Who do I still think I am??

This one's about what we the people wanna know.

30DBC PROMPT: "Describe an odd or unusual writing habit or ritual you or someone you know has."

What's up, dear readers? Thanks for spending your afternoon (or whatever time it might be in your preferred place of living) reading about the things I do and don't do. Making me a part of your day is a pretty great and powerful thing, depending on how you look at it.

If you know only a few things about me, and I'm judging that solely on what I share here in this sliver of internet mischief masquerading as a blog, you might be aware that when a discussion turns to writing in general, I'll open up and talk for what might feel like days about it (but trust me, that's only a rough estimate). What I'm about to share may not qualify to some as "odd", but it's me, and after all, isn't that why you're immersed in this blog anyway?

Recently, when I attended the local library's self-publication function, the following dawned on me as I said the words describing my own writing history: I've been taking on writing poetry seriously for about twenty years (and blogging for maybe five), and I've had one poem professionally published. I was also fortunate to be able to go through my entire cache of writings through time, and it's been fun if not awkward and sometimes painful.

So here's my deal...most of all my best writing outside of blogging has been in standard spiral notebooks (preferably college ruled). They're all titled, and each item features the date it was written on and is personally signed by me. And if that weren't dorky enough, I have a separate three-ring binder that includes the date and title of just about every poem I've written in my collection, and what notebook it's in (and I estimate that I've written well over a thousand poems...it's been quite awhile since I've tried to count).

I've always viewed writing as kind of the same thing as a musician who's working on releasing an album would. They're extensions of an artform, whether it's any good or not or holds any commercial value. I envision the better works as "hit singles" and their companion pieces as "b-sides". In my head I see artwork coinciding with them (although it doesn't always translate onto paper). I imagine a day when I'll be able to sell each notebook to the masses in their original, complete form as their own book, and the followings they'll accumulate as the anticipation builds for more material when I do book signings and tours and some crafty, crazy Broadway director eventually puts on some kind of stage production based on my life and/or my words. And as cool as that would be, I've realized I could never write an autobiography. I don't possess the attention span necessary for that to happen. I need the short, rapid-fire pace that poetry and blogging offer over the imagining, reimagining, editing, and everything else in the process of writing an actual book that people wanna read takes.

It's hard to believe I've been doing these things for as long as I have, and that it just hit me the other day. I think I'll need to settle on a solid plan soon, so that when I'm ready to be published I'll be able to dive in head-first rather than testing my toes in the water and hoping I don't end up shark-bitten. Of course, there's no diving in the shallow end, so I know I'll need to be prepared far better than my skills and imagination have led me to consider up to this point in my game.

BCF PROMPT: "We have people from all over the world on WDC. We have several different nationalities even in BCOF. What are some things you've always wanted to ask about a different country?"

Months of therapy have convinced me of only a few things in life. One is that therapy is generally bullshit, and another being that I'm what's considered as a "contrarian". Whether I'm right, wrong, or completely batshit crazy, I'll have a perfectly logical rationale for whatever I so strongly believe in, and I'll fight to the death to prove it. Seems I prefer to live and die by that kind of edict.

Why am I saying this? I have no idea. I had a point and then got lost in watching my fingers type this stuff. Sometimes my hands amaze me.

I've probably said it in more words, but we're all kind of the same on WDC in that we have stuff we wanna get across and now we've got the means to do it. We see people of all sorts of diverse backgrounds on here, and we work our ways into the fabric of different lives by the way we go about things.

Outside of a cruise to the Bahamas, I've been to one other country besides my motherland in the United States...Canada. And the great white north isn't all that different than the US, besides the weird-looking money and the shape of their cigarette boxes. I've never really pondered what life would be like in other countries, although I'm sure some time during the course of reading blog entries written elsewhere in the world I've considered it in a vicarious state. And that's ok. Sometimes it's easier to comprehend things when seeing them as others have rather than how you might in a carefully calculated safe place within your head.

I don't know if I would have any questions about foreign lands; at least not until I got to one. Experience tends to be the best host in times like that. I'd still be a human being. I'd still function with my habits and tendencies. I'd still spell the same words wrong over and over again, and my spell-checker will still not catch the words I've misspelled but are still real words in their own right. There's no exchange rate to cover me putting on shorts one leg at a time, or worry that I'll have outgrown my body with another six inches of height or a need for a third sneaker. And thankfully, a pint is still 16 ounces wherever you go.

I suppose if anything I'd be curious as to how the US is perceived in other places abroad, but maybe that's just another selfish way of saying something stupid like "Wish me happy birthday!" or "Enough about you; let's talk about me". And while I could easily pick up a newspaper or look at a website, this information would be better if discerned from a national of another area. No matter how many Twitter followers you've got, you're not gonna have a conversation with a news media conglomerate. Why not just go to the source, in terms of actual people?

I wanna wrap this up by saying that WDC is much more of a melting pot that the US ever imagined itself to be, and I've learned a lot by interacting with all kinds of people from everywhere over the years. I know I once tongue-in-cheekily changed my handle here to Fivesixer Worldwide in mock brand establishment, but the reality is WDC members have the ability to actually claim their words can be read by members reaching all over the globe, and that's the coolest thing in the world to try and wrap your head around.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

I had forgotten about this band until recently...another example of how music that comes from Canada is superior to rock originating stateside. Even if this remix sucks the absolute life out of the original version of this song. I'm pretty sure greatness translates well in other languages.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

This is really random, I'm well aware...but the library I'm sitting in right now smells ridiculously like Arby's sauce. And I haven't had Arby's in over a year, but I feel like I've mistakenly dumped some sauce on my shirt...that's how palpable the smell is.

I've been to two stores in the local area that you would think might sell hats, and neither of them (one being a sporting goods outfit) sell anything close to what I'm looking for. I might have to step far out of my comfort zone to get either a new Mets hat (maybe one commemorating last night's All Star game) or a Brooklyn Nets hat. Something by New Era, 'cuz they make the best hats. http://www.neweracap.com/Locator.aspx

691: I just finished a book (approx. 200 pages) that contained this many footnotes. I don't mind footnotes too much when they're at the bottom of a page, but all of these were at the end of the book, and provided no deeper meaning than source info (so they really didn't add to the material in the text). I feel bad for the author because he included all of that stuff and in reality paid more for publication because of that, even though it didn't feel necessary in relevance to the book itself. But what the hell; I'm just amazed that a book about the roots of organized crime in Buffalo was actually available in a Cortland library...when the book first came out in The 'Lo it was hard even for bookstores to get their hands on it.

Courtesy of https://www.edge.ca (only the best radio station in the world) and our friends at the all-knowing Google empire, I was able to start asking a question relating to another nation in the world, and it already knew what I was trying to say!

Ok folks, I'm gonna post this and try to distract myself from the crazy person who's aggravating me by literally trying to photocopy the screen on her laptop in the copy machine. As much as I want to help, this person's utter stupidity is really frustrating and upsetting, so I think it's time for me to go about the rest of my day and get the hell outta here (that, combined with the stench of Arby's sauce, is making concentration on anything else here difficult). Peace, it's all that you are, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!