Football

Football! Football is going to happen. We get football.

First Edition

For all the reading I do I've not read Gore Vidal. Maybe because they always look like doorstop bricks rather than books. I've traded books with a bus top buddy. He handed me a first edition Gore Vidal, Lincoln to borrow. He did say that Vidal gets "gossipy". Yep. It's chatty and gossipy and informative and entertaining. I'm thoroughly enjoying this. (I can't believe it, the calliope just started playing. I haven't heard the neighborhood calliope in over a year. It's playing, Do Your Ears Hang Low. Amazing)

The hardest part about the book is that it is a first edition. I didn't borrow him a first edition, did I? Maybe I did. But it was a free book. In any case, I don't want to carry this book on the bus. I don't want to eat while I read. I don't want to take it to the beach with me. I feel that I must sit quietly in a proper chair bent over this proper book till my neck hurts. It's a good book, it takes me a while to realize my neck hurts.

I wasn't in the mood to read when I started this book. I wasn't in the mood for really anything. I'm still not. I get my clothes ready for work, I go to work, come home, do nothing to speak of and go back to work the next day. It's not a bad life. I've let most everything slip by the wayside. I play guitar still; nothing recognizable. The fairytale blog is in hiatus, nothing recognizable there either. My instinct is to do nothing. I'm getting good at it.

I should go wash my hands so I can get back to reading...

No problems

Funny, I have no problems to speak of. This makes it difficult to speak at all, really. Even changing my frustrations into fairytales has peetered out. I'm not all that frustrated.

Moments of note: I have found that my fingernails grow rather quickly. I have to clip my nails every other day or so to play my guitar. My fingers are finally getting strong enough to hold the strings firm against the frets, but I still haven't played any tune I used to play all the way through. It's just not holding my attention.

Moments of note: I have found that I do make enough money to pay everyone back. And put away a couple bucks a month to save my own hide later. I really like that free sofware program from Intuit, Mint.com. Two months after I started using it the information is priceless. I may not be stellar at money management, but at least I can find averages and high months versus low months and all that helps me figure how to be better at managing things through next payday. Every payday gets easier.

Moments of note: Boy, I like my job! This is keeping me busy. I didn't know it was time to go home today. My boss stopped in to say goodnight and told me to wrap it up. I know what I'm doing is helping someone that needs it. These someone's are wonderful good at saying thank you. I get thanked for doing my job. Amazing stuff.

I have no complaints. I have no frustrations. Nothing. Wow. I hope I remember days like these later. I hope I remember how boring it is. And hey, hallelujah for boring...for this evening.

So, are we gonna get Football this August, or what?

Another 30 Days

I enjoy a TED Talks most nights before I set my head to pillow. Last night I indulged. I watched three TED Talks. (Quite sinful, I'm sure) That last one before I turned off the iPad was Matt Cutts' Try Something New for 30 Days. While I realize this is not an original idea, most new habits are formed in that amount of time, it certainly got me to thinking. I don't have to do anything for a life time. I'm allowed to do anything on a whim if I want. The whim today is to play my guitar for 30 days in a row. And while I've played guitar since I was fourteen I haven't played it regularly since the second child was born. She's 21.

Am I capturing my youth? I don't think so. I think it might have to do with entertaining myself in my later years.

While I'm spending 30 days becoming a virtuoso on guitar I would like to consider what to take on for the next 30 days. A REALLY good thing to do in that next 30 days is the push to finish Katie's quilt. It's a piece of art for god's sake. If she puts it on her bed I'll shoot her. It belongs on a wall. It seems while I'm typing here this morning I'm actually making plans. As I see it today, I've got 30 days to fix my sewing machine or purchase a new one.

PS: Jonathan Drori's Beautiful Tricks of Flowers was wonderfully naughty. I recommend that talk. Exquisite photos. Makes me wonder why I didn't become a botanist (although that professor was so tired of teaching he couldn't spark a tinder forest in a heat wave).

Mental health

What a lovely morning. I'm sitting on the deck with my coffee and my thoughts. Today is a mental health day. There is always two reasons anyone does anything. My two reasons are that Thing Two is moving to San Diego on Sunday and today is major packing day (my aim is to be available while staying out of the way) and the other is that a friend, J, is arriving today to visit for a bit and on a normal work day I don't get home until 6:30 at night (what a waste of a good day with a friend in town).

Grocery stores just opened up about half an hour ago. I'll finish my coffee and get moving...eventually.

My new favorite bit of trivia...Eunoia ( spell checker doesn't even know that word, now that certainly implies something) means mental health, beautiful mind. Today is hereby deemed Eunoia Day.