Attention Deficit

Some random thoughts, because I'm finding it difficult to stick to a single train of thought today.

  • It is a weird time of year for me. That first week after the Super Bowl is always a little disjointed. I don't watch like I once did, but I really don't watch any other sports, so it seems like something is missing. It's a first-world problem though, one that will pass soon enough.
  • Speaking of Super Bowl, I thought it was a phenomenal one to watch. A back-and-forth affair for 3 1/2 quarters until it got out of hand. I was glad to see KC win.
  • Like everyone else in the world, I have my opinion of the halftime show, but unlike many others, I don't feel the need to express that opinion. 
  • I was invited to take part in a Poet Laureate reading in Sheboygan at the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Conference in May. I consider it an honor just to be in the same room with some of the others that will be there. My 8 minutes of fame.
  • I am halfway through season 2 of Outlander. What a great series.
  • This empty nest thing is growing on me. The house is quieter, my wife and I have more mind-space, and we have discovered what brought us together in the first place. Getting very used to it.
  • The writing slogs ahead. Working my way through my work-in-progress for the third time. Some days I hate every word and think it's dreadful, some days I think it's really good. I'm getting good feedback, so I think the latter is more true than the former. So, I will continue to slog onward.
  • The job goes extremely well. I am blessed with an amazing staff and great leadership.
  • Each day gets a little lighter when I come home. Spring can't come soon enough.
Blogging off...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

National Poetry Month: Issue 18

In a rush, a poem from Richard Brautigan from,  The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. A Good-Talking Candle                    by Richard Brautigan I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me,    so I lit a candle. and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep. Blogging off...
Read more

New Chapters

Image
 As many of you know I retired last week after almost 27 years at Waukesha County. It was a bit of a shock to some, in part because I am only 61. Nevertheless I'd given it much thought and talked it through with my family and determined it was time. I wanted to get out while I am healthy and perhaps more specifically just do something different. I am lucky enough to say I've loved my work over the past 37 years. GIS and mapping has been my passion since college and I was fortunate enough to get paid to do something I loved.  I'll be honest, while I looked forward to the date of retirement, I was not looking forward to the celebration. Like my daughter, who is more like me than not, I do not like being in the spotlight. While I've become more comfortable being in front of people in part because of my writing and its related promotion and readings, deep down I'm still an introvert with extrovert flares, as they say. But dreading it as I did, it turned out to be a spec...
Read more

Local Level Need

Image
A week and a half into retirement and I'm here to report that life is good on the other side. I've kept fairly busy so far, in fact when my wife was questioned by friends on "how Jim's retirement is going," she said, "He hasn't sat down." I think I'm still in the manic, must-get-stuff-done mode that happens when people get a week off of work. Gotta cram it all in. Well, I am starting to adjust to the fact that it will all be there tomorrow and next week, and if I don't get to all of it today, it's really okay. It's been a strange adjustment for sure, but one that I am beginning to appreciate more and more.  Before I decided to retire, one of the things I wanted to commit to was a regular stint of volunteer work. When I mentioned it to a friend who works for Frieden's Food Pantry, he suggested I look into helping in one of their four locations. They vary in the number of families that they serve, but they turn over a huge amount o...
Read more