Trail 400 at Riverside State Park.
Trail 400 – Rocks and Things.
101 Extracted Words – The Tease March 2021
March 2021
I write short fiction, flash fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a work in progress.
Ancient humans didn’t have Amazon, but they did have clay, natural dyes and creativity. They produced cave paintings and petroglyphs to explain their processes across the millenia. We think we know what some of them mean, others we do our best to interpret and yet others are simply baffling, leaving room for us to project our own meaning onto their images.
How does Amazon contribute to this discussion?
Furniture assembly.
Try putting together that new entertainment center that just arrived (in a much smaller box than it should have) and you’ll understand.
When future visitors see the instructions from this box, exactly how will they categorize these ambiguous, often contradictory pictures? Primitive? Mysterious?Perhaps they will simply cry out as I did entering my fourth hour of frustration.
Aaaahhhh!
That expression should be understood no matter what galaxy you are from.
An Exercise in Grayscale – Feryn Ranch
Flat light dilutes most pictures, but today, it served to amplify the late winter desolation of Feryn Ranch C.A.
A Blue-tiful day on Mt. Spokane.
A sunny late winter day provides a spectacular snowshoeing adventure.
65 Extracted Words – The Tease – February 2021
February
2021
I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a children’s story in progress.
Maddi was from the scarecrow side of the family. Maddi was a scarecrow and she lived on a farm, as most scarecrows do.
Maddi had a very important job. She had to guard the carrot field. Naughty little rabbits liked to take the carrots. She didn’t really mind the rabbits. She liked the way their fuzzy little ears tickled her ankles as they ran past.
Tracks and Ice
February mixes the Spokane River with ice.
106 Extracted Words – The Tease – January 2021
January 2021
I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a novel in progress.
As he stood upon the right wing of the media stage, hidden by stacks of monitors, scaffolding and electrical cables, he could see several bright festival pennants behind the outer arc of seats. Beyond their gilded seams, rolled the expansive city park that hosted the event. At the rise of each knoll and drop of each draw stood a flag. The heat had already ignited the scent of trampled grass and sweat – hot, pungent odors reminiscent of livestock. If he closed his eyes, he could picture armored knights saddled at opposing ends of a regal field …
Around the World Without Leaving My Blog – 2020
My year in blogging – in color.
The following is a cloud I created containing all the names of countries from which someone viewed my blog during the last year. Larger fonts represent nations with more numerous visits, smaller fonts represent those with less. Outside of the expected visits from my own U.S.A, the bulk of visits originated from Northern Europe, Africa and Southern Asia. EBM also experienced its largest turnover since I began tracking such trends. A happy hello to our eight (wow) newcomers – Kenya, Qatar, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa, Mauritius Ecuador and Cameroon.
No matter how you feel about 2020, it certainly showed us how small the world has become. I am humbled by the breadth of viewership on my tiny little slice of the internet.
As always, my thanks to every visitor, near and far.
Japan
Canada India
Ukraine Indonesia
Russia United Kingdom
United States
Qatar Mauritius Ecuador France
Dominican Republic
Germany Australia Kenya
Portugal Singapore South Africa
Cameroon Hong Kong
166 Extracted Words – The Tease – December 2020 – September Revisited
September 2020
I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a crisis in progress (originally published in September). This excerpt was the most popular of 2020, and therefore is this month’s entry.
The two mobs run toward each other. The only distinguishing difference is that one approaches from the left and the other from the right. Signs, clubs, guns. Shouts, laced with righteousness, jab at the air, as if meaning to poke God in the eye.
And then it happens. A protester falls, twisting his ankle in a pothole. And then another and another. Years of budgetary neglect has created a minefield out of the boulevard. Perhaps they could have built a few less bombs, a few less prisons, a few less green belts, and none of this would have taken place. No one would have had to get hurt.
Christmas 2020
Merry Christmas to the entire E.B.M. family of friends and visitors. Have a happy holiday.
