Category Archives: Non Sequitur Thursday

Writing About Not Writing About Boston Legal

I’m really wishing I had saved Nosferatu and the Flowers for today, because it would have made such a nice Non-Sequitur Thursday post.  Now here I am with nothing.  Additionally, Boston Legal is on the television.  I haven’t seen that show in years and I love it!  I don’t have one of those streaming services where I can just binge watch shows t my leisure.  I have to depend on finding re-runs on cable.  Anybody opening their mouth to snort, “First world problems” can just shut up.  I am not complaining; I am delighted to have found this show.  I was merely explaining my situation.

I wrote that first paragraph during a commercial break.  Another good thing about cable television: long commercial breaks.  Some people do not see this as an advantage, but sometimes it can be quite handy.  One can take a bathroom break or go get a snack.  Some commercial breaks are long enough to do both.  Score!  I know, if you are watching a DVD for example, you can hit pause, but then you have to find a good leaving off place and sometimes I am just not that decisive.  In your more advanced cable services, you can pause live television and doesn’t that make you feel like you’ve gone back to the future! (Michael J. Fox is guesting on Boston Legal, by the way).

The other thing I am wishing is that I was writing about this in the TV Journal.  I have made only sporadic entries in our TV Journal lately.  I mean to get better about that.  I mean to get better about writing in general.  You may have noticed, I’m having the damnedest time with it lately.  I started earlier to write about that, because after all, writing about not writing is still writing, but quite frankly, I am tired about writing about not writing.  I want to get back to just writing.

Probably a good start for that would be to turn off the television.  Well, maybe I could just watch the rest of this episode of Boston Legal first…

 

No Thunder, No Horror, Two Dogs

My intention was to run and make a Running Commentary post.  I did run.  I ran for 30 minutes. Now I am just too damn tired to write about it.  Well, maybe I can manage a paragraph or two.

The weather report this morning called for scattered rain with occasional thunderstorms this afternoon.  I was not concerned about that.  I figured I could run in place on the mini-tramp.  While I ran, I would watch  the silent movie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore. I just finished reading a biography of John Barrymore, and I have that movie in one of my DVD horror collections.  Doesn’t that sound awesome?  Watching an old horror movie with a thunderstorm going on outside.  That would rock!

AAAaaand, no thunderstorm.  Not even any rain.  It was, in fact, pretty good weather to run outdoors.  It was warm enough for shorts and short sleeves, and cloudy enough not to be too hot.  I actually prefer running outdoors to running on the mini-tramp, even with something good on TV.  I did not even have to talk myself into it (or avoid talking myself out of it).  I had gone two days without running and did not want to make it three.  I even have it in my head to see how many days in a row I can run, starting today.  I’ll let you know how that works out.

So I ran and it did not go too badly.  It went slowly, or rather I went slowly.  I petted two dogs, both being walked by the same person.  They were beautiful animals, a red retriever (that’s not right; what is the red kind called?) and a German shepherd (this is really going to bug me, what are those red retrievers called?) (Wait a minute!  They’re not retrievers at all: they are Irish Setters!) (what a moron I am!).

Incidentally, still working on having my act together, I had a load of laundry in the washer while I ran.  I feel I should just mention, however, that the room I was determined to clean up a little at a time now is looking beautiful, thanks to the efforts of my husband, Steven and not to my meager exertions.

Speaking of meager exertions, I see I am over 350 words on this blog post.  My real Running Commentary posts tend to run longer than than, but I don’t think we can call this a Running Commentary.  However, I believe we can call it a blog post, and I declare that not too bad for a Non-Sequitur Thursday.

 

Losing My Lame Head

It is like a Friday for me, because I have tomorrow off.  Therefore, my mind wants to post lame.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I often want to post lame or not at all (not at all?  SAY IT AIN’T SO!!!) (it ain’t so; I always want to make a post).  On Fridays, I pretend I have an excuse.  On other days, I make up an excuse.  Or I make a foolish post and I have no excuse.

Sorry, folks, but I am tired today.  And sad and discouraged.  One of my favorite quotes, although I do not know who said it, is, “Courage comes in waves.  Hold out for the next shipment.”  I may even have the exact wording wrong, but isn’t it a good thought?  It kind of goes along with a saying of mine, “Sometimes you just have to feel that way till you don’t feel that way any more.”  And while I am feeling that way, there is no point in making a whiny, tiresome blog post, is there?

I had another rehearsal earlier for Who Shot JS? the murder mystery to benefit the Herkimer County Historical Society.  I last heard that a mere 10 tickets remain to be sold.  Woohoo! I want the event to be a success!  Rehearsals are going splendidly.  The mystery will be performed at the Herkimer Elks Club on Saturday, April 22 at 6 p.m..  Tickets are $20 and include dinner catered by Dominick Scalise of Herkimer with dessert from the Friendly Bake Shop in Frankfort. If any local readers want to try for one of the few tickets left, contact the Historical Society at 315-866-6413.

I was hoping I could think of something funny to say to amuse my readers, but I am blank.  I know!  I will end with a trivia quiz, stolen from a Facebook friend.  I knew the answer to this.  What movie ends with the following:

I wonder if I can talk Steven into watching it tonight!

Answer in tomorrow’s post!  Ooh, I like the suspense.  Maybe I’ll make a trivia quiz a weekly feature.  What do you think?

 

I Think Revivifying Is a Good Word

So I just had a cup of Oolong tea, thinking it was going to make everything better.  You see what I did just there:  I skipped all the whining about what needs to be made better.  Who wants to hear all that?  I don’t even want to type it.  Incidentally, by cup of tea, of course I mean mug.  I wanted enough tea to make a difference in my life. As I waited for the tea to steep, I started composing in my head either a blog post or Facebook status about how wonderful a hot cup of Oolong tea was.

Only it wasn’t.

Oh, it was a perfectly tasty cup of tea.  I enjoyed it.  However, it did not have the revivifying effect I sought.  Or as I usually put it, it was not the miracle I was hoping for.  And yet I must make my blog post before rehearsal for Who Shot JS? at six.  I guess it’s Non-Sequitur Thursday once again.

On lunch break at work today, I made a little progress on the blog post about the cheesy movie I mentioned yesterday.  In general I love to write about cheesy movies, or even regular movies.  Yesterday and today, however, I just wasn’t feeling it.  What the hell, me?  I turned some pages in the notebook (the spiral-bound, paper kind, not a computer) and wrote a couple of other things, but nothing for the blog. Sue me.

I just saw under “Trending” on Facebook that Don Rickles died.  That made me pretty sad.  I liked him. He was on an episode of Tales from the Crypt that I found quite entertaining.  And I used to watch that silly show CPO Sharkey.  Although I will say that I wonder what I would think of that show now.  I sometimes see re-runs of some of those shows I used to watch in the ’70s and I say, “Damn.”

OK, I have petered out of things to say and I can’t think of a headline.  Oh, what a long week this has been and how useless I have been the whole time!  I guess we can always hope for something better tomorrow.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

Earlier this evening, I wrote the following two paragraphs:

Is this Writer’s Block or a panic attack?

OK, I just wrote that, so it isn’t Writer’s Block, although maybe you could call it Write Anything Good Block.  I have to leave soon for rehearsal for He Laughed Himself to Death, the murder mystery to be presented at Morning Star Methodist Church April 1, and I’m afraid I am letting myself become overwhelmed with what-all I have to do.   How self-dramatizing of me.  Then again, with all the theatre I’m involved in, how can you blame me for being dramatic?  I know, I know, a time and a place.

Then I went to rehearsal, after deciding to get a grip on myself.  In my defense, it has been rather a dreadful week, and it seems to be taking forever.  However, I have plenty of blessing to count, and I must not discount them.  I have a daunting amount of things to get done, but I feel certain that if I can make the right plan, I can get most or all of them done.

As you see, I am in a better mood now.

Rehearsal went very well.  I think He Laughed Himself to Death is going to be a great success.  As we left rehearsal, Charity, the actress playing my daughter, called her father, Jerry, for a ride.  Jerry has agreed to be in Who Shot JS?, the murder mystery benefit for Herkimer County Historical Society April 22. Charity asked me to wait till her father got there, because he had to ask me something.  I thought it must be about rehearsals or rides or something.  When Jerry arrived, he got out of the car carrying a beautiful bouquet.  He thought I could use a little pick me up.

Do I have the sweetest friends or what?

So here is my reminder to myself to not surrender to these little panic attacks.  Just take a deep breath and go to rehearsal.  You just never know when a wonderful friend is going to give you a lovely surprise.  Thank you, Jerry.  And happy Thursday, readers.

I put them in water right away.

Nosferatu on Non-Sequitur Thursday

“I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

I am sitting here at my laptop, trying to come up with something suitable for a Non-Sequitur Thursday post, and I thought I would look through our downloaded pictures, to see if anything sparked a thought.  Nothing did, but I do like this picture of Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu, arguably the scariest movie every made (not that I want to argue about it; I always lose arguments).  I added the caption, or could you tell?

When I went to the Facebook page for Nosferatu, I immediately found another photo I liked:

Scary!

I find the shadows eerie.  I feel there is a profound point to be made here about no shadows without light.  I think it is something I ought to keep in mind when I write fiction.  I’m afraid I’m not up to profundity this evening.  Let’s bear that thought in mind though, light and shadow.  If anybody else would like to write a blog post about it, please comment with a link to it.  I would be happy to read such a post.

I’m thinking he did not bring her coffee.

This was my Facebook cover photo for a while.  I include it, because I like to have three pictures.  Three is a good number, and not just because of three wishes and third time’s the charm.  It has other connotations, like Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.  That, too, is a good subject for a future blog post.  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

Not the Same as Be-Bop

I think I am suffering from some form of anxiety.  Or do you suppose that’s just hypochondria or self-dramatizing?  Well, why wouldn’t I self-dramatize; I’m all into theatre, you know.

This is going to be a Non-Sequitur Thursday post.  I am going to just let my thoughts jump all around everywhere, type up what I can, think of a silly headline, and hit Publish.  I feel this is better than than taking a Blogger’s Sick Day, which was my first impulse (I think stress is as legitimate an excuse as a diagnosable physical ailment) (and isn’t “diagnosable” a word?  My computer seems to think it is not) (I can’t go get my dictionary now, that will only add to the stress).

Where was I?  Nowhere in particular, I suppose.  I spent most of the day at work pondering various plans for getting done all that I wanted to do before tonight’s pick-up rehearsal for Steel Magnolias at Ilion Little Theatre.  I formulated and discarded numerous scenarios, then came home and sat down going, “Heh-bee-be-buh-buh.”  You know, that sound you make when you just kind of fiddle your lower lip in wordless distress.

Me without words?  SAY IT AIN’T SO!!!

And, obviously, it is not so.  I am just over 200 words.  Score!  I call that a blog post!  Maybe I can come up with something better tomorrow, on Lame Post Friday.  After all, stranger things have happened.

 

Me, Me, Me, It’s All About ME!

I KNEW this was going to happen!  I did not make my blog post earlier and I don’t damn well feel like doing it now.  I just got home from final dress for Steel Magnolias at Ilion Little Theatre.  Fun times!  It looks like we got us a show!

I’m thinking today is Non-Sequitur Thursday.  Or maybe it could be Lame Post Friday, because it is my Friday.  I am taking a four day weekend to celebrate my delightful husband Steven’s birthday, which is tomorrow.  I have not gotten him enough presents, but perhaps he will not mind.  Maybe I could make him potato soup tomorrow.  Steven loves my potato soup, and I hardly ever make it.

I just paused in my writing to discuss with Steven our plans for tomorrow. He likes the potato soup idea.  Additionally, I got him one of those sampler cheese cakes, the mini kind.  I like cheese cake too.

Now I see that I have started every paragraph with “I” and was about to start this one the same way.  Yes, this is a personal blog, but still.  It seems a bit… excessive, although it does give me an idea for a silly headline.  And as regular readers know, Non-Sequitur Thursday is all about the headline.  Additionally, I see that I am over 200 words, which regular readers may recall is all I require of myself for a post.  I hope to see all you lovely people on Lame Post Friday.

 

A Slice of My Life

Sometimes I am too ill to write a blog post. Does it count if I am too depressed? I feel so self-indulgent even considering such a thing. Ooh, maybe this is a good lead.

That is what I just now posted on Facebook.  Almost before I had copied and pasted it here, a friend had commented that depression IS an illness.  I suppose I feel it counts for everybody but me.  You know, that thing many of us do that we treat our loved ones way better than we treat ourselves.  I know, a lot of people do the opposite, especially with physical indulgences.  However, I know a great many people who will put themselves down using terms they would NEVER employ when talking to a friend.  Just saying.

Where was I?  Ah yes, trying to make a Non-Sequitur Thursday post before I hurriedly get ready for rehearsal for Steel Magnolias at Ilion Little Theatre.  This is what I posted on Facebook earlier:

Here’s the problem: I have so much to do, I not only keep thinking I’m forgetting something, I keep forgetting what it was I was just about to do. Making a list does not help. I not only forget to put stuff on the list, I forget where I put the list!

To make this a true Non-Sequitur Thursday post, I should make a catchy headline that has little or nothing to do with the post.  What is this post about, anyways?  Not much, as is par for the course when I am involved in a show.  Right now I am involved in two shows and need to finish writing two more to begin working on them within the next two weeks.  Yikes!  Why do I do these things to myself?  Ah yes, refer to an earlier paragraph about treating others better than I treat myself.  And I’m not all that freaking nice to others, either!  Happy Thursday, everyone.

 

The Vagaries of Non-Sequitur Thursday

Well, now I’ve done it.  I sat here stressing over the fact that I CAN’T WRITE A POST TODAY (said in a dramatic voice, with a wrist to my forehead), and my sweet husband, Steven said that he wished I would not put myself through posting every day.  I said, “It’s just because I have rehearsal tonight.  I just have to stop doing PLAYS!”  Oh yeah, like that’s going to happen!

Thus adjured, I put my fingers on the keyboard and started typing.  I can’t stop posting every day, it’s what I do.  But I can’t let my husband feel upset because I am stressed.  So, as of right now, I am not stressed.  About the blog, at least.  I mean, let’s start small.

I just paused to eat a very delicious dinner that Steven fixed.  He really is a most satisfactory husband.

Earlier today I was pondering the vagaries of writing.  I have been having a difficult time lately, but earlier I sat down and wrote a page of dialog with very little problem.  It was part of Rubbed Out at Ruby’s, the interactive murder mystery LiFT Theatre Company is presenting at the Overlook Mansion in Little Falls in — yikes! –just a couple of weeks.  I thought to myself, “I can’t write, I can’t write, I can’t write, I sit down and write.”  For some reason I can’t just skip to the last step.

I just know that some of you are sitting there smirking, “Well, have you TRIED?”  Yes, I have.  In fact, most of the time I want to have at least a couple more rounds of “I can’t write, I can’t write” before “I sit down and write,” but I somehow manage to write.  Like right now.  Then again, perhaps that is not the best example, since this is just another of my foolish posts about I Can’t Write a Post Today.  Then again (I can have as many “again”s as I want; it’s not like “on the other hand,” where most of us only have two hands), today is Non-Sequitur Thursday.  If I can think of a punchy headline, I’m all set.

Hope to see you all on Lame Post Friday.