Where do I find the time? Something's gotta go.

My story is on my mind, the one I started for NANO last year. I can feel ideas and nuances for different scenes bubbling to the surface. But no time, no time, no time to write them down, to dig out the story and get back to work on it. I must get on track. I must set up a time budget and stick to it, adjusting where necessary to stay efficient and yet mentally healthy.

I have looked at my time and all the things I have to do in my day, in my week in general, and I have to cut something if I'm going to have the time and energy to work on all the things I want.

Things a usual day and/or week has to include:

1. Writing morning pages, affirmations, reading and homework from The Artist's Way
2. eating well (healthy food takes more time to prepare)
3.  writing a daily blog entry (at least five minutes a day and the blog is a writing habit)
4.  training for my belt tests and my fight (driving to the gym and strength training and doing cardio there)
5. going to work, staying focused and on task at work and learning about oils in my down time or researching craft projects that include those oils
6.  driving to and from home multiple times a day sometimes
7. grocery shopping, cooking meals, meal planning
8. MA classes
9. writing on my book
10. drawing of any sort
11. SCA Herald (Pursuivant!) responsiblities
12. SCA persona research
13. upcycling clothing
14. designing shelves and racks for functional things here.
15. Writers group meetings (two to three times a month)
16. SCA group meetings (usually once a month, occasionally twice if there a A&S meeting)
17. Personal reading
18. Artist dates -- that's for The Artist's Way homework too, but it requires leaving the house and drive time.
19. household chores: laundry, cleaning, kitten care, dishes, etc
20. Visiting Algonquin for time with Dexter
21. SD's counseling appointment once a week
22. Hair appointments for me and SD once every six weeks or so
23. Bill paying and budget planning

That's a lot. Driving really cuts into my time. It's twenty minutes to half an hour to DeKalb/Sycamore area, but that's where nearly everything is: classes, work, groceries, thrift stores. I'm driving there everyday almost. SCA meetings and Writers group meetings are up there too, or at people's houses and nobody lives in my town.Working is three to four days a week, depending on my work schedule. And driving to Algonquin is an hour at least, with the time spent for lunch and shopping and an hour back home. My bank first bank is in Sugar Grove, right now I'm putting my paychecks in that account until I can get all the online bill paying assignments switched over to the bank in DeKalb -- they don't have a branch of the bank I've been using for years -- so if my check needs to be deposited right away and I can't wait until my trip to Algonquin I have to drive the 20 to 30 minutes to Sugar Grove. 

The only thing extra I'm doing, that doesn't directly involve my needs and necessities, is helping to teach the kids' MA classes. We have to be at the dojo at 5:45 pm instead of 6:45, so that means we have to leave the house 5:15 or 5:20. Which means I have to start cooking dinner early so we can eat early if we don't want to have to wolf our food down. And SD's counseling appointment is on Wednesday, same as second MA class of the week. I have to start cooking during my alone time if I want to make a healthy sit down dinner (which and I want and need to), precious minutes of alone time I could be using to finish writing and drawing projects. Yeah, it's only twice a week so that's two hours. Is it really that much extra time? But taking back that two hours affects my mental well being.

I'm going to have to tell Mr. Scott that barring emergency I can't help with the kids classes anymore. I hate to do that. Some of the kids really like me. But unless SD is in Missouri and I don't have to make a sit down dinner and can grab a healthy dinner of my own from my shelf ( I eat different healthy food, faster cooking stuff, when I don't have to cook for them. I can make lentils or split green peas or kasha.) I just don't have the time to include the assistant teaching. Right now, it's the only thing that can easily be cut.

I may have to cut down blog entries to once a week. Assign them a weekly time slot like I'm going to do with my SCA stuff.

I'll have to cut out wasting time on Facebook too. I'm doing better on that but I can't cut out Facebook entirely as it's the only place I can keep contact my writers group and my SCA group. I need those two things for my mental well-being too. Maybe allow checking Facebook twice a week only for very short periods to keep up on my groups. That will be a difficult habit to build but it must be done.

This has been helpful. The entry took me longer than I expected and wanted, but proved very helpful. Now I have to pack up my exercise stuff and take Dexter back to Algonquin, he was watching the kittens over the weekend while we were in Indiana visiting friends. I'm not taking extra time for pictures today, this entry was more for writing practice and figuring things out, not entertainment.

Hell hath no fury -- but I do.

Hell hath no fury -- but I do. I keep it in a jar with pins stuck in it, so it will be extra angry when I take it out. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Let's look another often used quote. It seems to be all I'm good for on Google.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

This line is from a play, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve (1670-1729). It's shortened from the original line, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

The basic meaning is that rejection pisses women off and they now have all the hate. Mr. Congreve didn't seem to think much of women. Or maybe he did and this was a compliment in his mind, that in an era where women were looked on as weaker creatures. Perhaps for him to say women are strong enough to possess a rage to rival any fury out of hell. And they thought hell was a pretty nasty place back then. So if nothing out of HELL could be greater than a woman scorned she must be pretty strong, hm?

The deeper meaning is that intensity of love, when rejected, transforms to an anger just as great. Because we love deeply we also hate deeply, and when we're thrown away it gets on our nerves and we have to school your ass as to why that was stupid.

Anyway, the true opposing emotional expression isn't love, it's indifference. When you're indifferent you just. don't. care. This rage thing is a mutation of love, indifference is when love just stops. 

Or maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way. Maybe. 

Another proverb often quoted is from that same play, "Music has charms to soothe the savage beast."

This line has been changed a bit, though I have heard it said the original way too, "Music has charms to soothe the savage breast." 

Breast used to just mean chest, the upper anterior portion of the torso. Usually it's usage is associated with a physical expression of emotion. Like she clutched pearls to her breast and gasped. Or he dropped to his knees, beating a fist upon his breast, sobbing. 

Old-timey usage of course. You'll probably get a funny look from most people nowadays, if you say something like, "I was so scared my heart nearly jumped out of my breast," in conversation. Especially if you're a male. They might sidle away from you too. Just so you know.

I wonder if this play is any good. I wonder if it's still performed.

Anyway, the writer of the Encyclopedia Britannica online article on William Congreve feels that Congreve was a "dramatist who shaped the English comedy of manners through his brilliant comic dialogue, his satirical portrayal of the war of the sexes, and his ironic scrutiny of the affectations of his age."

He must have spent a fortune on hair spray.

William Congreve oil painting
by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1709; in the National Portrait Gallery, Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London

I'd never heard of him until I looked up the origin of the quote. Except for dying in a carriage accident he had a pretty cushy life for a writer. Damn him.

Well, that's it for now.

Hmm...how about a tattoo of phoenix rising on my back?

I wonder if I put a perplexing poetical quote at the top of every blog entry would I get even more traffic? Maybe if I lay out enough bait I'll get a few people who are interested and stick around to read more...on a daily basis.

I'll have to think about that. Which ones can I use? Emily Dickinson must have a few. Maybe do regular quotes too, but always have an explanation. The deeper meaning of the quote. I'd have to keep it short. That's a trial for me, but something I need to learn.

Well, I have bath salts to make now. With these simple tools shall I build my fortune!

Like Da Vinci. Like Tesla.
Excepted I started later than them.
God damn it.

I need sample bottles for oils. I need to write the re-imagined Wizard of Oz, first of all she can't live in a flat wasteland of nothing. But there needs to be a fair amount of flatness. I should visit Kansas again to find out where the flats meet the hills. I need to buy the original series. I bought the paperback today, but I read the original when I was a child and I thought the book was bigger. Longer.

I need to do so many things, so many things.

I need a lab.

I need a workshop.



I need my brain to just stop, just slow down dear god, please. I don't have enough time to do even ONE of my ideas, let alone all of them and I want to do ALL of the them. I need at least two more lifetimes. More, because there's always going to be another interesting thing to do.

I need to be a phoenix.

I need to be a Time Lord.

I need those damn dragon balls.

I need immortality.

I cannot stop for anything. I just have too much to do.

Upon searching, so many of the images just didn't seem to portray the true agony of transformation.
 Also? Why do the flames have to be orange? The don't.
And there's another fucking idea. Phoenix in agony and try different coloured flames. 

So, about that phoenix rising tattoo. Actually I'd rather have it across my chest, but I don't think there's enough room for the full impact of idea. So I'd have to go with my back.

And when am I going to have the time and money to get a tattoo?

Enough for today. I have things to do.

Life imitating art. Poorly, it's a poor imitation. 'Cause I'm not the real Slim Shady.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, any calls? 

Janine Melnitz: No. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Any messages? 

Janine Melnitz: No. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Any customers? 

Janine Melnitz: No, Dr. Venkman. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: It's a good job, huh? 

[Janine smiles] 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Type something, will you? We're paying for this stuff. And don't stare at me, you got the bug-eyes! [pause] 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, sorry about the bug-eyes thing. I'll be in my office.

____________________________________________________________________

This is how I feel when I look at my blog stats sometimes. I know I have to keep moving, keep writing, but it's depressing knowing that only my husband and my mother and maybe a few other family and friends are reading my new content. I'm funny, damn it!

But I am the number one Google return for the Dorothy Parker quote "time doth flit meaning". You have to have include 'meaning' to get my blog at the top of the list. I'm above Goodreads and Quotes.net. 

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

It all comes back to Bill Murray. I feel the need to make a Groundhog Day reference to make it a prime number set of Murray movie references. I like prime numbers. Hmmmm...how about Phil Connors living the same damn day over and over until he gets it right? I'm getting the same damn stat returns day after day. I'm not getting it right somehow, because people aren't sticking around for the REAL entertainment. They check out one page and they're off. Which I can respect. They have priorities! But I don't get many hits for other types of keywords. I don't have any constant readers.

And...we're back to Dorothy Parker -- so I guess it doesn't all come back to Bill Murray. 

"Parker adopted the moniker “Constant Reader” when she wrote book reviews for The New Yorker in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was known for her humor, wit, and vicious critiques of second- and third-rate novels." -- Our Favorite Lines from Dorothy Parker’s Most Scathing Reviews, Kathleen Massara | August 22, 2011

Ah, I'm supposed to be the Constant Reader. Perhaps my problem is I don't post critiques of second-and third-rate novels. Yeah, that ain't happenin'. Life is too short to read crap fiction on a regular basis. I have things to do.

I have....priorities.

So I will remain Corpus Callosum. My name is -- What? Not Slim Shady. So I can't stand up. Which is okay, because I have Morning Pages to do. 

Above: Not me. Although some days I feel very dichotomous, like Mister Em there.

Castles, Hospitals, Railway stations, and V616 Mon -- One of These Things is NOT like the Others

This has nothing to do with Carrie Fisher.
It's the timeline for my first real novel.
It's almost six feet long.
It will end up being three novels, a series.
 NO. A mother fucking SAGA!

A thought struck me. Just now. While I was playing Zombie Mart.

Today is the first day of 2017! Thank the fucking gods. Get me the hell outta De-troit.

I don't actually live in Detroit. That last witticism sounded funnier in my head. Detroit is a perfectly nice place and I hear it's on the mend as a city. NPR told me that.

So I'm trying to stay off Facebook for at least two weeks, until January 10. Not checking in to Facebook is proving... difficult. I chose this course of action last Tuesday, December 27, 2016. The day that stole Carrie Fisher from us. She died at 60 years old. General Leia Organa is gone and after so many other great talents lost this year (and the election of He-Who-Doesn't-Deserve-Mention-On-MY-Blog as president of the United States), the death of the women who helped create my first personal hero just messed me up.

When I was a shy, intelligent child in the 1970s, a time when there was not many strong female characters, especially in sci fi and fantasy, her pride and bravery in the face of danger was amazing. She was Princess Leia then, of course.

But I don't want to fall maudlin, really I don't. This explanation is why I'm not checking into or posting to Facebook right now. It's because I swore off Facebook for two weeks, no more bad news for me. I wanted to swear off the internet for two weeks, but I can't do a lot of my projects, creative, worthwhile projects, without the internet. I'm trying not to listen to the radio either. I was giving the explanation of why I'm dropping the following idea here in my blog instead of on Facebook. Here, with my precious idea. Where perhaps ONE person will see it, instead of at least ten people on my friends list, and possibly more, and they would tell me how amazing my idea is.

No one said it was easy having principles and goals. Now I need a break from the intensity of explaining my explanation. No one said being a writer was easy. They did say it would be worth it and it is.

Goddamnit, I hate that damn music on Zombie Mart. Don't follow that link. Seriously, don't do it. You'll be sor-ry! That game is a time suck of black hole proportions. <That link you can follow. It's educational!

Sometimes the cleverness is simply irresistible. I mean -- unavoidable. It's irresistible AND unavoidable. Like me! 'Cause it's my cleverness, you see how that works?

Now I want to log in to Facebook and brag about my cleverness and post a link to this blog entry. Braggin' and bloggin', that's how I'm attempting to occupy my 2017 New Year's Day. And here I thought I'd just be organizing my coin collection.

I'm totally serious about that last bit. I have a coin collection, of a very amateur sort. I bought some new organizational preservation-type holders for my rarer coins and for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Because Corpus Callosum knows how to party!

Perhaps my blog persona ought to be named Tangential. Back to the original reason I came to post today.

Directional colour lines in a hospital corridor.

This is a hospital corridor. Perhaps you are familiar with this type of directional assistance, colour lines on the floor to help you find your way. Hospital corridors usually have little to distinguish one from another and if you're directionally challenged like SOME people I could mention (it's me) navigating these halls, especially when taxed with anxiety over a loved one or just over the fact that you have to get a test done -- it's easy to get lost.

Some hospitals have the lines on the floor to make it easier for the staff to give directions and for the person inquiring to follow those directions.

Speaking of finding your way...

 

Dear gods, what the actual blue fuck?
Don't get me wrong. I love purple.
A good eighty percent of my wardrobe
 is purple. But I mean really...

This is Guy's & St. Thomas Hospital in London. I don't know who Guy is, or why he's important enough to have his name in a hospital listed before a saint's name, but there it is. I wonder which St. Thomas it was. Hm, it seems it was St. Thomas Becket.  Do you know him? He had an argument with King Henry II. It didn't end well. But that's what happens when you fuck with the founder of English Common Law and the man strong enough in heart and mind to be married to Eleanor of Aquataine.

What happens is you get hospitals named after you. But I digress.

So I imagine conversations going something like this: 
Staffer -"Take the next left and stop when you see the purple dots."

Inquirer - "How will I know when I've reached the purple dots?"

Staffer - "Oh, you'll know."

It's funnier if you read it in a British accent.

This is what happens when I'm not allowed to post my passing thoughts on Facebook. They turn in to rambling nonsensical blog posts. This blog post could use some directional colour lines to help guide a reader to the fucking point.

This post is an example of why I get along so well with Jeremy and Chris from Cinema Sins. Nah, I don't actually know them. I'm not even sure those are their names. But I feel like I know them, or at least Jeremy, because he sometimes talks like me and I can relate to that. I want this t-shirt. If I had my own YouTube channel, I would be shouting out to them all the damn time.

Victoria Train Station in London, England

I want my own YouTube channel. I don't have a proper camera though and I think I really ought to have a proper camera. I would call it "I Like It Like That" and I would just talk about all the stuff I like. But it would be funny, because I'm hilarious. Many drunk people have told me so.

You might also have seen directional colour lines in train stations, another place I've gotten lost in. It's not really too hard for me to get lost. Cover my eyes and turn me around three times and I have no idea where I am. Constantly getting lost used to cause me great anxiety but now I decide to have interesting times getting myself found again. Also having a smart phone with GPS is a godsend.

ATTENTION! MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE! WE HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED AT THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY! TAKE YOUR SEATS!

Pictured above: Actual European castle.

Some of my castles, the castles in the stories I will write -- they're currently being written, I just haven't gotten around to thorough descriptions of castles -- will have lines of colour in the corridors, to help you find your way. Mosaics on the floor, or different colours of stone on the walls. It will be gorgeous! Different mosaics on certain walls in each section, to help distinguish them. I'll have to find different ways for the different series. Don't want to be repetitive.

Like when I realized I've worked in too many instances of people cutting off their hair to symbolize something big has just happened. I wanted to use it in almost every novel. Oh the scenes would be different, very different. But the idea was becoming cliche before I even had a chance to introduce it.

Damn, I'm clever.

This castle does not appear large enough to get lost in. YET.

I need to start using my Wordpress blog. The cleverness of me cannot be restricted to just one blog. I think I'll use this one for the rambling, profanity laden posts and I'll use the other one to explore the other creative side of myself. I have several. They argue sometimes. So if I have two blogs then if they get on my nerves I can send them each to their own blogs and get them out of my hair. Head. Whatever.

I think it is now too late to take a walk.