1. Filers and pilers. Kenton sent me an article telling me about two kinds of people. People like me who are pilers and others who, I guess, can remember what's out of sight, who are not plagued by out of sight, out of mind. They are filers. Kenton and I are pilers. I heard from another friend, Liz, who is a filer and had to come up with a way to deal with her husband's things when they were selling a house. He's a piler. She bought a good-sized basket and piled his things in the basket and put the basket on top of the freezer. Once the viewing ended, her husband could unpile the pile in the basket and repile his piles in the house. Liz said (possibly tongue in cheek) that it saved their marriage!
2. I write myself notes. A couple or three weeks ago, I saw that there were still pills in a couple or three morning slots in my pillbox. I'd forgotten to take them. So I wrote myself a note in all caps telling myself to take my pills first thing in the morning, before feeding Gibbs and Copper or doing anything else. It makes sense to me that I was more concerned about feeding Gibbs and Copper than I was about taking my pills, but I couldn't let that happen anymore -- and the note worked. I haven't missed a dosage since I wrote it.
I have notes about groceries, what to be sure to do before I leave the house and what to take, notes that are lists of words that haven't been solutions yet over at Wordle, and a host of other reminders and guides to help me make it through each day.
Well, those notes were in a pile right by the chair I sit in to write this blog, work puzzles, read, and other things and right now, having moved that pile of notes before family dinner, I have no idea where they are. All I know is that they aren't in plain sight. They are out of my mind.
Now I need to either find them or do my best to remember what I'd written and recreate them.
3. The developing story lines in the first part of Lonesome Dove are very good, but as I listen to Will Patton read this novel, I'm really impressed by the lyrical qualities of Larry McMurtry's language, the ways he imagines great miniature stories within the scope of the book's dominant plot, and how funny the book is. When I was reading it to myself, much of the humor went by me, but one of the rewards for listening to the book is that, for me, the humor comes through much more vividly, to my great pleasure.
One example is when a storm kicks up and Pie Eye helps the widow Coles retrieve sheets and other things that blew off her clothesline and suddenly realizes he's holding her undergarments in his hand. I'll leave it at that, except to say that it's a moment, thanks to McMurtry's deft storytelling, that made me laugh out loud.
There have been many others.
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