Tagged: puttingwordstogether

13
Nov
2023

MOVING THROUGH MORTALITY

Tomorrow we’re going to the funeral of one of Anders’ friends from high school. He was younger than me. 2 years younger, almost exactly the same age as my sister. He was diagnosed with cancer in April and given 4 months, though he held out for nearly 6. I’ve known him and his wife for a little over 27 years. Their kids are the same ages as ours. The four kids have known each other their entire lives. We’ve gone to New Year’s parties with them, crayfish parties nearly every year, graduation parties, big birthday parties for one or another...

06
Nov
2023

BUILDING CLUES

I spent the past couple of days working on another crossword after I got the idea for a really good theme. And then halfway through working on it, I thought of an even better theme-related connection and was able to adapt it. I worked really hard on it, and am really proud of it. Even though I messed up by once again not checking for duplicates until it was too late, I was able to make them work within the theme anyway, so it worked out. I was even able to add an alternate solution to one of the clues,...

09
Sep
2023

DINNER TABLE CONVERSATIONS

There’s a writing prompt that I’ve seen kicking around for years, that I’ve never really thought too hard about using. I think it was just one of those conversation starter questions that teaches you things about yourself before that, because it was certainly a question I read or heard long before people were blogging or needing writing prompts online. It’s the one about who would you invite to dinner, if you could invite anyone, living or dead? I find it as similarly useless as the question about what one thing would you bring with you to a desert island if...

06
Mar
2023

MOVE FORWARD, LEAN BACK

Once again, time has run away with me, and I’m guilty of posting all the time in my head, but not at all the past couple of weeks here. But I just thought of an interesting topic to write about, so here I am! I’m thinking about the difference in enjoying something new vs. enjoying something old. How often do you have to make the choice between trying something new or sticking with something familiar? I wonder what the percentage is of people who choose new over tried and true. When you pick a book to read, do you always...

30
Jul
2022

STUCK ON STUFF LEFT BEHIND

I’m reading a good, if slightly disjointed, book by an author that I like, and every page contains word nuggets of beauty, obiter snippets, that I want to copy and write out, and share, and savor. This one struck me particularly: Maybe I shouldn’t be so attached to objects either. But everyone keeps dying, leaving stuff behind, objects I can’t usually get rid of. And I enjoy the company of the dead. They are so quiet. They know things I don’t know. The dead leave clues, and life is a puzzle of trying to read and understand these mysterious hints...

05
Feb
2022

IS IT IN MY HEAD?

I find it hard to reconcile the images of characters I have in my head when reading books with the actor’s portrayal of them onscreen. I tend to keep them separate in some ways, thinking of my own imagined view of them as “MY” characters, and the movie or TV version of them as “OURS”…since that version belongs to everyone who watches the film or the show. The character in my head that I see when I read a book is mine alone. Sometimes they are both “right”, but more often, it’s jarring to see a character I’ve brought to...

20
Aug
2021

LEARNING TO USE A SLINGSHOT

I have to concentrate on the good things in my daily life, in order to combat all the awful things in the world that I can’t do anything about. Or at least not anything substantial. Recycling and donating to humanitarian causes seems to pale in the face of all the misery and hardship out there. I have only skimmed the news for years now, reading headlines and limiting my exposure, because I buckle under the weight of it and I’m PRIVILEGED. I live a cushy, easy life. I live in the first of first world countries. I can’t, in any...

11
Aug
2021

EXPRESSING YOUR ESSENTIAL NATURE

There are so many ways to define yourself. How do you do it? Is it your socio-economic grouping (lower-class, middle-class, upper-middle-class)? Is it your age range, as defined by so many questionnaires and surveys (Under 12 years old, 12-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75 years or older)? Is it your ethnicity (White, Hispanic or Latino, Black or African American, Native American or American Indian, Asian / Pacific Islander, Other)? Is it the generational decade you were born into (baby boomer, gen x, millennial, gen z)? Is it your marital status? Your level of education? Your employment status? Your...

06
Jun
2021

SORRY NOT SORRY

Don’t apologize. You don’t have to say you’re sorry for not writing. Don’t think people are checking in every day to see if you’ve bothered to write (and thereby entertain them). No one is waiting on the sidelines for your words, your thoughts, your random scribblings. You just write when the muse strikes. When the timing and the motivation line up and the stars align as well. When Mercury isn’t in retrograde (Mercury’s always in retrograde) (Don’t worry about stupid Mercury, it has no bearing on this). It’s not an assignment. There’s no deadline. There are so many moments when...

24
Apr
2021

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

About a week ago, I started a post with this sentence: Man, it’s *crickets* around here. It never even occurred to me how very specific that particular phrase is. To English-speakers, of a certain age, and a certain kind. And also how recent its use is. yourdictionary.com gives this definition: (US slang, humorous or derisive) Absolute silence; no communication. Derived from the cinematic metaphor of chirping crickets at night, signaling (otherwise) complete quiet. May be used alone or in metaphorically descriptive phrases. Merriam-Webster has a whole page in their “Words we’re watching” site dedicated to it…because it’s a word that...

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