it all adds up ...

DISCLAIMER: Do not expect much from this blogpost. It's a Monday night-I feel like writing something but I'm not sure what-stream of consciousness type blogpost. If you want to stick with me, that's lovely, but if you want to beg off now, I understand. 


I fear math.

Actually, that's not true. I don't really fear math. I'm not scared of it. I will attempt any calculation put in front of me. I suppose it would be more accurate to say math should fear me.  

Math is one of those things that I'm not awful at, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those situations where I don't know what I don't know, which leaves me knowing just enough to be dangerous.

I use math a lot in my life --probably incorrectly, but I should be given an A (i.e., a score between 91-100%) for effort:

I do consumer-type math (e.g., time, money, measurement) at home. 

I use statistics at work --I can explain a Bell Curve like nobody's business! 

And I tend to think about coping with life things and writing, drawing, etc. --life and art often overlap --in terms of percentages and fractions. It's this last use of math that has me jotting down what is promising to be a truly pointless blogpost on absolutely not much tonight. 

When making to-do lists at any given time, I realize that I will get through about half of the activities on the list within the time allotted, or it will take me twice as long as I think it should to get everything done. This is what is occurring with my current writing project, again, so the finding must still be true. I often wonder how other people who are better at planning and maintaining attention do with their to-do lists. I'm thinking their math must be different, as they all seem to be so prolific. In my case, I live the mathematical equivalent of 'her eyes are bigger than her stomach', and I get through it all eventually.

There are also the Golden Section and the Rule of Thirds. I was originally going to write they were the same thing, but the Interweb informs me they are not. 

The Golden Section occurs at 0.62 (out of 1.0) and is largely used to talk about the perfect spot in visual art, like paintings or drawing, and it occurs in music, as well. I'm not a musician, so I cannot explain what this means. I hear Bach used it very well, though, and his work is pretty magnificent for having a simultaneously calming and invigorating effect on me, so that information and $2 will get you a cup of coffee. 

The Rule of Thirds says to think in thirds, so the optimal spot would occur at 0.67 --slightly off from where the Golden Section occurs. I am currently writing a three-act play, so I'm more interested in the Rule of Thirds than the Golden Section at the moment. Incidentally, the Rule of Thirds is different than the Rule of Three --again, I have been schooled by the World Wide Net. Both are used in writing, and I am happy to announce, I use both. Hooray.

 Do you ever think about how you use math in your creative efforts? And what other areas of study seemingly unrelated to the arts do you use when you are being creative?

Also, if you understand math better than I do and I have gotten some of the math wrong, please correct me! I don't want math to be afraid of me --it's very useful.

attack of the vicious wiener dog & other life lessons

Today was a lovely sunny summer day. I did as people sometimes do on days like this: I went for a walk. I encountered other people walking and smiling along the way, and an unusually large number of them said hello in passing. I saw mountains and tall trees off in the distance. It was all very pleasant. In the context of all this pleasantness, I also met a dachshund who was having none of me.

I walked along a sidewalk on the side of the street opposite this cantankerous hound’s house. He was in his yard with two children, the older of whom looked to be about five years old. When this dog --who, I learned later, answered to the name of Butters --saw me coming within 200 feet of his house, he began barking. When I was within 100 feet, he charged me, heading across the street and straight for my ankles. The five-year-old ran after him, out into the street, calling for him to stop.

Prepare yourself for the lesson learned.

Nothing happened.

Butters made it to my left ankle and sniffed my offered hand --the hand was offered both as reassurance I was no threat, and in case Butters decided to bite me, since it’s hard to get dogs off of a bare ankle. He backed off slowly while barking, making sure I knew he was still watching as I walked on. Neither the boy nor the dog got hit by a car. They both made it safely back to their yard.

The child’s mother --the owner of the dog --called to them from the sidewalk of the next house over. “Butters,” she called with that sort of half-hearted admonishment that stands in for an asschewing nowadays. “Honey, don’t run into the street,” she called to her son from where she stood (she had been conversing with the neighbor --and she went back to her conversation immediately).

Nothing happened.

And it had barely registered with the person responsible for the small dog and the young child that nothing happened, and that it was a very lucky thing nothing had. Nothing happened in spite of what she had done, not because of anything she had done.

The conditions were these:

• Butters, a ferocious sausage-shaped beastie, was on the loose. This was not my first encounter with Butters, it must be said, but it was my closest. Butters is ferocious and very, very brave and has a tendency to try to chase people off.
• A five-year-old was in charge of Butters, and without the benefit of a fence or a leash.
• They live right on a street with passing cars --the only barrier between the yard and the street being a sidewalk.
• If the five-year-old had ever been taught prior to today not to run into the street, it was not immediately obvious.
• It would be impossible to teach Butters not to run into the street because nobody tells Butters what to do.

Many times, we set up conditions similar to these in our lives, so I have no room to criticize. We react rather than being proactive. It’s hard to be proactive. I would argue, though, it’s harder to be reactive.

It’d be far easier to put Butters on a leash, for example, if we know how Butters is, than to have to take him to the vet after he’s hit by a car. It makes no sense to hope he would spontaneously decide, “You know what? I don’t really feel like protecting the family today.” In my own life, an equivalent situation would be buying ice cream and thinking I can do moderation. I can, but it’s not likely. If it’s really a problem, I don’t bring home ice cream. N.B.: A dog being hit by a car is way worse than the damage I can do to a carton of ice cream. I understand this.

It’d be far easier to talk to a five-year-old about what he should do if Butters charges into the street, and maybe practice ahead of time not running into the street after Butters, than to ...you get where I’m going with that, based on the example above. I hate to mention that as a possibility, even if it is. A less-traumatic equivalent in my own life would be the fire and lockdown drills we do at school every month. Preparing won’t make the real situation happen, but if it happens, we will know what to do and it’s easier to inhibit a panicked response.

And a larger lesson than all the preachy, preachy proactivity: today was a lovely sunny summer day. I encountered an unusually large number of people who said hello in passing. I saw mountains and tall trees while I was out walking. Butters taught me a lesson, and no one got hurt. It was all very pleasant.


  

the writer's lament

Felt like writing, but I'm not quite up to the play I'm working on (made it to the end of Act One --hooray!). A very bad habit of mine that isn't so very bad is writing something else in the meantime.

Last night, it was a newspaper article on interspecies dating (if indeed socks are considered a species). Today, I feel like improvising a rhyming poem. 

Isn't all writing improvisation? Why yes, it is. But I'm going to write without editing too much --just to keep loose. I use formal structures when I want to have a clear beginning and end to what I am doing. Also, the structure helps give me direction so I don't wander too far off.

So, here we go: I'll do a villanelle, since I like them. Trying to find two rhymes that have to continue over that many lines is a challenge I enjoy. It's also one of the first poem types I wrote when I started writing again after a decade or two.

Starting at 11:46 AM PST


The Writer's Lament

It cannot be but better said
Than I can say in poorly verse,
With naught but what's here in my head.

Perhaps I'll hide away in bed?
I might feel better --can't feel worse.
It cannot be but better said!

Calliope wants to be fed --
And here I have an empty purse,
with naught but what's here in my head.

What good is it to be well read
When every word sounds coarse and terse?
It cannot be but better said.

I feel the existential dread
Of drifting through the universe
With naught but what's here in my head.

A mind that's filled with molten lead
And echoes of a common curse:
"It cannot be but better said.
There's naught but what's here in my head."



End at 12:05 PM PST


Follow up: In my haste to finish the poem quickly and get it posted so I couldn't chicken out, I forgot to ask: what do you do to keep writing when you need a break from a longer piece of work?

let's talk about socks, baby: a human interest story

Where Do Lonely Socks Go? 

By AGNES BOOKBINDER  July 25, 2017

Seattle, WA -- Everyone has them: those socks who lose their pairs in the dryer. White cotton socks. Burly wool socks. Those 'tiny nylon socks that don't quite peek over the shoe' socks. Every day, across the United States, socks emerge from the dryer, sad and alone and looking for their mates.

Chester Toefungus (yes, that is his real name, but no, his parents didn't name him that --he just really loves his job) of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle has developed a way for these foot coverings to feel less alone in the world: Internet dating. His new company, Puppets 'n' People, matches single socks that have lost their pair in the dryer and have been converted into sock puppets  with single people who also have trouble finding mates.

"When the socks come to me, they are very lonely and without purpose. I mean, no one wants to wear only one sock at a time, and mismatched socks just look bad. Here, they are lovingly converted into puppets with personality," Mr. Toefungus explains. "Linda adds little things they might be missing, to make them more puppet-like --button eyes, things like that. And when they're done, we use my special algorithm to match them with their appropriate human mates. Extroverts get matched with pinks with silver stars and rainbows with unicorns, introverts get matched with more understated blues and greys, and so on. So far, so good, & business is up."

Customer satisfaction is said to be near 100%, although this is based on anecdotes Mr. Toefungus and Linda shared over coffee, and it could not be verified. No customers wanted to go on record as being happy with their matches, but Mr. Toefungus reports at least three weddings alone set for this weekend. Only one incident has been reported where a missing pair has found its way back from wherever they go when they get lost and things got awkward --Mr. Toefungus says, in general, both socks and humans alike are satisfied with their new matches.

"Nothing brings me more contentment than knowing two lonely souls have been brought together. Although I feel for the socks who have lost their loved ones to home appliance mishaps, I look forward to continuing to bring joy into sock's and people's lives in the future."

work

Here it is --a quiet Monday, and I'm not at work. 

In case you are wondering, I work in the public schools and it is summer vacation. For those of you reading who may not be aware what educators actually do, you may be thinking, "Lazy. Why don't you get a REAL job? And why do you get paid so much when you don't have to work summers like the rest of us?" 

I earn every single moment of my summers (and incidentally, I only get paid for 9 months worth of work, thank you very much --they just spread it out over 12 months for me). During the school year, I usually work six days a week. It is not unheard of to spend 12 or more hours a day at work during the work week. During that time, I am responsible for all kinds of things I won't describe here, but I've talked about elsewhere on this blog. 

My paid work is physically exhausting. It is cognitively and emotionally challenging. I do get some wonderful non-monetary rewards for my efforts, but it's still labor.

In addition to that work, I am also trying to be a generally artsy-fartsy type (because I enjoy it, I have found), a halfway-decent person, and not the worst mother in the world. All of these require time and effort. 

I recently came across the book The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman. I was trapped on a plane for several hours. It was there, I was there ...one thing led to another. You know how it is. I didn't get a chance to finish it, but I did put a good dent in it, getting halfway through. It was enlightening, or at least made me think a little. I have plans to finish it, although according to the book, plans can be counterproductive. I want to finish it --we'll see how it goes.

There is something in my head that compels me to make things. Moments when I could be quiet, my head swells up with plans and ideas. Sometimes my fingers get itchy to move, sometimes it's my whole body. I give myself work to do. As The Antidote discussed, when we do this, it's at the cost of quiet and, potentially, peace of mind.

Thinking about it, though, there is nothing wrong with working hard, as long as it is done purposefully and in balance with being quiet and receptive to other things. The longer I live, the more I think I may have a purpose (although what it is, I have no idea). I have a direction I'd like to head. Whether I make it to whatever that thing is off in the distance is not up to me, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to move my feet towards over there. I'll just make sure to remember to breathe and take breaks to look around in the process.

So work. 

On a day I am not at work, I am at work. I have given myself work to do. Today, however, for the first time in a long time when not on vacation, I am also going to make time to give myself nothing to do.

Here's hoping you give yourself time for both, too. I have a feeling it'll be a good thing.

lessons from recent travels

Flight over Baffin Island, Canada

The stones of Castlerigg

I am a very fortunate person --before writing anything else, I should say that. That is not meant in a prideful way. That is meant in a way that I have had an opportunity recently that is special, and I recognize it as such.

I went on vacation.

Not everyone has the opportunity to travel for vacation. It is not something I can make a habit of doing, but I don't regret the time or expense.

The places: Rosslyn Chapel, Alnwick Castle, the Isle of Iona, St. Conan's Kirk, Borrowdale, Arthur's Seat, ...

The people: family, friends, strangers, an owl named Merlin (owls are people, too), ...

The events: visiting a Poison Garden; driving one-lane roads and laughing about flamboyant party turkeys; getting trapped by cows in Northumberland on the way to Hadrian's Wall; living in a converted pub that must have been haunted by someone named Jonathan (it's the only possible explanation as to how we could have lost Scrabble so badly); ...   

I could describe it all, but I wouldn't be able to capture those little moments and surprises in a concise way. I will be using some of it in writing for months to come (oh, so many ideas!) by trying to recall the sensations and looking up the details I can't remember. At the moment, though, I am a bit weepy because I miss it. Words are hard to come by, so pictures ...

Edinburgh through the window

Along the road through Honister Pass

Sunshine in the Highlands

Contemplating philosophy and shiny toes

Everything old is new again

The waters off Fionnphort, Isle of Mull

As it says along the A83, Rest And Be Thankful. I have and I am.