Optimism or Pessimism? Check Your Attitude!
A little nip of highland single malt whiskey can be a beautiful thing … depending on how you see it.
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Optimism vs. Pessimism: The Ways of Seeing
Category: aimlessarts
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Stood Up! Shot Down!
Navigating a Tragic Love Life
I’ve been stood up more than my fair share of times. I don’t know why this should be, but my stats are undeniable.
This all started when I was in high school more than half a century ago. I arranged a date with a cute little slip of a blond from the neighboring village of St. Henry, Ohio. I had in common with the girl, whose name is long lost to history, that we both played saxophone in our respective high-school marching bands.
It was my first bona fide date in the sense that I’d manned up through my own force of will, asked her out in a straightforward manner without the usual teenage machinations and guile, and she had accepted in spite of already knowing what I looked like, an obvious fact to me since I was standing in front of her when she said yes. It was a pretty satisfying experience up to this point. Continue reading
6 Reasons to Abandon Your Damn Lists
The Trouble with Lists
I know a lot of people who make lists. They make lists for everything. I used to do it myself, but I have given it up. Now I just make signs. Signs are like lists, but signs are confined to one idea, one notion, one specific thing to keep in mind. Signs are useful. For instance I have a sign on the inside of my front door that I see whenever I decide to venture out into public. It is just one word: PANTS. Continue reading
The Evidence for God
The Best Evidence that God is Real!
Seeking a more logical cosmology.
I’ve been involved in a lot of discussions lately about the existence of God or, conversely, the folly of faith. Mostly these have been fairly civil dialogues on Soul Pancake or The Great Silent Majority page on Facebook. I recommend either or both to your attention if you think it’s fun to think and write about life’s great questions with people who are willing to listen politely, even to those they consider to be idiots. I’ve distilled much of what I’ve posted elsewhere into this little treatise on why I believe in God and why I do not think this is lunacy. Continue reading
Like Camelot – Only Way Better
I had a dream the other night about baseball. I was at the plate, wielding a green bat. I was determined to get a hit, but went down swinging. For some reason the last strike was a big disappointment to me. I woke up at that point, disturbed that I hadn’t been able to get a piece of the ball. I had taken a huge cut at it. I really wanted to knock it out of the park. Continue reading
What I’m Working On – The Geezer Screed
Click on the image for more – including sample scene
Work in Progress
Look for it this summer.
Meanwhile – a little teaser to whet your appetite!
So this is what I’ve got going on at my house. Not fully formed yet, but gathering steam in my head. Click the cover image for a detailed description and a sample scene. Fill out a form to get on my mailing list while you’re at it. (Over at the top of the right hand side-bar) That way you’ll get progress updates and new developments as they happen. It will be a lot like living at my place, but you never have to see me in my underwear.
Stupifyin’ Jones and the Improbable Ascent of Donald Trump
Al Capp’s iconic Stupefyin’ Jones from Lil Abner
Writing Fiction in Post-Truth America
The soul of my creativity, such as it is, has been thoroughly stupified, and not in a good way, by the election of Donald Trump to the office of president of the United States. I’m serious. I don’t know why. I haven’t accomplished a damn thing since November 9th. Every day is the same. Walk and feed the dog. Make a delicious espresso beverage. Turn on the computer. Click on the daily news feed. There is Donald Trump’s gigantic orange visage mocking everything I believe in. Fuck me!
Trump’s election is an embarrassment to the nation I love. It’s not enough that he is an idiot, an unsophisticated lout with the diplomatic sensibilities of a skinhead and the verbal skills of a learning-disabled third grader. He is a liar to boot. In fact, he is a liar of monumental proportions in a ‘post truth’ society.
I don’t know how this happened. I’ve been reading everyone else’s idea of how it happened, and I’m convinced they don’t know either. It’s certainly not Trump’s fault. He’s an idiot. It’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault. She’s too smart to be sucked into Trump’s game. I guess you could say that no one called him out on his bullshit, but a lot of people really did, and it didn’t seem to matter. Continue reading
Book Review – From A to Zoe
From A to Zoe by Marie-Jo FortisMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this little book. It lacks pretension. It’s self-aware without being self-absorbed—artsy without the fartsy. It’s beautiful with a healthy dose of the real—like Mona Lisa with a gap-tooth grin or The Birth of Venus with a mastectomy scar.
Zoe Zimmerman is a modern girl, a writer trying to slip the bonds of her small-town past in the middle of a seedy Manhattan that just doesn’t give a damn, except sporadically, and then just enough to keep our girl plodding on. I’ve known Zoes in my life. Mostly I try to avoid them. They are, in the parlance of my adopted Southland, hot messes. They are hard to live with, but easy to love. They are too interesting for their own good. Continue reading
Do Me a Solid – Share This
Surely you know the drill by now. Help a brother out. Better yet, do yourself a solid and buy the book if you haven’t already. You’ll be glad you did. I promise.
Book Review: Dispatches by Michael Herr
Dispatches by Michael HerrMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this and two other books about the U.S. experience in Vietnam by way of research for a novel I am writing. I was looking for firsthand experience of slogging through the muck, both physical and figurative, to execute the failed strategies of our involvement. Dispatches delivers on all fronts.
War is not just hell. It is a ridiculous one fueled by its own kind of stupidity: “When the commander heard that [we were correspondents,] he wanted to throw a spontaneous operation for us, crank up his whole brigade and get some people killed. We had to get out on the next chopper to keep him from going ahead with it, amazing what some of them would do for a little ink.” Continue reading
