I Can Hear That Whistle Blowing ...

Did you know you can take a cross-country passenger train out of Houston? It's called the Sunset Express.

Yeah, no one else knows either. 

But everybody should, so I wrote about it for The Buzz Magazines. You can see that article here.

Going by train takes longer, doesn't, if you get a sleeper, save you any money, and it generally doesn't arrive on time.

But it's really fun. :)

Mental Maintenance

I once actually read how-to books about housecleaning. My goal, sort of realized, was to figure out the least I could do yet stay in the “normal” range.

I realized I've done the same when it comes to "mental maintenance."

Our minds are not machines, and even if they were, machines need maintenance, too.

Be kind to your mind!

Hokey as these sound, they work.

Keeping a Journal. I've done this since I was 12 years old. Spent a lot of time scribbling away, but the benefits outweigh the costs. It is the best way to learn how to write. And you think through your thoughts.

From the author Julia Cameron, keep a Ta Da List. Write down the things you did do.

Write down 5+ things you are grateful for. Some of mine -- "I'm grateful I'm not her" -- are clearly not in the spirit, but even they work. Any focus on the positive helps.

Meditation: Literally 5 minutes. Just breathe. And it’s not so much clearing your mind as it is simply trying to let your mind be clear. My favorite book on the subject: 10% Happier.

Learn Something Different: I spend about 5 minutes a day using a phone app (Duolingo) to learn a few words of Spanish. I got excited in the supermarket yesterday when I realized the people in front of me were talking about onions (cebollas)!

Exercise ... Particularly yoga ... Exercise helps emotionally as well as physically. Studies show that exercise can be as effective for alleviating depression as medications. The yoga pose half-pigeon, which is done near the end of yoga class and stretches things deep in your hips, seems to dispel stress especially well.

Sleep. It is shocking how much better you can feel simply from getting enough sleep.

To Do Lists

Nutty.

I have ridiculous to-do lists. 

I am trying to be organized.

But even my lists are a mess. A day’s list for me is really several lists written on a Google calendar page. There are arrows, stars, exclamation points. Some things are circled, others underlined, some, but not all, numbered. This is what it’s like inside my head.

Still, I think it helps to write it down.

I work on my own. I often have several long-term projects going with lots of deadlines. And somehow, I managed to become the scheduler for our entire family.

I went through a phase where I read a lot of what my husband calls “productivity porn.” While reading a book about how to be efficient might feel like you are being efficient, spoiler alert, you’re really not.

However, once in a while, I would come across an idea that appealed. I’ve incorporated these into my to-do list, which might explain some of its complexity. I’ve written about this before.

I even read books about how to clean your house (really) and figured out how to do the least amount possible as quickly as possible to avoid ending up on the television show Hoarders.

Interestingly, one of the guys who wrote a book I liked, Tony Schwartz, turns out to be the guy who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal for Donald Trump and is now abjectly sorry.

Another idea I like: Julia Cameron, who wrote a number of books about being creative (I liked her first such book the best), recommends, not a to-do list, but a ta-da list: Think about what you did get done, after you’ve finished your day. More often than not, although I feel like I didn’t do squat, I realize that I did do quite a lot. Yay!

Hey, whatever works.

Favorite Quotations On Writing

Writers, unsurprisingly, come up with the best quotes.

Some of my favorites:

“I hate writing; I love having written.” –Dorothy Parker

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking ….” –Joan Didion

“I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.” –Stephen King

"’The cat sat on the mat’ is not a story. ‘The cat sat on the dog's mat’ is a story.” –John le Carré

“Most grown-up behavior, when you come right down to it, is decidedly second-class. People don’t drive their cars as well, or wash their ears as well, or eat as well, or even play the harmonica as well as they would if they had any sense …[F]or the serious young writer who wants to get published, it is encouraging to know that most of the professional writers out there are push-overs.” –John Gardner, The Art of Fiction

What quotes about writing do you like?

Why Get A Dog

Missy's available, along with a lot of other adorable dogs

and cats, at Friends for Life. 

I have a snoring puppy in my lap.

My daughter and I found her, running scared and skinny, in the street. She is now registered with Friends for Life, a fabulous animal rescue, and we are her foster family.

I have been thinking about people and dogs.

First, don't even get me started on the piece of shit who dumped our puppy off to die alone.

And I understand people sometimes have practical considerations: they live in an apartment and need someone small or they have a child and need someone super-calm.

But so many have crap ideas. They want a "guard dog." A surprising number think a dog should live outside, loose or maybe on a short chain its whole life. Many think having a dog is like owning a doll.

Never had a dog before? Here’s what you need to know:

They do not make your life easier. You will need to run home to let them out. You will be out in the weather with them, even when you don’t feel like it. You need to teach them manners, which, no matter what the TV shows say, is an imperfect process. Even guide dogs, the most highly trained dogs on the planet, have been known to make messes where they shouldn’t. Dogs chew things, tip over garbage cans, tremble under (or preferably in) your bed during thunderstorms. They have personalities and their own ideas.

Don’t get a dog to intimidate people.

Don’t get one to match your decor.

Or to teach your children how onerous it is to be responsible for someone else.

Dogs are innocent beings who just want to love you with their whole heart.

If you think you can hold up your end in that relationship, then get a dog.

Hygiene Lectures

It’s when a professional of some sort gives you very basic advice about how you should do something that you should have, if you weren’t faulty as a human being, been doing all along.

Actually, “hygiene lecture” is short for “dental hygiene lecture,” which is the very first one of these I ever had. As a kid, I had a lot of cavities. I’ve since been told that it was probably because of the shape of my teeth.

But for years, I dreaded, even worse than when she did her “Marathon Man” thing on my gums with her little picky tools, when the dental hygienist would finish, hand me a mirror and proceed to “teach” me how I should be brushing and flossing my teeth.

Of course, I clean my teeth, I wanted to shout. But I didn’t. Just had to sit there and listen.

Hygiene lectures take many forms. Why haven’t you been changing those filters or these batteries? Don’t you know you are supposed to clear out all those cookies on your computer every so many months? And you are supposed to flush out your hot-water heaters every year? When was the last time you changed the oil in your car? Don’t you check your bills every month and call the cable company, the cell phone company, the electric company to see if you can get a better deal?

The A/C company recently came to do its 6-month maintenance on our system. Now, I could have just left everything as is and the guy would have changed all the filters. But right before he arrived, I took out the ladder and changed them all myself.

Because I didn’t want to hear it.

So, I guess hygiene lectures work. :o(