Still on the Hill

Tasks neglected like middle children

My attempts at strict discipline, whether adhering to an exercise schedule or in regards to an aspect of writing, are often effective…for a short while. I haven’t had much success with that approach recently, instead I’m rumbaing around, task to task, tidying in preparation for an upcoming avalanche of writing.(I love it when I surprise myself writing – especially in conveying such a hopeful idea  in light of the current situation with a government shut down looming and all the other limp baby eggplant energy slopping around all over the place.)But what kind of writing? I love a good flash, but I also like the massive headache of a novel. What to do? What to do?

I took a walk. I have taken several walks. I talked to one of the dearest people I know on Zoom today and one of things I heard myself saying – how I tackle areas of the house depends on what other tasks there are to do, and depending on my attitude, I’ll either do the hardest, or the easiest thing. I think that’s been part of my problem, I have a book I’m polishing, I pretty much know the next book I want to write (but haven’t put time into yet) and that was it. Realizing I didn’t have a different option sparked an idea for another novel so MAYBE this will lead to writing the easier of the two since the one I came up with in the woods hasn’t gelled at all yet.

Such dreams, eh?

Except not writing is an annoyance. And I’m sick of not, thus I’m sitting here, typing to you on the pink machine, asserting future writing could soon be occurring while getting a little scared about facing a blank page in the morning. Or as part of a shadow NaNoWriMo in November. I don’t know, but how do you like my winter writing digs?

Isn’t it insane that it’s October tomorrow? I bought two small pink mums for the outside entrance table. I hope to get a white pumpkin and paint on black polka dots to sit between them before I take a picture. I was up in the loft a few weeks ago. I should have pulled the Halloween tub then, but I had nowhere to put it. Why not? Ah, yes, the fun bit…

Husband took the van in for an inspection/check engine light and yaddah, yaddah, yaddah, everything he had crammed into every conceivable spot had to be removed and then rearranged into a smaller van and yes, Husband owns a lot of carpentry tools and fiddly bits and now we get to find homes for those unvanned things and yes, it’s just as much tedious fun as you can imagine.

So that’s the haps from here. The leaves are changing and I might get to the bulbs this year. I keep meaning to move them, that is never the most nor least pressing issue around here. Oh, we did make it out to Still on the Hill to hear JT & the Law play and if you ever get a chance, you should too. Have a fantastic month. Eat the rich, tally ho, and all of that until next time! Thank you for stopping by and for the read!

(My favorite sycamore in the back 40 has developed a smiling face!)

The Easter Bunny did not leave enough chocolate again this year

Things will happen a certain way and I’ll wonder if other artists have the same thing happen to them. I don’t ask because I’ve read their posts and flashes, stories and poems that have already told me the answer. Yes, it all happens all the time. It comes in waves. Tons of work getting published, then long stretches of comma rearrangement; long stretches to work but no inspiration or drive, then a week jammed packed with movement and tableaus to explore and little time to jot a note or sketch an outline.

The week I had included going to the Hamburg Library to attend a Lissa Marie Redmond event on a Monday night. I ran into Mary Jean Zajac there. Hannah from Writing Club attended, too. On Tuesday, it was Writing Club and I was reminded how far I have to go with the rewrite in making the text clearer. (And doing that while trying to remember the altered plotlines is what someone older than myself would call a “hoot.”) Wednesday I spent time at a mall with a woman I used to spend days at the mall with frequently and had at least 4 story ideas come up that day. Thursday, I helped a poet without realizing it was a poet I was helping at the parking kiosk. It was at Buffalo State and I was there to read for Drop Hammer from the upcoming (now out) Endurance Issue of Elm Leaves Journal. Theresa Wyatt, Nancy McCabe, Carol Townsend, and Jean Thompson read too at the invitation of ELJ’s editor, Kim Chinquee. Thank you, Kim! It was lovely and she took us out after for a meal at Cornelia, the restaurant in the renovated AKG. Kim has two (TWO!) books coming out soon – Contact with the Wild and Octopus Arms – congratulations Kim!

Friday, I ran errands and took the dog to the park. Saturday, we went to Buffalo with Betty in the rain and added our fed-up-with-this-dog-e-shit-slash-and-burn-policy voices to the Hands-Off Protest. It was cold, wet, and miserable, but it will be just as awful in an El Salvadorian concentration camp, you know?

Later, Husband and I went to see JT and the Law at Still on the Hill and my muted phone kept buzzing. The message came in out of order – the enormity of it all still stuns me. A friend I almost lost in a motorcycle accident two decades ago was in a near miss from a stolen Tesla that nearly killed him and his two children as they were on their way to an El Paso Easter Egg Hunt. Weirder still is that his wife, who came a bit later, medically attended to the person who had nearly wiped out her whole family.   

And that wasn’t even a full week of my April.

There is insurance paperwork piled up for me to read, reread, and attempt to understand. I was charged as a new patient when I was not and need to get that corrected before pulling out my hair. That right there is something to protest for – can you imagine? In other countries, healthcare is free – not for an insurance company to extract every penny in your pocket so they can have a profit and please their shareholders. Ffs, it’s people’s lives and those would be made healthier in an instant if universal healthcare – as found in most all other countries – came along and reduced everyone’s stress levels. But why would anyone in this administration care what would help anyone that isn’t them?

You see my dilemma – so much to write about, so behind on the minutia of daily life, so angry that the upcoming chaos could have been avoided. Plus, it’s criminal not to go out and acknowledge spring flowers like these while they are here, no?

Many thanks to you for stopping by and for the read. I cherish you in a weird way, but I think you already knew that because if you’re reading me, you’re probably a writer, too, so you know that kinship you feel when someone reads your words.

Cheers!