The stranger and I had been silently waiting together for a good ten minutes at the bus stop, when he suddenly turned to me and said, ‘Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.’ Before I could reply, he gave me a wink, and sauntered down the street. I don’t know if he came up with that line on his own, but the way he said it made it sound more like a Zen koan than yet another Yogi Berra quip. Read more »

Does this ever happen to you: no sooner do you start a creative project than the thought of all the chores you need to do starts nipping at your mind like a pack of junkyard dogs? Perhaps it’s your day off and you are torn between paying bills, doing laundry, cleaning house and working on your novel or other fun project.

It’s not fair! Unless you can afford a maid, those chores aren’t going to budge, but if you never take time for creative projects, you’re not going to have much fun. It can be a struggle to balance the creative versus the practical aspects of life, which is why I came up with my own method for dealing with this.

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When someone says, “Are you busy Saturday?” what do you see? Have you ever paid attention to the image that appears in your mind’s eye?

For me, the current week is a flat elliptical plane, rather like a pie chart. In my mind’s eye, I am at its axis. I look out at each day and see if there is anything on that particular slice of pie, like a doctor’s appointment, or lunch with friends. The week starts with Monday and proceeds clockwise through the days.

It took me a while to figure out why, however, Saturday and Sunday are twice as big as the other days in my mental image of the week. Read more »