The dreams last night were quite odd. In one, I was drowning and from a nearby ship someone tossed me a life saver, but as it floated through the air towards me, it became the ship's anchor and the ship was HUGE.
This morning, I found myself thinking about stories. Longer stories, not the short stories, but novels and epics and such. We look for stories with the very specific structure that we're accustomed to and I keep expecting to be able to fit much, much more into them. Life is vast and to tell a good story, you have to find one thread and follow it without losing the shape of the tapestry around it.
I sometimes wonder what stories I want to tell. There are so many, I get distracted during the day with the myriad of story lines I encounter.
I think about a life story, for example, does it start with birth? Sometimes stories start with death and move through time in non-linear fashion.
And then I think, what is the point of a life story unless the life has a story, a story larger than waking up and doing what is before you and not much else? So, life or no, the story is the key. Something that invites, informs, and inveigles. Even if the story, in the end, is not much more than waking up every morning and doing what is before you, the writing can carry you past the mundane, or into the mundane, in a way that still brings something to life, even something as simple as a simple life.
I think of this today because I've been reading about Rachel Carson. I haven't been reading Rachel Carson's work, but the profound effect her work had on others.

The long night was made longer by sleeplessness. She stared up at the ceiling and raged inside. It was frustrating, she was stuck. The initial tests had been so promising but the results today had been an unbelievably catastrophic failure. Absolutely nothing had come from the screen but erratic noisy jumble of text and symbols. Fifteen years of experimentation, successful experimentation, vanished in the one agonizing day of crap.
Now that this had failed, she had nothing.
The breakthrough that had filled her life was toast. The dream was worse than a nightmare, a nightmare ends when you wake up, her future was utterly empty, there was no waking up from this. Other researchers made brilliant discoveries, became overnight successes after decades of effort.
The idea was simple, elegant, and, in her own estimation, brilliant. Take the mind of a coma patient and make use of it, give it a new body, so to speak, and bring the power of that person back into play. Not easy, but simple. She'd successfully managed connections for paraplegics and had received accolades for creating robotic assistants and even, in one case, a robotic shell that gave a former athlete working arms.
She'd taken several coma patients and successfully connected them to her system. Yesterday was the big test, taking the mind one step further and separating it from the body to create a completely separate robot. Driven by a mind that was, otherwise, languishing silently in a lengthy slumber; some of the people she encountered had thought she was inhuman, mechanical in her lack of feelings, but they didn't understand, she felt very strongly and she thought very hard about bringing value to the lives that were otherwise wasting away. Energy for automation and work; minds that could bring relief to the world. People didn't understand her work and she didn't understand why it didn't work.
It worked on the drawing board, it worked connected to conscious people, it worked connected to unconscious people, but it didn't work with the brains of the recently dead. The dead just babbled a jumble of nonsense onto her screen and didn't respond to the requests typed into the system.

They started out in the middle of the city, a big urban sprawl, the place they spent their days and nights. The greatest expanse they spent their time in was a city park less than an acre with a couple of ailing trees. There, they dreamed the greatest dream they could dream; stoned, drunk, even occasionally sober, they rambled through the fantasy until it seemed to real to ignore.
They didn't plan the way they would later in life. At this point, in this condition, they acted and reacted only. They knew no other way. They dreamed and longed.
One morning, Alia showed up driving a car. Collectively, they marveled. And then they started riding. They road around town whooping wildly. they picked up enthusiasm, they drove out to an old airstrip and laughed as they drunk, smoked, inhaled, ingested, and drove. Night crept over them and they dared not stop, they found a loose thread of their dream, their ambition, their longing and they followed it as it lead them further from town and further afield.
In their usual fashion, they wandered from event to event. The car carried them further than any of them had gone before. They scraped together the change for gas as they went along, no thought of how to get back, or even coming back. The first part of their dream took shape as a distant prominence; their eyes were drawn and held as the mountain's peak transformed from a vague but abrupt puncture in the sky to the entire horizon in that direction. They had no other view, no other direction for their attention, and they drove towards it; drawn like flies to a carcass, like moths to a flame, like creatures without thought, ambition, or choice.
Collectively they chose the directions and turns to take. At the foot of a scree, they scrambled through the rocks looking for interesting bits and pieces to collect, to hold, to cherish. They compared finds as they wandered back to the car, fingers bloodied, faces stretched with smiles.
They sat in the car, staring up at the monadnock cheering themselves for their success and newfound riches. They had found their way from the park of dreaming to the first real destination of their lives.
Once again, the car ambled across the countryside in search of a new location. Flush, they journeyed on to find a new gem in the broader world, another stretch for their imaginations to release and make real. They continued to pull out bits and pieces of cash for the ongoing campaign. They laughed and chattered, pointing out turns, and sights. Carrying their dream out of the city had made lives rich and amazing, they were afire with their urges.
The mountain faded behind them, physically and emotionally, their minds filled with the next opportunity.
The landscape, the land, began to fade away. The horizon spread before them. Gradually, their joy was tainted with anxiety; the destination seemed too far and their funds too few. They went without, they drank more water and ate less food; their food, drugs, and drink were running out. Their need was growing.
Not far from the proposed locale, they slipped into a small town, into a small store, and with t-shirts tied around their faces stole what they needed from the shelves and the till.
Freshly energized, they raced towards their destination. As the land grew rocky, the horizon spread before them and, at a rise in the land, they looked out past the dirt to see the ocean press against the sky, fading from one to the other. The event horizon.
Down, they wound, their excitement filling the car with din. The wide open windows changed the texture of everything, inside the car they felt the wet air and exulted.
They tumbled out of the car, before the engine sounds had died away, and they race, screaming like gulls, down to the water, into the water, and then down. One by one, they thrashed around, first excited, then disquieted. Then, one by one, they realized that they could not swim.

For those of you who know me, the idea that I am patient will seem hilarious; but, in fact, I have thought that for years. I believed that I was patient. I'm not patient. I'm impatient. I lack patience.
I can wait in traffic for hours but I can't wait on a relationship. And that's why I feel responsible for the loss of Gracie.
Patience is a virtue,
A virtue is a grace,
Grace is a little girl
Who hasn't washed her face.
That little ditty runs through my head regularly. Partly because it doesn't make sense to me; it's like the piece about cats and curiosity:
Curiosity killed the cat
Satisfaction brought it back.
It took me years, no decades, to understand that it was the desire to know that killed the cat, not knowing killed the cat, the longing to know killed the cat. It was always used to imply that seeking out answers would bring pain and suffering (and ultimately death) but nobody ever used the second line. It's the second line that reveals. Knowing revived the cat.
Waste not want not also drove me mad until I realized that want was not the usage "desire" but "lack", and the line was supposed to tell you not to waste things that you may need later. Unfortunately, waste not came to mean horde and that, my dears, does not prevent lack.

Every time I try to consider what the story of my life is I run into two problems: where to start and where to go. I sometimes think I should start with my birth, since that's when my life started; but then I get to thinking that how that event came about is just as important and influential as the event itself. Where to go is a problem for two reasons. The first reason has to do with what I've done in my life; some events aught not resurface in the light of day and some, rather important events, are vague impressions, not recollections. The things I do remember I often wish I didn't and the things I don't remember I often wish I did. The second reason is that I tend to wander off on philosophical jaunts and cannot seem to get the real event down without also attempting to get the deep meaning writing into the story.
I considered short stories. If I do a series of short stories I can identify an idea or an event or even a person from my life and I can concentrate on that rather than trying to tie everything together with every story.
How my parents got together is important to how I was born. Who my parents were, they're both dead now but I really mean who they were when they were young, made who I was possible and probable. Who my parents became as they matured, and at fifty I've come to recognize that we're all still silly putty until we're well past our twenties, had a profound effect on my adult life; it continues to do so even years after their separate deaths.
The plant my supervisor gave me when my mother died, the more recent of the two deaths, is now dying. I think that is good. I'm happy to let her go.
The deaths of your parents is an important life milestone. I'm lucky that it didn't happen too early and that neither of my parents lingered in discomfort and pain. My mother, who could be a royal pain, died quietly in her sleep. I assume it was quiet. Her neighbours didn't notice anything. While cleaning her apartment, I realized she was not just paranoid and angry, but scared. She had bizarre collections of objects, the oddest being light bulbs. We found light bulbs everywhere. I worry that my life, which I haven't written down and explored in the way that I, as a writer, may be expected to do, will end up in the same hovel of horror that my mother spent her last two years building and living. I do have a fairly substantial collection of light bulbs.
Every once in a while I look around my rather small condo and I think: I have to get rid of some things. Other times when I catch sight of a room lined with books I think: I should build bookcases on every wall and surround myself. I don't really manage to do either extreme which is probably a good thing. That's what got my mother so riled up was that she lived in extremes. There were thoughts that drove her absolutely insane that rolled around like milky marbles in the hollow centre of her being. She was lonely and she couldn't stand people but she couldn't stand to be alone, without people. She would tell me the most horrid stories about her friends, and then tell me what a wonderful evening she'd had with them.
My father, on the other hand, seemed to really like people but be absolutely fine on his own. The marriage that produced my sister, my brother, and me lasted about 17 years. That separation gave each of them the chance to be who they were without plunging a dagger into the other's face.
Expatiate means both to speak at length and to move about freely. I tried to speak at length, but it is after midnight and I've spent several hours playing World of Warcraft and worrying about my cats, so I'm too tired to give it much more of a go than this. I also tried to roam, to allow each sentence to lead me to the next, to jump when my mind jumped, to turn on a dime and change direction, and to wander freely through the thoughts and ideas that jumbled up the page with words and sentences.
Goodnight.

The word of the day came to me as I was laying in bed drifting in a semi-contemplative state. I was mentally walking backwards through the past few weeks, wondering why some periods of life seem fraught and others are underpainted, nearly invisible.
I went out tonight, as I have gone out at least once each day this week, to search for my missing cat. I leave Sparky and Gromit at home when I go out, I don't want to encourage them to tromp around in backyards and cross streets without supervision; especially not now. I was laying in bed replaying that awkward moment over and over in my head: petting Gracie as she huddled in a Cedar shrub, trying to coax her into eating, deciding I was being impatient and then leaving to give her space, and the stupid, stupid moment when I strolled back out and up the neighbour's front walk directly towards her and I know that she's twitchy, and I know she's frightened of people walking directly towards her, and she bolts... across the street, into the path of a car. The car was doing 25 miles per hour, or thereabouts. That's the speed limit there and the driver was not one of the gung-ho hurry-uppers. Probably an old fart, like me. Gracie spun under the car and popped up and kept running. She headed down a driveway cluttered with old cars and metal bits. There was a quick cat screech and then silence. I started to run across the street as soon as she popped out the back end of the car. But I'm nowhere near as quick as a cat, not if it's awake anyways.
We spent hours combing the driveway and it's collection of potential hidey-holes (some of which were occupied by hives). We attempted to get into the thicket behind the driveway, but were stymied by the geography of this tiny bit of land. The driveway ended in a steep slope deep with brambles and refuse. We tried getting in through various yards, but we were warned out. Today I got as far into the thicket as I think I can. Tomorrow I have another door to knock on and if they're home, they may let me into their yard.
But I think she's dead. And I feel responsible. If I had been more patient, I could have just waited until we had a cat trap and, since I knew where she was, we could probably have caught her that night.
Here's another thicket: the emotional entanglement of action and result. Sure, it's not like I picked her up and threw her in front of a car, but I know I'm not patient. I did keep her though, long after it was clear that she was far more feral than we had understood; I'm stubborn and I had developed an attachment and I was going to see this through. Okay an impatient, stubborn person comes into a bar... Part of what is going on is that I don't know how important to make the experience with Gracie; I don't know if I'm funneling other anxieties and fears into the disappearance of the cat. I do know that watching her get hit was a huge blow but my ever agile mind is overpainting that scene with vague, pale strokes of beige.
If my experiences with Gracie were all that was going on, it wouldn't be much of a thicket. It would be a weed and a blackberry vine. Life doesn't dish up in courses, nor does it provide the same amount in every serving. Some days, you get a feast and other days you figure out how to celebrate a fast day or how to whack your neighbour for some of their plenty.
Part of the Gracie complication is that she is a cat that I've had for six weeks, and in the same six weeks I've gone back to work after a 2 month illness, worried about money because work is not falling into our laps, worried about my brother, angry that I'm so helpless, afraid of the not-so-slow degeneration of my neck (although I am enthralled by the idea of neurostimulation and fluctuate wildly between excitement and anxiety about it), and more. There is always more because I'm still breathing.

Sparky (black) and Gracie

Gracie in the cage while she got used to us

Gracie seemed to love caves, so I bought her one shortly after I took this shot

Self-examination reveals aspects of myself that I'd rather not know; I'd rather continue on in the blissful, vague notion that I'm a pretty good guy, so to speak. When a relationship gets difficult, it's so much easier to think that the other person has a problem, and their problem is messing up the flow. But muddy waters hide what grows in the dark.
I have never thought of myself as jealous. I had assumed that I'd evaded that particular nub; I thought there wasn't much I wanted (that I didn't already have) that I was denied access to by another, or that another had. It's silly, I know. When I'm frank with myself, I know that I am exactly like every other sentient creature, a whirlwind of emotions looking for a way to stick to something, anything outside of myself. We're like drowning people and we'll drown the inept fools who, out of love for us, swim out into the dangerous current and drown with us clinging like a monkey to their back.
Of course I feel jealousy. I've just been figuring out now that the childish lower-lip sticking-out feeling I have is jealousy, the hanging-head scuffing-shuffle feeling I have is jealousy, and several other feelings that I didn't have names for but represented with equally child-like behaviours (internally illustrated, not just acted out... and believe me when I say that if they are acted out then the feeling is so strong I don't even know what I'm doing).
I wish feelings weren't so complicated. I wish you could put them in tidy cubby-holes and pull them out, one at a time, during life.
Learning to identify my feelings was difficult when I was young and it's not much easier now but I am much more interested now. When I was young, I was confused by the blending and shading of emotions and how that seemed unexpressed in our language. Important things have lots of words that describe the various subtleties inherent in them, mundane things do not. The message I took away: emotions are not important.
Contradicting that message was one that emotions are critically important because they are uncontrolled and dangerous. Or at least when allowed to exceed their proper place in the world, they led one to danger. While others seem to intrinsically be able to first filter their feelings into simple terms (happy, sad, angry) and be able to keep their emotions appropriately checked, I was baffled. The simple greeting "How are you?" could throw me into an anxiety attack.
My emotions became something that occurred on the other side of a picture window. Others claimed to know what I was feeling, others claimed that I projected my feelings, and others begged to know what I was feeling (and often wanted me to assuage their fears that my feelings would be somehow detrimental to them). But for me, feelings were fiction.
I seemed quite normal, I think.
As I get to know my feelings, it's kind of like going on a series of blind dates, I am surprised and repeatedly embarrassed by them. I can hear hear some ditzy old lady in my head declaring, "I had no idea!"
Jealousy is going to take a bit of wrestling. I'm going to be on the look-out for it and what it does in my life. I don't think every emotion is inherently bad, but some need a bit more effort, like a dog that needs a little extra, structured activity to keep from tearing the house apart. Jealousy, if it runs my life will ruin my life; if a sip of jealousy gets me up off my butt and into living, great.
Time for a walk.

I couldn't find a word-a-day, so I just picked one: age.
I was walking upstairs on an errand, one of those thousand and seventy-two things we have to do as adults, home owners, and working people. Making sure the laundry is laundering, that meals are prepared, that the house is clean, and the bills are paid. M & have very different approaches but we've compromised and blended, something that you learn to do as you age. Not everyone learns; that's the way it seems, but what if those people just had further to come.
One of the compromises I've made is that I have to get into gear and get things done before the last minute. It doesn't work to get up on Monday morning and say “uh oh” because there is no clean underwear. I've always been a last-minute sort of person, lazing about until the situation is urgent. M is the opposite – get the business out of the way before relaxing. And, I must admit that getting the stuff done makes the time spent in indolence somehow much richer and savory.
Today, I was walking towards the stairs, and I thought about how children look forward to being teens, which seems to them like the finest of times because they have freedom and protection. Teens look forward to being adults, which seems to be when they'll be able to do what they want. As adults, we discover that without the blanket of house and home, no matter how ratty or non-functional, we end up often being able to do even less of what we want.
Maturity, if we're lucky, brings that balance of the needs and wants. A time and place where the work of life leaves room for the fun of life.
Writing does that for me, it's part work and part pleasure. It's something I want to do well and I enjoy doing well (I even enjoy doing it poorly).
To all of us, a cheer, may the load of laundry not take more time and effort than a good book, movie, trip to the country, or whatever it is that spins your windmill.

M says that the video I uploaded to YouTube (Scenes from a dog walk) is actually (Cat walk during which the dog also walks).
- - - - - - - -
The scene at the airport was more than I could bear. Even though I couldn't see her, I could tell where she was by the crowd and the noise. She could ride between laughter and rage in less time than it takes to say so.
"What's the problem?" I called out, as I pushed through the raucous crowd. Nobody paid me any mind, I wasn't being loud enough to matter.
"Don't touch that!" I heard over the din. Her voice could cut marble.
"What's happening?" I tried yelling, but everyone was yelling.
"I said don't touch that!" Cue banshee wailing. I made it to the middle of the crowd and there she was, wrapped up like a '40s movie star, gripping her tiny dog. A man dressed in some kind of uniform was trying to stuff the dog back into a carrying crate. It wasn't going to work, the dog was gripped by iron will and the carrying crate was a floppy, soft crate intended for the comfort of the tiny traveler.

I'm really struggling for balance. When there are no stressful, or emotional, or disturbing, or painful, or difficult circumstances, I can maintain my balance like a professional high-wire act. I'm great! I'm sweet, kind, gentle, fun, a tad lazy but I'll perform small tasks when requested, and I'm thoughtful.
Then the tea kettle boils dry, the dog barfs, the cat bites me, the car gets a flat, work doubles my workload and then, just for a chuckle, switches my responsibilities.
I've been on pain meds for a couple of years now, I'm wearing a (hot and scratchy but very helpful) tens vest, and I've performed my daily ritual of laying in my traction device.
I just want to ride my bike. And swim. I'd like to be able to think that should I ever be able to afford a trip again, that I could take a flight and not end up crippled for weeks afterwards.
I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. Commercials, even on fast forward, make me cry, rage, laugh, and despair (sometimes all at once). I can't concentrate on my work with the razor sharp mind I know I have because my emotional jet stream is passing over alien territory.
One deep breath, two... three...
Onward and upward.

The edge is frayed lace ruffled by a breeze
And my face betrays my wonder
I waited for you through the winter
Into the spring
At the height of summer you came
And brought me here
To the edge of the world
Where the sky meets the firmament
For a moment, up seems down and down seems sideways
I wrap my arms around you but my gaze does not stray
From the ripple of eternity between

wow.. I can't think of a freaking thing to write about dibs.
I've been poking at it and poking at it.
Dibs... calling dibs, calling shotgun, come on, think!
Me first!! Me first!!
Mine!!
Nope. Nothing comes.
G'night Gracie.

My mother loved jazz, which may not seem directly connected to the word jive, but she also loved to dance and I remember watching her jive with some guy at a jazz club. I am a clumsy dancer, I'm not very comfortable in my body and if I have to think about where to move and when, I'm late and I go in the wrong direction. Get my mind out of the equation and I do well.
My mother, who was tiny and ferocious, jived with a joy I never saw in her at other times. Watching her dance made me love her. It gave me a flutter. She abandoned herself to the dance but did it with precision and grace.
I could sit for hours, sober amongst the drunks and managing to breathe in spite of the cigarette smog (I have asthma), watching my mother dance. She wore the men out. She could go without cigarettes and booze for duration of her dancing. Otherwise she was permanently hobbled, a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other.
Thinking about this, I understand how demoralized she felt as her body began to fail her. There, on the dance floor, was where she was happy. I think she wanted that to be translated to other parts of her life, but I never saw it off the dance floor. There she was, fully in her body, joyous, skillful, the envy of the other women, wanted by the men, admired, and right. She was beautiful.

I'm going to try an experiment, each day, I'll take the word of the day from http://wordsmith.org/words/today.html and write something. Some days it may be fiction, some days a contemplation, other days it might be a reminiscence. No rule about the content or the genre. The effort doesn't have to *use* the word, Just be inspired by it.
- - - - - - -
I didn't mean to lie, but I did want the money. The story just came out of me and it was like a manicured lawn, perfect. I even managed to admit, somehow, that I did want the money. The truth was that I had no idea from breath to breath what I was going to say. The idea blossomed in my mind and poured out of my mouth.
My mother was dead, I declared, and my father was missing and had been missing since I was a child. It was rumored, I went on, that my father was also dead and had been killed by gangsters. I wiped my siblings from the map without hesitation; I was not going to share any wealth that I acquired through this opportunity.
The wiry, old man across the table from me was soaking in my heartbreaking story with all the appropriate expressions of condolences and avarice. I had stumbled upon the old guy sitting alone in a cafe and I had asked for his company. When I had swept into the cafe looking for a respite from the winter cold, I had heard the waitress call him Mr. Ed, not the horse, of course, but the store owner: Honest Ed's was famous throughout the province, I was sure. He was pleasant and he offered to buy my coffee, or a meal. I demurred.
I looked at him, thinking only of his great wealth, and I started telling him the saddest tale I'd ever heard.

Last year the youngest of our old cats kicked the bucket. It was a rather sudden and disturbing death, and one that left us without cats for the first time in a couple of decades.
We postponed the arrival of new cats until tax season was over and we could settle down and meet the cats. Oh, and we decided that two cats was the way to go.
Tax season ended with me in the emergency ward of our local hospital and so I got to join the annual deluge of health crises that plague my beloved during the most stressful time of her year.
Shortly before I was recovered enough to go back to work, we visited a local cat clinic that maintains a cat shelter. There were two cats that made themselves known to us and who not only seemed interested in us but they were quite affectionate.



The older cat, Gracie, had come from the home of a hoarder. She was, essentially, feral. During her time at the cat clinic shelter, she'd warmed up a bit to the people and when we were visiting, she came out and head butted me before heading off to twine herself around the delicate ankles of my precious love.


The younger cat, formerly known as Dante and now known as Sparky the Wonder Cat, was adventurous and affectionate.
We visited again to be sure and then we brought them home.
Gracie has, sadly, reverted to a more feral state and comes out of our basement closets only in the dark of night. She scarfs down the food we leave out and spreads the litter across the laundry room floor. Our plans now are to borrow a big cage, catch her, and keep her in the living room (caged) while we slowly work her out of her state of frenzy and into a state in which we can care for her.
Sparky is offering no such challenges and provides us with endless amusement. He likes to know what we're doing, and if he can help he's in there like a dirty shirt; he checks in with us and is very polite when asking for favors (such as the opening of doors and cat food containers).

I officially designate this as my annus horribilis... even though I didn't offer any such designation to 1999, the year my father and nephew died in a crash. I'm just overreacting.
April 15th I ended up in the emergency ward with serotonin toxicity. The result of drugs used to manage the pain from my cervical disc degeneration.
I'm going back to work next week, thankfully.
Please don't give me any more advice about pain management and disc degeneration. I've heard it all. More than once.
After six months without a cat, M & I decided it was time for cats. We went to a shelter and chatted up several candidates. A couple of days later, after our interviews, we took home Gracie and Dante. Dante used to be an outdoor cat and drove us nuts within a couple of days with his constant, convincing explanations of his outdoorsyness. We've come to an accommodation, all the way around. Gracie, who was essentially feral, disappeared into our basement. I, in a brilliant maneuver, one that would seem like a trope in a movie, decided that Gracie needed to live in our quiet room. I ended up at the doctor with five infected cat bites. Gracie is in the basement.
The dog looks at me with the expression that quietly tells me I am crazy, a dog is more than enough companionship for a block of houses.
Last week all the electronics in our house went on strike (all except M's computer which continues to operate well, so I'm keeping my metaphorical fingers crossed). My computer crashed and burned during an update from MS. My virus software thought that part of the update was a trojan so it blocked it. The update choked. My computer died and would not restart. I ended up waiting a week for the discs that would "repair" it. Turns out I would have been just as well off to simply install the XP I have on hand. The repair wiped out my data, which I was trying to avoid. Yes, I have back-ups, but they're from before April 15th.
I then installed the game I've been playing (World of Warcraft) and after wading through a couple of hours of updates, I got the strangest error message (Failed to find suitable display device. Exiting program.) and I can't play. I can't escape into that fantasy.
My beloved asked that I finish setting up the digital cable before I return to work next week. I'd been trying for most of the month of May to no avail. Each troubleshooting call with the cable or DVR provider ended up with me visiting another store for another piece of hardware or wiring. Finally, today, the cable company informed me that I may have a bad box. They're coming Saturday. Until then, I have enough cabling behind the tv to choke the proverbial horse.
Oh, and we're not watching tv at all, no "live" tv, no recorded shows, and no DVDs because the speakers on the monster have died. The tv is just over 3 years old. The service guy is coming tomorrow for that.
I can't think of where to move my in-progress stories. I have terrible dreams of my life falling apart. I'm worried about money, health, work, and everything except love.
I was sitting upstairs working through this evening's crisis involving our internet connectivity and I was thinking I understand why people walk away or get violent. There is a limit to our capacity. I took a few moments up on our roof deck, I watched the sky change as the sun set, and then I knew I have a lot more capacity.

The first element of finishing, is starting.
I have begun to return to starting. After a month of bizarre illness, I had enough mental capacity today to read and understand (well, sort of understand) the instructions for adding the digital cable capacity to my life. We'll see. I at least have a series of connections made and two remote controls that do, indeed, turn the televisions on and off.
I've been ruminating on Cat Rambo's repeated mantra of getting your butt in the seat to complete. Today, my but is out and my butt is down. I'm working on a short story that has an actual submission deadline (August 1st ... of this year). I think it will be interesting as August 1 is also the 7 year anniversary for my currently employment (those people who pay for the guest worker visa that lets me live with my wife). Seven years is a personal something-or-other for me, but I haven't figured out what yet.
So, on that note, I leave you, my figurative audience, to follow the instructions of Cat Rambo and work.

Here it is, the end of another week. The politics in both Canada and the US are heating up. The mechanism of capitalism in the US is balancing on the edge of a blade. And I finished something.

We've been trying to finish a project at work for the past week. Between the frenetic pace of work, problems with our toolset, and working in new technology (at least new to us), we're a week behind. But, we got it done.

Mona's brother is coming to town so while work has been insane, home has also been insane. We're trying to make our adequate home appear to be something out of better homes and gardens. Nah. We did get the quiet room fixed up; we took the fax machine out, we cleaned up the snake pit of wires, and covered the 300 blinking lights. We've had the new wall-bed down to air out and Miss Spooky has been so happy that we've finally have recognized her royal status and created a room for her.

As for politics and the economy, I realized I should be paying more attention. Lately, I've just curled up into a sullen ball of exhaustion. I was listening to a podcast on break-ups and I realized that this is life, this is it. I was acting like I'd lost something, I was grieving, and it is time to wake up, smell the coffee, and get myself together.

So, I guess I finished more than one thing this week. A banner week.

Aside from not being able to believe that it's September and that September is almost over, I'm not being able to tote up the number of unfinished projects I have.
I haven't sewn anything. I haven't even started those projects and based on how long it took me to get a sewing machine, I'm going to die first.
I haven't finished my novel from two NaNos ago. And NaNo is right around the corner. I'm already getting emails about this year. I can't read them. Apparently, I don't have time. To encourage the completion of my novel, I sent the first half to my niece who is awaiting the publication. I'm hoping that her enjoyment, and desire for an end to the story, would encourage me to get to work. I did write a scene, one that happens very close to the end of the story. So, it's sort of working.
When I got into work this morning, I found a list of things to do from last week. The only thing scratched of is something that Mona did.
I have to finish what I'm doing at work, the deadlines mean my job. It's one of the reasons I enjoy my job. It's not up to me, in a way. I've handed it off to another authority, the one that prints my pay cheque every other week. It's a twelve step program for procrastinators.
But, here I am, writing this because I got stuck on something and I needed to distract myself so the part of my brain that still works could figure it out. And it has, so I return to work.

In response to a Nanoljers challenge:
Dog days my ass. Dogs laying about in the shade, panting and sleeping while I'm out here ripping the stalks and vines of this year's crop out of the ground. Dogs curled up on comfy beds dreaming of ball chasing and swimming while I totter on a ladder getting the summer crap traded out with the winter crap in the spider-invested shed. If they were dog days, I'd be swinging on a hammock drinking ice cold lemonade and listening to the lake lap up the shore.
Sweat pours off me from the moment I crawl out of bed. There are always a thousand chores to do at the hottest, wettest times. Dog days. I don't get dog days. I get oxen days. I get days like those poor beasts glimpsed in the background of some nature show special on villages in the back of beyond. Round and round and round creating a rut so deep they die in there and are never even missed.
That's me. I have concentric circles. The daily stuff like feeding the animals, milking the cows, getting the eggs, and fixing the chicken pen. The regular stuff like the roof, the gutters, the porch, the garden, the fence, and the barn. The seasonal stuff like plant the garden, weed the garden, thin the garden, reap the garden, and then clean up the garden. The unusual stuff: hunting down foxes, hunting for deer, chasing down raccoons, and hunting bear. Round and round I go.