aftermath

Continental Shift

~ Bon Steele ~ 5 Comments

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
  -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Big changes percolating, m’friends. There are whole continents shifting in my head about writing and learning and parenting and my body and my child and and and…

As I said, big changes.

Some of it is things that have been on the boil, albeit on a back burner, for years. Others are a more gradual shifting. Still others are a radical change in my thinking caused by the last few months of school. Most especially the last couple of weeks.

I suppose Emerson and Thoreau do that to people.

I further suppose that is one of the reasons they continue to be taught, year after year.

We all fall down, and while down in the dirt, despair. We find it more comfortable, and far easier to wallow than to get back up. Especially if this is your third, or thirteenth, or even thirtieth tumble.

Or higher.
*coughcough*  AHEM.

 

Still, I find myself looking back over my writings and seeing a progression. Seeing an upward and outward trend. It’s only when I stop writing that there is a stutter in that progression. And how easy a truth is that?

And how sad is it to think that I keep forgetting such an easy lesson?

How sad are the un-kept promises made to myself and my readers that I never get around to? How lucky I am that you keep coming back. Thank you. It means a lot to me.

If Stephen King’s magnum opus was right – and all the universe is but a continuous microcosm of author(s)’ brains, how many of my characters now flounder in Limbo? Who tremble under a pendulum that ever threatens? Or wait in the Red Desert with madness snapping at their heels?

Time, I think, to rescue them. To do the work I mean to. To no longer simply visit the piles of my previous words and wail. But to unravel the frayed and forgotten ends, to weave a more complete tapestry.

I am no Emerson. I am no Thoreau. Heck, I am not even a King.
(still not King.)

I am who I am, doing what I am supposed to be doing. Pretending or feeling otherwise is a slap in the face to the talent that I do have.

Continent shifting, indeed.

There’s a Light….

~ Bon Steele ~ 4 Comments
(over at the Frankenstein place)

Well, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel at any rate.

HOKAY.

Here’s the Earth New Chore List.
  Re-established what was on the daily chores.

  • Everyday:  Hygiene. Homework. Put away clean dishes (as needed).
  • Mondays: Trash and kitty litter
    (cause it gets picked up on Tuesdays)
  • Tuesdays: Bring in the pails from the curb.
  • Wednesday: Free day.
  • Thursday: Laundry – washed and put away in closet and drawers.
  • Friday: If it is her Dad’s weekend with her, pack for that.
  • Saturday: Family housecleaning from noon until four or it’s done, whichever comes first.

To help with The Saturday Scrubbening, I have created a housecleaning checklist1 that we can use for each room as we go.

What? Can’t hear you. … Look, can I just come sit next to you and *talk*?

Lines of communication, re-established.
Mostly she is a great kid. But she is deep in the throes of teenagerdom.
Mister Man reminded me that we are in the very worst part of it, too. The beginning bits are always hardest as everyone works to adjust.  I’m going to look on this as an opportunity for growth. For all of us.

I also need to keep in mind that she is stretching out, trying on new personalities. She is going to go through different personas as she figures out what and who she wants to be.

So, for now I just keep establishing the same boundaries as far as cleaning, attitude, and hygiene2 are concerned.
I will maintain low tones. And offer tasty treats as rewards.

Pictured: Not a Lie.

1 -Damn, you might say. That is a sweet checklist.
2 –Which, as I said, I think will mostly take care of itself. Wanting to be pretty for others includes not smelling of feet.

General Update

~ Bon Steele ~ 4 Comments

And, presented!

It seemed to go over well. No active booing, at any rate. 1 Why should I worry? It’s only 10% of my grade.

Now on to the research paper.  It’s going to be a huge project. However, I am well on my way with it and I have a Spring Break in which to finish it. So, that’s all right, then. I might also have a chance to work on some of my own fiction2.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

 

*semi-mournful sigh*

First person to show up with a cookie or three, a bottle of Pinot and another of massage oil wins not only the internets but a cameo in one of my stories.

 

Sparkling wine and shortbread? Yes, please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 – If any of you are curious about it, let me know and I’ll post it. I think I can post a PowerPoint here, right?
2 – I have a serious itch to write about my favorite current obsession – Dragon Age 2. Or, at the very least, write within its world. I have been posting that sort of thing into my El Jay. I kind of want other people to see it, though.