Ten-Finger Exercises

blogging with one ear

I notice it's getting late, but I just put a movie on to play while Bill is at a meeting. He won't be interested in it, and I have mixed feelings about it myself. I am watching it on the urging no, nagging of a co-worker, a young woman who is a social worker and the mother of two middle school age girls.

Well, no problem now. While I was trying to turn down the volume, I inadvertently hit some unknown key and turned the screen off. Haven't a clue what I did or what to do about it. So, you have both my eyes and ears...but no topic. The movie she so determinedly wants me to watch is called Jesus Camp, and it is a frightening portrayal of the rise of dogmatic, fundamental religion in our country. I only saw the first few minutes, and already I'm alarmed, although I hear the same thing on the radio and among staff members and other groups of people every day. I will reserve further comment until I have actually seen the movie.

We have a new social worker today, a man I know slightly and think highly of. I know he's had a private counseling practice and has been working for an agency dealing with children.

As he questioned me today about the chaplain's role in hospice, he volunteered his own religious preference. "I'm a deacon," he said, "of baseball. My dad got me going to that church when I was young, and it's been my preference ever since." He went on to say that he also belongs to a meditation group of the Buddhist persuasion. He will be a very interesting addition to our mix. The other two social workers are a liberal Methodist and a fundamental Adventist. Nothing like good variety and balance.

It's day 5 of the NaNoWriMo, and many of our favorite bloggers are hard at it. Several times today I found myself envying them, spending a couple of hours each day thinking of characters and having them step off the page and get on about their varying roles. A couple of characters in my head had a few words to say to me today, but, I couldn't keep listening to them and drive and carry on a conversation too. Pity.

Here's my tip for the NaNoers: if your plot gets bogged down, have a power failure. All sorts of interesting things can happen in the dark, (like dripping wax on the carpet.)

We had a power outage for five hours a few weeks ago. Bill got home before me and had the few candles he could find lit, but he didn't have them secure on saucers or anything to catch the drip. The hand-poured beeswax candle that a friend made me had burnt through its side and was melting down the table. It's a star shaped column, very pretty but thinner in some places than others.

Fire actually makes me nervous. I don't know how people walked around holding candles and seeing ahead of themselves AND not dripping wax all over. They certainly aren't as efficient as flashlights for casting beams of light; in fact, the bright flame sort of blinds me, at least makes it harder to see into the darkness. People probably DID drip wax all over, but then they didn't have wall-to-wall carpeting to contend with either.

Well, I've babbled on enough. I'll go see what the rest of you are up to. 'Night.