Author: stenaros

Essay: On not getting things done.

It has been awhile since I wrote an essay.  The average temperature was 45 degrees, whereas now it’s 60 degrees.* I haven’t written an essay since February and with each passing week it gets harder and harder to think of something to write about.

My brain feels flabby. This is not unlike the feeling I get when I attempt to do pushups after I “haven’t gotten around” to them for some time.  So it’s hard for me to think of things to write about and hard for me to sit down and write and just hard in general to get back on that horse/get back into the game/get on up/get to it.
And I love writing, so there really isn’t any reason I shouldn’t be writing.  It’s just that sometimes, when I get stopped, starting becomes harder again with every passing day.  I’d like to say this is a problem just with writing, but it happens again and again.  Currently, I’ve missed a few days** of my 15-minutes-per-day-of-weeding plan, and it is very hard to get back out there.
It seems when I don’t do a regular thing regularly that the “not doing” piles up larger and larger in my brain.  From the small slice of garden I can see right now, things haven’t much changed in a week and getting back out there wouldn’t be any big deal.  But in my mind I find it hard to break the “not doing” cycle and get back out there.
I’m not entirely sure why this happens to me, but I’ve got a few theories.***  One is that I have too many interests.  I stopped writing essays because the class I was taking started taking up more and more of my time.  But then I didn’t start again after the class was over because I was sewing a dress and that took up the time that was going to the class.  Aside from general household and body maintenance (cleaning, working for pay, exercising, meditating, keeping track of finances and cooking) here’s what I would love to be doing every day:  writing, gardening, sewing, playing and singing music, and reading.  A normal day means doing all of the things above in the parentheses and maybe one other thing from my love-to-be-doing-every-day list.  This means that once per week I get to do one
thing from that list.  It’s rather discouraging.
I would love to arrange things otherwise, but until a large chunk of my day doesn’t go toward working for pay, I have to grab the bits and pieces I can and integrate them the best I can.  Or, I could let go of most of those interests, which doesn’t seem like that much fun to me.  So sometimes things get left behind, sometimes things get dropped entirely.  Sometimes it just takes me longer to find my way back to things than I would like. But this is a good first step.
*This is a made-up fact.
** “a few days” is what I always use to describe the period I
haven’t been doing something periodical.
It can mean anything from a few days to a few months to a few seasons.
***My mind never shuts off, so thinking of theories doesn’t
ever stop.

They HAVE run their course.


Hey look!  The Oregonian wants to know if Ziggy and Family Circus have run their course.  Really?  Do you  need to ask?  In fact, while we are on the topic, here’s a list of  other daily comics that have run their course:
Hagar the Horrible
Blondie
Wizard of ID
Hi and Lois
Peanuts (sorry to say, but it’s true)
Garfield
Freshly Squeezed

Oregonian readers are blessed with two full pages of daily comics.  How about making them all comics of note, not warmed-over plots that have been recirculating for years.

Three sentence movie reviews: Safety Not Guranteed


In my mind, the best kind of movie is where a character, or characters, if you are lucky, go through some sort of transformation over the course of the movie.  Based on that criteria, this movie was fabulous: simple story, interesting and not unlikable characters, and kind of quirky. Overall, this movie was made of some simple parts, but they all came together so well that I greatly enjoyed myself, and was reminded that this is why I love to watch movies.*

Cost:  $1.00 from Videorama ($1.00 Thursdays!  How lucky am I?)
Where watched:  at home.

*Have you not heard of this movie?  Well, you should watch it because there is a reason it was the Laurelhurst Theater’s longest running movie of 2012.
Also:  the extras have a great story about how the text for the ad came about.

Postcard from Australia

This beautiful postcard was sent from Australia, but the person who sent it had just returned from Singapore, where they celebrated Chinese New Year and this postcard is actually from Singapore, not Australia.   So international, Postcrossing is.  They also gave me a George Carlin quote:  “Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
 
And look at this darling stamp!
 

Radio. No static.

It’s been years since I’ve had crystal clear radio reception.  Or even good, solid radio reception.  We have lived in this house for six years and the floor of house above us that is not ours blocks the really good radio reception.  It wasn’t bad until my stereo receiver died.  The next receiver I bought did not get very good reception at all.    Before, I just had to construct a coat hanger antenna and not stand in a specific place and things weren’t too bad.  With the new receiver all I could do was try to ignore the static.

Enter this little gem.  I spent way too much money on it, but I’m flush with my tax return and this was my big splurge. It sits on the shelf next to the stereo (it can even sit sideways) and suddenly my NPR reception is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  It’s also quite pretty and simple.  I love it.
 

Postcard from Brasil


Some people on Postcrossing are very specific in their dislike of advertising cards.  After getting this postcard, I have to agree with them.  The front is this nice picture, and the back is a map of how to get to this picture.  The person who sent it did not include any greeting or even information about the country of origin.  I haven’t been on Postcrossing long enough to get picky, but I can say that this was not my favorite postcard experience.   

Ka-shard-ee-ans

For some reason, my  mind refuses to pronounce the “famous” reality family’s name correctly.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen them in anything but print media, having never seen any of their reality shows. Still, just from that exposure I can probably give you a pretty full synopsis of their lives. Here they are dominating 3 of 4 magazine covers in my checkout line at the grocery store.
 

Three sentence movie reviews: The Place Beyond the Pines

In celebration of having my real life back,* I took myself out to this movie.  It was a very good choice as I loved the story itself, the acting was phenomenal,** I was entranced the entire time and kept thinking about the movie in the days that followed.  This was an excellent flick and not just because a certain someone was all tarted up with incredibly white trash tattoos.***

Cost:  A premium $8.50
Where watched: Regal Fox Tower

*Class is over, dress is mostly done, I can reclaim my time!
**Hamster Ryan Gosling is growing on me and Bradley Cooper keeps being marvelous.
***It took about a week before I realized that the Ryan Gosling character was cleverly designed to appeal to every single bad-boy trigger point:  trashy motorcycle racer who changes his ways for not just a woman but, (wait for it) a baby!  I totally fell for it.