Awards (thanks!) and challenges

OK. So. A few things to discuss, today.

First is a great big thank you to Elle Strauss for giving me this lovely Circle of Friends award! She said it would warm me up, and though my fingers are cold, she is so totally right. Her blog is pretty interesting, by the way, and would be fun to check out, if you haven't, yet. She has lots of great thoughts about writing.

So, I suppose I should pass this along...along with the award that Amalia T. gave to me a while (Lovely Blog Award).Which I will do...eventually. So many people deserve these awards, and I'm just so touched to be included in the giving. I just can't decide who to give them to! So. That will come eventually.

Secondly, I want to discuss writing challenges, and challenges in general.

I was looking at Kate from The Neverending Shelf's blog today, and she is starting a mini challenge. I keep getting excited over these challenges--the Kiss blogfest, the No-Kiss blogfest, an upcoming Love-at-First-Sight blogfest that I signed up for...somewhere. (I can't remember! But I do remember it's on the 14th of February. Perfect for V-Day, right?)

Here's a link to this new mini challenge: Read a bunch of books, and then clear out the ones you won't be reading again. Clear the Clutter! Perfect for me and my library of books, which, as much as I love them, are sort of also my bane. Seriously. Do you know how heavy it is to move boxes and boxes of books?

I have to sift through and decide which ones I want to read, but I will be posting that soon...and then...hopefully...sticking to the challenge. Which I have some time for--two months, I think?

I love this challenge especially, because it's coming at the beginning of the year, and I feel that this fits into my goals for the New Year--to downsize, to simplify, to create peace. It feels lovely just to think about it!

Anyway. That's all, for now--break's over. Back to work.

Hey, Baby, it's C-O-L-D outside.

I'm cold.

I am always cold, but I am especially cold right now. Why? Because it is winter. Because I live in a cold part of the US. Because we just had a storm go through (not as bad here as elsewhere), because the temperatures dipped, and now, because of all of this, I'm huddled up on my couch, wrapped up in my fuzzy robe, thinking warm thoughts.

Or trying to.

I would just like to state right now that yes, I understand that some people like the cold. Yes, I've heard many times that it's easier to solve being cold (so, putting more clothes/blankets/covers on) than it is to solve being warm (how many layers can you decently remove?). But you know what? When you get chilled to the bone, it really doesn't matter anymore. After a while, you just can't layer up anymore.

When I was in college, I lived in dorms where the heaters kicked on when the higher powers that were turned them on...i.e., we didn't have control to the (small) heaters in our rooms. One day, in the dreadful winter, I came back to my room to discover that there was frost on the inside of the windows, a draft coming in, and that the room was about 50 degrees. Probably less.

Having just returned from the arctic that was outside, I was still in my coat. Thinking quickly, I did the only thing I could possibly do--I threw my robe on over my winter coat, made sure the curtains were closed against the frosty draft, and climbed up into my loft and under my covers.

I don't recall if my roommate at that time thought I was crazy--all of my roommates have been warmer than me at all times--but even if she did, at least I was able to stave off the cold somewhat, for a little. Though I couldn't really move my fingers.

Much like right now.

But seriously, today's cold, though uncomfortable, is nothing, compared to that. I don't have drafts blowing in on me. It's not negative five thousand outside. (Only slight hyperbole, believe me.) The wind isn't even that bad, today.

I suppose if it gets really bad, I could always go get my fingerless gloves and find a few warm blankets to toss across my lap. After all, what's another layer, now?

People are going to start thinking my skin consists of fleece.

Sore!

I have just spent the majority of this week being sore.

I think I slept wrong on Tuesday--I couldn't move my head much to look over my right shoulder. And then on Wednesday, it got worse--a different sort of sore kept my left shoulder pretty stationary.

Between that and the cold snowy blustery yech that it is outside--I didn't do much last night. I played Farmville (which I should quit. But I've been saying that for the past few months), and I finally wrote a blog post again, and that's about it. That's about all I could fit in--though I had time.

Oh, and I almost fell asleep on my couch. It was pretty close. Instead, I went to bed early!! Shocking!! Well, like 11-ish.

Somehow or other, though, I've been just feeling lazy and have had no inspiration. I don't know if it's because I'm sore, or because it's deeply January and the weather played a trick on me, or if it's because I've been so busy with the rest of my life--teaching at the YMCA, my regular job, my writing of articles (which I've gotten somewhat lax with)--that I don't want to do anything else, or what, exactly--but I do feel lazy. Which makes me unhappy. I pull up my short stories and think, "I'm going to revise this!" But instead, I'm having my own personal Psych marathon (I love that show. I love James Roday. Oh, my.), and I'm wasting time as possible, and I'm not really working on what I want to...

I just have to trust that I'll get myself back in the game, I guess. And in the meantime, I'll just take the little things in, things that may end up inspiring me later.

Oh, and maybe I'll reread the lovely letter I got from a dear, longtime friend, today--actual mail. Oh, how I love mail!

By the silvery light of the moon...

First, an apology; I haven't been able to post anything for a while, since I've been busy busy. Sorry! Now, a question.

Do you love the moon as much as I do?

When I was little, I was obsessed with the night sky. I still am particularly fond of it--the way it just presses on forever, presses down on you, yet stays so open. The way the stars form shapes that have so many stories in so many traditions. It seems so secretive and delicious, and I've always felt looking at it, being out under it--it's just prime for getting ideas.

I made up a poem about the moon, one which I don't recall right now and could probably only find if I dug for it. So mysterious and so far away, there's so much to think about it. Luna. Moon.

OK, so today at work, this article was sent out to us (because, being in an archives/museum, we have gotten a lot of questions about moon stones, lately). It's about moon stones, and how so many states and countries were given some...yet, now, many of those stones are missing.

It's pretty darn interesting. And sort of sad, too. Something so historical that was so lost to us? Though now, as always happens, we are interested in where the history has gone. Better late than never, right?

Sherlock Holmes, the movie

I was going to write a post about dreams last Friday, which is sadly when I last updated my blog or practically even came up here. Because dreams are so interesting, and mine are so chaotic--like an action movie.

But you know what? I'm not actually going to write about dreams today. I'll save that for another day, preferably a day when I can remember all the twists and nuances of my dreams the previous night. Then I'll share some of the crazy dreams I've had in the past.

So, let's segue into an action movie: Sherlock Holmes.

I saw this movie last night, which, considering how skittish I can be, probably wasn't the best idea. Seeing it at night, that is. Let's just say that I have a strong imagination when it gets dark. That when I finished reading Coraline at home, in bed, around the stroke of 1 or 2 in the morning, I was too scared to do anything other than shiver under my blankets and hope that the scary button-eyed monster wouldn't try to get me to climb down any rabbit holes.

Maybe this is partly why my dreams are so vivid?

In any case, Sherlock Holmes wasn't really scary--for most people. For most of the movie. But the voo-doo and black magic that it showcased, though of course perfunctorily and logically disbanded by Holmes, played very well (in the vein of this movie) by Robert Downey Jr., spooked me. Even when I knew it had to be logical. Because I couldn't explain away all of the logic!

Plus, there was quite a bit of getting-cut-open-ness that I wasn't so keen on watching.

But overall, I have to say that this was a pretty good movie. The acting was--really well done. Jude Law was attractive, yes, but even more so believable! I believed in his character, and if he wasn't Watson, I didn't care--he was Holmes' companion, the only man to keep him as he should be. The filming of the movie itself was interesting--the flashbacks, the way Holmes thought (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should see the movie. I don't want to spill all the beans!), the coloring, the deductive reasoning at play, keeping the audience engaged--very interesting, very cool. In my humble opinion. There was humor, clever word play, creative characters, and an engaging plot.

More than a few explosions, too.

However, if you like Sherlock Holmes books--love them--live by them--I don't think you'll like this movie.

In fact, if you don't like action movies, if you hate them and cringe when you see a commercial for them, you might want to think two or three or maybe even four times, before you decide to go and see it.

But if you want a twist on tradition--this may be the film for you.

I'll tell you that even with all the flinching, I found many points of interest and laughed a few times throughout. Oh, yeah--and I also fell a bit for Holmes.

And Watson. Much better than Watson from the book.

Of course, I was never Arthur Conan Doyle's biggest fan, so what do I know?