Snow is pretty, isn’t it? Just looking at the scene above, I start to feel calmer. It’s so quiet and peaceful. I think about the times I’ve paused in the trees while skiing, savoring the sense of isolation. It looks a little like this picture outside right now. Peering through the window next to […]

How did this happen? How did parts of a car end up in the woods? It might have been a whole car once, driven off into the forest and abandoned there, left for the squirrels and raccoons to strip it for parts. We tend to foist our old cars off on family and friends, but […]

For Random Acts of Journaling: Have you ever made a decision that quite dramatically changed the direction of your life? Imagine how your life would have been, if you had decided differently. For better or worse? The only decision I’ve made that comes close to fitting the spirit of this question was quitting my job […]

Last night was one of those nights when I wake in the wee hours and can’t get back to sleep. Today it was around 5 a.m. when my eyes opened. I’d been having a perfectly nice dream about getting gyros for lunch and then I was awake. I got up and peed (is that why […]

Random Acts of Journaling poses the question: “What’s the one thing you can’t be without, and why?” The smartass in me says, “Air, because I’ll die if I can’t breathe.” The practical part of me chimes in, “But you need water, too, and food. And shelter from the cold so you don’t freeze to death, […]

Random Acts of Journaling poses the question: What would a perfect day for you entail? Disregard constraints of money and travel time and take us from morning to night. Breakfast in Paris and dinner in Rio? On my perfect day, I wake up to soft sunlight filtering through trees and the fabric of the tent […]

This is what my life feels like right now. All I see ahead of me is a tunnel called “the big project you thought was going live July 1 has been moved up to April 1”. Until I got to work this morning and read my e-mail, I thought I had just two more intense […]

The safest way to live is first, inherit money, second, be born without a taste for liquor, third, have a legitimate job that keeps you busy, fourth, marry a wife who will cooperate in your sexual peculiarities, fifth, join some big church, sixth, don’t live too long. — from a John O’Hara novel, as quoted […]

Random Acts of Journaling:What is something, or someone, you’ve misplaced and want to find again? Why? For a long time I missed my essays from a writing course I took in college. Near the end of the quarter, the professor had us hand back in all the papers we’d written for him so he could […]

What holiday traditions do you find the most comforting? Once again, a Random Acts of Journaling prompt has me stumped. I picked this one out thinking it would be a good topic for the day before Thanksgiving, yet now that I’m faced with writing about it, I have more questions than answers. I’m clear on […]

I talked to my mom last night, finalizing plans for Thanksgiving. This year’s surprise is that my brother is cooking the turkey, and we’re going to have the big meal at his house, which I still think of as Dad’s house and probably always will, no matter who lives there or who owns it. Scot’s […]

Notify lists can be a very good thing; I joined the one for Random Acts of Journaling last week because I almost missed doing a September entry due to my haphazard checking of the site for new prompts. Yesterday, I got a nice e-mail that the new prompts are up, so I feel all on […]

There are two types of mates. There are the new friends you make later in life, when you’re older. People you’ve got something in common with. People whose company you enjoy. It’s fresh and exciting, you can meet them for a cappuccino, have them over for meals. You like them. And you can really talk […]

I would like to go to: 1. Hawaii. I think of it as the most romantic and exotic place in the United States, a place of magic. Everyone I know who’s been there says I should go see for myself. I am just hoping it can live up to the hype, and that it’s not […]

I wish that everyone could be considerate of others. So many of the things that annoy me are, at their root, selfish acts perpetrated by other people. Surely they would stop doing these things that vex me if they could, right? The question to be solved is why they can’t manage to do things the […]

This entry marks my first foray into Random Acts of Journaling. The current passage from a book prompt comes from Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, which I’ve come to think of as “my book” since I led the discussion on it over at The Usual Suspects. (Yes, it’s been a rather […]