Daily writing prompt

Do you see yourself as a leader?

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Do I see myself as a leader? No, I do not. I take on too much as a leader, and I am uncertain of how to take charge in a meeting. I would rather not lead.

Do I see myself as a follower? No, I don’t see myself as a follower either. I get impatient with following, because my mind works fast and I want to find the solution.

I’m neither a leader nor a follower. Although I can function as a leader or a follower, I don’t like those positions. What does that leave? I’m an independent thinker, I’m the person who does the group project themselves, I just want to get things done.

I feel guilty that I’m not a leader. I’ve always been taught that’s where we’re supposed to be in life. I also know that leaders should be followers as well. Just let me do my thing, I’ll get it done, and everything will be okay.

Daily writing prompt

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

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This is not a personality trait per se, but a mannerism or behavior which reflects a character trait of — maybe — narcissism/sociopathy. Or a behavior that salespeople use when they’re trying to get a sale. But I think this question is written wrong, because how do we tell personality traits except with behavior?

I don’t trust people who use my name more than twice in conversation. I feel manipulated. How dare they presume to know me so well that they use my name frequently? What motivations do they have with this forced familiarity?

Using my name frequently raises a parade of red flags and leads me to end that conversation very, very quickly.

Daily writing prompt

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

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I saw the above prompt on my WordPress page and couldn’t resist telling the story on how I cooked myself a snack while asleep on Ambien. Ambien is a prescription sleep aid notorious for inducing sleepwalking.

I was having trouble sleeping at the time this story happened, and the doctor was trying many sleeping medications to get me a good night’s sleep. He prescribed me Ambien, which many people have had much success with.

The first night I tried it, it worked magnificently. I slept soundly and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. Night two, however …

My husband was working a night shift, and I was hungry. I went to bed craving something very specific. We had all the ingredients for the recipe: candied pecans. It’s a very simple recipe with butter, pecans, sugar, and cinnamon. It cooks up in a skillet until the pecans toast and the sugar/butter mixture has caramelized. I decided it was too late to cook, and so I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of burnt pecans and sugar in the kitchen. I wondered about that, until I looked in the garbage and saw a mass of burnt pecans and sugar. I then remembered the dream where I had made myself the pecans I had craved the night before.

Apparently I had gone sleepwalking and made myself a batch of candied pecans, which I had managed to burn on the stove. I looked on the stove and saw the cast iron frying pan, freshly cleaned and seasoned. Not only had I made myself candied pecans in my sleep, but I had cleaned up after myself like a good home economist (which I am).

So that’s the story of my greatest cooking disaster. It wasn’t even that disastrous, except I couldn’t eat the results. It’s a wonder I didn’t set the house on fire. The doctor took me off Ambien the next day.

Daily writing prompt

How do you relax?

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I don’t feel I do a good job of relaxing. I don’t do nothing well, as I’ve said before, so relaxing is something I don’t do well. When I do relax, I often complain because I’m doing, well, nothing.

I should read more, but I rarely feel like tackling a new book when I’m tired and need to relax. So I read the Internet. I read Quora and look at Instagram and speed through Facebook. I used to read Am I the Asshole and the like on Reddit, but those take away my faith in humanity, so I quit reading them.

I don’t watch TV and seldom watch streaming services or DVDs. When I do, I tend to favor stuff I’ve watched before as soothing. Apparently, my mind is so tired of processing new input that, as with reading, I don’t want any new input.

I meditate occasionally, and I think that’s a positive way to relax, except that so much of the time I fall asleep. That’s a hazard for me when I relax, the sleeping.

I’d like to find a better way to relax, one which doesn’t seem like such a waste of time. But then, would it be relaxing?

Daily writing prompt

What does your ideal home look like?

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I currently live in a two story home from the early 1900s, probably a kit home, as it fits some of the patterns one sees in kit homes. I grew up in an architect-designed version of that type of home, only with three stories (a walk-up attic where the daughter had the whole floor to herself, rumor had it). I have an affinity for old houses, and my ideal house would be the one I grew up with, except …

1. I would want it extensively restored. I would get the wood floors and trim refinished, and the walls repainted or wallpapered (depending on what the original version looked like). I would consign all the paneling to the deepest circle of Hell.
2. I would get new windows.
3. I would never have gotten rid of the butler’s cabinets or the parlor cabinet. (This would require me to turn back time, but this is my ideal house.)
4. It would be much less cluttered. We keep a lot of small objects in the kitchen ‘we may need someday’. We also own a few ‘well, we have an extra of this just in case the original breaks down.’ Skip the Marie Kondo treatment — I want a dumpster and two brawny men to start on the basement and not finish till they run out of rooms.
5. There would be a bigger circuit box and enough outlets.
6. It would have a two-car garage and a decent driveway. The garage where I grew up was a death trap we did not use, and the driveway was a grass strip that was impassible in the winter when we needed it the most.
7. We’d put an elevator in. I’m getting old and I might get to where I can’t use stairs.

If I couldn’t put an elevator in, I would have to settle for a one-story house. I do not love ranch-style houses because of their ‘garage-forward’ design, so I’d have to put the garage on the side. I would like it to have universal design front and center. If I have to live in a one-story house, I want to be sure it’s accessible to my elderly self.

Daily writing prompt

What brings a tear of joy to your eye?

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I don’t cry for joy often. It’s just not in my repertoire. When I feel joy, it’s generally a buoyant feeling, not complicated by any touch of sadness.

Except when I encounter (with my unwilling participation) inspirational and sentimental moments. Let me explain. I get weepy at the Olympics, cat food commercials, and human interest stories. It’s like a button any manipulative marketer can push, and tears come out. Graduation ceremonies? Hallmark commercials? Songs from my childhood? There I am, getting weepy.

I actually use my happy crying as a sign of whether my medication is working. If I get too weepy, it’s time to talk to the doctor.

My cynicism is what saves me from melting into an easily-manipulated goo every time I read inspiration porn. Is this story designed to make me happy cry? If so, I dry my tears and take a deep breath. Except at cat food commercials, because they’re just so sweet.

Daily writing prompt

If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?

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If I had to give up one word that I use regularly, it would be ‘should’.

‘Should’ is a word full of judgment. Someone else is judging us or we are judging ourselves against some unspoken standards that we are not ourselves claiming. “I should do my homework.” The word ‘should’ always sounds like “I’d really like to do something else, but X says I should do my homework.”

Admittedly, there are things we need to do. But ‘need to’, although it’s two words, is a perfectly good phrase to use here. “I need to do my homework” implies an internal locus of control rather than the external ‘should’. The speaker has a need which they can fulfill. It’s also a positive statement: “I take care of my needs.”

I would feel a lot stronger if I didn’t use ‘should’.

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

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My answer to this question is going to be disappointing. I don’t get excited about much anymore. I attribute this to my age (60). By now I’ve seen everything; I’m much more mellow. Time passes, and I get to the next item on the calendar.

That being said, I look forward to things. Soon I will get to work on the cover of my next book. I look forward to this weekend and to the first day of classes on Monday. I will go to Starved Rock at Christmas and I look forward to that. I just don’t have the “I can’t wait” feeling I had when I was younger.

It’s not bad being relaxed about life. It’s a good thing, because my life doesn’t resemble a roller coaster between highs and lows, excitement and doldrums. I would guess former excitement levels were an artifact of the bipolar disorder, and the only reason I don’t seem excited now is because I was SOOOO eager before. So maybe my lack of excitement is a relative thing, and I really am excited for Monday and a once-again change to the routine. I’ll see when I get there.

Daily writing prompt

Where did your name come from?

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I don’t know why my parents thought I would turn out normal after they named me after my Uncle Larry. My reprobate Uncle Larry, who collected rents at his apartment building with a gun holster strapped to his thigh, the one of endless parties, the one who died when he neglected a perfectly curable skin cancer until it was too late. Why do you name a kid after someone like that?

I turned out a rebel in different ways. I went to college (the first person in my direct line to do so) and didn’t quit until I graduated with a PhD. This doesn’t sound like a rebellion, but I was a late baby boomer, and my mother practically begged me to come home and become a waitress, an acceptable job that could make a lot of money from tips. Mom finally gave up all hope of having a grandchild from me, a wise choice.

I went through these years with untreated bipolar disorder, and I was very sedate for someone with the malady. I didn’t abuse drugs; I gave up partying after a short stint of drinking with roommates; I didn’t get pregnant. I was, however, eccentric, and that hasn’t gone away since the medication.

This is what happens when you name someone after their crazy uncle.