My family has, for a very long time, stuck with more “traditional” holiday meal planning and dishes. Thanksgiving and Christmas are typically turkey’s with stuffing/dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, things like that. There have been a couple of times in the last ten years where we opted for ordering a catered meal that a local/regional grocery store chain offers for the holiday’s and we have ordered prime rib, but this was primarily to reduce the strain on the family trying to coordinate meal planning and expedite cooking so that we could be more efficient with spending time with my stepmom (may she rest in peace) when she was fighting cancer. Anyways, none of these are really “special” dishes.
There have been rare occasions where we opted to make our family recipe of töltött káposzta (Hungarian stuffed cabbage, there are tons of recipes out there with variations, so I won’t go turning this into a recipe blog) but it is more likely that we cook that outside the holiday time frame. So, I can’t really say with any certainty that we have any special dishes we make for the holiday’s.
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
Well, I’m going to be honest, I like sleep, so I would be a little sad if I suddenly didn’t need it.
That being said, I could cover a lot of ground in my hobbies if I didn’t need sleep. It would probably be a lot like that episode of American Dad! where Stan has those pills that make him not need sleep. I could finish all kinds of games on my back log, write so many extra blog posts and create a serialized story I’ve had in the back of my mind to eventually publish here (alongside writing the other novels).
The only downside is I don’t yet currently have the physical space I need to feel comfortable doing something like that in the first place, as I’m trying to respect my roommates space and not be loud. (Spooky games sometimes make me jump and yell, okay?)
There’s probably some other things I could do also, like better meal prepping and making better time for the gym.
This all still applies, but I wanted to take a moment to address another couple of facets of driving that really irk me, and it’s rather timely that I’m writing about it again tonight. My roommates were just out and about this evening and experienced something driving related that NEEDS to be called out.
PAY ATTENTION TO SPLIT/DIVIDED ROADS.
My roommates were on the other side of town visiting with someone and picking up a few things, and on their way home they encountered someone who decided to make a left turn into oncoming traffic (possibly without looking both ways). The road was divided, so technically to complete the left turn into the correct lane you have to cross two lanes of oncoming traffic and pass through the opening in the median. This person obviously didn’t do this, and my roommate had to swerve out of the way. Oh, and also this person driving toward them was wearing sunglasses. At night.
Don’t wear your damn sunglasses at night while driving. Seriously, just don’t, you’re a public safety hazard.
I gave this prompt a decent amount of thought last year when I answered this prompt, and I decided to go back and look it over to see if my thoughts had changed in that time.
Aside from one specific person I no longer talk to or associate with, the rest of my thoughts haven’t really changed! I know, that probably sounds like a bit of a cop out answer, but I wanted to add some additional thoughts this time around.
I’m getting into my late 30’s, I’ve been around the Sun many times at this point, met tons of people near and far that have all taught me different things, and what I wanted to throw out there is primarily for any younger readers who come across this post. If you’re struggling with personal relationships, people not sticking around long enough, or they’re just not that good for you (and you may not be able to see it) then let me tell you something.
Give it time. People will come and go from your life, and that is okay. In fact, that is MORE than okay, because as people go on to do different things, that just opens up space in your life to meet new people and expand your social horizons. Do it while you can, because from personal experience, the older you get, the harder it is to make new friends and identify those kinds of people that you can easily classify as a favorite.
Last year, I answered this prompt talking about real animals, and how I came to love otters as one of my absolute favorite animals. I also ended that post mentioning dragons and phoenixes as favorites, but how they were mythical creatures rather than real animals and that I would discuss them later.
Well, it’s time.
I don’t know that I can really recall WHEN I fell in love with dragons, not like how I can pinpoint it for otters, but they’ve been a favorite of mine for a really long time. Phoenixes I could probably be more precise, as I came around to those probably 15 years ago, partly because Fawkes from the Harry Potter franchise reminded me of their existence but mostly because I learned of how they are opposite dragons when it comes to mythology (and specifically in terms of Yin and Yang in Chinese culture).
For dragons, one of the things that really grabbed me is how prevalent they are throughout world history while maintaining cultural uniqueness. From the different magical elements (like fire and water) to the different physiology’s (two legs, four legs, or even no legs) there is just so much to consider on how they fit into the mythos of our own world at the same time that we utilize them as inspiration in the fictional worlds we create!
As for the phoenix, well, sadly, my knowledge is not as extensive. I know that they are primarily representative of the element of fire, and that they seemingly defy the cycle of life and death through the power of rebirth. I just like how they seem simpler and sit opposite dragons. That’s all, really.
Last time this prompt came up, I gave a serious attempt at answering the prompt as a whole, but this time I’ll keep it short.
We’re rolling into Winter now here in South Dakota. We just had our first snow of the season yesterday and normally I wouldn’t mind. Sadly, I’ve been stuck at home for the most of these last few weeks or so, albeit at my own discretion, but I could really use some time outside.
If I were to say my preference right now would be the mountains (which it actually is, as I described last time) I wouldn’t get too much difference compared to walking outside right this second. Cooler temps, a variety of trees, grass, dirt, and steep inclines. So, for the moment, and at least for this recent answering of the prompt, I’ll take the beach. The sun, sand, and the waves are something I feel I could use right about now.
Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?
I saw this question and felt like it deserved to be answered here.
In the past, I’ve talked about how I’m kind of a mixed bag on consistent planning. I’m good at planning at work, or for other people who are dependent on me for something, but terrible about developing and sticking to plans for just myself.
Except when it comes to conversations.
Rehearsing is technically a form of practice and not strictly a form of planning, but that doesn’t mean you don’t continue planning DURING the rehearsal. You have to try out different phrases, plan for responses, and so on and so forth.
Personally, I go beyond just phone calls. I’ll play out entire potential conversations with different people in my mind and try to anticipate what they might say so I can respond accordingly. I’ll plan for different timings and environments. Like if I’m having the conversation at home or in the car. I try to consider the circumstances as much as possible, like if they’re having a good day or a bad one.
I do this because sometimes I’m not in the right emotional state of mind and I don’t want to spontaneously direct anger at someone. I want to approach things calmly and rationally. Nobody wants to be yelled at or chewed out, but I still need to vent a little and process my emotions so that I can think things through. I think about how to present any arguments or complaints I might have so that I’m getting the most out of the situation without hurting the other person in the same breath, and I try to anticipate different possible directions things can go so that I’m not getting caught off guard.
Sometimes having a conversation, whether in person or on the phone, is tough, but we have to go through it anyways. Might as well plan it out.
My choices of clothing aren’t anything wild, and I don’t dress in any stylish fashion belonging to a specific group like goth, punk, emo, or country (or some mix of two, as I’ve seen before on Instagram). I’m primarily a t-shirts and shorts/jeans kind of guy, with the exception of when I go into the office where I typically wear polo’s and black slacks.
As for WHY I dress the way that I do? Well, I don’t feel the need to put in an exceptional amount of effort into what I wear. I want to be comfortable in what I’m wearing, and I want to be able to just throw something on and go without worrying if it looks good. Again, exception being for work because it is a casual business office environment. However, I still follow a similar philosophy there, because I make sure that when I buy a polo to add to the rotation, I pick a color that will go with the black slacks. I do have some other pants options these days, though, since they backed off the restrictions a bit in our office. I can wear jeans, so I have picked out some polo’s that I can now wear with a couple of my pairs of jeans and a pair of brown/khaki slacks (which I found a hole in the other day, and they are now out of commission until I find a suitable replacement).
So, yeah, nothing crazy in my wardrobe. I just like being comfortable and looking okay enough to not stand out (for better or worse).
How did you bond with one of the best friends you’ve ever had?
“500 Journal Prompts” by Robert Duff
I found this prompt via a reddit post, and this one caught my attention as I glanced over the first dozen or so. The following post is actually going to cover two people who are basically from the same source.
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned how I landed in my current situation, but it started back in college about 2009 or 2010. My dad, who worked at the technical university I ended up going to, mentioned that one of his colleagues had a daughter about my age that was also attending classes there, and that maybe I’d run into her in a shared class. I’ll admit, at first I had mixed feelings about this possibility. I hadn’t made a great many friends while attending classes because of the huge age range of the students (anywhere from 18 to 65) and the fact that this university didn’t have campus housing because all the programs were designed around working adults trying to get a degree to basically change careers. So, this potential new friend was an exciting opportunity to meet someone more my age that I might actually be able to commiserate with because we had something in common (both our dad’s working together) but at the same time I couldn’t help but have a sneaking suspicion that my dad might be trying to set me up with her. Regardless, we did end up having a class together.
Unfortunately, that class was Computer Assisted Statistics. I wasn’t great with Statistics to begin with, but something that made it worse was the teacher. It turned out that my dad’s colleague, this young lady’s dad, was our teacher. Before I get too far, he is a super nice guy! There weren’t any issues with him as a person or him potentially targeting me for sitting next to his daughter. Rather, the issue that a great many of us had was in his ability to teach the material at the time. Even his daughter struggled to learn from him, and several of us did fairly poorly in the class. This didn’t go unnoticed by the administration, in part because of how many of us went and complained to student advisors. So, we got a free pass to take the class again, and we forged a new friendship through awkward adversity.
So, this first time of taking the class is where I met one of the two people who would later go on to becoming one of my best friends. The second time we took the class is where I met the other person.
When it came time to retake the class, I ended up meeting this young lady’s boyfriend at the time. This guy was fairly nerdy and into video games, just like myself, but after that class I didn’t keep in as strong of contact with him. He was, and still is to this day, very much not socially outgoing (and this is probably part of what would lead to them peacefully ending their relationship). So, while I kept in contact with her over the following years, through graduation and beyond, he and I fell out of touch. Until a couple years or so after we had all graduated college, somewhere about 2013 or 2014, when I saw him post something on Facebook.
I was living on my own at the time, having finally moved out of my parents place, and my brother and his wife had asked me to move out of theirs to make room for their growing family. I was struggling to find things to do at home during my downtime because I also was not exceptionally social (which kind of worked against me living in a downtown apartment, where I could walk to the bars and meet people). At some point I spotted his post about building PC’s, and I don’t know what really compelled me to do it, but I sent him a message! I hadn’t actually talked to the guy much before, even when we were taking classes together, but his post intrigued me, and everything was downhill from there.
We started to hang out and chat about PC part’s and then he helped me build my first gaming PC. After that, we kept in touch regularly and I met his new girlfriend at the time who seemed super nice. We all got to know each other better over the next six months or so, and then they were talking about getting a new roommate to help reduce rent costs. They knew I was paying on medical debt at the time and asked me if I thought it would be cool to move in with them. It should be obvious that I said yes without hesitation. So, we all moved in together, sharing a three bedroom apartment with one of the rooms being our shared gaming office, and I’ve been living with at least him ever since. Their relationship didn’t actually last long, sadly, and it turned out she had red flags and issues that weren’t super obvious until later. I had the unfortunate honors of helping them mediate their break up, because she tried to move out without telling either of us and screw us on the rent. Ultimately, a new friendship forged through the fires of awkward adversity.
And that’s the story of how I met two people who would go on to become some of my best friends! It’s funny, sometimes, how the world can connect people you might not have met otherwise, and go on to build strong bonds with them over time (even after long gaps of no communication!)
The last time I answered this prompt I talked about my favorite place being home. About the fact the things I want to do are only really done at home, even though there are technically public places I can go to play games and such.
This time, I wanted to touch on something I hadn’t thought about it ages. Places you can go in your city that offer something you CAN’T get at home.
The sight of a sea of stars that extends for miles in front of you.
Okay, so technically I’m talking about the lights of the city and being able to see them from a higher place. There are only a couple of places that this can be achieved. A tall building or somewhere with naturally higher elevation. My first apartment offered something of this, although the angles of my windows weren’t great and the fact that my building was at one of the lowest elevations in the downtown area made it harder to see everything even from the 11th floor. Since it didn’t offer as great of a view, it is disqualified. Instead, we have “better” contenders (by viewing angle and elevation) that you unfortunately can’t just hang out at. There is a hill north of downtown that offers an interesting night time view during winter after the leaves of all the trees have long since been gone, but it’s right outside the state penitentiary, so that’s basically off-limits. Another hill, this time northeast of downtown, has a great view to a certain extent, but it looks over more of an industrial area south of it and you can’t see beyond the next hill a little over a mile away. THAT hill gives you an okay view of downtown and some of the area east and south, depending on the direction you’re facing while driving. The last solid contender is a hill on the south side of town looking north and west that offer some good distance to see a night time landscape with lots of city lights, but again, it depends on which way you’re driving.
Alright, so I guess my city doesn’t have GREAT view spots for this kind of thing, unless you’re in a tall building in a specific location, so I don’t really have a favorite spot but rather just some liked spots that create a burning desire to see something I can’t get here. (Technically, there might be some spots back in Colorado that will do the trick, and maybe I’ll get some pictures next year.) Anyways, except for by plane on a clear night, I’ll just keep dreaming. (Maybe I should look into an evening flight in the near future.)
The Dragon's Grove 