The King is Right

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." --- Stephen King

Hence the addition of Books I've read so far in 2009 to my margin. I've done better about reading this year and last year. Before that, I was made to believe that such leisurely activities were marks of laziness and that time could better be employed for something constructive.

I say, "Define 'constructive'."

I've re-invited the vice of reading back into my life as of late, and have made it a habit, once again, to carry a book in my purse at all times. I used to get around to a couple of books during vacation time and the holidays, but now I'm averaging one every couple of weeks. Mostly my reading happens on breaks at work, in waiting rooms for doctors and such, and before bed.

The list of books awaiting their bond with me is staggering. I've only managed to document a fraction of them on www.goodreads.com mostly because I'm too lazy to rumage through my shelves and decipher which ones I've already input and which still need to be listed. But one day I shall sit patiently and update my list so it reflects the actual project that I have before me.

And I shall likely panic.

Password, Please

Today I had a pretty shitty day. I shan’t go into specifics, mostly because they’re pretty tiresome. But I mention this because as it so happens, it’s a useful segue to the image of the week:

Back in college I had a fascination with doors. It didn’t take a genius to see the Freudian foundations of it all: I had a significant wall built around me and doors – particularly very well shut doors – were highly relatable. I'm not talking about the kind with window panes so you can look inside. Nor the kind that look like they’re right out of Mayberry. “My” doors were always impenetrable. Somewhere in the garage are a couple of large artist portfolios. You know the kind, they look like a huge, flat suitcase and zip up on three sides. In one of those suitcases is a watercolor of a door I painted. It’s a monochrome, like this one, only in orange. It’s a wood door, like something you’d find in an old English garden, as an entrance to a shed or old cottage. But it’s boarded up. It has two heavy wooden planks across it, nailed to each side of the door. There’s no gettin’ through that bugger.

This door reminded me of that one. You can feel the weight of the steel. The solidity with which it is sealed. It’s a good door.

Today I want my doors.

Bleeding Heart

I'm sure it's easy to imagine that I selected this as my image of the week because it's a typewriter and has to do with writing. That I must have a nostalgic reaction to it, and sigh at the romanticism of the click click.

Nope.

When I saw this image, I was thirteen again and flirting with my junior high crush in a conversation about M*A*S*H. You see, back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were no computers and so junior high elective classes were typically Art, Typing, Home Ec... that kind of thing. I took typing and the monstrosities that we worked on looked like the one in the picture. Big, honkin' things made out of metal and impossible to lift from the table.

Where do Glen and M*A*S*H fit into the picture? Well, as fate would have it, he was seated next to me when he was added to the class a bit late. We already knew each other from all our core classes, so strangers we were not. But here I had him all to myself. You see, I was bussed in to a school where everyone knew each other since kindergarten because it was the neighborhood school. But a handful of us were bussed in from the boonies, having passed a test and interview to attend a particular program there. I made it into the program and Glen was in it as well, along with all his little neighborhood buddies.

But this was elective class and everyone was disseminated for a change and so Glen and I became friends. We shared a love for the Korean War sitcom, and it so happened that the series finale was all anyone could talk about. Big, long ending.... aired past Glen's bedtime. I'd never had a bedtime so I watched it along with the general masses. The next day, in Typing class, Glen wanted to know everything. He said he'd taped it, but wouldn't be able to see it until that night and the suspense was killing him. So we spent the class period whispering about the episode behind our typewriters.

I remember clearly that I was telling him about how everyone said good-bye to Hawkeye at the end, up at the chopper pad. And Glen said that he had snuck out of his bedroom and could hear from the banister as his parents watched. He said he heard some of the good-byes, but that then there was a really loooooong silence. I laughed and told him that that was when Hawkeye grabbed Margaret and kissed her. Glen said it couldn't have been that part because it was a really long silence. I told him it was a really long kiss.

A couple of young teens, both giddy at the culmination of an 11-year flirtation between the two characters. The click, click of the keys drowning out our own flirtation.

Franklin Covey Saves the Day

This week's quote was deliberately selected.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

--- Douglas Adams

I knew I was tempting fate by aspiring to one post per day. Never mind that I've had words coming out of my ears all week and have thought of an endless variety of subjects and rants that I might have shared. As soon as there is a deadline to meet, I clam up. It's all terribly psychological, isn't it? A sort of rebellion. "Tell ME when to write, will you?!" That kind of thing.

Plus I'm psychotic about organizing my time. I've been using day planners since I was in high school and had to juggle school, work, and doctors' appointments [see This Queen's Throne]. So I've always kept a calendar of some kind and referred to it, obsessively. Which means that I should be able to schedule in a Writing Hour of some sort and give myself some discipline about the whole thing. But writing was never about structure for me. I've never seen it as something to sit down and do. Writing, for me just happens. Anywhere. At any given moment. Be ready.

Writing doesn't make a date with me. It doesn't respect the dates I've attempted to make with it. I've been stood up enough times to know better. And now I know better: Always carry pen and paper. ALWAYS carry pen and paper. Be ready. As it turns out, it's my Franklin Covey planner that has become my default recipient. Since I carry it with me everywhere anyway, I've taken to jotting in it when the moment strikes. My Notes pages are filled more with my writing than with lists of things to do. It's all there: pen and paper.

So no, writing is not to be scheduled or fabricated for the purposes of deadlines. Writing will happen. So I am always ready.

Wrapping it up

Before I change this week's image, quote and conundrum, I'll go ahead and address the two that I've not written about.

The conundrum is easy.

Would you be willing to become extremely ugly, physically, if it meant you would live for 1,000 years at any physical age you chose?

I've never understood the interest in immortality. It's not for me. I don't want to live for 1,000 years. The few I've struggled through are a burden as it is. I trust that my time will come when it needs to and whatever was left to do will just have to keep.

As for the quote.

"If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary."-- David Sedaris

I love Sedaris. I've only recently been introduced to his work by a friend of mine. And so far, I've found a familiar voice in him and some similar thoughts and attitudes. This quote struck me as perfect this particular last week because I'm trying to make sure that my life takes on a more positive spin. I want to empower myself and see opportunity instead of obstacles. I want to shed any semblance of whining and assumptions of entitlement and know that my troubles are my own, for me to solve and me to celebrate. No one is more invested in me than me. So I'll not have the silly self-pity. I'm on my own. Suck it up and get out there.

Doodles or Discourse

I have a smidge of envy for those people who doodle. You know the ones. They doodle while they’re on the phone or on their napkin at a restaurant. They doodle in the margins of their class notes when the lecture is dry.

They’re no great artists, that’s not really the endeavor here. It’s more about expending extra energy, I’d say. It comes out in spirals and squiggles. In flowers, cross hatching, vines, stick figures and googly eyes. So, in the end, you get this collage of arbitrary images that mean very little. But they’re kinda pretty.

I was never a doodler. Despite my heavy investment in the education of arts, and my competent endeavors in the fine arts production since I was in high school, Art, was never really a calling. I have a great love for it and can’t possibly bear to be parted from the subject for too long, but not so much as a participant. I like bearing witness more. My form of inexhaustible expression was always in words. I've fulfilled all the clichés about writing on napkins and on the back of a business card. I've done the pulling over while I'm driving and the turning on the laptop at 4 am. Words are my vice. And as much as I do have a certain aesthetic appreciation for how they are formed, be they in terms of format, composition, or even visually (beautiful writing sends me!) They are not really the stuff of decoration.

I’ll admit, now, that I have been known to do some writing in the margins of my lecture notes. Usually it involves commentary on the information being noted. Usually it means there’s something there I'm not buying. I make sarcastic remarks or blatant contradictions. I even go so far as to comment on the lecturer’s level of quack-hood depending on how much my patience has been tested and how soon I've discarded his or her credibility.

Or I can be particularly swept away by the information and make notes to follow up on this or the other, or I put little exclamation points near something that I find fascinating or lovely. But doodles? No, I've never been a doodler.

I've actually tried to doodle. I try to think of something pretty to draw. Or I approach it like my writing and just put something down, in the hopes that it will take on a life of its own and take me somewhere. Usually I just end up with a few wavy lines and some spirals for lack of inspiration. Nothing there.

That’s why this week’s image had me intrigued. What caught my attention was the drawing. Clearly, a doodle gone steroidal. But the instant I saw the writing on the same page, the tree lost all hopes of keeping my attention. I pressed my nose up against the monitor in the vain hope of reading whatever is there. It irks me to no end to not be able to decipher it. I want to know.

For me, words will always win.

This Queen’s Throne

Most kids have extracurricular activities like after school sports or music lessons. I grew up going to the doctor. I had a chronic bladder infection problem from age 7 to 17. I was going to the doctor an average of once a week. Tests of every kind and specialists in every field. And then one day I just didn’t get another infection. I went on with my life.

I mention this because while other people developed a sense of agility or rhythm due to their investments, I have developed a keen sense of direction and location. I can locate a toilet anywhere faster than you can say, “Where’s the john?” At no time during my waking existence am I unaware of my distance from and relative location to the nearest commode. It is a talent. I'm like a homing pigeon about porcelain.

The need for such flexibility all my life made me get over the phobias that most people have about public restrooms. Early on I figured I couldn’t exactly get snooty about using what ever facilities were within my access. I've since educated myself and am well informed about sanitation issues in this regard. Lots of people have a real problem about hygiene in these settings, but I know that any problems you may develop “down there” are not likely to be blamed on a toilet and the contact, or lack thereof, with the surfaces of the entire room. If you grew up with a mom that told you different, let me be clear: she lied. If you feel a deep seeded need to tell me I'm frighteningly wrong and how you can list pages of icky diseases to be had from even looking at commercial tile, let me save you some trouble. I’ll smile and nod.

All of this is to mention that I was in a public restroom yesterday and was surprised to see my surroundings. I was at a hole in the wall kind of gas station/convenience mart. It was a tiny little establishment with no pretenses whatsoever. But the bathroom really shifted the context. It was clean, we can start there. It was one of those one-toilet bathrooms, where you have to bolt the door and hope to God it actually works so you don’t get walked in on. The inside was decorated in a warm vanilla paint and it had – get this – plaster columns embedded into the corners. Between the twisted scroll columns were sculpture reliefs of women carrying water urns. Very Pompeii but in a green monochrome. Weird. I will even venture to say that it wasn’t cheesy. It was actually quite tastefully done. The scale was appropriate, the choice to go with a monochromatic palette was well-founded, and the application was of decent quality.

This made me think about all the bathrooms I've visited over the years and the things I've seen in there. Then the train of thought led me to decide that I am going to put together a photo essay of sorts about the bathrooms that I come across in a month’s time. I always carry a camera around in my purse anyway, and lately it has gotten zero use at all. I’m uninspired by too much these days. I need to pick up the pace in my aesthetic realm of existence. Maybe this’ll spark some interesting photos and such.

Anyway, I'm officially beginning on the first of August and will end the project on the 31, at which point, I will post all the photos accumulated. Feel free to share your bathroom pics, be they in your homes or in public places.

Collaboration

I'll acknowledge that the entry prior was certainly not doing more than fulfilling a quota, if you acknowledge that your participation by commenting would likely serve to encourage further writing.

CRAP!

Two minutes 'till midnight! I'm just getting it in under the wire!

Whistle While You... Play

I’ll admit I've been avoiding this one. This week’s Andrum’s Conundrum has got my knickers in a knot. Initially, it did, anyway.

Would you rather be extremely successful professionally and have a tolerable yet unexciting private life, or have an extremely happy private life and only tolerable and uninspiring professional life?

What it comes down to is whether I want my excitement to come from my job or from my personal life. When put that way, it made everything more digestible. It became more clear and less difficult. Sure, we’d like our jobs to be exciting, interesting, fulfilling. We spend a good part of our day there and should at least be nominally rewarded. But an inspiring work life would mean a dull personal life. And that just won’t do.

So I broke it down to the logistics of the situation. A job exists (generally) within established parameters: hours to be worked, production to be accomplished, goals to be reached. At one extreme of this definition are the data entry people. They put in a 9 to 5 day, produce some amount of work, and accomplish some task by doing so. At the other extreme of the job field, you’ve got the Bear Grylls guy who’s hours are left up to the production team, but then he can go weeks without being on a schedule. His tasks vary from episode to episode and hopefully his goal of not dying out there is accomplished without too much hardship [read: boredom].

So, yes, there are exciting jobs out there, but let’s face it, the greater population leans towards the data entry crowd. Opportunity is somewhat limited. What there is becomes more or less defined by what exists already, although more and more, jobs are being invented to service an ever-growing world market.

Now let’s look at our options in leisure. Leisure can be seen in its extremes as well. There are those who come home from a day at the office and fall asleep in front of the TV. No dig. I've been known to do it, myself, from time to time. And there are those who run off to hike the Andes on a weekend and still make it back for the Monday morning meeting. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, I suspect.

Now for the disclaimers. Usually these questions bring up other questions about what is a given and what is not. Many a raucous debate among friends has been settled with a simple premise: Assume the ideal situation. What I mean is this: don’t take into account whether you have enough money to do all the things you want to do in your scenario. Don’t wonder whether there are limitations that you should have to iron out. Assume the ideal situation. So when we talk about job or leisure, assume that whatever job you are considering in your head that you hold is a great-paying job and leaves you wanting for nothing. And assume that whatever leisure you are salivating about is well-funded and limitless. So, logistics aside, it’s not about the practical approach, it’s about the question of where you want your inspiration to come from.

It’s simple for me. I want to be inspired by my personal life. I want to travel, take classes, try various activities, push myself to see what else there is. If the rule is that my job is neither a detriment nor enabling of this, then I could pretty much have any job there is. Including one that I would find enjoyable, if not inspiring. It isn’t stated that my job would have to be comparatively demoralizing, so there’s nothing to say that I couldn’t very well enjoy it and still have a fantabulous personal life.

The alternative is too limiting. As much as a sensational job may be inspiring, there are still limits to every job. In the end, a job is work. It means that there will be boundaries outside of which you couldn’t perform. Jobs come with boxes. Leisure, not so much.

So that’s my answer. What’s yours?