Author: Ridley

Back in ye olden tymes (the 1970’s), I used to sit for hours in our living room, poking through our encyclopedias. I’d look something up and the article would mention some other interesting tidbit. This being the pre-hypertext era, I’d have to pull out the appropriate volume and look up the new item, and so on. Invariably, the end result was a skinny kid surrounded by a pile of brown and white World Books.  In this marvelous world of The Future, of course, you can lose yourself in this activity so much more conveniently. Wikipedia is, for me, where productivity goes to die, but productivity’s nemesis, curiousity, takes over. This is always fun, but it’s especially delightful when you find connections between things you never suspected would ever intersect. That’s a long way of saying that I’ve always been a big fan of Enya’s first couple of album. For years (decades!), I’ve dreamed of a post-wedding dance to Caribbean Blue*. I put the video on and I was reminded of what a beautiful bit of work the visuals are. So, I popped over the the Wikipedia page and read up on it. It turns out that the look of the video was heavily influenced by the work of Maxfield Parrish. In hindsight, this should have been immediately obvious to me as I’ve always adored the works of Mr. Parrish. I’m not sure I can explain exactly what draws me to Parrish’s art but, if I were pressed, I’d say it looks like I’d imagine “magical realism” to look if it existed in our mundane world. That, and there’s the fact that I love his blues. Blue is my favorite color and no artist has ever made blue look as beautiful. So, reading about Parrish on his Wikipeida page**, I discovered that he illustrated Frank Baum’s Mother Goose in Prose and Eugene Field‘s*** Poems of Childhood. I had both of these books on my shelf when I was very, very young. I’ve remarked to anyone within earshot that I used to love the illustrations in children’s books and I’m thrilled when I come across a modern example of a book for children which pays proper attention to the art.  I had no idea that one of my favorite artists was one I’d been exposed to as a toddler and who had left such a strong impression on me. The thread here, as if the title didn’t give it away, is that I can be as sentimental as they come and I have a lifelong love of art which pushes that button. I know “sentimental” is normally deployed as an insult to a work and/or the artist, but a song or a painting which evokes melancholy or longing or maybe even a little nostalgia strikes me as a beautiful thing.  RK   * I’d probably have to learn to waltz first, but dreams don’t concern themselves with such trifling details. ** Seriously, check this one out. Parrish’s technique is amazing just to read about, let alone imagine duplicating.  *** Field’s father represented Dredd Scott in that case. I had no idea. Again, Wikipedia.

My brain is only just starting to get back to something approaching normal functionality. It’s been a rough week. A party, a fire fifty feet from my home, and a simple lack-of-tiredness kept me from getting my ever-so-needed beauty sleep last week. Thirty years ago, four hours of sleep before a full day of work was no big deal. These days, it has a severe impact on my ability to do anything but drool on myself and compulsively check the football transfer news. The good news is that the part of my brain which has remained engaged is chugging along nicely. Reading begets writing, and vice-versa. I’ve managed to get my workspace fully in order now, I’ve carved out some time for Important Projects About Which I Shall Not Yet Speak. It’s a start. There remains work to be done. My body’s still a bit of a mess. My skin remains resistant to treatment. Currently, it’s not getting worse, but it’s not completely healed. I need to sort that. Plus, the downside of having steroids pumped into your carcass is that, unless you work out a great deal, you’ll put on weight in a hurry. I do not work out a great deal. Additionally, I have some weekly commitments which are increasingly less worth the time I’m putting in to them. I’m going to have to re-arrange that schedule or, maybe, make the tough decision to pull the plug on something I’ve invested ten years of my life into. “Sunk cost” is the phrase that comes to mind. -RK

Last week was a good one, but I discovered something that, in retrospect, was pretty obvious. Fixing up your work space is great, but unless you re-jigger your use of time, it won’t make much difference.  On the plus side, my “read books instead of messing with my phone when on the train” initiative is off to a roaring start. I spent last week reading Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds instead of checking whatever was popping up on my phone at the time. Not only did I enjoy the book (more on that in a bit), but it made the commute for more pleasant.  It took me four days on the train to read the book, a fact which brings to mind Joe Hill’s epiphany that your daily page count is approximately how many books you’ll read in a year. That works if the books you read are about 350 page long and, while I have no clue what to do with that information, I like knowing it and I’m sure I’ll find some way to shoehorn it in to a conversation and perhaps even attribute its origin to Mr. Hill. All of which is a long way of saying that, while I’ve carved out some time to do some reading,  there’s still the matter of making time to sit at the keyboard and do the things I say I want to do. Today is the second day of Beautiful Girlfriend’s birthday week (in fairness, she deserves more than seven days, but it’s a good start), so we have Plans and Reservations and Things Of That Ilk to do. That’s not an excuse to avoid the work, but it does me that I’ll be on holiday hours for the next few days. RK

Aside from having an absolutely delightful stay in the northern hinterlands, I managed to finish the majority of little tasks I set out for myself. My workspace at home is not entirely re-jiggered, but it’s much better and the end is in sight. There was one goal I didn’t mention in the last post: To bring a book with me on my morning commute instead of messing with my phone the entire time. Not that there’s anything especially wrong with phone-messing, but I’m in need of a few habit adjustments and this seemed like an ideal way to carve out some additional reading team. I’ll catch up on my RSS throughout the day instead of reading it like a newspaper in the morning.  I like the idea of that swap. One thing I wanted to mention in passing: When I’m re-reading my old stories or posts, I can almost immediately pick out which author I was reading when I wrote the piece. I doubt that anyone else would notice because I doubt I could really write like any of these authors even if I were trying to do so. To me, though, I can hear the voice in my head. I’ve always been extremely susceptible to this sort of contact influence. As you might imagine, when a song gets stuck in my head, it stays there. Finally, if you’re not subscribed to Warren Ellis’ newsletter, I strongly recommend it. Some of my favorite writing by John Steinbeck wound up in the journal he kept while he was writing his best novels. As much as I enjoy Ellis’ work, I find the writing he does about the writing (and reading and thinking and talking) just as interesting. If you think you’d enjoy reading that sort of thing, you can sign up for the newsletter here.

I’m sitting at a desk in a hotel room high above a city which used to be mine (and vice-versa) but no longer is. I’m far enough removed now that the things which haven’t changed are more jarring than those that have. This is a new experience for me and I find it surprisingly pleasant. Most of the change is for the better, even if means I probably would have been priced out of my old neighborhoods had I stayed here. It’s another rainy morning in the middle of an unusually rainy Spring. It’s a good day for staying inside, which is exactly what we intend to do We have one event to attend this weekend and the rest of the time is probably going to be spent in or around this lovely old hotel overlooking downtown. I’ve set time aside for some rather unambitious but nonetheless satisfying tasks: 1) Re-organize the phone: I use an Android phone with the Aviate launcher*. The launcher does a really nice job of organizing and cleaning up the Android interface, but it’s a little too aggressive in its attempts to guess which apps I’ll find useful They’ve finally added the ability to make custom folders (“collections”), so I can go in and separate my work-related apps from the ones I use everywhere else. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time and I feel better than I probably deserve for getting it sorted. 2) Spend a little undistracted time with my blogs and reading other ones. I’m not in a place right which affords me the luxury of dedicated home workspace, so I’m enjoying the opportunity to hole up in hotel room and not have all of my day to day chores staring at me when I’m trying to get a little reading done. I could easily get used to this. In fairness, I suspect anyone could get used to this. 3) Re-organize my workspace at home to make it as much like this as possible Method to madness! I want to spend a couple of days away, figure out what I like about this environment, and then bring as much of it home with me as I can. I’m not quite sure how yet. It’s going to involve some serious cleaning, which isn’t exactly my strong suit, but beyond that? Creating an isolation chamber within a small, one bedroom apartment shared by the two of us is going to be a challenge Number one has been crossed off the list, we’re working on number two as we speak. Number three will have to wait until we get home.  I don’t travel very often, so I forget how much of a difference a few hundred miles can make. It’s like changing the angle on a photograph by a few degrees and getting a completely different perspective Remind me to do this more often. RK   * I would have linked PC Mag’s review of the app but their site has become such an unspeakable horror of “how not to do web design” that I would have felt guilty had anyone actually clicked on the link. 

He’s out of surgery and it went as well as we could have hoped. Thank you all your kind wishes. RK

There’s no good way to put this: My father is not well. He’s been “not well” for quite some time, but he’s sliding towards the really bad end of the spectrum of ways one can be “not well.” He’s supposed to be having surgery this morning, but that’s been the case twice this month so far and they’ve not been able to get it done. There is some legitimate concern that his heart is no longer able to sustain sufficient blood pressure when he’s under general anesthesia.  Today’s surgery is to remove a benign growth on his thyroid. The growth is beginning to negatively impact his ability to breath. It’s not at a critical stage by any means, but the doctors believe that “sooner rather than later” is the best approach, as it seems unlikely he will be more able to have surgery in two year than he is now. This procedure is also a precursor to another one, tentatively schedule for a week from now, to clear out fluid in his lungs. That one is meant to precede an attempt to rescue his dialysis graft which has closed up and has not responded to attempts to de-clot it. There’s a cautionary tale in this: Miracles come with prices. Twenty years ago, he was struck by cancer. Chemotherapy and raditation treatments completely destroyed the cancer and he has been free of that particular ailment for a long, long time now. However, the chemo is likely the cause of his renal failure. Dialysis is a miracle that’s been with us a long time, but it is nonetheless a miracle. However, the blood thinners required to keep his tubes open cause fluid to build up in his lungs. We’re not wholly sure what caused his heart to struggle so, but his cardiologist hasn’t ruled out that an early treatment for something unrelated to his heart may have been the culprit. And so it goes… For the past week, I’ve been sketching ou what I suppose is going to be a eulogy when finished. I don’t know the propriety of preparing this sort of thing prior to the actual event, but I expect things will move quickly when they happen, and there are things I want to say. Fortunately, my father and I talk almost every day so there are few things left unsaid to him, but there are many, many things I want to say about him becauase…I honestly don’t know why, but I know I want to say them. So, we’re holding our breath. Perhaps things will go swimmingly this morning and the chain of procedures will be performed without incident. That would be spectacular. I live in hope. RK