Monday morning pause
I should be working this morning – I've got a long list of projects marked ASAP and URGENT with exclamation points – but I'm tired and sleepy and not really feeling much of anything. Also I know these projects are not really ASAP and URGENT. It's not like I'm helping get homeless people off the street or feed starving children. I'm revising copy for websites.
So I thought I'd take a moment and try to write a bit. Feeling creative has been hard and writing hasn't come easily lately, even when I take time out to do it. My words don't seem to come out right at the moment. I guess the muscle is getting weak, which is all the more reason to fight my way through it.
I spent last week in New York City and had a couple moments, as I usually do in new places, where my fingers itched for a pen. Sitting on the bus from LaGuardia I wanted to describe the man sitting next to me, in his pinstripe pants and wool blazer, a fedora perched on his head as he read John Le Carré. At that moment I could have written a full page about him, but now time has passed and the little details have vanished into the black inner rooms of my memory. My last night in the city I walked past police blockades and anti-Trump protestors chanting – Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go! – and stood for a moment in Times Square, bathed in the unnatural white light from electric billboards, and I felt happy and alive, my senses awake, and I wanted to write then, too. But I didn't. I had to get to where I was meeting Michael for dinner.
This week has been rough. This year has been rough. Losing my grandma still kicks me in the heart at random moments, and I don't expect that to go away any time soon. The fact that my fellow Americans chose to elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that people like my grandpa think it's awesome, also twists my heart into pieces in a spastic mix of fear, depression, anger, and sadness. I'm at the point where I probably need a nice serious cry, and it wouldn't really take much to set me off.
But here I am, trying to review landing page copy for keyword usage. It just doesn't seem very important. But it is – websites are the online faces of brands, who serve a need, whatever that need is, and which are made up of people whose jobs depend on how well those brands perform. So I'll get back to it. But I want to take a moment, in this crappy month of a crappy year, a week before Thanksgiving, and remember some of the things I'm grateful for, some of the million ways in which I'm lucky.
I'm thankful for my grandpa and that I'm as close to him as I am, and that we can sit and drink wine together. I'm thankful for my dad, who over and over again sacrifices his time and inconveniences himself for me without thinking twice, and for my mom, who has never left me with any doubt ever that I am loved and talented and important. I'm thankful for Michael, who doesn't lose his temper when I do stupid things like misplace the registration for the car we're trying to sell and who thinks (and tells me) I'm beautiful every day. I'm thankful for the places I've gotten to travel, the food I've eaten, the fact that right now I'm living the life I want to live, running my own businesses. I'm thankful for warm socks, for the heated steering wheel on my new car, for toast and hot chocolate, for new sheets, for coffee, for writing, for plays, for music, for chocolate, for sunsets over open fields, for my dog, for cream-filled donuts, even if I'm not letting myself eat any. Life is really very good.
Back to it.
So I thought I'd take a moment and try to write a bit. Feeling creative has been hard and writing hasn't come easily lately, even when I take time out to do it. My words don't seem to come out right at the moment. I guess the muscle is getting weak, which is all the more reason to fight my way through it.
I spent last week in New York City and had a couple moments, as I usually do in new places, where my fingers itched for a pen. Sitting on the bus from LaGuardia I wanted to describe the man sitting next to me, in his pinstripe pants and wool blazer, a fedora perched on his head as he read John Le Carré. At that moment I could have written a full page about him, but now time has passed and the little details have vanished into the black inner rooms of my memory. My last night in the city I walked past police blockades and anti-Trump protestors chanting – Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go! – and stood for a moment in Times Square, bathed in the unnatural white light from electric billboards, and I felt happy and alive, my senses awake, and I wanted to write then, too. But I didn't. I had to get to where I was meeting Michael for dinner.
This week has been rough. This year has been rough. Losing my grandma still kicks me in the heart at random moments, and I don't expect that to go away any time soon. The fact that my fellow Americans chose to elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, and that people like my grandpa think it's awesome, also twists my heart into pieces in a spastic mix of fear, depression, anger, and sadness. I'm at the point where I probably need a nice serious cry, and it wouldn't really take much to set me off.
But here I am, trying to review landing page copy for keyword usage. It just doesn't seem very important. But it is – websites are the online faces of brands, who serve a need, whatever that need is, and which are made up of people whose jobs depend on how well those brands perform. So I'll get back to it. But I want to take a moment, in this crappy month of a crappy year, a week before Thanksgiving, and remember some of the things I'm grateful for, some of the million ways in which I'm lucky.
I'm thankful for my grandpa and that I'm as close to him as I am, and that we can sit and drink wine together. I'm thankful for my dad, who over and over again sacrifices his time and inconveniences himself for me without thinking twice, and for my mom, who has never left me with any doubt ever that I am loved and talented and important. I'm thankful for Michael, who doesn't lose his temper when I do stupid things like misplace the registration for the car we're trying to sell and who thinks (and tells me) I'm beautiful every day. I'm thankful for the places I've gotten to travel, the food I've eaten, the fact that right now I'm living the life I want to live, running my own businesses. I'm thankful for warm socks, for the heated steering wheel on my new car, for toast and hot chocolate, for new sheets, for coffee, for writing, for plays, for music, for chocolate, for sunsets over open fields, for my dog, for cream-filled donuts, even if I'm not letting myself eat any. Life is really very good.
Back to it.