DementedBlogger

Ouch! Yes that is right, I need my head examined… I became a roofer today. Well maybe not became one… more like became a learnee, or a trainee of sorts.

Mostly what I learned was that I really got out of shape since I have been unemployed! Right now I’m hoping the adage that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is true, but I might consider cremation….

I had forgotten about certain body parts being attached. Don’t worry though, they reminded me that they are still attached today, and I am sure they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I have to get up at 3:30 am to make it to the job site by 5:30 am, so I may be posting late if at all until I acclimatize myself to this torture. Did I say torture? I thunk that compared to what I did today the detainees at Guantanamo should all face the rising sun and be very thankful that they aren’t eligible for training….

Tom

A sad occasion today, Bear passed away at around 5:30 am today laying at the feet of her favorite person, Jo.

She will be missed. Those left behind have a long day ahead.

I have to apologize for my lack of posting here lately. It seems that it is my turn to come up empty handed in the blog department.

It isn’t that there is nothing to write about, only that I am presently having a difficult time writing it. It feels like here lately if I only had one more problem I could finally make it into the record books….

Hopefully it will all straighten itself out and I will have time to blog again.

Thomas H. Forthe

No post today, I am running late, sorry.

I had the good fortune to have a real mother, one that worked hard to support us and worried about us constantly. I am constantly reminded of how lucky I was being born into the family I have by the plight of the far less fortunate.

We weren’t the Cleavers by any means, but we came out pretty good all things considered.

I could have been like a young lady I met, whose mother is a using and abusing alcoholic, trying to ruin the girls life with need and never letting go, trying to drag her down and destroy hope.

I could have been like so many other children, beaten and abused, and found as skeletal remains many years later.

I could have been cheap labor, used to fuel the family budget, and ignored at every opportunity.

I could have been a lot of things that I am not. I have my mother to thank for that, she never gives up on us even when she probably should have.

Mom fed and clothed five of us, tried her best to get us through school, and give us what we really needed even though the finances seldom allowed what we wanted.

Mom isn’t perfect, I have never met a perfect person in 51 years. But finding a better person would prove difficult by any standards.

She moved us clear across the country, to remove us from the hell of our poverty, she wore rags and holy shoes to make sure we had clothes for school.

She worked two and three jobs to feed us, cloth us and keep a roof over our heads.

She put our lives above her own so often that when I got older I often wondered what she could have been if it weren’t for us.

She could have been anything she pleased, she had the looks and brains to have it all, instead she chose to take care of her kids.

She taught me to read when I was four, she taught me about many things and listened to anything I had to say.

I am far from perfect, I was a wild child who exceeded at finding trouble. I caused my mom a whole lot of trouble that I wish I could return in time and change. I am by far the worst problem she had.

She had to throw me out at seventeen for my trouble, only to take me back and prop me up when I failed. I quit school and plunged head first into a world of drugs and rebellion. I think my mother is the only thing that pulled me back before it was too late

She never gave up, never gave in and eventually I turned around and straightened out, most of the people I called friend from that time are gone. The human body can only take so much and it will quit if continually abused.

Mine isn’t doing so hot now, but it’s from working hard, not from smoking dope and drinking.

How many parents put their children first? How many will forfeit their own lives for the sake of a kids future? How many parents refuse to have a social life so that their ungrateful brats might have a chance? Read the papers or watch the news, there are an awful lot who don’t!

Thank you mom, without you I never would have had a chance.

Thomas H. Forthe

Coming up with ideas for stories is not a problem for this kid, writing them out and sending them off is another story however.

Visions of two legged elephants wielding weaponry and wearing gillie suits dance in my head, alien civilizations expanding and strange new creatures roam the fog of my mental mania. How can one run short of new ideas….

Finding the time to write all of this down and make a semblance of sense out of it makes me want to scream “bite me” and shut it all off. Some day I may be able to find the time. I only hope CCR was wrong and someday will arrive, alive, well and in a timely manner.

Writer’s block? Never heard of it, I may stumble on wording or function, but material has yet to fail me in a sci-fi or fantasy sense at least.

I may have to go the route of others and blog a story one day, but then I would have to choose one story from hundreds and break it down into short sequels written out daily in a blog. A good project to think on for the future.

The mind is in high gear and flying down the roads of my imagination, making new worlds to pursue, new characters to populate and new plots to follow. If only I could find neutral and slow this road rocket down….

Time to write them down,

Thomas H. Forthe

If I ever find the idiot that gave this crap to my wife… I would go to great lengths to give it back! Why would anyone even chance giving another human this wonderful germ? STAY HOME! I did not go Christmas shopping, I did not go to the grocery store, I did not pass go and I did not give a doctor two hundred bucks, yet.

People should come with a red flashing light, if you are even considering getting sick it would light up, and stay lit until you are well again. That way the rest of us could avoid getting within blocks of you… No offense, but keep it to yourself please!

Thomas H. Forthe

Happy holidays everyone! I’ll return tomorrow if I feel better, today I am anything but great. Oh well.

Merry Christmas!

Sometimes change comes easily to people, sometimes it would be easier to stop a tidal wave with a screen door…. Throw an idea out into the swarming consciousness and watch it go, it may pass ten thousand people before someone catches it, it may get lost in the process. Sometimes a gentle nudge is all that is needed to get it into a persons head and sometimes it takes a baseball bat!

People are resistant to change, especially change needed that is not directed at them. In our age of hyper everything, time is most precious, getting someone to give a small amount of it a nearly epic challenge. Everyone is busy in today’s world, not giving anything back to it is a major cause of today’s uncaring attitude. If we care nothing of another’s needs what is to make them care for us.

I’m not advocating the giving of all of ones personal time, just small pieces of it, playing with a child, loving your spouse, tending a friend….

Is ten minutes a day impossible to give, a half hour? Most of us can find it if we try, we all know someone that needs it.

Thomas H. Forthe

The writer’s forum wound up in an uproar over a members post, a question really, poorly stated but necessary to forward a cause needing attention.

I added fuel to the flames by asking for critiques, another poorly stated query, causing the forum owner grief unintentionally.

I should know better, as a writer, as a person and as a human being. If I had taken the time to formulate a plan in my writing and thought it through, edited my reply, it would have changed dramatically and for the better.

The original poster put forth the idea that certain members were being ignored, male members to be precise when it came to critiques on contest entries and possibly acceptance to the book to follow.

My response was that it wasn’t a male problem, but a problem of lack of critique on submitted entries that asked for them as some did not want critiques. My intention was to get more people to participate in said critiques and added a needed service to Beginning writers like myself.

The owner rightly read my response (poorly written) that I was blaming her for this. Michy has no time to respond to each entry, she has a life of her own, a very busy life at that.

What I meant was for more people to help out in the critique section with their opinions and I thought they would see that and respond. What I wrote was every entry should get response and pointed the finger at Michy unfairly and unjustly. I really need to learn to read what I write, instead of righting what I write after reading it.

Again my apologies to Michy and anyone else offended!

My entire intention was to create a writers environment that nourishes writers and their abilities, honing skills they possess and making us better writers in the process.

Without comments, we produce drivel, rambling on in the same state unchanged, forging ahead in our own blind revere, thinking we are doing fine, when in reality we are not and in some cases, like me, not even close.

Opinions are needed, I entered a story prematurely thinking it good enough, yet it wasn’t, it left many questions unanswered that a few people commenting on could have cured. I had to find that out from outside the forum, a forum that is in need of a small change, a change easily made by the members spending some time reading other members work. Perhaps easily is yet again a poor choice of words, in this day, time is of the Essence.

Enough rambling for today,

Thomas H. Forthe