In Jonathan Swift's travel book, Gulliver's Travels, the account of his third voyage, to Lakota, I think, left us with the searing memory of the Struldbrugs, people who never died, immortal but not competent or healthy and deprived of most of their rights. That's another discussion. I'm thinking now of the noise-makers, attendants with flapping balloons who reminded people of what they were saying or doing - something like that. I'm in bed in the early morning (4 a.m.) and I'm not getting up to find my copy of the book. My memory will have to serve for now. I thought of this because I have been making lists and checking Stats Canada for some bits of information and thinking this is NOT a paperless society, except that, considering all we have to remember and file and hang onto, I guess it is. I mean, what if our personal flapping noise-maker had to carry it all for us? So I write noodges to myself everyday. I cling to paper, scribbling on the other side of used copy paper, torn into note-sized pieces, easing my consumption conscience. Others, younger than I and less conscientious (?) carry little electronic pads, the present-day equivalent of the flappers. (I'll look them up, soon.) But then what? You have to follow up on the directives, paperless or not, adding more noodges as you go through the day. I'll make a note of Gulliver's Travels and go back to sleep. I hope.

Arithmetic is not my strong point. If anyone read my blog yesterday you'll have figured out what I did, too late, that my figuring on the time difference was wrong, but my intentions are right on and they work. Now as ever, all I have to do is stick to it, be disciplined. It takes a a lot of discipline to be disciplined, and, like, every day. The thing is, it's hard to be disciplined in all directions at once.You win some, you lose some. You have to choose your priorities, and then you have to choose your uppermost priority and then try to stick to it. And then the sticking points sort of dissolve, or lose their stickum or something. What happens it that I start out strong and get a few things done, and then I sort of fold, spindle and mutilate, by mid-afternoon. I think it was Moss Hart, but it could have been any number of notorious late-sleepers, that nothing important happens before noon, so why get up? I, on the other hand, wish that nothing important happens between noon and three o'clock. After that, a semblance of discipline returns. What time are you going to get up tomorrow?