When it comes to magnets, the opposite poles attract, but people are much more complicated than magnets are. I think that it all boils down to timing and being ready to take a leap of faith and share your life with somebody else. When a person is ready to be attracted to another, they will fall for the one that they feel is the best for them, whether that person is more like them, or more different from them. People look for others that are the same religion, or have the same political interests, or have the same hobbies, or that like the same foods. I made up my mind to marry my wife when I found out that she didn’t like onions and we got along very well for 25 years.
Differences are also good, as these can be used to complement one another, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. I think that you are more likely to find someone attractive if you can agree with their opinions. Consider the Covid vaccine, if you are vaccinated, you probably wouldn’t date someone who refuses to get the shot. Opposites attract mostly in fantasies, but in real life, it is the things that people have in common with one another that allows them to stay together. Is she likes watching HGTV and you enjoy Westerns, that is why households have more than one TV set, but if she likes Trump and you refuse to swallow the Big Lie, then there is no hope for you staying together as a couple?
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #128 which asks, “Do you feel that people are more attracted to one another by their differences or by their commonalities? And why do you feel that way?”
I climb hills and lay on my side and turn my body over and over, till I reach the bottom, because that is the way I roll. I guess everyone has their own style and mine is quirky, which some people may view as odd, but I see myself as being unique. I like to fit in with others, but like Frank, I do things My Way. I will try to cover the points that Fandango mentioned, like the way I dress, talk, write, move my body, think, as well as my emotions, interests, and values to characterize my style. I am far from being a fashion model, but I have bought several pairs of sunglasses that cost over $500 and when I wore then, I felt like I was styling. My life now is simple and I don’t go out often, so I wear slippers, shorts, underwear and a three-button pocket tee shirt every day. I have all different colors and if I am too lazy to shower, I will jump in the pool. I shave and get my hair cut and try to look presentable, but comfort is my clothing style, as I am not trying to impress anyone.
It is difficult for me to describe the way I talk, but I feel that I have an American accent. I grew up in New York, Wisconsin and New Jersey and I guess some of that must have rubbed off on me, but I feel more like a melting pot. I lived in North Carolina for a few years and although I got used to the way people talk down there, I don’t think that any of it rubbed off on me. I feel that I am patient when I am talking and I always give the other person a chance to speak. The one distinction about my speech is that most times when I talk, I can be loud. My mom had a bad ear and everyone in my family talked loudly, so she could hear and we didn’t have to repeat ourselves.
My writing style stems from working as a technical writer and the fact that I like to explain things. I am a research writer and I constantly look things up. I wrote a few books and none of them ever got published yet, but it is possible that the world may not be ready for my writing at this time. My interests are vast and I feel that if I put my mind to it and do enough research, that I am capable of learning anything and with a little more effort, I will be able to relate this information to others. All the time my readers think that I am very smart, but I think of myself as being diligent and willing to go that extra mile. I am always surprised when a reader asks me questions about what I wrote, as if I am some type of expert, as usually I am making this stuff up as I go along.
I have never excelled in sports and now I am more sedentary, but I can still bend down and pick stuff up off the floor even with my rather large belly. I guess you could say that I am out of shape, but I am able to move my body to do the things that I need to get done. I have the necessary willpower for me to go on living and I never get depressed. My brain has developed the ability to ignore pain and while my skeletal system is still intact as well as my muscular system, I order them to coordinate their movements together, so that I can really shake it down.
I think, therefore I am and I am always thinking, even when I am dreaming. I entertain many different thoughts and at times they can be impure rousing and lustful, strangely dark venturing on uncharted, grim, uncomfortable, sickening and morbid, but they can also be positive, happy, delightful, or wistful and sometimes they are vague. I can bend and shape my thoughts to become what I want them to be, while disposing of the ones that I don’t like and nurturing the ones that I want to maintain. I realize that if I optimize my useful thoughts, this will benefit my mental health.
I don’t suffer from Alexithymia and I am able to express my emotions, which I would describe as being on an even keel, progressing smoothly and steadily in an unchanging manner. It is not easy to put all of my feelings into words and it is such a high category and if I broke my feelings down into anger, fear, sadness, disgust and enjoyment that would make it easier for me to discuss. Sure, I get mad at times and I rant about certain things, but my rants are expressed in my writing and this is the way that I blow off steam. I don’t have many fears, but my main one is about the way the world seems to be falling apart, instead of coming together. This makes me sad as I am only able to watch all the problems and I have no power to fix anything. The best way for me to describe my disgust is to mention Donald Trump and the Republican party and thee way that my country seems to be divided beyond repair. Most of my enjoyment comes from writing, watching TV and listening to music.
I have a lot of interests, but writing is my main interest. I get up every day and head to my computer to see if I can find something interesting to write about. This is usually very easy as there are a lot of brilliant people here on WordPress (OK there are a lot of idiots here also) and I always seem to be able to find a prompt that sparks my muse. I am not interested in picking up any more followers, as I see that as a useless statistic, but I do want people to read what I write and make comments, so I can feel a connection with my readers.
One thing that I value is effective communication which allows me to exchange my ideas, thoughts, knowledge and information with others. I have several online friends and I enjoy chatting with them and getting to know more about them. I understand that I will most likely never meet any of them, but I want to think of them as being real people, even if they go around wearing a bag over their heads.
I don’t know how to respond to Fandango’s question today, because I plan on cheating death, (or at least postponing it for a little while longer). I am not going to do this by diet and exercise, or by going to an oxygen bar, or by getting a blood transfusion, or by having cybernetic implants, or by drinking any type of snake oil, as my solution is blogging. There is always something to blog about if you look hard enough, and this keeps my mind active and gives me the will to go on. If I were able to get some advance notice of when I was going to kick the bucket, I would avoid going near that bucket and this seems simple enough. Let’s say that something else besides a bucket is going to be responsible for my demise and it is a certainty that it will put me six feet under, would I want to know about it before I meet my maker?
I can see advantages in knowing when and how my end will come, as a way of being prepared for what is next, if there is any such thing as an afterlife. My first thought is about life insurance and if I knew that I was going to live for another 25 years, I would be much better off putting my money in the bank, then taking out a policy, but if was going to be gone in two years from now, the life insurance policy would be a good investment. If I knew that I had a long life ahead of me, then I wouldn’t have to be looking over my shoulder wondering when the Grim Reaper is going to grab me and say that my time is up, and this might help me to live a more rewarding and fulfilling life by seeking more excitement. Nobody wants bad news, so if I were to learn that I had a short time left here on Earth, then I don’t want to know, but if the news was good and I had many years left to live, then I think it would be good to know.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #124 which asks, “Would you want to know beforehand the date, time, and circumstances of your death, or would you rather not know when and how it will happen?”
Fandango asks us to dissect two old saying today, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Familiarity breeds contempt” and state whether we think that they mean the same thing, or if we feel that they are polar opposites. The first expression, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” reminds me of Melanie’s Share Your World question from a week ago which was, “Why do we seem to think of others the most after they’re gone?”, where I answered, “when someone is still here with you, it is easy to ignore them, but once they are gone, you can’t take them for granted anymore” and I think that applies here also. To me “Familiarity breeds contempt” is probably the main cause of divorce, because once the honeymoon phase is over, you have become comfortable being around them and you have settled into a routine. This is when you will notice that the person that you are with is not perfect and their flaws will start to irritate you. Tiny things will mount up, making you get more and more angry, as they keep getting on your nerves.
These two phrases may be related, but they do not mean the same thing. The relation that I see is that if “Familiarity breeds contempt” and you end up leaving someone because you became too familiar with them, that now once you dumped them you may be having second thoughts and you feel like you miss them and thus “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. Love is a vicious circle of emotions and it is a wonder that anyone survives.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #123 which is comparing and contrasting the following phrases, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” with “Familiarity breeds contempt”.
I never realized how important it is to have offspring and if I could do it all over again, I would have had some children. When I was younger, I didn’t really want to have children, as I felt that they would just complicate my life. My wife worked and she was on the pill, so we didn’t discuss having any children, till her biological clock started ticking louder, which was a byproduct of her egg production running low. Now the race was on and she did get pregnant, but unbeknownst to us, she had a blockage in her uterary channel, which caused her to have several early term miscarriages. She had an operation to remove the blockage, but she was never able to get pregnant after that and then we spent thousands on fertility treatments to no avail.
We gave up and realized that we were too old, but she really wanted to have a baby and she cried all the time about our misfortune. I would have gone either way on the issue, as I enjoyed playing with my nephews, but I was always glad to get back to my home where it was more peaceful. You can’t change the past and you have to stay on the path that you have taken.
This may differ from genie to genie, but the genie will usually tell you that you can’t wish for more wishes, or for more genies, or to be a god/goddess, or to bring people back from the dead, or to have someone killed, or to make anyone fall in love with you, so it is best to use your three wishes wisely. Fandango didn’t include any of these stipulations in his question today, but I consider all of them to be important, so I will stick with all of these caveats.
I know that I am going to sound like a Miss Universe contestant with my first wish, but I would ask for sustained world peace where there is no more prejudice and everyone gets along with each other, as I really want the world to be a better place.
Wish #2 would be for justice so that bad and evil people get punished 10 times worse than the crime that they committed, thus since Putin is a killer, he would have to be slowly tortured to death and since Trump has done so much damage to this country, he would be locked up forever.
My third wish would be for everyone who supports Trump’s Big Lie to become like Pinocchio and their noses would grow an inch for every lie that they tell.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #121 which is, “What three wishes would you ask the genie to grant you?”
I watch CNN, what Trump calls “fake news”, but there are a lot of good places to get news from like NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and PBS and the only one that I know to be dishonest is FOX News and they are a train wreck of shameless opinions. This station is for people with views on the extreme right and it appeals to many Republicans. They don’t really offer news; they hand pick what they want to report. I know this because my sister watches FOX News every night and she told me yesterday that she has never heard of QAnon. Fox is a dangerous right-wing propaganda outlet disguised as a cable news network that was specifically designed to disinform its viewers and distort any semblance of truth.
CNN calls Trump out on his lies and as his lies pile up, he still insists that he is the most honest man in America and if anyone says anything against him, he calls it fake news. Trump’s false or misleading claims totaled 30,573 over the 4 years that he was in office, which equates to about 21 per day, and more than one for every hour that he was awake, although I am certain that he could also tell lies while he is asleep. Every politician lies, but Trump is the worst of the worst and because he is so unhinged, we will all be paying for the consequences of his lies, until he is put behind bars. Nobody is shouting “lock him up”, but he has done so much damage to this country, that it seems like it will never be normal here again.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #120 which is, “Where do you get most of your news from? Do you consider your primary news source (or sources) to be objective purveyors of truths and facts?”
I learned the pursuit of happiness from my Dad. When I was about 10, my Dad let me sip his beer, and he would take me to the tavern with him. Sometimes he would let me sit on his lap while he was driving the car and he let me turn the wheel to steer it. My Dad taught me how to barbecue on the grill and he would let me go camping in the back yard. He showed me how to make mickies (Brooklyn style potatoes cooked on a stick). He was an excellent story teller and he had lots of stories. My Dad was different from the rest of the fathers in the neighborhood, as when he got home from work, he would immediately start playing with me and any of my friends that were around. My Dad taught me how to play golf when I was young and he had a lot of patience.
My Dad liked landscaping and we had many trees on the boarder of my house. My Dad had the best lawn in the entire neighborhood. He took pride in how our yard looked and many of the people in our town would ride by to admire how well kept our yard was. My Dad liked flowers just as much as he liked trees and grass and he lined our driveway with wax begonias. He planted tulips and roses around many of our other bushes. My Dad tried to teach me about plants as when we were out driving around town, he might say, “Jim what do you think of that Arborvitae shrub planted over there”, and I learned from him. I still think about my Dad when I see certain trees and flowers that he taught me about and because of him, I am allowed me to appreciate many beautiful things.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #119 which is, “What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in life and who did you learn it from?”
I think that most people will look at my belly and wonder how anything could get that big. My belly is big, but the rest of my body is normal size. Upon first glance, I don’t have the most attractive physique and I guess people would call me pudgy or chubby. The simple answer of how my belly got so big is that I don’t exercise and I mostly eat whatever I want. I have never been a guy with a deeply set of chiseled six-pack abs, so nobody will ever get a first opinion of me being a universal sign of good physical fitness and health. I am OK with that, as I am not looking for a woman who spends three hours a day working out in a gym and I would much rather date a girl who would share a pizza pie with me, than one I would have to wait 2 hours for her to get ready for a date. I don’t think that many women are attracted to my dad bod and I will turn down that second Krispy Kreme, not because of the size of my belly, but because of my diabetes.
I am sure that my bald head and my grey hair are also one of the first things that people will notice about me and it has been a long time since I got my last haircut, so I probably come off as being a bit scraggly. Researchers say that a man with more belly fat, will have more of the female sex hormone estradiol, which helps to inhibit orgasm and thus allows them to last longer in bed. I read that men with softer bodies make better cuddlers. Most young girls are more interested in a certain body type, but there is no guarantee that it will stay that way as a man gets older. All that a woman should be looking for in a man, is somebody who is considerate, responsive, and responsible and you can’t get that from a first impression.
Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #117 which is, “What impression do you think you give when you first meet someone?”
Best sandwich?
This would be a sausage and pepper sandwich at Seaside Boardwalk on the Jersey shore with tomato sauce and no onions and the reason why is the ingredients. It is served on the perfect bread to sink your teeth into and made from a sweet Italian sausage along with green and red fried peppers. It is actually more than that, as eating this will bring back floods of memories from my youth.
What’s one thing you own that you really should throw out?
My bed, it is time for a new one.
What is the scariest animal?
Man, nothing is more frightening, or can do more damage.
Apples or oranges?
I’m not sure that this is a question. Do you want to know which fruit I like to eat, or which one goes better with vodka? Should I make a Venn Diagram to show that they are both spherically shaped fruits that grow on trees? It is possible to compare apples with oranges, as there are more properties that unite them than those that are dividing them.
Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
Yes, my dad used to take my brother and I to see the Mets at Shea Stadium and we would wait till the players headed out to their cars and get their autographs. We brought our baseball cards with us and the players were happy to sign them. I got some good ones, but I don’t have them anymore, as my mom threw all my cards away when we moved, saying that I wasn’t playing with them and they were taking up too much space. I got Tug McGraw, Nolan Ryan, Ralph Terry, Jerry Grote, Bud Harrelson, Ed Kranepool, Ron Hunt, Roy McMillan, Cleon Jones and Ron Swoboda all from the 1966 Mets,
What do you think happens when we die?
Decomposition begins several minutes after death with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them.
Favorite action movie?
Favorite smell?
Frangipani, as it reminds me of Key West.
Least favorite smell?
Shit and dead rats because they are both completely disgusting.
Exercise: worth it?
I usually avoid it and I am not saying that is a good thing to do.
Flat or sparkling?
Flat water when I am thirsty, but sparkling mixed in with my orange juice.
Most used app on your phone?
The off button.
You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?
What number am I thinking of?
Do I look like The Amazing Kreskin to you?
Describe the rest of your life in 5 words?
My better days are gone.
