When I’m short on motivation for morning pages, I sometimes just quit before I’ve written three pages, but sometimes I play the alphabet game instead. “X” is a letter I allow myself to skip during the game because it’s hard and the whole point is to get the words flowing. You know it’s a really low brain energy day when I can’t even muster the vim to do the game. Zumanity– don’t put this at the top of your Cirque must see list. Another rule for the alphabet game is I don’t have to start with “A”. By now it should be clear that the sentences are not required to flow nicely into each other, either. Call it a waste of time if you like. Don’t judge too quickly, though. First, try writing three pages longhand every morning for a few years. (Gee, I guess inadvertently skipping a letter now and then is part of the game, too.) Having a time to sit down each morning and reflect is valuable in the swirl of stress that my life sometimes becomes. I wish I could always use that time to best advantage instead of playing games, but it can’t be all inspiration all the time. Just because I sit down to write doesn’t mean the words will appear. “K” is another hard letter, unless I start talking about myself in the third person.

Look, there’s a little squirrel in the tree outside the window. Many times I get distracted when I’m writing morning pages and the pen stops moving across the paper. Not that much of a problem on the weekends, when it’s fine if it takes me more than half an hour to get through three pages, but not cool during the week when my time is less my own. Oh, how I wish weekends were longer. Quite a common desire, I believe. Really not sure why it has to be that way– with all the advances we’ve made, couldn’t we come up with a way to structure things so work could be more flexible and not take up so much time? Sure, some people have achieved a better balance, but they’ve had to give things up that I want. That’s the deal, gotta go to work to get the money to get the things that I want. Unlikely that’s going to change anytime soon. Very likely I’ll finish the alphabet game very soon, for sure.

A year ago, I debuted a new journal design. This would be the ideal place to link to the design archive I’m planning on doing at some point, but it’s not done. It’s barely started.

Two years ago, I lamented the state of my house. Right at the moment, it’s looking a little messy again, but I’ll pick it up soon. I have to; the cleaning lady is coming on Wednesday.

A is for Alphabet Game