Do it

I woke early as usual this morning with a 55 degree temperature and 100% humidity. Dense fog was hanging low on the tops of the neighborhood fences. It had been a while since I have been out on a weekend run and I had been fearful of attempting it with all the health concerns that had penetrated my brain. Somehow, all the reasons I could muster to avoid running where out there for the taking. I shuffled the why I shouldn’t go out reasons like cards and it seemed I had a full house if I wanted to play that hand. I didn’t think I wanted to play that hand. I wanted to go out but felt I needed to make some type of compromise.
“Okay, you. If you are planning on going out there, you need to make it a walk. You can go with your 3 mile route in the neighborhood with the goal to only walk and if you feel the slightest bit of dizziness or light-headedness, you stop, rest and come back.”
So I had a goal – walk 3 miles. I wish I could say I achieved it but I didn’t.
I started by attempting to avoid my desire to go out and tried to occupy my early morning time by sitting in front of my computer to give me a diversion. It was still slightly dark and the fog was really intense. It was colder than I would like. Give it some time. I knew I would have to dress accordingly but that wasn’t a problem. Besides, I am only walking. I can wear my black Nike crop running pants and my long sleeved top. I thought about it and checked another web site. I checked a link to a bowling league site belonging to a friend of mine. I had been given an honorary T-shirt of the team and had it hanging in my closet. I knew the site never updates before Tuesday but I was stalling and thought I could figure out more of the numbers posted from last week that I never quite understand since I don’t bowl. I was surprised to see the most recent numbers were posted and they were in first place! Oh! I checked again since I wasn’t sure but, yes, it seemed it was…points won, pins +HDCP, team ave, high game…all higher than any other teams – First Place!
Then the thought, shuffle those reason cards again…fog…this honorary t-shirt is primary red. I could wear that to deflect the fog. I am going to walk. My honorary team is in first place and I’m sitting here doing nothing. Not a chance.  No more sitting around.

My goal was to walk 3 miles. I got dressed, plugged myself in to my iPod and went out the door. I started out, up the street and tried to pick up my pace. I tried. I tried to keep walking. I was out there, it was good, but I couldn’t keep walking.

No. I started out really wanting to walk the 3 miles and I couldn’t.

I ran the rest of the way.
 
TT

No biggie

I wasn’t giving much thought to what people kept on their desks at work. I hadn’t really noticed how much or how little people put out on display. When I took the time to look around I realized there are some individuals that keep their areas stock piled with all kinds of things. There are some that have a multitude of personal paraphernalia. I am not talking about a picture of their kids or family but an entire extravaganza of documented, catalogued vacation trips and souvenirs.

Some keep things that are entirely work-related but have managed to collect every type of office product available and have them on top of their desks. These individuals usually also have more products to staying organized than would be humanly possible to keep up with in order to stay organized. It kind of defeats the purpose. I thought, anyway. Besides, how do you even find anything under all the pictures and souvenirs from vacations past? I don’t know. It’s not my desk.

And no, it isn’t my desk. But what started all of this was someone pointed out things on my desk. Things I had not noticed myself. I don’t keep a lot of anything on my desk. It is pretty bare minimum. I had not consciously noticed the things I have on my desk.

I don’t have pictures of anyone on my desk. The only souvenirs I have are two small items that were brought back to me from other peoples trips and the only office products I have is the usual stapler, hole-punch, and post-it notes.

“Everything you have on your desk is so small!” they pointed out.

They went on to inventory the items laid out in front of me. I use an X61 ThinkPad laptop at work. It has a 9 ½” screen. I do not have a monitor.  I use just the laptop. I had a monitor but I felt like I was at the drive-in movie when I used it so I had them take it away.

I use a pocket size planner.

My iPod is always on my desk.

I use a 5 x 3 spiral memo pad instead of a steno pad.

Then it was pointed out how small I write.

And that I drive a small car.

I don’t know the hidden meanings to any of this. I don’t think I want to dive into the reasons of all the smallness. I am going to take it as just observations. Really, believe me; I am not going to think about what all the small items mean. Don’t think I will dwell on it. I won't.  It's not something I will spend any time on thinking about.  It wasn’t anything I did consciously so it’s no big deal.  No.

But there doesn’t seem to be anything big involved here anywhere, does there?  Alright, maybe I will wonder what that means just a bit.

TT

Shhh! listen

I am an extremely good listener. When other people need to talk I seem to have a way to make them feel comfortable and I can really hear what they are saying. You would never know that about me from reading any of these posts. How could you? I am doing all the talking here.
But I am and it is actually my preference to listen to someone else then to keep hearing myself go on and on. I can do that too…the going on and on. Believe me; I can see the eyes glaze over and the need for cracking fingers and necks when I’ve gone too far on asking what I can do better about writing.  But I can’t see that from here and monitoring myself is a tough job when I am here alone.
So the fact that I have talked my head off in this blog and not said a thing can be distressing for me. It seems distressing today and then I’ll get words clogged up in my head again and I will have that need for them to come out and spill across the page. And I’ll accomplish my 500 word average a day and go on from there.
I was trying to get some perspective on my behavior of talking so much about writing by reading some blog posts inside a story publishing web page that were interesting. The majority of writers with recent posts were talking about the difficulties they were having. Most writers were apologizing for not posting by a time frame they had previously promised. Some wrote about unexpected delays that had come up in their personal life to delay a chapter and one wondered if anyone had noticed how they were making everything possessive lately and if they had noticed to let her know. One admitted his surprise to find how difficult it really is to try and get words organized and put something out that has a flow or makes sense. I can totally agree and maybe I need to read more of those posts every now and again. It is good to see how some of the things I am feeling are quite common.
So I guess I stopped going on and on long enough to listen to others going through the same thing. It was good to hear.

Told you I was a good listener.  Now I need to work on the compliments.
TT

November oh three

It was total coincidence that I was scrolling through my sent emails yesterday.  I was looking for an address of someone at an outside location that I needed to contact for work.  I came across this poem I had written in 2007 that I had sent to an out-of-town friend of mine.  I will re-post the poem here just for fun. 

T’was the Saturday after Halloween
And I needed to dash
Across the street to the grocers
To exchange food for cash

I left unsuspecting
My simple abode
To make a quick trip
It would be a light load

When just as I entered
The front of the store
I heard the one sound
That’d put an end to this chore

I listened more closely
And yes, could it be
They’re playing Christmas Carols
On November oh three (11/03)!

You’ve got to be kidding
Must be a mistake
What happened to Thanksgiving?
Its 80 degrees, for Christ’s sake

I pulled out my cell phone
But who do I call?
My spouse knows I’m crazy
This will add to it all

So I dialed a quick number
Of a friend I know well
I know she will tell me
I’m going straight to hell

But this is so off
It’s not even funny
It’s amazing the things
Some will do for the money

This isn’t about Christmas,
Religion or sharing
The obvious intent,
Well to me, it was glaring

How dare they play music?
So early in the season
The enormity of their greed
Has got to be the reason

So I left a quick voicemail
Which she may never return
But it calmed me enough
To ease my quick burn

I stormed to the checkout
And made quick of my work
Whoever was responsible
Was certainly a jerk

I had cut my trip short
And maybe more didn’t stay
Because that Christmas season music
Wasn’t playing the next day!

My out-of-town friend had sent me an email back with wonderful compliments that I managed to discount and not remember until I re-read them yesterday. I have no idea why I can't seem to take a compliment. She had certainly given me an extraordinary one.  I mentioned it yesterday to another friend (actually the one that I had left the voicemail for in the poem) and she agreed.  Her actual words were..."yes, you have a hard time with that."
I wonder what piece of me is missing that I can't let myself accept them.
But that aside...I hope you enjoyed the poem.  I do remember it being fun putting it together.

TT

Not coffee time

The daylight saving time change to fall back has me in my normal disrupted state. It doesn’t seem to matter if I gain an hour or lose an hour; I manage to stumble through an entire week without knowing what time it is. I have had the eerie feeling of I’m awake so it must be time to get up when it’s an hour earlier than I should. But then I’m up and dressed and ready to go.
So that is why I am here this morning. This is just another morning of having more time. I write in the mornings (and the evenings) but you usually don’t see that post (if you see it at all) until a day, two days later. I have a feeling that this morning you will get another real time deal. I mean it is only 5:53 am at this moment, I am dressed and ready to walk out the door and I have a paragraph of whiny complaining done already.
And today I have even more time since I have an appointment at 9:00. First thing I did when I got out of bed was go to make coffee. That isn’t a big move away from my routine but this morning I was pouring the water in and realized I can’t have coffee this morning! This appointment involves more blood work to be done for this crazy anemia I am suffering through, which means fasting, which means no coffee, no nothing, nada. So I’m up earlier than usual, I can’t have coffee, the appointment isn’t until 9:00 and I not only have to do blood work but an EKG and a chest x-ray, so it will be – hmmm – what do you guess…11:00 before I am out of there.
Then find the nearest Starbucks and you can bet they will ask if I need room for cream when I order my Venti black coffee. Just wait…I know they will. Then I have to see if I am able to find my way out of there because I always somehow get turned around and go in the wrong direction. I know the area but it always happens I go down the right street but headed in the wrong direction for where I need to go. At least it isn’t raining. I wonder if it will start raining about 9:00.
I could spend some extra time reading but the book I picked up isn’t that good. It was a suggested book that I unfortunately will need to give a poor review to the person that suggested it to me. I guess it’s an okay book if I was an adolescent male teenager but somehow I know the fully grown man that suggested it to me won’t be thrilled to hear that. Well, what? I gave it a shot, didn’t I? I am planning on finishing it. Maybe the book will change my mind by the end.
And yes…enough...the end.
And all that without a drop of coffee.
TT

Dreaming

For some reason I was thinking about dreams. I am not talking about the kind of dreams where I am asleep and have this movie going on in my head. I am not talking about the kind where that movie happens and I wake and try to figure out what it was all about. Not those. I haven’t had those lately or I don’t ever seem to remember them if I do. I am not sure why. I can speculate that it might be that I have so much going on in my head when I am awake that there isn’t any room left when I am sleeping. But that is just pure speculation. I don’t know why I don’t dream or why I don’t seem to remember them if I do.
I was thinking more of the other types of dreams, waking dreams, wishes and hopes. The kind that is something I can see sort of hazy, out there in my future somewhere. I am talking about the kind of dreams that I would like to have or aspire to at some point in the distance.
Maybe it is an odd thing to be thinking about but maybe not so much as the year wraps up and winds down. The time when everyone starts to think about what they want to do for the coming year. I am just always a little ahead of myself, that’s all.
I guess I was thinking how hard it is to make that dream out there in the hazy future into something real. It is the kind of thing that always seems to float out of reach. It seems I am softly pushing it away as I reach for it so it always stays those same safe paces away. I know these are things I really want but it is so hard to break them out of the dream box they are contained in once you get them close enough. It is so much safer to leave them in their own packaging. They are so nice and perfect there. How do I get them out of their hard shell and make it something truly mine that I can feel and see with my own hands and eyes.
It isn’t easy. It is much easier to leave them in the hazy distance to wish and admire and think how perfect they could be.
But it is only when I reach out and grab and smash it into reality that I find the goodies inside so well hidden and protected.
I have to smash through. The prize is not always what I might expect.
But it proves a prize just the same if I can find the courage to try and not just dream at arms length.
TT

Morning November

Here it is November 1st. My phone says it's 6:21 am and now that I glance down into the small right hand corner of my laptop it agrees. My other clocks in the house tried to say seven such but they don't automatically reset. So I am here in real time flipping another page over on the calendar and creeping around in the dark on a coldish Sunday morning after Halloween.
Actually I just checked the weather and it's too cold for me right now...it says 46 degrees...BUT...it should warm to a nice 76 or so. If it keeps its promise to be sunny it will turn into a nice day. I am hoping for a weather repeat of yesterday which was nice by the afternoon.
And yesterday would certainly be a nice repeat, not just weather wise. I got a few things done without burrowing myself all alone in solitary all day at home. I managed to dial the phone and talk to a dear friend I had neglected to say hello to in too long a while. It was the first good move of the day and not five minutes after that call, Dante phoned me and had just finished getting a tire patched and was begging breakfast. He came over and we managed to lose track of time for most of the morning and half the afternoon. We managed to run errands from post office, to bank, to eye doctor's office. I am replacing the prescription lenses on my frames. I found it isn't a good idea to store emery boards in your eye glasses case if you put your glasses in there too. Duh.
Then we hit the book store...Dante was a little disgruntled with me on that one...he said it was an unplanned stop and he knows how I can get lost in a bookstore. I explained I needed a book. I had finished my entire stash and had found and read a Dick Francis that I somehow had missed. Dante doesn't know Dick Francis but my friend on the phone would. But I needed a new book and I was allowed to get one, which I picked up in record time. Then since Target was across the way, we stopped there to pick up candy to give out at our respective houses in the evening. We shopped a while and looked at the small desks they had. Dante is thinking about getting one since he now has room in this new house he is sharing with his brother. We compared a few and it's amazing how they actually carry an affordable Thomasville brand that has some quality and not just particle board for a reasonable price.
So, yesterday was good for me. It was good from start to finish and all the things that happened in between.
And now I am looking at another new month. If the weather warms up as it should I might be brave enough to walk my neighborhood route.
That might be good for me too.
TT