Life in progress

Daily Archives: April 26, 2014


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How Many Bugs in a Box – Stream of Consciousness Saturday (Question)

“How many bugs in a box?” It’s a stupid little song that has been going through my head for years. When I’ve finished writing this post (because I don’t want to stop) I’ll look it up and if I can, insert it so that everyone can be tormented by it.

It’s from an animated game for the computer that my kids used to play when they were little. The game was called “How Many Bugs in a Box” and it was a counting/math/number/pattern recognition game. Why am I writing about this? Because every time – and I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME – I try to write a blog post I think of that sentence. The question has been plaguing me now for around fifteen years. Fifteen years of wondering how many bugs are in the damned box!

Why is it that songs get stuck in our heads, anyway? There’s a name for it now: ear worm. Usually it lasts a morning, or a few hours after we either think of a song or hear it after not having heard it for a long time. It doesn’t usually happen – at least in my experience – when it’s something that’s on the radio or my playlist all the time. I think my worst ones to date have to be “C is for Cookie” by the Cookie Monster, or “The Song that Never Ends” by whatshername with the lamb puppet. (Holy crap, “whatshername” didn’t get a red squiggly line underneath it!)

Anyway, by finally writing “how many bugs in a box” in a blog post, I’m hoping to dispell the magic that keeps me wanting to come back to it. I’ll let you know if it worked in another post. Maybe in next week’s SoCS post.

(Phew! Got my Stream of Consciousness Saturday post in just in the nick of time!)


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W is for … Writer Mode

Writer mode is something I never go out of. It’s the perpetual state of creating, of observing, and of learning. I don’t see and hear things going on around me as much as I absorb them.

This came to me one day about a month ago when I was in the grocery store. I reached the end of the aisle where there was a display of bleach on sale, and I thought to myself, I’m going to need some of that to get all the blood stains out. In reality, I don’t have a pool of blood anywhere in my house – so where did the thought come from?

I wonder about this a lot. The characters, plots and scenarios manifest in my mind in so many different ways. Whereas most of my fictional dilemmas are solved when I’m completely relaxed, such as when I’m in the shower and not having to concentrate too much on what I’m doing, my initial ideas often appear when I’m trying to do something else. Possibly it’s the part of me that worries, what if? It’s those moments when I’m frantically looking for something to write on, or searching for a place to pull over so I can write a note on my phone so I don’t forget.

I feel kind of blessed that I have this seemingly infinite source of thoughts and ideas coming to me. I think maybe everyone does, to some degree. Whether one puts them to use is what makes the difference between one who creates and one who lives on other’s creations – not that there’s anything wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld. We all do it.

So which is it do you think? I ask all creators: artists, photographers, musicians, and writers of fiction, blogs and poetry, is there something in the ether which those of us who create are in touch with? Or is it something that comes from inside, that we’re simply more in tune with than other people?

Gasp! What’s happening with Jupiter and Xavier? Go here to see! http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/w-is-for-wedded-bliss/