Episode #104: Yeah, I'm Still Alive And Well And Living In The Suburbia Of My Mind

Woah, doggie! Can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted anything of note on the blog. Sad to see this blog turn into almost an afterthought these days, but this year has been such a bust that sometimes it's been completely unavoidable, especially since July, when I had to relocate to the dining room in order to do my own thang.

But, all inconveniences must come to end, and this one has come to an end. By Monday, December 20th, I will be safely re-relocated back to the den, so that start doing certain things again {writing and goofing on the computer} w/o the prying eyes of the family.

Yup. As much as it pains me, while the family did appreciate being able to see me more than normal for the past six months, the overall distractions simply became too much to bear. Some of the more annoying ones included:

1} Having to listen to music in order to properly write w/o distraction. Yeah, a few...hundred...hours of listening to all kinds of instrumentals save contemporary Christian (nothing wrong with that, it just didn't pop as a suggestion by YT) and currently listening to stations like Metal Detector, Thistle Radio and Sonic Universe (eclectic jazz et al), has me deeply yearning for the blissful silence of my furnace and water heater.

2} Being able to write w/o someone looking over my shoulder. This is a no-brainer. My current writing project has themes that while I have absolutely no qualms in expound upon, having people look at what I'm writing or even worse, writing it with people around is now becoming a major headache. I'm always feeling like I have to censor myself while I'm writing, which is usually not a good thing when I'm working on a story.

3} Also in conjunction with the previous point, I need to write an outline/synopsis on where I want to go with the chapter I'm currently re-writing. In general I'm tidying up the story so as it makes more sense, but specifically I'm changing the entire tone/tenor of the story, so I really need to stay the course with my consistency. Which means I have to vegetate in a chair while staring at what I got written so far on the computer and what was previously written and try to come up with coherency, which is something that I can't do surrounded by people and the like.

4} I just need my quiet time back. Prior to the water pipes imploding, my den was my quiet space, in that I could escape from everyone and every annoying distraction. In fact, prior to the water pipes imploding, I was making plans on consolidating all of my c.d.'s by moving them down to the basement. And all of the other little projects to keep myself occupied. But yeah, I really do need my quiet time back.

So basically this is what I'd done this past weekend, relocating the major day-to-day parts of my entire life from the dining room back down to the den. In the coming months, the minor stuff left in the basement will have to be relocated back into the den, which will be interesting. Kind of lick when you go grocery shopping, the cart doesn't look like a lot when putting stuff in, but somehow grows exponentially after you unpack then repack everything into the necessary recyclable bags.

Should loads of fun. Hopefully when the new year rolls around, I'll be able to get back into a blogging groove again. Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #103: I'm Still Here And I'm Still Sitting

The picture to the left is to simply and officially notify one and all that the first measly snowstorm has hit Connecticut. Nothing as even remotely severe as the pic, but more like the panic hysteria that the south gets when they see a snowflake.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anywho, I decided to let everyone know that I'm still alive and butt-surfing the chair of mediocrity. However, since originality is still among the missing in action this year {after all, I'm in the process of doing my 3rd re-write, so originality has gone out the window like the entertainment industry hiring the best actors for a given role}, we decided to mine one of my other blogs, in the case Father Nature's Corner, for extra help.

Now unlike my first blog, Cedar's Mountain, which is chock full of interesting content, it was a bit of a struggled to find something worthwhile to mine with this one. With Father Nature's Corner, I was getting a bit more pessimistic with my blogging. It was during that blog in which I was posting to the dark side {Tumblr} as well, so a lot of my posts have tons of broken links {that is, non-functional due to me nuking that blog when I created this blog a few years ago} and some non-functional videos that apparently violated some archaic YT rule that caused them to vanish.

But I did manage to find a post from early 2016 that contains no broken links and a passing reference to my defunct Tumblr blog. This post covers two topics: movies and food.

Specifically, movies with a food based plot lines, and my now adult daughter's dietary change {carnivore to vegetarian} that's now been going on for over 5 1/2 years now.

Now I actually do like these kind of dramas, as I'm always a sucker for these, whether they be theatrical releases, which is what this old post is about, or a Hallmark movie release, which I really did enjoy back when I used to watch the telly.

So let's enter the Yesterday Machine and head back to the spring of 2016, and let's check out four of my favorite food themed movies. Feel free to add yours in the comments below, as well as your thoughts on the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle {although vegan doesn't apply here since daughter does like some dairy products}.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #102: Gluttony Is A Writer's Sin Of Major Proportions

Greetings and Salutations to one and all!

The picture of a star is in direct response to hearing Christmas music while grocery shopping this past Sunday {11/7}, as I needed something decidedly non-Christmas, IMO, to counteract this serious breach of holiday protocol.

Anyways, on to the topic of the day: gluttony.

The traditional sense of the word means, in very crass terms, porking out at the proverbial dinner table {something that I often did in my younger days, to my now adult dismay}. In the non-traditional sense of the word, it means consistently starting new projects while you have others in various stages of completion patiently waiting to cross that finish line.

I already have two manuscripts completed that have gone through two rounds of editing each and are waiting for me to make my next move. The next move for them probably won't happen until the Spring 2022. The next move for me was to find something to occupy my time again.

Don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling kind of rudderless when I'm in between projects, especially being retired and all that stuff. So I decided to revert back to when I had lots of energy and gumption for my writing. Back then, I used to do all kinds of writing because I had so much creative energy to burn.

But, like with all issues since early July '21, is trying to find projects to work on. Everything is all scattered helter skelter in our seriously deconstructed basement. I lucked out on the first project because everything got waterlogged and had to move everything to the dining room. I lucked out on the 2nd because the basement wasn't completely deconstructed yet.

The 3rd required some searching since everything was deconstructed, and after finding a couple of possibles, I was able to find a challenging suitable: 50% already re-written and 50% needing to be re-written, and all of it mind-numbingly cringey. Every. Single. Page.

And of course, it has no title and the bare military grade minimum for a dual plotline. So yeah, lots of fun with this one. And just to give you an idea on how long this was last touched, apparently the red ink I used for making editing notes back then has now turned to a light umber.

McYummy!

So yeah, fun times ahead, especially trying to figure out how to get plot #1 (which I think I still remember) to plot #2, which is a funeral. Not sure why I though writing about a funeral would be a solid plot line to work with, but this should be interesting read/work on.

So gluttony can be a good thing as a writer, especially if you have an unlimited amount of creative energy to burn off. Prepping can be good, but over prepping can eventually drive you sane.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #101: When Having A Title Doesn't Work

<---This is what happens when you really don't care about respecting town property. 

Note: This was sand blasted a few years later and is now clean with reflectors screwed on to ensure safe driving.

I really couldn't think of a proper title for the post, which can be chalked up to the changing of the guard at the blog. Gone are the days of being in the 40 to 49 age bracket when one {with the help of being gainfully employed} could find humor in things and easily write about them with a heaping degree of confidence.

Instead, we are now residing in the mellowing upper end of the Medieval age bracket of 50 to 59, where one tries to make sense of things to a large degree, and often leans on the shoulders of their children for explanations when he doesn't understand something and needs clarification.

This is not one of those times, but simply circling back {see the memes about Psaki} to the previous paragraph about the changing of the guard {not Right, that is}. Today is simply a hodgepodge of bullet point updates about things going on. Plus, I need to keep on my minimum bi-monthly blog posting.

1} Writing: I've finished the first round of edits on my latest re-write project. Funnily enough, I was able to come up with a new tentative title of "My Soul Has Been Captured". I was also able to double the amount of chapters (17 from 8) and get the word count down to 43k+. So now the next step is applying those 116 pages of edits and reprinting the thing out again to go through yet another round of editing. Yay me!

2} Family: The family is doing quite well. Son is settling down to married life quite well, having just celebrated his two year anniversary. Daughter is somewhat back on a semi-skewered path of personal fulfillment. She has a good job in retail, a permanent boyfriend and has made concrete plans for restarting her college education, as well as moving out. The wife is doing good, as well as mother.

3} Me: In general, I'm doing good. Retirement is suiting me quite well presently. I'm still hitting my daily goal of 6k steps/2.5 miles, which is going on 507 consecutive days (basically started in earnest Memorial Day weekend 2020). As with the first update, I've been keeping myself busy with my writing, or rather, my re-writing, and basically my self quarantining with my walking and dealing as minimally as possible with the general public. I'm about as stress-free and relaxed as humanly possible these days and I'm enjoying every single minute of it.

So that's where things stand presently: enjoying retirement, my daily walks, being a small nuisance on FB from time to time, but not so much that I get put into FB jail for speaking things that they don't want to hear, and steadily working on my writing to the point where I'm getting actual enjoyment out of it.

And that is all you can want out of life, which is to enjoy it to the best of your ability.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #100: A Blogging Milestone And You Better Not Say That

Oh happy, happy days are upon us. The weather is starting to turn just a tiny bit cooler and we've settled down to a good routine of being alone while being together.

With that being said, today's post is a kind of two-fer, so we'll just begin at the beginning.

This is post #100. In blogging's heyday, this was really a nothing milestone, as people were hitting this sometime before the 2Q had gotten out of 2nd gear. Lately though, with blogging being on the downside of importance to those who casually blog, like myself, it actually does become a milestone of sorts.

Think about it, It has taken me until the very beginning of the 4Q to hit that milestone, while in years past, I would #100 for a given year in three to five months. But be that as it may, getting to 100 is a remarkably achievement for a blogger whose output is now down to roughly five to six posts per month. So three cheers and a yellow oversized frog for me.

Back in the day, I used to participate in a monthly blog hop sponsored by the IWSG, a phenomenal writer's group for anyone who is, or is thinking about  becoming, a writer. I say used to, because for the past year or so, my blogging has been erratic enough that participating wasn't a doable thing anymore. But I still stay subscribed to their wonderful newsletter.

For this month, their optional question, and I'm paraphrasing here, was to the effect of "are there any topics or language that you will simply not include in your writing at all?"

For me, this is a weird two part answer.

In regards to topic, the usual suspects that you see in most website's T&C are pretty much verboten in my stories (and blogging for that matter) as well. I do write about violence {mild to hardcore like you see on t.v. shows/movies} as it pertains to a given scene in a given story, but beyond that, common sense does dictate that you really don't write stuff like that. I do have a slushie manuscript about serial killers that will never, ever see the light of day, simply because I'm not that stupid to make that attempt.

Language is a bit more problematic. As most of you know, I am in my mid-50's, so a large portion of the woke/p.c. nonsense that permeates today's world simply did not exist while growing up. When I was a child, it was common sense in my household and in general that you simply didn't use racial epithets.

Also, hyphenated americanism, like you see in excess today, really didn't exist. If you proud of your heritage, you said so. No more and no less.

Certain words back them didn't really have the exaggerated "hurtfulness" that people like to assign to them today. In my day, one of the F words that was bandied about was used extensively w/o really knowing about the actual meaning of the word. The insulting version of the word superseded the known definitions {e.g. bundle of twigs, slang for a cigarette}. The "r" word that was backed then also was the musical term for slowing the tempo, a valid medical diagnoses that is sill used. and as a term to slow things down in general.

You get the basic idea.

So for the most part, most of those words don't make it into my writings because I have no need for them in my writings. Trust me, you can get eloquent with your insults without resorting to crass words, with very minimal effort.

The only issue that people seem to have that I can tell, is using certain descriptors to describe someone's ethnicity. In today's overly hyper vigilant/woke atmosphere, people can and do take offense at certain descriptors. What was acceptable and permissible back in my day, is apparently not acceptable nor permissible now. Which I find a bit hypocritical. I mean, if someone actually described themselves as such, would you personally get overly upset about it? Sadly, in today's world, some people do (see stories about North Korean defectors having issues at American collages for liking certain "unapproved" white authors) get extremely upset and not take in the whole picture.

Suffice to say, the preceding paragraph has resulted in a particularly long cooling off period in one of the groups I participate in. When I do come back, I will probably change the way I participate in the group. I'm not a fan of censorship, unless I apply it to myself (which I have on numerous occasions), and my usual response has been to go scorched earth. This time, we decided to walk away and cool off. Life is too short to get upset over words, and honestly, if you're getting upset over a word(s) what's that say about you as a person?

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #99: What Do I Say When It's All Been Said?

<---Amazing what you can find when you suddenly remember you have Google everything in your life.

I've been retired for almost a year now (November 1, 2020), and I've never realized just how hard it's been to come up with interesting snippets of my life to blog about. 

Considering how many posts I've written in the past 13+ years (about 1500 give or take), this says a lot. But ever since the man made you-know-what (no, this isn't a conspiracy but a fact of life that MSM does not want to admit), my life has become depressingly (at times) predictable.

It wasn't always like this. I actually had some worthwhile, time-consuming, soul enhancing (for me at least) projects lined up: writing, rearranging my den, moving my c.d.collection to my den from the bedroom and whatever else I could find to occupy my time. So I actually got to work on my writing at the end of 2020 (reworked a now unpublished e-book) with the goal of publishing it in 2021.

But as the new year rolled around, things began to change, so to speak. I made some tweaks to a few personal and cyber relationships. Decided to hardcore self-quarantine, and by doing that, fell into that self-sufficient/auntie social state of mind which never really went away. I did my twice daily walks, usually keeping to my end of town instead of exploring other sections (that is my intent for 2022 though); chilled on YT and FB (actually cut FB back to about twice a day for fifteen to twenty minutes a clip); ran an optional errand or two (usually banking); writing while listening to instrumental music (this was/is a very recent occurrence ever since I had to temporarily relocate to the dining room).

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

The only real change to this routine was the fact that I wasn't really doing  any "original" writing, only massive re-writes of either previously published stuff or unpublished completed manuscripts (yes, I do have P.T. Barnum's Jumbo Elephant in my basement patiently waiting for me). So far, I have one completed rewrite, including a new title that actually makes sense. That was the one that was ruined by a mini-flood in the basement that was not caused by the great outdoors, but by massive plumbing leak in the kitchen (this was determined by the basement guy that we had come to visit the other day).

The other I've been chipping away at, writing about 500 words per day, give or take, with lots of breaks for hand fatigue. So far I have roughly 8 chapters completed (have been splitting the old chapters in two to make it more digestible), which I'm very happy about, and also came up with a brand new (albeit temporary) title, which I'm also happy about.

Basically though, this is my how my current life is: very rock steady and just a little bit redundant.

So, it looks like I'm going have to retool and give serious thought about what I need to change what my posts should now be about. Wish me luck.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #98: Rules For Me, But Not For Thee

I'm not a big fan of censorship, especially when it comes to writing, and more specifically when it comes to my writing. In fact, the only time I will accept censorship of my writing is if I'm doing the censoring.

I have mellowed out over the years when it comes to my own writing being censored and no longer have the vitriolic responses from years gone by when it happens. Instead, I simply take a long mental health break from the source and thus find somewhere else to peddle my wares, so to speak, until I'm willing to return to that source.

However, this post is not about being censored, although I could on a very long diatribe about the personal censorship I've going through in the past 14+ years, but about equal application of whatever rules that happen to be in place, for wherever you may happen to be, whether real world or the cyber world.

I recently left a group on FB because of the unequal application of the group rules. I'm of the iron-clad belief that if you're going to apply certain rules to the masses, you better 100% apply those certain rules to yourself as well. Nothing less will pass muster with me, as far as I'm concerned.

This, sadly, was not the case. The head admin for the group was iron-clad adamant that things could only be posted on a certain day of the week, and no other. To do so would risk the wrath of the admins, thus being a bad boy/girl in their eyes and thus having the offending post nuked. But apparently the same rules they applied to the members with a mace club simply did not apply to them. They were free to post whatever, whenever, and you weren't allowed to post out the blatant hypocrisy of it.

I actually tried pointing this issue out, and I basically got the old "so sad, too bad" response, along with having a comment deleted. Once that happened, I decided that it wasn't worth having a major flame war about it. Instead, I just simply walked away and called it a day. In truth, it's not something I'm going to miss, since a large percentage of the time, there was a lot of inertia, which I believe was due to other members finding other groups that were a little more accommodating/flexible with their rules.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of censorship, on any level, be it cyber space or the real world. But I do expect an even application of whatever rules that happen to be in force for a given place. It will take me a very long time to find another group topic that I'll be comfortable in being part of without having to worry about rules being unequally applied. And that is a very sad thing indeed.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #97: To Be Retired Is Never Having A To-Do List

And thus, when a business is purchased by a larger corporation, it soon gets moved to another town, thus leaving the previous town with nothing but memories and lost tax dollars.

Picture is of the former home of Keeney Manufacturing. It was purchased either late last year or early this year by a conglomo who closed it and moved it to another town.

Anyways, today's post has really nothing to do with that. Found out about it a few weeks ago from our local town rag, so I want to briefly mention about a longtime institution that closed, thus taking jobs and monies elsewhere.

Today's post is about having find things to do in order to keep from being a major bag of Idahoan potatoes. I just recently finished my last writing project, with applying the edits and coming up with a more fitting title. Currently, it's sitting next to me on a chair waiting for me to reduce my c/c balance down to something a bit more manageable before moving on to the expensive required items.

In my case, since a lot of things that I WANTED TO DO are in limbo due to currently inhabitable status of the basement from this past July's mini-flooding, about the only I could do was to find yet another writing project to work on. At this point, actual originality has gone completely out the window, only to be replaced by wholesale deconstructing and rewriting previously partials/completed stories, with this particular choice being a member of the latter.

This was something that I had originally completed back in 2015 and had passed onto a former FB friend, who was a freelance writer/editor and a raging Canadian TDS sufferer (she had unfriended/blocked me because i dared to make a comparison between his royal heinie Trudeau and our President Trump). While I didn't appreciate being unfriended and blocked about a year after this editing job, I did take another read of her e-mail slicing and dicing my writing, and I found a few points that 5 1/2 years later I do agree on.

She stated that (at the time) I was overly dramatic with my writing and the plot line was extremely convoluted like a bad Hallmark movie (last part mine), in that I had the main characters doing the old cliche flower thing. There were a few other small points that I now do but didn't back then.

So I'm going way back to the drawing board with this, as in re-reading this thing from the beginning so that I can basically: figure out what the plot should be; what the character names should be; and figure out what the sub-plots should be. And this will be accomplished by me actually taking notes.

Yeah, looks like I'm going to make the transition to planner from pantster. This should be all kinds of fun for me, since I'm a terrible note taker.

Yay me.

(c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserve

Episode #96: If You Don't Open Your Mind, Then How Can You Grow?

And a very lazy {I'm hoping} Sunday afternoon to one and all. I sincerely hope the weather is treating you very well, no matter where you might be reading this post.

It's been a brutally hot/humid week here in Connecticut and there have been days in which I was like that guy in Airplane! who became completely drenched taking over the piloting duties on the plane.

But I've managed to keep my sanity on a even keel by taking once-a-day trips into the mountain in order to cool off and cool down.

But, the other part of keeping my sanity, besides listening to different types of classical and ye olden folk music, is working on a writing project, which in this particular case, is re-writing a previously published novella/novelette.

At this point, I have completed the rewrite, which bottomed out to just a smidgen over 22k words.  And, in addition to completing the rewrite, I've also completed the first round of edits as well, so I'm happy about that. It's currently sitting off to the side, patiently waiting for me come back to it, but right now, I'm just letting it sit for a lengthy marination. This in turn will allow me to think/meditate/mull over about what the titled of the rewrite should be. I wasn't overly thrilled about the original title, since I don't think it really fitted with what the overall theme of the story was/is {I'm leaning towards failed plan of revenge/karma/redemption}.

Once I get that properly decided on, then I can also mull over what the cover should look like, and a few other things as well.

In the mean time, I'll keep tuning in to the strange genres that I've seen to settled into for writing, since it's become the perfect background noise for the daily grind to what is my life these days.

Talk to ya later!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #95: Not Quite Classical, But Medieval Instead

To thine own wind chimes be true, for the forest's beauty is complimented by music emanating from the gentle windiness of itself.

Welcome to the literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past is making progress and the present is never quite standing still.

I'm still making steady progress with my writing, as I've settled in quite nicely to my groove of late night writing. I've also managed to expand it expand it to writing whenever I won't have any eavesdropping {which in this case is looking over my shoulder from the kitchen into the dining room}, which usually means that the family is either out and about or vegging out watching television.

The rabbit hole that is YouTube can be very strange when it comes to certain things, like music. I found about 11 hours worth of classical music to listen to, mostly from the composers from the 18th thru the 19th century. From there I'd eventually branched off to New Age instrumentals {I strongly do not recommend this if you have a tendency to meditate listening to soft instrumentals}, as well as baroque music featuring classical guitar.

I finally got a little burned out on classical music, so off I went in search other types of non-normal {e.g. genre music that you enjoy listening to} music. Roughly seven minutes of side searching the suggestions brought me to four videos featuring medieval music like this. Thus, this is the type of music that I'm currently writing, including blogging, to presently.

Granted, it's very strange music to listen to, especially since vocals are involved, but it seems to do the job as the vocals are just as minimally intrusive as the music itself, which in turns makes it easier to concentrate to write. In fact, I've find that when I tune out the music for a short period of time while I'm concentrating on a particularly difficult scene, it's easy peasy to tune back into it w/o worrying about getting lost.

But. not to worry, for after the four video set, which totals about 3 3/4 hours or so, I found two other videos featuring mandolin and lute. Yeah, that should be fun.

Basically, the one thing that I've found incredibly refreshing for myself is that I'm way more open-minded to explore other genres that people would've listened to way back in the previous centuries. And this, can only be a good thing for future use. Expanding the personal horizons will always make a person genuinely more affable as well as laid back.

And isn't being mellower and laid back the primary goal for everyone as they get older?

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #94: Classically Gassed In The New Millennium

"When it's summertime in the corn belt, the birds can be heard hiccuping on a starry, starry night....."

Picture to the right was taken some time on the second to last vacation that I had taken in the 2010's.

Anyways, to continue on a theme, apparently writing with classical music is my new semi-permanent thing. So is writing at night time a new semi-permanent thing.

As most of you are aware, I've pounded the message over the past decade or so that in order to write, I have to do it in complete and utter silence. No background noise, no front ground noise, no sideways noise. Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilcho.

But to circumstances beyond my control, I am now forced to listen to classical. Actually tried New Age music for about an hour, but that was about fifty-five minutes too much for my tiny brain to handle, so away it went from YouTube.

On the upside, listening to non-harsh (aka no brass, no timpani, no percussion of any kind, only woods and strings) classical music has allowed me to get actually harsh and nasty with my re-write. I've long ago figured out that the first two thirds of the book I'm re-writing should match up with the last one-third of the book (last third is actually quite violent and nasty).

So writing with classical music as my white noise has allowed me to tap into my inner bully. unfettered and unapologetic, to the best of my ability. It's also allowed me to revisit, without guilt, earlier themes that have fallen by the wayside in the past decade or so, mostly due to personal reasons.

In another piece of semi-interesting news, after a who bunch of personal reflection (like about a year's worth or so) as well as discussion with the family, I've now got my two shots scheduled for the month of August. And before you accuse me of being an anti-vaxxer and all of that crappola, I do believe in the vaccine science (mostly), but as my daughter has always said, "your body, your choice", so for the longest time that has been my mantra. But, even though that's still my mantra, circumstances have changed, and I've made the decision to get the shot.

I also believe in herd immunity, so that has helped me a lot, as well as being in about 95% personal quarantine too. I'll still be pursuing that personal quarantine, since I really have no need for contact with the human race 95% of the time, so after the shot, it'll be business as usual.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #93: My Summer Is Easy Livin'

It's a word! It's a bird! It's a duck chillin' on a rock!

Sort of what I've been doing these days: chillin', stylin' and profilin'.

Welcome to the literary world of G.B. Miller, where the only things that are free in this world is time and your imagination.

The last time we spoke, I happened to mention that I was seriously thinking about job hunting. I'm very happy to say that will no longer be the case. Earlier this month I had a hearing with the medical board to appeal my original denial of my disability retirement application, and I'm happy to say that my appeal was successful. My pension is increasing to a very livable monthly wage and I couldn't be happier. 

Whoever says the art of budgeting is a lost skill set is a spendthrift. It took me about a year to properly budget my bi-weekly paycheck, and 25+ years later, that skill has allowed me to seamlessly transition into budgeting for a monthly paycheck (helps that both children are between 85 and 100% self-sufficient).

With the need of a part time job falling by the wayside, I can now return to my previously scheduled routine of minimal to do and all day to get it done. The added bonus of less stress is allowing me to experiment with certain aspects of my writing

Like music.

As many of you probably know, I have pounded home the fact that in order for me to write, I needed peace and quiet. However, circumstances, in the form of a water damaged basement (about a 1/2 inch or so) from an early July rainstorm, forced me to relocate my den to the dining room. Unfortunately, because the dining room is an arm stretch from the kitchen and 20 steps to the living room, this has forced me to change tactics with my writing.

Enter classical music.

I'm not a big fan of classical music, even though it become my default genre when I'm the car and there's nothing on the radio nor c.d. player. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and in order to find my writing groove again, we went to YT and found classical music for relaxation (among other things). Popped those headphones on, adjust the volume to just barely audible, and presto! white noise for writing.

None too thrilled, but it is what it is. And for those who might be wondering, I'm currently listening to the softer side of Bach.

So this is what's going on with me so far. Lots of daily walking {good for the soul and body), some quality family time and slowly getting back into the writing groove.

Life is indeed good for me now.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #92: The Book That You've Read Is Always Your Friend

This seems to be a reasonable facsimile representation of what the past month has felt like with me and my computer. 'Nuff said, eh?

Anywho, I finally got inspired to write a blog post this week, and the inspiration, if you can believe it, came from FacePalmBook.

I know, weird, right?

A good FB friend of mine posted a pic/factoid about good old G.W (18th century, not 21st century), who apparently through a retirement party for a general staff member and it listed a total of about 100+ bottles of various intoxicating liquors that shared amongst the 54 invitees.

I happen to mention how a book I had received for my b'day back when I was in the 30-39 age range explained how he almost bankrupted the young nation by insisting that he only needed an expense account and not a salary.

The name of this wonderful tome was called George Washington's Expense Account, and it was about one the quirkiest book I've ever enjoyed reading.

So this got me to thinking about all of the quirky books that I've read throughout the years. I've always been a hardcore fan of the non-fiction genre (non-literary), and while I have branched out to other genres, this one has always been my go-to whenever I can't find something good to read.

My definition of quirky is probably extremely different than your definition, simply because it encompasses all of the sub-genres of non-fiction. So the type of stuff I've read is quite unusual/quirky to say the least.

My quirky reading started with The Book of Lists (only title that I've actually remembered) as a kid, and it quickly swerved into bad tabloid reading (courtesy of my grandmother). As I got older, it swerved back into lots of biographies (e.g. Van Johnson), lots of memoirs (e.g. a multitude of musicians/music groups) weird encyclopedias that delved into all kinds of topics (e.g. musicians who passed away, various sports leagues).

Then the swerve went to true crime, of which we've made our home base for the past 30+ years. Lots of quirky stuff there. Lately though, it's been whatever happens to catch my fancy at a given moment of the hour while I'm at the library (pre-Covid days. Haven't been to one since January 2020), so I'll drift from one given century to another given century, depending on what the topic happens to be (e.g. the last book I read prior to the pandemic was about The Crusades)

I've had mostly hits while perusing random non-fiction topics (e.g. law enforcement, true crime) but I've had some memorable near misses (e.g., a book about the bands Fish and Insane Clown Posse which turned into a journey about the writer being diagnosed with bi-polar, a book about capitol punishment in England circa 17th and 18th century), but overall, I've been happy with my quirky selections.

How 'bout you? Have you read some quirky books over the years that tickled your fancy? Do you read quirky books as break from your normal reading material?

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #91: Are We Are What We Are?

Sometimes the simplest things that we want to do or accomplish are often the toughest things to complete.

For me, it's doing something simple like finishing a short story rewrite. I only have something like one very long dialogue paragraph that needs to be done in order to move on to other things. But, just can't seem to get motivated to finish and start on my next project.

Or job hunt. I want to find a part time job to supplement my pension just enough to keep my monthly income close to what it was prior to retiring, but I can't enter the job market until my appeal for my pension is heard next month {t.l.; d.r. denied disability but asking for a revisit}.

Or a few other projects that I want to do but can't find the proper motivation to get them done (note: my organizational skills have briefly kicked the bucket).

Which brings us to the current dilemma of choice: blogging.

While I've always loved blogging, as of late, it hasn't loved me. While blogging has always loved me, as of late, the feeling hasn't been mutual. Case in point is this post coming out again on a Monday for the second straight week. I just can't seem to find the motivation to spew out a few hundred words (give or take) on a consistent basis anymore. I used to go into the weekend thinking, "hey, I have to get something written for blog this coming Sunday." Now it's more like, "man, I gotta write something for the blog this coming Sunday".

But because I still like to blog, I'm going to see if cutting down to every other week will get the mojo working again. As the old saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I have way too many years invested in blogging to simply walk away.

As a old boss of mine was found of saying, "It's never simple!" 

I'm just hoping that it does get that simple sometime soon in the near future.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #90: Finding Valid Old Stuff To Use Is Complicated

So...the picture kind of goes with the theme of today's post, which is trying to find something old to use that isn't broken. Which in this particular case, is trying to find an old blog post from my vast archives of verbiage that doesn't contain broken links. Like links to YouTube videos that were valid 11 years ago, but now gone due to copyright issues and the like. 

This picture is an example of something that is now invalid. The bear is so long gone that the location can be safely identified as Connecticut. The whale was long ago removed from the building lobby of where I used to be employed at again, it's somewhere in the the state of Connecticut.

Anyways, I eventually found a post in my first blog, Cedar's Mountain, that was usable, as it contained no broken links as well as the remnants of a deep dive into the recesses of that blogger's brain. To be perfectly honest, I can't even tell you, mostly because I don't remember, where I pulled all of the diverse elements that are contained within the post from. I did give proper credit to the blog that had served as inspiration for the title, but other than that, well......actually, now that I've re-read the post a few times, there are footnotes at the bottom, so there was some lucidity associated with the post.

In any event, hold on to your safety belts, because this post, entitled Brain Rot, from the May 14, 2010 edition of Cedar's Mountain, is ready for your perusal, if you're willing to take that challenge.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #89: Back When I Was Free Formin', I Was Really Free Formin';

Waaaaay back in the early days of the 21st century, my brain was a lot more soluble and malleable than it sits currently. Back then, I used to go to town on what I came to call "free form blogging". Which usually meant that I would find a (very) small tangent to riff on, then really go off all over the roadway like a drunken Mardi Gras reveler for up to a dozen paragraphs or so, before eventually coming to whatever point I was trying to make and slamming the car into park, thus launching myself through the front window at breakneck speed and faceplanting the computer screen.

I haven't seem to do much of that kind of thing lately, as life, combined with a slightly cynical outlook on the world at large today, has left me just about completely uninspired to go off on a major tangent.

So I thought for today's post, we revisit one of those epic free form blog posts from yesteryear, so that we can show people what classic G.B. was all about, much like the picture from the Indianapolis Children's Museum that was taken a few yeas prior to the original publication of the post I'm linking to.

From the Cedar's Mountain blog archives. here is Perpendicular? Not At Albuquerque.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #88: Procrastination Can Often Make You Stupid

Amazon

I'm a reigning prince of procrastination in my fiefdom. Although I've spend numerous hours working in this issue {about 85% success rate}, it still can raise its ugly head.

This blog post is a case in point. I normally publish on Sundays, but this weekend has been a bit....weird. Thus this post is being published on Monday.

Another case in point involves my latest book A Trilogy Of Love.

A normal rule of thumb for whenever I decide to do something productive {like writing for example}, that it should never, ever be done after the hour of 7p. To do so will often create either a monster delay in getting the task done correctly, or creating an incorrectable personal screw-up.

The monster delay part was registering the copyright to the book, which was directly due to not having all the pieces needed at the same time to accomplish the goal. Examples would include: forgetting log-in to account; not remembering the publishing date and not having the previous registration available.

The incorrectable part would using the wrong author name for the Amazon listing (clicking on the link will show you exactly what I mean), and trying to correct that error would require me to re-upload and re-do everything for the print version of the book. E-book was easily fixable, but the print was not.

All of these problematic errors were a direct result of uploading each version of the book in the evening, thus not being alert enough to smartly interpret the crystal clear questions/headings, like the author's name.

I won't say this was an expensive lesson to learn, as I was able to properly snag it for my Amazon Author's page, but this will reinforce the requirement that anything that needs to be done properly, should not be done at night.

So to end this on a high note, the print version is now available on Amazon, and I should have personal copies for sale by the first or second week of June, and the e-book is also available in the Kindle Unlimited program as well.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #87: I'm A Now Walkin', Yes I Is!

Towards home

Towards relaxation

Once upon a time, in a time continuum that was considered to be yesteryear, I was not much of an exercise geek. I really didn't do anything in the way of heavy walking and bicycling was pretty much a no-go. But in 2018, I acquired and discovered two things that radically changed my life. I acquired two smartie phones, one for play (that was the summer) and one for talk/text (that was in the winter); and I discovered podcasts.

Three platforms later, I have regular rotation of 23+, along with one to three limited run series, that I listen to a daily/weekly basis. Since I'm one of those kind of people who simply can't listen to anything (and I mean anything) audio while stationary, I decided to start walking.

Fast forward to 2021. I have walked roughly 1700+ miles and I'm currently sitting at 355 consecutive days of hitting my daily goal target (6k steps). And I'm bet you're asking yourself, what does this have to do with the pictures being shown.

To state it simply: those two pics represent two points of view that I see on almost a daily basis when I walk. What you're seeing is two viewpoints of the same road that I live next to in my hometown. The photos themselves were taken at the concrete barrier that divides the drive-able open part of the road with the closed off portion of the road (which reopens again some 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile further up).

In the summer, I'm walking in a literal canopy of trees, much like you see in the second pick. It's so quiet in the canopy that you can literally hear conversations from the front yards of the houses that are hundreds of yards away from you. Added bonus is that during a rain storm (of any kind), you're pretty much protected from about 90% of whatever is dropping down on you.

Because of my current medical maladies (which I won't rehash here for the sake of time), this street is one of the few gradual inclines that I can walk up and down w/o getting terribly winded.

In a nutshell, this is the kind of summer I'm looking forward to. A sort of brief mental health respite before I begin part time job hunting in the fall (yes, gotta supplement that pension with some extra income). Hope your upcoming week starts off with the kind of peace of mind that only a quiet mountain can give you.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #86: Now, It's Finally Here!

Amazon

After a heck of a lot of trial and tribulations, my latest book is now available for pre-order, with a release date of May 14th. Currently it's available as an e-book, as the print will be released later in the month, it can also be read in the Kindle Unlimited program as well.

The blurb is as follows: 

Love anew. Love misplaced. Love taboo. Three incredible short stories that present a unique a challenging twist to those familiar themes of finding someone new, being friend-zoned and being more than besties.

Current asking price is $1.89 and can be found exclusively on Amazon.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #85: Love And Marriage, The Married With Children Version

A day late but not a dollar short. Today's post is brought to you by Sunday, whose first name isn't Billy, and by Monday, which is not the color Blue.

Believe it or not, I'm not flying on air, but this year I will be celebrating my 32nd year of wedded bliss.

When I'd first got married, computers weren't really that big of phenomena that they are today, cell/smart phones did not exist, and payphone calls were still a nickel.

Now, computers are splitting time with tablets, the cell phone is now a smartie phone, and if you can find a functioning pay phone, by golly you are BMOC (no matter what your gender may be).

Today's post features yet another successful fishing expedition to the archives of Cedar's Mountain. The post of choice is a little children's not-so-innocent views on the subject of marriage. From the very last post of December 2012, here is the post entitled Kids And Marriage. 

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #84: It's Here!.....Or Is It?

So I finally got the four part manuscript back from the formatter this past Friday, and I can't be more happier to get these bad boys {two of them at least} up and published.

For those of you wondering why I said "four", it's because I received four distinct manuscripts for my money.

1} PDF: for print.

2} Word: in case I want to publish it on Smashwords or some other site that does Word.

3} Epub: for those who take the e-pub format, like KDP.

4} Mobi: which is the format that KDP used to take/prefer.

I say "used to take" because Amazon/KDP decided to phase it out and take e-pub, docx or KPF formats for e-books.

Anywho, it'll take me some time in coming days to get everything properly situated and uploaded, since the last time I had uploaded any book was 2018 for this book, and things have changed a lot in the proceeding three years with Amazon self publishing.

I also have to contact my graphic designer to let her know what the trim size is, what the page count is and most importantly, what I want for a blurb on the cover.

Should be an extremely fun couple of weeks to get everything uploaded, so were looking at a May release date.

And then, we get to start the process all over again with the writing of yet another trilogy (or more) for publication. 

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #83: It's Spring Time! And You Know What That Means....Lawn Mowers!

Unlike the song "When It's Springtime In Alaska", where the ending is sad, the ending to "When It's Springtime in Connecticut" is positively frustrating. 

You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about sling blades, mulching, electrical shock treatments from sketchy spark plugs, lots of gasoline vapors, frayed electrical cords and very, very bad Tim Taylor lawn mower driving.

Yes, we all hate it, and we all would love nothing more to turn our yards into an oasis of wildflowers, but sadly in most towns that isn't allowed.

But, believe it or not, there are some people who still wonder why we just don't do exactly mentioned previously. Please enjoy the following conversation between St. Francis of Assisi and his Father Superior.

From the June 24, 2011 Cedar's Mountain blog post entitled, God On Lawn Care.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #82: Polishing Up On Your Translations SKills

You may see three dogs chillin' on the couch w/o a care in the world. Because of this post, I see three representations of ineffectual middle management. You know the kind I'm talking about. Those who have but one kind of obsolete skill set that no-one else can do or want to do, so they hang around and around and around and around, ad nauseum.

Any who, today's post features a post from our first blog Cedar's Mountain, and it features the type of skill that that those ineffectual middle management types just might be good at.

Help wanted ads.

Now because these peeps are so good at their job, they developed/polished/refined their own unique language that they created specifically for the classified advert market. Today's post will be about helping you polish up on your translation skills so that when you cone across an advert on whatever digital medium that you use, you'll be instantly be able to tell whether or not you need to run in the opposite direction of that particular company.

From the Cedar's Mountain blog archives, I bring you the February 19, 2012 post entitled, Understanding Job Advertisements.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #81: A Trilogy Of Love

When I had retired back in November 2020 {man that seems such a long time ago}, one of my main goals was to get back into the writing groove, which is something I haven't done since 2019.

At the time, I really wasn't in the mood to do any kind of original writing, but I did want to get something out there just the same. So I came up with the brilliant idea of reworking/republishing one of my earlier books, so as to take a crack at the exclusivity program that Amazon has with their KDP program.

The easiest nor-brainer was my book "Broken Promises", as it was in serious need of being updated. The info contained within was incorrect, outdated, and the content was kind of stale, since it was written some 7+ years ago.

The first thing that I did was to unpublish the book from Smashwords. The second thing to do was to rework and/or tweak the three stories contained, while the last thing to do was to fix everything else (author's bio, book snippets, etc. etc.). That basically took me about two months top.

All of February and March was taken up with trying to get a book cover, which is what you see posted on this page. I was able to use my usual graphic designer, Book Cover By Design, a UK based company.

I'm happy to say that I will have print version of this book, which was made possible by me picking a smaller size {5 x 8} instead of the usual standard size. The smaller size will definitely get me above the minimum page count required for a print book.

Overall, I'm looking for a mid-April release date.

And that is what G.B. has been up to for the 1st quarter of 2021.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #80: How Not To Run A Digital Business

As most of you probably have been able to ascertain from reading this blog, I've been looking to get back into the writing game after retiring from my day job late last year.

To that extent, I decided to re-do and re-publish an old e-book that used to be available on Smashwords but will now be exclusively available on Amazon.

Jumping ahead by 300+ words or so, the sticking point we had to deal with for the past two months was getting a cover. I briefly had issues with my usual designer {turns out my initial two e-mail when to her spam folder by mistake, which got immediately rectified once this particular incident ended} so I went off in search of another designer. 

After making some general inquiries to about a half dozen on what genres they did or didn't do, I found one which I thought would be good, Jesh Art Studio. I sent off an inquiry via FB on the type of genres she did and got a response a day or so later, complete with pricing and a form to fill out.

Here is where things went sideways.

I initially sent the form back on 2/22. On 2/26 I sent a short e-mail asking if she had received it. She said yes, give me a few days to produce something. On 3/5, I sent another inquiry asking for a status update as well as a billing link to pay for the cover {note, due to her response of 2/26, I made a financial commitment to get my book formatted, which in hindsight I could've easily waited another couple of weeks to do}. On 3/7, got an apology for the late response and a promise to have a 1st draft in a couple of days.

Despite another inquiry by me on 3/11, I never received another response from her. I waited a week and decided to give my original designer another shot. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There is a fine line between nudging along and being a pest when it comes to stuff like this. My original designer does say up front that can take one to two weeks to produce a sample, of which I made a mental miscue on this time around and apologized for the miscue. But this person had no such disclaimer on her website. So I was careful with the time gap of the e-mails that I had sent to her. 

But it seems in the end that she apparently decided that i wasn't worth the $300 sale. Which is kind of sad, if you think about. Graphic design, especially for book covers, is a highly competitive niche market and it's imperative that you make things as clear as they can be for potential customers about openings/length of time etc (I came across one who announced in 2019 that they were entirely booked for 2020 and weren't taking commissions until spring/summer 2021). Treating them like garbage is a sure fire way not to get any potential business from them.

But, there is a happy ending to this story, which I will be giving/showing to everyone next week.

Until then, have a happy week, just like these dogs.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #79: I Feel Like Running To Deja Vu!

Way back in the pre-Covid days, when you could say practically anything and not get punished by Big Tech for it, this is what Autumn on Cedar Mountain used to look like, smell like and be like.

{long record scratch that is overly used in most t.v. shows and videos}

But, we're not here to talk about that. Instead, we are mining another olden blog post from one of my previous blogs, this time the blog known as Father Nature's Corner. This was general purpose blog #2 (5th overall) that was created back when I was well on the way to Blogger burnout and I thought that creating another general purpose blog would help with my burnout {note, it didn't}.

Anywho, the content started taking a semi-dark and cynical turn and the post that I'm featuring for my Classic Quotated hashtag is no exception.

For those who don't know the real me, I've always had a semi-tolerated/completely hate relationship with the telephone, going back to the days when I was a lad and was constantly doing the "I'm not the person you're looking for" spiel for people looking for pere Sr, and not me. And this particular post just continues that particular relationship.

This classic post features my years long hatred of Ally Financing (formerly known as GMAC Financial) in regards to my now paid off car loan. The way my finances worked in a one paycheck household was that more often that not, there were bills that I chose to be late on. This was one such bill. How I handled the phone calls associated with this loan, which happened at least 6 times a year, is the subject of our post. From Father Nature's Corner, I bring to you the October 4, 2015 blog post entitled I Are Aggressive. Enjoy!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #78: Down Dat Der Wabbit Hole

Spring will be spring very soon, so here's a little pic to start off your week with.

The other day, while I was chillin' in my den watching YouTube, I started riffing on Davey & Goliath, usually doing Goliath's popular refrain of "Davey!". Eventually I got to thinking about whether or not there were any episodes on YT, since you can find almost any old time t.v. show there.

After putting in the initial search term of "Davey & Goliath and coming with about a dozen or more variations (including some parodies), I found a complete 74 episode binge-worthy play list.

So yeah, I'm doing another binge of a t.v. series. Unlike the last show I binged on (Frasier. Best show ever), which was from my recent adulting efforts of the early 2000's, this one is very much a complete blast from my childhood. Kind of like the cleaner version of Gumby/childhood version of those Sunday morning adult morality tales (that were actually quite good).

In other fun news, I may be finally getting a cover soon. It's been a long strange journey to get the cover and I'm very glad that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Don't worry, I'll share my journey soon. I the mean time, I leave you with episode #1 of Davey & Goliath to start your week off with. Enjoy.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #77: Re-wash, Re-rinse, Re-repeat

Hello! Welcome to I Have Stories!, where excuses are often masqueraded as pearls of wisdom. As you can probably figure out, 'cause you are one of the smartest readers I has, we're still blipped. With it being tax season and the like, original critical thinking is still sitting on the curb, frantically waving their arms trying to get my attention.

Because of this, we are once again doing a very deep dive of the Cedar's Mountain blog archive, subject label "Humor".

In this particular case, the subset is "computers".

Background: I am old enough to remember using old fashioned computers and the like. I used the Tandy computers in computer class; the BASIC programming language; the 5 1/4 inch floppy discs; cassettes (yes, cassettes were one of the main ways of saving/loading programs); and the most popular computer game at the time was the Oregon Trail. 

Anyways, this particular piece of poetry may confuse the heck of some of you (like the dial telephone does with today's youth), simply because it covers terms that your parents (if they're north of 50) are familiar with. 

So enjoy this ode to the computer called "A Poem for Computer Users Above the Age of 40", post date 12/10/2012.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #76: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

As we come out of yet another non-agnsty week, we would like to remind everyone that originality has taken a much needed siesta of an unknown length. Because of this much needed break, we are forced to mine once again, all that is provocative, namely my first blog Cedar's Mountain.

Yeah, lots of posts to choose from, and our topic of choice is pop culture.

Being one of the older members of my former hive {by at least two decades} allowed me at times to have very interesting conversations about pop culture. I emphasize "very interesting" because more often than not, I would have to explain, in great detail, some of my pop culture references. 

Yes, I had co-workers whose pop culture awareness stopped in the 1990's and completely bypassed public television.

So when I would say something like "happy white clouds" I would get very odd looks {e.g. "wait...wut?"}, which would then force me to explain in detail, completely with info dump, on what I was saying in reference.

Yes, it did ruin the flow of conversation quite a few times, much to my annoyance. Anywho, the aforementioned quote was intentionally used by me, because the post that I'm linking to features an interesting explanation to that phrase, complete with active video.

So, from the June 13, 2013 edition of Cedar's Mountain, I bring to you the post Making Pop Culture Work.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #75: We're Still Blipped

It's still been a somewhat semi-angsty non-work week {emphasis on non, since I is retired}, as the tired old cliche of "Often the best laid plans...." is being offered up to you the reader today.

Things have reached an impasse in regards to the writing front, as I have not been able to move on like I wanted to with my upcoming e-book {which will be titled A Trilogy of Love}, as we were forced to take a minor detour along the way. But I'm pretty certain you don't want to hear me whining about my lack of effort on the writing front yet again. So, instead we're gonna reach into the distant past and talk about an old post from my first blog, Cedar's Mountain. enjoy.

E-mail humor.

Back in the day when I used to have a core group of work friends, we would forward humorous e-mails to each other. Because a lot of us had wicked senses of humor, our e-mails were a bit on the offensive side. One such email contained a brutally funny poem called "Frenemy". The original title of the e-mail escaped me when I had posted this back in mid 2013, so the post was called Fluffernutter {not sure why, but I think the pic had a lot to do with it}.

One thing that will jump out at you is the fact on how incredibly verbose and witty I still was back in the early 2010's. The downhill slide to being really cynical and burnt started in the next year, but for a good 6+ years, I was really funny and witty. This particular post is a good case in post.

From the June 21, 2013 edition of Cedar's Mountain, I bring you the poem called Frenemy.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved