Today Is ...

January 2, 2024, at home

I like profiteroles, as I call cream puffs, especially filled with chocolate pudding. I have enjoyed my mom's profiteroles throughout the decades, since I was a kid in the 1960s, particularly with vanilla pudding. I am not fond of them when filled with whipped cream. I don't like whipped cream on anything.

January 2, 2024, at home

I am mostly an introvert, although I do have some extroverted qualities, especially when I am not being myself. I'll explain.

I performed, not read, but performed two of my original poems in February 1990 during a show as a performing member of the avant-garde troupe The Port Jervis Poetry Society in Port Jervis, New York. The anniversary show (poetry, folk music, and artwork) was broadcast on public-access television. I joined the troupe shortly after I wrote a story about the troupe for the Newburgh Evening News newspaper in Newburgh, New York.

My father drove about two hours from Long Island, New York, to have dinner with me and then watch me perform. After the show, I asked my dad what he thought of everyone's performance,  including mine. His response was an absolutely classic. He said in a sly, low-volume voice: "You got to get away from these people." LOL ... Well, I was soon laid off, with the newspaper becoming defunct a couple of years later, and soon procured another job in upstate New York.

In 1991, while working as a reporter for the Olean Times Herald in Olean, New York, based in the Wellsville, New York, bureau, I interviewed the director of a community-theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "Cinderella." She heard my speaking voice and told me that she needed another baritone singer for the chorus. She asked if I would like to be in the musical. I said "yes," because I typically say "yes" to everything, even though I had never sung on stage before. I had three weeks to learn three songs, which I did.

I was also fitted for my costume. I was a cobbler (shoemaker). I wore white tights; a pink-and-orange satin graduation gown with a leather toolbelt around my waist; and orange makeup on my face, neck, hands, and arms.

My boss was quite angry with me because she had slated me to write a review of the musical, which she hadn't told me. Because I was in the musical, I could not write the review, you know journalistic ethics or something like that. The newspaper printed the review that was written by the local librarian. Oh, well.

I guess I am a mix: I am an extrovert because I have been a reporter and appeared on stage, and an introvert because I have been a writer, editor, researcher, photographer, and page designer, all for print and online publications from 1982 to 2017.

January 2, 2024, at home

I don't particularly like buffets, especially breakfast buffets, but I do like the occasional Chinese buffet. Hint: Buffets have the cheap, filler stuff like bread, pasta, and salads at the beginning of the line so that you fill up on this stuff. So, skip this stuff, and focus on the heartier fare that is deeper down the line.