BLOG #22 WRITER'S BLOCK

  Writer’s block

It was bound to happen dear readers.  I have been feeling a heavy cloud on the horizon looming closer and closer- a heavy oppressive gloom engulfing me like a shroud. I speak dear readers about that inevitable attack on writers that is impossible to avoid.  I speak of course of that frightful plague called “THE WRITER’S BLOCK. Yes it has finally happened. I sit here staring at a blank page, my fingers flexed in the time-honoured typist position, and nothing happens. It feels like my fingers are buried in muck-like mud resembling prairie gumbo, and I am unable to move them.  I wonder what my writer mentors- Earnest Hemmingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Günter Grass would do in this situation. Do they tear their hair in despair, drown themselves in Whiskey until blackout or go on a rampage?  You will notice that my mentors in this case are all male. I have no doubt about this. This is not what happens to female writers. There is no way Jane Austin would ever have suffered from “writer’s block”. NO- Jane would have calmly hidden her manuscript behind the clock on the mantelpiece, smiled brightly and have gone into the kitchen and washed the dishes or mended the socks. Not for her the luxury of writer’s block and despair. This is the prerogative of male writers, and obviously, me. So what shall I do? Shall I follow in the footsteps of my male writer mentors and cause a riot or shall I follow my dear female writer mentor Jane Austin?  I think neither. I think instead I will go and paint my toenails a glorious bright blue and bask in the sun. I am so-oo glad I am a woman!  So dear readers don’t fret, I will not despair, drown my sorrows in whiskey or spend a week in an opium den! I will do the sane female thing of beautifying and adorning myself and let the writer’s block take care of itself and so I bid you goodnight until happier times.

BLOGG #21 "O THE WEB WE MORTALS WEAVE"

O the web we mortals weave when we first our computers receive.  A while ago, my computer went on the blink—I don’t think this is the proper term-but it suits me. What happened was I had emailed something that gave my computer indigestion and it refused to send or receive.  As I tried to solve this, a flag popped up-you know-those pesky little flags that speak in foreign languages telling you what to do. Well. my daughter has told me time and again to NOT click on these pesky flags unless I understand them, but as all parents know, one doesn’t listen to one’s children, so I clicked. A new incomprehensible flag popped up. I clicked on it too and so on. Soon I had a veritable” fourth-of-July” screen full of flags with lots of instructions and options-none of which I understood until at last I saw a flag that said “when unable to solve problems call your technician.” With great relief I phoned him and explained my difficulty. “First of all” he said “find your modem and disconnect it for a few minutes.” “What’s a modem I asked. “It’s a black rectangular box connected to your computer” he said. I looked under the coffee table at the wire mess and counted four black boxes! My patient technician then described it me—it has red lights and orange lights so I went down on my hands and knees –a position I haven’t been in for years dear readers- crawled under the coffee table and T.V. until I could reach the wires and tried to locate my modem.  As I groped my way through the web I murmured into the phone- here is the wire connected to my stereo set , here is the wire connected to my copier , here is the  wire connected to my T.V. here is the wire connected to my D.V.D. player and here  is---and heard myself singing” hear the word of the Lord!”  “What! What! What was that you said just now? “

exclaimed the technician.  “Nothing “I cried and quickly hung up!  I fortunately found the modem and disconnected it still chanting “this wire’s connected to the----“ and suddenly found myself humming”-- neck bone and the neck bone  connected to the collar bone, the collar bone  connected to the backbone -----.”  Startled, I quickly reconnected the modem to my computer. At this point I was completely enmeshed in my wire web and started to pray feverishly to the jealous Greek goddess to not mistake me for a presumptuous weaver and turn me into another “Arachnid!” Eventually I untangled myself and crawled out,and slowly eased my aching bones off my knees and still humming, stretched my creaking back, stretched my arms over my head, looked at my fixed computer humming along with not a pesky flag in sight and sang joyously “Dem bones ,Dem bones ,Dem dry bones—now hear the word of the Lord.”      

BLOGG#20 APOLAGIA TO BLOGGS #17 AND 18

Apologia #17  

   As you no doubt are aware I have somehow passed over or missed Blogg # 17 and 18 and you are of course waiting with bated breath for an explanation of this inexcusable mistake.  I have no excuse, for some reason I thought the two bloggs already written and went blithely on to # 19.  Now I do know how traumatic it is to be passed over for no other reason than carelessness or inattention.  Am I not the ninth child of a huge family where many eager little hands are held out for treats or for special attention and have I not unfortunately been passed over?  Have I not too felt the big letdown when overlooked as sides were chosen for the local school soft ball team?  Yes,dear reader,I am well aware of the trauma of being “passed over”.  So this blogg  is an apology to #17and 18 to make amends and to reassure them that they who are passed over are not less in importance but equal to or better than those who have not.

  The rest of the blogg which we will call #18 is a poem I have written specifically for them and for you. It is not a great poem, nor is it very profound, but it is mercifully short and a great challenge for my typing and spacing skills!  So---------

                                                                A poem
                                           

                                                          There once was a yellow goop

                                                         Who sat on a Toronto stoop.

                                                         I cannot aspire, He said,

                                                    To wear the proper attire

                                                         when

                                               

                                                       I'm waiting with the spoon                                                 

                                                       my icecream to

                                                            scoop!

                                                                                               

        p.s. I do not know why the "spoon" refuses to be in the poem!  However ,being a true artist who believes in freedom of expression,I will allow the spoon it's freedom and leave it where it obviously wants to be!    And so Goodnight. 

                                                 

                                                           

                                                                                   

 

BLOG# 19 MY PET PEEVE

It is well known and universally acknowledged by notable experts everywhere [ if you believe this you will believe anything}  that to remain sane in this very complex and frustrating world, it is necessary to have a pet peeve.  So my dear readers, listen to your “auntie blogger ,if you don’t have one acquire one as soon as possible. In the meantime I will share mine with you. My pet peeve is the very annoying habit many car owners have of locking their doors with a remote control. These are attached to their car keys and as they walk away from their cars they click on them thus causing the car horn to beep. The other day I was backing slowly out of my parking space in a crowded busy parking lot when suddenly a car horn sounded, I slammed on my brakes and looked around, all I could see was this woman sashaying along at least fifty feet away pointing her key at her parked car. I don’t think I would have minded so much if she hadn’t had such a satisfied look on her face. Perhaps it is satisfying to make a useless needless noise just for the fun of it, but it is very annoying to the hapless driver who is backing up!! Furthermore what about the need to lower the noise pollution that we keep hearing about? What about that? And why is it necessary to lock your car door from a distance? Has it something to do with holding a remote control? Heaven forbid that we may have to spend even a few minutes without having one in our hands? Is that the reason? I could go on and on with my favourite “pet peeve” spilling out torrents of vitriol. My tongue has no limits of hostile expressions! However I will curb it as best as I can. The purpose of this blog is really to encourage you to find your own pet peeve. How will I do that?  By assuring you how much better a self righteous rant makes you feel! I now feel relaxed, the tension has left my shoulders, my jaw is unclenched! And if I should happen to bump into that annoying self satisfied sashaying woman at this moment, I would shrug my shoulders and walk away in a dignified manner instead of screaming at her like the much maligned fishwife. So you see, dear reader, get your pet peeve now and remain sane!  p.s. the main characteristic of a peeve is for it to be totally illogical and unreasonable- so remember that when you make your choice. So my new motto is “everyone needs a “pet peeve” to remain sane”   goodnight my sane readers!

BLOG # 16 "OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH"

OH ye of little faith “ This is what I said to myself as I listened to one more lecture given to me by my daughter on the infallibility of computers. The lecture came about because of the difficulty I had posting my third blog- the first one I did without assistance. I had finished writing it and was all set to post it. I had all the steps handy on slips of paper and followed the directions carefully. To post you have to do this magical thing of “cutting” and “pasting”.  Forgive me you savvy readers who do this all the time and feel blasé about this process, but to me it is amazing and unbelievable. In fact I am a total doubting Thomas. I made the mistake of doing this late at night when I was beginning to fade- still I managed to do it. I pressed all the right keys, and viola--! It didn’t work. I tried again-nothing-nada, tipota! [ that’s Greek for “nothing” –I like to show off] I become frustrated and decided I wasn’t hitting the keys hard enough-so I banged hard and harder several times-the upshot of all this hostility was predictable. I lost my blog—GONE--.Into the ewiegkiet! I did not phone my daughter at midnight, I refrained with great difficulty and went to bed only to wake up feverishly at two a.m. knowing I had to rewrite the blog which I did, finally going to bed at four a.m.  The next morning I contacted my daughter who solved the problem—just one itsy bitsy mistake on my part, such pickiness! I rushed eagerly to my computer and completed the posting properly. NOTHING! There was nothing on the page .I tried again and again! Finally I looked closely at the directions and saw at the bottom of the page a “post it” sign. on which I clicked. Success at last! Feeling very proud and accomplished I went to bed. Next morning I eagerly checked my blog. There were a total of seventeen repetitions of it! Again I called my long suffering daughter. She discovered that the computer had saved all my attempts in a bank and was waiting further instructions and so when I had pressed the “post it “ sign ,it posted the entire repetition! My daughter laughed and said it was a good learning curve for me. The computer does not make mistakes she said, the only errors are human. I agreed that this was true but that my mistake turned out to be a good thing as now I had just created a subject for another blog so nothing was lost. As I meditated on all this I came to this conclusion: yes, humans are fallible and make mistakes and machines don’t. This is what makes us different- this is what makes us resilient- this is why we survive. We make our errors and turn them creatively into something new and better-like this very long-winded blog  So don’t despair my dear readers, don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes-remember –your “error” may be the makings of “survival of the human race”--such as it is in all it’s frailties.

BLOG#15 MY ELUSIVE HEARING AID

Well my dear faithful readers, as you my remember, a long time ago I wrote a very successful b log about my elusive cursor. Now I will write about another elusive thing that I own. With the unavoidable  unstoppable march of time, and the persistent changes that go with it, there has been added to my full life a new challenge- the admission of hearing aids. Those of you who have experience with these tiny gadgets will know the challenges I am  facing. I won’t bore you with  details of these experiences but will talk of only one aspect- the elusive qualities of these irascible gadgets! It is a well established fact that hearing aids are never in the spot where you last left them. They somehow grow feet and walk away, landing in odd ,inappropriate places. I have found them under the sofa, behind my computer and most frightening of all, in the kitchen sink. This is in my own home, however far worse is in the outside world. I have searched and found them under the car seat where I have hurled them in frustration, unable to tolerate the grinding noise of traffic, the shrill screams of ambulances and the blaring of radios of passing SUV’s. I have been known to absentmindedly remove them and place them on any available surface when attending parties that have become too loud and unbearable. The proper thing ,of course, at these occasions, is to place them in the container designed for this purpose and put them in your pocket. Unfortunately feminine clothing usually is not designed with pockets and if they do have them, the bulge these containers make is unacceptable to the discerning  fashionable female of which I am one.So,dear reader, you can see the many hazardous pitfalls I have to negotiate to prevent the loss of these  expensive new belongings of mine. Nevertheless in spite of this I have managed for two years not to lose them. But last Thursday, I and my hearing aids met our Waterloo. We were all-my hearing Aids and myself- attending the film version of the live performance by the London National theatre "The Cherry Orchard "by Chekhov. It was a “sitting on the edge of the seat” performance, and I, mesmerized ,absentmindedly removed the aids and put them in my handbag. The elusive aids, of course, left my handbag and are probably wondering around the theatre, or being sucked up by vacuum cleaners {serves them right} I have hunted in all the usual places but the elusive hearing aids are nowhere to be found. I don’t know what to do but I think I might decide I don’t need them anymore and ask my friends and relatives to repeat everything twice again as I used to. I am O.K. with that. You my wise readers will ask “but of course you have insured them”. I ask you, do I look like a “insure my hearing aid “sort of person? Of course not, My good friend consoled me by offering me a spare pair and suggested I write about it in my blog- which I did! So I bid you goodnight. -. the show was worth the loss.- I think

BLOG #14 LAST FALL I FELL

Last fall in September, I fell. I didn’t just fall,I FELL. I  fell like a bowling kingpin hit by a bowling ball fell, I fell like the marble columns that Samson pulled down fell; I fell like the giant Goliath that David slew fell; fell like the giant cedars our famous loggers felled in British Columbia long ago. Yes, reader I fell, I was showing  my town to my sister and brother-in-law the picturesque downtown wharf, misjudged the height of a curb and down I went! I fell right down flat on my face, and to add injury to injury, managed to slide on the abrasive sidewalk as well. What is it about falling publicly that is so humiliating? Why do we feel such idiots when we fall? Why with blood streaming down my face was I so busy stammering my apologies to the very polite and concerned Japanese tourists who were helping me? “No No “ I stammered “ don’t bother I’m fine” as I scrambled for my glasses blindly through the streaming blood? I was rescued by a good Samaritan, a lovely woman who took me to her pristine office where she promptly hauled out a huge first aid kit and helped me to clean up and bandage . But again, why feel so foolish? I don’t know which hurt more, my nose or my pride. And while we are on the subject, why do we laugh when someone falls? Comedy is based on “pratfalls”. I knew someone once who was learning to be a clown and I used to watch him practice his falls. To be funny without hurting himself took great skill and strength. Over and over he would go until he was exhausted- just so we could have a laugh. Also there are other aspects of falling besides humiliation and comedy. The myth of Iscariot for example, and of course the fall from Grace, the descent to Hades or Hell---all about “falling” and not to forget the notorious “falling dream” and the sudden wakening with all the shaming interpretations. But I am sure you, my readers, are innocent of those dreams! And ,of course, the greatest fall of all- the “falling in love fall” Oh my, the biggest fall of all and of course the fall that has the greatest capacity to make us look foolish! But never mind, everyone loves a lover and being a fool has it’s own reward too- as I know. By the way, no bones were broken and I have healed well except for my pride and we all know Pride cometh before the fall