The Best Laid Schemes

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

I had a plan. And it didn't happen. I was looking forward to it for weeks. And it didn't happen. At first I got sad and resentful. Because I had actually built a whole day around it -- even asking Josh to leave the apartment so I could have a lot of privacy. (Which he did.) I waited 1/2 hour to see if it was going to happen, and when I realized it wasn't, I got busy doing something else productive. Not joyful so much, but planning some future joy. What was it? My first ever tarot reading, that I bought myself for my birthday.

What did I find instead? Well, I spent some time trying not to be angry. And then I spent some time trying not to be disappointed. Then I realized those weren't very good uses of my time. Because of the way the day was scheduled (the time had been best for her but not the best for me) I had missed my chance to go to the gym or the movies. I trolled the internet a little bit and found that this kid is pretty delightful. A little frightening—not sure how much of this is coming from him or an adult who scripted it, but .... do I really care? Because I took the bait and got off my ass (actually, I sat down on my ass) and did something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I got back to a writing project I've left dormant for months, and I really enjoyed it. I also found myself helped along by this New Yorker article I read last week about Structure. (I also thoroughly enjoyed reading that article.) BTW, I don't structure any of these short blog posts, except by instinct. I just churn them out. But I think there's something to be said for instinct as well as structure, and both muscles need to be kept in shape. The end.