This is a writing challenge.  I could simply say pomegranate and move on.  But I really had to think about this.  I eat a lot of fruit, especially since I live in Ecuador.  I would probably eat more except the mercados do not sell fresh fruit and if they do I just can’t eat that much and then it tends to over ripen.

My purchase of fruit centers around convenience and waste.  Convenience because the watermelons do not fit well on a bus and waste because I made a pact with myself to buy only what I will use.  I am fond of granadillas that is in the pomegranate  family.

Pomegranates are much work.  They taste bitter, you have to remove a ton of seeds and the color stains anything it contacts.  I read that the pomegranate has health benefits.  In my mind I see a pomegranate farmer trying to unload this nasty tasty fruit and using a copy writer to hype beneficial benefits.

But as I think about disliked fruits, I really don’t have but the one.  I have favorite, I would eat more except for convenience.  The convenience issue is something I will reconsider.

My deceased wife was a magician with food.  She would present a fruit platter that you didn’t want to eat because the way she presented it was a work of art; a watermelon with shape, fruit layered in colors, fruit mixed with shrimp on a boat.  Now I miss her.

But pomegranates I have eaten and will eat if the chef does the work, makes it sweet and presentable.

Honestly don’t even know what the means.  I must admit the word bothers me because I keep thinking it is spelled wrong.  It goes against my grammar rules.

Having said I don’t have any feelings on that topic brings up a thought.  Why?

I read all these articles and books that preach unity by pointing out the differences.  I don’t have feelings toward racISM, sexISM or any ISMs.  I have thoughts that seem to resist emotion.  I look at options, choices, opportunities, not how a group feels but how I can achieve what I want.  If there is a barrier I go around it.

Nature has fallen trees on the path (treeism) but I don’t stop and have a San Francisco protest.  I move on.

I realize that cultural change often needs a boost.  But fairness has never entered my vision.  If I listed all the isms of unfairness I would be a politician.  If I took offense to all the slanders I would be on drugs.  If I wanted to change this I would make money selling books and running churches.

Too much.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

A book that seems to be my life is THE RAZOR’S EDGE by W.S. Maughn.  I reread it often.  EAST OF EDEN had a big effect on me.

I find something good in nearly every book I read.  If I don’t like it or get into it I put it aside.  My appreciation of the written word has changed.  If someone went  through the rigors of writing a book. I do not dismiss the effort as I believe it has merit to the author and I cannot always see or appreciate it.  I really have never finished a book that I did not see a value.

One of my sisters loves action thrillers.  She gave me her NOOK and she had a bunch of Rollins books.  The first sentence was in the passive voice and I put it down.  I will read it but I know that it is a different type of literature.  I will learn from this book.  I read the acknowledgements and the research and already I see the effort, the organization of the work albeit the prose may not be what I get lost in.

It is not a book that I dislike but sometimes it is an author.  The author promotes a book and presents as a self righteous I know something person and that can turn me off.  Usually I do not read that work because I see it as a political expression but that seems to occur because I saw the author.

I have been involved in reading groups and I see how we can read the same book and take from it what is foremost in OUR thoughts.  I enjoy when someone gives a thoughtful presentation of a work.

Since I have no tattoos I actually would like to hear opinions from others about their tattoos or lack of tattoos,

When I interviewed individuals in jail for neuropsychological reasons, many of them had tattoos.  Generally, their demeanor, the way they talked, the way they viewed their situation correlated in my mind with the wearing of tattoos.  The men wore the tattoos like women wear lip stick.  When the tattoos did not get the attention they wanted the tattoos took on color.  When this did not work, then came the piercing. Needless to say employment opportunities from the narrow minded establishment (sarcasm inserted here) were limited.

I remember one 40+ women lamenting that the tattoo represented her fall from the reality of her culture.  She now looks at the tattoo as a reminder of foolish rebellious behavior.

Her description of her feelings toward that tattoo stick with me.  She said, and I understood, that some of us can forget regretful things in our past.  That tattoo haunts her and reminds her of a place she calls hell.

She said the hell was not a series of deeds but a way of thinking.  She added that people who wear tattoos have problems.

My tattoos are scars from mishaps.  I remember the scar on my little finger, the scar from the football mask.  It was a game saving tackle where the later world famous running back bowled me over on his way to the game winning touchdown.  He stepped on my mask, broke it, drove it into my face, and tripped.  Yes, they carried me off the field but I showed him he couldn’t just run through me.

My friend suggested I should put a tattoo there.  I figured the scar was enough.  Besides a tattoo would bring up his name and not place the glory where it belonged.

Honestly I have never been fascinated by people in general.  My two deceased wives fascinated me as I marveled at their thinking.  This writing exercise brings up a part of me that has tentacles.  I remember someone saying to me that I only saw what I wanted to see in them.  Somehow that statement and this topic are related.

I am fascinated by two people, Hillary Clinton and her supporters.  I try to stay away from the news because besides being agenda driven it tends to be most incomplete.  Having been a journalist I do pay attention to headlines because I know the headline meetings and how they ran.

I noticed that the news media has shifted towards a less favorable presentation of Hillary.  If just one thing that is mentioned is true, just one, there lies a despicable person.

So how is this fascinating?  I wonder what she thinks about when she turns out the lights?  Does she plan a reversal of her position? Does she plan her next lie? Does she engage with a group who know her deceits?

And then her supporters.  How can anyone defend her actions, let alone her words?  Yet despite this people will vote for her.  The people who support her represent a disturbed American element.  Of this I am sure. But her thinking.  How can she say to thine own self be true?

Having written this I am going to make an effort to locate several people to be dby.  My being fascinated by the negative elements of Hillary places a form of self righteous arrogance on me.  So, I will seize this message to investigate further.

After all this is BETTERTTHNTHERAPY.