I had this great idea for a blog. Maybe it will re-occur to me while I am typing. Maybe it won't.Um, did you see me just sitting there, not typing?
So, trot out the old laundry list of what I've been doing today & in recent days past. Today was pretty fun because (for the first time) I submitted entries to the NCCCR Artists & Writers Quarterly. I put in 2 stories, 2 poems & 2 photographs. You may deduce from those numbers that the maximum number of entries per category is 2. If indeed you so deduced, you are correct. I had a good time choosing (so much to choose from!) a first batch. Perhaps next time I will enter some nonfiction & artwork as well or instead. (Probably "as well" is the correct term; I can't really see myself deliberately not choosing my faves...)
While I was at the Reuter Center, I read a fascinating article entitled "The Possibilian" in the April 25, 2011, New Yorker. It's about a guy named David Eagleman, who is a quirky neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. It is perhaps appropriate that I have a picture of a boy who is suspended in the sky, as far as the margins tell you, because the article opens with an anecdote (relevant) of Eagleman falling off a roof when he was 8 years old & the resulting apparent time dilation. Don't worry, the article isn't just about the mechanics of perception--you also get asp caterpillars, Emerson & Crick, rock drummers, a new religion, & how to free oneself from frivolous eating in order to work more efficiently. (Hint: raw potatoes, microwave, paper cups.) Check it out!
The universe works in strange & marvelous ways, delivering this to me a couple days after I saw a wretched movie that explored the very same life-or-death-time-dilation effect. (But don't watch The Green Hornet. Trust me on this. Read the article about David Eagleman instead.)
I just remembered my original idea!
Last week at poker, I won the grand total of $13.40. This is fun & lovely, but it is even more mindblowingly cosmically wonderful when I remembered that the week before I had lost exactly that much! I pay attention to numbers (My dad & I call each other when our odometers are about to turn over to some cool thing, like 55,555, which my mom & dad experienced within the last couple weeks.) so it was very appropriate for me to get my own attention this way. (Look, dear beautiful beloved being, I said to me, using the language of poker chips, what a powerful creator you are.) (I being the cosmic soul-ish part of me that can orchestrate such things & me being the chick enjoying her weekly poker night, winning some hands & losing some hands & getting help counting up my chips at the end) I actually enjoyed it far more than I would have if I had won $20.
This weekend was the rose show at the arboretum & I decided to go one of the days. Maybe Saturday. Got up & set the intention for roses & poker. Then Derrick really really wanted the lawn mower fixed & his truck is still in the shop so I volunteered to drive him & the lawn mower to the repair shop. Were we thinking it was likely to be closed, it being memorial day weekend? Nope. Ah, but it was. So, we drove to another shop, where my former property manager (Hi, Tom!) works which was open, but, alas, they do not work on that type of lawn mower. Told us to take it to Ace Hardware in Weaverville. Now, if someone else is all juiced up about cutting the grass, I'm all juiced up about helping them do so, & off to Weaverville we drove, where he discovered that they're 6 weeks backed up (summer's practically over by then!) & tried to tell him crazy shit about his lawn mower without even looking at it. Wasted trip? Au contraire. Some builder friends of his just happened to be there & they offered to let him use their new lawn mower, which lives less than 2 miles from the grass that desperately wanted cutting. (Hmm, did the grass want cutting? I shall have to ponder that...) Anyway, in the strangest way, we both got what we wanted that day: because Ace Hardware is right by a store called Roses. (& I did pop over to Buffalo Wild Wings & play some poker.) Sunday I checked out the rose show & smelled every single one.
I've also been having good luck with attracting (or perhaps just noticing) bluejays when I was thinking particularly wonderful thoughts.
Blog alternative:
210. Think about the sorts of things you like to notice. Songs on the radio? Numbers? License plates or bumper stickers or signs? Set an intention & see how you (that's the big Y You) deliver it to your (little y) self. You may be surprised & delighted by the method.
