Friday, November 2, 2012
Thursday, March 25, 2010
First real post
It's 21:35, so I ought to be going to bed, but I wanted to get this off to a proper start. I'm doing this in part because my daughter created a blog and I wanted to play with the blog layout templates, and in part because I always meant to be a writer, but I never take the time to write. I have LiveJournal for my general bitching and moaning about life and figuring out what I'm going to do with myself, and I have Facebook for quick updates, silly flash games, and keeping track of high school friends. This is different. This is just going to be me writing, about whatever. Like I said in the rules, half an hour a day, no to do lists. I can do my menu planning on LJ.
So what am I going to do here? Just write. Maybe stream of consciousness, maybe essays, depends on what I'm feeling like that day. I just need to keep my ass in the chair (a thing I'm far too good at) and my fingers clicking over the keys (something I do far too little of since college, or maybe just since I left Usenet).
Wow, five whole minutes. I amaze myself. This may be harder than I thought. But no writer's block allowed. I have to write something. I don't have to worry about whether it will entertain you, since at the moment there isn't a "you" out there to entertain. I might acquire followers at some point, but that's a worry for later.
I tried NaNoWriMo for the first time this year, and I made an OK start, but Adam went to Germany for a couple of weeks, and Mom came to visit and help out while he was gone, and I just couldn't convince myself to spend the time writing with Mom there, so the effort fizzled out. I have no idea if I am going to try that again or not, but this isn't like that either. I'm not going for a consistent narrative, or at least not at the moment.
Of course, I could spend a lot of time going on about what I'm not. I'm not as witty as Brian, I'm not as popular as GRRM, I'm not as political as dailykos, I'm not as prolific as Sharon Astyk. Sharon's essays humble me, but I am not trying to be Brian or Sharon or Markos or George, I'm trying to be Ailsa, whatever that means. I haven't quite figured that out in forty-six years, but as I go on, I begin to get a better idea, anyway.
And Passover is coming, and Spring is springing, and I am doing Spring/Passover cleaning, and this year I am targeting it. It seems to me that one of the major benefits of doing Passover properly is that one ought to be able to eliminate meal moths from one's house. After all, you are supposed to clean out every crumb of wheat, rye, spelt, oats and barley, and you are supposed to be very very thorough about it, cleaning in cracks and shaking out books and all. If you really do use up or get rid of everything and start over after the holiday is over, that ought to take care of any infestation.
Or so I hope. I've been battling meal moths for what seems like a lifetime now. A decade, anyway, or at least we've been in this house a decade, and I think the moths came in soon after we did (in a bag of rice from the Indian grocery).
Those cardboard triangle hormone and glue traps don't work, by the way. Or they might if you bought a few hundred of them. As it is, they get a few moths in them, and the dust from the moths' wings falls into the glue and then it's not sticky anymore. They're great for telling you that you do indeed have moths and giving you an idea where they might be hanging out, but not so good at taking them out.
Whole house flea bombs, followed up with liberal doses of the spray on all rugs and upholstery, are magic against fleas, though. Granted, typing this will probably bring them all back (I'm a great believer in Sod's Law), but I bombed the house the summer David was two, and he's nine now and we haven't had any since. Ticks we have in abundance (not living in the house, in the woods), but no fleas. If thew town would let me get a few guinea hens to keep the ticks down, life would be very good indeed.
Although, really, life is pretty good anyway. The house is mostly clean, I have time and space to garden, I've even got a working sewing machine now. And books to read, and video games to play and a fast Internet connection and a decent computer and a family and dogs and cats who love me and three chickens and a garden to keep me humble.
And the fire is mostly burned down, and my half hour is used up, and it's time for bed.
So what am I going to do here? Just write. Maybe stream of consciousness, maybe essays, depends on what I'm feeling like that day. I just need to keep my ass in the chair (a thing I'm far too good at) and my fingers clicking over the keys (something I do far too little of since college, or maybe just since I left Usenet).
Wow, five whole minutes. I amaze myself. This may be harder than I thought. But no writer's block allowed. I have to write something. I don't have to worry about whether it will entertain you, since at the moment there isn't a "you" out there to entertain. I might acquire followers at some point, but that's a worry for later.
I tried NaNoWriMo for the first time this year, and I made an OK start, but Adam went to Germany for a couple of weeks, and Mom came to visit and help out while he was gone, and I just couldn't convince myself to spend the time writing with Mom there, so the effort fizzled out. I have no idea if I am going to try that again or not, but this isn't like that either. I'm not going for a consistent narrative, or at least not at the moment.
Of course, I could spend a lot of time going on about what I'm not. I'm not as witty as Brian, I'm not as popular as GRRM, I'm not as political as dailykos, I'm not as prolific as Sharon Astyk. Sharon's essays humble me, but I am not trying to be Brian or Sharon or Markos or George, I'm trying to be Ailsa, whatever that means. I haven't quite figured that out in forty-six years, but as I go on, I begin to get a better idea, anyway.
And Passover is coming, and Spring is springing, and I am doing Spring/Passover cleaning, and this year I am targeting it. It seems to me that one of the major benefits of doing Passover properly is that one ought to be able to eliminate meal moths from one's house. After all, you are supposed to clean out every crumb of wheat, rye, spelt, oats and barley, and you are supposed to be very very thorough about it, cleaning in cracks and shaking out books and all. If you really do use up or get rid of everything and start over after the holiday is over, that ought to take care of any infestation.
Or so I hope. I've been battling meal moths for what seems like a lifetime now. A decade, anyway, or at least we've been in this house a decade, and I think the moths came in soon after we did (in a bag of rice from the Indian grocery).
Those cardboard triangle hormone and glue traps don't work, by the way. Or they might if you bought a few hundred of them. As it is, they get a few moths in them, and the dust from the moths' wings falls into the glue and then it's not sticky anymore. They're great for telling you that you do indeed have moths and giving you an idea where they might be hanging out, but not so good at taking them out.
Whole house flea bombs, followed up with liberal doses of the spray on all rugs and upholstery, are magic against fleas, though. Granted, typing this will probably bring them all back (I'm a great believer in Sod's Law), but I bombed the house the summer David was two, and he's nine now and we haven't had any since. Ticks we have in abundance (not living in the house, in the woods), but no fleas. If thew town would let me get a few guinea hens to keep the ticks down, life would be very good indeed.
Although, really, life is pretty good anyway. The house is mostly clean, I have time and space to garden, I've even got a working sewing machine now. And books to read, and video games to play and a fast Internet connection and a decent computer and a family and dogs and cats who love me and three chickens and a garden to keep me humble.
And the fire is mostly burned down, and my half hour is used up, and it's time for bed.
Testing
Do I really need a blog? No idea. Well, we shall see what happens. Maybe I'll find my inner pedant.
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