It’s about twelve hours after I normally log in and think about writing something in this space. Today started with my nose to the grindstone so to speak, and it’s been hard to find even a few minutes to stop and scribble. But I’m watching the clock and I realize if I don’t get something—anything!—down, I will have already blown the commitment to put some words here every day.
A couple of things I’m pondering…
I read on Drudge about a Chinese study which discovered that loneliness and/or unhappiness speeds up the aging process even more than smoking. Wow! I might be in trouble! It turns out the “article” is actually an infomercial for some anti-aging product. But I kind of get it, I suppose. We were created for community, and we were designed for joy, so all kinds of things can happen when either of those is not optimal. The last couple of years, working from home almost exclusively has made me feel like an old man, a hermit even some days. The key may be finding some companions, some Inklings like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had. Friends who will listen to your work, give you honest feedback, and still enjoy your company around the table.
Speaking of the Inklings and such, I’m a big coffee guy and have been for a long time. But recently, I’ve begun the habit of tea at 4:00 pm. Maybe just to feel some camaraderie with Jack and the others. I went through the stash I had in the pantry pretty quickly. My staples, when I’ve had tea over the years have been Earl Grey and English Breakfast, with the occasional and obligatory herb teas like Celestial Seasonings’ Sleepytime. Today, I restocked and got some Darjeeling. It bills itself as “lighter and woody.” All I know is it was pretty good on the veranda…I mean…the front porch this afternoon. It was the great Bilbo Baggins who reminded the dwarves, “Tea is at four every day, and you need not bother to ring the bell.”
Side note about tea: I just realized I used the word “stash” in that paragraph. I have some green tea called Stash. It’s the best green tea I’ve had, but the name makes me smile out loud sometimes.
Well, the clock is still ticking, and I’m not quite at the 500-word mark. But at least I didn’t miss today. And who knows? I might get some more inspiration before I call it a day for real. After all, not only did I not write dark and early, but I didn’t read or make my way through my Reeder feed. (Oh, look…the word count is 442…447. I might make it to 500 yet!
I’ll leave you with this random thought among all these others. I came late to the Game of Thrones party, but I started at the very beginning with House of the Dragon. One thing I’ve noticed after just six episodes? There are no honorable characters in the show. There aren’t even any sympathetic ones. GoT had the only honorable man in Westeros, Lord Eddard Stark. And there was, of course, Jon Snow. But HotD? Not a single one!
Looky, looky…over the 500 mark! Thanks for playing and thanks for waiting with bated breath, checking back and refreshing the page to see if I really was going to make it a daily habit. So far, so good.
Peace.
