If you could see my draft folder here….

Okey-Dokey – Now that I’ve committed the unpardonable sin of showing up after being MIA for long time, likey-liking and blogging in the comments section of my long time bloody pals

(ahem!  that was supposed to read, ‘bloggy pals”. Curse auto spelling or auto correct or me own fingers while I’m lost in my head, while typing….),

….culled the following list of folks that haven’t posted since 2016 and whom I wonder if they are still alive, still writing, still around  AND then, came back to my beloved, WP Admin screen that I really prefer to ‘distraction free/block editing world” …

I figure out…

Hmm…I actually wrote some this winter, here, I just never published…

Here’s the Posts Titles going in File 13

1. The Farce of “Just Say No”
2. Tales from La-De-Dah-Land
3. Um…yeah…you’re a tool, ya know?

I just re-read them and, while I still feel as I did when I first wrote them, and, to be truthful and transparent about who I am today, rather than just who I was when I first wrote them, I have to say,

Um…Yup…still feel the same way, but really, did I have to be so harsh about it all?

And my quiet answer is,

Yes – so what?  You titled your blog to cover all bases – you have an About page that lays it out – your bloggy pals know you’ll report back if you actually change your stubborn mind about something/anything, like EVER…they KNOW you and your errant ways!!!  AND you’ve put up “Warning! I most likely will offend you before it’s all over….” signs all over you, your physical space, your online life, etc.    What else need be done?

But in the end, nope, not publishing, instead,  deleting them forever –

(I can delete with easy heart and good cheer, cuz if I ever re-think my life choices, like this one, the originals are saved elsewhere,  doncha know – I have some cool tools and back up drives and what not, JUST in case I change my mind 10 years later and decide to come clean about changing my mind….- 🙂

Ahh…the simple grace and peace of coming here to bloggy world –

In the end, all I know is my sojourn into 2.5 second world (everyday) and my sojourn into trying to understand Quick and Free, Social Media, as well as the hydra known as Cyberland, well…

The journey has left me all bruised, battered and sore in my soul, my brain, my heart, etc.

And so, I guess, in the end, I shall sink or swim,  with my enlightened attitude or stubborn ways – as the case may be –

Let the torch and pitchfork mob headed for my house commence!

My inner me, whispers to me as I prepare to ‘Trash/Permanently Delete….”

As I re-read each draft (much like I did earlier this past year, with 13 other drafts or so –  I found myself asking myself tonight, the same question I’ve asked often since 2010 – across all platforms and work done for customers

If you hit publish – are you adding to the problem or trying to work towards a solution?

I came full circle to the same realization –

Once the words are out there – you will either pay for your stupidity or non-coolness- or non-getting with the program, OR you’ll find those who you like connecting with –

(Yup, have to share the clip – “It’s Already Out There!” – 🙂

In the end….

I find myself right back to the same conversation I had with a co-worker in the late 1990s, who was upset the powers that be didn’t ‘like her’ when all she was trying to do is save them from massive trouble because they mis-spent grant money funds – –

My one question to her was…

“So the folks you think are playing it sloppy, loose or are outright crooks, don’t like you – so what?  If you think they are crooks, wouldn’t it worry you some if they DID like you?”

Sigh – and I can, now that whole reminder to myself,  is summed up in my mind, go ahead and trash the 3 rambling, long, whiney-whine drafts that have been sitting here pending – cuz in the end, I can come up with examples of such things, in real-time, every damn day of my existence….

…but in my soul, the answer remains ever the same…..until the answer changes  🙂

Dancing with the Devil

I logged in, because, doncha know, it’s once more tornado season here – and I recently sought cover, because the town siren warning said to and…well…there were kiddos who needed to be protected – what can I say?

I’ve worked, pushed, been idealistic, hoped for the best, while planning for the worst, all, these past few years – and yet….

Let one lil summer storm pass through, and I gnash my teeth that I am not free to go dance in the parking lot and get a concussion ….or dead….from the hail raining down –

Dark, right?  What did you expect with the title I chose?

(P.S. I also am not happy that my login here, after long time away, working and earning a living and such, found me HAVING to do stuff Gutenberg style – – maybe, I shall see if I’m allowed, here, to install the Classic Editor – I don’t need a ‘distraction free canvas’ here, all right?   Okay?” – sigh – – )

It’s tornado season, and this year, my oldest son might have been 29 – I could have teased him about forever 29, he could have been with me to help his brother celebrate his 21st birthday –

But he wasn’t – and somehow, forever 17 doesn’t ring as fun as forever 29 does – 🙂

And so, my writer’s soul thought, “What if?”

What if I wrote a series of novellas, in which each followed the ‘crazy lady in town’ who went about talking about her son and what he was doing?  At age 18?  at 23?  at 25?  and each was a different dimension in space-time, and it was all just in her world?

What then?

Well…nix that – because, after all, don’t we all live in our own lil slice of space-time?

And who has time to listen to all the other alternate space time views out there?

Lordy, Lordy – can I keep writing, or should I figure out how to ‘insert’ a block to share the siren going off to ‘seek shelter’ as some storm chaser blows through our ‘poke and clean’ town?

What?  You didn’t know?

“Poke your head out the window…

You’re Clean outta town”

We rural hicks have a fun sense of humor –

Okey-dokey, I know have scanned the screen, and find I can up my game by trying the new block editor –

But maybe not, just yet –

For, my heart is aching for words to come forth – and aching for meaning and well….

I’m in writing mode – finally!  Don’t distract me with tech, eh?

Yes, I was an evil mom…

I planned the entire 48 hours of the celebratory 21st birthday weekend for the youngest in the local ‘Sin City” – (it’s a gambling town, so booze runs wild, as long as it is metered out between 20’s shoved into the machines….)

We had fun – went to a play by the local drama troupe – actually, we met some of them the night before, when we hied ourselves up to the local bar/pool hall to drink/play pool, because that was more alluring than feeding the slot machines was – 🙂

We spent quite a bit of time chasing balls around the table, and I actually made a couple of combo and behind the back shots (to avoid having to learn how to bank the shots…  I haven’t grown in or practiced that skill, ever…..)

What did I learn from my weekend of being a careless mom?

My son is generous – he, in his fervor and happiness to experience the legality of it all, promptly bought shots for everyone, instead of waiting for them to buy him one….sigh – and I couldn’t keep up with him enough to figure it out…until too late….

My son is polite – He shook hands, introduced himself all night, and Lordy, Lordy, couldn’t he just be a politician?!?   He said yes ma’am, yes sir, and focused in on each person he extended a hand to, and told them how he appreciated the service they had given, and how he appreciated the hard job they have and how they are, in his mind, doing it admirably.

Yes, yes, I told him they know it well, after the first round of congrats – and they have to deal with drunks all the time (yes, I said this while trying to get him herded back to the room so he could pass out)

….and yet…don’t ya know, I was rather proud of the inebriated, young man who had done way too many goofy-woofy-who-knows-what-is-in-it, shots, even after I had told him, for weeks, “Don’t mix your liquors, else you’ll get sick – ”

Because he had had weeks of roughing it in ‘customer service’ land – and spent quite a bit of time getting yelled at by both customers and bosses – and so, does he go ugly?

Nope, he gives others what he wishes someone would say to him – –

Sigh….Isn’t that neato-coolio?

All this is what I was thinking of, while in duck-n-cover operations

Funny?  Right?  That as I looked at the two young brothers, hunkered down in the safe spot next to me, at my place of work, all I could think of was telling them about the two brothers I was blessed with as sons.

I told them about the night before my oldest was born – and the tornado that leveled downtown Limon, yet the low injury levels sustained…..

And then I told of the night the youngest and I hid in the cellar, only to come out before the all clear siren,  to see the grapefruit sized hail landing in the yard – –

When the hail hit the metal roof, I told them to close their eyes and hear the different patterns sung by the hail, the wind, the rain –

All while I imagined Morgan would be making some song out of it all and Nathan would backing him up on harmonics – –

Cause that’s what brothers do.

And tonight, I realize, I’m depressed –

Apparently – for I am looking back more often at what was, what could have been, what went before, than I am planning for tomorrow –

Quite frankly, this feels good, writing – perhaps I should plan for tomorrows where I write – lord knows, I suck at gardening – my landscape in shreds, after a Memorial Day weekend of trying to get it in order –

My neighbor’s victory garden (i.e. the one they feed themselves, their extended family and moi out of) has been hailed out 4 times this year – – and my rhubarb looking pretty frail – though it rallied on through the first 3 storms –

As I look around me, all I see is a mess –

A mess in politics, a mess in society – a mess in my garden –

And yet, in writing, the mess begins to make sense – Time and space melt away to only leave the beauty  of it all –

What was, what is and what can be –

Yup – I’ve been away for far too long from the things I love – I’ve been blogging in social media land, cuz I had to be there to do my job – and now?

After flagrantly writing in one block, despite the cool (?) new tools put in place to take care of the silly folks that dream of launching their millionaire platform in 2.5 seconds and 300 words or less?

I feel good – really good – like deep down, in my old, aching bones and heart, good – –

Time in this space, to make some changes, me thinks – I’ve strayed too far from who I am,  who I wish to be, for far too long, trying to ‘earn a living’ – 🙂

We will see which devil shows up tomorrow to dance with me….

And now, ta-da, I shall use the Add button I see, at the top of screen, to share a video uploaded by the intrepid storm chasers who blew through town, as the siren sounded, for what turned out to be, a non event, at least here and now, for moi – I think…maybe…

And…. I didn’t use correctly OR whatever – but here it is – see the cafe where I have lunch on work days when I decide to let someone else cook for me?!?