The thing about trying to be better and more frequent about posting here is that I feel obligated to have something to say. Content. A subject. And when you aren’t going anywhere or doing anything, it’s hard to fill up a post with content. Nothing happening equals nothing to write about. Of course, that’s not really true. I AM doing things, but they’re repetitive and boring, mostly. I AM going somewhere, but it’s just the grocery store.
But I’m obviously no Emily Dickinson, holed up in my house, thinking deep thoughts and translating them into poetry on scraps of paper. I don’t even know where my inkhorn IS. I ration my household chores, making sure not to do everything all in one day, but pacing things out so I have occupation when I’m not working my day job. Doing chores is rewarded by slug intervals, sofa-sitting: reading, watching something, playing TwoDots.
Today, I have stripped and washed the bed linens, walked for 20 minutes on the treadmill, emptied the garbage cans, investigated the design of a gift certificate for a friend’s business, unpacked this week’s order of HelloFresh, and scrubbed the bathtub. Tomorrow: emptying recyclables, filling bird feeders, watering plants, cleaning bathroom cabinets and writing a letter to my best friend (which is way overdue), along with the daily treadmill 20.
This morning, I finished rereading 3 books I love, plus a new one from the same author set in the same world (Kirstin Cashore’s Graceling books), and after lunch, I started rereading Dune. Martin has just finished listening to the first three Dune books for the first time, and is starting the fourth and told me to read them again because he wants to talk about them and it’s been so long since I last read them that there’s a lot I don’t remember. I can’t remember now if he started reading Dune on my recommendation, exactly, but with his Audible subscription most of the books that are available for free are old classics, and Dune was one of them.
The sun is shining and I will go for a walk around the neighborhood in a little while to take advantage of it. It’s REALLY cold here, and has been all week, below 0 mostly and all the way down to -7 yesterday. That didn’t stop the hemglass (ice cream) truck from its scheduled rounds. We heard the theme music blasting away as it pulled up in front of our house yesterday afternoon, which made me laugh. Brrr! I can’t imagine their sales during this kind of weather are very good, but they are still coming round, so what do I know?
It’s -3.5 right now but the sky is solid blue and the sun is slanting across the pattern-peppered snow in the backyard. Every bird for miles around, plus all the neighborhood cats, and one apparently very large rabbit, have visited, judging by the footprints they’ve left behind. Every inch of the snow-covered big backyard is pocked with foot-shaped holes. It will be weird immersing myself in a book about a desert planet: hot and sandy. Truly alien!