I was going to define the word fortitude too, but the non-hurricanes took up all my time.

 Well, dear readers, today's posit: "Does the west coast of the United States get hurricanes? You know: California, the Pacific coast, and Oregon and stuff?"

Wait...is that the correct usage of "posit"?

Checking....please stand by.

Image credit: Nitra

Hrrrmmm. Not really. Posit is more of putting forth a statement for debate or discussion. I just need an answer, not a discussion. FACTS!

Okay, here's the answer. No hurricanes for Cali, because wind and water. There's that sorted.

Here's the longer, more factful answer. According to people who know things about oceans and hurricanes (Chris W. Landsea and Kerry Emmanuel) they need a source of warm water to form and be maintained. The hurricanes, not the people. We all know how people are formed and maintained, right? Right?!

Factful is a word if I say it is. Also, are we just gonna ignore the whole "guy who researches hurricanes is named Landsea" thing? We are? Okay.

Anyway, a hurricane needs warm water, above 80° F (that's 26.5° C). That's thermal energy, baby! When a hurricane is born, they form over the warm water in the tropics and subtropics and then the move in a general westward direction with the tradewinds and also drift towards the pole. The North pole. Because who'd want to drift towards the south pole? Except maybe penquins. And maybe hurricanes formed in the sounthern hemisphere, I don't know; this article wasn't about them. 

The west coast of the United States doesn't have water that warm, you have to go down to the coastline of central Mexico to find the requisite temperature water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
says no penquins are expected on the central coast of Mexico for the next 48 hours.

So when a hurricane does form, as it moves north and west it tends and by the time it reaches the area off California it's getting cooler water (from 50° - 65° F) and can't maintain it's thermal energy, so no hurricane force winds. It downgrades to a tropical storm, which can still cause a lot of trouble because of the amount of rainfall.

So...there. Cali doesn't get hurricanes, but they do have drought, mudslides when the drought suddenly ends, and earthquakes. So there's that.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Merriam-Webster (defining mostly English words since 1828!)

Why do hurricanes hit the East Coast of the United States but never the West Coast? - Scientific American Online, October 21, 1999

National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

Western Regional Climate Center

Nitra: YouTube and Website

I'm staring at a blank page.

Oh, how the blank page taunts me. 

I took a Domestika course--Creative Writing for Beginners: Bringing Your Story to Life. While I ultimately did not finish the course-- being unable to identify my "passion", the objective of the course being to write a short story about your passion through memories-- I did learn a few interesting techniques for helping to get unstuck when you're stuck. For when the blank page is MOCKING YOU. The instructor didn't mention any mocking, but you know what I mean, dear reader, do you not?

Perhaps you are asking, "But Corpus, isn't your passion writing? Or art? or somesuch?" And I would think, thank you for using the word somesuch; I like it and it's used so rarely these days.

Then I would say, "Yes, but...you have to be able to feel the passion and right now I kind of feel nothing but numb and achy at the same time." I did get an idea for a story, a story about the arguements I have in my head. A book about the different facets of myself that just seem to appear when I go about my day and the one I don't let out to play because she's not a nice person and you better believe she would just make a mess. She's gotten out before and it was not pleasant for me afterwards.

Of course it won't be a true story. No true events, that would be tedious and yet horrible for me and the reader. Just based on personal experience. 

Now this page is no longer blank. 

I do feel defeated for not having finished the course, but I did try very hard. I didn't quit at the first sign of frustration. It was not fault of the instructor, Shaun Levin, he was very encouraging, helpful, and kind, and had useful information. I may look at other courses by him. But this course was not for me. Maybe choosing a course for absolute beginners was the problem. I think of myself as a beginner because I don't have a college degree and I haven't published anything. I'm always worried the more advanced courses are TOO advanced and I'll end up drowned and quit in misery.

But I did not quit in misery. I made a conscious, thought-out decision to put aside a course that didn't cost very much ($12.00? I think) and didn't have a grade or any instructor feedback at the end of it. Since I'm not getting anything out of it I want to free up that time I was spending on it to find other courses for editing, illustration, and self publishing. I don't need my books to have illustrations throughout but I would like to design the cover myself. And possibly write a few childrens books later.

Aaaannnnddd...I didn't use any of the techniques for getting unstuck today. Well, we need a picture, don't we? I like each entry to have at least one picture. Let's dig in my photos and see what we can find.

You can tell I'm in a mixed state (the numbness and apathy, "I just want to sleep" of depression and the scattered, zippy, crashy "No, we must play XBox allllll daaaaay!!!!!" of mania) when I used more...er...formal sounding language and fewer contractions.

Here's a peacock I drew! Insert screechy peacock noise here.
I used a tutorial.

I had a whole thing planned...

I wrote down so many blog ideas since my last blog post. 

And now...here I am! It's Saturday! Time to make a blog post! Be productive!

And I don't know what to do. Or rather, now I don't want to do any of them, at least not today. I'll just post the links I would use to research, how about that?

• I made polenta and it rocked. Let me tell you about it!
• I bought a globe and it was exhausting and I wasn't even the driver!
• I want old fashioned sealing wax for my letters but that's not good for the post office's sorting equipment. Probably.
• Is it fur or hair? Do animals have fur or hair? When you pet a cat you say you are stroking their fur, but if some of that fur gets on your clothes you say there is cat hair on your clothes. So is it fur or hair? What is the difference and does it really matter?
• Mist vs. Fog - What is the difference? I thought they came from different directions, but it seems it only looks like that.
• Lake vs Pond - Does size matter? It's a deep question. Check in later for more vagure sexual innuendo.
• a lot or alot - What's up with that? Merriam-Webster, bringing the puns while telling you which usage is correct. It's "a lot", by the way.

I wanted to do pictures for each one, but I can't handle that today.

This week has not been a great week. I've had a setback week, a week where it feels like everything is falling apart. It's hard to explain in detail without a long explanation of how my bipolar brain works, so setback week will have to sum it up. 

I feel like I should just stick to my routine no matter how much I feel like I hate it that week. I allowed myself to skip the gym this week and last week--I'm only going to the gym once a week right now. I was feeling so scattered and high anxiety I thought it would just be better if I stayed home and let my mind rest, but I still feel scattered and high anxiety and now I haven't been to the gym in two weeks.

So maybe just stay on schedule no matter what.

Okay. Let's try that.

I did buy a globe. I went to American Science and Surplus and bought a globe.

Afffricaaaaa....

It's a basic political globe, meaning it has all the boundry lines and current names of all the countries. I wanted the kind that had just landforms and elevations so you could feel the mountain ranges and no country borders, but that was too expensive.

And now it's sitting on my the shelf next to the plants, being all globey and cool. Looking at all that water makes me feel better. And seeing the how big the earth is and how small our space in it is...somehow that just makes me feel better. 

I also bought a few stones, including a polished ammonite slice. I like to hold it and look at the spirals, somehow it just makes me feel calmer.

My slice was not this perfect, but it works for me.

So, that is the Saturday blog post. Maybe I'll go out to the movies.


PS--these two photos were nicked from the American Science and Surplus website.

Living up to the past is really unnecessary and probably impossible.

I feel like I should write a blog post every day because I need to train my brain to write even when I don't feel like it, but I spend far too much time looking for images and then falling into the time suck of rereading my old blog posts and thinking, "Hey, that was a good idea, why didn't I keep doing that!" Or "hey, remember when we used to do that and we loved it? Why aren't we still doing that?"

And then I'm sad. Then I have to work my way out of sadness and dangit that takes up too much time. 

Maybe daily blog writing is not for me. I shall assign a blog updates to a week day. Maybe Saturday? Saturday or Sunday. One of those. And FIRMLY remind myself NOT to read old blog entries, I don't care how interesting you thought you were in the past, we want to write books, see? And we can't efficiently learn to do that when we're sad. 

Stop changing voice, it's sloppy.

And I think she would know.

I tried to verify this quote, but could only find it on other lists of quotes. So I don't know if Martina actually said this, but as platitudes go it's less platitudey than most.

So, this week's update is taken care of (twice) and next Saturday will be recorded in the bullet journal as the day to blog. This Saturday (or Sunday) my daughter and I are going to American Science and Surplus to buy a globe and just because it's darn fun and interesting there. 

I'd like to have walls full of world maps, but lets start with a globe. Then you can see how and where the continents and rivers and such lie on the planet. Lay? How they're situated. Earth is tilted on its axis is what I mean and some places aren't where you might think they are.

Globe photo from American Science and Surplus website.

I feel sad for the pet fish at the grocery store.

 I went to Meijer yesterday. Wednesday is Gym and Groceries day. I did not go to the gym because I woke up with a migraine expanding across the right side of my head (I had a detached sense of fascination that I could actually feel it expanding and hear miniscule noises as the pressure built) and while the Excedrin took care of most of it, I didn't want to push it. 

Photo of bitsy koi from the Meijer website. 
I don't think it's a legit brocaded carp, but it's pretty.

I was stressed as I entered Meijer: because I had a migraine, because I had to skip the gym and throw off my fragile healthy habit weekly routine, and just because I had to enter Meijer. I had my meal plans for the week and my list done the night before (Tuesday is meal planning and grocery list day and I did it even though I really was tired and finishing a task made me feel better). I remembered to bring my coupons and I knew my budget so all the preparation was done and still...anxiety. 

Legit koi in beautiful, peaceful, restful, brain-calming koi pond.
See, koi get big. So big. Lots of big.
Photo nicked from the Nualagi Ponds website.

Grocery stores are chaotic places, so many things, so many choices, so many temptations, so many people. But I need to be able to choose my groceries myself. I don't want other people doing it.

I write long sentences. I do try and break them up, but then I just go ahead and write more long sentences. Which I then have to take the time to break up. And then where has my point gone? It got lost in the long sentences. So here's another pretty fish to reward you.

Photo of Glo Tetra from the Meijer website.

I've been experimenting with entering the store at the other end, the drug store end. The theory is that the frozen and chilled food and produce will be collected at the end of the trip and less subject to thawing, warming, wilting, and crushing. (Use ALL the verbs!)

I had to buy cat litter and I passed by the fish tanks. I was immediately swept over by a desire to watch the fish and bring them home and have a tank for them and take care of them and watch them anytime I wanted.

But I'm a rational person -- sensible, logical, reasonable, pragmatic, whimsical, anxious...wait, what? I really want a fish tank and fishes to watch. I felt sad for them, because their holding tanks are boring: no pebbles, no plants, no place to hide and chill. I want the fishes to have a sort of proper home. How long will they live without a proper home? Poor fishes. They were still peaceful to watch as they floated in their burbling water.

Photo of shobunkin from the Meijer website.
This actually looks more koi-like

I have no place to put a proper aquarium and no money to buy a proper aquarium and no real concept of how to care for an aquarium and the fishes in it. I promised myself that every Gym and Grocery Wednesday I should stop by the fish tanks and entertain some peace before braving the chaos.

But I did find this aquarium video on YouTube and it will have to do. Maybe...maybe...I can buy a book about caring for fishes in home aquariums and learn what type of fishes live peaceably with each other and one day have a small aquarium with two or three fish.

...and it makes me giggle every time.

I realized yesterday that I haven't made a blog post in some time. It was much less some time than some of my previous not making a blog post in some time times, but nevertheless it was still an amount of time that was longer than the shorter amount of time I wanted it to be. Do you follow me? Good.

See, the blog isn't really supposed to be A Big Important Thing For Writing, it's supposed to be a number of smaller things. For writing, yes, but not writing big, important things...for the habit of writing and putting it out there. I do currently write on a regular basis, but right now it's mostly course work or journaling. The blog is for putting myself out there. How can I, one day, be brave enough to send my work to a literary agent if I can't even put my words into a blog that 99.99% of visitors find because Dorothy Parker said something clever one time and now people use the internet to figure it out where it comes from and what it might mean?

I've been trying to heal my brain, I think I told you, so no Facebook and no Instagram and I never did Twitter anyway, but I am still indulging in YouTube because their is some really interesting, intelligent, and fun content there and if you're lucky it happens all at once. And on days when I'm having issues, it really helps to have something to distract me that is all those things, and this week I've had Bill Wurtz on heavy rotation. The man is a gift to us and his history of the entire world, i guess is the best video ever. EVER. I really like most of his videos (his songs are really cool) but I actually start missing this video if I haven't watched it in a while.

Creative Property of Bill Wurtz
Thank you, Bill, for just being yourself and letting us join you sometimes.