My Thoughts

original date 7/27/2015 Everyone deserves to be the hero of their own story. It is a concept that few people truly understand,  yet they strive to accomplish.  We seek the glory, honor or fame that will create in the minds of others a hero legend. I read the book " All my Puny Sorrows " a couple of months ago and the idea of each person being the hero of their own story was presented in a way I had not conceptualized.  Neither had I had thought about the concept of each person a hero in her / his own story  prior to that novel; but I have thought about it quite a bit since.   Being the hero of your own story is like being the jolly good fellow: you are the center of a story; you're the central focus -  the main person - the protagonist.  This sounds brilliantly clever, doesn't it?  I think all too often many people live with this ego-eccentric belief.  Sadly, if a person lives with this ideal, then to be a hero, you must have...

Tossing and turning and trying so hard to sleep - I could hear mom and dad arguing down the hall. I wish they’d stop, because the boys might wake up, and I’m just too tired to get them back to sleep.   Dad is telling mom that she has to stop drinking and using the rent money, and I know she’s crying. Geeze, I’ve heard ‘em all, excuses from behind that damn door. From behind the closed door creeps the sounds of poverty , echoes in my head  I think how great that would be for personification, so I grab my journal to add that note. My pen’s stuck in the crease of a poem.  I wrote this in class today as Ms. Patel droned on and on about the beauty of poetry and the deeper meanings it contains. Ms. Patel, sometimes poetry is just lines with meter and words that may or may not rhyme.   Sometimes a phrase that you may think is a simile or metaphor is just a reflection of the reality of the poet’s existence. These were the introductory remarks I wrote in class....

Having recently completed reading Sir Arther Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, I went online to do some research on the novel.  It's an interesting story, and I enjoyed the historical references to events in the U.S. West from the perspective of a Brit. I was a bit surprised that a Virginia school district removed the book from its 6th grade reading list due to a protest from a parent about the books proposed anti-Mormon ton e.  Seriously? An absence of blog posts regarding the removal decision does not exist.  Adding my own opinion to so many others may seem trivial, but I seriously had to make some comment about the decision to remove the book from the approved reading list.  Notice I did not mention "ban".  The book from simply removed from a 6th grade approved reading list.  The reason for its removal does, of course, smack of the same ignorance that caused mass book burnings in Germany in the last century. As any sensible person would recognize,...

What is the one thing that makes you happy?? My newest indulgance, a simple pleasure really, is the magazine " Real Simple". The newsstand price is $4.99, but I often can pick up a month old version at Half Priced Books for $1.98 or less. The January 2011 issue has an article about what makes one happy. Charles Shulze said 50 years ago that simple things such as french fries and a warm puppy make him happy. Readers sent in a variety of responses. In reflection, I thought about my own list of what makes me happy, and I realized it has been quite a while since I journaled my list. 1. Days like today.........early spring when the weather is still cool enough to have the windows open and the song birds are out. 2. The sounds of life in my house..........the washer/dryer and hum of the refrigerator. 3. Sharing in my daughters' lives. 4. Cooking. 5. Long shadows in early dusk. 6. A really good book. The last one I read was Paulo Coelho's "11 minutes: A Novel". 7....