Write the darn thing

A few days ago I saw a book described on-line.  Let’s just say that the plot was one of the least reasonable ones that I have seen in a long time.  I have to admit that my first thought was who comes up with an idea like this followed by who publishes something like this?

It is the kind of thing to evoke horror: They’ll publish that but not my book!?!?  or  Heck if they’ll publish that they’ll publish anything – maybe I should write a book.

Then I realized that this book was targeted to a very specific subset of readers.  This wasn’t meant to appeal to a broad range of readers, it was meant to draw in everyone in that select group.  I suppose that’s a way to go, obviously the publisher thought so.

Not that any of that matters.  If you can target a book and get a publisher, great; if you just have an idea, great.  But none of that is the point. 

What’s important is very simple: If you want to write, write.

What a long, strange year it’s been

OK, it’s the beginning of June so it’s only been a little over five months so far, but it seems like the Spring just dragged on.  The weather was just too disorganized and didn’t settle into a normal or at least expected seasonal pattern.  I just couldn’t get a handle mentally on where I was in the year.  It doesn’t even really feel like June yet.

The rain and humidity were also a drag.  Last year just seemed to go so much more easily and I had more energy.  We even did some gardening.  In fact, I think that’s why I felt better.

Now, we didn’t get that much done.  The guy who does our lawn dug up a front bed that once had some shrubs in it.  They got too big for the space, got very woody and began to die off.  That was bad for the shrubbery but left a good spot for planting.  We put in some ornamental grasses and flowers and the like and it turned out pretty good.  We also did some container gardening for veggies and herbs.

I like to say that in two months we got a good weekend’s worth of work done.

Pathetic, but true.  It was, however, very therapeutic.  Getting out in the sun and fresh air and doing something constructive was really good for both of us.  We decided the money was better spent now and wouldn’t really help in retirement, so we went for it.  Somehow I was OK with that.  We also pushed ourselves physically – work 15 minutes, sit down for an hour, that sort of thing.  Still, I don’t think I’ve been that relaxed in years.  It was great.  I learned some things, too. 

Things got too hot for the leafy greens but we got a lot of excellent cherry tomatoes, those plants just wouldn’t quit.  We also had some cucumbers, green peppers, string beans and a couple handfuls of really good lima beans.  The rabbits got all of the blossoms so no zucchini, but plenty of basil and mint and dill and a few other herbs.

This year not so much.  The weather really hasn’t been cooperating.  Even if we had gotten some vegetables planted I doubt that they would have survived.  We’re still going to try though.  Some of the herbs actually survived the winter and are coming back, as are most of the flowers and plants out front.  Even some of the annuals and the strawberries came back and I was sure the snow and ice would have done them all in.

We also have three tomato plants growing.  They’re either from some tomatoes that dropped off last year’s plants or the squirrels planted them.  However it happened we have some tomatoes going – so I guess not everything would have died if we had planted it, but we didn’t have the strength to do it anyway.

We’ll just get some plants and put them in, probably next week, and see what happens.  It won’t be as much work but it should get us out of the house and into the sunlight and fresh air.  I think it will be almost as satisfying.  I want us to get that same feeling we had last year.

And we want some more of those cherry tomatoes.

Exertion and recognizing limits, in context

In case you haven’t notice I can’t leave well enough alone.  I decided after yesterday’s events that I needed to stop letting my ego get in the way of my common sense.  Of course I immediately began questioning that conclusion.

Is it really common sense to stop, or do I need to push myself more?  Then it occurred to me that I’ve been through this before.

I have a motto: I have to try.

If I don’t try I won’t know if I can do it or not.  I need to test my limits and I used to do that to the extreme, doing something and then collapsing and realizing that I had gone too far.  I would exceed my limits; the point where I should have stopped was always way before I finally did.  Eventually, through trial and error – mostly error – I learned enough to know when I was about to or had just gone too far.  Even knowing when I had just passed the limit was enough to keep me from hurting myself.  So I managed to do things and stretch myself and not do too much damage.

So why am I still hurting myself by doing things I shouldn’t be doing?  If I learned so much why am I still making mistakes and why am I questioning reasonable conclusions?

Well, I’m questioning reasonable conclusions because I’m human and I’m foolish and that’s just what I do.  That takes a lot more effort to stop, but I’m working on it and I’ll get better.

I do know why I was stupid yesterday.  It was something done in public.  I look fairly normal in public, I work really hard at it, and I want to keep it that way so the impulse towards stupid is great.  Someone asked me how long it had taken me to recover because I look – more or less – like I have.  Since I haven’t recovered my act must be good, but that’s my problem.

When I pushed myself before it was done in private or at least anonymously.  Also, when people don’t know me I’m smart enough to ask for help with the hard stuff.  Yesterday people knew who I was so this was the public persona that hides the disability.  That me hasn’t learned how to avoid dangerously breaking through the limits.  That part of me is a monumental idiot.

So you see, questioning conclusions – that I had listened to my ego and not my common sense – led me to ask the question ‘Why would I do that?’.  And the answer was that I haven’t learned to apply the lessons of my private life to my public life.  Now I know what to do.  I need to pay attention to how hard I’m pushing myself in all contexts – anonymous or not the same rules have to apply.  The next time that sort of thing comes up I can and should try, but if I can’t I need to just admit it.

As in most things, this is easier said than done, but in time and with practice I think that I can do it.

Ego

I try to act normal – well, as normal as possible and in a physical way.  When I’m out in public I try to hide any problems that I have.

I did that in a really stupid way today.

Someone asked me for help moving a couple of boxes and of course I said I would help.  As soon as I started I knew that it was a mistake.  The boxes were too heavy.  I could move them but they were well beyond my practical limit.  I will sometimes do something and joke that my doctors would be mad at me.  This was beyond even that level of exertion.

But did I stop?  No.  I was too embarrassed to say that I couldn’t do it.

Did I hurt myself?  I sure did.

So now I’m in pain and I’m also mad at myself for being so stupid.  I didn’t want anyone to know that I couldn’t do something so I did something I shouldn’t have done.

Hopefully I didn’t hurt myself too badly and I’ll just be in pain for a week or so.  I also hope that I learned something from this.  Oddly enough this situation hasn’t come up before.  Being a hermit means I don’t encounter things like this very often, or at all.  Today was an exception and I failed the test.

Ego has no place in managing my disability and I have to make sure I don’t let it control my actions in the future.

Use me as an example of something you shouldn’t do.  Pay attention to your body and your common sense.  I’m sure I have some of that around here somewhere, I just didn’t have it with me today.

And on the 2nd day

It occurred to me that my post from yesterday really looked like a resolution.

I didn’t intend for it to be that way; I had been thinking about traditions.  Our tradition is to spend the day with friends.  It was a brief visit this year because my wife and I were absolutely exhausted but it was fun.  We look forward to it each year even though we don’t always make it.  That was really all I was thinking, how the day has engendered traditions.

I don’t make even make resolutions.  I try to look at my life and since I do see the first day of the year as a significant, well, signifier of change, I look for ways to improve on what I did in the previous year.

OK, I make resolutions.

But I didn’t mean to make a post about how resolutions shouldn’t be restrictive let alone necessary and then go ahead and make a resolution.  It was just something that I had been thinking about that I wanted to share, that’s all.  We should take advantage of every day as best we can.  I am by far not the best at doing this, but I thought it was a good way to approach things.

Oh well, be good and have a good year.

I have to go write a sonnet now.

January 1, 2014

So it is the first day of a New Year, a new beginning, a time to make resolutions and to make changes in your life.

But really it’s just an arbitrary date that we’ve chosen; an artifact of a calendar that has changed over the centuries.  This day isn’t really different than any other day, though I do see this as a special day myself.  I recognize that is a personal feeling but a new year has begun.  Other people celebrate this day but I don’t know if they feel the same way that I do about it.  For some people New Year’s Eve is the big event.  That’s fine.  Everyone can celebrate in their own way, but I think it’s useful to focus on January 1^st as a time of beginnings. 

If you made resolutions to change your life for the better, then good for you.  It’s good to improve yourself in whatever way you choose.  Make needed changes and work to make yourself and your life better.  But don’t fret about January 1^st.  If you started today, fine, but if you miss it, don’t give up because of that, just start tomorrow.  If you make it to January 10^th or March 2^nd or May 4^th and then your resolve falls apart don’t worry about that either.  Maybe your resolutions were too ambitious, or maybe they were unattainable or maybe you just had a bad day.  It’s good to have goals that you try to achieve but don’t let the goal be an obstacle.

So you didn’t go to the gym every day and you haven’t been eating better at every meal.  Maybe you haven’t been a nicer person to everyone and you haven’t been able to write a sonnet every day.  So what?  Maybe you just need to revise your goals or maybe you just need a day off.  I have the feeling that a lot of people give up on their resolutions once they have a single misstep.  I’ve done that.  It’s human nature, and it’s hard to overcome.  Still, I think it’s worth trying to get over it.  If you don’t start right away or you can’t quite keep up with what you wanted to do don’t give up completely.

It’s a new year, a chance to see things in a new light and to start thinking in a new way.  Of course things don’t really change just because it’s January 1^st.  The rest of your life hasn’t reset itself just because the calendar rolled around to a new year.  Work keeps on going, or the look for work keeps on, and the demands of life are still there – maybe it’s all even a little more pressing because you took some time off for the holidays.  Fine, do what you have to do to keep life going and your world in order.  I hope things run as smoothly as possible for everyone.

But do think about it being a new year.  It’s New Years Day.  Celebrate, relax, enjoy.  And tomorrow go about your business, but maybe look at things a little differently.  Sure, it’s going to be January 2^nd and it will be Thursday and just another ordinary day.  Try to make that day a good day.  No, I’m not trying to spout platitudes about making the world what you want it to be, I don’t know anyone with that kind of control over the world and if you can do that give me a call.  If you’re that powerful you’ll know my number.

What I am suggesting is that if you have that feeling of newness and potential that can come with New Year’s Day don’t leave it behind.  Keep that thought with you as the year progresses.  I intend to try.  Maybe the chance to start something new comes along in three weeks.  I want to keep looking.

Every day is a new day with its own potential and that’s a good thing.

I choose to celebrate today

I had intended to blog more this year.  You can see how that worked out.

I’ll give some details as to why I have been silent a little later.  For now I want to talk about today.

That post title refers to the anniversary days of my time in the hospital.  It’s been a while but those days are still very present in my life.  Apparently I’ve been dealing with the effects that remembering those days has on me by ignoring them this year.  An effective but not a productive strategy.

So, since I wanted to start in with an attempt at blogging again, I am going to look at today.

Today in Beatthereaper history.  Or something like that.

September 12^th is the day I think I started to remember things sequentially again.  I think I remember things from the 9^th on, but even as I was in the ICU I felt that the first three days’ memories were mixed up.  Oddly I knew that even though I was remembering things, I was not remembering what order those things happened.

Then, on the 12^th, things seemed to fall into place.  My thinking was not clear, but the memories were keeping in line.  I can’t really describe how that felt or why it’s so important to me.  It was like returning.

Somehow my brain knew that I had been in the hospital for a long time even though I had been unconscious.  Then when I finally was conscious I had those days of confusion.  That left me feeling disoriented.  The ICU is an unreal place to begin with and that just magnified the problem for me.  But then I started to remember.  Sure, being in the ICU was not the best place for the remembering to start up again, but you take what you can get.  And remembering is an important thing.

So I choose to celebrate today.  I have ignored the other significant days, I intend to keep ignoring them for now.  As much as I cherish memory and believe that it has an important role in making us who we are, I do not want to dwell on those days right now.  Yes, I’m taking the easy way out and frankly I don’t care.  I have other things I want to spend that energy on right now so that’s what I’m going to do.

This day is important.  I’m going to focus on that.  I’ll work on that other progress later.

Now, this has been a rather haphazard post, very much in keeping with my blogging this year.  But I felt like giving it a try again.  We’ll have to see where it goes from here.

I hope you all have important days that you want to remember, moments in your life that mark positive times, improvements and maybe even joy.  We all need them and we all deserve them.

Here’s hoping we can also all build some more of them.