That's part of what I've been writing this morning.
I have finally started the biographical article about my friend Bruce Tsurutani, the article I have been "supposed" to write since I agreed to it last October. I've been dragging my feet, putting it off.
I am a writing teacher, you know, and I suppose I always understood when my students put off writing, didn't know how to start, etc., although inwardly I was likely impatient with them. I've been impatient with myself.
"Just start anywhere," I might tell them. That is a true and good strategy because merely putting pen to paper or fingers to keys brings ideas to the mind. "Just start anywhere." But did they believe it? A few did. But most of them would look at me like I was asking them to dress backwards and paint a face on the back of their heads.
Anyway, good for me, I have started, and I did just start anywhere, and what I wrote may or may not be in the article. But I got a couple of pages, a little under 1100 words. (I don't usually count words. It's just to let you know that when I say start I don't mean a few lines.) Two pages is a start.
An early draft. That's the time when I am not sure what has to go in and what doesn't. So, of course, there's a lot in there now because I have to put it in at first so I can see it.
Can't help these occasional writing lessons.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Confesson from An Introvert
by janna
Why do I so prefer emailing to phone calling??
My son says it's because I'm a coward. Perhaps. My daughter says it's because I am basically an introvert and would rather not interact with people. That's possible, and it's true that secretly I hope to leave a voice message when I call, but I don't mind face-to-face interaction. It's just telephone conversation I don't like.
I find talking on the phone to be a waste of time, but communicating through letters has always seemed to be a most valuable use of time. I am one who mourns the passing of the time-honored custom of exchanging letters. I have always preferred to think out my words before speaking them. I am better at writing my thoughts than verbalizing them off the cuff. And I'd rather read other people's words, think about my response, and compose my reply when I'm ready to do so. Does that make me terribly formal, stuffy, antisocial? When, in unfortunate connection with my church calling, I have to ask people to do stuff, I prefer to write my request so they can think about it before they respond. I think I get more "yeses" that way.
People say email cheapens the language, that thoughts and ideas just disappear into cyberspace. Surely phone calls, where the words evaporate into air as they are spoken, are worse. Unless the emails are strictly for taking care of business -- a highly worthwhile utilization -- I tend to save them, to reread them, and after some time has passed, to print and file them. True, emails lack the identifying personal penmanship of letters from the past, but they still preserve the person's voice for me. Phone calls can never do that.
And when I send an email, I do not worry that I am interrupting people at an inconvenient moment or invading their private time. I often don't answer the phone if I don't feel like talking, but a lot of people don't feel right about doing that. With email, I check my messages when I want to. And respond when I want to. Yeah -- that does make me sound pretty self-important, I know. But I allow others the same prerogative, and it wouldn't hurt any of us to learn to wait a bit.
Oh for heaven's sake
How to Crochet a Water Bottle Cozy
Someone at Wikipedia must have inherited a bunch of yarn from an auntie. Or something.
Someone at Wikipedia must have inherited a bunch of yarn from an auntie. Or something.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Yarn Yarn
How to Crochet a Toy Storage Hammock
It's Wikipedia's How to for today, and you're probably thinking I don't have enough to do, which isn't true, and I'm not really dying to get out the old crochet hook again. But, I thought, I have grandchildren, and they're moving into a "new" house this weekend. They might like such a toy storage hammock. Then I looked at the picture--a skinny piece of crocheted yarn stretched from one wall to another across a corner of a room. It had a few tiny stuffed toys resting on it. And I mean tiny. Get it?
It didn't match what I'd thought it would look like, my mind having created something with substance. If anyone in this world needed such a thing, I'd say buy a piece of net and stick it up in a corner, because I just can't see anyone really needing or wanting this piece of homemade nothing.
But it reminded me of when I had only two children--a long time ago. Two little boys just two years apart. I knitted each of them a toy dog with floppy ears. I don't remember if these were their first stuffed toys, but they were favorites, although I wonder now if they would even remember hauling those dogs around or sleeping with them, which they both did. One dog was brown and light blue, the other brown and olive green. Brown I had left over from the cardigan sweater I knitted for Paul, the younger of the two boys.
I guess I was into knitting then, perhaps because we lived in Caldwell, Idaho, and I had no friends. Yet. I also knitted a vest for their dad, charcoal gray, different kind of yarn, different size needles, cable stitch down the two fronts, blocking required--a bit more complicated than the dogs.
Before we were married I knitted him a sweater and argyle socks with a yellow angora line running through the argyles. It was the thing to do for your boyfriend back in the late 1950s, when I was a teenager: knit him a pair of socks. That or angora dice to hang from the rear view mirror of his car. I chose socks, much more practical than angora dice.
I thought they were pretty good, although his mother told me I had done them wrong. But he wore them. And the sweater. I wonder if he really liked them or if he just liked me. Either way, I'll take it.
It occurs to me this post should be on The Widow's Chronicle. Oh well.
It's Wikipedia's How to for today, and you're probably thinking I don't have enough to do, which isn't true, and I'm not really dying to get out the old crochet hook again. But, I thought, I have grandchildren, and they're moving into a "new" house this weekend. They might like such a toy storage hammock. Then I looked at the picture--a skinny piece of crocheted yarn stretched from one wall to another across a corner of a room. It had a few tiny stuffed toys resting on it. And I mean tiny. Get it?
It didn't match what I'd thought it would look like, my mind having created something with substance. If anyone in this world needed such a thing, I'd say buy a piece of net and stick it up in a corner, because I just can't see anyone really needing or wanting this piece of homemade nothing.
But it reminded me of when I had only two children--a long time ago. Two little boys just two years apart. I knitted each of them a toy dog with floppy ears. I don't remember if these were their first stuffed toys, but they were favorites, although I wonder now if they would even remember hauling those dogs around or sleeping with them, which they both did. One dog was brown and light blue, the other brown and olive green. Brown I had left over from the cardigan sweater I knitted for Paul, the younger of the two boys.
I guess I was into knitting then, perhaps because we lived in Caldwell, Idaho, and I had no friends. Yet. I also knitted a vest for their dad, charcoal gray, different kind of yarn, different size needles, cable stitch down the two fronts, blocking required--a bit more complicated than the dogs.
Before we were married I knitted him a sweater and argyle socks with a yellow angora line running through the argyles. It was the thing to do for your boyfriend back in the late 1950s, when I was a teenager: knit him a pair of socks. That or angora dice to hang from the rear view mirror of his car. I chose socks, much more practical than angora dice.
I thought they were pretty good, although his mother told me I had done them wrong. But he wore them. And the sweater. I wonder if he really liked them or if he just liked me. Either way, I'll take it.
It occurs to me this post should be on The Widow's Chronicle. Oh well.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Winter Musings
It's snowing just now. Those tiny flakes that come down at an angle and are sometimes hard to see. I think this might be good, the snow, for the Special Olympics happening here in Boise this very week. For me it is just another day in a winter that has seemed long. It's no wonder people associate winter with death. Well, I didn't mean to go there. Let me just say that long winters can be hard on the soul, which is why people I know run away to Arizona or St George, Utah, or Honolulu.
True, we're past December with its short days and long dark nights, and we have enjoyed some blue skies, some warmth, as January finally gave way to February. But we knew all along those days were, as my mother would say, only a lick and a promise. The groundhog saw his shadow last week; his promise was six more weeks of winter.
"You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long." An old song.
Those sunny days, what a gift. They were right for going outside to play or for taking a walk around the neighborhood. Folks here did that. My grandsons did that. So did I. But perhaps those blue-sky days make a day like this one a bit harder to bear. We thought about planting spring flowers in the pots out front, about putting the snow shovel out of sight, about the return of birds. We let down our winter toughness a little too much and have to build it back up to get through today.
But I sit here in a warm house, healthy and safe, and I have every assurance that spring will come. I can see this day differently without much effort. Like, this is a fine day for puttering around the house, getting this or that finished up, taking a twenty-minute nap (go here, #2), wrapping my hands around a cup of hot homemade soup. It's still snowing, but, actually, winter has only a five-week hold on us now. We can take it. Right?
True, we're past December with its short days and long dark nights, and we have enjoyed some blue skies, some warmth, as January finally gave way to February. But we knew all along those days were, as my mother would say, only a lick and a promise. The groundhog saw his shadow last week; his promise was six more weeks of winter.
"You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long." An old song.
Those sunny days, what a gift. They were right for going outside to play or for taking a walk around the neighborhood. Folks here did that. My grandsons did that. So did I. But perhaps those blue-sky days make a day like this one a bit harder to bear. We thought about planting spring flowers in the pots out front, about putting the snow shovel out of sight, about the return of birds. We let down our winter toughness a little too much and have to build it back up to get through today.
But I sit here in a warm house, healthy and safe, and I have every assurance that spring will come. I can see this day differently without much effort. Like, this is a fine day for puttering around the house, getting this or that finished up, taking a twenty-minute nap (go here, #2), wrapping my hands around a cup of hot homemade soup. It's still snowing, but, actually, winter has only a five-week hold on us now. We can take it. Right?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Delete
I have removed The Happiness Project from my igoogle page, which does not mean I do not believe in happiness or seek for it.
And beyond that comment I shall allow the removal to speak for itself.
And beyond that comment I shall allow the removal to speak for itself.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Boy, Can He Pick 'em
This just in . . .
"A Senate committee today abruptly canceled a session to consider President Obama's nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis to be labor secretary in the wake of a report saying that her husband yesterday paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens against his business -- liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years."
I didn't make this up. You can find the story in The LA Times, Boston Globe, USA Today, etc.
I wonder how many more prospective Cabinet members will be found to have broken the law. Paying taxes is the law, you know. And I suspect Caroline Kennedy has some tax secrets, too, which caused her to withdraw from that nice NY Senate appointment.
My daughter Ann asks, "Who are these people?"
They're the people running the government, and they consistently vote against tax cuts, by the way. But, apparently, they think their own taxes are too much, so they just don't pay them. Not an alternative for you and me.
I'm thinking this nasty tax business being laid out for public scrutiny has many "public servants" frantically checking with their CPAs.
And, really, don't you think it's about time someone over there on the left should be saying something like, "This whole tax issue is just part of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy'"? (Remember that one?)
Do you think Obama pays his taxes?
"A Senate committee today abruptly canceled a session to consider President Obama's nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis to be labor secretary in the wake of a report saying that her husband yesterday paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens against his business -- liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years."
I didn't make this up. You can find the story in The LA Times, Boston Globe, USA Today, etc.
I wonder how many more prospective Cabinet members will be found to have broken the law. Paying taxes is the law, you know. And I suspect Caroline Kennedy has some tax secrets, too, which caused her to withdraw from that nice NY Senate appointment.
My daughter Ann asks, "Who are these people?"
They're the people running the government, and they consistently vote against tax cuts, by the way. But, apparently, they think their own taxes are too much, so they just don't pay them. Not an alternative for you and me.
I'm thinking this nasty tax business being laid out for public scrutiny has many "public servants" frantically checking with their CPAs.
And, really, don't you think it's about time someone over there on the left should be saying something like, "This whole tax issue is just part of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy'"? (Remember that one?)
Do you think Obama pays his taxes?
Monday, February 2, 2009
I'm Not the Only One
Ha! I feel vindicated, validated, whatever. Those two movie critic guys on TV ranked Mamma Mia! (you read it here first) one of the ten worst movies of 2008. This morning I went online and found another movie critic who says the same thing.
One of the TV guys said, among other things, everybody in the movie was miscast, but at least most of them had something going for them: they weren't Pierce Brosnan.
Trust me. I know stuff.
One of the TV guys said, among other things, everybody in the movie was miscast, but at least most of them had something going for them: they weren't Pierce Brosnan.
Trust me. I know stuff.
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