The Writer's Poke

My wife and I are leaving for Hawaii on Monday, if the weather cooperates. When my wife and I go on cruises, which is what we're doing on this trip, we often times invite family or friends to go with us. To this point, no one has ever taken us up on the invitation. We went through the motions of inviting my parents, and to our pleasant surprise, they decided to go. :0) And, they've already spent a week in Hawaii thus far. Cross your fingers that we are able to join up with them on Monday as scheduled. On the way back, we'll be stopping in San Francisco for a few days. This is my first time, and quite honestly, I'm starting to get more excited about San Fran than Hawaii. After all, I've been to Hawaii once *yawn* I'm crazy enough to keep the blog going on vacation, so check back in, and I promise to provide regular updates. Taking time off is important, and it's amazing how many people don't take the time (or save the money) to go on a much-needed vacatio...

I promised my top ten, and here it is. This is my Top 10 in the fiction category. 1. Don Quixote – Cervantes 2. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 3. The Canterbury Tales – Chaucer 4. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 5. Crime and Punishment – Dostoyevsky 6. Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain 7. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller 8. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 9. 1984 – George Orwell 10. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe Honorable Mention: Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert Cathedral – Raymond Carver Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston Care to share yours? Send it to me: fish1861@aol.com Don't forget that you can post and compare here, too: http://www.toptenbooks.net/

I don't fear much, but I do fear the dentist. The last time I visited one was in 1998, and I like to tell myself that I have good teeth and don't need regular maintenance . Well, one of my teeth chipped yesterday. Just a little, but it was quite unexpected. It didn't chip to the nerve, but now my tongue won't leave it alone. Will it chip again? What happens if I go on vacation next week and I don't have easy access to a dentist? Be sure to take care of yourself. My wife finally convinced me that we needed to take our cars in every 5,000 miles for preventative maintenance, so why have I been so loathe to taking myself in for my own 5,000 mile check-ups?

"Worrying is not thinking." This is a line that really stood out to me in Jacob Needleman's Time and the Soul . Why do we allow ourselves to get so stressed out? Often times, perhaps we spend more time worrying than we do actually thinking. Worrying focuses on the negative of what might happen. Thinking, however, can lead to an action which will avoid a negative outcome. This isn't necessarily what Needleman's point is in his book, but that's the "truth" I took from it. The book also suggested one "trick" to try. Assume that the event has already occured. Whatever it is you're worried about, just assume it has already happened. As you go through a stressful time, don't worry about it. Just tell yourself that it is happening as it must, and work your way through it. http://www.jacobneedleman.com/Books/timesoul.htm