[...] 3 days of writing

Note: I decided that I won't be posting every word from my 750 words daily writing but I can share excerpts from the entries as a compromise with myself and to maintain some consistency with this blog. [...] will indicate that I have omitted some of my writing. I'm also using my DSLR camera - even if it's a photo of the view from the balcony - and between writing and taking photos, I'm hoping to return to a more expressive and creative way of being. Thank you for the feedback I've received both privately and in comments as I ease back into sharing my journaling online.

Nope.

Thursday, June 6th, 2024.10:15pm {background noise: Philip Glass, 'Mad Rush' on repeat and 'The Hours' album}

laptop, soft light of Himalayan rock salt lamp, tray of crystals and stones.

Finished reading the Royal Shakespeare Company edition of 'Macbeth' today. I read the play days ago but it felt like forever to get through the extra notes they included of the history of the play and of theatre. I didn't mind learning more about their interpretation of the text but I was dragging my feet through the rest of it. 'Macbeth' didn't do it for me the way 'Hamlet' did. Interesting to be re-reading works of Shakespeare after so many years though. Since joining the 'Hardcore Literature Book Club' and being able to listen to lectures about the classics that are studied in the group, I think it lends depth to the reading experience. I'm not in sync with the reading schedule (because I play GTA Online too much) but I think I'll figure out a better balance of time if I keep working at it. The best read so far this year for me was 'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck. I started the year out strong in completing that book but since then, I've not had a novel pull me in the same way.

In other things I did today, I exercised to some old aerobic workout videos that I owned on VHS but are now available on YouTube. I didn't plan to but since there was no overnight hotring, I decided that I wouldn't scuff about from lobby to lobby but instead turn the game off and exercise instead. I felt great! I'm going to do it again. It took me back to when I would do the videos throughout the years, ever so much younger than I am now, and it's kinda sad to think that I've had this difficult relationship with my self image for most of my life - and for what? Eventually, it all goes to dust anyway. I mean, I'm trying to make improvements - I'm intermittent fasting consistently - but in the moments in the dark when I could be any age and the people in the exercise videos have stayed the same, it's a bit trippy to think about how unnecessarily hard on myself I've been over the years.

10:52pm Someone asked, "how's the writing going?" and I'd just spent who knows how long distracted by apps on my phone. Tonight it has not gone well. This would be one of those nights where I'm dragging myself to the word count goal. I remember this. How I could write over a thousand words within a short amount of time but then the next night, struggle to get even half that. It's part of the process. Showing up to write is the important part in creating the habit. I don't like the way this feels - when nothing is transmitting from my mind to my fingers - but it happens.

[...]

11:42pm I'm calling it a night with this writing attempt. I made it to the goal but I don't feel like I really did any writing. It's okay to have nights like this. Can't have the good writing nights without the not so good ones, eh?

Make small changes.

Friday, June 7th, 2024.

10:42pm {background music: Philip Glass - 'Etudes for Piano Vo 1 No. 1-10'}

I thought I wouldn't write today. I wrote yesterday but didn't post it to my blog. It was one of those writing days where the words had to be dragged out and it took forever, the slowest of pace to even get to half the words I needed. But I made it to 750 words and I earned the 5 days in a row badge. I saved the post in my current personal journal document. Thing is, I'm probably going to have days where I don't post to the blog and that's probably a good idea anyway. I used to post everything to my online journal but maybe it would help my writing if I truly wrote just for myself without the assumption that I would be putting it all online. I'd like to get the point where I write about anything and everything that comes to mind. Where I'm able to reach a flow state in my writing that is completely uninhibited. That's where I will find my groove and be able express myself in the way that will help my writing move forward.

07 June 2024, balcony view

[...] Two things that I've done the past couple of days that I believe will make a difference for my health is that I'm turning to writing more - this is the most important thing - and the other is that I'm now doing some exercise videos. If I'm waiting for a host to a list and I've got 15 or 30 minutes to wait, I'm loading up a video, putting my watch on and getting those steps in. I'd like to think that this will help in me eventually feeling better to the point where I start going outside again but I don't want to think about that too much. I'm making some changes and they seem small but these habits are good ones and they'll eventually cause a tangible shift in a better direction. I've felt it already, in how I make different choices. The most recent example of this is me typing these words right now. I didn't stay in a list feeling down about myself but left. Should I have left sooner? Yes. But I left. I turned on my laptop, typed these words and I made the better choice.

07 June 2024, balcony view: that blue, that green.

11:05pm Paid bills this morning. Money comes in. Money goes out. Buying groceries induces despair at this point. Everything is expensive. The number of items purchased in comparison to how far the money goes is a joke. It's not sustainable. If you have a garden, are able to grow your own food, have access to a garden in any way - that is a blessing and something that could make all the difference when it comes to survival. I think of relatives on my mother's side who all had gardens when I was a teenager. They were highly competitive with one another about everything but the gardens are what I think of these days. My Aunt Terry (who married an Uncle, my Mother's brother) has a most wonderful garden to this day. She's tended it well and I think of what a gift that is, to connect yourself to the earth in that way and to grow food for your family, to watch what you've planted flourish in good season. I think of that while I spend an absurd amount on food that isn't half as appealing as when I think of her having ripe vegetables in a basket from her garden. [...]

11:19pm I'm in the playlist now. I'm going to drink coffee, listen to music and race.

write before sunrise.

Saturday, June 8th, 2024.

4:26am {background music: Philip Glass - 'The Secret Agent' album'} The sky has shades of before sunrise happening. low darkened clouds with green above, then a light blue above that darkens as you look upward, where it could almost seem to be still night. The lights in the city are on. Sunrise will be around 5:30 this morning so no doubt they'll be out not long after. What an early time for sunrise but I suppose that's due to us being on the cusp of summer. Sunset will be around 9 o'clock tonight. I remember when I was a kid how we used that to our advantage - those of us who were allowed to stay outside to play until the streetlights started to come on - remember going outside to play? I think about what it might be like to do that as an adult. It would probably feel better than the video game does. Not as safe but then, what is safe anymore?

I've got enough time that I should be able to write my words for the day before daylight comes through the window. I bathed before the overnight racing list after I dipped out of the PS5 wreck list early. Just finished racing not long ago and considered racing some more but thought this would be a better idea. Write in the middle of the night. Or before the dawn. Get the words done so that if today gets away from me and I'm too distracted with the video game tonight, I won't break the writing streak. Today will make 7 days in a row of writing. That's the best I've done in ages. It seems to be having a good impact on me as I began exercising and I'm thinking about some things a bit differently as I start to process things through thinking and writing. I'm not writing about everything I think about but I feel like I'm doing some kind of work with this. It's functioning on sub-levels in my subconscious. I go to bed and dream and work on things some more. Writing doesn't empty my head but it helps to sort things out. It's like tidying up the library catalog of my mind - putting things into order so that things are easier to find or put away.

4:47am That just sent me on a tangent of looking up things for cataloging my home library book collection. I've seen those handheld scanner tools getting used online and apparently you just zap the barcode and how easy is that? But then, I think of how I had intended to type out my collection myself and that I certainly have the time in my day (or night) to do so. While an app would make it easier and quicker, shouldn't I tangibly hold my books to sort through them anyway? I've had a document saved for a long time titled 'book collection' but I haven't started working on it yet.

I keep a list of the books I read but to make a list of the books I own would be quite the task. I don't even know how many books I own, though I'm guessing it's in the hundreds. I've heard people say that 500 books feels like a library to some saying that 1000 books counts as a home library. Really though, I think that isn't the number that matters so much as how the person feels about their books.

I currently have seven bookcases, some that are overflowing and all of them need a good dusting, reorganizing and some attention. They feel good though. The way I've set up this book nook corner of the apartment, it feels comfortable and it feels like my own space. I was spoiled with a book room in the previous apartment when we had two bedrooms but somehow I managed to create a room of sorts in this one bedroom apartment thanks to bookcase placement.

5:04am Those low clouds are dusty gray blue now and the sky is painted a white (the glimmer of yellow that might come as the sun rises) and the blue is so pale but still darkens a bit the higher you look, although that blue is only a bit darker than during the day and it lightens with each moment as morning sun approaches - or, rather, it stays in place but the Earth rotates to such a degree that the sun appears to rise. It sounds better to just imagine it rising and setting, the way we think of the moon. We've romanced the moon and for as long as it's been seen, it's romanced us. Nice to know that even though I've surrounded myself with screens and other various things, I still want to see the sky and I still look at the moon.

I'd like to do another writing session this evening. I want to keep writing.