Compare and Contrast

I would just like to make it clear that today I have:

Lifted Weights

Walked for 45 minutes up and down hills.

Cooked for two full hours.

Washed most of my dishes.

I am TIRED, y'all. I may be in bed in not too much longer.

But the problem is, that while I have been doing all these things, and reading a bunch of design blogs, and abusing my account at the library while I check books out constantly and read them voraciously and spend eleventy-million dollars at the grocery store all in one day, therefore necessitating the Massive Cook-Off that happened tonight, and watching F1 racing with the LT and walking the Monster, one of my blogging idols, Crazy Aunt Purl, has gone and wrote herself a book.

Meanwhile, I have had half of a mystery novel sitting in my computer for, oh, going on four years now.

This was originally funny, as in, "Hey, I'll buy a house when pigs fly or when I finish and sell my novel, whichever comes first," and now, four years later, I've reached a point that I always ANTICIPATED I would reach, but wasn't really prepared for until it happened:

I may never finish my novel.

I may end my writing career before it starts, just another wannabe who thought she could write better than the billions of pulp fiction on the shelves, or even if she couldn't, she could at least make some money, or at least enough to fuel her latte habit, and INSTEAD of doing even that, she failed, just like so many thousands, possibly millions before her.

Since my book is not a secret, unlike Laurie's (hi, honey! I'm SO proud of you!!) I might start talking about it, not here but in the other blog. Or I might, instead, look at my schedule, see that I'm working 55 hours a week including tutoring, and decide it's a miracle that I even make all my own meals and walk my dog an hour a day. (And blog, of course.)

(Note: Laurie did all of the above except have a dog to walk, but she walked ANYWAY, for half an hour at least, every day. I have no excuse.)

Anyway, want to see what I've been doing with the time that I'm not using to write?

...

Today was one of the very first, really WARM days we have had here in the Cloudy Gray; Titan and I passed three banks, and all of them proclaimed the temperature to be 64 or above. It was humid, which did wonders for my newly trimmed hair (ha) and we walked all over, trying to find beauty.

This is something new I've been doing; I've said that I'm reading a lot of design blogs, but since so many of them are complete crap, I'm also getting back in touch with the basics. I'm re-reading Pride and Prejudice, a book every girl should read once a year at least, I'm reading the entire Griffin and Sabine series, and also Nick Bantock's companion book, "Urgent Second Class." I rediscovered Tamara de Lempicka, a cubist painter from the 1930s whose calendar I had on my wall my junior year in high school, right after my trip to Barcelona (I was so chic!) and I'm also reading my Shakespeare (again). (If that sentence sounds like "taking my vitamins", it's sort of apt--only much more enjoyable!)

Anyway, this steady diet of Cubism, Surrealism, Nick Bantock's Collage School, Anglophilia, and Francophilia, has made me quite the wanderer these days--both mentally and physically. Fortunately, Seattle--often bemoaned for its hills and pocket neighborhoods, cut off others--is absolutely perfect for this, because the very presence of its hills practically mark out perfect spots of discovery, of hidden beauty. (Who else would climb that sixty degree hill except someone who had a reason to be there?)

So Titan and I have been wandering and pondering (and pooping, in his case) and I may divine a great deal of wisdom from these paths, or I may not. In any case, I swear I will start up my novel again.

Tomorrow.