La Bene Vita (Book) - InkSpot.Com

, also known as Michelle Tuesday, is a musician, educator and writer hailing from Columbus, Ohio.

La Bene Vita

The (Tentative*) Topic Rotation
Self Sundays: Personal blogging days about family, leisure, work, and health. May be boring.
Music Mondays: Commentary, articles, and links highlighting music, theory, and ed topics.
Writing Wednesdays: Discussion on the art and business of writing.
"Invalid Item"

Thursdays: A weekly original short story submission.
Friday Reviews**: Every Friday, I will review a minimum of one short story on WDC.

* I reserve the right to change the topic of the day at any time, at least until I acquire a million followers and gain official "influencer" status, at which point I shall be more consistent in order to meet the expectations of my adoring public.
** I can only commit to one review per week. If you would like your short story to be in my reviewing queue, please send me a WDC review request.

Check out my public reviews

to get a sense of what to expect.

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Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Storm Machine

a day ago
In response to "Tone, Whimsy and an Editing Verb Bank Idea"

hoMEOWner

One possibly issue among asking AI to quantify your verbs for flavor is that it is also trained on the internet, which is the worst of all possible bullies. Whimsy isn't necessarily a good thing to it. AI can be introduced to brain rot by reading twitter but they haven't figured out how to fix it afterward.

Jan 28, 2026 at 11:35am
In response to "Tone, Whimsy and an Editing Verb Bank Idea"

Ever notice how "home" and "house" are near-synonyms, but "homework" and "housework" are completely different things?

All of which is to say: I ain't doin' either one.

2 Like

Jan 27, 2026 at 2:18pm
In response to "A Novel Idea"

- Bah-hahahahahahahahaha

Jan 27, 2026 at 2:17pm
In response to "A Novel Idea"

- Come on, now. What kind of music school are you running? Tomato totally rhymes with staccato.

1 Like

Jan 27, 2026 at 2:15pm
In response to "A Novel Idea"

- Is that really necessary, though? Everyone knows that the only word that rhymes with tomato is potato, and, well, you know.

1 Like

Jan 27, 2026 at 2:13pm
In response to "A Novel Idea"

My sources tell me that the pronunciation of "query" depends on what country you're from.

As with many other British / American pronunciation issues, it's never really that clear-cut. There are also regional differences.

Now do "tomato."

TJ says, "keep on keeping on!"

Jan 27, 2026 at 10:19am
In response to "Soup! and maybe a bit of politics..."

- Sometimes you just have to let it out because you had bean soup yesterday.

2 Like

TJ says, "keep on keeping on!"

Jan 27, 2026 at 8:58am
In response to "Soup! and maybe a bit of politics..."

Sometimes you just have to let it out. For example, I want bean soup now.

1 Like

Jeff

Jan 26, 2026 at 11:57pm
In response to "Soup! and maybe a bit of politics..."

I saw a post on Twitter the other day (originally from a few years back) that said, "I'd much rather be 'too sensitive' than whatever the fuck has happened to half of humanity." Sadly, I think of that quote often these days...

3 Like

Anni Pon

Jan 26, 2026 at 8:01pm
In response to "Soup! and maybe a bit of politics..."

My day has been similar. Snowed in and writing about the same events.

STATIC

Humanity

(ASR)
The writing on the wall
#2353702 by Anni Pon

2 Like

January 29, 2026 at 10:37pm

#1107107

List Shrapnel

A little late to be blogging, but my list has exploded, and I'm trying to collect all the pieces and glue it back together so it's at least recognizable tomorrow..

Website Revision
I designed the revision months ago, but didn't implement it until last night. Now that it's implemented, it's taken over my life. There are so many tweaks to make.

*thinks*

There were more things on the list...

*checks list*

Quick Goals Check:

One new novel chapter (or rewrite) per day. I'm writing a novel????

One short story for "The Bradbury"

" Oh, yeah. That was supposed to be today. Oops.

Two poems for "PromptMaster !"

final January submission. What was I thinking??

One review. Ooh. That might fall off the list. In fact... you didn't see, but I just X'd it.

Organize and prioritize all the work projects and tasks I've been avoiding to focus more on writing. Not exactly. I started organizing. The first project I stumbled across was the website. I went - Oh, yeah. I wanted to do that. So I did it, with zero thought for prioritization. And now it's front and center. Because that's how my brain rolls.

Also, I added two things to the list in the past twenty-four hours or so:

Complete my "26 Paychecks "

Week 3 assignment. I have two weeks, so low priority today.

Do something with this: "The Sprawling Ink Society"

. I have ideas, involving a secret-santa type event where we read each other's work, maybe to review, but more be a sounding board. Then later activities with goals, which will be easier to pin down after we get to know each other and each other's projects. I don't envision this as a fast-moving activity. Anything we do there is faster than what we're doing now.

I'm kind of waiting it out to see if we get any more interest first before bouncing proposals in the forum.

And since it's the 29th, and payroll is due on the 1st...

Run payroll. This will probably happen Sunday. My catch-all day. If I'm not napping with the poochies again.

And there you have it. The goals have spoken.

G'night, everybody!
Michelle

Tone, Whimsy and an Editing Verb Bank Idea

January 28, 2026 at 11:26am

#1107017

This blog topic was the brainchild of a consultation with ChatGPT, in which I asked, "Please provide me with a list of 100 vocabulary words that would make a narrative more whimsical and quirky". In an ironic meta example of whimsy, the list proved useless, but the dialog turned into an epiphany and a brilliant word bank idea I found very useful, indeed.

If Not Whimsy, Then What?
The conversation that followed is too long to publish here. The short version goes like this: I decided the list was too whimsical (I expected words like "quite" and "astonishing" and "frolic", but got words like "bamboozle" and "razzmatazz" and "sprocket"). We engaged in a discussion about the tone I was really going for in my current project, which is far less whimsical than I thought, and the origin story for this particular serial world, which is closer, but still not whimsy.

If you're curious, ChatGPT thinks the tone I'm going for in the origin story is a combination of cozy fantasy realism, gentle irony, grounded wonder, and understated humor (um, is it me, or those labels leaning toward oxymorons?) ▶︎while the current project's target tone is grounded fantasy, earnest with sharp edges, and lightly cerebral. How do we know it's right? Your guess is as good as mine. ▶︎ Regardless of whether the suggested tones are right or wrong, they're far too nuanced (and multiple) to be found in a dropdown list on a submission form.

Whimsical
This whole discussion got me thinking about the word, "whimsical". Why did I have visions of walking canes and top hats, of playfulness and fancy, of imaginative creativity, of characters who are cartoonish and over-the-top adorable?

What does whimsical mean, exactly?

We're all writers here, and most of us

words. Have you ever encountered a word whose meaning you originally deduced from context clues, an incorrect definition imparted during childhood, or some other way that caused you to have it wrong for years or decades, only to have an epiphany later?

Whimsical.
Prone to whimsy.
Doing things on a whim.
So.... flighty and unpredictable? A life pantser?

I can see how "unpredictable" evolved into "imaginative". But really, "spontaneous" is probably closer to the mark. Meanwhile, "playful" and "cartoonish"? How did those even make it into the bag?

What I don't see is how ChatGPT - and Gemini, I ran a similar analysis there - thinks that the vocabulary appropriate for a whimsical tone would consist of words like dillydally, kooky and scoot. Haphazard, maybe, and bumble, but those are wonky examples gallivanting and making a ruckus with their quaint shenanigans.

Verb Bank
Needless to say, I've updated my mental definition of "whimsy". I'm not so sure the nuanced tone labels that ChatGPT diagnosed for my two projects are wholly accurate, but I didn't go there seeking labels. I went for words, and ChatGPT delivered. Eventually.

Here's an exercise you can try at home: select a passage you've previously written. Extract a list of all the active verbs you use and turn it into a handy one-page verb bank, which you can reference during the edit stage to clean up weak verbs (was, had, seemed, etc.) One thing I liked about this exercise is that ChatGPT grouped the verbs into three categories, claiming that they cover 80% of your prose:

Movement and placement (open, cross, arrive, set)

Perception and awareness (notice, sense, realize, suspect)

Atmosphere and change (fade, hold, drift, linger)

Creating a verb bank for the revision process gives quick, easy access to options to tighten your narration and improve active voice, while still sounding like you. The categories help find appropriate options faster.

See you next week for another Writing Wednesdays Topic. Or tomorrow for a short story, personal recounting, or maybe a rant. Either way, I'll be collecting your homework.

Literarily,
Michelle

Comment • View 2 comments

January 27, 2026 at 2:09pm

#1106945

A Novel Idea

Y'all, guess what?! I worked on my novel today.

Thank you, Snowmaggeddon, for shutting down my school for two days and forcing me to get bored enough to accomplish this.

You may be wondering what prompted my poll in the Newsfeed about your pronunciation of the word, "Query" (which I'm calling my "query query"). If you haven't yet voted, go here: "Query"

Meet Mystic, riddling cat and envoy of Air:

Seek not what is not yours to find, said the voice. Do question the thoughts in your mind, if you dare, but take care, for your Sovereign is there. Have you doubt, be you leery or thoroughly weary, then Mystic, true Envoy of Air, may you query.

Penny pushed herself up off the floor, adjusted her glasses, and read through her notes. She added the earlier bullet points. Then she faced the window, prepared to look outside again, but it turned out not to be necessary.

“Oh. Hello,” she said aloud to the black cat with golden eyes who stood precariously but quite confidently on the narrow windowsill - inside her bedroom. “Mystic, I presume?”

That was an excerpt from my novel. Shit's about to get real in the Pennysphere.

I was just curious about the percentage of readers who will recoil and go, WTF, query rhymes with very, not leery!

Quick Goals Check:

One new novel chapter (or rewrite) per day
If you count 12:30am - 2:00am last night as "yesterday", then I accomplished this for both Monday and Tuesday. Since it's my goals and I get to pick, it counts.

One short story for "The Bradbury"

Two poems for "PromptMaster !" final January submission

One review

Organize and prioritize all the work projects and tasks I've been avoiding to focus more on writing

Play games all day
Oops... how did this get here?

Peace,
Michelle

Comment • View 4 comments

January 26, 2026 at 6:00pm

#1106908

Soup! and maybe a bit of politics...

Warning: I'm about to get political. And then I'm going to talk about soup. It's a typical Music Monday up here in the Brandiwyn Blogosphere.

I try to keep my virtual mouth shut on social media when it comes to anything political, for a couple main reasons:

1. I own a small business, which employs two dozen people. It makes practical business sense not to offend the people in my community - or in my employ - who support us.

2. I'm a legitimate fence sitter moderate. I rarely agree with anybody, and therefore, I piss off everybody. If I do open my mouth, it's probably to say, "But have you considered the other perspective?"

I've been avoiding social media as much as possible for weeks or maybe months. It sucks me in, it riles me up, it wastes my time - and my time is precious and limited. But it's a vital part of my marketing strategy, so I bite the proverbial bullet and make appearances now and then. Today was an appearance day, since the weather has given a rare interesting-but-politically-benign topic to discuss.

Despite recent social media avoidance, I am aware of current events, including the events of the last week in Minneapolis.

Before I dive in:

1. I'm not a Democrat/progressive/liberal. However, I found Obama smart and compassionate, Trump an embarrassing idiot his first term, Biden weak, tongue-tied, and generally disappointing, and Trump during his second term utterly horrifying. If that makes me sound left-leaning, it's only because I appreciate intelligence in the leaders who represent me on the world stage, and I don't like bullies. My opinions on policy or the role/appropriate size of government definitely don't always align with those of the leaders I find least mortifying publicly.

2. I'm practical, and so I realize why most legislation is impossible to pass. The laws that do pass are never quite what anybody wanted. Solutions that meet the needs of everyone rarely exist.Therefore, I understand, for example, why we still don't have equitable healthcare in the USA. I don't blame anybody specifically for that, and I respect the often conflicting sides of the story.

3. I like numbered lists.

All that said, I'm forking angry about the events in Minneapolis. I grew up an army brat, and my dad was an MP - military police - which means he was both in the military and a cop. I believe in defense, and in funding it. I am proud that my country has the strongest and most scientifically advanced military in the world - and the best trained.

I'm already exhausted by this rant, so I'm going to cut this short and skip the part about how inadequate training of new ICE hires is the fault of their superiors. I'll jump straight to the part where a Facebook friend who is a vocal follower of Jesus is publicly arguing in support of the agent because the deceased "attack(ed) ICE agents who are merely doing their jobs". I disagree, but that's not the point. The point is that this person was (1) uninformed about what actually happened and had clearly not seen any of the videos - even the one in which the agent does appear to get hit by the vehicle, and (2) this person is talking like her death was justified rather than, you know, offering prayers of healing and comfort for her family or something a little more compassionate and Christ-like.

Educate yourself, damn it. And be fucking kinder.

Whew. I feel better.

Now, about soup: We made soup.

Bean soup, with the ham bone from the Christmas Honey-Baked ham, which has been in the freezer since December. We're still snowed in, we're still at DEFCON Snow Emergency Level 2, and the local schools are closed tomorrow due to frigid temps, so we (the music school) are, too.

It's a soup kind of day.

Warmly,
Michelle

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January 25, 2026 at 9:17pm

#1106805

Underdeveloped

Recital
Saturday's recital went smoothly. One student had an attack of performance anxiety, but she performed by the end of the session and did great!

We finished and hauled all the instruments and gear back to the music school just in time for Snowmaggeddon to hit. We collected a ton of food (likely 150-200 lbs) but can't deliver it to the food pantry yet due to the storm, so it's currently all over my music-slash-exercise room (all nonperishable, so it's safe so long as I keep the poochies out of there).

Novel: Stuck
I figured out why I haven't added a chapter to my novel in almost two weeks now.

One of my main characters is about to have a crisis, and I slowed down during the approach like the story and I were magnets with opposite poles pointed at each other. I know what needs to happen, but I can't spit it out. (It's technically more of an "I don't wanna" situation). So I used the nesting headers feature* in Google Docs to collapse all the chapters up until this crisis except for chapters featuring or told from the perspective of this particular character who's about to have said upcoming crisis.

*see also: "Note: Check out my latest writing-related tech discov..."

An Underdeveloped Character
Here's what I discovered: When we first meet this character, she's experiencing a significant, life-changing event. However, that chapter is told from the perspective of a different character. Therefore, when my crisis character first starts telling her side of the story, said life-changing event has just recently happened...

...yet she comes home, greets the dog, pours some juice from the fridge and calls "I'm home!" to her mother in the basement. ??? Yeah, I'd say we're past the Ordinary World stage of the plot, and she's not frazzled enough. Or... at all.

This character needs more of my attention. I think I'm going to need to rewrite all her perspective chapters up to the midpoint crisis and develop her better before I can tackle writing the midpoint crisis.

Weekly Review
Is complete. By request: Review of "A Different Route Home"

Goals for the Upcoming Week
- One new novel chapter (or rewrite) per day
- One short story for "The Bradbury"

- Two poems for "PromptMaster !"

final January submission
- One review
- Organize and prioritize all the work projects and tasks I've been avoiding to focus more on writing

What are your goals for the week?

Literarily,
Michelle

January 23, 2026 at 1:33pm

#1106605

Short Story... Complete!

My meds kicked in. I accomplished a thing, and I feel better. (See my earlier rant at "What the Fork?"

: "Rogue Fingers"

)

I wrote a short story using combined prompts from "The Dialogue 500"

[18+] and "The Writer's Cramp"

[13+], which also fulfills my Week 4 commitment for "The Bradbury"

[E].

Get In the Car, Mom

(ASR)
A day in the life of a family dealing with dementia.
#2353516 by Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026

.
I'm all about efficiency.

Now, about that earthquake poem... and maybe my weekly Friday review?

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January 22, 2026 at 3:21pm

#1106531

It's a Day

This is ridiculous. I don't know if it's the Parkinson's or just general malaise, but I'm off my game today. My shoulders and trunk are swaying with dyskinesia. I can't focus. I've started and restarted this post probably a dozen times, but I'm determined to write something, to document why I didn't achieve today's goal, if nothing else.

Today's Goal
Today is supposed to be "The Bradbury Thursdays" - meaning, I have a short story to write. I know, today isn't over, and the story may still happen. I want it to happen. But...

The Problem (Maybe?)
I slept poorly most of the week until last night. According to my watch, I went to sleep at 22:00 (always my goal, but it almost never happens) and woke up at 8:07, which is more than 10 hours - but my watch claims I was awake for 2 hours of that. I'm not sure I believe it. But even 8 hours, if that's what it was, is a vast improvement from the 4-5 hrs per night earlier this week. So why is my watch giving me a sleep score of 66 (is that a D or a D- these days? Does my watch grade on a curve?)

Meanwhile, my energy score is 79, and my watch offered this weird advice: "Your active time yesterday was 33 minutes, which is higher than your recent average of 11 minutes. This excess activity could lead to injury. Consider reducing today's active time to 10 minutes..."

Reality
Per advice from Robert Waltz

, I have alarms set at 9:05 AM (noveling) and 9:50 AM (blogging). I set a deadline of 12:00 noon to complete any daily writing tasks. I met zero of those deadlines today.

My specific to-dos for today were: add a novel chapter; write a short story (The Bradbury); blog about short story.

Novel Chapter: I played with formatting in Google Drive and posted about it on the NF. No new chapter yet today.

Short Story: I worked on the Prize Prompt for PromptMaster! "

Week 3 Prompts Jan 19 - 25 2026"

, and by that I mean, I researched earthquakes and brainstormed all kinds of possible angles for tackling the prompt. The Task Prompt is already complete - "The Money Pit"

. While neither of these are listed in my official goals, I feel like it's writing, so I should get credit. On the other hand. it also feels like procrastination.

Noon Deadline: This is to force me to stop writing tasks (because writing is a hobby) and turn my focus to the music school (which is my livelihood and the livelihoods of all my employees), but I direct you to my aforementioned lack of focus today. So here I am blogging at 3:19 PM when I should be reviewing payroll, promoting Saturday's Winter Benefit Concert (if we don't get snowed out), working on the Bureau of Workers Comp pre-audit questionnaire...

Crap. I should probably go do that one.

If I get a short story out today, I'll be amazed. But now you know why, and a year from now, I'll remember.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Williams_King
https://www.ebenezeratl.org/our-history/

January 21, 2026 at 11:31am

#1106466

On Poetry

For today's edition of "Writing Wednesdays," I'm opening a discussion on the topic of poetry.

Disclaimer
I have never claimed to be a poet.

As a writer, I consider myself first and foremost an author of long-form fiction (think, novel trilogy and higher.) I recently revised my bio to identify as a "Professional world-builder and prolific author of partially-completed novel drafts." I excel at the partial draft, y'all, but poetry has never really been my bag, baby.

Lyrics
Maybe surprisingly, given my actual vocation (music teacher, if you don't know), songwriting has taken second place to serial noveling. I do compose music, and I've written original songs with lyrics, most of which I've even performed in public, but lyric creation is not where I derive songwriting pleasure. My muse traditionally speaks to me in chord progressions, melody and arrangement; words are just a necessary piece of the puzzle - the grunt work, even. In fact, I've historically been more inclined to set someone else's words to music so I can skip that part. (Y'all know who you are.

)

Change
Traditions change.

I kicked off my second half of a century on this spinning planet last September and decided I'm allowed to change my mind. I'm not sure how or when it happened, but I learned how to appreciate - and even write - poetry, and lately I've found my muse talking in a new language: the language of imagery, of metaphor, of personification and alliteration.

I blame WDC.

But for the record, I partially blame WDC for souring me on poetry in the first place. I tread delicately here, because I'm sure some of my readers enjoy writing poetry...

The Rub
A lot of the poetry on WDC is mediocre.

Where do I get off, saying a poem is mediocre? Especially since I opened this blog post with the disclaimer that I'm not a poet. Do I even get an opinion on the matter?

As with everything else in my blog, these are my opinions. As with any review you've ever received from me, take what you find helpful and trash the rest. In fact, pour accelerant over it and toss it in the incinerator for a fun ka-boom.

I, myself, have read a lot of poetry on WDC ▶︎, in part because (admit it - you've done it, too) poems tend to be shorter than stories, which is convenient if you're trying to achieve a reviewing goal. And in nineteen years of reading and reviewing content on WDC, I've discovered a few things about poetry - and what makes it good.

1. Poetry is hard.
Were you ever an angsty teen, scribbling your feelings in a journal? I was. Sometimes, it rhymed. Sometimes, it included some meter. I probably didn't know a single form back then.

I'm not saying form is required. I'm not saying angsty teens can't write amazing poetry. I'm saying that I didn't write amazing poetry. I wrote my thoughts and feelings, usually in stream-of-consciousness form, but divided into lines, which I shoved into awkward rhyme. I'm talking, shoved, like I shove my six-foot knitted scarf into my winter coat pocket: a wadded-up, lumpy ball with loose ends hanging out.

See what I did there? That's called imagery. It's also a simile. But you knew that.

In my teen journaling days, a poem would be inspired by a single rhyme or assonance with a meter that felt melodious in my head. I would start writing in line and verse form instead of paragraph, and I'd squeeze those rhymes in that broke the meter or sounded really obviously forced.

I've learned that you can't write a poem in one sitting. You can't. Poetry has to simmer, and then, actual work is required to compose, tweak, rearrange, throw out that whole stanza altogether, change the theme completely. That's when the wordplay begins.

2. Poetry is clever.
You might need to research. Review your list of literary devices - all of them - and find the ones that jump off the screen at you - that's your muse talking. Then brainstorm. Experiment. Add layers. Then add more layers.

You might also need to be prepared to kill that darling you desperately don't want to delete, because it's the thing that kicked off the poem in the first place, but sometimes, you have to shut up and do what your muse says. You know deep down that she's right. You just have to find a way to accept it.

What I've found on WDC is that there are poems that look like they were written in one sitting with little-to-no simmer time, no extra work or time invested into playing with the words.

And there are also brilliant masterpieces.

3. Poetry is like music.
The masterpieces are the reason for my change of heart. If it's a true masterpiece, in my opinion, it reads like music. In fact, reading a poem aloud is one method I use to determine its brilliance.

That might not jive with everyone because poetry is art. By definition, art is subject to interpretation. You could love something I think is just awful, and vice versa. But there are elements of poetry that make it poetry and not some other art form, and I feel like the rhythm of a poem, the music of it, is one of the critical elements.

Conclusions
Writing poetry isn't as unfun as I thought it might be.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes poetry poetry. Examples would be great. You're also welcome to debate my strong opinions on the subject matter.

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January 19, 2026 at 9:09pm

#1106363

Music & the Kings

Most people know that Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was born the son of a Baptist minister in Atlanta. Did you also know how his musical upbringing connected MLK with his wife, Coretta Scott King and her family?

The Bride
Coretta Scott grew up in the small, segregated town of Heiberger, Alabama, where her parents owned a store. Her mother, Bernice, played piano at church. Coretta inherited her mother's musical talent: she was the leading soprano in the high school's senior chorus, played trumpet and piano, participated in school musicals, and even directed a choir at her place of worship. So it's no surprise that when she received a scholarship to Antioch College in Ohio from the Antioch Program for Interracial Education, she studied music. She also became politically active there, due to racial discrimination.

The Groom
Like Coretta Scott, Martin Luther King was also the child of a church piano player. He was memorizing hymns at age five and singing them in church by six. Later he developed a love for opera, sang in choir, and studied violin and piano. His mother, Alberta Williams King, served as the organist at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta for forty years. King's favorite hymns included "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus" and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord".

The Courtship
Coretta transferred from Antioch in 1951 and met Martin Luther King when the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston awarded her a scholarship to study voice under the tutelage of classical soprano, Marie Sundelius. At first, Coretta wasn't interested in marriage, but they shared a love of music and a passion for civil rights. Eventually, she warmed up to the idea, but she had to come to terms with the likelihood that marrying a pastor would mean giving up her dream career in the music industry. And then, when they finally did agree to wed, they had to convince King's parents that she was right for King.

The Engagement
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott announced their engagement in the Atlanta Daily World on Valentine's Day 1953 and married on June 18 of that year. Coretta did complete her degree - in both voice and piano - before the couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama in the fall of 1954. The rest is history.

The Playlist
I ran across this playlist published by Princeton in 2021, which highlights both music that Dr. King favored and music that was published posthumously in his honor. Enjoy:

Collective Listening Project
Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
Playlist No. 40

Sophisticated Procrastination

January 18, 2026 at 8:29pm

#1106294

Is it me, or are Sundays a little emptier around here than the other days?

First, my progress against writing goals. Then I'll tackle the "Self Sundays" list: Family, Leisure, Work, and Health.

Writing Goals

Blogged 5 of 7 days on WDC, but missed the topic "Writing Wednesdays"

Novel progress - wrote a little earlier in the week, but I do seem to be avoiding* it

Blogged Music Mondays topic at michelletuesday.com/blog

Wrote and submitted short story for "Invalid Item"

- submitted to "Invalid Item"

Completed "Invalid Item"

2nd biweekly assignment

Wrote and submitted a public short story review

Extra Credit: Cleaned up my portfolio for several hours over three days

Extra Credit: Randomly* wrote and submitted two poems for "PromptMaster !"

and "The Contest Challenge"

, so I guess I'm playing those games now, too

"Arctic Wind"

"Respite"

* I suspect these two things might be related...? I'm calling this "sophisticated procrastination" - I make it look like I'm doing fancy things to avoid grunt work.

Family
- Keith starts a new job in a week. It's an internal lateral move with hopefully less stress.

Leisure
- Played entirely too much solitaire on my new Windows laptop. I don't even like solitaire. What wizardry is this? It's just another algorithm optimized to induce addiction. I have three of the five books I checked out at the library two extensions ago, but I'm too busy with writing projects and solitaire to read them.

Work
- It's January. We're working on taxes and enrolling like crazy, due to all the New Year's resolutions to "learn piano this year" and guitars received as holiday gifts that the recipients don't know how to play.

- Our Winter Benefit Concert for GRIN (the local food pantry) is next Saturday afternoon, so we're busy with planning and extra rehearsals.

- Just hired a new music theory teacher, so, resumes, interviews, and orientations happened.

- The Bureau of Workers Comp has notifies us of their intention to audit us. We changed payroll companies last June, and initially our employees were set up with the wrong BWC job codes. The codes are important because they indicate the risk level, and therefore, workers' comp insurance premiums. My employees are all receptionists and teachers (code 8868, for "College/Schools - Professors/Teacher/Clerical Professional & Clerical"), but they were incorrectly set up with higher-risk job codes. I caught it because we were over budget, and the payroll company fixed the codes. I'm guessing that triggered an audit. So, that's fun.

Health
- Exercise: I have not stepped on the recumbent bike or treadmill at all this week. Exercise is the one and only thing that stymies Parkinson's. PD and Type 1 diabetes generally don't play nice with each other - Parkinson's causes tremor, which can disguise low blood sugar symptoms; low carb is ideal for diabetes, while protein interferes with levadopa (a key PD drug) absorption; and have you ever tried injecting yourself with a needle with shaky hands and uncontrolled tension in your muscles? Yet, for all that, PD and T1D both love exercise.

- Diabetes: Had an endocrinologist (diabetes doc) appointment (virtual - I'm a big fan of "televisits") on Monday. I needed to get my A1C tested. I asked the doc to fax over the order. Meanwhile, I also had an array of blood and urine tests for my PCP in the form of a paper order, which I don't need for a month, but I'm not one to waste a trip. So I get to the lab, hand them my paper order and tell them I have an order from another doc on the fax machine. Reception desk says, "Make sure you tell them at the window that you have a fax order, too." I take the paper to the window, tell her I have a fax order, too, and she gives me a number. I wait to be called. Then I go in, get stuck, the phlebotemist draws three vials and give me a cup to pee in. Then I go home and wait as the results start pouring in - urinalysis results, cholesterol... but guess what result I did NOT receive?

That's right: A1C. The one I went there for. The good news is, the doc didn't have my result and couldn't yell at me for being over 7.0 again.

- Parkinson's Disease: Had Botox in my larynx on Wednesday for vocal dystonia. Today I can't speak above a whisper, and that will last hopefully no more than a week. Yes, it's ironic, but here's what's happening: Dystonia is a neuromuscular disorder that cause involuntary muscle tension. Ask any voice teacher: tension is a singer's enemy. Botox paralyzes the target muscle, forcing it to relax. As you can see in my nerdy graph, the Botox paralyzes the crap out of my voice for a few days (where the graph spikes up in a sharp, skinny point), then it settles down and lasts for a few months before it starts wearing off. Hence, I get the injections quarterly.

That's what's up, y'all. Catch you tomorrow for Music Mondays. Hope to see you then!

Review of The Great Noodle Rebellion

January 16, 2026 at 12:00pm

#1106124

My Friday review goes to my favorite among my Cramp competitors. I highly recommend it. It's hilarious. Although, for the record, I read all of them, and there's honestly not a bad one in the bunch. Fierce competition today.

Also, I learned from John

's story (which prompted a bit of Google research) that it's Lunar New Year's Eve today, kicking off the Chinese New Year. 2026 is the Year of the Horse. Happy New Year, if you celebrate.

Here is my Review of "The Great Noodle Rebellion - 523 Words"

January 15, 2026 at 4:08pm

#1106071

Productivity!

I've been posting everywhere but my blog, so in case you missed any of it, here's what you missed.

A nerdy pre-appointment analysis for my doctor, including math, spreadsheets and graphs: "Note: And they said I'd never use my biomedic..."

A formal complaint about my inability to maintain a schedule: "Schedules"

My completed Week 2 assignment for 26 Paychecks: "Task 2: Stalled!"

A short story for The Writer's Cramp and The Bradbury, which is also a background story for my stalled novel: "The Adoption"

Pardon me while I frantically throw on some clean clothes and head out so I can hopefully make it in time for Storm Machine

's lesson!

It's been a busy one.

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January 13, 2026 at 12:41pm

#1105904

Wildcard Tuesday

I left Tuesdays off the blog schedule and had no intention of blogging today. Then the universe decided to throw me a day worth documenting. However, fair warning that this is literally a bullet-point list of my day and probably less interesting than yesterday's technical music theory analysis.

Yesterday, I went to get labs drawn and had a virtual endocrinologist appointment, then kicked off a full day of chaos at the music school.

Three of seven private teachers were absent, including two last-minute sick call-outs. I spent an unbudgeted hour or more after my appointment contacting possible subs, shuffling students around to other teachers and brainstorming possible coverage solutions until receptionists arrived to take over.

The plumber never showed to look at the school's hot water tank, so I set up the (collapsible) ladder for nothing, and we had to take it down when the children began to arrive at 3:00.

My own students were scheduled to start at 3:40, and I wasn't about to miss my first "Music Mondays" post, so I wolfed down a granola bar and some chips from the snack area and frantically cranked out the post.

At 3:20*, I conducted a very short-notice certification for a teacher I recently hired, so he would be qualified to sub for some of the kids. (*Since my blog post is time-stamped 3:22, I must have started late.) I finished the certification with about five minutes to spare (potty time) before my first student arrived.

I taught three hours of back-to-back lessons, including four students from the absent teachers. Luckily - or maybe by design?

- I require lesson planning from absent teachers and regular progress documentation from everyone, so the lessons went fine. Finished teaching and documentation at 7:40, and for the first time since they arrived at 1pm, walked up to the reception desk to make sure the receptionists were okay and thank them for scrambling.

At 8:00 I had a second interview with a theory teacher candidate via Zoom. That took maybe half an hour. Then I put together an offer package and emailed it to the candidate before finally heading home.

THE END

January 12, 2026 at 3:22pm

#1105841

Musical Symbolism

The Internet - and Writing-com - are abundant with music-inspired writing. That makes me happy.

But the majority of these creations were inspired by lyrics, not the actual music.

I invite you to consider letting the sounds of the music itself inspire you. I could write an entire book on the various ways we can compose and arrange musical instrumentation to represent life and emotions. But it's a busy day, so I'll start with the basics, and we'll call this Chapter 1.

Here are some ways music can shape the images we see in our minds and the emotions we feel. This list is only a subset.

Key
In the simplest example of this, major keys sound happy, while minor keys sound sad or creepy.

Instrument Choice
Trumpets are used for fanfare; for example: the king/queen's entrance, the hero's return.

Instrumentation
Solo violin or cello can feel deeply emotional, sorrowful, vulnerable - but collect a whole orchestra full of violins and cellos, and suddenly, they can sound confident, triumphant.

Articulations
A fermata (holding a note longer than a listener expects) creates tension, the anticipation of something coming. A legato melody (with notes that are smoothly connected and flowing) could evoke a river or gentle breeze. A staccato passage (short, bouncy, separated notes) might sound like a playful pet, or bring on a feeling of anxiety.

Combining Strategies
Composers can hone in on a particular feeling or image by mixing and matching the elements above and the ones not listed. For example, if I played staccato notes very slowly, I might evoke the image of water droplets falling. A steady, repeated note might sound like a dripping faucet, while a collection of different notes with an inconsistent rhythm might sound like water in a cave, dripping from stalagtites into a still pool beneath.

Check out these two examples of musical symbolism in the song "Airplane" by the Indigo Girls. Both passages evoke an image of an airplane taking off - the first with vocals (because your voice is an instrument, too) and then with the piano.

NOTE: Listen to both videos, but only a few seconds. They each start in a different spot in the video. I forgot that the time attribute on a YouTube embed doesn't work on WDC. Sorry! Here are the times for the two examples:

Vocals Ascending at 1:27
Piano Ascending at 2:10

Your homework
Listen closely to the instrumentation in your favorite music, and see if you can identify parts of the song - the music, not the lyrics - that remind you of something. Even if you don't have the vocabulary to explain it, I invite you to post a video in the comments and give us the min:sec, so we can hear it, too.

Musically,
Michelle

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January 11, 2026 at 4:41pm

#1105761

Self Sundays

I updated the contents of the Biography tab of my Portfolio and the introduction to this blog today.

Work:
At the music school, we wrapped up 2025 versions of all our logs, schedules, checklists, etc. and prepped 2026 versions. We closed the books for December and for 2025.

2025 was a terrible year for the school's profits.

Reasons:

- Our 7-year-old A/C died, and HVAC systems have doubled in price since we installed the last one in 2018.

- Our money guru had a stroke and some mini-strokes last year. She was out a lot, but also, she made some key mistakes and/or failed to catch some of my mistakes that she ordinarily would have caught through routine processes and procedures. It was unlike her, and since neither she nor I knew what was happening to her brain before the big stroke, neither of us thought to question anything. I accidentally left some social media ads for time-bound events way beyond the event dates, and she saw the charges but didn't ask me if I was overspending on purpose. I overspent my January ads budget by triple the budget amount! Then it happened again in the spring.

- I paid a good-for-nothing digital marketing company (handling Google Ads) way too much for way too long, and I'm pissed at myself over it. I would have never hired them in the first place - the rep gave me a used-car-salesman vibe, and I have a very low tolerance for that vibe. But this company bought out my former company (I LOVED them), so I didn't see it as hiring a new company. But it really was. And they sucked. And since I've had a bad PD (Parkinson's Disease) year, I was so tired most of the year that I struggled to keep up. The point of a third party marketing company is to take the monitoring requirement off my plate. I finally fired them in November.

- A scammer posing as an employee sent an email requesting a change to her direct deposit bank account. I fired it off to the money guru without looking closely, so I didn't notice that it wasn't the employee's typical email address, nor the minor errors in the email that she would never make. The money guru didn't notice, either, and proceeded to collect the new bank account information, over email, and process the account change without a physical signature or verbal discussion. She later said she wondered about some of the employee's weird questions (like when she gets paid - an employee since 2010). Soooo... the scammer walked away with the paycheck, and we had to pay the employee's paycheck again.

- I was unhappy with the way our former payroll processing company handled the scam situation, so I switched to a local HR company. They're actually cheaper, monthly, and they do more - they withhold, file and submit all the local municipality taxes*. However, we had a one-time onboarding cost with the new company, and we had to adjust our tax payment timing permanently to an earlier date (a cash flow thing that required an influx of cash that we won't see back until the day we close our doors forever.)

*Other states collect state taxes and distribute to the municipalities, but in Ohio, towns collects their own revenue directly, so Ohioans file federal, state, and local returns. Accountants hate Ohio! In a small business, we have to send filings and withholding to Every. Single. Town. where any of our employees live, plus the town where the business is located. Twice (in 16 years) we've made filing errors or missed a deadline where the fine was higher than the withholding - example, we paid a fine of $150 for a late $11 withholding payment for an employee living in the tiny town of Johnstown, Ohio.

Health:
For the last year or more, I've struggled with energy due to Parkinson's symptoms and three conflicting drugs: two stimulants (for ADHD and Parkinson's) and a sleep aid. It's a constant balancing act trying to get enough sleep despite the stimulants, without overdoing it on the sleep aid and feeling sleepy all day. I'd talk more about that today, but I'm too tired.

So I'll save that for another Sunday. Suffice to say, my energy level is not helping me keep up.

I've talked about myself enough for one day.

On a related note, "Self Sundays" sounds so stupid. I'm taking renaming suggestions based on the description in my blog intro and/or the dribble I fed you today.

Whatever. I met my goal and then some.

But Music Monday tomorrow will probably be more interesting.

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January 9, 2026 at 3:01pm

#1105590

Friday Reviews

I changed my mind. (I'm allowed.) "Funny Fridays" have been canceled until further notice (No jokes for YOU!)

Two reasons:
(1) My style of comedy is mostly improvisation, repartee, that sort of thing. I'm not even sure I can be funny on command (unless you're offering cake as a treat),

and

(2) I decided I wanted to carve time out for reviewing, and something had to go.

Friday Reviews:
...will happen, as implied, every Friday (unless I'm sick or dead, like yesterday.) If you would like your work added to my queue, drop it in the comments, and I'll check the list next Friday. That's not a promise that your piece will be chosen for review if the list is long. I'm only committing to one review every Friday, because my reviews almost always take about an hour. Sometimes, time permitting, I might review more than one work, but if I overpromise, I'm more likely to bail on the whole thing altogether.

Today, Friday, January 9th, I have reviewed two pieces for my Friday Reviews::

Review of "Angel Feathers"

Invalid Review

Happy Friday, everyone.

The Battle of Two Vaccines

January 8, 2026 at 6:27pm

#1105459

It's "Invalid Item"

Thursday, so I owe you/myself/somebody a short story.

On literally Day 2 of my new blogging schedule, and I slept off and on all day on the couch. The COVID and/or flu shot(s) I received yesterday were not well-received by my underprepared body. Therefore, my goal of blogging before lunch was not met.

However, you all didn't know about my self-imposed daily deadline until just now, and it's still Thursday, so here we are.

And with that, I give you: "The Battle of Two Vaccines"

Enjoy.

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January 7, 2026 at 12:30pm

#1105369

Writing Wednesdays