Well, that sucked, didn’t it? I don’t need to go into the details of the day I spent in a haze in my pajamas (which is different from my usual productive pajama clad days), in fact, let’s just skip over all of it because you know how I feel already.
Instead, let’s think on good things. I’ll admit, it was hard for me to come up with anything positive at all this week. Then, I got on my bike — I love my bike. I rode down to the beach — I love that I can ride down to the beach. I met a friend at Seattle’s own Statue of Liberty — someone had left a wreath at her feet — and then, we went for donuts at Top Pot. That’s a lot of good things: friends, donuts, the beach, bicycles, and knowing that you have thoughtful neighbors. Those good things reminded me that we’re not in a dystopian hellscape — not yet, anyway — and that there have been good things in my world of late.
It’s a start.
You know the drill. Click through and buy something, I get a little cash. Last month, I earned 6.37. It pays for hosting for a month, so it does matter. Thank you.
§
I am reading a delightfully strange and gorgeously written book called Giraffe. It’s about a herd of, you guessed it, giraffes that were moved to Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. The book is based on a true story but the telling is bizarre and surreal and some of the imagery is so magical. I can’t stop thinking about the part where the giraffes are transported via crane from their long haul ship to the barge on which they traveled down the river into Czechoslovakia. A live giraffe, suspended in the air in a German port city, talk about your magic realism. I am loving this book, you might too.
§
Even if we don’t know the artist’s name, so many of us are familiar with that famous Japanese woodcut of a giant wave. The artist was Hokusai and his daughter is the main character in Miss Hokusai, an anime movie about the artist, his daughter, the people around them. It’s highly fictionalized, little is known about Miss Hokusai, but the movie is weird and fun to watch and chock full of art history references for those in the know. The movie is based on manga book
§
My friend Marika is a wildly talented writer and hugely under-exposed. Some day I plan to say to her, “Remember when I linked to your stuff? You owe me, now blurb my book.” This will be many many years from now as apparently I am incapable of finishing a book, but in the meantime, read The Armored Coconut, her meditation on, well, it’s about race but a lot of other things too. Popularity. Teenage angst. Being an outsider. A bunch of things. And it’s funny because she is funny, but it’s wicked smart too and I’m done sucking up to her just for that future cover blurb. Go read it.
§
Speaking of not getting a book written, I am doing my damn best to get a book written this month. It’s NaNoWriMo, the annual festival of hurling words from your gut onto the page in hopes they hang together well enough so you can say, “Ha! That’ll teach you! I DID write a book! It’s terrible, but it’s done! Take that!”
The book is about Harley the Dog, I’ll have had him for just over a year when NaNoWriMo is over. So far, it’s going fairly well, but I could grind to a crippling halt any day now.
In hopes of sustaining the momentum, I baked in my own “let’s make it more difficult” accountability plan by asking you to help. Want to see what I’m working on? You can. Sign up for my mailing list, here, then give to an animal welfare cause. Yes, there are a lot of important places to give now, so I’m totally up for broadening what works as an animal welfare cause because hey, protecting the environment is good for wildlife for example, and it’s all up for grabs right now.
It has been good — if nothing else — to get up every morning and write about something that makes me happy. Maybe you’ll get a little happy from reading about the silly romance I’m having with my dog.
§
Here’s hoping you found time to have treats with a friend this week and that there are creative things around you that make life better. What are you reading or writing?
Tough week f’sure…between seeing someone through chemo and seeing this week’s cancer of an election grind to an ignoble end and swing straight on through to a massive hangover of hate didn’t do much for my mood either…
I’ll take a figurative page from your book and focus on a few good things here…like you, I earn a few bucks (if I’m lucky) each month through a few ad affiliates that help pay for hosting my blog, and someone who apparently fully outfitted themselves last month for motorcycling made my day for November (yea for ATGATT-all of the gear, all of the time-and wish our newly outfitted rider years of travels and fun), Tim has finally managed a few motorcycle rides this fall (which does a lot for his spirits), managed to grind out a new story on my own blog that featured an image that I really like (and that won an end-of-year award from our local camera club), heading out to one of Tim’s favorite events of the year tonight–a charity auction to support his old high school (being able to do this after having missed so many other events this year is a good thing–that’s his fave charity, we managed to get to the big event earlier this summer for my favorite event , a local food bank/food rescue group), looking forward to the prospect of at least getting out of town for a couple of days to visit family (our wings have been vastly clipped this year…) and just trying to navigate through life as I try to support my friends who are feeling badly and trying to fine their own way to move forward. Best of luck on NaNoWriMo (I know a few friends who have participated in the past) and hope to see your Harley story soon 🙂
Thanks for sharing your own goodness, Dominique. I hope it continues.
Oh yeah…and on the good side, FB was not claiming that I was no longer among the living. At least I’ll try to take that as a good point this morning!