It happened again. I hit the wall. Today looked like such an easy day after pushing pushing pushing so hard. So what do I do? I stall. I hit the wall. I won’t bother telling you what I didn’t do. I didn’t do nothing.

So,I have to catch up. I found the list of potential blogs I turned up last week as I began my paper chase and I’m going to summarize some of them and leave you to fill in the blanks. They are quite fun.

*Consider the over-medicalization of dying. I read that medical insurance will pay for (usually hopeless) surgery and not for assisted living for the little time left. That’s worth a blog.

*I have been asking people over 60 what they thought was something important they learned within the last ten years. One person gave me what I thought was a surprising answer. She said she learned how to live alone. I learned that so long ago I would never have thought of it. I guess that’s a blog.

*You know the expression “mind-boggling”. I read an expression, “the boggle line”. When do you cross it? At what point does an idea or event cause your mind to boggle? Does one draw the line or is it drawn for one? Who draws it? How do you recognise it? I think perhaps it is a line between what is plausible (possible?) and what is too stupid or unbelievable (impossible?). That would be fun to illustrate.

*Epiphanies. I love epiphanies. I keep coming across them. I have written about them in my (as yet unpublished) book of ageing, but one could go on and on as long as one goes and on. Here’s a nice distinction from travel writer/novelist Paul Theroux (1941): “Happiness is a particular time in a particular place, an epiphany that remains as a consolation and a regret.”

*I get mad at crossword puzzle writers who keep on being MCPs and defining women in stereotypes. “Hag” is always “crone” in their minds, or “witch”. There are far too many disparaging terms for women, many of them mis-or re- interpreted, beginning with gossip. Gossip was originally generic, male or female, and identified a godparent, related by baptism, entitled to talk (or gossip) to the family, but it became idle or salacious or rumoured chat and was attributed to women, who became gossips. Consider also gorgon, ogress, medusa, termagant, harpy, fishwife, virago, battle-axe. It’s all bad press.

*I think I read this somewhere: Few people know how to be old. Given enough time, we’re going to learn. I’m working at it, and giving a hand up.

*Mindfulness. This is very hot right no, not the attitude or practice but the term. You can take a course now in how to be mindful.

mind·ful·ness ˈmīn(d)f(ə)lnəs/ noun 1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. "their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition" 2. a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

I’ve been mindful for a long time now, beginning with the necessity. When my husband died, that’s when I started saying to myself, and to anyone who would listen:

Cherish the moment.

Busy day yesterday, no time for blogging.

I went to a memorial celebration of a life in theatre yesterday afternoon. The introducer called it a celebration-slash-roast. I called it a canonization, albeit a profane one. The profanity came from the deceased,not the mourners. They were just quoting things that had been said to them. I actually workshopped a play once with this much revered mentor. I guess I didn’t pass; no swear words. No production either, for a favourite play (of mine), still never produced, though frequently read and tweaked and semi-staged. Always a bridesmaid, the play, not me.

Maybe I’m an outlier: outlier |ˈaʊtlʌɪə |noun -a person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system: a western outlier in the Andaman archipelago.

New Yorker (and Canadian) writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote his third book titled Outliers: The Story of Success (2008) in which he considers among other ideas the singularity of successful people, and also - more important, actually - the 10,000 Hour Rule, that is, if you work at something for 10,000 hours, you’re bound to be good at it (though not necessarily successful). Remember that joke about the stranger in New York who went up to a person standing at a bus stop, and asked, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” to be met with the answer, “Practice, Practice!”?

Well, I guess I’m not an outlier. I’m singular but not very successful. More of an outsider, I think, still a little kid with her nose pressed against the glass of the candy store. Definitely, an outsider, being two years ahead of my contemporaries in school and being the only kid in my neighbourhood with an absentee father (during World War II; I guess he was younger than his neighbours, and he was a doctor and wanted to help). Then, too, I lived outside the school district where I went to high school, again because of my father; he couldn’t afford to send me to a private school with my peers. Anyway, my singularity gave me a third-person point of view, valuable to a writer, I think.

Maybe I’m a mugwump: mugwump |ˈmʌgwʌmp noun -a person who remains aloof or independent, especially from party politics. (Several friends have accused me of being a-political.)

I remember a more colourful definition: a mugwump is a person who sits on a fence with his mug on one side and his wump on the other.

Anyway, I sat in a theatre yesterday afternoon listening to immensely talented people pay loving, emotional tribute to their mentor, profound, apparently, as well as profane. Well,bless them.

" Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be." (Shakespeare - remember? Ophelia)