I am on empty.
I am getting in bed with Blood Meridian and calling it a day after I put on my creams.
How do you refuel?
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Bridge Ladies
When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Betsy Lerner 
Oh, jesus, *not* with Blood Meridian. You’re so highbrow. I get excited when I have a couple of Modern Familys tivoed and there’s wine in the cabinet. Failing that, I’ll Googlestalk my enemies and sip the crappy tequila we bought at Costco 2 years ago, which seems to magically regenerate while we sleep.
What is this blood meridian of which you speak? Also, are the creams emollients or drinkable liquids?
Wow, Blood Meridian would keep most folks awake for many nights.
Although I do have many creams.
Solitude. Drinks.
What are these “creams” you speak of? What emollients do top agents use?
LOL
I just wait. My friend Mania will be along soon enough, and I will then have more fuel than I know what to do with. The trick is learning not to play with matches.
Of course I have not the credentials to even comment, but I hope you will look at this book more as a character study or a literary metaphor than an historical novel.
(Me = PollyAnna)
It’s peak citrus season. Mineola tangelos are luscious, they’re easy to peel, and you’ll get a shot of Vitamin C to boot. My trusty hound, Rusty, has an amazing power to energize, calm, or comfort, depending on my needs. And he never wakes me up early in the morning. Good dog!
Different motors take different fuels in different tanks:
As much sleep as I can stand to get, which often seems never enough, but, ’tis enough, ’twill serve.
As healthy a diet as I can eat, though my BMI is in the upper portion of the normal range.
A kilometer walk and a series of stretches every morning, so I don’t completely seize up and fall apart. It’s a different kind of refueling.
Another different kind of refueling is a few tokes off the pipe late on Saturday afternoon, backed by a little music, a little viddy.
And reading, as quality and useful as I can. There’s always more than I could ever read. More fuel than that motor could make use of.
Writing. Every day. Another kind of fuel. Goes into the tank right next to the reading tank.
Other motors. Other fuels. The love my wife and I share for one another. No fooling. And the affection we feel for our cats, and caring for them. And my day job, my interface with a world only coincidentally literary, accidentally artistic. And email and Facebook and blogs and other Internettishness.
All these motors, all these fuels. A few more I haven’t listed, and won’t. Never thought about it this way until you asked. Good night. Sweet dreams.
YouTube, music, e-mail, other people’s blogs, good books and really odd fanfiction.
Long hot showers, kirtan, drinking water, walks on the beach, getting the hell off the computer and out of the house. Oh, and the occasional binge of Earth, Wind & Fire.
I don’t drink alcohol in bed. I put the sprog to bed then I watch really stupid TV.Sometimes with wine. Sometimes not. If I really need to settle, maybe a movie. Something with Robert Pattinson perhaps. Or Keanu.
I’m a big fan of the mini-indulgence. Tonight it’s a mug of spiced wine in a literary-themed b&b on the stormy Oregon coast. I’m in the Gertrude Stein room. Forgot my creams at home, damn it.
I read your comment last night, Suzy, and was still thinking about it this morning. Sounds perfect.
Thanks, Teri. The hurricane continues to whistle out the Gertrude Stein window. More Steven King-like actually, all that wind and water.I wonder if they serve that spiced wine for breakfast?
Oxygen. A hard ski. Removal of adolescents from my vision. Vin brulé. Peace.
How about wine with a friend you’ve never met? I will be driving Nice to Venice to Florence end of June beginning of July. I will be more than ready to escape the summer crowds. I promise to buy appropriate footwear for the occasion.
That sounds great! Let’s keep in touch. Look forward to some chilled summer wine!
Felt the same the other day and vegged in front of the telly
Elemis Collagen Marine skin healer, an incense stick on the night table, a box of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and this:~ http://tinyurl.com/32pn7zn
Sorry, wasn’t selling you a course. It should have gone to a relaxation audio. Tsk.
Soak in a hot bath.
Me too. And afterwards an icy martini and a crackling hot fire.
When I need to disconnect, I’m with you gals: hot bath followed by cocktail. If I’m already too disconnected, I starting calling my list of friends-since-middle-school and we laugh til we forget we’re grownups.
I perch the cocktail on the ledge of the tub, light a candle, and get in — why wait till afterward?
This sounds like pure heaven, but I’d have to evict the Spanish Armada of rubber duckies first, which is far too much like housework.
Water, wind, waves. A walk through the trees as the east lightens, but the west is dark, the stars still bright.
Ten minutes from now.
Trips to tropical destinations are always my first choice. But when that’s not feasible I:
Turn off the computer
Read self help books
Make major decisions that may or may not get implemented
Usually, at the end of a long, long week, first thing I do when I get home from work is make a gin and tonic. Then I watch an hour of Judge Judy. Next, I try to find something to criticize. Last night I told my husband that it’s just plain wrong for him to say “oh” when he means “zero”, for instance in telephone numbers. Nobody’s telephone number has an “oh” in it for christ sake– it’s a ZERO damn it.
Good thing my husband thinks it’s cute when I get cranky.
Along the bayou this morning, I reconsidered the question.
Sometimes the unexpected enlivens- something that brings a smile, or a laugh and a thought beyond it, or something off the wall.
Sometimes anger does it, but I’m wary of where that fuel will take me.
Bourbon, solitude, the couch, a schlock novel, and either the dog or the cat draped across my feet (last night I had both).
Long walk with the dog at lunch break (cross country skiing if we ever get any friggin’ snow up here in the north country). At bedtime: a few tunes and scales on the guitar, maybe a bowl followed by a shot of Kentucky bourbon, short glass of water and an apple.
I like the specificity. Will other fruit do?
Sure. Peaches come readily to mind. Maybe a pear. Strawberries. Apples it is these days because we bought a couple of pecks before the orchard closed for the season about a month ago. Some bruises, but mostly picked with tender, loving care.
Mmm, apples. Your scenario sounds pretty damn perfect to me, Mike. If we were neighbors you’d have to shoo me off your front porch every night.
version of “Froggy Went A-Courtin'” might very well accomplish that. Either that, or the neighbors calling the cops on us for singing too loud and grinning too large.
Oops. This should start, My guitar version….
Sleep and silence, they are my antidotes. Whenever I see a mother with a newborn my heart breaks for her. Yes, it’s a magical, dazzling, out of this world experience but let’s get real. Sleep deprivation on top of incessant wailing sucks moosecock.
Magical, dazzling and moosecock in the same paragraph. Who’d have thought it possible??
*snort*
I call a good friend of mine, someone who has her feet planted firmly on the ground so that she can kindly, gently, tell me to get my head out of my ass.
Works every time.
Redtube.
Tubegalore for the variety.
Blood Meridian is a little too up tempo for me. I prefer refueling with end-of-the-world fantasies. The Road, for example. Now there’s a narrative that will put a spring in your limp.
I have a writing partner. Although our writing styles are different, we share many other things in common. About once a week we meet at Starbucks and talk about our work, our lives – whatever comes to mind. That usually re-charges my batteries. Mind you, it could be the caffeine…
Otherwise it’s just getting away from the computer and spending time with my family. Making a nice meal, watching TV, reading.
Ahh…the creams.
http://ifyoucantwriteblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/mama-said-thered-be-days-like-this/
Quilt, Kindle, chocolate mousse
I drive to a far-off park, or up to the mountains, and I walk. And walk, and walk. . . Something about the silence and the repetitive rocking motion soothes me, and I like the gradual warmth in my limbs, and the fatigue afterward. It’s sexy and self-indulgent, with no morning-after regrets.
Nothing like a good walk to clear out the cobwebs and untangle a cluttered mind.
You really do need a dog. A big dog.
With a spiked leather collar for multi-purpose fun.
isolation in a padded room with a stack of books or other reading material
Blood Meridian will forever haunt me, as did/does The Road, though dark as No Country For Old Men is, I keep a copy at hand always because it’s still about the greatest example of narrative momentum out there…the compulsion to keep going built in at the sentence level…one sentence propelling you to the next and the next, and it’s not even a great story…
Carbs, my bed, and British people killing each other.
A quiet house, a glass of red, dogs snoring in the corner and a good mystery.
“Blood Meridian,” is wonderful.
I surf to recharge. In the curl of a wave that has traveled thousands of miles before you mount it, the accumulated energy both drives a surfer shoreward and passes through the body, causing an increase in personal energy, awareness, and excitement about the world.
While waiting for that wave, you sit on your board and share nature with the seals, dolphins, otter, lemon sharks (they don’t bite) and other nautical homies. Not only do you recharge, but the perspective adjustment is beyond salubrious.
First person who used that word for it.
food. couch. tv.
Read, if I’ve been writing. Write, if I’ve been reading. Take a longer-than-usual walk. Take a shorter-than-usual walk. Take a different route altogether. Change my Pandora station. Watch a mindless movie. Stretch my back out on my foam roller. Relax and let it pass. Try not to beat myself up that I’m not performing the way I’d like to perform. Listen to other people; see where they are in life. Write a letter. Organize my inbox. Ask myself what I’d rather be doing. Get a pedicure. Glance at the clock to see if it’s an acceptable hour for a drink. Do a crossword. Buy fresh food. Make something new and unexpected. Make something familiar and comforting. Bury my face in my dog’s belly.
And when all else fails, I just hit the reset button and go to sleep.
share some laughs with my friends + loud music + gin tonic + new shoes.
How unlikeable is the Judge and yet you can not stop reading. To refuel I read the books I know and love and Blood Meridian is one of them. Oh the succor of the unsentimental.
I like to sing to old stuff like Cat Stevens, Carla Bonoff, Cris Williamson. Indigo Girls. Yeah.
And watch “Auntie Mame.”
The best fuel I know is seeing my work published and in print, like it just was recently. Fuel for fire, gives me the impetus to keep on trucking. That, and coming here every night. Thanks, Betsy.
My newly-published story!
http://ashejournal.com/index.php?id=344
I read it and liked it.
Thanks a lot, Tulasi! I was thinking of you and hoped you’d get to see it.
No, seriously, are we allowed to flog our work on here? All that carefully drawn subtlety wasted. . .
I didn’t notice any list of rules on the sidebar; rather, we’re encouraged to discuss the complex issues of being a writer, which the story directly addresses.
70’s music, extremely loud. Cat Stevens to BeeGees. James Taylor to Parliment Funkadelics. The louder the better.
I refuel with Irish Cream Liquor and a good movie on CD.
I’m a big fan of McCarthy (his border trilogy is brilliant) and enjoyed no country and the road, but gotta say I didn’t get Blood Meridian. Rather disappointed.