in defense of rambling #sol18

Once again I'm not sure what I'll be blogging about -- rambling until I find a subject or one finds me. Until then, it's another ramble, or as Thoreau would have it, a saunter. This country lane looks like promising. So many words for walking in different modes and settings -- saunter, flâner, promenade, ramble, stroll, pasear, wander, amble and more -- all walking.

Day 9 ramblings, another #sol18 Pantser

Yet another day puttering on-line, researching and curating links for a bullying and related social isolation project, catching up with local and education social media, worrying (albeit intermittently) about fissures in auto-sharing system -- broken by a long nap that my body must have needed as much as my eyes did.

About the eyes, yesterday (or maybe even the night before) a massive fleet of floaters moved into my left eye field of vision. I rigged up a makeshift patch, hauled out the post-cataract surgery dark glasses and have been avoiding direct daylight. Sleep helped for a while, dark glasses more though. Typing wearing dark glasses in low light is a challenge. My touch typing skills are limited. Maybe the practice I'm getting now will help. Please excuse typos missed in editing...

I might still write about the rest but in others posts -- you can never have too many fall back topics...

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Two Writing Teachers host a weekly Tuesday and an annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC). This is the 11th Annual SOLSC. During March, participants write daily blog posts, share them on the TWT blog and comment on three or more blog posts by other participants. Read more of today's blog posts here. 

a morning #sol18 ramble:#IWD2018 & other digital flânerie

International Women's Day images quotes more | Shayari in Hindi 2018

Another open ended post without a plan, but the difference is starting it in the morning instead of at the last minute. I can call it a morning ramble and run with another favorite metaphor ~ flânerie. Probably the overarching metaphor in my dissertation, I even have a blog named the contrary flâneuse. 

Virtual, visual, verbal flânerie through scenic, human, and cultural byways ~ small town space, open space, wild space, city space, cyberspace, un-space. Baudelaire's Paris it's not; 'la chambre à deux" perhaps, but still its own kind of microcosm.

International Women's Day was a natural destination, with much to see along the way.

mystery meeting #sol18

No plan today: I can't count on my inner owl to come to the rescue because I'm off to community meeting this evening and can't count on the writing level coherence to blog later. The coherence needed for writing runs low as I tire, which comes upon me increasingly earlier and with less provocation. With no flight plan and too early for owls to be out, rambling on (on a wild goose chase, flying blind) about the day is my last resort.

Note the confluence of flying or feathered images. Do I have a potential theme here, a metaphor to stretch to a breaking point before crashing?

The meeting itself, hosted by the Colorado Health Foundation and described as a Community Dialog, was something of a mystery: no notice was published or posted locally but went out by closed email list. I heard about the meeting topic and the date at second hand but not the time or location. Another area meeting with a similar name was scheduled for just a few days later and publicly announced. The events seemed as though they might or should be connected but weren't. Not knowing made me all the more determined to suss it out.

flying by the seat of my pants #sol18…

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Ways of Flying (Follies) from the Google Art Project

This morning I thought I had a plan, with options to spare. As the day wore on, fatigue took over and brain fog rolled in as my oxygen levels dropped. I picked the Pantser badge because I would be writing "flying by the seat of my pants." or without a plan, just improvising as I go along. 

When the platform software wouldn't cooperate with embedding the badge image the way I wanted, I took that as an omen and ditched the badge. I'll use it another time.

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The 11th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC) is hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Read more of today's blog posts here.

Slicing the staff of life #sol18

…El Almuerzo by Diego Velázquez (Public Domain)

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…Slicing it one day at a time brings me to day five of Two Writing Teachers' 11^th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC). 

Today's life slice is bread: the staff of life, sustenance beyond just  food —“bread and butter.” Bread or dough is cash, plain and simple. Breaking bread with others is more than sharing a meal: joining in and sustaining the spirit — a fitting image for the spiritual nourishment of sharing words in a writing community. 

Read more about about bread as a global staff of life and even poetry: Pablo Neruda's "Oda al pan" and César Vallejo's "El pan nuestro" (among others) because "poetry, like bread, is for everyone." (from "Como Tú" by Roque Dalton, translation by Jack Hirschman)

a minimalist #solsc18

…10 minute variety, ne plus ultra for the 4th day of my 4th SOLSC . Last year I posted every day of March, my first and so only completion. Year one was close, shut down by computer problems in final stretch -- close but no cigar. The next one barely made it out of the starting gate. That was to be the heart of today's post, inspired by Puro Veronica's day two blog post.

Such are the best laid plans, even an early start. Then the day went south. I'd write more but time's up. There's always tomorrow. That's life and why this slice of it is so thin.

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Welcome to day four of Two Writing Teachers' 11^th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC). 

Slicing images take a swerve from TWT's traditional, perhaps even trademarked orange slice. Other slices: other fruit, bread, pizza, fruit slice puzzles, cheese ...