The Sandbox Writing Challenge #48 — Sacred

I am going to try once again to catch-up with Calen’s challenge. This one is from way back on July 19th. Yes, that is how far behind I am. The question for this challenge is…

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What do you hold sacred?

I doubt I could have answered this question back in July or even in August when I was trying to catch-up. My mental state was still too fragile. I had no self-worth, no joy and didn’t find anything sacred. I was so close to cutting and, dare I admit it? Yes, suicidal again. Thankfully, I am doing much better now, even if I am still living in a fog most days from the psych meds.

Some time in early September, the dam began to break for me. I hadn’t been so fired-up about anything in months. I happened to hear one of Trump’s speeches. I was so angry about some of the things he was saying and the way his followers were reacting to him. I hadn’t been political since 2004 and hadn’t planned on voting this year (just as I hadn’t the past two cycles). But I began to realize that the things I hold most sacred in life could be stripped away with a Trump presidency and so I registered to vote.

I realize that it is a shame that it took a narcissistic, misogynistic, bigoted racist to make me snap out of my self-imposed shell, but sometimes a good slap in the face is needed for someone with mental illness. I began to realize that I hold this Republic sacred, along with all of the social progress we’ve made over the last 50+ years. I’ve been a liberal progressive with socialism leanings for most of my adult life. I don’t understand the desire to turn back the clock to before women had the vote, people of color had rights, and the LGBTQ community was still in the closet. I know what Trump and his ilk mean when they say ‘Make America Great Again’. What they really mean is ‘Make America Great Again for wealthy, white male landowners (or CEOs, these days)’. That most people cannot see this is beyond me. I also hold our country’s status as a harbor for immigrants sacred. My own family was German and Irish immigrants. It pains me to hear how immigrants, legal and/or undocumented, are being treated in this year’s election cycle. And last but not least, I believe that Human Life is sacred and all of this racism and hatred this year has unnerved me like never before. I understand now what it must have felt like to live in the past couple of centuries for Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans, even though I am white and have only known privilege my entire life because of the color of my skin.

So while I now see that what I hold sacred is mostly from my own world-view, I also know that I am not alone in this thinking. Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve met some great like-minded thinkers who’ve helped me come out of my shell. Most of us now are tired and worn-down by the crazy-making of this year’s election. We know that we have one last sacred duty though – vote. Our minds are set on who we will vote for come November 8th. We are choosing love over hate. And so many of us are now drifting away from the politics and trying to salvage our mental and emotional selves because we know that we too are sacred beings.

 

03.03.16 – End of Day Notes

What I did today: Slept! Yes, I have finally managed to get some sleep. Six hours last night and an additional three this evening. I also finished all of my writing projects for the day, read some emails, and read some posts for challenges. And slept! How’d that happen? *laughs* I also signed up for this: Commun.it so far it has been a great help. And, it snowed today so I got to watch the snow and it even influenced a poem. Good day!

What I learned today: There are some amazing writers here on WordPress, of fiction and poetry, and I wish I could read all of their work every day. If only there were more than 24 hrs in every day!

What I am most proud of today: I finally managed to catch up on a few of my favorite shows. Sounds kind of shallow to be proud of that, but I don’t watch much tv, and the few shows I do watch, I consider them well-created and they do influence my writing.

What did you do today? Learn any lessons? Have a reason to be proud? Share your thoughts with me in the comments!

One Lovely Blog Award

Erika Kind has nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Thank you, dear heart!

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person that nominated you and give a link to their blog. (Done)
2. List the rules. (Done)
3. Display the award on your post of the award. (DONE)
4. List seven facts about yourself. (See below)
5. Nominate (up to) 15 bloggers for this award and comment on one of their posts to let them know you have nominated them. (hmmm….)

Seven Facts About Me:

1. I am a Gemini/Cancer cuspie
2. I am a middle child
3. I graduated a year early from High School
4. I am a metalhead
5. I smoke menthol cigarettes. It is my only vice and a guilty pleasure
6. I am obsessed with serial killers
7. I must have 5 pillows on my bed: one for my head, one for each arm to rest upon depending on which side I am sleeping on, one to snuggle and one to put between my legs because my hips are out of alignment.

I nominate:

All of my beautiful readers because you all have Lovely Blogs and I enjoy reading them! Please grab the award badge, tell 7 facts about yourselves, and link back to me here on this page so I can come read your responses.

Thursday 13 – Strange Facts

For this week’s Thursday 13, I thought I would share some strange and unusual facts that I have uncovered. I am obsessed with research and learning new things. I often search the internet for strange, unusual, and bizarre facts. Here are a few:

1. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off!
2. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache on a standard playing card!
3. When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second!
4. The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!
5. Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive!
6. The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.” uses every letter of the alphabet!
7. Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it’s known as Tennessee!
8. Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue!
9. The starfish is one of the few animals who can turn its stomach inside-out!
10. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
11. An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards!
12. Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, Gadsby, which contains over 50,000 words — none of them with the letter E!
13. And a strange law on the books in my state: In Virginia, the Code of 1930 has a statute which prohibits corrupt practices or bribery by any person other than political candidates.

These strange facts are brought to you by strangefacts.com

 

FYI – re: Twitter

Just an FYI, my dear readers. If you see someone named @Ravyne who has tweeted or retweeted on of you blog posts, well…. that is ME!

Carry on…

~Lori~

Thoughts on Blogging – Likes vs. Comments

I follow a lot of blogs, like many bloggers do, both here on WordPress and on Blogger. On WordPress, I receive some updates via email and other blogs I read via the WordPress Reader. I have a tonnage of emails. At present, well over 700 to read, all of them from blogs.

I like to be engaged with the blogs I follow. Generally, I try to tweet, comment, like and reblog often. I do it to share others work. It is time-consuming, and yet I enjoy it.

I feel guilty if I just “like” a blog post and run. I do it sometimes though. I do try to comment on at least one or two blog posts from those I follow a week and leave comments when I am inspired to write something. I don’t just want to leave a random blah-blah, meaningless comment.

All of this does mean that I am generally days and days behind on people’s blogs. So if you see a stranger stopping by long after you’ve forgotten about a post you’ve written… well, that would be me.

What are your thoughts about “likes” versus “comments”, do you do one or the other or both? Let me know below!

WTF Blogger?

It’s bad enough that when I read blogs over at Blogger and try to comment that some blogs won’t accept my WordPress ID. I’ve gotten pretty used to that and have worked around it as best I can by having my own Blogger account that redirects people to my WordPress blog. And it’s bad that some of them make you jump through hoops to sign up for their blogs by email (if you even can!) and to comment by checking that “I am not a bot.” But now Blogger has come up with even more hoops!

Now when you click to comment on some blogs, another little box will pop up to get you to chose pictures of things. And the pictures are small and sometimes too obscure to be recognized as what they are asking you to check. I don’t know if this is being set up by individual bloggers or if it is a new feature with Blogger itself. It’s frustrating and time consuming. And it makes me hate Blogger even more than I already do.

WTF Blogger? Do you want people to actually comment on blogs there? Or do you even care?

#joyfuljan – Day Twenty

For today’s #joyfuljan, I find joy in reading other bloggers.

I stopped blogging some time last year. I even deleted the blog that I had worked so hard on for a few months. It was stupid and silly of me, but I’d lost the trust of a blogger I’d grown close to and there was no way of getting that trust back. So I stopped everything for many months. I was just too sad and depressed. When I decided to begin blogging again, instead of creating a new blog, I just came back to my old ones. I have a modest following on all three of them, so I figured this was good enough. I was weary though of getting too close to anyone again and although I am still a bit guarded about that, I do find a lot of joy in reading others’ blogs. There are some amazing poets and fiction writers on WordPress. And there is a lot of advice on numerous topics to be found here too. I will stay in the moment of joy as I read and just not allow myself to get too close to anyone.

What are you joyful about today? Let me know in the comments.

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Throughout the month of January, I will be celebrating Joyful January with Satya and Kaspa over at Writing Our Way Home

 

Bad Attitude Blogging

BAM! that’s telling it straight.. you have to give to receive folks!
Comments are disabled. Please visit Jason at his blog Harsh Reality to comment. Thank you!

Share Your World – 2016 Week 2

for Cee’s Share Your World

Do you believe in extraterrestrials or life on other planets? 

I most certainly do and even though few believe me, I have a bit of “insider” information that I don’t share with many. Maybe some day I will be open to sharing it with the world.

How many places have you lived? You can share the number of physical residences and/or the number of cities.

Oh my goodness! I think I need a sheet of paper to write them all down…

As a child/teenager, I remember living in at least 4 different places in two separate towns.

As an adult, I have lived in at least 30 (that I can remember) different residences, some my own places and others with friends and family.

I have lived in 3 different towns and 3 small-ish cities.

If you given $22 million tax free dollars (any currency), what is the first thing you would do?

Oh my… I guess I would pay off my student loans. I’ve been out of college since 1999 and I still owe an exuberant amount of money.

The Never List: What are things you’ve never done? Or things you know you never will do?

It would be far easier to list the things I have done.  I am not an overly adventurous type, so I’ve done more less adventurous things. As for what I know I will never do… bungee jump, hang-glide, climb anything, or look over a canyon wall. I don’t do heights well.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week, I was grateful for connecting with some bloggers I haven’t read or chatted with in about 8 months. This week, I am looking forward to connecting with some new bloggers.