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Gopherwood Rising
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The farmer's Son
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Farewell, Bast
LIJ Red: I suspect it was a part of the "testing" phase that I slowed down and read the "Kubler-Ross stages of grief" chart, the modified model. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining,depression,testing, acceptance. Nine years ago, I suffered the rapid fire losses of all my remaining family, my wife and mother. I was 67, and have recovered too slowly. A youth of poverty and years in the military left me hard enough to carry on, but I got hung up in the "bargain, depression and testing" stages of grief. Added to the denial and anger was living alone, and realizing my turn was coming soon. First I scrutinized my faith, then religion as a whole. Along with some cosmology. No epiphanies there. Then I thought I wanted to spread my thoughts and notions,becoming in a fashion immortal, although I claimed at the time I wanted to join the ranks of writers I admired, and entertain the world. Hence my membership in Fanstory, and an almost frantic outburst of writing bordering the incoherent. Now Red the writer has joined Rev. Red the evangelist in sheol, that shadowy nowhere beneath the world. Today the country store has no heater for old men to sit around and bullshoot (sells mucho beer and lotto tickets, though!) so let's see what Red the codger has to say,assuming he survives Covid-19. |
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I've missed you! I'm back for more NaPoWriMo fun... perhaps, I'll convince myself that I have time enough to stick around through the year this time around. I know I've been very slack about posting at FS the past few years (outside of April, that is. I hope this finds you in good health and spirits! Kim - | ||
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LIJ Red: Here comes Atlas, bigger'n Hale-Bopp. From thee heathene and ye comet , oh, Lorde, deliver us! (And the bug roared and the empire crumbled.) And my mute muse sits and glosses her lips... |
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Jesse - | ||
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LIJ Red: Writer's block still formidable. Eyes much better, fewer anxiety issues. Next door neighbor just shot a bear demolishing his back porch. Under normal circumstances that would rate a sonnet...Merry Christmas, Fanstorians! |
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LIJ Red: Adapting to Lexapro, cataract surgery completed today, muse still AWOL. I shall return. |
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LIJ Red: The software tricked me somehow. I meant to put a leprechaun on my post, but hit banana supreme instead. Now what? |
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LIJ Red: Hey, everybody! If I review ya and the rating is less than five stars without a preachy rant attached, yell at me. The site software sometimes seems to choose its own number of stars and I might not catch it.. |
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LIJ Red: My sixteen-year-old Persian lookalike was attacked by a fast aggressive cancer, and I had to have her put down today. RIP, Wadd. (she appears in many of my scribblings) |
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LIJ Red: Doodling and googling...an inch is .0254 meters a pound is .4535 kilograms BMI is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared I joined the Navy at 21 at a 17 BMI. Hey, I have doubled my investment! |
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LIJ Red: I paid a whole fifty cents at the junk store, and lost the dang book...today I found it. Two poems I liked as I sat on the ivory throne of relief...the Bard on fornicatin' "The Expense of Spirit" and Marianne Moore on "Poetry so derivative as to be unintelligible." Go girl. But I can see how far I am from significance... |
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LIJ Red: Must be deer season...hunters hit the woods and the deer forsake their territories and end up in strange places... Nice fourpointer in the neighbor's yard yesterday and a doe run down at my mailbox this morning. (pieces of red plastic car scattered all around). Not the frontier anymore... |
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Just sayin'... ![]() (Sorry, kiddies...heh-heh) ~Dean - | ||
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LIJ Red: Clobbered again in the Story of the month contest, but noted once again, my entry had seven reviews and 24 views when promotion ended weeks ago, and now it has eight reviews and 25 views...vote for ourselves and our pals without reading all the entries? Surely not! So losers, have no fear, it does not mean you are a hopelessly bad writer... |
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LIJ Red: I remind myself occasionally to be discreet when clicking on a reviewer's name to do a return review...they might be in a blind contest... |
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LIJ Red: My trademark possum came calling. He is huge for the species...twenty pounder or close... |
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LIJ Red: Looking back at the songs I've been listening to tonight, I see a sad pattern....Queen of the Silver Dollar, Old Hippie, and Hey Nineteen.... |
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LIJ Red: 11:45, 4/16/18, 34 deg F with snow flurries. Global warming. |
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LIJ Red: Heard the Voice of The Turtle today, and have a bumper crop of daffodils. Went to read the porch thermometer as darkness fell and saw three really big does mowing my lawn for me. Seventy degrees. Not good, just feels good. Everything is budding and there will be another killing freeze... |
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Well, at least, the deer won't eat your daffodils. - | ||
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LIJ Red: I never realized we had any minor members. I can adjust my posts accordingly. Sorry, young ones. |
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LIJ Red: One AM at 34.76N x minus 84.53W and the snow has stopped at two inches. Twenty degrees and dropping... |
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LIJ Red: No, it's not that sly little dig, "You have no rank." It's so cold dog won't even walk with me, so I sit here snacking and getting fatter and abusing my keyboard. But I post a lot of stuff. |
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LIJ Red: It's 26 Dec.,1:28 AM, fifteen degrees on the hill, and there is a stinkbug crawling across my keyboard. Epiphany! |
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flylikeaneagle - nancy - | ||
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LIJ Red: Five inches of snow, and a hard freeze during a thirty-hour power outage. No so much fun as in the old days. |
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LIJ Red: Those Santa Ana inspired California wildfires sound scary. I was checking web news about them and had a thought-Jay Squires is a Bakersfield man, not far from The Jawbone Complex. Wish those folks had some of this cold Georgia rain... |
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LIJ Red: Vaporized by a Fusion bomb, I were. Sugarless lemonade ain't half bad. (swap white grape juice for half the water) |
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LIJ Red: My Sunday post was written before I heard the news about the Texas massacre. The churches sound similar. |
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![]() Congrats, Red. - | ||
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LIJ Red: Recognized writer? I'd post a wide grin, but it broke my camera. Thanks much, Fanstory, and all you folks who endure my scribbling. |
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![]() A truly unique voice here. Glad to see it. Congrats!!! - | ||
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LIJ Red: Last time I flew on a airline or stayed in a motel...the TV was full of Dahmer, and I heard the first Tom Petty song I liked. I guess he's Learning To Fly. RIP |
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LIJ Red: Don Williams dead at 78. One of my favorites. |
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LIJ Red: The wooly worms are dark from end to end and the katydids sing at noon and the satellites show a unique picture, three tropical storms in a row. And the rock cried out, "No hiding place." |
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LIJ Red: The music died for Red, long ago, like TV. But, "In the stillness of the midnight" a beat or two of an unfamiliar song borrowed by a TV commercial sets him off on a web dogpaddle. Something about a hero. Mariah Carey...nope. Bonnie Tyler...bingo, but disappointing heard in toto. But since he has wandered away from the Fanstory site, he finds and listens to a few songs to see how his new notebook sounds. Says things about him and his journey. Suzanne. (Judy Collins, not Leonard) Angel of the Morning (Juice Newton) That old Feeling(Alison Krauss) He is Here (Grace Larson) He Leadeth Me(Cluster PLuckers) |
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Well, you got me off site too and led me to this little gem I may never have run across. Bluegrass ... yeah! - | ||
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LIJ Red: Speaking of eclipses, in the 90s I used a small nail to punch a hole in the bottom of a cardboard box to make a camera obscura. The image of the sun will be projected through the hole onto a surface for safe viewing. |
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LIJ Red: Huh? A banner ad for thaicupid. com? Aw, c'mon. Tried Edge again and it worked poorly. Back to Chrome. |
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LIJ Red: Rats! Looks like my mancave is about fifteen miles from the Aug 21 Solar eclipse path. Oh, well, I have seen two already, and a partial where every speck of sunlight was a crescent.... |
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LIJ Red: Several times I have clicked on a four when I meant a five. If I give you a four, read my comments and you'll know why. Otherwise reply, "Hey, Red, get yer foot off the mouse." |
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LIJ Red: Can't be a philosopher with a toothache or a decent reviewer with gout. I shall return. |
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LIJ Red: This time the beard lasted ten days, to a quarter-inch of iron-grey barbs. Oh, the joy of shaving against the grain! |
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LIJ Red: From the news: if the star Trappist 1 has seven planets, and is 40 light years out, and the fastest humans ever were those who made a re-entry in 1969 at seven miles per second...that's right, one megayear at that speed... save the earth! Save the earth! |
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LIJ Red: Great story ideas in the news today. "feral Hog Apocalypse in Texas." my kind of storyline exactly. And "student's gender rights threatened"...my gentle old agnostic uncle, who loved to shock people , said of a similar headline, "No gender, no rights. If you swap genders we are obligated to stone you to death as the Torah requires. Or used to before the PC editors got to it" People who think like that and wild boars. Fun!. |
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LIJ Red: Rough week, weatherwise. A fifty degree drop in one day is a bit radical for mountain Georgia, not a desert yet. Moving the ol' Cyclorama across town? Glad no one told me I had to do that before quitting time. |
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LIJ Red: It is not about dragons, it's about a goose opening a can of whooparse on a chihuahua. |
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LIJ Red: Holy gouda, Ratman, everything turned red. |
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LIJ Red: The artwork with a fine poem on the welcome page reminds me I was a mean young man. The wife's granny had a copy of Walter Hunt's painting, "Found" on her wall. I told the wife and her young cousin that the feral dog had killed the lamb and was calling the pups to dinner... |
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That's the ugliest cat I've every seen in my life. D. - | ||
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LIJ Red: I bought a wifi tablet today. This country has a crying--no, screaming--need for people who can write clear instructions! |
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Never had a tablet before, just had to try one. Type everything in with one pinky nail? Forget it. Back to the old desktop with the big, wide keyboard! Good way to check the weather and take pictures, though. - | ||
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LIJ Red: Waah. Sniff. Threed by a newbie. Woe is me. |
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Try not to let it mess with your mojo... Standard reviewers tend to not realize the effect or meaning of ratings. There is the option to not have to deal with them by turing off non-writer reviews in the advanced options of any work posted, too. - | ||
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LIJ Red: Agreed, it's not a perfect world. Something I'd like to see tried. Eliminate cent pumps. Have the Pot for poetry and the Chest for prose promotions. Three days for each. Give every promoted work four hours on the front page. Have a committee do spot checks at random on the quality of reviews. Have a hot list of the ten current promotions with the most stars. |
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I'm totally in favor of spot checks on the quality of reviews! There are some thieves out there posing as reviewers for sure! - | ||
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If somebody comes up with a workable plan that includes this feature, they should PM Tom with the idea. He doesn't read all the forum threads all of the time. - | ||
Ranking level, some healthy competition, and the respect of my peers are all important to me but not as important as writing. That's why I'm here. - | ||
If you refuse to play the game and promote your work you should be proud of the stand you've taken. So collect your two or three reviews and stand tall. I salute you. - | ||
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LIJ Red: MSN says Stephen Hawking finally got around to reading The Mote In God's Eye (Niven and Pournelle,1974) Light sail plus laser cannon equals zoom... |
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LIJ Red: Fired one potlatch. But I may have misread the prompt. Maybe I should have written about the repo man. |
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LIJ Red: Saturday's starting rough. Out sixty-nine bucks, I'm back... |
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LIJ Red: Beware the Ides of March. |
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Bring on the Ides! - | ||
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LIJ Red: Ole Anonymous Member is gettin' kinda tiresome... |
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LIJ Red: I just got a one-star review on content with no suggestions for improvement. I invite the members who are protesting this to view ratings on my latest post, and see if this was one of the people you were upset about. |
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At the VERY least! ~Dean - | ||
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LIJ Red: Wow. Pretty in pink. |
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LIJ Red: Does anyone know how Smurphgirlsasha is doing? |
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LIJ Red: Wish FS had a way to classify the VIEWs,those who came in and looked but didn't review or that skipped. It would really help to know if A. the post was too long. B. the subject was ick. C. the viewer was just reading(never happen) D. the post was a mess, too far gone to correct. |
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LIJ Red: Rutrow. North Koreans? FS runs amok. |
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LIJ Red: I enjoy reviewing, and practice writing almost every day. I post things sometimes and wish I hadn't. What think ye-when in danger or in doubt, post-or flee? |
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LIJ Red: People zero to fourteen years old have decreased from thirty-four percent to thirty percent of the world population. People over sixty have increased from eight percent to ten percent of the population. The average age of a human being is 24.3 years. There are approximately 7,300,000,000 human beings alive today. Why will no one read my stuff? |
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I've found a lot of folks avoid things they have to think about. DeLaHay - | ||
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