Fodder

I did not get to write anything on My One True Plan yesterday. I thought about it. I compared what I was doing to My One True Plan to see how what I was doing fit in with my plan and was taking me towards my goal (that’s goal without the s because I have only one goal and everything must move me on my path to that one goal.)

I “socialized” yesterday, remembering that any interaction with other people will help me see how people behave and give me ideas for characterisation. It also helped me see myself more clearly, see how I think and how I behave. I know without a doubt that I would rather be writing than making small talk. I am a horrible chatter. I listen pretty well but I don’t want to participate much in most actual conversations.

I spent the day with my grandson, my parents, my great-nephew, my brother and my daughter. My daughter and my father were the only two people who didn’t expect me to do much more than listen. To be honest, my father’s not much of a talker either so I didn’t have to listen much in his case. My daughter is ok with telling me all kinds of things and when she wants a response she asks a direct question. Other than that, all she expects is for me to listen to her.

My brother got all of the social skills. He’s very good at filling up the conversational void with all kinds of things that sound exciting. He can tell you about his chores and make them sound like grand little adventures. It’s the tone of his voice, the laughter behind his words. People like that.

My great-nephew and my grandson only expect me to play catch with them. I can manage that.

My mother wants an interaction and here is where the difficulties come in because we really don’t have any clear points of commonality. Everything between us is a conversational conflict. She makes a statement, like all priests are bad people (brought on by the Pope’s announcement to retire) and I have to say that’s not true they are people like most others, some good some bad and then I try to discuss the inherent corruption in large organizations (which is what I would want to talk about and not the boogeyman “there’s a pedophile behind every bush” conversation she wants.) Stagnation. Then she tells me about another 5 year old child that was recently abducted and the police detective who came to her door at 7 in the morning looking for a pedophile. Then there’s nothing but doctors visits, diseases and physical complaints followed by how unreasonable and rude her cousin is because she can’t tell my mother what disease her cousin’s husband has in the midst of his mother dying. Oh, and what do I want to eat every 5 minutes. No wonder I am always depressed. It takes so long to scrub all of those thoughts and images from my mind. There’s never anything positive.

I saw Beautiful Creatures with The Snoogs. We had a good time. The movie was fun. I watched the people in the audience before the movie started (many got up and left because they were in the wrong theater (they want Silver Linings Playbook.) And I picked the movie apart thinking how I would do it different.

I got a call from a co-worker before the movie. One of our drivers went off the deep end again. He has two or three episodes each year where he needs emergency responders to go to his truck and then he gets hospitalized and misses delivering shipments.

My little one is not feeling well this weekend. He had a fever and now he is stuffy and cranky. QV watched him all by himself yesterday while I was at the movies. They had 4 hours alone together and it looked like they did well all one their own. They were watching Ice Age 2 when I got home.

My roaming around yesterday certainly made it easier to write this morning.

690