Tag Archives: blogging

I’m Type O

Well, it is Lame Post Friday and instead of my brain coming up with the usual random observations and half-baked philosophy, all I can think of is a spare post I wrote earlier this week.

You see, Monday was an awesome writing day. At least, an awesome writing morning. I wrote Monday’s post, then I wrote my “About” (you know how these blogs always have an “About” you can click on. Well, I think ever since my blog started, mine has said, “Put stuff here to tell people about your blog.” In the “About” I wrote I even mentioned how long it took me to write it. I try to be upfront about my writing shortcomings).

After “About” I went on to the next page and wrote a Middle-aged Musings. My plan for that was to put it under Drafts and publish it when I needed something. I even thought of a good title, “In Case of Emergency, Hit Publish.”

All this writing pretty much took up all my ambition for the week. I have not typed either the “About” or the ICOE draft into my computer. Which is really too bad, because I have a feeling that tonight I am going to wish I could just hit Publish. Let that be a lesson to me.

That is what I wrote on breaks at work. Then I went to give blood (a blood drive at my work) after, as it turns out, not enough food to eat. Oh, it was not pretty (cue unkind remarks about how I’m not particularly anyways). I have done dirt to myself this way before, but today it was bad enough that I seriously worried at least one co-worker. She made a guy call the boss, who called the nurse, and oh, I do not want to talk about it. I was strongly advised to NOT donate to future workplace blood drives.

So a draft post I had merely to publish would have been welcome. Instead I typed in what I wrote earlier, as it was shorter than said post, and I will hit Publish now. And, as usual, I will try to do better tomorrow. Happy Friday, everyone.

In My Defense, It Still Hurts a Little

I mentioned recently that I don’t usually blog about work. I mentioned it in a post in which I told a story of something that happened at work. So just to get really post-post-ironic on you (I have no idea what that means, I just thought it sounded cool), here is another post about the work that I don’t usually blog about.

I had no handy topic for a post, so I thought to do something I used to do quite frequently: run and then write about that. Regular readers know I have not been running lately and have been beating myself up about it (which is not as good exercise as you might think). The weather was supposed to be warm. It would be great!

I am SO my own worst enemy. You see, I had a slight problem at work today. I was carrying a small pan when I tripped on a wooden pallet and twisted my ankle. Ouch! In fact, all I could do for about two minutes afterward was say, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” I am rarely articulate when in pain.

I finally was able to limp over to some co-workers, get some sympathy, inspect the ankle, then limp back to work. Soon the pain gave way to feeling really, really foolish. You see, on a pillar right near the pallet is a sign reading, “Caution: Tripping Hazard.” I first saw that sign months ago when they put it up and I laughed my head off (not literally, although that would have made a good blog post). Apparently somebody had tripped over a pallet and the safety guy made them put up the sign to warn others.

To add to the irony (I guess that’s taking a few steps back from my post-ironic stance of the first paragraph), a day or so after that, I tripped over something in another section. In my defense, what I tripped over had been left in a stupid place. That day I went around saying, “If ONLY there would have been a sign saying, ‘Caution: Tripping Hazard.'”

How the mighty have fallen (No, I don’t really think I’m mighty. It’s an expression. Sheesh!). In conclusion, my ankle is probably not sprained, but it is a little swollen and tender, so I opted not to run, but to write a silly blog post which will give some of you a chance to point and laugh (you know who you are).

Oh dear, I can just hear the naysayers I was complaining about in yesterday’s post saying, “Oh, sure, there’s always an excuse! You should have gone running anyways!” Come on, people! Cut me a break! Say I go running. Then what if I have to go into work tomorrow with my ankle the size of a balloon? “Well, you see, boss, I was following the advice of some purely hypothetical people who may or may not read my blog.”

No, I Don’t Have a Plan

I must check to be certain, but I believe last week I eschewed Non Sequitur Thursday, Lame Post Friday (cue jokes about all my posts being somewhat lame) and Wrist to Forehead Sunday. So today is Middle-aged Musings Monday, and anybody who doesn’t like it should stop reading now.

I’m not sure I like it much myself, now that I’m writing it, but I shall persevere. And I shall continue to refer to myself as middle-aged, because there is no reason to think that I will not live to be 98 years old (I can see some of you doing the math now; I had to). After all, I quit smoking, I exercise regularly and I only occasionally eat deep fried foods (at first I made a typo and said occaSINally. A Freudian slip? You be the judge).

Be that as it may, I have been musing over my life lately. I thought perhaps to use this post to outline a grand plan for at last getting organized and accomplishing my life’s goals, after first setting a few. Mind you, I do not actually have such a plan. I had hoped that if I started writing about it, one would magically appear, much the same way characters and plot points magically appear when I write fiction.

Then I remembered what a truly terrible idea it is to share plans of any kind with anybody. I have been more likely to meet with discouragement than otherwise. Career plans get, “Those jobs are hard to get” or “You need a lot of education for that.” Novel ideas get, “That’s been done,” often with an eye roll. General life organization plans get, “Will you actually do that?”

Does this happen to anybody else or is it just me? I suppose it is possible that all my plans happen to be stupid. Well, one can’t be good at everything. Maybe I’m just not good at having a plan.

I do seem to recall once meeting with a not discouraging response to a plan. I said I was going to write a romance novel, and the fellow I was talking with said, “Oh, are you thinking of writing?” in a casually interested tone of voice, as if it were not a completely ridiculous ambition.

“I’m always thinking of writing,” I said. “I’m just never writing.”

I never did write the romance novel, by the way, although I worked on one for a while. I would dress in a fancy nightgown with high heels and sip water from a champagne flute while I wrote. I later learned that many romance novelists work in sweats, drinking coffee out of a ceramic mug like a normal person. I think my way is more fun.

I’m still always thinking about writing. But now, thanks to the internet, I actually write every day (as you see). I think for a writer, a blog is a beautiful thing. I’m sure there are people out there ready to say things like, “You need to write more than just a blog to be a writer” or “There are so many people writing blogs, you’ll never amount to anything” or even “You blog isn’t really very good, you know.”

OK, nobody has been rude enough to say the last thing to me, and I think I said the first one to myself. And the person that said the middle one didn’t EXACTLY say I’d never amount to anything.

But let us not give ear to discouraging sayings. Let us make our plans, write our novels and our blogs, and feel good about it. It’s Monday. We have a whole week ahead of us. Let’s enjoy it (Oh, I can just hear somebody saying, “It’s not a WHOLE week; we’ve already had Sunday and Monday, you know.” Some people just have to be that way).

I Suppose It Actually Is Friday

Really, Wednesday was my Friday this week, but I didn’t post lame then, so I thought, “Hey! I can have Lame Post Friday today!”

As soon as I wrote that, I felt sure that some pedantic person out there is saying, “Stop with the ‘my Friday,’ ‘Not Really Friday’ already! Wednesday is Wednesday! Friday is Friday! And nobody wants to read your lame posts anyways!”

OK, it’s not some generic pedantic person out there, it is one of the many critics in my head. The fact is I don’t have a damn thing to write about and I want to make this post so I can get on to the sitting on the couch watching cheesy movies portion of my day. Well, that’s not really true. I have a few subjects, but the fact is I have not written about them.

“So write about them now!” says the little voice in my head that thinks everything is just so easy. The bastard.

Sometimes the act of writing begets more writing. You get just one sentence or phrase or even word down on the paper and others follow. Some days, not so much. You get one word. Gritting your teeth, you make it a phrase. Straining to keep your fingers from the backspace button, you make it a sentence. Then the little voice in your head says, “Nobody wants to read that crap!”

And that’s where I’m at now. Seriously, I just erased three sentences before leaving “And that’s where I’m at now.”

Earlier I went up the attic and found our Christmas CDs. Before that I was at Hannaford, where I purchased some Bigelow Oolong Tea, of which I am sipping a cup. It tastes so good, I wish I could write a whole blog post just on that. Mostly I wish I could just sit and sip it and enjoy the GRP Christmas Collection which is currently playing.

And really, why not (stand by for a foray into a Middle-aged Musing)? It is the Friday of my four day weekend. Yesterday was a holiday. I worked hard all last week and weekend. I am now going to relax.

And tomorrow I will write a better blog post for your delectation. I hope.

Off the Lame Cuff

So Wednesday I never wrote my blog post till after 6:30 at night and I sat at the computer and wrote it off the cuff, and I got eight likes. Can I get away with it again today? I sure hope so.

In my defense (guess I can’t get away with using that in the headline twice, can I?), it is Lame Post Friday. And I was still studying my lines from the play. I came up with some half-baked philosophy while I was at work. If only I could remember any of it.

Here is a random observation: I saw a little dog pee on one of those blow-up Halloween decorations. It was a great big old spider with four giant purple and black legs creating an arch with its body. The arch was right over the people’s front walk, but they had caution tape around it so apparently nobody was supposed to walk underneath the arch. As Steven and I drove by it tonight, their cute little dog walked right up to and lifted his leg.

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in several weeks,” I said.

Actually, I made myself laugh at work today. Bill was looking for Ed, but I had not seen him.

“He did not share with me his plans,” I said, because, you know, that’s how I talk sometimes.

Then Ed came back and asked where Bill was.

“He’s looking for you,” I said. “And I said, ‘How the hell do I know where Ed is? He goes where he wants to go! He don’t tell me nuthin’!'”

“Well, where’s Jeff?” Jeff is the boss.

“How the hell do I know where Jeff is? He goes where he wants to go! He don’t tell me nuthin’!”

“Where’s Hal?” He only asked because he knew where this was going.

After I wrote the preceding, I went back and changed all the names, to protect the innocent. In fact, my name is now Evelyn (cue the jokes on whether or not I’m innocent).

I note with some satisfaction that I am over 300 words. A lame post? Assuredly, but it is Friday after all. Amusing? Well, it amused me, so at least one of us is happy. Hope to see you Saturday.

Of Lime and Grime

So about halfway through cleaning my bathroom and feeling awfully grumpy about it, I said to myself, “That’s it! I’m doing a post about cleaning!” Immediately my chore took on a new interest, as I thought of things I could write later.

For example, I thought, the Lime Away does not seem to be actually taking away the lime. Then I realized it was not Lime Away but something called The Works, and I am not clear on which is lime and which is grime. (Isn’t that a crime?) (I just love to rhyme) (OK! I’ll stop! Sheesh!)

Then I got into a wrestling match with the disinfecting wipes. They are supposed to pop so handily out of the dispenser. I daresay the name brand does, but I am not at all sure of that (perhaps a head to head comparison for a future blog post?). Ah, it was the end of the bunch. No wonder.

My bathroom wasn’t really that bad, although I confess I do not give it a weekly cleaning as I used to do. Back in the last century, when Steven and I both had nine to five (or thereabouts) jobs, we used to clean the apartment every Saturday. We’d put on our album of Pippin (yes, album; I did say it was the last century, didn’t I?) and be done before the grand finale.

I haven’t thought about that in years. Today as I scrubbed and huffed (um, that’s huffed as in, “Humph! I have to clean the bathroom!” not huffed as in that substance abuse thing I’ve heard certain young people are into) (Or is that old news? Well, so am I old), I wondered if some music would help. Steven was hard at work in the kitchen downstairs, though, so we would have had to blast the music for us both to enjoy it. That may have perturbed the dog.

Cleaning did not take us an onerous amount of time. And writing a blog post about it was the opposite of onerous. Now Steven is in the shower (I hope he doesn’t mess it up), and soon we will embark on this weekend’s Mohawk Valley adventures. Stay tuned!

Lame Is As Lame Does

I had started to write this week’s Friday Lame Post, heavy on the half-baked philosophy and full of literary erudition (well, full of something), all about “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” but I feel philosophically unable to finish it today. Perhaps another Friday. Or it may do for a Middle-aged Musings Monday. That is for the future.

I seem to remember having kind of an existential crisis trying to write this week’s Monday Musings. It was supposed to be easy and it was not. Likewise with Lame Post Friday. I’m supposed to sit here rattling off a few random observations and some half-baked philosophy, then get on with my weekend. I can’t have two existential crises in one week. At least, I suppose I can, but I can’t very well blog about them both. So please, dear reader, ignore this paragraph, continue reading and pretend I am having an easy time of it.

Actually, as I type, I begin to think, “I can rock this.” And there is some writerly half-baked philosophy: Once you start putting words down, it is really not so difficult as it seemed when you were staring at the blank screen (or page, as the case may be). That is scarcely an original thing to say, but bear with me. I may come up with something better.

I randomly observed the most adorable little dog sticking his head out of the window of a car in front of me as I drove home today. I hoped he would not get excited and jump out, but if he did, I was prepared to throw on my emergency flashers, put the truck in park and run to the rescue. Then I saw he was sitting on a little boy’s lap, so I figured the kid would keep track of him. Good thing. That little dog could have outrun me with no problem. I probably would have been no help at all and just antagonized the motorists behind me.

I got pretty antagonized myself as I hit every light red, sitting through a couple of them twice because there was so much traffic. The other day I gave a co-worker a ride, hit most of the lights green, and observed to her how some days hitting the lights red bothers you more than others. Today it bothered me and then some. It would be nice if I could come up with some half-baked philosophy about this, wouldn’t it? Something to put it in perspective, maybe keep myself from getting so agitated next time. I’m thinking, but nothing’s coming. I guess I’ll fall back on my stand-by philosophy, “You’ll have that.”

I spent a good portion of my time at work trying to think of a lame headline. I don’t think that is a particularly good one, but it will have to do. I’m over 400 words now, so I think I can start my weekend. I’ll try to have some Mohawk Valley adventures to share, and maybe next week we can talk about “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”