Tag: general

Nostalgia

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I didn’t always drink coffee, but the first cup was so delicious, made with the expertise of a veteran coffee drinker some years back, that I incorporated caffeine into my daily schedule and like a feign sought to mimic it’s deliciousness. But this morning, as I poured the warm goodness and integrated it with Carmel Vanilla Cream, something unexpected happened. Ok so yes I was thinking about Blogging but not that. I was, however, brought back to those early days. Suddenly, I tasted of the past and images hurried to my thoughts like a wave of epiphany. With each sip it is as if I tasted of conversation and laughed at jokes once long faded away in memory. It reminded me of an article I read last week about scientist finally admitting that memory is stored in the DNA, and I do believe it’s true. Even if we cannot remember a moment, I believe we still live it in some way. Maybe we mimic the actions of what we can neither speak nor recall. Maybe something makes us laugh and we cannot explain why. Or perhaps there was an experience so traumatic that it disintegrated into our very skin, but is no longer accessible through the mind. Why is it that when we recall the past we include ourselves even if we had not lived it? “We were slaves” I say of my history, though I have never been anyone’s property and neither have I picked of anyone’s cotton. Could it be that this experience was genetically passed on to me? Indeed, I believe so. For who am I to be so arrogant as to believe I inherited my mother’s nose and not my ancestors ways? Their thoughts? Their promises?

Memory, like water it is an interesting thing. A substance that we use daily, that we cannot live without, and that we have even named and yet, we know nothing about it. For what is H2O really? I laugh at the boldness of man to think he has all the answers, and yet the things we use on a daily basis is still foreign to us. So, Nostalgia, the bringing forth of memory we either despise or long to experience again, perhaps it is much deeper than we think, and yet closer too.

In The News: A real “Beyond The Colored Line” Situation Arises

Race of Rachel Dolezal, head of Spokane NAACP, comes under question

(CNN) The race of one of the most prominent faces in Spokane, Washington’s black community is under question after her estranged mother claimed she is white but is “being dishonest and deceptive with her identity.”

Rachel Dolezal, 37, is the head of the local chapter of the NAACP and has identified herself as at least partly African-American. But her Montana birth certificate says she was born to two Caucasian parents, according to that couple, which shared that document and old photos with CNN.

“We are her birth parents,” Lawrence Dolezal told CNN on Friday. “We do not understand why she feels it’s necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity.”

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The Writer in Me: TV

A Supernatural Meme that has nothing to do with this post
A Supernatural Meme that has nothing to do with this post

Does the writer in you get in the way of certain normal activities? Do you react differently in certain situations because of how you analyze the writing in it? Maybe you used to read books strictly for entertainment, but now you can’t stop noticing run-on sentences and comma splices. Well, maybe that’s more along the lines of the Grammatical Geeks (of which I happen to not be one of them, for those of you who’ve counted all of my grammatical mistakes in the first two sentences of this post) but you get the point. For instance, watching movies is not just about watching movies anymore. I don’t know about you, but TV means so much more now than entertainment on a number of levels. One of those levels is writing. When I sit down to watch a good TV show or movie, one thing I notice is how well (or poorly) the writer outlined a scene. Sure the director and actors play a major role, but I’m also looking at how the story was written, what was left out, and why. Its kinda weird I’ll admit. I’m probably the only person who yells at the screen:

“What? That doesn’t even make any sense. Who wrote this?”

On occasion I do blame the actors but mostly for me its the writers. I mean, don’t say Sara hates the color red and then have her skipping down the street in red platforms. And please don’t overdue the dialogue. The second season of American Horror Story almost lost me, way too much talking going on between the head guy of the catholic mental institution and the demonically possessed Nun (yea, forgot both their names). That season just seemed to be a lot slower than the first one. The writer in me therefore sought to mentally ask the writer what happened. Supernatural on the other hand is totally awesome when it comes to dialogue. I love the conversations between Sam and Dean, the humor that is incorporated into the story, and the carrying out of the roles by the actors. Speaking of awesome, when a TV show is excellent the writer again gets all of my praise. It rarely occurs to me that the actors merely improvised or that the director deleted a scene. In the end, I just can’t help the writers eye. But believe it or not this actually helps me in my own writing. When I write, I like to picture it playing out like a movie. I figure if I picture the story unfolding like a movie, chances are I’ll critique it with the same level of attention. Nope,. doesn’t always work but I still do it. In the same way, when I watch TV shows or movies I sometimes see it as a manuscript. I mean, someone had to write it first… write?

Guest Feature – Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

– Maya Angelou, Alone

Summer Smells

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I love the smell of summer. Though you really can’t experience it until the sun starts to set and darkness sets in. Right now the sun is overtaking any whiff of delicacy in the air with its blazing heat, so you’d have to wait a while to experience what I mean. It has to be the perfect mixture of cool and warm mixed in a giant bowl called your backyard. I would describe it like freshly cut grass or the new growth of leaves on tree branches. Or maybe we can associate it with the smell of a coming rain. These aren’t very good descriptions. I know I have not enticed your creative mind to the extent of sight. I know you have not tasted the air of freshness melting on your tongue and all, but I have no other way to describe it aside from these basic examples. Besides, how does one explain the fragrance of life? Sometimes you can see a flower pouring all of its insides out, and cracking shells; shedding the once imperfect exterior to one more fitting for the season. Its growth is in many ways like our own. On first sight it looks like total destruction, and there is no gold at the end of the rainbow, at least not until we have weathered the storm. Always the hard stuff first, pain, suffering, tears, loneliness, doubt. I imagine it is a difficult process too for the flower. So much work to be done and change to endure early on. Only when it has shed its old casing do we begin to see the pretty pinks and reds of softer petals peek out from under the new coat of skin, see the dazzling beauty of what it has now become, and taste of the fresh smells of life.

Why I Reblog

Some of you have probably noticed a new trend on The PBS Blog. Other than my obviously awesome posts (lol), I have been doing a lot more re-blogs lately. So I thought it would be a great idea to list why. While some blogs are completely made up of re blogs and others only do it sparingly, I have recently began to enjoy re-blogging others. I know some people think it’s a cop-out, but there are actually some of us out there who genuinely love doing it and truthfully, it’s not because we want to draw more attention to our own blogs. One thing I’ve noticed is that my blog gets the least attention from re-blogs. So, why do I do it? Here’s why:

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1. Its fun to share other peoples work. It gives my readers a larger range of content outside my own perspective. I also love the feeling I get from helping to promote other blogs.

2. Its an easier way to network from my phone when I’m out and about. I can still be reachable and extend my hand even when I’m not near the PC. I was able to, believe it or not, type this out on my phone, save it as a draft, and publish it later on my PC. A great routine for those with super busy schedules. Draft it out on that smart phone (it’s supposed to be smart right??), save, and publish.

3. Some information is just too important to keep to myself. Re blogs is a great way to share marketing and promotion ideas, tips, DIY, recipes, funny articles, lists, etc.

4. Its an easy way to provide my readers with content when I don’t have much to say myself. It also introduces them to other blogs. Like I said, sounds like a cop-out I know, but when you look at it, not from the perspective of views for your own blog, but from the perspective of helping someone else blog get views, then it’s a really good thing because your readers are still getting that content even if their eyes are glued to someone else wall. The point is to help someone else like you would want them to help you.

And finally, it’s fun. Which I already said but I think I’ll say it again just so you know this is not some marketing scheme or tactic to get more views, I actually enjoy re-blogging (although to a certain extent. This blog isn’t made up, obviously, of complete re-blogs).

So, why do you re-blog? Feel free to share!