(not) Counting down.

The other day, driving home from the movies:

Me: ...and I just hate thinking in actual, concrete, numerical terms about things, even when those terms are realistic. Like when you say, "You still have six weeks left of summer!"--and I know, there aren't six weeks left, not even close to six weeks--thinking that way just drives me crazy, because it feels like things are shutting down. And I hate that feeling! I would totally rather lie to myself, and say, like, I still have half the summer left! or a lot of the summer left! because it makes me feel like things are still possible. Even when it's not true.

Historian: (drives. He already knows this about me. He is a concrete thinker. He is a realist. It is good for a person like me to have a person like him--in a word, him--around.)

Me: ...I don't necessarily think everyone feels that strongly about it, though.

Historian: (pauses) ...no, maybe not.

Despite my strong commitment to fantasy-calendaring, I am getting real with myself. I am thinking not in terms of weeks but parts of weeks, for cramming in the stuff I want to do before I need to get even more real with myself, and start preparing for classes.

Today was a good day. It was a quiet day. I gathered my wits. I took a bike ride in the morning and then I worked on my photo essay. I thought about the things I want to do over the next fractions of weeks. I tried to get a big picture of my day-to-day, so events won't sneak up on me and give me a rude surprise.

We are putting bags of stuff on our curb tomorrow for a charity pick-up. At the store, I bought cherries and stuff for granola and carrots and Izzys. I mailed a package. I washed the sheets and the duvet cover put them back on the bed. My granddaughter called from Scotland to chat. I worked on my photo essay some more. Tomorrow is a deadline day. Another quiet day, a day on which I will get some stuff done, yo.

In other news:

The historian: Did you know they used to have poetry readings at the Olympics? Not just at the ancient Greek games, but back when they started the Olympics up again, up into the 1940s.

Me: Well, if I were in the Olympics, the best I would do is semi-finalist or finalist. I would never win.

(Whiny, right? But the good news is, the revision and re-titling of my manuscript I did in the spring has paid off, in that this manuscript is now getting a lot of semi-finalist/finalist action. Not actually winning, but closer.)

...and lastly, today nouvelle vague filmmaker Chris Marker died. I already posted this on Facebook, but if you have never taken a half hour to watch La Jetee, I highly recommend that you do. You can watch it here.