It’s THURSDAY! And that means our #ThursdayTen! What is that, you conveniently ask?
Well, I’ll tell you!
Using the image above as a prompt, write a ten word story.
EXACTLY ten words!
We all have ten words in us, right?
Probably?
Great!
OK ready?
Here’s mine:
He was only one, but tomorrow, Earth would be theirs.
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It’s dramatically partially cloudy today, though a little heavier on the cloudy. It’s cooler, and it feels like summer has already conceded to fall.
I’m seeing hints of yellow in the trees.
Hoping everyone in the path of severe weather is safe, it was looking pretty bad in spots there.
My second cup of coffee is already here, no deliberation today, I didn’t sleep well and I don’t know why. Maybe too much coffee.
And the cycle continues.
This has been the Wednesday Wisdom advice before, but it bears repeating.
And probably more repeating.
Today, do something nice for yourself. It can be large or small or in-between. What that means is entirely up to you, whether it’s a treat, an object you’ve been eyeing, some real self-care, or getting that one thing off your to-do list that you don’t want to tackle but will feel so much better when it’s done.
Not a big assignment, just one thing for yourself.
And that’s an order.
Not even permission to do it but a mandate. Whatever it is, you deserve it.
And have a wonderful Wednesday.
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I’m in an experimental phase but not the fun kind or the dangerous kind. The administrative kind, which seems to be a hallmark of deep adulthood. Which systems work for me? Which do not?
And isn’t the weird part that as boring as that sounds, it’s still kind of fun?
Please tell me you know what I mean.
Eh, by now you probably know I’m weird anyway. Hopefully you enjoy my brand of it.
It’s sunny and not too hot and even though the end of summer is painted as a beautiful, carefree time it seems like a lot of people are having a very tough moment. Health; pets; life in general, in the wide world of the internet, there seems to be a tidal wave of bad days.
If you are looking at a wall of water, or already feeling it crashing down on you, I’m sorry. And I mean that sincerely, not in a surface, distance kind of way.
I’m sorry.
That seems to be another hallmark of deep adulthood.
I’m not sure if the bad things get more serious, because bad things are always bad things, or if, after years and years of them stacking like plates spinning on poles, it’s just harder to keep everything afloat.
Maybe we get tired.
But for everyone feeling a slap to the face from the universe, I get it. Why they seem to come in groups, I don’t know either, and even when you’re taking a breather there’s the fear another one can come along at any time.
One of the things that frustrates me the most, especially currently, is it rarely seems to be the bad people with their bad energy catching up to them. They often seem to live almost gilded lives, where even the consequences of their own actions slide right off of them, never mind random awful things.
It’s the vast unfairness of life, which was supposed to bother me less as I got older, I was told, but as I see more how good some people are and how terrible other people are and their fates don’t seem to fit their souls, it only bothers me more. Prejudice bothers me more. The short end of the stick not of one’s own doing bothers me more.
People deliberately out to harm other people because they can bother me more.
Something they were wrong about with deep adulthood.
And because we are here and not at Medium and we’re getting longer than a “bit” to read, I will reel myself in and tell you whatever it is you are facing, I send you strength and light to get through it or adjust to it or beat it in the best possible way.
Have a wonderful Tuesday.
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I’m going to use affiliate links in my posts, because why not? Especially now that Medium is different. Wanted to let you know because we’re honest with each other around here.
It’s Monday again, and today it’s very sunny and very mild, about 73 F (22.8 C), which is pleasant for me but not that usual for this time in August. But it seems when it comes to weather, we’re in a whole new world.
Along with my new mattress, I got some new sheets from Amazon, (these, and in the honeycomb pattern in yellow though both seem to be sold out in queen right now). And some satin pillowcases which are apparently good for curly hair and for your skin (these in the mandala pattern), and I cannot wait to go to bed.
Which is probably not the best feeling before noon on a Monday but there we are. My comforter, which I’ve had for a while, has yellow, gray, black and sage green medium-scale mandalas on a white background. (I was going to call them large-scale but when I tried to find something similar, I found LARGE-scale.)
So all together, it’s a visual cacophony that works and I love it.
Maybe that’s not for everyone. Maybe all that pattern noise would intrude into your space of calm, and I definitely get that. For me, that odd, unexpected combination brings me joy.
It’s like my search for wall hooks for by the front door. No matter how many sites I scour, I can’t find ones with the right level of whimsy. What I want is kitschy, which, in my opinion is the best of ridiculous salt and pepper shakers or cookie jars. And yes, the ones above are mine.
Absurd with a sense of humor.
Which, when you think about it, kind of describes me.
Hmm now it’s a toss-up for the title of this post. Bonus points if you can figure out the other option.
Anyway, that’s it for me. Have a great Monday.
Yesterday it was 100 degrees, today it’s 70. (37.7-21.1). Quite a range. It’s gray and overcast, and though I got up to open a window a few minutes ago, given that threatening sky, I think I’ll have to close it again.
Alas.
Or get rain inside which seems less than ideal. Decisions, decisions.
We finally got the mug shot we’ve been waiting for, and trump looks like he’s been practicing for weeks. They were also very kind to him with the light on his cotton-candy hair.
I don’t know if this is true, I haven’t seen it from a verified source but he may have transferred mar a lago (incorrect punctuation intentional) to his son, don jr., at a price nearly twenty times what Zillow estimates the property to be worth.
Which, for those unfamiliar, sure looks and feels like money laundering and an attempt to conceal assets from government seizure. If that is, in fact, what happened.
Some of the comments suggested he might be poised to flee. That would be interesting.
Would he really want to live in Russia now? Never to set foot anywhere that would send him back here again? Given how Russia’s war of aggression is going these days, they might send him to the front lines.
There is satisfaction in finally having a mug shot, but the doses of satisfaction are only starting. He is a man who thinks he is above and beyond all law, that only his will matters, and there is no way a person like that will abide by the rules set by the courts in all these proceedings over all the time ahead.
The transfer, if it happened, may already be an example of that. I guess he doesn’t know that if the government can prove it was transferred with the intent to shield it from seizure, they can still seize it.
Ooopsies.
Anyway, that’s it for me this wild week. Have a great Friday and a lovely weekend. OH and for people who don’t realize it, the links below are to my books, where you can continue to read my thoughts but in weird fiction form!
It’s THURSDAY! And that means it’s time for our #ThursdayTen!!
What is Thursday Ten, you so conveniently ask?
Why, I’ll conveniently tell you!
Using the image above as a prompt, write a ten word story.
EXACTLY ten words!
We can do this, right? I mean if you want to.
Anyway, ready?
Here’s mine:
Reaching the correct time and date: easy. Finding her?
Harder.
It’s sunny today and we have an excessive heat warning, though it hasn’t been to bad since about May. Mid-90s today, higher tomorrow, but they warn of temps above 110, which I don’t understand, given the forecast.
Maybe they mean the total heat index, because it’s very humid. I checked, that is what they meant.
So we are not immune.
I’m having one of those days where I am tired of hearing my own voice, whether in my head or on the virtual page. Too much thinking.
It’s something I’ve always done, though, something that’s difficult not to do because existing itself is thinking. At least for some of us.
Meditation can help to quiet it, but since I am no expert in it, I can only go so far for so long. And then the thoughts return.
Just how it is.
Distractions help, hobbies help, creating helps, but they take a kind of thinking of their own. Still, one supplants the other.
Which is a way to go.
Anyway, that will be that for me today, as I try to give my brain some space to quiet. Have a wonderful Wednesday.
You may have seen last week, or maybe not because I forgot to pin the post, Medium has changed the way things work and that has me thinking about changing the way I work. At least on Tuesdays.
Now, at Medium, unless people clap or respond you don’t register engagement. Views no longer count.
But people have to sign up to do those things, and people often don’t want to. So this week, I’m trying out Chat Tuesday here.
We’ll see how that goes.
It’s always been tricky to do a blog post and a Chat Tuesday on the same day, and melding them into one may be just thing. Or it may not.
We’ll know by the bottom of this post. Let’s get to it, this is a lot of preamble.
The internet takes a vast, vast world and places us all in one room. Geography isn’t a barrier; the small circles in which we travel daily no longer mark the borders of our universes.
There is talk of “finding your people,” especially to those of us who don’t quite fit, who have odd corners and unvarnished surfaces, but in that space immediately outside our front doors, it’s not as easy as a tired cliche.
We can find our “almost people,” or “not bad people” or people willing to pass some time, but are they our people? Perhaps that answer changes over years.
But in the magic box sending communications zipping through the nothingness at speeds we heavy-atomed cannot travel, we can meet anyone, anywhere. Or pretty much anyone anywhere.
And the universe expands.
We can be not simply tolerated.
But enjoyed.
Not included for the sake of some kind of lingering guilt, but included because our virtual presence is welcomed. It’s a win for us weirdos.
It’s weighed on my mind lately, as I emerge from year after year of not great things. Sometimes I think we are all born with a lifetime limit of stress, and I feel like I hit mine long ago.
There are some things I cannot worry about. I don’t have the capacity anymore. And I no longer have the energy to force myself into grudging spaces.
My parts, at this point, are too brittle for that.
“Our people” may be scattered far and wide, and some of us may never share an analog space. But in this modern world, does that really matter? Is that what makes true friendship?
Or is it the meeting of minds, the meeting of ideas, a common view even from distant vantage points?
Because that’s what I have come to think, after all this thinking.
And in Tuesday Thoughts fashion, have a great Tuesday. This may work for me, how about you?
It may be Monday, but at least there are no fighter jets this morning. The Air & Water Show is over for another year.
It is loud.
It may be sunny, it may be hazy, it may be pollution soup out there, I can’t quite tell. Ah, the modern world.
Did a bunch of baking yesterday, made a dough and used half of it for cinnamon rolls, half of it for rolls which ended up tasting a lot like brioche. Only much easier from what I gather.
I’ve never tried making brioche but it seems complicated.
I’m for easy.
There are countless times in life where “close enough” is enough. Sometimes we get so focused on the idea of perfection, we don’t really see the wasted time pursuing it. And it can freeze us in our tracks.
Is this the best possible option? Will I wish I’d done it another way?
I mean odds are if it’s not a major thing you’ll forget entirely about it in a month.
Close enough is good enough. For most things.
Like don’t take this too literally if you’re a nuclear engineer or a pilot or zip line operator or anything.
Anyway, that’s it for me today, have a great Monday!
Woke up coughing, and suddenly I have a lot less voice than usual. Took a COVID test, it was negative.
Allergies or some kind of cold, who can tell.
But errands are off the table, because in this modern world it’s just plain rude to walk into a place of business sounding like this.
I mean I guess it was always rude but these days people notice.
It’s super sunny today and allergy counts are high so allergies are definitely in the running. A bit hazy too, and I wonder what the air quality is like.
Moderate, but forecasted to get worse.
Eh.
I had my second night of new mattressed bliss, but still woke up pretty sore. I feel like things are shifting into their regular spots and it might be uncomfortable for a while before it gets better. But the new mattress is fantastic.
I am pleased.
And that is about it for me for this week, I wish you a quick Friday if that’s what you’re after and a very restful weekend.
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A Bit to Read 