News: The Happy

This is late, but the timing fits. I need the prompting to focus on this, because I'm a bit of a downer when left to my own devices. Other people seem so much more interesting that I enjoy myself the most talking about their lives. Nevertheless, there are:

Things That Make Me Happy

See how damned happy I can get?

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The List:

Week 4. The Sacrifice: You Shall Not Pass

WARNING: I am drawing the line, and there is some harsh language and some hard truths in this post. Some of your "friends" are going to get what they deserve. They aren't really anyone's friends.

I have had it up to HERE with you, Cheese! You stink, you're sticky and greasy and you gum up my throat, you have enough salt in you to cure a ham and you're fat, Fat, FAT!

Pish-Posh Challenge Week 3 - The Playlist

  The Pish-Posh Challenge Week Three:
Music to Run From

I am terrible at following directions, and pretty bad at keeping to my own plans unless they are really simple, preferably involving not doing things. I do not know why I ever thought I was bright, since that shit is important to getting by. It's a wondrous miracle that you can be a writer without most of that part of your brain.
  
Just not a really prolific, successful one, like Asimov in his time, or even Stephen King, who apparently generated more text every waking minute of his heyday than a possessed coke addict.

Pish-Posh Challenge Week Two

The Pish-Posh 8-Week Challenge:

Week Two

This week I am proud to say that I walked 21.76 miles and burned 2359 calories, which is the equivalent of a whole pizza. Without toppings.

Still, let's see, I lost a total of ... +1 pounds.

I gained a pound.

The Pish-Posh: 8 Week Challenge

Week One:

The Pish-Posh has started another challenge and this time I was awake enough to get in on the ground floor. I want to be posting more, and to lose two pounds per week. That would be excellent.

So far I have had three long walks and lost two pounds. Trying to keep the diet under control. The weekends are always the hardest time. I used to run 5k every day, and if health permits I would love to be doing that again.

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The first time I went to a gym a friend took me. We were 19 or 20, and he was deeply dedicated to becoming a cop. This gym was seedy looking on the outside, but decently outfitted inside. He told me the cops used it in the evenings.

The day we arrived it was early, and no one else was there but us and one woman. She was Asian, seven feet tall, with a huge head of wavy black hair, and in full makeup. She had a couple of volleyballs badly hidden about her person. All of this confused me, and I remember trying to get a look at her feet, because, seven-feet tall?

The Book!

Some time ago The Pish-Posh invited me to contribute to a collection of stories she was going to publish with The Lady in Red. Most of the blogs I love to read were involved. These are all hilarious and wonderfully talented writers (and artists), and I was thrilled to have been included.

The stories are all from our experience, and each one is a gem. I am responsible for two of them.
More on them later.

The book was just published as All Cracked Up, and is currently available here on Amazon for $2.99!

These are the writers:

Dogs on Drugs http://dogsondrugs.com           

Mayor Gia http://www.mayorgia.blogspot.com/ 

Whoa! Susannah http://www.zannahbrown.blogspot.com/

Ken Inatractor http://ken-inatractor.blogspot.com/

Leanne Moffat http://one-odd-duck.com/

Brett Minor http://www.transformednonconformist.blogspot.com/

Rusty Hartup http://www.swinginglikearustygate.blogspot.com/

Working Dan http://www.shamefulpromotions.com/

Six Fingered Monkey http://www.sixfingeredmonkey.com/

Mike Young http://youngmanbrown.com/ 

Incoherent Ramblings of a Moose http://theincoherentramblingsofasingleparent.blogspot.com/

Misty's Laws http://mistyslaws.wordpress.com/

Rev Biou http://simianidiot.tumblr.com/

Creative Devolution http://creativedevolution.com/

Gloria http://www.abozosabbozzo.blogspot.in/

Pish Posh: http://the-pish-posh.com

You can't find better anywhere. 

Not "fat" just friendly.

I used to live in the nicest, most integrated neighborhood in the area. Every kind of person who could afford 50% more rent than the rest of the city lived there in old rental units that were beautifully kept up and reasonably spacious. 

Everyone got along well, and there were great little restaurants with cheap but excellent lunch specials. The scenery and the people-watching were unparalleled. Everyone seemed to own a dog, and there were all kinds, even unto a number of Great Danes.

In the summer, art galleries would mount outdoor sculptures by various artists along the beach walks to surprise and delight the locals. There was Tai-Chi and yoga in the parks and green-spaces and outdoor and indoor chess  almost everywhere there was a table. People flew beautiful kites along the short stretch of beach, and we were a short walk from the bustling downtown, with its theaters, cinemas, malls and and pretentious restaurants and nightclubs.

Every year there was a world-class fireworks festival in August and the streets would be jammed with tens of thousands of people from all around.