on tricking myself into writing and finally reading ulysses

a big thank you to judith for turning me on to 750words. it's a site with a lovely blank canvas (weirdly less intimidating than an open, fresh word doc), where you attempt to write 750 words per day. i tried it out for the first time this morning and got to 557 words before it told me the day was over and i would have to start a new day. this, at 9 a.m. my time. turned out my time zone was set to pacific time in california, so i cheated and pasted my 557 words (which i had written in 10 minutes) into the new day (after all, it had been friday for me all along) and continued. my stats will be a little off, since pasting it in takes a bit less time than it did to write the words in the first place, but oh well. i found it surprising how quickly i got to 750 words. maybe this writing thing isn't so hard after all?  it was just a bunch of drivel, recounting my day yesterday, so there's that, but nonetheless, it was a start.

i'm finding that reading and writing go hand in hand. i knew this, but i think what with obsessively reading the news on my iphone since mid-2016, i'd gotten out of the habit of reading books. i've been fixing that thus far in 2020 and i've already read four books. i'm currently reading hemingway's moveable feast, which contains a lot of advice about writing. i've also joined a book club through the library. we will read just one book - james joyce's ulysses. i took a semester-long course focused on just that book and wrote a 25-page paper on it without finishing the damn thing, so i decided that now is the time. it's one of those you probably should read. but already i can feel myself thinking i have to read a bunch of other stuff first - like i really should refresh homer's odyssey before i begin. and maybe dante's inferno too. and that would lead to goethe's faust, wouldn't it? where will it end?

just get reading already.

dear autumn

dear autumn,

you and i used to have such a great relationship. you used to bring with you the promise of a new semester, the excitement of all of the new books to be read from a fresh syllabus, the comfort of a new university sweatshirt and the impending trip to the seminary co-op bookstore. when i close my eyes, i can hear the crunch of leaves, feel the crispness of your air in my nose. i'm enveloped by the memory of a new brown suede coat wrapped around me as i walk down 57th street and turn on woodlawn, so i can pass by the classic lines of frank lloyd wright's robie house as i head for campus. the golden sunshine is stunning on the red and orange leaves, making the day look warmer than it actually is.

these days, autumn, you fill me with a bit more dread. there's no new semester beginning, there's just the impending darkness of winter ahead. short, often grey days and relentless rain, wind sweeping in off the distant north sea to the west, the trees denuded before they even have a chance to change to glorious jewel tones.

autumn, you give way too easily to the darkness of winter in these latitudes, and that's why you fill me with dread. please be kind this year, with a few glorious golden days to look back on when the darkness comes.

your old friend,
/julie