Musings & Thoughts for Sunday, May 21, 2023, or: Weekend Update, Part the Second

Hi there, Dear Reader. Well, it’s late morning here in Lithia, Florida, on Sunday, May 21, 2023; it’s a warm, humid, and sunny late spring day here – it’s 79°F/26°C as I write this, and the high is expected to reach 90°F/32°C by midafternoon. Another reminder, I suppose, that meteorological summer – which starts earlier than traditional (astronomical) summer – and the Atlantic hurricane season are just around the corner.

Up Before the Dawn – Again

I’ve been up – oh, Lord – since 4:32 AM. It was dark outside when I woke up to go the loo, and I had hoped to go back to sleep as soon as I finished, you know, doing my business and walked around, bleary-eyed, and slow of thought, before going back to my bedroom/writing room/man cave. I tried to relax and not think, you know, about things that bug me – the estrangement from my half-sister, The New Story, worries about my future (Will I ever fall in love with anyone again? Will I ever learn not to be so trusting? Can I be a better person than I am? Will The New Story sell better than Reunion: A Story?), and just a growing sense of world-weariness and disillusionment – but no.

All those worries and dark thoughts kept barging in like a band of uninvited and unwelcome guests…so, sometime around 5:20 AM, I woke up, booted up this PC, and killed time by:

• Checking my Facebook feed
• Checking my Twitter feed
• Going to Amazon and ordering an MP3 album, Unforgettable: John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra – I would have preferred the CD, but I am going to move out at some point this year, so I need to cut back on buying stuff that I’ll need to pack up and lug with me to “my” new place in Brandon. Plus, MP3 albums are cheaper
• Checking on my statistics here on WordPress
• Playing a football-themed game on Facebook
• Tweeting and replying to tweets on Twitter
• Checking on the whereabouts of the replacement battery for my smartphone

Wow. What an exciting morning, eh? (Not.)

Sunday Morning: Cold Cereal, Hot Coffee

Of course, I eventually went to the kitchen, brewed some coffee, and ate some cereal, so I had a nice little breakfast. I’m craving scrambled eggs but having already had a mishap with the fragile knobs of the gas stove, I have not even attempted to make those since 2016. I know how to cook; not as well as my late mother, but in the right environment and with the proper tools, I can do it. Gas stoves and I don’t mix well, though – I learned to cook on an electric stove, and that’s the only kind of stove I’m at ease with. So – no eggs or corned beef hash, which I’m also craving. (On the bright side, coffeemakers and I get along well, and cold cereal is…well, serve-and-eat stuff. No preparation necessary.)

About Last Night…

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: Last night I ended up trying to watch a segment of WWI: The Complete Story -100^th Memorial Edition DVD version of 1964’s CBS documentary, World War One. I should have started watching it at 8 PM rather than at 10:30 or so because I got drowsy halfway through the episode – Wilson and the War – and had to stop watching it; I was more asleep than awake then, and since the DVD has no subtitle options (curse you, CBS DVD!), I was frustrated because…you know, I’m hard of hearing. I could have turned up the volume of the TV, sure, but I didn’t want to annoy the others in the house. So…I ejected the DVD, placed it back in its case, and went straight to bed.

(Maybe that’s part of why I woke up so early today. Well, that, and the visit to the throne room at 4:32 AM. I went to sleep earlier than usual, I am guessing.)

I did not tinker with The New Story last night, although I must admit I was tempted to.

My Plan for Today?

Since I am tired, cranky, and not exactly feeling all that great, I am hoping that I can resist the siren call of the manuscript and not work on The New Story. As I wrote in yesterday’s Weekend Update, Part the First, I already devote all my time and effort to that project during the Monday-to-Friday business week, so it’s perfectly fine if I don’t want to mess with it on weekends.

Moreover, I tend to be less creative or productive when I am in a gloomy mood, so even if I wanted to go through the manuscript and either add new material or review, edit, and rewrite parts of what is already in the Word .docx file, I fear that all I’ll end up doing is getting frustrated to the point that I’ll say, “Screw this!” and abandon the project. It’s happened before, too – but with The New Story, I’ve already written eight chapters – a prologue and seven “main narrative” chapters – plus part of the ninth.

(I’d really hate to quit now, Dear Reader, since I’ve already spent so much time on this story.)

I honestly don’t know what I want to do today. It’s getting warmer and stickier outside, so going for a walk is not appealing. I still have the same options for amusement that I did yesterday, which are:

• Gaming
• Reading for pleasure (with or without music playing in the background)
• Watching a movie or TV show on physical media
• Listening to music sans reading a book

Well, I’ve been writing for nearly two hours now – I don’t type terribly fast under normal conditions; I’m slower still when I’m tired or feeling down, so an ambitious snail could write two or three blog posts at the same time it takes me to write just one in less-than-optimal conditions – so I’ll wrap this up here. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.