forget

Writer’s Workshop — A Busy Month

Fandango12 Comments

For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that prompt (or those prompts). I am responding to three of the prompts this week:

  1. Write a post inspired by the word forget.
  2. Write a post in exactly 9 sentences.
  3. Do you have any special plans for April?

I didn’t intentionally forget to write a post this week for John’s weekly Writer’s Workshop prompt.

I have just been very busy doing things like working on my taxes, which are due to be filed by April 15th.

And, since I am going to have to pay Uncle Sam and the Golden State a lot of shekels this year due to dipping a little to deeply into my 401 (k) accounts last year, I have been trying to come up with some schemes to reduce my tax liability.

To no avail.

Plus, it’s Blogging from A to Z in April time and, even though I am an unregistered, unofficial participant, I am trying to be diligent in posting an A to Z entry every day this month at 6 am my time.

Except for Sundays.

As for plans for April, I have a birthday later this month.

I would prefer to low key my birthday this year as I usually try to do every year, but it’s a biggy — my 80th — and my wife insists that we have a “proper celebration.”

So she has invited friends and relatives over for a backyard party that includes grilling steaks, baby back ribs, and salmon, and guess who has grill duty — it’s the birthday boy!


Badge by Patty, http://anothercookieplease.com

Simply 6 Minutes — The Envelope

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Rain had stopped an hour ago, but the alley still whispered secrets in its puddles. Sonny leaned against the tiled wall, hood up, sneakers damp, waiting for the signal. The glow from overhead lights painted him in amber and shadow, a ghost in the city’s underbelly. Across the alley, his reflected twin in the puddle shimmered, calm but watchful.

He wasn’t hiding. Not exactly. Just pausing between choices. The envelope in his pocket pulsed like a heartbeat: coordinates, a name, a promise. He could walk away, vanish into the night, or step forward and change everything.

Directly across from him a bare bulb was turned on just above a dark gray metal door, casting a dull yellow in the alley. A second later the door creaked open, and a large man stood in the doorway. No words, just a nod.

Sonny patted his pocket to be sure the envelope was still there. Satisfied, he pushed off the wall, his reflection rippling into distortion. He walked toward the light, toward the unknown, the puddle swallowing his past with each step.

Tonight, the city would remember him. Or forget him completely.

Either way, he was ready.

Written for Christine Bialczak’s Simply 6 Minutes Challenge.

Thursday Inspiration — She’s Gone

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For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has asked us to respond to this challenge by either using the prompt word “forget,” going with the above image, or going with anything else we see fit. I’m going with a short flash fiction piece loosely based on the song, “She’s Gone” by Daryl Hall & John Oates.

I tried calling her earlier in the day to tell her that I was sorry, but she wasn’t answering the phone. We’d had a big fight on Monday night, one of those nasty, name-calling fights where once you say something, it can’t be unsaid, or more important, unheard.

I left work a little early on Tuesday afternoon hoping to sit down with her to talk things out. But as soon as I walked through the door, I saw it on the credenza. A note was waiting for me, but I didn’t have to read it to know what it said. She was gone and I’d better learn how to face it.

I appreciate how my friends are trying to comfort me and tell me what to do, but it’s up to me to find the strength to carry on. Sure there are pretty girls out there who might help me to forget about her for a night or two, but they can never replace her. She’s gone and I miss her. I’d make a deal with the devil if he could bring her back to me.

Also written for My Vivid Blog’s Song Title Story, where the song title is “Tuesday Afternoon.”

Image credit: unattributed.

Truthful Tuesday — Forgive and Forget

Fandango18 Comments

Di, of Pensitivity101, is our host for Truthful Tuesday. This week Di wants to know:

Do you forgive and forget, remember but dismiss it as unimportant, or does it depend on the circumstances?

Someone you know — maybe someone you love — has “done you wrong.” You’re upset, angry, and hurt. You’ve been betrayed. A trust has been broken. Is it even possible to forgive and forget?

I don’t think so. Not both.

Everyone make mistakes. I know I have. I’m sure you have, too. I can say that with certainty because none of us is perfect. To err is human, right? The unfortunate truth is that you can’t change the past. Once words have been spoken, they can’t be unspoken. Once deeds have been done, they can’t be undone.

Alexander Pope said that to forgive is “divine.” Depending upon the circumstances, that can be really hard. What you can do is focus on the present and strive for a better future. While it may be difficult, frustrating, and even painful, it’s for your own benefit to be forgiving.

And then there’s forgetting. Forgetting is not only pretty close to impossible without undergoing a frontal lobotomy, it’s probably not even a very wise thing to do. If you forget something that has caused you pain, how can you learn from that experience? How can you grow?

You may want to forget, but you can’t. I have accepted that people may forgive, but are unlikely to forget the pain and the hurt. But over time, that pain and hurt will diminish, and if I wish to salvage my relationship with someone who has “done me wrong,” I need to find a way to deal with it, and that means genuinely forgiving the person who hurt you.

And that’s what is so hard about “forgive and forget.” The former is hard to do; the latter is impossible to do. As Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz noted, a wise person won’t try to do both.

Sandman Wants to Know More

Fandango22 Comments

Sandman, over at The Jazzocracy, posed four more interesting questions this week and I thought it might be fun to take a moment or two to answer them.

What is something that people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

Tik Tok.

What quirky things do people do where you are from?

This probably happens all around the globe, but I think it’s quirky and it’s an event that occurs every year. People decide it would be fun to take a plunge in either the San Francisco Bay or the Pacific Ocean in the middle of winter.

What are some things you wish you could unlearn?

There’s nothing that I specifically wish I could unlearn, but at my age, I seem to have begun to forget much I already have learned. And I wish that wasn’t the case.

Who is someone that you miss having in your life?

We had to put our cat down last week and every day I look around and feel a hole in my heart because he’s not around anymore.

I’m Losing My Mind

Fandango23 Comments

1C30BF85-CD42-44CF-ACBA-EFB9F666FB4BAt least that’s what my wife keeps telling me. For instance, last night I asked her a question. She got a strange look on her face and said, “You just asked me that.”

“I did? Did you answer me?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you say?”

“I already answered your question,” she said. “Either you didn’t listen when I answered, in which case why did you ask if you had no interest in my answer, or, if you can’t even remember asking me, you probably won’t be able to remember the answer even if I say it again.”

Hmm, she has a point. And then there was the other day when we were walking our dog and I said something to her and she said, “You just said that.”

“Really?” I said. “I thought I just thought it, but didn’t actually say it.” It seems that I often can’t recall if I actually said something or I only just thought it.

And then there are the times that my wife and I might be sitting and watching TV and she’ll ask me to get something for her, say a glass of water. I’ll walk into the kitchen, feed the cat, and then walk back to where my wife is sitting and sit down. She’ll look at me and ask, “Where’s my water?”

“Oh, right,” I say and get up to get her a glass.1450B989-2045-491C-895C-18E1347DE23B“Never mind,” she says. “I’ll get up and get it myself.”

And then she adds, “You really are losing your mind.”