Daily writing prompt

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

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Back in the ’90s this was a question that used to crop up at job interviews. I hated it. Like “what is your greatest weakness”, it was less an honest question than a hoop held up to test my willingness to hop through it. The honest answer would be, “working at another company after you boost your stock prices by laying off half the customer service/admin employees” but I was supposed to sit up a little straighter in my seat and say something like “striving hard in my chosen life’s work of telecom/real estate ad management/heavy equipment sales contract processing.”

Now that I am retired and in my sixties, the answer is “looking around for a home without so many stairs.”

Daily writing prompt

What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?

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My Ipad, which is my book/camera/notepad/mailbox.

My biggin, which is not only beautiful, but makes good coffee. I’ve written about it here.

My cougar rock. It’s a piece of quartz I found while taking a walk on a mountain in North Carolina. I put it in my pocket because I had seen a video clip of a man being chased by a cougar and wanted to be prepared. Completely irrational, of coure. In the Western Carolina mountains I’d more likely encounter a bear than a cougar, and I don’t think bouncing a small rock off its nose would do any good if one were chasing me. Not much chance of meeting cougars or bears in the hills of San Francisco, though there are coyotes, and I do know someone who got bitten by a seal at Maritime Park. I just like the way the stone, which is just big enough for me to curl my fist around it, gets warm in my hand.

My suede ivy cap, which used to be my father’s. Now that I am a Woman Who Wears Hats, I use it on overcast days. It’s too big for me. I have to pin my hair up when I wear it, or it will constantly slide down over my eyes. I suppose I’m attached to it because I remember Dad wearing it. Sometimes, if I catch some murky passing glimpse of myself in a store window, I can see him.

Any one of my tarot decks, which I can use to tell myself stories.

Daily writing prompt

Describe something you learned in high school.

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At the public high school I attended, checking a book out of the school library involved signing it out on the pasted book card inside the back cover. I used that library a lot, to the point where I was friends with the school librarian. Once, I carried a book to the front and she opened the back cover and exclaimed, “but you already checked this one out.” I looked down to see what seemed to be my own autograph.

Then we noticed the date beside it. The last person to check it out had been my dad, twenty-five years before. We don’t have the same first name, but our signatures were the same illegible scrawl.

I never did, of course, but I could have signed off on my own report cards.

Daily writing prompt

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

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The shut down made many of us more sedentary. And bored. So, like many, I sat around a lot, watched TV, used up all the flour and chocolate chips in the pantry. Sometimes I relieved our monotony by trying out new dishes, including desserts, then consuming them. While watching livestream shows. Or reading. Or browsing the internet.

I also dealt with the boredom by joining Ancestry.com and researching my dad’s side of the family. Lots of grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. dying from heart disease before they were fifty…

“I don’t like your blood pressure” my doctor said to me a year into the shut down.

One of my grandmothers died from a stroke, quite suddenly, at a party when she was in her seventies. I have always pictured her keeling over like a felled tree in the ballroom of the Bayou Desierd Country Club, a cigarette in one hand, a martini in the other.

And so, after that warning from my doctor, I changed my routine. First thing in the morning, I would throw on some clothes and walk. Fortunately, I live in a city with streets that resemble the view from the first crest of a roller-coaster, so even a short stroll can be strenuous. My morning hike included walking down a steep hill, then up the equally steep slope of another hill, around a small park, then back down, up a hill…

Experiences in college with classmates who had bulimia and anorexia made me averse to the verb “diet” and I won’t have a scale in the house. Let’s just say I changed my diet. Learned a whole new set of recipes.

My intent was not to reduce my weight but to lower my blood pressure. Which I did. The newly svelte shadow I cast on my walks was a nice bonus.

Now that I’ve retired I can walk whenever I want, so my hikes take place in the afternoon. The end of the shut down meant I sometimes go out to eat now, so I can’t control my intake as much, but pastries, bacon, butter, white bread, red meat, cheese, etc. are very occasional indulgences — no longer part of my daily diet.

Hopefully, this means I won’t someday ruin someone’s party by dropping dead in mid-sentence.

Daily writing prompt

What’s the most fun way to exercise?

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I’m lucky enough to live in a city with beautiful hills, stairway walks, views, interesting places to visit, etc.

Climbing this stairway is fun. Even though I do have to stop every now and then and enjoy the art.

Daily writing prompt

What book could you read over and over again?

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…over and over again. It cheers me up.

Daily writing prompt

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

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when I think of my favorite books it’s hard to find anyone I’d want to be. The Handmaid’s Tale? 1984? Catch-22? No, not even a peripheral character. The works of Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Thackeray? No, I would not want to live in the pre-antibiotic era when women could not vote and pain relief consisted of dosing yourself with alcohol and/or opium. The same objections stand for the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Woolf. Dental care back then doesn’t even bear considering. The novels of Ruth Rendell? I’d prefer not to be traumatized by the murder of even a casual acquaintance.

Besides, the very nature of being a fictional character means no free will. One’s actions and reactions are set by the author.

Nope. Nobody. I’ll take reality thanks.

If this is reality. How would I know if I were a fictional character?

Daily writing prompt

What animals make the best/worst pets?

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…for centuries. They have literally adapted to interact safely and easily with us. Wild animals like lions, tigers, wolves, etc. have not, and belong in the wild. I can understand rescuing an injured animal and protecting it for the rest of its life because it can no longer survive on its own, but capturing a healthy wild animal in order to take it out of its environment and make a pet of it is dangerous and wrong.

Daily writing prompt

What job would you do for free?

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for free. I write.