Biting the Bullet - or the Neck

I've put it off long enough.  After listening to a generation of women sighing over vampires, I am reading Twilight during the day and watching Buffy,the Vampire Slayer on Netflix at night.

My thought was to keep up with the times by spending a week in vampire land. I don't believe I will become an addict.  The book is full of romance novel cliches of the worst kind, interspersed with vampires.  As I read, my eyes keep flitting off the page to a book on my desk, Walter Mosley's latest.  It calls to me.

As for Buffy, I give her two more nights to grab my attention, and then she goes back to retro land.  I'd prefer to watch some old Jack Frost mysteries from England.  I'm going back to grownup entertainment, but at least I've tried.

Snoozing in the sun on a cold day.

Weather Predictions

Yesterday's ground hogs in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin predicted six more weeks of winter.  Since the vernal equinox arrives six weeks from now, I figure the ground hogs are as accurate as a stopped clock, which is right twice a day.  We have 46 days of winter left, no matter how you count it.

A better indicator is the Appalachian woolly worm.  Experts in the hills say the width of the dark bands and the depth of the "wool" can describe an entire winter and what it will be like.  The darker the caterpillar, the more snow.  The deeper the wool, the colder it will be be.   But I haven't seen any woolly worms lately in Wisconsin so I am in the dark about what we have to face for the next two months.

Gary watches the internet and reports on the weather from New Zealand to northern Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  I tell him he is like his father who sat for hours staring at the cablevision weather channel.  Gary thinks the internet is far different, because it requires him to occasionally click the mouse.  This week we are delighted that Illinois has colder and snowier weather than we do, an odd occurrence.  Actually, if we traveled up to Marquette, we would find even better temperatures, but I think we will stay at home.

I yearn for summer's adventures, so I will take any good weather predictions and ignore the rest.  

Next Step

Now that I have 25 performances set up for the summer reading program, I have to take the next step, which is to write a press release that each of the libraries can use.  This generic piece must contain several paragraphs about who I am.  I have to make it interesting without being too long.  I've traveled to so many places, done so many performances.  What should I emphasize?  

I hate writing about myself.

My mother would say I am "tooting my own horn" as I write, but then who else will do it?  At the moment, it is just a list of things to include.  There is no  pizazz to it at all.  Then there is the photo, which my daughter-in-law will take in her studio.  How should I dress for that?  This will be used in posters.  I may have to design that, too.

I will need all of that by the end of the month. It will be done because it must be done.      

Seasonal Affective Disorder

As we enter February, I must warn readers that I am in the middle of Seasonal Affective Disorder grouchiness. It will only last another month, but that month is the longest of the year, no matter what the calendar says.  

How bad can it be? During this month, I have no friends, Gary no longer loves me, I know that I am heading into poverty, and I am certain I have a life threatening disease. (One February, I convinced myself I had uterine cancer and it wasn't until the end of the month that I remembered I no longer have a uterus.)  I am anxious, teary, cranky and should be avoided.   There is no reasoning me out of this.  It is there.

One advantage is that because of this short lived disorder, I can related to those who suffer from depression year round and can write those feelings into my short stories and novels. I put it all into my journal, because otherwise I wouldn't remember. 

By the beginning of March, I enter a state of euphoria, rejoicing over nature, and once again connecting with people.  Until then, beware.

Short term memory

This morning, I looked at Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and found this quote by Norman Mailer:

"Since at my age you begin to forget all too much, I would hardly remember what I had written the day before. It read, therefore, as if someone else had done it. The critic in me was delighted. I could now proceed to fix the prose. The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor."

My short term memory has never been all that good, and now I see it as the blessing that it is.  I write every morning, usually what I think is some stream of consciousness gibberish, but a day or later, with fresh eyes, I can see the value in it.

Bless all absent-minded people everywhere!

Clearing the desk

I had some kind of ague yesterday.  For an entire day, I stayed at home in my bathrobe, feeling poorly.  Between naps, I worked a bit in my office.  I was too tired to write or work on storytelling projects, so I picked through piles of paper on my desk, sorting them, disposing, filing, and shredding.  Some things wound up in my day planner as future projects.

At the end of the day, there was nothing on my desk. Nothing. That's the first time that desk has been clear since I moved here almost thirty years ago.  Somehow, in my foggy state, I got myself organized. I suppose in time, clutter will arrive again.  That happens when I go into creative mode.  

I am enjoying this room today, knowing it may be another thirty years before I look at a cleared desk.  Or another flu day.