Diana was excited. She hadn’t been to an actual movie theater to see a movie since before the pandemic. She remembered the last time she’d been at this multiplex. It was right before Christmas in 2019 and the theater was packed with movie goers coming out to see the Christmas blockbusters and holiday movies. She loved going out to the movies in those pre-COVID days.
Now here she was, after an absence of more than three years, about halfway up the steps from the multiplex’s lobby on her way to the second level, where there were 14 individual auditoriums, each showing a different movie. She had a box of Raisinets in her coat pocket, a bottle of water in her left hand, and her ticket in her right hand.
She glanced at the ticket. Theater 10. The showing time was at 1:25, eight minutes from now, according to her watch. Plenty of time to get in, find her seat, take her coat off, and settle in before the previews of coming attractions started.
Diana hoped that this outing to a multiplex theater marked the beginning of the return to normalcy in her life. In all of our lives.
Written for Cyranny’s One Minute Fiction Challenge. Photo credit: Cyranny.
Rory, the king of questions, also known as the Autistic Composter, has come up with a new series of questions that he calls “The Garden Dawdler.” Rory is posing “nine questions once a week for your leisure or pleasure.”
Here are Rory’s nine Dawdler questions today.
Are you utterly minimalistic in your lifestyle, an absolute clutterer hoarder, or just messy?
None of the above. I am neither a clutterer nor a hoarder. I’m not messy but I’m not obsessive or compulsive when it comes to tidying things up. As to my design aesthetic, I do tend toward minimalism.
Do you prefer to sit on a chair, cushion, bench, floor, or something else for comfort and which?
Right now, with my busted hip, I really do need something soft and cushiony to sit on. Preferably a chair. The floor, even with a cushion, is not good because I can’t get my legs and hip to sit that way and I’d need assistance getting back up. And a bench without a cushion, would hurt.
What is the most challenging part of your writing process?
I’m still expending a lot of energy in the broken hip, broken arm recuperation process, so finding the energy to think about topics for my blog, to do any research necessary, to sit down and write, proofread, edit, etc., and to post my work is draining what little energy I have left. Add to that, reading and commenting on the posts from other bloggers, leaves me exhausted.
Do you think you are an addictive or non-addictive personality?
I am addicted to blogging, but otherwise, I’d classify myself on the non-addictive end of the spectrum.
Do you feel in any way, shape, or form threatened by the arrival of AI [Artificial Intelligence] opportunities or do you welcome the progression into your life with ease?
From what I’ve experienced so far in reading AI-generated text or in using an AI chatbot to write a post for my blog, which I’ve done several times and noted in the post that it was the work of an AI chatbot, I am not threatened by AI. At least not in its current state.
I have used AI to generate illustrations for some of my posts and most are okay at best. Not the quality of photographs or images created by humans. To give you two examples of text-generated AI art, I gave two different AI art apps this instruction: An artist painting a picture on a canvas at an easel. Here are the results:
What do you think?
What subjects or topics inspire you to create the most concerning your writing?
This is a bit oddly worded, but I’m going to assume, with respect to my writing, Rory wants to know what subjects or topics inspire me. I can be inspired by almost anything in life. Current events, politics, human nature, my own personal experiences, or prompts from other bloggers.
When was the last time you walked through a graveyard?
Decades ago.
What are your top five favorite flowers?
I don’t know much about flowers so I’m just going to name, in no particular order, five different flowers that I know of: roses, irises, orchids, daisies, and chrysanthemums.
What would you say would be your writing quirk?
When it comes to my writing, what you read is who I am. Is that quirky? I dunno. Is it?
Anita said, “I’ve been thinking. We need to talk.”
“Ah,” Barry said. “Those are the two worst sentences a wife can say to her husband.”
“We’ve been married for ten years and I think each of us is disillusioned with the other,” Anita said. “We’ve grown apart and I don’t see a path that leads to staying together. I think our only option is to get divorced.”
“So your only solution to our broken marriage is dissolution,” Barry said. “That’s ironic.”
(Exactly 81 words)
Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the prompt is “dissolution” in exactly 81 words.
My theme for this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge is classic rock songs. Each day during the month (except for the first four Sundays, I will post a classic rock song: a video from YouTube, along with a brief bit of background about the song and the recording artist(s).
This is much more difficult than I thought it would be. For every letter of the alphabet there are dozens of fantastic classic rock songs to choose from and picking just one song for each letter is maddening. But this is what I signed up for.
My M song is “Magic Carpet Ride” from Steppenwolf.
“Magic Carpet Ride” was written by John Kay and Rushton Moreve from the Canadian-American hard rock band Steppenwolf. The song was initially released in 1968 on the album, The Second. It was the lead single from that album, peaking at number 3 in the U.S., and staying in the charts for 16 weeks, longer than any other Steppenwolf song.
With royalties from Steppenwolf’s first album, lead singer John Kay bought himself two towering speakers hooked up to a hi-fidelity stereo sound system with 10-inch woofers, turntables, tape players, and equalizers. When the guys were working on their second album, bass player Rushton Moreve came up with a groove for a new song and inserted the line “I like my job, I like my baby” as a placeholder.
Kay took the demo home to work on the lyrics. He said, “I popped the cassette into the player, and out of these rather large speakers came this track. And what popped into my head was, ‘I like to dream… right between the sound machine.’ The ‘sound machine’ being that stereo system. I wrote the lyrics and melody in 20 minutes, went and overdubbed the vocal, and then we did some more work on the track with instrument overdubs and the like, and ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ evolved from that.”
Some thought “Magic Carpet Ride was about drug use, but Kay said it was really an invitation to a journey where fantasy will set you free.
The original single version of “Magic Carpet Ride” was not only an edit of the album version, it contained a different vocal take on the first verse. Despite the single’s popularity, the album version enjoyed heavy airplay on FM radio and is still the preferred version on most classic rock stations, as well as the one most commonly included on compilations and in popular media.
Here are the lyrics to “Magic Carpet Ride.”
I like to dream, yes, yes Right between the sound machine On a cloud of sound I drift in the night Any place it goes is right Goes far, flies near To the stars away from here
Well, you don't know what we can find Why don't you come with me, little girl On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what we can see Why don't you tell your dreams to me Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes, girl Look inside, girl Let the sound take you away
Last night I hold Aladdin's lamp And so I wished that I could stay Before the thing could answer me Well, someone came and took the lamp away I looked around, a lousy candle's all I found
Well, you don't know what we can find Why don't you come with me, little girl On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what we can see Why don't you tell your dreams to me Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes, girl Look inside, girl Let the sound take you away
You don't know what we can find Why don't you come with me, little girl On a magic carpet ride
Well, you don't know what we can see Why don't you tell your dreams to me Fantasy will set you free
I told the guys how much I missed spending game nights with them when I was down and out with infectious mononucleosis. They asked me what it was like being isolated for a few months until I was well enough to be around other people.
I told them how rotten I was feeling and how difficult is was for me to be all alone with no one to talk to. I said it was like my colorful life had suddenly turned monochrome. They were sympathetic, but I soon realized that I was monopolizing the conversation and how monotonous my monologue must have been for them.
They were good guys, though, and were happy that I was doing better and able to spend time with them again. Then one of them opened up the board game and said, “How about some high-stakes Monopoly tonight?”
Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Linda has asked us to find a word that starts with “mono” and use it in our post. Above image credit created by Midjourney text to AI-Art.
This, That, and the Other 