Routine both pleases and plagues me. As I've written here before, I am (when well and home) very much a Creature of Routine. I get up about the same time (6:30-ish), head over to the coffee shop (where I read--both for pleasure and for reviewing), then home to do some writing; lunch with Joyce, then off to the coffee shop again (where I read and write), home about 2:30, at which time I head out to the health club to ride the exercise bike (excitin'!); home for din-din prep, then either out to get a Coke or coffee with Joyce (except in foul weather), then upstairs to read, to watch a little Netflix, lights out by 9:30.
On Sunday mornings I bake sourdough bread--and also go with Joyce to the coffee shop to read the New York Times and laugh and talk.
Friday and/or Saturday nights we often go to the movies.
Thursday afternoons for grocery shopping.
Oh, and I rehearse the poems I've memorized at various times of the day and week.
There's more--but this is bad enough, eh?
I grew crazy about routine when I was teaching, too. I knew that if I didn't get certain things done (paper-grading, planning, etc.) at certain times that I would be more than behind the 8 ball; I would be under it.
Anyway, all of this can get boring, you know? I sometimes sit at my little table (yes, my table: I am a creature of habit) at the coffee shop and think of all the other things I could be doing: climbing Mt. Hood (a long wish that I will never realize), driving on the road (which I love) visiting literary and historical sites, launching a new writing project that will take me Who Knows Where. Etc. But here I sit, reading the Times on my Kindle (as I do every damn morning), getting ready to read my daily quota (yes, I have one) of pages in a book I'll be reviewing for Kirkus Reviews.
Boring. Frustrating. Annoying.
And then ... something happens. I can't follow my routines. This past week (as I've written) an Evil Virus knocked me down and kept me there for several days.
And as I lay there in bed, one thought kept recurring: I can't wait to get back to the coffee shop, the health club, the poems, the ...
... ROUTINES.
No comments:
Post a Comment