Month: September 2014

One Spin

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When I was in Vegas last month one of the Casinos was giving this car away as a prize.

You didn’t have to play at the tables for a chance to win, you had to play a slot machine.

So everyday I was there I would play the machine for the car ONCE.

One spin, one chance,  that was it.

It would have been easy to put my money into that machine and play it but that wouldn’t  have been as much  fun.

What was fun was that walk around the block to that Casino to that machine to place my fifty cent bet to see if I would win that beautiful car. I could see myself driving it home, could see myself wearing my pink cat’s eyes sunglasses ( though I knew I’d have to buy the red ones with the white polka dots to match my awesome new car  when I got home.)

I seriously had a good time  trying to win that car every day.

Sad to say there was no  moment of glory, no happy ending,  I  didn’t win the car.

But I did have fun on that walk to the casino. I loved taking that ONE spin ( which when you think about it is EXACTLY how life works…you get one spin right? So enjoy yourself ) 

I bought the new sunglasses anyway.

And yes. Yes they are awesome.

Me Robot You Lazy

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Daily Prompt

You, Robot

Congrats — you’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

ultraseven

Before we got tangled up in the interwebs and a good part of the population disapeared into the unreality via their cellphones I had a very intersting conversation with my friend’s husband about robots.

He looked at them as tools or appliances, like toasters with brains.

But the part about creating robots that ‘think and learn’ rubbed me the wrong way.

” So. they’d be slaves.”

” No. They’d only have one purpose and you know they’re not human so they can’t be slaves.”

” So you’d purposely design them to not want to do anymore then you told them-like cleaning your house or walking your dog.”

” Yes.”

” Designer slaves?”

My friend’s husband laughed, ” They aren’t human. That slave arguement doesn’t even apply.”

” You know, many a slave owner has said that.”

We beat around that topic for awhile and to this day I still don’t like the idea of creating a robot ‘to do’ for me.

And as far as slaves- at work my printer has a name and chore. It’s called a Slave Printer.

And it does whatever it’s told to do by anyone who pushes a print button from their

computer and no matter what’s going on my printer will pick the job up.

Ok this prompt should have been fun, what’s the one thing I’d like to have a Robot do for me that I hate.

You know what I hate. Standing at the bus stop in the morning. I’d like to have a Robot do that for me. Just stand there and wait for my bus and when my bus shows up?

Haven’t figured that part out yet…and I’ll tell you something that’s ok. Unless of course I had the Robot figure that out for me too…

Running With The Heard

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raspberry

I finally broke down and got a cellphone a couple of years ago.

Up until that point, I didn’t use them, and I  wouldn’t borrow them to make a call because I couldn’t figure out how to talk into it the right way. Above all I could not understand how people built lives and relationships around text messages.

Really now,  text messages?

I love to write and I do it a lot, and  I do enough to appreciate good writing (because God knows I try everyday to do it myself ) when I see it and I am here to tell you that text messages for the most part are lousy writing.

But that doesn’t stop people from arguing, having sex or debating  over matters of life and death while thumbing literary masterpieces like

AWGTHTGTTA Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again

AWHFY Are We Having Fun Yet?

AWLTP Avoiding Work Like The Plague

BTD Bored To Death

BTDT Been There Done That

Today I forgot my phone- and instead of going back for it I was phoneless.

I must say it was liberating.

I didn’t have something on my desk humming, dinking, clicking or blasting out the theme to Doctor Who seemingly whenever the heck it felt like it.

I’d compare how I felt for the most part to the old days when ourkids got packed off to Grandpa and Grandma’s for the weekend.

And much like when we would walk in the door at the end of the visit, there was my phone packed with ( ergh ) texts, phone messages, notifications from Facebook and Pinterest all crying out to me for attention.

I was thinking to myself maybe I should leave it at home more often not take it with me and turn it off, but leave it on my bookshelf.

Only…only…today on my bus ride into work I was looking around and almost everyone around me was on their phone and oh heaven forbid you flip the pages of your book to loud because you could be interrupting a texting session or put someone in danger of not  crushing that candy or having their condo eaten by a monster.

So on today’s commute as I considered making my life phoneless I thought of aTwilight Zone story called The Obsolete Man

When I was a kid that story scared me, as an adult it doesn’t seem like such a scary impossible story. It seems very possible

And I have to admit, when I’m out with friends or at the symphony or shopping I’ll pull my phone out, you know so I’ll blend in.

So that I don’t become Obsolete or find myself separated from the heard.

 

 

Oh.Right.

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some-billboards-just-dont-have-manners                         My last post was in April? Really APRIL?

I’ve got this long list of reasons for why I haven’t been writing- they could fill a book ( Anita Marie says  as she rolls her eyes so far back into her head she can see her brain ).

I was so stuck and I went in search of why I was stuck and not writing.

When I think back on it, I was looking for excuses.

And I found one- a good one.

I started reading these articles and posts about people losing touch with their Muse and THAT was the reason they can’t write.

The thing of it is, when I used to visualize my Muse- that creature was my bitch and I didn’t ask it for anything- it was chop, chop we’ve got writing to do and if you can’t help me I’ll go find another Muse because that’s the way of the world baby.

You don’t come up to snuff and your butt is going curbside.

But NO. I started to agree with those articles and went in search of my Muse. That little spark or voice that would give me that push and before you know it, I’d be writing away like a maniac.

If I could just get in touch with my Muse.

Well. Guess what. I did. I reached out and touched my Muse.

Actually, I gave my Muse a whack upside the head  and here I am happily writing away.

Now I don’t know if that’s the way one is supposed to connect with one’s Muse, creative nature- or whatever you call it. All I’m hoping is that I get it together and post again tomorrow.

If not, I’m going to Ebay my little creative voice and find another.

Or maybe I’ll just nail it to the wall – and that sounds like fun too. Almost as much fun as writing.

Somedays those win-wins just rain down on you when you least expect it.