Actually, no, non-Affirmative

Affirming – No, I’m not doing the A to Z challenge AGAIN – but I will need an antedote because it’s my first year early weeks blogging and I’m April fool enough to be taking the challenge with three other blogs! So I’ll be back here to scrawl my way out of A-Z-ing somehow but probably or possibly playing along along the way, just not by attachment.

My three posts for A are up, an acrostic poem ‘Avoiding Avoidance’ at Pitter Patter Poetry; a self-help strategy post at Snailzpace Daily and a new artsy blog, from Corner 2 Corner. That’s been on hold for a few weeks – in avoiding avoidance and attackling my aversion to uploading image files I’ve restarted that original blog project on  a smaller scale than planned, taking it one day at a time, A to Z. As I’m having ample enthusiasm for A-Z-ing elsewhere, here I’ll maybe strike the balance with allowing myself a sprinkling of apathy and make no apologies for it – I’m not even going to provide links to my posts, you can find them if you choose to. Isn’t that awkward and awful of me!

My blog here’s staying autonomous of all but creative writing challenges should I have time – not that the A to Z’s not potentially creative writing, but three’s enough and then I have free reign to play here after. I will be under the influence though. (And I’ve not used a dictionary once while here, not even an online one, it’s all just been accumulating and needs to splurge out somehow to alleviate the alphabetical addictiveness …) So, be aware… I am likely to alliterate often if I’m blogging here any A  to Z day… although… well, you don’t ‘AVE to read it, d’ya… and I don’t suppose you are, but I’ll maybe be surprised.

I find it difficult to imagine anyone ever paying attention and reading my stuff… But saying that it’s just the sort of rambling ‘rubbish’ I’d stop and read if someone else were writing it… so, having failed to appease for my absence from posting here for so long, that really is ALL for today’s A … I hope!

… but I might be back tomorrow for another atrocious ‘alpha beta daily taley’ with a bee in my bonnet…mayBE…

Alpha Beta daily taley – Antedote

(Fiction  532 words)

“April Fool’s!” she giggled. I didn’t get the joke and somehow missed the trick. Barely awake as we sat at the kitchen table making our way through breakfast as if there were no tomorrow and the sugar puffs might disappear into thin air …

“Anyway, you’ll be late for school and don’t use all the milk!” I couldn’t help but be abrupt in my tone and manner, but she remained as oblivious to my mood as I was of whatever her idea of the big joke was.

“About time you practise learning your alphabet again Dad, you’ve not been to school for AGES and it’s all going rusty if you don’t practise… you’ve just got to attempt the A to Z challenge!”  “No way you’re a proper blogger till you’ve done that!”

I wondered how she could articulate speech with those spoons full of cereal shovelling back and forth to her mouth, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Anytime soon she’d be out to school and I could have a cuppa in peace, as long she’d not been greedy with the milk.

“So are you are you and your friends doing this challenge thing then Alison?” I asked, trying to sound interested.

“Nah!” she replied, “can’t with a tumblr blog and I’m not changing. I’ve got after school clubs and netball tournaments and exams to revise for and I’ve not had time to forget my alphabet like you must have by now.” She giggled again, almost choking on her breakfast.

“So what do you have to do for this challenge thing then and why is it such a big deal?” I wasn’t all that interested really, but a parent has to make an effort however annoying their offspring might be at that certain age. I should have anticipated the reluctance to converse as soon as I returned apparent interest.

“Oh dad! You’ve got the internet AND a dictionary so look it up! Although it won’t be in a book. You gotta blog it, every day, blog a letter a day. But the dictionary’ll be useful for some words. Keeley says everyone’s mums and dads are doing it. It’ll be on Twitter too, you’d better get one.” She picked up her bowl and slurped the rest of her milk before racing out of the door with a “Gotta go, see ya!” and a heavy handed slam of the door that shook the house,

A to Z challenge I wondered. However did she think I’d ever have time for …

Almost adolescense! At that age I wouldn’t have dreamed of advising my father to re-learn his kindergarten schooling. I picked up my paper and turned to the ads, any annoying offspring antedote available anytime soon?

All this time later I still don’t know what her April Fool’s joke was about and when I asked afterwards, she said she daren’t tell me, and if I didn’t know already then what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.

I did the challenge – Alison’s Anecdotes, Beggar’s Belief, Carry on Crazing… she didn’t pay it the slightest attention all April and the only time she ever glanced at one of my blog posts her only assertion was :”Is that all?!”