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 |  Here's to bloggin' around the block--one word at a time. |
| It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick Dave Barry No, this isn’t a commentary on the healthcare system in the United States. I’ll save that for another time. I’ve had a rotten cold for about ten days now and I’m finally feeling better today! I didn’t have to dope myself up to sleep last night so I wasn’t all fuzzy headed when I got up. (In fact I got up very early). And I didn’t spend the whole night coughing either. Quite an improvement. Anyway, I was looking for a quote about the common cold to begin my blog entry and ended up with this. (Could I have possibly get any more boring? Hang on and find out!) So, while I was getting caught up on some of the zillion things I’m behind on, I somehow ended up on the website called Authentic Happiness. I had taken a few tests on there about a year ago, but I had really forgotten about the site since then. I have this tendency to be kind of a pessimistic person. I have no reason to be that way; it’s just my nature, I guess. I’m very happy with my life and I wouldn’t trade places with anyone in the world! (For years I could have said just about the opposite). But, I’m a worrier by nature and I think that in itself gets me in a place I don’t enjoy. So, I answered the 240 questions on the VIA Signature Strength Survey. My top five strengths are what I’m advised to pay attention to and find more ways to use: Your Top Strength Gratitude You are aware of the good things that happen to you, and you never take them for granted. Your friends and family members know that you are a grateful person because you always take the time to express your thanks. Your Second Strength Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your life in a genuine and authentic way. You are down to earth and without pretense; you are a "real" person. Your Third Strength Capacity to love and be loved You value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. The people to whom you feel most close are the same people who feel most close to you. Your Fourth Strength Fairness, equity, and justice Treating all people fairly is one of your abiding principles. You do not let your personal feelings bias your decisions about other people. You give everyone a chance. Your Fifth Strength Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind. Guess what #24 was? My “weakest strength” Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control. Actually this is fine with me. I learned a long time ago that I’m powerless over a lot of things. I’d rather live in the moment than worry about trying to control the future. So, I’m off to work on my Gratitude List. |
| Anna, quit being so athletic. Writers are supposed to be lazy and frail. You’ve got to get in the proper shape. Words have to ooze out of you. A firm body produces nothing. The above lines were shouted by the title character in Natalie Goldberg’s novel Banana Rose. I can’t say that I was truly wild about the book, but I can say that it crossed my mind to use those words as my mantra. I’ve got lazy down already, I think. And thanks to a rotten cold, I’ve been feeling a bit frail the last few days, too. Or if not really frail, I’ve felt, well, sick. The last few days have been kind of a blur with my stuffy, fuzzy head and my achy body. The only problem is that the words just haven’t been oozing out of my lazy, frail self so I don’t think that it’s doing me much good to hold onto this newest excuse for not getting in better shape physically. I know at least three people in Blogsville who have written about going to Curves. I thought I probably couldn’t afford to do that, but a few days ago I had a phone message offering me thirty days for thirty dollars. I don’t know how long the offer lasts, or if I’ll feel up to taking advantage of it in time, but I also found a book on clearance at my favorite book store (Half-Price Books) written by the founder - a man! - including exercises you can do at home. So, it looks like I’ll be running out of excuses soon, unless of course I find that “being too athletic” destroys what little writing I have been doing. So far in June I’ve written only one entry in my 500 words a day book and a few pages in my private journal. But I’ve been getting some messages about writing lately, besides the quote from Banana Rose. Last night I watched the movie Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane as a writer and literary critic in a story of personal growth and renewal. Then today I found two magazine articles about writers and writing in AARP Magazine. (Turn 50 in the US and you’re automatically AARP’s mailing list – I think it stands for American Association of Retired Persons or something similar.) One wasn’t strictly about writing, an essay by author Amy Bloom about lessons learned after age 50. The other article was titled “Everyone Has a Story to Tell” by memoirist and writing instructor Abigail Thomas. The article includes some writing exercises that look intriguing. For some reason, I’m having some trouble getting things out of my head and onto paper. It’s possible that I need to do a little emotional digging, something that I don’t exactly rush into enthusiastically. The last couple of weeks contained some growth experiences and some lessons in acceptance. Life is short. I need to focus on things that I can do to improve me and stop focusing on things that I have no control over. Time to make some goals again, but using Amy Blooms’ advice, I want to sort the “musts” from the “shoulds.” |
Here's a silly poem I wrote awhile back. Pretty bad, but it kind of fits me right now. Invalid Item  Springing to action on projects galore resolving to tackle them all Inspired by the season like never before getting organized once and for all. Clean closets, neat cupboards looking just so Every room in the place (plus the hall) all shiny and clean no dirt to be seen. Inspired by the season like never before getting organized once and for all Beginning excitement's fast losing its grip undermining every intention Enthusiasm has taken a slip Spring fever's about to set in My daughter is flying in tomorrow from Seattle so I've spent the long weekend trying to finally get caught up on all the housework I've been putting off for who knows how long. She hasn't been home for a few years (we were there this fall) and she's going to spend some time with my mom, too, who just finished up her radiation and chemo treatments. Anyway, I've made some progress in clearing out the clutter although I didn't quite get everything done that I wanted to. Yesterday morning I woke with a spasm in my back so I took a muscle relaxer and took it a little easier. Then last night I cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floor, turned on the dishwasher and went to bed. This morning there was water standing in the bottom of the dishwasher and the power to it was dead. Tonight my husband took a shower and said he thought we were running out of hot water. Seems the water heater is trying to die now, too. The maintenance guys will probably have to spend the day here tomorrow, if we can get them here. Meanwhile my daughter sent me a text message today and said she was dreading the flight, she hasn't been sleeping, and doesn't really want to leave her fourteen-year-old dog. None of this is quite what I had in mind. Oh, and it's raining.  |
| It's easy to live for others. Everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. Twelve years ago I married my wonderful husband and it feels like I've known him forever. I can't imagine (and don't want to) my life without him right now. And my life before seems like it surely happened to someone else. I spent twenty seven years in a marriage that began right out of high school. I don't regret it - it wouldn't do any good and I wouldn't have my children - but it's good to remember the contrast between then and now and to remember to appreciate every moment now. Why did I stay so long in the miserable marriage? There were a lot of reasons, or maybe excuses are more like it. I was very young when I married him. In high school I had an experience that even now is hard to talk about or write about, and living with him was actually mixed up in that. He was like a penance or a hair shirt for something that, depending on who you talk to, wasn't even wrong. But in my small home town in the early 1960s, it was a big deal. Marrying a sick, angry man made it a much bigger deal, too. And it took me all those years to finally realize that I didn't have to live that way any more. I know now that he had a lot of problems of his own, but keeping tight control over me was his first priority. Somehow I got the idea that "this is your life, make the best of it and someday either he will die or I will." I guess mostly I was afraid of the unknown. If it's this bad now, what if leaving is worse? What a terrible way to live. I could say more but for now it's enough to remember and be grateful that it finally became safe to be me. I always spent a lot of time worrying about what other people might think about me- like I'm that important to everyone in the first place. Or like I can control what they think anyway. This journey has been interesting. At first it felt so good to be free that I became an insufferable know-it-all. After a few humbling experiences I got my new found ego in check and realized that I had an awful lot to learn, especially about myself. I had stuffed my emotions for so long that I felt like I was on a roller coaster feeling highs, which scared me since I had lived so long waiting for the other shoe to drop, and lows that I didn't understand. What did the new me have to be sad about? Gradually those emotions got to be a little less scary and I realized that resisting and denying them only made things worse. I finally started to grow and it was exciting. I met my new husband sooner than I expected or wanted. I felt that if I finally got out from under my first marriage I would never want another one. But something else I've learned is "never say never." I took the risk with him and I am so glad that I did. (Back to the first paragraph.) I've often said that I was glad that I didn't write the story of my life because I wouldn't have thought of so many things. I know that life keeps coming at me, and I will go through good times and bad times and neither will be permanent. And I've learned that it's safe to be me - I have to be me, even though I'm still learning who that is. Anything else is soul killing. |
| 1. "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" The actual advice here is technically a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's "good uncle" Alex, but Vonnegut was nice enough to pass it on at speeches and in A Man Without A Country. Though he was sometimes derided as too gloomy and cynical, Vonnegut's most resonant messages have always been hopeful in the face of almost-certain doom. And his best advice seems almost ridiculously simple: Give your own happiness a bit of brainspace. This is from The AV Club's 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/15_things_kurt_vonnegut_said Even though I had never heard of the AV Club unitil today, I love Vonnegut and I like their commentary. Here's a little more: 4. "There's only one rule that I know of, babies-God damn it, you've got to be kind." This line from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater comes as part of a baptismal speech the protagonist says he's planning for his neighbors' twins: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-God damn it, you've got to be kind." It's an odd speech to make over a couple of infants, but it's playful, sweet, yet keenly precise in its summation of everything a new addition to the planet should need to know. By narrowing down all his advice for the future down to a few simple words, Vonnegut emphasizes what's most important in life. At the same time, he lets his frustration with all the people who obviously don't get it leak through just a little. 9. "That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes." The narrator delivering this line at the end of the first chapter of Deadeye Dick is alluding both to his father's befriending of Hitler and his own accidental murder of his neighbor, but like so many of these quotes, it resonates well beyond its context. The underlying philosophy of Vonnegut's work was always that existence is capricious and senseless, a difficult sentiment that he captured time and again with a bemused shake of the head. Indeed, the idea that life is just a series of small decisions that culminate into some sort of "destiny" is maddening, because you could easily ruin it all simply by making the wrong one. Ordering the fish, stepping onto a balcony, booking the wrong flight, getting married-a single misstep, and you're done for. At least when you're dead, you don't have to make any more damn choices. Wherever Vonnegut is, he's no doubt grateful for that. 13. "So it goes." Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn't notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion-and dismissal of emotion-it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There's a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to." |
| "I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away." George Carlin I really need to find a new doctor. I inherited this doctor when mine left the practice. Anyway, the last time I went to my doctor she spent the whole time preaching at me that I needed to be taking cholesterol medicine, based on my lab test from six months earlier. I refused then, partly because she had just started me on a new blood pressure medicine and I didn't want to start two new things at once. I only agreed to the blood pressure medicine because I realized I wasn't going to control it any other way. I'm pretty sensitive to drugs, and this was probably the fourth blood pressure medicine I had tried. Plus, I really think that cholesterol medicine is over prescribed and has a lot of side effects. Anyway, the appointment was to check my blood pressure and see how I was doing. The b/p was down but I'm tired all the time. Well, I'm sure it's not your medicine, she said. We'll check your thyroid again, but it's been perfect on this dose. It's probably the winter. Now cholesterol medicine is safe blah, blah, blah....Your risk factors, blah, blah blah...She even asked me if I had read all the research done on cholesterol medicine! (Right! Like she's read it all.) The woman never remembers that I worked for a cardiology group for years, either. Okay, I stood firm so she needed to note that I refused to take it in spite of her warnings. (I swear she almost said cover her a**) Why don't we check it again? I asked. All right, but blah, blah blah...she said. My expensive insurance has a very high decuctible, so, I basically paid out of pocket to get yelled at and for blood tests that I suggested myself. A week or so later I got a letter in the mail from my doctor. This was highlighted in yellow:Your LDL has dropped 20 points! I don't recommend medication at this time. Then: Of course you weren't going to take it anyway. Ha! And, I'm still tired. |
| Douglas Adams: I love deadlines. Especially the whooshing sound they make as they pass by. Mary Todd Lincoln: My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season. Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. ~Robert Benchley Look up the word "procrastinate" in the Thesaurus, and you'll find: put off, delay, postpone, adjourn, dally, drag your feet, hang fire, defer, dawdle. I've always had a tendency to put some things off. I think it's a genetic trait I got from my dad. At least my mom complained a lot about how he procrastinated. Of course, she's always been the kind of person who sends birthday cards two weeks early. But I got the impression that it was some kind of flaw, probably a laziness gene that I contracted. Anyway, as I sit here contemplating the huge variety of tasks I'm avoiding I thought I'd just explore this tendency I have to drag my feet. I know Wikipedia isn't the ultimate authority, but it's a good place to do some quick research. After all, I have to start somewhere or I will never get this written. So, according to Wikipedia: the word procrastination comes from the Latin word procrastinatus: pro- (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow). The term's first known appearance was in Edward Hall's Chronicle...first published sometime before 1548. The sermon reflected procrastination's connection at the time to task avoidance or delay, volition or will, and sin. "Task avoidance" and "sin" were highlighted and linked. I will dispense of the "sin" connection immediately. Right or wrong, I refuse to connect dawdling with religious guilt. (Personally I don't connect anything in my life with religious guilt anymore but that's a whole other topic.) Anyway, I decided to focus on the "task avoidance" link which turned out to be a page on time management beginning with a quote from author David Allen:You can't manage time, it just is. So "time management" is a mislabeled problem, which has little chance of being an effective approach. What you really manage is your activity during time, and defining outcomes and physical actions required is the core process required to manage what you do. This reminds me of something that I read yesterday about how Americans are obsessed with time. The average American has to reset seven clocks-not counting wrist watches - when Daylight Savings Time occurs. People often feel naked or half-dressed without their watches. The article went on to talk about how when we put real or imaginary time constraints on ourselves we create a lot of anxiety in our lives. She ended with a meditation: "I know there's nothing more peaceful than a mind that isn't regulated or restricted. I'll stop timing myself and start enjoying myself." I've found that sometimes when I feel like I'm dallying, I'm actually working through some things. It's part of my process, especially with writing, where I'm forming ideas and don't even realize it. Still, even though I don't equate delay with sin, I certainly do have trouble not piling some guilty feelings on myself about it. Maybe that's because procrastinators are thought to have a higher-than-normal level of conscientiousness, more based on the "dreams and wishes" of perfection or achievement in contrast to a realistic appreciation of their obligations and potential. Hmm. One thing I found in my quick research worries me just a bit:severe procrastination can cross over into internet addiction or computer addiction. I guess I'm in good company, though, since I know a lot of folks who claim to be "Addicted to Writing.com," too. I'll leave you with this: Unknown The Procrastinator's Creed: 1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already. 2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses. 3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration. 4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them. 5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations. 6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given. 7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is not exactly zero. 8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year. 9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind. 10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it. 11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task. 12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan. 13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever. 14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized. Check out Douglas returning  's blog entry "Invalid Entry" |
| Being sorry for myself is a luxury I can't afford. Stephen King and Peter Straub I woke up sad today. Yesterday was one of those days that I could have seen as a comedy of errors. They just didn't seem as funny as frustrating and anxiety inducing. It was a lot of tiny things at first. Like my co-worker and I were on a conference call for nearly ten minutes by ourselves until we hung up to call the other people - who had forgotten. The call finally happened, but I paid for ten minutes of long distance to talk to a coworker who I could have talked to face to face. Funny? The grump in me didn't take it that way. There were other things, too, like a pushy long distance co-worker (in the national office) suddenly deciding to put new immediate work and deadlines on me. And I had another out of the blue request for work that is, of course, soon and urgent. I have enough deadlines of my own to procrastinate over... er...uh... I mean to complete. Plus, I kept having trouble with my computer - my new laptop. And someone showed up at the door unexpectedly while I was in the middle of trying to straighten out the conference call stuff. Anyway, that is the whiny, grumpy part. (After writing it all out I sound like an idiot who expects things to just flow smoothly all the time. Poor, poor pitiful me. Do I appreciate it when they do go well? Better check in with myself on that question.) Finally yesterday afternoon I had a chance to call my mother. She has been having chemo on Thursdays and radiation five days a week for her lung cancer. She usually feels best on chemo days, strangely enough, due to the steroids she takes the night before. She saw her oncologist yesterday, too, who told her that the pain she's having from the radiation in her esophagus "is going to get a lot worse." Then he said that she has to eat a lot more. She's been eating, she says, but it hurts so much to swallow and she can only get certain things to even go down. She's losing weight and that's not good. Before she agreed to these treatments she kept talking about quality of life, but faced with the choice of treatments or pretty certain death, she decided she wanted to try the treatments. I live nearly three hours away so hearing all that made me feel pretty helpless. Maybe that's why I woke up feeling sad. Actually I notice that I spend a lot of time trying to pretend that I'm not sad or to ward it off in some way. This morning, just letting the sad feelings pass through me, I gradually began to feel better. I thought about what I can do right now. Send her a check and a note and tell her that I'll be there when I can. Telling her to ask if there is something specific I can do. Accept that she's got a painful disease with a very poor prognosis. That's the hardest part, but I think that I've done it. |
| I'm back, but I have no original thoughts. What's another word for Thesaurus? Steven Wright It was nice to get away, truly relaxing. The hills of Kentucky are beautiful this time of year. The folks we visited with were very nice, and we came home a little too well fed. Shortly after we started home we spotted five buzzards on the ground tearing at a dead dog. Hmmm. What does that mean to keep seeing these scavengers? Maybe I need to start writing horror stories or something. Anyway, I appreciate the kind comments to my last [whiny, grumbling] blog entry. alfred booth, wanbli ska even wrote me a poem.  nonsense is a genre like sleep-walking in Manhattan or tickling the ivories with a feather-duster to hard rock or Slam have a bath in green tea and use the soap bubble to decorate your plastic plants ice cubes only melt and they don't need the water but pebbles in vokda on the rocks just brings quicker inebriation and wood-peckers fly high and pounce on their prey at pick-nick tables in the park... giraffes tell tall tales [2008.21.4...c] For Paige So, I guess it's time to get back to work. By the way, here's something everyone should enter.
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| Yesterday was a beautiful day, and my husband and I took a walk in the park. As we were driving over there I saw what first thought was a rooster in the ditch along the side of the street. It's a residential area in the city and we don't see too many roosters. This one looked a little strange since it had a tiny head. That's because it was a buzzard. We don't see too many of them either. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen one on the ground and close up. Then we saw a little hawk in the park. I think he was a young one since he was making a little noise almost like a woodpecker or a nuthatch. That's what drew my attention. At first I almost thought he was a dove, but he didn't have a dove's long skinny bill (beak?). And when he jumped down to the branch below, I saw he was wearing little feather pantaloons instead of exposing those skinny pink dove legs. I wish we'd had the camera. We're off for a long weekend tomorrow and I'm leaving my laptop at home. I think I'm getting eyestrain and need a little break. In fact as soon as I finish I need to turn this computer off and get busy on some other long neglected chores before we leave. If I don't have to take a nap, that is. I was up at 4:30am working on editing a brochure for my job. That's not like me to want to be up so early and get right to work. I didn't even have any coffee until my husband got up about three hours later and made it. Anyway, I finished with the brochure and even knocked off a couple of other smaller projects, too. One was even ahead of deadline! How rare! So I've been surfing around WDC and reading some of the blogs and I noticed that I got a blog reminder. I keep meaning to turn those things off even though it's set for every three days, I think. But I'm going ahead and writing this stream-of-consciousness entry. And as someone already mentioned, Nonsense is now a new genre here. Neat idea, huh? Okay, I'm trying to stay upbeat, which I sometimes have trouble doing mostly because I don't stay in the moment. Instead I wade out into the future and start worrying or sometimes I even wade back into the past and start thinking about what I did wrong. So, I will close with these random Quotes of the Day: "You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there." - George Burns "Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." - Billy Crystal "Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so." - Bertrand Russell |
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So glad to see your blog again, and I like the idea of a 'new' Clean Slate. I may just do that myself! I look forward to reading more from you! 
... Happy Clean Slate!