14 posts tagged “qotd”
These days people are pinching pennies and living frugally, but we want to know: What's the last thing you splurged on?
Paris, London and everything in between. For once, if I wanted something I would normally wait a bit on, I bought it. I traveled first class when I could, stayed in nice hotels, had room service and made it the trip of a lifetime. Sometimes, I think you just have to do that.
If you were forced to buy a new car today, what kind of car would you get?
If I had to? Well, if I have to, I'm at least going to like it. :D
How do you feel about the results of the election?
On November 19, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address,
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."
Seven score and 5 years later, I feel like that's finally true.
What word or phrase drives you absolutely nuts?
submitted by, revolt
It used to be things like "fixin' to," as in, "I'm fixin' to get me one of those new-fangled TVs." I'm also not a big fan of "warsh" (I'm fixin' to warsh your mouth out with soap).
But right now I think the one that just makes me get that dry nails on a chalkboard kind of chill might be "gosh dern," as in "I'm fixin' to warsh your gosh dern mouth out with soap if you don't stop talking like an idiot and winking at me."
Seriously, it creeps me out and the winking makes me uncomfortable in a "the gym teacher's staring at my bum" kind of way.
What's your favorite thing about Sunday?
Right now, it's this. :-)
On whom do you have your most embarrassing/scariest crush?
Submitted by Jillzey.
It would only be scary and embarrassing if I told you who I used to have a crush on. What?! I couldn't help it! The accent...and the way she stuck out her tongue to the tip of her teeth when she said "parlay"
le sigh.
What was the last thing you built with your own hands?
Submitted by Nick.
I think it was as set of hair barrettes. Before that it was probably a 1973 MG Midget convertible. And that garage it's in. lol Yeah, I'm random. :-)
There is a natural disaster headed your way. You get 4 standard sized canvas grocery totes to fill with valuables and provisions to bring with you to a safe place. What would you put into your 4 bags and why?
Submitted by dejablu503.
You know, I really tried to think about this. I thought about all the things I own and all the stuff I have and then factored in what exactly would be beneficial to me should a disaster arise of such epic proportions that I would have to evacuate forever.
The fact is, or facts are... a) I'm a very firm believer that nothing in life of real value or importance fits in a tote (or should be put in one), b) The few tangible things that are important to me would all fit in a single tote, which I guess I could quadruple bag for safety, and c) I don't keep enough food or other sustainable things on hand to even fill one grocery tote, let alone 4.
I'm also sort of wondering how good of an idea it is to be carrying around 4 totes of stuff while I'm fleeing a frog weilding typhoon or whatever. Like they say, you don't have to be the fastest...just faster than the guy behind you.
Have you ever broken a bone? If not, what's the worst injury you've sustained?
I don't think I've ever officially "broken" anything. I chipped both middle fingers playing basketball (what?! they're right there in the way of the ball, like all the freaking time) but I don't know if that counts. Full contact injury-wise though, hmm, let's see.
I've been hung on a fence by a steel barb.
I crashed a motorcycle - tearing a hole in my ankle with the chain.
I got hit in the side of the head with a rock because my brother was playing "throw rocks at the kid across the ditch".
I got my hand cut with a meat slicer at Subway.
I got my hand pierced by yet another chain link fence.
My ear, nose and both nipples were pierced - not at the same time. Though self-inflicted, that should count since it was as stupid as anything else I did to get hurt.
I'm sure there are various explanations for the multitude of other scars, but thankfully I don't remember most of them. What can I say? I've got the whole "boys will be boys" thing down.
What does blogging do for you?
Submitted by Madeleine Rose.
You know, I honestly don't know anymore. I think there was a time when I was really able to write straight from my heart and soul and just let it all flow out onto the screen, but even now looking back I wonder if I was really being as open as I thought I was, or intended to be. While I wouldn't really call myself a writer by any means, I think if one wants to write well, following certain concepts and rules is unavoidable. One of those is know your audience.
What I've noticed is that once you start to think about your audience and who might be reading and interpreting what you write, your writing changes. And while "writers" and people who write about good blogging will tell you that's exactly what you want to do, it necessarily leads to controlling the content of your compositions. But to what extent?
Where do you draw the line? Even now as I write this I find myself taking pause to reflect on the few words already set and wondering if they convey they ideas I'm trying to put forth (if indeed there are any at all) and whether it will be interpreted correctly or not. And should I really worry about that, or should I trust the people who read it? I can tell you history has made it clear to me that interpretation varies widely, sometimes to the extent of being the complete opposite of the original intent.
I think if you're writing prose or poetry that's a good thing. You put something out there, a vision, a voice and some part of the world reads it and each has their own adaptation of your words and story, creating a complex understanding (or misunderstanding as it were) of an original idea. In fact, I'm pretty certain that's how we get a thousand religions from some original cave person pointing to the sky and trying to express puzzlement at the nature of things. Sometimes, though...we convey an idea so clear that the general understanding is exceptional, usually using simplistic imagery that's hopefully unmistakable, or more likely no matter what image you perceive, the meaning is the same. She shakes like the last leaf on a dying tree...from Frank Miller. Maybe we all picture a different leaf, a different she and some other tree but the understanding evoked is nonetheless the same. I think.
Blogs aren't quite the same though, are they? Unless you write stories or poetry or informational pieces or blather like I'm writing now, there's a personal connection to the writing, like an open diary, a story you want to share a little and a way to connect with people who feel the same...people who understand. Someone once questioned my choice of venues when writing about the personal things I've endured the past few years. I don't think I said much at the time because the person he told supported the point of view to some degree, or at least I understood them to but it really bothered me and I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I wonder if it's because I expected them to understand, that I believed them to have the same interpretation of why we blog in the first place. Maybe they did and were just afraid. Maybe I was just angry and felt like I had a right to tell my story whenever, wherever and however I chose. It's so hard to understand a feeling after it's passed.
Even now after those last few sentences I'm thinking about deleting this like so many other posts I've written and slain, my own brutal censor. But I'm not going to. I think. There's no blame in it, no call for action or reaction. It's simply my own inner workings, trying to figure out what blogging can do for me anymore. I had a thought while I was writing that but it was fleeting and I lost the flow of it. The gist was this, though: You should take care not to intentionally hurt people you know to be reading your words. But if you can't write openly and trust the people close enough to be a part of your real life to read and understand, to interpret without condemning, to question openly when they don't understand, then what's the point of writing?
I'm honestly starting to worry that in our mad rush of life, in the hustle and bustle of living in this age of massive internets and intranets and telecommunications lines galore, we're losing the simplest of human connections:
The ability to openly communicate.
*points to the sky, puzzled about the nature of things*
