked-upon-the-countenance-of-Cthulu insane. My wife saw it the moment she came home.
Fast forward three months: the daughter is starting to smile and not screaming like a banshee as much. I was calling that progress. Another ten months later, my daughter is now over a year old, and I’m so proud of how awesome she is that I am almost moved to tears on a fairly regular basis.
Foot-longhotdogsfoot-longhotdogsfoot-longhotdogsfoot-longhotdogs…
What? No, I just got something in my eye, is all.
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that I am “transported” by smells – science would have us believe that the right scent can be an olfactory kick in the memory pants; however, there are certain smells I find to be more or less nostalgic for me: fresh tobacco; rainy day air redolent with humidity; the wafting flavor of almonds roasting at a fair; and of course bacon.
I remember…
Smells that have had a distinct effect on me: the smell of Play-Doh used to make me sick. Literally. It probably still would, but I avoid it like the plague.
Clean skin. Can’t explain it, but I love the smell. The closest match I can find is fresh-baked cookies, which I also think is just wonderful.
Okay, so now I’m blank. See, smells just aren’t that important to me in the big picture. I’m not a smell person, although I can tell you when something smells good or bad. Man I came in yesterday morning to work, and the guy who I follow – the guy who works my machine on the third shift – he smelled so disgusting, like a rank combination of sweat and BO and cigarettes and just nast. Guchh. And it didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling good; I was nauseous already, and we had a potentially vile situation on our hands.
I am more of a facial recognition person. My curse is that I can recognize a face after I’ve seen it – I would say 90% of the time. If I see somebody and I recognize them, and I don’t know from where – it will bug me all day long. Then I feel guilt when I realize where I recognized him from, and I probably should’ve greeted them or something like that… but, in the end I just have to tell myself “well they didn’t recognize me because they did not greet me. So no big deal.”
Yeah, I would say I am not a person to hop on the scent bus. I’m more like a guy who’s counting blue cars.
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
Other bloggers smell:
I remember. . .
I don’t really get bored all that much during the course of my life. And it’s not like I’m entertained by everything, or that I’m just claiming that I don’t get bored, but it’s really more that I can’t allow myself to be bored. Nowadays, that’s an easier thing to deal with than it used to be, because I’ve got a backlog of things that I want to do, and I have hobbies that I can engage in at any time, like running, reading, writing, yard work. . . among other things.
When I was a kid, I didn’t get very bored at all either, because I always had something to read. And when I wasn’t reading, I was out getting in trouble with my friends. I remember one time, just for kicks and grins, I got my friend Nathan to go with me to the local elementary school, where they were digging out part of the blacktop behind the school for – I don’t know – some sort of underground entrance. All I wanted to do was dig tunnels through the huge pile of dirt there and make a fort.
What ended up happening was quite different: I ended up getting trapped in the mountain and Nathan had to dig me out because the tunnel collapsed. I remember that I could barely breathe, and I was trying to just stay in control, and I was yelling at him to dig me out: “use the shovel!” Then I thought about how that would go. “Don’t use the shovel!!”
Nathan dug me out, and we went back to my place and I washed off in the swimming pool. My Dad mentioned how much dirt was on the bottom of the pool as if it were my fault. Like, seriously? Anyway, Nate saved my life that day, because I would have happily gone myself. I don’t forget things like that.
And I learned a valuable lesson: dirt don’t hurt unless you’re buried in it.
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
Other bloggers die of boredom:
I remember. . .
I would totally be the kind of person who would say “I’ll never do that again!” If I did something new that I thought would be the same hassle time and time again, but more likely I’d have some idea of where it went wrong and I’d be open to doing it again. I can’t say I’ve been in that situation very much though – at least, not that I remember.
The one time I remember, my wife and I were swimming in the river. This is before we got married. I think we swam downstream a ways, and then we had to come back upstream and we had to walk through this slippery, rocky area beneath one of the bridges and it was so treacherous that we had to hold onto each other to keep from killing ourselves, and I was like, “let’s not do that again.” Needless to say, she agreed.
Then we went to this Chinese buffet in town and they always have the most horrible food – obviously the last time we were there was not the first time – but the last time was the last straw. I said, “I don’t know why we keep coming here. The food is disgusting. The meat in the stir-fry bar is obviously old, don’t bother. I swear, don’t ever ask to come here again, because I never want to come back.”
As open-minded as I can be, I can definitely hold a grudge, too. Let that be a warning!
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
I remember:
Pieces of paper that have changed my life: report cards. I remember that I got pretty good grades in school quite consistently until the sixth grade, when I earned a D in algebra. I cried when I saw that, because I had never gotten a D before, maybe not even a C. I ended up having to go to a summer school for math that summer, but it was pretty easy compared to regular school, so thankful for small favors, right?
Books. I was such an avid reader as a kid that there were times when I was reading a different book every day. And my favorite – the one that made me want to start writing – was The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. Every page of that book changed my life.
Bills. I got under water when I was younger. Call it a witches’ brew of irresponsibility, Michigan’s poor economy, an unfaithful live-in girlfriend, and general inexperience with keeping money straight. I learned the hard way how to keep it tight, and eventually I was able to wrangle another piece of paper that chanted my life: a bankruptcy. The kind where your debts are charged off.
A marriage license: my wife and I went to the courthouse in Steele, one of the larger of the small hamlet towns of
rural North Dakota, to get that. Of course, it was a breeze. After the wedding ceremony the pastor signed it, my Dad and my wife’s friend Trish signed it, and it was official – my life was changed. That led to another piece of paper that changed my life: my daughter’s birth certificate. Both the marriage license and the birth certificate are of the utmost importance, because they represent the best part of my life: my family, Clan Ross.
None of these were found on the ground. Nothing discovered like that could ever change my life, not the way I imagine it going. I hate finding fake money that turns out to be a religious tract. That being said, I don’t keep track of every piece of paper in my life, just the most significant ones.
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
Other bloggers found:
I remember:
When I was ten, I don’t think I really had a concept of what I wanted to be career-wise when I grew up; the only thing that I knew was that I would be older. Perhaps that lack of focus, the unavailability of a solid goal to guide me, was part of the reason that I am still not where I would truly like to be in my desired profession.
I used to tell people I wanted to be a pediatrician, though, because I wanted to give kids shots and make them cry. I’d heard it somewhere and thought it was funny at the time, and since I like to make people laugh I would tell them that. I’d get some laughs, probably because people were all, “kids say the darnedest things!”
But really I look back with my current perspective and realize that I wasn’t taking my future seriously. But why should I have, the kid asks? Indeed, I could have used some explanation of why I should have a goal – a serious goal to work toward achieving. Chunk it up, hit small milestones on the way – don’t float through life all laissez-faire, because that’s where the scam artists step in and ruin your track later on; because when you fall behind it can be so hard to catch back up.
It takes more discipline to be disciplined when you’re not used to exercising discipline on your own primal desires. And so I would tell this kid, start with the end in mind, and make sure that everything you do from now on has something to do with where you want to end up.
You always write your own story.
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt and their Weekly Writing Challenge.
Other bloggers remember:
Dear Rob,
You wander through your life on autopilot, struggling with the challenge of balancing out your intelligence with the urge to run away from responsibility. Not that I am trying to criticize your ways, but they leave much to be desired, and as I am 22 years older than you I should know what I’m talking about, right? Let me give you some solid advice that you should seriously consider.
I envy the opportunity you have to do things right, and the wealth of spare time you have to use at your discretion. Go to school unfailingly. Do not skip classes, and don’t stay home sick or play sick to stay home. Forget video games – they’re a waste of time. Work hard to succeed and attain good grades. After high school don’t take out loans to go to college. It’s a scam. Lose weight, make more friends, learn to not take yourself so seriously. Curb your temper and adjust your attitude. Get on a regular sleep schedule and get tested for narcolepsy. Don’t let them prescribe you Ritalin. Don’t bother with the medications because none of them work right. Just be careful driving and don’t drive tired.
I would like for you to follow this advice, but I have a feeling that you may not; that’s fine. You will understand where you went wrong someday, and you will try your best to do it right moving
forward. The past doesn’t exist, the future doesn’t exist. All that matters is that you do what’s right now.
Sincerely,
Mr. Anonymous
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt.
Does Rob’s Surf Report have an origin story? I started this blog because I wanted to write, and because I wanted to be part of a community of writers. It’s hard to find people who write in your everyday life sometimes – especially when everyone you come into contact with is, for the most part, on the opposite end of the writing spectrum. I chose a subject that I am interested in – surfing – and I themed the blog after that, using it as a metaphor for life. I didn’t want to blatantly point it out, but I do try to hang a lantern on it sometimes.
I posted sporadically at first, then I didn’t post for like a year or more because life ran away with me; then I decided to give up writing altogether. I logged into WordPress with every intention of wiping out my blog in its entirety and an hour later I was clicking Publish. I sometimes lose control of my urges, you know. I decided to give it another go and for the last few months I have been blogging, slogging it out when necessary, but I have determined that I am still interested in writing and still interested in being part of the writing community. So who’s with me on this?
This post was prompted by today’s Daily Post prompt
Other blogs began like this:
Rob's Surf Report 