Category Archives: Lame Post Friday

SCORE!

Here I am on Lame Post Friday. I started to write something earlier, heavy on the half-baked philosophy. Didn’t finish it. I took my dog, Tabby, for a walk. I thought, this’ll be great; I’ll make lots of random observations. Not so much. And that’s supposed to be my Friday Lame Post: random observations and half-baked philosophy. So why is it that lately my Friday posts are merely lame?

Ooh, that sounds like a philosophical question (half-baked, of course). Maybe I’m back in business. Let us consider that question. In the first place, what makes a lame post? Perhaps my posts are in reality not so lame. It’s a judgement call after all. Why am I being so hard on myself anyways? Is it such a disaster if I do make a lame post or two (or ten or all of them, I KNOW, you don’t have to point that out)?

To answer those last two questions in reverse order: no, it is not a disaster, and because it is what I do. Well, today I am going to do something different. I am NOT going to give myself a hard time. I am making a nothing post and that is all there is to it.

I was about to say I’m not even going to worry if it is under 200 words, but I see I am over that, so SCORE!

Post from a Melted Brain

Unofficial end of summer, my ass. We’ve had two warm, humid days, the second REALLY warm and humid. What little brain I had has melted. Luckily for me it is Lame Post Friday.

I did write some today. Not a lot. But some. I don’t think it was very good, but one can’t be brilliant 24/7 (I know, some of you are maintaining that YOU certainly can while the others are snarking that I probably can’t be brilliant 1/1. What sarcastic imaginary readers I have).

I didn’t do anything besides go to work and come home. Nothing exciting happened on either ride. And I could not make myself go for a run on this hot, humid day. My God, I am PATHETIC! I’ve got to get a grip on myself!

These things happen in the writing life. We try to write, we find we cannot think of anything to say. Some of us sensibly put the computer away and clean the house or play solitaire. Some of us press on, determined to make that blog post every day. And we all know which group I fall into.

I fear I do too many of these I Can’t Write a Post Today posts. Could it be time for me to stop trying to post every day? Maybe try for three times a week? No, I can’t do that. I’ll just try to write more better posts (YES, I mean “more better,” let it go). I’ll start tomorrow. Happy Friday, everyone.

I Confess to Some Distress

Is it Lame Post Friday or Wrist to Forehead Friday? I confess to feeling some distress. But here’s some half-baked philosophy, in which I delight to indulge on Lame Post Friday: it rarely works to think “I ought to feel happy!”

Sometimes you can really jinx yourself earlier in the week by thinking, “I am going to be so happy on Friday.” It doesn’t have to be Friday. “I will be so happy when BLANK happens.” “When I am thin.” “When I finish that novel” (like that one’s going to happen any time soon). “When I am married.”

Wait a minute. I am married and in fact I am rather foolishly happy about it. Strike that last one.

My point is, I don’t think things necessarily MAKE us happy. Oh, I can hear the rude people saying now, “Well, DUH, everybody knows THINGS can’t make us happy.” Is that so? Then why did I see YOU wheeling around the local big box store with a cartload of crap?

Anyways, I’m not talking about objects. I thought I would be ecstatically happy on Friday because I have a three day weekend. Instead, I felt happy on Monday, because I knew that the three-day weekend was coming. That feeling lasted till the end of the work day, when I thought, “Crap! I still have four more days to get through!” Then I laughed at myself.

And that brings us to a philosophy of life which I have held for a while now: It is quite possible that nothing good will ever happen. BUT something funny will happen to make you laugh. Put another way: you can laugh or you can cry. Might as well laugh.

I think I’m in a better mood now. I’m going to get on with my weekend.

Hard Core Dithering

I knew I was going to run on Thursday. It was a foregone conclusion. I thought I would do a hard core run up the hill to Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) then do a short run or a long walk on Friday. My only worry was that it would rain. I could always jog in place on the mini-tramp, but there is nothing hard core about that.

As the end of my work day approached, I began to second-guess myself. As many of you know, that is pretty much what I do. Perhaps hard core was not the way to go. Perhaps I should be taking it easy even two days before the race. Then again, I would have a full day to recover. Maybe something in between hard core and taking it easy was the way to go. Yes, I am a hard core ditherer.

“Hey, who here runs?” I asked my co-worker who, I believe, knows everybody in the plant. He gave me a couple of names, but there was nobody I could seek out in the next hour. I explained my dilemma.

“So I don’t know if I should work out hard core or soft core or medium core,” I finished.

“Medium,” he advised. He further advised me to not merely walk my dog on Friday but to power walk, leaving the dog home if she does not like to power walk, which in fact she does not. He used to be a high school athletic coach, so his advice was no doubt good.

I confess I don’t know why I’m getting so exercised (so to speak) about a mere 5K. It’s not as if I think I’m going to win. While I pride myself on not walking, I do not hesitate to waste breath making silly jokes for the amusement of other runners, spectators and myself (at least somebody’s going to be amused). I run because I ENJOY running. There is no reason I should put myself under such stress.

The rain cleared up and it became quite the lovely afternoon. The sun shone, a breeze blew, it was unseasonably cool. A perfect afternoon for a run. My husband was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, my most favorite outfit to see him in.

I got ready to run, still dithering. Just before I went out the door, I looked in my running journal (I have a journal for everything) (I don’t really, but wouldn’t it be cool if I did?). The other two times I ran the DARE 5K I spent the week before running way shorter times than I am running now. I was going up the hill to HCCC, but my longest run was 33 minutes, not 47.

Well! It turns out I’m in GREAT shape for the DARE 5K, no matter which core I decided to run on Thursday! In fact, it turned out being between medium and hard. Perhaps I will write about it tomorrow. Today is Lame Post Friday, so I felt free to write about dithering.

Lame and Late

It is after 8 p.m. as I type this. I don’t know that I’ve ever written my blog post this late before, although perhaps I have. I knew earlier I would be late with this, but I wasn’t too worried. After all, it is Lame Post Friday. One might have thought I had a built-in title: Better Lame Than Never. That would have been good. Unfortunately, I already used it.

Just before I started typing, I looked it up, to be sure. Very instructive to read old posts. This one was from 2011. I felt encouraged at that time because I was approaching 200 blog posts. 200! What an amateur! Now I’m over 1100! Oh wait, I’m still an amateur. I’ve just written more blog posts.

Not that there is anything wrong with being an amateur. An amateur is one who does something for the love of it. I love writing my blog! Even when I can’t think of anything clever to say! Oh, I know, some people probably think I never say anything clever. Some people just gotta be that way.

I have been doing other writing today. I spent my lunch break writing a couple new scenes for my novel. I wrote more at the laundromat after work. Then I gave it up in a wave of lame. When I got home I worked on my article for Mohawk Valley Living. Oh, I don’t know if it will be good enough, but I will not bother you with my angst.

I see I am over 200 words. Time to come up with a punchy conclusion and dream about writing a better blog post tomorrow. Sad but true, I liked my post titled Better Lame Than Never better than this one. I should check back to this one 900 or so posts from now and see what I think then.

Novel Thoughts

Dammit, I can WRITE. I am an awesome writer! You would not BELIEVE the fiction that comes from these same fingers that are currently typing this Friday Lame Post. Wait a minute, I mean you WOULD believe it, because my characters are wonderful, and the story would carry you along.

I had thought NOT to have a Friday Lame Post this week since I have been not exactly non-lame for most of the rest of the week. I guess nobody believed that was going to happen, although who knows, it may someday. To that end (as well as for my fitness and weight-loss goals), I ran this morning. I fully intended to write a Running Commentary while at work. Well, let me explain what happened, starting yesterday.

I have mentioned the problems I have been having with the novel I am writing. It’s been at kind of a standstill, progressing at irregular dribs and drabs. Well-written dribs and drabs, I hope, but still. But my determination is unwavering and I persevere. I spend a good portion of every day at least THINKING about my plot and my characters. I come to very few conclusions.

Until yesterday. There I was, at my machine, hard at work, when two lines came to me, rather dramatic lines spoken by two characters who have previously had no interaction. I pondered them and found them to be good. I surreptitiously pulled out the little notebook I carry in my BDU pants and jotted them down. I pondered them more, where they were said, who else was there, what else was happening.

Then the buzzer rang for the two o’clock break. I ran to my full-size notebook and started writing like mad! That has not happened to me in YEARS! A co-worker made a sarcastic remark about my leaving my machine turned on. I went and turned it off. He made another couple of sarcastic remarks. I ignored them.

“Kind of busy here,” I said, which was not particularly well-received, but I was buried in the fiction by now and was unaware of further sarcastic remarks. It was great.

I’ll be damned if a similar thing didn’t happen to me today, on breaks and on lunchs. Perhaps the writing was a little less intense, but I liked it. I admit it wasn’t all good. I would write a scene, then think about it later, realize there was a better thing to happen, get to the next break and write a new, better scene. Oh, it was fun. This is the way writing was meant to be!

And so I didn’t write a blog post. And I’m not apologizing about it. I’m going to go back and work on my novel some more. When I finish it and publish it, you can read it and tell me if I wasn’t right to do so.

Do Something Lame

I shall never forget the sad morning when I thought to myself, “I wish it was Thursday instead of Wednesday.” Then I thought, “You idiot, it’s Tuesday.”

Thousands of Monday through Friday wage slaves are nodding wisely in agreement (hey, I MIGHT have 1,000s of readers. It could happen!). Others are shaking their heads in disparagement. I think the ones that annoy me most are those that smugly chirp, “Do something you love. You’ll never work a day in your life.”

I have to take exception to that. I can’t believe there is any job you love SO much that there is NEVER a day that you wouldn’t rather stay in bed an extra hour, go to the beach, stay home and watch old movies, whatever. Perhaps it is a matter of proportion. These people feel that as long as MOST days they are happy to get out of bed and go to their job, they can gloss over the occasional bout of Don’t Wanna. I can only say, “That’s nice for you; the rest of us work for a living.”

Well, what’s wrong with work anyways? Work is what gets us stuff. What else but work gives one the satisfaction of a job well done? May I point out that many of us spend much money and effort WORKING OUT?

I think it is a matter of definition (and not the definition your muscles get if you work out enough; that’s different). I quote Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer. Work consists of anything a body is obliged to do. Play consists of anything a body wants to do. (OK, I’m paraphrasing. I can’t quote, because I don’t have a copy of Tom Sawyer handy).

He’s got something there. Then again, there is the school of thought that says we always do what we want to do. For example, I don’t want to go to work, but I do want to get paid.

I think both schools of thought have a point, but quite frankly, it is not the way people talk and I for one am not going to begin talking that way at my age. I will continue to WORK on my novel, and insist that I am doing something even though I DON’T WANT TO. So there.

Does anybody remember what I was talking about? I think it was Friday. Today is Lame Post Friday, my favorite day for half-baked philosophy. Getting back to the “never work a day in your life” folks, I argue thusly: That sort of job is not easy to come by. In the meantime, I attempt to get at least some enjoyment out of every day. And I can’t imagine any job where the day before my day off is not a pretty darn good day.

Happy Friday, all.

Leave Katy Perry Alone!

For today’s Friday Lame Post, I offer some half-baked philosophy about something I saw on Facebook recently. This meme (they’re called “memes,” right?) showed a quote from Katy Perry saying she was reminded about how the angels were helping her. A drawing of a superior-looking woman offered the tart comment that apparently angels were not concerned about starving children in Asia; they had their hands full helping wealthy, pampered celebrities. Oh, these narcissistic entertainers!

At first glance, one is inclined to say, “That’s right! Shame on you, Katy Perry for invoking the angels. YOU don’t need any help!” Then I thought about it and I have to ask, what is she supposed to say? If, for example, she had said, “I’m so talented and awesome, I did all this MYSELF!” no doubt some people would be saying, “Katy Perry, you egotistical slut. Admit you had help!”

Why shouldn’t angels have helped Katy Perry? May I remind you that financial backers of Broadway shows are often called angels. I understand angels come in all shapes and sizes. I really can’t say who any given angel might choose to help.

Let’s get back to the starving children in Asia. Oh, and children in this country with cancer, and homeless pets and people, and all the other truly deserving causes we could name (naming them would take a whole blog post by itself). It would be nice if some angels would help some of those, wouldn’t it?

Waaaaait a minute (in that voice I use when pointing up a plot hole in a cheesy movie)! If angels come in all shapes and sizes, could it be that WE are the angels? I’m betting that any number of my readers already are. We support causes, give to charity, and encourage others to do the same. I daresay most of us don’t do all that we COULD do. For heavens’ sake, I’m a blog-writing factory worker, not Mother Theresa.

Not to be too gooily uplifting, but writing this post has reminded me that sometimes we are the answers to each others prayers. I will continue to look for more ways in which I can help. In the meantime, let’s leave Katy Perry alone.

To Half and to Half Not

Well it’s Lame Post Friday and I’ve never felt lamer. I just said that in a reply to a comment somebody made on yesterday’s post, which was also no great shakes. I do love my Lame Post Friday, but I must confess today’s is less delightful, because it is the last day of my week off. Um, I still have the weekend, so it doesn’t totally suck. But vacation is, sadly, drawing to a close. Perhaps I could muster some half-baked philosophy to lighten my mental burden (as regular readers know, this is my traditional day for random observations and half-baked philosophy).

That was a long first paragraph. Is anybody still reading? No matter, I write for my own entertainment as well.

I have had a rather pleasant week. Last year at this time I was dealing with a flooded basement. It was good that I had the week off to deal with it; bad that I had to spend my precious week off dealing with it. So the glass was half-full and half-empty. Hmmm, lots of halves today.

Thinking of halves, when you were a little kid, did you ever divide something into three halves? Then you found out that “half” meant two parts, so you got all superior when some other little kid divided something into three halves.

And that’s over 200 words. Sufficiently lame, I trust. Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

What if None of my Guesses are Right?

It does not matter how bad I have been all week, I cannot, I simply cannot be good on Lame Post Friday.

That statement just cries out for some half-baked philosophy on what is “good” and “bad.” In this context, apparently “good” is “good writing,” a manifestly subjective term. Although, I guess by “good” I must mean a blog post about something OTHER THAN the fact that I have nothing to write a blog post about. Something I wrote earlier today and, dare I say, edited. Maybe thought about. Maybe made a little bit “better” than something I just type off the cuff at the computer.

Well, here is my problem. Every time I write something foolish (like this, I hope), I get Likes from other bloggers. Apparently my writing off the cuff is extremely entertaining to some people. On the other hand, perhaps they merely hit “Like” because I have made them feel so much better about their own blogs because mine is so bad (note the absence of quotations this time). In any case, I have been encouraged in my folly.

My other problem is, it’s kind of fun to just sit here rattling on. Editing can be hard work. For one thing, unless it is really obvious which is the better way to say something, it leads to some very uncomfortable second guessing. I hate second guessing! For one thing, it very often turns out that none of my guesses are right.

I’m hoping for some running commentary tomorrow. In the meantime, happy Friday, everyone.