A Snail's Pace

Holy mother of pearl, what the what.

Oh, I've been neglecting the blog dreadfully. I've been composing a photo-dump post, in my head, and I even found the cable thingy and attached the camera, and installed Picasa, and, well, that's as far as I got. 

I have about a million zillion projects that I've been trying to finish up--only recently did I manage to finish hemming a pair of pants for the Nick, a pair of pants that he asked me to hem (and got stashed on my sewing desk) before Halloween. This past weekend, I had whatever bug was going around, and was knocked flat on my kiester. For one day, when Grandma was able to hang out with the Monster, I even got to rest for a bit. (After dropping the lovely Monster off at Grandma's house, I stopped by the drugstore to pick up some necessities, and holy mackerel, don't try to go shopping when you are sick. That is one of the worst times for decision-making, and staring at a shelf full of granola bars while a dial tone goes off in your head, well, that's just a terrible idea.) I did rest. I frogged a baby sweater that wasn't ever going to get finished, and frankly, is too small for the recipient, and in between episodes of my favorite British murder and sci-fi shows that I dozed off to, I thought about my creative self. (The sewing desk was right in my eyeline, so that might have helped a bit.) This is what I came up with:

I can be crafty, but I must not expect anything faster than a snail's pace.

WHAT? I'll never get anything done at that pace!

Yes you will; you aren't the knitting Xeno.

You mean the Greek philosopher who stated that one cannot get from point A to point B because first, one must cross half the distance between the two points, and first half that distance, and the first half that distance and so on?

Yes, shut up, we all knew that because we are all educated here.

What do you mean, expect no more than a snail's pace?

I mean that I don't have time to screw off with, and also expect to accomplish anything. My time is now finite, and little. You know that.

Yes, that's true. There's not so much now.

And rather than be disappointed when I don't accomplish the impossible, I should expect the possible.

That's crazy talk!

Shut your face! You're the crazy one, talking to yourself all the time.

Yep, I'm the crazy one. I would roll my eyes at you, but there isn't a mirror handy.

Anyhow, snail's pace. I can accomplish a lot, but only a bit at a time.

So, you're giving yourself permission to pace yourself?

Essentially, yes, that's what I'm doing.

You picked an odd way to deliver that revelation. Seriously, this is pretty anti-climatic.

No it's not, and critiquing a work in the middle of a work isn't meta. It's annoying, and hackneyed, really.

Your face is hackneyed.

~~~

So. I can travel at a snail's pace, and it's okay. I'll get to where I need to go, and in the time that I have. I will work on my ADOS (Attention Deficit--ooh, shiny! as my sister jokes) and document my ideas when I get them. The thing is, I get excited about a thing, and want to do the thing OMG right then and drop everything else. So, I'll endeavor to document my ideas as I get them, and hopefully be able to organize them, and be able to come back to them when both the idea and myself are ready,

Ack ack ack ack ack

I wrote a thing. And the thing wouldn't tell me what its name was, so I picked a so-so name.
AND THEN I CLICKED SUBMIT.

600 word story for a contest on NPR, and it's all submitted, and I should really be in bed, but ya'll were making me feel guilty for not posting here.

So, here's a little band-aid post. MORE TO COME.

Now, bed time for this lady.

À bientôt, mes amis.

changing things up a bit

I've let my blogs go fallow for too long, so here I come with the roto-tiller.

I've wanted a lot of different things in my life and I haven't been able to successfully achieve them for some reason or another, but mostly because I haven't done anything about it. Here I am doing something. What I want this time (or really, have wanted for a long time, but haven't done much toward) is to be a writer. How do you get to be a writer? You write.

That's the thing about writing. You don't need a whole lot to become a writer, but there is one thing that you must do, and that is actually write. Put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and write. Not think about it, or talk about it, but actually do.

The doing is the hardest part for me.

I am a terrible (or wonderful) procrastinator. I could list my excuses and give them more validation, but I won't do that. I am going to make this pledge here, on my public but not viewed space, to endeavor to write. To endeavor to write every day. To do something productive, instead of getting lost in cat pictures and 'liking' facebook posts.

Here's my talk. We'll see what the walk entails tomorrow.

Until then, bon nuit, mes petits choux.