After a few-month hiatus filled with exciting appellate briefs, oral arguments, upper level rough drafts, the Immigration and Naturalization Act, and happy afternoons in court, it's time to revisit my neglected creative writing outlet. Actually, it's time that I should be in soundly asleep in bed, having been lulled softly by the light rain falling outside the window I left open to dispel the stuffiness of my bedroom. Unfortunately, after slogging away on a three hour final (too) early this morning and a full day of stuffing more statues into my head than I care to think about, the rain already worked its magic earlier this afternoon. It was one of those cloudy-but-pleasant days; breezy and cool and mostly overcast but with spots of sunlight, perfect for sitting on the porch enjoying a non-legal read and Mozart's
Don Giovanni on iTunes. Until I woke up well into dinnertime, book on the floor, cat on my leg, computer battery dead and a crick in my neck from passing out propped up on the wooden arm of the loveseat for well over three hours. So here I am, four in the morning, serenaded by the dulcet tones of some guys yelling in the street, watching Buffy do battle with what appears to be... yep, that's a giant praying mantis disguised as a high school biology teacher.
No offense to Buffy, but tv shows like this have been making me think lately about the mindless things I spend my time on. Take Bejeweled Blitz, for example. I did the math...yes, math. Sleepless nights make people do weird things. Anyway, I added it all up and I've apparently played enough minute-long games to add up to a total of 5.43 days' worth of play. FIVE DAYS. OF MY LIFE. I can't figure it out, why I like playing so much. Except I've noticed that I tend to go on longer streaks when I'm stressed out and needing something else to concentrate on that's not the thing stressing me out. I think it's the simplicity. If I'm exhausted or studied out, I don't want to read, or play Scrabble, or try to digest a subtitled movie or any of my other ordinary recreational activities. No, I want to stare and tiny little colored shapes and rearrange them into patterns as fast as possible, for points. It's lovely. I love the shapes, lining them all up according to color and making them explode in little flashes of light.
Shapes, colors, patterns. So.............why am I not a kindergarten teacher???
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| James Herriot |
Speaking of simple pleasures, I've suspended my bookshelf ambitions temporarily; most notably in favor of the Hunger Games trilogy (against my better judgment I actually liked them a lot) and, currently, I'm revisiting an author to whom I was introduced to in college: James Herriot. If you don't know who that is, sad for you, because you could read one chapter of
All Creatures Great and Small and feel so much happier and at peace with the world than you do right now. I'm in the second book of the
Creatures series,
All Things Bright and Beautiful. The whole series is just a bunch of stories narrated by Herriot himself, from when he was a country vet in rural Yorkshire in the early/mid 20th century. And it's just so damned genuine. I love Herriot because he loves his life. He loves animals, he loves his work, he loves the countryside and everyone in it; he sees it all with a honest but kind eye and is able to put it all into words. He's so heartfelt and
real. It's the only book in a long time that's made be choke up and laugh out loud in one sitting. In Herriot's eyes, all things really are bright and beautiful, even the painful things, and reading his tales, you actually believe it.
I have one more thing I want to confess, because I'm sort of proud of it. However, it's also embarrassing and I'm not so wasted on lack of sleep that I'm willing to come quite that clean, so suffice it to say that I'm on my way to finally shaking loose of a long-held, pesky little bad habit. I've heard (maybe it's a myth, but even so it's good place to start I think) that it takes 21 days to break a habit, and I am on day 3 of a perfect record. No, it's not smoking. It's an annoying, insignificant little thing that I've mostly-unconsciously allowed to tag along with me from my childhood, and I'm finally setting my full willpower of conquering it once and for all. So hurray for that, raise a toast, three cheers and whatnot. Why, thank you. You're too kind. : )
No offense to Buffy, but tv shows like this have been making me think lately about the mindless things I spend my time on. Take Bejeweled Blitz, for example. I did the math...yes, math. Sleepless nights make people do weird things. Anyway, I added it all up and I've apparently played enough minute-long games to add up to a total of 5.43 days' worth of play. FIVE DAYS. OF MY LIFE. I can't figure it out, why I like playing so much. Except I've noticed that I tend to go on longer streaks when I'm stressed out and needing something else to concentrate on that's not the thing stressing me out. I think it's the simplicity. If I'm exhausted or studied out, I don't want to read, or play Scrabble, or try to digest a subtitled movie or any of my other ordinary recreational activities. No, I want to stare and tiny little colored shapes and rearrange them into patterns as fast as possible, for points. It's lovely. I love the shapes, lining them all up according to color and making them explode in little flashes of light.
