On Monday, I managed to accidentally delete the contents of My Documents at work. (I also managed to get them back).
Today I managed to turn on the washing machine but left the drain hose in a loop behind the machine. (I realised my mistake as the first surge of water started to splash around the bathroom, so no major damages.)
What next?
***
It’s amazing how much a slight drop in temperature, clear skies and bright moonshine can lift the mood. Add to that a fairly flowing performance earlier tonight and the prospect of sleep, glorious sleep (oh, how deprived I’ve been) and what do you know, I’m positively cheerful. Nevermind the deadlines that loom; enjoy the beautiful moon.
Acting is what confident people do to further boost their confidence and what insecure people do to further enhance their insecurity. Sometimes it’s hard to know which is which.
Being on stage is very similar to standing on the edge of somewhere very high up and feeling the urge to jump – and then jumping. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a long free fall, but the ground will always be there to meet you, sooner or later. The fall is nice, though. Some people even have the good sense to bring a parachute.
I made it! Barely, considering the quality of some of the posts, but nonetheless, I’ve posted every day this month. Some food blogging, some soul-searching, many filler posts. More photos than before. Some new readers, methinks, who come and go (and mostly go). None of the social aspect of logging on to headquarters – I simply had no time. Writing muscles all warmed up, though, and that’s the main thing.
Some of the writing I really enjoyed, and that was invariably any and all posts I had time to actually think about. Writing takes time. There’s coming up with the idea, which doesn’t have to take any time at all but which can take up all day; there’s prep work (do I need sources/photos/quotations and where do I find them); there’s planning ahead as to when I’ll have time to write (definitely a problem when posting daily while keeping an otherwise irregular schedule). Still, I enjoy it. Just not while panicking about other deadlines, which pretty much sums up the past week or so. Moonwriting will thus return to its previous irregular updating patterns, but hopefully I’ll remember to post more often whenever I do have the time and the inclination. At the very least I need to finish my flow series, if for no other reason than taking notes.
Next year, new NaBloPoMo. Or perhaps NaNoWriMo..? ;) (No, not very likely…)
If you first wait for the rain to stop so that you could go running and then a little longer, the rain will start again. And possibly stop again. Will it start again? I’ve been very slow this morning but I’d really like to have time for a quick run…
Shame is addictive.
Honesty is great but knowing when to shut your mouth would be even greater.
It’s Abschminke or Afschmink, depending on the brand (any Germanists out there? what’s the difference?), but it cannot erase the smell of face powder. (It’s my manly side: I always whine about putting on stage make-up. And I whine more because I’m expected to put on more of the stuff.)
There’s a jar I’ve been struggling with. Couldn’t open it, even though I had done so before. Hot water, knife under the edge of the lid, nothing was working. That’s until, today, I bought a “universal opener”, as it calls itself:
A universal opener in action.
It’s a Westmark and, though clumsy to use, it does the job if you need a jar or a bottle opened, even if you’re weak and a girl, like me. Lid dented, the jar gave up, and my mother’s dried mushrooms will be eaten, finally.
But what are these “universal” opening powers? Could this be the tool to end all tools, the key to happiness – the opener of all things stuck in my life, as well as in my kitchen? I sure could use one. In the next episode: universal opener meets a bundle of sadness. Expect blood, sweat and tears as these two battle it out for victory.
(Sorry, I’m tired and my brain is approaching meltdown; it’s been a weird day. Better luck tomorrow.)
This is the fourth installment in a series of posts on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. You might also want to take a look at the previous posts (first, second, third & fourth).
Without interest in the world, a desire to be actively related to it, a person becomes isolated into himself. (Csikszentmihalyi 2002: 93.)
Csikszentmihalyi talks about the importance of having or developing an autotelic personality. This is a difficult one for me. On the one hand, I’ve always recognised the significance of being somehow self-sufficient in developing interest in the world around me. I admire people who devote themselves to varying causes or simply seem to care about what is going on with other people, in the world, in their area(s) of interest. On the other hand, my behaviour is mostly less than autonomous. I’m introverted, which may play some part in my finding it hard to engage fully with my environment. And yet I know I should, that being actively involved affects positively my level of happiness.
I’ll set myself a task. Every time I notice my mood dropping or that I’m overly occupied with myself, I must
ask someone how they are or
take note of anything in my immediate surroundings that has changed recently or that is simply pleasant to the eye or
get up and find a position/location that I’ve never experienced before (e.g. how many times have you sat on the floor at work) or
take other available measures to divert my attention away from myself.
Might work. Might happen that I completely forget about this exercise by tomorrow. Worth a shot, anyway.
Anger is supposedly fun. (Yes, it’s that guy again – my favourite Guardian journalist/columnist, it seems.) Anger for lunch? Not so much.
An open letter to the fridge terrorist at work whose thermal preferences meant that I had frozen carrots for lunch. Again.
Stop freezing my carrots! If you want to freeze your food, put it in the freezer on top of the fridge. That’s what it’s there for. It’s meant to be sub-zero. The fridge. Is. Not. I paid good money for my full bag of organic carrots that are now a full bag of inedible icy orange logs and will thaw to inedible mushy orange rubber (nothing to do with oranges). Still good for snowmen’s noses. But I am no snowman. I am angry.
Mine says quarter past too late. Really, why does it feel like time is constantly running out? Or, rather, TIME IS RUNNING OUT! It’s that sort of panic. And I really, really hate shouting.
Time to take stock. (Ha-ha.)
I am, as some of you know and as I just told someone, stubborn to the point of stupidity, and likely to spend time on things I’ve decided to do even if there’s no harm in leaving them undone. (Viz blogging even when there’s nothing much to say, etc. etc.)
Rather than speed up as panic approaches, I slow down. I’m already in hibernation mode (plague on this never-ending November), and then I become even more lethargic. My movements are currently glacial enough to be practically unobservable.
I will. not. accept. not having time to exercise.
A girl’s got to eat even when she’s too sluggish to cook. So she cooks anyway, only it takes twice as long because she’s too foggy to plan anything properly. Quickly roast some vegetables? Took me well over an hour in the kitchen. Hopeless.
Needed: a personality swap (with someone more flexible), something to speed me up (without messing with my ability to focus my attention), more hours to the day and a cook. Any offers?
Posted by moonwriting 
Posted by moonwriting 
Posted by moonwriting 
