From chapter 5

(yes, I got my paper done - this is for dessert)

I've checked out one of Julia Cameron's books from the library, and although I hadn't yet found her books to contain things I could use for hand or toe holds, this one seems to. There are some particularly delicious quotes (can a toe hold be delicious?) in the side margins of chapter five.

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Charles Dickens

We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. The Talmud

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Carl Jung

The Cloying Nature of Bad Habits ... and the irritating Bright Light of New Circumstances

(ergh)

Just exactly HOW old am I now? Eight? Still in the third grade? Well, no, actually. Forty years have passed since then. And yet, here I am, facing ALL of the following:

1. In school, love school, not quite healthy enough to be in school.

2. Fighting a lingering illness that makes me both worn out and paranoid about never getting well again.

3. Making up for lost time by way of Writing(ing)(ing) Underrrrr Pressure(ure)(ure). If you are still young enough to believe you work "better under pressure," you might not believe me, but this is no way to work well. Illness makes this kind of writing necessary (now that I can focus my eyes and brain again) -- experience makes me painfully aware of how bad writing can be when it is done like this.

When I was young, I often crashed out - physically, I just completely fooped down to zero energy sometimes. Or, my knees would be too painful to use for walking. Or, I'd cough like an ancient emphysema patient ... but not slow down until I had pneumonia. These reactions are not physical responses to physical stimulus - this was never a matter of getting a broken arm due to walking off the roof of a building. This was pure manifestation of emotional and psychological exhaustion and/or a sense of overwhelm. It's obvious.

So what the HECK is my problem NOW??? Why is it so danged difficult to concentrate, work, plan, execute the plan, proceed as if I know what I'm doing, and just do it? Why have I gotten this ill again? What am I looking for? What do I want?

Whatever it is, I've got a paper to write. All I have to do today is write a nice, easy, 4-5 page essay so I can pass my "LLE1 Writing Outcome" so that I will not have to take freshman English again. I am Luke Skywalker, flying over the Death Star, waiting for the perfect moment to sent in my explosive load down that little tiny shaft ... stay on target ... stay on target ...but for some reason that I think I really must figure out soon, it seems that I must also shrink or morph or let go of the extra size or baggage or something else (what IS this?!) in order to be able to hit the target.

Sheesh! People go back to school all the time, and they do NOT have this bizarre physical/emotional/psychological firestorm. They just go to school, get their degrees, and get on with their lives. (Don't they?) I really do think this needs to be the last "oh just get it done" project. Once I get this short essay written, I need to spend some focused time with this reaction and make friends with it so it won't keep roaring at me.

St. Jerome in his study. Saint Jerome making friends with the lion. Don Quixote lying sick in bed. What he says.

The great thing in the life of St. Jerome is that he finally does “stumble again upon what he has renounced”: after being made so miserable by the “uncouth style” of the Greek and Hebrew prophets, by comparison to the elegant Latin of Plautus and Cicero, he hits upon a solution: he will simply devote the whole rest of his life translating the Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate for which he is still famous. He stopped reading his favorite books, learned to ignore his “preferences,” and created the new literature of his time. A thousand years after the death of St. Jerome, a similar kind of renunciation led to the birth of the novel, in Cervantes’s Don Quijote. Don Quijote, like St. Jerome, has to have his favorite books literally beaten out of him. (It is while Quijote is sick in bed, recovering from his first knightly adventure, that the barber and priest destroy his library of chivalric romances.)

Magic Jock

I think the old guy looks like magic in the rising sun today, don't you? His name is Jock, I've been told. He's out here in our field with a brown girl horse and a black girl horse, and they drive him batty. Apparently pesky girls are not solely a human problem. The brown horse is especially pleased with herself, and judging by the way she flings her tail around (looking for all the world like an air-headed teenager with one of those ridiculously pretty pony-tails ... which is etymologically suitable, eh? (I love that word - etymology ...)) The brown and black horses often bother old white Jock, and chase him from one end of the field to the other, looking as if they just wanna tell him something ... c'mon, Jock ... talk to us ...

But today he's all alone, glowing in the frosty sunshine. Maybe he got rid of the girls by using his magic powers this morning.

R.I.P., chronicler of the middles

“I like middles. It is in middles that extremes clash,
where ambiguity restlessly rules.”

John Hoyer Updike
(March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)

Restaurant workers tell boss: It's on the house

MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) — Some workers at a Michigan pancake restaurant found a sweet way to help out their boss and the workplace they love.

With customer traffic down a bit at Mr. B's Pancake House lately, lead server Mary VanDam asked co-workers if they might be willing to work a shift without wages to help out owner Dave Barham. The 17 servers, cooks, busboys, dishwashers, cashiers and hostesses who worked the day shift on Jan. 18 received only tips for compensation.

"This is a wonderful business. We want to see it succeed," VanDam, 51, told The Muskegon Chronicle for a story published Tuesday.

When customers heard about the workers' effort, they tipped a little more. The shift's workers divided the gratuities equally and each took home $51.

"Isn't that something?" Barham asked.

He said he doesn't want people to get the impression his business is doing poorly, but "it's tight for everyone all over." VanDam said Barham met his payroll more than once by dipping into his own pockets. All 31 of the restaurant's workers had volunteered, but they agreed the no-wage effort would be for one shift.

"We wish we could have saved him $5,000," VanDam said. "We wanted to give back to him, lighten the load a little."