Anyway, A Double Dose of Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SoCS

Anyway, here’s a SoCS double-dose. I wrote one last week, and then couldn’t get into my WordPress account. First up, the prompt for December 10; then scroll on down for today’s prompt: Anyway.

Struggled a bit with this prompt, as the first two things that popped into my head:

1. A very inappropriate joke around a word that sounds similar but spelled slightly differently than the prompt
2. The wannabe duel dictators in Florida, the excritable DeSantis and the corrupt traitor that is the con

I’m not feeling the one and, as I’m enjoying my Saturday, don’t want to ruin it by thinking of those corrupt, fauxtriot asshats.

Oh. Yeah. The prompt is . . .

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “dict.” Find a word that contains “dict” and use it in your post. Have fun!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (December 17) is “start your post or one paragraph with the word ‘anyway.’” Bonus points if you start your post with “anyway” and regular points if you use it in a paragraph somewhere else in your post. Enjoy!

Pink please don’t leave me

Sooooooooo, I think I’m going to go with “dictate.”

As a more than occasional writer, I sometimes think I should try dictation – even if just on my phone to record ideas, snippets, etc.

I never do. Not sure why. I know for writing, I like the physical process of fingers/keyboard and even pen on paper for some types of notes.

Maybe that’s something I’ll try in 2022.

I don’t like to be dictated too. Bugs the ever-loving shit out of me.

John Prine

I’m going to use dictate to jump off in a slightly different direction. For whatever reason, “dictate” made me think of people who believe in fate or that “things happen for a reason.”

I’ve always thought this was a crutch used by folks as a way to accept something shitty (and maybe even sometimes something great) that happened in their life.

Meh.

There’s no fate.

There’s no meant to be.

There’s no “as god intended.

That’s all horseshit. It also resolves one of responsibility for one’s own life.

Relationship ends – “it wasn’t meant to be.”

Child dies from an accident – “god’s will.”

You get the idea.

It’s a weak way to go through life.

We create our reality every day with the choices and decisions we make. If there’s something you think is “meant to be,” you gotta work for it. Go after it.

All of our collective decisions make the world we live in.

The world is random, coincidental, and more luck than anything dictated by fate or whatever god you choose to follow.

After all, even if you do believe in the God of Abraham, I spent enough time in Catholic school to remember the whole “free will” thing. If there’s fate, there’s really no free will. They’re mutually exclusive.

Anyway, being intentional is something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about lately around life and career. 51 now. How cliché, right? LOL.

Bumbling my way through a number of things I want to course-correct on to have a happier next 51 years (maybe, who knows, the bacon, whiskey, and weed diet may help with longevity!). I have figured out – well, always knew – that coasting along on the assumption “something good will turn up” is waaaaay too similar to fate.

Ending that shit now. Invested some coin in some copyediting courses. I’ve done fairly well in a career I accidentally entered (editing) and sort of felt my way through on decent brains and gut instinct. Figure if I match that with some in-depth knowledge about how to structure my work better and actively recruit clients, I might be able to end my work life on an upswing.

Going to give it a go anyway. The floating along, waiting for something to happen, just ain’t working no more.

And that’s my 30 minutes (truncated with some quick Christmas shopping because an idea for both children popped into my head about halfway through this.

Thanks for reading, if’n you made it this far.

Today’s issue brought to you by music from my library on Amazon, scroll down to take a look. [This is for “dict,” December 17 is brought to you by Colts/Vikings game in the background. Go Colts, cuz Vikqueens fans are a bunch of whiny fuckers — Ooooo, I’m from Minnysoooota and I think it was mean for the Saints Defense to hit Favre really hard during the NFC championship game and I was duped by the NFL’s public relations move to look like they cared about player safety with the Saints suspensions. Fucking babies.]

Ah, anyway. Here we go on “anyway.”

Don’t really have much time to do this one — walking down to Pickett for the Opex (gym) holiday party. Try new beer for free? Yes, please!] Bonus: if it’s good, it’s about a 10 minute walk — only slightly closer than Checkerspot will be next year when they move. VERY much looking forward to that — fantastic beer and their pretzels kick major ass.

Anyway, I’ve been getting distracted a lot lately. Like my brain shorts out if I have to focus on anything. Working on getting back to good research/writing habits. Making some small amount of progress on that. Have a few books queued up to read about habits and the psychology of habit formation. Look forward to diving in next week and gettting back into smarter habits.

Anyway, the Colts just scored again and, yep, it looks like the Vikings are as overrated as I had thought. Let’s see if the Colts manage to hold on or collapse as they’ve done as much as the Saints have this year.

Anyway, enough about football. It’s depressing as a Saints fan this year. Another year of crippling injuries. Another year of horrifically unbalanced refereeing against the Saints. A year of every single decision made to be competetitive this year back-firing — and every critical player making a bone-headed decision at just the wrong time to cripple the record.

Anyway, back to distraction, apparently I’ve had a Vitamin D deficiency. Looked up the symptons and lack of focus was one. That, combined with not having had my blood pressure meds for about 3 months (was starting to get headaches) probably wasn’t a good productivity combo for the last 6 weeks. I’ve been up and down, but 3 straight days of meds in and I can tell the difference.

Anyway, might not want to ever do that again. Though I am hopeful that once I’m down to my 175 weight by this time next year; maybe I won’t need them. That would be nice.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for “anyway.”

Though I do like to say “anyhoo” sometimes.

Love this movie and soundtrack. Ryan Bingham should be a regular on country radio.

This entire album from Tom Petty is excellent. Sigh, Tom Petty, gone too soon; Ted Nugent, still infecting the world with his performative ass-hattery.

This is the song that got me hooked on The Teskey Brothers. If you like a little soul, bluesy music, you should be listening to them.

I’ve always loved Pink. And the homage to George Jone’s epic drive to get more booze in this video is awesome.