The power of a good decision

I know that title sounds like a self-help book, but in this case it's apt. I have self-helped in the truest sense. For weeks something about my marriage and my husband has been bothering me. On the weekend it finally coalesced into something I could verbalise. I wasn't sure if I love him still, if I was staying in the relationship because I like the security, if I was using him or being a coward. When that all came boiling into consciousness, I realised that I did want to love him. So I decided to love him. As soon as I made that decision, I knew it was right. The rightness zinged like a tuning fork tapped gently. I realise now that deciding to love him means I've actually decided to forgive him for the pain he's caused me in the last few months and move on with our relationship. Instead of the dull ambiguous disinterest and vague anger that's been clouding my feelings for ages, I feel renewed. Now I get to rediscover all the fun ways of actually showing someone you love them. 

Cat philosophy

I've seen several good examples of my cat's approach to life in the last few days. First, be creative: take a (clean) loofa from the bath for a toy. Second, exercise jubilantly: chase it around the house, sliding into walls and furniture with abandon. Third and fourth, nap somewhere warm and flaunt your best features: collapse, belly-up, in front of the fire and make sure anyone who walks by stops for a cuddle. Finally, have a good routine and don't over-think life: get up tomorrow and do the same thing, if it makes you happy. I think I could learn a thing or two from her.

Advice from Anxiety

I had an anxiety attack this week, my first in several months. I was jittery, my heart was sprinting, and my head was inundated with self-doubt and uncertainty. I was thinking: I should give up trying to be a writer; no one wants to publish my book; why am I wasting my time and our money.... Then in rebellion (or self-esteem survival) my brain offered these replies: I only need one acceptance amongst all the rejection emails/letters; no one's good a new career right away; yesterday I was on a high over a website publishing my article. So that's what I need to try to remember – the good advice I gave myself in the depths of an anxiety attack.

Productivity while sitting in bed

The cat and I are still sitting in bed, because it's warmer here than going out into the kitchen/living room. Despite that I've got so much done thanks to the wonders of the internet and email. I've tracked our expenses for the past four months (my husband is worried that we're not saving enough with me not earning as much as I was when I was teaching full-time, plus our love of travel and fine restaurants isn't helping); I've replied to an email about casual work to let them know I'm interested if it fits around my current job; I've expressed interest to my bank in a review of our mortgage (which might help the finances); and most exciting, I've written a contributor profile and had word that an article I wrote is going to be published online soon (hopefully the first of many for this website). Now I think I'll go have breakfast.

Slips of the fingers

Two funny things on the computer screen got me through the Friday afternoon doldrums at work this week. First, I was helping a student do research for a music essay and instead of typing 'classical composer' into the search engine, I typed 'classical composter'. I got an image in my head of an ornate Victorian-style backyard worm compost system. It made me giggle anyway. Then, later I was looking through the government website for training courses that would help me in my job. Among the list of courses like Aircraft Radio Communication Repair and Foot Care - health focus and Dementia Support (I should add, I did not find any courses that relate to my job), I found two which I'm not sure anyone would voluntarily sign up for (or many people have, depending on your point of view): Problem Gambling, and Alcohol and Other Drugs. I'm hoping the course titles are just incomplete, missing words like Prevention or Coping with. Either way, it got me through to five o'clock home time.

Lessons from books

I have had several very different lessons from the books I've read recently that I don't want to forgot.

From Half of the Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I've learnt about the attempted independence of the Igbo people in Nigeria and the resulting civil war during the 1960s. This has made me think about how cruel and violent people are towards one another and the deprivations of war. However, one of the main characters becomes someone who finds small things to laugh at in life despite its horror, which I also think is a valuable lesson. So I'm torn between feeling immense sadness and despair at the state of the world and enormous gratitude for the ease and blessings of my life.

I've just started Andre Agassi's Open in which he often says 'control what you can control'. The subtext of this is don't worry about the rest. This is useful partly because I'm a natural worrier, and partly because it fits my attitude to our marriage and my writing getting published. I often catch myself wondering nervously about our marriage sinking back to where one of us decides it needs to end, particularly if we're tired, stressed or sick and haven't been very communicative or loving towards each other. I can only do what I can do, I can't actually change my husband or his state of mind; I have to remember this. In terms of writing, I can keep writing the stories I feel inspired to tell in the best way I can, then I have to wait for the agents, publishers and magazines I send it to, to take the next step. It's a lesson in patience and letting go. Also, Agassi's book talks a lot about doing something you hate as a job of career, which reinforces that I do not want to be someone who goes to work hating my job everyday and resenting the hours I'm there. This seems especially unfair if you're working with children. Therefore, leaving my school and doing other things this year was the right decision.

Finally, I'm also reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. He advises that when things don't work, like a new TV or an unfamiliar shower, it's a problem with the design. He suggests when you pick something up and figure out how to use it right away it's because someone has worked hard to design it well. This comes at the end of a chapter describing why people shouldn't beat themselves up over not being able to use a complicated new phone system or program a VCR (to use some slightly archaic examples). Also, it hints at how we can be a bit more mindful about the items we use for mundane tasks and feel appreciation for the objects that make our life easier (and for the people who designed the objects well).

The best commute

I may have found the best way to commute tonight. I rode my bike home in a t-shirt (even though it's May) in the beautiful autumn dusk. I passed many cars stuck in traffic while getting exercise, breathing mostly fresh air and not adding to air pollution. Also, it took less time and was less cramped than it would have been on public transit at 5pm on a Friday. Now I feel like I can guilt-freely enjoy a drink and some chocolate for dessert. I'm going to ignore the fact, for the moment, that many of the things that made tonight's commute lovely are transient. Cheers to the weekend.

20 Things

I've challenged myself to think of 20 things I'm glad for tonight:
1) No more gastro bug
2) QI - I learn something and laugh every week
3) Cheese - especially when it's warm and melty
4) Balmy autumn wind
5) Honest students - one asked me for help, but admitted that I might get in trouble if I did
6) Appreciative student - got a spontaneous hug from the student I helped
7) My work laptop - meant I could take my work upstairs with me so I could keep working while keeping an eye on the student when I unlocked the computer lab for him
8) My home laptop - so I can sit in bed writing
9) My warm bed
10) Catching up with an old friend on Skype and 'meeting' a her baby for the first time
11) Forgetfulness - I left my wallet in my desk at lunch, which meant I didn't have to think of an excuse not to buy a ring off a random woman on the street who tried to sell me one
12) A busy day at work - the 7.6 hours went quickly, but weren't so frantic that it was stressful
13) Cat - keeping me company when my husband's working away
14) My fleecy Ikea blanket
15) Book club - I'm learning about Nigeria's (Biafra's) attempted independence and civil war in the '60s and will go out for a fun dinner on the weekend
Now I can't think of any more items specific to today so I'll fall back on:
16) My phone - keeps me in touch with my husband when he's away
17) Our car - which is nice, newish and got me to work comfortably the last few days when I wasn't feeling well
This is hard. Now I'm debating adjusting my challenge, but perhaps that just means it's more important to think about this and acknowledge my gratitude.
18) My job - which gives me time in the morning to write (or sleep when I'm sick) and is varied in its tasks so it's not boring
19) New colleagues - talked to my new counter-part on another campus today; she seemed nice and knowledgeable
20) Nail polish - a cheap way to feel indulgent

I did feel something coming, but was it luck?

Several days ago I wrote that I felt like I was going to have some luck this week in terms of a response to my writing. Well, I did get a reply from an agent. So in that sense I was right. However, it was a standard 'thanks, but no thanks' rejection letter. Now, because I'm incessantly optimistic (or I don't like to be wrong), I'm thinking about how that rejection could in fact be lucky. Maybe it's paved the way for the next one to be an acceptance; maybe I should take the stock advice offered in it about getting (another) manuscript assessment; maybe I need to hit some lucky number of rejections before fate/destiny/the universe/God/whoever sees fit to publish my book. So many possibilities and soon my fingers will start to hurt from being crossed all the time.

Semicolons (If I call it that will anyone read it?)

I noticed in my last post that I used a lot of semicolons. Perhaps I should have declared in my profile that I'm a geek for punctuation. I'm taking an professional editing class and I fear that I creep into 'serial comma use' as my teacher calls it quite regularly and happily. I'd like to think I'm using my commas and semicolons correctly, if generously. Maybe that could be another aim of this blog - raise the internet's semicolon count (maybe I'd need to start one first; it could be an annual thing like the cherry blossom count in western Canada). You may not believe this, but I generally try to restrain my 'advanced' (pretentious?) punctuation use. Perhaps I'm getting more comfortable with blogging so I let myself go a little in the last post. I'll try to rein myself in a little more in the future, maybe.

Morbid curiosity

Last night it was the coldest it's been so far this autumn. I was shivering on my way home from work, which was partly my fault because, as an optimist, I under-dressed. As I stood on the platform thinking about where my winter coat was, I had a useless compulsion to look at the temperature on my phone. It wasn't going to make me warmer (the ambient radiation's not that bad); it wasn't going to be cold enough that I could brag about having survived it in just a spring coat and fashion scarf. So I started wondering about the biological or evolutionary advantage of morbid curiosity. Why do we gawk at horrific accidents? Why does my brother still show me his gruesome biking injuries; and why do I open the attachment? My theory, and I am not qualified in field to officially come up with theories, is that it's twofold. We show people, and look at, blood and gore and bad things happening as a primitive warning system. 'This is what can happen when you...' That doesn't explain my mental wrestle with my weather app last night. So, I think the other side of it is to reassure ourselves that we're ok. I looked at the temperature when I got home, once I was nice and warm; it was a bit below ten degrees. That's not the coldest I've ever been in; it's not close to hypothermia-inducing; plus, I noticed that it was the lowest number on the whole week of predicted numbers. I felt reassured (illogically). Maybe morbid curiosity is outdated, but it still gave me something to take my mind off shivering while waiting for the train home.

Can you feel luck coming?

I feel like this week is going to be lucky in terms of outcomes for my writing submissions. I don't know where this optimistic perception comes from. Certainly not from my horoscope, which I know not to believe, but only read for a bit of fun. Saturday's said basically that people won't take me seriously this week. My first response was, 'Piss off, stupid negative horoscope!' And Sunday's told me that I should channel my angst about it all not working into a journal which would become the first chapter of a new book. Two thoughts occured to me after reading this: first, that all pisceans must be writing books; two, that that would be a lame and boring way to start a book. Maybe, just maybe, people who write horoscopes don't know much about writing (or the future?). So, I will focus on feeling lucky this week and see what eventuates.