So, That Didn't Pan Out...

I swear, that's going to be my epitaph, if I ever have a gravestone. Which I won't because that requires planning ahead and is pretty expensive, too. But either way, NaNoWriMo was a bust again this year. I only managed a week of autoflagellatory bouts of squeezing out a couple hundred words before I gave up. A new record, I think.

I'm worried that I will never write another book—no, I am worried that I can no longer write, that it's lost completely along with other pursuits and endeavors that once defined my selfhood, like drag and AA. That maybe this isn't a matter of learning a new process, of rediscovering my muse, of just buckling down and getting on with it, but instead a matter of accepting a new normal.

But balancing that worry is the idea that maybe I'm just not telling the right story. The last few NaNo attempts have been attempts at expanding my range beyond Lord Foxbridge, and perhaps that's the problem... I could be developing further episodes with him despite not having finished the sequel that's been sitting three-quarters done but mired in self-doubt and nit-picking. In fact I had an idea for how to start the third book and have been picking at that in my mind during my morning periods of laying awake before my bladder or my belly drives me out of bed.

There's also the idea that maybe NaNoWriMo is no longer a useful tool in my arsenal, that even though it was the structured frenzy of pressure-cooked wordcount that squeezed my first two novels out of me, it just doesn't work with my new brain chemistry. And my failures are more discouraging than the memory of past NaNo successes are inspiring. Maybe I won't try again next year, I'll give it a break. Of course, I know that when I take a break from things, I tend to not pick them back up again, ever. But not necessarily. We shall just have to see what happens.

Anyway, I'm going to go waste my creative energy building country cottages in The Sims 4, my most recent obsession with the purchase of the Cottage Living expansion pack. And of course futzing around in Blade & Soul, and collecting music for my occasional Second Life DJ gigs (but not working on my store with new clothes... I spent a lot of November putting together a collection of graphic sweaters for autumn but didn't finish the textures until Thanksgiving, at which point an autumn collection was completely irrelevant), and trolling the interwebz for pictures of beautiful boys, the only hobby to have survived undimmed in all these recent years.

Speaking of, here's one I discovered yesterday at Vanity Teen, Santiago Robledo who gives very distinct Tadzio vibes (to the extent he's made it part of his Instagram name):

That Old Attitude of Gratitude

So a few nights ago, Grandmother came to me in a dream—I mean, I don't believe it was her ghost come to visit, or that she communicates with me from the afterlife via dreams, but rather that my unconscious brain needed to tell me something and knew I would listen if it came from Grandmother—anyway, unlike most of my dreams of Grandmother, I woke up from this one feeling hopeful instead of sad. In the dream she reminded me that gratitude is the antidote to resentment, and that all I had to do to be happier was to focus on those things in my life for which I am grateful, instead of those things in my life that I resent.  It came as a revolutionary solution, though it's something I've known for years and used to practice in my everyday thinking.

I've been practicing this since, though it's not as easy as it used to be. I don't think it's because I have so markedly fewer things to be grateful for, though certainly I've lost a lot of things I used to count when I'd count my blessings; but my brain chemistry has devolved to a point where it's hard to be grateful. Like, when I woke up from that dream I just felt grateful without having to enumerate the things, but today I'm hunting through my consciousness to find some scrap of gratitude. I have just as many things to be grateful for as I had two days ago, with the exception of however many micrograms of serotonin required for the emotion.

Either way, I'm going to keep looking for good things instead of staring at the bad things, and hope that will have some effect on my day-to-day feelings. And hope that I can parlay that little bit of a lift into motivation to do other things I know will make me feel better, like getting some exercise and bathing before I get stinky and itchy. I don't know. We'll see. 

Until then, I hope your day is full of things to be grateful for, and full of gratitude for those things.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Day 1

I'm starting National Novel-Writing Month today... my twelfth year in a row participating, and hoping for my third finished project. I'm resurrecting a previous year's project (or rather a project I've resurrected twice before without result), The Lord of the Wanderwood, a supernatural/fantasy/romance outing involving an ancient fae and the last scion of the noble family to which he's been attached for centuries. I don't think I'll post my daily output here, but I will keep you updated on my progress. 

I actually did a little writing so far today, exactly 300 words in three paragraphs, which struck me as a good moment to stop and crow about it for a minute. And here it is!

The fae jolted awake to the smell of chocolate—such a delicious smell, rich and complex, both earthy and delicate, sweet and savory at once with a tantalizing thread of bitterness drifting through. So different from the usual scents of the forest, the dark acid rot of oak leaves and the deep green tang of moss, the metallic ichor of cold water over stone, the sharp punch of animal spoor and the dainty song of wildflowers; it was a scent that didn't, perhaps couldn't occur in nature.

Which woke the fae further to consciousness: how was there chocolate in his forest? Chocolate can only occur in conjunction with Man, like bread and liquor and chemicals. Concentrating his senses, the fae sought the source, and scented a man underneath the scent of chocolate. Not a very strong scent, the man must be very clean or very young, or both, with none of the luxuriant musk the fae associated with man. But the faint man-scent was there, fascinating and unexpected.  It had been a very long time since any men had come this close to the fae in his deep—he would have said impenetrable—fortress of oak.

It wasn't impenetrable, of course, the fae remembered his forest being penetrated: the last time he woke from dreams, when soldiers and fallen from the sky buoyed by great clouds of dark silk, seeking to take his Stones, the ancient gateposts that anchored his brugh on the border between England and Faerie.  He'd killed those soldiers, bidding the roots under the forest floor to entwine and entomb them in the rich earth, and taking flight to pursue the steel machine that had dropped the soldiers, interfering with its machinery so that it crashed into the Salisbury Plain in a foul explosion of stinking petroleum and hot metal. 

I'm going to go back to writing, now, and hope I can squeeze out the recommended daily 1,667 words. À bientôt!

Non-Newtonian Fluid

That's how I characterized my overall being, the combination of mood and energy level and physical condition... like a room-temperature flan, limp and flabby, gelatinous but not jiggly, not in much pain but not in much of anything else, either. Just blah. Flaccid.

I guess that's OK. The sadness has passed, though it still washes through every now and then, same as the fibromyalgia pain that pops up here and there without lingering. I just don't have the mental energy to do anything, I'm just dragging myself through the motions of my daily rounds, keeping up with my Second Life social and creative commitments just because it would take more energy to let go of them, to make excuses to not do them or arrange for someone else to do them, than to just buckle up and do them. 

Fake it 'til you make it, right?

The Sun'll Come Out... Whenever...

I'm feeling a lot better, moodwise, though the fibromyalgia is a lot worse now than it was when I was way down in the deepest root-cellar under the sub-basement of the dumps. Weird. But I'd rather be in physical pain than emotional pain, it's easier to avoid by lying still. 

The chief indicator of improved mood is a desire to do something about the morass I live in. I want to take a shower, I want to take on homemaking projects like putting up shelves and unpacking boxes, I want to start a writing project, I want to start a Second Life clothing project. I am brimming with desires.

Sadly I am not brimming with the energy to bring those desires to fruition. And what energy I do have is spent pushing against the inertia or resistance (I haven't figured out yet which it is, a passive or an active force, that keeps me from moving), but I hope that's on the way. The next stage in feeling better. 

Still, it's nice to want things again. I didn't like not wanting anything. When the only argument against suicide is a sense of obligation to the people who depend on me, it makes you look at your life through a very distorting lens. When you want to know what happens next, when you want things to happen, you want to see things and do things, negating the disease's urgings toward self-destruction is a lot easier and even entertaining. 

I think I shall go take that shower now... I've been putting it off since Sunday, and I feel very sticky and stinky. Or maybe I'll take another run at the Desolate Tomb in Blade & Soul, I've been farming it for the outfit parts to complete a collection, and I still need the goggles. Or I might go back to bed. We'll see.

Abysmal Albatross Abyss

I feel terrible. That right-on-the-verge-of-crying sadness settled in my chest and nose, random aches and pains, a feeling of heaviness in all my limbs, a sense of every activity being a waste of time and every project a pretension of overestimated abilities, the question "why even bother?" ringing in my mind's ear and my mind's eye filled with forearms sliced open to let all the ick out with the blood on an endless loop. I don't feel like I'm going to cut myself, I don't feel out of control or desperate to escape the pain, but it's immensely unpleasant nonetheless, like having shitty music on a radio you can't turn off.

And I've felt terrible for a while now... pretty much since we got settled into this house in McKinleyville, starting with a sort of an end-of-an-adventure letdown where your journey ends at the furthest point instead of back at home. Then came the Pandemic, with increased isolation and a background fear, which pressure-cooked a lot of problems between Caroline and me, resulting in a lot of emotional upheaval and plain old rage. Then the diabetes diagnoses, which was kind of enlivening at first but ultimately depressing as the new diet took away the major coping mechanism of comfort eating; then some financial problems that not only depressed me further but exacerbated my problems with Caroline to crisis point.  Once we got those two things resolved, though, we still had the Pandemic isolation and then a resurgence of grief over losing Grandmother and leaving my lifelong home, which has come to a head in the last few weeks as anniversaries of her last birthday, her stroke, her death, and her funeral have come along and poisoned all of August and September for me.

Making matters worse is that I just can't drum up the afflatus to give a shit, not enough fucks to give to do anything about any of it. I don't even want to stop hurting, which has always been my last go-to of desire. I don't know if I believe deep down that I deserve to feel like this, or if I don't have the mental energy to do the things I need to do in order to feel better, or what exactly I feel or believe... just that I'm tired of fighting. 

This isn't unbearable, is all. Maybe unbearable-adjacent. Or fully bearable but I'd prefer to not have to bear it. But I feel like I should be doing something about it, and feel guilty for not doing anything about it, and I worry that if I don't do something about it, it'll get a lot worse... maybe that's the thing I need to change, though, the idea that I'm supposed to fix it. Maybe I just need to accept that this is my life and settle into it. 

Or maybe not. I don't know.

FAUGH!

That is all. 

Just faugh.

Checking In With Myself

So, that "write every day no matter what" hasn't worked out so well... I'm trying to decide if I should go back and edit the post where I stated my intention, or work out a new intention (like, every week or every other day or every day with a U in it), or just address it with the usual shrug of flaccid inertia. I'm guessing the latter is going to turn out to be the winner. It usually is.

I've been having to ask myself how I feel, lately... it seems I've been depressed for so long that I've gotten used to it and the overwhelming sorrow has become an old sweater that I forget I'm wearing. Or an old hair shirt is probably more appropriate. I don't feel anything in particular on the surface, so I have to launch an interior diagnostic, how do I actually feel? Is there a squeezy feeling in my chest like my heart is imploding slowly?  Check.  Am I going to start crying any second but probably won't actually cry because I seldom ever do, I just feel like I am? Check.  Does my blood feel itchy and seem to want to get out of my veins and go walkabout? No, not today, so that's something. 

Do I have anything I want to do today, anything I'm looking forward to, anything I'm even remotely excited about? Mmmm... no check. Do I have anything I need to do today? Yes, unusually, I do: I need to go to the bank, and I need to get a birthday card for Caroline and a "you're the best" card for my uncle and get the latter into the mail... that's nice to have things to do. Do I want to do any of those things? Mmm... maybe? Better stated, do I have an aversion to doing any of those things...do I sense any resistance to doing any of those things... do I have the energy to do any of those things? Mmm, not sure. We'll see how the day develops. The birthday card is time-sensitive so I'll probably be able to make myself do it, and get the other things done while I'm up because I have to capitalize on anything that forces me out of the house because I never know when I'll be able to do it again.

So, how am I today? I'll rate myself Low Neutral, not great but not terrible, just under baseline OK. I'll probably feel better after I run my errands, as getting out of the house on any pretext always makes me feel better. One would think that would be sufficient motivation to get out of the house, but either I don't want to feel better enough, or don't believe I deserve to feel better, or don't have the strength to push back against my disease wanting me to feel worse, so getting out of the house is this massive struggle, same as taking a shower or grooming myself in any way. 

Maybe I should go back to bed for a little while, have another cup of coffee and read a nice escapist suspense/romance on my phone, before undertaking this grand adventure of Going Outside. Consider whether or not I can put it off until tomorrow... no, let's not think about that.

Well, we'll have to see what we see. Until next time, goodbye and good luck and don't take any wooden igloos.

O.o

 Another "I can't write" day. Oh well.

The Dom is Lost in Adaptation

I've been watching videos today... well, aside from when I was playing Blade & Soul, and hosting in SL, and reading The Hitman's Guide to Staying Alive Despite Past Mistakes, I've been watching Dominic Noble's channel of  brilliant book reviews and even more brilliant Lost In Adaptation videos.  I really enjoy his take on book-to-movie adaptations, which is practically a genre for me as I love to collect movies of books I've read, even when they're terrible... especially when I can parse out why they're terrible... and Dominic's analyses are right up my street.  Oh, and he's cute, of course ;-)

Here are some I particularly enjoyed today (the first is the beginning of a series, I'll let you follow the links embedded in the video if you want to watch the whole set):

So that's what I was doing instead of writing.  See yers termorrah!

NO! Just... no.

I don't feel like it today. I played Blade & Soul mostly and just don't feel like writing. Even this much is too much. I'll try again tomorrow.

GALA!

I don't know when the Met Gala (the annual fundraising effort for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute) became such a thing. I've been aware of it for years, having since youth been a fan of Fashion and reader of such thick fashion and lifestyle magazines as Vogue and W and Vanity Fair, and seen the annual event covered since it was started by Vogue editor Anna Wintour in 1996; the reporting was always featured in the front-of-issue "parties around town" segments, and showed fairly epic gowns on New York socialites and the more fashion-conscious Hollywood stars, exclusively covered by the fashion press; but sometime in the last three or five years it's become this huge media explosion of fabulous productions reported on by all the celebrity news organs as well as the major news agencies on top of the fashion press. I daresay it's a rival to the Oscars' red carpet in terms of grandeur and status in the Red Carpet hierarchy. I have a feeling it's something to do with Twitter, but it's more likely the Metropolitan Museum shifting its chairmanship and invitation list to boost awareness and donations. 

At any rate, it's this big Thing now, with celebrities of every stripe and degree flocking down its red carpet (which isn't always red, this year it's ivory), many of them making huge production-number entrances with multiple looks layered on that they shed with the assistance of little flocks of tuxedoed handlers as they make their way down what appears to be a mile or so of press-lined concourse. And I've enjoyed it immensely, especially since the themes for the last two years really resonated with me aesthetically (2020: “About Time: Fashion and Duration”; 2019: “Camp: Notes on Fashion”) and featured a whole lot of beautiful men in outrageous clothes... the 2019 Camp theme turned everyone into drag queens for the night and I just adored it. 

So this year the Met Gala (which is usually done in May but was delayed this year by renovations to the Anna Wintour Costume Center wing, itself delayed by the Covid) started filling up my Twitter feed on Monday evening as the PR teams of my particular pet celebrities live-tweeted their appearances and were disseminated by multiple stan accounts, pushing the porn boys and cat videos out of the spotlight. Then all day Tuesday was just a flood of images, and me investigating the images, and wondering what in the world the theme was as I looked at the pictures without reading the accompanying text beyond  the names of the persons pictured (most of whom I did not recognize), but enjoying many of the looks and 'fits on display. And then I got to talking about it with my internet-buddy-pal Gabby as we perused the Vogue Online gallery together and dished the couture. 

A lot of my thoughts centered on the theme, which was American Independence, as the title of this year's Met Costume Institute show is called "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion"; so a lot of my filter is based on how each outfit reflected the theme (or didn't, as is the case in most of these). The New Yorker reported that despite the American Independence theme, or perhaps because of it, the majority of the outfits on the carpet were from European designers, which I find hilarious. And I really was left scratching my head trying to figure out what people were trying to say about the theme with their outfits, many of which were merely glamorous and didn't suggest anything at all. Maybe that was their statement, that America is all style and no content, I don't know.

This was the outfit that got me wondering what the theme actually was, as I'd noticed a few red-white-and-blue things, some denim fantasias, and star-spangled gowns but didn't make the connection. Debbie Harry looks pretty damned fierce, here, in a Zac Posen creation and escorted by Zac Posen (who's wearing Tom Ford, which I find amusing somehow).

 

I was thrown off the theme by an inordinate number of yellow outfits, some in rather difficult shades though others I suppose were meant to be gold (of which there was a whole lot, I guess people associate America with gold). Here we see American singer Normani (former X Factor contestant and member of Fifth Harmony) in Valentino, British actor and dreamboat Dominic Cooper in uncredited designers presumably from his own closet, Maria Sharapova in Gabriela Hearst, German-American actress/model Diane Kruger in Prabal Gurung, and Scottish actress Rose Leslie in Oscar de la Renta with her met-on-set-of-GoT husband Kit Harington in bespoke Saint Laurent... Rose's yellow hurts my eyes but it really complements her skin tone.  

A lot of the red-carpeters took advantage of the really wide concourse and dramatic stairs to wear things with massive trains. Here is singer Billie Eilish looking wildly uncharacteristic in Oscar de la Renta and Marilyn Monroe coiffure, as if trying to pull off Lady GaGa's Pygmalion routine from a couple years back (I later learned that she was paying homage to Hollywood in general and Marilyn Monroe in particular as American icons). She was one of the co-chairs of this year's gala... I don't know what a co-chair for the Met Gala does, exactly, but it's certainly a good reason to dress up nice.

Mah Timmeh! Le swoon, le sigh, le melt... I love this boy to the point of obsession though not to the point of seeing all his movies... or even any of his movies (I've only seen Call Me By Your Name; I am not averse to seeing his other films, I just haven't got around to it yet) though he is the wallpaper on my phone and was my desktop wallpaper until recently. Fresh from flogging Dune in Venice, he appeared at the Met Gala (of which he is another co-chair) and a bunch of other media in this very snappy turnout by Haider Ackermann featuring sweatpants and vintage Converse chucks with Cartier jewels.

Another of my obsessions, pop singer and actor Troye Sivan, whom I've been following since his Golden Age of YouTube vlogging days, and have immensely enjoyed his development from an adorably gawky but impossibly pretty boy into a deeply sexy and impossibly pretty young man. I only wish I liked his music better, it's just not my style... kind of vapid, to tell the truth. Which also goes for this outfit, it looks like something you'd get at Macy's during prom season, and though he looks fantastic, I was a little disappointed in this ALTU dress and Cartier necklace.  

Now this one made a real statement and was absolutely breathtaking. I don't know if that image of cotton fields (Danny Lyon "The Cotton Pickers, Texas" 1968) is part of the Met installation or if the photo was done beforehand to show the outfit's inspiration and tribute, but this is Broadway and Hollywood actor Jeremy Pope in a gorgeous and politically charged ensemble by Australian designer Dion Lee with a cotton-sack train by James Flemons and cotton-boll boutonniere by Denim Tears. The tied-off pants legs are kind of off-putting but are true to the inspiration of the outfit.

 

Lil Nas-X was one of the few who did the full three-layer entrance production, which was a lot more popular last year and the year before that. No idea what it has to do with American Independence, but it's cute, from Versace, and suits him very well. Another one where I wish I liked his music better, but hip-hop is not really my jam.

I about choked on my own drool at this shot of Shawn Mendes in uncredited designers (later found out it was Michael Kors), one of the most beautiful boys on the pop charts, and I even almost like his music. It has some texture, anyway. What his lady-friend is got up as, I don't know, but I didn't really see her in the picture at first (Cinderella actress Camila Cabello in Michael Kors).

Comedian Pete Davidson in Thom Browne... he's just adorable. And on a side note, there were a lot of black-and-white ensembles on this carpet. I'm curious how that relates to American Independence, but whatever the rationale, I like it. 

Comedian Dan Levy looking very uncomfortable in a weird but somehow attractive outfit by Loewe.

Like many of the people in this list, I have never seen or heard of this guy before, but he's cute and I like his outfit (Colombian singer-songwriter heartthrob Maluma in Versace).

Elliot Page looks thirty years younger than Ellen did, and utterly adorable. Balenciaga suit, green rose a tribute to Oscar Wilde.

Now a lot of the gowns I saw as I scrolled through the Vogue online gallery just made me gasp and say "absolutely majestic!" and so I bundled them all together.  Here we have famous person Kendall Jenner in Givenchy, actress Emily Blunt in Miu Miu, fashion models Taylor Hill in Versace and Anok Yai in Oscar de la Renta, Pose actress Mj Rodriguez in Thom Browne, and David Bowie's widow and legendary fashion model Iman in Dolce & Gabanna by Harris Reed.

   

Also of note were some pretty spectacular plus-size gowns on the carpet: Dutch makeup artist and vlogger Nikkie de Jager in Edwin Oudshoorn gown paying tribute to Stonewall icon Marsha P Johnson; fashion model Paloma Elesser in Zac Posen, and Euphoria actress Barbie Ferreira in Jonathan Simkhai.

   

... as well as some not-very-spectacular ones. I don't know what the designer was trying to achieve here with the sculpted hips and painfully squashed bosom, but I don't like it. Fashion model Precious Lee in Area.

Some more things I didn't like...Claire Danes in a Prabal Gurung that looks like she's wearing a tablecloth. It just doesn't look well-made, it doesn't hang nicely, and the fabric looks cheap though it probably cost hundreds a yard. 

Gillian Anderson is one of my favorite actresses, one of the most beautiful women on the planet, but this dress from Chloé bothers me. The cutouts on the side, or is it a sort of halter-back effect, are really poorly fitted, and the proportions make her look short and weirdly big-headed.

Maisie Williams in Reuben Selby looks like a squashed Christina Ricci. There's nothing wrong with being short, but dresses that make you look shorter than you are, and stumpy to boot, ought to be avoided. Again with a sculpted peplum, which really doesn't look good on anyone, along with the chunky heels and that train like the tongue of an old sneaker... what's even going on here?

This dress actually offends me, to the point of nausea. It's kind of clever, the juxtaposition of flour-sack cotton and black latex in this sort of Holly Hobby farmgirl fantasy is interesting, but in execution it just looks droopy and uncomfortable. English actress Rebecca Hall looks so sad wearing this Batsheva gown.

Here are some weird but oddly appealing looks that I didn't like at first but grew on me after I really looked at them. Fashion journalist Amy Fine Collins in Thom Browne (but is that a French flag sticker on her deltoid? Why?), German singer Kim Petras in Collina Strada, New Zealand musician Lorde in Bode (it would probably look better with a higher, pointier shoe), Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o in an all-too-American denim fantasia from Versace, and Bring It On actress Gabrielle Union in Iris van Herpen (aside from the Little Mermaid feel to this dress, I am impressed by how long it must've taken to glue all those little plastic circles together).

    

Anyway, that's a lot to chew on for now.  Go check out the other galleries of images, or throw #MetGala2021 into your Twitter, and see what I missed or skipped because I got tired (or check out this kid on YouTube who displays questionable aesthetic sense but has a lot of information about the individual looks Haute le Mode).

This post counts as two, since I didn't write yesterday like I intended but spent a lot of time thinking about writing this article, and a lot of today writing it and looking up who all these people are and what they're wearing when it wasn't listed. So until tomorrow...

À bientôt!

Hakuna Ma Freakin' Tata!

The phrase "hakuna matata" was in my crossword puzzle (I have a big book of NYT Sunday crosswords in the bathroom and go through maybe a third of a puzzle a day, it takes me so long to get anything accomplished on the toilet anymore, and I tend to hang out for a while working on the puzzle since I have nothing more important to do with my life); and as soon as I solved it, the song from the Disney movie was in my head... or at least the parts of it I know, which are basically the title and a couple of other phrases. 

Hakuna matata, what a wonderful phrase... hakuna matata, something something heys! It's a problem-free... philosophy... hakuna matata! (repeat) 

It's like "A Small World" as far as earworms go, but not nearly as annoying. In fact I find I don't mind getting it stuck in my head — which is good, since it gets stuck in my head any time I see the phrase, and I see it a lot more often than one would imagine. Like when I saw the tweet on Facebook pointing out that "Timon and Pumbaa made up the entire Hakuna Matata song just to get Simba to eat bugs instead of them," and the song was in my head for a couple of hours. So, in the interest of seeing if there's anything to be gained from this unfortunate mental tic, let's see if the lyrics give us any deeper meaning:

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze
It means no worries for the rest of your days
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!

Timon: Why, when he was a young warthog
Pumbaa: When I was a young wart-hoooog!
Timon: Very nice!
Pumbaa: Thanks!
Timon: He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal,
He could clear the Savannah after every meal
Pumbaa: I'm a sensitive soul, though I seem thick-skinned,
And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind
And oh, the shame
Timon: He was ashamed!
Pumbaa: Thought of changin' my name
Timon: Oh, what's in a name?
Pumbaa: And I got downhearted
Timon: How did you feel?
Pumbaa: Every time that I-
Timon: Pumbaa! Not in front of the kids!
Pumbaa: Oh... sorry

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze
It means no worries for the rest of your days
Yeah, sing it, kid!
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!

Not real deep. And it doesn't actually say how "Hakuna Matata" (which is Swahili for "no worries," as I'm sure you know) relates to Pumbaa's narrative vignette. Nor does it seem to have anything to do with Simba's non-predatory diet. But it's a good way to live, not worrying. Worry doesn't do much for anyone, and for me it tends to ramp up my anxiety by giving it something tangible to work with, so it's just best avoided.

Now that we've got that cleared up, have a lovely day and I'll talk to you again tomorrow.

Oh, hi. Yeah. Uh...

So this is awkward, trying to get back in touch after nine months of silent withdrawal. But I realized when speaking to someone about the diverse benefits of Blogger versus LiveJournal (about which I couldn't really speak because I've never used LiveJournal) that I've had this blog for nearly twenty years. That's a long old time, isn't it? And I have neglected it terribly for the last ten years, at least, half its life languishing in sporadic updates and NaNoWriMo attempts. 

So I am inspired to do something about it — and, since September is my time for starting new things, engrained by eighteen years of new fall semesters, I am setting myself the task of writing something here every day; it doesn't have to be a grand essay, though it can be, or it can be a noveling idea, or a random observation, or song lyrics, or a movie review, or just a "hey I don't feel like writing today" with a hottie off Twitter for punctuation. A writer writes, and I haven't been writing daily like I should (and want to), so that's going to change as of this September day.

Let's see how I do.