Fortune Cookies of My Mind

 From the workbook 500 Writing Prompts, no authors listed. I bought it at Half-Price Books. I think.

Write ten original thoughts that will be stuffed inside fortune cookies for perfect strangers to read.

You will soon come upon a surfeit of molasses.

Wait for it....
Public Domain photograph

You will soon face a long held fear and defeat it.

This is fine. Everything's fine.
Photo by Sandy Torchon from Pexels

Birds of a feather flock together--but they also fight over food. 

That was my moldy cookie, bitch!
Photo from Pexels, CC

Disappointment will visit you soon but you don't have to ask it to move in.

Here's your hat...

Wash your hands, company is coming.

I hope it's not Felicia. She's so judgy.

Color delights, find a singularity.

And if you don't know what that means I'm not telling you.
Because I don't know either.

Time flies when you don't watch the clock.

Whoosh.

When you expand your mind you can fit more differences into it.

Crazyhead Jones.

A walk around the neighborhood can set you off around the world.

Star Trekkin' across the universe,
boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse.

Weakness isn't permanent.

Round two: This time, it's personal.

Hello, and where have you been? And stuff about Morning Pages.

 Been gone, been long gone. 

Shit got real. Then realer. Then ALL THE SHIT GOT REAL. For everyone.

Let's not address the virus-shaped elephant in the room....DON'T LOOK AT IT! We're all thoroughly and completely mentally exhausted by it by now.

I've been gone so long I don't remember how do operate my own blog dashboard. Sheesh.

It's like going back to MA class after a year and a half...or more. It may have been more. Which I just did this week and...it's rough. Seventy pounds overweight, smoking again, rusty technique, sloppy combos, etc. And I'm in a new dojo, so my anxiety is all over the place.

I need to start over again. Again. I've started doing my Morning Pages again, on September 11, 2020. I first read about them in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Here are the rules. The rules need following because they don't work nearly as well if you don't follow them. Trust me.

• First thing in the morning...yes, it has to be first thing in the morning. When I first restarted, I had been doing them in bed directly after waking. Now I do get up and get coffee first, get dressed, and make the bed. But then I go directly to my office...and using my desk has really helped me feel professional...and open my notebook. No phone usage before pages. That's my own rule, but it's really been helping me focus on why I'm doing the pages.
• Write three pages in longhand, scrawl out just whatever is swimming in your head. Three pages can seem daunting. It's just enough to feel like an assignment to me so I usually start out by whining about how tired I am and goddamn it I don't want to write three pages and I'm fucking tired...and then about a page into it I'm
• Stream of consciousness...this is important. Don't stop and think, don't edit. This is not supposed to be a journal, a memoir, an essay. It doesn't have to be "good", it doesn't need grammar or punctuation or proper spelling. It can be the most toxic vitriol...I've done that. It can be whiny First World Problems...I've done that. It can be happy, hopeful stuff...I...haven't done that...YET. Just spew. This is a safe space. This is...releasing mental pressure valve. Your anxieties and fears won't disappear. But for me they sort of...fade into the background. They're still there, they still bother me, but I can see them for what they are and since I spewed about them first thing in the morning.
• Don't reread them, at least for the first two weeks. I suggest if you get an idea for a project make a note of it after you finish the pages, so you won't need to search for it later.

My current Morning Pages journal.

So that's my return entry. Not exciting, but I need to creep my way back into proper writing. Thank you for your patience.

Charlotte Mason is the author. I wonder if her family is getting royalties.

The lady's assistant,

 for regulating and supplying her table,

 being a complete system of cookery, &c.

Hm. Thinking of drying mushrooms. Researching ways to do it. They seem unnecessarily complicated. None of them list salt drying with table salt...hey, except this book.

As you can see, it's pretty damn old, but I'm going to try this method and also hanging and air drying.

_______________________________________________

Note to self. When someone asks you if you need to use the bathroom before they take a shower, even if you don't feel you need to use the bathroom, use the bathroom. Because five minutes later you will need to use the bathroom and this is a one bathroom house.

I want another bathroom.

And I'm not a guy, I can't piss out behind the garage.

Well - I CAN. It is within the realm of possibility. It is not a physical impossibility for a woman, like making semen would be.

But I'm not going to piss out behind the garage. Because we live in a suburb.

Yes, that's the ONLY reason.

Because that's how I roll.

This is why my SCA persona is Norse. Because they were some practical motherfuckers.

I bet they salt-dried their mushrooms too.

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.