Whatever

Tuesday Writing Prompt — I Can Fly!

Fandango4 Comments

956AD8B1-3445-42D6-AB8B-C137F802F97EThere’s this writing prompt challenge called the Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge, from the folks at Go Dog Go Café, that some of the bloggers I follow participate in. I haven’t yet done so. But when I saw the post and read that this week’s challenge is to “write anything with the topic of flying,” I decided to give it a shot.

And yes, I realize that it’s no longer Tuesday, but I’ve often been accused of coming up a day late and a dollar short, so what else is new?

Anyway, because the topic has to do with flying, I was reminded of a recurring dream I have with some regularity.9E841586-FDE2-4C91-9ACF-2087F06B0AEEIn this recurring dream, I can fly. The dream is the same every time that I have it. I start walking, lift my arms toward the sky, and suddenly I’m heading up into the air, as if I’m willing myself to defy gravity. I am floating above the ground, rising up above the trees, sailing among the clouds, and looking down at the landscape below. It’s exhilarating to be free from the tethers that bind me to the earth below.

I have no idea how I gained this incredible ability to fly, and in the context of my dream, there’s no explanation for it. There are times, though, when I’m up there savoring the experience, I become troubled by what might happen if this amazing gift of flight were to leave as suddenly and mysteriously as it appeared.

But it never does, at least not until I wake up. And when I do wake up and realize that I am, in fact, grounded, I am saddened that it was but a dream.

Oh wait. Was I supposed to write a fictional tale, a short story, for this prompt? Well, if so, in my defense, I would argue that, while having had this recurring dream is real, dreams are, by definition, fiction, since what happens in dreams is not reality. But then that begs the question: should I tag this post as “Flash Fiction” or as “Life”? Oh, I know. I have a catch-all category I call “Whatever.” Yeah, that’s the ticket. Whatever.

JusJoJan — Zoomie?

Fandango15 Comments

I’m not easily stumped, but today’s word from Linda G. Hill’s Just Jot it January prompt is “zoomie.” My iPhone’s autocorrect keeps changing it to “zoomed,” which is understandable — because “zoomie”? Seriously? The word “zoomie” was suggested by Bee Halton at The Bee Writes.

I had to go to Google to find out that “zoomie” has multiple meanings. First, it’s an Air Force term for any graduate of the United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. It’s also a slang term other military branches use to describe any Air Force personnel.f929a994-9ade-4d6a-bc59-bb67ba636e83Second, it’s a term to describe when a dog has an episode typically described as a wild run that seemingly comes out of nowhere and lasts for a few minutes at most. The dog runs around the house like crazy, jumping on the couch, running up and down the stairs, and all around and over the house.

And then there’s also a toy robot dog that is named “Zoomie.” 1fd49eb4-a489-4aa8-b50d-8710f76b5291Who knew?

SoCS — Art

Fandango14 Comments

For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has assigned us the smears “art.” Linda instructs us to “talk about something that’s hanging on your wall,” she says. “Add a picture, if you’d like.”

6FE6C3AE-7020-4934-8DDA-CF35759F3E83.jpegOne of my favorite artists is M.C. Escher and one of my favorite works by Escher is Hand with Reflecting Sphere, also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror. It is a lithograph that was first printed in January 1935. It depicts a hand holding a reflective sphere. In the reflection, most of the room around Escher can be seen, and the hand holding the sphere is revealed to be Escher’s.

I’ve previously posted about my love for Escher’s work in THIS post, where a few other of his lithographs are included.

Another artist whose work I enjoy is René Magritte. He was a Belgian surrealist known for his witty and thought-provoking images. He depicted ordinary objects in an unusual context, challenging observers’ perceptions of reality.  Here are a few of his paintings.

My wife is partial to Erté. Born Romain de Tirtoff, he was a Russian-born French artist and designer known by the pseudonym Erté, from the French pronunciation of his initials. He was one of the most well-known fashion illustrators of the 1920s. His designs included dresses and accessories for women; costumes and sets for opera, ballet, and dramatic productions; and posters and prints. Here are some examples of his work.

JusJoJan — Memento

Fandango17 Comments

Today’s Just Jot It January prompt is the word “memento.”

ed2d3cc8-e1fb-462d-960f-74f907c14063As soon as I saw the prompt, all I could think of was the movie “Memento,” an offbeat thriller released in 2000 and directed by Christopher Nolan, who adapted the film from a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan.

The protagonist, portrayed by Guy Pearce, is a man who is struggling to put his life back together after the brutal rape and murder of his wife. But having been savagely beaten by the same man who killed his wife, his short-term memory had been destroyed and he was no longer able to retain any new information. Thus, he had to resort to copious note-taking and Polaroid photographs in order to keep track of what happens to him over the course of a day. He even tattooed himself with a few crucial bits of information that he couldn’t get along without. The character is obsessed with taking revenge against the man who has ruined his life, and he sets out to find him, getting help from some questionable characters.

What’s most intriguing about this movie, to me, anyway, is that it progresses backwards in time. The protagonist kills the murderer of his wife in the film’s first scene, and it then moves backward from that point, in roughly five-minute increments, allowing us to see how he tracked the guy down, and then ending with what is, chronologically, the story’s beginning. It sort of blew my mind.

So for today’s Jot it January, I suggest you jot down the name of the movie — “Memento” — and see if you can stream it. I think it’s available on Amazon Prime and on YouTube.

JusJoJan — Enigmatic Nipples

Fandango29 Comments

5e6e0c49-2995-4cfc-85e4-9fd728a59d61You know what I find enigmatic? Man boobs. Well, not so much man boobs per se, but nipples. In particular, man nipples.

Why is it that in western societies, or at least in the United States society, men can walk around in public bare chested with their nipples there for everyone and anyone to see, but women can’t.

Human nipples look pretty much the same, whether they’re on a man’s chest or a woman’s chest. So why is it that when a man’s nipples are exposed in public it’s perfectly acceptable, but when a woman’s nipples are exposed in public it is often deemed to be indecent exposure?

Do you see that picture of a bare-chested man at the top of this post. He can walk around any city or town in America without a shirt on and no one would say boo. Yet his boobs are bigger than those of most women I know.

fe251dc3-21e8-4d3a-af05-f029082f2a84And now look what happens if I show his boobs out-of-context. Oh my God! Bare breasts! A woman caught walking around exposing her bare breasts and nipples like that in Anytown, USA would probably be arrested for indecent exposure.

But those boobs and nipples are on a man’s body. So it’s okay, albeit perhaps not in good taste, for him to show up that way at the beach, at a park, sitting on his front porch, or just about anywhere.

So, can someone please solve this enigma for me? Tell me why it’s okay for a man to walk around in public without a top on and for his nipples to be visible to the, um, naked eye, so to speak, but it’s not okay for a woman?

Written for today’s Just Jot It January prompt from Linda G. Hill. Today’s jot topic is “enigmatic,” which was suggested by blogger Virgobeauty.