Mad Macedonian

Turning New Pages in my Life as I Celebrate Birthday 53

"Lift up your head. Create a fresh new vision for your life. There are greater victories in your future than you have experienced in your past."

Joel Osteen - Every Day A Friday

Today I turn 53 years old, and I have a lot on my plate.

I have a new update on my medical situation, a direct follow-up to what I discussed after the appointments last week.

http://www.madmacedonian.com/2013/03/medical-update-when-life-throws-a-rock-in-your-direction.html

Medical Update: When Life Throws a Rock in Your Direction...

...duck and just keep on pressing forward with the journey of your life.

"Declare that you will prosper despite every difficulty that may come your way. Don’t just survive; thrive!"

Pastor Joel Osteen - Facebook 2/28/13

"Be a big dreamer. Don't make little plans" - 2/28

"Take a few minutes every day to dream big dreams; close your eyes, and envsion your dreams coming to pass. If you can establish that picture in your heart and mind, then God can begin to bring it to pass in your life". -  3/1

Pastor Joel Osteen in Your Best Life Begins Each Morning: Devotions to start every day of the year.

The Picture? - http://tinyurl.com/azmya8m

The past couple of days have been event filled ones, from being on a bus on Wednesday, on the freeway, as its windshield was struck by a rock flung in its direction by a car that must have hit it, to a day of important doctors’ appointments, yesterday, and follow-up news today.

I reduced the tension on the bus, making everyone laugh, by apologizing to one and all for the fact that  someone must have learned I was from California, was on this particular bus, and so they decided to express their thoughts on my moving here.

"But, I'm not from THAT part of California and I'm NOT that type of Californian, honest!"

Though I was late I accomplished what I had set out to do on the 3 hour trip to Willowbrook Mall.

Houston Looking for 1st Poet Laureate

In the Houston Chronicle, today, comes word that the city of Houston and the Public Library are looking for a poet laureate.

Me? Being relatively new in town the Mad Houstonian is just looking for open mic poetry venues.

In southern Ca. where I grew up, attracting an appreciative audience was hit or miss.

Sometimes I would beg and plead, to no avail...

 

Other times, they liked me, they really liked me!

Medical Update: MD Anderson Melanoma Evaluation Next Week

When last I reported on developements, on Jan. 30, it seemed something was in the works that would get me an evaluation sooner than later ( http://tinyurl.com/a4tka3f ).

Yesterday I got a packet in the mail, from MD Anderson that included a 9 page Patient History Database for me to fill out, a supplement to medical records they already have.

I contacted a new patient co-ordinator to learn more since the packet gave no indication when an appointment would be.

It seemed a notice about that had yet to arrive in the mail, or a phone call to me had yet to be made.

Anyway, I learned that I have an evaluation scheduled for the early morning of Feb. 28th. During the hour long visit I will be given an angiogram and an ultrasound to determine if I am a candidate for a radiation procedure called Brachytherapy, or if one of the other options given me for treatment would be more appropriate.

Elephants and Hippos and Dragons! Oh, My!

Forget tigers, I'm taking a dragon by the tail, and going to do my best to hang on!

I almost danced with a lady cow as well.

The rodeo is in town for the next month, and they had a "let's get the festivities started" event downtown at city hall to start the week; everyone went away believing that cows can line dance!

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the world's largest livestock show and lasts a month; that’s a hell of a lot of methane.

I did a google search, the other day, looking for statues and monuments in Houston with a writer related theme. While all that the search could come up with were not specific answers to the query I DID find a few results worth checking out.

Chapbook Challenge 3: You Deserve a Break Today

To start the week the challenge was to just take a little break and go for a walk, sing a song, watch a movie, and take a nice long bath or shower, and imagine you are at the beach.

 

Dear Past: You Can Stop Obstructing My Parachute, Now, OK

Dear Past:

Hi, it's me, you, but 14 years in the future....

Hello
Good-bye
I’m free today
So long.

We have come a long way since 1998, dude, and still have far to go, but when I look back at a 5 part series of posts I wrote in February 2011, I realize that letting you affect me and the way I think is a hindrance to my progress.

That series of posts was based on exercises in the book What Color is My Parachute? by Richard Bolles.

It was, I think, the first time I had ever so completely explored what made me who I am in such a positive, uplifting, looking toward the future manner.

It probably annoyed the hell out of you, I know...well tough.

A few months later I broke my ankle and hopes, dreams and plans first given voice openly in that series were shelved for a year.

No doubt you were pleased. Nice try, though.

Despite your best efforts, however, I continued to find inspiration through various books I read, events I attended, online challenges I participated in, compliments paid to me, and the encouragement of new friends made who are guiding me in new directions and encouraging me to stop letting your obsession with the negative side of our life together get the better of me, and affect my amazing progress of the past 10 months, especially since the summer and my move here to Houston.

Chapbook Challenge 2: Choosing a Theme and 30 Poems

The 2nd task of the challenge was to choose the theme for your chapbook and 30 poems to include. By including haiku's, cinquain's and tanka's I was able to increase the number of poems in my chosen theme from 24 to 30.

The theme I chose sort of chose itself simply because it was the theme with the most poems in the list I made in part 1. For people with more than 30 poems in their chose theme they would have the task of figuring out which ones to leave out.

 

With all this done our next task was not to take the whole lot to bed with us, but to ignore them for a couple of days, to allow "your initial feelings toward your work to simmer and marinate." I know, doesn't sound at all sexy to me either, but the whole idea is to see if, after a day or two, you still want to take these 30 poems out on a chapbook date or not.

 It's also a chance to take a little stress off you by doing something relaxing, and different than the task at hand.

I celebrated the posting of my 2nd guest post and yesterday paid visits to the two Trader Joe's in Houston.

NEXT: Chapbook Challenge 3: You Deserve a Break Today

http://www.madmacedonian.com/2013/02/chapbook-challenge-3-you-deserve-a-break-today.html

Articles and websites referenced for this story:

My guest post - Remembering Mama's Kitchen http://www.goingveggie.com/remembering-mamas-kitchen/

Series start: Chapbook Challenge 1: Challenging Myself to Move Forward

http://www.madmacedonian.com/2013/02/chapbook-challenge-1-challenging-myself-to-move-forward.html

Khara House's blog - Our Lost Jungle:

1. “pulling strings”: organizing your work by common "threads" & themes

http://www.kharahouse.com/2013/02/pulling-strings-organizing-your-work-by.html

2. “stack it up to experience”: using theme stacks to develop your chapbook

http://www.kharahouse.com/2013/02/stack-it-up-to-experience-using-theme.html

3. “sleepover!”: why you should sleep on your chapbook collection

http://www.kharahouse.com/2013/02/sleepover-why-you-should-sleep-on-your.html

Welcome Readers of Going Veggie!

Good Monday morning to the Mad Macedonian-Curious!

Welcome, readers of the tasty website and blog, Going Veggie!, to my creative home.

Having wandered over from the website, Facebook, Twitter, and parts unknown, you are no doubt scratching your head in curiosity.

Please pardon the mess as, for the first time in 6 years, a new look is in the offing (the same on my cat blog), so a lot of what used to be in the sidebar, and former back pages, is temporarily on vacation.

Why I No Longer Have Cat (or any) Scratcher Fever

In March 1984 I got my first job, at a bookstore in my hometown. In October 1985 California began to sell lottery scratch-off tickets. For the next 15 years I sold them on this job. For the last 11 years, as store manager, I also dealt with the ordering and returning side of things, via the paperwork. Until about a decade ago I also regularly bought tickets, occasionally winning fifty to $100, but never more.

I saw how the game evolved, the machines, the way the tickets were made, so as to prevent fraud, and how the game was played.

My fondest memories, however, involve the patrons of Willy’s Bar, next door. The place is a legend in Pomona, and I saw the same patrons day after day, for years, until our store closed in the mid-90’s, and I went to the Claremont store.