Blank page inducing blank mind

Every night I try to write and some nights it comes up okay other times it doesn't. Usually my cat wants to play in the midst of all of it so I toss a toy until he's satisfied. Then I return to write something but there's nothing worse that a blank screen. I start and stare and think, why did I decide to write. Can't I just take a single night off. No one will really know if I do because, let's face it, this blog is really for my own benefit and pleasure.

So, I spend the time thinking of other things that I could be doing, not because I want to be doing something else, but because I can't think of how to rectify the blank screen. I've written this summer, I know I have, but that's thesis stuff and fanfiction that I've somehow been drawn back into.

I thought about writing a story about a duck that somebody ran over and what kind of person would do such a thing, but I couldn't think of anything beyond: "Who is the one that would not for a duck stop? It's sound great as an opening line, but only is of use if you can go further and perhaps tell the story of the one person who just kept going. Maybe there are some ducklings out there that are plotting revenge on the person for killing their parent. I imagine Huey, Dewey and Louie huddled around plotting their revenge. I don't know what that plot would be, but I imagine it would be a doozy just because it's them. I'd like to see that revenge. I once had a near run-in with raccoons, but I quickly turned around to go the other way because I could only imagine then running after me as I ran around campus, trying not to be bit by the rabid creatures. It was an amusing image, but not one that I would want to be a part of.

My cat is back with his toy. He's really a good cat and he likes to play with the dogs. In fact, we often refer to him as a dog because he runs and plays with them like a dog.

None of this qualifies as a story of any sort, but I couldn't decide what else to write and I've still got a Star Trek blog post to write. So, I needed to get something down, which means a freewrite, which is likely of no interest to anyone. But, this is what you get.

An Alien's Guide to Making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

What you need:

1 loaf of pre-sliced, pre-packaged, unopened, already baked whole wheat bread from a supermarket

1 unopened 12 ounce glass jar of grape jam

1 unopened 12 ounce plastic jar of creamy peanut butter

1 unopened package of dinner knives

1 dinner plate

What you need to do:

1. Learn English.  American English might be best as Normal is in the United States.

2. Use your alien navigation technology to find Normal, IL, Latitude 40° 30' 51.13"N, Longitude 88° 59' 26.27"W

3. Use your currency converter to get US dollars.  Earth banks will not be able to convert your money.

4. Use your transport device to put yourself at the location given in step two.

5. Ask for directions to the local grocery store and go to said store.

6. Take a cart in which to place your items.

7. Ask for directions of each item needed and go to said locations, placing the listed items in the cart.

8. Go to checkout.

9. Place items on belt to have cashier scan each item.

10. Pay the cashier for the items.  Give him/her either exact change or more than given total.  Reminder: Be sure to wait for receipt and change (if applicable).

11. Go back to your spacecraft with your purchases.

12. Go to your kitchen and place items on the counter right side up.

13. Remove the dinner knives and plate from their packaging.  This includes any cardboard, plastic or stickers on said items.

14. Find a small towel for washing with, wet it thoroughly with hot water and place a drop of soap, about a centimeter in diameter, on the towel.

15. Rub the towel against itself to work the soap into a foamy lather.

16. Use this towel to clean the plate and knife thoroughly, making sure to scrub off any debris.

17. Rinse the plate and knife with hot, pure water.

18. Find and use a dry towel to rub all the water off the plate and knife.  Also, dry your hands.

19. Place the knife on the counter with the blade parallel to the counter and the plate on the counter with the concave facing up.

20. Undo the twist tie on the bread bag and open the bag.

21. Flip down the first slice of the bread, also known as the heel.

22. Pull out the next two slices and lay them side by side flatly on the plate. Be sure that each slice is on the plate, not resting partially on the counter.

23. Grasp the outside of the jar of grape jam and unscrew the metal lid on the jar of grape jam, placing the lid on a nearby, unused area of the counter.

24. Tilt the jar until it is horizontal to the counter.

25. With the jar a couple centimeters from the bread and the end of the jar with the opening hovering over the middle of one of the two slices of bread on the plate, grab the knife with your other hand, being sure to hold onto the handle part.

26. Use the knife to pull out about a tablespoon of the jam, allowing it to drop onto the bread below it.

27. Place the jar back where you picked it up, screw the lid back onto the jar and release it from your grasp.

28. Gently spread the jam on the one side of the slice of bread using the knife in your hand.  Be sure to spread the jam to each edge.  When done, you should have a thin layer, about a millimeter, on the single side of bread.  Leave this slice where it rests for now.

29. Wipe the extra jam on the knife off on the other slice of bread.  Do this by laying the knife, blade parallel with the bread, across the length of the bread.  Gently press the knife down and pull it back.  Repeat this process to clean the other side of the knife.  Be sure to wipe each side of the knife off on a clean area of the bread slice.

30. Set the knife down, grasp the outside of the peanut butter jar with one hand and unscrew the lid, placing it on a nearby, unused area of the counter.  Remove, too, the paper cover on the jar.  To do so, find one of the tabs on the side and pull it up and back towards you.  If it doesn’t remove cleanly, pull all remaining bits of the paper off.

31. Pick the knife up again, being sure to hold onto the handle.

32. Hold the jar of peanut butter with your free hand to hold it steady, while you insert the knife into the peanut butter.  Angle the knife slightly to catch about a tablespoon and a half of peanut butter and pull the knife from the jar.

33. Release your grasp on the jar.

34. Drop the peanut butter on the knife onto the unused slice of bread and use the knife to spread the peanut butter on the one side of the bread.  This should be done the same way you did the jam and should provide similar results.

35. Use the same towel you used to clean the plate and knife earlier to clean the knife, again using hot water and soap.  Be sure to remove all debris from the knife.  Dry the knife and place it with the other knives in your utensil jar.

36. Screw the lid back onto the peanut butter.

37. Close the bread bag, ensuring that all slices are perpendicular to one another and use the twist tie to twist tie the bag in the same fashion as you opened it,.  Put the bread and peanut butter in your cupboard and the jam in your refrigerator.

38. Take the slice of bread with the jam and carefully turn it 180 degrees.  Place it on the slice with the peanut butter, ensuring that the peanut butter and jam touch one another and that the bread slices align perfectly.

39. Eat the sandwich in whatever way you eat.

Alternatively

40. Follow directions one through five listed above.

41. Ask for directions to the frozen foods section.

42. Move down the frozen aisles until you find the section containing boxes of Uncrustables.

43. Open the door and pull out one box of the peanut butter and grape jam Uncrustables.

44. Follow directions seven to eleven listed above.

45. Open the box on one side, pull out one of the plastic bags, close up the box and put the box in your freezer.

46. Set the plastic bag on the counter and go off to do whatever you want for three hours.

47. After three hours come back to the bag, open it on one side and remove the sandwich.

48. Eat and enjoy this much easier and quicker version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

 *Note: I have been advised by some that is would be amusing to add that I, the author, cannot, in fact, eat peanuts or bread due to allergies. Somehow this is entertaining. I don't get it, but what do I know.

Wirst du fragen?

There's the daily compulsion she feels.
There's the hourly compulsion she feels.

They never ask.

And she never tells.

Because 

they never ask.

Niemand fragt.

Niemand

Every

Each

Single

One

One

The

ONE

fragt

nicht.

Wirst du fragen?

Insert Something Profound Here

0530 get up.
0531 dog whines.
0532 dog(s) hungry.
0555 feed dog(s).
0600 let dog(s) out.
0610 back in bed.
0730 shower.
0740 dress.
0750 feed cat.
0800 eat breakfast.
0820 wash dishes.
0840 go to store.
0930 pay for groceries.
0945 arrive home.
1000 put away groceries.
1015 play with dog(s).
1030 give dog(s) snack.
1100 write.
1200 eat lunch.
1230 wash dishes.
1300 water plants.
1320 write.
1500 sweep.
1510 vacuum.
1530 write.
1700 feed cat.
1710 write.
1800 feed dog(s).
1810 watch news.
1830 play with dog(s).
1900 watch TV.
2000 eat dinner.
2030 wash dishes.
2040 play with dog(s).
2100 write
2300 feed dog(s) snack.
2359 go to sleep.

I deleted the whole page, a hypertext

Something a little different tonight. The story is not here, but on a webpage. It is a hypertext story. Follow the link below to get to the start.

I deleted the whole page

Superlatives

The best
The worst
The tallest
The shortest
The biggest
The smallest
The smartest
The dumbest
The most
The less

The they said

The

Rule

of

(the)

One

 

The Attempt

There is the attempt. That is how they say they tried. That is how the he before him and the him after he justfied their battle. It comes down to the attempt, which tells the they they did well. Because the I became the I in the third person. That I is her, that is the attempt they make.

The question is acceptable. Does she understand the shift? Is she aware? Need she be aware that she is no longer the I in the first person, but the I in the third person.

Ichabod Durling Smith

The man in the tight, worn, faded jeans and dirty, sweaty under shirt was on a quest of epic proportions.  The short, skinny man’s name was Ichabod Durling Smith.  No one on this earth hated his name more than he did.  His parents thought it was a lovely name and so did the kids at school, but only because it gave such wonderful nicknames that they delighted in taunting him with.  He’d had ‘My Darling Icky’ and ‘Icky Darling, Oh Icky’ yelled at him so many times they reverberated in his head ad nauseum. 

His mother loved the story of the Headless Horseman, reading it to him every night as he lay in her womb and up until he was old enough to tell her that it terrified him.  He, unlike his family, which included his parents, three sisters and two step-brothers, he could not stand horror, not even having grown up with Halloween nearly beating out Christmas out in terms of importance in his household.  He was terrified of specters and vampires and other things that creep along in the dark even though they’d all explained to him how none could possibly exist and even without their explanation, he knew logically that the quick shadow on the wall in the corner of his eye was just a figment of his overactive imagination.  Still he couldn’t help himself.  His family loved the idea of these sorts of creatures, despite their scientific background.  His mom was a chemist and his dad a physicist.  Each of the kids, save for Ichabod, were following in their parents’ footsteps.

As for the middle name, it was a family tradition, a name bestowed on the last child in the family.  How it originated and what it means is a question best left unasked for each and every member of the Smith family has a strong opinion on it.  They are all quite opinionated actually and most find it more than a tad annoying as many of them lack any sense of tact.

His last name seemed like a cruel joke.  After Ichabod Durling how could they leave him with such a plain, boring name?  To make matters worse, he had no nickname.  There was no way to shorten his name without making it sound like a taunt and there was no way he was ever going to go by his middle name.  So he was Ichabod and it sucked.  His siblings had normal names like Robert, Jennifer, and Mackenzie.  Ichabod wondered sometimes if his parents hated him.

No matter what they thought, it wasn’t out of spite that he chose to major in journalism.  It was a safe field; firmly rooted in the vines of reality.  There was nothing to be left to the imagination and he liked that.  Everything you saw was actually there.  No crazy metaphors for life or renderings of things we knew existed but could not actually see.  No, journalism was everything it purported to be. 

He did spectacular in all of his classes, maintaining a perfect GPA in a program considered to be one of the toughest in the nation.  Every semester he took an overload of classes while anchoring a news program on the college TV station and being an editor on the college paper.  While his roommates were out partying and getting stoned, he was busy working late into the night on one project or another.  He’d heard their whispers which both questioned his sanity and humanness.  Honestly, he couldn’t help his study habits; you don’t have many friends when you’re called Ichabod.

He was in his first semester of his junior year when something strange happened.  In hindsight, he probably should have just blamed it on the long hours he’d be pulling between classes, the TV station, the paper, and fulfilling the community service requirement his school had just instituted, but then in his caffeine riddled and sleep deprived mind, not to mention the overactive imagination that reared it’s ugly head at all of the wrong moments, how could anyone blame him for thinking the blue unicorn with a green swirl on its sides that suddenly appeared in his dorm room at one in the morning on the night before a major test was anything but real?

The I in the third person

The they, the eye, not the I, becomes the I. The I that she once was is merely the moniker by which she refers to herself. The I in the third person. I am becomes I is. In the past, in a look at the past, there never was a difference. The I was, that is the I in the third person was always I was. She was- I was.

I

In the third person, she becomes the they, the they that compelled she must have a friend. The they wrote to have a friend one must be a friend. To be a friend one must have a friend.

What would the they say?

Change.

Change begets I in the third person.

It is the rule of one.

What would the they say?

Change.

 

How?

 

The Rule of One

Today is the rule of one.
The rule of one says she is not one.

Who is one?

The Rule of One.

One has won.

Who is one?

I

II

III

IIII

IIIII

IIIIII

IIIIIII

IIIIIIII

not

The Rule of One

has won.

Who

is

one?

Am I?

                                                                                                                     Am I?

                                               Am I?

                                                                              Am I?

                                                                                                                                         Am I?

                  Am I?

                                                                                               Am I?

The I knot- the knot eye 

                                     equals not the I.

The

Eye

is

One

Who is one?

The

Rule

of

One

       

Eye

I before e except after c

I gegen eye

I spy with my little eye

eye or I

to be or not to be (to not be?)

to be not

I?

to be 

eye

 Aye, aye?

eye

Aye, aye

Yes sir, yes sir, 

three bags full

eye

eye before e except after c

One

One:

being as single entity, unit, object, or living being

The they say think what the they would say.

The they think, breathe, move,

                                                        act

as 1

I

act

I                         

act                        

I                                             

act                                             

I                                                                       

act                                                                       

One:

charactarized by unity; undivided

The the say act as not the I.

One:

single; lone, not two or more

One:

distinct from all others; only; unique

at one with:

in a state of agreement or harmony

off on one:

exhibiting bad temper; ranting

one and all:

everyone, WITHOUT exception

The they says not the I.

Jack and Jill and Daniel and William and a chicken

Jack and Jill went over the hill because Daniel didn't know what to write. He wrote the Romeo and Juliet were incestuous lovers. William detested the reworking, but Daniel called it a re-mix with an unexpected twist.

Jill stumbled upon a bowl of cereal, complete with milk and spoon. Without thought, but with delight, she ate the bowl. William sent her across the road with the chicken because the bowl was his only meal for the day.

The chicken Jill killed because a bowl of cereal even with milk and spoon was not enough to sate her.