(no subject)

[shadowkat]

So, I think I mentioned in the previous post that I decided to give my novel, Doing Time on Planet Earth, to the New Gal ("NG") on Monday? She'd told me that it had been sitting in her queue forever in Amazon. She's not a reader. The last book she read was "Scarlett" - the sequel to Gone with the Wind. Anyhow, she comes to me today to tell me that she's really "digging" my book. She read it the entire way home, and is engrossed in it.

People either have loved it, hated it, or are ambivalent - which to be honest is pretty much true of all books, movies, television series, artwork and food for that matter. You never know how someone is going to react to something.

I was relieved.

She asked me where the concert was - that appears in the book.

Me: Farmingdale.
NG: Oh. That makes more sense then. I was wondering if it was in the city, why they had to drive there from the train station.
Me: That actually happened - or I took it from real life and changed it a bit. I was involved in the Buffy fandom back then, so I made up a show and fandom, and actors in it.
NG: Spywitch isn't a real show?
Me: No, I combined about three shows (Alias and Buffy and I think Charmed). I also played with gossip I'd heard about the actor. But I changed names.
NG: You would kind of have to - or you'd need permission -
Me: Not entirely, but the problem with using real living people in fiction is that get upset, and it's better to change things. Plus, you have more leeway.

[I'd gone to a James Marsters Concert in Farmingdale back in the early 00s, and incorporated it into my novel.]


Decided to do water-coloring on weekends, or in snatches. Rushing is a bad idea. You do not rush with art. It never ends well. I've ruined more paintings that way. Art requires patience and is meditative - it requires mindfulness. It's possibly the most meditative and mindful activity outside of maybe yoga. (I am not good at yoga - I'm six foot, not flexible, and overweight. None of these items work well with yoga. One is bad enough, all three - is an issue. Add lack of coordination, spinal curvature, and bad back to the mix - and you have a cocktail that is not conducive to yoga.
Have same issues with pilates. The best I can do is chair yoga, standing yoga exercises, and possibly downward dog. Floor exercises and I, are unmixy things.)

One of church's ministers is doing a yoga spiritual retreat in Costa Rica next year. Tempting, but I am not good at yoga. I keep trying to like it.
I don't think it's happening.

Do you have things in your life - which you are told that you are supposed to love or like and/or are good for you? But the appeal is simply lost on you? And you wonder, okay is it me? Why can't I love this?

This is me and...


yoga
aerobics
pilates
brussle sprouts
driving
organizing shit


I try, but it ain't happening.

**

I tried to tempt Wales with a cruise, while she was obsessing over her estrangement with her siblings. I told her that what she's going through is not atypical. My maternal grandmother didn't speak to one of her sister's for over twenty years. We didn't know the sister existed. She was known to hold grudges (usually over money) with various members of her extended family. Then when she was in her late 70s, she invited her sister to stay with her - and they made up. Half my father's siblings haven't spoken to the other half over the years. He had ten brothers and sisters, half of them don't talk to each other - or haven't at various points. Co-worker stopped talking to her twin brother - mainly because of politics and he'd become a jerk, seemingly over night, and she'd jumped out of the family group chat.

You can't pick your siblings. And they tend to be persnickety. Love them, but tolerating being in their company for more than two hours can be a challenge at times. Also it's not like we chose to have siblings, kind of thrust on us by our parents.

I told Wales her relationships with hers were bound to change with time, and to not worry so much over it.

Then, because I was listening to an audiobook about empathy ("I Thought it Was Just Me (Dealing with Shame) by Brene Brown) - I decided my response wasn't very empathetic, and apologized. (LOL!)

Me: Sorry, I'm guessing that probably wasn't very helpful.
Wales: No, it's okay.

Nothing like a self-help psychological audiobook to make one second guess oneself. Psychological books have a tendency to confuse and irritate me. Making me wonder why I keep reading them?

Also tried to tempt Wales with a visit to Mohonk Moutain Resort and the place in Caba San Lucas. I want to go somewhere, but not alone. Wales is right - the only way a trip is going to happen for us is if we can do it spontaneously. We suck at planning things together.

Mother decided I was stressing over the room in Great Barrington that my brother had selected, and is taking it upon herself to ask him for two rooms. (I'm not really - I'm procrastinating doing anything about it - because I don't want to deal with my brother at the moment. He can be a bit of a pill. Mother seems to understand that she foisted this sibling onto me, and expecting me to get along swimmingly with him may be pushing it a bit.)

***

Been happy lately. I think it's doing the watercolors and revising my novel? Happy with both at the moment. Also the Artist Dates, and Artist's Way book? Also church? Anyhow, may be just loving my hobbies. It helps provide me with a healthy work/life balance which I was lacking last year.

Best not to analyze it. Could just be Spring - and the sun being around longer. It came out at the end of the day. I love this time of evening - the light is soft, and fluttery. It just softly touches everything, giving it a glow. Also, the red maple in the backyard is unfurling its leaves very slowly. It's pretty against the sky...that is dipping into sunset.

I need to plan a weekend Artist Date for myself. I'm thinking Easter weekend for this - which I think is next weekend? I can make that a four day weekend, and do something either on Good Friday or Saturday.




Forgot - if you are on Twitter - where are you moseying off too? Spoutible? Mastodon? Patroen? Somewhere else?

Rumor has it the muskrat is planning on making people pay for just about everything - and I refuse to pay for social media. I never have. I never will.

Comments

[jazzfish]

I'm on Mastodon at jazzfish@wandering.shop. To me it feels about like Twitter but a little quieter, but I was never a heavy Twitter user.

[shadowkat]

Thanks. That's one for Mastodon and one for Spoutible.

I can't say I'm a heavy twitter user either, really? I have maybe 85 followers? A drop in the bucket, so to speak. Although I don't particularly want to be popular either. So not bothered by it.

So moving wouldn't be that big deal for me. I'm on fence as to whether I need to continue with it though...There's something to be said for backing slowly away from all these forms of social media.

[mtbc]

My late father's siblings sometimes (including now) go for years not talking to each other, though he would remain on speaking terms with them all. I was amused that two who don't speak both got the same kind of dog and named it the same, I figure in blissful ignorance of the correspondence. Decades ago, their mother would stir trouble between them.

I never much liked playing the field sports as a schoolkid, though the majority of boys in school seemed to look forward to that part of the day. I also tend to avoid fancy dress parties and suchlike, I don't want to have to figure that one out. I'm possibly more of an outlier though in music concerts or suchlike when they want any kind of physical participation, even if just clapping or whatever, it doesn't come naturally to me and distracts me from being able to enjoy the music.

No idea why people like aerobics. (-: Just hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. For my morning walks in Taguig we'd typically walk past an outdoor zumba class, always interesting to watch them.

I never went clubbing, I want to be able to hear well enough for comfortable conversations with people, but in that case I can kind of imagine why they might like losing themselves in the light and music and crowd even if it's not something I do.

I also don't much get the investment of some people in soccer, at least in England where so many of the players have very non-local origins and the teams don't have local ownership, I wonder how the fans still identify so well with their local team in particular.

[lizzybuffy2008]

I am on Spoutible. I like it, but have not been able to figure out how to see just the posts from people I follow. Plus, a lot of the people I follow on Twitter have not made the shift...

[shadowkat]

I think everyone is trying to figure out where to go and procrastinating. It's hard to leave a social media platform that you've grown accustomed to. Particularly if you have a certain set group of followers, and a lot of them. What if they don't come too? I remember that happened when we all shifted from LJ to DW. It took us a long time to do it. And we procrastinated for years..

[yourlibrarian]

Where are you thinking to cruise to?

[shadowkat]

Right now? Alaska. But yesterday - flirting with Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. I'd prefer not to do it by myself. But sigh. Wales is cheap, and into being a social activist at the moment and political activism. (She's doing a feminist planning committee.) Gah, been there done that - still have the battle scars. I'm perfectly content right now to let the world implode on its own. ;-)

[yourlibrarian]

I think all of them are worth visiting, but as it happens I have been thinking about cruises for late 2024 myself, and of the ones you mention I would pick Alaska. That's because you won't be far from a port for long and you'll spend most of your time in the U.S. So should anything go wrong, it will be less complicated and expensive to deal with.

[shadowkat]

That's what I'm thinking. Also, I'm more interested in hiking, seeing wildlife, and exploring, then sitting on a beach or shopping.

I may do the G Adventures trip instead, which may be cheaper and more expansive.

Flirting with it.