Country After Country Wasn't Cool

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

Give us a Ted Talk on any subject that matters to you.

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com

The Grass is Greener

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: boondocks, road trip, tires, trampoline, yours

they were submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

_______________________________________

I live in the country in the middle of nowhere really. The technical town listed on my address (and I live outside the city limits there anyway) has a population of 298 people. 298. Sure, it's quiet. It can be a little boring. But I've always been a bit thankful for that and the fact that we live far away from any really large metropolitan area. I've seen horror movies. I don't want to be trapped in a huge city with everyone competing for life and resources. I mean, have you seen the walking dead? atlanta is NOT where anyone wants to be when shit goes down, man. So here are some pro (ok that's questionable) life tips from someone who's been living in bumfuck nowhere for all her life and who might have read a post apocalyptic novel or two. or few. 

Post Apocalyptic Guide to Living In the Boondocks

1. I mean, wait. Unless we’re talking about an economic collapse, it’s probably going to be contained well before it gets to my place or yours. You don’t even have a Target store, so you probably won’t have to worry about, you know, roving bands of hungry urbanites looking for, I don’t know, corn or cows or the folks from Wrong Turn for awhile. You’ve got awhile to make a plan. Smoke some weed and craft some shit. We got this.

2. Your basic supplies will be covered by the stores you can find even in the boondocks, but you may want to take a road trip early on to get more complicated stuff that you didn’t panic buy online. Might be worth traveling for a sporting goods or camping store to be better prepared.

3. Prepare a bug out bag just in case you need to travel. First aid, fire starters, meds, a dry bag, thermos, life straw, etc. also definitely bring some kind of protection. Apparently people like Alex Jones are just looking for any excuse to eat their neighbors’ asses, and you have to fight them off at all costs unless that’s your kink then more power to you.

******If you want to try to stay in one place, do the following as soon as you start to worry. If not, uh…good luck.

4. Get an old trampoline. It’s good for building a pretty cheap coop for chickens, guinea, and ducks. The eggs are good for protein to trade and eat, and if needed the birds themselves will be good food. Consider larger animals if you have the space. Or have a couple pigs and a goat in the house. No one’s judging anymore. Live your Dr. Doolittle fantasies in real life. At least it will give you someone to talk to. and sure, yeah, i probably spend way too much time talking to my animals already, but whatever. I'm well prepared.

5. Use as much of your land as possible for a garden. Go ahead and till it now, throw down some black plastic to make sure everything is dead, then add nutrients to the soil and prepare it for veggies. Also buy some older fruit trees and plant so you may have fruits in the next year or so. Garden naked. Get dirty. Rub yourself with tomato plants and commune with the harvest goddesses. You’re going to need all the help you can get.

6. Maybe make an obstacle course? Get some tires for, like, cardio or whatever and some rope to climb or to spice things up with the last few tinder dates you manage to squeeze in. Might as well live it up while you can. If you’ve spent most of your nights rewatching The Office for the 30th time while you scroll through the same three apps on a loop every ten minutes because there is literally nothing else within a 100 mile radius of your house except the dairy farm that you’re pretty sure is ruining your lungs and definitely ruined the spring days with the windows open thing, then you might want to physically prepare. Do I know how to do this? No. But I'm sure you can youtube it?

7. Set up some traps. For people or monsters. I don’t know. It seems like fun when Fred does it in Scooby Doo.

8. Build a persona as the weird witch or wizard or oracle (or if you’re me, you’ve had this down for YEARS). Creep your house out. Put signs in the yard about reading auras or some shit. Use some trickery to make people BELIEVE it. You know what’s going to happen. You have all the best treatments. A, you can barter the fuck out of this. B, if you see anyone not from the area migrating to build something new, scare the shit out of them. Grab their arm and search their palm then scream about doom until they leave. Resources are scarce. Ok, unless they’re nice or whatever and then I guess maybe they can learn how to make soap.

9. Learn new stuff. Seriously. I think everyone should do this anyway. If you are unable, that’s one thing, but if you can, learn to knit or sew or make your own bread. It’s so gratifying to make a new recipe work with what you have on hand or to be able to patch up your own clothes or make your own masks right now. With the right tools, you can make everything you can’t get your hands on, and that’s always a plus. Also, learn how to just sit with yourself. Mindfulness. Awareness. Love yourself. Not like that. Okay, like that too. That’s always fun. But love your entire being. If the shit hits the fan, you need to be able to fuck shit up not be fucked up, so do the work when at all possible. You’re the best you that you’ve got or whatever I read on that photo of a beachy sunset that one time I accidentally added a Susan to my facebook.

10. Buy some books. You’re going to miss tv. And some days your own head isn’t going to be a safe space even when you’ve done the work, so yeah you might want to pretend you’re a pirate kidnapping a princess or Walt Longmire or a tiny kitten who gets lost or whatever and that’s ok. Escaping is good too. Make sure you include the Discworld series because it’s fucking amazing.

That's all I've got. I mean, we're all doomed if it gets any more serious than this first wave of corona anyway, but it's nice to think we might be prepared I guess. Good luck out there. Might want to check into moving to the boondocks asap. At least you can prolong your exposure!

________________________________________________

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

Spatulas on Parade https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo https://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

Follow Me Home https://followmehome.shellybean.com

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

My Life After https://www.mylifeafterblog.blogspot.com

Southern Belle Charm https://www.southernbellecharm.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Duck, Duck, No Geese

I was born and raised in an extremely rural area of Southwest Georgia. It wasn’t easy being what I am compared to what passes for typical around here. My first cardinal sin was my complete indifference to football (which has, in all honesty, turned into loathing as Ive grown and found out how sexist the NFL is). This was followed by my lack of religion (football comes before Jesus in the South. Surprisingly) and compounded by the heavy metal I loved and the way I didn’t act like a fragile damsel in need of rescuing by a strong, brutish man driving a raised 4 x 4, gas guzzling truck. In fact, instead of wilting in the presence of masculinity, I threatened to kick a few ignorant, bigoted asses in my high school days when the natives made unwarranted jokes about friends of mine.

It’s no surprise that I wanted out of here as soon as possible. I dreamed of it. Planned it. Yearned for the day when I could see those plans come to fruition. I would run so fast the day I graduated high school the streets would burn in my wake.

It didn’t happen that way though.

I spent a lot of my time blaming my problems on where I was instead of realizing a lot of it had to do with who I was. I figured that out slowly and surely along the way, and eventually decided this was home. I can’t leave the Spanish Moss covered Live Oaks, the long summers perfect for drying laundry on a clothesline, my two acres of rural paradise…

The girl who mismatched Marilyn Manson shirts and thrift store polyester pants is perfectly content with her knees in the dirt growing vegetables in her garden or mowing the grass with a whiskey sour in one hand and a dog in her lap. If you were to tell my 16 year old self that she would find peace and, in all honesty, complete and utter joy in being followed around her yard in Climax, Georgia by a 4 pack of Indian Runner ducks, she’d tell you to go fuck yourself. But, that’s the way it is.

So, with the prompt “duck” I couldn’t resist showing off my feathered babies, weird as they may be. And hold the glazed duck dinner jokes. I could never eat a part of my family.

Posted by Jenniy French on Sunday, May 3, 2015

________________________________________________________________________

Be sure to check out the other contributions for today's Sunday Confessions on More Than Cheese and Beer

Days Like This

The water trickles slowly into the bright green, Mario-inspired mug bringing with it a waft of steam and a sweetly bitter smell that makes her mouth water at the thought of the creamy warmth that will soon blanket her taste buds. She’s too eager to take the first sip to let every single drop find its home before she takes the almost-too-hot-to-touch mug from its place. It slips into her hand like a familiar lover’s. She lets the heat get so, so close to unbearable before she sets it down again. She adds a couple spoonfuls of Splenda from the vintage yellow canister on the counter and stirs in the extra extra creamy creamer changing the dark brown to a smooth caramely color.

Perfection.

She travels with the mug, then, back to the couch setting it carefully on the table before she takes her

his hair is actually much longer now

place tucked safely into the corner on the left side. The boy giggles from the red chair on the far side of the room, the chair he always sits in when he’s playing his games and living the carefree life that children should. She watches him for a moment and smiles that smile that mothers have when the love feels like it might burst from every pore, surely it must radiate from her like a disco ball shining in his presence. He looks up at her then, his laughter still fresh on his lips, and asks, “what?”

“Nothing,” she says.

He shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his game while she reaches forward for the coffee that will now be just right or so she hopes. The first sip is like sunbeams on her tongue, warm and full of life. She sits back then, mug in hand, and blows a little on the still warm liquid before inhaling the aroma of the banana and caramel undertones in the coffee. The second sip hits her taste buds and is even better than the first.

She flips the television on looking for something to fill the silence but not in the mood for a record that would only distract her like music tends to do. Her favorite tunes would consume her instead of provide background noise which is not what she needs at the moment unfortunately. Looney Tunes will work, she decides. The boy sends her a thumbs up of approval. It’s the new show not the old classics. Fun, humorous, but also easy to ignore. It’s still somehow familiar though and just adds to the ease of the day.

With the remote settled back into its place on the coffee table, she grabs her fuzzy throw—the gray one covered in black bats—to cover her legs. The cats know that blanket all too well and are snuggling together on it in groups of 3 as soon as she gets it in place. The added warmth and the vibrations from their purring is more than welcome as she takes another sip of her coffee and watches them for a moment lovingly bathing one another like furry best friends do.

She stays like that lingering in the semi-quiet moments. There is so much left to do this day. The house is clean, the animals are full and sleepy, the laundry is in the wash, the boy is done with schoolwork, but her day is far from over as the mug of coffee may suggest. It’s time to get to work on her own schoolwork, her blogs, her letters. It’s somewhat of a never-ending cycle, but she takes joy in being busy, in the words that flow from her fingertips to the white screen filling it up one after the other in academic pursuits, deep conversations, stories that beg to be told, and reflective essays.

As much as she sarcastically jokes about domesticated bliss, there’s comfort in these routines and the way she can sink into life like it’s a big comfy, purring, fuzzy couch and enjoy the little moments that make the day something unique.

__________________________________________________________________

I'm not sure why I decided to write about myself in 3rd person, but it felt right. I actually started this as a first person narrative, but it felt off. So, here we are. This was another installment of Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. The prompt this week was comfort. Thanks for joining me in my comforting routines every Sunday. Be sure to check out the MTCAB blog for the other linkups!!

The 6 Thoughts I have While Walking My Dog At 2 A.M.

Given that I’m a night person, walking my very demanding Great Dane at 2 a.m. happens more often than you might think. He’s also scared of the dark so while it may seem like I have the perfect guard with me while I’m out there letting him do his business, he’s actually a big-ass Scooby of a dog who would piss himself and go running for the house as soon as he saw anything that doesn’t belong in the yard.

1. This is how scary movies start.

If a zombie apocalypse started, I’m pretty fucking sure it would be in the cities where congested populations live and cough and snot and things on each other all the time instead of out here where I barely have to speak to anyone throughout my day except for said demanding dog (and the other animals here…and the extroverted kid that never stops talking). But, you really couldn’t convince me of that at 2 am when I hear every little thing in the pine forest across the road and imagine an undead figure stumbling out of the trees wearing a hockey mask and carrying Freddy’s clawed hand under one arm and a hatchet in the other. Whispering “what the fuck was that?????” to the dog like I’m going to get a reply in English doesn’t really do much to help me feel better either.

2. Why do I always forget my pocket knife in the house?

I bought myself a pretty teal Kershaw pocket knife just because…well…you never know. I never remember to have it with me in situations where you never know like if a knife-wielding maniac in a Scream mask came rushing out of the forest. And, let’s face it—even if I did manage to have it on me, I’d probably stop dead in my tracks and piss myself along with the dog before I’d ever even think to grab it and become the knife-wielding dog walker in pajamas.

3. I need pajamas that are less revealing.

I never PLAN on walking the dog at 2 am even though it happens quite often, so you’d think I’d have taken care of this by now. Perhaps I’m hoping I can mesmerize any gun toting mad men with the jiggle of my not-entirely-covered ass cheeks. Perhaps I realize the futility in trying to buy pajamas anymore since the last time I bought anything, my ass cheeks still weren’t covered and the nightgown turned out to be quite sheer ( I swear it didn’t look it in the store). Either way, I’m just hoping the nearby neighbors aren’t insomniacs because they’re getting an eyeful if they are, and I don’t think the old guy’s heart can take it.

4. How the fuck do you even piss that much?

I’m not sure how big exactly my dog’s bladder is. It’s not something I ever felt the need to look up, but it must hold at least 17 gallons of urine. He pees before we even get into the yard all that well…an entire river of yellow. He pees on this spot and that spot and another spot. I scream “not on my fucking trees” 500 times. He pees again. And again. We’re not just talking about marking either because he has a different stance for each. For marking he does a lazy, old man half-mast leg hike (he’s old and has arthritis…poor guy can’t do a full lift) and for regular urination he does this weird half-lean, half-point pose that gives him much more gravitas than he deserves considering the puddle he’s making. But either way, marking or no, I am pretty sure his entire body is a urine cavity while I’m stuck with a bladder the size of a thimble (just ask anyone who has ever gone on a road trip with me). So while I’m waiting on a skulking monster to come streaking onto my property, the dog is leisurely peeing for what feels like 300 hours. It does not bode well for my nighttime-walk anxiety, and I end up yelling “couldyoujusttakeyourdumpalreadyFORFUCKSSAKE??”

5. Did I really just step in that?

Well… that’s the great part about living in the middle of nowhere… You get all the beauty of the stars in the night sky because there are really no lights out here to detract from the view. It’s gorgeous. It really is. But that also means that it’s blacker than Sean Hannity’s cold, cold heart some nights and no flashlight can really give me a good view of just exactly where I’m stepping especially when most of the time I’m using said flashlight to scan the tree line for hipster werewolves in torn skinny jeans and flannel shirts—the scariest of all werewolves.

6. I should have done this BEFORE I had a drink.

I’m not a major drinker…not daily or anything. But on occasion after a long, frustrating day, a glass of whiskey and ginger ale hits the proverbial spot. It seems to me that these are the nights that the dog always, always has to go. These are the nights when I would most definitely fall down while trying to run like every woman in every horror movie ever if anything did actually appear in the yard like the multitudes of coyotes I always hear or a human-flesh-loving Sasquatch or the neighbor’s unsocialized and scary pit bulls (that have gotten loose more times than I can count over the years and even pinned me in a vehicle on occasion like that fucking scene out of Cujo…yikes). And of course by the time I get him out there and he pees 98 gallons worth of whatever he’s been drinking out of the toilet and the sink and my cup then I have to pee and it’s just a big fucking fiasco.

The dog is going on 8 years old which is senior citizen status for Great Danes, and I have yet to see a knife-wielding maniac running from the tree line from the horde of zombies being smashed by the Sasquatch that was just attacked by a hipster werewolf in a hockey mask, but I’m not betting against it. So, think of me when you happen to wake up at 2 am to pee and hope that somehow I mesmerized those fools with my jiggly ass cheeks long enough to get out my trusty little teal pocket knife that I finally remembered to bring with me since we all know the dog left me standing there in his dust to beat me to the house.