Tag: pretzel logic

Ah-Ha vs. Good Grief

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

I am usually happy with who I am. From a writer and painter to a bleeding heart animal lover to unicorn collector, I’ve finally become comfortable with myself.

That is, until I take the backwards road to find an answer to something.

I’ve often said I am of the “pretzel logic” variety — I get to the same place everyone else does, but it takes me longer, for I take side roads, open closed doors, and often get stuck in the mud or in a sandstorm.

I have developed a patience for this lifestyle, but at times I frustrate myself to death. Like “Why didn’t I think of finding that information the easy way?”

Today was a great example of this. I wasted an hour trying to find the original publisher of a book I wanted to credit in a novel I’m writing. Instead of looking in the Library of Congress, a catchall for any book you want to research, I went to this website and that website and read a dozen articles that never once said the publisher was Brace and Company.

That’s in the same category as “Why doesn’t this thing turn on?” when all I had to do was find the hidden switch, or “Why did I drive five miles out of my way when I could have cut over on Highway D?”

Why do I waste so much time going the pretzel way?

Some have attributed this half-conscious sabotage on moving before thinking. Or speaking before thinking. Or acting before thinking. But, being 67, I have slowed down. Thought things out. Reasoned and Researched.

It’s not only my age. I’ve been pretzelling for 40 years or more. Probably even when I  was a teenager. My sons are really good at what they do and how they speak and how they react. So I know it’s not genetic.

But there are times when, by the time I get there, the answer is so obvious I am embarrassed to have shown up at all. That the answer is so obvious my grandkids could have answered it while I was still fooling around.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being this way. Obviously we finish what we’ve started/where we’re going/what we want to do. It just takes us sooooo much longer to get there.

Do you ever feel that way? That you “take the long way home” like Supertramp sings, even if you’re looking for the shortcut way?

I can’t really “hurry up” any more. I mean, I can find more efficient and direct ways to do things, but time is not something I can control. I also can take on fewer tasks in general, which I’m trying to do, with limited success. 

If you find a way to straighten your pretzelly path without taking away from who you are, let me know.

Until then, I will just hope that my “ah-ha!” moments catch up with my “good grief” moments.

 

Come On — Let’s Go Dreaming!

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

I am in one of my magical moods this evening. One of my “anything is possible” states of mind.

Do you get those now and then? 

Those times when who you really are comes through, and it’s amazing?

It’s like when I get in the “zone” when I write. It doesn’t happen all the time…I think I would burn out like a firework if it did. Or reading a book that I just can’t put down. It’s read read read crash.  It’s that adrenaline rush that teases as it blows in and out of my life.

The one thing about my pretzel view of the world is that I’m often in and out of all sorts of adrenaline rushes. The basics never change…writing, cheeseburgers, looking for artists for SEAG. 

But other nirvanas blow in and out like Wisconsin weather. One day I love yogurt, two weeks later, ick. I was on a kick for a while of a homemade snack mix of sesame mix and chocolate Chex mix and pecans. That lasted two big containers full. The container has been empty and put away for weeks. Now I’m into raspberry sherbet, but I haven’t bought any in over a week, so who knows.

My interest in airy fairy always stays the same, though, even though my choice of airy fairy changes with that same wind. 

Now I’m into dreaming. I want to do more. 

Everyone dreams, but most just don’t remember them. It has to do with waking at certain times and slipping back into REM sleep and a whole bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo I’m not interested in.

What I am interested in these days is remembering those crazy mind trips.

Watching yourself in a dream. Controlling your dream. Making choices in your dream. Knowing you’re dreaming and following wherever it goes.

It sounds so simple, yet any idea of “control” is as far away as Pluto. I mean, how do you control the madness of your mind at so-called rest?

I know dreams are supposed to be reflections of what’s in your head during the day. A way of working out problems and situations and romances and your deepest fears. Blah blah blah. I don’t care about figuring out anything.

I just want to be able to remember and record these dream trips I have so I can look back at them and wonder “where did that come from? Man, that was fun!”

Something I read said that creative people tend to have more lucid dreaming. Are an active part of their own dreams. Of course, the line between creativity and madness is a thin one. I suppose that’s what drove Van Gogh to paint Starry Night and cut off his ear in the same lifetime. 

You are all creative people out there. I keep encouraging you to come forward, but you are timid. I see. I understand. Do you have wild dreams? Do you enjoy them? Like them? Are frightened by them?

I took a book out of the library earlier this evening on dreaming. If my attention span lasts on this I’ll let you know what I learn. My creative urges, as they are, will most likely take me in another direction somewhere down the road, but let’s have fun while we’re here!

 

Just Because It’s Different

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

fantastic-photo-3It’s a beautiful Fall Saturday. Cool afternoon, a bit of sun. Don’t have to go to work today. Going to make Chicken and Goo for dinner tonight.  I look around — the kitchen is a far cry from what it was when I first woke up this morning.  An accumulation of not being home, a full dishwasher I didn’t unload, grocery shopping, various machinery I/we didn’t put back where we found it, all made for a mess one step away from a bomb having gone off.  But I sleepily (but thoroughly) cleaned said disaster area, and moved around to work on the other piles that had accumulated from a week’s worth of busy days.

My first downfall was to put on some smooth jazz from Sirius on the telly. Second was to throw a load of laundry to be changed around “later.”

Never do later. Later never comes.

Second — and final — mistake was to go on the computer. Wrote a short piece for a publication, checked my Facebook, then came here. Decided it was time for a new blog look.  I’m like the home decorator’s best friend. If I could move every so often and decorate a new place to live I would. Not that I would feel as home as I do now — it’s just that I love playing with space and color and atmosphere.

That’s probably because I’m never satisfied with where I am.

I mean,  I AM happy. I AM blessed. I DO love my house and the view and the music and my decorations and most of my wardrobe.  But being a creative sprite means I always want to tinker with things. Not knowing what I want half the time, I tinker to the point where I mess things up and forget what was there originally.  A writer always edits and rewrites and clarifies just where their story is going. A good blogger has a path, a destination in mind when they share thoughts and words. An artist knows if their painting will be modern or traditional. And they are good with that.

Me? I have a dozen things I want to do and not enough time to develop any of them. I love this blog…this is what I want to do. I want to share laughs and insights and the weirdness of the world as I get older.  But I also have a photography blog in mind…something to do with faeries and nature paths and mystical hiding places. I’d also like to do a blog that shares eclectic pieces of the world (poetry, images, thoughts) in a more delicate sort of way. (Like one of the blogs I follow….http://davidkanigan.com/… Lead, Learn, Live…go check it out).  I also thought about starting a blog that would highlight some of my writing through the years.

But who has time to create all these things?  I thought of changing this blog theme today, and did nothing but waste two hours of time trying to adapt a new style, none of which tickled my fancy. I would have been better off doing research or writing something or looking at images.  Now the afternoon is winding down and the laundry needs to be switched and the Livingroom could use a vacuuming and the bathroom definitely needs a wiping down.

Do you all have pretzeled moments like this? As a creative sprite I’m sure you must, although the form the pretzel takes is molded more around your lifestyle.  I love my life and everything…I believe that all these loose threads of creativity are here for me to collect and make something out of when the time is right.  At least I have fun in the planning stages.

My last creative flourish earlier was to type in “fantastic images” into Yahoo just for the beans of it. I downloaded the first one that made me say “wow”…for no other reason than I found it creative. Consider that creative itch scratched (for now.)