Slow down and hurry up about it

The bus pulled into its stop at the QueenVictoria Building like a pebble is pulled down a giant shoreline under the sucking force of the ocean. Modern life itself was the force dragging the bus toward the tyre-blackened kerb. The busy people with their schedules and their tasks, the complicit bus schedule pushing to deliver loads of shoppers and workers, the monotonous traffic lights blindly and unwittingly winking two and four-wheeled machines across overcrowded asphalt pathways and the blurry black and white buildings are all symptomatic of today’s everyday pace. The blurry black and white monuments – like Queen Victoria sitting quietly and perseveringly as if no one has remembered her reign. These buildings and monuments are blurry and black and white because everyone is much too rushed and tunnel-visioned to discern them. All that money and all those advertising ideas and the time spent to place all these signs scattered all over the cityscape, only to become merely a blur as well, rushing past and escaping our senses in a single streak. Look up in the sky! It’s a catchy slogan! It’s a distracting image! It’s a…sorry, you’ve lost me. I’m too busy to read your sign. 

I slow down and take it all in. I purposely slow down and observe the details in the buildings, this window arch here and that appealing detail there. Hello, Queen Victoria. I am looking at her and acknowledge her expression and the staff she is holding, the tilt of her head and cold expression in her fixed eyes. What are you pondering? Is it sadness for what has become? I slow it all down. I saw her move. I have turned the slow cooker dial to the on position, I’ve jettisoned the Big Mac and now properly seep in the details of life and actually absorb all that is around me. I am in notice-mode now, but you are too hastened to notice my notice-mode. Nature skips out from its lonely corners to greet me with a smile – the sun’s golden hues, an infiltrating breeze and the newly painted sky embrace me and I’m at one with this trio in a brief moment of worship, the bus seat my pew. 

I slow it all down.  

I should slow it all down quickly, though, as I have to get off at the next bus stop and hurry to work or risk arriving late.

Where are you?

Steve: Hello, are you there?

Steph: No, I’m here. How about you? Are you there?

Steve: No, I’m here, too.

Steph: Well, someone has to be there. We can’t both be here, because that would mean both of us are at the same place at the same time – and clearly we are not. Why can’t your here be there and my here still be here?

Steve: Because my here is not there, it’s here. If I was there I wouldn’t be here. But, I am here so it has to be here. Why can’t your here be there?

Steph: Because I’m still here, too. So, I can’t be there either.

Steve: What about if I combined my here with your here? Then we could both be here at the same time – we could have a sort of shared super here.

Steph: But, how would you get here to join your here with mine?

Steve: I wasn’t going to. I thought you could come here.

Steph: Okay. But if I leave here what will become of my here? What should I call it, what will it be?

Steve: Well, we could call it past here, somewhere else, previous here or not here.

Steph: No, those suggestions don’t sound too good to me. Somewhere else is not bad, but… I don’t know… a little vague perhaps?

Steve: Hang on a minute – I know! What about everywhere? If here is everywhere then we wouldn’t need to combine your here with mine. We could both be here at the same time because here would be everywhere.

Steph: If I was everywhere, I know I’d still be here but how would I know if you’re here, too, if I can’t see you? And you couldn’t see me?

Steve: It’s an abstract everywhere. You know. Like social media. Everyone is here together, they are everywhere. But no one is really there with anyone else.

Steph: Oh… 

Come back 'forenoon'

Whatever happened to the word forenoon? Where has it gone? Why don't we use it? Why did it go?

I think it's sad that this lovely word seems to have disappeared. We still use the word afternoon all the time, so why is forenoon not good enough now? I think afternoon is a bit lonely and overburdened. I think its head is spinning.

I know all languages change - and should change for their own good, for their own survival - still, what does forenoon's disappearance say about us? About how we live our lives? Have we all lost half our day, has it been consumed by modernity's sucking whirlpool and cracking pace and complexity? Is the time between dawn and midday, noon, twelve post meridiem just a blur these days, a haze of unrecognizable minutes? Is this first half of the day worthless and predetermined so by our fantastic culture and advanced civilization?

I might be a distant and feeble voice in the back of the room, but I miss you forenoon. I believe in you and wish you were back with us. And afternoon misses you, too, it misses its other half. The afternoon can only come if the forenoon precedes it. And the forenoon can only exist when the afternoon has once again passed. They need each other and offer us balance.

Here's one of my favorite quotes with a mention of the word forenoon. It's by Henry Thoreau, and I have a feeling he thought of and wrote down this quote some time between the sun rising and midday...in the forenoon you could say...

“If I should sell my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for.”

                                         

I've Decided

I've decided to relegate work - that is paid work, my job - to the category of 'optional'. As I solicitously cleaned my teeth tonight, I cleverly thought that from now on I'll just work when I feel like it. Turn up when it suits me, if ever. So that any other day I can now begin spending more time writing, and could write for longer. And write late at night, into the small hours - when I write my best - without caring about feeling too tired the next day. This way, I'll finish my two stories much quicker, thus allowing me to become a wealthy author (that assumes a lot) - in turn I could  then truly write for a living for the rest of my life.

The only thing I haven't fathomed is how to earn a decent living in the meantime.

Paula Deen - herself - now available at your local supermarket

Paula Deen story:  http://bit.ly/15v837x

After 11 years with the Food Network, Paula Deen has instructed you to take a 'cup of owwwul' and 'a stick of butter' for the last time.

The heavies at Food Network have told PD to POQ (Piss Off Quick). Apparently for racial slurs. The story also asserts that possibly an assortment of other touchy subjects for the Network have been simmering in Paula's pot for a while. Things are rarely simple in life, right?

Anyway, the title of this news story clearly states Paula has been "canned by Food Network". So, naturally we can only assume they have sliced 'n' diced PD and put her in a can to be available for sale on our supermarket shelves. The Food Network only hopes it will make as much money from Paula this way, as it did from her being on TV.

Open up and eat a can of Paula? Some might find her a little hard to digest - she could pass right through them. "From mah can to yerrrs"

Devastating news for America: Michele Bachmann won't be seeking re-election in 2014

Michele enlists the help of some friends to bury what she doesn't know about the American Constitution (look, here she is in the middle!).

They'll be digging for quite some time yet.

Oh, Michele. Pity you won't be running for re-election in 2014 - just like Sarah Palin before you, you generously gave the media so much to play with. You made it too easy.

And it's wonderful that Michele decided to write her memoir Core of Conviction (http://nyti.ms/168lfBC). Although, the only problem was that her editor (coincidentally also a Republican) missed a crucial spelling mistake. The title should have been Core of Convection --You see, Michele's original intention was a book  about her desire to share with America inspiring tips on how to maintain even oven temperatures in the act of being submissive to your husband, making him delicious home-cooked meals. I think Americans would've preferred to endure such basic tips, rather than a story about her life.

The Writing Process

Just write. Don't think too much. Dob't Don't correct, just write. Practice writing - keep practicing. Use and trust your own voice. Lose control when you're writing. Forget ego. Write even if you don't feel like it. Don't be abstract - write the real stuff; give details and be honest.

I think of something to write about and post on my writing blog as well as continue the two memoir stories I'm trying to write - with the time I haven't got. I draw and post my weekly (ok, sometimes it's not every week) cartoon. I log in to Twitter and Tweet my writing and cartoon blog posts, as if they are the most important and interesting Tweets in the world today. Spend some time "interacting" (isn't that what we do?) with others on Twitter. Look for and hope there's some activity about ME! Follow some people. Hope that my Followers number gets fatter and juicier. Do the same for Pinterest - although by "Pinning" and having a poke around.

OK.  How's my personal website looking? How can I improve it, make it more relevant and interesting to other people out there? It's still a freebie website. Should I take that leap and fork out for a paid one? Will that make me look more professional and accomplished?

Got to build this "writer's platform". Shit, I'll make this thing a huge bloody oil rig with the biggest platform pylons you've ever seen. A Texan-writer's platform.

Haven't had dinner yet and I'm getting hungry. At least my lame lunch for tomorrow - as every other day - of  a crunchy peanut butter and Nutella sandwich is made. Two pieces of fruit, a little ziplock bag (these bags never seem to lock in the easy "zip" action as promised - or am I just buying the crap brands?) of nuts and a yogurt join the sandwich sitting in a plastic shopping bag, lying in the refrigerator. I'll use this same shopping bag the whole week.

Better go prepare and eat dinner now.

I don't have a Facebook account. That's right, don't have one. Great, that's at least one "writing" thing I don't have to do tonight.