I run out of ideas a lot. No, that's not really true. I have multiple notebooks of topics that I could write about. It's more a matter of sitting down and working on it. Motivation. Time. Energy. Procrastination. Anyway, I write down these ideas and then stick them in this gray notebook I have stuffed … Continue reading Words of the Week…From Three Years Ago
Author's Note: Late last year, I entered a short story contest put on by NYC Midnight. The first round was in January with the results coming out on April 1. We were given a genre, character, and setting that had to be incorporated into a short story of 2500 words or less. We were given … Continue reading Arlo, From Pomona
Author's Note: I've been more than a little distracted for the first few months of the year. If you're curious about what, just turn on the news. As much as I've tried to live life and not become too disturbed by the shit show this country has been since January 20, I can't just sit … Continue reading Too Many Interests, Not Enough Daylight
As I've mentioned a few times already, I signed up for a six week online creative writing class a few months ago. Our original instructor quit halfway through (red flag?), and the new instructor was less...well...she was just less. I didn't actually finish the last few lessons, but as a whole, the course was at … Continue reading Elaborate
I mentioned a few months ago that I took a creative writing class. The class wasn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but a couple of the assignments were thought provoking, if nothing else. Our very first assignment was to write about a window. That was it. That was the assignment. Oddly enough, the first thing … Continue reading The Window
I've written previously about some of the history of my blog. In a nutshell, I started this mess in 2015, and it has changed over the years as I have changed. I would say evolved, but that may be a stretch on both accounts. At any rate, I keep thinking I should do more with … Continue reading Name Change…Again
For the creative writing class that I took a couple of months ago, we were asked to write a short bio to introduce ourselves. I decided I didn't want to just start with "My name is Mike, and I teach high school social studies." That's too normal. But what I did write surprised me a … Continue reading A Short Bio
I had a student this year who is originally from Columbia. One of the nicest kids I've had in a long time. Smart too. But since he'd only been in the country for a handful of years, he had some issues with comprehension, especially when it came to interpreting old primary source texts. That's mostly … Continue reading English is Hard
(Author's note: I decided to take an online creative writing class recently. The class itself was "meh," but a couple of the prompts were fun. One of the weeks we were told to make a list of five things we dislike and then choose one to write about. Here's what I wrote.) One of the … Continue reading Grape Jelly
The original format of my blog several years back was a place for me to post pictures from University of Texas football games. I was a season ticket holder for almost twenty years, and I enjoyed shooting photos of the game and crowds. My site was called Scenes From The Fourth Row because...my seats were … Continue reading What’s In A Name?
Reflections Of A Middle Aged Nobody 