daily prompt

A Perfect Day

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“You’re going to reap just what you sow.”

“Um, excuse me?”

“You’re going to reap just what you sow.” And he says it three more times.

After deftly sketching some snapshots of a perfect day—a walk in the park, a moment in a zoo, me and you—the speaker/relentless monotone voice in Lou Reed’s song of that same name leaves us with that pushy, inexplicable, and echoing last line.
Read More

A Trip to the City

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Public transportation is a wonderful thing. The Tri-State area surrounding New York City, where I live, is more than adequately served by public transit. All 20,000,000-plus of us who reside here live at maximum a short drive away from a train station or a bus stop that offers regular service to and from the Big City and parts in between; thousands (perhaps millions) of us live within walking distance of a bus or a train station.

The last vehicles that leave NYC leave well after midnight, and the earliest vehicles heading to NYC from the farthest reaches outside the city leave only a couple hours after that time, so public transportation runs almost 20 of the 24 hours a day.

If you live or travel in New York City, you know the official Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway map. NYC has 490 stops or stations spread among its five boroughs, and the picturesque map shows the lines snaking through the city:
Read More

An Open-and-Shut Case of Something or Other

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Although I have been told that I have “loud” facial expressions, my pleading eyebrows were easy to ignore this morning. I guess my eyebrows were not loud enough.

My eyebrows were requesting conversational assistance … no, they were pleading for a rescue, stet.

One of the great parts of a life in recovery is the fact that I have a network of people with whom I can share some of my day-to-day difficulties. My friends in recovery remind me that there is really only one thing I need to understand: I am my only problem in my life. Anything that I feel is a problem is almost one hundred percent of the time a repercussion from me reacting to a person or situation as if it was the problem. My reaction is the problem, not the person or situation.
Read More