I had a weekend off but had very little sleep, but that’s not why I’m discouraged.
I got barely any work done on my novels, but that’s not why either.
I have a sink full of dishes that I haven’t the energy to do, but that’s not entirely what’s got me down.
I killed a fruit fly this afternoon by breathing it forcefully (by accident) up my nose and blowing it back out into a kleenex – that was actually the highlight of my day.
I want to go to bed but I have to wait for kids to go to sleep, but that’s not what’s really killing me.
I have so much to do that I don’t know where to start, but that’s not the worst of it.
What really has me discouraged? It’s all of the above combined. Except the fruit fly thing. That’s just funny.
How was your weekend? Please tell me it was better than mine.
Distemper, datemper… which temper do you want? You know, sometimes you just want to edit. But you can’t. So here we go.
I’ve been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes trying to come up with a word with “temp” in it that doesn’t mean it will soon go away: temporary, CONtemporary (new now, old tomorrow), tempus fugit (time flies), temperature (when does that ever stay consistent?) (okay, if you live in the desert maybe it pretty much does), template. Template! It’s something you use so that you can recreate the same thing over and over – without changing it!
Now what?
I suppose I can still talk about how things change, but that’s so depressing, isn’t it? Unless I’m sad, then I want things to change for the better. Contentment is so rare though, isn’t it? When I am content I try my best to stay in the moment, to remember details, and to enjoy it to the fullest. Contentment scares me though. I have to say I’m pretty happy with the way my life is at the moment. All three of my kids live at home, and they’re all relatively healthy (Alex has a lingering cough, but it’s nothing life-threatening) and they’re all relatively happy as well, and busy with their lives. It all makes me wonder what’s going to happen next. I try not to speculate. Again, stay in the moment. Just stay in the moment, Linda. Enjoy it. Even when I’m being kept awake at 2 am by a coughing kid… Yeah.
Sometimes enjoying my contentment is more of a challenge than others.
I have a hard time staying seated. When I’m writing or editing I have to get up at least every half an hour or so. I sometimes walk into the kitchen, see that there’s really nothing to munch on (because I’ve been smart enough not to buy anything to munch on) and go back to the computer empty-handed. That’s a good thing. I could so easily gain a hundred pounds without even trying if I gave in to all the temptations. Hey, there’s another word that’s not temporary… or is it? I suppose if temptations were constant they’d grind us down so much that they would no longer be temptations but reality instead. So yeah, temporary.
I’m going to temporarily leave reality now… (which means temporary unconsciousness… stream of unconsciousness Saturday… SoUS… French for suck… this really sucks, doesn’t it? Hahahahahahahaha!)
Okay WordPress, what’s up with the missing “Reblog” and “Follow” buttons at the top of my screen when I’m viewing someone else’s blog? There have been a few instances in which I’ve wanted to re-blog something but I can’t. Am I the only one who’s still seeing (or actually, not seeing) this?
I have looked on the forums and apparently you’re “working on it.” Please “work on it” faster. Thank you.
On a lighter note, I’ve had one visitor so far today. It seems they were careful not to peek though. 😛
I wrote an email to a friend this morning using my gmail account. Just a regular event, nothing special, right? That’s what I thought. And then I hit the send button. A message popped up to let me know that in the body of the email I had written the word “attached,” but that I had not added an attachment to my email. “Are you sure you want to send it?” Google asked.
Two thoughts came to mind in such quick succession that I’m not sure which one I thought first: Oh, isn’t that a handy feature! and What the hell is Google doing reading my email?
I mean seriously, if they’re flagging the word “attached” then what else are they flagging? And who are they sharing it with? If they’re not sharing it with anyone, are they just proving a point? As in, “See? We know what you’re writing. We’re watching you.”
So I decided to read their privacy policy. This is the only thing I could find on the subject of emails:
Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection.
Hmm…
To say this feature is disconcerting is an understatement. I’ve been thinking about it all day. And I still can’t decide – is it the best thing since sliced bread? Or is this Google’s way of buttering me up while they keep an eye on my private communications?
Tonight I went out with friends for dinner and drinks – something I haven’t done in many years.
It’s important, I think, to connect with people. I consider myself lucky to have friends. Friends aren’t something I’ve had a lot of in my life, at least not since high school. Oh, I’ve had a few here and there, but the life I lead isn’t one many people can find something in common with. I’m a parent, yes, but my kids are … special. Being a writer and admitting it usually results in people looking at me as though I’ve grown an extra head.
Because I just know everyone out there in WordPressLand is interested in my to-do list for the next week, I’m posting it publicly. You see, I have a partial week off. Which means the kids are with their dad for a week, but I still have to drive my mother here and there, and I still have my basement troll (aka my eldest son) and his cats dwelling in my dungeon. During this time I hope to accomplish the following:
Finish editing my novel.
Write the remainder of my Second Seat series for my fiction blog – only 21 days left to go and I’ll have published one entry every day for an entire year!
Annihilate all of the fruit flies in my house, if not the world.
Pitch an article to at least three different publications for my Interview with a Magician. (Yes, I italicized it to make it look as awesome as it’s gonna be.)
Write some fiction, poetry, and articles to sell, to raise money for my upcoming trip to Tokyo!! (Yes, I’m going again in November. The tickets are booked because I won the lottery to get the concert tickets I wanted!!!!!)
(And this may be the hardest of all,) get away from the computer and get some exercise.
(And this may be the hardest thing to avoid, but I have to be realistic,) procrastinate.
Remind everyone that there’s a contest going on for which we have one (fantastic) entry so far. It’s for the new SoCS badge in case you missed the memo. Don’t make me break out the pom-poms. And for pity’s sake don’t make me enter it myself. You’ll rue the day you have to look at any more of my mad paint skillz.
So there you have it, WordPressLand. Can I do it? I think I can. Wish me luck.
The word “ready” has been tiptoeing around my head all day. Doing a ballet, actually. Unfortunately the pirouettes caused me to have to pop a couple of Tylenols, but I had them at the ready. So that was okay.
“Ready,” I’ve decided, should be an emotion. It’s an abstract sort of thing – ready isn’t something you can touch. It’s not something you can do. It’s the cusp of doing something… the edge of an action. When you’re teetering you may take the plunge before you’re ready just to find that you were ready after all. The opposite can be disastrous.
A machine can be ready but it still takes a human being (most of the time) to make it do what it’s ready for. Is the human ready? What decides us if we’re ready? Desperation, definitely. It’s a gathering of the emotions, isn’t it? Sometimes the gathering is slow – a culmination of years of want, of desire, of need. Sometimes the choice comes upon us suddenly, as in “it’s now or never!” Regardless, we take logic into account (sometimes), but in the end, “ready” is a feeling.
So next time you ask someone how they feel, give them the option: are you sad? happy? scared? content? ready?
And yeah, they’ll probably look at you with their eyebrows scrunched up in the middle and say, “Ready for what?” To which you may reply, “It was just something I read somewhere.”
Ah, guilt is such a wonderful thing, isn’t it? It’s not often I feel guilty for anything – I’m rarely bad. But now…
I want to go back to Japan. This year. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: but you just went! But there’s a reason. Another concert is coming up that I want to go to. Such a flip excuse, isn’t it? Yet here I am again. Wanting to fly off and leave my kids with someone else. Just take off. So selfish. So extravagant.
It comes, for me, under the heading “you only live once.” I may just have the funds and I have a plan to get more, which I’ll write about later. My plan, if I can actually pull this off without guilting myself into not doing it, is to work my hopefully-fit-by-then ass off to save as much money as I can and do good things for other people so I feel worthy of a trip. Deserving.
I’m not writing this for praise, nor am I hoping for permission from anyone. But I’m sure many people can relate to what I’m going through at the moment. Poor me… yeah. Pthththhth. It’s a conundrum. And this has been a hard post to write and will be even harder to publish.
Meantime, my fruit fly problem doesn’t seem to be improving much. I’ve caught more in my homemade trap (a jar with a piece of tomato in the bottom and plastic wrap on top with two small holes punched in it) than the store-bought one. But there are still clouds of the little buggers in my kitchen. It’s a plague, I tell you! But at least they’re not mosquitoes. Now THAT would suck. Like a mosquito.
I was going to write this post this afternoon but instead I took a three hour vacation nap. It was badly needed – that’s all I can say in my defense.
You may have noticed that I’ve kinda gone missing for the past week. And if you have, you might be wondering why. If so, you’re not alone. I’m wondering why too. My occupations of the past week have included but are not limited to having one of my kids home already on summer vacay (the other one’s last day was today), a weekend road trip to Montreal to see Rush in concert (they were awesome!), working on editing my novel (yes, still), watching Downton Abbey on Netflix (I’m so addicted, thanks Joey), and worrying about whether or not I’ve, somewhere down the road, (pun not intended) screwed up the numbering on my “Second Seat on the Right” series only to get to August 31st and find out that my year had more or less than 365 days. I mean seriously, how much would that suck?
All this to say I’m sorry for not reading a single One-Liner Wednesday (yet), neglecting my comments, and generally ignoring everyone on WordPress. If you’ve wondered why I haven’t visited your blog lately please don’t take it personally. At the moment you’re all on the continent and I’m set adrift at an overwhelming distance away. *waves*
Please send Big Macs via carrier pigeon. And if you do see me, I beg of you, don’t thumb your nose at me. I’ll be back, I promise.
I’m here to admit a transgression. A future one, which makes things worse. Up until now I’ve been choosing my A-Z Challenge words according to the page I open my thesaurus to, and that will work fine on Monday for the letter “W.” But “X,” “Y,” and “Z” are going to be more difficult. You see, there is only a page and a half for “Y,” a half a page for “Z,” and an unbelievable single word for the letter “X.” That word is xenophobic. Which in and of itself is a fine word. An interesting word. BUT, my philosophy for this A-Z Challenge has been all about the surprise. Knowing what the word is going to be ahead of time will ruin that completely.
So this is what I propose to do: For the last two letters of the alphabet I’m going to close my eyes and point. With any luck my finger will actually land on the page and not in my mashed potatoes. For the letter “X” I’m going to choose a word that starts with “EX.” There are six pages to choose from so I’ll still be in a position to improvise.
That’s my decision and I’m stickin’ to it.
Here’s some ducks to distract you from my hasty exit.
lindaghill.com 