Thursday Thirteen

1. Right now I'm feeling pretty tired 'cause the world's gone crazy. Right now, I wish I could sit still, even be lazy. Right now, I'm thinking that I'm channeling Shania Twain - am I insane?

2. But really right now, I'm fretting over politics, wondering if the world's gone nutty. And right now I'm thinking that it's all junk, we're being ruled over by suited-up jerk-punks. And right now, I'm betting that climate change is real - can't you feel it? Could we take a key back 200 years, turn a lock so some things are clear? Could we open up a space for a different door?

3. Right now I do not admire any living person in the political arena. Right now, I want a woman for president because it's about damn time the men stood aside because they've ruined everything.

4. Right now my idea of happiness is to forget the world and get lost in some other space - like a good book or a video game or even a TV show. Did anyone watch Gentleman Jack on HBO? If you didn't I highly recommend it.

5. I'm thinking I was happy when I wasn't paying attention, and I think that's why all the folks who don't read the news aren't renewing their subscriptions. The less you know the happier you'll feel - but ignorance really isn't the bliss that lack of knowledge whispers in your ear. Instead its a sickness - worldwide it is now - and the idiots are in the lead.

6. I was asked recently when I was the happiest, and I would have to say, "I think right now," because even though I have health issues and other concerns, in many ways I'm freer than I ever have been.

7. Someone said to me too that my greatest love must be my writing, but no, that's my second greatest love, for my husband is my first. He has always been first, since our second date. But writing is pretty close. Writing keeps me going even when I'm not doing it well (and I suspect this Thursday 13 falls short of being a good one) or love number one isn't around.

8. Which leads me to journeys. Not really, but that's what's next - journeys. The everyday journey I take of simply getting up and out of bed, doing my chores, working on words, taking photographs, kissing my husband (sometimes in that order if he comes home late from work), the stuff of life, the journey through my house from bedroom to garage. Sometimes there are journeys to the grocery store or the library or Walmart. Occasionally there are internal journeys in my mind where my daydreams go to strange places, or the nightmares that plague me still, even now when I'm past middle-aged and shouldn't be having them - those journeys are hard and full of sweat, and I never even leave the bed.

9. I am not an extravagant person, but Tuesday night on PBS I saw Marty Robbins and Bobbi Gentry playing a small guitar. Research revealed it was probably a Martin 5-18, a guitar they no longer make, and which I find on ebay for the small price of $3,700. I would not want a used one, though, because it would likely smell musty, so I won't get one (not that I could afford it anyway), but it is a lovely little guitar. I will instead simply caress my little Taylor, and play a singular tune that means nothing to no one but me, something I made up a very long time ago. I call it "The Meadow" and it sounds better on an electric guitar but it's not too bad on the Taylor.

10. Sometimes fear stops me dead in the middle of the driveway. I'm a little OCD so I think, halfway down the hill, that I left the curling iron on, or the water running, or I forgot to close the garage door, so I turned around and drive back up the hill, and 999 out of 1,000 times the thing I fear has not happened, the house hasn't burned down because I left the curling iron on, because I didn't leave it on in the first place, nor is there a bear wandering around in the garage because I actually did close the garage door. But you never know.

11. My great-niece is due to be born soon. I'm excited for her and my nephew. But not having a child of my own is my greatest regret so my anticipation is tinged with a bit of sadness. I regret that even more than not writing a book - because I still might write a book. I can never have a child, at least, not a child of my blood.

12. If I could pick and choose my talents, I think I would like to have had passion. I live a creative life but it's an all-over-the-place sort of creativity, one that swerves from music to photography to writing to coloring in a coloring book. I've passion for my writing but not the ability to "make it so."

13. This Thursday Thirteen has been all over the place, hasn't it? Sometimes I wander. Right now, I'm wondering why I wandered, and where I went, and if it was worth the read. Thanks for reading anyway, dear reader.


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 607th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.