A few Measly Steps a Day

I'll check it out, but, honestly, my mood buddies are: you, my Nanowrimo friends, my other Internet writing friends, my Zoom church friends, and my phone friends. As for catching COVID, unlikely since I haven't been around the friends I mentioned since early March, and my mother-in-law's place is on lockdown until everyone there tests negative two weeks in a row. When we do get to visit, it's two visitors, once a week, no touching, plexiglass screen, six feet. That's what gets me. They were so careful, always, and they still had 12 cases. They also help the residents with Zoom, but my MIL can't hear, so Zoom wouldn't work.

Oops, better not gloat. I'm not totally COVID safe. I do go to the store, and I have a termite inspector coming today. And I buy food from restaurants. So no guarantees.

Happy note - my daughter, a doctor, got a vaccine shot on Saturday. She emailed us the video.

I am the opposite of blocked with my writing. I know where my plot is going, and except for a couple of blank spaces, I know how I will get there. Have a safe and Merry Christmas.

Ooh, one more cool thing. I'm going to buy my MIL a surprise birthday box. You open it, and there's a cupcake inside, and mechanical, wind-up butterflies fly out of the box. I'll warn the nursing home first though - in case there's any problem with the butterflies. With COVID, I don't want to give them any surprises.

Thank you, I started checking that out. I'll write more later about it.

I couldn't log on here for a couple of days, but, as you can see, I solved the problem, I think.

Yeah, it seems ye olde PC now is My Support Forums. Possibly better name. I wonder if they tested "our support forums" or "support forums."

There's been some deals cut and a new server transition. I think I'm in on the two machines I use most.

Today: have a couple of tax bills to pay online. Requires zenlike attention.

Already drafted the last section of a mock press release I'm doing about my funenticing of meetings.

Always pages to read before I sleep.

Revu2

My writing. So far, this is very exciting. I have the ideas, but I haven't come to the problems yet.
My characters are going to the Yukon in winter. Sandy is a First Nations Northern Tutchone elder. He's coming back to his homeland to die. Jody has to come with him because she has no where else to go. She's terrified of storms. Will is a Mountie widower with three kids. The oldest is moody and rebellious. He has been since his mother died.
There will be meth labs, abandoned gold mines, and Vision quests.
My writing goes like this - I begin to write, then come across something I don't know and end up surfing the net looking up info about the Klondike gold rush and First Nations history. Protocol is very important among First Nations, and I don't want to write something that will offend someone. The way I have Jody talking to Sandy now breaks several rules of protocol. That's the kind of thing I'm trying to learn. It took me about two days to figure out the route Sandy and Jody would take from Vancouver to Mayo, the closest town to Sandy's cabin. There's so much that I want to include. But I'll write the main plot first, and then fill in with the fluff. Watching the videos of Dawson City and the Klondike gold rush, and First nations is really fun, and I spend a lot of time watching videos on YouTube. Right now, Sandy is my favorite character. Probably the hardest thing will be to make Jody into an interesting character.

Okay, I'll see what comes out of brain - or that mysterious somewhere of ideas that tell me they want me use them. It feels like the story tells me what to write, not the other way around.

Happy stepping, and Merry Christmas.

Hello world. De, thanks for sharing your process. It's bit like mine to the degree online research is really fun. Pick up all sorts of tidbits of info.

Lots of food about the house, so set for everything on holiday closure tomorrow. Working my way thru a couple of books and the library tells me several dvds and books I requested are ready for pickup.

Daily goals are limited to reading and editing the next document for my latest project on bringing game elements to real life meetings.

Great fun and probably something I might have been working on for many years had I the sense to see the sense of it.
R

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Revue and Alive, and anyone else who reads this.

Revu, I've always been in awe of the work that goes into your projects. It makes sense, of course; it's the sort of thing I did back in college. But I don't often have that motivation now.

But I get it. When you're interested and invested in what you're doing, the energy shows up, and the work is - well - what else would you be doing?

I love the idea of bringing games into meetings. Hosting a meeting is such an art.

This morning has been filled with on-line friends and Christmas events. The afternoon will be devoted to writing, cleaning - ???? cleaning on Christmas Day??? yes, and preparing for tomorrow's celebration. Don't worry - it's just going to be me, my husband, and the dogs.

That's about it for me. Good, happy, healthy, safe wishes to all.

I gave myself a wood chipper/shredder for Christmas. Using a chainsaw is easy. It takes about ten minutes to do most of the work in shaping a tree. The hard part is loading up the green-waste container - cutting the branches into pieces that fit in the bin then carrying the bin out to the sidewalk. And there's not enough space in the container, so once it's full, I either have to wait until next week to fill up the rest of the cuttings, or ask my neighbor across the street if I can use her container - repeat lugging container, clipping, filling the container, etc. Loading the chipper is easier work, and I end up with mulch that I didn't have to pay for. larger branches, of course, still have to go in the green-waste container.

All's quiet now.

Finished an idea from Amazon, the Mock Press Release, for my fun-enticing project for meetings. Took about 10 days with the research, drafting, etc. for the 9 sections.

Same time, different project, I'm reading the artist memoir by dancer/choreographer Liz Lerman, Hiking the Horizontal. She's writing for a mixed audience: community members, college folks, & dancers, of course. She falls into arguing, defending, bemoaning, etc. several times that learning through the body is a valid, valuable way to learn and THINK.

At one point she talks about academic research and artistic research. Scientific and other college-bound research in my way of thinking exists to show and prove or disprove something. Artistic research exists to generate ideas and to make use of them in a public way (a book, a movie, a dance performance). Great scientific research can be "replicated." Great artistic research can probably never be exactly repeated through repeating the research steps, you have to experience the work and copy it.

I have a little trip planned for today. Something to mull about as I travel.
R

Yesterday, I made a list of the three things I wanted to finish. Soon that list grew to six items. Finished - none of them. Started two of them. Today better be better.

On a more cheerful note - I was thinking about everything that's wrong with the world, and getting really depressed. (Wait for happy ending here.) I remembered the song, "May You Always Walk in Sunshine." I found a Muppet version of the song, and it made me laugh. That's what I want someone to tell me, or sing to me. Rowlf sang it to me a couple of times.

I think I'll chip up some wood this morning, after Rowlf sings to me one more time. (Rowlf is a Muppet dog, in case anyone reading this doesn't know.)

P.S. My husband and I are not singers, in case you're wondering.

Good wishes.

It's funny that all this fresh year stuff is entirely made up by human line drawing. Anyway, to launch my year I've begun a practice I learned about from a sermon maybe 30 years ago. He said open your year with generosity and write your first checks as gifts to organizations you care about. He encouraged writing checks so the process could be drawn out and savored.

I just made two gifts, one I did via paypal and the other I wrote a check. DONE

In the process I noticed that a loan we thought we'd paid off twice in December showed a Zero balance AND 98¢ due. Confusing. So I called their service line and we had a friendly chat. She put in yet another payment and booted this to a loan officer for resolution. Ha, first day of the year and I find a flaw or bug in a system.

Most excellent start.
R

I liked the idea. I wrote two checks to charities. Now - a little writing, a little laundry, and it will be a lovely day. Talked to my kid on the phone. She's doing a scrapbook of 2020. Very cool. I offered to help, and then found out that there's not much I can do for her. She's way better at this than I am.

Okay, happy new year.

First, finding flaws.

I spent lots of time in 2020 looking for flaws in social logic. There's plenty. One current one is the c-vax is not fully tested. Many "front line" health mishmash (usually called a 'system.' Ha, that's a flaw right there) workers are refusing the vax. But, these vaxxes are as sound as any, just accelerated through the standard 3 rounds of trials.

But the three so far:
1. My Credit Union showed a balance due of both Zero and 98¢. Twice we thought we'd paid it off in December only to find a pesky balance showing up. We could call this 3 flaws, cept it probably is the same one.
2. I watched an Amazon delivery man place a box at a building in which clearly is still being constructed. I got it and walked the 5 houses down the street and delivered it to the right address.
3. My partner signed up for what she thought was a one-time support payment on Change.org only to see that they were going to take a monthly donation to Change. Figured out how to cancel but to my mind, they have the staff, the time, & ways to test, so it was a flaw (or intentional) that it happened at all.

Now for failures: So many. What got me to thinking about this was a blogger's project to collect failure stories. Also, Stanford University has a Failure Project, and my local university when it allows students on campus mimicked S.U. a couple of years and had their own failure project. I think it might help me to confess a few.

1. I pulled myself out of line for getting my drivers license while in high school. During drivers ed, I got distracted by a question from the instructor and swerved. Totally spooked me that maybe I wasn't ready for the scanning attention required.
2. When I did want my license, I overreached and tried to pass with a manual transmission. Failed that way 3 times. Finally passed with an automatic.
3. One day while working as a lowly instructor at the local university, I lost it in front of 100 students. I see now that had something to do with irritability while maN*x.
4. During another Man*c/grieving episode lost tens of thousand of dollars in wild market speculations.
5. At the very first time I was running an adult ed class on creativity, I didn't notice the operation had 2 locations. Got dropped off (before I had my license) at the 'other' location without a means of getting to the right one (no cell, building dark and locked).

That's just five. I'm exhausted.

Donald Hall, when commenting on Casey at Bat's 100th anniversary and the many sequels it inspired where Casey hits the ball out of the park:

Quote:

None of the triumphant sequels will do. None show the flair of Thayer's ballad, its vigorous bumpety heptameter and mostly well-earned rhymes, or its consistently overplayed language. Most important, none celebrates failure. Casey may strike out: Casey's failure is the poem's success.

Perhaps my own failures are my life's successes. This should keep m'ed spinning a bit.

Revu2

They always say that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. I've certainly learned from my mistakes, but apparently I haven't made them all.
My challenges are to learn how to use Twitter - I know the basics, but there's so much I don't know. My second big challenge - to get myself to move more. COVID has shut down my swimming and gym workouts. Walking is rough on my foot, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm getting so stagnant. Apparently, the drought is still with us, so I'll go out today.

I spoke/wrote too soon. The sky was dark gray as I walked out the door, and I was walking back with a cold wind and some rain in my face. Still, it felt good to get out.

De, keep searching for the right exercise.

Yeah, those third-party proverbs about failure are suitable for compost. When I cross my failures I feel pain in my gut. These are not private "I didn't complete a crossword" failures. I had witnesses. 100 in the university case. Many friends for the driving. I disappointed a whole class of people I didn't know by not showing up. Embarrassment, shame, disappointed in myself.

"Lessons" feels like these can be equated with learning 12 x 12 = 144. Ha!

Shake, onto my day of errands. But first, breakfast.

Interesting that you brought up the pain of failure. I find I can handle the pain better when there's some success mixed in with the failure. But - this is weird - when I think about my life, I mostly remember the embarrassing moments, the times I've hurt and disappointed people. The times I've been wrong. I know I done good things too. Why can't I remember them.?
I think failure is hardest to handle for those who had a lot of success early on. I was smart, got good grades, behaved. Then, after college, suddenly no one was interested. And I see a lot of young people going through the same thing - they hit that point - usually somewhere around twenty - when suddenly life is smacking them down instead of supporting them. I think of all the child stars that end up on drugs and in all kinds of trouble. Some do okay, but a lot of them don't.

Looking out to February I have several things I'll be putting some steps on every day.

1. Working on my meeting support project
2. Facilitating two fun workshops. A. On Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process. B. On 'The cull of the wild' about letting go of what no longer serves.
3. State and city taxes to complete by end of January. One gave an extension. Not going to use it.
4. Yuck list: visit to dentist.

Plenty.

Suddenly, this website has a ton of ads and links I don't want to click on.

On the happy side, my kid got her second COVID vaccine shot, and my MIL gets her first in a few days. Yay!

Me - just same - o same -o. When we're done sheltering, I want to visit Dawson City, Canada. In the summer, of course.

Yeah, i noticed the ads, too. I guess a way to keep it free to us users and keep the lights on.

Just reminded myself of ways to save time when reading nonfiction: skip the opening chapters. These are the horror stories and the review of the history of the problem under discussion. Don't need that, I understood what the book was about from the title.

Sometimes I read from the last chapter back till I feel i got enough of their solution tips to shut the book.

R