Prompt: What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
Any holiday that results in paid time off is my favorite holiday.
The reason why should be self-explanatory.
Now, this is tempered by the specifics of some holidays.
For example, while getting the day off is always good, having to travel great distances for familial obligations as a result does diminish that benefit.
Because I like to sleep in on my days off.
And some of these holidays require staying up late and/or getting up early, especially if you have young kids.
Man, nothing takes the shine off a relaxing day away from work like kids with all their needs, demands, and hopeful expectations.
Because they still haven’t figured out they’re going to grow up and have to hold down a day job.
A day job they only escape on holidays.
Holidays they’ll need to travel great distances for, or stay up late / get up early for.
You know what? Holidays just set you up for disappointment. You think you’re getting a break, but you aren’t.
Screws holidays and the traditions they came riding in on…
What do you mean, I need to actually come out of the chimney to “complete the illusion”?! Look, either getting presents is enough for those rotten kids, or I’m just going back to work!
I was a Cub Scout, a Boy Scout, and a Brussels Scout growing up.
We’d go camping, hiking, and log countless miles helping old ladies cross the street.
My fondest memory of Scout camp involves the Assistant Scout Master’s son waking me in the middle of the night by wrapping a chain around my neck and demanding I stop snoring.
I play fast and loose with the facts here in this blog, but that’s a true story.
And why my kids didn’t go into the Boy Scouts…
I have other pleasant camp memories.
Stomping through a field of poison oak.
Going out with my shovel to poop, only to find the frozen ground hard as a rock and having to ‘shallow grave’ it.
Putting on every stitch of clothing I’d packed in a vain attempt to stay warm when a blizzard unexpectedly hit.
Discovering I had forgotten half of my cook stove.
The kiddos, in their first camping trip, so excited they ran around the inside of our tent until they threw up. And then, because we spent so much time in the van after, the battery died, and it wouldn’t start. And the ranger just shrugged and said, “That’s too bad.”
Oh yes, I’ve been camping all right…
Oh man, when you enter “An old man in his underwear struggling to pitch a tent” as an AI image prompt, boy, do you get some rude images!
When it’s something I’m excited about and I get started right away.
If I get what I think is a great idea and immediately begin working on it, odds are I’ll be done within a day.
Depending on the scope of the project, of course.
This is how I’ve handled a lot of short story ideas.
Idea manifests while lying in bed at 11pm, first draft done by 2am.
On the other hand, I’ve also been struck by a great idea at 11pm and thought to myself, “That’s amazing! But I’m too tired to work on it now. I’ll wait until morning when I’m refreshed.”
Come morning, assuming I even remember the idea, I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what I was so amped up about the previous night, and ultimately nothing comes of it except a vague sense of misgiving.
I also feel productive when my job’s at stake if I don’t get it done (funny, that) and when I’m in the shower and can’t possibly act on all the ideas I’m having (let alone write them down).
The rest of the time, I’m just trying to sleep…
I write down my ideas only to have the shower water make the ink run. Not only can I not read my notes after that, but I inexplicably need to pee.
Nothing has contributed more to the decline in language skills than emojis.
Imagine if Melville had used a cutsy white whale emoji in Moby Dick!
Imagine if Stella said, “I’ve always [Adult Diaper emoji] on the [Hugging emoji] of [Who Are You emoji].”
Or if Oliver said, “[Hands Up In Supplication emoji], I’d [Face With Hearts For Eyes emoji] some more, please.”
Or if Rick told Ilsa, “Here’s looking at you, [Baby Goat emoji]” and, “I’m no good at being [King emoji], but it doesn’t take much to [Binocular emoji] that the problems of [Three Little People emoji] don’t amount to a [Very *Very* Large Pile Of Beans emoji] in this [Loco Crazy emoji] [Earth emoji].”
I mean, immortality isn’t a thing, and honestly, who would want to live forever?
Really.
Either it’s just you and everyone you know and love grows old and dies in front of you, or else no one dies and then we have to stop reproducing or overrun the world and fall into endless wars over resources.
And what if immortality meant you could starve, just not to death?
Or you live forever but keep aging and physically declining?
Who wants that?
Being remembered is the next best thing.
I’ve been thinking about my legacy, how I can expand who I touch and am remembered by in this life.
There’s always friends and family, who will remember you as long as you weren’t a douche and found yourself excommunicated.
But that lasts a couple generations, maybe four or five if you’re lucky.
Then you’re just an entry on a family tree.
Movie stars and talented writers manage to last longer.
Just look at Homer (not Simpson!).
Though specifics about him are thin on the ground these days…
And while I like to think I’m a reasonably good author, I’m not going to permanently imprint myself onto the human psyche with any of my books.
And certainly not with my acting!
I’ve decided the trick is to create something that paints a picture of you for people to find, even generations from now.
But it can’t be too accessible. That would make it cheap and uninteresting.
It has to be a challenge.
It has to be interesting.
It has to be mysterious.
It has to be, paradoxically, personal.
But not personal about me, per se.
I mean, yes, it does, a little bit.
But it needs to be personal for each individual who encounters this project.
The act of opening or solving or discovering the remembrance of me has to be a personal experience for them, too.
Which makes putting something together like this challenging.
Interesting.
Mysterious.
And most of all, for me, a very personal act.
I have some ideas.
They need a lot of fleshing out, but they’re there.
Who knows? Maybe this post will be the start of something grander.
Prompt: Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
I changed my mind.
She was the first in line.
She was on the phone, talking about still being free.
That sounded like justification to take a chance to me.
And I had no place else to go.
I needed to get ahead, so I let her know.
Normally I would have been content to wait, but since I only had one item and it was ice cream, which I didn’t want to melt, I asked if I could go ahead of her.
ian m dudley 