IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
V
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
accountability: a survey: take 2
Okay, scrap that last, it was way too specific; I couldn't even answer the questions. Can we try it free association style? Please? (I'm pretending you just gave me a pitying/resigned/I'm-your-friend-and-you're-looking-so-cute-and-beseeching-so-I'll-say-yes-but-I-secretly-hate-you look.) Goody!
Right, so I say, "accountability," and you say whatever comes into your head.
Ready?
Accountability.
Go.
Right, so I say, "accountability," and you say whatever comes into your head.
Ready?
Accountability.
Go.
to a recalcitrant friend
Dear Mr. Cold Front:
I really must protest your untimely re-arrival in my neighborhood. I understand that you make your circuits throughout most regions of the world on a semi-regular basis, namely, during the late autumn, winter, and early spring seasons, when I find you a most welcome companion. I further understand that you do not actually violate any law of nature in visiting me at the beginning of April; however, your persistent company, this late into the spring season, is becoming increasingly unwelcome.
You must understand that I have many responsibilities and obligations to fulfill which your sudden presence is rendering difficult. As an unmarried individual with gainful employment, I dedicate the majority of my waking hours to my job. This, naturally, requires a great deal of energy and mental focus, which necessitates copious and regular amounts of rest.
The general depression (marked by a decline in productivity) caused by unseasonable weather would, I think, be reason enough in itself for you to vacate the premises, should you pause to consider your effect on those around you. Also, it is beginning to seem that you need a map to direct you to your next stop, which I would think you would find embarrassing. The Canada geese are enough of a laughingstock across the entirety of the North American continent, without lumping you into the mix.
Furthermore, for the past three weeks, all of the aforementioned requirements for a fully productive life have suffered significant depletions due to the poor health of my cat, who has required continual and watchful care, and also due to my chronic headaches.
It is these last for which I hold you most responsible, Mr. Cold Front. Your accompanying frigid winds have often, in my short trips between the door and the car, reduced me to tears due to intense sinus pain. Said pain persists throughout the day, perceived as tight bands wound along my cheekbones and across my temples, and pressing inside my nose. As a result, my concentration has been sharply limited, as well as my energy levels and enjoyment of life.
It is my hope that you will reconsider your venue in this neighborhood and migrate, in a VERY timely fashion, to a more suitable region of the globe. Antarctica, I believe, is looking for residents such as yourself this time of year. I'm sure your particular characteristics would enjoy a more popular status in that climate.
I have appreciated your presence throughout the duration of February, and I look forward to your return in December. (You were a bit late, in 2006. Please feel free to arrive and unpack your bags somewhat closer to December first this year; I'll always have a mug of hot cocoa waiting for you around that time.) But "for all things there is a season," etc. & etc., and it is my understanding that now is the time for fledgling birds, flowers, and sinus drainage.
Wishing you well on your way, and thanking you for your cooperation and understanding,
Sincerely yours,
Sarah
I really must protest your untimely re-arrival in my neighborhood. I understand that you make your circuits throughout most regions of the world on a semi-regular basis, namely, during the late autumn, winter, and early spring seasons, when I find you a most welcome companion. I further understand that you do not actually violate any law of nature in visiting me at the beginning of April; however, your persistent company, this late into the spring season, is becoming increasingly unwelcome.
You must understand that I have many responsibilities and obligations to fulfill which your sudden presence is rendering difficult. As an unmarried individual with gainful employment, I dedicate the majority of my waking hours to my job. This, naturally, requires a great deal of energy and mental focus, which necessitates copious and regular amounts of rest.
The general depression (marked by a decline in productivity) caused by unseasonable weather would, I think, be reason enough in itself for you to vacate the premises, should you pause to consider your effect on those around you. Also, it is beginning to seem that you need a map to direct you to your next stop, which I would think you would find embarrassing. The Canada geese are enough of a laughingstock across the entirety of the North American continent, without lumping you into the mix.
Furthermore, for the past three weeks, all of the aforementioned requirements for a fully productive life have suffered significant depletions due to the poor health of my cat, who has required continual and watchful care, and also due to my chronic headaches.
It is these last for which I hold you most responsible, Mr. Cold Front. Your accompanying frigid winds have often, in my short trips between the door and the car, reduced me to tears due to intense sinus pain. Said pain persists throughout the day, perceived as tight bands wound along my cheekbones and across my temples, and pressing inside my nose. As a result, my concentration has been sharply limited, as well as my energy levels and enjoyment of life.
It is my hope that you will reconsider your venue in this neighborhood and migrate, in a VERY timely fashion, to a more suitable region of the globe. Antarctica, I believe, is looking for residents such as yourself this time of year. I'm sure your particular characteristics would enjoy a more popular status in that climate.
I have appreciated your presence throughout the duration of February, and I look forward to your return in December. (You were a bit late, in 2006. Please feel free to arrive and unpack your bags somewhat closer to December first this year; I'll always have a mug of hot cocoa waiting for you around that time.) But "for all things there is a season," etc. & etc., and it is my understanding that now is the time for fledgling birds, flowers, and sinus drainage.
Wishing you well on your way, and thanking you for your cooperation and understanding,
Sincerely yours,
Sarah
Monday, April 02, 2007
accountability: a survey
So I was talking with my mom yesterday, and the subject of accountability came up. I was surprised to discover that her experience was vastly different from mine.
So I thought I would ask you, friends, Grovers, random readers: If you have had any experience in the church, or in a "churched" environment such as a Christian high school or college campus, with the idea of "accountability partners," what was it like for you?
I have several particular questions in mind:
(1) Did you ever have an accountability partner yourself, or even a series of accountability partners? If so:
a.) Was it a deliberate arrangement, with both parties agreeing to meet on a regular basis to "be accountable to each other," or did it arise naturally out of a mutually supportive friendship?
b.) How did you select your accountability partners?
c.) Did you share similar struggles, or were your personalities, backgrounds and challenges widely different?
d.) How long did each accountability relationship, particularly of the contractual variety, last?
(2) If you didn't participate in this phenomenon, did you observe it in others? What are/were your observations?
(3) Did you find the "accountability partnership" to be a source of encouragement, support, and joy, or a source of discomfort, discouragement, self-judgment, and despair? Did you look forward to your weekly/biweekly/monthly/whatever meetings as a chance to share joys and progress, or dread them as a time of tallying the good against the bad, with the bad usually winning out?
(4) Do you, if you have some experience with the "accountability partnership," fall into the 12-20-year age group, the 21-30, the 31-40, or the 41+?
(5) What was your predominant religious, or, if Christian (as I'm supposing respondents will generally be), denominational background? Was "accountability" widely practiced, taught, or encouraged by your denomination and/or church, or did you experience it from another source?
(6) Was the idea of accountability important in your family life as a child/teenager?
I'll keep my own experiences and opinions, for the moment, to myself, and follow them up after I've heard from a few people. I do hope to hear from some of my fellow GCCers, since this practice seemed pretty widespread there, and I know a lot of us Grovers came from surprisingly variant denominational backgrounds. But I'm also looking for input from as wide a selection of sources as possible, so if you have something to say, please, chime in!
So I thought I would ask you, friends, Grovers, random readers: If you have had any experience in the church, or in a "churched" environment such as a Christian high school or college campus, with the idea of "accountability partners," what was it like for you?
I have several particular questions in mind:
(1) Did you ever have an accountability partner yourself, or even a series of accountability partners? If so:
a.) Was it a deliberate arrangement, with both parties agreeing to meet on a regular basis to "be accountable to each other," or did it arise naturally out of a mutually supportive friendship?
b.) How did you select your accountability partners?
c.) Did you share similar struggles, or were your personalities, backgrounds and challenges widely different?
d.) How long did each accountability relationship, particularly of the contractual variety, last?
(2) If you didn't participate in this phenomenon, did you observe it in others? What are/were your observations?
(3) Did you find the "accountability partnership" to be a source of encouragement, support, and joy, or a source of discomfort, discouragement, self-judgment, and despair? Did you look forward to your weekly/biweekly/monthly/whatever meetings as a chance to share joys and progress, or dread them as a time of tallying the good against the bad, with the bad usually winning out?
(4) Do you, if you have some experience with the "accountability partnership," fall into the 12-20-year age group, the 21-30, the 31-40, or the 41+?
(5) What was your predominant religious, or, if Christian (as I'm supposing respondents will generally be), denominational background? Was "accountability" widely practiced, taught, or encouraged by your denomination and/or church, or did you experience it from another source?
(6) Was the idea of accountability important in your family life as a child/teenager?
I'll keep my own experiences and opinions, for the moment, to myself, and follow them up after I've heard from a few people. I do hope to hear from some of my fellow GCCers, since this practice seemed pretty widespread there, and I know a lot of us Grovers came from surprisingly variant denominational backgrounds. But I'm also looking for input from as wide a selection of sources as possible, so if you have something to say, please, chime in!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
because he turned his ear to me...and new plans
I got a raise yesterday. A substantial one. One that slightly exceeds my salary at the Center (and that's only based on a 35-hour work week). And, since it's hourly, it has potential to be even more.
So, yeah, I cried. In gratitude, and relief. I worked out a new budget -- one that will allow me to pay my bills, live comfortably, pay off my various debts within two years, and save.
I feel...settled. Or on the way to being so.
My summer project: Produce picking! My boss's wife is getting rid of her deep freezer, and giving it to me. (She won't take any money for it. I'm trying to figure out how -- or whether -- to sneak in a "loan to the business," since I help work on the books from time to time. I can do stubborn, too. But I don't want them getting mad at me, and I always have massive conflict about taking gifts, especially when they've done so much for me, and I feel like I have nothing to hand them back and I don't EVER want to look or feel or have them feel like I'm mooching or taking advantage, but I want to just accept the gift if that's what they really want.) I'm pretty sure it will fit and be able to plug into the basement. Hello, strawberries, green beans, cherries, peaches, blueberries, rhubarb, applesauce, and corn! Hello, canned tomatoes! Hello, jam and jelly! Hello, grape juice! These are all the things Mom used to can and freeze when I was a tyke, and it helped us save a lot of money. Plus I plan on learning to master the pie this summer, and when I want pie, I don't want canned pie filling, and I don't want to shell out buku bucks on store-frozen fruit. Gimme the real deal, the locally grown, hand-picked, straight-from-the-mouth-of-summer goodness. And I get to play with other things, like dilly beans and pickles.
I find I'm increasingly restless if I don't have an ongoing Susie Homemaker project to keep me occupied, so I think that one's going to do nicely for this summer, now that my apartment is nearly perfected. It also means I get to buy new kitchen toys (which will fit beautifully into my new sparkling budget): a fruit-and-vegetable strainer and grinder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer, a pressure cooker, a juicer. It'll mean sweltering days laboring over boiling water in the kitchen in August, newspapers spread with peaches all over the basement floor, hot jars of grape juice taking up all my counterspace in the fall. [Lovely sigh of delight.]
But first my landlord needs to get his @$$ in gear and fix the frame of the basement door, which someone attempted to break into a few weeks ago, and which !surprise! hasn't been fixed yet.
Which leads me to my next big project, which will be taking place over the next year, two at the most: buying a house. Yes, folks, I'm ready to put the renter's life down in favor of a mortgage. I'm thinking a small house, with a small upstairs and a small basement, lots of room for Simon to frolic, a yard for light gardening, MY OWN SPACE. No one else's music blasting the soles of my feet through the floor, no one else banging up my stairs at ungodly (or not my) hours, no arguing with or bothering or pestering the landlord to fix in three weeks what can be fixed in three days, no negotiating costs with anyone (I'll have to pay for everything, ulgh, but the responsibility is worth the freedom). MINE. Safer neighborhood. Room to put guests. A couch-sized couch. Dining space. Closet space. Cupboard space. LAUNDRY. My very own piano, waiting for me in my parents' dining room.
So yes, I'm moving up the By-the-Time-I'm-Thirty-One-I-Will-Have Goals considerably (the house was the real biggie; a king-sized bed and a dog will follow naturally), but it's time. Like in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door -- it's time to Deepen. I've been whirling around in my young adulthood in a farandolaic frenzy, and it's been fun, and I've learned a lot...but it's time to Deepen, stop running around, be still, root, unfurl my fronds and become a mitochondria.
I'll probably relocate to Michigan. The housing market in Niles, just north of the Bend, is decently reasonable, it will be nice to deal with taxes from only one state, and I won't have to pay what amounts to a property tax on my car every year like I do in Indiana. Plus in my time in the Midwest I've fallen head-over-heels in love with Michigan (not so much with Indiana). Niles is a big enough town to have all the necessary big stores -- Lowe's, Meijer, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut -- as well as the smaller, quainter shops and markets -- and Niles is close enough to South Bend to merit a trip to the Farmer's Market, visits to friends, etc. But the factors that made South Bend more ideal than Michigan -- namely, proximity to all the "happenin' places" -- don't matter much anymore. I seldom go out; I prefer to visit, or entertain at home, or entertain myself at home and hang out with Simon. I enjoy my quiet life. And if I like it this much, I might as well move to a more scenic location and line a nest that is truly mine, closer to Lake Michigan, fruit picking...and Meg and Phillip. :)
So, yeah, I cried. In gratitude, and relief. I worked out a new budget -- one that will allow me to pay my bills, live comfortably, pay off my various debts within two years, and save.
I feel...settled. Or on the way to being so.
My summer project: Produce picking! My boss's wife is getting rid of her deep freezer, and giving it to me. (She won't take any money for it. I'm trying to figure out how -- or whether -- to sneak in a "loan to the business," since I help work on the books from time to time. I can do stubborn, too. But I don't want them getting mad at me, and I always have massive conflict about taking gifts, especially when they've done so much for me, and I feel like I have nothing to hand them back and I don't EVER want to look or feel or have them feel like I'm mooching or taking advantage, but I want to just accept the gift if that's what they really want.) I'm pretty sure it will fit and be able to plug into the basement. Hello, strawberries, green beans, cherries, peaches, blueberries, rhubarb, applesauce, and corn! Hello, canned tomatoes! Hello, jam and jelly! Hello, grape juice! These are all the things Mom used to can and freeze when I was a tyke, and it helped us save a lot of money. Plus I plan on learning to master the pie this summer, and when I want pie, I don't want canned pie filling, and I don't want to shell out buku bucks on store-frozen fruit. Gimme the real deal, the locally grown, hand-picked, straight-from-the-mouth-of-summer goodness. And I get to play with other things, like dilly beans and pickles.
I find I'm increasingly restless if I don't have an ongoing Susie Homemaker project to keep me occupied, so I think that one's going to do nicely for this summer, now that my apartment is nearly perfected. It also means I get to buy new kitchen toys (which will fit beautifully into my new sparkling budget): a fruit-and-vegetable strainer and grinder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer, a pressure cooker, a juicer. It'll mean sweltering days laboring over boiling water in the kitchen in August, newspapers spread with peaches all over the basement floor, hot jars of grape juice taking up all my counterspace in the fall. [Lovely sigh of delight.]
But first my landlord needs to get his @$$ in gear and fix the frame of the basement door, which someone attempted to break into a few weeks ago, and which !surprise! hasn't been fixed yet.
Which leads me to my next big project, which will be taking place over the next year, two at the most: buying a house. Yes, folks, I'm ready to put the renter's life down in favor of a mortgage. I'm thinking a small house, with a small upstairs and a small basement, lots of room for Simon to frolic, a yard for light gardening, MY OWN SPACE. No one else's music blasting the soles of my feet through the floor, no one else banging up my stairs at ungodly (or not my) hours, no arguing with or bothering or pestering the landlord to fix in three weeks what can be fixed in three days, no negotiating costs with anyone (I'll have to pay for everything, ulgh, but the responsibility is worth the freedom). MINE. Safer neighborhood. Room to put guests. A couch-sized couch. Dining space. Closet space. Cupboard space. LAUNDRY. My very own piano, waiting for me in my parents' dining room.
So yes, I'm moving up the By-the-Time-I'm-Thirty-One-I-Will-Have Goals considerably (the house was the real biggie; a king-sized bed and a dog will follow naturally), but it's time. Like in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door -- it's time to Deepen. I've been whirling around in my young adulthood in a farandolaic frenzy, and it's been fun, and I've learned a lot...but it's time to Deepen, stop running around, be still, root, unfurl my fronds and become a mitochondria.
I'll probably relocate to Michigan. The housing market in Niles, just north of the Bend, is decently reasonable, it will be nice to deal with taxes from only one state, and I won't have to pay what amounts to a property tax on my car every year like I do in Indiana. Plus in my time in the Midwest I've fallen head-over-heels in love with Michigan (not so much with Indiana). Niles is a big enough town to have all the necessary big stores -- Lowe's, Meijer, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut -- as well as the smaller, quainter shops and markets -- and Niles is close enough to South Bend to merit a trip to the Farmer's Market, visits to friends, etc. But the factors that made South Bend more ideal than Michigan -- namely, proximity to all the "happenin' places" -- don't matter much anymore. I seldom go out; I prefer to visit, or entertain at home, or entertain myself at home and hang out with Simon. I enjoy my quiet life. And if I like it this much, I might as well move to a more scenic location and line a nest that is truly mine, closer to Lake Michigan, fruit picking...and Meg and Phillip. :)
Friday, March 30, 2007
i suck at money
Well, it's time to crack back down on the old finances.
Taking a four thousand dollar pay cut from my job at the Center to this one has been harder than I thought, and I'm seeing the difficulty over time. Fortunately my pay now is hourly, so if I put in the work, I get the pay; but I've been wearing myself out and my spending habits still need adjustment.
This week is pay week and I'm going back to the cash-only system -- no more debit card. (Debit card = evil.)
The irritating thing is that I don't go insane and buy things like new cars or expensive clothes...I buy little things, like bedspreads, cupboards, and wooden crates. But they still add up. It just doesn't seem fair. But I have medical bills to pay off -- mine and the gato's -- so there you have it. I'm going to be eating a lot of leftovers, buying fewer groceries, and living simpler...and paying only with cash. And when the weekly cash allowance is gone...tough.
Sigh. Time to go roll up the sleeves...
Taking a four thousand dollar pay cut from my job at the Center to this one has been harder than I thought, and I'm seeing the difficulty over time. Fortunately my pay now is hourly, so if I put in the work, I get the pay; but I've been wearing myself out and my spending habits still need adjustment.
This week is pay week and I'm going back to the cash-only system -- no more debit card. (Debit card = evil.)
The irritating thing is that I don't go insane and buy things like new cars or expensive clothes...I buy little things, like bedspreads, cupboards, and wooden crates. But they still add up. It just doesn't seem fair. But I have medical bills to pay off -- mine and the gato's -- so there you have it. I'm going to be eating a lot of leftovers, buying fewer groceries, and living simpler...and paying only with cash. And when the weekly cash allowance is gone...tough.
Sigh. Time to go roll up the sleeves...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
well, hi there
Yesterday was hot. Blazing hot, after six weeks in the single-digit degrees. Having celebrated the advent of Spring by shaving, I wore a pretty, flowy brown skirt that hits about mid-calf and a flower-print blouse over a tangerine tanktop. After work, I took off the blouse, leaving me in the tank -- modest straps, V-neck with some fun half-ruffling that comes a little low, empire cut -- which, while not in any way immodest, is admittedly on the clingy side. To complete the attire I wore casual open-backed sandals with chunky heels, big dangly bronze earrings with matching necklace, and sunglasses.
So I stopped at a gas station on the way home, one with an open garage attached, which I passed on my way inside, and as I walked in and approached the guy behind the counter, he stepped back and his eyes went enormously wide in a strange combination of delight, appreciation, recognition, and horror -- which I didn't understand until I heard the walkie-talkie in his hand -- presumably connecting him to the garage -- crackle and roar, "OH. MY. GOD."
Looking half-protective and half like he wanted to fall through the floor a few feet, the attendant said into the talkie, "Don't say anything. Mike. Don't--say--ANYTHING." He then proceeded to wait on me in an effusion of demonstrated apology, which I found cute, even offering to throw away the garbage I was digging out of my purse, and as he was ringing me up, he muttered, "I don't want him to say anything."
I thanked him, smiled, and left.
But see, those kinds of experiences always leave me feeling weird. Not so much like a bombshell, but like I've grown a tail or I'm bleeding profusely or there's toilet paper sticking to my back or something I don't know about.
Still, it was funny.
So I stopped at a gas station on the way home, one with an open garage attached, which I passed on my way inside, and as I walked in and approached the guy behind the counter, he stepped back and his eyes went enormously wide in a strange combination of delight, appreciation, recognition, and horror -- which I didn't understand until I heard the walkie-talkie in his hand -- presumably connecting him to the garage -- crackle and roar, "OH. MY. GOD."
Looking half-protective and half like he wanted to fall through the floor a few feet, the attendant said into the talkie, "Don't say anything. Mike. Don't--say--ANYTHING." He then proceeded to wait on me in an effusion of demonstrated apology, which I found cute, even offering to throw away the garbage I was digging out of my purse, and as he was ringing me up, he muttered, "I don't want him to say anything."
I thanked him, smiled, and left.
But see, those kinds of experiences always leave me feeling weird. Not so much like a bombshell, but like I've grown a tail or I'm bleeding profusely or there's toilet paper sticking to my back or something I don't know about.
Still, it was funny.
update
After three consecutive days at the Animal ER (I have now met all the rotating physicians and most of the assistants and they know my cat and my voice), Simon's systems seem to be in mostly working order. He had a urinary blockage, so they had to catheterize and flush him out, and then he wouldn't use the litterbox at all, so last night I had to lock him in my bedroom with the litterbox and a bowl of water until he peed. But this morning he did his business as usual, so I think everything's going to pan out (haha), and now I'm just left to recover from the exhaustion of the headaches and a weekend of no sleep and stress and worry about the cat and the finances.
I've been holding up fairly well under it all -- it's taken me until today to start getting irritable, which is pretty remarkable. Simon has a follow-up with the regular vet on Saturday, and I've been seeing my doctors here in town about the headaches, which continue to a lesser degree, and which we still suppose are mainly sinus-infection-related (nasssty, evil, longlasting sinus infection), so hopefully after a couple of weeks I'll have more or less fully recovered.
In the meantime...damn, I'm tired. I think it's time to do what the Momster suggested awhile back, and switch for the time being to Styrofoam bowls and paper plates, because I just don't freaking have the energy to wash dishes. Sad, very sad.
I've been holding up fairly well under it all -- it's taken me until today to start getting irritable, which is pretty remarkable. Simon has a follow-up with the regular vet on Saturday, and I've been seeing my doctors here in town about the headaches, which continue to a lesser degree, and which we still suppose are mainly sinus-infection-related (nasssty, evil, longlasting sinus infection), so hopefully after a couple of weeks I'll have more or less fully recovered.
In the meantime...damn, I'm tired. I think it's time to do what the Momster suggested awhile back, and switch for the time being to Styrofoam bowls and paper plates, because I just don't freaking have the energy to wash dishes. Sad, very sad.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
blessed be
So, my headaches are better, but now Simon is bad again.
The temporary verdict on the headaches is that it's a sinus infection from January, which I never treated, and which never actually went away. The young, "chill" doctor at the U of M reluctantly prescribed an antibiotic and the strongest dosage of Motrin a human being is capable of consuming (as he said), and the combination has been delightfully, amazingly effective.
Laura and Keith are visiting this weekend (and for some reason, having that extra parking space behind my house for overnight guests -- since the neighbors across the hall don't have a car -- makes me feel like a real grown-up), and we were settling in last night on stomachs burgeoning with good Mexican food to watch some Star Wars when Simon's ear-splitting shrieks cut through the Mos Eisley Cantina music. I called the Animal ER (a number I never really wanted to have saved into my phone) and we packed him up and took him over. Three endless, hot hours later (that place, so freaking cold the last time I visited, was a furnace last night) we left with nothing very conclusive but a few suggestions.
The vet thinks he may have a UTI. The ultrasound revealed no stones in his bladder or kidneys, but his bladder was completely empty, so they couldn't do a urinalysis. So she prescribed an antibiotic anyway. She thinks he may have torn something in his leg or hips (the injury from last time) and it resurfaced because I hung a new cabinet in the kitchen which he figured out how to jump on top of (it's much higher than the top of my head), and he possibly has some early onset arthritis. So she also prescribed an anti-inflammatory. She also wrote a prescription, based upon my reports of his difficulty with urination (because all of his problems, even the pain in his hips, arise when he attempts to use the litterbox), for a medication for urethra spasms (a human medication which I would have to fill at a people pharmacy).
I like this vet because she basically said, This will get you through the weekend until you can see your regular doctor on Monday, which will be Much Cheaper. (It's eighty bucks just for walking through the ER door, plus whatever they do for him.) So I took him home and dosed him up and fell in bed...and woke up to him crying in the litterbox at 8:30 this morning. So I threw on shoes and a jacket and drove to the (completely empty) 24-hour CVS to get the people pills, only to be told by the lazy-ass pharmacist on duty that they wouldn't have it ready until tomorrow, at which point I took the prescription across the street to the 24-hour Walgreens and told THAT pharmacist I was having some trouble getting it filled and needed it today, and he said he could do that, but it would take at least an hour to mix up the dosage, which is totally fine.
So I'm waiting till I can go pick it up, and loving up my little guy, and trying not to plan for the worst (which Laura says is ineffective thinking anyway, because you can never actually prepare for the worst, so it's not worth getting all worked up about), but really it's horrendously stressful to spend all my time at home listening for him to use the litterbox and waiting for him to start crying and growling and licking himself and not being able to do a damn thing to make it better. And he's such a sweetheart too. He never bites, he never holds a grudge, and when it's bad, he comes dragging himself looking for me.
Sigh.
Now, onto something completely unrelated, and that's Star Wars. I was deceived by misleading packaging into buying the version of the originals that I didn't want. I wanted the Originals. The old, campy, filmed-in-somebody's-half-dug-swimming-pool originals. The ones I watched through my childhood, the ones that spawned hundreds of thousands of bad fan fic, the ones my parents went to on dates ("in my beginning is my end"), those ones. So I bought the boxed set that said "the classic movies." I thought "digitally restored and remastered" meant, you know, touched up a little bit.
No, no. It meant full of all the technocrap that George Lucas can't seem to help putting into his stuff. Mr. Worship the Force of Technology. High Priest Sacrifice the Story on the Altar of Special Effects. Captain Forget the Plot, Lookee What I Can Do!
I was all caught up in the hype when the Special Edition Episodes IV-VI came out, like almost everyone else; but it wore off quickly, and in the wake of sharp disappointment in Episodes I-III I haven't been in the mood to watch anything Star Wars until now...and then I wanted to go back to the beginning. To the before. The genesis.
And I couldn't. No, the Tattooine canyon R2-D2 first travels through just had to be changed to look more "alien." The Mos Eisley streets had to be crawling with digital alien rats. The people walking around had to be edited out and replaced by dinosaur-type critters.
Meanwhile there are droids walking around made of garbage cans. And Shop Vacs. And cameras. And clowns. Did we edit those out to make them look cooler? No.
See, and there's where the problem lies. Lucas was so excited to dispense his "original vision" to everyone that he forgot his original effect -- that the true glory of the first Episodes IV-VI lay in their campiness, in their home-done touches, in their "let's use what we have to hand" methodology. Maybe in his head it was all perfect. But if the technology had been able to support his orginal vision, I'm thinking they all would have been as bad as the most recent three, and we'd only be watching them now through the sarcastic lens of Mystery Science Theater. Because the originals had heart. They were campy. Some of the effects were bad. And when you take away that obvious humor -- haha, look, that droid is a garbage can! -- you take away what made the story fun as well as poignant. You take away most of the audience connectivity. And you completely erase the nostalgia.
Which, since he didn't do that entirely -- didn't make over every cheesy effect, every silly puppet -- but only added a few things like rats and dinosaurs and ambulatory Jabbas, he created, instead of something even more glorious and cohesive, something choppy and dissonant. You jump from trash cans and hovercraft races against a blue screen to way too sharp and clear backdrops replete with state-of-the-art, soulless digital aliens about whom you care nothing. And then back again. He made his epic schizophrenic. There's a subjective breakdown in the delivery of the narrative. And it sucks.
So I had to take back the deceptive "classic" version and buy instead the "Limited Edition" version that includes, as a bonus, the original theatrical releases.
So not only is George Lucas a big sellout prostitute to his own imagination, and a big liar on his packaging, he's trying to pretend that the originals never even existed, and hoping to wipe them from the memory of the earth.
Yeah, right.
The temporary verdict on the headaches is that it's a sinus infection from January, which I never treated, and which never actually went away. The young, "chill" doctor at the U of M reluctantly prescribed an antibiotic and the strongest dosage of Motrin a human being is capable of consuming (as he said), and the combination has been delightfully, amazingly effective.
Laura and Keith are visiting this weekend (and for some reason, having that extra parking space behind my house for overnight guests -- since the neighbors across the hall don't have a car -- makes me feel like a real grown-up), and we were settling in last night on stomachs burgeoning with good Mexican food to watch some Star Wars when Simon's ear-splitting shrieks cut through the Mos Eisley Cantina music. I called the Animal ER (a number I never really wanted to have saved into my phone) and we packed him up and took him over. Three endless, hot hours later (that place, so freaking cold the last time I visited, was a furnace last night) we left with nothing very conclusive but a few suggestions.
The vet thinks he may have a UTI. The ultrasound revealed no stones in his bladder or kidneys, but his bladder was completely empty, so they couldn't do a urinalysis. So she prescribed an antibiotic anyway. She thinks he may have torn something in his leg or hips (the injury from last time) and it resurfaced because I hung a new cabinet in the kitchen which he figured out how to jump on top of (it's much higher than the top of my head), and he possibly has some early onset arthritis. So she also prescribed an anti-inflammatory. She also wrote a prescription, based upon my reports of his difficulty with urination (because all of his problems, even the pain in his hips, arise when he attempts to use the litterbox), for a medication for urethra spasms (a human medication which I would have to fill at a people pharmacy).
I like this vet because she basically said, This will get you through the weekend until you can see your regular doctor on Monday, which will be Much Cheaper. (It's eighty bucks just for walking through the ER door, plus whatever they do for him.) So I took him home and dosed him up and fell in bed...and woke up to him crying in the litterbox at 8:30 this morning. So I threw on shoes and a jacket and drove to the (completely empty) 24-hour CVS to get the people pills, only to be told by the lazy-ass pharmacist on duty that they wouldn't have it ready until tomorrow, at which point I took the prescription across the street to the 24-hour Walgreens and told THAT pharmacist I was having some trouble getting it filled and needed it today, and he said he could do that, but it would take at least an hour to mix up the dosage, which is totally fine.
So I'm waiting till I can go pick it up, and loving up my little guy, and trying not to plan for the worst (which Laura says is ineffective thinking anyway, because you can never actually prepare for the worst, so it's not worth getting all worked up about), but really it's horrendously stressful to spend all my time at home listening for him to use the litterbox and waiting for him to start crying and growling and licking himself and not being able to do a damn thing to make it better. And he's such a sweetheart too. He never bites, he never holds a grudge, and when it's bad, he comes dragging himself looking for me.
Sigh.
Now, onto something completely unrelated, and that's Star Wars. I was deceived by misleading packaging into buying the version of the originals that I didn't want. I wanted the Originals. The old, campy, filmed-in-somebody's-half-dug-swimming-pool originals. The ones I watched through my childhood, the ones that spawned hundreds of thousands of bad fan fic, the ones my parents went to on dates ("in my beginning is my end"), those ones. So I bought the boxed set that said "the classic movies." I thought "digitally restored and remastered" meant, you know, touched up a little bit.
No, no. It meant full of all the technocrap that George Lucas can't seem to help putting into his stuff. Mr. Worship the Force of Technology. High Priest Sacrifice the Story on the Altar of Special Effects. Captain Forget the Plot, Lookee What I Can Do!
I was all caught up in the hype when the Special Edition Episodes IV-VI came out, like almost everyone else; but it wore off quickly, and in the wake of sharp disappointment in Episodes I-III I haven't been in the mood to watch anything Star Wars until now...and then I wanted to go back to the beginning. To the before. The genesis.
And I couldn't. No, the Tattooine canyon R2-D2 first travels through just had to be changed to look more "alien." The Mos Eisley streets had to be crawling with digital alien rats. The people walking around had to be edited out and replaced by dinosaur-type critters.
Meanwhile there are droids walking around made of garbage cans. And Shop Vacs. And cameras. And clowns. Did we edit those out to make them look cooler? No.
See, and there's where the problem lies. Lucas was so excited to dispense his "original vision" to everyone that he forgot his original effect -- that the true glory of the first Episodes IV-VI lay in their campiness, in their home-done touches, in their "let's use what we have to hand" methodology. Maybe in his head it was all perfect. But if the technology had been able to support his orginal vision, I'm thinking they all would have been as bad as the most recent three, and we'd only be watching them now through the sarcastic lens of Mystery Science Theater. Because the originals had heart. They were campy. Some of the effects were bad. And when you take away that obvious humor -- haha, look, that droid is a garbage can! -- you take away what made the story fun as well as poignant. You take away most of the audience connectivity. And you completely erase the nostalgia.
Which, since he didn't do that entirely -- didn't make over every cheesy effect, every silly puppet -- but only added a few things like rats and dinosaurs and ambulatory Jabbas, he created, instead of something even more glorious and cohesive, something choppy and dissonant. You jump from trash cans and hovercraft races against a blue screen to way too sharp and clear backdrops replete with state-of-the-art, soulless digital aliens about whom you care nothing. And then back again. He made his epic schizophrenic. There's a subjective breakdown in the delivery of the narrative. And it sucks.
So I had to take back the deceptive "classic" version and buy instead the "Limited Edition" version that includes, as a bonus, the original theatrical releases.
So not only is George Lucas a big sellout prostitute to his own imagination, and a big liar on his packaging, he's trying to pretend that the originals never even existed, and hoping to wipe them from the memory of the earth.
Yeah, right.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
the thorn in my head
The headache is back. I stayed home from work yesterday. My boss's wife is taxiing me up to Ann Arbor today to see about getting a referral to a specialist. These don't seem like normal migraines. I'm wondering if they're somehow psychosomatic, stress- or depression-related, and what can be done to avert them.
I think I need to get back in therapy.
Looks like money's going to get tighter. But that's okay; I need to get better.
Anyway. Looking at a computer screen hurts. I'll keep you posted.
I think I need to get back in therapy.
Looks like money's going to get tighter. But that's okay; I need to get better.
Anyway. Looking at a computer screen hurts. I'll keep you posted.
Monday, March 19, 2007
i will never challenge Monday again
Do you hear that, Monday? I give up. I surrender. I will slink through your corridors with my head meekly down and try to stay out of your way. I will keep my gloves off and my fists tucked in my pockets. I will wear a raincoat and a suit of armor. But I'm out of the boxing ring. You win.
Because my right uppercut is nasty, but Monday's left hook is worse.
Last Monday and the Monday before it were hell. I spent each minute writhing in internal agony. There was definite gnashing of teeth. This one isn't too much better -- after a weekend of nonstop activity (however pleasant, nonstop activity just plumb wears me out) and one missed dose of my antidepressant, I woke up with that never-ending headache and an exhaustion that would drop a bear.
Fortunately my visit to the new doctor went very well. I was favorably impressed with his personable professionalism, his brisk pace, and his apparently instant understanding of my headaches and allergies. I am now on a daily preventative migraine medication, and am armed with a stronger dosage of the as-needed migraine meds I already had (because the bad days will come. I get that; even on an anti-d, I get what I call Bad Head Days), and am going back on my old, beloved, faithful allergy medication that I had to stop taking after college because I had zero/crappy health insurance. Yay!
The phones are ringing off the hook at work, I have no time to get my other tasks accomplished, and everyone who calls has been saving up all their panic over the bad things that happened to them on the weekend to pour into my ear today. Which is fine; a lot of these people have to deal with some serious crap, and I don't mind being a listening ear. It's just hard to do the juggling act.
But I did have it out with my sworn enemy, FedEx (oh yeah -- their incompetence with an auction incident regarding the Center last year was on the list of Bogus Reasons For Letting Me Go -- I spent WEEKS on the phone tracking a Huge Expensive Package that they, oh yes, lost, which became somehow my fault -- because I'm in charge of a nationwide company's royal screwup in losing Muhammad Ali memorabilia in Utah), about an invoice for an item we never shipped. The package was sent from somewhere in Texas to somewhere in Texas (we've never done business with anyone in Texas) by someone who's never worked at my office. And I won that round. So that's a feather in my hide-from-Monday camo cap.
I've been making some huge life decisions this weekend, and I think I'm finally finding some direction in my What Do I Do With My Life dilemma, which has been plaguing me for three years now, so I'm terribly excited about that. It means another year or two in the Bend, and then...possibilities. It also means I'm going to be getting a lot more involved at church, and writing a whole lot more.
And with that teaser, I bid my faithful audience (whoever remains) adieu for the remainder of Monday. I have to put on my Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak and duck out into the hall.
Because my right uppercut is nasty, but Monday's left hook is worse.
Last Monday and the Monday before it were hell. I spent each minute writhing in internal agony. There was definite gnashing of teeth. This one isn't too much better -- after a weekend of nonstop activity (however pleasant, nonstop activity just plumb wears me out) and one missed dose of my antidepressant, I woke up with that never-ending headache and an exhaustion that would drop a bear.
Fortunately my visit to the new doctor went very well. I was favorably impressed with his personable professionalism, his brisk pace, and his apparently instant understanding of my headaches and allergies. I am now on a daily preventative migraine medication, and am armed with a stronger dosage of the as-needed migraine meds I already had (because the bad days will come. I get that; even on an anti-d, I get what I call Bad Head Days), and am going back on my old, beloved, faithful allergy medication that I had to stop taking after college because I had zero/crappy health insurance. Yay!
The phones are ringing off the hook at work, I have no time to get my other tasks accomplished, and everyone who calls has been saving up all their panic over the bad things that happened to them on the weekend to pour into my ear today. Which is fine; a lot of these people have to deal with some serious crap, and I don't mind being a listening ear. It's just hard to do the juggling act.
But I did have it out with my sworn enemy, FedEx (oh yeah -- their incompetence with an auction incident regarding the Center last year was on the list of Bogus Reasons For Letting Me Go -- I spent WEEKS on the phone tracking a Huge Expensive Package that they, oh yes, lost, which became somehow my fault -- because I'm in charge of a nationwide company's royal screwup in losing Muhammad Ali memorabilia in Utah), about an invoice for an item we never shipped. The package was sent from somewhere in Texas to somewhere in Texas (we've never done business with anyone in Texas) by someone who's never worked at my office. And I won that round. So that's a feather in my hide-from-Monday camo cap.
I've been making some huge life decisions this weekend, and I think I'm finally finding some direction in my What Do I Do With My Life dilemma, which has been plaguing me for three years now, so I'm terribly excited about that. It means another year or two in the Bend, and then...possibilities. It also means I'm going to be getting a lot more involved at church, and writing a whole lot more.
And with that teaser, I bid my faithful audience (whoever remains) adieu for the remainder of Monday. I have to put on my Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak and duck out into the hall.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
there aren't enough apples in the world
Why is it so hard to find a good physician?
Let's take a quick survey, shall we?
High school: A crazy woman with an extremely uncomfortable physical presence who never told you what she was doing until she did it (first mammogram = blechy, scary, freaky, etc.).
College: A grumpy volunteer physician who hated his volunteer hours at the college clinic and overprescribed Vicodin for me in the days when I knew nothing about narcotics, thus sparking an unnecessary and terrifying detox period that I had to do on my own. (The stuff is addictive after three DAYS. He prescribed it to me for four WEEKS.)
South Bend Year 1: A series of free clinics (nod to no insurance), most of them actually not all that scary, but run by basically powerless doctors who could barely prescribe antibiotics.
South Bend Year 2: A doctor at a cheap clinic who told me I was bipolar after talking with me for two minutes and sent Mormon missionaries to my door.
South Bend Year 3: A doctor who did everything (chiropractic adjustments on my neck, prescriptions for mild pain relievers that made me sleepy at work) except prescribe a migraine medication...for my migraine.
This last gent isn't all that bad, but he isn't all that great either, and thanks to double-booking bumped me out of my appointment today (his secretary was exceptionally snotty in informing me. Okay, yes, I was late, I got what I deserved, but I didn't deserve that tone of voice. And I object to double-booking on principle). Which I made because the migraine is back. Grr.
So, being the hot-headed, proactive me that I am, I zoomed back to the office in a transmission-roaring rage and found a new family doctor. I see this next specimen on Monday. God only knows if that will be any better, but it's worth a shot.
Finding a good doctor is almost worse than finding a church. (Almost.) You never know what kind of person you'll run into -- a quack, a creep, an asshole, a fool, a blowhard, a megalomaniac, an incompetent -- the list goes on -- but you keep trying in the effort to find SOMEone who can actually help you, and whose staff utilize professionalism.
Of course, as I was informed by the accounts manager at one of the hospitals I'm paying bills for, medicine isn't an exact science. There's a lot of trial and error involved, and I get that. But surely a migraine medication for the worst headache of someone's life isn't too big a diagnostic leap? Particularly after the doctor has informed the patient that ongoing migraine disorder is a common development among women in their twenties?
Anyway. Now I have to check with my insurance to see if they cover the newbie. (They don't cover much of the current guy either.) I hope I wasn't rash. (Har.) I'm tired of being unthrilled with my physicians. The best one I've ever seen, and with whom I'm still a patient, is 3.5 hours away, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; but seeing him and missing an entire day of work just isn't practical unless it's an emergency.
Le sigh.
Let's take a quick survey, shall we?
High school: A crazy woman with an extremely uncomfortable physical presence who never told you what she was doing until she did it (first mammogram = blechy, scary, freaky, etc.).
College: A grumpy volunteer physician who hated his volunteer hours at the college clinic and overprescribed Vicodin for me in the days when I knew nothing about narcotics, thus sparking an unnecessary and terrifying detox period that I had to do on my own. (The stuff is addictive after three DAYS. He prescribed it to me for four WEEKS.)
South Bend Year 1: A series of free clinics (nod to no insurance), most of them actually not all that scary, but run by basically powerless doctors who could barely prescribe antibiotics.
South Bend Year 2: A doctor at a cheap clinic who told me I was bipolar after talking with me for two minutes and sent Mormon missionaries to my door.
South Bend Year 3: A doctor who did everything (chiropractic adjustments on my neck, prescriptions for mild pain relievers that made me sleepy at work) except prescribe a migraine medication...for my migraine.
This last gent isn't all that bad, but he isn't all that great either, and thanks to double-booking bumped me out of my appointment today (his secretary was exceptionally snotty in informing me. Okay, yes, I was late, I got what I deserved, but I didn't deserve that tone of voice. And I object to double-booking on principle). Which I made because the migraine is back. Grr.
So, being the hot-headed, proactive me that I am, I zoomed back to the office in a transmission-roaring rage and found a new family doctor. I see this next specimen on Monday. God only knows if that will be any better, but it's worth a shot.
Finding a good doctor is almost worse than finding a church. (Almost.) You never know what kind of person you'll run into -- a quack, a creep, an asshole, a fool, a blowhard, a megalomaniac, an incompetent -- the list goes on -- but you keep trying in the effort to find SOMEone who can actually help you, and whose staff utilize professionalism.
Of course, as I was informed by the accounts manager at one of the hospitals I'm paying bills for, medicine isn't an exact science. There's a lot of trial and error involved, and I get that. But surely a migraine medication for the worst headache of someone's life isn't too big a diagnostic leap? Particularly after the doctor has informed the patient that ongoing migraine disorder is a common development among women in their twenties?
Anyway. Now I have to check with my insurance to see if they cover the newbie. (They don't cover much of the current guy either.) I hope I wasn't rash. (Har.) I'm tired of being unthrilled with my physicians. The best one I've ever seen, and with whom I'm still a patient, is 3.5 hours away, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; but seeing him and missing an entire day of work just isn't practical unless it's an emergency.
Le sigh.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
one of those weeks
I hate those weeks.
And this one was one of those, especially at work. That week where I didn't really do anything right. Where every beginner's or careless mistake I've made in the past six months came to a boiling head all at once, in the midst of massive hearing and trial preparations that had to be done on top of reorganizing my entire system. Where I worked my ass off and stayed till almost seven o'clock each night and came away feeling like I was rowing against the current and getting nowhere.
Grr.
Top it off with my worries over Simon and the now-glorious migraine pressing down on my skull and it's been great.
But there were a few perks. Like realizing that from time to time that I enjoy the fracturing stress. I was running around finding this and copying that and answering phones and talking to annoying clients and I realized, This is just like theater. Like production week, where the mics are broken and the sound system blows and we run out of man-blush and people are sleeping through their call times. Which made me, in spite of everything, grin. I can get a lot done under pressure. It's the gift of the procrastinator.
And God has always been unreasonably good to me in those times when nothing ought to work out. But a lot of it does. And I tend to be clever, and tenacious, in yanking solutions out of thin air when there isn't any other choice. I got by this week mostly on sheer stubbornness and ridiculous amounts of grace.
And slept eleven hours last night.
I'm exhausted. But since I can't seem to get caught up on the backlog of stacks of papers that need filing, and that one damn letter that never seems to get written, I'm heading into work for a few hours this afternoon, where I can slough around unshowered in a sweatshirt and jeans and ignore the phones and make a huge mess and put it all back together without being at anyone's beck and call. Of course, it's my job to be at everyone's beck and call, and when I'm caught up I don't mind a bit, but at the moment there are things that I desperately need to get done, and I DON'T want to walk in Monday morning to the same chaos I walked out on Friday night.
Screw the headache. Screw the exhaustion. I don't have any plans anyway, and when you're single your job is the one visible thing that gives your life daily meaning, right? And my bosses have been so good to me, and done so much for me, that working hard is the one thing I can do to repay them.
I won't deny that it's a form of self-flagellation. Sometimes the hardest thing about being a Christian is the utter, irrefutable dependence on God's grace. It goes against the human grain. What? My sins, my debts, my flaws, my mistakes are all forgiven? Just like that? (Not that that -- the brutal death of the incarnate God -- is simple. But we can't do anything; He already did it.) And there's nothing I can do to make any of it better myself?
Nope. And sometimes it drives a person crazy. Because we want to fix it, we want to make up for it. We want to atone. But we can't, and like it or not, there it is, the grace on which we stand, and we can't add a single act or deed to it. We can't tip the balance one way or the other. And it's such an incredible gift, we feel guilty for having to accept it continually and unconditionally. Like every day being handed something expensive and amazing that we did nothing for -- a house, a brand-new car, a whole new season's wardrobe from designer outfitters, a four-carat diamond necklace, a state-of-the-art, gleaming grand piano, a fur coat, a pedicure, a gorgeous garden, when you're, at worst, mean, dirty and derelict, and at best just average or mostly decent, and you're looking the giver in the face with your hands loaded with things you didn't even ask for, and saying, But what can I do? And getting, Nothing, I love you, this is for you, as an answer.
And the only thing you can give in return is gratitude, and striving to live a better life, and reaching out in kindness and protectiveness to others. Passing on the jewels, as it were: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Maybe that's the root of my feverish ambition to get the office organized this weekend. Gratitude, and a chance, not to rectify my mistakes, but to clean up some of the mess they left behind, and to prevent them from happening again, since I've been so absolutely, unquestioningly forgiven.
And there's a certain satisfaction in hard labor. You feel it has a purpose. That you're doing something -- cleaning the house you've been given, polishing the necklace, tuning the piano, weeding the garden -- and not just sitting still. You can't earn it, you can't give it back, but you can keep it beautiful, small as the ways might be.
And this one was one of those, especially at work. That week where I didn't really do anything right. Where every beginner's or careless mistake I've made in the past six months came to a boiling head all at once, in the midst of massive hearing and trial preparations that had to be done on top of reorganizing my entire system. Where I worked my ass off and stayed till almost seven o'clock each night and came away feeling like I was rowing against the current and getting nowhere.
Grr.
Top it off with my worries over Simon and the now-glorious migraine pressing down on my skull and it's been great.
But there were a few perks. Like realizing that from time to time that I enjoy the fracturing stress. I was running around finding this and copying that and answering phones and talking to annoying clients and I realized, This is just like theater. Like production week, where the mics are broken and the sound system blows and we run out of man-blush and people are sleeping through their call times. Which made me, in spite of everything, grin. I can get a lot done under pressure. It's the gift of the procrastinator.
And God has always been unreasonably good to me in those times when nothing ought to work out. But a lot of it does. And I tend to be clever, and tenacious, in yanking solutions out of thin air when there isn't any other choice. I got by this week mostly on sheer stubbornness and ridiculous amounts of grace.
And slept eleven hours last night.
I'm exhausted. But since I can't seem to get caught up on the backlog of stacks of papers that need filing, and that one damn letter that never seems to get written, I'm heading into work for a few hours this afternoon, where I can slough around unshowered in a sweatshirt and jeans and ignore the phones and make a huge mess and put it all back together without being at anyone's beck and call. Of course, it's my job to be at everyone's beck and call, and when I'm caught up I don't mind a bit, but at the moment there are things that I desperately need to get done, and I DON'T want to walk in Monday morning to the same chaos I walked out on Friday night.
Screw the headache. Screw the exhaustion. I don't have any plans anyway, and when you're single your job is the one visible thing that gives your life daily meaning, right? And my bosses have been so good to me, and done so much for me, that working hard is the one thing I can do to repay them.
I won't deny that it's a form of self-flagellation. Sometimes the hardest thing about being a Christian is the utter, irrefutable dependence on God's grace. It goes against the human grain. What? My sins, my debts, my flaws, my mistakes are all forgiven? Just like that? (Not that that -- the brutal death of the incarnate God -- is simple. But we can't do anything; He already did it.) And there's nothing I can do to make any of it better myself?
Nope. And sometimes it drives a person crazy. Because we want to fix it, we want to make up for it. We want to atone. But we can't, and like it or not, there it is, the grace on which we stand, and we can't add a single act or deed to it. We can't tip the balance one way or the other. And it's such an incredible gift, we feel guilty for having to accept it continually and unconditionally. Like every day being handed something expensive and amazing that we did nothing for -- a house, a brand-new car, a whole new season's wardrobe from designer outfitters, a four-carat diamond necklace, a state-of-the-art, gleaming grand piano, a fur coat, a pedicure, a gorgeous garden, when you're, at worst, mean, dirty and derelict, and at best just average or mostly decent, and you're looking the giver in the face with your hands loaded with things you didn't even ask for, and saying, But what can I do? And getting, Nothing, I love you, this is for you, as an answer.
And the only thing you can give in return is gratitude, and striving to live a better life, and reaching out in kindness and protectiveness to others. Passing on the jewels, as it were: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Maybe that's the root of my feverish ambition to get the office organized this weekend. Gratitude, and a chance, not to rectify my mistakes, but to clean up some of the mess they left behind, and to prevent them from happening again, since I've been so absolutely, unquestioningly forgiven.
And there's a certain satisfaction in hard labor. You feel it has a purpose. That you're doing something -- cleaning the house you've been given, polishing the necklace, tuning the piano, weeding the garden -- and not just sitting still. You can't earn it, you can't give it back, but you can keep it beautiful, small as the ways might be.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
worse cat story
I had to take Simon to the Animal ER on Monday because he fell on the floor and started shrieking in pain. I usually get a grumpy "mrrwrrr" out of him, but never screaming.
So I took him to the ER, was told something was wrong with his hips, probably wrenched them jumping down from something, and I have to keep him quiet for the rest of the week and if he didn't improve by tonight I'd have to schedule him for X-rays.
Fortunately the meds they gave me to administer to him seem to be working, although I can't imagine he's happy about being locked in my bedroom while I'm at work (with litterbox and water dish, of course). He never holds a grudge, though, the darling.
The only last concern, besides of course "will he heal?" is his excretory system(s). I am again the Monitor of Cat Waste, checking his litterbox obsessively and panning through the litter looking for little nuggets or large clumps that will tell me he's going to be all right. Because if something's wrong with his hips, it's hard for him to, well, squat to get the job done. And he's had urinary blockage before (although they did a partial urinalysis at the ER and said everything looked just fine).
But on the whole he seems to be feeling well and full of his usual vinegar and demands for food.
I hate when something's wrong with him. He's currently my only Life Companion, and he fills my whole day with such indescribable joy. Like when he picks the one spot on the bed that it's most awkward to bend my body around, but no matter how much I shift around or shove my legs under him, he won't move; or when I wake up periodically throughout the night to find him working his way up the bed bit by bit, snuggling down close against my calf or knee or thigh or hip (when he used to HATE close contact with anybody); or when I first hit the alarm and fall back asleep and he knows I'm not getting up, but as soon as my eyes open for real, he's walking all over me, shoving his head in my face, purring so loud I can hear it through the earplugs; or when he tentatively steps onto my lap while I watch TV and, looking like a fish out of water, hunkers down and starts to purr, because he wants to be nearby; or when he thinks he deserves food and I walk right past him and he gets mad and swats my ankles; or when he finds me out of his sight and yowls to know where I am; or when he ambushes me from behind the chair and I KNOW IT'S COMING but he scares the crap out of me anyway, and I shriek, and he struts away all proud of himself with his tail waving, and flops down on the ground to look up at me and his eyes are saying, "See how cute and clever I am?"
Or when he's perfectly happy, and stretches his whole length as far out and back as it will go, and he looks like a big black hairy piece of elbow macaroni, which earned him the nickname Noodle.
Or when he follows me all over the house, and brings his toys into the room where I'm standing, and plays with them there.
Well, he looks all right at the moment. I'm praying, of course, and I know my parents are, too, and my sister is sacrificing chickens, so I'm hoping all will work out the way I'd like. Where he's all healthy, and happy, and his sweet Simon self.
So I took him to the ER, was told something was wrong with his hips, probably wrenched them jumping down from something, and I have to keep him quiet for the rest of the week and if he didn't improve by tonight I'd have to schedule him for X-rays.
Fortunately the meds they gave me to administer to him seem to be working, although I can't imagine he's happy about being locked in my bedroom while I'm at work (with litterbox and water dish, of course). He never holds a grudge, though, the darling.
The only last concern, besides of course "will he heal?" is his excretory system(s). I am again the Monitor of Cat Waste, checking his litterbox obsessively and panning through the litter looking for little nuggets or large clumps that will tell me he's going to be all right. Because if something's wrong with his hips, it's hard for him to, well, squat to get the job done. And he's had urinary blockage before (although they did a partial urinalysis at the ER and said everything looked just fine).
But on the whole he seems to be feeling well and full of his usual vinegar and demands for food.
I hate when something's wrong with him. He's currently my only Life Companion, and he fills my whole day with such indescribable joy. Like when he picks the one spot on the bed that it's most awkward to bend my body around, but no matter how much I shift around or shove my legs under him, he won't move; or when I wake up periodically throughout the night to find him working his way up the bed bit by bit, snuggling down close against my calf or knee or thigh or hip (when he used to HATE close contact with anybody); or when I first hit the alarm and fall back asleep and he knows I'm not getting up, but as soon as my eyes open for real, he's walking all over me, shoving his head in my face, purring so loud I can hear it through the earplugs; or when he tentatively steps onto my lap while I watch TV and, looking like a fish out of water, hunkers down and starts to purr, because he wants to be nearby; or when he thinks he deserves food and I walk right past him and he gets mad and swats my ankles; or when he finds me out of his sight and yowls to know where I am; or when he ambushes me from behind the chair and I KNOW IT'S COMING but he scares the crap out of me anyway, and I shriek, and he struts away all proud of himself with his tail waving, and flops down on the ground to look up at me and his eyes are saying, "See how cute and clever I am?"
Or when he's perfectly happy, and stretches his whole length as far out and back as it will go, and he looks like a big black hairy piece of elbow macaroni, which earned him the nickname Noodle.
Or when he follows me all over the house, and brings his toys into the room where I'm standing, and plays with them there.
Well, he looks all right at the moment. I'm praying, of course, and I know my parents are, too, and my sister is sacrificing chickens, so I'm hoping all will work out the way I'd like. Where he's all healthy, and happy, and his sweet Simon self.
Monday, March 05, 2007
successes
Yesterday I...
1. Successfully made it to church;
2. Successfully made delicious rosemary garlic bread in flowerpots. I was exceedingly relieved, because I fiddled with the recipe, and it came out PERFECTLY. The loaves are very rustic-looking, the crust is so crisp and fine as to melt in your mouth, the texture light and smooth, the flavor subtle but rich;
3. Successfully cleaned my apartment (it's gross when Simon gets up off the floor with particles of whatever all over his fur, although this can be attributed in part to the lurking presence of static, since it hasn't been that long since my last vacuuming);
4. Successfully went to bed relatively early, which was really great considering I had gotten up only twelve hours before.
All right, Monday. Let's circle each other warily and have at it. Watch out. My left uppercut is nasty.
1. Successfully made it to church;
2. Successfully made delicious rosemary garlic bread in flowerpots. I was exceedingly relieved, because I fiddled with the recipe, and it came out PERFECTLY. The loaves are very rustic-looking, the crust is so crisp and fine as to melt in your mouth, the texture light and smooth, the flavor subtle but rich;
3. Successfully cleaned my apartment (it's gross when Simon gets up off the floor with particles of whatever all over his fur, although this can be attributed in part to the lurking presence of static, since it hasn't been that long since my last vacuuming);
4. Successfully went to bed relatively early, which was really great considering I had gotten up only twelve hours before.
All right, Monday. Let's circle each other warily and have at it. Watch out. My left uppercut is nasty.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
unexpected fulfillment
I'm trying an experiment with pancakes. I ran into a woman the other weekend at the Farmer's Market who was selling bits of antiques and pretty junk, and when I saw a gorgeous, heavy cast iron skillet in her stall, I paused to oooh and ahhh appreciatively. She eagerly came around to the front of the stall and started expostulating on the glories of cast iron skillets, with which I just as enthusiastically agreed. "I have a Griswold," I said, "my family's from Erie." "Don't EVER sell that," she said. "They're worth a LOT." She then told me one of her favorite ways to make pancakes is to pour them into a cast iron skillet and bake them in the oven. I've been dying to try it, but pancakes seem somehow opulent for a weekday, so I've been waiting till today. Saturday breakfasts beg for a break from the week's austerity and hurry.
I had to guess at the temperature, so we'll see how it goes. I have the timer set every few minutes so I can check on it. (Seems to be doing okay so far.) I'm hoping this will circumvent my usual charred cinders method of griddle-frying them on the stove; I usually have to air out the apartment when I make pancakes, and it's cold today.
I also decided to make them from scratch using the basic pancake recipe found in The Joy of Cooking.
Anyway. I've been realizing over the last few weeks that I love my job. I've been there seven months now, and instead of getting restless and bored (that was the six-month mark) and continuing in an escalating sense of displacement, I find I'm settling in. My boss's very shy standard poodle, who usually jumps in fright when I enter the room, has come around and now follows me everywhere, begging for attention (and biscuits). My boss and his wife (who is almost the same person as I am, just a few decades older, and who runs the financial aspect of the office) are like family, and we have a lot of delightful conversations throughout the day; there's a lot of joy and joking that spreads around and leavens the focus and stress that comes with the legal field.
And I've been enjoying my duties. When I first took the job, I thought, I'm way too good to be a secretary, but whatever, I've gotta pay the rent. That sensibility persisted for quite some time, but in the last few weeks, I've found myself humming contentedly as I go about making copies and getting people on the phone for my boss. I don't think I'm above it anymore (although I know I could be doing anything I wanted to); I like it.
There's a lot I'm responsible for, and most of it involves making sure my boss's life and daily duties run smoothly. If I'm really good at my job, he's not even aware that I'm doing it, and there's a certain a-ha satisfaction to that. And now that I've been there for awhile and gotten to know his habits, I can anticipate what he wants and have it ready or get it done.
And yes, I make the coffee every day, and deliver it to my boss, his wife, and the clients. (I take orders from some of the clients, which is exasperating but funny; the coffeepot lives upstairs, where the clients can't go, so I have to do all the pouring and stirring and carrying.) This should be stereotypically humiliating, but the great thing is that no one expects me to do it for them; my boss only very infrequently asks me if there's any coffee. Plus it had been so long since I'd had to work with a drip maker that it's been fun adjusting the amount of coffee to the perfect proportion to make an excellent cup. And I do make good coffee. I know it, and everyone says so, and it's fun to showcase my coffee-making skills.
The thing is, I love to help people. I love to make their lives easier in practical, small ways. That's a lot of how we express love in my family -- Dad will make the bed once in awhile, which is Mom's usual task; or Laura or I will stay up late washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen while Mom's in bed so she can come down to sparkles and shine in the morning; Mom will tidy up our rooms or do our laundry when we're visiting; and when we're eating in front of the TV in the living room, if someone gets up to get more food or more water, he or she always extends a general offer to get someone something, or take their plates to the sink. That to me is real caring, and I'd like to perpetuate that in my own family when I have one. Romance in the form of flowers is nice, of course; but I most prefer the little tasks of thoughtfulness that make my day unexpectedly easier.
And since it's almost impossible to do this well outside of a nuclear family (the folks, particularly men, that I've done this sort of thing with have tended to take advantage of it without reciprocating), this job is the perfect outlet for those natural expressions. It helps that I really like my bosses. And they've been so good to me. They advanced my sick time in December when I was Queen of the Killer Headache, they pay me hourly so I get compensation for all the hours I work, they're charming and delightful and fun and take an active interest in my personal wellbeing. Doing my job well and being as helpful as I can is the least I can do.
Is my job prestigious? No, of course not. I'm a secretary. But I'm a pretty, well-dressed, wide-smiling, fun secretary who bonds well with the clientele and has a knack for making even sad or stressed people laugh, and angry people calm down.
And I'm happy. And that matters more to me than anything else.
Pancake verdict: Very promising. I need to play around with the temperature, but on the whole? Mmmmm.
I had to guess at the temperature, so we'll see how it goes. I have the timer set every few minutes so I can check on it. (Seems to be doing okay so far.) I'm hoping this will circumvent my usual charred cinders method of griddle-frying them on the stove; I usually have to air out the apartment when I make pancakes, and it's cold today.
I also decided to make them from scratch using the basic pancake recipe found in The Joy of Cooking.
Anyway. I've been realizing over the last few weeks that I love my job. I've been there seven months now, and instead of getting restless and bored (that was the six-month mark) and continuing in an escalating sense of displacement, I find I'm settling in. My boss's very shy standard poodle, who usually jumps in fright when I enter the room, has come around and now follows me everywhere, begging for attention (and biscuits). My boss and his wife (who is almost the same person as I am, just a few decades older, and who runs the financial aspect of the office) are like family, and we have a lot of delightful conversations throughout the day; there's a lot of joy and joking that spreads around and leavens the focus and stress that comes with the legal field.
And I've been enjoying my duties. When I first took the job, I thought, I'm way too good to be a secretary, but whatever, I've gotta pay the rent. That sensibility persisted for quite some time, but in the last few weeks, I've found myself humming contentedly as I go about making copies and getting people on the phone for my boss. I don't think I'm above it anymore (although I know I could be doing anything I wanted to); I like it.
There's a lot I'm responsible for, and most of it involves making sure my boss's life and daily duties run smoothly. If I'm really good at my job, he's not even aware that I'm doing it, and there's a certain a-ha satisfaction to that. And now that I've been there for awhile and gotten to know his habits, I can anticipate what he wants and have it ready or get it done.
And yes, I make the coffee every day, and deliver it to my boss, his wife, and the clients. (I take orders from some of the clients, which is exasperating but funny; the coffeepot lives upstairs, where the clients can't go, so I have to do all the pouring and stirring and carrying.) This should be stereotypically humiliating, but the great thing is that no one expects me to do it for them; my boss only very infrequently asks me if there's any coffee. Plus it had been so long since I'd had to work with a drip maker that it's been fun adjusting the amount of coffee to the perfect proportion to make an excellent cup. And I do make good coffee. I know it, and everyone says so, and it's fun to showcase my coffee-making skills.
The thing is, I love to help people. I love to make their lives easier in practical, small ways. That's a lot of how we express love in my family -- Dad will make the bed once in awhile, which is Mom's usual task; or Laura or I will stay up late washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen while Mom's in bed so she can come down to sparkles and shine in the morning; Mom will tidy up our rooms or do our laundry when we're visiting; and when we're eating in front of the TV in the living room, if someone gets up to get more food or more water, he or she always extends a general offer to get someone something, or take their plates to the sink. That to me is real caring, and I'd like to perpetuate that in my own family when I have one. Romance in the form of flowers is nice, of course; but I most prefer the little tasks of thoughtfulness that make my day unexpectedly easier.
And since it's almost impossible to do this well outside of a nuclear family (the folks, particularly men, that I've done this sort of thing with have tended to take advantage of it without reciprocating), this job is the perfect outlet for those natural expressions. It helps that I really like my bosses. And they've been so good to me. They advanced my sick time in December when I was Queen of the Killer Headache, they pay me hourly so I get compensation for all the hours I work, they're charming and delightful and fun and take an active interest in my personal wellbeing. Doing my job well and being as helpful as I can is the least I can do.
Is my job prestigious? No, of course not. I'm a secretary. But I'm a pretty, well-dressed, wide-smiling, fun secretary who bonds well with the clientele and has a knack for making even sad or stressed people laugh, and angry people calm down.
And I'm happy. And that matters more to me than anything else.
Pancake verdict: Very promising. I need to play around with the temperature, but on the whole? Mmmmm.
Friday, March 02, 2007
my latest cat story
Simon would be a vegetarian's dream come true.
Now, he will eat meat scraps if he can get them; the other day I had to chase him off the coffee table when I caught him stealing mouthfuls of shredded pork and running into another room with them.
But the cat loves his vegetables.
I knew he had strange, uncatlike tastes to begin with -- he loves a good chickpea or a lick of hummus -- but I was mindboggled last week when, in the process of preparing Thai curry, I knocked a piece of green bell pepper to the floor...and Simon ate it. In fact, he liked it so much that when it kept skidding out from under his chin on the linoleum, he picked it up, carried it to the hallway carpet, and finished it off.
I tried with orange bell pepper last night while I was making a salad. (I don't ever feed him "people food," but if something "accidentally" falls to the floor from the counter while I'm making it, it's fair game.) He loved that even more. The piece fell on the rug next to my feet and he devoured it.
And yet one day I forgot about an entire stick of butter that I'd left on the coffee table, and when I came home it was untouched.
So I know in the future that if I have to leave the room with food on the table, I can peacefully ignore the butter, but I'd better take my salad with me.
Now, he will eat meat scraps if he can get them; the other day I had to chase him off the coffee table when I caught him stealing mouthfuls of shredded pork and running into another room with them.
But the cat loves his vegetables.
I knew he had strange, uncatlike tastes to begin with -- he loves a good chickpea or a lick of hummus -- but I was mindboggled last week when, in the process of preparing Thai curry, I knocked a piece of green bell pepper to the floor...and Simon ate it. In fact, he liked it so much that when it kept skidding out from under his chin on the linoleum, he picked it up, carried it to the hallway carpet, and finished it off.
I tried with orange bell pepper last night while I was making a salad. (I don't ever feed him "people food," but if something "accidentally" falls to the floor from the counter while I'm making it, it's fair game.) He loved that even more. The piece fell on the rug next to my feet and he devoured it.
And yet one day I forgot about an entire stick of butter that I'd left on the coffee table, and when I came home it was untouched.
So I know in the future that if I have to leave the room with food on the table, I can peacefully ignore the butter, but I'd better take my salad with me.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
moneymoneymoney
I was FINALLY under budget this week for groceries. This was even with a few luxury foods, like bacon. (Mmmmm, bacon.)
Of course, with how OVERbudget I was last week, I just might -- might -- even out. I really hate skimping when it comes to good food. And, unlike my childhood years, cooking with the good stuff is expensive. One of our splurges used to be Kraft mac'n'cheese; now homemade mac'n'cheese is the bigwig. Kraft? Three for a dollar.
I'm beginning to rejuvenate my interest in cooking after a month-or-so-long reluctance. Sunday night I experimented with making pita -- the oven wasn't quite hot enough to make them puff-pocketed, but they're still delicious, and go wonderfully with the hummus recipe that I'm always on a quest to perfect. This weekend's project is Welsh clay-pot loaves. I love the idea of bread baked in a flowerpot. The recipe in the book wants chives, parsley, and sage, but I think I'm going with rosemary instead. I've been hungering for a rosemary garlic bread.
Yesterday something interesting happened. I woke up with a bad case of the Mondays, felt inexplicably stressed, anxious, doubtful and depressed, and went to work with a dread of the day...but the foul cloud dissipated as I went about my working tasks.
It's been a long time since going to work made me feel better. And it wasn't like it was a breeze-along day; it was insane. But I enjoyed myself. And was thankful.
And even the snow has morphed from midwinter snows to early spring snows. The difference is palpable. Come on, sunshine!!
Of course, with how OVERbudget I was last week, I just might -- might -- even out. I really hate skimping when it comes to good food. And, unlike my childhood years, cooking with the good stuff is expensive. One of our splurges used to be Kraft mac'n'cheese; now homemade mac'n'cheese is the bigwig. Kraft? Three for a dollar.
I'm beginning to rejuvenate my interest in cooking after a month-or-so-long reluctance. Sunday night I experimented with making pita -- the oven wasn't quite hot enough to make them puff-pocketed, but they're still delicious, and go wonderfully with the hummus recipe that I'm always on a quest to perfect. This weekend's project is Welsh clay-pot loaves. I love the idea of bread baked in a flowerpot. The recipe in the book wants chives, parsley, and sage, but I think I'm going with rosemary instead. I've been hungering for a rosemary garlic bread.
Yesterday something interesting happened. I woke up with a bad case of the Mondays, felt inexplicably stressed, anxious, doubtful and depressed, and went to work with a dread of the day...but the foul cloud dissipated as I went about my working tasks.
It's been a long time since going to work made me feel better. And it wasn't like it was a breeze-along day; it was insane. But I enjoyed myself. And was thankful.
And even the snow has morphed from midwinter snows to early spring snows. The difference is palpable. Come on, sunshine!!
Saturday, February 24, 2007
living with a schizophrenic central heater
My house is old. It doesn't take much to figure that out. My tub is cast iron, claw foot, and enamelled (I LOVE it. My feet when I shower are never cold); the bathroom sink is also cast iron, and the enamel is wearing off in blue streaks near the drain. Valance windows are painted shut over the doors. There's a badly patched hole in my living room wall where a stove used to connect to the chimney. Half of my walls curve up into the ceiling, instead of having sharply delineated corners. It used to be a one-family home.
So it has a central heating system, which no one has converted for the individual apartments. And since the landlord does not live on the premises, the thermostat lives in...the basement. The raw, dirt-piled, half-bricked, bare, creepy uninsulated Michigan basement.
This is a stupid place for a thermostat. Because it's always cold in the basement. So when the thermostat is set to, say, sixty-four, the central heat attempts to heat the basement to sixty-four. The result? I'm tearing off my clothes in my upstairs insulated apartment and sweating like I've just run a marathon because the temperature hits eighty-five or more. And since the basement doesn't have any heat vents opening into it, it never hits sixty-four in the basement. So the fan keeps running, and running, and running. Forty-five minutes at a stretch.
And when I use the stove, or particularly the oven, I pretty much want to get it over with and die of heatstroke.
See, I grew up in a heat-conserving home. We kept the central temperature at sixty-eight in the day; fifty-six at night. So I'm used to sleeping under ten blankets and wriggling into my socks, slippers and robe under the covers before I actually get up because the cold makes the tip of my nose ache and I DON'T want to expose my whole body to instant hypothermia. Now I can sleep under a sheet. And me no likey.
So at the beginning of the winter I sealed off the register in my bedroom with some handy-dandy adhesive foil my landlord gave me. That keeps the bedroom at a fairly reasonable temperature. But the living room has two vents, and last night with the heat from the oven for baking pizzas and all the living room lights on, Meg and Jess and I were enjoying a pleasant summer vacation in the middle of the Sahara.
It continued through the night, so that when I got up this morning and opened my bedroom door I walked into a wall of heat and had to kick off my slippers. I love wearing slippers. So then I got mad and snapped the kitchen vent shut and plunked down cross-legged in the living room in front of the register blasting me with heat from the bowels of hell and sealed it with the foil.
I did all this before even drinking my coffee.
Now the house is beginning to feel deliciously chillier. My toes are cold and in an hour I might even need a sweatshirt.
Of course the inverse of this situation is that when the weather warms up and the basement is at sixty-four, the fan will never kick on. So spring and fall are very very cold indoor seasons at my house.
Ah, the charms. I love it though. There's something delightful in having to outwit and trick your own house at every turn. You have to argue with it. You have to win its respect. It's like a step beyond Man vs. Nature. It's Man vs. House. And, if you have the occasional control-freak tendencies, and you can't tell your neighbors when to turn off their TVs or when not to stomp down the stairs, or you can't find them to tell them to put your patio chair back on the porch, or you have to bite your tongue instead of knocking on their doors and chewing them out for taking up too much parking space in the driveway again, it's a great outlet for some frustration.
So it has a central heating system, which no one has converted for the individual apartments. And since the landlord does not live on the premises, the thermostat lives in...the basement. The raw, dirt-piled, half-bricked, bare, creepy uninsulated Michigan basement.
This is a stupid place for a thermostat. Because it's always cold in the basement. So when the thermostat is set to, say, sixty-four, the central heat attempts to heat the basement to sixty-four. The result? I'm tearing off my clothes in my upstairs insulated apartment and sweating like I've just run a marathon because the temperature hits eighty-five or more. And since the basement doesn't have any heat vents opening into it, it never hits sixty-four in the basement. So the fan keeps running, and running, and running. Forty-five minutes at a stretch.
And when I use the stove, or particularly the oven, I pretty much want to get it over with and die of heatstroke.
See, I grew up in a heat-conserving home. We kept the central temperature at sixty-eight in the day; fifty-six at night. So I'm used to sleeping under ten blankets and wriggling into my socks, slippers and robe under the covers before I actually get up because the cold makes the tip of my nose ache and I DON'T want to expose my whole body to instant hypothermia. Now I can sleep under a sheet. And me no likey.
So at the beginning of the winter I sealed off the register in my bedroom with some handy-dandy adhesive foil my landlord gave me. That keeps the bedroom at a fairly reasonable temperature. But the living room has two vents, and last night with the heat from the oven for baking pizzas and all the living room lights on, Meg and Jess and I were enjoying a pleasant summer vacation in the middle of the Sahara.
It continued through the night, so that when I got up this morning and opened my bedroom door I walked into a wall of heat and had to kick off my slippers. I love wearing slippers. So then I got mad and snapped the kitchen vent shut and plunked down cross-legged in the living room in front of the register blasting me with heat from the bowels of hell and sealed it with the foil.
I did all this before even drinking my coffee.
Now the house is beginning to feel deliciously chillier. My toes are cold and in an hour I might even need a sweatshirt.
Of course the inverse of this situation is that when the weather warms up and the basement is at sixty-four, the fan will never kick on. So spring and fall are very very cold indoor seasons at my house.
Ah, the charms. I love it though. There's something delightful in having to outwit and trick your own house at every turn. You have to argue with it. You have to win its respect. It's like a step beyond Man vs. Nature. It's Man vs. House. And, if you have the occasional control-freak tendencies, and you can't tell your neighbors when to turn off their TVs or when not to stomp down the stairs, or you can't find them to tell them to put your patio chair back on the porch, or you have to bite your tongue instead of knocking on their doors and chewing them out for taking up too much parking space in the driveway again, it's a great outlet for some frustration.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
i will awaken the dawn
[Stretch, yawn, grunt] I did it.
It wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. Of course when you're trying to get to sleep early, you never can -- all sorts of weird noises were happening last night -- dogs barking, Simon knocking things around in the kitchen, the neighbors coming and going, water dripping from the crappy gutter onto the roof outside my window, something scrabbling in the wall next to my bed -- so I finally put in earplugs, and when the alarm went off I was having an unpleasant dream, so it was actually a relief to open my eyes, although I felt my body going unnnnnghh, you want me to do WHAT?
But here I sit, it's nearly seven, I've been moving around for nearly two hours, and it's been marvelous. I had time to sit down and read my Bible and pray (I'm in Luke right now, one of my favorite Gospels, and I love Jesus' heart for women), put away last night's air-dried dishes, write a letter to my sister, make a grocery list, and savor my coffee.
Now I'm going to go play with picture frames. I have to drill holes in a couple of them.
It wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. Of course when you're trying to get to sleep early, you never can -- all sorts of weird noises were happening last night -- dogs barking, Simon knocking things around in the kitchen, the neighbors coming and going, water dripping from the crappy gutter onto the roof outside my window, something scrabbling in the wall next to my bed -- so I finally put in earplugs, and when the alarm went off I was having an unpleasant dream, so it was actually a relief to open my eyes, although I felt my body going unnnnnghh, you want me to do WHAT?
But here I sit, it's nearly seven, I've been moving around for nearly two hours, and it's been marvelous. I had time to sit down and read my Bible and pray (I'm in Luke right now, one of my favorite Gospels, and I love Jesus' heart for women), put away last night's air-dried dishes, write a letter to my sister, make a grocery list, and savor my coffee.
Now I'm going to go play with picture frames. I have to drill holes in a couple of them.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
a season of discipline
My Lenten vows:
1.) Get up every weekday morning at five o'clock.
2.) Spend NO money on anything that does not directly relate to food, bills, or basic necessities. This means I won't be buying, renting, or going to see movies; buying books of any kind; purchasing home improvement gadgets, knick-knacks, or antiques; paying for new music. (That last one is going to hurt -- well, they're all going to hurt, but music is on deck for what I start buying next.) I'm trying to include eating out, although that directly relates to food; I want to exercise more hospitality in having people over to eat fabulous food in my homey apartment.
I'm going to attempt to observe the Lenten season in the no-meat-on-Friday deal as well, which will be an excellent opportunity to prepare some of the mouth-watering fish dishes I've been eyeing out in my various cookbooks but have been too cowardly to attempt.
So I went to the store today and bought a lot of picture frames (hey, people drink a lot on Fat Tuesday, right?) to settle down with. I want a Dali Wall in my bedroom. And that'll be it for awhile.
I guess if I really wanted to hurt myself, I'd start hanging out a lot at Borders and Barnes & Noble; but I'm not THAT ascetic (or that disciplined). I'll just avoid those places like the plague and pretend they never existed, and all of my cookbooks appeared ex nihilo in the kitchen.
1.) Get up every weekday morning at five o'clock.
2.) Spend NO money on anything that does not directly relate to food, bills, or basic necessities. This means I won't be buying, renting, or going to see movies; buying books of any kind; purchasing home improvement gadgets, knick-knacks, or antiques; paying for new music. (That last one is going to hurt -- well, they're all going to hurt, but music is on deck for what I start buying next.) I'm trying to include eating out, although that directly relates to food; I want to exercise more hospitality in having people over to eat fabulous food in my homey apartment.
I'm going to attempt to observe the Lenten season in the no-meat-on-Friday deal as well, which will be an excellent opportunity to prepare some of the mouth-watering fish dishes I've been eyeing out in my various cookbooks but have been too cowardly to attempt.
So I went to the store today and bought a lot of picture frames (hey, people drink a lot on Fat Tuesday, right?) to settle down with. I want a Dali Wall in my bedroom. And that'll be it for awhile.
I guess if I really wanted to hurt myself, I'd start hanging out a lot at Borders and Barnes & Noble; but I'm not THAT ascetic (or that disciplined). I'll just avoid those places like the plague and pretend they never existed, and all of my cookbooks appeared ex nihilo in the kitchen.
Monday, February 19, 2007
picture perfect...and young and restless
No, no, I'm not picture perfect.
But my apartment is. Or nearly so.
I spent all weekend working on the Picture Wall. I've exhausted my supply of attractive antique postcards and cute greeting cards, so on Saturday when out with Meg and Phillip I bought two itsy-bitsy calendars at a remarkable discount, one full of black-and-whites of New York from the 30s/40s, and one full of Van Goghs. I used the black-and-whites to finish the Picture Wall...well, almost finish; I need to hang about three more, but my drill battery died...and hung the Van Goghs in the hallway around a larger Van Gogh already there. It's not like anyone really looks at pictures in the hall -- there's no "step back and appreciate" space -- but you can see it at angles from the living room and entryway, and the effect is nice.
But what is this restlessness? I find it creeps into me every six months or so. There's this inexplicable desire for something new and different, something more, and it's not diminishing with time, this time around. Maybe it's the kid in me rebelling at the laid-out steadfastness of daily routine, when for the first twenty-two years of my life I had new classes every year...or, in college, every semester. And then for the two years after that there was a job change roughly every nine months. And now things are pretty straightforward. I have a nine-to-five. I'm here for awhile. Every week is basically the same.
So I go insane on the weekends with projects at home. I obsess about every little detail in my living space. I even worked up the energy to clean for the first time in forever -- the basics, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping -- but now that that's done I'll probably go all out and start washing the walls, which hasn't been done since I moved in almost two years ago. When I go home tonight I plan to rearrange the wall opposite the Picture Wall to get a little more feng shui out of it.
It's not that I want to go back to school. I don't. I enjoy the routine, I love my bosses, I'm more or less satisfied with my work. But there's something missing.
Of course there is, you might say. It's what you're always clamoring about. You're single.
Well, yes. There's always that. But that doesn't pang quite so badly lately, or else I'm just ignoring it. I had a great date on Friday night, so the awful loneliness eased for a few hours in fun and conversation. And meantime I'm regaining my center in myself.
But something else is missing. My best guess is that I'm bottling up my writing. It's always so easy for me to say, I'm going to do this; but when the "this" is as monumental as overcoming my own fears of rejection and vast inertia toward laziness to send things out for publication, I lag at following through. And I've been working out a lot of stuff, and fixating on my messy apartment, and that's been absorbing my attention.
The good thing is that my Lenten vow is to get up every weekday morning at five. (I know Lenten vows usually involve giving something up -- and I'm giving up later hours and later sleep, and necessarily some social time during the weekdays -- but what I really want to build is discipline, which also ties into the Lenten season and the preparation to observe the passion and the resurrection of Christ who was always disciplined in submission to the Father.) I used to get up absurdly early in high school, and I loved it -- something about sitting in a robe sipping coffee and journalling, reading the Bible, or writing while the earth blinks and begins to open its eyes is calming and invigorating simulataneously. So I'll begin to see some changes in my morning routine, and some time before the wear of the day during which to channel my energy into the craft; and maybe thereby an ease some of that restlessness.
I also need to cultivate a greater involvement in church. I'm hungering for some kind of ministry. I want to do something, not just think about it, or talk about it, or write about it. Fortunately I saw a few opportunities in the church bulletin, so I'm tackling that this week.
Meanwhile I'm making endless lists of things I want to accomplish at home, and trying to make myself file all the papers running loose about the office like a flock of madcap sheep. I hate filing. But it needs to be done, and so I have to do it.
But my apartment is. Or nearly so.
I spent all weekend working on the Picture Wall. I've exhausted my supply of attractive antique postcards and cute greeting cards, so on Saturday when out with Meg and Phillip I bought two itsy-bitsy calendars at a remarkable discount, one full of black-and-whites of New York from the 30s/40s, and one full of Van Goghs. I used the black-and-whites to finish the Picture Wall...well, almost finish; I need to hang about three more, but my drill battery died...and hung the Van Goghs in the hallway around a larger Van Gogh already there. It's not like anyone really looks at pictures in the hall -- there's no "step back and appreciate" space -- but you can see it at angles from the living room and entryway, and the effect is nice.
But what is this restlessness? I find it creeps into me every six months or so. There's this inexplicable desire for something new and different, something more, and it's not diminishing with time, this time around. Maybe it's the kid in me rebelling at the laid-out steadfastness of daily routine, when for the first twenty-two years of my life I had new classes every year...or, in college, every semester. And then for the two years after that there was a job change roughly every nine months. And now things are pretty straightforward. I have a nine-to-five. I'm here for awhile. Every week is basically the same.
So I go insane on the weekends with projects at home. I obsess about every little detail in my living space. I even worked up the energy to clean for the first time in forever -- the basics, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping -- but now that that's done I'll probably go all out and start washing the walls, which hasn't been done since I moved in almost two years ago. When I go home tonight I plan to rearrange the wall opposite the Picture Wall to get a little more feng shui out of it.
It's not that I want to go back to school. I don't. I enjoy the routine, I love my bosses, I'm more or less satisfied with my work. But there's something missing.
Of course there is, you might say. It's what you're always clamoring about. You're single.
Well, yes. There's always that. But that doesn't pang quite so badly lately, or else I'm just ignoring it. I had a great date on Friday night, so the awful loneliness eased for a few hours in fun and conversation. And meantime I'm regaining my center in myself.
But something else is missing. My best guess is that I'm bottling up my writing. It's always so easy for me to say, I'm going to do this; but when the "this" is as monumental as overcoming my own fears of rejection and vast inertia toward laziness to send things out for publication, I lag at following through. And I've been working out a lot of stuff, and fixating on my messy apartment, and that's been absorbing my attention.
The good thing is that my Lenten vow is to get up every weekday morning at five. (I know Lenten vows usually involve giving something up -- and I'm giving up later hours and later sleep, and necessarily some social time during the weekdays -- but what I really want to build is discipline, which also ties into the Lenten season and the preparation to observe the passion and the resurrection of Christ who was always disciplined in submission to the Father.) I used to get up absurdly early in high school, and I loved it -- something about sitting in a robe sipping coffee and journalling, reading the Bible, or writing while the earth blinks and begins to open its eyes is calming and invigorating simulataneously. So I'll begin to see some changes in my morning routine, and some time before the wear of the day during which to channel my energy into the craft; and maybe thereby an ease some of that restlessness.
I also need to cultivate a greater involvement in church. I'm hungering for some kind of ministry. I want to do something, not just think about it, or talk about it, or write about it. Fortunately I saw a few opportunities in the church bulletin, so I'm tackling that this week.
Meanwhile I'm making endless lists of things I want to accomplish at home, and trying to make myself file all the papers running loose about the office like a flock of madcap sheep. I hate filing. But it needs to be done, and so I have to do it.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
i deserve flowers
So Valentine's Day started out wonderfully -- I had the morning off work because of the roads, so I spent it on home improvement in the kitchen. I purchased a pot rack the other week to hang over the stove (and got it half off because it was a display -- which still seems like an astronomical discount, but I wasn't about to complain; quite the opposite: I danced in the car all the way home), and as the darn thing is heavy it's currently sitting on the floor. But since it will be hung soon, this morning I took down the pots and pans that have been hanging on one wall, spackled all the holes (badly, but it was my first try, so what the hey), and washed and screwed in a couple more old crates to use for shelves. The two form a rough "L" shape on the wall, and are now sporting my extra cookbooks, an assortment of tea tins, my recipe box, teapot, loveliest mug, and new ceramic nesting bowls (red, of course). The effect is neat, and I'm so glad to get some extra storage space in my storage-space-challenged kitchen.
Plus using my drill is somehow relaxing, comforting -- like talking while working with an old friend.
The day is beautifully sunny, so I drove in to work with a light heart and light work load.
The only canker in the hedge was when the florist next door brought in an enormous flower arrangement for my boss's wife -- bursting with gorgeous roses of all different colors. Because I'm just as happy to spend the evening at home sipping a glass of White Zin, working in the end pieces of yarn in my knitted blanket, and talking on the phone with Leigh Ann while watching Bones (that's a pretty much perfect evening), but I really, really love roses.
I felt an unexpected wave of blueness surging toward me. And thought, Nope. I'm not going to let it get me. This holiday is ridiculous enough.
And put on my coat, walked next door, and ordered a half-dozen pink and yellow rose arrangement for myself.
They're going to look so pretty when I get home tonight. And (hopefully!) smell delicious.
Then I gave the twelve-year-old kid who lives on the other side of the office a dollar for shoveling snow so he could get his girlfriend of three years a flower. As I told him, "Dude, you've been dating longer than I have!"
But it was totally cute. He's one of those freckled, cowlicked, open-faced, polite, eager to help, do-work-for-money kinds of all-American kids. He looks like he should own some scruffy, rascally dog that follows him everywhere; but he's usually by himself, grinning and earning change to buy things for his mother, who just had a baby. He could easily get himself in trouble, I think, but he's simultaneously delightful.
Yay for flowers.
Plus using my drill is somehow relaxing, comforting -- like talking while working with an old friend.
The day is beautifully sunny, so I drove in to work with a light heart and light work load.
The only canker in the hedge was when the florist next door brought in an enormous flower arrangement for my boss's wife -- bursting with gorgeous roses of all different colors. Because I'm just as happy to spend the evening at home sipping a glass of White Zin, working in the end pieces of yarn in my knitted blanket, and talking on the phone with Leigh Ann while watching Bones (that's a pretty much perfect evening), but I really, really love roses.
I felt an unexpected wave of blueness surging toward me. And thought, Nope. I'm not going to let it get me. This holiday is ridiculous enough.
And put on my coat, walked next door, and ordered a half-dozen pink and yellow rose arrangement for myself.
They're going to look so pretty when I get home tonight. And (hopefully!) smell delicious.
Then I gave the twelve-year-old kid who lives on the other side of the office a dollar for shoveling snow so he could get his girlfriend of three years a flower. As I told him, "Dude, you've been dating longer than I have!"
But it was totally cute. He's one of those freckled, cowlicked, open-faced, polite, eager to help, do-work-for-money kinds of all-American kids. He looks like he should own some scruffy, rascally dog that follows him everywhere; but he's usually by himself, grinning and earning change to buy things for his mother, who just had a baby. He could easily get himself in trouble, I think, but he's simultaneously delightful.
Yay for flowers.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
winter wist
You know what I miss about grade school? Snow days.
Once upon a time the promise of overnight snow showers was like the promise of Christmas: I went to bed with visions of snowmen and mugs of hot chocolate dancing in my head, hoping, just hoping, that when I awoke there would be seven feet of snow on the ground and I’d have to dig tunnels from my doorway just to play outside, and school would blow away on the frozen wind like a shattered icicle.
Of course, my dream of seven or twelve or fifteen feet of snow never came to pass; but still, a good foot or so would get you what you needed: that blessed, unexpected day off, when the school board decided that everyone should play hooky.
And now? I know that the only way I’ll be able to get my own snow day is if there really are seven feet of snow on the ground. I listen to the overnight forecast with great hopes of blizzards, even now, but every morning a few more inches only means an extra twenty minutes of struggle to scrape off and dig out the car, and maneuver it precariously down my drifted driveway before I brave the badly plowed roads to work.
And I need more rest now than I did when I was seven. I’m not around to drive my parents crazy, and I would love the extra time to clean the house and sleep in and take a nap and bake bread and cook something yummy for dinner (I’ve been ravenously in the mood for my mom’s homemade mac and cheese) and watch a movie or two and sip some hot cocoa and burn a few candles and hang out with Simon and enjoy the fell beauty of winter from the warm cozy comfort of my own nest.
The weather is supposed to be baaaaaad tonight, and, ever the optimist, I’m hoping...
Because I’m all stocked up on food, and as long as the power is operative, I’m ready to snuggle in.
Once upon a time the promise of overnight snow showers was like the promise of Christmas: I went to bed with visions of snowmen and mugs of hot chocolate dancing in my head, hoping, just hoping, that when I awoke there would be seven feet of snow on the ground and I’d have to dig tunnels from my doorway just to play outside, and school would blow away on the frozen wind like a shattered icicle.
Of course, my dream of seven or twelve or fifteen feet of snow never came to pass; but still, a good foot or so would get you what you needed: that blessed, unexpected day off, when the school board decided that everyone should play hooky.
And now? I know that the only way I’ll be able to get my own snow day is if there really are seven feet of snow on the ground. I listen to the overnight forecast with great hopes of blizzards, even now, but every morning a few more inches only means an extra twenty minutes of struggle to scrape off and dig out the car, and maneuver it precariously down my drifted driveway before I brave the badly plowed roads to work.
And I need more rest now than I did when I was seven. I’m not around to drive my parents crazy, and I would love the extra time to clean the house and sleep in and take a nap and bake bread and cook something yummy for dinner (I’ve been ravenously in the mood for my mom’s homemade mac and cheese) and watch a movie or two and sip some hot cocoa and burn a few candles and hang out with Simon and enjoy the fell beauty of winter from the warm cozy comfort of my own nest.
The weather is supposed to be baaaaaad tonight, and, ever the optimist, I’m hoping...
Because I’m all stocked up on food, and as long as the power is operative, I’m ready to snuggle in.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
creating is hard
So, I was talking to a friend on the phone this weekend, and we were discussing creativity and art. I quoted (or paraphrased) from Dorothy L. Sayers' The Mind of the Maker, saying, "The first thing -- the very first thing -- we learn about God from the first verses of the Bible is that He's a creator. And, if we are made in His image, that means we're creators too."
On a bigger, broader scale, this means that I'm going to begin more ruthlessly honing my own gifts as a writer to submit articles, fiction, and poetry for publication; but today, I was content simply having gone to church, and came home determined to recreate my apartment, which in the wake of a month of dragging sluggishness has fallen to crap.
But since I actually hate cleaning, I narrowed my eyes at a few large white spaces on the wall that I'm slowly covering with small, cheaply framed photographs and old postcards (and I mean old. Some of them have hit a hundred) and decided to hang a few more.
The problem with cheap picture frames is that most of them, inexplicably, aren't made to hang from walls anymore, but to clutter up flat surfaces; so you have to drill or pick or poke or scrape nail and screw holes (screws for some because I kept running into studs) into the wood or cardboard, and hope you can get the balance right. (My dad spends hours hanging pictures, measuring and drawing lots of x's on the walls in pencil; I have a sort of whimsical approach born of sloth and impatience, and bang the nails in helter-skelter, and pull them out if they don't work the first time. I like trial and error.) I'm also creatively incorporating one corner into the overall effect, and fitting nails in such a way as to allow pictures to hang across the corner, facing out at an angle.
The look is neat, if I do say so myself, but the problem with such precarious hanging situations in the no-wall-holes/balanced-on-nails-in-the-corner frames is that every time you start to pound another nail in, about five pictures come crashing off the walls.
I managed it all right, with a lot of grumping and stubbornness, but it made me think that making a workable, attractive something out of a conglomeration of somethings is hard enough, let alone a unified, diverse, interdependent, beautiful, perfect something out of nothing. Talk about awesome.
And I'll bet Mars didn't keep hitting God in the forehead while He was working on the exact angle for Earth.
On a bigger, broader scale, this means that I'm going to begin more ruthlessly honing my own gifts as a writer to submit articles, fiction, and poetry for publication; but today, I was content simply having gone to church, and came home determined to recreate my apartment, which in the wake of a month of dragging sluggishness has fallen to crap.
But since I actually hate cleaning, I narrowed my eyes at a few large white spaces on the wall that I'm slowly covering with small, cheaply framed photographs and old postcards (and I mean old. Some of them have hit a hundred) and decided to hang a few more.
The problem with cheap picture frames is that most of them, inexplicably, aren't made to hang from walls anymore, but to clutter up flat surfaces; so you have to drill or pick or poke or scrape nail and screw holes (screws for some because I kept running into studs) into the wood or cardboard, and hope you can get the balance right. (My dad spends hours hanging pictures, measuring and drawing lots of x's on the walls in pencil; I have a sort of whimsical approach born of sloth and impatience, and bang the nails in helter-skelter, and pull them out if they don't work the first time. I like trial and error.) I'm also creatively incorporating one corner into the overall effect, and fitting nails in such a way as to allow pictures to hang across the corner, facing out at an angle.
The look is neat, if I do say so myself, but the problem with such precarious hanging situations in the no-wall-holes/balanced-on-nails-in-the-corner frames is that every time you start to pound another nail in, about five pictures come crashing off the walls.
I managed it all right, with a lot of grumping and stubbornness, but it made me think that making a workable, attractive something out of a conglomeration of somethings is hard enough, let alone a unified, diverse, interdependent, beautiful, perfect something out of nothing. Talk about awesome.
And I'll bet Mars didn't keep hitting God in the forehead while He was working on the exact angle for Earth.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Valentine's Day
So Valentine's Day is coming.
I've had violent reactions to the advent of this holiday before. It stops being all cute once you graduate high school -- sure, there are the occasional college sillies where you give your friends valentines and candy hearts, but usually in the face of people who are getting their significant others flowers and dinners out to nice restaurants.
I've done AlternaValentine's before, where a bunch of girls get dressed up and go out to eat somewhere fancy, since no one else is going to take them; and I've done the wearing black bit, and I've done the sitting at home eating too much chocolate and watching some romantic comedy and sniffling. Oo, and last year was viewing a performance of the Vagina Monologues, so I've done the feminist underground thing too.
But this year? I actually feel kind of warm and fuzzy about it. I have no prospects on the horizon, am recovering from the latest attack of bitterness, and will almost certainly be spending V-Day home alone reading Sunshine and sipping a glass of cheap champagne. (Or maybe I'll celebrate by going to see Blood and Chocolate, which I'm told is a wonderful guilty pleasure for the paranormally obsessed).
I think I exhausted my ability to feel jaded and bitter at Christmas, when I had to drive about a thousand miles in a four-day stint just to visit people I'm related to, and had no one in the car with me, and cried because Simon spent Christmas Day at a boarding facility. I broke down then, and haven't been feeling quite that low since.
In fact, some of the nice Valentine's memories have been playing through my head. Don't get excited; none of them have to do with any romantic relationships of my own. But my daddy always got my sister and me a boquet of carnations to put in vases on the table with Mom's roses, and my grandparents always send cards.
But probably the best Valentine's Day happened my sophomore year in college. My roommate at the time and her boyfriend and I hung out together in our teeny dank cave of a dorm room (yay MEP) once in awhile, and at the beginning of the academic year, Erika and James and I were discussing gardening. I didn't have much to contribute to the discussion, really, except for my lovely Midas Touch rosebush which I received as a graduation gift from a high school friend who worked at a greenhouse, and which puts forth enormous yellow roses three times a summer, with a fragrance that haunts with its sweetness. The conversation went on explore roses and other shrubs and flowers, and that was that.
But come Valentine's Day, I got a phone call from the front desk saying there was a boquet for me. Puzzled, I went up to retrieve it...and it was a half-dozen beautifully arranged yellow roses. The card was signed by James.
I ran back to the dorm room and showed Erika, who had her nose buried in her dozen reds from him, and I could barely speak, I was so touched and close to tears. She smiled and said, "He was actually really angry that he couldn't find any Midas Touch roses; these yellows were the best he could do."
So that was my most thoughtful Valentine's Day experience -- when a guy I wasn't even dating remembered my favorite flowers and expressed an act of kindness to a single friend of his.
Sure, I'm sure I'll feel a little blue come Wednesday, but that memory will help tide me over. It's good to remember the agape love, which assuages the absence of eros.
I've had violent reactions to the advent of this holiday before. It stops being all cute once you graduate high school -- sure, there are the occasional college sillies where you give your friends valentines and candy hearts, but usually in the face of people who are getting their significant others flowers and dinners out to nice restaurants.
I've done AlternaValentine's before, where a bunch of girls get dressed up and go out to eat somewhere fancy, since no one else is going to take them; and I've done the wearing black bit, and I've done the sitting at home eating too much chocolate and watching some romantic comedy and sniffling. Oo, and last year was viewing a performance of the Vagina Monologues, so I've done the feminist underground thing too.
But this year? I actually feel kind of warm and fuzzy about it. I have no prospects on the horizon, am recovering from the latest attack of bitterness, and will almost certainly be spending V-Day home alone reading Sunshine and sipping a glass of cheap champagne. (Or maybe I'll celebrate by going to see Blood and Chocolate, which I'm told is a wonderful guilty pleasure for the paranormally obsessed).
I think I exhausted my ability to feel jaded and bitter at Christmas, when I had to drive about a thousand miles in a four-day stint just to visit people I'm related to, and had no one in the car with me, and cried because Simon spent Christmas Day at a boarding facility. I broke down then, and haven't been feeling quite that low since.
In fact, some of the nice Valentine's memories have been playing through my head. Don't get excited; none of them have to do with any romantic relationships of my own. But my daddy always got my sister and me a boquet of carnations to put in vases on the table with Mom's roses, and my grandparents always send cards.
But probably the best Valentine's Day happened my sophomore year in college. My roommate at the time and her boyfriend and I hung out together in our teeny dank cave of a dorm room (yay MEP) once in awhile, and at the beginning of the academic year, Erika and James and I were discussing gardening. I didn't have much to contribute to the discussion, really, except for my lovely Midas Touch rosebush which I received as a graduation gift from a high school friend who worked at a greenhouse, and which puts forth enormous yellow roses three times a summer, with a fragrance that haunts with its sweetness. The conversation went on explore roses and other shrubs and flowers, and that was that.
But come Valentine's Day, I got a phone call from the front desk saying there was a boquet for me. Puzzled, I went up to retrieve it...and it was a half-dozen beautifully arranged yellow roses. The card was signed by James.
I ran back to the dorm room and showed Erika, who had her nose buried in her dozen reds from him, and I could barely speak, I was so touched and close to tears. She smiled and said, "He was actually really angry that he couldn't find any Midas Touch roses; these yellows were the best he could do."
So that was my most thoughtful Valentine's Day experience -- when a guy I wasn't even dating remembered my favorite flowers and expressed an act of kindness to a single friend of his.
Sure, I'm sure I'll feel a little blue come Wednesday, but that memory will help tide me over. It's good to remember the agape love, which assuages the absence of eros.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
winter games
Evidently a favorite winter pasttime in the Midwest is driving around in your municipal vehicle or pickup truck with your plow up.
It's like a Best in Show Exhibition of Cleanest Plow Blades on Most Blocked Roads.
It's like a Best in Show Exhibition of Cleanest Plow Blades on Most Blocked Roads.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
why today was great
1. I got enough sleep, and woke to a warm kitty curled up next to my hip.
2. I purchased a hundred-dollar pot rack (to hang all my pots and skillets above the stove) at half off because it was a display.
3. I talked to Meg and Phillip.
4. I bought Much Ado about Nothing (Kenneth Branagh) and Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann) as a two-pack for ten dollars.
5. I got out of the house to (half)watch the SuperBowl with some awesome girls.
6. It wasn't yesterday.
7. It is no degrees and snowing.
2. I purchased a hundred-dollar pot rack (to hang all my pots and skillets above the stove) at half off because it was a display.
3. I talked to Meg and Phillip.
4. I bought Much Ado about Nothing (Kenneth Branagh) and Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann) as a two-pack for ten dollars.
5. I got out of the house to (half)watch the SuperBowl with some awesome girls.
6. It wasn't yesterday.
7. It is no degrees and snowing.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Sufjan is the glue
Leigh Ann and I discovered late this past summer that we both share an enthrallment with the music of Sufjan Stevens. We tend to go through similar spiritual depressions and doubts, and through the past few months have been listening almost exclusively to, and talking to each other about, this music.
Because this man speaks our language. His album from last July, The Avalanche, was my first exposure. From there I've gone on to buy everything he's done solo – an endless supply of songs upon which to fixate and meditate, and in which to find healing.
His songs tear me apart. The lyrics and instrumental arrangements and vocal ensembles dive past my consciousness and hit me right in that semiotic area of unspeakability. I can't describe exactly what it does to me to listen to him – it calls up a joy so intense it's pain.
One of the sources of his power is his use of repetition. Some of his songs repeat a single cycle of lyrical and musical phrases for three minutes or more, and, far from irritating, it strips away the automaton, the careless listener that evolves from too much casual listening, and forces a sharp confrontation with the music. Repetition does something to the human mind and soul. Some of the Psalms repeat one phrase over and over; hymns have choruses. Repetition is one of the backbones of human understanding.
To use a pop culture reference, the climactic moment of Good Will Hunting underscores the force of repetition to dismantle psychological walls. The first time Will hears, "It's not your fault," he responds with an automatic, "Yeah, I know." The second time, he repeats, "Yeah, I know," but gets agitated saying it. As he continues to hear, "It's not your fault," he gets progressively more upset – because the repetition of that powerful truth pierces through all of the shields he's used since childhood to cope with his abuse and anguish, and brings him face to face with a reality so intense he almost can't bear it, and it calls out the grief and brings him to peace.
That's what Sufjan's music does for me. I've buried a lot of spiritual hurts and damages, have watched them scab and scar over, and have gone on with my life; I came to an intellectual understanding of the forgiveness and love of God; but it was never really healing. The repetition in Sufjan's songs holds me firmly by the chin and directs my face toward God – a God whose love is so persistent and all-consuming as to be terrifying, and whose tenderness brings me back to the simplicity of my identity as His child. And it breaks me down. And holds me together.
It's been a strangely depressing and uplifting winter -- full of violent turns for the good and the bad: spiritual reawakenings, physical illness, amazing resurrections in familial relationships, money troubles; moments of joy, contentment, restlessness, despair. And through it all I keep turning to God, and to Illinois, Greetings from Michigan, Seven Swans, The Avalanche, and Songs for Christmas. (There are two others -- A Sun Came and Enjoy Your Rabbit -- which I have yet to listen to, although I have them; I'm half-afraid to. When I put in one of his albums to hear the first time, I have to put it in first as background, to get accustomed to it, before I'm able to sit down and concentrate on it, because otherwise the power would bowl me over.)
His art taps into the wellspring. And it's terrifically fun to live near the states after which he named two of his albums -- to drive past Ypsilanti, Michigan, to plan trips to the Sleeping Bear dunes, to turn the car toward Chicago. There's a weird visceral connectivity with place.
And, on a more frivolous note, I love hearing the Midwestern dialect in his pronunciation of the short "a" sound. "aa."
*Credit to Leigh Ann for the title of the post.
Because this man speaks our language. His album from last July, The Avalanche, was my first exposure. From there I've gone on to buy everything he's done solo – an endless supply of songs upon which to fixate and meditate, and in which to find healing.
His songs tear me apart. The lyrics and instrumental arrangements and vocal ensembles dive past my consciousness and hit me right in that semiotic area of unspeakability. I can't describe exactly what it does to me to listen to him – it calls up a joy so intense it's pain.
One of the sources of his power is his use of repetition. Some of his songs repeat a single cycle of lyrical and musical phrases for three minutes or more, and, far from irritating, it strips away the automaton, the careless listener that evolves from too much casual listening, and forces a sharp confrontation with the music. Repetition does something to the human mind and soul. Some of the Psalms repeat one phrase over and over; hymns have choruses. Repetition is one of the backbones of human understanding.
To use a pop culture reference, the climactic moment of Good Will Hunting underscores the force of repetition to dismantle psychological walls. The first time Will hears, "It's not your fault," he responds with an automatic, "Yeah, I know." The second time, he repeats, "Yeah, I know," but gets agitated saying it. As he continues to hear, "It's not your fault," he gets progressively more upset – because the repetition of that powerful truth pierces through all of the shields he's used since childhood to cope with his abuse and anguish, and brings him face to face with a reality so intense he almost can't bear it, and it calls out the grief and brings him to peace.
That's what Sufjan's music does for me. I've buried a lot of spiritual hurts and damages, have watched them scab and scar over, and have gone on with my life; I came to an intellectual understanding of the forgiveness and love of God; but it was never really healing. The repetition in Sufjan's songs holds me firmly by the chin and directs my face toward God – a God whose love is so persistent and all-consuming as to be terrifying, and whose tenderness brings me back to the simplicity of my identity as His child. And it breaks me down. And holds me together.
It's been a strangely depressing and uplifting winter -- full of violent turns for the good and the bad: spiritual reawakenings, physical illness, amazing resurrections in familial relationships, money troubles; moments of joy, contentment, restlessness, despair. And through it all I keep turning to God, and to Illinois, Greetings from Michigan, Seven Swans, The Avalanche, and Songs for Christmas. (There are two others -- A Sun Came and Enjoy Your Rabbit -- which I have yet to listen to, although I have them; I'm half-afraid to. When I put in one of his albums to hear the first time, I have to put it in first as background, to get accustomed to it, before I'm able to sit down and concentrate on it, because otherwise the power would bowl me over.)
His art taps into the wellspring. And it's terrifically fun to live near the states after which he named two of his albums -- to drive past Ypsilanti, Michigan, to plan trips to the Sleeping Bear dunes, to turn the car toward Chicago. There's a weird visceral connectivity with place.
And, on a more frivolous note, I love hearing the Midwestern dialect in his pronunciation of the short "a" sound. "aa."
*Credit to Leigh Ann for the title of the post.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Happy Wm Had a Headache Day, everyone!
So I've been caught in a swirl of lethargy and forgot about this grand holiday almost completely; hence the no blogvertisements.
BUT this year WHHD went international! Yes, a dedicated group of people headed up by the incomparable Laura and Glen held their celebrations in the great nation of Canada. It can only go up from here!
If you forgot to celebrate last night with plenty of toasts and poetry, there's still time! Have a mimosa for breakfast; have a beer at lunch; have a glass of wine with dinner. Or, since those things probably won't give you a headache now, konk yourself on the noggin with an Acme hammer.
Here's to Wm's longwinded verse! Here's to all the poets who followed and proved themselves better! Here's to Murphy's Irish Red and WHHD celebrations in a South Bend blizzard, where the plows only come out once it's stopped snowing!
BUT this year WHHD went international! Yes, a dedicated group of people headed up by the incomparable Laura and Glen held their celebrations in the great nation of Canada. It can only go up from here!
If you forgot to celebrate last night with plenty of toasts and poetry, there's still time! Have a mimosa for breakfast; have a beer at lunch; have a glass of wine with dinner. Or, since those things probably won't give you a headache now, konk yourself on the noggin with an Acme hammer.
Here's to Wm's longwinded verse! Here's to all the poets who followed and proved themselves better! Here's to Murphy's Irish Red and WHHD celebrations in a South Bend blizzard, where the plows only come out once it's stopped snowing!
Monday, January 29, 2007
i don't care what your political affiliations are, this is funny
Saw it with MP on a trek to Grape Road. We laughed for ten minutes.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Reparation
Given time, desires breathe
their final colored lights and flick
to flakes of gray: white unfruitions
scattered on cement.
Hopes’ betrayals peel
from the pale cores of old loves
that, blown, roll into the cracks
of memory to endure
beyond significance.
So the comfort in yearning
is the anticipation of yearning’s
end, when longings no longer
hurt the lungs, but rest
in a film of wet ash
under the breath.
their final colored lights and flick
to flakes of gray: white unfruitions
scattered on cement.
Hopes’ betrayals peel
from the pale cores of old loves
that, blown, roll into the cracks
of memory to endure
beyond significance.
So the comfort in yearning
is the anticipation of yearning’s
end, when longings no longer
hurt the lungs, but rest
in a film of wet ash
under the breath.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Inferences at Bedtime
Faucet water from the iron sink
scalds and freezes lather
from the stripped skin of my face.
A rhythmic cry, a half-sung growl
sound a cacophony of wrath or foreplay
down among the cinder blocks.
In the dark I balance on the toilet
and breathe the clean chemical smell
of snow through the rusted screen.
A cat shadows through the yard.
On the other side of the bathroom wall,
the neighbors’ voices sharpen.
Monday, January 22, 2007
(slightly) broader horizons
So, I joined eHarmony today. There's this really logical, well-thought-out-process as to why. Basically I don't meet anyone new, because my work circle is very small, and the things I enjoy doing most don't involve leaving my apartment; so, in the absence of matchmaking friends and neighbors, if I'm to expand my skyline even a little, I should probably look to the online community, where other people are looking for the same thing I am.
Does this mean I'm writing off and ruling out the guys I already know? Absolutely not. Should one of them ask me out, I would almost certainly accept. (I have this policy, you know. A very liberal one. If a guy isn't unwashed or creepy, and if I don't definitely dislike him -- evidenced by my hesitancy to speak to him -- I say yes to at least a first date. Some that have asked, I've liked a lot; some I've barely known; and "you never know until you try.")
But since, for whatever reason, I haven't been asked out in a long time (and for once I'm not throwing rocks -- you won't find me asking anyone out, although I have the justification of a role that traditionally allows me the right to expect pursuit), I'm opting for a slight expansion of my available selection. I'm not stacking all my eggs in the eHarmony basket; but at least with that service, I know that the men I meet there are looking for a relationship themselves, which makes it potentially a little easier to start one, and you can skip the stage of excruciating existential questioning -- Do I like him? Does he like me? Just because he talks to me, does that mean he's interested? Should I play coy? Should I make the first move? Should I just kill the crush and get it over with? Do I wait for him? How long? Will it ruin the friendship? Blah blah blah -- and move right on to Do we date or not?
So we'll see. No guarantees, no grandiose hopes or plans. Just a new way to meet people I otherwise wouldn't. And hopefully a few funny tales along the way.
Does this mean I'm writing off and ruling out the guys I already know? Absolutely not. Should one of them ask me out, I would almost certainly accept. (I have this policy, you know. A very liberal one. If a guy isn't unwashed or creepy, and if I don't definitely dislike him -- evidenced by my hesitancy to speak to him -- I say yes to at least a first date. Some that have asked, I've liked a lot; some I've barely known; and "you never know until you try.")
But since, for whatever reason, I haven't been asked out in a long time (and for once I'm not throwing rocks -- you won't find me asking anyone out, although I have the justification of a role that traditionally allows me the right to expect pursuit), I'm opting for a slight expansion of my available selection. I'm not stacking all my eggs in the eHarmony basket; but at least with that service, I know that the men I meet there are looking for a relationship themselves, which makes it potentially a little easier to start one, and you can skip the stage of excruciating existential questioning -- Do I like him? Does he like me? Just because he talks to me, does that mean he's interested? Should I play coy? Should I make the first move? Should I just kill the crush and get it over with? Do I wait for him? How long? Will it ruin the friendship? Blah blah blah -- and move right on to Do we date or not?
So we'll see. No guarantees, no grandiose hopes or plans. Just a new way to meet people I otherwise wouldn't. And hopefully a few funny tales along the way.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Ice
I
Oh my heart has
returned to Sister Winter
~Sufjan Stevens
It was fourteen degrees on Wednesday morning. The air was so crisp and dry you could have cracked it with a hammer. I wanted to dance down the crunchy-snow-covered sidewalk on my way to the car, but having awakened disoriented and dizzy (I really can't get away with not sleeping anymore; I'm too far past seventeen), I took it easy on my inner ear and settled for a deep, contented sigh...that set me coughing.
Southern Michigan had an ice storm last weekend, and the drive to work, over the back roads and highways, had me staring arrested out the window so often that it was a good thing those roads are sparsely traveled. The trees glittered like glassworks. All the snow had melted on the ground, so the contrast between the brown-and-yellow stubbled fields and the ice-coated trees limning their edges and covering the low hills almost hurt -- like a good haiku.
Everyone but my parents and sister eyes me like he would a crazy woman for saying I love winter, but it's not a masochistic obsession. I dislike cold toes, wet socks, wind-snatched breath, and icy roads as much as the next person; but what I get from winter more than compensates for the inconveniences and the dangers.
I like that everything hibernates. I like the austerity, the beauty of starkness, the stillness that comes from the snow. It's a time that mandates rest. And it's one of the only times in the turn of the seasons when you can step out anywhere and be truly alone. No one's around, and when you're standing in the middle of a field, or a stand of trees, you're far more alone than you would be in any other season, because nothing around you is growing or dying; everything sleeps. The only active life you might see are a few birds, and their presence underscores the emptiness. It's just you.
So you can walk down the sidewalk, or through a field, or along the river, and soak in the quiet, absorb the stillness of everything around you -- the trees, the snow, the ice, the river. You can be by yourself, and in that solitude you can be yourself.
II
Oh my friends I
apologize
To everything there is a season. The Christmas season this time around was a hard one. Illness, loneliness, a yawning sense of purposelessness all robbed me of the childlike joy that usually takes over me like a sizzle of static. I did a lot of traveling, and I came back tired. The lack of wintery weather hurt me. I didn't feel that sense of magic, and when January wore on without a hint of snow -- with weather so warm you didn't even need a coat most days -- it bogged down my spirits. It wasn't seasonal. It wasn't right.
So I have been glad for the snow and ice. I may need to get up earlier in the morning to allow for time to put on boots and scrape the crystallized precipitation off my car and let the engine warm up so it doesn't stall out, but something about walking into that shock of cold brings me alive.
I love people. I love to be around them; but cyclically I need to be alone (there's a season for that, too), and winter is exactly that call to solitude that I've been missing. It's a time also to process a lot of the things I've refused to deal with from the past year. While life was busy and the landscape was lush I put everything away, like sweaters into a bin, and now that everything is silent I can dig them out and hold them up and look them over.
When spring comes, I'll be glad of that too, but this is the time for things to be still, and I like the stillness to have a blanket of snow. It's cold, and sharp, and beautiful.
And when the trees are stripped of their leaves, you can see them for what they are -- all of them throwing their branches up to the sky. If you pick out one, just one, while you're driving (or riding with someone in the car; that's probably safer) and watch it as you go past, it seems to spin, with its arms thrown up, like a dancer. In praise.
Oh my heart has
returned to Sister Winter
~Sufjan Stevens
It was fourteen degrees on Wednesday morning. The air was so crisp and dry you could have cracked it with a hammer. I wanted to dance down the crunchy-snow-covered sidewalk on my way to the car, but having awakened disoriented and dizzy (I really can't get away with not sleeping anymore; I'm too far past seventeen), I took it easy on my inner ear and settled for a deep, contented sigh...that set me coughing.
Southern Michigan had an ice storm last weekend, and the drive to work, over the back roads and highways, had me staring arrested out the window so often that it was a good thing those roads are sparsely traveled. The trees glittered like glassworks. All the snow had melted on the ground, so the contrast between the brown-and-yellow stubbled fields and the ice-coated trees limning their edges and covering the low hills almost hurt -- like a good haiku.
Everyone but my parents and sister eyes me like he would a crazy woman for saying I love winter, but it's not a masochistic obsession. I dislike cold toes, wet socks, wind-snatched breath, and icy roads as much as the next person; but what I get from winter more than compensates for the inconveniences and the dangers.
I like that everything hibernates. I like the austerity, the beauty of starkness, the stillness that comes from the snow. It's a time that mandates rest. And it's one of the only times in the turn of the seasons when you can step out anywhere and be truly alone. No one's around, and when you're standing in the middle of a field, or a stand of trees, you're far more alone than you would be in any other season, because nothing around you is growing or dying; everything sleeps. The only active life you might see are a few birds, and their presence underscores the emptiness. It's just you.
So you can walk down the sidewalk, or through a field, or along the river, and soak in the quiet, absorb the stillness of everything around you -- the trees, the snow, the ice, the river. You can be by yourself, and in that solitude you can be yourself.
II
Oh my friends I
apologize
To everything there is a season. The Christmas season this time around was a hard one. Illness, loneliness, a yawning sense of purposelessness all robbed me of the childlike joy that usually takes over me like a sizzle of static. I did a lot of traveling, and I came back tired. The lack of wintery weather hurt me. I didn't feel that sense of magic, and when January wore on without a hint of snow -- with weather so warm you didn't even need a coat most days -- it bogged down my spirits. It wasn't seasonal. It wasn't right.
So I have been glad for the snow and ice. I may need to get up earlier in the morning to allow for time to put on boots and scrape the crystallized precipitation off my car and let the engine warm up so it doesn't stall out, but something about walking into that shock of cold brings me alive.
I love people. I love to be around them; but cyclically I need to be alone (there's a season for that, too), and winter is exactly that call to solitude that I've been missing. It's a time also to process a lot of the things I've refused to deal with from the past year. While life was busy and the landscape was lush I put everything away, like sweaters into a bin, and now that everything is silent I can dig them out and hold them up and look them over.
When spring comes, I'll be glad of that too, but this is the time for things to be still, and I like the stillness to have a blanket of snow. It's cold, and sharp, and beautiful.
And when the trees are stripped of their leaves, you can see them for what they are -- all of them throwing their branches up to the sky. If you pick out one, just one, while you're driving (or riding with someone in the car; that's probably safer) and watch it as you go past, it seems to spin, with its arms thrown up, like a dancer. In praise.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
out of control
You know those weeks when you are just really not with it? And how it takes at least two weeks to clean up after them once you start to get back on track? I'm having the aftermath of one of those.
I spend a great deal of my time in a state of comparitive sanity, but every once in awhile everything breaks down and my life skills disintegrate and I find myself completely forgetting simple and important things at work, while my apartment goes to crap and my sleep goes out the window.
So this week I'm playing hard-ball catch-up at work, feeling stressed and stupid and frantic -- how could I have forgotten to record that hearing date? -- but still determinedly optimistic. I'll just work my petutie off all day, and by the end of the week I'll be back on track.
The other fly in my ointment is that the headaches, which have taken a tremendous backseat since the last hospital trip, are resurfacing. Stress, I'm sure. Blargh.
I spend a great deal of my time in a state of comparitive sanity, but every once in awhile everything breaks down and my life skills disintegrate and I find myself completely forgetting simple and important things at work, while my apartment goes to crap and my sleep goes out the window.
So this week I'm playing hard-ball catch-up at work, feeling stressed and stupid and frantic -- how could I have forgotten to record that hearing date? -- but still determinedly optimistic. I'll just work my petutie off all day, and by the end of the week I'll be back on track.
The other fly in my ointment is that the headaches, which have taken a tremendous backseat since the last hospital trip, are resurfacing. Stress, I'm sure. Blargh.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
of horses and pieces, or pieces of horses, or horses in pieces, or...no, never mind
Living in the Midwest brings to the mind of a Western Pennsylvanian the odd quirks in her own regional dialect.
Particularly to a girl hailing from Erie -- the land of oxroast, pepperoni balls, and uninflected questions that come out sounding like irritable statements -- the Midwestern speech patterns are nasaly and off-puttingly pleasant. (Don't be offended! It's an all-American dialect here, and I love it.) "College" sounds like "callege," for example. And everyone's speech pattern is so friendly. They actually ASK questions here. And they'll say hello to almost anyone. I'm accustomed to greeting only people I like, and glancing or grunting at strangers and acquaintances.
So some differences already exist; but the idioms are what really intrigue me. I've noticed certain things, certain terms and phrases, that didn't travel from Western Pennsylvania to northern Indiana. "Gum bands" never made it. "Red up the room" died before Ohio. "Run the sweeper" gets you skeptical glances from people imagining brooms hooked up to motors, while "my hair needs cut" or "my room needs cleaned" or "my brakes need fixed" makes English majors from other regions cough.
But these, while a little odd, seldom break down communiation completely. Hearing one of them might require a little more concentration or forbearance on the part of the non-PA-er, but the point goes across the gap and interprets itself well.
The kicker, the one that knocks the neurons all askew and drops an anvil on conversational understanding, appears to be one of the primary phrases of my childhood: "it's a horse apiece."
I've said it indifferently once or twice, once to a friend who was born and raised in Michigan, and once to a friend who's more or less from the East Coast, and both times I received a flat, "What's that mean?"
"You don't know?" I was incredulous (and probably looked insane).
"No. I've never heard that before."
"Oh." I had to pause, and came up with, "Well. It means two things are the same."
A synonymous phrase is "half a dozen of one, six of the other," which to the Western PA mind takes WAY too long to say. So when a friend calls to ask if you'd rather go out for pizza or Chinese, if you don't care either way, you grunt, "horse apiece." Or if someone asks you for advice on which of two courses of action to take, and both options are grim, what do you say? "Horse apiece."
Where does it come from? I have no idea. A quick google search identified some old gambling game called "horse," the rules of which I didn't understand; or trying to select the best of two bad ways to get to one place on horseback, both of which will ruin the horse before you get there. Apparently the phrase was first found in a DARE dictionary in 1980, but related phrases go back to as far as 1846; and none of these references identified a region of origin.
Which leaves me curious: Has anyone else ever heard, or used this phrase? Where? Is it limited to Western PA, or are there pockets of use elsewhere in the U.S.?
In a land where English is one of the most common languages, it's sometimes startling to be brought up short only four hundred or so miles away when someone asks you to translate a childhood phrase you just used.
Another reason why I love my native state. Even if people say our grammar needs fixed.
Particularly to a girl hailing from Erie -- the land of oxroast, pepperoni balls, and uninflected questions that come out sounding like irritable statements -- the Midwestern speech patterns are nasaly and off-puttingly pleasant. (Don't be offended! It's an all-American dialect here, and I love it.) "College" sounds like "callege," for example. And everyone's speech pattern is so friendly. They actually ASK questions here. And they'll say hello to almost anyone. I'm accustomed to greeting only people I like, and glancing or grunting at strangers and acquaintances.
So some differences already exist; but the idioms are what really intrigue me. I've noticed certain things, certain terms and phrases, that didn't travel from Western Pennsylvania to northern Indiana. "Gum bands" never made it. "Red up the room" died before Ohio. "Run the sweeper" gets you skeptical glances from people imagining brooms hooked up to motors, while "my hair needs cut" or "my room needs cleaned" or "my brakes need fixed" makes English majors from other regions cough.
But these, while a little odd, seldom break down communiation completely. Hearing one of them might require a little more concentration or forbearance on the part of the non-PA-er, but the point goes across the gap and interprets itself well.
The kicker, the one that knocks the neurons all askew and drops an anvil on conversational understanding, appears to be one of the primary phrases of my childhood: "it's a horse apiece."
I've said it indifferently once or twice, once to a friend who was born and raised in Michigan, and once to a friend who's more or less from the East Coast, and both times I received a flat, "What's that mean?"
"You don't know?" I was incredulous (and probably looked insane).
"No. I've never heard that before."
"Oh." I had to pause, and came up with, "Well. It means two things are the same."
A synonymous phrase is "half a dozen of one, six of the other," which to the Western PA mind takes WAY too long to say. So when a friend calls to ask if you'd rather go out for pizza or Chinese, if you don't care either way, you grunt, "horse apiece." Or if someone asks you for advice on which of two courses of action to take, and both options are grim, what do you say? "Horse apiece."
Where does it come from? I have no idea. A quick google search identified some old gambling game called "horse," the rules of which I didn't understand; or trying to select the best of two bad ways to get to one place on horseback, both of which will ruin the horse before you get there. Apparently the phrase was first found in a DARE dictionary in 1980, but related phrases go back to as far as 1846; and none of these references identified a region of origin.
Which leaves me curious: Has anyone else ever heard, or used this phrase? Where? Is it limited to Western PA, or are there pockets of use elsewhere in the U.S.?
In a land where English is one of the most common languages, it's sometimes startling to be brought up short only four hundred or so miles away when someone asks you to translate a childhood phrase you just used.
Another reason why I love my native state. Even if people say our grammar needs fixed.
Monday, January 15, 2007
still waters
Being friends with MP involves, at least once a semester, some insane off-the-cuff epic outing, unpremeditated and fluidly conceptualized. This is one of the perks of being her friend. Also one of the perks of still being twenty-something and able to keep up.
Our most recent epic adventure involved a sudden trip to Pittsburgh with Cousin of MP, tallying twenty hours of driving in the span of two days, to visit the intrepid K. Flanagan and the Gentle Giant Linus, view an art show (featuring K. Flanagan's photography), see a concert by Army of Me and Like Summer -- both fantastic -- and then have the pleasure of listening to Like Summer's From Arlington Heights, with Love all the way home.
As always, a visit to Pittsburgh did the soul good. Something about that city (I call it America's City of Lights -- if you've seen downtown from the top of Mt. Washington at night, you'll know) restores. I like South Bend, I've found a lot of niches and quirky facets to enjoy, but "I miss those hills," and it's always wonderful to go back. Pittsburgh has layers of sooty industrial history which its contemporary culture incorporates and renovates, the most amazing arts scene (original artwork hanging in many bars and restaurants), tons of crunchy little shops, and fantabulous restaurants, from ethnic cuisines to old-fashioned diners.
So we went, we saw, we admired, we left, all in a whirlwind of nonstop activity. As we caught I-70, heading west, I tried to remember what it was I felt like I'd left behind.
And then I remembered. It was Pittsburgh.
Our most recent epic adventure involved a sudden trip to Pittsburgh with Cousin of MP, tallying twenty hours of driving in the span of two days, to visit the intrepid K. Flanagan and the Gentle Giant Linus, view an art show (featuring K. Flanagan's photography), see a concert by Army of Me and Like Summer -- both fantastic -- and then have the pleasure of listening to Like Summer's From Arlington Heights, with Love all the way home.
As always, a visit to Pittsburgh did the soul good. Something about that city (I call it America's City of Lights -- if you've seen downtown from the top of Mt. Washington at night, you'll know) restores. I like South Bend, I've found a lot of niches and quirky facets to enjoy, but "I miss those hills," and it's always wonderful to go back. Pittsburgh has layers of sooty industrial history which its contemporary culture incorporates and renovates, the most amazing arts scene (original artwork hanging in many bars and restaurants), tons of crunchy little shops, and fantabulous restaurants, from ethnic cuisines to old-fashioned diners.
So we went, we saw, we admired, we left, all in a whirlwind of nonstop activity. As we caught I-70, heading west, I tried to remember what it was I felt like I'd left behind.
And then I remembered. It was Pittsburgh.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
small-town working
So the town where I work in southern Michigan is one of those tiny towns. The only main thoroughfare is essentially a few restaurants and small businesses planted on the banks of one of the State Routes to Bigger Places. "Main Street" consists of two antique shops, a couple of churches, and a school. It's just a little too old-industrial to be quaint; a few abandoned factories are working hard at rusting to the ground along the railroad tracks. And yet it's charming.
I grew up in something like a small town, though it was far bigger than where I work. And being here every day, eating out and frequenting the antique shops, is bringing back to mind the hilarious things about small town life. South Bend living is more urban, compact and yet sprawling, and nearly everyone is and remains a stranger. But not here.
Last week I went to my favorite of the antique shops -- a junk shop, really, where there are things like old bedpans and oil cans (still half-full of oil) mixed in with the dressers and chairs, and everything is unpredictable and cheap -- and I was chatting with the owner, as I always do, and telling him about my apartment woes and my plans to move as soon as I find a decent place.
Then Tuesday as I placed my order at Subway, the girl behind the counter asked me, "Have you moved yet?"
Priceless.
I grew up in something like a small town, though it was far bigger than where I work. And being here every day, eating out and frequenting the antique shops, is bringing back to mind the hilarious things about small town life. South Bend living is more urban, compact and yet sprawling, and nearly everyone is and remains a stranger. But not here.
Last week I went to my favorite of the antique shops -- a junk shop, really, where there are things like old bedpans and oil cans (still half-full of oil) mixed in with the dressers and chairs, and everything is unpredictable and cheap -- and I was chatting with the owner, as I always do, and telling him about my apartment woes and my plans to move as soon as I find a decent place.
Then Tuesday as I placed my order at Subway, the girl behind the counter asked me, "Have you moved yet?"
Priceless.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Phat Me on the Back (Or, Don't Read This if You Have a Sensitive Stomach)
Well, it took me about three weeks, but I managed it. I made phat thai (or pad thai, as most of us call it) on Sunday.
I love Asian cooking. Doing it myself is a little scary – the ingredients lists in my Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese cookbooks require their own glossaries. But you get to buy the neatest toys – clay pots, bamboo steamers, woks – and the coolest staples – star anise, dried chilies, fish sauce, shrimp paste, seaweed, jasmine rice, rice noodles – and it makes for an entertaining culinary experience.
I blame the lengthy time to accomplish the making of phat thai on shrimp.
There are some things that take some getting used to. The biggest is raw seafood. Lots of yummy-looking recipes call for clean-your-own whole fish that stare at you while you eat them. I am frustrated because, having scorned fishing as boring and gross in my adolescence, I am now at a loss when it comes to cleaning fish (can anyone teach me?). But I think I could handle it.
Shrimp, now, are another matter entirely.
I’ve only come across one other creature that I had some weird psychological problem with eating. Rabbit. The sauce for my Spanish rabbit stew was exquisite...but the bunny carcass was distressing. It was the same size and roughly the same shape as my cat. Wrong. I couldn’t eat the leftovers, and ended up throwing away the rest of the frozen (and NOT de-boned, might I add) meat.
So I’ve learned that I’m not immune to the occasional revulsion when it comes to food. But I learned that a hundred times over when I bought my own bag of whole ocean shrimp at the Asian market. I thumped them down on the kitchen counter and blithely read the recipe’s deceptively innocuous directions for shelling and cleaning them, then got to work.
It was horrible. The peeling wasn’t so bad, and their little legs come right off in sections with the shell. I could even deal with the eyes. But not the whiskers. You know cat whiskers, right? Long, kind of thick, have a fascinating springiness, but sort of repugnant all the same. Shrimp whiskers = so much worse. Really, really, really thick – the kind you’d expect your bristly aging Aunt Sally to pull out of her chin. Horsehair thick. Longer than your finger. And they stick to EVERYTHING.
So I was already disturbed shelling shrimp with shrimp whiskers clinging to my hands (because they apparently have a goal of detaching from their owners as quickly as possible, and I swear there were way more whiskers in that bag than the number of shrimp could account for). But the deveining and debraining done me in. You have to cut off their heads, and hope you don’t cut it off too close to the end, or this nasty brown semi-liquid the consistency of pus explodes all over the cutting board, and sometimes runs down the mud vein.
I did this sixteen times. Well, a few more than that, since I threw some of the shrimp away as I went, fearing to kill myself with shrimp poisoning from brain matter.
Then I looked at my accomplishment, the little fleshy curlicues of blue-gray rawness snuggled up in the mixing bowl, and covered them and put them away. I made do with chicken soup that night for dinner. My stomach hurt. Then I scraped all the shell and leg and whisker fragments, all the heads and eyes and fluids, into the trash can. I threw the rest of the whole shrimp on top, tied it off, and took it to the trash.
I wound up throwing away the peeled shrimp a few days later.
Once I got over the trauma, using plenty of good, traditional holiday food like cookies and coffee cake, I bought the lovely already-cooked, pink, deveined, headless, eyeless, whiskerless, legless, shell-less frozen cocktail shrimp that the amazing civilization of the West has made possible, and made phat thai with that.
The end result was less saucy then we get at restaurants, but still extremely tasty.
Now I’ve caught the make-lots-of-Asian-food bug.
Seriously. Can anyone teach me how to scale and clean a fish?
I love Asian cooking. Doing it myself is a little scary – the ingredients lists in my Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese cookbooks require their own glossaries. But you get to buy the neatest toys – clay pots, bamboo steamers, woks – and the coolest staples – star anise, dried chilies, fish sauce, shrimp paste, seaweed, jasmine rice, rice noodles – and it makes for an entertaining culinary experience.
I blame the lengthy time to accomplish the making of phat thai on shrimp.
There are some things that take some getting used to. The biggest is raw seafood. Lots of yummy-looking recipes call for clean-your-own whole fish that stare at you while you eat them. I am frustrated because, having scorned fishing as boring and gross in my adolescence, I am now at a loss when it comes to cleaning fish (can anyone teach me?). But I think I could handle it.
Shrimp, now, are another matter entirely.
I’ve only come across one other creature that I had some weird psychological problem with eating. Rabbit. The sauce for my Spanish rabbit stew was exquisite...but the bunny carcass was distressing. It was the same size and roughly the same shape as my cat. Wrong. I couldn’t eat the leftovers, and ended up throwing away the rest of the frozen (and NOT de-boned, might I add) meat.
So I’ve learned that I’m not immune to the occasional revulsion when it comes to food. But I learned that a hundred times over when I bought my own bag of whole ocean shrimp at the Asian market. I thumped them down on the kitchen counter and blithely read the recipe’s deceptively innocuous directions for shelling and cleaning them, then got to work.
It was horrible. The peeling wasn’t so bad, and their little legs come right off in sections with the shell. I could even deal with the eyes. But not the whiskers. You know cat whiskers, right? Long, kind of thick, have a fascinating springiness, but sort of repugnant all the same. Shrimp whiskers = so much worse. Really, really, really thick – the kind you’d expect your bristly aging Aunt Sally to pull out of her chin. Horsehair thick. Longer than your finger. And they stick to EVERYTHING.
So I was already disturbed shelling shrimp with shrimp whiskers clinging to my hands (because they apparently have a goal of detaching from their owners as quickly as possible, and I swear there were way more whiskers in that bag than the number of shrimp could account for). But the deveining and debraining done me in. You have to cut off their heads, and hope you don’t cut it off too close to the end, or this nasty brown semi-liquid the consistency of pus explodes all over the cutting board, and sometimes runs down the mud vein.
I did this sixteen times. Well, a few more than that, since I threw some of the shrimp away as I went, fearing to kill myself with shrimp poisoning from brain matter.
Then I looked at my accomplishment, the little fleshy curlicues of blue-gray rawness snuggled up in the mixing bowl, and covered them and put them away. I made do with chicken soup that night for dinner. My stomach hurt. Then I scraped all the shell and leg and whisker fragments, all the heads and eyes and fluids, into the trash can. I threw the rest of the whole shrimp on top, tied it off, and took it to the trash.
I wound up throwing away the peeled shrimp a few days later.
Once I got over the trauma, using plenty of good, traditional holiday food like cookies and coffee cake, I bought the lovely already-cooked, pink, deveined, headless, eyeless, whiskerless, legless, shell-less frozen cocktail shrimp that the amazing civilization of the West has made possible, and made phat thai with that.
The end result was less saucy then we get at restaurants, but still extremely tasty.
Now I’ve caught the make-lots-of-Asian-food bug.
Seriously. Can anyone teach me how to scale and clean a fish?
Thursday, January 04, 2007
adulthood
I was going to tell you all something amazing, something you'd never heard or thought of before, or at least, if you had, and you probably have, not in the words I was going to use. I was going to illuminate for you all some trace of the sublime to tuck in your pocket or hide under your pillow, I was going to pen a phrase so charged with song that it would haunt you for the rest of the week and burn your tearducts when you sat alone in your car, I was going to write the final line of a novel that's never been written, and write the story backwards for you, so that, mesmerized by the end in beginning, you might not have left your computer for hours, forgetting that you're tired and bored, that your back hurts, that your life isn't what you imagined when you were fourteen writing letters to yourself at twenty-four, because when you're fourteen you don't think of bills to pay and pets to feed and apartments to clean and dinners to reheat, or evenings spent curled under the caresses of light and sound waves from the television, or cell phones swallowing their battery power on the coffee table in stillness.
I was going to ease the tension in your eyes by delivering a word of that profound truth most of us can't quit hoping to find, that truth which no genus of doubt or mockery can deny, the truth that kisses faith on the forehead and lays it finally to rest. I was going to do it. I had it all ready.
But that was only what I wanted, and real life is a narrative of a different profundity, and it's time for bed.
I was going to ease the tension in your eyes by delivering a word of that profound truth most of us can't quit hoping to find, that truth which no genus of doubt or mockery can deny, the truth that kisses faith on the forehead and lays it finally to rest. I was going to do it. I had it all ready.
But that was only what I wanted, and real life is a narrative of a different profundity, and it's time for bed.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
on seeing
So I've been thinking about this one Gospel account of Christ's healing. It's fairly unique in the recorded history of his ministry. In Mark 8:22-25, Jesus heals a blind man:
"They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, 'Do you see anything?'
"He looked up and said, 'I see people; they look like trees walking around.'
"Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, and he saw everything clearly."
Weird, isn't it? I don't think there's any other instance in the Gospels where Jesus touched someone twice to heal. It's stuck in my mind since I was little. What did it mean? Did it not work the first time? What was going on?
In Annie Dillard's chapter on seeing in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she talks about people, blind from a very young age, who received their sight due to advances in medicine. They had a hard time dealing with seeing; their conception of the world had nothing to do with vision, and oftentimes they voluntarily reblinded themselves (through blindfolds, or shutting their eyes) to get around.
Applied to this passage in Mark, the twice-touching indicates something a little different. Not failure to heal the first time, but two different healings entirely. My guess is that the first touch healed the physical aspect of blindness: His eyes worked. But his brain couldn't interpret what he saw. The feedback from the optic nerve was still "blind," so that to him, people looked like trees (leading me to wonder if perhaps the upside-down/right-side-up switcheroo aspect of his vision hadn't been yet corrected, and people's legs, perceived upside-down, looked like tree branches.) So the second touch healed his perception. His brain could make sense of what he saw, preserving him from disorientation and craziness.
Just a thought. I listened to a sermon recently that kind of demonized science, but I've always viewed science as enriching our understanding of Scripture.
And it's awesome to think that Christ's power, and God's healing, go much deeper than redeeming just the physical. The human body, the human brain, the human mind, the human spirit pose no mystery to God.
"They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, 'Do you see anything?'
"He looked up and said, 'I see people; they look like trees walking around.'
"Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, and he saw everything clearly."
Weird, isn't it? I don't think there's any other instance in the Gospels where Jesus touched someone twice to heal. It's stuck in my mind since I was little. What did it mean? Did it not work the first time? What was going on?
In Annie Dillard's chapter on seeing in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she talks about people, blind from a very young age, who received their sight due to advances in medicine. They had a hard time dealing with seeing; their conception of the world had nothing to do with vision, and oftentimes they voluntarily reblinded themselves (through blindfolds, or shutting their eyes) to get around.
Applied to this passage in Mark, the twice-touching indicates something a little different. Not failure to heal the first time, but two different healings entirely. My guess is that the first touch healed the physical aspect of blindness: His eyes worked. But his brain couldn't interpret what he saw. The feedback from the optic nerve was still "blind," so that to him, people looked like trees (leading me to wonder if perhaps the upside-down/right-side-up switcheroo aspect of his vision hadn't been yet corrected, and people's legs, perceived upside-down, looked like tree branches.) So the second touch healed his perception. His brain could make sense of what he saw, preserving him from disorientation and craziness.
Just a thought. I listened to a sermon recently that kind of demonized science, but I've always viewed science as enriching our understanding of Scripture.
And it's awesome to think that Christ's power, and God's healing, go much deeper than redeeming just the physical. The human body, the human brain, the human mind, the human spirit pose no mystery to God.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Stupid boys being stronger than girls. When Phillip carried my writing desk down to the basement by himself to make room for the tree three weeks ago, he made it look like it was a desk constructed of plastic. Light, airy butterfly-wing plastic.
I almost threw my back out carrying it up the stairs today after disposing of the tree. And I'm no Scrawny Sally. In the words of John Myers' dad, I'm a big, strong Pennsylvania working girl. (Not THAT kind of working girl. Perv.)
Oh well. My back will be telling me the whole sad tale tomorrow. But it's nice to have the writing desk back.
Now if I could just find my living room floor...rumor had it there WAS a living room floor...
I almost threw my back out carrying it up the stairs today after disposing of the tree. And I'm no Scrawny Sally. In the words of John Myers' dad, I'm a big, strong Pennsylvania working girl. (Not THAT kind of working girl. Perv.)
Oh well. My back will be telling me the whole sad tale tomorrow. But it's nice to have the writing desk back.
Now if I could just find my living room floor...rumor had it there WAS a living room floor...
2006 in review
Job switches: 2
Apartments: 1
Trips to visit family: 3
Visits from family: 3
Pets gained: 1
Traffic accidents: 0
Dates: 3
Boyfriends: 0
Friends lost: 7
Friends gained: 2
Musicians discovered: 7
TV shows discovered: 3
Spiritual awakenings: 1
Domestic skills acquired: 5
Bad habits quit: 1
Pounds lost: 17
Heartbreaks: 2
Old hurts partially resolved: 2
Trips to the hospital: 4
Great ground-breaking works of fiction written: 0
Journals filled: 1
Conclusions: I dislike the number 6. It was a tough year. But it looks like I came out even.
Apartments: 1
Trips to visit family: 3
Visits from family: 3
Pets gained: 1
Traffic accidents: 0
Dates: 3
Boyfriends: 0
Friends lost: 7
Friends gained: 2
Musicians discovered: 7
TV shows discovered: 3
Spiritual awakenings: 1
Domestic skills acquired: 5
Bad habits quit: 1
Pounds lost: 17
Heartbreaks: 2
Old hurts partially resolved: 2
Trips to the hospital: 4
Great ground-breaking works of fiction written: 0
Journals filled: 1
Conclusions: I dislike the number 6. It was a tough year. But it looks like I came out even.
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