This morning when I stepped out into the yard, I was temporarily dumbstruck. There was a bright, sunny blue sky with floating clouds and about two inches of snow on the ground. When I got back from work last night, there was no inclination of any forthcoming precipitation. All the snow had seemingly dropped from nowhere.
I actually double checked my watch to make sure I hadn’t pulled a Rip Van Winkle, and missed a day.
So the news is I have snow to walk though on the way to work. I’m just gearing up for the day when I tell the great-grand kids about walking 15 miles just to work (because the distance will have stretched with the re-tellings over the years), frequently fighting semi-rabid coyotes over my peanut butter and sandwiches (“I need this protein more than you, you varmints”), and often getting to the paper and seeing that I was the only one who had carved his way through the glacier-like conditions and being forced to write, edit, and design the paper myself (even putting together the comics and crossword puzzles on my own).
“Great-grandpa needs to take his medication more often,” they will say to each other… and then go fly their rocket-moon cars to Pluto, or something like that.
Also while I’m on the topic of disconnected, way-out-there observations. I finally used up all the soap I’d hoarded during my initial two-week stay in a Rock Springs hotel. Just thought I’d mention it.
A Digression on What’s “To Come”
Music: “Up Around the Bend” by Creedance Clearwater RevivalOkay. My attention span is all over the place today, in case you hadn’t noticed, and if I can dangle something shiny in front of it for long enough, I ought to be able to come clean about a hinted at, but never directly explained component of this site.
Note: The management certainly doesn’t believe in full disclosure, that’s the type of thing that ruins a good surprise birthday party, but we do strive to shine a light on the behind the scenes process as much as we can.
On the weekly recaps, at the end of the summaries is a brief section that read, “To come.” It usually has a short section of teasers for future topics.
Those of you who compare what is mentioned as forthcoming and what often appears during the week, and I know some of you to take note of such things, have noticed there is often a discrepancy between the promises and the deliveries.
One could make the excuse that “to come” doesn’t specifically name a time frame for the post to be completed, but that’s deceptive in the light that it is meant to form a framework for the week’s posts.
When it comes down to it, the differences are all a matter of time.
When I had more time to write, as in when I was unemployed, I had the great luxury of sitting in front of a keyboard for several hours at a time. I guess I still do that today, but I have less control about what appears on the monitor than I used to.
The point is I could sometimes take the extra hour or two to pound out a post that wasn’t ready yet. If a writer’s block stumbled into the road, I had a greater ability to work around it, or even try to wait it out an see if the stone would remove itself (with, admittedly, mixed results).
I’ve long said I like to mill over ideas and let them mentally gestate. In the past, it was sometimes used as an excuse to delay sitting down at the keyboard.
A regularly repeated college conversation:
“Have you started working on your assignment.”
“Yep.”
“Have you started writing your assignment?”
“No.”
Still, I do spend lots of time mentally mulling over phrases, word arrangement, and other literary concerns before I put pen to paper or fingertips to the keypad.
Friends that I regularly converse with can back be up, for more than once I’ve admitted telling a story to help me gauge the way I’ll recount the story online. Certain jokes may be repeated (or deleted) based on the reaction.
I simply have a full brain. I tell people I have a semi-psychotic subconscious, but people don’t always believe me. I really am telling the truth when I say I am often simultaneously working on about a dozen ideas on any given day.
Topics currently traipsing around my mind include, but certainly aren’t limited to: robots, hobos, zombies, homesickness, Munich/the Oscars, the conclusion to the Valentine series, musical scales, bad dogs, mice, fires, and a nonsense short story.
I’ll tell you, it certainly makes for a rich dream life, I can tell you.
If I ever get a more private internet connection, which still looks to be a while, I will be able to follow through on more promised posts in a timely manner. I know it’s funny; I went from fretting about the sporadic nature of posts to thinking about the timeliness of pledged topics.
The management seeks to please.
That all being said, if you are interested to know how my Valentine’s Dinner ended, why I think my friend is a robot in disguise, and what I plan on doing to survive a zombie holocaust… check back next week… or the week after… I’ll let you know.
