Tooting Our Own Horns, in 6 Words

You don’t have to be a star, baby, to be in my show. (Snowtrooper jubilation at Mill Mountain Park, Roanoke, Va.

Sometimes, you just have to represent.

Yourself, that is. None of this ‘aw shucks’ stuff. No, “no one reads my blog. I just mess around with words” business. It’s not usual fare for a blogger to boast (or is it?), so this month’s challenge proved … challenging to most.

I compile a post called 6 Words. Ernest Hemingway inspired it when he said any story can be told in six words. I ask bloggers, friends, strangers, and a few strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt every month.

October is National Self-Promotion Month. In six words, tell us something good about your blog. 

🌶️ Go Ask Daddy About Spicy Commercials, Reserved Parking and the Home of the Demon Deacs

I think I remember you from my teenage years …

Long before Kesha and Jennifer Lawrence, way back on the timeline before Ingrid Michaelson and Laura Linney, in a time Hope Solo, Sue Bird and Paula Creamer were just youth-league cuties … there was the MCI girl.

Guys, this is Jean Louisa Kelly.

Her cute but creepy ad for the soon-defunct MCI became all sortsa Dream Weaver for me.  She resurfaced in Mr. Holland’s Opus, as star-dreaming Rowena Morgan in 1995. In 2000, you could see her in Yes, Dear, married to a dude even dweebier than yours truly.

I thought she’d disappeared after that feeble TV show.

Then I watched 1,000 to 1: The Cory Weissman Story. I resisted, invoking my “No Movies That Star Kids From Disney Shows” clause. But … Cory’s mom looked, so sweetly familiar. The curls were now straight; her lipstick less pow than fire-engine red.

15 Amazing (and Simple) Things For a Happy Life

Happiness glows from within one. Or from directly behind one.

Oy, happiness.

It’s there. We must practice patience. It’s like a Taco Bell burrito. Sometimes, they’re made incorrectly. All the cheese or sauce or sauce and cheese get tucked into the final fifth of the burrito. One must endure dry beans for a while, but eventually you’ll get the cheese.

Or the sauce or sauce and cheese.

Laura writes the blog Riddle from the Middle. It’s real life, as she says, with a side of snark. She’s a lover of family, words, and music, and really, with proper snacks, isn’t that what we all love? She writes a thoughtful, enlightening blog I hope you’ll check out.

Go Ask Daddy About Cinematic Symbolism, Steve Martin Stunts and Retail/Dining options for Dec. 31

Do you know where that water’s been, brother?

NPR just made rain kind of gross.

A show promo pointed out that water we drink today has passed through the kidneys of a brontosaurus. Japanese freestyle swimmer Shigeo Arai probably swam through it in the 1936 Olympics.

It might have lived in a water pitcher on the set of the Dominican telenovela Tropico, too. I try not to think of that, but it’s true. Water’s the original repurposed thing.

Sure, rain’s kind of nasty, but it’s also beautifully poetic. It made up puddles my girls stomped in walking into the grocery store with dad. It helped soil uniforms – school and soccer – and locked in stories and memories and history.

What One Soccer Coach Included On His Wish List Might Shock You

It’s kind of like a soccer sideline, but really, it’s the towel rack at the Acorn Motel in Black Mountain, N.C. Nice place.

I’ll get it out of the way, first.

As a soccer coach, I’d love it if the tradition of root beer and a Cubano sandwich became post-game routine. I know that won’t happen, unless I make it work for myself. (Coaches who maintain a set approval rating could upgrade to cold beer and a Monte Cristo.)

Here’s 42 reasonable (and some unreasonable) items on this coach’s wish list.

🎧 Go Ask Daddy About Joint Noise, TV Tech and What Happens When You Set a Stopwatch with The Good Book

I call this one, Distortion. Camdyn’s Coca-cola glass, though, also makes me thirsty.

I won’t divulge individual names right now.

Consider all three girls implicated, though. The injuries they’ve suffered number in triple digits. The injuries they’ve suffered have only a few been serious. The injuries they’ve suffered occurred at the hands of – their other sisters. Well, mostly.

Some are self-inflicted.

One kid suffered a hyper-extended elbow climbing into a cardboard box. One bruised a cheekbone opening a car door. One burned her hand when she touched a stove burner I just turned off. (These are all one kid. And she blames me for the last one.)

42 People Who Need a Stern Talkin-To (Who Aren’t named Hope Solo)

He gets just enough of the save to keep the match level!

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

Well, okay. I’m not happy. I noticed Hopey Solo – I mean, Hope – trending on Twitter the other night. That can’t be good, I thought. And it wasn’t. Turns out, Boo got suspended for six months for mouthing off after a shootout loss to Sweden in the World Cup.

The USWNT also terminated her contract. She called the Swedes “cowards” for their conservative tactics in a tied match against the U.S. I disagree with her. In my eyes, Sweden played legal tactics that give them the best chance at winning.

Hope’s diatribe was only words. No mammals were traumatized. Amphibians either. It might have lacked class, but Hope responded honestly to a question.

No Guest Post Here. How’s About 10 More Random Smartphone Photos?

Who just went 2.7 seconds on a parrot named Fumanchu?

Another week, another guest post lost.

My inbox contains buried treasure. In it, correspondence from friends far and near. Agreements to guest post. Inquiries into soccer teams. Catch-ups, and rundowns. It’s tons better than anything found in Al Capone’s vault, even.

I’m getting closer to taking up shovels and those little whisky brushes like Indiana Jones.

I hope when I return to emails I’ve yet to return, you haven’t given up on me. I’m coming around, I promise. It’s not a brushoff – rather, you’re swept up in a convex twister than relies on randomality and the universe to sit you front and center.

Here’s Hoping My Girls Have Friends Like This

Sisterhood can be a twisty thing. But it’s mostly illuminating.

I have three daughters.

I want much for them. Peace, not a pampered path. Purpose, not existence in pretend. Experiences, not empty days when the moon rises and sets without peace and purpose. I want to drive them places they want me to take them.

I want also for them to venture into places I am not.

The influence and support they’ll have from their parents will never cease. What of those times when she’s chosen to play on a new team, in a far-off park? When she’s on a stage somewhere I am not, rehearsing and projecting?

🧳 Travel Light. Wear Simple Clothes. Just Watch.

“Travel the world and the seven seas/ Everybody’s looking for something.” – Annie Lennox

Eloquent people seem to travel lots. Or maybe travel breeds eloquence. What do you think?

I don’t travel much. Unless you count drives to Mooresville or the trips I’ll take to the mountains for Elise’s games. There’s my annual work trip to someplace tropical every winter. When you travel, you pick up stories, whether it’s in Madrid or Marshville.

My friend Brittany tells stories of travel abroad and also to the junkyard in the blog Girl Interrupted, and its superb reading. The clarity of the scenes she sets? Downright Hemmingwayesque in its delivery.

My friend Britta writes It’s a Britta Bottle. She undertook a life shift to teach in Thailand. Her stories began when she made the choice and influence her writing today. Her adventures inspired this post.