Still Still for the Most Part, But Still Busy ( #BOTB Results )

         Most of us usually hate waiting, but we're always waiting for something.   Even once we get to the front of the line and think that the wait is finally over, we are really just part of that bigger wait of waiting for the next waiting thing to  happen.  That is, of course, until we reach our final resting place, though maybe it would be more appropriate to substitute "resting" with "waiting"...

Can't recall whose birthday this was for--someone in my wife's family in Ecuador I think, but I guess the celebrant is likely gone by now since the photo was taken 11 years ago.

So For Now...

        This week we have my youngest daughter's family visiting.  There's two kids--2 and 11 years of age--and it's been fun seeing them.  Seeing my own daughter at an age that I was some 30 years ago makes me ever more aware of my circumstance of present age.   Then I  think of someone who might be 98 years old like a few of my current friends and realize that I still have 30 years before I get where they are.  Guess I just have to wait and see what happens in my own life.

         There are some math questions in these previous sentences if you feel like figuring them out.  In the meantime I've got to go to a party.  I've taken a few minutes on Saturday morning to compose this post since my weekend may be unpredictable.  Besides, I have written enough for anyone to think about if they inclined to do so.  But then, we all have busy lives even when it doesn't seem that busy...


Battle of the Bands Results





           There has been some general agreement that certain artists are almost sure winners in these Battles.  In other words, it might be a risk to pit a lesser known artist against some powerhouse like Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, or Glen Miller.  Tommy Dorsey probably fits under this description too and my Battle used this artist's version of the song "In the Still of the Night" up against the more modern Neville Brothers.  I guess I should have known Tommy Dorsey would be the favorite, but in the end it all evened out.

         Still, I like the Neville Brothers version so much that I thought they might have a chance in this Battle.  That is the version that I voted for--I mean it's such a nice laid back flowing version of the song.  And considering the contest, it was not a bad outcome at all...

Final Vote Tally

Tommy Dorsey             9

Neville Brothers           9



Next Battle on Friday November 1

         I'm not doing NaNoWriMo again this year just as I have not done it since many years ago.  Some of you might, and if so, I wish you well.  So, everyone have a happy Halloween--I probably won't be doing that either--and see you here again on Friday November 1st!


             What is the thing you seem to spend most time waiting for?   Would you rather hold the place in line for someone else or only for your self?    How many people do you know who are over 90?  





     

Waiting and Wondering ( #AtoZChallenge )

I wonder what would happen if we didn't have to wait for anything anymore?   My guess is that we would no longer value that which we formerly waited on and with the loss of wondering, imagination would be diminished.    I can only wonder...

A figurine from my sister Joy's collection.

           When you think about it, most of life is spent waiting.   We wait for night so we can go to bed or we might lie awake in the dark early morning waiting for the alarm to stir us out of bed.  We wait for meals when hunger distracts us or wait for someone to get out of the bathroom so we can be next.  If you think back on your life you can likely come up with countless instances from early childhood on when the wait became obsessive at times. 

           Some of you might remember the mounting anticipation as Christmas came closer.  As the signs declaring the approach of that holiday appeared, we kids waited with anticipation as we watched bauble laden lit trees go up in our living rooms and gaily wrapped mystery parcels stacked beneath those trees.  We wondered what we were going to get this Christmas and the waiting became almost too much to bear.

          Life is all about waiting.  Waiting to finish school, start a career, get married, have a family, buy a house, retire, and eventually die.  It's one wait after another on this journey of life.  Once we reach one milestone of life, we begin turning our thoughts to the next one.  Much like the kids in the back seat wondering, "Are we there yet?" we are on a long journey with many stops.  Getting to one destination is not the real end to the journey.  Rather than wondering if we have arrived to where we thought we were going, we might more fittingly ask, "Where do we go next?"

         This is me, right now at this time of my life.  It's been a long exciting journey with so many stops and sidetracks along the way.  And as far as I'm concerned there are so many more places to go, people to meet, and experiences to be had.  I'm waiting, but still wondering as I move toward my next destination.  I am also working on it.  Dreams start passively, but disappear like early morning fog if they are not acted upon.

         Pondering, planning, and pursuing are the actions of the dreamer who wants to make a reality out of a perceived will-o'-the-wisp.  No dream can become a reality without some wondering and waiting.  That is the essence of dreams.  We wonder about an idea.  We map out a journey to achieve that idea. We then work on that idea to make it as real as it can be.  Then, once everything is set into motion, the waiting begins.

        Imagine that your life is a brick house.  The bricks are what we think of when we consider the structure of that house.  The part that we usually don't think much about is the mortar holding all those bricks together.  The bricks are the parts of our lives that are most meaningful--this is what we see when we look at our lives.  But the mortar is the time spent waiting and linking everything in our lives together to make it one coherent structure.  The house that we live in; the house that we are.

          And now I'm going to add a new wing to my metaphorical life house.  Keeping in the spirit of the metaphor I am assembling my building tools and preparing my blueprints. I haven't finished building my life house yet.  I've got work to do...

        Have you ever built a house?    What do you think would happen if you started building a house with no idea how you wanted it to look or anything else about the structure?    Have you ever had a dream fulfilled without any waiting or wondering on your part? 

Queue ( #AtoZChallenge )

         Having to wait in line seems like an inefficient and uncomfortable way to do things.  A long line is essentially people clutter... 
     

A queue in front of a shop - a common sight in the People's Republic of Poland during the 1980s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Queue


          At some point in time we all wait in line.
          Lines to buy tickets or buy other things,
          Long lines of traffic when we wish we had wings.
          Waiting our turn at the DMV--
          That's not a place where I like to be.

          Please pick a number, then wait for your turn
          While employees work slow--they have no concern
          About people who wait for hours on end.
          Lines take up time that we didn't intend
          To be wasted on waiting and even more waiting.

          So if you need to do something then what do you do?
          Go stand in a line and wend your way through.
          Through to end of the line you're in now
           And on to the next one as time will allow.

          Time marches on, the days seem to fly.
          Minutes, hours, and years pass us by.
          We're part a system.  What else can we do?
          We're all waiting for something while stuck in a queue.


         What is the longest line you've ever had to wait in?    What kinds of lines do you dislike most?  Can you think of some better solutions than having to wait in lines?
        

         

It's Just a Matter of Time--and I don't mean the song

            Few of us enjoy waiting for things, but the real irony is that we spend our whole lives waiting even though it might not seem at times that we are waiting at all...

Toufoula Dream room , waiting room
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

   
             To be cynical one might say that we are born in order to spend a lifetime waiting to die.  But that is also a realistic point of view.   We all die eventually.   Most of us would likely prefer to stay in life's waiting room for as long as we can.

             A lot of kids might be asking their parents something like, "When is Halloween going to get here?"   When you're a kid a few days can seem like an interminably long time to wait.   A week might as well be an eternity.  A parent's vision of hell might be spending forever with kids wheedling to know when such and such is going to happen. Fortunately I don't recall having that experience with my kids nor in my own childhood.

            I've mostly been patient in my life.  At least on the outside.  There have certainly been those times when my insides were in turmoil from the waiting.  No one could ever tell unless I made a point of letting them know that I was experiencing a problem, but this has been rare in context of my sixty plus years of living. 

           There are times when anticipation for something to come is about the same as being on the edge of a cliff with someone bigger behind me waiting to push me off.  We wait.  I wait for a fall while that bigger entity waits to shove me off into the depths.  No thanks bud because in my life whenever I have been pushed something lifts me back up to start me off anew.  I just have to wait for it all to happen.  It will be okay.

         In my previous post I suggested that knowing where I am is often my most important question to have answered.  However knowing where I am in the span of time might be equally vital information to have and in some cases the main point of interest.

         Knowing when is crucial when making a date or an appointment otherwise people would have a tough time making connections and lord knows that making connections can be difficult as it is.  The "when" is what holidays and milestones are all about.  Without the when there is no history, there is no time. 

        When pigs fly, when all is said and done, or when we reach the end or our rope are all things that might pop up to surprise us or we might see them coming.  "Just you wait and see," comes the empty threat.  "See what?"  I ask.  "You'll know when it happens," from a voice filled with emotion and some tinge of helplessness.

         I wait...

         I wait for the Battle of the Bands which will be coming on Wednesday November 1st right here on Tossing It Out.  And on that same post I will neatly tie in my contribution to the November Insecure Writer's Support Group when the question posed is:  

Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be published?

        Hope you'll be here for that as well as for my Monday special Halloween post--a true story that was part of my life.  It's something that gives me a chill each time I ponder it.  But you'll have to wait for that...

         Today's post and my previous post both hold clues as to my next BOTB song, an old classic from a Broadway show--any ideas?    How old were you when you began to grasp a workable knowledge of times and dates?   If you were a random time traveler which would be most important for you to know initially--the time or the place?

The Time Is Fast Upon Us

        Have you ever thought about how much time you spend thinking about time?   When we're not planning what to do with our time in the future, we are often either pondering what we are doing with our time in the present or ruing about time lost in the past.  The subject of time can be a time consuming paradox. 

STS-133 Discovery rollout (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  The Final Countdown      

      I doubt whether there is anyone who now lives or who has ever lived who has not at some point or another marveled about how quickly time has passed.  That is, anyone who has grasped the concept of time.  When we are small children, before we've learned to tell time for ourselves, we will continually pester our parents with inquiries like "Is it time yet?"   Those special days like Christmas or birthdays will have what seems to be an interminable countdown until they are suddenly here and gone leaving us to look forward to our next big life event.   And so goes our lives.

      And once again for those of us doing the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge begins that final countdown until day one--April 1st, 2017.  This will be the eighth year of the April A to Z event with thousands of bloggers having participated with tens of thousands of A to Z blog posts.  This is rather impressive when you think about it and even more impressive when you consider the amount of time we have individually put into our A to Z posts over the years, not only in the writing of our own posts, but in the reading of many other posts by the bloggers who have participated in past events.

        The first year that I did the A to Z Challenge--it was 2010 with less than 100 bloggers--I figured that I was putting in twelve to fifteen hours per day with blogging.  But that was how I got other bloggers involved and kept still more engaged.  My A to Z time investment that first year paid off big considering the huge numbers who signed up in succeeding years.  Since that first year I've had to cut back on my blogging time, but still I continue to make a sizable investment of time with the Challenge.   Maybe it's crazy, but it's a fun sort of crazy I guess.

        So here we are with just a few more days to go before another A to Z Challenge kicks off.  The time is fast upon us it seems, but then it's somewhat of an illusion.  The pacing of time will be the same as always, but factors of our lives may cause us to feel like the time is going faster.  If you've procrastinated in preparing your posts like I have then you are likely feeling the pressure to get this done.  Where I am in my A to Z preparation is my own fault because I changed my theme with a matter of a few weeks to go. But then that's what makes A to Z a Challenge!

        The time until April 1st is shorter today than it was yesterday or last week, but the time is not going any faster.  The time might seem "fast" upon us, but that's only because there are fewer days.  More properly we should say "The time is short upon us" but that sounds silly I suppose.  The days and hours are closing in as we approach A to Z opening day, but time itself moves indifferently onward.

          If you're participating in the April A to Z, do you have all of your posts finished?   How much time do you normally devote to your blogging activity?    Do you spend more time blogging while preparing for and during the month of April than you do at other times?

          In addition to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, on the 1st and 15th I'll also be participating in the Battle of the Bands which I will combine with my "Time" theme.   If you are interested in joining us in Battle of the Bands (we'd love to have more participants!) then please read about it at the blog of Stephen T McCarthy and let him or me know that you want to join us so we can add your link to the list.  

        Also, my April contribution to the Insecure Writer's Support Group will incorporate a time related theme.  The optional question for #IWSG during April will be related to the A to Z Challenge and reads as follows: 

  Have you taken advantage of the annual A to Z Challenge in terms of marketing, networking, publicity for your book? What were the results? 

  Since I don't have a personal answer for that question I'll be pursuing my own topic, but if this relates to any of you, I'm anxious to hear your answers.

Deja Vu Again! 2014 Edition

        The Deja Vu Blogfest has become an annual event hosted by D.L. Hammons.   This is the time when bloggers can rerun a neglected or favorite blog post from the previous year in hopes that more will see it.  

       Looking over the past year, I realize that much of my blogging has pertained to the Battle of the Bands posts.  You can find these posts by looking at the first and fifteenth of each month on Tossing It Out.   My participation in BOTB has cut back on my visitation stats to some degree though traffic has remained fairly consistent so I'm okay with that for now.  After all I enjoy the Battle of the Bands a great deal and I hope more of you will join me for my upcoming BOTB posts and vote on them.

     However, I did post about other things as well.  My choice for the Deja Vu Blogfest of 2014 is one of my lesser visited posts.  The post I've chosen first appeared on March 17th.  There were actually quite a few comments so many of you might remember this post.  Whether or not you commented then I'll hope you'll enjoy this rerun and leave your thoughts in the comment section.

I Can Hardly Wait Until...

        There used to be this lady who worked at the corporate office of the company for which I worked.  She'd been working there for several years before I started managing the West Coast operation.  She handled things like payroll and accounts receivable and payable.  She would email me frequently when she had a question or a request concerning my office.  Her tag line before her signature was always "Hurry Friday!"

         She was one of those TGIF people who existed for the weekends.  I never understood that philosophy.  Maybe when I was in high school, but not really.  I had favorite TV shows during the week and I did okay going to school.  Didn't care for it all that much, but I very easily tolerated it.

          Still the "can hardly wait" idiom frequently appeared in my language. "I can hardly wait until my vacation" or Christmas or whatever.  I still catch myself saying these types of phrases or even thinking the thoughts.  The truth though is  that I can wait.  I don't want time to hurry any faster than it already does.  I'd like to savor every moment.  Or a least all the good ones.

          I don't really wish such and such a date would hurry and get here.  Life is short and I don't need to make it any shorter.  Even those times when I feel kind of bored.  In reality there's never a legitimate time for boredom as there is something interesting about every situation in every moment of the day.  I think of boredom as a stubborn display to reject what we think we don't want to do.  Or a tedious time as something I know I don't want to do.   The state of boredom is a lie which we begin to believe and if we openly express this lie we become more and more frustrated--or bored.

         But I digress.  My real point is that we--or I and you if you want to--we should savor each  present moment as much as we can.  They fly by so it's difficult to catch a moment, but sometimes time seems to pause--just for a moment to wait to see if I've noticed.

            "TGIF" or  "Hurry Friday!" even on a Monday the lady in our company would end her emails to me.  She still had a whole week ahead.  Every day would be a "Hurry Friday" day except for when it was "Yay! It's Friday!" day.

            You can wait for most things.   Sometimes you might need to go to the bathroom after waiting and there may come a point where you can't wait any longer.  There are things like throwing up    "Blechhhh!" If there's any waiting necessary for that then you can figure that waiting's not gonna happen.

            I wait if I have to.  What choice do I have in those cases?   There's always something to listen to and to look at or at least think about.  Waiting can be a blessing.  Waiting holds options if we choose to see them.     Waiting is not really all that bad.  Besides, once we've reached whatever we are waiting for then there's something else to wait for.

          That's life.  We're all ultimately waiting for something.

           Where do you dislike waiting?   Do you get impatient or unpleasant in any way when you have to wait?    What are you waiting for at this moment?

Related articles

• Are You Chronically Bored?
• Think You're Boring? You Are
• Nonexistent Change
• Chronic Boredom
• The Theory of Relative Boredom

I Can Hardly Wait Until...

BSS77 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        There used to be this lady who worked at the corporate office of the company for which I worked.  She'd been working there for several years before I started managing the West Coast operation.  She handled things like payroll and accounts receivable and payable.  She would email me frequently when she had a question or a request concerning my office.  Her tag line before her signature was always "Hurry Friday!"

         She was one of those TGIF people who existed for the weekends.  I never understood that philosophy.  Maybe when I was in high school, but not really.  I had favorite TV shows during the week and I did okay going to school.  Didn't care for it all that much, but I very easily tolerated it.

          Still the "can hardly wait" idiom frequently appeared in my language. "I can hardly wait until my vacation" or Christmas or whatever.  I still catch myself saying these types of phrases or even thinking the thoughts.  The truth though is  that I can wait.  I don't want time to hurry any faster than it already does.  I'd like to savor every moment.  Or a least all the good ones.

          I don't really wish such and such a date would hurry and get here.  Life is short and I don't need to make it any shorter.  Even those times when I feel kind of bored.  In reality there's never a legitimate time for boredom as there is something interesting about every situation in every moment of the day.  I think of boredom as a stubborn display to reject what we think we don't want to do.  Or a tedious time as something I know I don't want to do.   The state of boredom is a lie which we begin to believe and if we openly express this lie we become more and more frustrated--or bored.

         But I digress.  My real point is that we--or I and you if you want to--we should savor each  present moment as much as we can.  They fly by so it's difficult to catch a moment, but sometimes time seems to pause--just for a moment to wait to see if I've noticed.

            "TGIF" or  "Hurry Friday!" even on a Monday the lady in our company would end her emails to me.  She still had a whole week ahead.  Every day would be a "Hurry Friday" day except for when it was "Yay! It's Friday!" day.

            You can wait for most things.   Sometimes you might need to go to the bathroom after waiting and there may come a point where you can't wait any longer.  There are things like throwing up    "Blechhhh!" If there's any waiting necessary for that then you can figure that waiting's not gonna happen.

            I wait if I have to.  What choice do I have in those cases?   There's always something to listen to and to look at or at least think about.  Waiting can be a blessing.  Waiting holds options if we choose to see them.     Waiting is not really all that bad.  Besides, once we've reached whatever we are waiting for then there's something else to wait for.

          That's life.  We're all ultimately waiting for something.

           Where do you dislike waiting?   Do you get impatient or unpleasant in any way when you have to wait?    What are you waiting for at this moment?

Related articles

• Are You Chronically Bored?
• Think You're Boring? You Are
• Nonexistent Change
• Chronic Boredom
• The Theory of Relative Boredom