My Independence Day

I celebrated this July 4th by flinging off my self-imposed yoke of fiction writing tyranny. Hurrah! Instead of dumping tea into Boston Harbor, I spilled it all over my laptop and destroyed my keyboard, thereby depriving myself of the means to gaze at the screen wondering why a best-selling novel authored by me doesn’t materialize while I screw around reading the news. Tuesday I had a meltdown while visiting my daughters because I’m so frustrated and stressed over my lack of writing progress and success, so I suspect the tea spill was a subconscious rebellion.

Of course I could buy a new laptop, but I don’t want to. My hard drive is fine and safe, if anyone cares, and most of my stuff is backed up, but I can’t write fiction on my phone. I feel relieved. I spent the day watching movies and doing NOTHING. I’m tired of telling myself that the minute I get home from the office, after typing on a computer all day, I have to start working on a novel or else I’m failing at life. Most nights I don’t even write ~ I just sit there, tired and miserable, staring at the screen, until I crash into sleep.

Maybe my subconscious was also at work when I titled my last book of poetry All She Wrote. At the time, I meant it about a specific situation… or so I thought. In any case, I don’t intend to stop blogging or tweeting, or even writing the occasional pome, all of which are phone-friendly. I’m only talking about giving up the agony of fiction writing and the hopelessness of self-promo. These nowhere goals have been adding to my depression. (I probably shouldn’t use the word depression, but since I allow people with regular bad headaches to call them migraines, I figure I can haz a pass.)

These are the movies I watched yesterday:

1. Spaceballs! So freaking funny. I can’t believe I never saw it before. Loved it. Just what I needed to cheer me up. And whatever happened to Daphne Zuniga? So pretty! She was in a sweet romcom with my honey John Cusack back in the day. What was that? Be my google.

2. Winter’s Bone. Yikes, what an intense movie. I can see the appeal of Jennifer Lawrence now. She is incredible in this utterly bleak yet fantastic film.

3. The Age of Innocence. Generally I don’t like narrated movies, but there are exceptions to every rule, and this is one. What a lovely film. Everyone was superb. Daniel Day-Lewis is such a gifted actor ~ what a shame he retired.

I plan to feast madly on movies and books from now on. Other people have created delicious art and I’m simply going to nom up theirs and shoot down any idea that I need to write a novel, should such a crazy notion ever raise its nasty serpentine head again out of the tangled jungle of my mind. Begone, slithery, sanity-stealing, ego constrictor of doom.

Freedom!

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How I’m Spending Mother’s Day

My children live far away and my mom has passed on, so I planned a quiet restful day with kitty, writing, movie at home, stitchery, etc. No need for a crowded annoying brunch or peeps coming over to pester me with flowers and whatnottery. I was looking forward to a nice day alone to catch up.

But first my bathtub/shower stopped draining water. I thought okay, no biggie, it’s just draining slowly and I will text my landlord dude guy later to deal with it tomorrow. My sink is also slow, and he can fix both things at once, efficiency rah. After a little bit I went to check the tub again and it hadn’t drained at all since my shower, so that was just Not Good. I started having some anxiety about work tomorrow and things of that nature, making sure to dry my hair in such a way that it could last for two days.

I had some tea and checked the tub again. Nope, nothing. All the yucko shampooey water was still there. So, I made my bed and washed the dishes as you do when you think your landlord might be coming over later. Then, naturally, I bailed all the yucko shampooey water out of the tub with a cup and flushed it away, cleaned the tub and shower curtain all nice and sparkling, since I couldn’t have my landlord and/or plumber seeing anything yucko. That would be gross.

Then I refilled the tub one inch or so with nice clean perfect water, texted my landlord that things were amiss, and waited for his reply. He called after a bit and said he’d fix everything tomorrow, Monday. Okay. I could live with that.

In the meantime, I went back to my beautiful clean tub to discover that the perfect water had drained out and in its place, from the bowels of hell, was a giant pile of dirt. WHAT?! This was not smelly poopoo dirt or anything like that, but dirt-dirt, like from outdoors. How could dirt-dirt get up to my second floor apartment? Why did it need to burp out of the drain for the nice clean water to go down? What was this mystery trade-off?

Well. I got out some trusty disposable cleaning gloves and bleach and wiped up the dirt-dirt. Soon the tub was even cleaner than before, so shiny and gleaming it hurt my eyes to look at the thing. In fact, I was getting a giant migraine from all this tubby gorgeousness. Again, I ran some nice clear water in the tub and kept checking on it. Eventually it went down (after a million years) and left a teensy bit of residue ~ not the huge clumps of dirt, just a few specks. I wiped them away and did it again. Same. I’ll probably keep doing this the rest of the day because this is how I am.

Obviously there’s a voracious creature waking in the pipes, something alien that was left here by a spaceship, a dirty hairy drain monster that will soon burst through and devour us all, beginning with my kitty and me sometime tonight after I fall asleep during one of the tub rinse/wipe/refill cycles. Gatsby seems unconcerned because he’s a cat. But really there’s nothing we can do, so we may as well nap and dream our last dream.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Stripey C00kies

My dad loved stripey c00kies. Not sure why I have a pic of these actually, but I found it while searching for something to poast for the “sweet” photo challenge and decided to use it instead of cupcakes (since I don’t feel like going through the gallery to check which cupcake pics I’ve used already). I still love stripey c00kies too. There’s just something so nostalgic and wholesome about them for me.

Wishing all my blogfans a happy Valentines Day!

~*~

Photo Challenge: Sweet

FINALLY!

Guess what blogfans? I’ve done it, I’ve done it, I’ve finally gone and done it!

YAAAY! Woo hoo! Hurrah for me!

What’s that you ask? No, I have not broken up the Clooney marriage and snagged George for myself. Pffft.

No, I did not quite manage to finagle the million dollar publishing contract. Yet. Just hang in there with me, my loyal peeps.

But I did finally finish something today I set out to do two years ago Thanksgiving and it’s pretty darned exciting if I do say so myself. With only hours to spare as the sun sinks lower in the sky on the last day of 2017 I give you… dun da da dun…

THE COMPLETED SCARF!

I was like a knitting terrorist… knitting for two years, off and on, mostly off, not knowing how to stop. I have a rule that I go to YouTube only for entertainment, never to learn things, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop from printed text, but luckily I remembered that I also have a rule that rules are to be broken…whew! Off to YouTube I scampered, searched for how to end a scarf, found an easy peasy bind off for dummies, and viola.

My scarf is cozy extravagance and I will love it almost as much as Gatsby loves his kitty tunnel (just using up a bunch of prompt words like a good OCDer, don’t mind me, ignore this sentence, thx). Now, like a true creative, I’m immediately jonesing to begin my next project, which will be a (somewhat) self-designed cross-stitch. Stay tuned for deets!

Wishing all my readers a happy and healthy 2018!

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Finally

Cherish

 

Last evening a couple friends and I got together to play games. Most people would have called it a night after Ticket to Ride ended at 11pm, but not us. We began Chinese checkers, two triangles each, and it went on for three hours. I cherish these friends who, like me, are so crazy they need to stay at the table until the last marble rolls into place. What a blessing it is to find your peeps. I hope my blogfans are enjoying the end of 2017 with family, friends, and pets in good health and happies. Thanks for reading!

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Cherish

Promptsoup

It’s been an age since I’ve blarghed, though I’ve had plenty of ideas… they tend to loop around in my mind without ever making it to the page, eventually sinking down into the sludge of abandoned dreams. Who’s to say what causes one notion to blossom into a concept that demands my full attention? It’s a mystery!

I feel this writing lull is temporary and soon you, my dear and faithful readers, will be able to gorge on a sumptuous buffet of glorious essays and blissful pomes rather than these meager snippets, bites, and crumbs I’ve been parceling out like a blarghy Scrooge. You’ve been so saintly to continue to hang in there with me and I appreciate you all. ❤

Please let me know in comments what you’re up to during these jolly holidays. Traveling, baking, immersing yourself in a lit’ry or other masterpiece? Just working and/or hanging with your peeps? I can relate to that.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Relate

Speaking of Unfinished Projects…

It’s not only my 2017 NaNoWriMo (and other) writing projects that have been set aside, hopefully temporarily, but also some craft projects too. A while back, actually years ago now, I began making a super special secret item for my Cal daughter, in blue and gold. Took a class and everything. And it’s sitting right here in the bag, unfinished. Technically, it is officially unstarted now, since I ripped out the entire thing due to its being imperfect. I don’t remember how to do it from way back when… sort of a beginner crochet stitch, I guess. Oh look, there are instructions, yippee! Only six steps in total, so how hard can it be? LOL

Next is a scarf for myself I began knitting with circular needles at my other daughter’s two Thanksgivings ago ~ really lovely colors in a variegated yarn. I actually got pretty far on this, maybe over halfway done. Need to figure out how to blend in the next skein of yarn because I used up the first skein, and then end the scarf after that. It’s soooo soft and cozy. Blues and browns, like the sand and sea. I can’t wait to wear it!

I got a craving this weekend to do needlepoint again and began searching Amazon and eBay for kits I might like to make. Found one ~ a trio of beautiful red poppies for a pillow or picture. Yes, I bought that even though I still need to finish the two otter yarny things and all the writing ever. I consider this rather restrained because I almost bought a gorgeous kit of purple pansies too and the only reason I didn’t is because it wasn’t as versatile for picture or pillow. It would have to be a picture when finished and I’m not sure I want a purple picture. I have no problem with a purple pillow.

But what I really want to do is design my own cross stitch pattern. I did a simple one ages ago, and the one I have in mind will be a little more complicated. It’s very mathy and time-consuming, but when has that ever stopped me? Right. I started one yesterday with an online template, but when you use the online ones they either let you do a photo or text and naturally I want a combination of both.

Here’s a weird thing: when I was poking around eBay I found the very first needlework kit project I ever did! No lie, when I was 14 years old, I did this crewel design, brought it with me to babysitting jobs and did it at home while watching TV also. I can’t believe they made so many kits that some are still around in their original packaging 40+ years later. I grabbed a Google image to put here because I think the eBay link might disappear.

Look how beautiful this is! My God, I am tempted to buy it again and remake it, for old times’ sake. You really can go home again. I wonder what happened to mine? It wasn’t this well done, of course. My first project. I didn’t even use stretcher bars. What a n00b.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Knit

Chihuly on Catalina

Here are a few of the extraordinarily beautiful Chihuly pieces we saw yesterday at the Catalina Island Museum, where they are hosting an exhibit for a few more weeks. There was also an interesting short film on the history of Catalina and a brief bio of artist Dale Chihuly too.

(Made a collage in Google photos ~ fun!)

 

Ghoulish

I’m very particular about Halloween costumes. I’m not a big fan of the ghoulish and the gory, though spectral is a different matter. Floaty ghosties are always nice, as are black cats. I do enjoy an elaborately made-up Day of the Dead ensemble. I like plays on words. This year, I was part of a group costume that illustrated a song. We all chose an element and I was Pink Champagne on Ice. It might not have been scary, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, it was my favorite song: “Hotel California.” Happy Halloween to all my blogfans!

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Ghoulish

Tick Tock

It’s after 9pm and I’ve accomplished nothing tonight.

Well, that’s not precisely true. I spent time calling and emailing peeps in attempts to fix mistakes and figure out confuzzling stuff. But there’s so much more. I feel completely stressed out by all the things. I haven’t written any poetry lately, though I’ve scribbled down ideas when I’ve thought of them. That’s not the same though, a couple words here and there. You lose the mood, the feeling, the gestalt of the piece.

I didn’t do much over the long weekend because I didn’t feel well. But that’s not really true either. I cleaned a bunch, hung out with friends, watched fireworks, crossed a lot of items off my list. I keep adding stuff to the list though! I’ve been reading a good book (Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life), but I wasted some hours watching bad movies too. 😦

It seems as though all these electronic time-savers just gobble up more and more time. I long for the days of the checkbook and pencil ~ I am officially old now. So many of my hours are eaten up by “helpful” technology, a sparkly illusion of convenience. No, I’m not giving any of it up or asking for advice; I’m just complaining, right here on my laptop connected to the internet. It’s what I do.

I have a million tabs open up there… mostly poetry sites I want to check out, maybe to submit stuff, or to get ideas, or whatever. They’ve been open for days, maybe a week. But I’m not looking at them tonight ~ I’m too tired now. W10 wants to update again, but I can’t let it cuz I’d have to close the tabs. These tabs, and the whole North Korea problem… it’s all making me very anxious.

Happy belated 4th (USA readers), day late, dollar short.

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Illusion