Life in progress

Category Archives: Opinion


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Re – SoCS (Return, Reach, Re-read)

Return. The word is going through my head over and over and mostly because I wish my eyesight would return to normal. At this particular moment anyway. It keeps going blurry and then for a few days it’s fine. I need to keep track of what I eat, perhaps. Or how I sleep. Or how many hours I spend looking at a computer screen.

Reach. Add an E at the end and you get Re-ache. What my shoulder keeps doing. First it’s fine and then it re-aches. Wow, I’m stretching with that word, aren’t I?

But I’m just complaining.

Still, it would be nice to be able to return to the full health I had even ten years ago. Living in the past can be a pain in the rear-end at the best of times. Especially since we can’t go back – we can only move forward. Forward to what? Hey, there’s another reason to stress.

I think about living in the moment often. I think about it more than I actually do it, because it takes practice. To actually BE in the moment, to fully concentrate on what I’m doing, whether it be breathing or typing or washing dishes, is easier depending on what I’m doing. It’s much easier for my mind to wander if I’m performing a mundane task. But when I write I must fully concentrate. In fact, trying to pull me out of this concentration is like trying to yank out a tooth with a pair of chopsticks. Not easy.

I read somewhere yesterday, a quote from an author who said that writing is not an escape from reality, but rather a plunging into it. I’m really up in the air on this one. Yes, a good piece of writing, whether fact or even fiction, can express reality in ways that we sometimes don’t want to face. But writing about one reality isn’t necessarily the reality that the writer is living in. Did that make any sense? I hope so.

Maybe I need to re-read that quote. 😉

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

A Stream of Consciousness Saturday post. You can join in too! https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-614/


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Rock-Star Writer

I feel like a rock-star sometimes.

Look at me here, with my happy-go-lucky lifestyle

Not a care in the world but

My laptop with my novel open

To the juicy bits – the personalities with

their fabulous lives and exciting drama

their ups and downs and their

…oh their endless passions

and love.

I’m a rock star.

My characters make me so.

Do you ever live vicariously through your characters? I’m thinking about my upcoming trip to Ottawa where I will go backstage at the National Arts Centre to see the dressing rooms and the back hallways where the stars meet. I’ll go on stage and look out at all the seats and maybe I’ll do a little dance.  But it’s not just the fact that my main character happens to be a performer. There’s so much more going on in his life than that; it’s only a facet of who he is.

My fictional characters go through their own lives with the dramas and fears and loves that I only wish I could experience. Sure, sometimes they are tortured by those very same things. But their stories are interesting – worth telling. Is my own life worth a tale? Sometimes, I suppose. But not like the lives of my characters. They live out loud, doing things I can only dream of having the opportunity to do.

I suppose all writers of fiction live, at times, in the imaginary world where their characters exist. A fantasy world, if you will, where not even the sky is the limit, and where unexpected things happen.

Once in a very rare while, I feel like I’m really there. And in a way my research will take me there. I’ll have my notepad and pen and my camera on hand to record the moment, but for the most part I’ll be living it.

Has it happened to you? I’d love to know.


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Technology Sucks!

Incoming rant: be prepared to duck.

Why can’t they make computers that will last? Okay, fine, my desktop is four years old, and my son Chris is on it all the time. Almost. Today it started acting up. It has some sort of bug going on – whether it’s a virus or the hard drive is failing (which I think is the case) I’m not sure. But for an Autistic kid to deal with it’s the end of the world. I’ve spent most of this morning trying to fix the computer while Chris sits beside me beating his head with his fists and yelling.

All this after Alex came home yesterday to an infected laptop. Thank goodness I have Kaspersky on his machine – it cleaned it up quite well, though it took almost two hours to do it. It would work even better if it didn’t give him the choice when it detected an attack to go ahead and trust the virus or get out while the getting is good. He’s a very trusting little guy.

But it’s not only that the technology we use is so delicate which has me upset. Alex’s school has a great new program in which they’re using iPads to carry around in the community so they can communicate with hearing people. Wonderful, right? It would be if the school didn’t expect me to buy him an iPad. And I thought the expense of indoor shoes was bad enough!

And now Chris is asking me for a new computer. What I need is a car. A real one – not the 1993 puddle-jumping Tempo I inherited from my mother when the doctor took her license away in February. Wait, did I say technology? I suppose even the Flintstones thought their “cars” were technology. Anyway, the Tempo has taken to stalling every time I stop now… which I suppose is better than when it was zooming through stop signs no matter how hard I pressed on the brake.

Ugh!

End rant.

Seriously, I detest whining. I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading.


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Plans? What Plans? & Date Night With Me

I had it all planned out: clean up the house and get together the stuff for the garage sale, write one book, edit the other, read lots, learn Japanese… So what do you think happened? None of the above. Between my mother and my eldest son hanging around, I’ve barely had a moment to myself. Not that I’m really complaining of course. But I had plans, damnit!

Unscheduled was the turning around of my living room and the exit of my old wall-unit that I was thoroughly sick of looking at, and then the subsequent cleaning up of my living room which included vacuuming places that haven’t seen the light of day in almost five years. The good news is, I’m happy with the result.

Here’s the most recent pic. I obviously need someone who can paint a mural.

2014 - 08 - 28

I went to see the movie If I Stay on Tuesday night. I went Tuesday because it’s half price, which gave me just over $5 off. I didn’t make it to the showing I wanted however, so I decided to head over to the book store. Bought a book (How To Be a Canadian by Will and Ian Ferguson which actually had me laughing in the aisle) and cashed in my loyalty points which gave me $5 off. Then, having almost 2 hours to kill, I went to Boston Pizza (no, Jay Dee, I didn’t have the ribs) and ordered a salad with my meal and a big-assed glass of wine. I sat alone and enjoyed my meal (the waitress forgot to bring me the salad) and killed myself laughing while reading the book I’d just bought (How To Be a Canadian, if you didn’t catch it the first time) and when the waitress came to ask me if I was ready for my bill, I mentioned the salad. The bill came -$5, which made me happy.

Total bill for the night:

less than $20 for the movie and popcorn and a drink

less than $20 for the book

less than $20 for a meal with a big-assed glass of wine and a coffee including the tip.

I think I did quite well. The movie though? Made me cry. A LOT. But it was extremely well-acted and well-scripted. I’d recommend it for sure.

Tonight I’m sitting down with a bottle of white and some music to, with any luck, do some editing. Or writing. Or at the very least, reading. I have too much to catch up on before the kids come home on Saturday.

As for the garage sale? I can’t see it happening before Sunday. I need a break.


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One-Liner Wednesday – Creations

“…it is delusion to assume that the creator controls his creations and that an attempt to exert such control while ignoring the true nature of those creations is doomed to failure.”

~ Diana Gabaldon, as William on page 470 of An Echo in the Bone, in reference to writing fictional characters in a play.

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!

 


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Purging

As I worked on sorting things out yesterday–things I haven’t seen in years that were in boxes around my house–I got to thinking about how good it feels just to get rid of stuff. It wasn’t until I had a thought-provoking conversation with my best friend, John, this morning that I understood why.

When we throw out or otherwise get rid of things we don’t need in our lives, it not only creates physical space for us to live, but it relieves the untidiness it occupies in our minds. For instance, every time I think about getting rid of a game I have already played, I think to myself, “Maybe I’ll play it again one day,” and so it stays. I realize a game isn’t that big a deal – it doesn’t take up must physical space in my house. But if I think about getting rid of it ten times in the space of a month, it adds up to nothing less than stress. Now if I think about ALL the things I have in my house that I don’t need… it really adds up. If I just get rid of it I no longer have the choice, and so I can stop thinking about it.

It’s like procrastination. As long as there is something to do, my mind is cluttered with it. And the more I think about all the projects I have on the go, the more I realize that they are just things which are occupying space in my life. I need to purge them by getting them done already.

As Lao Tzu was wise to point out,

We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.

It’s not only the pot: it works equally for our homes and our minds.


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Have Any Good Dreams To Share?

I’ve been having a lot of weird dreams lately. Building things has been a prevalent theme, as well as organizing. It’s like I’ve been working in my sleep, and so I wake up feeling like I’ve had no rest. It doesn’t help that for the past week I’ve woken every morning between 1:30 and 4:30, at least once, and haven’t been able to go back to sleep. My mind becomes occupied with all the things I’m reminded I need to do in my waking life by my dreams and sleep eludes.

Every night when I get into bed I hope for a nice dream. One of the ones I sometimes have in which I’m madly in love with someone who loves me back, or I’m laughing or simply happy, hanging out in a shop with Johnny Depp, who is buying me anything I want. (Yes, I’ve actually had that dream. 😀 )

Dreams–good ones–can keep us going every bit as much as the bad ones can weigh us down.

What is your favourite dream?


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I Know What I Want

There are people in the world whose words are consistent with their actions and there are people who say one thing and then do another. Okay yes, there are times that the former type lapse into the latter, just as I’m sure there are people who are almost constantly doing things contrary to what they say might be tempted to actually do what they say. But it’s the latter type I see as not really knowing what they want out of life.

Of the latter type there seem to be two sub-types, as it were. There are those who say they’re going to do something and then never do. (We’re all guilty of that occasionally though, aren’t we? I was going back to school in September… ha. Maybe next year.) And there are those who say they feel a certain way but their actions don’t match. Take, for instance, a person who says he wants to meet, in person, a friend who he met online. He might say, “I’d love to get together,” but then always finds an excuse not to. Or a woman who is cheating on her husband: at night she may come home and tell him she loves him, and would go to the ends of the earth for him, but the moment he leaves the house in the morning she’s having it off with the pool boy.

Lying to the people around oneself aside, the dishonesty in these kinds of actions must take a toll on the psyche. In the case of the woman – does she want the happy life she portrays with her husband? Or is freedom what she really wants? Likely she has no real idea, so she juggles both, possibly while she attempts to figure it out. Even in the less life-altering case of the man, the stress of having to keep up the appearance of wanting something he doesn’t really want (which is shown in his actions) has to come with some kind of cost. The cost is in energy and on the conscience.

I strive to match my words with my actions as much as I possibly can. I try to be honest with myself, even if I can’t always be honest with everyone I meet. (Of course that hairdo looks wonderful on you!) In being honest with myself and for the important things with other people, I feel that I am able to know what it is I want in my life.

Do you know what you want? What you really really want?


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Liking Comments on WordPress, Reevaluated

After much thought and many comments, I’ve decided to try out the “like” button in my comment section. As Jason of HarsH ReaLiTy pointed out, it’s another way of making connections and interacting and I know this to be true by experience. I have, in the past, clicked on the blogs of people who have “liked” my comments and found a few bloggers who were interesting enough to follow, and who subsequently followed me back.

In all I’d have to say that the enlightening conversations I had on this post have highlighted not only the benefits of “liking” a comment, despite its often narrow meaning, but I’ve had some fun “liking” comments there too. My love/hate relationship with the button has tipped slightly to the “love” side. Or at least the “like” side.

If you decide to come along for the ride, you can turn your comment likes on by going to your dashboard, in the settings and then the “sharing” section. Why not give it a try? You might end up “liking” it.


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Liking Comments on WordPress

I’m having a bit of a love/hate relationship with the addition of the new “like” button in the comment window. My first reaction when people started putting the button on their own blogs in the comment section was that it was a lazy way of saying to someone that you either agree with them or that you enjoyed their comment. Before it showed up, one was forced to actually write out his or her thoughts. I wasn’t going to put the option of “liking” comments on my blog. Now, it seems, I don’t have a choice. If the comment shows up in the notification box, it’s fair game for a “like.”

Now I’m not saying I don’t think anyone should use them, nor am I complaining when someone “likes” one of my comments. Though I still think it’s a way to be lazy, I find it handy to use when all I really want to do is acknowledge that I’ve read a comment. Particularly if that comment is simply a 🙂 Thus, my love/hate relationship with it.

What do you think of it? How do you use it the most?