I am thankful for:
air conditioning
air conditioning
air conditioning
Great day in the morning, it’s hot out there.
doglight
grapemo and the friday five – five things I found while (attempting to) clear my desk
I signed up for author Jeannine Garsee’s Grapemo in July project on Facebook this month. Grapemo started as a sort of “NaNoWriMo Revisited” in February on Jen’s blog. I swore off NaNo years ago after my second attempt, because it burns me out so badly that any headway I might make in November is erased by the fact that afterwards I’d rather have my teeth drilled than do anymore writing before…let’s say April. Every year I am hideously, frighteningly tempted, even though I much prefer the Novel in 90 approach first introduced to me by author Elizabeth Bear; it’s more my speed and much less destructive to my peace of mind and creativity.
In Grapemo though, you set your own PWGs–Personal Writing Goals. They don’t even have to be word- or page-counts. Which is good, because right now I’m dealing with some kind of scary level of creative burnout, a term I thought I made up, but which a little googling has revealed, is a real thing and other people have it, have had it, and have recovered from it.
I blame mine on school. The deadlines. The deadlines! The relentless deadlines! When I get to the end of this, I told myself, I am going to get so much done! I’m going to clean my house, ride my bike, sell my novel (godlight), write another (seldom untitled), do a couple of just-for-me graphic design projects, visit everyone I know, go places, see things, do stuff!
Class ended two months ago and I have done none of those things. The frightening part to me is, I don’t want to do any of those things. I only even vacuum up Cobie’s furricane because not doing so scares me. (What if lightning strikes the house and animates that fur?! What I have mostly done is sit around. I haven’t even watched the shows backed up on the DVR; I just deleted a lot of them. The old man, aka T-Moth, did most of the planting this year (admittedly there wasn’t much) and I just supervised.
So Grapemo. The PWGs I chose were: 1.) To write two pages a week of anything at all. (And trust me, this blog entry is going to count!) 2.) To read the new Donald Maass book, Writing 21st Century Fiction, which has been lying on my dresser untouched since I ordered it last winter some time. 3.) Try some of the burnout-busters I read during my Grapemo research phase, such as writing in new locations and clearing my desk.
Which brings me to a Friday Five: Five things I found while clearing my desk.
1.) The receipt for Writing 21st Century Fiction
2.) My graphic design portfolio review master list
3.) Roughly eleventy-thousand sugar-free jelly belly cellophanes
4.) A half-a-dozen important tidbits jotted on index cards, and
5.) A whole mess of safety pins, paper clips, rubber bands, and things that made me wonder if “miscellanea” is a word. It is. So you could say I found a new-to-me word on my desk. I think when–if–I do some more writing type stuff, I will try to work it in.
Miscellanea. It’s a good word, I think.
woowoo at casa del pooch
Last night, around 2:30 a.m., as I was finishing up in the kitchen before heading to bed, I heard a sound. It was a *TING* sound, and if you have dogs with tags, and those dogs have stainless dog dishes, you know what sound I mean.
I can always identify which dog is at the dish, and whether it is a food dish (there are two) or the water dish (one) by the quality of the TING. (Kelly’s ting is duller, I assume because she’s shorter and the tags rest against her chest. Cobie’s ting is more melodic, probably because when he bends down to drink, the tags dangles.)
So not an unusual noise, except it sounded…off. A water dish TING, but not Kelly’s ting and not Cobie’s ting.
Also, I was looking at both dogs. Specifically, I had them in a sit because I was about to give them each a baby carrot. Which I did. Then I investigated, but found nothing. (I thought maybe a June bug, ugh. But no insects were in sight.)
Oliver doesn’t wear a tag, or a collar. Furthermore, he had gone out.
I wrote it off as my imagination, but the water dish was a little low so I refilled it. Then, as I prepared to leave the room, I heard it again. TING. And it did not sound like either dog’s tag at either dish, yet it had to be, right? Except they had both gone down the hall to lie outside Zor’s door and sniff kittenfumes.
Again I checked for June bugs. Again I found nothing.
Oliver scratched to come in, so I let him in, and then, as he brushed past my ankles, TING.
I was getting creeped out. Odd, considering that I am not an easily creeped person, and that the sound was so ordinary.
I heard Zor coming sleepily down the hall, past the dog patrol. She had kittenfumes (aka Artemis) with her, so the troops followed. I watched her come into the kitchen and get a drink. I felt compelled to stay put until she was done in the kitchen; I used the excuse of kitty sitting. In due course she finished, and we all went to bed. I didn’t hear anything else.
Weirdness…
pretending to be blind
Every night for several years now, as I walk to bed in the dark, I say to myself, “Self, you should blog about doing this.” And then it comes daylight, and I forget.
Today I remembered, lucky lucky you.
It started when I found out about the first cataract, which came on abruptly and advanced aggressively until, within a year, I was nearly blind in that eye. And by nearly blind, I mean when I took the eye test at the BMV, I couldn’t see anything at all through that eye. Not a shape, not a shadow…nothing.
I would have to have surgery, and I was terrified. What if I went blind?
Back in juinior high school, and I forget whether it was seventh or eighth grade, in the English reader (how I loved the reader every year) there was a story about a man in ago times, a meek clerk of some kind, who had his dominant hand crushed in some act of violence, and who taught himself to use his non-dominant hand for writing so he could work. I don’t recally any more about the story than this, which was the most important aspect to me apparently.
It worried me mightily that I could lose my ability to write if something happened to my right hand, so I began at once to practice writing with my left. I never became good at it, but I can make moderately legible scratch marks. And of course, now, if I lost my right hand, I could probably just do most of my writing at one keyboard or another, typing slowly and one-handedly, and it would be legible, but at the time typing everything on a typewriter would have been a huge hassle. So I practiced.
Which is why it was completely in character for me, faced with a loss of eyesight, to practice being blind. And now, still, although the first cataract–caused, Drs L & P say, by an injury–is gone, and a second in the other eye–caused by age and sunlight–is both miniscule and not avancing, and is thus of no account, I still nightly practice being blind by turning off all the lights and walking to bed that way, navigating from corner to doorway to dresser, with dogs felt trotting along before (Kelly) and beside (Cobie). They’ve gotten quite good at this over the years. Even Kelly, who trips me about eight times a day, manages to stay out from under foot while we’re practicing being blind.
Anyhow, now I can stop thinking I should blog about it, because now I have. There’s one thing off the to-do list…
saturday six, the scatter-brained identity crisis edition
When you don’t show up for the Friday Five, you owe one.
1.) Financial problems make me tired.
2.) I need something. Some structure? A deadline? A routine? Something to replace what isn’t there. I thought what I needed was rest and recuperation, but I think there’s more. I need something to do, something to care about, something to want.
I think that’s it. I need something to want.
How can I know what I want if I don’t know what I am?
At least Hermie knew what he wanted to be.
3.) I’m having an identity crisis. I used to know what I am…was. I was a housewife, a hillbilly geek, a(n underpublished) writer. Now what am I? I’m a graphic designer in free fall. When you have a business degree can you still be a hillbilly? Can you be a writer when you have no desire to write? I guess I’m still a housewife. Still a guardian of critters. Everything else is in free fall with me.
I know I’m out of sorts when I don’t feel like doing laundry. I always feel like doing laundry. If I won the lotto, I’d buy a laundromat and write and listen to the machines and do laundry all day.
4.) I kept putting it off, because I felt like I should use up the old first, but I broke down and bought Kelly new shampoo. The old shampoo smells like one of those cardboard pine trees people used to hang in their cars. I’ve been trying to use it up since Hannah. It takes a long time to use up shampoo when I only use it on the little dog. Ain’t nobody got balls enough to give Cobie a real bath; I just brush him good, hose him off, and brush him again. He never smells, except like sunshine or night or whatever season it is. Anyway, the new shampoo smells like vanilla. I worried Cobie might think she was a cookie–expecially since she has no scent glands anymore–but no.
5.) Maybe I should start with a random list of things to do just to break the inertia, and work on making it a good list gradually by replacing things with higher priority activities as I go along….
6.) I think I got farsighted around the same time we adopted Cobie because the dog gods knew I would spend half my time sitting a mile from the computer to make room for a moosedog where my feet are supposed to go.
dog story: cobie, kelly, and the sunglasses
In my living room there are a phone-and-lamp stand, a coffee table, and two end tables. One of the end tables sits just inside the mural window, and there is nothing on it. It’s deliberately cleared and positioned so Oliver (the cat) can look out the window, but Kelly uses it too, and I’m ok with that. Cobie can stand on the floor and look out, or sit on the sofa, but Kelly likes to see out too, and she is vertically challenged.
On the other end table is a second lamp and a pewter coaster. It’s where I usually sit my drink when I’m watching tv or folding laundry. And presently there are two chew-bones there.
Whenever one of us leaves and returns, Cobie greets us with one of the three bones the dogs share. When we had two bones, there were often alarming-sounding battles over who owned all the bones (looking at you, greedy Kelly) and I used to have to store them on top of the refrigerator and only bring them down when I could supervise. Then T-Moth found an identical bone lost in sofa during Cobie’s puppyhood, and then there were three. Magically, the competition evaporated. Kelly could hog up two bones and have more than Cobie, and Cobie doesn’t care if she has more, as long as he can have one. Heck, half the time he doesn’t even want one; I think he just likes to have it because he can.
Anyhow, when we return he greets us with a bone. He full-butt wags, and winds around us, grinning around one of the chew-bones, teasing us with it. Then, after a few moments, we’re supposed to take the bone and pretend to nom on it, then give it back, whereupon he abandons it somewhere until next time.
However, a lot of times when I come home my old lady bladder is at the bursting point and I can’t play Bone with Cobie. Often he follows me into the bathroom and we play the game there while I relieve myself, but other times, presumably when his bladder has also had an–ahem–full day, he goes right outside, like as not taking the bone with him. Then I go find it, because I don’t want to lose one and be back to the whole squabbling over two bones deal.
One day I brought one in and set it on the end table. It sat there for weeks. No dog touched it, although in that same time period Kelly stole the drinking straws out of several of my beverages. And maybe this is pertinent; I think it is. Kelly steals the straws, and then Cobie takes them from her.
Cobie is a dog who is strangely respectful of physical boundaries. He’ll lie with you, but not touching you. He’s been able to jump the babygates I use to restrain him since he was nine weeks old, but he only ever did it once. If he leans against a gate and it falls over, he still won’t go through. If he’s out and wants in, and the door is only slightly ajar, he waits (and moos) until someone opens the door all the way and invites him in.
My Sheldon dog. Here he is waiting to be invited inside.
Anyway…
He took another bone outside. I fetched it and put it also on the table. Then there was one. And then that one got kicked under the sofa, as dog toys sometimes do. And the next time T-Moth came home, Cobie mooed sadly and gazed at the two bones on the table, but he wouldn’t take one. They were right there. “Go ahead,” I said, because I happened to be sitting at the other end of the sofa. “Get the bone. It’s ok.”
But he wouldn’t do it. So, because it was easier, I bent over and fished the third bone from under the sofa and handed him that one and he was happy all wigglebutt and helicopter tail. The routine had not been interfered with.
The two bones are still there. And if Kelly takes the one remaining bone, he does not seem to care. Maybe…maybe he considers I am keeping the other two and as long as she doesn’t have them all… I dunno. Sometimes Cobie gives me things to “hold” for him. That’s why I have a piece of corn husk in my pocket even as I type this. Maybe I am “holding” two bones for him, and the table is some kind of doggy bank in his mind.
But if Kelly wanted one of those bones, she would take it. Remember the straws?
So last night I came in the office before bed to check and see if any grades had been posted, and before two minutes had passed I heard THUNDER THUNDER THUNDERPAW, click clackety-click, and then CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH. Even though it’s been a long time since either dog chewed anything illegal (of any importance) I know that noise and I jumped up whereupon silence descended.
I went into the living room where I discovered Cobie lying with my sunglasses between his paws. He had a look on his face that kind of said, “Hi!” Mind you, I left the glasses on the end table, my end table. Behind the lamp. Behind the bones that have been there for how long now unmolested.
My initial reaction was that the dogs had chewed my sunglasses. Actually, one lens had popped out. The other was partially out. Only the earpieces took damage and that was light. I put both lenses in right, took them in the kitchen and washed everything in the sink and they’re still usable, if a little mutilated around the earpieces, but my hair will hide that.
I was annoyed as all get out, but not actually angry. They’re dogs, and I let my guard down.
But this morning I woke up in a fit of certainty. Kelly stole the glasses, got in a couple-three chomps, and then Cobie took them. Maybe he chomped them too, but not much because if he had they would be shrapnel now. I think Kelly stole them because she does that and Cobie doesn’t, and I think Cobie took them because that’s what he does. And I think he was watching them. When I went into the kitchen he followed, because when I command him to give me something and he gives it, he gets something. He’s very reliable about giving things up, and I am very reliable about rewarding him for that, because some day I might desperately need him to give something up.
So, even though I caught him with illegal sunglasses, both dogs received carrots for surrending them. No matter who did what while I was out of the room, they both behaved perfectly when I came back. Maybe I’m messing up, but I don’t think so. I read somewhere that dogs don’t understand that you can know things happened that you didn’t see, but they completely get that you know what you did see.
Anyhow, I thought I’d share.
BTW, only one grade posted so far, but it’s a good ‘un.
friday five, the television edition (minor spoilers possible)
Some random thoughts about things I’ve been watching on the idiot box:
Two and a Half Men
I liked this show when it first came on, but these days not so much. It’s not the addition of Ashton Kutcher or the removal of Charlie Sheen that lost me, it’s that they’ve made the Alan Harper character into a douchebag, which process began well before Charlie left. At first, Alan was likable, if a doofus. It didn’t take long for me to grow weary of listening to Walden rag on Alan about him living their for free. If he doesn’t like it, kick him out. The Jake character has grown terribly unappealing also. In fact, Walden, kick out Alan and Jake and hang out with Alan’s ex-wife’s husband Herb more. Bring back Rose and Evelyn Harper…and give Berta a lot more air time.
Or her own show.
Walden has improved a little since his debut, becoming more consistent, and the haircut didn’t hurt matters at all. He had the funniest line in a comedy for this entire comedy season, but I’m not going to tell you what it was. I will say it was on Season 19, episode 19, “Big Episode: Someone Stole a Spoon.”
One more thing. If they were going to rebuild this show from scratch to my specifications, they should convince Jaime Pressly to stay. The way they have allowed the female characters to dissolve into the background is a huge part of my disaffection for this series these days.
The Middle
I hated this show at first. If I have to have Patricia Heaton as not Debra Barone, I want her as Kelly Carr on Back to You, a program on the list of cancellations that tick me off right after Whoopi and somewhere before $h*! My Dad Says and Family Law.
Somehow, even though I only watched it if I was excruciatingly bored, it grew on me. It’s the characters here more than the story line. The Hecks are a little bit like a skinny Conner family, and–if you can wrap your mind around this–even quirkier. Unlike Two and a Half Men wherethe characters seem likable until you realize how obnoxious they are, all the characters on The Middle are sweet weirdos. Even horrible teenage son Axl is actually adorable. Kinda how I hope we are. Which is probably the appeal.
One other downside of this show is when mom Frankie Heck (Heaton) went back to school and I thought, “Whee, a character is doing something relevant to my life!” but she graduated in about two episodes. Bummer, that. I would have liked to cheer her on longer.
This program stresses me out! I’m glad the season is over. The nine p.m. Sunday timeslot doesn’t really work for me because that’s Mr Moth’s bedtime, and I’m always worried some nimrod will tell me something I’d rather not know before I get a chance to watch. I don’t really believe in spoilers, but I do believe in surprises, or reversals if you prefer, and I actually had to “unlike” The Walking Dead’s fan page because they post their own spoilers the day after the original airing. Furthermore–and perhaps unsurprisingly–the person on Facebook who screams the loudest about film and book spoilers has decided there’s no such thing as series spoilers, and even though he allegedly doesn’t watch TWD, he discusses it in detail with his friends.
He’s on haitus from my Facebook feed until the season and my annoyance have passed.
This is a new one, and the cosmos knows I wasn’t looking for a new show to watch. It’s a prequel of sorts, showing the teenage years of Norman Bates of Psycho fame, his mother Norma, and his heretofore unsuspected brother by another daddy Dylan Massett.
I wish someone could explain the allure of this program. It’s all mood. There are maybe two likable characters, and they are in the supporting cast. (Dylan has some potential, but he’s not living up to it yet.) Everyone in the town is either crazy or dying or both. They all drive ancient automobiles yet text on iphones.
Yet, whenever I see this show waiting on my dvr, I drop everything and watch it. The entire time it’s on I ask myself, why? why? what is the hold it has on me?
And I don’t know the answer.
Whose Line is it Anyway?, last on this list, but definitely not least.
I love this show and all its predecessors and clones (BBC Version,Green Screen, Drew Carey’s Improvaganza*) and I still mourn its passing. My love for this show is so well known that a friend I had not heard from in years dropped me a line to let me know it was coming back!
True this return will be sans Drew Carey because he is tied up with The Price is Right. I mean to try not to let that bum me out; maybe he can be the fourth performer during his off seasons. The new host will be someone named Aisha Tyler, who I had never heard of until she showed up on an episode of The Talking Dead. All I can say is, I hope she’s funny.
Whose Line. Everybody watch it so it doesn’t get cancelled! I’m so excited. 😀
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*I tried to watch Trust Us With Your Life, but it wasn’t on long enough for me to get used to it and I never ended up liking it much, and in fact forgot about it until just now.
to-do today
I know how these types of entries fascinate everyone. 😉
Let dogs outMake tea (iced)
Start laundry
Scoop cat litter
Let one dog inLet one cat look out in case the view from the door is different from the view from the windowGrocery list
Empty dishwasher
Soak meatloaf pan again
Let big dog in
Make coffee
Take pills
Let cat out, finally
Finish Friday Five entry, save to post on an actual Friday
Cafe World, with coffee
To-Do list
File papers piled on desk
Reboot laundry
Let cat in and dogs out
Breakfast
Project work (five still due by end of term)
- Portfolio Piece (two page spread on a logo project)
- Portfolio Piece (pictograms, maybe this should be the two-pager, angst…angst…twitch)
- Constitution Day Poster
- CD Cover
- Web Site Final Project
- Save-a-Lot
- GFS
- Aldi
- Kroger
- Meijer
Collapse onto sofa and let T-moth cook pre-made pizza for dinner (ranch dip sounds good for some reason)
Eat dinner
Retreat into the boob tube zone
thankful thursday
It didn’t seem appropriate to bring up, what with the explosions and carnage and all, but on Monday we noted Whee Kelly Doll’s birthday. We don’t know what day is her for-real birthday, only that it’s in the middle of April some time. Since Tax Day is the only day in this week when no member of T-Moth’s family has a birthday, I assignedit to her. It seemed appropriate, since Ms Terrierist can be taxing!
We didn’t really do anything particular for her birthday except say Happy Birthday a lot and give her lots of cuddles. I’m hoping to buy her a new brush this weekend and go to work on her ear mats. Her feathers are the worst, and with school so crazy I have been lax in her grooming. We are going to spend some serious brush-time very soon…and maybe some scissors time. Let her start fresh at both ends, although her buttfeathers are growing back (post-surgery) nicely already.
Anyway, I am thankful that, no matter how insane the world is, dogs are still dogs, and a good dog is good medicine for when the world is too much with us.
I am thankful that stores have changed and are changing their coupon policies, because nothing in life is free, and I use a reasonable amount of coupons, but I resent getting stuck helping to pay for extreme couponers’ hoards because you know the company isn’t eating the cost of all that; they’re passing it on.
I am thankful for a sense of humor.
I am thankful for warm weather and cool weather and sunshine and rain.
I am thankful for family and friends and other critters.
I am thankful for storytellers.
I am thankful the end of this degree program is in sight.
I am thankful for hope.
thankful thursday
Today I’m thankful again for my new lapatop, and the bag that lets me tote it around with me, and the super-cheap spare cord that I found on e-bay so that I don’t have to crawl around under the desk unplugging before I can achieve mobility. I just close the lid, unplug the power and the external monitor, slide the machine in the bag, zip, and go.
I am thankful for the work of GB Trudeau, whose vintage Doonesbury strips are currently a large part of the wall between me and utter loss of mind.
I am thankful for hope.
I am thankful for critters who amuse me, and for people who tolerate me–and maybe even love me, sometimes.
Although it got a little too warm a little too quickly–my old body thermostat doesn’t adjust as fast as perhaps it should–I am thankful for weather both warm enough and cool enough to leave the door open so critters can come and go sometimes without me having to dash the length of the house.