People take such liberties these days, don’t they? Yeah, I know I sound like I’m going into a “back in my day” rant, but it really does seem to me that the meaning of “free speech” has somehow gotten skewed. Free speech means that one is free to say whatever they want, yeah. We have the legal right to speak, as long as it’s not to falsely malign or spread hate. But it’s a legal right, not a moral one.
Used to be that people were polite. Then again, it used to be that people spoke face to face, or at least over the phone. These kids with their technology, they hide behind their screens in their dark little basement rooms and say whatever they want and damn the consequences. It ain’t right, I tell ya! It just ain’t right.
Occupational hazards are present in every job, it seems. I mean seriously, you would think staying at home working on a computer in your pajamas has to be the safest thing you can possibly do. Apparently not. I need to get up and move occasionally. And the eyes! They’re at risk as well unless I look away from the screen regularly. I suppose that’s true of many desk jobs, though. Even ones that aren’t performed in one’s pajamas.
Companies should have pajama days, don’t you think? Casual Fridays have been a thing for many years, but what about designating a day of the week, or even a day of the month, so people can go to work as though they’re shopping at Wal-mart? Oh, and especially if you work at Wal-mart, though that would be more of a dress-up-like-the-customers day.
Not sure why I’m picking on Wal-mart, though. I see people walking around in their pjs in the grocery store, around the mall … hell, even I ran out to the bus a couple of months back to hand Alex something he’d forgotten for school, dressed in my sleep clothes. (“Sleep clothes” is what I call them in sign language – it’s managed to translate to English nine times out of ten in my house.)
Speaking of sleep, my Saturday Second Seat on the Right series post will come out at 11:58pm my time–hopefully I’ll be sleeping (what a segue!)–and then Sunday’s Second Seat post will appear at 12:01am, just three minutes later. If you’re a regular reader, don’t miss them! It’s kind of a two-parter. Could I call it a bi-parter? Because then, if it had eight parts, I could call it an octo-parter …
This post full of sleep-clothes madness is brought to you by Just Jot it January …
Short on inspiration and energy: a comic from Facebook, originated from http://buttersafe.com/
*comic shows stick figure sitting, laying down, begging, and sitting up in a coffin. Caption: Dog tricks: not as impressive when done by humans
Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
2a. Since today is Wednesday, I challenge you to make your JusJoJan post a one-liner. If you don’t care to, or if you’ve already written your post, no problem. Remember, with One-Liner Wednesday you can write anything – it’s only a prompt to write one line, not necessarily to keep to the same theme as mine. The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
(i) Make it one sentence.
(ii) Make it either funny or inspirational.
(iii) Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
(iv) Enjoy yourself!
(v) Use our One-Liner Wednesday badge.
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of theday. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
I want to start this post by freely admitting that before I opened the tab to start writing it, I moved away from my copy of Fifty Shades Darker. Being that this is mostly a family-friendly blog, I didn’t want to be forced to cheat on the off-chance that I would actually come across a sentence that didn’t contain, “Oh my.”
Moving into a much more comfortable spot (in more ways than one), I looked around and found that my copy of On Fire was the closest thing to hand. I opened it to a random spot, which happened to be Alisha Costanzo’s story, “The Mark of the Phoenix.” I wish I could tell you what it’s about, but I haven’t had time to read it yet. It’s a lovely book, though; one of my own stories is in it. 😀
But I digress. The sixth, seventh, and eighth words at the top of page 266 are “the conversation carried.” There’s a comma in there in the original text, but it makes more sense to try to talk about the words without the comma to confuse things. My first thought was of sitting in a movie theatre, near someone who won’t shut up all the way through the movie. They have the ads on now to tell people to shut off their phones, but I’m guessing no one has come up with an effective ad to tell people to zip their lips. You’d think it would be common sense, but it’s more than some people seem to possess. It’s why I loved the drive-in … or one of the reasons. If you’d known me as a teenager, you’d likely know that I steamed up my share of car windows at the drive-in. …because I had them rolled up to keep the mosquitoes out, of course. Get your mind out of the gutter! And yeah, having a mosquito buzzing in your ear while you’re trying to watch a movie is about as bad as rude people talking in your ear. So where was I? Oh yeah. Mosquitoes don’t have conversations. Or do they? Maybe they do …
Conversations carry so much farther nowadays than they did back when drive-ins were a thing. Back when one had to either spend too much money on a phone call or wait weeks for the reply to a letter via snail mail. Does anyone actually write letters anymore? I’d like to. I wish I had the motivation. It would be cool to do as a promotional device for fans of, say, an author. Hmmm …
I’ve come to the conclusion that humiliation is a very difficult thing to write about. Probably because I normally write about things that happen in my own life, and let’s face it, talking about something that’s humiliating is hard. I could speculate about something that might be humiliating in the future, but now it seems like a cop out.
So should I leave it that I’m simply humiliated at having not much to say on the blog that hosts this prompt? Sounds appropriate. 😛
It’s the age-old battle of mother and child, yet since I became an editor, it has taken on a new tone:
(The first photo, in fridge magnets, is written “Mom! Stop editing my life” and in the second image, is written “Fred! Stop editing my fridge.)
Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
2a. Since today is Wednesday, I challenge you to make your JusJoJan post a one-liner. If you don’t care to, or if you’ve already written your post, no problem. Remember, with One-Liner Wednesday you can write anything – it’s only a prompt to write one line, not necessarily to keep to the same theme as mine. The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
(i) Make it one sentence.
(ii) Make it either funny or inspirational.
(iii) Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
(iv) Enjoy yourself!
(v) Use our One-Liner Wednesday badge.
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of theday. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
Not that I go there often anymoreaddi since I don’t get out much, but there was a boycott of sorts today of Tim Horton’s here in Canada. Something to do with the raise of minimum wage and them not wanting to pay for breaks or something. I don’t know. I love Tim’s, but I didn’t go there today. I wouldn’t have, anyway.
Honestly, I wish I could survive on coffee alone. But too much of it upsets my stomach, and I’m not sure it doesn’t mess with my sleep, too, if I drink it later in the evening.
However, if you’re buying, I take it with double cream, no sugar …
What I want to write about today is and isn’t pants; it’s panties. I’ll start by explaining how I got from one to the other: in a word, English. In North America, pants are the things we walk around in that everyone sees. In the UK pants are trousers, and underwear are pants. I honestly wish we could call them that here too, even though I hate the word “trousers.”
But you know what word I hate even more? “Panties.” I use it for lack of a better word when I write fiction–underwear seems such a bulky word. One that conjures, in my mind, visions of undergarments that cover from the lowest part of the butt cheek to the waist. To have the hero of one of my stories strip his lady love of everything but a pair of those would quickly transform the sexiest scene into either a comedy or worse, something that would make me gag.
I didn’t grow up calling them panties, which may be why I’m so adverse to the word. What do you think? Is “panties” as distasteful for you as it is for me? Do you have a better word?
I’ve considered having all my characters go commando, just so I don’t have to deal with it at all.
I strive to do everything economically. Balance my budget, manage my time effectively, eat things with not too many calories, and plan my movements around the house. You know, stuff like piling things at the bottom of the stairs to take all at once or the next time I go up, rather than make a special trip. But then the Fitbit came into my life and screwed everything up. Or at least the economy of movement bit.
Now I take extra trips from the fridge to the table in an effort to get more steps in. I know I should just bite the bullet and go for a walk, but the bullet is an ice cube at the moment and it’s just too much bloody trouble to get all dressed only to turn around and run back to the safety of the warmth of my house after going 10 feet up the street because my nose broke off when I went to wipe it.
Can you tell I write fiction?
Fiction with run-on sentences? (I don’t! I edit my fiction, damnit! I’m not allowed to edit this. Stop judging me!!!)
Where was I?
Oh yes, economy of movement. It’s all about multi-tasking. Those of us who are good at that have learned to plan our movements ahead of time so as not to waste energy doing things that are unnecessary. I used to walk around the track at the fitness centre all the time. That really makes no sense, as I’m using energy and never going anywhere. So I used the time plotting stories in my head, listening to music that would inspire me. I miss going to the track, but I’ve been too busy to go. I must start going there again. Because let’s face it, I ain’t getting many steps in between the fridge and the table unless I’m eating my own weight in snacks to keep myself doing something worthwhile.
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