WTS Day XII

I'm going to have to be learning my Roman numerals. I didn't manage to stay off the social media til now, although I did do better than yesterday. There is savage noise in the house because the builders next door are drilling into the walls. It's as well I've said I will visit my parents and my brother's family.

Awoke in knots about opportunities missed. It is so hard. But it is hard to switch it on as well. It's hard to get into the mindset. And the summer is young. And I should compare myself to who I was last year, not to how others are today or to how I feel I should be today. There is progress, but there is also now undeniable decline. I am a middle-aged woman now. Life is over-rated. 

Am also in a fury over my travel plans. I read some-one I know, who has a good job now, a job I would like say on facebook or Twitter or suchlike that she goes to London at least once a year to see a play. So that's what I'm doing, even though it is interfering with everything else. I also made the decision to change my flight back to Dublin. This is a mistake. Why did I do it? I did it to do less driving and "be the change I want to see in the world". But there is little point in being a martyr either. One round-trip to Dublin isn't going to burn up the planet. For the money the hotel I'll stay in on my own is costing me I could have stayed in Bantry for two nights during the festival. I could also have Air BnB'd and saved my money. I could have, I could have, I could have. The London fiasco itself came out of a drive for self-improvement. This is an odious trap. Less work on me, more work. Just work. 

This feels like a profound insight. Self-work is no work. 

The ten-minute reading in the morning is going well. Since finishing "Autumn" I have read two short stories from "The New Yorker" fiction special. This brings me back twenty-three years to when I was in in America and travelling by public transport from Hillsborough, NJ  to Cape May, NJ. I still have that Summer 1995 fiction special with the woman in the red dress on the cover. What a revelation that was. There was a story by T. Coraghasson Boyle and one by Jeannette Winterson. This is where it is at. People asked me in Borris if I were a writer and I thought  I was clever replying "No, just a punter". Not very clever, but as I say the summer is young. The summer is, even if  I'm not. 

The next ten days will be stressful and involve four cities and lots of travel. But this will be GOOD for me. It's not even a lot of travel by some standards. Going to France tomorrow. Woo hoo. Perhaps I should invest in some kind of portable writing-device. I'm not going to bring this laptop with me, it's too bulky. It'd be nice to have a little Macbook air or something. Not that I've ever used a Mac and I understand there are issues about compatibility between devices. 

It's been twelve days so far. It is going well. Having a structure and a ritual to start the day is working. Next I must get back to the gym. In health updates my cough has nearly gone. I was right not to take the antibiotics or waste money on the inhaler. I will fill the antibiotics prescription though, just to have them in.