Writing Prompt - Valet??????

8 am

                Man is my back sore – from shoveling snow! We got maybe 18 inches yesterday and a good part of the day was spent shoveling. And reading. In between the shoveling I was too tired to do anything else so I read. I’m getting close to finishing The Last Parade and to be honest I think I will be glad to finish, though I do like it. Now onto my new idea: prompt writing. I have got a dictionary in front of me, earplugs in my ears to block G’s radio (hs late start day) and a band aid on my left index finger because I have either a cut or a splinter, can’t tell which. So now I will open the dictionary and see what my prompt will be……

Rosette

Hmmmmmmm what does one do with that? Well obviously it makes me think of the fair. I think I will add 2 more words, that’s the way we often do it when friends and I do prompts……..

Swab

Valet

“The valet swabbed the rosette.” There, done with that. Or how about “The valet won a rosette for his fabulous swabbing skills at the annual Servitude Fair.” Or how about “The valet used the gentleman’s Grand Champion Jumper rosette to swab up the vomit.” That last one has some interesting possibilities…. Who’s vomit, the valet’s or the gentleman’s…. well, this is not exactly the idea, but it is kind of fun.

Rosette: definitely the fair and many many fair meetings where all sorts of time is spent figuring out ribbons and trophies.

Swab: sounds medical to me. Makes me think of my major burn experience last year as there was a lot of swab work going on on my hand.

Valet: well, servitude, correctness, proper ladies and proper gentlemen. Properness which is not my forté.  In fact housekeeping and cleanliness are not my fortés either, as my darling daughter could strongly attest. She just asked me nicely to clean the kitchen. Well, she nicely asked when I was going into work and if I had a lot to do before then, and then gently mentioned that the kitchen is a mess. Which it is. I just as gently suggested that she could clean it…… I do like things to be clean and tidy and organized, it’s just that I don’t want to spend my own time keeping them that way. So you see, I need a valet. Or not actually a valet, because their job is to keep up their gentleman’s personal self and appearance. Well, I guess I could use one of those too (I suppose in my case it would be a “Lady’s Maid”). Given that I have not had a haircut since last spring, and I try to put off taking showers as much as possible – partly because I don’t like to take the time, and partly because I want to conserve the energy needed to heat the water. And I honestly believe that our culture puts way too much emphasis on showering every day, washing all clothes after a single wearing, deodorant, cologne, all that. Boy, I am sure coming across as a major slob. I had figured that I would not shower this morning because I intend to run on the treadmill at work and shower after that. I had figured I would do that at about 5, to be all ready for spinning class at 7. But the honest truth is that my hair is quite nasty, so I think I will go run as soon as I get in, and then I won’t be at work all day with nasty hair. Nice of me, eh?

                Well this writing prompt certainly went interesting places. It didn’t become the sort of creative mind space that I was hoping for, but I guess it is what it is.

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Randomness

9 am

                What loveliness – a snow day! K had to go in, G does not, and I will not go to work. I told the spinning students that we would do spin class on Thursday.

                Now. How can I make these pages more productive, less plodding? There is value in just reviewing the past day and anticipating the day to come, but it would be nice to be more creative. That’s not really what I mean. Go into more depth? Explore things more? I don’t know if typing is the way to do this. This might require actual hand-writing. I can’t go in depth if I am looking at the screen and worrying about spelling or typos. Well maybe I won’t and I will just correct them later.

                A writing prompt. A watch. Don’t know why that popped into my head but it did. Time. What about time. Always the lack of it. Hurry hurry hurry let’s go up and at ‘em. Time is certainly fluid. It can rush along like gangbusters or it can creepy creepy. And the creepy creepy is not always just when it is something terrible being lived through. The creepy creepy can also be wonderful. When one is just sitting doing not much, sitting just quiet and smelling the flowers so to speak. Those times when I was in the hospital or at home recovering and I would just lie and watch my hands make interesting patterns. Time tick tick ticking . a watch tick tick ticking. Dad’s gold watch that I have in my drawer. Dad’s big wrist watch that needs a new battery. My small wrist watch that needs a new watch band. Hmmm. They all seem to need something. Is it time itself that is somehow lacking, or just the instruments? And of course we all have just our allotted time on this earth. I tend to be something of a procrastinator. When it gets to the crunch for things I tend to chastise myself for the time wasted, why didn’t  I start earlier? Why did I waste time? Why didn’t I get more done when I was not rushed? When I come to the actual end of my time will I feel that way? What will I regret (I’m a big one for regrets)? Will there be something that I wished I had accomplished? Will I wish I had done more useful things? Will I feel terribly guilty that I didn’t do more to help the world for the future? Or that I let so much ecological destruction occur without giving my all to fight like crazy? This is a common and recurrent theme. Not sure how to explore it further. I don’t think I want to “give my all” I want some of my all just for me and for things I like to do. Is that selfish? Well, it sounds silly to say that is selfish. The reality is that I do a lot for my family and the household and all that. There always seem to be lots of “duties.” That is not the same as selfishly doing just what I want, but on the other hand, doing stuff to keep up our little house is not especially helpful to the greater world. Does the greater world need my help? If global warming continues unabated, much will change very drastically, but I don’t believe life will come to an end. Life as we know it might…. But life itself will continue and evolution will continue and it might just be that the great nexus of humanity will be in the past.

                Well this is interesting. I will need to go back and check the typos and I’m not sure it is entirely blog friendly. But too bad. Not sure it was all that useful for me even. It seems like I do these rants every now and then, and where do they get me? Not much of anywhere.

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Running and Writing (and soon Snowing)

8 am

                Like the date. November will be even better, except that will be the one year anniversary of my MIL’s death, so it will not be so cheery. Now that a couple months have passed it feels more strange that she is gone. Like things should be back to normal, but of course they are not. Well, it is sad. And of course saddest for my FIL who is doing ok, but not great. Hmmmm I had no intention of going down that route, I guess that is the nature of morning pages, one goes whatever route one goes.

                Here’s another route. Big storm coming tonight. And all day tomorrow which is when I teach my spinning class. There are many options, I think the first will be to contact the class members and ask if we could do Thursday night instead. If that doesn’t work for them, then another option would be for me to take the bus in fairly early tomorrow (while they are still running), then just stay. Overnight. And come back once the roads are reasonably clear on Thursday. It would be kind of an adventure.

                Totally unrelated: I realize that Morning Pages turn out nothing like the free flow writing that sometimes happens when I get together with Ali and Linda. In that case we often have some kind of prompt and write on that and things can get quite creative. This situation feels more like journaling in the sense of a diary. But is that so important? Does it matter that I write so elaborately about what I did or what I will do? Who really cares?????? Will I ever reread them? Probably not. In 100 years will someone go back through these Morning Pages thrilled to get a glimpse of the everyday life of me, who will by then be a household name for some reason that I cannot now anticipate? Probably not. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I guess in some way it helps me get my thoughts together for the day. Maybe. Like as in how the hell am I going to work out my class tomorrow night?

                Oh, here’s something interesting: running. I’ve been running. Well, not sure it should even be called that, since it is this odd running done on a treadmill. In other words, I never actually go anywhere! It is just the running part and is surprisingly “fun.” Well, maybe not fun. Maybe satisfying. I try to keep it from getting boring by mixing up things like the speed and the incline. Anyway it is a good thing to do and seems to be helping my back. I don’t know what will happen once classes start again. All fine and dandy for JTerm, but things get a lot tighter at the end of the month. I’ll just have to really keep myself at it.

                Maybe I will try writing prompts with morning pages. Trouble is that with prompts I sometimes go off into wild and crazy stuff that maybe wouldn’t “do” for blog entries. But that is ok. I can always edit/censor…. Now anyone reading this will wonder in future entries what is being censored out....

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Meetings Meetings Meetings

8 am

                Well, another week begins, at least if you use the French perspective – weeks starting on Monday. I will try for the 9:30 bus. Last week – was it Tues? – I missed that bus, the next one is not until 10:50, so I just drove in. but today I will get out there earlier and hope not to miss. I will continue to work on the 2 desktops: actual and virtual. I got the actual one nearly cleared off. As for the virtual, my work one is really not bad – it is the home one that truly needs work. But I do need to reorganize the files in my network drive space. I started doing that Friday, and also started in on evaluating and revising (or I should say making revision suggestions on) last semester’s labs. I need to do that while they are relatively fresh in my mind. The other big task I need to start to tackle at work is 3 recommendations. I always find those so hard to write. Well, gotta do it.

                The weekend past was not a great one. Boy, Saturday I was sure in a major funk. I think the fact that the antidepressant prescription had run out did not help. I don’t take a lot, but I think it helps take the edge off and helps keep me from sinking…. Well, that plus my anxiety about the fair meeting and the CSS College finances Profile. The meeting itself went well enough. As usual I wish we could find more people to get involved and help out. There are some open jobs that need filling, and there are always new ideas that can’t get done because there is no one to do them. Or they might be willing to help, but aren’t willing to come to the meetings. I realize the meetings can be really tedious, but how else can we communicate? It is too hard when it has to involve tons of individual conversations. I need to find out what is up about the Fleece to Shawl because it needs to get into the brochure. Oh dear, if I start thinking about it all I will start to feel overwhelmed again. Oh dear. Let it go.

                I’m sure that by now Blizzard is plenty dry in the oven. I’ll find out from when the beetles should arrive. One of the 2 anoles died, not surprising as it didn’t seem to be eating and was getting really thin. I’ll have to see how the other one looks. I put it in the freezer and wonder if it could be given to the beetles, too. Or perhaps the sowbugs work better for something that small.

                Oh, I nearly forgot about bookclub. We did our “First Annual” poetry night. Everyone was to bring a few favorite poems to read aloud. And as I warned, I did bring Howl. I really enjoyed reading it.

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9:30 am

                I must leave at about 10:30 for the Fair meeting. That gives me an hour to feed buns, eat breakfast, get ready (shower, dress). And I had thought it would be nice to get in a brisk walk around the neighborhood since I’ll be sitting so long at the meeting. I don’t see that there will be time. Maybe. Especially if I cut this writing very short……………………………..

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