I take a vacation

I TAKE A VACATION

Working on the idea of getting back to blogging on a daily basis.  Is causing a scheduling conflict, but will cope with that the best I can.  My goal is to write.  Daily.  For the last year my time and energy has gone to writing, but not blog writing.  Have been working on 2 books over the last year.  One is in the completion stage.  The other is just beginning,  with a 100 pages written.

Stating this  as a way to explain the basis of the conflict coming back to blogging on a daily basis presents me.  Conflicted, but will manage in an odd way.  

Blogging as I know it is for the purpose of entertaining.  And for giving me purpose and space to write.  Perfect when this is all the writing one does.  Conflict when you blog and also try to write according to commercial or academic standards.  Difficult to blog and write manuscripts at a high level.  Am finding that to be the case.

Moving forward with the emphasis.  "Keep it Real."  

In the past this was not how I would blog.  Best to say.  "Blogging may be out of style.  Not in vogue.  10-12 years after its' initial exposure on the social media scene, this is just the way it is.  An oddity.   Have talked about this before.  "Not popular now."  So he asks.  "Why bother?   Why blog now?"  There is no one answer.  Entertainment.  creating an audience.  Enjoy the company of others, based on writing.  

Now it is the Selfie Snap A Picture routine.  say something.  Be gone.  Isn't me.  Yet, change is required.  Entertain, but not truthful on a personal level.  Speak in first person format and yet none of it is verifiable, nor personal in the sense, it all comes from real life, or as some say, "A True Story."    Might be an interpretation of what an alternative life might be, done from a writer's perspective, take liberty with time and place and factual detail.  Has to  be a good story.  Must entertain.  That was me in  2006.  Was busy with a writers creation.  Daily blog.  Character seen in print.  Was it me?  Not sure?  Fiction.  Justified it by saying, "Fiction is stranger than real life.  Entertaining."   

Now  years later, am done with that in a marginal way.    So let me tell you what I am doing for blog material.  Is an experiment and a creative challenge.  Found on the Internet a language teaching program that plays   for 8 hours while the student is sleeping.  Sub-conscious entry into the mind.  "Does it work?"  Not sure.  But serves the purpose of providing me with blogging material.

Today I start with the phrase:  I Take A Vacation.  It is spoken and written in 2 different languages, all while I am sleeping.  When you awake it is suppose to mean something that you can recall and use.  Is to be there for your usage and benefit.  Language learning.  "Not sure if it works."

Do know that it provides me with a blog topic.  I TAKE A VACATION.  

Writing a blog and it shouldn't be stressful.  Should be like when you take a vacation and buy a romance novel-summer-light-book.  Read some, but only for pleasure.  Toss it when the vacation is over.  Done.  Done.  Doing this for fun.  What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.  Don't make it work.  Enjoy yourself or just don't do it.  That is the general idea of what a vacation should be.

Interesting take on things.  ' Go on vacation',  or as American slang might indicate:  I take a vacation.   Nobody gives it to me.  If I want it, I take it.  Displays indicators of an aggressive nature and people.   American slant on such a general thing.  "Not going to work.  Take a break.  Refresh.  Avoid burnout.  Be gone."   Want to suggest, 'stop being so aggressive.'  Vacation is not a competitive event.  Drop the posturing .  Stop pretending you are rich and vacation is just another way of saying,  "Have or Have-not.  Posh.  Posh."

We go looking for answers.  But there is no question.  Work tells us we have 2 weeks a year for vacation.  It is mandatory.  Work doesn't say:  "Stay-cation."   Stay home if your can't afford a proper vacation is up to you.  New considerations now that I am forced to say, "I take a vacation.  Can't afford it.  Stay home."  Is what we did.  Had more time for my second job.  Was a timeout, but not really as you would say, "Fun."

Keep it real.  And to further this he says.  "Not a real vacation."

I Take A Vacation.   There is no one way to do it.  Complicated by the fact that I am old now.  Retired.  Waited until now to vacation properly.    Retired.  Maybe I am on vacation 365 days a year.  Not sure.  Am new at this,  being on vacation aspect of life.

In America.  Did you know?  There is no law in the United States that requires an employer to give you paid vacation time.  They do shut down government in America from time to time.  "I Take A Vacation", means  non-essential federal workers are told to stay home.  Others are told to come to work, but you won't be paid.  Yet, its mandatory.  True Story.   Part  of the new way I am presenting this blog material.  

Not sure what is more important.  I take a vacation, implying I will not be going to work.  Not clear at this point if my job will be there when I return.  Interesting.  True Story.  Going on vacation for millions is like being laid off.  "Will let you know if we will be calling you back."  Says the boss in an email or on Twitter, but not to your face.    Separates personal from the collective.  Mass Unemployment.  The I Take A Vacation version.  America.  Today.  

2nd Time Around

2^nd Time Around

You Can’t Tell A Book By It’s Cover

Nor a Blog By It’s Title

Nor a poem just heard, but never read.

Common sense suggests one might invest some time just to keep the ball rolling. Read and decide if this is a blog spot suitable for you. From author’s perspective flows a creative pursuit and you are the readership and invited audience. He wants to please. Meet and give you a reason to return. Simple mission statement. Please you. Please return. Become blog friends. Be yourself. Read and Comment, if you chose to do so.

2^nd Time Around is not a marriage blog, nor about divorce or separation. Instead, is about my 2^nd stop on the blogging circuit. Just saying this requires some backstory and interest-filler. Frosting On The Cake. Has been a year or more since my last blog. Takes time and energy to blog daily. Takes time to invest when reading a blog. And energy, too. Two-party collaborative. Invest time and energy. In return get something back that has value. Content provider and audience-reader merge. Becomes one.

Not a comeback, nor a reckoning. To see this in print startles Mr. Content Provider. First time around, he went by the name-identifier: Stoney (blogger ). These days he is not sure if he should rename and reinvent himself. Seems like when your first gig was a success and they branded you. THE BAND. Something new in the neighborhood. Digital neighborhood. 2006. Now the gig is over. The Band has broken up. Gone separate ways.

Takes a breath and realizes that disappearance is similar to death. Can’t just stop blogging for a year, and then expect your audience to be there. Has him thinking. Comeback or reckoning or something quite different now. 

 “How to proceed.”

Will begin with reverse-order topic rendering. Mentioned come-back first. Then reckoning. Clarity and detail comes next. Will work on orientation and intention. Take a few moments to relate the backstory and how it was, the first time around. Think. Sear’s Catalog. Wish Book . 1910.

Reverse order. The Reckoning. Is startled to see this in print. Wonders what he intends to say, and if this would be of interest to a reader. Words in print have consequences, intended or accidental. Seems familiar. Act 1 and he sees reckoning as an act or process of calculating or estimating something. Flashback to something he knows about himself. The old version. Stoney blogger was very calculating. Thought about what he was doing a 100 times over, prior to writing the first work or sentence or paragraph. Calculated. Meant to be a staged-presentation.

“The Show Must Go On.”

Entertainment. Didn’t matter if it was true or pure-deception, slight-of-hand word magic. Who said it had to be true. Calculated to get your attention, keep you around for the length and duration of the blog/essay. Fact or Fiction was irreverent. Come back tomorrow and repeat. Entertainment Experience and also a writing exercise. In the old days this is how it was. Just a show. Made for your out-of-body excursion. Later, go home. Talk about it. Think about it. Forget it. Unreal. Won’t marry you. Permanence Elusive.

The idea of reckoning comes with multiple meanings that I will consider. Act 1 – the reckoning. It is all calculated. Based on something. For Stoney it was calculated on the idea that a daily blog was for entertaining the reader. There was no thought of it being true. Fragments of truth perhaps sifted thru implied universal personal experience was there. Yet, like an actor taking on a role for the purpose of a story-like entertainment package, once done he moved on. An actor’s life like a content provider/writer is calculated. Is the reader/audience that provides the attachment and seeks truth about that which time is invested and the matter of personal reward and benefits enters into all this.

Part 2. Act 2 He didn’t think about this in 2006 when blogging was in its infancy. Now he thinks about it. Reckoning as the avenging or punishing for past mistakes or misdeeds.

He thinks about it now. 2006 . Social media took the form of blogging. Nobody knew for sure what it should be. For 10 years: 2006 to 2016 stoney blogger entertained those who came to read his blogs. And then things changed. Social media changed. The people went away. Stoney blogger stopped writing. The show was over. Something new took its’ place.

Takes a moment to consider all this. “Take a deep breath.”

“Am I okay with this? Are You?”

Decides to embrace his first stated idea. A Come-Back. Anchors this to the title. 2^nd Time Around. Wonders if his time would be better used somewhere else. Time passed. 10 years of blogging and it doesn’t seem to be what people do in 2019. Stoney blogger no longer. Has become someone different over time. Who will read what he writes? Old school material by an Old Dude.

 “Who will read his blog?”

Come-back seems to reflect the issue of leaving the presentation stage due to failure. Failure to keep an audience like all of a sudden the people were saying, 

“Stoney Blogger. Who? Don’t know that one. Before my time. Old School. Like Mom and Dad.”

Never intended to make blogging a popularity contest. But now see this: The Reckoning as if it were contention for a place among the winners of a contest. Never intended to be thrust into the reckoning.

2^nd Time Around and will revisit my Wish List. What is blogging all about for me in 2019. Not the same as when first introduced to it in 2006. That is a long story I won’t go into now. Wish List. Sear’s catalog in 1905. Ingrained with a material-physical lust, and blogging is words on a screen that disappears with one click of a mouse button. Costs the consumer very little. Almost free, yet we know now. In social media they sell your personal information to regain costs incurred. Almost free is a dubious distinction I won’t go into now.

2^nd Time Around. Will I change? Blogger name and will it remain viable, like a branded item, say: “Kraft Cheese.” Have a blog that has not been used for over a year. Will add to it now and see what transpires. 2019 and 2006 and I bear no illusion about social media and how it benefit or imposed limitations. Write. Post. Might not be daily, but that depends on intervention and inspiration derived from the grand design: Original Creation. A favorite thought of mine.

Nostalgia Of A Different Life

Nostalgia of a different life

Haven’t blogged for quite some time.  Lost my train of thought, and was off-track.  Told myself I would finish a content manuscript I started in 1993.  And so he writes but does not blog.  Now that is my definitive statement of what happened.  And why is he telling us this.  Seems as if he needs to let it out.  Hot air in the balloon, now rising and soon will reach its limits and pop or deflate or just go missing.  Not really the life as I envision it.  Live for the day you go missing.  But happens and there is a history of such things.  Don’t want that image in my mind, so replace it with something else.  Let’s call it blogging.  And today the theme and title spell it out for me.  Nostalgia for a different life.  And reverts to what he knows best.  Heart of Stone. 

 Probability of mass transit has reached out and found me in tangible space and physicality.  Now I don’t have to walk, nor take the car.  Signs of change are all around me and impress me by registering on my mind as a remembrance.  Viet Nam War and Wall,  remembrance in Washington D.C. where many return yearly to reflect or feel that which is missing.  Bury the Dead.  Move on.  That is what I did.  But many have the affliction, and will call it nostalgia for a different life.  Suspect it is individual what that means, but if I sit and listen and be very still, people will tell me how it is and why this means something to them.  Make America  Great Again.  Means something to them.  Now we have finished with that subject.  Go start another war or campaign or something.  Seems some have a nostalgia for a different life, and frankly I am not interested.  But that’s another blog for another day.  Here I sit.  Be silent. 

 

I didn’t die during the Viet Nam War.  That era has passed and the events remain with many, but not with me.  Treat it as a vague shadow upon my lung.  Can’t breath easy, but am still alive.  Pass it on as a nostalgia or feeling for a time I didn’t know.  Viet Nam  Death.  Instead,  many years later and he is a content provider.  Has no true interest to resonate to the music of my youth, but did bring the subject up.  Going back in an acceptable way to tell you about things that happened, before you were born.  Past.  Vague.  History.  Revisionist.  Wrap it up by saying,  “Nostalgia for a time you didn’t live through.  And if you did, well.  “If I did what?”  And is the start of a different conversation.  Is not a true recreation of the past, but rather, a combination of many aspects of then and now, integrated together.  Would make a good move, if Netflix would buy into that.  But for now, leave it as it is.  Me with all the negative emotions filtered out, just blogging. 

 

Down that road he goes.  Because it makes him happy.  Or perhaps, a different life and a different reason.   Go back.  Represent it in a way that is understandable.  Picks up the Bible or Talmud or Koran.  Read it and it sticks with him.  The power of words.  “In the beginning…..”   Genesis.  Over the years he has accumulated many boxes.  A different life in each.  Separation and what is done,  goes into a box.  Quality of Life comes with the ability to recall and perhaps assemble a nostalgia of a different life that is coherent, because it was bits and pieces of an experience that comes with his mind and body.   Heart of Stone.  Now a summary.  Perfect moments shared with a total stranger.  Appears as screen memory.  Is there and now goes the way of digital.  Has a memory code all its own.  Quite specific but beyond anything he can deal with.  So its science and he is not all that interested at this point in life.  Just knows.  If you read between the lines and believe in the power of words, then you might relate.  He blogs because it is all part of the incredible powers that comes with change and technological society and improvement.  Present life.  Past Experience.  Heart of Stone.  Expressed. 

Not here to tell you how I feel.  Will remain impersonal.  Stuff things in a box and put a date on it.  Pay close attention or not.  In the end it will be replaced by something in the present moment, more important to you.  Different Stimuli brought forth by thought, or by words in a blog.  Not sure why he did it.  Not sure what he did.  But have a sense that he might be like me,  we do things and then move on.  Hardly recalling the things we do or did, even five years ago.  Caught in a flow of present moment activity.  Caught up with feelings and mood embrace and a shudder that denies a fundamental truth.  What occurs when mind and body are gone, perhaps can be found in a Heart of Stone.  Part of the process.  Stone Age.  Cave and shelter from the storm.  Triggers more information that you need.  How human experience can be found in a ribbon of mineral deposits that has dna that points directly at me.  Overwhelming.  Ask but don’t expect a proper answer.  Did this really happen.  How did I get here.  Out in front and conscious.  Traces of past and future found in collected rock and spaces. 

Look around.  Tell me what you see.  Tell me what you have forgotten.  “Total Recall.”  She says,  “I have it.”   He says,  “  Was a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger  in it.”   Natural History Museum.  Los Angles county.  Has a star in concrete.  Major accomplishment for a life well lived.  We all go through difficult moments, but just remember.  If you try,  “We can make America Great Again.”   And stoney blogger laughs.  Been there.  Done that.  Viet Nam and War.  Doesn’t think it was that great nor worth all the young people lives that were lost during that effort.  Sweeps in under the rug.  Puts it in a box and forgets about it,  the best he can.  Overcomes PSTD, agent orange and other remains of that day.  “How you feeling?”  She asks.  His reply.  “Not Great.” 

Where are you now?   And takes a few minutes to fact check and tell the truth.  “Not in America.”   Universal answer.  Continental drift.  Over time we become something we did not see or feel or know much about at the time of our human-body-based experience.  Ribbon of Stone and no reason to give all the details.  If this relates to you and part of your story,  then it becomes important.  Until that time, just let it go.  Great improvements over time, and we credit this to science and progress.  Takes us to a different life,  and we are proud we can do this for our children.  Say it as if you mean it.  Actor.  Terminator.  Judgement Day.  Sooner or later it all catches up to you.  Truth or Dare.  And he isn’t sure.  Where he is, today.  So he blogs.  Changes the subject.  Because he can.  Presents a screen version of his life.  Doing so, makes him happy.

Take a sample.  Do the process.  Plead for sanity and a common solution.  Hope for restoration of stone joints.  Regrade and waterproof the final product.  DNA and certified best as is possible.  Essential you disappear and come back later.  Maybe or maybe not, somebody recognizes you.  Talks about all the good things that happened when you were in life, and more importantly in their life.  “Total Recall.”  And she said.  “I have it.”  Let me tell you about Stoney Blogger.  Or wait, maybe it was his twin.  Always mixed them up.  One was with me, simple and plain.  The other, was always bigger than life. I saw him in print.  Part of a never-ending-story I liked to read.   Of course,  she has total recall, or so she says.  Best to omit personal things she wants to tell you.  Take a sample.  Do the process.  Save the best part, and blame the rest on what happens, when the world you are born into is constantly at war.  Make America Great Again.  He had heard it all before.  Rome.  And you had to be there to see it for yourself.  And believe.  “How Great We Are.”  

When presented as nostalgia of a different life.

And with that he goes back to the restoration of stone joints.  Is a long process.  Stone joint Tricks.   Converting everyday life to DNA nostalgia.  Goes back a long ways.  She says.  “I like it.  We go back a long ways.  Me and Stone.” 

And am left with a simple thought.  Process what is left when I am done with this body.  Where and when and how,  might that be.  DNA.  Belongs to me and others like me.  Nostalgia of a different life, I find almost impossible to relate with.  Chain of events and it has the opposite effect on me:  In denial.  Not me.  But with my  DNA.  Guess I will wait for science to catch up and give me a revisionist version of my earth-time experience.   Will put it in the box I label: Heart of Stone.

Autumn Alchemy

Autumn Alchemy

He wants to say,  “I need a little help.  Volunteer, please.”

Seems the process is too big for just one, and nature takes over and leaves frustration and puzzle in the palm of my hand.

Trunkless tree of stone casting a shadow as leaves fall upon me and keep me down.  Gold and crimson and the stench of rot come to mind, but not to me.

Greater than what I can consider, forest leaves now in city, and here to stay.  For a day or two they remain, but then are lashed with wind to circulate.

 At this point, I realize that even the small branch is connected, and some force greater than I is directing or dissecting this activity  that holds me down and makes me its slave.


 

Trunk and Fossil

Unlockable secret and  autumn leaves processed by the alchemy of ages and its mysterious that the arrival now of century old secrets come to him, as he holds this fossilized stone in the palm of his hand.  The world around him is dying, and he sounds no alarm.  Tells nobody and this too is alarming.  Takes the fall and hardness as if it is but the purpose of all things.  Alchemy and Leaves.  Leaves him speechless.

Branch Tree
 

“Help, please.”  Am trapped in here.  Leaves in stone and by the formula of nature’s branch tree calculus I am here to stay. 

 

Life –Changing

 

There is no one thing that makes this all perfect.  Yet it is.  Semi-circling seminal life and the drift to meaning comes ever so slowly.

Generations pass.  I find this fascinating that it comes at the end of summer.

Embedded in rock and fossilized.  Autumn Leaf.  Life-shape not disbanded as nature’s pattern resurrects what was.

A leaf.

Now so many and they pile upon me, and suffocation is not a remote possibility, but something we can experience and brings to consciousness.

 Autumn Leaves.

Disbelief And Human Nature

Disbelief is the smile nature puts upon my lips.  Hardened over time, I will not resist.  Nature’s way.  Offer an explanation, but only as science permits.   Must find a balance between life and everything else.  Will let the process justify my helplessness.   Autumn Leaves in Fossilized Rock and with a dna-trace you will find me.  Crossing the generational line and passing it on.  Hardened over time.




 

 Nature’s smile upon my lips. In Life continues Promise.  Yours and mine.

The Divine Classroom

What lessons serve me as I hold this leaf in the palm of my hand?

Earth School has them placing me upon the ground, and in time am covered.

Layers pile up.

Nature is a magnificent machine.

It completes me.

Think.  Grand Canyon Majesty.

With my own eyes.  I have seen it.

Autumn Leaf Falling

Individual hurt and pain is not to be found in the palm of my hand.

I hold this leaf and do not personalize the event.

Aging should not be personal.

Is Nature’s Alchemy.

We should accept it.

Roots down into earth and spreads, taking us with that which makes life possible.

Living in the moment

Enchanted by a single leaf

In the palm of his hand.

Now fossil and we view this on two levels.

Then.   And now.

How lovely.