Monday, October 24, 2011

Take that, inertia

Book revisions continue, but today I took the big step of leaping from reading and researching, jotting notes and thinking, to actually writing. Starting is always hard -- nearly paralyzing. I got over it by reasoning that it's going to be awful no matter what, so why waste time looking for the best way to start?

If you can't avoid crap, well, full speed ahead. Getting past that hurdle of my own expectations is like knocking the first shackle off my legs. Now I can get started. Is it bad? Yes, I hate it. Just as I expected, and just as it's been every other time.

Writing: the cure for hubris. But at least I started.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Limits

Okay, I think I may be able to manage one posting per month. This even takes into account my boycotting of Facebook as just another time-suck. I mean it!

We all have limits. Sometimes those limits are physical, as I learned a few days ago after cleaning out the garage.

I have a large pile of scrap lumber, mostly plywood, leaning up against two 6x6 beams of oak that are probably 12 feet long. Why do I have these? No idea, but why would I get rid of such massive timbers?

When I moved all the scrap plywood out of the way, I saw that the previously covered side of the oak beams was crawling with a half-dozen cave crickets. After a soothing beverage to cool my screech-torn vocal cords, I returned to the garage to find all the crickets still in situ with one. Important. Addition.

A very large wolf spider had approached them.

TEE HEE HEE! I giggled, putting my hands to my mouth and getting very wide-eyed. TEE HEE HEE!

I watched the crickets stupidly and suicidally crawl in their disgusting way closer and closer to the waiting spider. TEE HEE HEE! I may have clapped my hands.

Closer and closer ... but the spider didn't move. I sprinted into the house for a camera, and when I returned I saw that the arachnid-hellbeast standoff had continued. So, moaning, I approached, camera in hand, to get a better look.

I have seen some beauteous and wonderful sights in my short life, but nothing as delightful as this: a cricket was hanging from the spider's jaws.

TEE HEE HEE! TEE HEE HEE! TEE HEE HEE! I gamboled and capered about, pointing and gibbering like a chimp. The spider sat there, calmly draining her prey's liquefied innards through the fang holes in its spotted carapace.

I adjusted the light and snapped a few photos. Hooray for wolf spiders! HOORAY!

What about limits? The cricket discovered the limits of sharing a stack of wood with a wolf spider. Because once in a while your neighbor gets ... hungry.