AltNaNo!

 Well, I found this thing on Tumblr, and it occurred to me that if I want to get serious about blogging again I need to start doing something like this.

I've, always admired people that do NaNoWriMo every year, but I did question how people do it. I've actually been writing off and on since I was a little kid, and I couldn't write an entire novel in one month! 50, 000 words. Are some of them actually playing with the numbers? I can't fault them if they do, but it does make you wonder.

So my task this month is to write for 15 minutes a day, and to keep myself honest I will post it here every day. I have now gone past today's goal of 100 words, and now I'm just writing to fill up the 15 minutes...

...Six minutes, 45 seconds to go...what can I write at the end? I have some plans to re-establish my writing habits, let's see if this helps.

A little over five minutes...so one of my plans was to use this blog as the "sandbox" and post the cream of my writing on Substack, I have a couple of ideas about some stuff to write there. I even have plans to write a small ebook in the somewhat near future.

...Three minutes. This last bit is not as good as I'd like it to be, but at least I'm putting pen to paper...every minute that goes by, I'm at a loss for ideas...maybe I can write about having no ideas.

What can I write for one minute? Do I feel like an author now?

10 seconds...

9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Stuff You Need to Be Cool in Delaware

1. A Corvette

2. Driving shades

3. A garage

The presence of item #2 entails the idea of driving *music*, which I find to be very important.

This raises the question, what DOES the president listen to when he’s driving? Does he play Credence or the Stones? Probably nothing heavier than that.

I don’t think he’s a Metallica guy, I can’t see him blasting “Master of Puppets" out his car window, but “Midnight Rambler" might be something he’d have on his playlist.

The Greatest Book That's Not the Bible

 My favorite book of all time, the one that shaped who I am *before* I read the Bible and had my world turned around, is “Harriet the Spy", by Louise Fitzhugh.

You open that book up, on the first page, this girl is PLANNING A CITY. You can’t get more “grab the reader & run with them" than that.

I was introduced to this book at a very early age, in the summer school session, after first grade when we had JUST learned to read. Ms. McClain, a feminist if there ever was one, read it to us.

Something about Harriet affected me deeply, and I wanted to do everything she did. She didn’t care about dressing like everyone else, she wasn’t messing around with learning ballroom dancing, she considered her after school activities to be very serious work, and most importantly, she was very serious about writing. And I think if that 11 year old had grown up during the sixties and was still alive today, she’d most likely still be writing.

After I’d had this read to me, I found my own copy and read it voraciously. I took up the habit of keeping a notebook, just like Harriet, and tried to be very serious about my own inner life and habits.

Now that I’m a “grownup", I don’t have that same kind of steady drive to forward an agenda, I have moments that come in little spurts, like this.

Writing Practice

 Working thru a book called “Anybody Can Write” by Roberta Jean Ryan, & thought I’d share this one exercise about #writing misconceptions. Interestingly, these can also apply to Tweeting, or even sharing the Gospel:

• Writing is only for when you have the time.

• Writing is for people who have something “interesting” to say.

• Writing is only for people w/beliefs & values that are “nice” & coincide w/the majority of people.

• You have to be very well educated (in very special schools) to be a writer.

• You should only be a writer if you have something EVERYONE wants to read. The NYT bestseller list should be your only goal.

#writing

Not a Fan of BookTok

 At least not currently. I use TikTok as a before-going-to-sleep thing, so I mainly just look at stuff that’s relevant to me as an internet consumer: Adam Driver stuff, Christian stuff, planners, drawing, creative writing stuff, and such. So I do a lot of ForYou page scrolling.

I don’t delve too deep into BookTok, because they read stuff I don’t really wanna read, too much contemporary fiction, which I mostly don’t like. I mostly like nonfiction, history, biographies of writers and other artists, actors, politicians and other famous people. Philosophy, feminism,  how to stuff.

I did manage to find one BookTok-er I like, Margo Harrison, who is an author and  vlogs about the old school YA from the 70s that I enjoyed as a kid–it seems like no one else is talking about that stuff, they’re all pimping stuff that just came out. Talk about making $$ for the publishing corporations, I’m sure they LOVE BookTok.

And there is apparently a deep dislike on BookTok for the classics, of course the old woke objections to Old Dead White Guys, but they overlook the fact that a lot of women and people of color were writing back in the day, a lot of gay people, and in so clinging to these objections they miss out on a lot of great stuff.

But there is a HUGE backlash against the classics on BookTok, to the point where anyone that suggests they read them is roundly attacked. What they’re getting wrong, in my opinion, is that clinging to current reads only can only serve the publishing industry,  which is a much bigger enemy to the rank and file reader than any other random BookTok-er will ever be.

I’ve been a fairly voracious reader since I learned how to read. When I was a child, I taught another child how to read, which was a great highlight of my childhood. I don’t have any college English credentials, but I was a professional bookseller for a few years.

Trip on BART

 I always enjoy taking BART. I live down in the BA Peninsula, which is no slouch when it comes to things to do and places to go and scenic surroundings while you're there, but sometimes there are events that take you a little further from home.

Always a bus trip to get there, me being a long time public transit person, I am pretty good at knowing how to catch a bus from anywhere to anywhere.

Get to the BART station, and you must start being aware of your surroundings. I once was almost pushed out of the turnstile by a fare-jumper. Unfortunately crime can occur any time, and it does seem to be getting worse. Choose where to stand and wait, choose your seat carefully, and once you're seated you pretty much don't need to worry about being bothered.

One thing I always try to remember is to carry cotton balls in an Altoids tin for my ears, because it can get loud on the train. Almost right away, you're going through a tunnel, and the trip is under way. The car darkens a bit, and you can see your reflection in the window. Now is the time to check your hair.

A good long train ride always gives you time to get a lot of reading/writing done, and I always make sure to bring something to read and a journal. This is so pleasant I often think how nice it would be to just spend all day going back and forth on the train. If I was rich that would be one thing I'd do.

Crazy Idea

 Here's a crazy idea: just stop with the Oscars already.

Stop with the pomp and pageantry, stop with the ridiculous outfits (looking at you, Timothy Chalamet) stop with the cheesy music numbers and just cancel the Oscars from ever happening again.

Instead just have a little stretch of red carpet, put Adam Driver in a tux and just have him walk up and down. For the guys you could get Jessica Chastain.

Have somebody that knows what they're doing greet them and ask them a few questions about their latest movies.

Then put them up on stage and have them each read the phone book for five minutes.

That's really all I can't take any more, please.

Once again, the World Wide Web…

 So, new things are going on with me in the whole learning WebDev thing.

What’s going at this juncture is that since I am slightly disabled, with a pending hip replacement surgery, wt I have to do is have an onramp to employment where I don’t have to be on my feet (I also had bunionectomies on both feet–everything all came down on me, mobilitywise, over the past two years.)

I use a walker, and I’m not supposed to put any weight on one of my feet, so I stay in my room, looking at Twitter, and movies and YouTube and Udemy. I go to doctor appointments a lot, averaging about one every 10 days. I was in the hospital for the whole second half of the year of 2019–which means I have basically been in lockdown for two years now, a full six months longer than the Covid lockdown. Some people have been able to go back to the world in the past few months, I still have a ways to go.

Which means I NEED to get work that is remote, and I’m thinking becoming a junior web developer is my ticket. I actually have a lot of experience with HTML4, using that years ago I was able to build a pretty sophisticated website, considering it was ONLY HTML4.

Over lockdown I have been brushing up and working on learning the new stuff. It’s to where I have been updating my current website. Go ahead and check it out.

So I was looking for more things to learn and what I need to learn to get really good at this stuff again, and found a couple of things to get involved in. Not gonna name names here, because this is where I sort of become a complainy-pants.

I think people that are getting ready to learn the more complex stuff can very easily get flummoxed, and this has to do with the way people think it should be taught. I was taking a beginner online course, and they started off with PYTHON! There is nothing beginner level about Python. Python is related to building games and analyzing data, neither of which thing is building websites. And that’s what I want to do, build websites. Not just any websites, but static websites that can also be responsive (don’t know if that’s possible, but both things interest me.)

I know that I have to learn more advanced HTML5, and CSS, and Javascript, amongst other things. I have a place that I’m at in my studying, and I want to get involved in discussions or groups, but I went to one tonight and first the code editor didn’t work, then I went to look in one of the forums, and a newbie’s question was being answered by advanced people who threw around terms like “JQuery”, and “C+” and “C++.” Nobody knows what those are, dude.

It’s tough, because if you don’t know what you want to learn about, you can get very easily confused, and I think a lot of people are in that stage. Also, if you aren’t sure how your own mind works regarding how you best learn, you can be really jacked around. And it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but this would be an explanation of why many give up on learning to code.

I’m not going to, though.

Interesting Realization

 I want to write the way great movie directors directed.

Stanley Kubrick: Maybe he made his actors run through 40 takes, but he got what he wanted on film.

Tarantino: Didn't have a lot of money, but got people to believe in his projects.

Hitchcock: Wasn't well liked, thought of as a weirdo, but made some compelling films.

Orson Welles: Not a favorite of Hollywood executives, but had a loyal stable of actors that wanted to work for him.

Halston

 Binge-watching that Halston series on Netflix (soooo good!!!) Late 60s to Disco era. Sent me looking on YouTube for perfume reviews. When I get rich, I want to wear original Halston scent, which you can get at Marshall's and Gucci Premier which can be gotten at Sephora.

This put me in mind of my favorite perfume, Red Door. I once went into Niemann Marcus in the City (2024--what with all the businesses closing in San Francisco, I had to check, and yes, as of this posting, it's still there) with some of my church friends (we were having a girl's day out.)

I went straight to the perfume counter and and asked and asked if they carried Red Door. The lady said, in a perfect plummy Philipina accent, "That is Elizabeth Arden, you can find it at Macy's."

When I started getting interested in makeup and stuff, Macy's was the place to go--Clinique was the brand. It was also the place where you saw the very interesting Italian men at the fragrance counter.

All of a sudden, I had an attack of nostalgia for those times--why hadn't I tried to cultivate that side of myself when I was a teenager, like other girls? I should never have put so much energy into another person at the cost of developing my own personality.

Stream of Consciousness

 A new dawn, a new day. He is risen, hallelujah. Easter afternoon. Many things to do.

Fog lifting from coming off pain meds. New agenda, get ready for life–the proverbial “new normal”, which is going to be what?

New job? New home? Will people get in my way again? What will the people on the outside be like?

What to do to get ready? Be ready for anything. Get writing again. Get working again. Get learning again.

This will be you when it is you. People have blown themselves to pieces (Goodbye, Hunter! Goodbye Kurt!)

I’m not going to pieces, I’m just just going up to Daly City. Or down to Burlingame. Depends on the weather. Go someplace nice and live some life, find a peaceful backdrop, and be, actually very un-gonzo.

This is what it is, and this is where it’s at. Downtown, me and Petula Clark. Pizza or Chinese food.

And whether it is, or it isn’t, I’ll be there. Doing all the things, whatever. Clean, pressed, my reading glasses, my notebook, my phone, bible, what else I need for a hunting trip?

No community. I’ll report in, when I can. A missive from an out of the way Chinese restaurant. Something bright and daylight in my heart.

No Flowers For Your Gun...

 I’m going on I think my 3rd re-watch of Girls and I’ve arrived at season 2, episode 1: It’s About Time. Wherein Sackler has gotten hit by the truck, because he was standing in the middle of the road, engrossed in telling Hannah off about everything he thinks is wrong with her.  I really love Girls more than part of me thinks I should, and stuff like this is why. Because it puts me through stuff that’s good for me as a woman to think about.  I normally wouldn’t even watch this kind of show, but of course I was drawn there, red-blooded American human that I am, by Adam Driver. Who I am pretty sure (if I’m right) and would like to believe (if I’m wrong) is NOTHING like Adam Sackler.  I normally hate shows like this with a passion, actually, because all they represent to me is women of immense privilege, acting really really dumb, which is something that causes me to cringe a lot.  Here in this episode, for instance, Hannah is hooking up with a token black Republican. I’m kind of politically conservative myself, but if I were a left-leaner, why on EARTH would I be fucking a Republican? It makes no sense.   Republicans being usually more socially conservative, casual sex outside of marriage doesn’t make any sense either, so one of the things we are dealing with here is Hollywood’s campaign to program young adults into not caring enough about meaning and sense to stop rutting like animals.  At the same time, even as a Christian, I wanna say I get the whole thing about the sex. Adam Sackler is hawt, even though he’s irritating, and no one should put up with a guy treating them like that.  I’ve arrived at the place in the episode where Sackler is laid up, and Hannah is helping him to pee, bringing his pills and whatnot. He’s telling her, he’s ok with there being no labels, and still has the nerve to talk about LOVE.  She’s coming here to her ex’s place even though she’s with someone else right now, and taking care of him out of guilt, even though he himself told her not to do anything from guilt, even though he wouldn’t let her in the ambulance and told the guy she was a monster…  And I’m glad she told him, “Well, it’s not your choice, it’s MY choice!”  Here’s some other stuff I wish she would have said:  “So you go hard on commitment, and you TOLD me that? But yet you tell me you FINALLY LOVE ME, or whatever, but then decided to TAKE THAT AWAY because I’m DOING IT WRONG for some reason?   On what planet is that love, Adam? Why can’t you think about everything I’VE done, and changed over in myself, and set aside my dreams and plans about who I am and what I wanna do, in order to be your slut? Is that not worth anything? And I’ve been happy to be the “woman without a label” in your life because it was what YOU wanted, even when I DIDN’T want it anymore.”  Also, season 2, episode 3, Bad Friend:  “When did you eat jerky?”  Best fucking question ever.  #AdamSackler #Girls

Hospital Thoughts

 The gal in the other bed across from mine has been moaning in pain for at least 2 hours now. Always a moan, never quite a scream, sometimes a spontaneous cry, but never quite making it there.

This reminds me of a bizarre thought I have when I hear children crying– I always secretly wish for them to cry absolutely as hard as they can, maybe because I want to punish the parent of this squalling child. I also have a vague feeling that their cry is somehow my own.

I don’t feel this way about the woman across the hospital room though, so maybe it only applies to children. There is something more visceral about a child’s cry.

She is quieting down now, perhaps to finally get to sleep.

I have been here forever, it seems like. She is groaning again.

Bullet Journaling

 

The Preparation
The What: All kinds of pens, meticulously tested and reviewed (even watching YouTube videos –about a $2.00 pen, go figure!) Every paper binding device I could get my hands on (just saying “notebook” doesn’t convey it.)
I’ve been piling up these supplies recently, even getting a job at a big box store to gain greater access to the stuff (The number of writing implements I have now is beyond insane.) Hanging out in the papercraft aisle at Michael’s, Dollar Tree, and other places, wandering around like a zombie, staring at colored paper and tape as if it were the Holy Grail.
The Why: Some kind of idea about being organized! “I will be organized this year!” I vowed to the cashier at Staples as I purchased what amounted to a deluxe starter kit of Arc notebook system stuff, which is ironic, because that particular Arc notebook is sitting on a shelf, not being very organized at all. I have a hole in my heart and I must fill it with magic paper.
Where the Two Come Together: I am a Bullet Journal-er, and because I am also interested in writing I have gone at this fad to an almost psychotic degree. When I first started learning about this, something in me balked at the idea of a hobby where you just put bits of colored paper onto other bits of colored paper. Now, after God knows how many YouTube videos, Facebook groups, and Instagram pictures, I am convinced I do have something in common with the people who want a way to track, decorate, and document their life journey in whatever paper binding device they find pleasing, whether it’s a glitzy Filofax or a Dollar Tree Moleskine dupe.
And this satisfied feeling is what it all boils down to, as I finish this post, the rough draft of which was worked out on paper, and now chills out in the “Goals” section of my planner. I’m going to be blogging my way through Ryder Carroll’s book, and actually covering a lot of different task areas in doing so. Very satisfying.

Journal Exercise

The written word, whether reading or writing it myself, has been important to me since I first learned about it in grade school.

Teachers thankfully chose good material to read to us, Harriet the Spy, Charlotte’s Web, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH stand out as memorable. As soon as I learned to write I was keeping a journal. On a couple of occasions it was found and read by people who shouldn’t have read it, but such are the risks of early literary efforts.

Extracurricular books and notebooks during class time were later an unauthorized pleasure I engaged in, much to the chagrin of my teachers. Nothing they were teaching was half as important as what I was reading. I remember Stephen King’s original edition of The Stand being one of my constant companions during this time.

In my teen years, I branched further into writing my own stuff, mostly embarrassing poetry. I also remember a class where we were reading The Ox-Bow Incident, the semester ending with a showing of the movie, which was a disappointment even though it starred Harry Morgan and Henry Fonda.

During these years, my writing got fairly decent, and I gave myself enough practice to really enjoy it, even if I don’t always have time any more.

Smells Like Extreme Teen Spirit

So, here's an interesting feature of Open Library, probably one of my favorite websites of all time.




Oh, the possibilities...

My Current Quiet Time Routine

As soon as I get up (usually, let's be honest here):

1. Go to Bible Gateway and get the latest verse of the day. Write it down, add my prayerful response to this verse. (This takes roughly seven to ten minutes. If I'm pressed for time, have to hustle to work, I save the next steps for when I'm on the bus...)
2. Ask God for wisdom, and read the day 's section in whatever Bible reading plan I'm going through. As I read, the Holy Spirit will prompt me to pay special attention and linger over various passages. These I write down. 
3. When I finish the day's section, I will sometimes get prompted to look up a specific topic in my Thompson Chain bible, and read the related verses.
4. I reread and pray back to God the verses He gave me that day, then I spend some time praying for the day, problems, needs of family and friends.

This process takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour. As I said, sometimes I'm doing the second part of this plan while on the bus, or I'm praying while walking to and from the bus.

This is one reason I like taking the bus, it's pretty much guaranteed alone time. If I'm praying under my breath, no one seems to take notice of another weirdo chattering to themselves on the bus, which there are usually one or two on every bus in my area anyway.

Quick and Dirty DIY Bible Tabs

This was something I did with my big purple Adventure Kid's Bible, it seemed like the kind of thing that needed colorful tabs.

I think I was probably watching True Detective or something while I did this, I remember the TV being on. Just using regular graph paper I laid out a grid of colored squares with abbreviations of bible book titles on them. I had checked and knew they would be the right size to fit from the edge of the page to the edge of the cover.  Some bibles give you a lot of cover, some don't.

I then cut these into strips, then snipped each tab off individually as I was ready to use it.

On the far left here you can see how these were attached, simply with transparent tape. I made these to be specifically the width of scotch tape, which is exactly three quarters of an inch. Basically you adhere your tape to the bottom side of the page first, then, with a flap of tape sticky side up sticking out, you lay your tab on top, butting it right up to the edge of the page. You then fold the tape flap over, adhering it to the top of the tab and the page, rubbing any air bubbles out carefully.

You start out with Revelation or the Concordance/Index, whichever's at the end of your bible. In this way, you will then be able to tell where to place your next tab for the book of Jude, directly to the left of the one before it. You then proceed in like fashion until your bible is finished.

Took awhile, but it was worth it!

Feminist Fight Club

Was deeply disappointed recently with comedian Laurie Kilmartin. It seems she thinks a great way to register disagreement with other women on the interwebs is to insist that they need to "stick a dick in their vagina".

I had such high hopes for you, funny lady! Not only a pretty good comic, but I felt solidarity with you over the recent loss of your dad and such. I don't know if you consider yourself a feminist, but I feel you have now disqualified yourself here.

1. First rule of Feminist Fight Club: No one needs to stick a dick in their vagina!
2. Second rule of Feminist Fight Club: No one needs to stick a dick in their vagina!

And the Sickness Unto...

So, I'm not quite out of the woods yet, but I'm fighting my way out of a week long flu-like illness. I don't get sick like this often, but when I do it can be pretty intense.

When I get sick like this, I get as close to being suicidal as I can, because I have really weird scary dreams. There was one with monster blockhead alien beings (there is a video on YouTube somewhere of me in a chat room, talking about a monster alien dream, which is kinda hilarious, but I think it's the same guys.) And they were like, "THE DEATH TRUCKS ARE HERE."  And I'm like, "Holy crap, DEATH!"

Thankfully, there was one dream that was funny enough to cancel that one out.  Prince was in it, His Royal Purpleness Himself, standing behind a keyboard. And he was looking at me with that look he gave to Kanye that time, and telling me, "Don't look, seriously, you won't like it."  And all of a sudden there was some kind of weird porn in my face (that I really didn't wanna look at.)

And I guess the meaning of that dream was Prince ain't gonna steer anybody wrong.

Also, his music will rip yer face off.