Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Bad Sleep.

Woke up at 2:30 – checked the clock because I suddenly needed to know how long I’d been sleeping. I’d heard something, a beep, a rustle, a collection of sounds that tried to wedge sense into my sleeping brain. And my brain - my ridiculous, anxiety-ridden brain - decided this situation required my immediate and conscious attention.

Running water? Outside? Someone running the garden tap at 2am. A homeless person has snuck into my yard to steal a bath. And he’d forgotten to charge his phone obviously because it kept beeping. He should use the patio outlet. He might need to make a call.

But I really couldn’t be woken up every night with this. I’ll have to install a lock on that gate. And then I’ll have to build up my fences because I could see the homeless people leaping over the fence to steal baths and have tea on my patio where they would play folk tunes on their guitars and laugh right outside my window.

All this work and distrust of humanity, and the horrible feeling that they would never let me sleep, only ridicule me for crashing their party. I’d fling open the window and yell obscenities in my half state of dreaming and all the homeless people would think I was such an asshole.

Then slowly, the sound of water rushing is resolved to be the wind in the trees. Just the wind. And the beeping becomes the random, rusty creak of something, like a hinge… I would figure out what it is, but the relief that I do not have to shame myself or go to the hardware store washes over me. All I need do now is fall back asleep.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Spider Mobile

Okay, so I don't wash my car a lot. I like it that way. I like that a spider of some kind has chosen my passenger side mirror as a home. I take care of my car, giving it the oil changes and decent gas that it likes. I make sure it runs well, but I don't care if it's a little sticky with tree juice. (I'm lookin' at you Ulnus glabra.) I feel my car makes a statement about how we need to worry about what's on the inside and less about appearances.

And did I mention the spider who has chosen my mirror as a home? I love that. I don't drive much so mostly it eats bugs around my house, but occasionally I take it out to eat.

Anyway, today I came out to find another spider had taken up residence. This one was an orbweaver, Arcaneus diadematus, otherwise known as the common garden spider. These guys are amazing. They build the really beautiful webs and eat annoying bugs all day. They are better than raid. I've run comparison tests. They don't bite and anyway, you always know where they are because they hang out in the very center of their enormous webs.



To make this web, the spider had to drop three anchor lines from the phone cable about 30 feet up. The rest of the anchor lines were on my car. Before I left my house, I carefully detached the web and moved it to a nearby camelia bush.


Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Wishing in the House of Yes

For this week, Jaimie Ridler's Wishcasting Wednesday is all about the Yes. What am I saying yes to? Is it something I want? Am I saying yes out of a habit of pleasing other people? Or am I getting to what I really, truly want?



I've started working with an amazing writing coach, Jane Anne Staw, and am finally saying yes to feeling good as I write. No more waiting to feel good if I get a good response! No more waiting to feel good once I master some trick of the craft! No more waiting to feel good!

Sorry cats! The door stays closed even with all the pathetic scratching. (Poor neglected babies, you'll have to wait to get your fancy treats and head rubs, oh dear!) The phone? Off. Email? Off. FB? Off. Any tweets I hear will be from actual, living birdies.

So a big, sloppy Yes! to writing as play!