Enthusiasm

"Enthusiasm, like the breath of God, transforms everything."

- Gail Sher, in One Continuous Mistake:  Four Noble Truths for Writers

It's amazing what I choose not to type, now that this is associated with my Google+ account.  I will say this:  I'm a person who has only ever had two goals in my life.  First, to bring historical information, artifacts, and documents to those people who might be interested in learning them.  Second, to write fiction.

Guess what I'm not doing anymore?

to-do list, long-term

Things I'd really like to do before I shuffle off this mortal coil include:

- go to Italy.  Egypt. Turkey. Greece.  And on a transatlantic cruise.
- to finally finally finish one of my writing projects.
- to learn basic programming.
- to drive across country with my husband, and preferably not our three cats.
- to live in a house with a porch.
- to live in another country for a while.  England?  London was lovely, even in January.
- to have Christmas overseas.
- to, yes, I know, get a tattoo.  Of a stack of books, please.
- to learn a bit of Spanish, especially if I'm going to be living in California for a while.
- to volunteer again.
- to work in a bookstore again.

to be continued!

The opposite of depression

"The opposite of depression is not happiness.  The opposite of depression is vitality." 

-Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, in the brilliant PBS documentary This Emotional Life.

side effects

So, this is spoilery, because it's nearly impossible to talk about an emotional reaction to a film without spoilers.  That, and the whole culture of 'oh noes, spoilers!' drives me nuts, because if a work of art can't stand on its own without the element of utter surprise to bolster it...well.  In our hyper-connected culture, the demand that no one discuss pop culture except in the vaguest terms is unrealistic at best.

That said, this movie upset me, and here's a bunch of why.

mona lisas and mad hatters

I am completely obsessed with this song.  It isn't as cloying as so many of Elton John's others, and it's just ...I don't know.  Sad and hopeful and lovely.

On my 42nd birthday, I...

...was sick!  So I flopped in bed with my laptop and the remote control to our bedroom TV.  And then I chatted with friends on Skype for several hours (typed, really; chatting aloud is like making telephone calls, eugh).

Then I said, "I should read something," and that lasted five minutes before I started watching the latest Resident Evil movie, because it's my birthday.  But it was awful, even more awful than the previous Resident Evil movies, so I made pasta with a ton of onions (remember, birthday) and ate it while watching bits of LOST on Youtube, and now here I am blogging.

This proves nothing, except that I would be a shrieking mess without my technology-based entertainment; and that my immune system has not adjusted to me working retail again yet.