One of the best things about blogging is the community we form. The pieces of ourselves we share. Our precious thoughts we craft into words.
It's like an instant, alternate universe. With each click, we travel impossible distances. Almost a collective mind. The door is always open, and we're never more than a millisecond away.
So lets build some community today!
Here's the game. Using the next letter in the alphabet, tell us a random fact about yourself. The more delving, the better! Come back as many times as you like.
I'll start with the letters A and B in comments. Anyone up for tackling C??
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Get the winners of the first 12 Clarity of Night contests in one place! Extras too!!
Listening for the words in a quiet corner of the night. The fiction, poetry, and photography of Jason Evans.
About Me
- Aine
- Collaborator and night owl.
Past Contests
- "Elemental" Short Fiction Contest
- "Uncovered" Short Fiction Contest
- "Silhouette" Short Fiction Contest
- "In Vino Veritas" Short Fiction Contest
- "Ascension" Short Fiction Contest
- "Running Wind" Short Fiction Contest
- "Whispers" Short Fiction Contest
- "Restless Dawn" Short Fiction Contest
- "Halo" Short Fiction Contest
- "Endless Hour" Short Fiction Contest
- "Silent Grey" Short Fiction Contest
- "Lonely Moon" Short Fiction Contest (with Anne Frasier)
- "Midnight Road" Short Fiction Contest
- "Two Lights" Short Fiction Contest
The Official Compilation!
Get the winners of the first 12 Clarity of Night contests in one place! Extras too!!
Categories
- poetry (193)
- fiction (180)
- vignette (106)
- serial (59)
- lyrics (56)
- personal (52)
- insights (33)
- thoughts (31)
- cemetery (26)
- forest (17)
- nature (16)
- remembrance (16)
- writing (16)
- humor (15)
- beer philosophers (13)
- boating (10)
- experimental (8)
- movie (7)
- music (7)
- INTP (6)
- beatitudes (6)
- Ulrich (5)
- photography (5)
- Nami (4)
- night conversations (4)
- cemetery reflections (3)
- stream of consciousness (3)
- Clarity Notice (1)
- emotion study (1)
Visitors
~clausum~
38 comments:
A for apples. Green apples.
God, I love wild green apples. I have to blame my father to turning me onto these. He picked a few along the road by my grandmother's house when I was young, sprinkled on some salt, and I've been hooked ever since. I've been known to eat so many that I get kind of sick. Even spots and bug holes don't matter. Just eat around those.
B for basement (in Buffalo).
When we lived in Buffalo when I was growing up, I was mesmerized by the musty smell of our basement. It wasn't delicious, but it smelled oddly good to me. I imagine the smell came from the crawl space behind the stairs. It was old, musty ground under the floor of our den. And you want to know something weird? The dirt was littered with broken toys. Kids play down in that creepy hell hole. Despite liking the smell, that dark crawl space always freaked me out. I even wrote a horror story or two about it.
C is for Creepy. I've had an affinity for creepy things since I was very young. Love the delicious shiver you get when you imagine something, not gory per se, but just a bit twisted, just a bit...well, creepy.
D is for dress.
Despite the fact I'm not a make-up-y kind of gal, I've always been girly. We camped every year during summer vacation, driving from central Illinois to Virginia or the Carolinas, spending a week in the rather cold and very damp mountains. The first year my mother let me pack on my own (at my request), I was about 8. At the first nightfall, as my dad was building a campfire, my mum told us to go get our sweaters and jeans on. I started crying, and confessed that I had only packed sundresses.
My now 3 year old daughter spends the cold Rocky Mountain days dancing around the house in sundresses, so I'm thinking it's genetic, but that starts with "G"
Okay I had to take E.
E is for Erin, which is my birth name. I read Robin McKinley's "The Blue Sword" sometime around 6th grade and decided my name should have been spelled with an "A." I did so informally until I was 18, when (with my parents' blessing) I had it legally changed to its current spelling.
F is for flute.
I just got home from practicing my flute in our local community band. I have played the flute for 20 years, and I teach flute lessons to a few local girls.
j is for jodi,, and that is my name... in elementary school i acquired my step fathers last name,, and since i was not fond of it,, and found it hard to identify myself with it,, all thru my school age years i used jodi,, just jodi,, never any last name...however currently,, if i pen something under my own name guess who's last name i use??? my step fathers.. i am jodi herman... yep,, that's me...
I know Jodi did J, but I'll go back to G, since that hasn't been taken yet. G, is for grandfather, I never met him but he has been very influential in my life never-the-less. A storyteller and writer, and a Methodist minister. Metaphors, fantasies, poetry, and storytelling have been a part of my family history for a long time, and I continue on that path. As a minister, my grandfather's path had a huge affect on my mother and aunts, including a lot of confusion and soul searching as well as a strong belief in a higher power. These things have left their mark on me and made me in a large part what I am.
Great insights, everyone!!
H is for hot tamale.
There used to be an old Porky Pig cartoon (maybe more than one), where he was selling hot tamales and singing a catchy song. It made me seriously want to try hot tamales. Finally, I got my chance at South of Border, that hilarious tourist trap on Interstate 95 on the North Carolina/South Carolina border. I didn't expect all the corn meal. Didn't love it or hate it. I still get them from time to time for strange, esoteric reasons.
I is for Interstate.
Some of my best family memories growing up were of the trips I took with my mom and siblings across the country each summer. I gobbled up books in the backseat, grew bored, fought for space with my brother, and then--magically, it seemed--we'd step out of the car at someplace like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, and the world would open up into something I had never known.
(And then, it was back to the fighting, of course. ;))
Copying paisley's "J" here"
j is for jodi,, and that is my name... in elementary school i acquired my step fathers last name,, and since i was not fond of it,, and found it hard to identify myself with it,, all thru my school age years i used jodi,, just jodi,, never any last name...however currently,, if i pen something under my own name guess who's last name i use??? my step fathers.. i am jodi herman... yep,, that's me...
K is for Killer Bees.
When I was in elementary school (late 70s, early 80s), I heard that swarms of killer bees were migrating from Mexico northward.
Being in Pennsylvania, I figured I had little time before they would overtake my hometown. After all, how long would it really take them to get here, right?
Um. They aren't here. Yet.
Angelique
Word verification: Premedi (is that a cute way of saying you're in school to be a lil' doctor?)
L is for laughter. Which I firmly believe is the best medicine in the world. My house is filled with it. Lots of yelling and laughter. L is clearly for loud also. But then I am a loud obnoxious New Yorker!
M... gee how perfect I should happen here at that letter (thanks, Aerin)
M is for Merry... which is my actual real name. I was not born at Christmas time (as most people ask). Merry Monteleone actually translates to Happy Mountainlion... which always makes me think of a cartoon lion in a top hap and cane, but I'm a little odd... that's also why my blog address is happycat - the 7's just cuz I like that number... and as an odd twist, I don't like cats, I'm a dog person... but that would be D
M is for mime. When I was a high school sophomore, I was chosen to be my school's ambassador at the eastern PA HOBY (Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership) seminar. The only remarkable thing I did during the 4-day seminar was to win an award during the talent show-- doing a mime routine with a friend I had made there.
Oops! Merry beat me to it... just goes to show how long it takes me to write comments. Too many distractions around herre... must stay on task better...
;)
No worries with repeated letters!! LOL.
N is for, um, next. Any takers?
N would be for New Zealand where I come from - a natural beauty of a place and no nukes allowed down here. It got us into trouble with your pro-nuclear country once upon a time, but they seem to have gotten over the fuss now.
There are no poisonous snakes, spiders (not lethal anyway) or nasties creeping about in our forests and natural habitat.
Now, here, it is summer and hot.
O is for Oreos. My dad's favorite cookie and once in a very blue moon he'd buy them buy the case... so we'd have a ton of them for like a month and then not buy them again for a loooong time...
One of the kids in my class used to watch my lunch, and if I had oreos with me, he'd show up at my door after school.
I can still hear him, pounding with both little hands, "Let me in!!! I know you've got oreos in there!!!"
That's okay, Aine, I liked your 'M' one, too.
oops, 'buy them by the case'
eesh, my bad.
P is for Pretoria, capital of South Africa, city of my birth. The place where I learned to ride a bike, the place where I graduated from college.
When I think of Pretoria, I think of hot weather, hadedas, broad streets, coral trees, jacarandas, early morning conversations in Northern Sotho heard from the sidewalk, the Magaliesberg, the Union Buildings, embassies and diplomats, Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary, the State Theatre, and Highveld thunderstorms. Its history and mine are inextricably linked, and I only realized that when I left it.
Q is for the Questions I can never seem to think of when prompted, but pop into my mind ad nauseum when I'm supposed to be quiet. Go figure.
R
rest I need to be at rest because I get out of bed at 4:21 am. almost every morning. Yes that one extra is important to me so it's 4:21 am
S is for sisters - I have four. We are all very close, but not in proximity. We go on the most unusual and fantastic trips together every two or three years. My love for them knows no bounds!
T is for Travel - something we do often, with family on both sides of the world and friends all over the place. It costs us a fortune, but you can't take away the memories.
(I'm hoping someone who can ride a unicycle does 'U' so I'm biding my time....)
I'll take 'U' - which is for my Un-sung heros.
These two are certainly My heros, anyway. They are Dawn French (a Comedienne here in the UK) is a very large lady, and very proud of it. She was the first person who did a sexy dance in a skit some years ago, and meant it. Showing me that, as a fat woman, I can be sexy!
The second is a man called Gok Wan - yes, I know he is viewed as somewhat of a joke here in the UK (he is a TV presenter, and commentator of women and their fashions.) He shows women that, no matter what their figure, they are beautiful. It's taken me a while of wearing Unisex clothes and feeling like, well nothing, to finally start to Hear what Gok is saying, and feeling it for myself.
Seems we are at V, so let me have at it. V is for Vibert, which is my last name. Vi for life, Bert for bright, Life Bright, I always liked that. Shorten Vibert and it becomes Vibe, and since I'm a musician that works for me. Shorten Catherine and you have CatVibe, which sounds like I'm a cat loVer, which I am by the way, but that's not how the name came to be. Our family motto, Vie et Liberate, Life and Liberty.
W, good one! For winter. We are having our first snow, here in Interior BC, how I love the first snowfall, I wish there was more but this a warmer area of Canada, a lot of snow is not on the horizon. It took leaving my roots on the Prairies to find out how much I truly love winter and snow!
Great idea Jason, thanks.
What a treat to learn all of these things about everyone!!
I'll take X. For xenomorph. A term used in Aliens to describe the, um, well, aliens. I suppose they meant changing into strangers or something like that. You know, they way they gestate inside people.
Anyway, I digress, the reason I bring it up is for the opening scene of Aliens. Ripley is drifting in her escape pod in open space. She's been drifting 80-some years. Something about that scene--it's look and sound--hammered home the vast hostility of space for me. Not cozy like Star Trek bridges and Jedi cockpits. I felt the extreme isolation. The immensity of the danger.
Deep space must be terrifying. Millions of ways to be utterly lost. Only one to survive.
Y is for Yay as in Yay me! I did my first attempt at trying to become a 'professional' photographer by setting up a table at a local church Christmas Craft Sale. I didn't sell any large framed prints but did sell 3 small ones and a note card. BUT I was then approached to shoot someone's wedding in March. Yay me!
"Z" is for zoetic. We took our granddaughters to the San Antonio zoo on Friday afternoon. And guess what; it was full of animals. The collection of wildlife was so extrodinary that we stayed for 6 1/2 hours; until dusk, and had to forego our planned trip to the Japanese Tea garden. We saw monkeys and gibons, birds and birds, and ducks, and pink flamingos, and whistling ducks, swans; black and white, coy fish and crocodiles, aligators and turtles. We saw reptiles, as in snakes, and lizards and snakes and frogs and more slithery slimmy things than I cared to see. But watching the girls find the ones hidden away in the crvacices of their holds was delightful. Fish? Hoo-yah; plenty of fish.
Did I mention that the day was coolish in the high fifties? That is fridgid for Texas but invigorating for those of us from the frozen north, so the zoo was full of animals but nearly devoid of people. We saw El tigre, and gazelles, lions and zebra, elephant and a giraffe hiding in his keep. There were rhinos and as a going away gift one rhino lifted his leg, huffed, puffed, groaned and directed an explosive crap in our direction. We thanked him profusely for the odiferous send off.
rel
Word verivfication: Zintec; no kidding!
Most definitely agree...I have met an array of people through blogger.
I saw 'game' on Aerin's blog, and thought you were having another Clarity of Night contest.
sigh....
i'm with you, chris... missed all the fun :(
I'm so sorry I missed this fun. So - I'll just do Z again...
Zoë: the name of my friend's baby and the name of the antagonist in my first novel. She (the fictional Zoë) is beautiful but not a nice person, so I hope my friend is not offended that I borrowed her daughter's name. I think the name rocks!
I pulled names I liked from people around me for that first novel - the main character's first name I borrowed from a little girl over the fence, and her last name belongs to one of my students. And so on...
heh heh... i'm working on the letter "S" as allocated me by another blogger!
I figured I'd put in a request for another Clarity of Night contest, too, since ChrisE did....
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