gainful employment

dan said to me yeterday that he wished he was "gainfully employed." i understand this issue because he's been looking for a long time and being more and more frustrated by what he's found--about zip, right now. i'm a practical person by nature; i would rather work at a job i dislike than go without funds for bill paying, food purchasing, book buying, etc. but lately i can see his point.

my dad's been gainfully employed for 30 plus years of his life with the same company. what has he gained? a house, a truck, retirement eventually, part of all of his childrens' college educations, funds for my sister's wedding. every payroll he STILL puts a dollar into an account for all four of us kids. the man is my epitome of a good man, and i'm SO blessed to have such a loyal and patient man as my father.

but then turn the tables. what has he lost, what has he sacrified for this company, in order to remain "gainfully employed." he lost a lot of time being my dad. he lost time being my mom's husband. he gained stress that added to his heart disease and eventually pushed him over the edge and into 6 bypasses, and a change of life involving exercise and diet that was, in a word, radical. i remember when mom turned 50 dad got her a snowmobile suit. they don't snowmobile. he got it for her because she's always cold, and he inevitably was away at school in canton, oh, during every massive blizzard we ever had.

i just got an email this morning from dad. they've changed his schedule again; now he's supposed to have weds and thursday off, instead of his normal sat/sun or sun/mon. recently his schedule was "revised" due to the doctor's note requiring him to work no more than 50 hours a week--his new schedule is 11-8 monday thru saturday. it's ridiculous for a man who's up at 5 and feels the day is "wasted" if you haven't done anything by 8 am. it's hard to change this many years of habit. so he's already stressed about that. my mother apparently has had enough. she wrote a scathing (for my mother, it's scathing) letter to dad's immediate boss at work, one that hopefully will change something. dad's retiring at the end of june, and it's not a moment too soon, but maybe, just maybe, they'll see that they need to accomodate their employees.

who wants to be gainfully employed like that? no one i know. i feel lucky to have the job i do--i dislike it a great deal of the time, but when i think about dad's job, and how they've yanked his chain over the years--it makes me sick. dad was raised in a time when you stayed with a company for your whole life, when they cared for you when you retired, and where you were loyal beyond a thought.

times have changed; dad's morals have not. he is still the patriot who risked all in vietnam. he is still the dad who wept at my sister's wedding. he is still the husband who is proud to be with his wife. he is still the loyal employee who doesn't look for recognition or accolades at work, just wants to be appreciated enough to have his views and his needs be taken into account. he smiles when he could be frowning, plods forward when he could allow life to drag him down.

i always think about how my childhood would have been different, if he'd been a dad who came home every night before we went to bed, and if he hadn't been gone for a few months of the year training, and if he hadn't been on call every other weekend. when i was a kid we always took two cars everywhere, not because we couldn't fit in one, but because at any given time, dad might have to leave.

gainfully employed. i think about those words, roll them over a few times, and shove them out the door. employed is what most people are. gainful employment implies that you are getting something out of it other than a paycheck. for most of the world, that's just not true. you muddle through and you dislike your job, you pay the bills and fund your retirement, you buy your own coffin. along the way, at some point, dad had to have decided that the sacrifice he made for his company, to be employed, was gaining him something. i am sure and certain that dad saw putting food on the table and roof over our heads as more important than anything in the world, a gain that cannot be measured.

i just wish that he hadn't felt he had to do that.

a day off...

today i don't have to go in to work. which is good because i'm being walloped by allergies and coupled with the blood pressure tablets, i'm woozy. yay, pills. also yay, fisherman's friend cough drops. if you've never had one, you have no idea of what you're missing--they're awful, but they do twice the job of halls and actually alleviate some of the pressure in your sinuses without the loads of sugar.

anyway, i have to get ready--tony and cari are on their way down for a stopover with dan and i prior to jumping a plane to st maarten for the next week. i'm very excited to see cari (and tony), as i haven't seen either of them in at least a good two months. they need to be at the airport by 330. then tonight we're gaming over here, which is not in honor of dan's bday but just so happens to fit perfectly. tomorrow is cathy's wedding shower, and then sunday is a day of rest before next week starts all over again.

i found this in my inbox; forgot i'd even written it. it's from april 6th, and apparently i was having a foggy comprehension day at work. i write a lot of poems at work, mainly to escape the drudge but also because inspiration strikes at odd times. today i'm missing the Big Meeting, during which i'm sure bombs will be dropped and hopefully confronted. they're actually turning off the phones for this one, so the whole team can get together. i don't know if our supe eavesdropped on the online chat we all had going, or if he just overheard the dissension in the ranks, but for this job, turning off the phones is HUGE. it's just plain old unheard of. but i sure as hell am not driving up for an hour when i could be lunching w/ cari!

anyway here's the poem:

they ask
is your head
in the clouds?
no, the forecast for today
is fog
fingers wrapping me
some peices of skin are so
clear
i can see pores while others
drift
i think of that day we drove
through denver; dad wanted to climb
pike's peak
but it was partially swathed
the trees at its base so vivid
the top, hidden.
***
maybe i'm camoflaged so well
you can't see me
hiding in plain sight
i'm not even trying
my my said the big bad wolf
you didn't notice me
in my dress

speaking in tongues

for two days
we've spoken
you in icelandic
me in whatever language they use
in morocco
two days of me not comprehending
you
frustrated by my inability
to translate
i curl in
on myself i wonder how deep down
i can go
before i hear your gutteral whispers
and they finally make sense
to these ears.

***

it's like the sun
hiding behind
clouds manufactured by disney
puffy and soft
i know when it is revealed
the slow sink into blue
i'll be blinded
but for now i picture it round
like a giant pillow, rays pointed
little triangles along the radius
one of those drawn
with your left hand
when you're five.
suddenly
i understand--

***

pass me my sunglasses
i can hear every word you say
all the syllables, grinding bright
against my cornea
i blink
hard
trying to shut out the noise
songs being sung in tongues
i don't recognize
am i buddha cool
in my shades,
burned by nouns--
i have to admit
i'm basking
in the verbage,
yours and mine.

again

once upon a time there was this girl who didn't sleep well on sundays. she tried and tried but it was just a flop. every sunday she had to be coaxed into bed. and this sunday in particular she just could not sleep, despite being groggy already and toasty warm. she had to fight with her significant other because he thinks, nay, knows that his life is over at the age of 29, because the dreams he had for himself are not coming to fruition.

now this girl's a dreamer. she dreams all the time about coulda, shoulda, woulda, and sometimes even dreams with glass slippers and knights, just for spice. but she never would think of her life as over. ever. she has too much to live for--family, friends, the next book that comes out, the next thunderstorm, her cat. you name it. last night she wanted to give up, because if all you're living for is a goal, then what is the point of the journey?

anyway last night this girl dreamed that she was living in an apartment building, and that her cat had gotten out of the apartment and the college girls upstairs had a party and shaved her cat. they left long strings of fur and braided those. the apartment was crowded and awful, dirty and bug-ridden. the girl wanted to know why she was living in such filth--it was like waking up or something and realizing this, just in this dream. this girl didn't want to take the stat answer of "well, it was all we could afford, and you'll just have to let the cat's fur grow out," which was her mother's answer, shouted from a different room. she stomped into her room and slammed the door, saying, i'm so angry i could spit.

which she is, mainly because no matter how bad life is, there is always someone who has it worse, and this mantra keeps her happy for the most part. it's the line she heard as a kid about eating the food on her plate because there were children starving in africa. those kids, now they've got it bad. this girl, she's got it pretty good. and she thinks her significant other does too--sometimes paring down your life will lead you to a different window, one you didn't see prior to that because you were staring out the front door. this girl has yet to find hers, and she's pretty sure that he has yet to find his, too. but sometimes all you can do is wait for the window to open.
the moral of the story? this girl should have gotten more sleep.

me, a name, i call myself...

...far a longer way to run...i've had that song in my head since last night, when my cousin therese was putting her son sean to bed--so adorable in his little red footie pajamas. he's got therese's big blue eyes and her dark hair, but apparently brian's appetite. such a mix.

yesterday i drove up to minneapolis to see the whalen side of the family. i always think it's going to be more difficult than it is. i don't know why. it's like i build myself up for this horrible, horrible experience and then nothing happens that's horrible. strained, sometimes, but more often than not you just have to confess how your job is going and if you're buying a house or whatnot. there was a good portion of my family actually there--i think the only ones missing were my cousin steve and his sig other, elsa, who live in ny, ny, and my uncle dan, who i think is either in ireland or germany right now.

the reason behind the gathering was my uncle, jed, who was up visiting from ca. always good to see him--he's got a delightful laugh. but the stroke, and i think coming out even tho it's been six or seven years now, have changed him a great deal. he's not the person i remember. he wanted to give me a hug, but didn't seem to want to talk to me. kind of standoffish. i talked to dan about it on the way home and he agreed, but he said it's been like this for a longer period of time. i don't know if he feels alienated or what the deal is, but it was just awkward. i'm a huggy, chatty person; it's difficult to think that someone would feel uncomfortable around me. dan pointed out that it seemed to be everyone, not just me, and wasn't an isolated incident. that did make me feel better.

it makes me think about how people change, how one time you see them and they're a totally different organism the next time you see them. it seems like they're consistent, that their personality is a constant, and then three months pass and you see them again, and something in their environment has served as an evolutionary force. i still love this other incarnation of my uncle, just like i still love my grandma even though she has changed greatly. you don't stop that part, that's the constant. it's like this equation, or worse yet, word problem. your relationship changes based on the individual changes in the other person; you make changes in your reception and your conversation based on something minute, something the other person perhaps does not realize they have done.

i think about when i was a kid, how my sister and her friend got angry because they'd found one of those spots you claim as a kid--down by a drainage ditch, nice little stream. me being bossy little twelve-year-old kim took it upon herself to move rocks out of the stream, so that (in my opinion) it would better flow. sara and amanda threw a fit; why change what was working fine already, etc. in retrospect i've no clue as to why i thought those rocks should be moved. it was just a general nudge to do so, and when you're 12, you don't consider consequences in the same way you do ten years after that.

did the rocks i pulled out of that little stream affect somthing broader than my sister's attitude? probably not. it's a drainage ditch, right? but it affected her to this day. she still remembers that whole scene as something where i was standing on her toes. i think back on it and i don't remember my sister's reactions as much as i now think about the cellular level and any frogs i may have impacted due to my "assistance."

something small that turns into something larger--something more broad. dad's stress test turned into six bypasses, and 50 lbs of weight lost, a diet changed, a treadmill bought. he is a different person than he was prior to that february day--different, but not entirely different. still dad. grandma whalen, despite the dementia, is still shaped like my grandma--now with regrown hair. she still smells like grandma, she still acts like grandma. when i think about it in those terms, the erosion of brain tissue--it makes me want to know how *i* have changed over time. what things happen to make you less of an open person. has it been the slow build back into having high blood pressure? will this half a pill i take nightly impact my personality? has it already? what is my guide for knowing if it has? there's not a chart or scale i can use.

i wish, oftentimes, that there were. that people had hanging around their neck some kind of code that told me how best to interact with them. perhaps jed didn't want to have a heart to heart discussion, or even a how's-the-weather chat. but the only way for me to know that is to ask, and the only way to learn is to experience. it would make a life a lot easier if it was simplified--i could just walk up to someone who WANTS to chat and chat with them, as opposed to trying to feel out your conversation partner and getting snubbed.

which i'm sure jed didn't feel like he was doing. who knows. he will fly back to ca with whatever impressions he gathered, and i will remain here, with what i have.

it was good to see the family, though. colin and sean, the under-5 set, grow so quickly. kids are just plain cute when they're little. interesting too to see my cousins, kelsey and ericka--i remember when ericka was just born--she was at grandpa whalen's last christmas in 1988 and was just a baby then. and now she's driving and getting ready to graduate high school in a few years. or less. yikes.

time goes faster, exponentially, the older you get. it's like you walk to the top of a very big hill--most people run, i think, really--and then when you get close to 30, you sit down, and it hits you that you're maybe more than a third of the way through your life expectancy. but instead of time returning and being a further climb, you lay down, and you roll down the hill. i'm just starting to gather speed, i suppose. you measure your life in the size of children around you. those long and bored afternoons of your youth are shorter and filled with adult crap like paying bills and cleaning the oven and filling the birdfeeder. it will be interesting to see people at the whalen reunion this year, measure the old tree and see what rings have changed and what rings have grown.

anyway. i'm off to fill some time before nathan calls with more stuff that i didn't have to do when i was seven--hose out the bathrooms, clean up the kitchen, vacuum, laundry, mundane stuff that i should be able to wish done. *sigh* so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good bye.

the skinny

that's been my phrase of choice this week: here's the skinny.

so here it is for this week.

monday i felt like my head was being split in two and finally made a dr's appt for tuesday. tuesday found out i have a sinus infection and was given stuff to combat said infection, which makes me a bit dizzy. also had my blood pressure checked and once again it's doing that spiking thing it did years ago, so now i'm on this blood pressure medication that makes me want to sleep. a lot. a fucking huge lot. yawn...

weds we had friends over and gamed, thursday dan got a job (not something he was hoping for but a job's a job, at this point.) and we went to half price books. now it's friday. i'm supposed to be going in early in order to make up for the hour i'm short this week but it might be more like half an hour early because i'm feeling slow this morning. tomorrow i have to find a good salad to make for the whalen side of the family, and then we're having a whalen picnic tomorrow night. so that will be enjoyable, as much as it can be on that side of the family. (they're pokers; they like to poke at you as if you're on display. blech.)

the blood pressure thing has been just gnawing at me since i got the perscription. but as the dr said, they're a bit more agressive than they used to be.

to sum up: about six years ago, i was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth removed. this was in march. in february (i think) i fell and hit my right cheek on some concrete stairs (ice + kim = hospital visit). i thought it might be broken so we lumped out to urgent care. where they took my blood pressure and asked: are you feeling all right? because you should be having a stroke... etc. did a bunch of tests (ultrasound was the coolest) to see if they could find a reason it would spike (it was like 200/100 or something painful; i felt fine.) but there was nothing and i was walking more at that time, so the dr decided that i just needed to watch my salt intake. i guess the old body still does the spiking thing when it gets nervous (like at the dr). who knew. not me. anyway that was the same year that i had a sinus infection (after the fall) and found out i was allergic to penecillin (large platter sized hives, a shot of adrenalin and a shot of benadryl, and i was down for the count.) and sulfa drugs (smaller hives, benadryl pills, also down for the count.) and my wisdom teeth had to be put off until the week of easter.

i can't remember when that was that year. it was in 1999; i know this because all of this happened directly prior to corey passing away. it was just like a marathon of being in pain, in one form or another. i think that this week, when the dr asked if i would mind trying a perscription, i just flashed back six whole years.

it was corey's birthday on the 11th--a celebration of life. we're rolling up closer to the 18th, the day he passed away. anniversaries are always difficult; you never know how you're going to react to the day, the month, the time frame. it's always hard; i don't think you realize how dulled you become, over time, to the pain. it still hurts. you always wish that person alive, you wish for a different outcome. but wishing doesn't change anything.

sitting in the dr's office on tuesday, waiting to pick up my perscription, i was transported back. i remembered all the ups and downs, and then that phone call. i remembered driving frantically to duluth on a sunday morning, no wallets, no purse. i remember seeing the sun come through the clouds outside of duluth, the silence that we carried in that car. i remember the song on the radio--grateful dead's a touch of gray--and how right after that song ended it started "don't fear the reaper" and dan leaning over and flicking the radio off. his dad's face when we pulled up outside the house, shaking his head.

they say you can't remember actual physical pain, that your brain cannot hold it, that this is why childbirth can be so horrible and women still want another child. i don't think this is true. when the dr handed me my perscriptions, he gave me a free pass into time. i literally felt as if i were reliving those months again, like they were starting over. being on the blood pressure tablets is a bit like moving through a dream, anyway. you're sluggish, tired, slow. i keep feeling like crying, and i do not know if it is because of all the things or just one--is it the fear of that spiking pressure? exhaustion on the part of the sinus infection? memories of that week? happiness to be alive?

being a catholic, or being raised catholic, has sludged into mountains of guilt. i feel i ought to confess that i am glad to be alive, to have it as good as i do, and still be depressed right now--as if this is a sin, something for which i should do penance. i remember feeling guilt when corey died--why him, why so young, why not me, or anyone else. today's rash of guilt is sponsored by this week and the slow peeling back of layers around myself, by my blood pressure tablet and the fear of seeing my family on saturday. memory, fear, love. i would willingly relive those months, if only to see you again. or rather, see you with dan again. it is not that i miss you less, but that i would give anything to see you two banging around outside with the basketball, walking into the house, flushed and sweaty, smiling.

so today is also sponsored by the sun, shining bright outside in a blue, blue sky, when corey's not here to shoot hoops with dan out in it.

for whatever reason, i am here. something yet to be defined, perhaps. maybe just to feed the cat, or maybe something yet to happen today, tomorrow, next week. maybe the something has already occurred, or was passed fleetingly without a backward glance, or maybe it's just that we are all here for an alloted time period, to live our time in the sun to the fullest, and i ought to be glad the curtain's still up.

still sleeping

finally slept for more than 6 hours...only to be woken by the persistent beeping of my alarm, reminding me that it's monday. and i have to go to work.

i didn't do anything strenuous this weekend and yet i'm so exhausted. it's either one of two things: a sinus infection or my period sneaking up on me again. blech, either way. if it's a sinus infection, it means i have to go to the doctor. if it's my period, same thing. you know the post the other day, about being on time and being immune to time for the most part? my inner workings are apparently also blissfully ignorant. it hasn't even been 25 days and for some reason ye olde body is gearing up again. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. it's probably why i'm tired and just want to hide somewhere. i dislike this feeling, but at the same time, if your body is craving something--salt, sugar, sleep--you sometimes have to cater to it.

which i wish i could do today. i just want to crawl upstairs and cuddle into my blankets again. listen to dan snoring, softly. feel the cat curled up by my shins. listen to cars rumble by over the whirr of the fan. and sleep.

i feel like i've been pushing the snooze button lately on my life--procrastinating to the nth degree over everything. i still haven't had the brake pads done. it's not that i don't want to. it's that i worry that if i do, they'll find something else wrong with the car. and if it's not that, it's monetary. who knows.

gotta shuffle if i want to be on time. (:

these dreams

i keep having strange dreams. i know, to the heels of my feet, that it's because my period is creeping up on me, and i always have weirdo dreams around that time, but honestly. last week i had this ridiculous dream about a chicken and a crockpot and one of my coworkers and his wife wrestling. it was unsettling. last night it was something about how i had done graffiti on a wall or something, and very vividly was denying it despite the fact that they had video.

i guess the reason they're strange isn't because of the content. or maybe it IS because of the content. usually in my dreams the wild and ridiculous factor is taken to a new level of what-the-hell, from which i can usually force a wakeup, or elict a change in the direction of the dream.

lately i'm so involved in the dream, because all the aspects of it are so vivid and fucking normal, that i just get caught up in it. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

also i'm having problems sleeping more than 6 hours a night. thank you to my brother--i had to pick him up at the airport on tuesday and on monday night I COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP. read until way too late and then slept badly for about 4 hours. i have yet to recoup or sleep longer than 6 this week. which might be due in part to this morning allergy thing i've been having, or may be due to the fact that i have an almost-finished pile of books near my bed.

maybe that's the problem. maybe it's the content of my reading material of late. for a while i was on an all-fantasy, all the time, kick. but i've gone on a romance novel bender, and most of what happens in a romance novel, esp. regencies, is pretty mundane. i'm thinking of what else i have at my bedside--smilla's sense of snow, which is pretty scientific but so beautiful...and frances mayes' under the tuscan sun, which is very different from the movie, but wonderfully written all the same. and another book i don't know that i'll finish by an author with a good name but not very catchy writing skills (graham houghton. don't know why the name sticks with me but the plot does not.)

i think that may be my problem.

but for now i'll blame it on the time change (which should have no effect on me, as for the most part i shrug off the boundaries of clocks much in the manner of superman flexing through five feet of steel chains.) (of course, there would be an anomaly...)

today i'm going to go shower. then i'm going to drive around and see if i can rustle up a rummage sale. then i'm going to...clean my grill? i think. not sure yet. and there's talk of a concert tonight in hudson, wi--13 screws, a band darin and cathy heard that was quite good, apparently. but that's up in the air.

arg, activity upstairs, must run to beat other possible shower-er!

muted

yesterday while on the phone with nathan i had a flash of insight. it was after dinner, during which dan and i watched this amazing new thing they can do for deaf children who are missing the fine hairs inside their cochlea--the ones that allow you to hear nuances like a bird singing, a drum beating, you mom's voice yelling about leaving the toothpaste out. anyway, they can do this thing now where they insert a wire into your cochlea that stimulates it in close to the same manner as the hairs. it's not perfect, but amazing for someone who has never heard anything. of course i cried a little during that. how could you not? this child was just given the opportunity to explore her world in a new way.

i wished, for a few minutes, while watching that girl on television, that i could hear out of both ears. that's not the insight. i'll let you know when it hits. (note: the damage i have is at nerve level, and there's not much they can do about that quite yet.) i wished that i could belong to that set of people. why? who the hell knows. there's beauty in every aspect of every illness or disorder or handicap--it's just a matter of seeing it. the beauty of being deaf is that sound is a gift, and that the way you perceive the world is so different from the person sitting next to you.

i talked about this with kari, one of my now former coworkers, and karen, another coworker, who are both in different stages of being deaf. karen's got one good ear, like me, and kari's got two bad ones, which can be enhanced with the use of a hearing aid. however, since her daughter is also deaf and needed two, kari's only got one.

it was so interesting to finally comprehend that i was first of all not alone in hearing "the charlie brown teacher" voice when i wasn't focused on someone. refreshing and for some reason reassuring to hear that after being in a social situation in which there are myriad voices, you're exhausted. you can't keep your eyes open because the whole time you're so focused on the other person. also reassuring to know that for the most part, we all rely on body language a LOT more than our significant others and friends, just because you're so afraid of missing something.

just plug your ears ometime. see what happens.

i thought it was hysterical and confusing, the first time i saw a jackie chan movie, that i had no idea of what was going on. the little faces on screen were moving and talking, but the words were all dubbed. people in the room were laughing at jokes and i didn't know what the joke even was. i had no idea how much i relied on lip reading. (which reminds me of a day at work: our supervisor came down the aisle and said something amusing to a group of us loitering there, half in and half out of our cubes. everyone laughed. so kari and i laughed too. you do these things to fit in. someone who missed the joke asked what was so funny, and neither of us had any idea. we decided it was a deaf chick thing, and THEN we laughed and no one else quite got the joke.)

i've learned to put up with and love subtitles in movies. my friends and family all walk on my right. i drive because then i can hear the passenger over the road noise.

THIS was the insight i had: i think for a long time i wanted to be a part of the deaf community. but i'm not totally deaf. i don't have to wear a hearing aid, i don't have to sign in order to communicate. i'm part of the hearing world. i told dan once that i wanted to learn to sign because it almost seems like it would be a relief to not have to worry about missing a word or two, having to extrapolate constantly during a conversation and then plead inattention because if you reach into your purse for a peice of gum you miss being attentive to what the other person was saying. course you'd do that if you were signing, too, i suppose. the grass is always greener.

for a long time, too, i wanted my deafness to be something that defined me. i mean, for all intensive purposes, it has; nothing shapes you like a deficiency. but the deficiency in the auditory area has opened up room for other things to take shape and grow. i think about dan's cousin, who was born with one lung. he's almost 20 now, and after all these years, his one lung has grown and expanded and taken up the space of his other lung.

i think about the void i have in my life because i miss so much, and i think about how that has opened other doors for me--the doors that are sensitive to others' moods, the lip reading and body reading that is unconciously done. i think about how wanting to avoid situations in which i might be construed as "stupid" because it seems i'm missing screws have levered me into reading more books, writing poetry, taking pictures.

mostly i think about how the world is filtered differently for each of us. some people are able to go through the world tall enough to reach the top cupboard but unable to see the turtles. i think about stephen hawking and how not much has stood in his way, despite what the rest of us see as a handicap. i think about what sark said in whatever book it was: they never say anything about a fat elephant. or a fat tree. if a tree has a bole that malforms it from the norm, it's a thing of beauty.

how come we cannot see that the disorders and deficiencies of the world are things to be cherished and relied upon?

the cat is close enough, right now, that i can hear her purr, if i turn my head one way. if i look back at my monitor her purring is gone. edited for sound. muted.

dawn

there's a con trail across the sky, out side the window. it's one of those left-hours-ago trails that is starting to resemble cirrus clouds. but the shape is unmistakeable. david's car is outside too, reminding me that tomorrow morning i need to be at the airport at 6 to retrieve him.

if i turn to my right, shiva is giving me her morning stare. she gets wet food every morning and if it's not done by the time i scurry out of the house, there's yowling for the masses.

upstairs i thought i heard the rustle of eero getting ready for work but there's just silence. not sure what's up. i came downstairs to check the weather, and am now thinking of rethinking today's wardrobe choices, as it sounds like it'll be a balmy 72. the shower starts and i probably should get ready for work.

but i really, really, really don't want to.

i'd rather replay yesterday, or the day prior. another weekend day, something to keep me distracted from truth and reality...ie, work. i also have to have new brake pads put in this week, which means calling for prices, so on and so forth. ugh. i wish they were easy to replace and that i could just snap them in like windsheild wipers. *sigh*

yesterday was a great deal of fun. drove out to shakopee with corpse, kiya, d and c and played 18 holes of frisbee golf. then dan and i stayed at d and c's for movie watching (saw, which was interesting but not something i'd probably watch again) and dinner (yummy chicken and taters, thank you cathy). and then home again to get ready for bed. it smelled like rain last night but i guess that's holding off until tomorrow or even tonight, if we're lucky.

off to trade in pajamas for something i can wear to work. cheers all. (:

imdb: independent movie doing beautifully

so yesterday i drove over to river falls, wi, to see if i could help out at all with a movie that my friends sarah (better known as spoon to the general populace) and her bf josh are filming. it's called "cope: a small film about a big decision" and it's going to have more documentary than film, i think. which is the beauty of an indie film.

it was just so nice to belong. and see the bright lights of some kind of theatre, and smell ben nye makeup again. *sigh* so lovely.

stephen (aka daddybear) was also there, doing lights and general guidance, as he's had lots of experience with filmmaking. i ended up doing a variety of things--makeup, holding the boom (that mic on a pole), script and shot supervision, gofer. (hey, we need some masking tape to mark the floor. could someone grab the powder for chris' nose? et cetera.) i think that was what got to me the most--it reminded me SO much of being in any theatre production i've ever done, wherein you're acting during one scene, but then you also are doing props and calling light cues for part of the show...so on and so forth. it reminded me, as i was standing there holding the script and shot list, of just how much i missed stage managing and theatre in general.

as a bonus, i got to hang out with some laid back but artistic people, which is always a pleasure because i despise being rushed and pushed and coerced into hurrying. by the end of the shoot (at which point it was realized that there would have to be a reshoot of the night scenes because josh and sarah both appeared in the sliding glass door reflection like ghosties. which was better than that morning, where, after filming for how long, we watched the dailies and everyone about bit it laughing over daddybear, who thought he was out of frame but really wasn't. colie (the "heroine") is saying good bye to chris ("hero") in the BEDROOM and all you can see the whole time over colie's shoulder is this florid blue and yellow hawaiian shirt, a leg with shorts and a wool sock and sandal, and an arm on top, clearly holding another camera. turns it into an entirely different movie. LOL) anyway by the end of the shoot everyone was beat, myself included. i sat down for "a minute" on the couch with noah, an art major who brought these fabric squares to decorate one wall of the living room--amazing what you can do with thread and fabric if you're an artist. so we sat there discussing this poem that chris had been reading by i think charles norse, it was called the priest and the matador. and in the kitchen they kept shooting and reshooting this scene in which chris' character has to respond to colie's character:

colie: it's just tea.
chris: it's never just tea.

but it kept sounding more like: it's never justy. or it's never justine. so there was a chant that erupted at one point, something annunciating "it's never just tea" but we couldn't get the other videocamera ready fast enough to make a difference. so then we digressed and discussed the monkey who played a nurse on the soap opera "passions."

speaking of names. after shooting and shooting this scene in which chris pours cereal, daddybear pointed out that we couldn't use the cheerios box unless general mills was funding some part of the film. after we got over the "well, shit" portion of that moment, we realized that BEHIND the cheerios box there was a nicely displayed bag of starburst. so that whole scene will need to be re-shot as well. *sigh* but it was a learning experience for everyone, and a valuable one, too.

i also got to have some fabulous homemade spaghetti for lunch, and then steve's pizza (small pizza joint, great pizza) for dinner--we had a greek and it was divine. course we were pretty much starving at that point so it went very fast. one minute there was a pizza on the table and another minute we were asking for the check. snap of the fingers. i think i got home around 1120 or so last night, and by that time i was totally exhausted.

blue skies and sunny today. i feel like writing. or going back over to help film some more. but they're not starting until 8 tonight and that's a bit late, if i want to get up at 6 for work. blech.

so yeah. that was my saturday. i don't think i even told you what the film was about: a man who is OCD; mom wants him to start taking his meds again, new girlfriend has no idea that he's OCD, etc. i'm looking forward to the screening portion, and the "behind the scenes" that is going to be part of this. in theatre you're usually a long ways away from the actors, when the performance is in progress. in film, you see the scene, and you think: my god. there were how many of us in the room at the same time, redoing and redoing the scene.

interesting.

violent philodendrons

i'm thinking about my plant, dorcas. i'm thinking about whether or not she ever has a day that makes her anything other than green and sun-seeking. does she long to bitch-slap the cat when shiva chews on a leaf or two? or flip me the bird when i walk by and forget to check to see if she needs water? maybe i'm being told to fuck off, right now, as i type.

it's hard to say, really.

this morning started off with a bang. all kinds of fubars that stemmed from things i did that got worse because i had no idea of what impact said things would have. like the domino effect, but without knowing that the dominoes were all lined up. it's kind of like one of those fractions i used to despise: bull + china shop = kim + computer system/taxes. i often forget that things don't work the way i think they ought to work. and then i wave my white flag and get the heck out of dodge.

i'm kind of at the hide point in a long game of hide and seek. the seeking...well, that can wait until next week. right now it's duck and cover, and hope to hell that the shrapnel is just stuff i can brush off.

think office space, plus landmines. theoretical landmines. but landmines all the same.

i'm not a bomb sniffing pooch. i've got enough training to make me dangerous. and after nearly 3 years at the same company, i often feel as new and green as my possibly pissy houseplant.

sticks and stones

when i was a kid, my dad used to try to bolster us when we got teased by doing that "sticks and stones" rhyme. i was never sure it did much until today at lunch, when someone at my lunch table mentioned that i seem to have a propensity for taking a lot of shit.

was it part of my upbringing, this acceptance of the crap life dishes? unquestioning i roll through time.

it's been a while since i blogged. quite a while. there's been vacation--which was spent at home, in fear of spreading and/or contracting the dreaded Crud that dan and eero had--and going to a wedding with nathan--which was SO much fun that i danced until my feet were too swollen to put back in my pointy toed shoes, and also at which i met a kindred spirit in the guise of a college friend's straight date, which is what i was as nathan's date...then there was a duran duran concert, lots of fun and thank you sara for inviting me, and a trip home over easter, which wasn't long because the night prior was spent up WAY too late gaming, and then i slept most of saturday before even dragging myself to check on my sister's cat and drive to st cloud.

when i arrived, mom and dad were sick. dad was insistent, despite mom's protests, that he drive down and pick up my grandma. i went out on saturday night with my sister--kind of a celebration of my bday and hers all at once--and played trivia and then bowled. yes, bowled. what a new and novel experience...and i did good! my high score was a 96, which is unheard of for a whalen child. my parents are excellent bowlers; we just apparently didn't ever excel in that area. but maybe with age... *sigh* sunday dad got grandma and david and beth and i took her to church, which was uneventful. then home, dinner, and a brief rest and then grandma was ready to go back to anoka. she seemed to know who i was for most of the drive but then when we got to her assisted living building couldn't remember where to go. found her room and as we're walking out, i comment on the shamrock shaped clock hanging next to her door.

kim: that's an interesting clock.
grandma w: my husband made that clock for me, years ago.
kim: he was a very creative man. (insert fond memories of grandpa w here)
grandma w: yes, he was very creative, but i had to have all the children.

oy.

last week was a rough week. got back from vacation to discover that barry, one of my coworkers, had decamped. then on monday heard about the shootings at red lake, which is about 20 miles north of bemidji. we had some panic as eero thought his cousin still taught there, and then couldn't get through to his parents, but it was abated when he found that she worked close but not there. still nothing short of awful. i just cannot get over the amount of violence that goes on in the world today. maybe i was just ignorant as a child? how blissful it must have been.

i'm reading a variety of books again, too. one romance novel, and then Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, Damned if you Don't by Graham Houghton, and my old standby, Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, which is right up there with being one of my all time favorite reads EVER. so far i'm liking the mayes book but the damned if you do book is interesting but not grabbing me quite yet. and i'm just not getting into the karen hawkins romance, either. so back to smilla. there's a line in there i love, about how adults assume that children are open like books, but in all reality they're the most secretive people on the planet. how true. i think about red lake, and how even the people who thought they knew this boy, how they really did not.

i think about myself as a child. what secrets did i keep, what things did i hold close? i don't remember, not any more. something that i've always carried are stones. every box i've ever opened from childhood has at least one rubbermaid container of rocks--agates, smooth black stones, rough sparkly granite. i always had rocks in my pocket, whatever i could find that looked interesting. in fact, i still have all kinds of rocks.

rocks remind me that life continues. that i don't have to give in. that i am of the earth, and that the earth is of me. whenever life gets really "bad" and i have to find some way to ground myself, i find a rock that's unweildy and really too big for my pocket, and i stick it in my pocket anyway. whenever i bump up against it, i'm reminded that i am such a small force in the world, and that this rock, this little and somewhat forgotten peice of earth, will continue long after i am ashes spread to wind.

kind of a meditation and reflection, for me.

all the things that have gone on in the time between this sentence and the last time i journaled, they're small things. insignificant, in the stream of time. the shooting--now that was a wake up call. but still just a larger rock in a larger river. connected to me but disconnected. i have not carried a rock in my pocket for a long time, perhaps over a month or probably more. i thought about that today at lunch, hearing the light in which others view me, the person who takes a lot of shit and just puts up with it. perhaps that's why i like my rocks--they're my metaphor for living, a little note from the universe about how insignificant i feel on the planet.

sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words
words save me
from the damnation
of silence
i write i speak i hum
to keep at bay
the dogs of war
the ravens that follow
pick my bones
to sticks
and stones.

still at work...

i'm still at work right now. blech. just waiting for a bunch of things to finish printing, etc. if they EVER finish i'm driving up to the excel energy center to meet sara (!) who i haven't seen in FOREVER to go to the duran duran concert. however in typical kim fashion i'm terrified that i'm not going to make it on time. providing that everything comes up roses i'm outtie and can make it on time...

in the mean time, i'm going to blog for a minute. or two. however long until i get paperwork. :P i didn't get a break this afternoon so this is it. pooh.

these last few days have been loooooong. aside from the daily grind of being back at work after vacation and the time during the day being sucked out through my head, which feels petty in comparison with world events, last night we found out about the shootings in red lake, and had a moment of panic when eero thought that his cousin still worked at the red lake schools. found out later she'd subbed there previously, but as of late, she's been working at another district. thank god. i had a flashback to when debbie and steve were still living in new york--the morning of september 11th--hearing about what was going on via second hand reports and the radio. i remember saying to someone that i was lucky, i didn't know anyone out there--and then realized that i did, and that i needed to call home. mom was home; steve and debbie were fine. but that moment of unsettling panic was just enough to make me queasy.

there's so many things that i think about when i recall those events, or any that mirror that morning--the curl of fear in my belly, the prickly feeling on my scalp, the heat rising to my cheeks before i cry. i don't like those moments, but in them, you feel so alive, so aware, just before that fog sets in.

gah! paperwork! must run!

things overheard

i think sometimes i am on constant alert, waiting to hear anything. i think that adds to my easy-to-scare factor, because i'm quite attuned to the world around me, and if something makes a noise, i'm jumpy.

so yesterday i'm out in the 40 acre park near our house. i'm happily tromping through the snow, slipping around on the layer of ice underneath, and cleaning my sunglasses off every few hundred yards or so because the snow is coming down so quickly. perfect hiking weather, at least for me. the whole time i'm hiking, i'm trying to block out the sounds of planes and cars--the low hum of mechanics whirring--and trying to focus on the small bird sounds and any rustles in the woods i might hear that signify a squirrel, or scarier, that coyote that scared me and serena a while back.

nothing. just the planes and automobiles. frustrating.

i focus on it anyway. hiking is like walking meditation for me, and having to focus is good.

about a quarter mile in, i start hearing this low thumping, grinding noise. sounds like bulldozers having sex--whump grrrrr, silence...whump grrrrr, silence...so on and so forth. i realize that the path i've chosen is bringing me closer to the pump station they're building on the edge of the park. yippee.

i had to admit defeat. it's difficult to focus on your inner peace of mind when all you can think is about two bulldozers poised in the act. i finished my walk and went home, a bit saddened by the fact that i didn't get out of it what i wanted to.

but then consider the area. i'm not walking in lake bemidji state park, or just down the road in bemidji; the habitats of beasties down here is different, including the human ones. i think it's the sounds and smells that get to me the most--i have a hard time accepting the gasoline perfume, or the sounds of the city, the pulse of activity that is based around electronics and engines.

with the one bum ear, i can't say that it's probably as loud for me, being as i live my life in a little bubble of random sounds as it is. but when i'm out in the woods, i have this preconceived notion that it's going to be quiet, and i don't have to block out what i don't want to hear, or listen hard for what i do want to hear: silence and the scurry of forest.

usually

usually i look forward to fridays. i crave them. i wait and wait and wait for them to arrive, i mark the days on my calendar.

this week i've been dreading its arrival, because it means i've only got 3 days left before i have to return to work. i never did make my list of to do items this week--yesterday's grand plans fell by the wayside, as usual...i did have my hair trimmed but the girl didn't take enough off the bottom so consequently this morning the hair looks worse (yes, worse) than it did yesterday. i can see what she was going for, but she must be used to dealing with submissive hair, not this wild stand-up-to-the-world hair that i generate daily. so we'll see. it's better but it's worse. who knows.

tonight is also sg1 night, which is something i adore...but again, the adoration factor is marred by the fact that next week it's back to cubeland.

i think the universe, however, is trying to coax a smile out of me yet--it's snowing and windy out, which is just ever so lovely, and the forecast is for 6-10 inches. yippee!!! that inspires me to cook something stew related, bake some bread, and just generally curl up in the house after forging a path through the park. which is what i'm hoping to do yet this morning.

so last night, in lieu of braving the rest of humanity that was probably clogging kieran's and drowning out the gaels anyway, dan and i went over to our local bar and had a guiness and trounced the other folks there playing trivia. it was quite lovely, and the guiness was on tap, so it tasted much better than the tinny, canned flavor it usually has when poured (not surprisingly) from a can. came home, dan headed up to meet sean and craig, and burt and eero and i drove over to meet darin and cathy and chrissy and mikey at d fong's. which is always a good time, lots of laughter and the best service on the planet from julie, our fave waitress. (she's one of those waitresses who doesn't need to hear you say a word--just brings out your favorite soup, whatever you usually drink, and then scolds you if you order outside your normal area. the other amazing part about julie is that she remembers for-e-ver what you ate the last time you were there. i mean, i doubt dan and i have been over there in about 2 months or more, and yet she had egg drop soup in front of me not five minutes after i sat down. amazing, is julie.)

after dinner burt and eero and i watched a netflix of eero's--circle, the eddie izzard performance from 2000. it was hysterical, as usual. did some surfing of the net and read for a bit, and then crashed.

and now it's friday. *sigh* i need more time! or maybe i just need some lottery winnings, so that i don't have to show up there or anywhere and can just keep typing all day long. riiiiiiiiiiiiight. how would the kitchen get cleaned up that way?

luck of the irish...

with the inherent luck of my forebears, on a day when i should be singing and dancing, i'm crankier than all hell and with only one reason: it's that time of the month.

additionally, i'm having one of those chop-it-all-off hair days, and i don't want to have to call around to people and organize my favorite occasion to swill beer. my sister's husband's uncle passed away so they're off to milwaukee, as her sister-in-law refuses to tell her father-in-law that this uncle passed away. the vagaries of family.

yesterday went well, we got out the door by 6 (YAWN!) and were in verndale by 930, which includes a half hour stop in st cloud for a new windshield wiper. the funeral was at 11; there's not much you can say about a funeral--it was sad, it makes you consider your own life, it makes you glad to be alive in general. we sat around and visited with family all after noon, which was nice--the sisters seem to be getting along better, and there's talk of get togethers in months and years in between tragedies and weddings, and maybe a family website. so that's good. the down side is that i'm sure dan's parents went through a lot of memories of losing a child all over again, as dan's cousin was only 32. at this point it just becomes a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and plodding along. time doesn't heal; it makes the memories of loss a bit softer around the edges, lets you cope and heal as much as you can. cari said once that it's not about being fully healed, ever. you just carry this scar with you always.

too true. i keep thinking of when corey died, and bev. i worry about mike's widow--together they have 4 children, and she's due again in june.

the beauty of things like this is the outpouring of support you see. it makes me want to weep a bit, just to think of all the people gathered in that room, the ladies who gave up their day to serve coffee and potato casserole. i remember after corey died, the pans of lasagna, the buckets of soup, the bread--mainly i remember a pile of homemade cinnamon rolls. they were delicious, but besides that, i know how much trouble it is to make cinnamon rolls by hand--the dough rising, then rolling it out and baking it. i wonder if the baker thought of the reason behind making those rolls, as she baked--did she think of a time when she'd received them, during a difficult time in her past? did she have a pan baked when she heard he'd died, and just dropped them off?

i like to think that she spent her time baking those rolls, kneading the dough, mixing the cinnamon mixture, knowing their end result would be to sit on a counter in the haugen household and tempt people who didn't care enough to eat any of the many, many dishes supplied.

right now i'm sitting here having my very own wake for all those gone before, and trying to toast my cranky attitude into submission, listening to the gaels perform. hopefully tonight we'll get up to kieran's to listen to some good irish music, and drink some tasty beer, and eat something fried and horrible for my arteries. i love irish music--it's the saddest happy music out there, in my opinion. it's the only music that has an exceedingly lively reel attached to words like: "and she left me here alone for to die."

it's perfectly lovely. i'm very blessed. and in being able to sit here and type, i'm lucky, too.

enough maudlin crap, i'm out to enjoy my day. (:

blogger gack

i don't know what it's doing, but it's only out there once when i look at edit posts, but it's there twice when i look at the blog. ???

museum

my legs
are sleeping
i'm crouched down
down down
beneath something large
maybe a couch
or a house?
i can't tell
can't speak
i'm hiding
from that semblance of events
that most folks categorize
as living.

how long can i
remain
before seeking eyes
pry
and find?
limbs atrophied
eyes sinking
i want to stay
here

it's not for lack
of creativity
or spark
whatever this is that keeps my heart
thudding along
i can't blame it on media
or genetics--
just plain old
me,
wanting to support the structure
but not be
brushed off and shined up and glass boxed and
on
display.

one of my fave quotes:

from one of the last places you'd expect a great quote, a sci-fi television show. who knows. anyway i've been feeling a lack of place, needing some tie-me-down to keep me moored in reality of late. so here it is, part and parcel of whatever mantra i make up to keep sanity docked:

The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are, it's the right place...and the right time. Pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born. Then I will tell you a great secret. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.

Delenn (or rather, jms, creator of Babylon 5)

overload

i'm kind of overwhelmed right now. it's the beginning of my vacation, only day 2, and i was laying in the upstairs room cataloging all i'd like to get done. my main goal is laundry, which includes washing comforters and everything. it needs it. course i despise washing my down comforter because it's a bitch to dry; last year when i did, i singed the feathers a bit, which is one of the worst smells ever. blech.

i also need to organize my books. they're on shelves, but not in any order. it'd be nice to get them organized. maybe i'll even go so far as to alphabetize; but don't dream, dan. LOL it'll probably be my usual mix of i like this author a lot and this author not as much. this is the kimbo decimal system.

i also want to get that upstairs room organized once and for all. serena will be staying here eventually for d and c's wedding, and before that, cari and tony on their way to st maarten. and i really, really need to start yoga again. i thought about that and let myself savor and dwell on it a little last night, when i was laying there trying to massage the kinks out of my neck and settle my overzealous stomach. when i was doing yoga and walking at least every other day, i didn't have these problems. so that means i need to start again, plain and simple.

course that means i need to clean up that room. which is going to be difficult, because i really need to clean out my file thing before i start cleaning, as most of the stuff needs to go into the file.

this is remniscent of cleaning off my desk the other day, before going on vacation. there's piles of stuff that's like minefields--some safe and able to be handled quickly, other papers that need to be filed and shredded before they're relegated to that wooden crate again. some things--like the information i need in order to get my actual birth certificate--are things that just need to be done. (in new york they don't give your b.c. to you unless you request it. my sister found this out last year when they went to get their marriage license; the certificate we have is just a certificate stating that yes, there IS an acutal birth certificate in existence.)

why the extra paperwork? i don't get it.

last night i had this wild dream that our group of spies, from dan's spygame, were on the move. we had to hide in this garage; the ground was covered with snow, some still falling, and we were trying to avoid stepping in the snow as we moved. we got into the garage and heard this low grumble; there was another garage attached to the house behind us, and inside it was a lion. i've had this dream before. we did something and called in a complaint before we left.

that upstairs room is that lion. i'm trying to do too much, all over again. oy. better make a list.

sat

so far today, i've lived up to the abbreviation of saturday: sat.

i got up and sat with dan for a bit; his dad called to let us know that a cousin was killed in a car accident this morning. we're waiting for further updates. dan hasn't had contact with his cousin in a long time, but i'm sure if there's a funeral we'll drive out. saying good bye, even to a memory, is important.

then i sat in my computer chair and paid bills.

sat in my bed and warmed up my feet while talking to my sister about school and evolution and how she was not aware that they don't even use the word evolution any more, and how one of her students' fathers gave her a book to read about how evolution was a myth. interesting. she works in the cities; i respect all opinions, but dang does it seem backwards for a school in the metro area. and to accept without question the idea of creationism--what kind of lack of curiosity has time fostered?

sat and watched part of a horrible movie on sci fi with dan, mosquito. awful. the mosquitos themselves should have gone on strike; they looked horrible. but it was still amusing because that hum is the universal word for annoyance, large or small. comical horror.

sat and picked out socks.

now sitting at the computer again. yesterday i made it as far as the grocery store, never the post office. luckily the post office in apple valley is open until 130 so i can still make it down there if i hustle. so i guess i better get off my duff and move. (:

i think dan's feeling better, but he's still got this deep, hacking cough that just sound hideous, and is currently sleeping on the couch. i don't want to turn off the tv because i'm afraid i'll wake him. apparently typing doesn't make him move. nifty.

sick

i'm prey
being stalked by something
the size of a garbage truck
or maybe that's just
a bacterial shadow
i heard it settling in your chest
the other day
getting friendly with your lungs
i don't
want it.
send it away, mail it to
tahiti
or maybe the aleutian
islands.
solitary
confinement
seclusion in a land where it cannot
sneak up
on unsuspecting
primates.
i'm a selfish ape;
my flesh doesn't want
to be shared
with that
creature.

fried

fried
broken like humpty
i was dumped onto pavement
scattered
never thought i'd write
about how much i feel
like
an egg.

it's friday and i have all next week off. yay. have to hit the grocery store and then the post office before they close for the day. then it's off to tangee's for sci fi friday and truffle making. yum.

i'm not sure i'm going anywhere on my Big Week Off, mainly because my roommates have just been struggling with some terrible, horrible, no good very nasty colds, and i don't want to visit and leave my host or hostess the never ending gift of virus.

so maybe this will be a week home to heal the edges of my self back together, or at least gather them into a pile and then drop off extras at the thrift store.

either way, it's starting on an auspiciuosly good foot for me--it's snowing, big happy flakes.

hopefully i won't have to write about my likeness to a fairy tale ova in the near future.

inspiration

when i lived up north, i got really, really inspired by a book.

nothing in the self help section; just a plain old fiction book. the heroine was just that kick ass. it inspired me to do things i never considered, but things that really did change my life--moving off on my own, being as independent as i needed to be.

it's something that comes and goes, this inspiration. i think about the way things work and how i never know exactly when it's going to strike. usually it arrives in the form of media--books, music, television, movies. and usually it inspires me for a while, and then flits off.

i was thinking about this the other day, mainly because i went to the website at which i used to arrive daily, and it was closed down. hadn't been there in a while; the heroine that so inspired me in northern climes has taken a different turn, and i don't find her books as vivid any longer. part of me was sad to see that site close, but part of me was relieved--i'm not missing anything, it's all gone. i never thought i would be getting so much stuff from a computer, or via a computer.

lately my inspiration has been slightly dried up. it reminds me of most natural things--drought, rain, blossoms, drought again. it's cyclical, it's nothing reliable, and it's certainly not predictable.

i used to think that people who wrote poems on napkins were strange. this was back when i started college. now i'm a napkin person too; in fact the other day it was while waiting for car financing to go through, and on the back of my privacy release document.

for a long time i made myself be creative, whenever i needed to be, for school. now it's not a requirement any longer, and it's falling into a state of disrepair, or maybe just back to its natural form, the cycles of the moon, the seasons, however it worked before i made it dance like a bear.

it frustrates me, this inaction. and yet i have a difficut time reaching over, or seeing past it, to the point at which it rains and i paint, or draw, or write, just plain old create. writing--poetry in particular--is like breathing: so much a part of me that i cannot imagine not expressing myself in this manner.

so what's my inspiration today? what's gotten me out of bed before the dark hour of nine am? my family's in town somewhere. my car is waiting to be driven. i figured out the antenna and now i have radio. such a novel idea. (;

it'll come to me when the snow starts to melt. i know that i need to relax and just let go of the anxiety, the feeling that i'm being blocked, because i'm not. i'm like the earth, the grass, the green growing spring life--dormant, waiting. something will arrive and i will move, stretch my inspired limbs and just do.

moon

it's a bright gray day out side right now. bright because of the snow, because the sky is this pillow-soft shade of off-white-gray, which is all bright because of the sun, which is apparently taking the day off. it's what the world would look like during the day if the moon was bigger, i think.

it's going to be a long day. i say this because i'm tired, and 9 hours of work is not something to look forward to. also most of the work i just flat out don't want to do. i am tired of deciding who created what problem--can i not just solve them in peace? just come to the conclusion? it's exhausting. add to that the job duties, which just keep piling up, and you have apathy.

even if i am there, i'm not going to be much good.

which tires me. i dislike going to a job and feeling that i'm both A: making no headway and B: doing no good.

i have a week of vacation coming up. i have a new car. i'm seriously thinking about leaving my job.

at the same time, there are things i would miss dearly: my friends, the lax attitudes towards off color humor and downright nasty language, wearing clothing that at a normal business casual place would be considered out...these are things i would miss. it makes me scared to think that at another job i might not have these things. and yet at the same time, the way management is going, i'm tired of it. sick of the office. sick of the politics of the office, and tired of the machinations of my supervisor, who i'm sure is suffering the trickle down effect and just passing the shit onto the rest of us.

but that doesn't make it fair.

you know what i hate? i hate guilt trips. i'm guilty of handing them out with the best, but i despise being guilt tripped, or made to feel guilty. i've tried for many years to shake myself of this habit because it's both unhealthy and ridiculously self-centered. but it's hard not to when you get into a meeting and your boss says: "because of what's going on with you guys, this is what i did on my vacation" and then launches into a powerpoint presentation with graphs and charts that basically point out the fact that WE SUCK ROCKS right now.

he could have just put up two screens and saved an hour of slideshow: You're shitty. slide two: Fix it.

i like to think of myself as a creative person. i really do. but put me in that office environ and i turn into this skip-to-the-end, stop-wasting-my-time bitch.

of course, in typical kim fashion, heaven forbid that i stand up for myself or say something about how crappy this makes me feel, because it might hurt someone else.

i've inherited, from my parents, this fear that if i say the wrong thing or do something wrong, i'll be punished and my job will be revoked. and then i'll be stuck trying to find another job.

which is kind of where i've put myself, anyway. i guess it's like your arm slowly rotting off, and you not going to the doctor until it's gone, and then saying, so doc, what can you do for me.

i shouldn't be surprised and yet i am.

additionally, i had a lovely time w/ nathan last night--had dinner at the chatterbox and then coffee at vera's afterwards--but whatever i ate is causing internal distress. i think it was that blessedly delicious hamburger, which had feta cheese, roasted cloves of garlic (whole), sun dried tomatoes, and some kind of creamy pesto spread, all on rosemary focaccia. delish. but beef isn't something i eat often, and yikes do i remember why. (;

anyway off to work, someone wish me luck and sci fi friday, here i come!

sooooooooooooooo...

i got a car.

it's a 1998 subaru impreza, black, 5-door, automatic, 45K, all wheel drive. needs a cd player to be complete, but it's cute, it's practical, and it's mine.

i already know her name, too: bianca.

i'm sad to lose my lupe, though. it was kind of depressing to see my periwinkle pride and joy, my first car, sit in the lot as i drove away in the "usurper," which got a clean bill of health from the mechanic, alan, who walked over the whole vehicle with me. of course i was distracted because the car was in the air and had no wheels on it, and i'm TERRIBLY easily amused, so the fact that i was standing under the car was highly, highly, highly entertaining.

well. ripley's believe it or not is on. believe it or not, i got a car. yay. welcome, bianca. thank you and good life, lupe. *sniff*

not fit to hit a dogfight...

i'm dressed in my sunday best right now: shorts and a ratty t-shirt that has no idea that it's going to be an accomplice to cleaning. a lot. and a pair of slippers from target-boutique that say bad kitty on them.

as mom would say, i'm not dressed fit for a dogfight.

which is fine, because today i get to hang out for a while with sno-bowl, the works, and windex. very unsavory characters, let me tell you what.

and then i'm going to maybe finish watching blues brothers, because i started last night and was so tired that i gave up and went to bed. i think my apathy towards the movie was based solely on the fact that i was pulling a rip van winkle on the sofa. who knows.

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeepy kim

so last night we went over to the savagedorm and gamed until the wee hours of the morning.

mainly the wee hours because we got there around 630, took a while to prep for dinner, and then ate and got situated, and started around 8 or 830. lunchmeat got home around 10 or so, and around 1030 the neighbor lady drove home and noticed that corpse's back driver side window had a large hole in it.

this lead to the following: cathy, patrolling the street and inspecting said vehicle with her maglite, in very police-proper fashion. dan quoting corpse on how much it would cost to repair the window. and darin cutting a plexiglass peice to fit the window. this was all before the cop arrived to report it. god only knows who broke the window. at any other house corpse probably would've ended up with some duct tape and cardboard. by the time darin and i finished with the duct tape, if you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd have no idea that there wasn't glass there. *sigh*

when the cop did get there (before the actual "installation"), we'd checked other cars on the street and ascertained that his was the only one hit. the cop pulls up and makes sure that yes, the group of six standing outside at midnight is indeed the household and car in question. because everyone stands outside shivering in mn; why go in and warm up? he could get there any minute and you don't want to inconvenience someone, now do you? (;

darin and corpse walk out to the car. the cop rolls down his window and asks whose car it is; corpse affirms it's his. then he asks: so, do i have any warrants out for my arrest?

he said it loud enough that the peanut gallery in the driveway could hear, and at that point we got the giggles. better yet, after we'd taped and vacuumed and swept up the glass and were back in the house and getting back into the spygame, corpse said that when he asked, the cop looked.

too much.

we got home around i think 230 or so, after a rollicking good time, and then i just couldn't sleep. this morning i had to get my butt over to the dmv to get my license renewed, but after i got up i dawdled and poked around at used cars online, found one i wanted to test drive and within ten minutes of emailing the dealership in question, had an appointment. after waiting at the dmv and getting a new picture and being told that my vision is fine (thank the gods they don't check hearing LOL) i came home, collected dan and we headed up to wayzata.

it was a nice dealership--village chevrolet, for anyone watching. a nice no-pressure place. which is good, because i DESPISE pushy salesfolk. ewwie. we drove a cute little subaru impreza hatchback and i liked immensely due to the hatchback, which is the height of practicality for me, myself and i. i had immediate visions of rummage saling in the spring. *dreamy sigh, ususally reserved for christian bale but applied today to the ultimate practicality of a hatchback...*

of course i'm thinking on it. and i'm sure by monday, when i'm thinking that yes, i want a mechanic to peek and let me know what's wrong with it, it'll be history. but i got up there and i drove it. and that's what counts. i drove a subaru, and i liked it. LOL small steps for humanity, in fact maybe just glances in a direction for humanity...but giant leaps for kimbo the destroyer. i'm hoping they'll take my car as a trade, and if so, hoping after that that i can get a cd player popped in so that the car will be useful to me. wink wink, nudge nudge. could i live without my cd player? how pampered am i?

oy.

anyway i'm running on about 4.5 hours of sleep and it's far too lovely out to not go outside so i'm off for a walk in the woods. possibly after ordering a digital camera from my incentive site online.

so far so good. off to the races. also off towards a cupcake, which sounds divinely awful for my hips right now. (:

almost, almost, almost...

friday.

it's so close i can see it, if i stand on my tippy-toes.

time has just been tripping by, the last weeks. i was all excited last week because it seemed as if a new car was within reach; and now this week i've been handed an empty envelope, as the guy whose number i was given to call has a fax machine for a phone. i keep forgetting to fax him a note saying, hey, jeremy, what the fuck? so maybe i'll email myself later.

last week i ended up driving to the vortex again. i know, pretty often for a two-month time span. but sunday was v-day for cari, and i wanted to be there as if nothing else a distraction.

it ended up being something of a reminder and healing experience for me. on top of being all pms-y and weepy, i made a promise to myself that if i got to bemidji before noon i'd go for a walk in the state park, one of my favorite and most familiar places to walk.

it so happened that i arrived around 1130, so i parked in the parking lot of the country club, wrapped boots around my feet, and tromped off with camera in hand into the woods.

i haven't been in the woods for a while. i think it's something that's so sacred for me, combined with so comforting, that being in unfamiliar woods down here, with planes grumbling overhead and the tang of highway just a stone's throw away, doesn't allow me to remove myself enough from the mundanity of life.

i could hear the whiz of snowmobiles out on the lake, the silence unbroken by shouts or anything. i'm not sure if all the men fishing have that deep understanding of silence; maybe it was just the brightness of the sun, the cold cold air, sucking breath from lungs. the snow made that lovely crunching sound underneath my boots, blocking out any noises that might exist, save the chitter of a few squirrels.

for a good hour and a half i just was at home in the woods. lost myself in the smell of crushed pine, the swoop of a bird, leftover snow falling in great clumps from tree boughs as a chipmunk skittered through. i was hoping, on the last leg of the walk, to see the does that i often encountered while rambling. three does--i always imagined the trinity they shared, maiden-mother-crone. the three fates, three pairs of hands holding thread. i loved seeing their slender necks turn, ears perk, tails swish. by that last leg i'd seen all kinds of tracks--deer, raccoon, dog, some kind of cat, squirrel, rabbit, and the tiny, tiny delicate indentations of a mouse, which ends up being two little dips and a swoosh of tail. adorable, and admirable to walk barefoot in so chill a climate.

on that last leg i was missing my walks so intensely that i just wanted to sit down and cry. i long for the woods so much some times that i think maybe there's something flawed in me--i'd much rather be out in the woods, soaking up earth, than anywhere. it's like finding your favorite pair of old, worn shoes, slipping them on and just knowing that they fit every inch of your foot, cradle your step.

when i was a kid, seeing a deer was something of a religious experience for our family; someone would point one out, and we'd all freeze and just watch, and be watched. that's something i have always carried, dad's reverence for the natural world, and his great respect for living things, the space he gave them and the silence he offered to them, his only gift.

i looked up and across the road, directly across the path from me, were those does, eyes focused on me, ears hearing my heart thud around like that favorite shoe in the drier. it felt like a gift, a divinely wrapped and given gift.

i stood there, weeping, for a good ten minutes. feeling both bereft and healed, in some way. i thanked everyone i could.

some things you have to accept. some things are just meant to be. if i'd lingered longer on the beach, i'd have missed them.

i've been trying for a long time now to come to terms with where i am, to understand why i have been put here. four deer in the woods do not solve a lifetime of unanswered questions; they don't solve things. they solidify; they remind. i remembered the joy i had, walking in the woods, the comfort unasked the trees offered. i remembered the feel of my pockets weighed down by stones picked to make runes, sharp blue crab claws clinging to frozen sand. the feel of wind so hard on my cheeks that i almost, almost, almost wanted a scarf. bottomless sky, in a bowl over my head broken only by piercing sun.

i miss all those days. the whole time i was thinking: do i have to miss this? do i have to give this up? i don't. i could find something down here, in the middle of the cities, that would fill my soul. right?

i have this feeling that i needed that moment, all those minutes, alone in the woods; i needed the gift of seeing those deer; i needed the solitude and the completeness that those woods allow me. i needed that time to make a spot inside my soul that i can visit from time to time, when i need space but cannot find it, when peace eludes me. cool water on a dry throat.

i need to give these things to myself, again. i need to gift myself with time, with space, with nature, before i wither and become a shell around that warm memory carried within.

favor

don't
do me any
don't touch don't look don't prod
don't
poke
i'm tired of being
pandered
to,
tired of the little things
tired of trying and being
deflated
by life in general.

i'm not sure
what i'm hearing
the small things i think
are
help
turn out to be the nail
in
your tire.

take me for a ride in your car, car...

ever heard that peter, paul and mary song, car car? it's quite amusing.

note to nathan: thanks for turning me on to 89.3, it's interesting to listen to--i don't think i've heard a repeat yet. although compared to 93x their morning show on the current is kinda lacking. LOL but i need a boot to the head in the morning to get going, anyway.

so today work sucked. i'm not going to elaborate because i'm tired of whining.

i know, you didn't think it was possible.

and right now i've done a few things that i never thought i'd get around to doing: emailed the car place about a few more cars, and emailed the bank about a loan, and emailed my insurance about the cost of insurance, and am now headed upstairs to clean up the upstairs room in the HIGH hopes that soon i will be able to do down dog again, in a space that's not only comfy, but doesn't force me into down dog just to pick up my knitting, and also does not make me feel like i'm playing twister to get to the window.

and my man dan found me fat free pudding. love the man.

en route to room!

bread for the soul

yesterday we gamed. i haven't played in a dan-run game for a while, nor have i gamed on the weekend in a while. generally i get to have fun blowing things up and/or starting them on fire every other wednesday, during eero's game, but weekday gaming somehow feels constricted by the fact that you have to get ready for work the next morning. it's harder, for me at least, to just let loose.

so it was nice to game on a friday. and i'm glad that it's not every friday, or saturday, because i really like having my weekend days to recharge and slouch around the house in an aimless to downright shambling manner.

anyway, i got home last night and my beef stew, which i'd tossed in the crockpot yesterday morning before work, was smelling divine. i'm not a big beef-eater, but for some reason i was just jonesing for beef stew, and that means that i was probably deficient in something so eat i did. tasty, it was. talking like yoda, i am. yikes.

my sister called not 15 minutes after i got home, told dan to tell me to call my dad. immediately he must have seen the panic on my face because he said, no, she said it was a good thing! so i call, and dad's got a good retirement package and is dancing for joy...yay for dad! yay for mom! yay all around!

so i get off the phone and call my sister. mind you, all the while getting out a recipe for biscuits, finding flour, etc. i call sara and we go over what great news this is. i measure flour. we talk about how wonderful it is for dad and mom. i toss in baking powder. we laugh and smile. i add pepper. we talk about getting together for dinner saturday. i measure oil. and then i realize that i've used the milk measurments (2/3 cup) for the oil (1/3 cup). to add insult, i'm already making a double batch, so i've essentially just forced my hand into making a quadruple batch.

shit.

i had to actually get off the phone before i made things worse, and then add flour and baking powder, and all the other stuff, in droves, just to get the mix correct.

biscuits turned out well, lumpy and thick and homemade. i love homemade biscuits. they feed my soul.

few poems

still

i'm driving
rolling down a slow hill
press myself into a
stop
glance to my right, to where
the red glow of lights
plays
in a tangle of snowflakes
the bits of sky falling
i'm reminded
forcibly
of walking in the dark
cool fingers of winter
pinking my cheeks
thick snow crunching
underfoot
soughing of wind in the trees
all those things
remote
i've traveled
somewhere
else


***
layne

i catch
the grumble of your guitar
glitter mingled with lost
electricity
acoustic i hear for the first time
how melodic
it all is
how put together
when you're loud
(and i'm singing at the top of my lungs)
i miss it
the little slices
twangs and shirrs
riffs of voice
i'd call it soul
but you'd
scoff.

***
in the dark
beneath the skin
in secret dark
i listen
the drum of flesh
thumping, with my
heart
blood sings
it really does, if you listen
put your ear
to pillow, you'll hear dull
thud
thud
thud
your temple, pounding,
the dance continues
whether you're listening
or not
when i was young i thought it was
footsteps
someone creeping
down the hall
darker, darker
in the dark
beneath the skin
i'm sneaking
up
on
myself.

(thank you to a poetry class from carol-ann russell for that prompt--"in the dark beneath the skin" is a poem i've written many times, many different ways, for years.)

me, myself and whine

i'm whiny this week.

i'll go out on a limb and say that this has been the whiniest week of the year, thus far.

for some reason i'm tired. i'm lacking in ANY focus. i feel like a broken microscope.

yeah, that about sums that up.

i can't blame it on anything. can't chalk it up to pms or full moon or taxes. well, taxes might fit.

i'm just whiny and anti-social. i've devolved into reading so many books that i don't know which one i read last. that's always a sign to me that i have got to get out and do something. and i have a lot to do. just need a cattle prod to get going. maybe a cheerleader with a good supply of shiraz.

perhaps just a weekend of paint fumes. (; that, and dan's spygame on friday, and the thought of a few battlestar galactica eps waiting in the wings. that show really does rock. the proverbial "they" did a superb job writing it, and the acting is outstanding. lots of nice themes, pretty pictures, arresting ideas.

there's one thing to not whine over, i suppose. i'll keep compiling. (;

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

i'm tired.

not that sunday, i don't want to go to work tomorrow tired.

burned out. used up. i'm ready for a vacation. now i'm just waiting for the vacation calendar so i know when i have a week off, during which i plan on doing two things: sleeping in and finding a car.

right now it's 9 o'clock and i'm ready to climb into bed. which i think i just might do.

my sister, dan and i drove up to st cloud today for lunch w/ mom, dad, beth and david. it was nice to get together. we'd been hoping to have a big party but the rents had a lions' club thing on saturday so it was just close family on sunday. my sister's new hubby had to drive to milwaukee for a family emergency. wish him luck with his pop, okay all? it's not life threatening but it's stress. stress is stress.

a year ago today i was sitting in the hospital with dad, massaging his shoulders and tonight, sewing a rice bag to throw in the microwave and heat up to ease the pain in his shoulders.

this year i was sitting at a table, eating turkey and potatoes with lots of garlic, and laughing my ass off at my odd and bizarre family. my cheeks hurt and i feel as though i've had a good abs workout.

my parents are very different than they were a year and two days ago. they've changed their diet completely--no more fast food, mainly very low fat, low sodium, low sugar. lost weight, they look great and have more energy, and a new focus on life in general. dad's looking to retire in july already. yay dad!!!

it is strange how a change in your thought process can change your life so completely. focus it down, on the important things--family, friends, enjoying the time you're given. so much of life is spent on making ends meet and getting by that roses are forgotten and the sand runs through and dumps on the ground, for many people.

i think i drank my beer too quickly. in fact, i'm downright maudlin. night kids. (:

falling

i slipped
today on a patch of gravel and ice
felt the world turn
side
ways
sometimes you just can't
keep your
balance
your purchase on earth
tilts
your knees meet
in gravity's
nest

went to khan's today for lunch. i had WAY too much garlic on my food. and you know it has to be too much if i'm saying it's too much, because i'm a garlic hog.

i think i put on three scoops, and even after i was done eating the noodles and veggies and couldn't pick up the garlic bit by bit i used a fork.

yes, i'm addicted to garlic.

i know it's good in moderation, like all things, i suppose. i can still taste it lingering in my mouth. as with all things, it was nice and familiar for a while, but it's been over 8 hours since i ate lunch, and i've eaten other foods, drunk the last of my milk, depleted the brita, and brushed my teeth; and still it lingers.

stealing tomorrow

so i get sidetracked easily. anyone who knows me is aware of this. shiny, glittery objects, as well as things that look boring, are all quite distracting to me.

today it was time. i asked dan the other day if he wanted to go out at some point. today i got done with work early and it seemed natural that he would say, so what're we up to tonight?

and i, of course, said, um, i dunno.

i never plan anything. it just doesn't occur to me. if i plan something it falls through, or just never comes to fruition. i always overthink things, too. if i do something today, how will it affect tomorrow, so on and so forth. i talk myself into avoidance.

it's strange to think about it like that. it's like i'm cheating myself out of time by trying to avoid being shackled by it. i'm not sure i'd be able to change if someone paid me. i just don't like having to think, when i'm not being paid at work to think about it, what i should do next, and like even less having to decide.

what's the difference between losing time as i sit here typing and not planning tomorrow or just waiting and wasting time then?

cari's tony said something at one point about not being bound by the constraints of time.

maybe i ought to be? i'm not sure. time seems immortal enough that i'm never in a terrible rush, that i'm never worried about when i'll next see someone. it will happen when it happens, it will happen when it needs to happen.

can you be too much in the moment? so much that you miss out on living?

or am i just overthinking? can you steal your own tomorrow?

here, kitty kitty kitty...

so today we ran to the vet. shiva's been really sniffly lately, thought it had cleared up but yesterday it just got worse--snuffling, sneezing, puking. she kept itching an ear, too, so i finally broke down and called.

she was VERY well behaved, which is odd only because the last time we took her to the vet, she turned into a hell spawn feline and despite the fact that she was wrapped in a towel, dan was glad he had on gloves.

today she was so under the weather that he picked her up and put her in, and she didn't even meow.

the vet said she's in good shape, no ear infection, no cold. from her symptoms and checking her out, he thinks she's got food allergies or allergies in general. her little nose is swollen a bit, and her ears and paws are scratchy. in thinking about it while she was in the lab, dan and i realized that back when we had the backhall tsunami, we'd had to toss her old food and get new stuff...luckily we had some of the old stuff leftover, so the purina got packed up and we're back on the iams diet again. hopefully this will clear things up. if not, it's back in for some cortizone, but at least we have a start.

additionally, it appears that a tooth pulling is in her near future. one of her lower teeth is inflamed at the gum level, and the vet said that we could wait a bit and then have to remove it. yay.

but she's healthy, which is a boon. and he said she had the softest coat of any cat he'd ever met.

maybe he says that to all the kitties. (;

jack and coke, please...

so lately i've been thinking about how there's two things i really want to devote a blog to. the first is my grandma altobelli.

maybe i'll expand more later, but grandma's got alzheimer's, and she's really not grandma any longer. i find it difficult to visit her, because she doesn't know who i am, and being around a large group of people makes her nervous...which is difficult to avoid in our family because everyone travels in large italian-slovenian packs.

anyway, i've been feeling like a bum because when i have the chance to see her--like before christmas--i didn't take it. i squelched out on it. mainly because it's so hard to see her and know that she's not yours, not anymore. it scares me because it's a reminder that perhaps i'm not too far away from assuming my mother's role in her mother's life, so on and so forth. and that makes me feel a strange need to reproduce, if only to further the genetic strain and have my daughter come visit me when i think i haven't had children.

i'll get over it. i know i will. there's probably not a lot of time left, i suppose, in all reality. but the gal i knew, when i was younger, has been gone for a few years now, replaced by this other woman who feels uncomfortable around me--i like my memories the way they are, edited for content, happy and well-fed in grandma ursh's warm little kitchen.

the other thing i've been wanting to write about is dad's one year birthday. on 2.5.05 he will celebrate a year of his re-furbished heart. i haven't been doing very well with dad's low fat diet lately, or exercising more, all those things i promised myself i would do. i try, i really, really do, but then something like last night happens, and a lot of liquor later, i think, that probably wasn't very healthy. i think there was a line in smilla's sense of snow: an overall poisoning of the organism. one drink is good, two is fine, three is pushing it, and by five i should have known better. i think.

anyway it's been a year since my family gathered in that room, prayed to ourselves as they operated. it's hard to imagine that now--that whole day was so surreal, so strange and on edge, and yet there was a lot of laughter sprinkled in the mix. i remember that morning, getting up and dad was already gone from the house, and there was a moment when we wondered if we should shower or not...should we wait, would it matter. so we showered and primped, just because it felt nice and normal.

then we went to the hospital. thought we would just sit in the regular waiting area but they had rooms set aside, with televisions and comfy chairs. it was a good thing we had a door on the room because there was a lot of roaring laughter after my sister brought out her 7th grade papers to read through. the kids were writing about trekking through the oregon trail, but it was hard to keep their modern thoughts--ie, one wrote about stopping at macdonald's on the way--out of the historical context. we watched tv, walked around some, had lunch, generally bothered everyone in the waiting area because for a group of people whose dad was undergoing open heart surgery, we were pretty full of laughter.

i remember the nurse came in and briefed us a few times--once when they started, once when they put him on the heart-lung machine, and then again later, when we were all nervous because according to the previous report, he should have been done. they finished at 245, about three hours later than originally planned. the doctor came down to the room--dr pineda--and let us in on why things took so long. they'd done 6 bypasses, total--and then when he was done, he didn't like the way one looked, so he re-did it. good to know. halfway through his soft-spoken explanation, he got a phone call from a nurse, who was trying to tell him that he needed to come up to the room because a patient was having problems with the iv in his arm. either the dr couldn't hear very well or just wasn't paying attention to her; his cell was so loud that we all knew it was the man's right arm, and there was an issue with his iv. finally the nurse shouted through the phone, after a particularly slow interchange of the dr still not understanding which iv was causing problems, "the right arm, you know, like the one holding your phone." we all stifled giggles.

i remember how long his fingers were. long and slender.

we moved around a bit after that. went upstairs and made short work of the phone list, what with everyone having a cell phone with them. then sat around for a bit before he was moved to icu and we could see him again.

that was the hardest part of the day, and the happiest, too.

dad was all stuck up on this bed, and the nurse in attendence said that he had sparked up when he heard our voices. i didn't cry then, i hadn't cried all day. as i write this it makes me tear up a little, thinking. he didn't open his eyes, had a ventilator down his throat, looked pale and a bit jaundiced, and his blood pressure was very, very low, but he was moving his feet (which is a normal dad thing, he does that when he gets into bed, or while just sitting on the couch, moves his feet around and crosses and uncrosses them) but he was too weak to do much more. mom and i moved over to the bed so we could kiss him, and he got agitated, like he could hear through all the layers of gook he was pumped with, all the knock you out COLD stuff, that we really were there. i leaned over and said: just be still dad, just be quiet and heal. and he nodded.

that was the happiest point of the day. i knew that everything would be okay, then. gave up worry. even if everything had turned for the worst, dad knew i was there, he'd acknowledged, and he calmed down some.

out of all the things in my life, any difference i made, that is the one that i carry with me, that little nod. it was almost like absolution.

we laid around the waiting room some more, talked with another woman whose mother was in icu for something else, and eventually went home, slowly, filled with weary joy.

you measure life differently, after things happen that change you. it's been five years since corey, one year since dad had his bypasses. three years, this year, since i left bemidji, and soon a two years since vickie died, too. it doesn't seem like that long.

yesterday it was one year since i'd seen my friend veronica. last time i saw her was the year end party for work last year. last night was fun, but i missed my friends--serena, veronica. i have new ones now, people who are just as funny and amusing, in a different way. i'm glad i went.

it's just a dichotomy, always--that sense of continuing, with all these aspects within. i think of the earth mother--maiden, mother, crone--three in one. the seasons, turning and turning. world without end, amen.

i'll have another heineken, please.

two minute blog

it takes me at least twenty minutes to shower and get ready to go to work, which means that right now, being 813 am, i need to write and post in two minutes so i can still get ready and be there around the right time.

this week has been kind of a roller coaster. monday was bumpy-ish, tuesday was semi-normal, wednesday was fun, and now it's thursday, and i've no desire to go to work.

tomorrow, however, is our year end party, and that's always...interesting.

the snow is melting outside, which makes me kind of sad. i want it to hang around. it's like a good friend that shows up and then just as abruptly heads back on out. *sigh*

also picked up kim harrison's new book yesterday, while walking around the moa w/ rene, so far so good. if only i didn't need to sleep. (;

and last but not least, i had the medium salsa last night while at chipotle and it was a bit too hot for me. so, note to self, maybe not the hot stuff next time...

one addendum to NATHAN: i emailed you, but it came to my yahoo account...so i don't know if i actually emailed you or not. i sent it from discombobulated site...? any ideas? and i did indeed listen to 89.3 last night, it was lovely!!! nice and refreshing. they played some of everything. i'm keeping it on that station for a bit.

two minute blog is two minutes too long, must run!