Throwback Thursday: Thanksgiving Memories

    Since it is Thanksgiving I figured it's fitting to do a Throwback Thursday about Thanksgiving Memories. But where to begin is the hard part to decide, but I'm sure I can think of a suitable starting point. So as I'm often saying without further ado on with the show.

    My first memories of Thanksgiving are of grand dinners at my grandparents' house, with a ton of hustle and bustle around it. There was a huge turkey and all the trimmings and vegetables associated with it. All the family on my dad's side came to dinner on that day. All my uncles, great uncles, and great grandparents, on top of my dad and grandparents. It was a huge feast and afterward football was always on the TV that afternoon. I usually ended up falling asleep during the game since I was so young and not really into it at that age.

    I remember one year at my grandparents' that my grandmother got the grease for the gravy too hot and it caught fire. My dad couldn't get the cover on, and somehow he mixed up baking soda with baking powder (note: You use baking soda for grease fires). So then being the guy he is, he picked up the flaming grease pot and walked it outside and dumped it in the snow. It was one of the most exciting Thanksgivings ever in my life.

    Otherwise Thanksgiving has been pretty dull for me. Other than switching from my grandparents' to my mom's house as I got older. Up until last year everything had gone smoothly. Last year I was spending a few days at my mom's for Thanksgiving and everything was going smoothly and I was online. So I was online and suddenly I hear from the kitchen it's baking soda right. And I'm like what. And my mom is like the stove is on fire, it's baking soda right. I'm like yes, yes it's baking soda. And my mom put out the stove. Apparently my mom had spilled bacon grease on the stove and it caught the stove on fire. It was crazy, but it was the only crazy thing that happened that Thanksgiving.

    But even as the majority of my Thanksgivings have been dull so to speak they have always been good and spent with family, and that is the important thing to me. Thanksgiving will always be good to me as long as it is spend gathered around a table with people who I love and love me. I hope your Thanksgiving has been a good one and I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. *Tips hat and walks out the door*.

Story Thursday: Dear Professor

 

    Now I know I normally do writing prompts on Friday, but it's been awhile, and I wanted to flex my creative muscles on one right away. So I figured why not share it with you, my readers, even on a Thursday. Today's prompt is dear Teacher I can explain, but I changed it to dear Professor I can explain since I'm in college. I hope you'll enjoy it, and without further ado on with the show.

Prompt: Dear Teacher/Professor I can explain…..

 

Dear Professor,

    I can explain why my final paper has not made it onto your desk honest. You see I'm writing to you from Federal Prison, so I couldn't exactly write up the final paper from where I am. But you're probably wondering how I got here. Well that is somewhat of a long story. You see I was doing the research for the final paper you had assigned us by looking through the University's Library. I have to say it was all pretty boring and mundane to me as I started out going through all those papers. Then one of them caught my eye, mentioning something about a military operation, so I clicked the link for the full paper.

And well somehow I stumbled into a secret CIA file trove that was still classified. I'm still trying to figure out how this happened. Well I was curious so I kept reading, but they must not have been important enough since nothing happened at that point. But then I kept following the files and finding more and more out. I was hooked and just couldn't stop reading. I'll admit I kind of lost track of what I was supposed to be doing since I was so wrapped up in all of these digital files, but can you really blame me.

I mean the files were all pretty straightforward military operations stuff and your standard CIA Operations stuff you'd expect to find. But then the files started getting weird. They started mentioning some town called Roswell, and the number 51 kept popping up a lot. Then the documents started getting more and more technical with scientific stuff that I just couldn't understand.

The warden here says normally I wouldn't be allowed to write any letters to the outside world but since I'm a college student he is making an exception. He says to make sure to tell you that my cell number is 51 and that somehow you'll understand what that means. He says once all the paperwork is done I'll be transferred to advance classes here for some sort of special degree. I'm not sure what that means, but I hope I can do as well as I've done in your class up until now. I want to thank you for being so patient, and understanding with me all these weeks and helping me learn the material.

In conclusion I do apologize for screwing up with the final paper, and hope you can forgive me. And I hope I have not worried the faculty too much. The good news is they let me keep my laptop with some upgrades just no open access to the internet. I think maybe I have to earn that. I hope this letter finds you in good spirits and gives you some peace of mind as well as answers.

Sincerely,

Student 51.

07081947

Sunday Thoughts Yet Again

    So yeah it's been a hectic week of schoolwork or I would have gotten to laying out my plans for the end of the year, and for the beginning of next year sooner. Since I've already laid out the main problem pretty well, but you can expect more emotional posts from me still you can be sure of that. Those will keep coming up as the year finishes up and the new one starts.

    But also I'm going to get my office area in order, and start using my desk for at least a few hours a day starting today, and increasing it by a half hour roughly going forward. Plus I'm going to work on getting my filing caught up and keeping on top of it. I'll do that working with what I have starting today as well, and working in a new filing system after that. As well as personalizing my work area more with some more fun stuff to make it more fun to be sitting there.

    Then starting in January I'm locking myself in my house, and I'm quitting smoking cold turkey. For one month I will be detoxing and cleansing the house of all smoking paraphernalia from the house. It's long overdue and the time is now to get my health back on track. I will then gradually reintroduce myself to the outside world starting in February, still avoiding smoking situations as much as I can since it will be a potential temptation to me even then.

    Also starting in February I'm going to the local YMCA and getting a membership, so that I can start playing basketball at the very least. This way I will be at least doing something for exercise, which will help me to lose weight and further improve my health. As I said above the time is now to get my health back on track. To add to that, it's time to make me the me I want the world to see.

    Now that isn't all I'm doing coming into the New Year either. Coming into May I'm redoing my wardrobe a bit if not sooner. It is time this man went back into jeans where he belongs. It's time to strut my stuff and be proud of who I am and show the world I'm not ashamed of myself at all.

    And all of this is going to be hard I know with my issues of not feeling that I've earned it and not feeling worthy of it. So expect some interesting blog entries. But I also have wonderful friends and family (not necessarily blood to be family either) who are supporting me in this. And I refuse to back down, because I'm not content with my life as it is now. Therefore I have to change it to how I want it to be, and these are the first steps.     So buckle up because it will be a bumpy ride. *Tips hat and walks out the door*

Story Friday Sort Of

    This is a little different than Story Friday it's more like Saturday Thoughts in some sense. There is no writing prompt just a story about me as I express my feelings here. So maybe it is a combination of Saturday Thoughts and Throwback Thursday this week. But I wanted to get it out of my system and onto the paper since realizing it.

    You see I keep putting things off that I need or want to do, and it struck me that for a great many of them it is because I feel I have not earned them. It goes back to childhood where I was always told I had to wait till Christmas time or I hadn't gotten high enough grades to get something. Or I wasn't old enough to earn that right yet. Some of these are normal I know, but they all just sort of snowballed on me. I think the one that did it the most was not having high enough grades for some stuff.

    So now I put off going out to see friends if not enough writing or school work is done because I haven't earned the right to have a social life in my mind outside of my online social life. I put off certain purchases because I haven't earned the right to have it yet. I don't have new furniture because I put it off, because I'm poor I only deserve hand me downs till I can pull my own weight and earn the right to have new furniture. Though this is changing starting with my office. But it is still a battle since I have trouble sitting at my desk partially due to my desk chair and partially due to feeling like I have no right to sit at it because I haven't earned the right to yet.

    Hell I keep putting off redoing my wardrobe and going back to jeans because I feel like I haven't earned the right because I'm close to 400 lbs. so I should be in sweat pants. But I put off getting a gym membership of any sort because only working people have a right to that sort of thing so I haven't earned that right either since I'm only a student. I keep smoking because deep down I don't believe I've earned the right to be healthy like other people, like I'm paying the penalty for some age old crime.

    So now I've seen the problem what do I do about it. I could just roll over and let it be. Or I could crawl into a bottle and let it consume me. Or I can try to fight against it. The only way I will lose is if I give in. I've made a lot of breakthroughs about how and why I think and act a certain way over the last year or so. And thanks to my friend Jeni I've also gained a lot of confidence. I have hope and confidence that this New Year is going to bring about some new changes. So buckle up and get ready for one wild right folks. *Tips his hat and walks out the door*.

Throwback Thursday The Greenies

    I know I've been absent again, but I've been busy with school as well as some deep thinking. You'll get to see some of that deep thinking soon too don't worry. I'll be posting the next three days if all goes as planned. Tonight you get a glimpse inside a very special place to me known as The Greenies. So without further ado here is my memoir entry about The Greenies.

    I was walking in an area known as The Greenies the other day that I hadn't been to in over a decade. It had been attempted to be developed in that time, but I still recognized it. I still recognized the hills I had gone sliding on as a kid in the winter time. I still could pick out the bike paths as they should have been despite there being stairs on one of them now that O used to ride my back down.

    I saw where they destroyed the skeleton of a fort me and my friends had built, and some kids had caught on fire playing with matches. Interestingly enough it had been me and my friend Albert who had put it out before the fire department got there. We got a lecture about it, but pretty much blew it off since if we hadn't done we had the whole wooded area would have gone up in a blaze. At least that was our thinking since there was so any dead leaves in the area and so much dead wood down there.

    I remembered hiding under the crab apple tree when another friend hit a cop car with a bb gun because I couldn't run fast, and they had to run for it. Though the cop hadn't heard anything apparently. I remember just a few feet away from that tree kissing and holding hands with my ex-girlfriend, Maria, when we were teenagers on many an afternoon.

    I remember riding bikes down through these areas also, right down to the train tracks that are lined with coal heavily. I also remember that it was a hell of a lot more fun to ride down to there than it was to ride back up. I also remember climbing up a rock wall face after getting loss in that area at one point, and being chewed out for the fact it was a hundred foot drop and we could have been killed we were told. Of course we blew it off, but it makes me wonder now what might have happened though I try not to go down that road.

    These are just some of the memories from one special place to me. I'm sure we all have a place like this in our past that still holds a place in our hearts. It's good to take a trip back to these places now and then in most cases. Why not take a trip back to yours today?

Thursday Thoughts

    I know it's been awhile since I've written and my apologies for that. Working hard on my counseling and school, which interferes with my blogging at times. This time I'm pondering the question of what fatherly advice I'd give myself. So far I've come up with a few things to start out with.

The first of which is to do the best you possibly can in school since it will help you get ahead in life. Second is to craft your body image overall to how you want people to perceive you as best as you can. Third is to try not to let criticisms go to heart since most of the time they are not meant to hurt you. Fourth is to try and be as organized as possible since it will make finding things when you need to easier. Fifth is enjoy life when and where you can you only get to live this life once so make the best of it. Six goes along with that in that it says do what you love in work and play. Seven is to treat others as you would want them to treat you no matter who they are. Eight always speak your mind even when treating others respectively. Nine fight for what you believe in because if you aren't willing to why should others, Ten Never throw the first punch or provoke it to be thrown but be willing to throw one if one must be thrown in defense of yourself or others.

Now I'm not saying that is the only fatherly advice there is to give or that it fits everyone. Just that it's what best fits me. And hopefully I'll be able to look to this advice in the future and take it. Maybe it will even help ease my pain from the past. I'm not really sure, but I hope it can. For now though I'll keep this short and brief leaving you here as I sign off saying bye for now.

Sunday Reflections

    So I was hanging out, talking to friends, and thinking and one of them mentioned that I went pretty personal with the last post. And that if a troll happened to catch my blog they might open up on me with a personal attack. It's a good point since my blog won't always be read just by those of you who are close to me, and are friends and family of mine. I know eventually someone is going to say something negative and not simply because it is the internet, but because of the law of averages. And to those who decide to try to break me down and destroy me I simply say step into my yard. Here in this space you're in my yard and I will show you a mastery of words and sarcasm and turn your words inside out on you if you come trying to destroy me.

    And I'll always try to be reasonable at first, but the fact is I've kept quiet for so many years about every little thing done wrong to me. I've let it be swept under the rug and ignored time and time again. No more, I'm speaking my mind about it right here. And yes that makes me vulnerable to a degree, but unlike when it happened I'm far from weak. I've learned a few things since then. Such as sarcasm and how to twist words around when need be. Most of you have seen me do it when I'm being a smart ass.

    I know I'm going to ruffle feathers, but keeping silent hasn't fixed things for me. And I'll be honest this is about me for once. Don't get me wrong I like helping people I really do, but I have to do this for me. I want the world to see me for me. And not all of it is puppy dogs and butterflies. Those that can understand and accept me great and those that can't that is fine as well. But those that attack me, well sign on the dotted line for a verbal tongue lashing. Life is all about choices, and for me I'm tired of hiding in the shadows like a vampire. I want to come out into the sunlight so to speak. I'm going to be me and fight for my life the way I want it to be, and I pity the fool who gets in my way. This has been a public service announcement to all trolls coming within typing distance of my blog thank you. Bye for now.