The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn't write.
– Sol Saks
I sucked at writing this week and I blame it on Daylight Savings. I hate switching the clock. Hate, hate, hate it (however, I do not think switching to Daylight Savings Time permanently will make it better: I am firmly in the Standard Time forever camp).
My job is also culpable: after seven years as a lead product designer on Excel, I started on a new team in January and work more with teams in India which cuts into my 8:00-9:00 a.m. writing hour. I’ve also been slowly transitioning back to the office part time. Under these circumstances, I logged in to Writer’s Hour once last week. I also did not make it to Bad Bishop to write at their lovely bar over a mocktail – but…no excuses! I could easily hold myself accountable and write in the afternoon. I did stop to read for 45 minutes over coffee at Le Pichet, though. Lest we forget, reading is also writing.
I wrote a piece on war and Ukraine, though. Started on Instagram while lying in bed. Will was incredulous that I wrote what I did on my phone. I also have an unfinished piece on Seattle and Paris. Not so much memoir related, but sometimes I write about current things I’m ruminating over when writing from my past feels overwhelming. However, I am slowly but surely working through my memories list.
Speaking of things I’m ruminating over:
The house project. I am not enjoying building our house at all (which I chronicle in my Instagram Stories). I’m not sure what I was expecting this process to be like, but it wasn’t this and I will be damn glad when it’s over. I have two good friends going through remodels, though, so bitching with them helps. But of course, bitching about building a house is not justified in light of what’s next on this list….
Seattle’s homelessness situation. It is so dire. About two weeks ago, I saw medics performing CPR on another homeless person, this time just east of the pergola. They billowed his chest for a good ten minutes, surely breaking ribs, his skin the color of wilted endive. By the time they loaded him onto the stretcher, there were still no signs of life. I assume he died. He appeared to be in his 60s or 70s, but given the toll homelessness and drugs take on the human body, maybe he was only in his 40s or 50s. I will write more about that on Medium where I log what I write about living in Pioneer Square.
My knees. I’ve been having more than usual knee pain since I returned from Paris, to the point last week where I considered logging a change order with our builder to install one of those handicap bars near the toilet. I mean, Will and I have both been getting AARP literature for a few years now, so probably not a bad idea? So we can age in place. I went to Dr. Latzka at UW Sports Medicine, whom I’ve been seeing since 2018-ish. He noted that I had made the same knee complaints in 2017 with a different doc (really? I did?). Anyway, x-rays show that I am one of a smaller percentage of people who have a residual knee bone called the fabella. Its only discernible purpose is to cause problems: I have fabella syndrome and / or patellafemoral pain syndrome.
The quote below.
But this document isn’t a confession. Not at all. I’ve come to think of it as a family album. The kind my mom never kept, absolute truth-telling. The kind no one’s mom keeps. But if you’ve been a child in any family you’ve been keeping such an album in memory and conjecture and yearning, and it’s a life’s work, it may be the great and only work of your life.
– Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys
Anyway…strengthening.
Things That Nourished My Writing: March 16-28.
TECH
Ski boot technology. I need new ones.
FOOD
The Sour Poet at Zig Zag
Hat tip to non-alcoholic distillers. Like these, and these, and these.
French fries at Bad Bishop.
LITERARY
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
MUSIC
PLACES
Skiing at Mission Ridge.