So you may have noticed that I had disappeared from this blog for about a month.  I've got a good reason.  While blogging is fun, I don't consider myself to be a blogger...rather I believe myself to be a writer.  And others must believe it too (at least every now and then).  During the month of March I was busy working on four separate pieces for Chicago Parent's Going Places magazine, which is out on newsstands now.

Save your the trip however and just check out the link to my articles below:

Three Places to Go Crazy for Comic Books
​http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/going-places/2016-spring/comics

Five Unique Road Trip Destinations for Families
http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/going-places/2016-spring/road-tripping

Take a Day Trip in the Name of Theater
http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/going-places/2016-spring/first-stage-theater

I love the posts going around today on Social Media for Leap Year.  

What did you do with your extra day? 

Well since it was scheduled on a Monday, I went to work like most people.  

You want to make Leap Year a fun thing? Give me a July 32nd.  Who needs an extra day in February?  No one really likes February.  Christmas and New Year's are over, you're done (mentally) with winter, and Spring seems forever away.  Let's not torture ourselves by extending this month another day.  Give me a June 31st instead.  One extra day of summer would seem to be a better use of our time.

I know that would be an extra day of winter for the folks in the southern hemisphere, but let's be honest, they're not me.

I know I really have no room to complain.  Overall, this winter has been quite mild compared to previous ones.  But that still doesn't mean I'm not cold.

I am cold.  And I don't like it.

Without the winter weather however, I suppose I wouldn't appreciate the summer temperatures as much.  But maybe that is just a lie I am telling myself to make it through the day.  After all, people in California and Florida seem to be doing just fine.

Oh well...only 131 days until summer...

As I was cleaning out some old files on my computer recently, I stumbled upon a file called Story Impressions.  I had no idea what it was until I opened it, then all of the memories came flooding back.  And I laughed.  And then I thought, these are too good to not share somehow, which leads us to this moment right now.

These came from a meeting I was in back in 2012.  We were being shown how to use Story Impressions in a classroom setting.  It is an exercise in creative writing.  What you do is give the students five different words and they must then write a paragraph that uses them all.  The words we were given were: Fourth, Isthmus, Kenny Rogers, Up with People and Boys (and they had to be used in order).  Here are the creations I came up with that day.  Hopefully you enjoy them as much as I did.
​

• I had just finished a fourth of Jack Daniels straight from the bottle when I vomited.  “It looks like an isthmus,” Kenny Rogers shouted at me as he patted me on back. “You hold your liquor like those pansies from Up with People,” he chided me as I continued to ralph all over his boys shoes.
• I was eating my fourth helping of chicken at Isthmus Park from Kenny Rogers Roasters when I decided I couldn’t put up with people anymore.  I didn’t want to leave my boys behind, but I had decided to kill myself with fried chicken.
• During the fourth of July, my family always traveled to the isthmus where dad asked mom to divorce him after seeing Kenny Rogers perform with Up With People.  Dad’s reason for the divorce request, he preferred the company of boys.
• My fourth toe on my right foot never developed quite properly.  It looks like a malformed isthmus.  Some country star like Kenny Rogers could write a country song about it, but it might be better suited for a sh**ty ass group like Up with People.  I am quite certain it is why the boys ask me to keep my socks on during sex.
• After his fourth whiskey sour over at the Isthmus, he sauntered over to the jukebox and put on back to back jams from Kenny Rogers and Up with People.  The boys at the bar didn’t take kindly to his tunes