January 31, 2024
No. Way.
I have arachnophobia in the first place and can’t even stand those little spiders that jump all around.
I came in the house once after working in the garden and realized a spider had gotten stuck in my hair (probably from weeding under the tomato plants).
I feel freaked out just writing about it.
Just.
No. You couldn’t pay me enough to do this.
January 23, 2024
Wondering now if I should write the “five things I absolutely hate to have to do but generally have no say in the matter” or if I should wait and see if there is such a prompt…
December 5, 2023
Are you more of a night or morning person?
I’ve always been a night person. My brain just doesn’t shut off after dark.
If anything, it gets more active. That’s why much of my writing is done in the wee hours, when the rest of my family is fast asleep.
I began to develop this habit probably at least partly staying up to listen to Mets games on the west coast on late night AM radio.
Yeah. That dates me.
November 23, 2023
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
If I could meet an historical figure, I’d like to meet Plato.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to understand anything he would say, since it’s all Greek to me.
So maybe it’d be better to meet Nikola Tesla.
Preferably before he went a little cuckoo and ended his days feeding pigeons in Central Park.
September 3, 2023
Why do you blog?
Because I must.
If you ever ask a writer why they write…why they *must* write…there is only ever one answer.
Because they must.
No other answer is required.
And if you do not understand, you should not ask.
August 28, 2023
What’s your favorite time of day?
I’ve always been a night owl, always found it easier to concentrate when other brain waves were sleeping and not interfering with mine.
Now, though, I often find the most relaxing time of day is dinner time — because I get to cook for my family!
I never would have said that even five years ago. But the pandemic especially has given me a chance to try out all sorts of recipes, modifying, adding, subtracting as I go. It’s like a chemical experiment 🧪 for our digestive systems!
I can’t wait to get home from work, start up a little Cannonball Adderly, Bill Evans, or Dizzy Gillespie and fire up the grill/wok/air heater and roll up my sleeves.
Of course, I still enjoy the late late hours of a tipple 🥃 and a three-hour YouTube on the rise and fall of the Akkadian Empire (history nerd here). Not enough hours in the day!
August 15, 2023
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
OK, OK, in all seriousness, I would probably open a jazz café / restaurant. But only on the weekends.
We live at the foot of a mountain trail, and it’s really popular with retired folks and young families.
My wife and I have already begun thinking about our “second life” after retirement, and I’ve been frankly bored with the whole EFL teaching thing for a while now.
But pizza and the Duke? Yeah. That’d work.
July 17, 2023
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1. I know it to be certain that the wording of this prompt is a bit odd. Is this meant to mean “know to be true”?
2. I know it to be absolutely certain that there are many things about which I am far from certain.
3. I also know it to be absolutely certain that at least one of the things I know to be certain will annoy at least one person who reads this.
4. I also also know it to be absolutely certain that at least one of the things to know to be certain will amuse at least one person.
5. One of these things I know to be absolutely certain may even irritate and amuse the same person (👈 maybe even this one right here).
6. I even know it to be absolutely certain that writing a list of ten things that are absolutely certain takes a considerably longer time than I had initially anticipated.
7. Just to be sure I irritate someone, it is absolutely certain that the world is a warmer place than it was when I was a kid 40 years ago.
8. The fact that June 2023 was the hottest month on record is absolutely certain.
9. I know it to be absolutely certain, however, that we have only been keeping records on temperatures worldwide since the late 1880s, and records were measured using different instruments
10. But the most important thing to be absolutely certain that I know is that Sony says they have the technology to make humanoid robots but can’t figure out what to use them for. I have an idea or two about that…
July 11, 2023
What are you most excited about for the future?
I look forward to seeing whether the future looks more like WALL-E…
…or Star Trek…
…or maybe some combination thereof…
July 2, 2023
Have you ever had surgery? What for?
Yeah, minor surgery. On March 3, 2020, I had a benign tumor the size of a gum ball removed from my left shoulder.
It had been created by repeated rubbing of my shoulder bag strap on sweaty skin. Or rather on sweaty shirt over sweaty skin. I walk half an hour back and forth the train station to my workplace each morning and evening, and the summers in Kyoto are hot hot hot.
So there I was lying on a surgeon’s bed, getting my shoulder skin snipped into three pieces and pried open. My blood pressure shot up to 190 at one point. The surgeons told me to relax.
Uh. Yeah. They didn’t tell me how close the tumor was to a major artery, but I could make an educated guess.
There was a cloth screen between my face and my shoulder so that I couldn’t see what they were doing. And of course they had numbed the entire area and I couldn’t move my left arm at all.
But it was an unpleasant experience. No pain, but I could of course still hear the clip clip clipping of scissors on skin. And I have an imagination.
(Fwiw I have written a short story based on getting my wisdom teeth taken out—also with local rather than general anesthesia—though I didn’t include the factoid that my root tips shot across the room like tiny cannonballs and were never found again).
Fortunately, the surgery was successful— they even showed me the tumor (it looked like a tiny blancmange, and now you’ll have that image in your mind next time you eat one). They even asked me if if wanted to keep it (um, no thanks).
And afterwards the scar was barely visible, so good a job they did with the stitches.
Two days after the surgery, we went into lockdown and had to wear masks everywhere.
Talk about good timing.
Writing Fanfiction in the worlds of Tolkien and Beyond!
Learning more about our place in the universe...
Best Tech Gadgets Advise
Writing blogs is miracle I am a writer blogger and my site mission is to give information on maximum information to audiences
Reflections of an inquiring retiree ...
Simple ideas to make every room feel stylish and welcoming
Rock & Metal Reviews That Hit Hard
Short stories | Reflections | Poetry
Read. Reflect. Grow
M Thomas Apple Author Page 