Month: July 2020

Doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. Clue 58 down: First man, in Maori mythology. 4 letters; last one ‘e’. My immediate answer: Steve. I swear, that was the first thing that came into my head.

The more I think about it the funnier it gets…

I told you I bought a ReMarkable, but that it won’t ship until October (it seems they are making a small batch at a time and I fall into batch #7 – whatever.) I told you how much I hate typing and that I think better with pen and paper.

I was just clearing off my desk, putting away various bits of paper and I noticed my writing notebook – where I do my scribbling. I don’t know how other people compose their poetry but me, I scribble and scratch out and re-write and move things around.

Also the first verse of any poem comes to me in one quick burst, pretty much just the way I want it and the verses that follow are just plain hard work. Some people have complimented my writing and I always say that I am only a writer of great lines. Really. A line or two, really top notch, a cohesive whole, not so much.

You know how in the recording industry there is a category called ‘one hit wonders’ well I am in the category of one verse wonders. There was a time when inspiration hit I could just sit and work it out in one fell swoop (editing later of course, there is always editing) but that doesn’t happen anymore, not too sure why. Maybe because, eh, nevermind.

Of course if I were a dedicated writer, a real writer, I would go back to my bits and pieces and just sit and cogitate and finish the poem. But I’m not a dedicated writer, I am an emotional writer and my emotions just seem to come out in verse. Actually I wouldn’t call myself a writer at all (I’m not sure I ever have described myself as such) I’m just someone who feels in verse. Or inverse! “Definition of inverse: opposite in order, nature, or effect” I think that’s a great description of me. Along with perverse…

I’ve been up for 2.5 hours. Why? Seems some dudes decided to have a drunken party at 5am in our parking lot or perhaps just beyond on the grassy slope that contains picnic tables…Sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly where the sounds are coming from because the rear of my building is u-shaped and sounds just echo around it.

With windows closed and the noisy a/c I shouldn’t have heard the noise but I have my husband trained to check the weather when he gets up at approximately 4:30am. He had shut off the a/c and opened the windows. I usually can sleep through the bird racket but drunken singing in several languages, shouts of “oompah” and general raucousness – this I can not sleep through.

We are headed into our 17th consecutive day of over 90 degree days. We need to beat the previous record of 21 days – I think we’ll make that and exceed it (according to the weather forecasts.) Along with the heat we have high to very high humidity. But sometimes, just sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, the humidity and temps moderate themselves to a comfortable degree and I can open the windows until about 9am.

As soon as those windows open I fall into a deep and wonderful sleep. No noisy a/c, no chilled to the bone by that a/c. There is really no way to moderate it, either it’s on and freezing or off and stuffy and hot. My husband thinks we might need new thermostats, I think we need to move, either to a newer building with better mechanics or another state, or hell, for other reasons, another country. I would be so happy to move to another country – any country where they speak English – at my age learning a new language is just not in the cards.

I have said before that I don’t belong anywhere – wherever I am, that’s where I belong until I move on to another place. I have no loyalty to place or country. I have no roots, no attachments to places or things. Yes, I will always be “the little Italian girl from the Bronx” and New York City will always be me, bred in the bone, but I have to say, I would NEVER live in NYC again even if you paid me (and you would have to because I can’t afford to live there.)

We have lived here, in this particular place, for 8 years now, and that is the longest I’ve lived anywhere in the last 31 years – so past the time to move on – to anywhere – even just a mile down the road to a more convenient location. In my daydreams I move much farther – across the country or across the border or across the ocean – Atlantic, Pacific, either one, I’m not fussy.

I have no present, I do have a past and for some strange reason, I think I still have a future. I’ll be 74 this year – future is not really a viable construct. And yet, that is where I live – in my mind, in the future. Oh, the places I will go!

There was the most hilarious typo on a blog I read. I do believe it was a cut and paste from another blog which I don’t read. Not only did I laugh but so many snarky replies, the typo was contained in an question, came to mind that I was cracking myself up. Since there was no way that I could see to contact the blogger privately I didn’t comment because pointing out typos publicly is bad form.  Oh but I did so laugh my ass off – perhaps it was a Freudian slip on the original bloggers part. Anway, thanks for the laughs, I needed that!

I am so fed up with ads all over the interwebz. When at all possible I hide them, report them, close them out (yes, yes – I have ad blocker on my chrome browser but for some reason on my iPad chrome extensions don’t work and I spend an equal amount of time on my iMac and I do on my iPad).  With the amount of money we pay for just about everything on the interwebz including ACCESS to the interwebs this ad thing smack in your face all.the.damn.time is beyond my patience to ignore it.

Has anyone (besides me) noticed that when you use Google to search the first 10 or so results are ads? Just me? The funny thing is – I was watching the screen and a whole bunch of hits showed up and in nano seconds they disappeared to be replaced by ads, then the (somewhat) appropriate sites showed up. WTH? Google brought up the results and then immediately pushed them down and placed at least 10 ads at the top.  I was not amused. I have no patience for this shit. I have now switched to Duck, Duck, Go. We’ll see how this goes. Also too, Chrome as a browser is plucking at my last nerve as well. All things Google and Facebook/Instagram annoy me to hell and back!

And speaking of Instagram – The actor Leslie Jordan started a cute IG feed (or whatever it’s called) and I started following but it bugged me. You wanna know why? Mr. Jordan’s signature line is “Well, shit” – oh no. No, no, no, no,no. That belongs to me. I am way older than Mr. Jordan, and I’ve been saying “Oh, shit”  and “well, shit” for more years than he has. I can walk into a room, look around, and apropos of nothing at all announce “Well, shit”.  And honestly, I am 9 years older than Mr. Jordan and he looks at least 10 years older than my real age. So there – (Shee-it). So, anyway I’m not finding Mr. Jordan funny anymore and I stopped following him. THBBFT!

or perhaps troubling isn’t quite the right word, well yes it is for some of the things that my brain refuses to let go. Other things are just – a trifle heavy in my head and heart, making me sad. Both sets of things are taking up too much head space. I have to keep telling myself this – 

That last bit is really the most important – I can’t expect these people to understand where I’m coming from. I could try to explain but it would almost sound as if I am saying I am better than they are – and that’s not true, these are good and kind people whose lives are, and have been, so very different from mine. I can understand their POV, really I can, but I know they can’t understand mine, tho they would try, I just know they would.

And then there are those things that are making me a bit sad, my heart heavy – well, that’s where the first bit comes in – let it be. I’m here, they know where to find me. Time to let it be, let it go, shrug my shoulders and move on.

Oh perhaps it’s just holidays – holidays always make me snarky. I understand why human beings invented holidays – to glorify themselves or commemorate what they think of as their achievements and the subsequent disasters associated with their achievements.

I don’t do holidays of any shape or sort or for any reasons. I don’t believe in glorifying or commemorating anything humans have done. I think humans are  Mother Nature’s biggest mistake – ill conceived and badly executed.

And you are saying “If there were no humans there would be no you” Yes, and how would that be a bad thing?

Eh, I don’t know what this is about except my disdain for the human race.