Writing day Saturday 10/1/2005

This fountain is in my friend Braveheart’s front yard. It provided a lovely aural background to a couple of hours of writing. The Elegant E and Gia were there, too. There’s something nourishing about writing where others are writing. A photo of Braveheart’s cat was a close runner up to this one.

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Geraniums in waiting Friday 9/30/2005

These geraniums were, no doubt, excited about being transfered to the ground in the near future when I selected them from amongst their peers. Sadly, they still wait on the front porch. Hopefully gazing at me as I pass by on my way to work in the dark. (I bought these to add a splash of color outside the new front door.)

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My beloved tea pot 9/29/2005

Yes, it’s beloved. It’s my tea pot. It makes a wonderful brew for me every work day. In this photo it’s communing with my desk lizard. I like it when my stuff gets along.

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Window at work 9/28/2005

This is part of what I look at during the day at work. I took this early in the day, thinking that it would just be a fall back, that I would have grand adventures worth detailing by nightfall. Well, I did have some very good experiences, but none that I thought to document.

This flower is a cyclamen. They are very forgiving and continue to bloom for a long time if you keep them wet. The African violet was rescued from my boss’s office. It was half this size and brownish a month ago. Maybe if I feed it, it will flower again.

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The Mess On My Desk 9/27/2005

How does this woman get anything done?

In my defense, everything I need is right at hand. Um, even my car keys in case of emergency earthquake evacuation. (Right, those could probably be moved.)

In a little while, I will squeeze a Chinese take-out container in between the script and the phone.

p.s. My office mate just asked if I noticed a weird flashing in the office. Um, yeah, that would be me taking photos of my..um. Desk.

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Bob's Big Boy 9/26/2005

Treated myself to oatmeal and coffee and some writing time this morning before work. Cheers to all 24-hour restaurants!

By the time I came out, there were gorgeous clouds in the sky and I took a shot of that too.

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Another day, another door 9/25/2005

Okay. So. “It’ll only take us two hours,” my husband said, with fabulous optimism, when we were talking about whether it was too late to start installing the new storm door on the back door of our house. We got started at 1:15 in the afternoon. We didn’t get back into the house until 7:15. We had to put new moulding around the door, etc. Just reading the directions probably took us two hours.

This photo was taken around 3:00 pm, nearly an hour past the two-hour ETA. It’s a good thing we love each other so much.

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Driving a new road 9/24/2005

On our way back from yard sales, my husband and I drove down a road we’d never been on before.

I seem to end up taking more than 1 photo a day. It was a toss up between this one, and one taken further down the road where we could see evidence of last July’s wildfire.

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Where I work 9/23/2005

It’s interesting to look for photos in my daily life. I work in this building, though not in the coffee house. This coffee house is a place where creative energy and entertainment industry schmoozing collide. When I first started working here I thought, “Someday I will have a meeting with my agent here,” even though I hadn’t finished my novel and didn’t have an agent. What do you know? A few years later, it happened! I had my first couple of meetings with my agent in this coffee house. Made me feel like those lunches with my notebook or laptop had paid off.

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Out for a walk 9/22/2005

Last night I went for a walk around my neighborhood. I like this little metal sign on the fence at the end of the road. (There’s a gate you can go through to get to the hillside.)

It’s hard to take just one. I need to figure out this flickr thing, so I can post more photos

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New Front Door 9/21/2005

We just had a new front door installed. We’re really pleased with it. It was one of my 43Things goals and I did it!

Love the way the light comes through and a bit of the color of the hillside outside shows through.

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Why didn't I think of this myself?

I try to write every day and am pretty good about it. I started doing this on 43Things.com and became addicted to it. Now I'm turning it into my blog. Maybe I'll do a blog with real purpose, other than just observing the things that make each day different from the next.

The photo is of the view out the window in what we call the library at my house. It’s my favorite place to sit and write these days.

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Street Bob

The other day, as I drove toward the freeway onramp at Riverside and Tujunga, I saw a man waiting for a bus. He moved from one foot to the other, and I thought at first he was dancing. But there was no music in his shifting.

The movement was too grand to be called a fidget or a tic, but that's probably what it was. A tic. Something he couldn't help doing.

He wore khaki from top to bottom. A hiking hat--one of those with a crumpled brim all around and mesh above the headband, a strip of leather thong strung through the grommets--and a tan shirt, tan pants, and tan canvas shoes. Trying to fade into the background, which he might have done if not for the constant movement. Maybe only trying to reassure people by his nondescript, unthreatening clothing, that he is just like us, plus one unnerving little compulsion.

It must cut him off from most social interaction. I wouldn't know how to look at him if he spoke to me. I wouldn't know how or whether to ask what happened, if anything happened.

"Do you know that you are, even now, bobbing back and forth on the street?" I might inquire, but who knows if it's ruder to acknowledge or to ignore?

I step on the gas when the light changes and leave the man alone. Me, with my enviably reliable motor functions. Me, with my smartly snapping synapses, spinning down the road home. Me, thinking on the fragility of normal.