As you may have read, I had to give up my paper route last spring because of the pain in my shoulder. I wasn’t very happy about it. Being a newspaper carrier gave me a reason to get out and walk every day, as well as the occasional reason to post about the adventures I had when I was out. In lieu of that, I started going to an indoor track when the weather was bad – either too icy, cold or rainy, or too hot and humid. But now that the weather is getting nicer again, I’ve begun exploring the neighbourhood in which I’ve lived for the past six (yes, six) years. This is what I discovered, less than a ten minute walk from my house:
There’s a turtle pond due south of my abode, complete with a waterfront trail that stretches about a half a mile in both directions (west and east) before it pauses to take up its journey again past houses and busy roads. The Waterfront Trail in its entirety goes all the way from Niagara Falls to the Quebec border, with breaks in between for roadways. Some of the breaks are vast, but in all it goes around the western end of Lake Ontario, through Toronto, and follows past Kingston (where the lake ends) and then all the way down the Ottawa River. Minus the breaks, it is 450km (280 miles) long. (Source, Wikipedia.)
I’m looking forward to taking lots of pictures as the trees change. There are herons and swans, ducks, cormorants, seagulls, and geese, and of course, turtles in abundance. The indoor track, though handy and free, is going to seem very dull when the snow necessitates it.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
Twice now I’ve been nominated for the First Post Challenge. The first time by the lovely and talented Joey (you can find her challenge post here) and the second by the lovely and talented Willow (you can find her challenge post here) Yes, they’re both lovely and talented. You should get to know them if you don’t already! Thank you both so much, my lovely and talented friends, for thinking of me. 😀
I thought since today is my official 3rd Anniversary of Blogging (as opposed to my unofficial one, when I actually started writing posts on a regular basis) I’d choose this as the day to accept the challenge.
The rules are:
Copy-paste, link, pingback, etc. your first post.
It’s a question that is asked by everyone once in a while, by some more often than others: what in the world am I doing here? And oh how we struggle with the answer!
My answer for the moment is, I am here to write, to please myself.
How about you?
That’s it. Short and sweet.
It was obviously an introduction post; more to introduce me to blogging than to introduce bloggers to me. I had no idea what I was doing, nor did I have any clue what I would eventually get out of WordPress. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement of epic proportions. I do remember being told once upon a time that if I wanted to be a published author I had to get out of my room and onto social media. This blog was the first thing I ever put my real name on. It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in terms of being online. Now I’m very happy I took the plunge.
So now how do I choose five blogs among the hundreds I adore, and whose first posts I’d love to read? How about the last five people to comment on my blog? That works for me. 😀
As many of you know, my epic work-in-progress (my novel The Great Dagmaru) is a paranormal romance about a magician and his assistant. As many of you also know, I have great fun doing research in the interest of making the book as believable as possible. This research has in the past included staying in the haunted mansion in Kingston that inspired the setting, and traveling to Ottawa to spend an afternoon backstage at the National Arts Centre, where one of the performances in my novel takes place. (Check out the links. There are pictures.)
Now I have a new and exciting opportunity ahead of me. This time it’s a little more nerve-wracking. Last weekend when I was again visiting Kingston, I met a magician. And he’s agreed to let me interview him! A real live magician! *ahem* Once the interview is complete I plan to make an article out of it and sell it to a publication. Depending on the slant I put on it, I may pitch it to an online magazine for kids, a parenting magazine, or even as a general interest piece for the Huffington Post. At the moment I’m still coming up with questions. I have quite a few already, but I don’t want to miss anything important. Some of them will pertain to background information that might not even make it into the novel, but they’re things that are necessary for me to understand. Most of the interview will, I hope, shed some light on what makes a magic show fun to watch and what makes a magician want to perform. Not too much light though… it’s the mystery that makes watching worthwhile.
An awful lot is going into the making of my novel. With this article, not only will I have the benefit of the knowledge of someone in the business (a real live magician! *ahem*), but I’ll have something extra to add to my resumé. One way or another, I’m having a blast. It’s all adding up to an experience that not a lot of people get.
I was on Twitter a moment ago and saw that #1lineWed is trending. I didn’t know this was a thing! I wonder if it predates my One-Liner Wednesday prompt… does anyone know? Have you heard of it before?
Anyway, to get more exposure on your One-Liners, make sure you tag your posts #1lineWed! I’ll add the suggestion to the rules section next week. This is so cool!
It may not sound like a big deal, but it’s a first for me. For this reason I want to record it here – I may even celebrate it as an anniversary some day.
Yesterday evening, for the first time ever, I marked a chapter in one of my novels “Final Draft.”
Only 79 chapters left to go before The Great Dagmaru heads out into the world on its own.
I’m probably more excited about this little achievement than I should be, but after seven edits, it’s about fucking time!
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
To yield – to give under the weight of something. How relieving it is to yield. We live in a world where we feel we must harden ourselves to most things. Never give up, never give in is our motto most of the time. We fight the system, we advocate for our kids, we push and push ourselves to do better, get more done, find more time, improve ourselves and our way of living… the list is endless.
But how good is it to yield to sleep at night? I find myself wishing often not to give up, but to have a chance to give in, just a little and not fight quite as hard, yet giving just a bit feels like defeat.
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
― Bruce Lee
Yielding is a way to survive. Thank you, Bruce Lee.
****
On a completely different note, I can’t leave this post without mentioning what I found in my thesaurus. One synonym in particular jumps out at me. “Quaggy.” Yes, “quaggy.” I’d never heard this word before five minutes ago. So I’ll look it up. From dictionary.com:
quaggy
[kwag-ee, kwog-ee]
adjective, quaggier, quaggiest.
1. of the nature of or resembling a quagmire; marshy; boggy.
2. soft or flabby: quaggy flesh.
I’ll never view Family Guy quite the same again. Giggidy.
I opened my thesaurus to the word “quash” and actually said out loud, “oooh quash!” What a great word! It’s like the lazy person’s way of saying “squash” – who needs that pesky extra letter when you can just leave it off? And bonus – it means the same thing! Unless you’re talking about the vegetable… wait, is a squash a vegetable? You’ve gotta be careful about that sort of thing. You remember what happened with the avocado, right? (Click the link for a story.)
There are so many great words associated with quash too! Words like crush, hush up, overthrow, quell, rescind, and squelch. The word “squelch” always makes me think of walking in the pouring rain when I’ve forgotten my umbrella. It’s the feeling my feet get when they’re sodden inside my shoes and socks. There’s a feeling I’d rather quash.
Though after eleven days I’d had plenty of time to miss my family, it was with a deep sense of sadness that I packed up all of my belongings and set out from my hotel room on the morning of December 17th, 2014. Since my flight wasn’t scheduled until 5pm, I was pleased that the hotel agreed to hang on to my luggage, so I was able to wander about for a while before I made my way to the airport.
I figured, why not go on a little adventure? I’ve been on the London Eye, so I figured I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go on the Giant Wheel in Palette Town. Among many pictures were these:
My big Gundam friend is just to the right in the middle
Tokyo Harbour
At the top of the Giant Wheel
I can see my hotel from here!
Amazing view
On the way down
From Daiba Park:
Here’s what I wrote in my notebook:
Palette Town, ODaiba, Tokyo – Tanto Tanto Restaurant, Venus Fort
Spent the first part of the morning packing and checking out of the hotel. They kept my bags so I’m out wandering. Went on the Giant Wheel where it was VERY windy. I think I may have prayed a little not to die. Walked a lot after that – to Daiba Park and then back here for lunch. The solitude in Daiba Park was almost overwhelming. I felt like I was alone at the ends of the earth.
The restaurant and the Venus Fort mall were pretty amazing. Here are some pictures – the first two were taken from my table in the restaurant:
It wasn’t until I got back outside that I found out I could have had the “dog.”
For Jason
And finally, Haneda Airport.
I had an incredible time in my eleven days of wandering, getting lost, meeting some wonderful new friends in person – Jay Dee, Susie, and Shigeyoshi – (please click on their names for links!) sightseeing and taking pictures and really just re-discovering who I am and what I’m capable of. And of course, the spectacular concert which was the reason I went.
I was there!!
Japan is a truly amazing country. Its people, its culture, its natural beauty… all of it. Rather than try to write something new, I’ll leave you with a journal entry I wrote the first time I left there. For me, nothing has changed and as I said at the end of this, “Japan, I will return.”
October 31, 2005 4:58pm, Kansai Airport, Japan
Well, this will be my last entry here in Japan. I’m sitting at the gate with my Starbucks tall mocha looking at the plane I’ll be spending the next 10 hours in.
What am I going to miss about this place? The fact that you can smile at anyone and they’ll smile back. The bowing. (There’s nothing quite like having a gorgeous young man bow to you, particularly when he’s a tough looking goth type.) Eating with chopsticks. The endless *different* scenery, both natural and manmade – for the natural scenery, you can’t look in any direction without seeing mountains. And of course the faces. Amazing how many Japanese people there are here!
I really do feel home here. I feel like I belong. Is there time in my life to find this place as I should, and everything that belongs to me here? If it is within my power I will return
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