Steve B. Howard's Blog, page 149

There are three great fb groups dedicated to Medium writers that I’m planning on writing an article…

There are three great fb groups dedicated to Medium writers that I’m planning on writing an article about soon. They are Medium Super Heros, Medium Mastery, and The Tribe Builder's Network. All great groups worth joining to get your work out there.

Adding ten more might be a good way to ensure I never get nominated again, lol.

Adding ten more might be a good way to ensure I never get nominated again, lol.

It was on the Mornington Peninsula, so the beaches were nice.

It was on the Mornington Peninsula, so the beaches were nice.

If the Summer Heat Doesn’t Kill Me….

“woman wearing red sun hat” by Fabio Neo Amato on Unsplash

The brutal August heat of Nagoya feels like it is tearing the flesh from my body as the sweat rolls down my face and evaporates as quickly as the Japanese phrases I thought I’d put to memory moments ago.

A blue and white city bus rumbles up to the curb. A stream of orange Kanji and Hiragana race across the LCD reader on the front of the bus. I wait for the English then climb aboard. I take a seat by the window wondering if I’ll be sitting alone today.

Soon the bus is filled with the tired faces of early rising salary men dressed in dark blue and black business suits. They chat listlessly or read the newspaper in the aisle and seats around me. A square-faced man sits next to me so close I can smell his hairspray and the lingering cigarette smoke.

Looking out the window I see an old woman standing on the curb at the number seven stall. She is hunchbacked and her torso is nearly parallel with the sidewalk. In her left hand, she holds an unfurled white umbrella above her head that casts a tiny shadow along her body. For a second, as the bus pulls away, I catch her eyes; two brown rocks sweltering in the heat. In her eyes, all I see are questions, something like, “Can I really live through another summer?”

If the Summer Heat Doesn’t Kill Me…. was originally published in CROSSIN(G)ENRES on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ha ha, they were in a Melbourne suburb actually.

Ha ha, they were in a Melbourne suburb actually.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m not a big fan of lists either, but since my name popped up twice I figured maybe some of the writers out there must be curious about me. I wrote about my experiences with the Yoga cult here if you are interested.

https://medium.com/@stevenbhow/a-kundalini-awakening-and-the-seven-years-of-weirdness-and-bullshit-that-followed-a886dec160dd

10 Things You Don’t Know (but soon will) About Me

“girl covering her mouth” by Andre Guerra on Unsplash

I’ve been chosen. Twice, lol. Man, ten things people don’t know about me? How about, 10 things people don’t know about me that won’t bore the hell out of them? Alright, I’ll give it a go.

Japan, yeah I live here. Been here since 2003. I had almost no plan when I left though. I was 33 and had been to Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, and Mexico, but I’d never traveled east of Billings, Montana, and had never been out of the US for more than a day or two. I met my wife (to be at that time) in America in college, but after we graduated her student visa ran out and she returned to Japan. So, six months later I jumped on a plane and followed her.12 years is the longest I’ve ever lived in one place in the 48 years I’ve been alive. I’ve lived in two states, WA and CA, and two countries, America and Japan, but I moved a lot. I never really thought it was strange until I had lived in the same condo in Japan for eleven years and realized that was the longest I had lived anywhere.Even though I teach English I’m really horrible at learning other languages. I studied Spanish for a year in High School and can’t speak it at all. I did a little better with Japanese, but even after nearly 16 years in Japan I don’t speak it very well and can hardly read Kanji.Even though I’m a shy introvert I do stand up comedy once a month. Sometimes people even laugh at my jokes.

6. I was only a baby, but my mother tells me that I almost died twice from asthma when I was around a year old. She said I turned blue in the hospital and that my dad threatened to beat up a doctor to get someone to save me. I joined a swim team when I was ten and my asthma was gone by the time I was 13. Don’t know if it was the swimming or just hitting puberty that did it, but it was nice to be able to breathe normally.

7. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to, but fly fishing is my hobby. When my son is a little older I’m hoping he will take it up so I will have a buddy and an excuse to get out on the water more.

8. I was a full blown woo woo believing yogi/Buddhist for seven years and an unwitting member of a yoga cult. Fortunately, they were based in Australia, so I didn’t get sucked in too deep. Though I did waste a lot of money and time traveling to Australia for two meditation retreats as well as buying a shitload of the “guru’s” fucking books. Now I wish I would have gone to Australia simply as a tourist rather than as a naive idiot with his head in the clouds.

9. I’ve written four novels, one novella (that was published a year ago), and a short story collection that I self-published, but I’ve probably earned less than $500 in the last 20 years.

10. I once sat behind Bill Gates in a movie theater in WA and stared at the back of the then richest man in the world’s head for about two hours. I think the movie was Men in Black 2. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to being rich, lol.

The Busted Engine Reality of the Writer’s Life

“black hoodie” by Jaroslav Devia on Unsplash

I’m Bukowski’s left nut spraying
near impotent literary detritus
all over the web.

Tyler Durden’s industrious schizoid
fingers clawing the walls
of this classroom while dreaming
of exploding buildings that will
free me from this dead soul’s job.

Mac and the boy’s shaky DDT’s
trying to Old Tennis Shoe drown another
set of newly assembled bad memories.

And Dr. Gonzo’s one last coke-fueled shotgun
blast “fuck you” to the world before
John Boy blasts his ashes into the eternal
Freakdome.

The greats, dead and imaginary, probably laugh at
my pathetic mimicry, but I will still claw these
words from my cranium even if the
effort results in naught.

The Busted Engine Reality of the Writer’s Life was originally published in Other Doors on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you guys still adding writers to this publication?

Are you guys still adding writers to this publication? I’ve applied using the form four or five times, but still haven’t been added.

I believe there is a best selling “author” out there that often uses lines from nursery rhymes as…

I believe there is a best selling “author” out there that often uses lines from nursery rhymes as the title of his novels that you modeled Mr. Stone after, lol.

The frustration writers feel those is real though and it definitely came through in this one even with the sarcastic tone. Great work!