Late-blooming garden
in a race with the season.
Will ripe or cold win?
Month: August 2018
It’s been a day
This morning started with a run followed by delicious coffee and rice cakes smeared with peanut butter as I began working on revisions. Everything was clicking and life was good.
Looking back on it, I wish I’d bottled how I felt then because the day quickly took a number of turns for the worse and now I’m kinda worn out from it all. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t conjure up those good feelings. Damn you, life’s curves and slick surfaces!
Ah well, tomorrow means a fresh start.
Wordless Wednesday: fungi edition
A tale of three cacti
Zippy and I ran on the trails this morning, and when we reached the top of one uphill slog we paused to stretch. I noticed a colorful cactus off the trail in the approximate spot where we’d seen a beautiful blooming cactus last April and so stepped closer to see whether that cactus was in flower again.
Wrong and wrong again.
The cactus that caught my eye this morning was nothing like the one from last spring. Instead, it was a prickly pear that looked something like this:
But even worse was that as I went off-trail I didn’t look where I was stepping and by the time I returned to the trail my shoes were loaded with yet another kind of cactus. These were like tiny footballs with two-inch-long spines.** And as I pulled them from my shoes I learned that one spine had embedded itself in my ankle. Yeah, so that was cool. But I got it and all the rest of them out and started running back down the trail. Stinging pain be damned.
Alas, those little football cacti were a gift that kept on giving. About a mile later I stuck my hand in my pocket and experienced a whole other kind of ouch. Turns out I’d gotten a bunch of tiny spines in my fingers when removing the footballs from my shoes.
But you know what? It was still a good run.
** I just realized that the post I linked to above contains a photo of my shoe with a, wait for it . . .tiny spiny football cactus. So apparently I’m bound and determined not to learn from my mistakes.
Welcome to the working week
♫ Welcome to the working week
Oh, I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you
Welcome to the working week ♬
You gotta do it till you’re through it, so you better get to it
A novelist and a bricklayer walk into a bar
Writing a novel isn’t like building a brick wall.
You don’t figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier
each time because you know what you’re doing.
With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time.
Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.
~ Kate DiCamillo
Friday Haiku
Loki’s not amused
found a quiet napping spot
then paparazzi
Perfection isn’t perfect
I’m working on my revisions and mostly succeeding in ignoring the nasty voice in my head that says “this is crap” and “why even bother?”
What’s the key to my (mostly) success?
Remembering there’s no such thing as a perfect manuscript. Perfection is an unattainable ideal that just so happens to also be highly subjective.
From my perspective this purple coneflower is perfection. Flawed petals and all. I love it and have spent quite a bit of time gazing at its loveliness. However, your mileage may vary. And that’s okay.
Wordless Wednesday: redefining past-your-prime
What a long strange trip it’s been
Today I wander the wilderness of my manuscript, hoping I’m (finally) headed in the right direction with these revisions. Remembering to acknowledge the process and enjoy the journey as best I can.
Allow me to clarify
With great writing there is great clarity.
~ David Costabile
That is precisely why I’ve got my notebook out again, jotting down elements of the manuscript I’m revising in hopes of making connections I’ve missed so far. It’s hard to admit, but my story lacks focus. How that can still be true in the fourth draft I do not know. What I do know is this:
With mediocre writing there are muddy waters and confusion which result in the reader not knowing exactly what she’s supposed to root for or why any of it matters.
~Tracy Abell
Word of the day (and probably however long it takes to finish this draft) = CLARITY.
Sunday Confessional: I love me a good bad pun
No one in the family gets away with just one name. The furry ones in particular are addressed by an assortment of monikers. Our elder dog, Zoey, is also known as the Orange Roughy, Speed Bump, Zoey Pigza, and the Pig.
Our younger dog came to the family with the name Emma and quickly became Emma Jean, then Emma Jean-Jean, and frequently just Jean.
In fact, I often greet my smiling friend with “Hi, Jean.” Then I pause. “Or should I say, Oral.”
Emma finds me very witty. I swear.
Counting moments with a butterfly
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
Friday Haiku
Reminder to self
not all orange is grotesque
like the spray-tanned Tr*mp
Rest in power, Aretha
Today we mourn the loss of Aretha Franklin. I am grateful for the many hours spent listening, singing along with and dancing to her music. She was an extraordinary artist (and I’m just now learning about her social justice work including a willingness to post bail for Angela Davis). I am the farthest thing from a religious person, but this version of Marvin Gaye’s Wholy Holy gives me goosebumps. Every single time.
Do yourself a favor and spend your next five minutes with the Queen of Soul.
Rest in power, Aretha.
Wordless Wednesday: hail-no edition
Visiting Denver Botanic Gardens
Today I met a friend at the Denver Botanic Gardens. She has a membership and treated me (for the umpteenth time) to a guest pass. Here’s one of the dazzling flower and plant displays at the entrance:
There were many plants I recognized and many more I did not. For instance, what is this?
In my photo file I labeled it “Poky Plant,” but I’m nearly 100% sure that’s not the right name.
Then there’s the Dragon Arum otherwise known as 
Dracunculus vulgaris. When I showed this photo to Zebu he said the exact same thing my friend had remarked: “Dracunculus vulgaris is a Harry Potter spell.”
It was a lovely couple hours at the gardens and now I’m back home in front of my computer, getting psyched up to tackle my revisions. 
May my thoughts stay still longer than the water spiders in that last photo.
Ready or not here I come
It’s a new week and I’m in fake-it-’til-I-make-it mode. There are seriously messed up things happening on the planet and my gut instinct is to stay in bed reading books and eating toast for the rest of my life. But that’s exactly what all the horrible people out there wreaking havoc right now want; they’re counting on wearing us down so that we start averting our gaze.
Nope. Books and toast are good, but constant vigilance is essential.
Today I’m gonna make like a prairie dog . . . and keep fighting the good fight.
Sunday Confessional: yellow is best left to the flowers
I am a pale white woman who never, ever wears yellow because that color washes me out and makes me look dead. Sunflowers, on the other hand, wear their yellow quite nicely.
Motto: No yellow in my closet, but plenty in my garden.
Live music is better when people shut up. Discuss.
Last night Zippy and I went to the Bluebird Theater in Denver to hear Parker Millsap. Same as the last time he was in town, Parker put on one helluva show. Unfortunately, also the same as last time there were a bunch of rude people at the general admission/standing venue. So much talking talking talking during the performance. Last year after suffering through two women having a loud conversation in front of us I eventually pointed out that since they weren’t interested in listening and we were that maybe they could switch positions with us. They did, and happily moved their socializing well behind us so we could focus on the singing/songwriting.
Last night it was two men talking in loud voices behind us. When I went over to tell them I couldn’t hear it was incredibly frustrating/rage-inducing to realize that one of the blabbermouths was from the opening act. (In fact, two members of that act were loud and disruptive during the main event). You’d think, that of all people, performers would fully understand proper audience etiquette.
Nope.
Friday Haiku
Fungal tiki hut
sprouting from the landscape rocks
shelter for insects
Yeah, what he said
I’m trying to make work that is reflective and is encouraging of reflection.
~ Antony Gormley
Wordless Wednesday: Rocky Mountain Columbine edition
Every picture tells a story
This could’ve been a truly awesome photo. Imagine a large white cat stretched out on the backside of the hanging shirts, staring through the multi-colored plastic hangers with yellow-green eyes. Imagine a self-satisfied expression on that white cat’s face as you struggled to understand how he got there. Imagine being frozen in place as he stared you down.
By the time I snapped out of my Marcel-induced reverie and returned with my camera, this was all I got. In fact, this subpar photo was staged. Marcel had already extricated himself from the hangers and jumped down before I could get a shot so Zippy picked him up and put him back on the dresser. (Confession: I was hoping he’d jam Marcel back through the hangers, but apparently my mate and I have different cat-wrangling sensibilities.)
Loki, true to form, remained chill throughout the activities.
In which I conquer my fear
I’m afraid of heights and frequently have dreams in which I’m waaay too far from the ground. My fear is a known quantity in my household. So when I announced before leaving for Crested Butte a couple weeks ago that I was going to ride the ski-lift, Zebu’s response was a skeptical/worried “Really?”
Yes, really.
Then I arrived and watched the lift from our rental balcony. My heart picked up the pace and my chest got tight. Zippy suggested we check it out and then I could decide, assuring me it was okay to back out. We walked to the lift-line filled with people in helmets, body armor, and mountain bikes. Turns out Wednesday evenings allow unlimited lifts up the mountain for bikers wanting to ride the trails to the bottom. I was in line next to little girls not only brave enough to ride the chair lift but to bomb down the mountain on bikes! Those two young sisters listened politely as their dad reassured this grown-ass woman I’d be fine on the lift.
And I was.
On the ride down the mountain (which was much easier and more relaxing for me, to the extent I released my death grips on the lap bar and Zippy’s shirt), we passed the biker girls and their dad riding up the mountain again. We all waved and one of the girls shouted, “Enjoy your ride!”
I did.
Thanks in no small part to their example. Girl power!
Tracy Abell 