Gregory Short

Oh, yeah. I have this blog. Sitting here. Waiting.

I often forget to blog. Probably (partly) because I have a JIRL. Yeah, the world needed another acronym, so I created one. Just now. Journal In Real Life. As in: a paper journal you write in with a pen. Or a pencil, preferably 6B. Of course, Gran would say I'm hoity-toity by using a fountain pen. I would say she was hoity-toity for not only using the term hoity-toity, but teaching it to her grandchildren. Someday, I'll write down all the Gran-isms. There were a lot of them.

It's right that I'm thinking of her at the moment. Today would have been her birthday. She was an obliviously happy person, not afraid to sit on the floor to play board games with her grandchildren. She was a good cook, and made a chocolate malt to die for. Her red cinnamon apple dumplings were a treasure, the recipe for which is tragically lost forever.

What started as a blog post about forgetting to blog turned into a small tribute to my grandma. Happy birthday, Gran!

This was my first attempt at a poured acrylic painting. It was made using an inexpensive set found at a discount store. The "canvas" is more like a textured piece of cardboard. But it came out suprisingly well. The colors aren't captured correctly by the scanner, but the spirit of the painting is intact. I suspect this won't be my last.

Side note: it's difficult giving abstract art a title, but "What Happens in the Dark" popped in my head. So there it is.

The following was spontaneously composed on my AlphaSmart Neo2, a 90's vintage educational device adopted by thrifty writers as a distraction-free writing device. This is evidence that writer's block doesn't exist. The words are all around us. Just listen, and look.

It's 7:39 am and the house is quiet. But it isn't. The ceiling fan in my wife's home office whirs rhythmically, and I just realize the refrigerator had been humming in unison--harmony?--with it. But the fan is having it's solo. I notice a nearly imperceptible ringing in my left ear--tinnitus or interference from the army of electrical devices that _______. Down the street, to the left, a dog barks, off and on. Birds chirp from the wires in the back yard. The kittens patter around, creating punctuation of pounces on rug over hardwood floor. The calico licks my bare toes, lightly. Her tongue is a stiff-bristled brush of hooks on flesh. The calico joins her sister, a bicolor brown tabby, in the window. Their tails swish silently, in unison. The calico has settled on the back of the couch near the window, watching as the tabby scans the sky and ground for something, anything, that moves. She repositions herself, then crosses the back of the couch to the other window. An airplane can be heard making the final turn to line up with the runway. And now another. The airport is small, serving mostly private planes. But I wonder, who with the means of a private plane would come to Riverside. Is it merely a stop on the way to somewhere important? If I had a plane, I would fly to anywhere but Riverside. I love Riverside--all but five or so years have been spent here--but the world is large and I've seen the smallest fraction of it. The ceiling fan and refrigerator are singing harmony again, as cats patter across the back of the couch.