RECAFFEINATED MONDAYS: A Sad Discovery

“Have an irrational day.”

Today is International Pi Day

We were warned for a couple of days that Saturday was going to be rough in terms of weather. Rain to snow to freezing. For once, the calls were pretty accurate.

I knew there would be no yard work, and I had no plans to go anywhere.

So, I planned the day to redo half of my office. The side that I refer to as the “art desk” or the project side.

But in the sorting out of things, I found something that made me sad.

It was a yellow legal pad. I read through it and realized that it contained my notes from late December 2019

Available at The Write Side Shop (click the pick)

and it all about how I was going to conquer 2020, do some wonderful things in theater, do some wonderful things in writing…and retire.

I even made a list of what I should carry daily in my backpack.

I know myself well enough to get a good chuckle from the list realizing that, even without the pandemic, I would never have been that organized.

But I had a list of two shows I was performing in and three I was directing. I performed in one and directed half of another…more to come on that one. If you know, you know.

I’m sure at the time the outline for all of those plans was exciting and refreshing, thinking how I’d stay on top of things.

But like I wrote last week, when the shutdown came, I made another list of things I was going to accomplish.

Those didn’t happen either.

I think what most of us found out was that it took most of the energy we had just to survive.

There was one thing on the list…reorganize the office.

In reality, because I ended up doing virtual Santa visits in 2020, I’ve reorganized the office four or five times, and that doesn’t count what I did on Saturday.

I no longer have everything spelled out like I did on that list.

I have a list of projects and I make notes on when I need to work on them.

The 2019 list takes up about four or five pages of a perfectly good legal pad which is sort of an indication that I didn’t get very far with the plan in the first two months of that year.

The cold reality is that I could have done several of the things on that list even with the pandemic.

So, now I look at it and consider what I continue to work on, or what I want to put back on the list…or remove from the list.

I’m a list maker. And I love to do it with notebooks and post-it notes and pens and all the fun stuff.

Sometimes the accomplishment is making the list.

Just like this legal pad from 2019, I have things on my current list that I’ll never get to. And that’s okay.

The challenge is to keep working. Keep going forward.

Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Don’t give up.

That would be irrational.


THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

US Inflation Soars 7.9 Percent in Last Year, 40-Year High
NewsMax
“The original sin was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March. The bill — almost completely unfunded — sought to counter the effects of the COVID pandemic by focusing on demand-side stimulus rather than on investment,” Rattner said in November 2021. “That has contributed materially to today’s inflation levels.” Read More.

For Some Reason, USA Today Felt the Need to Fact-Check Satire
Townhall
For whatever reason, USA Today’s Ana Faguy thought it necessary to fact-check an article from the Babylon Bee, which most people know is a satire site. The claim in question was a social media post from March 7 that “Biden Sells Alaska Back To Russia So We Can Start Drilling For Oil There Again.” Read More.

Church of England Priest Denounces Putin’s False ‘Christian Orthodox’ Faith
Juicy Ecumenism
“He has seen the Gospel of peace and heard the words of love given to us and given to him by our God, and he has kissed the icons of the mother holding her child, and he has decided to trample untold numbers of children into the frost and mud of Ukraine and see how many mothers weep at the sight of their dead children.” Read More.

Bill Maher Defends Florida Bill: ‘Maybe Kids That Young Shouldn’t Be Thinking About Sex At All’
The Daily Wire
Maher discussed the issue with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni and Newsweek’s Batya Ungar-Sargon, and he pointed to the fact that the bill does not actually ban saying “gay” at all and clearly addresses only classroom instruction for children — in pre-kindergarten through third grade — regarding gender identity and sexual orientation. Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1879 – Albert Einstein, German-American physicist, engineer, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
1920 – Hank Ketcham, American author and cartoonist, created Dennis the Menace (d. 2001)
1921 – S. Truett Cathy, American businessman, founded Chick-fil-A (d. 2014)
1933 – Michael Caine, English actor and author
1934 – Paul Rader, American 15th General of The Salvation Army
1948 – Billy Crystal, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

 

SHORT STORY FRIDAY: Here’s the Story

“I write one page of masterpiece to 91 pages of $@*#. I try to put the $@*# in the wastebasket.”

Ernest Hemingway

There is no story.

Normally, today is Short Story Friday.

We already spoke yesterday regarding normality.

I made a choice today. I could hastily throw together a sub-standard story.

Or I could disappoint both of my adoring fans and say there’s no story today.

There’s no story today.

It is true that the only deadline here is my own. It is also true that some weeks are busier than others.

Available in The Write Side Shop (click the pic).

Further, it is true that The 100 Day Project is taking more time than I imagined. But at this point, on Day 27, I’m not giving up.

I have a list of story ideas. I have stories in progress.

None are ready for today. They will be.

Not today.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m writing daily.

I’m just not ready to hit publish.

I mean, after all, it took Margaret Mitchell ten years to write and edit Gone with the Wind.

I suspect if I got a book deal, or even an offer to be paid for my short stories, that I might be able to crank them out more quickly.

As it is, my deadlines and projects are mostly self-imposed.

In yesterday’s email, James Clear offered the following question:

Write down all the projects you are working on right now. What is the one thing that, if you had the courage to eliminate it entirely, would make all the others easier?

It’s not like what I want to give up a project for Lent. And it’s not like there aren’t things I’d like to give up that I just can’t.

So, maybe I do need to look at the project list and see what I could eliminate.

Or maybe I should say what else I could eliminate, because I did take some things off the list during Last Summer’s Great Unpleasantness ™. Although some are slowly creeping back in.

In full disclosure, while I won’t tell you what it is, I did set something aside last week. Something that I knew would take substantial time and effort.

I also knew for a while that it wasn’t important enough for me to give that time and effort.

If only I’d received James’ question last week.

But maybe there’s something else.

I’m going to think about that this weekend.

For today, it’s just giving up Short Story Friday. I’ll be back with that next week.

In the meantime this weekend, pray for Ukraine, pray for Russia, pray for America.

See you Monday.


THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

Gas crisis: Alaska governor says ‘Biden is searching for oil anywhere on the planet except at home’
FOXNews
“The breaking point is imminent,” Dunleavy told Fox News Digital. “Both Democrats and Republicans see that the U.S. is in a national energy emergency.” Read More.

Biden’s HHS Pushes ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility’ Agenda to Racialize Government
The Daily Signal
Mike Howell, a senior adviser on government relations at The Heritage Foundation, said he sees a Biden administration effort to reorganize the federal government along racial lines. Read More.

Trump says Biden is letting ‘radical climate extremists run our country’ as US sees record-high gas prices
FOXNews
“Energy prices are skyrocketing — they are going to infinity, all because of Joe Biden,” Trump told Fox News. Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1903 – Lawrence Welk, American accordion player and bandleader (d. 1992)
1936 – Antonin Scalia, American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 2016)
1950 – Bobby McFerrin, American singer-songwriter, producer, and conductor
1952 – Douglas Adams, English author and playwright (d. 2001)
1963 – Alex Kingston, English actress

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26