Right Now

Right now, I am in the comfy chair, bare feet up on the footrest, an ice pack on my lower spine (for heat regulation, not injury; I’m fine.) My Paris travel mug sweats on the table to my right. It’s almost empty. I’ll need to get up and refill it soon. On my left, a box fan sits in the open window. Ominous gray clouds lurk low over the old brick building across the street. There was a wonderful pub there when we moved in; it’s empty now. Its neighbors, a bodega and a liquor store, remain. I am listening to a new-to-me singer, Levi Kreis, on my phone, because Spotify can be patchy when using the web player on my laptop, and I’m still hypervigilant about memory, so downloading very little to the hard drive. I suspect that the multiple YouTube videos H sent me, of the Danish Royal family (it was all for writing, really it was) may have left their ghosts in my cache, because there is a full GB less of space than there was the day before, and I clean caches daily. I’ll deal with that later.

Right now, I have enough time to focus on this entry, because it is a domestic tornado day. One of these days, I may start naming our domestic tornadoes. If I start here, this one will be “Anton.” Well, maybe not Anton, because the Anton I know in real life is the owner of my favorite coffee house, and, while he does wear a lot of hats (metaphorically and literally) he has nothing to do with today’s tornado. So, maybe not Anton. Maybe I’ll start naming tornadoes some other time, when I am not actually in the middle of one.  Not entirely sure if that is ever going to happen, so maybe it’s more of a juggling act.

Right now, I want to squeeze in as much blog entry as I can before I have to shift back to family mode. What I would like to do is pack up laptop and legal pad, ensconce myself at Anton’s establishment and delve into my eighteenth century world, but that’s not what this afternoon is going to be. Okay. Can’t change that. What I can change is my response. The day is what it is. I like my family, and spending time with them is not a bad thing. We all work together to make a good life for all of us, and, for every tornado, there is going to be a calm (or at least an eye.) So, it’s going to happen. Not a zero sum game. Since I have my purse notebook, all necessary accoutrements in the accompanying pouch, I can take my show on the road. I seriously think this may become my new default notebook:

All that ink on paper…soooooo calm. Insert happy sigh here.

Margins are perfect for making short lists, and notes on what’s on the rest of the page, where needed. Highlighting dates and headings means I can go immediately to what I want, which I like very much. Seriously considering drawing margins on the pages of other notebooks that do not have them already. Anything at all can go in these all purpose books, and the fact that my newly discovered music crush has some songs that would fit beautifully for Hero in certain situations, should there ever be a Her Last First Kiss musical (hey, I can dream) means that musing on same is perfectly fair game. Anything specific to a particular project, I can copy into the proper book when the time comes, and there’s always transcription to computer file, but I know myself. Longhand is best.

Speaking of longhand, I am locking in these PaPaYa! Art notebooks as my next two morning pages book, since I am now on the second half of the book I am currently using:

Notebook and a half, actually

The “Fearless” book is really half a book, since it belongs to the “uh, no, I actually don’t want to use this book for that purpose” family. It’s about halfway filled, maybe a little less than that, with ramblings in purple ballpoint, which, while a pen I love (promo pen from Hannah Howell) also one that doesn’t show up well on the surface of these pages. The “Love You to the Moon” book, I have been saving for a special occasion. Today, I decided that right now is special enough.

 

This Saturday, I get to have the great good pleasure of attending my monthly CRRWA meeting, made all the better by a workshop with the luminous K.A. Mitchell, who always puts us to work, which I greatly appreciate. Writer people, if you ever get a chance to take one of her workshops, do. Anyway, a tidbit from her workshop on breaking creative blocks feels appropriate for right now: use the good stuff. Use it now. Beautiful notebook, fun idea, character who won’t shut up; use them now. Don’t wait. There will be more. That’s how creativity works.