As a child, the backyard seemed like a huge place. My family never lived on more than half an acre, but it always seemed so much larger. We filled the space with hide-and-seek, football, tree climbing, and fort building; leaf piles in the summer, igloos in the winter, super-soakers in the summer and despite its name, freeze tag all year round. We'd play heroes in our superhero pajamas, monkey-in-the-middle, and capture the flag. We'd harass the wildlife, plant gardens, and exchange first kisses behind the tool shed. The yard was our domain.
Then as now, the adults stuck to the house, at most, they'd venture onto the deck. Whoever's yard we played in, that's who was in charge. That's who was king. Disputes over rules or who wouldn't be "it" were resolved by king's decree: "Well, this is my yard, go home if you don't like it!". At which point the dissenter would either stage a coup by trying to get everyone to take the game to his yard or make a rude face and say something smart like,"It's not your yard, it's your parents' yard," even though as far as everyone was concerned it was the king's yard as much as the yards they lived on were theirs and not their parents' or as much as their parents felt the houses they lived in were their own and not the bank's.
This is what I thought about today as I mowed the yard. Even though I still live on the same size yard I did growing up, it seems smaller, the surrounding houses and roads closer. The yard has become little more than an undersized buffer between me (in the house) and the surrounding world. After traveling across oceans, and exploring mountains and wilderness, I suppose it makes sense that the yard has lost some of its appeal, but the magic is still there somewhere even if I only notice it during reminiscence or while straining behind a push-mower for hours on an overgrown lawn.
Showing posts with label Fiction / creative writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction / creative writing. Show all posts
Another 10 words and phrases I am asking everyone to stop using in my presence
1. Guestimate
Example Usage: I’d guestimate her bride-price to be at around 8 cows.
Complaint: I’ll let it slide if you’re using it to mock moral stories that involve trading women for cows, but for those of you who are serious— please refrain in my presence or we can no longer be friends.
Annoyance Value: 8
2. Broad Daylight
Example Usage: The police officer threatened people on the street in broad daylight with a firearm because his Hummer was hit by snowballs.
Complaint: As opposed to narrow daylight?
AV:4
3. Expresso
Example Usage: I would like a Venti Peppermint Mocha Expresso with whipped cream, stat!
Complaint: My rant at people who confuse expresso with espresso is temporarily suppressed due to an overwhelming craving for a Peppermint Mocha, but the word is espresso, folks. ESSSSSpresso
AV: 9
4. Touch Base
Example Usage: Hey Milton, I’ll touch base with you later to go over the PTL numbers.
Complaint: It almost sounds dirty. Say “talk” or “contact” instead or, once again, we can no longer be friends.
AV: 6
5. What do you say? (as a greeting)
Example Usage: What do you say Jim Bob?
Complaint: This is something you say to a child after he/she has failed to say thank-you, not a greeting. When I hear this it makes me feel I’m being reprimanded for not saying “hello” fast enough.
AV: 8
6. Weird
Example Usage: He’s just weird. He gives me hateful looks every time I order expresso.
Complaint: The word itself doesn’t bother me, it’s the people who use it in place of what they actual intend or worse, as vague judgment. More often than not, the word reveals a speaker’s comfort level, sensitivity, and lack of cultural understanding.
AV: 5
Read the rest here...
Example Usage: I’d guestimate her bride-price to be at around 8 cows.
Complaint: I’ll let it slide if you’re using it to mock moral stories that involve trading women for cows, but for those of you who are serious— please refrain in my presence or we can no longer be friends.
Annoyance Value: 8
2. Broad Daylight
Example Usage: The police officer threatened people on the street in broad daylight with a firearm because his Hummer was hit by snowballs.
Complaint: As opposed to narrow daylight?
AV:4
3. Expresso
Example Usage: I would like a Venti Peppermint Mocha Expresso with whipped cream, stat!
Complaint: My rant at people who confuse expresso with espresso is temporarily suppressed due to an overwhelming craving for a Peppermint Mocha, but the word is espresso, folks. ESSSSSpresso
AV: 9
4. Touch Base
Example Usage: Hey Milton, I’ll touch base with you later to go over the PTL numbers.
Complaint: It almost sounds dirty. Say “talk” or “contact” instead or, once again, we can no longer be friends.
AV: 6
5. What do you say? (as a greeting)
Example Usage: What do you say Jim Bob?
Complaint: This is something you say to a child after he/she has failed to say thank-you, not a greeting. When I hear this it makes me feel I’m being reprimanded for not saying “hello” fast enough.
AV: 8
6. Weird
Example Usage: He’s just weird. He gives me hateful looks every time I order expresso.
Complaint: The word itself doesn’t bother me, it’s the people who use it in place of what they actual intend or worse, as vague judgment. More often than not, the word reveals a speaker’s comfort level, sensitivity, and lack of cultural understanding.
AV: 5
Read the rest here...
Dear Jon Stewart, your younger brother traumatized me…
Dear Jon Stewart:
This letter is more a written confession than typical correspondence for I have done you wrong. I have questioned your supreme leadership of Comedy Central news satire.
Let me explain.
For some time people have been annoyed by my repeated mention of Did you know Jon Stewart went to my high-school? or Did you know we bought a house off Jon Stewart’s parent/step-parent? “Yes, yes, you said that already,” they would intone, “now let me watch the show”. But it is true! I remember your younger step-brother’s video game addiction. I remember him playing Splatter House and being shocked at the sight of countless bloodied heads flying to the horizon, wacked from their necks by the hero’s baseball bat. It was crazy. Despite now having an immobilizing fear of baseball, I think I’m about over it and have managed to keep from mimicking this behavior. [Read the rest here]
Help get Jon Stewart a holiday!!
Another cell phone tirade
Something I wrote recently after a backpacking trip in the Smokies.
Unprotected sex, motorcycles, and the wilderness: why cell service should be geographically limited and people left to the consequence of their own stupidity
La Pirámide Comestibles (excerpt)
by Tyler Samien
It is rumored among southern Texans that down Hwy 57, through Eagle Pass, and across the Rio Grande, roundabouts Piedras Negras, a small produce shop, sells, in addition to the peppers and tomatoes upstairs, a different type of commodity below, the Vegetable Brothel, as it is humorously called by Texans before a laugh and nudge, as in: “My you’re looking healthy lately, haven’t been cheating on Susan at that Veggie Brothel have you? [Laugh] [Nudge]”. A few years back, with its presence in pop-culture peaking, this Vegetable Brothel was passionately condemned from the brimstone pulpit of many a Baptist church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. During this same time, in argument and common schoolyard rancor among boys, and a few girls too, the insult: At least my mom doesn’t work at the vegetable brothel, was quite common, and caused more than a few retaliatory spitballs.
But that was a few years back. The Vegetable Brothel now shares, along with the Desert Chupacabra and Crockett’s Ghost, a place in regional folk legend. It is a reference used less frequently by anyone besides cliché individuals like the school bully who doesn’t, and will never, realize that there was an art and creativity involved in cutting another human being down.
It is rumored among southern Texans that down Hwy 57, through Eagle Pass, and across the Rio Grande, roundabouts Piedras Negras, a small produce shop, sells, in addition to the peppers and tomatoes upstairs, a different type of commodity below, the Vegetable Brothel, as it is humorously called by Texans before a laugh and nudge, as in: “My you’re looking healthy lately, haven’t been cheating on Susan at that Veggie Brothel have you? [Laugh] [Nudge]”. A few years back, with its presence in pop-culture peaking, this Vegetable Brothel was passionately condemned from the brimstone pulpit of many a Baptist church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. During this same time, in argument and common schoolyard rancor among boys, and a few girls too, the insult: At least my mom doesn’t work at the vegetable brothel, was quite common, and caused more than a few retaliatory spitballs.
But that was a few years back. The Vegetable Brothel now shares, along with the Desert Chupacabra and Crockett’s Ghost, a place in regional folk legend. It is a reference used less frequently by anyone besides cliché individuals like the school bully who doesn’t, and will never, realize that there was an art and creativity involved in cutting another human being down.
Habitual chartist: nature or nurture?
Charts and schedules motivate me, sometimes ridiculously so (as I am about to show). Often the intrinsic payoff for accomplishing a task pales beside the fulfillment I feel as I place a clean check mark within the lines of that little box on a “to do” list. But what's wrong with it if it helps me get things done? During completion of the objectives on a list I have a sense of control; afterward, an indisputable visual proof of progress. How can this be a bad thing?
Well, for one, at times my day-to-day self seems slave to someone else, to the occasional part of me that emerges for planning sessions to make charts and “to do” lists during small bursts of discontentment. Lately that part of me has gotten out of control. Here is a somewhat useful chart I made to develop good habits, but here is a useless chart made to determine what I will eat for breakfast and another for bathroom usage. Here is a “to do” list I made for the current hour.
I’m beginning to think I should seek professional help for my habitual chart-making, but who should pay the psychiatry bills? If this inclination sprouts from a childhood of chore-charts and, as early as age 7, forced distribution categories on my allowance, the bills will goes to my mother. If the chartist in me is genetic, my HMO should cover it.
But it’s almost 10 til, I need to wrap this up. I’ll pencil in “attempt resolution to chartist problem” for sometime next week. Time to check out more charts!
Well, for one, at times my day-to-day self seems slave to someone else, to the occasional part of me that emerges for planning sessions to make charts and “to do” lists during small bursts of discontentment. Lately that part of me has gotten out of control. Here is a somewhat useful chart I made to develop good habits, but here is a useless chart made to determine what I will eat for breakfast and another for bathroom usage. Here is a “to do” list I made for the current hour.
I’m beginning to think I should seek professional help for my habitual chart-making, but who should pay the psychiatry bills? If this inclination sprouts from a childhood of chore-charts and, as early as age 7, forced distribution categories on my allowance, the bills will goes to my mother. If the chartist in me is genetic, my HMO should cover it.
But it’s almost 10 til, I need to wrap this up. I’ll pencil in “attempt resolution to chartist problem” for sometime next week. Time to check out more charts!
Escape!
From a life spent trailing the plow, inventions that saved 'busy time" or 'dead time' were the apex of progress to be. Now we have arrived and see the time we've freed, is spent anyway but freely.
and the cost is high.
Free-time is a date between your mind and a small pinch of summer sky, autumn forest, clear winter night, inspiration.. together- alone from all else in space, on a blank white sheet, a canvas.
Creating something where nothing was before.. breathing... living...breathing...
and the cost is high.
Free-time is a date between your mind and a small pinch of summer sky, autumn forest, clear winter night, inspiration.. together- alone from all else in space, on a blank white sheet, a canvas.
Creating something where nothing was before.. breathing... living...breathing...
Testing...
testing...1...2...{looping feedback squeal, that kind that makes everyone grimace, or say, "Aaahhhh!"}
[the handsome man on stage adjusts his mic, while the tec lowers the treble]
ahem- hello, and good evening! I see we have a full house tonight...
[he isn't phased a bit]
I'll be posting various writings on this page daily. My intention is to use this blog as a tool to improve both the quality and frequency of my writing. If anyone reads this- great. If not, you'll be reading my books a few years down the road anyway-- and they won't be free, he heh. So off to where we go? Not even I do know!
[Applause][curtain]
[the handsome man on stage adjusts his mic, while the tec lowers the treble]
ahem- hello, and good evening! I see we have a full house tonight...
[he isn't phased a bit]
I'll be posting various writings on this page daily. My intention is to use this blog as a tool to improve both the quality and frequency of my writing. If anyone reads this- great. If not, you'll be reading my books a few years down the road anyway-- and they won't be free, he heh. So off to where we go? Not even I do know!
[Applause][curtain]
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