Daily writing prompt

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

Living in my home town was a particular sort of hell. I had only one friend, and we didn’t have much in common. I was no longer being bullied (much) in high school, but it was still a lonely, aggravating time.

I attended the University of Illinois for 11 years — four years of undergraduate and seven of graduate school. It took me a couple more years to get out of graduate school because of a pesky car accident in the middle of the process, but I didn’t mind. My college years were some of the best of my life.

My undergraduate years were the years of discovering myself, of finding out there were others like me out there. I was a quirky person with lots of enthusiasm and nerd credentials. I did not do well in a small town high school where I was the only one like me, but in my undergrad I discovered a D&D group I fit in with. I found other friends on the PLATO computer system. I started having actual escapades with my newfound friends.

Graduate school was when I came into my own. I discovered a peer group of people, an eclectic bunch, who spent every Saturday night together watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and hanging out. We celebrated holidays like May Day in medieval costume with probably the only portable May pole in the world. We were quirky as heck and I loved it. We were close enough that sometimes we got into arguments with each other, but that was good. It felt good to have a bunch of people I felt close to.

When I left to go to my first faculty job in upstate New York, I knew I would miss these people terribly. We had a packing and pizza party to commemorate our leaving (I was married at the time) and a couple of us drove toward New York the next day.

In New York, I was 900 miles away from my people. I survived, though, with the help of some new friends I made. I spent five years out there, making a new world for myself. Without those years in Champaign-Urbana, however, I would never have known how to.

Writing Again

Daily writing prompt

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

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The biggest challenge I will face in the next six months is the challenge I face right now — getting myself back into writing.

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Right now, I am burned out on writing. Nothing I write seems interesting; everything feels like a slog. I am swamped with negative self-talk that tells me I can’t write. I avoid writing. I have no ideas that possess me.

I miss my flow activity. I miss my desire to make something good out of a pile of words. I miss writing, but not enough to muscle through my negative feelings.

To My Teenage Self

Daily writing prompt

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

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My teenage self was traumatized. A childhood of irregular parenting, threats, and molestation will do that to a person. So will bullying at school. I had experienced all, and I became convinced of my unworthiness. It didn’t help that I was overweight, highly intelligent, and hopelessly awkward.

High school was a little better, with a reprieve from the bullying. I didn’t have any close friends, but at least I didn’t have active enemies. And I discovered extracurricular activities, like theatre and choir, and I did well at them. Still, it was a hellacious time for me. High school is filled with popularity contests (I was the polar opposite of popular), first loves (mine was unrequited), and future plans (at least I had that down — I wanted to go to college more than anything).

I survived high school, and then I went to college, where I finally found people like myself (nerds). I never felt like I truly belonged anywhere, but I found places where I fit in. College changed my life.

If I had my teenage self sitting in front of me, I would tell her that things will get better, that high school wasn’t life but a road block to get over. The high school experience isn’t real — going to prom with someone didn’t mean true love, and even true love dissolved in weeks (except for my unrequited crush, who married his high school sweetheart). The popularity will fade and have no meaning in one’s life. There are things that matter more, like finding one’s true self and navigating the world. I would be tempted to give her one glimpse of her future life, but I wouldn’t do so, because I want her future to be a surprise to her. A pleasant surprise.

Can we just get rid of meetings?

Daily writing prompt

What bores you?

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Meetings bore me. I think I’m not alone in this; I’m not sure that anyone is enamored of meetings, including the people holding them.

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Meetings seem like an inefficient way of giving out information. The joke “Can’t this be done in an email?” applies here. Email can do most of it. My brain outpaces the meeting, and I find myself using the spaces between words to try to escape.

People repeat themselves in meetings. I just sat through a meeting where we spent ten minutes listening to two parties make the same point over and over, in almost the same words. It was like sitting through an avant-garde play, only I would have enjoyed the absurdity of the play.

I am fortunate that my immediate superiors keep their meetings as short as possible, and cover many items by email. They have even been known to cancel meetings if not enough business has accumulated by then. One of my standing committee meetings has a lot of work involved, so it’s not usually boring. I find myself relieved of a lot of meeting tedium, for which I’m thankful.

Ode to Coffee

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite drink?

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It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that my favorite drink is coffee.

My Dream Home

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

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My original dream home was the home I grew up in. I grew up in an older, architect-designed (as opposed to kit home) place with big bedrooms and plenty of project space in the basement. It was full of beautiful wooden trim and old metal heating registers and high ceilings. My parents did a lot of things with it I wouldn’t have, like torn out butler’s cabinets and bookcases built into the walls, but it was a beautiful house when we finally refinished it.

The house I currently live in is an echo of that house, a newer house (built 1919 rather than 1906), with simpler trim and a dining room set off from the living room by glass-paned French doors. The build is similar, although there are only three bedrooms instead of four.

My dream home has changed over the years, as I have gotten older and look forward to getting older still. My current dream home would be all on one level to help with mobility issues. It would be universal design, where the design would facilitate living independently without looking institutional. No stairs, accessible bathrooms, open floorplan, lever-style door knobs, and the like. It would also be energy efficient, perhaps built into the side of a hill or with passive solar heating design. A dream home would have a rocket mass stove in the living room to heat up the area and provide a focal point for the room (they’re very pretty pieces of masonry). And it would have a greenhouse where I could start seeds for the year, and a yard I could landscape.

I dream big. I’m not going to find a house like this, especially if I stay in Maryville. I could build one, but it wouldn’t sell well if I ever had to leave it. Plus I’m not rich, and this would be an expensive build. So my dream house is best left to dreaming about.

Daily writing prompt

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

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In the US, the right-wing has laid claim to the word “patriotic”. It has become associated with a culture obsessed with guns and taking away others’ rights. I have a knee-jerk reaction to the word now.

But America has had a long history of civil rights, and until this administration has been making steady progress on civil rights. Not fast enough, but in its absence definitely missed. If I am willing to fight for the days of civil rights, does this make me patriotic?

I think so. I think I can call myself a patriot wanting to bring back America’s days of being that shining light on the hill rather than the shitscape it currently is.

The Boring Story of How I Broke the Law

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

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This will not be an exciting story. I haven’t broken any major laws accidentally (or on purpose), but I did once leave my vehicle registration for too long, and I was driving on expired stickers. I didn’t get stopped by the cops, so no drama. I discovered the problem some two months after they expired, however, so I could have gotten stopped by the cops at any given time.

I realized I was waiting for a postcard reminding me that my registration was due, and I had never gotten one. This is not an excuse, according to the license bureau.

Fixing it was as simple as going to the license facility and standing in line, all the time hoping that a cop wouldn’t find my car parked out front with an expired sticker. They did not, but I had to pay a fine for waiting too long to get the sticker. I found out that someone had transcribed my license number wrong on a form and that was why I didn’t get a postcard.

This is definitely not one of my more exciting stories.

Daily writing prompt

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

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I can’t imagine why anyone would want to write a biography about me, much less buy one. I live an ordinary life, one where too many things came easily to me, and one in which I found my niche and settled there. All the adversity was in my childhood (and there was enough there for one lifetime). All the interesting times in my life were in my twenties, and they weren’t that interesting. I suppose one could write about how I’ve managed to live with bipolar disorder. Even that has been easy for me; my medications for the most part have been effective. I live a blessed life, one which does not lend itself well to biography. I like it this way; I’m much too old for drama these days.

Given that, the only name I can think of for my biography would be “An Ordinary Life”, a title that’s as boring as my life.

Toffee

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite candy?

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My favorite candy is toffee, chocolate covered or not. I like the caramelized sugar and butter flavor and the brittle texture (although I like soft toffee, I prefer the hard kind). I find it hard to resist toffee, and I have to be careful not to eat the whole tin.

I can remember the last time I had toffee. It was a Heath Bar blizzard from Dairy Queen some weeks ago. Heath bars aren’t even the best toffee, but it satisfied my urges. I prefer homemade toffee, but I get that so seldom.

This post is making me hungry for toffee, especially the toffee in the picture above, which looks homemade. There’s no place to get it around here, so I will have to imagine it.