Friday Funnies – ‘Cause, I Had to Put ‘Something’ Together

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I didn’t get a ha-ha in for March or April? Wow, time flies in these box loads of crazy that’s passing for life lately. Kinda makes a girl feel like throwing in the towel on societal issues, humanity issues and all ‘Home & Garden’ issues really. I know I’m not the only one dealing with the feeling of falling behind or down and dammit, with nary a drop of liquor involved.

So the very least we could do (literally) is, sit back on someone else’s funny bone and catch a breather. (Don’t go there, Randall).  Therefore, in deference to our victory over low bars; in indulging the least we can do, let’s look and learn from some commiseration of our uh, win.

Not even kidding. Every Jehovah’s Witness or girl scout offers to call the police every time they come to my door

Clearly, Frank is on top of the yard work. Suck it, Bob.

Need more glue on the yellow line…

That’s some top notch ‘screw it’, right there…

I’m not sure I’d even count the bracelet as one of the three… just sayin’

Some things are best left unsaid… (by me, I’d love to hear what you’d say!)

Yeah,  maybe it’s time to turn it all over to the animals. We can always count on them to add the sweetness factor…

It might take a minute

And for a stand alone project:

That’s it for this week or until the whirlwinds of ‘are you kidding me’ politics, personal duties, and community expectations settle down – hahahaha… Just kidding, that never happens – and y’all know it. We’re in this sin wagon together…

Here’s to an easy weekend and if not, at least settle for yard work at Frank’s level.

RL

Amusements

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toying with kittens

Toying with kittens
Child’s play, like taking candy
Fear not wee scratches

Little ones playing at big
Amusements of life growing

RL

Haiku / Tanka
Writing challenge: Chuckle
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/chuckle/
Photo: Zawadi Mungu, lion dad at Oregon Zoo, Portland

I Used My Intuition, Your Honour

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Instinct photo

There is no way in hell anyone is going to worship you forever like you’re the only flawless, amazing, insightful and intelligent being ever. Forget all those Hollywood, Disneyland, comic book love stories, and all those earnest love songs too. Ain’t gonna happen. Not for long, not even sustainable as a nefarious ploy, and definitely not if you’re a member of the regular ol’ human race.

It took learning that with a shocked home-group coalition plus some world-wide reach out and touch me, to grow to that new level of human reality honesty.

There were two parts to my blindsided experience for review. Why didn’t I act when I sensed things were off? The clues were there, but there was also the very real intoxication of being treated like I was that amazing.

I’m not sure that’s the whole case, but I do know that when I did feel something was amiss, I decidedly dishonoured myself in favour of enjoying the worship and in honouring the effort to see the best in someone. We can’t go around being – too judgmental. God forbid, right? Wrong. I got that part wrong too.

Look, if any hint of overt darkness advances, I’m all set to say, cheers and goodbye. I don’t even need to feel the slightest brush of a demon feather across my aura to sense that. However, what if the dark approaches in the form of the absolutely, nicest person you’ve ever met, whose been treated unjustly, and needs a little support? Did your spidey senses just light up? Mine didn’t.

They did spark up from time to time a little further into the relatively short journey until, one day, for reasons I still don’t know, something deep within me rose to the surface and offered the friendship test of a lifetime. When that last red flag raised, I didn’t allow myself to ignore it and I blew out a full blast of WTH? dynamite and said the word, “no”.

That’s all it took. The façade of perfection was instantly erased; a whole new personality emerged from my understanding-beyond-human-capacity-adoring buddy. In the next 3 exchanges, I was slammed for ‘breaking his heart’ and dazed and demoted to lowest wretch at, “Sarah Palin on crack” level! Um, wow-for real? Which was immediately followed with all kinds of insane demands to maintain the friendship. I was honed enough by then to say, buh bye, but not enough to understand what the hell had happened during a literal overnight event.

After desperate work of trying to understand and reach peace, I’d reached out to some other friends who said, yeah, you’re not the first and you should talk with people who’ve already had direct experience with the same. That’s where the other countries came in; 2 Aussies, the American and the other Canadian. Amazing how far these weasels can reach. In short order they helped me see where I’d slipped, what I’d really been dealing with & how to get on in a solid upward positive march.  I’d been soundly introduced to the topic of a Cluster B personality who adores triangulation. This issue is so valuably covered in great and helpful detail with an internet search so I won’t go into all of that now. I will pray you avoid that hot mess.

I really want to emphasize my own slip here. I did have those red flags and I acknowledged them enough to have made my friend work even harder to talk me into some things. The thing is, I never did get entirely comfortable regardless. The point is, it doesn’t matter how it comes at you – if your soul, spirit, or gut, is saying this doesn’t feel right – then it’s not right. End of discussion. Real care or love may be a little messy and even a lot frustrating, but it doesn’t make you unsafe or feel unease or revulsion. Coercion is coercion in its belittling or heady adoration or needling begging form. Rejecting that is not being judgy.

Our instinct tells us many things, take a chance or step back, but what it never does is lie. Any situation where raised red flags need to be talked away, especially regularly, is a lousy one. In the face of fear or temptation, our instinct may be our only sound and safe judgment. Trust it.

RL

For the interested, here’s a quick review of the process these personalities engage in: Why Narcissists Disappear (Hint: It’s not just the silent treatment)

Shut Up; Inspiration’s Tapping

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Road blocks, creativity blocks, block heads…It’s a mindbender how often we stumble into the crevices of mental-logjam hell. Where you can’t get past step: what the hell is wrong with me? We’ve all encountered it and I have a theory about why. I think it’s a kind of, forgot who we are blockage.

I don’t mean traumatic amnesia or movement away from some great metaphysical understanding, not that those couldn’t be the issue. I mean by forgetting the simplest of our own self-connection, barring an osis attached to our psyches. I’m sure this isn’t new thought, but I landed on it while catching a breather.

I’ve had a few years of weaving around so many traumas that at times, I wasn’t sure I was still in the realm of general reality. It was hard work to get through that and one of my key coping tools was writing. I wrote out everything. I put it into journals, onto my blog, worked it into comments for online stories, into letters to friends. I wrote as though I was being chased by some spade-tailed catastrophic, disaster-delivering satan ready to fork me the minute I put my pen down.

Clearly, I wasn’t suffering from any blockage throughout all that. But – it was within this flurry of activity that I realized something. So much of what I was writing really didn’t have to do with the actual events that had occurred as much as what they activated in the storage room of my life.

One single lived moment can trigger a cascading torrent of imagination. A few incredible moments that shake us up to levels unknown can offer years of material. They needn’t have been traumatic, just the kind that opens up something, a doorway to that kaleidoscopic onion of infinite colors that is our subconscious.

We’ve all had them, these events, but we can’t really know how they will affect us when they occur. Sometimes, despite even our best efforts to forget them, memory will continue to haunt as though a living character in some perverse corner of the universe stuck on auto-replay. Relentless input, a consciousness stalker and its flying monkeys.

As a writer, any of these flashy inspirations can initiate a series of songs, poems, stories, or a simple chronicle of the event detailing what, why and how we were affected. They can induce flow for anyone – a photographer hits on a fantastic series of scenes to shoot. A politician may find that ideal answer to policy, the cure for cancer will attach to a researcher, the anybody who may unlock a talent long ignored, maybe bogged in banal duty or years of focused yakking about exes or bad bosses.

Conversely, there is another inspiration reality that’s just as effective, but seems to be less courted. Remember Newton, relativity, equal action/reaction? As much as huge events of any type can inspire, so can a simple minute of letting go and shutting up.

I suppose I’ve been learning that we really don’t have to search for inspiration; not when there are literally thousands of moments already in storage ready for excavating. Every one of our memories are multi-faceted jewels and each face has absorbed a song, a smell, a sound, a texture. Each is available and waiting. The only key to their door is closing the gate to absolutely everything else for a matter of mere minutes.

It’s a bit of practice initially, just letting thoughts float around, then up, then away… and wait. There will be no sudden heraldic choir announcement that it’s time to get your ass to the grindstone & forge the greatest creation ever. At least not typically, but if we wait a few minutes, the creation is there, ready. It will seep out timidly or flood our receptors, but either way, we’ll have achieved a nice BM, as in blockage movement. Yes, just as satisfying as any other.

Bottom line: rest is a requirement of the creative process, not a death sentence. So, shut up and let your muses get through to you. Or so they tell me… Mine mince no words. Ever.

RL

The Wins of Futility

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[Short story – theme: conquer]

He enjoyed the idea that he was tormenting her while he dangled his presence around her, but the facades of his intent were very poor disguise, rather sophomoric and predictable. The fitting of his mask rendered him completely unaware that it was she, who was leading him by the nose.

So, there was little intrigue to hold her gaze. The offering was thin, weak even… the fact that she’d seen it for what it was and rejected it, in the end, was genuinely puzzling to him.

It drove him to play cat, but without the appearance of pawing at the mouse. He left that to the kittens he’d made believe were his fighting defense of immense ability.

The worst of it… that part that whirled his twisted out vision was that it didn’t look like she’d made any changes in her life that completely sealed out room for him, and that – that was the most incomprehensible.

So, he continues to prowl around corners and spy, hoping to provoke a second look, but it never comes. Not the way he craves. It will never be returned, and he will labor in that eternal circular chase for as long as that emptiness and his meowing backup guide him.

She remains true to her purpose, employing her memories and inspirations without ever having to touch the reins he casts toward her. She shoos away his gnat-like fly-bys, exercising her right to indifference. This is her freedom, and his own imprisonment.

RL

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/conquer/