Morning Observations

I had a thought last week and Professor Dan and I have been trying it out...so far, so good. We both lead kind of crazy busy lives, each with completely different obligations and commitments and yet a lot of the same time management issues -- namely finding time to be creative and write. I was getting up reeeally early for a while, and writing for an hour. This worked out well, as I got 2-3 "keeper" songs out of the whole process, which when factored into my usual yearly output of songs...is really great. It upped my stats, so to speak. Then I went to New Mexico to play shows and then I had a birthday and then it was Thanksgiving and then I had a lot of gigs...so I was a tired little monkey with no respect for the early hours of the morning. I am getting back to that place but am not entirely on board with 5:30 AM yet, so in the meantime...Dan and I have started our "morning observations." We're still reading a lot of Hemingway (currently making our way through the Complete Short Stories Of collection), and Ernest is so good at details, and simple, clear description without going on for pages and miles. Every morning we try to observe the nuances of what we do...if most of you all are like me, your morning routines don't vary much. That makes it more challenging to pick out the differences of each day and make note of them and appreciate them. Dan's all about his coffee. Some mornings it tastes better than others. Dan makes Folger's interesting. My parents would be pleased. I'm all about this flock of birds I see on the telephone wires every morning. How long will they be there? Will they trickle away or just all of the sudden one day be gone? Why do some huddle in a clump and what's the deal with the lone birds on the end? Are they grumpy? Are they waiting? Who knows how long we'll continue, but I look forward to it every day. Maybe we'll switch it up to evening some time, but there's enough in the morning to keep me going for a while.