Tenth Blogiversary: Plague Year Edition

So yeah, I’ve been here 10 years on the 25th. Who knew when I hit ‘publish’ that day that 10 years later I’d be writing this. My biggest fears were realized, I began living alone, and now I’m living through a plague. Good times.

There are things I intend to do this year if I’m not taken by pestilence or misadventure. I want to finally type out my journal from 2012 written in that nursing home. Maybe I’ll see if my journal from my early 20s has anything I should share too. I want to write more blogs and maybe see if some publications will publish something I write for fun. I want to do more Youtube, maybe eventually even stream on Twitch just to pass time and make a few friends. I really wanted to edit writing for someone to give me some purpose, but the one time I did it, I didn’t do it right. It’s doubtful I will ever get to do that, but maybe. I want to do something meaningful for someone. Good luck.

Someone actually likes me romantically. Now I’m sure the world is ending! I expect if he was ever in the same room as me, he would be repulsed, but who knows? I’m enjoying being liked. I’m afraid everyone will dislike or become annoyed at me and hate me.

i’m going to be writing something about going out during the plague. Stay tuned. God willing, we will see 2021 together.

My Best Friend Hates ‘My Art’

Really, it doesnt matter what form my dollar store level of creativity forms. She will take the proverbial knife through anything.

Bloggers to her aren’t writers and I’m mediocre at best ( she’s right about me, but I do OK)

My Youtube videos are ‘moronic.’ I was really hurt when she told me that. I took up Youtube when I was running low on purpose and pawing my way out of a severe depression. I don’t show her my videos much anymore.

i made the mistake of showing her an Instagram video I surreptitiously filmed today. A few scenes of the 45 second vid were being shot on the ground so as not to film people. “Am I supposed to be entertained by cement?” she asked. I felt instant shame. I had sent it to someone else who I’m afraid is just going to think I’m an idiot.

Anyway, hope your endeavors are going better than mine. I’ll leave you with a photo I took while I was out and about yesterday.

Ultimate ‘Cat Lady Chic’

Blogoversary the 7th

Still here. Though not prolific,  I’ve been at this for 7 years now. God willing, I will keep at this blog until incapacity or death takes me out. I was 33 when I started, and will be 40 in December. I sometimes read back on my old posts. Lisa, circa 2010, was such a different person from Lisa 2017. In some ways, I truly feel my writing reached its apex in the first two years here (while my mom was still around, my biggest supporter). I sometimes find myself writing stuff worthy of Lisa 2011, but it is what it is. Had you told me during the course of this novel , that my mom would croak, I’d end up living with a drag queen and a pathological liar, end up in a mental  hospital, live in a nursing home for a couple of months, and finally come to living alone in an apartment complex I had lived in when I was 8 years-old… Well, I’d have been horrified to say the least. If you had told me that Donald Trump would be president one day, I’d have believed you were the greatest bullshitter.

I still feel as though I stand on the precipice of disaster at all times, especially now, with Trump and Paul Ryan trying to butcher the dangling safety net. I owe my apartment, medicine,  and healthcare to Medicaid. While I doubt Trump’s “fix” to Obamacare will pass, it’s terrifying to think of block grants. What if taking care of people on disability becomes superfluous? What if one day I’m blogging homeless?

  Here’s to a new blog year that happens to not be catastrophic. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Playing 20 Questions with Jaco, Author of Just Write of Left

  Ni-hao everyone! I am delighted that my dear friend, Joe Romano, AKA Jaco, agreed to let me  interview him. I want to showcase his blog, Just Write of Left to my thousands of readers.  As you might  have guessed, I am his number 1 fan. 

 

 

                      “I love Just Write of Left.  A lot. I think you should too.”              

 

 

  Jaco’s writing launches his readers into a beautiful, lyrical, and exotic world of romance. The story he  wrote installments of this month, All Memories are Traces of Tears, is a tale  of a an American in China wounded by his past and the chance encounter that sparks a new love. While the story is fictitious, the scenes are drawn so that you know the author has an intimate knowledge of the China in which he writes. Jaco’s writing gets better with each post, as evidenced in his latest post, drawing the sadness of parting in a poetic vein. Jaco took a month-long, 30 words a day flash fiction challenge from Blogdramedy’s blog and expanded into an engaging, unusual tale. I’m honored to actually have Jaco here on my blog  answering my questions as I try to get an in-depth picture of this man as an author and a person.   I’ve decided to conduct this interview in a 20 questions format to give it that down home Spanish Inquisition feel. Jaco need only use this abbreviation to decline answering one of my painstakingly thought out queries: STFU, which for those of you not versed in internet etiquette, means “Stop! Thanks for understanding.” Without further ado , here’s Jacoooooooooo!

 

 

  1.) Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?       

 

  The truth? Of course.   

 

 

 2.) Perhaps my 10k eager blog readers would like to know why you are called “Jaco. Just Jaco.” To me it’s far more catchy than “Bond. James Bond” and gives you that aura of mystery a blogger worth his salt craves.  

 

Let me begin by saying it’s pronounced Ja koh. Not Jaco as in wacko. Well, I earned the name Jaco later in my musical career. I was a big fan of Jaco Pastoriusthe greatest bass who ever lived. He performed with Weather Report, and later with his Word of Mouth Orchestra. Jaco was to the bass what Hendrix was to the guitar. His technical prowess was unsurpassed. He was better than Charles Mingus in that his compositional skills approached that of Mingus, and his technique took the bass to another level unheard of in the 80?s. I started playing bass late in my career. Toward the end I was playing bass exclusively, and emulated his playing style. My friends started calling me Jaco and it stuck. So I chose that as a pen name. Jaco. Just Jaco. Jaco and nothing more.  

 

 

 3.) Your blog is called Just Write of Left. How did you come up with that name? Me, I just listened to my inner child skipping through my inner field of transcendental daisies, but I understand if you were inspired by more conventional means.  

 

 I was searching for a new name for a blog. I brain stormed a bit and came up with Just Write of Left. Probably not the best name for SEO purposes. But I  liked the play on words, and decided to go with it. I shut down Blogging Perspectives Daily, and moved to this new domain. While I was participating in the BlogShorts Challenge I decided I wanted to write short fiction. I thought the name reflected what I was doing.

 

 

 4.) Please describe for those of my 10k readers who haven’t discovered you yet, what Just Write of Left is about.     

 

 Just Write of Left is a place for me to paint pictures with words. I like to create images with writing. That’s the goal. My blog is my personal art gallery in a sense.

 

 

  5.) What inspired you to start this blog?

 

  I don’t know. I just felt it would be a creative outlet, and I felt it was therapeutic. I needed that. I was recovering from a mean cocaine addiction, and at some point I felt like I wanted to create again. I felt I was well enough to get back to work. 

 

 

 

  6.) Could you tell us a bit more about your genre and niche?  

 

I wanted to try flash fiction, and write noir. After I complete my ongoing All Memories are Traces of Tears series which was born out of the BlogShorts I contributed, I want to write cyberpunk. I’m a big William Gibson fan.

 

 

 7.) What inspired the major themes and storylines in your blog?

 

I’m inspired by the films of  Wong Kar Wai. He is a brilliant film maker from Hong Kong. His films are poetry.  I love the imagery in his films and wanted to create that kind of imagery in my writing. The story lines are based on my experiences of living in mainland China. Mainly fiction revolving around three central characters. All Memories are Traces of Tears is about promise, yearning, the past, and in some ways about impossible love. Some loves are impossible, but they’re loves just the same. Of course the settings for my stories are mainland China, Kowloon, and Hong Kong.            

 

 

 8.) Do you find inspiration in your day-to-day life?

 

In my day-to-day life? In a sense I guess you could say that. Depends on where I’m spending those days. I find inspiration in human tragedy, the pain of the human condition. I’m inspired by things that really affect me in one way or the other.

 

 

  9.) Do you wear your heart on your post when you write?  

 

Of course. Every post is very  personal. I’ve always been one who not only wears their heart on their sleeve, but wears it like a red jacket.

 

  

10.) The Joe in your stories is gentle and benevolent. Is real life Joe like fictionalized Joe? Are there any ways real Joe is different from fictitious Joe?    

 

 

Not really different. The real life Joe is gentle and caring, but no one is perfect. I have my moments.

 

 

  11.) Where do you see your blog going in the future? Will there be new stories culled from your fascinating life? Personally, I expect a book deal for myself, get on the New York Times Bestseller list, win a Pulitzer, and sell the movie rights to Lifetime Television for Women. “She Wrote Yes: The OCDbloggergirl Story” starring Meredeth Baxter.  

 

 I’m not sure where my blog is heading. I just want to keep writing. There will be new stories. I have some ideas for future stories in mind.  

 

 

 12.) Growing up, did you want to be a writer? Did you fall in love with the written word?  

 

Well, growing up as an only child I had quite an imagination. I was writing song lyrics and poetry from an early age. I just felt writing was an extension of my musical studies. I’ve always been a ferocious reader so the written word was sustenance.    

 

13.) What made you want to start blogging in the first place? I’m blogging for World Peace.

 

As I said earlier it was a creative outlet. It got me involved, kept my mind occupied. It has helped with my recovery. I haven’t really written about my cocaine addiction, but I think it will surface in my writing at some point.

 

 

    14.) Who influenced your writing the most and why? For example,  I read a lot of cereal boxes during my formative years and it definitely shaped who I am as a writer. Tony the Tiger n’ Tolstoy, know what I mean?  

 

I mentioned Wong Kar Wai. I’ve also been influenced by the short fiction of Liu Yichang. The great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke is another influence, and the work of Charles Bukowski. There are so many. As for the why? It’s because of the images they were able to create.

 

 

15.) What are your main influences  in life? The people, the events, your spirituality, just anything that you feel comfortable sharing.

 

Influences in my life? My parents of course. My girlfriend Xiao Hui. My son Zaid. Music and art have always been a major part of my life. Spirituality? The Qur’an and Islam.  

 

 

16.) What are your other interests besides blogging? Do these interests come into your writing?

 

Astronomy and Cosmology. I’m quite the amateur astronomer. Other interests? Chinese culture. Languages. I studied Arabic for a couple of years. I learned some Mandarin Chinese, and continue to learn Mandarin as I will be returning to China in the very near future. No, I haven't used my other interests, but at some point I'll write them in.  

 

17.) What do you do with blogging ‘trolls’ and their ilk?

 

Blogging trolls. That can be a serious problem. There are more than 70 million blogs in existence. So these people with serious pathological problems just get out there and do what they do. Fortunately. I haven’t had a problem with trolls, not lately anyway. I just try to ignore them.

 

 

 18.) When, where, and how do you write the best?

 

I’m always writing. 24 hours a day. But for the sake of actually putting it into a word-processor, early in the morning. I’m usually up at 5 am. I need that quiet time before the distractions of the day just become overbearing. I sit at this huge dining room table in front of my MacBook Pro with a cup of coffee, and a cigarette. I have an idea and I start to formulate it, explore it. With All Memories are Traces of Tears I’m always exploring the characters, developing them. Other times I don’t have a direction  until I start writing. It changes. I just keep writing  until it feels right.

 

 

 19.) What is the meaning of life?

 

 I’m still trying to figure it out, but I can tell you what gives meaning to my life. And that is helping people. Giving something back. That’s what I learned. You have to always give back. So if I can help someone in whatever capacity then I feel like I’m doing something that matters.

 

 

  20.) Do you like Girl Scout cookies? I favor mint chocolate.

 

  Well, it’s funny you asked. Yes, I do. However, I was dismayed to learn they’re not actually made out of Girl Scouts.  

 

 

There you have it, dear readers. Jaco. Just Jaco has just shown us his art and gave us answers to life’s great quandaries. I had always wondered why girl scout cookies were bereft of girl scouts too, but I never knew how to voice my concerns. Be sure to check out Jaco’s excellent fiction blog http://justwriteofleft.com, and if you’re on Twitter I’m sure he’d love to have you on his ship: @jaco223  

Dr. Sana Johnson-Quijada Wants You To Be a Friend to Yourself

I met Dr. Sana Johnson-Quijada the first time she left a comment on my blog a few months ago, and she has been a dear blogging friend ever since.  Dr. Sana is the author of A Friend to Yourself, a blog she started to help people become  friends to themselves, a concept someone I know (::cough cough:: myself :: cough:: heave:: ) could definitely use.

 

Unlike Lucy, Dr. Sana Quijada's advice is free on her blog. Image via wikia.com

 

Every day for a year Dr. Sana, a psychiatrist and mother of three, is writing on ways to be a ‘friend to yourself.’  Her posts, as she says on her About Me page, are from her life experiences and her training, but she often uses fictionalized characters to illustrate her point. She even writes about perfectionism (not that I have a problem with being a perfectionist or anything).

Dr.   Sana’s posts are always relevant to the human experience common in us all. Yesterday’s post was about how revenge often ends up hurting you more than the person on whom you avenge yourself. I can’t help thinking with such awful things going on now and those seemingly getting away with it that this is an important message. There is also the self-care tip of not hurting yourself  or others, reminding us emotional abuse can be as bad as physical abuse.

I strongly suggest you start reading Dr. Sana’s  blog for common sense tips on caring for yourself and those around you. I’m sure you will find her writing as useful and full of insight as  I do.

http://friendtoyourself.com/