Taking it Slow?

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How about you? Do you find yourself moving too fast through life? What’s your favorite way to moodle and make the mornin’ last? How does slowing down affect your creativity?
— Write on Wednesday

In all honesty, I’m not a fan of “slow,” and find that if I do anything at less than my natural fairly quick pace, at least where writing is concerned, I spend too much time editing or self-censoring, and not enough time actually writing.

On the other hand, I do believe that it’s important to take our special moments and use them to appreciate the finer things in life, so one thing I’m trying to do is write in longhand, even if it’s just once a week.

I’ve always been a pen snob, indeed, a pen whore, and right now my favorite pen is a pink acrylic fountain pen purchased from my twitter-buddy (and all around groovy guy) Richard. Writing with a fountain pen always takes longer than composing at the keyboard – the physics alone dictate this – and I find that the voice I write in when I set literal pen to actual paper is a slower, softer one, more fluid, like the very ink I’m writing with.

Other things I do? I’m a fan of morning coffee being a personal ritual. For me, this means I pour a cup and bring it outside to my patio, where, if it’s not hot, I watch the birds hopping from tree to tree, and enjoy the sparkle of the sun on the water in the pool. I pause to water my plants (Fuzzy killed my tomatoes, but the squash and herbs are faring well), to peer at the trees along the fence and try to spot shy argiopes, the only spiders I actively seek, and I watch my dogs basking in the sun.

As we ease into autumn, and no longer face brutal heat before ten in the morning, I tend to work for a couple of hours then take the dogs for a spin around the block. I like to see what the neighbors are doing with their flowers, and such, and we often sit in the park for a few minutes.

Soon enough, however, I’m back at the keyboard, spinning words so fast that if I stop to think, I’ll lose my rhythm.

Crabby

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I’m having one of those days when staying in bed really is the best course of action, because I’m all sinussy, and my ears hurt, and I’m just too crabby to interact with human people and even my dogs are on my list tonight.

Just because.

I’m hungry, and I don’t have the energy to cook, and even if I did, nothing is appealing.

Well, almost nothing.

I have a glass of organic apple cider and some lovely super-super-sharp, crumbly, white cheddar.

But that’s not, you know, dinner.

*sigh*

Back to bed.
Soon.

Debate-able

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Fuzzy says I get points for not throwing anything at the television during the first presidential debate last night. It helped that I was watching the twitter feed and laughing at the snarky comments being made.

We started watching on NBC, then moved to CNN because, just as my stepfather likes to watch the clothes spin round in the washer, Fuzzy likes to watch the wavy lines of the response graphs. May I just say that Christiane Amanpour gets more and more beautiful with every year? I so want to be her when I grow up.

I’m not going to quote any of the responses. As debates go, this one didn’t seem to be all that special, and I maintain that it was a draw, and unlikely to have changed the mind of anyone who’d already decided where their vote was going before watching.

But:

McCain’s choice not to look Obama directly in the eye, or address comments TO him, even when being urged to by Jim Lehrer? = BAD.

Obama’s use of McCain and Lehrer’s first names when speaking TO them? = GOOD.

And Obama gets points from the language geek part of my personality not just for pronouncing Pakistan correctly, but also for pronouncing Iran and Iraq with the proper vowel tones. As for McCain, he seriously needs a refresher course in subject-verb agreement.

Thematic Photographic:Angles

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DSC01696

Originally uploaded by MissMelysse.


Carmi’s Thematic Photographic theme from this week is “angles,” and the image that sprang to my mind was this one, of a quilt my Bubbie sewed from hand.

It began as one of those kits to make a single square, and she ended up having my mother buy several more.

The quilt was originally a gift to my mother, but it goes with the colors of my house.

This is actually a thematic offering on two levels – I took the picture from an odd angle, because the quilt hangs over the side of the bridge that serves as our upstairs hallway.

MUSEUM DAY is tomorrow

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Just a quick heads up for any interested readers – tomorrow is the annual Smithsonian Museum Day, during which you can visit local museums for free.

Visit this site for details: http://microsite.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/.

If tomorrow is a bad day for you, and you’re a Bank of America customer, you should know that BofA sponsors free museum days for credit and debit card holders on the first weekend of each month.

Details can be found here: http://promotions.bankofamerica.com/museums/.

Cafe Writing: Feels Like Fall

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No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
– Samuel Johnson


In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

So, give me seven tastes or scents that define autumn for you.

  1. Ozone. Autumn rain smells sharper than the rain we get in summer.
  2. Smoke. It’s not quite time yet, here in Texas, but once the evening temperatures dip lower than 63 on a routine basis, fireplaces are put to use once more.
  3. Squash. Fall brings pumpkins into vogue, of course, but it also means a return to hardier squashes: acorn, butternut, spaghetti, instead of crookneck and zucchini. I love both the scent and the flavor of harvest squashes.
  4. Apple cider. Sure, it’s available all year round, but it’s only in autumn that you can visit a fair or festival for freshly pressed cider. Sweetened or not, hard or not, with or without cinnamon, chilled or steamed, cider is the one thing that really means that summer is waning, at least for me.
  5. Soup. I love soup. Once the weather begins to turn, it becomes my habit to make soups and stews on the weekend. There’s nothing like something warm and spicy bubbling on the stove or in the crockput, available whenever either of us takes a break from whatever project we’re puttering with.
  6. Heat. I know heaters and furnaces aren’t supposed to have scents, but after a summer of disuse, there’s still a dusty musty smell the first few times we have the heat on in the mornings. It should trigger allergies, but somehow it smells comforting, instead.
  7. Caramel corn. I don’t eat it very often, but there’s something really warming about the buttery/sweet/salty scent and flavor of caramel corn, especially when it’s combined with a rainy day and a great movie.


Written for the Anniversary Project at CafeWriting.com.