Z is for zero

Posted on April 30, 2012 | 2 comments

…days left in the April A-Z Challenge!

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I’ll do when the month ends. I’ve posted more consistently (and gotten more traffic) than at any time since I began this blog, and I hate to lose that momentum. On the other hand, I’ve come to see that there is a certain tyranny in the requirement to post daily: the demands can be wearing on readers and blogger alike. I think I’ve seen a certain degree of reader fatigue, and I know that the quality of the posts has not been consistently what I would like it to be.

I’ve been trying to cultivate the habit of daily writing for some time now, but that sort of writing isn’t always fit for publication. I think journals are a good place to do that, and I’ve been making use of mine for that purpose. A fair amount of what I’ve written on a daily basis hasn’t made it to the blog, but it has been good for me to be stretched by the letter prompts and by the need to produce something postable every day. I’m not sure, however, that it’s a sustainable practice for me over the long term.

In the interest of everyone’s sanity, I’ve decided to institute the Z-A Even Day Challenge. I will work my way backwards through the alphabet (since I missed the first two-thirds of it) with the commitment to post on even-numbered calendar days. This will take me through May and well into June, by which time I hope to figure out something else to do to keep myself writing.

I’ll keep you posted, and I’d love to hear any feedback or ideas you might have. Thanks for reading!

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Y is for yesterday

Posted on April 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

…which is when I was supposed to write and publish this post. But yesterday was a Saturday, which days are pretty busy around here. Unlike last Saturday (see S is for Skipping) I got to turn the computer on yesterday to take care of a few pressing items, but I didn’t get to spend more than half an hour.

Yesterday was also end-of-year assessment performances for area high school bands, hosted this year in a neighboring county. This means I spent a good chunk of the day dropping off, picking up, and generally schlepping myself and other people over several dozen square miles of the Bluegrass. I did get to enjoy concert performances by five excellent bands, though, which made it all seem worthwhile.

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X is for Xanthippe

Posted on April 27, 2012 | 3 comments

…because that name came up in a short story I recently read.* I will let you figure out for yourself how it might relate to this post.

My friend Murphala, over at FlourWaterYeast&Salt is knitting a third fingerless glove because she’s not happy with the color/pattern differences between the first two she made. I made a comment, to which she replied, but when I tried to respond to her response, Picatcha wasn’t working and wouldn’t let me make the comment, so this blog post will be my reply.

I sez: They all look find to me, but then again that sort of thing must not bother me because one of my kids regularly wears non-matching shoes to school.

She sez: Which kid?

So now I sez: The queen bee. It started in preschool, when she began mixing and matching socks. She’s the sort of child who goes barefoot at every opportunity, so I was just thrilled she had socks on at all. I was having coffee with some of the other preschool moms one day when a couple of them started complaining about how their daughters wanted to wear socks that didn’t match. I sheepishly confessed that was because of my daughter, and warned them that the next fashion craze coming their way was mix-n-match pony tails/pig tails. (The queen bee also had issues about brushing her hair.) I wasn’t invited to any more mom brunches.

She started in with the non-matching shoes last summer. The child is incredibly hard on flip-flops for some reason, and within a few weeks of getting a very sturdy and fairly expensive white pair, she had broken one of them. I foolishly bought her another pair (in a different color because they were out of white) which lasted her for about a month. As I lamented the demise of the second pair, she noticed that she had broken a different shoe in each and seized upon the idea of wearing the mismatched pair. The shoes were identical except for the color, so I decided there wasn’t any harm in it. I thought I might get more of my money’s worth out of them that way.

While shopping at the Goodwill this spring, she found two identical pairs of flats, one pink and one green. Seeing as they were only $2 each (significantly cheaper than the &^%$#@ flip-flops) I let her get them. So now she has TWO pairs of mismatched flats to go with the flip-flops.

Of such things are fashion icons made.

* “Seven Wonders,” by R. Garcia y Robertson, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec. 1995

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W is for work

Posted on April 26, 2012 | 4 comments

I need to finish an editing job for a client, so this will be my post for today. It feels a little like cheating, but I will be using the written language portion of my brain, and I will be writing comments and corrections and such. I just won’t be posting them here. Sorry. 😦

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V is for vacillate…

Posted on April 25, 2012 | 3 comments

…though that is not, strictly speaking, the subject of this post. I discovered a wonderful synonym for the word: tergiversate! (tuh-JIV-uh-sate or TUH-jiv-uh-sate) Not only is it fun to say, it has the most deliciously wicked meaning:

  • to change sides or loyalties — become apostate
  • to be evasive or ambiguous — to equivocate

Its Latin roots mean to turn back, but to me it calls to mind someone playing both sides against the middle, which seems more sinister than being either a double agent or someone who flip-flops.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use some form of this word in a written piece that does not exceed 300 words. Go!

(This post will self-destruct in 10 seconds.)

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U is for undecided

Posted on April 24, 2012 | 5 comments

I couldn’t decide whether to write about Underdog, one of my favorite childhood cartoon heroes, or underwear. So I’ll write about both.

We owned a couple of Underdog glass tumblers (tall drinking glasses) when I was a kid: one had Sweet Polly Purebred, Underdog’s lady love on it; the other featured the humble superdog himself. The theme song to that show was so thrilling, and I loved the fact that Underdog always spoke in rhymed verse. In fact, if asked as a child what kind of superpower I would like to be given, I’m pretty sure I would have asked for the ability to always speak in rhymed verse. (Even then I was a language geek.)

Since the theme of the day is undecided, I’ve changed my mind about writing about underwear. (I hear some of you sighing in relief and others moaning in disappointment. Maybe next “U is for…” day.)

Yesterday, a friend and I were discussing how the both of us are understaffed and underfunded. I mentioned that I had taken one of those personality-type quizzes that helps you figure out how best to get organized. I fall into the category of person who should hire someone. It turns out that I’m not really disorganized; I’m understaffed. My friend has been tirelessly looking for a job since well before she was awarded her PhD last spring. Her research fellowship is running out, and she’s trying not to panic. I pointed out that she’s been working harder at finding a job than she would work if she actually had a job. She put it this way: “I’m not unemployed — because heaven knows I have more than enough to do — I’m underfunded.”

There’s a good chance you’ve found this post uninteresting. While that is unfortunate, it also seems unavoidable.

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T is for Tea (of course!)

Posted on April 23, 2012 | 4 comments

Ah, tea! Hearty Assam, smooth Darjeeling, delicate green, smoky Oolong. Blended, flavored, fermented to all degrees. With honey, milk, sugar, butter, lemon, spices. By the pot, by the cup, by the mug. Loose-leaf, bagged, or tied into flowers. In the morning, at noon, mid-afternoon, or after dinner.

I like both tea (made with the dried leaves of Camellia sinensis) and tisane (infusions that don’t include Camellia sinensis). Of the former, I especially enjoy English Breakfast, jasmine, Tazo’s Zen. Of the latter, I’m partial to rooibos, my own infusion of fresh lemon basil, and a couple of medicinal combinations for various purposes.

Tea (and tisane) has gained enough of a foothold in this country that it’s fairly widely available in some form or another. You can’t always get it hot; you don’t always have much selection; you seldom get it with milk, but you can find it. That makes me ridiculously happy. (Maybe it helps explain why I was so delirious with joy just being in the UK.)

Several years ago, I had a group of friends who held old-fashioned tea parties. Some collected teacups, teapots, and other paraphernalia. Some assembled recipes and tried out menus and techniques. Some scoured tag sales for hats and gloves, table linens, and parasols. We staged elaborate gatherings, complete with poetry readings and croquet, depending on the season. It was glorious fun.

I no longer live near these friends, nor do I have the time or the energy for such theatrics, but I still find both comfort and sustenance in a nice hot cuppa, no matter what the time of day.

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S is for Skipping

Posted on April 22, 2012 | 6 comments

…because I skipped Saturday. According to the official April A-Z Challenge rules, skipping Sundays results in the correct number of days in the month (26). Seeing as yesterday ended up the kind of day when I didn’t even turn on my computer, I decided to skip yesterday and blog today instead. As my grandmother always used to say, “It all comes out in the wash.”

Friends have been clamoring for me to blog about my time in London (okay, one friend suggested it out of politeness) so I’ll begin with a few of my impressions of the place.

– It is incredibly civilized. By that I mean that you can get a cup of hot tea just about anywhere (and most places a pot), and they bring you milk when you ask for it, not half-n-half or non-dairy creamer (ye gods!) because they are at a loss.

– It is incredibly civilized. By that I mean that they have excellent public transit. We never had to wait more than five minutes for a bus or tube train and could transfer between lines and modes without difficulty.

– It is incredibly civilized. By that I mean that people seemed to conduct themselves in public with a reasonable degree of awareness of and courtesy toward those around them. (Except that young couple who wouldn’t stop snogging on the tube platform one afternoon. And folks leaving the bars at 3:00 a.m. And the French schoolchildren, as mentioned in an earlier post. But maybe the latter don’t count because they’re not British.)

– It is incredibly civilized. By which I mean that even the corner quickie mart offered a delightful array of British cheddars in the cold case with nary a slice or block of petroleum-based American cheese product in sight.

– It is incredibly civilized. By which I mean that it is considered perfectly appropriate to have a pint of ale with lunch. Every day. And with dinner, too.

(Caveat: These are merely my impressions from a brief sojourn. If I am wildly mistaken, I welcome gentle correction from folks more knowledgeable than I in these matters.)

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R is for Really Late

Posted on April 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

Thanks to Tiffany Francis of Some Words, I recently found out about the April A-Z Challenge. I know the month and the challenge are 2/3 of the way through, but if today were April 2, I’d say, “B is for Better Late than Never!”

Given how far I’ve fallen off the daily post wagon, I make no promises. But seeing as fewer than two weeks remain in the challenge, it’s not unreasonable to hope that I might at least make a decent showing. Who knows? I might even end up forming a good habit (though I’ll probably need another equally simplistic challenge to help me along. Any suggestions?)

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An old poem revisited: Ghost Hand

Posted on April 14, 2012 | 2 comments

The idea of something I wrote a long time ago came to mind last week, and I spent a few hours writing it anew from my recollection of the images that had inspired it. I came across the original while cleaning and have reworked the poem, incorporating some words and ideas that I had forgotten. It still feels pretty rough to me, so I’d welcome suggestions or feedback.

Ghost Hand

I left beside the trail
in shallow grave the withered remains of love
untimely lost
I let white-iron truth sear
hope into healing
scar tissue

Today the specter drops through the mail slot
lies faintly aglow in the foyer’s dim twilight
I recognize the hand
blocky script small and neat among the bills
scattered on the flagstones

Fingers of pain close around my heart:
why won’t one so long gone
let me forget
what took such time to forgive?

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