Speculative Poetry and Fiction
No Friday Five this week, as I’m currently in Lakeport with family, sipping a Guinness and enjoying the view. The plan is to sit here, relax, read my books, and maybe get a teenie bit of writing done.
There will be tabletop games and laughter and drinking and good times with the family. So, in other words it’ll be perfect.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Saturday, my mom and I decided to hit the local trail in Los Gatos. I had intended to just do my run and then head home, but upon hearing my mom’s plans to walk the entire trail loop (a 4-ish mile stretch that involves some steep hills). In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea I’ve had.
We did the running intervals first, which went smoothly, then started walking up the hills. It was hot and one of the hills looked almost like this /, so it was very difficult. I probably didn’t drink enough water or eat enough food that morning, so I got extremely light headed halfway up. I was fine when I reached the top and the trail leveled out, but it was rough going for a while there.
But the trail being rough isn’t the point of the story. The point is that my mom is awesome.
At one point during our walk, my mom drifted ahead of me with her headphones in her ears. To music only she could hear, she began to fan her arms over her head in circles and loops and spirals in a kind of walking dance. She followed this with childlike skips and hops and tippy toe sprints, all smiling and in tune with what ever she was listening to. I couldn’t help but smile at her dancing, at her freedom of self, at her willingness to just play. It made me want to skip and cavort, too, so I did (for a little bit). It made me think of the way as a kid I could just run around and play without embarrassment, and that I wanted more silliness in my life.
Here’s a new goal for myself: Live life with childlike abandon and joy.
So, in other week roundup news, exercise was very successful with four of three completed.
Writing and organizing was less successful, as in nonexistent. I’m giving myself a break on the organizing, though, since I’ve been housesitting and thus haven’t been at home to work on it. I’m housesitting this week, too, but I’m leaving my organizing goals on the list, because maybe I’ll work on it next weekend.
That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish Chapter Five of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Edit Letter Box poetry chapbook and submit it
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Practice my Spanish
– Make Progress on Organization (do one or more of the following):
• Shred papers and dispose of them
• Find a minimum of ten items (big or small) that can be gotten rid of and get rid of them
• Take box of items to donate to Goodwill
I had all of last week off and chopped off most of my hair and got new color is kind of eggplant, which I LOVE. I lost a total of ten inches this week, which I will be donating to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, an organization that makes wigs for women with cancer.
Here’s a before and after:
My week was a good cross between relaxing, hanging out with friends, and getting things done. In terms of writing and Spanish practice, no progress was made.
But I did a total of four and increased the walk/run interval difficulty levels by two increments, which felt fantastic. Seeing the progress on my running skills is keeping me so motivated and I know I’ll eventually meet my goal of three miles, if I keep this up. 🙂
I also made some great progress on my paperwork. I have all my past years separated out and put in appropriate envelopes and stored away, as well as all my paperwork for the current year filed in the filing cabinet. I still need to buy a new filing cabinet that would be more accessible, as well as organize other stuff in my closet so things are functional, but I feel really good about the progress I made this week.
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That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish Chapter Five of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Edit Letter Box poetry chapbook and submit it
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Do three yoga workouts, three sun salutations min. (0/3)
– Practice my Spanish
– Make Progress on Organization (do one or more of the following):
— Shred papers and dispose of them
— Find a minimum of ten items (big or small) that can be gotten rid of and get rid of them
— Take box of items to donate to Goodwill
Last weekend was spent celebrating my birthday, so I spent the weekend with my mom and aunt up in Sausalito and the Marin Headlands. On Saturday night, we hiked up to the lookout point to see the moon over the city. It was so, so cold and windy, but so beautiful.
The rest of the weekend was also restful and beautiful, though Sunday was more foggy and still cold. We sat on the beach and drank beers and enjoyed the sound of the waves.
I came away from the weekend feeling relaxed (though the stress started to reassert itself on the drive home).
As you may have noticed (or not), I didn’t post a weekly update this week. This is because I didn’t get much done with all the hanging out and relaxing and stuff that I’ve been doing, so the to-do list has not changed, except that I need to get through Chapter Four now.
It’s going to be warm this weekend and there’s more lazy days by the pool to be had, so we’ll see if I get anything else done.
Writing was a bust last week. I feel like I’m going a bit crazy with this. I mean, it’s not that I’m block, per se, but I’m avoiding writing like a mad fiend, which is not helpful for my sanity. I always like to see at least a little forward progress each week, however minimal. I think I’m going to have to break up my routine, because it seems like as soon as I get home, I’m done. A few evenings at the nearby coffee shop might break me out of my slump.
I’ve been doing great in terms of running though and have been meeting all my goals in that regard. I’m seeing slow, but steady, improvement in my running abilities, so I’m feeling fantastic about that.
Walking into my room, I was greeted with quite a mess and so immediately set to work organizing the space. It wasn’t a complete job (you’ll notice the solution to the problem of the closet was to just close the door), but I feel like I can breath easier in my room now. This small progress has me wanting to work toward finally getting the closet where I want it, just because of how good it feels to have it clean.
That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish Chapter Three of Under the Midday Moon (need to get a move on)
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Edit Letter Box poetry chapbook
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Do three yoga workouts, three sun salutations min. (0/3)
– Make Progress on Organization (do one or more of the following):
— Sort paperwork out by year for filing and set up system for the current year
— Organize craft supplied
— Shred papers and dispose of them
— Find a minimum of ten items (big or small) that can be gotten rid of and get rid of them
— Take box of items to donate to Goodwill