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With coffee and writing implements at hand, I can determine the shape of today. |
| I tend to write in the morning. After morning coffee and writing comes whatever the day holds...work, more writing, family time, reading, maybe even some gaming. It just depends...but writing first, always. And once I start writing, I get an idea not only of what I'm writing about, but how the rest of my day will go. Hence, the shape of today. |
| Yesterday was the day for "Building Blocks Storytime" at the library, when the parents of tots arrive to spend 45 minutes or so with singing, stories, games, and crafts. The morning session in particular is very popular, and we were quite busy while it was running. As things were wrapping up a little girl of no more than five approached the main desk and confidently told us of the dragon eggs she has. I asked her if they were intended for breakfast, but she replied, "Oh, no, you hatch them and raise the dragons!" She went on to give us some particulars of dragon-rearing until something fun in the kids' area caught her eye and she ran off again. Maybe she spotted the means of fashioning a dragon egg incubator among the construction paper and crayons. It does my heart a world of good (especially considering the way this week started) to see young imaginations getting such good exercise and nourishment in the form of stories. And, of course, I'm proud to be part of a library that's also home to conscientious dragon trainers. |
| I try to shove the world away from me when it's writing-time; the five minutes or whatever are my time, to be claimed by no one or nothing. This, I think, is important for each of us. For the most part this works, but there are times when the world simply won't be denied, and yesterday was one of those days. I woke up to a horror story out of Las Vegas that dominated the day. Like many other Americans I am still struggling to understand why this morning and am no closer to an answer. Then, toward the end of the day, there was the sorrowful and perplexing matter of Tom Petty's passing. I won't go into details on either story since the news sites are full of them. I touch on them because they illustrate one of the less endearing side effects of modern communications technology...the speed at which inaccurate news can spread. As of this writing we still don't know what motivated the jerk in Vegas, only that he clearly planned his act with the intention of inflicting as much harm as possible on a crowd of innocents. He fits into no known subset of people who commit such atrocities. But that hasn't stopped people from spreading every wild tale imaginable online. Crazed right winger, crazed left winger. Manchurian Candidate. Innocent American brainwashed by foreign agents. Heavy gambler who lost too much. Or, simply, a madman. Of all the posited explanations, I'm inclined to agree with that last because nothing else seems to make sense at this stage. Ultimately, time will tell. But the speed at which various parties were ready to put their own spin on the story (to lend credence to this agenda or that, you understand) is disconcerting. Getting to the actual facts is going to be a challenge...but if I were a cop, I absolutely would want to know them asap. Who knows how many other ticking human time bombs like this guy are walking around? Then we have the matter of Tom Petty. Word began to spread of his suffering a massive heart attack around the middle of the afternoon. Then came a series of conflicting reports...he was on life support, he had been taken off life support, he was brain dead, no he wasn't brain dead, etc. His own daughter lit into Rolling Stone for prematurely reporting his death. I assume that his family wanted the time to spend with him and wanted to keep the press away. Understandable, but it was clumsily handled. And, of course, social media was rife with rumors and people repeating stories without checking them first for validity. That, alone, makes me wish social media didn't exist even though I use it myself. Be suspicious of everything, folks...everything. Even somebody who genuinely believes they are passing on credible information may just be passing a baseless rumor. Trust no one. There! That entry took quite a lot longer than five minutes to put together, but I feel it's important. |
| A kindly soul stopped by here expressing a hope that I will continue my "five minute" entries. I certainly will do my best, though as I found out yesterday life has this annoying habit of getting in the way. A glowing orange "Service Engine Soon" light on my dash turned a routine errand into a detour to the oil change shop, making the routine errand quite a bit longer than I'd originally planned. But these things happen. And as always, time escapes like sand through my fingers. It's funny like that. I had a college teacher who absolutely loathed the expression "killing time". Some thirty-odd years down the road, I understand his perspective better now than I did then...we should treasure every moment we have to spare in our lives. We already have many demands on our time...family, work, sleeping, eating. When we finally get some to ourselves, we should never "kill" it. Spend it doing something that brings you joy...whether that's painting pictures or just sitting on your porch watching the birds play in the birdbath doesn't matter...what matters is that it enriches you on some level. As Gandalf told Frodo, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. |
The Five-minute challenge! Can I post something meaningful in the five minutes I have to spare before I have to take off for work? I think I can. I'm ruminating on the "perpetuation" of ideas this morning. It comes from a Teamspeak conversation I was having with my guildmates some months back. We were discussing our favorite coffees, and I said that no matter how many fancy coffee-brewing methods are invented, there are none that come close to a good old stainless steel percolator, which is what I grew up with. A young guildmate responded with, "What's that? Perpetuate?" The ensuing laughter has arisen in my mind in the time since, every time I pour a cup from the percolator. And because my ideas for stories often "percolate" in my mind like coffee before I do anything with them, it seems appropriate that I "perpetuate" them as well as "percolate" them. There! Five minutes down, and I've got a little something to post. Must make a habit of this. |
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