Little Pleasantries

Nothing showy you all, just little things. Firstly, I did not want to go to town (anywhere not in the woods), today. Alex has been visiting his father and left Goobi, the cat, with my dogs and me. Goobi needed food. The city was necessary; I could not allow Goobi to starve.

It was not raining, which I have mentioned we are in the “rainy season.” The Explorer, though somewhat dirty, was not as bad as I expected. Alex and Maui have used it extensively. Mostly there are white hairs and footprints, but I was pleasantly surprised. The tank was almost empty, and that was about $35, but the station was not crowded, and it went smoothly.

I went to Kroger and picked up a few things, then got directed to the cat food. A three-pound bag was almost $12. Then I looked again, the tag said a limited quantity only this flavor was $3.60 per three-pound bag. This was Nutro Salmon and Brown Rice. There were two bags, but one was all the way at the back. My short self tried to reach it, a no-go. I walked up the aisle and saw nothing with length to it, and there seemed to be a shortage of available tall humans. I really like tall humans, they are handy. I keep one when I can. I looked the other way and saw some lint brushes. I was not sure these were sufficient, but anything is worth a try once, almost. I stood on the bottom shelf. You have seen short people doing this. I am sure I do not recommend it, but desperate times… I managed to snag the food. My way of seeing things, God set that up for me.

I went to Dairy Queen for an M&M Blizzard as a truly nutritional lunch. When the owner’s son gave me my receipt, he told me to do the survey, and he would give me a large blizzard for the cost of a medium, which is not what the paper says, but I know some people.

Alex was not with me, so I was not on a mission at Sam’s Club, and I browsed around as I do. Checking stock, checking prices, dreaming over books. I talked to a lady over the grapes. Sam’s likes to move things around and confuse customers. We talked about how their produce is superior to Kroger’s, and she agreed. I had discussed my theory on that with Alex, and without trotting it out, the lady’s experience agreed with my thoughts. We talked for several minutes, and it was delightful. Then when I went to leave, she said, “God Bless You!” I returned it with my own, but it felt so good to have an utter stranger bless me.

Another lady was looking at coffee, and I asked her which kind she liked. She said most anything, just not designer flavored coffees. She walked away, but when I came to the end of the aisle, she told me her real thing was creamers. We talked some more, and we were both smiling and pleased with the conversation.

The thing is I have severe social anxiety, and I am working on it by talking to strangers. It is fun, but the overthinking afterward, I could leave off.

I came home and got over-heated going in and out of a 57-degree house. Then I got cold. Because the propane will not deliver until Monday, I turned the central heat to 65. Then I decided to rock out to Newsboys and had to turn the heat off.

Life is amazing. People are so precious, beautiful.

God goes before us. We are loved.

Squiggles

We always do this
Who write – put black onto white
The leaving of minds,
Staged for another to read
If we in labor succeed.

Most miserable found
Without an implement to
Scribe wayward thoughts down,
For the perfect line easy
Slips away, obscurity.

Sometimes ourselves are
Captured, hidden though written
With precise phrases,
All the hope, joy, light, love, is
To overcome mistakes made.

We know creation
Ushers in another world
Within the mind, heart,
Which may dispel the darkness
At least for a little while.

So merry squiggles
Honest, many, construct, make
The world needs stories
To break out of its prison
We free dreams, to breathe, become.

Write writers, show,
Tell, illuminate the dark
For people can grow
When they find treasures within
The pages on which you bestow –

SQUIGGLES!

Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to create. It is a wonderful break from a world that all too often is heavy and dispiriting. In your process, when shared, you may lift some other life and encourage them to engage in creativity.

As a prompt, pick up a book or whatever you have been reading, open it randomly, let a word set you to thinking or verge off the word to one of your own.

Never let yourself become too busy to indulge in at least a few moments per day of creation. Your heart and soul will suffer if you do.

Thank you for reading Haphazard Creation. I hope you enjoyed your time here. Please follow or come again.

All the best to you and yours. Let love be your guide.

By the way, the poem is joined tankas, but for the last line.

AWay (Joined Tankas & More)

2020-01-26_A Way

This drawing was done last week, but I was not happy with it. Still practicing. I have to find my way in that too.

2020-01-26_Drawing

I finished the book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January last night. This book was a pure delight. I give it a five only because most ratings do not go to ten. I recommend you read it. Love, adventure, complicated relationships, the power of Words. I will not spoil it.

This is one of my current reads:

This is a fascinating book, maybe more than I bargained for when I bought it.

I am grateful:

For bananas: and learning, they can be refrigerated.
For coffee, you know, coffee.
For the things I own.
For the ability to read, write, and do art and photography.
For Alex, who means the world to me.

As a prompt, review something you have read, seen, or done lately. Share it, or just make it yours.

Coffee, Poems, Ramblings

Alex went to bed. I am wired, see the photo above for an explanation. Alex wants me to cease drinking diet sodas, which I am catastrophically addicted to, and he believes coffee is the answer. The truth about coffee is it usually makes my acid reflux worse, (which I have ceased treatment for due to the lack of a colonoscopy). I did not have that problem this time. I take my coffee, much like a soda (with Splenda, and brew specific – a generous amount of vanilla extract), which might make it even worse than those drinks I am assured are killing me. I do not do compliance exceptionally well. There would seem to be some stubbornness on board.

Being stubborn very likely is the only reason I am alive. I could not fight my monsters without I were tenacious. The last few days have been abysmal at times, and by turns incredible. I am pleasantly surprised my recent coffee consumption is going well. I LOVE COFFEE, I just rarely drank any for the past couple of years. Coffee has superior caffeine, and caffeine makes some of the side effects of my powerful medicines a bit more manageable. I am fully compliant with my psychiatric medications, but I do not have to like them.

I am on The Dell. Whatever it was doing earlier failed, and it is in the process of trying again. I like computers, possibly better than other devices, probably because I have used them much longer. I love this one, but I also hate it. Ambivalence seems to be a widespread trait in my existence. There is very little I only have one end of the feeling scale over. Catch me at the right time; I love everything. The wrong one and I would be hard-pressed to tell you a positive thing among everything in my life.

Will You

Will you hold me close
When I turn myself around,
Inside-out, upside-down,
Lose who I am – hokey-pokey like;
Without rhyme and lacking reason?
You should know this happens
In and out of season, without control.
My emotions are like an ocean
With waves that ebb and flow
Washing warm and cold, beware
Also, the undertow that drowns me
From time and again, in feelings
For which I have no use, refuse.
Will you find the patience
To weather moods, disturbances
In my equanimity? I hardly do
And it all belongs to me.
There are days I need to escape
The prison of what I am, but
My jailor is unwilling to grant any
Leave, breaking out an impossibility.
Writing though, and reading,
Grant me some serenity, words
Are love and I can find, perhaps,
Another searching soul with
Whom I have an affinity.
Come now, come near, and let us
Discover whatever is and will be,
It should all be okay, we shall see,
I will not give up the fight
As long as hope survives that you
Might deign to place your heart
Near the fullness of mine.

Composed here, live, out of nowhere. I admit I have been wrestling with inferiority. I have doubts about my worth and my sustainability. Those are near-constant, but I believe there is some talent in me. Fifty-three years of writing had to have some purpose.

Alex keeps telling me I should get rid of my books. It is killing me. I do not know how to explain what they mean, even the many I have not read. I read library books almost exclusively for years, but the books I own are a comfort to me. I have sent all the borrowed books back. Delving into these of mine has been a revelation, I fear I should have done it sooner. If he has his way, what a loss I shall suffer. I think this persistent demand of his is one reason depression has been unfailingly dogging me.

Let your whole being
Become Love’s celebration,
Your fascination.

As a prompt: Follow your emotion somewhere and create something that elucidates where yourself is at the moment. All my prompts are meant for creation with no particular medium restriction. Most creatives, which means all of us, are multidisciplinary.

I am grateful that this morning when Facebook malfunctioned and I had a full-blown panic attack, that I got myself under control with Alex’s assistance, and I recovered my account. Yeah, life is bizarre. When devices do not work, I go a bit unhinged.

Blessings to all of you, and may all your electronics function as advertised. Be well. Choose joy. Keep moving, it is harder to hit someone in motion. Carry on…

“A Rainy Night In Georgia”

It’s raining; it seems like it rains all the time. I tend to believe, partially facetiously, that Georgia is now part of the Tropics. We have a dry season, and then we have a rainy season. It was not this way when I grew up. I seem to remember, though my memory has compartments, that there used to be dew on the grass every morning. Mostly rain was at night. Understand the assumption might be fanciful. I have notions. At any rate, this drift into tropical seasons has escalated over the years.

Alex lived in Nevada for a while, near or in the desert. It rarely rains. We both tend to think and imagine better in motion, walking. He told me, “Thanks so much,” for bequeathing that anomaly to him. This evening, Alex went out in the pouring rain to listen to the novel Armada, and his writing block broke, so he began listening to music and continued walking.

He is moving back to Georgia after traveling the world since he graduated from Alexander High School in 2006. I assure you all his adventuring was not for pleasure. He has been far from a vagabond. Since he has been home, the rain has been pervasive. Rain in Georgia tends to be cold, and there is always high humidity, even when it is dry.

I walk, it is how I lost a significant amount of weight, which I have begun to regain to my chagrin. I do it mostly indoors.

Alex came back in totally soaked, and shivery. He brewed coffee, which we got at Kroger, and has been working on his novel with his headphones on.

Every time I tried to work with “The Dell from Hell” (pardon me, this is the only accurate description of the computer), it was slow as a sloth. I intended to do this post on it, but found, as I suspected that it wanted to update, so I pulled out the keyboard for my tablet and am finishing this on it. I have my headphones on and am listening to YouTube. The tablet/keyboard combination works reasonably well, but I keep wanting a mouse.

You should listen to the song, “A Rainy Night In Georgia.” Had things not become obnoxious with The Dell, I would have linked it. I do not trust myself to do it on this sweet tablet. I have never even used the keyboard with it before, but desperation breeds courage.

Many are the times I have wanted to chunk the Dell against a wall, or shoot it, (I have no gun for secret reasons), but the money invested in the piece of junk does not permit it. When it ate all my files made over two years, I had to talk to Jesus for a while to ameliorate my rage. I still do not have those files, that is why it has the unusual sobriquet.

I have been drinking coffee, even though I got up on Thursday morning and have not slept since, I am probably up as long as Alex is, and he is drinking coffee too. I finally left that lethargic state behind.

I am currently reading, The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, and am enjoying it immensely. The cover is gorgeous, and covers can get me every time. This book is about Words, and I adore words.

I would write a poem, but it seems Shift+Enter does not make single line spaces on this device combination, so that will wait.

It looks as though I am rambling a bit. Often happens when under coffee’s influence. So I shall bid you adieu and find something else to entertain me.