Not Bad

Photo by Neel

I know this doesn't hold much authority. Probably saying your mother likes your story is more impressive, but I have to mention--I don’t know why I have to mention, but you’ve got to fill these blog posts with something,--I just read one of the short stories I wrote: a flash fiction piece and I was able to get a little outside myself for once and just read it like I’d read a regular story, detached a bit and not analyzing every mistake or worried about whether it’s accepted or not. It was pretty good. I mean not a masterpiece, but decent. I’m rather impressed with myself.

In less sillily self-congratulating news, I’m into new thought books. I’m  unimpressed with Joe Suit blabbering on about his three hundred dollar law of attraction course "definitely a 2000 dollar value”, act now or be lost, but sometimes the classic books are written so nicely I get swept up in the language and excited. I’m talking mainly about As a Man Thinketh by James Allen and The Game of Life and How to Play it by Florence Scovel Shinn. There’s something very satisfying about  reading them whether they work or not or whether I want them to.

Slowly going through Hamnet, but now I have a junky horror novel,  so we’ll see if the former goes to shit. However, at this point, Maggie O'Farrell has my attention.

In these uncertain unprecedented times my reading patterns are weird. I’m just reading because I want to, when I want to, with no effort to improve my writing, or mind, or anything. It’s works for me now. I don’t know for how long though.

 

Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez

Meanwhile Roe plays too much Bruce Springsteen. I like him too, but every songs so vivid and incredibly dramatic I can take him more in limited quantities. Like a small block of fudge is delicious, but ten blocks of fudge gives you a stomach ache. She enjoying him so much, however, I don’t want to say anything about it to her. I’m thinking of silently suffering  as long as she doesn't play Point Blank more then once.

$

photo by  金 运

Money is made of green bills.

In the United States they have presidents on them.

Money symbolizes power and freedom. Without money you are poor. Poor performance of funds is piss poor. 

Money is God. No, God is God and he will give you money

Money is green like the woods.

I want money, but by stating I want money, I am stating I need money. I am stating I don’t have money. Therefore, I am creating a resistance. This is difficult, because I am obstructing the flow of money.

Money is a beautiful thing.

Money is the root of all evil.

Spend money like it’s going out of style. You’ve got to spend money to make money.

This money: it makes the world go round.

Buy a ticket, win a lot of bread.

You can’t take it with you.

 

Light Blues

photo by green ant

I really want to go to bed. I somehow I got my blogger set for the Australian clock, so I don’t know what time the system claims I’m writing this.  Here however, it’s late night.

Writers must write though.

I sent out my heavy story. I think it’s good. Maybe in two months I won't. In any case, now other people have to judge it. The most unfun part of hopeful publication. However without gatekeepers, no ones going to want to spend time reading anything and literature becomes a vast unlooked at twitter, so as a gray day’s rain keeps us from dying in a desert, editors have their place too.

I ate baked penne at an Italian restaurant for lunch and salad for dinner to try to balance it out. I know it won’t and my health will suffer, but just for a day or so.  

Nothing really great has happened. I just have bits and chit chat to inform you. Maybe I should review a book or something, before everyone runs away.

It’s cold, but the sun’s coming back, days getting longer, slowly but surely. I haven’t gotten the winter blues this year. Well, maybe light blues, not falling into despair, but a kind of permanent annoyance. No one wants to comfort me. They kind of want to give me the third finger. I can’t really blame them. The consequences of being obnoxious, but not truly depressed.

Roe puts up with me, so I’m happy enough and I can reign things in to the extent various baristas enjoy my company, while I wait for my iced tea: which is good, but makes me colder.

I have food and shelter, so now I should be busy seeking the top of Maslow’s self-actualization pyramid instead of sitting around. Maslow would be very disappointed if he knew or maybe being self-actualized, he wouldn’t care.

Tonic, Ganesha, and my Heavy Story

 

Photo by Josh Cris Gayle

I’m writing this blog instead of doing the dishes that are left over this morning from a tonic I make everyday.

It consists of spring water, lemon, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. It’s supposed to do something. It feels like it's doing something, but I’m not sure what.

The obvious answer would be detoxifying, but I don’t think that’s scientifically possible. A body doesn’t really build up poisons that need to be released, despite popular opinion, unless one has cancer or something and  that wouldn't involve detoxifying. That would involve chemotherapy or something.

 I like the way the drink tastes though. It feels like it's clearing you out, maybe just mentally, but in any case, it can’t hurt.

 Better mood finally, but  I’m writing a heavy story. I’m trying to make it light enough to be accepted somewhere, but it's hard because it sooooooo heavy. Maybe I could find a heavy editor… Wish me luck.

 I took down a gaudy colored poster of Ganesha, but then I got worried he wouldn’t help me anymore so I put up a little gray and white xeroxed picture of him. I think this goes the other way into too subtle however. You can’t get a charge out of it or even really see it.

Maybe a statue. That cheapest nice one is 48 dollars  Two spaghetti dinners. Spaghetti’s all right, but I like the fresh vegetables and fish 48 dollars privileges me. Roe likes them better too. She says spaghetti makes us fat and perhaps she has a point, but a nice statue of Ganesha vs. a little weight, you know?

Being a quasi-elephant, Ganesha is very fat, but I digress.

Stopping

photo by Lawrence Chrismorie on Unsplash

I stopped cleaning the apartment and stopped writing and just stopped.

When I searched for advice, an angel oracle card told me I should accept my nonduality, but still reek of humanity, which was rather obscure.

Still glad to be alive. I mean, I wouldn’t commit suicide, particularly not over being scatterbrained, but it feels very unpleasant.

Read a little Hamnet. That was good. I also got a high speed blender from Amazon, plus stainless steel salad tongs.

That’s it, not a great day leaves me with nothing much to say, but I’ve tried to put forth a mildly entertaining effort.

Magick, Books, Covid

photo by Content Pixie

Me and Roe are running out of places to go. The coffeeshops are not available to sit in so we order from Starbucks--I know, there are independent coffee shops that are much more exciting--then we take our drinks to the car where we use them and read in the parking lot.

We might drive to a local park, but it's too cold to go for a walk, so we just drive through it. Sometimes twice.

We go to Stop and Shop and select ingredients for dinner and hope we don’t get corona-virus.

We read at home and stare out the window.

Roe’s convinced that if she gets corona-virus, she’ll die immediately. I don’t think I will, but who knows?

We’re getting stimulus checks. I’m not knocking them, but we don’t have anywhere to spend the money, except on food and shelter. 

I could be a little grateful.

Reading New Thought. Particularly The Game of Life and How to Play It. I’ve read this twice. Reading a Self-Identity Ho’oponopono book. also. One book tells me to think positive thoughts to get rich. The other book tells me to think no thoughts to get inspired.

I’m not exactly unhappy, but I’ve got an edge to me that’s a little too sharp for comfort. I want to go to the beach, but of course that’s unrealistic.

Trying to do magick. I feel the power in my body, but it’s not the fast lane to fulfillment, yet. I think things would be much worse if I didn’t do my spells though. Also I’m a beginner, can’t expect to play piano concertos in one day, so why should I expect to be a mage in a minute, etc, etc,etc. 

Stoic

From Wikipedia Commons

Winter wonderland: cold. New year's past. Patiently waiting for everything to change. Vaccines are here, but not distributed. Biden isn’t in ’til the 20th. I’m not famous, just waiting around like a lounge lizard. There’s really no day to be seized, so don’t ask me to seize the day or I will ask you to seize your nose and blow it.

 I hope I’m not bitter. A few centuries ago, I’d be dead by now. Today, I have a number of years to look forward to assuming a piano doesn’t fall on my head. And where there’s life there’s hope. After death there could be hope also, but no one knows.

 I tried stoicism, sometime in 2020, but I was basically getting my information from a business book. It kept talking about making executive decisions and sited Andrew Carnegie as a stoic god. I couldn’t translate this to my life in anyway, but when I read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, it gave me pause. It was all right. I’m not a roman emperor either, but somehow, what I understood, I related to. Not entirely, but a lot. My books on how to live my life are mostly from a new age feminine perspective, so it was nice to have another point of view.

 It basically depends how you look at logos that decides whether I’m into stoicism. If you look at logos as a logical, but still mystical force like God/Goddess or the Universe, I’m all ears. If you look on it as an intellectual framework for getting your to-do list done, not so much.

 Different strokes for different folks, of course.