Monday, December 26, 2016

Good Advice(s)?

We were standing in the parking lot, the three of us.  Tom, his wife Becky and I,

Suddenly Tom seized me by the lapels of my jacket and said "you must write".

He then searched for the right phrase and came up with something like "those who have been given such a gift have a responsibility to use it".

So here I am writing again.  Even tho I told him that I need to travel to have something to write about.

But then I decided maybe that isn't true.

In fact I am traveling every day.  We all are.  Even if not to a foreign country.

Today I traveled to the County adjacent to the city I live in.  I needed to renew my County library card which had expired from lack of use.  I have a City library card too and have been using it to borrow books for my Kindle. But I wanted to expand the inventory of available books.  Often I find the books I want are out on loan.

So I found myself in the library in the town where I lived 30 years ago.

It's so different now.  This must be  what Rip Van Winkle felt like waking up and finding the world had changed.

Its all computerized now.  This is, on balance,  a good thing.  Well, I think it is.

It's not hard for me to deal with this stuff as it is for many of my age.  After all I do computer programming and have developed some smart phone APPs.

But still.  The changes kind of blew my mind.

Or maybe it was the memories flooding my mind from the so different life I lived when I was living in this town so long ago.

While there, I decided to see if I could get Michael Lewis's latest best seller:  "The Undoing Project" which, unsurprisingly, I had to put on hold.  But I was able to get my favorite author's latest book: John Le Carre's "The Pigeon Tunnel".

I savored the book in the library's cafe. Over a cup of coffee.

With the afternoon winter sun streaming in the window, warming the page. And me.

Driving back to the city,  I passed a juice bar.


My energy hasn't been what I would like it to be and I recently watched one of those endless infomercials by a Doc hawking his juice formula.  That  influenced me, no doubt. to drive around the block and back to this bar.

This juice bar was quite "urban" as you may be able to sense from the picture.

It had a lot of really useful advice on the wall.



I got the "Rejuvenation Drink".  Beets, Carrots, Ginger and Apple.

Did it work?  Well I've written this and I've stayed awake even tho I missed my nap this afternoon.

I think what I'll do is start a new Blog.

I'll send it to my current readers. With this as the first Blog Post.

I'll let them (you) tell me whether to continue writing this Blog or wait for my next trip abroad.

Good idea? Well there"s no downside for me.



If it doesn't work out I'll just blame Tom.

8 comments:

Limbo - a life said...

do the blog -Tom was right!

Unknown said...

Yes, pls and good holidays to you!

LOve reading your posts and observations on life. Keep em coming!

Jan

Linda Franklin said...

Tom doesn't joke around -- he's 100% earnest. Unlike me. I joke around.
But, I've been telling people (even w/o reading your blog much ... excuses abound) that you are a really good writer. Maybe that's partly because you like Le Carre so much. He's a really good writer too. You are also a witty writer, an observant traveler (and liver . . . maybe your pancreas and lungs too), so I think you should continue writing...any blog at all. There are so many hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps millions, that it's hard to get an audience. Nobody reads my blog, but at least I know it's there. So... do the blog, any blog. Happy New Year, and keep juicing. xL

Kim Forsyth said...

I'm reading despite being exhausted from a cross-country flight after a family filled week so that says something - I enjoy your prose. Happy New Year!

Leah and West said...

“It doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”
― Pico Iyer

Robert said...

Hugh,
By all means keep writing. I enjoy your comments and your pictures. Then too, you tend to be a bit more optimistic than I am, and I can use that positive influence. By now, I feel I know more about Ukraine than I do about Baltimore so there's plenty to do.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year!
Robert

Jczapalay@gmail.com said...

Great idea, Hugh! Keep me in your loop!

Unknown said...

Thank heaven for Tom.........and that you have each others ears.........

Jan