daily prompt

Dubious

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“The least controversial thing you can post is a photo of me? I’m dubious. The most controversial thing you do around me is brag about having opposable thumbs. If hate was a thing, I would do some hate. Is that how you say that?” I am glad I photographed Planet Kitty a couple years ago making her “dubious” face at me.

This blog (typed with my thumbs, because I can, Planet Kitty! I can) regularly publishes controversial posts. What follows is a lightly edited version of “A Conspiracy Theory of Conspiracy Theories,” a column that was published January 31, 2014.
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None of This Is True

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Even upstate New York gets rainbows. Here (above) is a photo to establish this. There is no rumor afoot that no one has started that some say can be interpreted to claim claims that upstate New York does not get rainbows. Nope. This should quash that bit of business right here and now, even though the photo was taken a couple years ago and does not have a location stamped on it.

Any one with a bit of Google gumption can suss out from the details that are not in the photo that the picture was taken in a side parking lot of an Applebee’s at around dinner time (EST), when the lines are long enough to spend the wait inside one’s car holding a plastic disc that will buzz unpleasantly when a table is said to be available inside. (Darn rumor-mongering plastic disc.)
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The Bad I Do …

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“I was standing there, minding my mind like it was no one’s business but mine to mind.”—“Another Song I Haven’t Written,” by Me.

Doctor’s office, circa a few years ago. Sober for over a year, my life was still far from the “unicorns spitting Skittles everywhere on golden pathways to love” that some people would have one believe life is for them. I had asked to see a therapist, and bureaucracy provided me with a pretty good one.

(The office, part of my county’s Mental Health Department, has since been de-funded and the service sold to private business by the county. Public mental health services privatized. Everyone in Ulster County, New York, was suddenly declared to be balanced inside and completely well. My therapist and I spent our hours twice a week for a couple months sharing stories of the bureaucratic heck we were experiencing; he with not knowing whether or when he needed to start looking for work, and me with not knowing how to apply for Social Security. I know that he helped me at least.)
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