Mountain View

I want to live where I can look outside and see mountains. They will keep me grounded, not that I am flying high at the moment. Mountains, as a reminder of how insignificant I am in the larger scheme of all existence – known and unknown. There are no mountain views in Toronto … but I adore Toronto. I could learn to love somewhere else too.

Sometimes I know what I am passionate about, then I look for volunteer work, and it all falls apart. I want to volunteer in an art gallery or a home for the elderly or do something administrative – organizing information, perhaps. There’s one position I found, but they want a cover letter. Since I hate writing cover letters, I will see if one of those AI writers can do it for me.

That photo is from a guy I used to work with back in the 90s when I did tech support at IBM. He returned from vacation and was showing me his photos – I loved this one so much that he gave it to me, and I kept it up in my cubicle until my contract ended. I still get lost imagining all that is beyond my view.

I’m learning what does and doesn’t make a good street photo. Have you noticed that I am using fewer filler words:

• that
• so
• just

Most of my day went to adding my published work into a word doc. I plan to create a word cloud – this will also help to improve my vocabulary – there are words I rely on too much. In the process, I now have a list of my next six IG poems.

Yesterday I wrote Acid, and I was sure I’d used a particular term before, but when I searched my site, I couldn’t find it. I decided to publish my poem. Then lying in bed this morning, it suddenly came to me. I jumped up and ran for my laptop to quickly edit and update the poem. You’d think the place was on fire. Potentially dying of smoke inhalation wouldn’t make me move as fast as sounding repetitive.

Is this fear realistic? The more I write, won’t the odds of repetition go up? Or I will say the same things differently (also repetitive, no). Especially if I am writing about the same topic – among other things, I enjoy exploring various degrees of dysfunction in relationships.

I am going to do my best to forget about sounding repetitive. Once I’m editing, I will do a word check – maybe I should spend at least 24-48 hrs with a piece before publishing it. That’s probably a good idea, too, since I don’t have anyone to read my work before I publish it.

Sat Nov 19, 2022