Well, I had to haul ass outta bed early today to get to the Callen-Lourde Clinic and get the results of my HIV screening. As expected, I was negative. I've been in a monogomous relationship for 4½ years. I don't think it should be that big of a surprise.
The earliness of the appointment and the resumption of the jackhammering on my terrace forced me out into the city with not a lot to do, so I finally got around to spending a little time actually inside The Cloisters. Do you believe that I forgot to pack my frickin' camera when I left in the morning?
So I spent most of the morning and early afternoon wandering around the various rooms of the museum, wondering at the collections. Usually my favorite part of a visit to The Cloisters is seeing The Unicorn Tapestries, but the experience this time was marred by the presence of a large group of school children - young ones - who were not exactly as awed by the ancient weavings as I was. Natch.
I got to spend a lot of time sitting in the gardens and doing a lot of thinking. I had my computer with me, and I've been saying forever that I would love to sit there in those gardens and work on the pope play, but I didn't do it! I just took in the serenity of it, and stared dreamily at all the architecture and just the feeling of being in that place. I only wish I'd have had someone to share it with. Marcy and George McDonald would have loved it - maybe Dean might have as well, though I don't think he's as taken by things of that period as M & G & I are.
I finally left the museum after a couple hours and returned home, to sit down and do some work on the play. I managed to slog my way through yet another scene that's been giving me pause, so that's good. I'm slowly but surely getting it into my head that I shouldn't try to edit as I go along - something I've known but have been unable to stop myself from doing. It's a bit of a breakthrough, since the act of editing-in-progress has always been a way for me to unconsciously avoid having to finish whatever I was working on, thus avoiding showing it to anyone and having it be rejected! The mind is a terrible thing, my friends. And fear is at the root of all failure.
Well, I'm not entirely sure that I agree with that sentiment, since I have, over the years, come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as failure. There's only the attempt. I leave failure to critics and A-type personalities. I'm happy with doing the best I can and taking what comes. Although, I have to throw in the caveat that sometimes my own fears (and yes, laziness and an overly-developed sense of entitlement - a sort of "I have to work for this? It's not going to be given to me?" attitude) prevent me from doing my best. There are those of us in the world for whom success is every bit as scary as failure. I'm sure volumes have been written about that. Maybe someday I'll read them and understand myself a little better. After all, an unexamined life, it's said, is not worth living.
But isn't it also true that a life spent in too much self-examination is chock full of a detrimental amount of navel-gazing?
So I sat down to do some writing, and I'm pleased that a little progress is being made. But guess who's returned?
Yes, you guessed it. I had to do my writing in bursts, 'cuz the jackhammering had started again in earnest. They had slacked off a great deal over the last week or so, as I may have mentioned, turning their attention to re-cementing some (apparently) of the big holes they'd made in the terraces. You may remember me remarking that they hadn't done that on the front portion of the terrace, and guess where the jackhammering's happening? The front. Go figure.
So the Saga of the Perpetual Headache continues...
The earliness of the appointment and the resumption of the jackhammering on my terrace forced me out into the city with not a lot to do, so I finally got around to spending a little time actually inside The Cloisters. Do you believe that I forgot to pack my frickin' camera when I left in the morning?
So I spent most of the morning and early afternoon wandering around the various rooms of the museum, wondering at the collections. Usually my favorite part of a visit to The Cloisters is seeing The Unicorn Tapestries, but the experience this time was marred by the presence of a large group of school children - young ones - who were not exactly as awed by the ancient weavings as I was. Natch.
I got to spend a lot of time sitting in the gardens and doing a lot of thinking. I had my computer with me, and I've been saying forever that I would love to sit there in those gardens and work on the pope play, but I didn't do it! I just took in the serenity of it, and stared dreamily at all the architecture and just the feeling of being in that place. I only wish I'd have had someone to share it with. Marcy and George McDonald would have loved it - maybe Dean might have as well, though I don't think he's as taken by things of that period as M & G & I are.
I finally left the museum after a couple hours and returned home, to sit down and do some work on the play. I managed to slog my way through yet another scene that's been giving me pause, so that's good. I'm slowly but surely getting it into my head that I shouldn't try to edit as I go along - something I've known but have been unable to stop myself from doing. It's a bit of a breakthrough, since the act of editing-in-progress has always been a way for me to unconsciously avoid having to finish whatever I was working on, thus avoiding showing it to anyone and having it be rejected! The mind is a terrible thing, my friends. And fear is at the root of all failure.
Well, I'm not entirely sure that I agree with that sentiment, since I have, over the years, come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as failure. There's only the attempt. I leave failure to critics and A-type personalities. I'm happy with doing the best I can and taking what comes. Although, I have to throw in the caveat that sometimes my own fears (and yes, laziness and an overly-developed sense of entitlement - a sort of "I have to work for this? It's not going to be given to me?" attitude) prevent me from doing my best. There are those of us in the world for whom success is every bit as scary as failure. I'm sure volumes have been written about that. Maybe someday I'll read them and understand myself a little better. After all, an unexamined life, it's said, is not worth living.
But isn't it also true that a life spent in too much self-examination is chock full of a detrimental amount of navel-gazing?
So I sat down to do some writing, and I'm pleased that a little progress is being made. But guess who's returned?
Yes, you guessed it. I had to do my writing in bursts, 'cuz the jackhammering had started again in earnest. They had slacked off a great deal over the last week or so, as I may have mentioned, turning their attention to re-cementing some (apparently) of the big holes they'd made in the terraces. You may remember me remarking that they hadn't done that on the front portion of the terrace, and guess where the jackhammering's happening? The front. Go figure.
So the Saga of the Perpetual Headache continues...
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