Month: April 2022

The Battle of the Bagel

On By Just StephIn Mad Ramblings1 Comment
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is bagel.jpg

I chopped off my finger.

Well, ok, I didn’t quite chop it off though at the time it certainly felt like it. I did slice it up pretty good though and deep enough that should probably have stitches, but having just enough frugal Mainer in my bloodstream I couldn’t bring myself to go into the walk-in-clinic with its $50 co-pay or heaven forbid the $100 co-pay they milk you for at the Emergency Room just to have someone stick some skin glue on and send me home.

So, there I was, swearing profusely as I dripped bright red blood onto the kitchen cupboard, the floor, my shirt, the cat and my unsuccessfully cut Asiago bagel from Panera. Yeah, I know, I should have gotten it pre-sliced, but it tends to dry out if you do that and don’t eat it right away, so there is that.

My first instinct was to rinse it off under the faucet (my finger, not the bagel). Wrong move, that just made it bleed more freely and now there was blood all over the kitchen sink and not a few of the dishes drying in the drainer.

I kid you not with this bleeding thing. I never knew that a finger had so much blood in its tip! What does the body do, store extra blood in the extremities or something? Is this what the old stories meant when they told someone to sign in blood? Except that it wouldn’t do too well for precision penmanship, more like “blot marks the spot.”

I finally got my wits in some semblance of order and wrapped the dripping digit tight in paper towel, which of course immediately soaked through, which surprised me. This was Viva, the cloth version not that “multi surface” variety they keep putting on sale in the hopes that it will sell.

Viva is amazing, my daughter did a science project years ago determining which paper towel was the strongest. The project involved like eight kinds of paper towels (both wet and dry) and a number of DD batteries dropped onto the towels from a distance of like three feet. I don’t remember if she won any awards for her project but it did convince me that Viva was where it was at, strength wise, and I’ve used it ever since, even though it costs more than the average household paper towel. It also soaks up fluid like a son-of-a-gun, so seeing the blood soak through almost immediately almost sent me into a panic. Just how much blood was losing, anyway?

So, I wrapped it again in a double dose of fresh paper towels and sat on the kitchen chair for a full twenty minutes glaring at the crimson splashes all over the floors and cupboards and (so sorry dude!) the cat. What a mess! I also glared at my phone, which I can work one handed when it comes to scrolling, but have not been able to figure out how to text one-handed yet. Even the damned phone had crimson streaks across the screen. I swear, the props set for a Stephen King horror story couldn’t have done a better job in creating a more realistic “crazy person goes on a hacking spree” movie set. Well, maybe a Stephen King would have contained more body parts, or at least a few credible monsters. Come to think of it, with the blood in his whiskers the cat could definitely have passed himself off as a blood drinking monster of some sort. When two more swatches of paper towel remained blood-free I finally took myself into the bathroom to assess the damage.

Yep, it was a nasty cut. It started at the outside edge of my finger and had sliced straight down to the fingernail. In fact, it was most likely the fingernail that kept it from actually slicing the entire tip off my finger altogether. Poking at it a bit I could see that it had a nice flap that opens up to…no, I don’t want to look too deep. Seeing inside of my own skin gives me the creeps. I mean, I’ve always known that there is stuff inside of the skin, but any time that the skin barrier is breached and the insides start poking out, I am so done. On the bright side, my fingernails must be pretty tough. That was a sharp knife from a new set we just bought a month ago. Now I can revel in feeling justified in believing that fingernails are good for more than painting red and sharpening into pseudo claws for spontaneous cat fights in office coffee break rooms.

A goodly splash of hydrogen peroxide caused Mt. Vesuvius to explode, bubble and froth from my finger (cue more Viva) and then a healthy smear of antibiotic ointment and two Band-Aids overlapping to keep everything together. The first pair bled through in about five minutes. But after that, things slowed down. Finally. I must say, I must have a goodly dose of blood in me, because in spite of the splashes and droplets everywhere I didn’t feel in the least woozy.

Of course, getting the kitchen cleaned up was a chore unto itself. I won’t even begin to discuss the issues with getting the blood off of the cat’s head and back. I did catch him licking it out of his whiskers with seeming relish, so now I’ll have to keep one eye open when I sleep to make sure that he doesn’t become a maneater now that he’s tasted human blood. Maybe that only applies to big cats in the wild, but I’m taking no chances.

I’m also taking no chances in cutting a bagel with just my hands and a knife anymore. I’m picking up a bagel slicer today. And more Viva, because I’m pretty sure I used up most of a roll.

In case you were waiting for a moral for this incident. Sorry to disappoint, for there isn’t one, unless it is to keep your wits about you when attempting to slice round objects with sharp pointy things. Or invest in a bagel slicer. Or maybe just avoid the little devils altogether or have the cashier at Panera slice them up for you.

Anyway, thanks for listening to this random note from the life of JustSteph, watch out for random bagels, sharp knives, blood-thirsty cats, and enjoy your weekend if you can!

To Sum It Up

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

At first glance the concept of writing a short story seems to be simple. You have a story to tell. You sit down, pull up an empty page, and write it. So, why is it that so many people get as far as sitting down and opening up a new document, but then freeze up? So many times an individual knows what they want to say, but when it comes to actually putting it down in words it gets stuck somewhere between the their imagination and the fingers hovering over the keyboard. So, how do you get from here (an idea percolating in your head) to there (a completed story)? One of the best ways to do this is to start by creating a synopsis.

Begin With a Synopsis

A synopsis is a short summary of the story that you are writing. In order to create a working synopsis, it is necessary to ask yourself some questions to help you get all of your proverbial ducks in a row. The questions can be summed up with the following five phrases: Somebody. Somewhere. Wants Something. But. So.

The Five Questions

1). Somebody: Who is the main character of your story? Describe them in detail. What do they look like? How do they talk? What do they wear? What are their good qualities? What are their bad qualities? Yes, I know that is more than one question – but all of them come under the umbrella of the “somebody” who is your main character. The more detailed your character is in your mind, the more real they will come across in your writing.

Example: John is 18 years old. He is tall and lanky with sandy brown hair and freckles to match. He has a slight backwoods drawl to his speech and mostly wears jeans and t shirts, though he will wear a button down shirt for special occasions. He has just graduated from high school. He is polite and thoughtful but tends to be forgetful and is sometimes so caught up in his own world that he forgets what it is that he is supposed to be doing.

2). Somewhere: Where does your story take place? Describe the exact setting for your story. Is it a real location? A made up place? When does the story take place? What is the weather like? What is the scenery like? Are there Mountains? Oceans? Prairies? The more detailed you can be, the more real your story will seem to yourself and your readers.

Example: My story takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania, we will call it Hoboke. The town consists of just a few buildings, a town hall, a police station and a handful of stores, an elementary and high school and is nestled by a river that flows between rolling hills and while you can see mountains in the distance, they are a good ways away. The year is 1955. It is summertime and hot. The sidewalks are so hot they will burn your bare feet if you aren’t careful.

3). Wants Something: Every story is about someone that wants something. It can be as simple as that they are looking for directions on how to get to a specific location, or something as complex as that they are looking for world domination. Explain your characters goal or wish in the story including why it is that they want this particular thing.

Example: John has one great desire in life, and that is to go to travel and see the world. He would settle for seeing the United States, because he knows that there is more to life than one little Pennsylvania town, and he has to figure out a way to get what he wants.

4). But: If a person who wants something was able to get what they wanted with no problem, then there is not much of a story. A good story includes obstacles; challenges; hurdles that have to be overcome in order to achieve the goal. The BUT section is where you explain the problem in your story. Why is your character unable to meet their goal. What kinds of obstacles/challenges are they facing? Why is this a problem for them?

Example: In order to achieve his goal of seeing the world, John has to figure out a way to get what he wants. He does not have the grades or the money to attend college. He does not feel that he has the temperament to join the military. He has no real marketable skills that would land him a job if he were simply to get up and move to a new location.

5). So: Explain in detail how your character overcomes the problem/obstacle/challenge that they are facing. Be as detailed as possible.

Example: After weighing his options, John decides that he is going to use his life savings to simply take a visit the closest large city to see if there are any other options. After arriving in Philadelphia, PA by bus he gets robbed of all of his money and decides to hitchhike home. He is picked up by a 21 year old steel mill heiress who has just come in to her money and is off on a road trip adventure to California before she goes decides what she is going to do with her life and she asks him to come with her partly, because she likes him, partly because she wants to tick off her parents. They have many adventures on the trip and end up falling for each other by the time they reach the west coast where they decide to elope, much to the girl’s parents’ chagrin. While he didn’t actively attempt to overcome his obstacles to seeing more of the world, John inadvertently overcomes them by taking the step to go to the big town and go with the girl when she asks him to accompany her.

Using Your Synopsis

Once you have answered the five questions above, you will see that, if you put them all together, you have a synopsis of your story. It’s that easy!

Once you have linked the answers to the five questions together, you can use your synopsis to refer to as you are writing your story so that your characters, settings, conflicts and resolutions stay consistent throughout the telling. In fact, the longer your story is, the more important having a synopsis is so that you won’t forget the details.

Happy Writing!

The Banner of Busyness

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

For once she allowed herself the luxury of doing absolutely nothing. And when she was done, she apologized to herself for the misunderstanding. It hadn’t been doing nothing after all, she had been resting her heart and feeding her soul”.

~JustSteph

Our society has a thing about being busy. We all complain about it, but simultaneously most of us take a weird, twisted sort of pride in it, as if, once we die, we will be able to wave the banner of busyness at the pearly gates and be guaranteed immediate entrance.

We all know the refrain; “I am so sorry, I’d really love to be able to help/go to/ see you with/at (fill in the blank) but I am really so busy, there is just no way to fit it in right now. Maybe next time?”

Most of us don’t take offense if someone uses the busy card. After all, we’ve all said it. We’ve all heard it. We all understand what it means. We know exactly what is going through someone’s head when they say it in a certain tone of voice. We might be a little hurt that they are too busy for us but really, we totally understand.

Yes, we all know what it feels like to be crazy busy; so busy that we hardly have time to brush our teeth, let alone floss. So busy that instead of sitting down for breakfast, we grab a muffin or bagel on our way out the door so as not to be late to work and then curse at the crumbs or coffee stains that get dribbled down our front. We spend out lunch break scarfing down something from a vending machine while making three different phone calls and checking our personal emails and bank deposits. We combine six errands on our way home from work, and, after eating a quick fix supper that we eat balanced on our knees while watching the evening news, we drop exhausted into bed at night with a whole list of things we wanted to do and never got to and feeling slightly guilty that we have to actually take time to sleep at all.

Weekends aren’t much better, especially for parents. Most times Saturday mornings are full of karate, dance or music lessons, afternoons are for soccer or football practices or games, Saturday nights are spent ferrying kids to parties, picking them up or dropping them off at movies or friends houses or hosting said parties and get togethers. Even those without kids end up most Saturdays running all the errands that couldn’t be done during the week and cursing out any business that doesn’t have Saturday hours because how on earth are we supposed to contact them when their business hours are the same as our working hours? (I’m looking at you doctor’s offices!)

And then there are Sundays. For those so inclined, Sundays may include Sunday School and/or church, which precludes any sleeping in and may go so far as to include pot lucks or afternoon services, and there goes your day.

For those not so inclined, it may be the one day of the week we get to actually sleep in, unless of course you have kids, or cats, in which case you will be getting up at the same time of day as the rest of the week unless you want to be jumped on or poked awake with carefully calculated claws. Maybe, just maybe you will have time to actually get some housecleaning done, or run the car through the car wash, do some yard work, or maybe get a start on cleaning out that closet. Or maybe not. Maybe you will just spend Sunday afternoon in your pajamas, binge watching some show that takes you away from all the stresses and ridiculousness of the week. But sooner or later on Sunday, usually just after 3 p.m., you will get that sinking feeling that tells you that you only have a few precious hours left until it is time to get ready for the new week and start the whole routine over again.

Why do we do it?

Why do we insist on keeping ourselves so busy that we never seem to have time for anything that truly rests or refreshes us? When did we forget what it is like to simply take time for ourselves to rest and recharge our batteries? Why is self-care so rarely on our list of priorities?

It is easy enough to say that we are too busy to take time for ourselves. We can even justify it by saying that our obligations to our work, our families, our church or whatever other groups we are involved in, preclude us from spending any time on frivolous self-indulgences.

The real problem is in our determination to insist to ourselves that any time spent on self-care is “self-indulgence.” Oh sure, we might find that we can justify a daily trip to the gym (have to be able to fit into those pants!) or a once-a-month trip to a hair salon (can’t be looking shaggy/have my roots showing at work!) But how long has it been since you truly did anything for yourself; anything that can in no way be justified as necessary, but which makes you feel absolutely amazing?

It is said that the Italians have a saying; “Il dolce far niente”, which can be translated as “the sweetness of doing nothing”. While there is some argument as to whether it is actually an Italian term or if it was devised by English speakers of the 1800’s in describing what they saw as Italians’ laid-back approach to life, the fact remains that the idea of “doing nothing” or, more accurately, taking time to unwind and recharge, has a distinct appeal, an appeal that is backed up by psychology.

“Taking care of yourself means compassionately accepting yourself for who you are instead of burning yourself out trying to be everything to everyone all the time. It’s living your life in a way that doesn’t leave you needing to check out or take a break just so you can have a bath, read a book, or sip tea.”

Psychology Today, April 23, 2021

The problem is, our society is so focused on busyness and accomplishment that if we purposefully slow down our pace (let alone taking time out altogether) we get hit with a wave of guilt over all of the things that we could have been doing; of all the time ‘wasted.’

But time spent on recharging your personal batteries is never time wasted. After all, you can’t get any mileage out of a car that has no fuel, and you feel no guilt over spending the time to pull into a gas station or hook up to a recharging station. Neither should you feel guilty over taking the time to refill your own inner battery. In fact, if it feels better, tell yourself that by taking time every day to recharge you are being proactive, because it is a known fact that if you refuse to take time to rest and regroup, eventually your body will break down and force you to rest. It will give you no choice.

So don’t wait to be forced into taking care of yourself. Find the time now to recharge. Do it today. Do whatever it takes to replenish your battery; Stop and smell the roses. Take a walk in the forest. Sit on the beach and watch the waves come in. Plant a garden. Go cloud watching. Splash in the mud puddles. Dance in the rain. Stare into the eyes of your cat. Whatever makes you happy; whatever makes your soul smile and fills you with awe and wonder, make time to do that. You will be happy that you did.

The Power of Words

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

My Words are magic.

My pen is the magician’s wand, focusing the power of imagination

Creating people and worlds.

And painting those worlds with love and hate; with jealousy or passion

Adding highlights of courage or faith.

With the right words I can make you fall into or out of love

With me, with yourself, with the wonder and mystery of life.

With just the right combinations of words I can hide or reveal the truth.

I can change your view of the world around you.

With my choice of words, I can convince you to support a cause or to put your life in danger.

The most powerful words, however are those I whisper to myself in my own mind,

for it is those words that create the reality in which I live

and which, in turn, determines how I will use the gift of the words that I have been given.

-JustSteph

Words are powerful things.

Nearly every ancient culture has traditions telling of “words of power” that were used to focus divine power or harness specific earth energies in order to bring about a desired effect.

For millennia these words were closely guarded secrets. Only those initiated into a specific tradition were allowed to hear or write the word and learn how to direct its use. In fact, some cultures were so protective of their traditions that they forbade writing anything down and instead directed their followers to memorize all of their wisdom in order to prevent any uninitiated person from learning their trade secrets.

For generations, memorization and the oral tradition was the name of the game. Even once cultures became large enough that they needed to use alphabets and numbers to keep track of harvests and seasons and incomes and taxes, many mystery traditions insisted that their adherents only pass their secrets down by word of mouth.

As many mystery traditions began losing followers, either because of encroaching religions or invading armies, their adherents began using the written word to record their closely guarded secrets so that those secrets would not be lost altogether. But it was only with the invention of the printing press that major inroads into information previously passed down strictly through oral tradition began being made.

Today we tend to view the written word with a lot less wonder and amazement then did the people of ancient civilizations. In fact, everywhere you look there seem to be words written down; in books and magazines, on internet sites and online shops, on billboards and newspaper advertisements, on food labels and even the tags on pillows.

In fact, words in general seem to have lost so much of their power and ability to entrance and enchant, that many people find the written word to be boring. I mean, why bother writing down what you are thinking when you can do a quick Tik Tok, Facebook reel or Instagram video instead? But in spite of modern society’s blasé attitude toward words in general and the written word in particular, if you look carefully, you can still see just how much power those words still have over us.

Have you ever been moved to tears when reading a story about a child or an animal who had been abused or abandoned and then been rescued by some loving individual? Have you ever found your heart hurting as you read reports of death and destruction from whatever war or conflict is currently the center of media focus? Have you ever found yourself stirred to a love of your country by reading the transcript of a great leader’s speech, feeling annoyed as a politician recites everything that is wrong with society, or rooting for a specific cause after reading an activist’s plea? The stronger your emotional reaction to what you read, the more skilled you will find the writer of what you are reading.

Social media in particular is very much a public display of the power of words, even in a society to whom words in general are not of much consequence. With just a sharply worded comment you can cut someone down to size, shame them publicly, belittle them, or even goad them into committing suicide.

On the flip side, the right words can uncover the truth, help to bring peace, bolster someone’s self-esteem, encourage others to be their best selves and even save lives. Its all a matter of what we choose to do with the words that we use; whether we choose to use those words to spread fear and anger and intolerance, or to encourage love, peace and inclusion.

So, as you develop your skills as a word wizard, remember that the power of the written word is not something to be taken lightly. In addition to choosing your words carefully as you create worlds and the people who populate them, as you describe a product or a place or recall an event to share you’re your readers, remember to also think carefully before posting that scathing comment, belittling critique or sarcastic response.

Being honest or authentic in our responses does not require us to be cruel. It is quite possible that the words you choose, especially as you become skilled in how to provoke certain emotional responses from your readers, can have as much power as the ancients believed their own special, magical words to have on others and the world around them.

The choice of how you use your words is, of course, always up to you.