Tersiness

Gainesville

The smoke tried to make a comeback today, but mostly failed. Tolerably breathable air most of the day.

Spent three hours with the comics (my favorite title: "Fish Police"), but didn't quite finish the batch that came in from the church donor earlier this week.

Did not rush to meet Bill before the Witching Hour (5:00) when the elevators no longer will stop at the 5th floor where the Admin offices are. I have to call him, and he has to come fetch me up. I dawdled over a cappuccino while trying to set my phone up to do text. It didn't work. Eventually I realized that nothing requiring the network was working-- including the PHONE! I had no way to contact Bill to tell him where I was. No luck trying to call him from the Circ Desk; just got his voice mail. No luck trying to get the security guard (who knows me) to get me past the elevator security-- he didn't have his card, and the one he borrowed from the Circ Desk didn't work. And his cell phone didn't work right either. I prowled between the first and second floor, connected by an escalator, for over an hour, hoping to catch him when he finally came down.

He confirmed the phone was fubar, then showed me the simple trick of resetting it with the stylus. D'oh! It's easy to get all too reliant on these gizmos, and have no plan B when they get notional. A good object lesson.

I continue to find Twitter fascinating. There is something very Zen about it, the focus on what you are doing NOW. And the limit of 140 characters is a challenge. The very terseness ("tersiness"?) of it draws attention to how many more words I use than are required. It's the length of a haiku with an average of about 8 letters per word. An excellent discipline.

Mom, working several hours in the afternoon sounds like a good plan for you. Spend the morning hours with TV, papers (crosswords, comics, etc.). Nap as needed. Hey, it sounds like a good plan for ME, and in fact, that's approximately what I'm doing most days.

Tomorrow: Well. Not prepared. Saturday is the day to get food for the week planned. The fridge is un-purged, meals are unplanned.

A couple of desperately overdue emails on deck also. Perhaps I should consider getting some sleep.