don't know

Never, ever, ever. It's just not going to happen.

235 dollars, US

So, because of my lousy AOL connection I lost $235 to my credit card company. Good thing for AOL that I have low readership here. I may change the name of this blog to "Only When I Can Log In."

How did I lose $235? I made a credit card payment twice because the lousy AOL connection never confirmed reciept of my payment. So I did it again when I got to work where I have a high speed, rock solid connection. The credit card company can't give me back my money because it wasn't a bank error. The bank can't give me back my money because the credit card company already has it and I said they could have it.

How does that work?

Nothing is as annoying as not being able to log in to AOL or stay logged in. I doubt it's me. I've been logging in since last fall and in February weird things started happening. Sometimes it takes 3 attempts to dial in. I've had access with companies smaller than AOL and NEVER had the problems I do with AOL. How does that work? A larger company should give better service. Or?

Anyway, I'm not letting that situation stop me from writing. Hooray! One thing that won't stop me.

It's raining. This is when I most feel like writing. When I was younger it was when I most felt like reading. I longed for a window seat with heavy velvet curtains so I could snuggle in, read and gaze occasionally at the pounding rain and slate clouds. I have a definite picture in mind of how this seat looks, where it is (in a paneled library), what part of the room it is in, and what it looks out on. This picture is so specific I feel I must have been there once, where ever it is.

It's odd how sometimes I look around at a place and instantly feel bonded, like I've been there before and it belongs to me. Instant emotional attachment. How does that work?

Now another thing is happening that I love. The sun is shining through the heavy air at an angle (it's almost sunset). The rain is sparkling on my living room window, birds are chirping and the sky is partially lit. Trees are in partial shadow with spots of bright yellow. It's like being inside a box and slowly lifting the lid. Very dramatic.

I'm not an emotional person -- well, I'm not a super expressive person -- but I sure like emotionally charged pictures. Maybe it depends on the emotion?

Blooming Cherries and Bill Viola

This photo is of the blooming cherry tree in front of my house. It makes these fluffy, pink pom-poms. I didn't know that it would do that when I bought the house so it's a bonus.

Those of you with high speed connections will want to zoom over to Bill Viola's site and watch the video, "The Making of Emergence." The rest of you will need to journey to actual sites where Bill's work is being shown. It's well worth it. Try looking at life in a different way. It sure works for me.

ten minutes

Today bloody nose. I got most of it but some of leaked onto my red top, which had a lacy top layer so the blood didn't show and nothing stuck because the fabric was artificial. So I scratched it off when it dried.

Yesterday I made the unfortunate choice of wearing a thin, taupe sweater that readily showed the outline of my nipples at certain inopportune moments. I like the sweater. It's made of some strange fabric and it smells industrial but in a good way. It's light and comfortable and has an artsy cut to it. Too bad it's also only semi-opaque.

It's been hell the last two days. Work has been tense for me. I'm not used to being surrounded.

The weather is totally great. I should post a photo of my blooming cherry tree. It's fully bloomed out right now. This evening I sat under it for 20 mintues just admiring it.

those lost two days

it's not so easy to write everyday or at least not easy to publish 10-20 minutes of writing every day. The last two days I just couldn't find the time to write. I'm dating. Maybe that explains it.

Anyway, the eight days are up. I need a particular time and place to write. Having a regular schedule really helps.

day 6

Three attempts before logged into AOL. Slow connection.

I envisioned one 10-20 minute writing experience every 24 hours when I decided to try this for 8 days. What I'm doing is fitting in the writing whenever I can each day -- so in some cases it's less than 24 hours and in other cases more. I feel like I'm cheating.

I've already done my writing for the day. It's off line and I'm not publishing it here. It's nonsense. While writing that nonsense it occurred to me how easily some people get offended by nonsense. It scares them. Life is nonsense. The sense is in your head. If you can't organize it then maybe you should try harder.

more day 5, continued

Forgot to mention - logged into AOL on first try today. Yippee!!

more day 5

My answers to questions posted in a Yahoo group I belong to: .....................................

1. Are you married, attached, single? -- Single. Two exes: previously attached for 11 years with a marriage and 14 years without it. Currently dating single men over 45. Sorry. I prefer maturity.
   
2. Do you have kids? Gender? Ages? -- three children: son 25, son 22, daughter 21
   
3. What part of the country (or what country) do you live in? (be as specific as you feel comfortable with) -- Virginia in the fair city of Richmond where we have the best river bar none.
   
4. What do you do mainly in life? (job, hobbies, school, travel, etc.)
   -- graphic designer by day; artist and writer and poet at other times; like hiking with my dog by the river; into sunny beaches with salt water; Apple evangelist (but in a good way); love all kinds of music. recently discovered hip-hop after watching that totally great movie "Honey"; read a lot mostly detective/mystery, sci fi and fantasy
   
5. What would like to be doing mainly in life?
   -- living off my lottery winnings and using the money to build my craft (see hobbies) and research social/psychological issue for the betterment of humanity and to satisfy my curiosity
   
6. What would like to do on a Friday/Saturday night if you could be doing anything?
   -- time travelling in parallel universes
   
7. What is your favorite cause or major source of spiritual or personal fulfillment (this is not to get into political social discussions that result in fights, just to know each other) (Note, if you have kids, we know they are probably top of the list, so then what after your kids)
   --- spirituality is my major source of fullfillment. seriously plagued with self actualization activities.
   
8. What's under your bed? (This is a joke one. Long time list residents know that a whole lot of us have dust bunnies under our beds and I almost made that a requirment to be on the list)
   -- Dust jackets? and a cricket.
   
9. If there is a question you wish I had asked, ask and answer it (we did this on the recent job interview). They hated that. It was the question I was given to ask, so I changed it to "is there anything else about yourself you would like us to know".
   --- My dog's name is Pip. He's my rescue project from the pound and on most days his rescuing is perfect. He's part shepard, part chow and part terrier -- all the best parts.
   I'm an INTJ.

..................................................
I think that counts as writing.

day 5

irritable more than angry not because of guy on phone

day 4

Let's review: I wear contacts because I have a vision problem that needs correction. I can see quite clearly from here to the computer screen and from here to the window. However, I have difficulties seeing clearly in any other range. I also have astigmatism so I wear shaped lenses that need to be attached to my eye in a particular way in order to function optimally. Are we all clear now?

There's a mark on each lens that indicates which end goes down, or in other words which part of the circle should be attached at the bottom of my eye. The mark is a short line that look a lot like a scratch. It's about 1/3 of millimeter long. Before I put the lens in, I'm supposed to hold it up to a light and figure out where the mark is and then insert the lens so it fits exactly right. Right! I tried it a couple of mornings. Uh huh. After twisting and turning the lens in various lights to see the mark, I then have to turn it to position it correctly on my finger so I can put it in my eye. Right again. You try to see something with bad eyesight that even to a person with perfect eyesight has difficulty seeing, then take that floppy, soft, small, clear, hard to see object and turn in on your wet finger and try to get it to stay on the finger while you turn it and then get it to release the finger and go into your eye. (There may be a magic word involved that makes the lens stay on your finger until you need to release it into your eye. Where's Hermione when you need her?)

I don't care about the stupid line anymore. I just pop the lenses in and let them adjust themselves. It works fine and I'm going to tell the optician where he can stick his instructions when I see him next year. I may also write a snide letter to the lens manufacturer.

It's cold and dark and rainy. What happened to spring?

My spell checker recognizes Hermione. Now that's magic!

Day 3

What happened to day 2? I was out of town and didn't take the time to log on and write. It was Easter at Mom's. What can I say?

Well, this wil not be 10 minutes but it will be time spent writing. Back to the routine (?) tomorrow. For sure. Uh huh.

Easter is like a mini Christmas. Same theme only lower key and less presents. It revolves around family, mostly, like Christmas and like Christmas bears almost no resemblance to the basic premise of the holiday.

Oh well.

It was cold and rainy. Okay with me but I wasn't prepared for it. Took wrong type of clothing. Fortunately Mom lets me borrow her stuff. A little big but they keep me warm. Pip (dog) loves the beach. Managed a short walk before the storm. Got more beach glass for my collection.

Well, that's it. Time to move on to other life.

just noticeably different

I'm going to try something different. Instead of making a private stream of consciousness blog, I'm going to journal here. The trick of this will be getting online everyday and, possibly, finding the time, although that should be the easy part since I'm only committing to ten minutes, minimum and 20, max.

To start, let me offer a link to an online writing class from the AOL campus. Okay, let me start by offering a link to an online art class. Nope, wrong again. It's harder than it looks to just find a class. I suppose I could do a search but then I'd be here too long and I do have a day job.

Whatever! I'll give this a shot for 8 days and see if it's a good or bad thing. The "Morning Pages" (see Julia Cameron's, "The Artist Way") are supposed to be private and while my readership is low, this isn't really the same thing. I've done "Morning Pages" for over 3 years continuously and longer than that uncontinously so it might be time for me to try something completely different. Or maybe just noticeably different.

Meanwhile, back to classes online. Don't search on "writing" it brings up 645 classes, many of them not about how to write. Oh, silly me. Right there on the home page in the bottom right corner of the list is a whole section called "Writing." I've selected "Creative." Okay, that's better. There's a wonderful list. "Accelerated Creative Writing" looks good, but today I'm going with "Basics of Fiction Writing (Level 1)" (24/7 access - learn to write at 3 a.m.). I feel for sure I am beyond this level having taken English at the college level and Creative Writing in high school, but I could still learn something.

Hey! Take a look at the description for "Accelerated Creative Writing"! It's me!

working

Okay. Well here's another fun AOLism. I had a grey square covering the fields that I normally fill in when I blog (subject, mood). Also there's no word wrap so I have this one long line.

I haven't added any entries lately because my AOL connection only lets me on for about 2 minutes at a time and I have to keep logging in to download all my 200 junk emails. So no time to journal.

I am writing daily now, following the idea of "The Artist's Way." I do about 10-20 minutes. I can't believe what a difference it makes to sit down and just write the first thing that comes into my head. My attidtude is better, I have more energy and I like myself better. Who would have thought all that can come from 10-20 minutes of nonsense? Not me. But it works.

So, buy the book, and work the exercises. If you don't work the exercises you miss 90% of the point of the book.