A week or so ago, as part of our house purge, Katie and I were going through an old drawer of photos, greeting cards, and memorabilia from our vacations. Oddly enough, I found a scrap of paper amongst all the stuff with some of my handwriting on it in the form of poems.

In celebration of the last three Friday the 13ths, I’ve run a personal toy photography challenge wherein I use a Jason Voorhees toy of some sort in a series of photos for the Monday thru Friday leading up to the 13th.

Furrball can’t decide
Reps or Dems or Reps or Dems.
We need a third choice.

Nathan swears it’s me
but I just cannot see it.
Too much hair up there.

A skyline so bold
exaggerated slightly.
These aren't drawn to scale.

About four years ago, I was penciling little sketches and posting them here with haiku accompaniment. 

Happy National Haiku Poetry Day!

Today also doubles as the day when Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that the 2019-2020 school year is officially over as we know it. Illinois students will not be going back to their school at all for the remainder of this academic year. 

I broke out a Moleskine notebook I’ve had for a few years now. Katie bought it for me because it’s LEGO themed and she knew I needed a new one as I’d filled my previous three Moleskines almost to the gills. 

Why is Donald Trump
trying so hard to destroy
the world that we love?

As I have nothing else to write about and am still in the midst of watching Stranger Things 2 (I’m on episode 6), how about some Hawkins Haikus, inspired by our favorite Indiana horror trope?

To enrich his sound,
Star got a Seahorse and sax.
A drummer is next.

Once, a lone sea star
Picked up a Gibson guitar.
And rocked. How he rocked.

How about some holiday haikus for Valentine's Day?

I think I'm going to follow Claire's lead this year and start my own haiku tradition on Thanksgiving. Fun!

I am officially two Story Sundays behind my weekly schedule.

CHICAGOLAND, IL -- A filtration system broke down at 9:30 Friday morning at Li'l Swimmers Pool spilling chlorine into the pool area with swimmers present.

This week is the week.

La la lalala la, sing a happy song!

La la lalala la, sing it all day long!

[Author's note: Once again, sorry this is late. It's Story Sun, er, Thursday!]

Do you remember how the reveal of every episode of Scooby Doo went? The captured felon would state something along the lines of "I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids."

I played guitar. Once. For ten years. A one-time ten-year span.

My Cleanse is done. Seven God-awful days of water with lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and honey.

GIN!

No, it's not!

"Honey, I need to tell you something and I want you to listen to me carefully.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "You haven't been yourself all day. In fact, you've been a little off all week."

[Author's note: I helped my FiL buy an iPad at the Apple Store in Woodfield Mall today. No, I didn't buy anything. Sob.]

[Author's note: I'm going inhuman this week. Any of you who follow my Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Flickr accounts likely know what I'm talking about. It is, after all, still a candid, stolen-moment image.]

[Author's note: I know I said all my pictures in Story Sunday would be candids and that the subject would ideally not realize they are being photographed. But, yesterday, I went to my first comic con and I wanted to use that as the subject. I'd also read that cosplayers don't mind being photographed so long as you're up-front with them. So I asked and he was cool with it. Not candid, but definitely cool.]

I apologize in advance if this one disturbs any of you. This was not an easy one to write.

swish swish *SMACK* *CLANG* swish swish

[Author's notes: This story is not a reflection of my feelings having seen Disney on Ice: Frozen. We had a good time even if Nathan was a little antsy. it was a well-done show. Thanks for the tickets, bro. Also, I'm sorry the photo is so blurry. I'm still not comfortable taking shots of people who have zero expectation of having their photo taken. I'll get better. ]

These are actual runners from the Geneva Park District's fifth annual Super Shuffle 5K that I took part in this morning. As a note, we had very little snow on the ground prior to 7 p.m. on Saturday. We got eight inches overnight prior to the race. It was still snowing throughout the morning.

I'm a nice guy. Really, I am. You'd have to be to invest such a large amount of money into a limo and then give up a significant chunk of your life to drive people from point A to point B. Most of them are pretty nice, too. They know that I'm doing them a favor; making their lives easier but not subjecting them to the horrors of driving on the expressway and finding and paying for parking.

soar /sôr/ verb - fly or rise high in the air.
"the bird spread its wings and soared into the air"
synonyms: fly, wing, ascend, climb, rise;

I'm calling this one "A Tale of Two Personalities" as it's being presented from two points of view. One will be in bold face and left justified, the other will be italicized and right justified. I really couldn't think of a better way to do it.