No Claws, Kitty!

Daily writing prompt

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

I have three cats, and all three have very sharp claws. They work hard to keep these claws in perfect working order, and I can attest to the functionality of these appendages. The three use their claws in unique ways to keep me in line.

Chuckie reaches out with his claws when I haven’t petted him enough. He reaches with just enough claw to sting, hinting at how much worse he could apply his claws. Sometimes he reaches for my face, and I suffer five tiny points of pain.

Pumpkin lurks in the kitchen and claws at my feet as I walk by. She’s not a very social cat, and she’s asserting her boundaries. My feet are trespassing in her space. The entire kitchen is her space.

Chloe likes to dig her claws into me when she’s jumping off my lap. I appreciate her need for leverage, but I appreciate her claws less. I have claw marks on my thighs because she digs deep.

I could clip their claws — ha! Have you ever tried to clip a cat’s claws? My cats aren’t highly trained sweethearts — they’re cats. I would be shredded if I tried to clip their claws.

Claw marks are a small price to pay for the privilege of being owned by amazing creatures.

Language Arts

Daily writing prompt

What was your favorite subject in school?

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It should be of no surprise that my favorite class in school was what we called ‘English’, or more properly, ‘language arts’. This was a catch-all phrase that included classes in grammar, literature, and writing. As a child, I loved writing and reading, and I even loved grammar, although that came naturally to me.

I have to admit I didn’t often pay attention in class during reading. In younger grades, we would take turns reading out loud. The class didn’t read fast enough for me, and I would read ahead. When it was my turn to read, the teacher would have to direct me back to whatever page we were reading. Most of my teachers didn’t yell at me for not paying attention because they knew I was reading ahead.

I discovered that I loved to write in third grade, when my teacher taught a unit on poetry. In third grade, then, I was writing poetry forms that were way over my head — simple rhymes were easy, but she had us writing haiku, limericks, and once even tried a diamante form. And I went along with it and wrote these to the best of my ability. A third grader’s diamante leaves a little to be desired. And the limerick:

A lion lived in a zoo
with a tiger, a bear, and a gnu.
“I can scare three or more,”
said the lion with a roar.
And the gnu said, “Shame shame on you!”

Don’t ask me how I remember a poem I wrote in third grade. I don’t remember the longer Groundhog Day poem that my teacher posted on the front door of the classroom, mercifully.

Language arts was the class I looked forward to every day. It’s not surprising given my love of words even today.

Torturing a Metaphor

Blank notepad on a wooden surface. Top view

I wanted to write about the blank page I face every morning, but I was afraid it would devolve into some inspiration glurge about how every day is a blank page that we write on, and we have the choice of what to write on it every day. A little cliche for me to start the morning with.

Every day is not a blank page. It’s another page in a never-ending story, complete with themes, plots, and foreshadowing. The theme for this week has been “People at work do nice things”, which has been almost magical. One of the plots has been “Lauren is starting to write again, but slowly.” We often do not see the shape of the story except in retrospect, which makes the metaphor very limited.

I don’t like the page as a metaphor for life, unless it’s one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where your life branches when you commit to a certain activity. With unlimited choices, there are infinite branches. Sometimes the plot doesn’t make sense, even in retrospect.

I’ve tortured this metaphor enough. Time to write the story of my day.

What I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up

Daily writing prompt

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

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When I was a child, I wanted to be a poet. I remember announcing this to my mother, who said, “Do you like to eat? You’ll starve as a poet.” She didn’t know about academia, where someone could get a Ph.D. and teach in composition and creative writing while getting paid for writing poetry. It’s just as well I didn’t take that path, though; I might have taken well to that unit in poetry as a third-grader, but I’m not enthused with my poetry now.

Then, in Junior High, I wanted to be a doctor. Then I had some medical issues, and I realized I didn’t like doctors. They were abrupt and rude. They didn’t explain things to me and I was the patient. I wouldn’t have made a bad doctor, because in college I loved my physiology and microbiology classes. Chemistry, not so much. I still love medical stuff and try to diagnose people on reruns of Emergency! (American TV show, circa 1972) all the time.

The common wisdom is that the average college student changes majors seven times before they graduate. I think this is a gross exaggeration, but I did change my major three times from dietetics to food and nutrition to foods in business. Still, that wasn’t my final destination.

I didn’t want to become a college professor until college, because I hadn’t been exposed to the job. I had a friend in college whose father was a college professor, and I liked the way he had been brought up. It was only a matter of figuring out what I would be a professor of. My senior year, I discovered family economics and my career path was clear.

I joke sometimes that I still don’t know what I want to do once I grow up, but I have been a college professor for over 30 years, so I guess that’s what I am now.

2001st Post!

This is my 2001st post! I missed post 2000 because I wrote in answer to one of WordPress’s prompts. But I’ve actually stuck to this for 2000 posts!

My first post was Calling All Creatives, and it had four views. I get a few more views now, but would still like more readership. My most popular post was an anniversary post which got 65 views. My 2000th post was on the prompt “My Most Valuable Lesson” today.

What have I learned from 2000 posts?

One doesn’t get to 2000 posts by deciding to get there; one keeps writing one at a time until it happens.
Posts are better with pictures.
Using the supplied prompts boosts number of readers, and some of them stay on as regular readers.
WordPress does a far better job of sorting out riff-raff than Blogger. I have no more links from webcam girls showing up in my feed.
I can’t predict which posts will become more popular.
Not every reader likes the post, but enough do.
2000 posts is a lot of posts.

Here’s to 2000 more posts!

The Tyranny of the 24-day Writing Streak

In WordPress, I click on the purple bell at the right corner of my home page to find the announcement:

You’re on a 24-day streak on Words Like Me!

I never intended to blog for 24 days straight. Normally, I don’t have enough ideas for 24 days in a row of content. But after the first four days of steady content, I found I didn’t want to break my writing streak, and so I kept writing. Now I’m looking at my 25th day, and I feel chained to my laptop for the next update.

I am naturally a competitive person, and the person I vie with is myself. Write a novel? (There was a time when I had never written one, and that was only 12 years ago at age 48.) Walk 60 miles in three days? (I’ve done that too, at age 40.) So that writing streak counter in WordPress makes me want to write another day.

The horrible part is that if I decide to not write one day, my streak goes down to zero. That didn’t bother me when I only wrote every other day. A 1-day writing streak broken doesn’t feel like a tragedy. A 100-day streak? Or even a 20-day streak? Much more impactful.

Oh, no! What if I run out of words?

My husband assures me I will never run out of words, as I have never managed to during long car trips. (He’s correct.) But what more do I have to say about writing?

I haven’t let you read any of my writings lately. That’s certainly one thing I could blog about. I haven’t written down a character interrogation lately, either. Or talked about any one of a dozen other things. I want to stay interesting, though, which is a pressure that almost equals the pressure to write another day. Almost.

I’ll write daily as long as I can stay interesting, and I’ll try to write about writing as much as possible, because I think it’s more interesting than hearing about my very uneventful life.

What gives me direction in life?

Daily writing prompt

What gives you direction in life?

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Motivation needs direction, or else people waste their energy. There are several things that give me direction in life, honestly. Some are lofty; some mundane. I need to talk about both.

One thing that gives me direction is love. Love of people becomes an evident focus in my relationships, and it’s the answer people expect when I say “love”. But what loving what I do? That’s at least as strong a guide for direction in my life. I think about two activities I term as “flow” activities in my life, moulage (casualty simulation, otherwise known as making victims for emergency training) and writing. The love of the activity and the stimulation they give me gives me direction.

Another thing is striving to be better. This points me toward improvement activities, such as reading about my writing craft and practice, practice, practice. Related to this is the desire for recognition. Although I don’t like to talk about my need for external validation, it’s there. It’s definitely there.

Sometimes, it’s duty that gives me direction. That I get up in the morning on days when I’m depressed, and go to work even when I am hypomanic, is the power of duty. Duty to myself and to my husband and cats. The need to provide food, clothing, and shelter; safety and security, and emotional support. I also do these things because I love all of them, but the daily things fall under the category of duty.

This list is pretty prosaic, more of an essay answer for my positive psychology class than a creative piece. But these are the places and the reasons I focus my energy.

“… surreal, but not very impressionistic …”

I wish I was better at poetry, lacking the impressionistic bent I need to write the type of poetry that is in fashion right now. I am too involved in telling stories in a more straightforward fashion, even when I am writing dreams:

Last night, I dreamed I was walking after dark, late at night, armed with a pair of scissors. Someone approached me and put his hands on me, and I flipped him over my shoulder and then held my scissors at his jugular^*. He apologized and ran away. I walked and walked till daylight, and I found myself at my old alma mater^** wearing a white blazer and a skirt too tight for me. I ran into a couple of colleagues from my current job as a professor, who were going to a lecture together at a conference. I didn’t get the impression that they wanted me there, and I felt self-conscious because of the clothing and my weight anyhow. I walked out of the conference, which was held in the student union where I went to college. I walked to where my office used to be when I was in graduate school, which ended up being the mailboxes in my former department here where I currently teach. The mailboxes were no longer there, but I walked down the hall to find where they were located back at my alma mater.

This is surreal, but not very impressionistic. I could make it impressionistic, but it would aggravate me. What is happening? What happens next? I love poetry, but I can’t make it happen. My poetry is too concrete.

^* By jugular, I meant where I think the jugular is. I’m really not sure where it is.

^** for non-English speakers, “alma mater” is a Latin phrase that we use to describe the school we graduated from, usually college.

The Lost is Not So Lost


I have never learned to speak
the language of these slate-edged hills; 
silence speaking eloquently
things I almost understand

I think I have heard you walking
softly, barefoot and daydreaming;
wonder if you've heard me calling
out my name, an owl's whisper.
In the Catskills,
do the sleepy towns tell tales?
In the Catskills,
do the sleepy towns tell tales?

**********

This is all I remember of the song. I wrote it 30 years or so ago, and I really haven’t visited it since I wrote it. I couldn’t even remember this much earlier this morning. I wrote the words down somewhere, but I don’t remember where I put them.

I looked on my computer and I found it! I found it!

I have never learned to speak
The language of these slate-edged hills –
Silence speaking eloquently
Things I almost understand

CHORUS:
I think I have seen you walking
Softly, barefoot and daydreaming
Wonder if you hear me calling
Out your name, an owl’s whisper
In the Catskills,
Do the sleepy towns tell tales?
In the Catskills,
Do the sleepy towns tell tales?

Looking in the deep blue patience
Of your eyes, I falter, losing
All my words of consequence
Everything I meant to say

CHORUS

In the wind that blows around
The hills, I thought I felt your smile
Gather up my words again
And try to ask what you were thinking

CHORUS

I used to be a singer-songwriter until I divorced my guitarist. I had an okay voice; my guitarist played a semi-finger-picking style and wasn’t very disciplined. We were never going to be anything but those folksingers who attended open mic occasionally. But I loved the words.

Most of what I wrote was about crushes I got while spending my daily life in a small town in the foothills of the Catskills. I had lots of crushes; I have lots of songs to reclaim.

I can’t sing now; I’ve lost my voice in all but my talking range. I suppose I could get it back with practice, but it’s hard having the heart to practice when reminded of how much I’ve lost.

I started to sing this, and I could sing without obstruction to my voice, although it was not as strong as before. The lost is not so lost anymore.

Heat Wave in Rural Missouri

The sun burns sagging porches,
bleaching petunias and salvia.
The afternoon gasps its last.
From my window, nothing stirs –
I alone live, breathe.

Swooning,
I spy you strolling through a deluge of rain,
bearing me pansies and muguet,
your bowler and grey linen suit still crisp,
the last mirage before I fade – 

Knowing I exaggerate, and my demise
is not imminent in this air-cooled room
does not detract from my reverie.