Perforation Problems

Write 7 minutes about yourself from your pet’s perspective (from 10 Writing Warm-Up Exercises ) Morning sun, comfy couch. Stretching, rolling on my back.  Footsteps down the hall—no need to get up yet. Wait for breakfast.  Water running, in that room I avoid. Bad room, don't trust it. If you get caught in there, then wet water in your fur, trapped behind glass, can't get out, water dripping, suds all over, no good, no good. Avoid.  But no worries right now. Can't make me go in there. Safe out here. Almost breakfast time.  She comes out, my person. Makes noises I ignore, but I see her walking towards my dish, so I stretch one more time, ease off the couch. Wag my tail to encourage her to keep this up. Positive reinforcement.  She's singing the morning song, the breakfast song. I sit and throw up my paw because she always makes me do that. Don't know why, but it gets me food, so I'll do it.  Food in my bowl! But first she squishes m...

Prompt: "Take a moment to dip into the deep well of the past year's 24-hour news cycle. What world event moved you this year? What story, series, or moment fascinated you? Made you scratch your head? Brought you to the edge of tears...or past the edge of your seat? Did an outside perspective change the way you felt, or make you take action? Share the headline(s) that resonated with you." I'm lousy at following the news. I usually have a general idea what's going on, but it's like I treat it with the same concern I do the plot of some reality housewives show I don't watch. It's happening, but it happens outside of my bubble. Why is that? Maybe I'm scared of caring too much, maybe I don't think me caring will make any kind of difference. Maybe I'm just too selfish and unworldly of a person? I'm not proud of it at all. I think it's one of my weaknesses. If I were a better person, I'd care about what's happening in the world a...

Let's not talk about how much of a failure I've been at my Think Kit posts. Let's just see how many I can make up. Prompt: "Nametags and punchbowls aren't necessary (but we're okay with that!) – who did you meet this year? Was it awkward? Enlightening? Was your first impression correct? Was it accidental & meant to be, pre-arranged, or somewhere in-between? Whether you found a soulmate, held a new baby, or finally trusted someone to style your hair just so, write about a new person (or people) in your life." There were a lot of new people in my life this year. A lot of people left the company I work for and new ones came to take their place -- it's amazing how fast the dynamics of a workplace can change when the people change. I got a new boss (again), new people joined the marketing team, new people joined my brand strategy team. The people I worked with most closely changed, and so the day-to-day changed, the atmosphere and mood of everything...

Here we go with another blogging challenge! I'm participating in SmallBox's Think Kit , a community writing project that involves a prompt a day for the entire month of December. Here's the first prompt: "Share your year in photos. Was there a moment of unrestrained happiness? An unexpected encounter? What role do photos play in your life – were you more selective with your phone (er...camera) this year? Or are you the King of Selfies? Dig into the deeper meaning of a moment frozen in time." I take a lot of photos. Most of them aren't really worth looking at again. In fact, let's be honest -- most of them are pictures of desserts and my dog. But looking back over the year for pictures worth sharing, I realize just how much I've done this year -- and how fast it's gone. I guess that happens every year, but this year in particular seems to have passed in a haze of constantly-trying-to-get-through, constantly-getting-ready-for-the-next-thing. I...

I caught poison ivy last Sunday while clearing out a grassy area in our yard. I had a grand vision of a beautiful, brightly colored wildflower area that would magically take care of itself. That vision went so horribly wrong. It didn't even occur to me that there might be poison ivy in the yard. Come to think of it, I've never even really thought about poison ivy, period. Well, friend, let me tell you -- I've thought about it a lot in the last four days. I have a wealth of knowledge about poison ivy now. For example: did you know that urushiol, the oil in poison ivy that causes these giant red welts that are currently all over my body, is basically an indestructible, immortal, vicious substance that lives forever? I know "immortal" and "lives forever" are synonyms but I really wanted to drive my point home there. You can kill poison ivy by smothering it for a year, but if you take the cover off and touch the dead plant, you'll still get a rash. You...

Do you think failing once makes you more likely to fail again? Because I forgot to take a picture again. This time I actually said to Michael, "I need to take a picture. I didn't take a picture today." Then I promptly went to bed. So, here's a picture from several weeks ago that I never shared. It's my new swing that we attached to the big oak in our back yard. I love it. The branch is shaky and I'm not 100% sure it's safe, but I still love it. We're at the lake this weekend, but since I feel bad that my last few weeks of posts have been kinda half-hearted, here's something I wrote on 6/24. This going back and finding older stuff that I can post is pretty handy. Is it cheating? *** One of my fish died tonight. Now the other is alone. He wasn't really my fish -- he was my mother's, the last one left of a tank full, who got shepherded off to the daughter in a mason jar. He lived a good, long life -- for a fish. I wonder...

AHHHHH. I MADE IT TO AUGUST. Finally. Now I am only a week behind on posts. Totally manageable. My replacement Fitbit clip came today. Remember my fascinating case number post  that I wrote seven days / thirty minutes ago? I'm not sure why they needed a huge box for that tiny rubber thing, but I'm happy to have a whole Fitbit again.  I realize that my Fitbit is not that interesting, so I'm going to finish this with something I wrote while on vacation. I didn't finish it, but I'll finish it now... *** On the last day of vacation you try not to count the hours – 24 hours left…18 hours left...10 hours left…one more swim…one more dinner… one more time to fall asleep reading in the sunroom, the night breeze covering your skin. But part of you counts, and part of you is sad. No, no, you say to yourself. Don’t think about it. Just enjoy it. The last ice cream sundae, the last evening walk. I feel different on long vacations. I t...

The words come smoothly and softly when I'm alone in the dark, sitting on the back step in the twilight, listening for deer in the woods and the sound the bat makes as he searches for mosquitos. In that moment I am a writer, a wordsmith, phrases tumbling like polished stones into the dark shadows around me. How long, I think, how long will it take me to know the outline of these trees against the sky like I've known others? Isn't it strange, that I own this yard and all these trees and yet I couldn't number them if I had to? That's something it seems I should be able to do. Somehow this darkness is comforting. I don't imagine murder in the shadows like I do when I sit inside in the light. Tonight I feel a part of the dark, and it's not dangerous. It grows around me and folds me into it, and it's the bright, yellow, harsh light inside that seems like it will hurt my eyes.

In her book Bird by Bird , Anne Lamott says she keeps a tiny, one-inch picture frame by her desk to remind her to focus on short assignments, to remember that she only has to write what she could see through that one, tiny frame. When writing seems like a gargantuan, impossible task, remember to start small. You don't have to write something huge, important, or even good. You just have to write something. Just let some words come out. Here's something Lamott suggests to her students: write about lunches for half an hour. 

I am sitting in the dark in our library The room we were (and still are) most excited about. I don't sit in it very often - my life right now doesn't allow much time for piles of books or old typewriters from garage sales. My life is more about Excel spreadsheets and revenue numbers - and I'm okay with that, most of the time. But in here the smell of paper and print of wood and waiting starts the letters dancing in my head I read in a Frank McCourt book once that Shakespeare was like jewels in the mouth For me it's dancers in my brain moving across the glossy floor of my thoughts in a dip and sway too fleeting to capture on paper or a computer not that I'm in the practice of trying, anymore. I most often let them swirl away. But tonight the dark, and the rain, and the lightning, and the dog beside me and the sound of you outside helps the words live just a little longer so they make it onto this page where they stumble on the rougher pavement ...