Some Responses to Some Writing Prompts for Writing Practitioners

Some Responses

"No, it's not a chip; they're chips," the tween eye-rolls.

"Yea, but then one chip is a chip, cause the singular form for chips is chip," the other tween attempts.

"There is no singular form for chips," the eye-roller eye-rolls.

"Yes, there is," the attempter attempts.

"Oh, yea, what is it then?" the eye-roller challenges.

"It's CHIP. Cee, Aech, Iye, Pee. Chip. One chip," the attempter accepts.

"But that makes no sense. When would anyone ever use it? Hand me a chip? Where is the chip? I ate one chip? Do you have a chip?" the eye-roller laughs aloud.

"No, you don't..." the attempter attempts.

"No, you don't get it," the eye-roller dismisses with a flick of hair and a swift exit out of the kitchen.

^..^

The sandwich agreed to be there for you, and then you dropped it. 

^..^

Ladybug loathes being characterized as "disagreeable." The way that he'd put it is that he is very agreeable, but he does make it be known when he disagrees. "It's simple, really," Ladybug explains to nobody in particular. "If I agree, I agree. If I disagree, I disagree." 

But your character, I attempt, is disagreeable. "According to you," Ladybug scoffs. But I'm the teller of this story. "Then get it right," Ladybug huffs, middle legs crossed, but then upon hearing this, hanging loosely at his sides along with his other two sets of legs. "Stop it!" Ladybug shouts. "I'm not shouting!" Ladybug shouts. Ladybug sighs. "And all of the other characters wonder why I think cats suck?" Ladybug laments. "Oh, now you're silent," Ladybug marches off. "I'm not marching! This is how I walk," Ladybug snaps around, all six legs akimbo, scolding, and upon hearing this all three pairs of legs waft into the air as if Ladybug has lost his patience. 

"Stop characterizing me as such an asshole," Ladybug spits over his left shoulder as his shell, "It's not a shell!," releases his wings for flight. "Shut! Up!" 

It's like I said, Ladybug is disagreeable. 

"I can still hear you! And I am not!" Ladybug's faint voice reaches the plane of existence. Nobody agrees.

^..^

Authority was never something to which she was good at submitting. She's always been self-employed. Of the small-business ilk, her business will die with her, but it's been a good business, consistent, reliable, steady, enjoyable. But now, she's old, literally; she thought this day would never dawn, but here she is now, fretting about the sunset days of her life. She's been in her prime for so long, and even now, feels as if she only has upward to go, but the energy. Everything is a drain. She never realized that that was the problem. That surge, that vivacious go-get 'em attitude has faded. It's still there; she can rely upon it maybe once every other week, and when she does, she's exhausted for nearly a week after, recuperates for another week, and then she has another go-get 'em day; one splendid day with enough energy to feel young again.

And so, it's annoying that she must hold down a job. That she must do more work beyond her small business. Yes, the small business sustains her, but it does not make her money unless she does the work. And jobbing is such a drag. She wanted something easy. So why is she doing this stupid job full-time? Part-time is not enough to ever be able to retire. She frets. She feels the weight of economic anxiety with every achy back, every morning waking as if she's a wooden plank, every grumble of the tummy when she didn't eat exactly as she knows she must in order to not upset her fragile system. 

She can see the changing of the guard happening right beneath her nose, and she feels worthless. All of the work that she's done, all of the life she's contributed, she is invisible. Her life has amounted to, what?, her life, a life shared with no one, a life unknown to anyone except... her. 

Where does one go? She never wanted fans, although she has fans. All she ever needed was a friend. 

^..^

It is never a matter of belief; it's a matter of taste. Good taste can get you a lot of things that being quirky cannot. But then the individuality of the individual is lost when taste is something about which we can all agree. Someone is specifically quirky because their taste is not the same as that which is deemed "good."

Even though most would not agree that she had good taste, she did. 

Some Writing Prompts for Writing Practitioners

Another Monfri, bc I wholeheartedly believe that I will not be doing this job for very long (a year, maybe even less, not like the 30+ years jobbed by those who have made a career of it, etc.), &so, this 'career-like' job is a bit of a novel experience, imho + a bit of an outline of my jobbing history, etc.

 

i've never worked a full-time job, full-time before, now.

I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in May of 2010, two years later than my age would suggest I "should've"graduated, but I dropped out after my junior year at Baylor University for reasons that revolved around my misery. As an aspiring artist, born poor, meaning that college had to be funded by student loans, I was in a hurry to graduate, not wanting to add an extra semester to my studies, because, at Baylor, that would be another $20K or so, at the time.

As a high school graduate, I was awarded tons of money to attend school, and I started my college career is a pre-med student, but that was when I didn't know myself at all, and so, I switched majors, the financial death of any poor student. Since I was "behind," I ended up taking three studio art classes both semesters of my junior year, and I burnt myself out. In short, I quit and moved to Syracuse, New York, to dance full-time. 

After a year of dancing, my mind had turned to mush, because, for me, dancing is not intellectually stimulating enough, and so, by the end of one year with the dance company for which I danced, I was enrolled at CU to finish up my degree.

I had so many credits from Baylor as a BFA that I had already completed a BA in Studio Art by CU standards. Nevertheless, because college is a complete racket, I had to take "required classes" that had nothing to do with my major on CU campus to complete my major, e.g. a sequential science class with a lab, along with a handful of other things that had to be done in sequence, so all in all, I had two years of classes to complete, but only had about six classes that needed to be completed. 

Since my scholarships didn't go into effect unless I was a full-time student, I ended up taking Art History classes to round out my schedule and graduated with two BAs, one in Studio Art and one in Art History. 

Then I went off and got my first full-time job sewing alterations on fur coats in Cherry Creek, Denver, Colorado, USA. 

And it was at this job that I received my first worker's compensation checks after my boss (the owner of the shop) ignorantly decided to work on a steel pole that was holding up a bunch of fur coats, directly over my head, as I was standing under it. 

The four-inch thick steel pipe fell, landed on my head, and smashed my face into the counter in front of which I had been standing, doing my job. My nose broke, and I was diagnosed as 90% disabled due to the whiplash effect of being hit on the back of the head.

Eight months passed as I healed from nose surgery and lived off of worker's comp, attended physical therapy, and tried my best to stay sane. In the meantime, on good days, the bodybuddy/lifemate and I worked on getting our business ideas off the ground because I was unable to hold down a full-time job. I did a few odd jobs between the end of 2011 and the middle of 2013, but nothing substantial, and certainly nothing full-time. I worked a three-month, full-time contract job behind a computer and barely made it through the three months. Computer work really strains my neck in a way that creates non-stop migraines.Writing this here piece, on my computer, is straining my neck as we speak. 

And then we went off to Seoul, South Korea, where I worked a few hours a week as a private tutor, jobbed one month in the summer and one month in the winter during Summer and Winter Intensives (if you know, you know), and wrote two books, Red & Blue Make Green and Bromides (I'm currently working on Book Three, working title, The Listmaker), over the five years we were there.

Then we left, and I developed a writing class called Writing Practitioners while we were living in Auckland, New Zealand, and I hosted my five-part series, and then we moved to Seattle, Washington, USA, and I waited tables and hosted a few writing classes there until I quit when I realized that that is not what I want to do with my time, although, I am still available as a Writing Practitioners Captain, because I do like the idea of helping others become better writers, etc. (see A Writer's Rate Sheet). In short, my physical limitations have limited my job options to hourly-wage labor.

Then we moved to Colorado, USA, just before the pandemic hit, and so, I didn't job at all during 2020, because we had learned what we needed to learn with regards to our financial literacy and finally "had money," etc. 

Then 2021 rolled around, and I was so bored, that I thought that I'd get myself a part-time job, so I did. I started at the lowest pay rate at Albertson's/Safeway as a Fresh Cut Clerk. I was paid $12.10/hr for about three months before accruing every raise at the fastest rate possible, because, well, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'm very good at jobbing, because I'm an intelligent perfectionist who is aware of her own intellectual capabilities, etc. In short, I went from the lowest tiered paid worker to maxed-out pay in two years, and I jobbed three different jobs within the same grocery store. The bodybuddy/lifemate, during all of this time, has been jobbing his adorable, tight ass off making ends meet, and even jobbed part-time at a sandwich shop through the pandemic until he got a part-time job with me at Safeway.

Then we relocated to Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA, because we wanted to, and we transferred to a Safeway here. 

Our plan was to keep doing what we were doing. I would work part-time in the bakery. The bodybuddy/lifemate would work part-time in whatever night-shift stocking positions were available. But then, an interesting thing happened. The Director of the store asked if I was available full-time, to which I responded, it depends. 

My jobbing history informed me that I am not really physically capable of working behind a desk full-time, so I've never sought jobs like that, and my physical capabilities also prohibit me from doing too much repetitive physical action full-time as well. And so, when the Director asked, I was hesitant yet intrigued. 

Then I went for it. I said that I'd learn the job and see how I feel about it. It's a job that's a mix of computer tasks and physical labor. It's sorta perfect. After three weeks of training and two weeks of deciding whether or not I could physically do the job, consistently (intellectually, the job is well below my intellectual capabilities, etc., because, after all, it is hourly-wage labor), I finally officially applied for the position, interviewed, and started being paid $23/hr for a minimum of forty-hours a week (it is also an overnight position, which means I am paid a $2/hr bonus between midnight and 0500 [this, i later found out, is not true at this location {updated 05Sep24}]). 

That was the beginning of July. And now it's the middle of September.

And so, I am confident that I can physically accomplish the job, and I job full-time for the first time in my adult life at the ripened age of thirty-seven. 

Jobbing full-time is definitely something that I've had to get used to, because, unlike a lot of my peers who have been jobbing full-time since graduating from college, I am only just now jobbing full-time, over a decade after not jobbing full-time. 

The upside of my first-job disaster is that the bodybuddy/lifemate and I have been solely focused on freeing ourselves financially, and honestly, this is the greatest gift we could've given to ourselves, and honestly, my workplace injury deserves a lot of credit for our grit.

But since we've been planting our entrepreneurship seeds for over a decade, we are nearing the phase of bearing our fruit, right at the moment I finally have a full-time job that I not only like but also, that I can physically accomplish. Oh the irony of life makes it all worth the misery, doesn't it?

Thus, I am confident that I will not be jobbing this full-time job very long. We've been feeling the g-force of our exponential liftoff since about the middle of last year (2022), which, to us, means that we are very near succeeding at our own entrepreneurial endeavors.

I honestly have no idea what "succeeding" looks like, because we're in the business of bringing to life that which has yet to be brought to life, and so, I don't know what my life is going to look like, exactly, but I do know that my professional life is about to change. I can feel it. I can feel something coming, and I am beginning to feel confident that that coming something is our rocket lifting off, and I've been seriously preparing myself for this liftoff for the past six weeks or so. 

All of our hard work toward financial freedom has already paid off. We're financially literate, and money is no scary thing. Our entrepreneurial endeavors, however, have yet to pay out, but I believe very strongly that we are there, right at that "moment of lift," and it feels... fucking amazing. 

In short, I jobbed my way through a corporate ladder and climbed from the literal bottom to the top of the bottom (I'm a manager of a department) in two-and-a-half years. I only highlight this because you can, too. There are a lot of hourly-wage laborers who couldn't give two shits about their job, and so, they do them poorly. Sure, they get their scheduled raises, but they are going nowhere, fast. And so, if you want to get somewhere, all you have to do is care about your job a little. Not a lot, and definitely not TOO much. This is not about the inequity of wage labor, because I don't have time for that, right now, although, it's becoming abundantly clear that I need to write about wage-labor, more succinctly, sooner rather than later. I have, however, already created and described a new type of business model that could ease the the pinch on hourly-wage labor, generally speaking. Nevertheless...

Don't get it twisted; your employer doesn't care about you, so don't give them anymore than what's required, but at the very least, do what's required of you. This simple distinction will make you stand out, and you will rise through whatever company you're jobbing for. It's a fact. 

And now, I'm in a position that would really set me up well as an hourly-wage laborer for the next thirty+ years, but the timing couldn't be more prescient, because I am also at the very cusp of no longer needing a job or an employer, because our businesses are making our own work for us. AH! The irony. *sigh*

Anyway, I have no point as this was a mere outline. But I suppose if a point needs to be made, it's that, as a poor human on planet Earth, you can job for an employer while you work to financially free yourself. You don't need to quit your job while you pursue your dreams. And you don't need to give up your dreams because of your job.

If you want, you can do it all.   

Eat the goddamn sandwich.

After the sandwich arrived, they waited forty-eight hours, and then they slept on it.

It's been a year since they slept on the sandwich.

The sandwich knows how heavy you are.

She's desperate, desperate, did you hear me?, to make sure that everyone knows that she's better than the sandwich. Do you know the type? Pretentious, "I don't eat anything out of a can, and I sure as hell don't eat anything packaged, especially my baked goods; they are all freshly handmade, only; well, except bread, I buy the most. expensive. bread." 

The sandwich can hear you.

It's always what someone warns you against that reveals to you who they are, for example: the nastiest person will always warn you that the sandwich is nasty; the person who's out to get you will always complain about how the sandwich is the enemy; and the person who schemes to destroy you insists that the world is full, full I tell you, of people who only want to harm you, that the sandwich just wants to spew negativity into the world. 

Blessed are the poor, for they are meek, or really, for those in power, it's best that the poor remain meek and powerless, in love with the sandwich, because we outnumber them 1,000 to 1. 

She doesn't hate the sandwich; she hates from where the sandwich came. 

The sandwich insists that you always listen to the ass-holes; they are confident in their ability to release shit into the world. You were warned. 

Being is not enough. The sandwich says that you must also earn your place in this world. Others, lesser beings, say that you are enough, that you, just you, deserve every happiness. The sandwich disagrees. 

Remembering that, yea, none of this matters, but you're here, so try to enjoy the ride?

DISCLAIMER: Trigger Warning | Suicide Ideation

Linus finishes his spiel for Rusty, Rusty asks, "You scared?" 

to which Linus responds, "You suicidal?" 

to which Rusty scoff/giggles, "Only in the morning." 

To me, it is because of my deep, deep appreciation for this exchange (and my general lamentations with regards to my wanting it all to end, be over already, etc.) that the bodybuddy/lifemate looked at me recently and said, "I read that children of trauma are oftentimes so low-key suicidal, that they don't even think to mention it to their therapists." 

I was busy at the time of his stating this, randomly, out loud one day, on my computer doing something or other, and since I'm parked at the end of his desk, having cutout a space for myself on his desk, I looked at him, and said, "Yea. I've never even thought to mention it to any of my past therapists." 

And then he sorta shrugged (it's not a shrug; it's a very bodybuddy/lifemate-specific movement that he does with his body wherein others would shrug) and went on with his whatever he was doing before he said what he said out loud.

I've been legally bound to him as his property for some time now, and I've known him even longer. So, generally speaking, when words come out of his mouth, you listen, cause he's a fucking double-air sign.

And then we started talking about how I am, actually, very suicidal in the mornings, no joke. Always have been, and that line, especially coming out of the character Rusty (I don't care much for Brad, generally, but that character, *muah* he played it well) at exactly that moment makes me feel a small kinship with the writer of that interaction. I feel like, yea, the guy who wrote those lines knows. He knows, and then I don't feel so alone in the world. It's also entirely possible that he just thought it'd be a funny line, but whatever, I can believe whatever I want about this cause, at the end of the day, we're talking about a movie. 

I never really knew that other people didn't have just a low-boil swirl in their heads about suicide, ending it all, etc. I had no clue. I thought I was "normal," in this regard, but I am not. 

I also don't feel ill, because my psychological make-up isn't hindering me from living my life, and it's not debilitating. It is there, though, all the time. A slow, dull nagging. 

... nevertheless, "Callin' it quits now, baby, I'm a wreck" ...

This week, we've been monitoring how what we do before I go to bed affects my psychological state when I awake. We've discussed what exactly it is that's happening to me when I wake up, and we've come to the realization that I sleep really deeply, like really super-fucking hard. And so, when I wake, my mind slowly becomes burdened by the weight of me, my life, living, life, in general. 

And for me, it's a lot. 

I'm not entirely sure why my trauma has affected me like this, and I'm sure if I paid a professional to listen to me, we would nail down the specifics more succinctly, but I digress. 

Over the past week or two, my mornings have actually improved, and for me, simply acknowledging my suicidal feelings out loud has really dampened them, given them less power by making them smaller by speaking them aloud, releasing them from the interior space of my mind to be freed and looked at in the real world, and in the real world, my thoughts regarding the taking of my own life, the ending of all this ... is-ness, the wanting of it all to just. be. over. shrinks to a size that looks manageable. It's not scary. I'm not scared; I'm suicidal.

The struggle, for me, is not about whether or not I'm going to kill myself. I will not. I love life. I'm more like the character 22 (I fucking cried my eyes out during that movie, because 22's perspective was so poignant, etc.), not really liking anything specific, feeling a bit lost like I have no purpose, but then the feel of the breeze, the giggles giggled, the fun-ness of life ... I love it. 

But my mind makes up all sorts of reasons why it's all so pointless, and I trudge through my day, making my way through a dark corridor where there is a speck of light that catches my curiosity, and so, really, I am wholly grateful that, at the end of the day, I am a curious person. 

the bathos is inescapable.

An Unabridged Review | Yoga w/ @Journey2Antoinette

I quit yoga for reasons that I've already discussed in the past and that I would rather not re-hash at this particular moment in time, because this is not about that. Instead, my task is an attempt to make others see someone the way that I see them, and that someone is Antoinette aka @Journey2Antoinette, my yoga teacher. 

I could easily droll on about the banal, but that's boring. 

[DISCLAIMER: I do not hope to define Antoinette as a yoga teacher, I am merely sharing my perception of her as a yoga teacher, and yes, I am human, and humans are flawed, and so, my perception may be very flawed. Nevertheless, this is the way that I see her, not who she is. Please remember this when reading this review.]

In short, Antoinette is an outlier; she's different; she's special. Mainstream yoga does not include people like her, and as much as they give lip service to diversity, the diversity is lacking. And so, Antoinette has been watching the yoga world from the outside. 

For me, this is Antoinette's greatest gift. She is, obviously, very intelligent, and so, because yoga is what she thinks about, what she has decided to put her mind to, her unique perspective has shaped her into a type of yoga teacher that is the greatest gift that any of us could hope to receive. Maybe she won't be a yoga teacher forever (I do not know her life's goals/plans/dreams), but that hardly matters as long as she continues to share her mind with us. 

In my opinion, that's what a teacher does. They share their minds with us. They use their minds to think about stuff, and then they teach everyone else who doesn't use their minds to figure stuff out. I use my mind for other things, and I pretty much never think about yoga. This is why Antoinette is my teacher. She thinks about yoga, and I pay to have access to her thoughts about yoga. 

Through her classes, she shares her ideology by coming up with sequences through which we can flow, and as we are flowing, we are given insight into her mind and what she thinks about when she's flowing, and how she thinks about yoga, in general. 

Her perspective is what I appreciate the most about her classes. Every yoga teacher from whom I've taken class has a way about them, a patter, a stream of consciousness that is expressed verbally while they guide us through a flow. Antoinette, to me, is the type of guide who creates safety. She doesn't make you feel bad about yourself or your body. She's creative and creates a fluid space where you can be whatever kind of you you are.

Her classes may not seem physically challenging or totally extreme, because her classes are not about the shapes. Her classes are about the way that the shapes make you feel. She effortlessly connects you to your mind and to your body. I honestly do not know how she accomplishes this, especially when considering that I am taking her classes through a computer screen, across the distance of the internet. 

If you're looking for a way to get your body into a particular shape, Antoinette's class isn't really that type of class, and I really hope that this is not misconstrued as a bad thing. This is a great thing, in my opinion. 

And so, if you're like me and you're seeking a yoga teacher who guides you through class with the purpose of connecting you to yourself so that you can feel, so that you can have space to heal, so that you can have room to grow, then Antoinette is the class for you. You will also sweat. So I do not mean to make it sound like her class is not physically challenging. It is still physically challenging, if you allow her to be your guide. But the point is to use the physical motions to create a connection with your internal self, as opposed to mainstream yoga, which feels, to me, more like a means to an outward ends. 

After a month of classes with Antoinette, I have, undoubtedly, returned to my yoga practice, and she is fully to blame for bringing me back to a practice wherein the goal is not for the world, but rather, the goal has shifted to be about me bettering myself through the wisdom that she has gained by being an outlier. 

Every single person who has changed the world has been an outlier. I imagine that Antoinette is no exception.

@Journey2Antoinette on Instagram

@Journey2Antoinette on Facebook

in the Embers, now we glow.

I learned a hard lesson when I killed a plant by photographing it too much. &so, ever since that event, I've been conscientious about which plants I do and do not photograph.

It's become apparent to me—since having houseplants of my own to take care of, starting at about twenty-five years of age, back in 2010 when the bodybuddy/lifemate &I moved in together to start our life together, etc.—that some plants do not like to be photographed, just like any living thing with preferences, etc.

I tried to grow an apple seed that was already sprouting when I cut an apple in half, sometime back in 2019, whilst living in Seattle, WA, USA. I cut an apple in half, and one of the seeds fell out, and it was sprouting. I planted it, and photographed it, basically, every day. 

It died shortly after growing real leafy leaves.

Its death made me sad, and I, obviously, blamed myself. 

I learned, later on, that you absolutely cannot grow an apple seed indoors, etc., so it wasn't really my fault, except that my ignorance prohibited me from knowing better than to even try, etc. 

Nevertheless, 

[a diamond-shaped sign that reads "DETOUR AHEAD" appears in the foreseeable distance... ]

There's some Swae Lee song from the first Spider-Man whatever animated movie, and he sings "never-the-less" as three distinct syllables. Respect.

[you hit a bump, and the sign ahead reads, "END CONSTRUCTION ZONE"]

damn it, now i've forgotten what i was trying to say (thank you, gummies). 

I felt sad, because I realized that I photograph a lot of foliage, and it doesn't have the opportunity to request that I not. &so, since that fated day finding that my apple seed would not continue living indoors, I've taken the time to get to know my plants before I photograph them. When outdoors, I try not to take too many pictures, and I try to keep my distance. And, I always try to let them have enough time to get a whiff of me before I start snapping, and if I'm just not getting a good angle on the thing, I take the hint, and leave it alone. 

For my houseplants, I always take a snap from a distance, nonchalant, nothing special, just looking over there, and oh, sorry, I snapped a pic. That sorta thing. Then I wait a week or two to see how it responds. If it starts looking more photogenic, I take note and hope that I will be inspired to photograph it some day in exactly the right light, etc. And then, if the day comes when I'm looking at it, and it just looks irresistible, I inevitably grab whichever camera will do the work best and snap some pics. 

What I know so far is that our first houseplant, [name redacted, for its safety], does not want to be photographed. How I know is private, but I know. Our second houseplant must be some kinda Leo, cause yea, it's, well, you're about to see. And our third houseplant has yet to be snapped at a distance as we just acquired it yesterday. It's a beauty, which is giving me the feeling that it will either die upon taking its first from-a-distance snap, out of rage at my vanity, or it will thrive beyond measure, so much so that it'll require its own instagram, etc. Only time will tell. 

*deep breath in*

And we're here now. 

I took a "no-biggie" snap of our second houseplant maybe two weeks ago or so, and since then, well, let's just say it must be some sorta camera whore, cause, damn, it's a fucking beauty. And then, yesterday, Ladybug caught me, and I snapped a ton of pics with Baby Kenneth (my best camera) loaded with the prime lens.   

I share the best of the bunch with you now.

Happy (what the fuck day is it? checks computer settings) Sunday.

 

She's a scab.

You know, that thing, when you're wounded, and it appears to support your healing, and then, when you're all healed up, she leaves, never to be seen or heard from, ever again, and even though she leaves remnants in your scar, she's gone. She's beloved and loathed in equal measure.

^..^

Why isn't this ship going anywhere? This ship just goes around and around the Sun. I'm so bored I could die, and the dominant species is so primitive that it's constantly at war, with ITSELF! 

^..^

And they dream... of wage labor. 

^...^

And they're actively destroying the one ship that is their only home. Literally, they know exactly how to save their ship and themselves, yet, they refuse. Earth is an odd place; it is. 

Monfri plus one Friyay, because we, as millennials, have a responsibility to show the next generation that jobbing, going to a fucking job, and spending most of your free waking hours at some goddamn job, is normal, one-hundred percent, absolutely fucking normal, and because i keep the highlights to myself, cause the internet deserves nothing more than the scraps, so don't get it twisted thinking that i'm serving up any flex or brag through my pics & posts, ugh. You're clueless unless you're experiencing me in the flesh.

Dream job? I don't dream of jobbing. 

Striving toward wealth has nothing to do with not wanting to work, and yes, working and jobbing are two completely different things. If you need an explainer, then you prolly need to read more, in general, nevertheless, I will explain myself.

A job is where you go make money for someone else or some entity owned by shareholders (people who have invested in a company that is financially made available to the public to invest in, financially). You are doled out meager wages (your hourly wage, e.g. the federal minimum wage in these United States is $7.25/hr., which means that every hour you are at a job, on the clock, for your employer, they MUST pay you no less than $7.25 for every hour that you are on the clock) in exchange for "doing" (in quotes bc it's apparent that some people do not actually have to do their jobs well) some meager task(s). 

The company at which I am currently employed, has a $12 (and some change) minimum, which means that they pay its employees more than the federal minimum. 

My point is that the wages, no matter what they are, are meager. When compared to the wages earned by those who sit in cubicles, the wages of the people who actually do the on-the-ground jobs are criminally low. Physical labor is no more or less valuable than brain labor. This is a simple fact. 

That's jobbing.

Work is all the stuff you do to make money for yourself and/or your own business/companies. Decades may pass as you work with zero income coming in, thus you job for someone else in the meantime. My work largely consists of thought thinking and word working. THE thing for which the world absolutely hates to pay. Ironically, nobody wants to pay for it because they think that anybody can do it because everyone knows how to do it, but this does not mean that anyone does it well. 

And so, I toil away at my work as a thought thinker and word worker. 

My weeks consist of spending five of my glory-given days at some job that doles me out meager wages, and I have the few hours in-between sleeping and on weekends to work my work. I am allotted two days off every five days from my job, and over time, I accrue sick pay, vacation days, float days, and meager retirement funds. Basically, the job that I currently hold is one that pays me so poorly that I will have to literally die before I could quit my job. Well, not ME, specifically, cause I have the sort of financial intelligence that this will not be the case for ME, but for "me" as a day-jobber, the larger "you," will have to work until we die. 

This is the case for most people, and so, the fact that GenZ is not getting out there and jobbing is troubling to me, and one of the main reasons why I think they have failed to understand that the internet does not dole out money the way that it thinks it does is because of social media. They are under this impression that they can somehow "make it" online, go viral, have a following that financially sustains them. This is never going to happen to YOU. It's like winning the lottery, and people who play the lottery as their "job," well, go out and find that person and meet them, and find out how "great" their life is, etc.

Anyway, my point is that we all need to come to terms on SOCIALS that we all go to a fucking job; we all job for someone, like little beggars being doled out cash to show up and do some meager jobbing tasks, etc., etc., etc. And we're supposed to be grateful for these titans of industry employing us. Barf. But seriously, we're supposed to be grateful. 

Also, this is capitalism. But that's a post for another time. Well, actually, that's an entire website of posts that I've already written and uploaded elsewhere, that "where" being LOPSIII.com, that's "lop-see" dot com. 

*sigh* Happy Saturday, lol. 

Get a fucking job! 

MONDAY
finally had enough energy
to cook after jobbing
the poor bodybuddy/lifemate
has been coming up with and cooking
all of our meals for like two months

TUESDAY
I looked at my phone at 0123
quickly got onto IG
used the daily filter I love so much
bc it specifically only works in-app
(no fudging the day/time)
&snapped this selfie
nailed it.

WEDNESDAY
a co-production
w/ the bodybuddy/lifemate
yommy.

THURSDAY
I'm not entirely sure why
but it has taken me two and a half months
to realize that I haven't used our lanai
so we started using it
*sigh*

FRIDAY
the bodybuddy/lifemate and I
job the same shift on M/W/F
he works T/R
naturally, we take our breaks together
is the best.

FRIYAY
a nondescript pic of our friyay
cause its a buncha noneya
the highlights are for that afk life  

Clamber we will, if clamber, we must.

On this day (I honestly cannot remember the exact date, and I do not wish to rummage through documents to find the exact date, because this date is close enough) in 2013, the bodybuddy/lifemate and I touched down in Daegu, South Korea, from Denver, Colorado, USA, because the bodybuddy/lifemate snagged a job as an English teacher. We were shooting for Seoul, but after landing in Daegu, we ended up being very grateful that we were able to spend our first year in a smaller city. By September 2014, the bodybuddy/lifemate snagged a spot in a Seoul academy, etc. At the time we first landed in Daegu, we experienced some serious growing pains, but the pain was different. How do I put it?

Imagine standing at the base of a large staircase, a set of stairs wherein the next step is many meters above your head. You jump to try to reach the next step, and as you're jumping up, someone grabs you by the back of your shirt and sorta pulls you up onto the next step. This is what it was like to move to Korea to teach English. 

Yes, you still have to jump, but the process of relocating to Korea is largely supported by the institution that hired you to teach. They setup your visa; they setup your flight; they setup your airport pickup; they setup your housing; they setup your training, etc., etc., etc. You are thrust into your life very rapidly, and the stress of it all is too much for some would-be teachers to bear. Nevertheless, you're there, and it's all happening to you. As long as you can hang on for the ride, the stress and burden of reaching that next step levels out. 

In 2023, our move to Oahu has been a completely different sorta jump.

Imagine a cat. It looks up at a thing onto which it wants to jump. It peddles its back feet a bit. Stares up at the height it imagines it can jump to reach the height of the thing upon which it wishes to be. Its butt wriggles back and forth until it finally decides that it will jump. It jumps. Its front feet reach the height, but only about its chest makes it over the ledge, and then it has to reach one of its back feet up to the edge of the ledge and clamber its way onto the thing it tried so effortfully to summit. Maybe thirty whole seconds go by as it scrambles to get itself comfortably atop the thing. 

This is what our move to Oahu has felt like. We knew how high we were attempting to jump. We made all of the necessary measurements. We took in as much information as we could. But at the end of the day, we did not know anyone here. We have had zero help aside from the internet to get here. And at some point, we had to jump. We jumped as hard and as high as we could; we also had to drag along our unfueled rocket. We were strong enough to reach the ledge, and then we had to clamber our way over the ledge's edge and essentially roll our bodies onto the top of the next step. 

It was rough, unglamorous, a bit clumsy, and I've had more meltdowns in the past three months than I've had in my entire life before then.  

But we fucking did it. 

We fucking moved our life to Oahu. 

And along the way, I lost sight of our goal. 

I lost sight of myself. 

I lost sight of what our move has all truly been about. 

The point of our move was not to make some grand statement about how "we've made it," or whatever the fuck. Instead, when we were easing out of the pandemic, we looked at each other, and thought out loud about how, if this is our life (the life we were living in Colorado, working day jobs as our businesses grow), where would we, ideally, live, while doing the exact same thing (working day jobs as our businesses grow)?

Joking, we both said, Hawai'i (we had skid stopped through over the course of a 72-hour layover between Auckland, NZ, and Seattle, WA back in 2018). Neither of us knew that the other had, essentially, fallen in love with the place over those 72 hours. 

But then we looked into it, and the goal was never to prove anything. The goal was to simply relocate. If we are going to job day jobs, we'll just job day jobs in Hawai'i. And back in late 2022, we started seriously planning our relocation.

By April 2023, our plans would be put to the test, and our plan worked.

What failed was my own internal struggle with my own dissatisfaction by not "being someone" by now. I had crossed some wires at some point between April and June, wherein I was thinking of this relocation as some proof of my success, my having "made it," until one day, the bodybuddy/lifemate gently reminded me that that was never the point of our move. The point was simple. Move our current life to Hawai'i. That's it. 

We still have the mundane task of day jobbing to do, and the daunting task of fueling our rocket, but we got good day jobs (we stayed with the same company), and our rocket made it in tact. We fucking moved to Hawai'i. And we're simply living our everyday life here. We haven't "made it," yet. We have nothing to prove. We simply wanted to live the simple life we were living in Colorado in a place that we thought we'd love enough to finally settle down in and call home. 

^..^

According to the bodybuddy/lifemate, I have BIG DREAMS. For one, I am an orphan who believes she can be a billionaire. Two, I am not a nepo baby, which means I have no fancy connections, who dares to be a widely-read writer. Third, I'm under the impression that (as a normal person) I can attain both of the aforementioned before turning thirty (I'm thirty-seven). 

I laughed out loud when the bodybuddy/lifemate put my dreams/aspirations in these terms for me to understand myself. 

The point, he says, is that I am living my life in pursuit of these goals, and the goals that I've set for myself will take a lifetime to attain, reach, behold. They are, according to him, BIG GOALS, BIG DREAMS. In short, I want a BIG LIFE. But I've really come from very little. I am a 99 Percenter trying to escape into the one percent of the One Percent. 

And then I felt stupid and selfish. 

But then I felt happy.

I felt really proud of what we've accomplished. The point was never to be done jobbing, because we've "made it." The point was always to continue living our simple lives, here, in Hawai'i. Showing up to our lame-ass jobs to collect our lame-ass paychecks as we continue to build our businesses and fuel our rocket. Then, when our rocket is finally fueled, Hawai'i is our location of residence, the place to where we will come home after our months-long business trips take us around the world and in and out of D.C. 

When we think of our life as a pair who has attained their lifetime goals, we will need the stability of a home base, a place where all our stuff is stashed while our business takes us wherever our clients need us. As a vacation hot spot, having Hawai'i as our home means that when we are home, we are not working, which essentially means we'll be on vacation when we're home. 

In the present moment, however, we are not on vacation. We drag our asses to our day jobs, and we live our mundane lives in this tropical paradise. This is not a bad situation. This is not a situation about which I should be complaining. And so, my deepest hope is that I have not been misunderstood as a complainer for having successfully relocated my life to one of the most expensive places on the planet.

When understood, my lamentations revolve around my own personal dissatisfaction with reaching my personal goals and dreams. But like the bodybuddy/lifemate reminds me on the daily (something it seems he's decided to take upon himself), my dreams are enormous. They're of the biggest variety. And dreams and goals like mine will take a lifetime to attain. 

This perspective shift (along with a dynamite video by @kiesha_evolving) has helped me understand both how spoiled I am (having gifts and talent at all) and how far I've come (putting my gifts and talents to good use).

My soul has found a new peace. 

I have nothing to prove to anyone.

Every day, I am inching closer and closer to my goals and dreams.

Like the bodybuddy/lifemate continually reminds, I have BIG GOALS, the type of dreams that require a lifetime of striving. To be able to work toward my goals, at all, is a life worth loving. 

a Midsommar (not the summer solstice version but rather, the middle-of-summer style) Saturday Arbitrary Day

When we moved here, we started new jobs for the same company, and when we started our new jobs, I decided to go by my birth name turned middle name, Sun. The name given to me at the time of my birth is a name that my birth grandfather chose, which was the name 선 (Sun or Seon; my paperwork has it spelled Sun), which means that my Korean name is 김선 or Kim Sun. My birth family name is Kim. I'm a Kim, and my first name is Sun (yes, it's odd that I have a single-syllable name as a Korean, and I wrote about this a while back after feeling certain feels when Koreans would ask me if I had a Korean name and I'd tell them, and then they'd look at me like so sad, because they thought that a] my paperwork was wrong, or b] I didn't actually know, so I was making it up or something). 

Anywhooo, when I was adopted two months before turning four, my adopted parents decided to give me a white name. To this day, I do not understand the logic behind giving me a new name at all. I was FOUR YEARS OLD, which means that I had been being called "Sun" for all of my life. I knew my name. I recognized being called Sun. My birth mother, to this day, still calls me Sun, not Kim Sun, just Sun or something like Sun-ee-ya. 

My point is that my birth family looked upon my face upon my birth, and my birth grandfather gave me my name. They were the people who saw my face as a little baby infant and decided to name me Sun. Later, when times got tough, I was dropped off at an orphanage and internationally adopted to the United States. I blame no one. I understand Korea's history.

Again, I do not understand why my adopted parents would give me a new name, and why is that new name so White?

If I'm being really honest, I've wanted to go by Sun since about the sixth grade, but society makes changing one's name seem so odd and strange that I didn't work up the nerve to ask to go by my birth name until this year, at the ripe age of thirty-seven. 

And so, here in Hawai'i, at my place of employment, everyone calls me Sun, and quite frankly, everyone knows me as Sun, and it feels so strange, and it brings me an odd sense of peace-discomfort. 

At this point, I really have no point, because the rest of this post is pics from our Midsommar Saturday Arbitrary Day. We decided a few weeks back, that once I've settled into my new job and started receiving paychecks at my new pay, we'd do some vacationing on our weekends, and so, this was the first big official weekend, so we celebrated an Arbitrary Day.

First, we walked out to the place where all knowledge is kept, wherein I accidentally walked into the courtyard and took some pics of some beautiful foliage, but then realized that there were signs everywhere asking that we NOT walk through the courtyard, so then I was horrified and embarrassed, and promptly deleted all of the pics I took, hence the [redacted] photo below.

Then, we walked out to Goodwill to pick up some more kitchen stuff of which we are in need, and on the way, we stopped by the Golden Arches for some tasty lunch, and while we were there, we wondered when United Statesian Mackey's got so classy, cause they are classy in Seoul, but this was the first on U.S. soil we've visited that is Seoul-level classy, etc.

Then, we swung through Daiso for more kitchen stuff and fun stuff to include in my first-ever IG Giveaway :)

And then, the best day ended on the best note ever. We went back to the posh grocery store (one we only discovered last weekend) where we saw a plant that we need-needed, bought the plant, and walked our new roommate home.

For dinner, we finished up the leftovers from Friday and ate more cinnabonners (the bodybuddy/lifemate's cinnamon rolls), and then I promptly passed out, cause we had stayed up much later into the day than we typically do as night-shift jobbers.

Basically, I am very curious about what my life would've been like, who I would've turned into if I had been called Sun my entire life. When my co-jobbers call me Sun, it still feels strange, to me, but sounds so normal coming out of their mouths. They only know me as Sun, and that's so strange to me. I do not expect old friends to call me Sun, since they've all known me as Tiffany, but I do kind of hope that people who meet me from now on to know me as Sun. I've never felt like a ditsy-dumb-blonde (I know, stereotypes suck, #sorrynotsorry) Tiffany, but I have always loved the name Sun, despite not being called by that name (that I can remember) until, literally, two months ago. 

The name Sun feels so me and yet feels so foreign.

None of this really matters in the big scheme of My Life, but it does matter a lot within the small details of everyday living. Someday, I will let go of the frustration surrounding my white adopted parents need to give me a "new" name, when I had had a name and knew myself that way. I feel sad for that little girl named Sun who was wiped white. I feel sad that I must've been confused and felt unseen and maybe somewhat invisible, like Sun didn't matter. It would explain a lot of my social psychology/anxiety when considering how I feel like everyone is hostile, and I must constantly combat that internal feeling, because really, people don't care enough about other people to be nice or hostile. For most people, their own life is difficult enough, too difficult perhaps to even care about being mean or nice. 

Thus, I must believe that I am not being treated, on purpose, in a particular way. I am just me. Others are just themselves, and I can move through the world without being scared that someone is actively trying to harm me because whoever Sun is doesn't matter. Sun does matter. Even if she didn't matter to my adopted parents. She matters to me. And so, Sun and I are on a journey now, together with my bodybuddy/lifemate. 

No, my adopted parents no longer get to go on this journey, until or unless they show me that they understand what they did to me. Obviously, I do not think that they were actively trying to harm me. I wholeheartedly believe that they think that they love me, but they do not know how to love themselves or each other, so there's no way in hell they know how to love me. This is apparent. And so, I know they are upset that they have not been welcomed into my life as Sun, but they can be part of her life, once they admit that they rid her of her Korean-ness, and so now, I am doing double-duty to find myself.

Until then, of course I'm grateful for the opportunity adoption afforded me, the privilege for which I never asked, but the reality is that I'd rather be a Korean orphan than a white adoptee.

  

My First Instagram Giveaway! (Open from 05Aug23 - 12Aug23)

As an avid fan of @wemakesthree (also broadcasting from wemakesthree.com), I bought a copy of Shana K. Antoine's children's book Manse and Nono: Mama's Here that she wrote and published for her own two children. It's a beautiful story about how a mother's love transcends place and time, and how she, the mother, will always be there for her children. The illustrations were done by Larisa Lungu, and the illustrations are so illustrative they jump off the page like a wonderful animated series.

Since I do not have a child of my own (on purpose), and I am not a child (despite all of the inner-child healing work that I'm doing on myself these days), I would like to giveaway the copy of the book that I purchased to a mother of a small child or children who would like to have this book. 

Giveaway Instructions:

Follow @wemakesthree on IG

Like my (@sunthesailor) post on IG

Share (via comment on the post) your greatest struggle (as serious or as fun as you'd like to make it) as a mother.  

Giveaway ends on 12AUG23, and I will ship the book to the winner the following week. 

See ya on the 'Gram

If you do not win the giveaway, you can easily purchase the book, HERE, on Amazon *peace*

 

2023 July Reads

 Books Read: 22

yes, i've abandoned my #readinggoal cause i just have too much on my plate, at the moment.

i will keep reading, and i will post what i read.

i simply cannot hold myself to any sort of "goal,"

or i will lose my mind.

21. My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

Fiction Craig | 2023 | 208 pages

 

22. Voyage of the Sable Venus and other poems by Robin Coste Lewis

Poetry Lewis | 811.6 Le | 2015 | 162 pages

 

23. Momfluenced: Inside the maddening, picture-perfect world of mommy influencer culture by Sara Petersen

Nonfiction | 306.8743 Pe | 2023 | 320 pages

The Books in Images & Selfies

 

Happy Reading!

oh, to be loved like a sandwich

photo by the bodybuddy/lifemate aka my creepy stalker, ugh.

days later

we'd be bedridden for thirty-six hours

recovery taking another two days

full recovery still a day or two away

as of the time of this writing.

The Great Compromise: No, sorry, you can't have my number :(

Back in 2011, when the bodybuddy/lifemate and I were in our early twenties, newly-mated (we didn't get married 'til a little later, but we moved in together, some might say, "too soon," but not either of us, so who cares), we started our first business and realized that we were going to be on the phone a lot, and so, it was in those few months of learning what we learned that we traded our (my Blackberry, his MyTouch [lol]) smartphones for a JetPack, which was (is still a thing?) a wireless wifi device. I know, I'm old. 

In short, we wanted a landline, so that we could not be reached when we were not in our "office," aka our living room. Business requires a lot of phone calls, yuck. I had my Samsung Galaxy Note and an iMac, and the bodybuddy/lifemate had an eleven-inch, Toshiba tablet that was about as thick as my laptop, ha, and some typa MSI laptop he custom-built ordered. At home, we had a landline-type phone. The JetPack gave us wifi on the go for our devices and the particular Verizon service that we were paying for at the time, also provided us with a "landline" number through that same wireless wifi device... phew. That was a long time ago.  

My point is that we've been savvy and treading the various "mobile phone" loopholes ever since, surviving by our wits, living wifi-only. My further point being our use of VoIP. 

The crackdown on VoIP is official and thorough. So, we've been resigned to opting back into the SIM-level of communication, which we both absolutely detest.

And so, I present, The Great Compromise.

The selfie of me and my "daily driver," à la Marques Brownlee, is my third smartphone, and it has never had a SIM card [04Nov24 i obviously took this pic down at some point for some reason, lol]. It is wifi-only (like the two others), and you can't call me on it (well, you technically can, but it's an internet call). I use a handful of various messaging apps to communicate via "text." The first smartphone was the Samsung Galaxy Note that was weak as shit (and that the bodybuddy/lifemate lost in transit when we moved to South Korea in 2013); the second was an LG something or rather that was the most awesome, and I had such a great time with that phone that I was quite pissed at it when I had to switch over to my current phone, and I even had my current phone for about three months before I finally got it out of the box and set it up *eyeroll* The bodybuddy/lifemate is about to inherit my current phone and upgrade his two current phones into one nice tablet, and he has a desktop. I will get a new smartphone—still wifi-only (yea yea, you get it)—and have my flip phone as a business line. I have a laptop that will soon be downgraded into a media laptop that's hooked up to our tv, and I'll get a new laptop by the end of this year. All of our devices have cost under $250, and we will buy all of our needed upgrades this year at the same price point.

Whatever. I can't even go over my first cell phones, cause I can't name them by name like we can our smartphones, these days. I had five of them, however, before my Blackberry. I know that there are some serious geeks out there that know that kinda shit, but I'm no geek; I'ma nerd, duh. 

I will say, however, that this flip phone I have now is cool. It slaps nicely when it shuts, and it's gotta good weight to it. It's the flip phone I wish I could've had back when they were a thing. 

 

finally, my photography archive, FIND.YUMMY.LOVE., is no longer littered with fucking-fugly ads! visit findyummylove.com to determine whether or not you should share your opinion with me about it on IG; or don't.

On Instagram, I saw one of my fave accounts, @wemakesthree (&fellow wordpress user wemakesthree.com), post a Gudetama mug! It made me miss the sticker on my old computer, so I hopped on my photography archive site, Find.Yummy.Love., and found it, &then, I was disillusioned by how difficult it was to find, that I ended up changing my entire site's Theme, etc., &then, since I was on the site for the first time in a very long time, I figured I'd finally buy the domain, not so that I could have it or make money off the site, but rather, in order to remove the fucking-fugly ads that litter my photos!

Thusly, I present to you, the updated FINDYUMMYLOVE.COM

Whatduyathink?

the bodybuddy/lifemate already gave me his opinion when he said,

"But it's a photography site; how will anyone know?"

to which I replied,

"That's not the point."

I've decided to use Threads (for now) as the place where I will upload my second book, Bromides, in small, less-than-500-character chunks, one painstaking paragraph at a time. If you want to read the full thing, NOW!, visit the link at the beginning of this post ^..^

Bromides, originally published, in full (between 2019-2022), on Medium.com/bromides 

NOW being uploaded, slowly but surely on Threads.net/@sunthesailor

Read "Bromides | A Synopsis" to read the ... synopsis. 

&Find me on Instagram to catch me "in person" ^..^

2023 June Reads

 Year Goal: 20/53

18. Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Fiction Ward | 2018 | 230 pages

 

19. Homie by Danez Smith

Poetry | 811.6 SM | 2020 | 96 pages

20. Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Poetry | 811.6 BE | 2019 | 95 pages

The Books in Images & Selfies 15-17/50

the t-shirts are by the black-owned company

TRAIN LIKE ROYALTY

owned by personal trainer

Khalilah Akbar

i bought two, and they sent me three (on purpose)!

for sale at trainlikeroyalty.com and followable on Instagram

GET YOURS!