it's almost february; outside, it's chilled and pale, sky milky with scattered clouds. my inner writer has been nagging me for weeks now: "sit down, you fool, and type!" but i'm on a reading kick, and apparently my inner reader needs to be fed.
i don't know how i would describe these rushes of feeling--cravings, perhaps? the ravenous urge for prose, tripping along the page. i sneak up on it like a predator, i hang round its known watering holes--the library, half-price books, barnes and noble. and then, when i'm not sure i can take the suspense any longer, i pounce.
last night we watched "muppets take manhattan." i hadn't seen it in years; it brought me back to my young days of pink and yellow footed pajamas, with the slippery white padding on the soles of the feet. my mom always cut those off--the feet, i mean--and i don't know why. perhaps she knew that her offspring would have a propensity for wearing nothing on their feet that might constrict their toes. who knows.
anyway, it solidified something in my mind that's been rattling around for the better part of a week: i'm hungry for youth.
not in the perverted sense, mind you. just hungry for that endless, bottomless curiosity, and the energy to satisfy it at any given moment. as i get older, i find that apathy sets in--i'm still curious, but i don't seek it out like i once did.
perhaps it is knowledge that propels? when i was young i read books the same way i do now: i eat them, tear out their innards and savor. i think i read them for a different reason, though. when i was a kid i read to broaden my base of knowledge--what is it like to fall in love? what is it like to have leprosy? what is it like to...be an adult.
now i am an adult. i still fall back into my own personal classics--the 101 dalmations, by dodie smith. charlie and the chocolate factory, by roald dahl. go dog go, by pd eastman.
my childhood friend, rachel, and i used to read large books, just to say that we had read them. we'd closet ourselves in our separate homes for a competitive reading weekend. (i know, how nerdy were we?) this was in sixth grade, i think, when we were about 12 or 13 or whatever age you are at that time. her favorite book was "gone with the wind." i read it just because it was a big book. we came in on monday and i remember she had read the book like 11 times or something. it's a big book; i look at it now and find it daunting. but we were so enamored of that open door--what is beyond this little realm of classrooms, barbie dolls, and the embarrassed pre-puberty showers after gym class?
before that, i'd read michener--chesapeake, alaska, and the omni-present hawaii. that last i found in the basement, along the wall with the few books my parents owned. i read it obsessively; it was a buffet of nouns and verbs, actions and romance, violence, history. i can't say that it set the tune for the rest of my reading diet, but it certainly set the tone for the next few years, during which most of my contemporaries were reading "sweet valley high" and such.
boooooooor-ing. who cares which cheerleader the quarterback dates? puh-lease. not my style.
when i was in 8th grade, i had a crush on one of the kids in my math class: sam. *insert dreamy sigh here* sam'd read during class, while the math teacher droned on about, horror of horrors, fractions. he was reading piers anthony, "a spell for chameleon."
of course i just had to go out and find it. that summer i remember taking the bus downtown to the library, alone, and finding a whole new section: fantasy and sci-fi.
the library was a dream, and being set free in it, with no time limits and a library card, was nirvana.
i think of stopping in the grocery store on the weekend, when they're handing out samples, and that is what i associate with the library: many different options, and you can choose to taste what you like. a smorgasboard of delights.
***
my mom would make new foods for us, when we were young, and my father would intone, above our heads at the dinner table: "try it; you'll like it."
for the most part i try, very hard, to be open to what is being tossed my way. yeah, i'm not perfect--i'm well aware of that. reading is a safe hobby; it's traveling across stormy oceans while sipping cocoa, exploring greenland from the security of my sofa and blankets, soaring through the cosmos and touching stars while my cats are curled at my feet.
i might not be the most adventuresome woman alive, but i certainly hope that my appetite for writing--both reading and creating--is never satiated.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
got the time
this time of year is always busy for me, what with work and all. i took on an additional responsibility at work, helping plan the year end party (which we have at the end of january, since that's when the busiest time of the year is over, when you work with taxes and W2s, at least.)
anyway, after i typed my last post i got in the car and drove to wal-mart. en route, i called dan to let him know i'd be late. while on the phone, i got to witness a three-car accident. no one was hurt (except for a goose-egg on the offending driver, and a 10-year-old scared witless), although the cars involved were no doubt totaled.
the whole moment was so surreal--i can remember the first thought i had, after one car mangled another: "i've never seen an airbag go off before." metal crumpled like paper; cars swerved and brakes squealed. i stopped and gave my phone number to police, in case they would need a witness, and then went to wal-mart, and then went home.
it's odd when you see how fortunate you truly are. usually at intersections, when i need to make a left turn, i pull out far enough so that if the light turns red, i can still squeak through. the only reason that my car was not the folded bits of steel that the others were is because i was slow to react, and chatting with dan. a few more feet forward and it would have been my car, my body.
there have been many times in my life where i wanted to end it--it being my life--myself. by whatever means came to mind--i find i cannot type it here. there have been times that i have been so sick that i thought, "perhaps i am dying, right now." and i know that each step i take is another towards the inevitable, that i have only a certain amount of time allotted to this conglomeration of cells i call "me."
perhaps that accident was a reminder, in a strange way. a reminder that it is not entirely up to me--it is in the hands of the fates, of chance, of serendipity.
***
yesterday i had lunch with my sister; then we shopped and had dinner at her house, prepared by her husband. this morning i remember the topic of conversation, the one that shook me the most, at least, was my dad.
when i was a kid my dad had stock phrases that he kept in the wings. things like: "stop crying, or i'll give you something to cry about." or "if you had a brain cell, you'd be dangerous." for many years he's been much better--he doesn't stress out about everything, and he's much more open with his feelings.
lately, though, since he's been retired, he's been leaning back to being a powder keg again.
when my sister was talking about his behavior during their last visit, i realized that i was clamming up, inside. we talked a bit about how dad's attitude affected us when we were young, and about how we wished that he would see a therapist now. there's a lot on his mind; i know, because i think like my dad. he's probably worried about retirement, finances and his uncle paul, who just had a stroke; paul's the last of his generation, on my dad's side. dad's concerned with his brother, jed, who's in a care facility in palm springs, ca, after his own massive series of strokes. there's the entire country of vietnam, with all its memories, sitting in his head too. dad gets consumed by worry.
i've had a hard time coming to terms with the fear that i felt, when i was a kid. it was not the imminent threat of physical harm. it was the feeling of uncertainty around my father. i love my dad dearly, and he's a very, very good man. but his temper has always been shaky. i think of zeus, tossing lightning bolts around heaven, and i think of my father.
***
it has snowed, since my last post. and it's snowing this morning too, myriad white flakes drifting down.
i think of metal wrinkled like bedsheets. i think of that stab of fear i had, sitting in my sister's basement, hearing about my father's temper. i think about how they say you marry your father, or mother, whatever. i know that for many years our relationship, dan's and mine, was that same type--mental and emotional mines, planted below the surface, just waiting to be touched. lots of them were not even planted by us; they were planted by our parents, unknowingly.
i think about how much change has gone on, in the last few years: difficult, more difficult, most difficult. i think of the father and son, standing next to their rumpled cars; the son has pulled on a gray sweatshirt, stained with dark spots of cola. i hear the father say, we are safe.
i dislike comparing life to that car wreck, but in truth, it often seems that way. you survive the car wreck, or whatever disaster is on the menu, and then you take that moment and you file it away and you move forward. that father and son took something different away from that accident than i did, sitting in the periphery.
can i honestly say i am glad to have seen it? nope. can i say that i'm glad that my dad's got a bad temper? not really. can i say that i am happy about the way the last few years tossed me around, a fish between sharks? not especially.
can i say that i am glad to be here? today, yes. today i know dan will wake up and we will smile together, and he won't be afraid to share his emotions, doled out like small precious bits of treasure. or perhaps that is how i feel--that i can share my self with him again, and in that sharing, there is a strength that would not be here, had i not experienced what i have.
i haven't got all the time in the world; and yet i do.
anyway, after i typed my last post i got in the car and drove to wal-mart. en route, i called dan to let him know i'd be late. while on the phone, i got to witness a three-car accident. no one was hurt (except for a goose-egg on the offending driver, and a 10-year-old scared witless), although the cars involved were no doubt totaled.
the whole moment was so surreal--i can remember the first thought i had, after one car mangled another: "i've never seen an airbag go off before." metal crumpled like paper; cars swerved and brakes squealed. i stopped and gave my phone number to police, in case they would need a witness, and then went to wal-mart, and then went home.
it's odd when you see how fortunate you truly are. usually at intersections, when i need to make a left turn, i pull out far enough so that if the light turns red, i can still squeak through. the only reason that my car was not the folded bits of steel that the others were is because i was slow to react, and chatting with dan. a few more feet forward and it would have been my car, my body.
there have been many times in my life where i wanted to end it--it being my life--myself. by whatever means came to mind--i find i cannot type it here. there have been times that i have been so sick that i thought, "perhaps i am dying, right now." and i know that each step i take is another towards the inevitable, that i have only a certain amount of time allotted to this conglomeration of cells i call "me."
perhaps that accident was a reminder, in a strange way. a reminder that it is not entirely up to me--it is in the hands of the fates, of chance, of serendipity.
***
yesterday i had lunch with my sister; then we shopped and had dinner at her house, prepared by her husband. this morning i remember the topic of conversation, the one that shook me the most, at least, was my dad.
when i was a kid my dad had stock phrases that he kept in the wings. things like: "stop crying, or i'll give you something to cry about." or "if you had a brain cell, you'd be dangerous." for many years he's been much better--he doesn't stress out about everything, and he's much more open with his feelings.
lately, though, since he's been retired, he's been leaning back to being a powder keg again.
when my sister was talking about his behavior during their last visit, i realized that i was clamming up, inside. we talked a bit about how dad's attitude affected us when we were young, and about how we wished that he would see a therapist now. there's a lot on his mind; i know, because i think like my dad. he's probably worried about retirement, finances and his uncle paul, who just had a stroke; paul's the last of his generation, on my dad's side. dad's concerned with his brother, jed, who's in a care facility in palm springs, ca, after his own massive series of strokes. there's the entire country of vietnam, with all its memories, sitting in his head too. dad gets consumed by worry.
i've had a hard time coming to terms with the fear that i felt, when i was a kid. it was not the imminent threat of physical harm. it was the feeling of uncertainty around my father. i love my dad dearly, and he's a very, very good man. but his temper has always been shaky. i think of zeus, tossing lightning bolts around heaven, and i think of my father.
***
it has snowed, since my last post. and it's snowing this morning too, myriad white flakes drifting down.
i think of metal wrinkled like bedsheets. i think of that stab of fear i had, sitting in my sister's basement, hearing about my father's temper. i think about how they say you marry your father, or mother, whatever. i know that for many years our relationship, dan's and mine, was that same type--mental and emotional mines, planted below the surface, just waiting to be touched. lots of them were not even planted by us; they were planted by our parents, unknowingly.
i think about how much change has gone on, in the last few years: difficult, more difficult, most difficult. i think of the father and son, standing next to their rumpled cars; the son has pulled on a gray sweatshirt, stained with dark spots of cola. i hear the father say, we are safe.
i dislike comparing life to that car wreck, but in truth, it often seems that way. you survive the car wreck, or whatever disaster is on the menu, and then you take that moment and you file it away and you move forward. that father and son took something different away from that accident than i did, sitting in the periphery.
can i honestly say i am glad to have seen it? nope. can i say that i'm glad that my dad's got a bad temper? not really. can i say that i am happy about the way the last few years tossed me around, a fish between sharks? not especially.
can i say that i am glad to be here? today, yes. today i know dan will wake up and we will smile together, and he won't be afraid to share his emotions, doled out like small precious bits of treasure. or perhaps that is how i feel--that i can share my self with him again, and in that sharing, there is a strength that would not be here, had i not experienced what i have.
i haven't got all the time in the world; and yet i do.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
741 post merdian
it's now 741 on my monitor screen. i just logged out of my system and am going to be heading home. after, of course, a stop at wal-mart.
why, i am asking myself, do i need to stop there, when i have this nagging head-ache that i think is brought on due to the overhead lights and eye strain with the computer?
because, i'll answer...i'm out of underwear.
year end at work is always sucky. no matter how you slice it. some days are short because you're caught up and can sneak out the door on time. other days sneak up and beat you over the head. if you've never been assaulted by your job, just imagine a few reams of paper hanging over your head and then dropping suddenly. it's kind of like the coyote-roadrunner fights, with the coyote mashed under the anvil.
at any rate, i have this nagging headache. i'm going to start calling it my 741 headache because it is at this point in the day where i wave the white flag and do one of the following:
1. crawl into bed
2. slither into the shower
3. start doing head rolls that would make ichabod crane shiver
and it's that time, today. and i'm still at work. and if i don't stop at wal-mart, tomorrow i will be going commando. and that, my friends, is just all wrong. (;
why, i am asking myself, do i need to stop there, when i have this nagging head-ache that i think is brought on due to the overhead lights and eye strain with the computer?
because, i'll answer...i'm out of underwear.
year end at work is always sucky. no matter how you slice it. some days are short because you're caught up and can sneak out the door on time. other days sneak up and beat you over the head. if you've never been assaulted by your job, just imagine a few reams of paper hanging over your head and then dropping suddenly. it's kind of like the coyote-roadrunner fights, with the coyote mashed under the anvil.
at any rate, i have this nagging headache. i'm going to start calling it my 741 headache because it is at this point in the day where i wave the white flag and do one of the following:
1. crawl into bed
2. slither into the shower
3. start doing head rolls that would make ichabod crane shiver
and it's that time, today. and i'm still at work. and if i don't stop at wal-mart, tomorrow i will be going commando. and that, my friends, is just all wrong. (;
Saturday, January 06, 2007
let me count the ways
i've never been a math-alete. i can scrape by in percentages, but don't ask about fractions or ratios or *shudder* geometry. word problems were continually the bane of my existence, during school. for as many years as i've been employed, however, i've been put in situations where i am forced to do math, mainly bookkeeping, or in the case of my present job, figuring out where numbers come from or where they went.
in some ways i look at this as a mystery, waiting to be solved, and that makes it easier to swallow. however i'm still jaded about word problems. for instance:
question: A pool is filling with water at the rate of 1/2 gallon per minute. It is emptying at one gallon an hour. How long until the pool is filled?
answer: PLUG THE FRICKING LEAK.
i get disgruntled, quickly.
this week has been a reminder of how far i have come, mathematically speaking. in my new position i just do a lot of checking off of lists, etc, versus my old position, where i assisted clients with their taxes and deductions and why something was not figuring correctly. at any rate, people still come to me for help with figuring out things that they cannot figure themselves. and not to toot my own horn, but usually i can solve them.
in fact, at one point, someone actually said that i was LOGICAL.
huh? me, logical? not usually! then again, perhaps i am more logical than i think, but less so than say, spock.
i think the problem i usually have with math is that i hare off on a different topic before i can complete the current function. therefore when i come back to it, i don't know what i just did, and voila! i'm lost.
i don't know what the difference is at work, where suddenly i become the Inspector Poirot of Numerical Crap.
it does give me pause.
why? because there are many, many things that i never thought i could do, but i have done. i remember when i was first learning to drive, and i had a moment of hesitation about stepping on the gas pedal. in fact i was such a cautious driver that i did not think i would ever drive in a big city.
scoot fifteen years down the line, and i love driving in the cities. driving itself is second nature.
and the same thing is true when i consider math.
i don't think that i will ever overcome my fear of math, my loathing for imaginary numbers. (if they are imaginary, does that mean that i can imagine that they're simply gone? hm?) i think that, like many other things, i have become accustomed to dealing with it.
i cannot count the number of things that i have encountered with fear, and now live with on a daily basis. but if i think of those things, even just a few, it makes me feel strong enough to handle the next one, or just continue to live with the fears i do have.
my fear of math, in the scheme of things, is small. i have much greater fears--losing loved ones, for example--but i have lost loved ones, and i know that life goes on, whether i will it or no.
when i was a young child and my parents yelled at me, i would do one of two things: hide in the back corner of my closet, or any dark small space, or go outside and run over to the park, and pretend that i was elsewhere on the planet.
when i was in my teens, my dad used to get frustrated with my math skills, or lack thereof. he would rail and shout at me, until he gave up and walked away. my reaction was generally to sit and try not to cry, because then i'd hear that wonderful phrase: "stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about." when he finally would storm off, i would give in and sniffle through the math problems myself, and then content myself with walking into the woods behind our house, alone, and trying to make the feelings go away.
it's something i carried, along with all those basic habits you pick up as a kid. when something happens that makes me want to cry, my first instinct is to run off somewhere and curl up, that if i make myself a small enough target, i will be forgotten and will forget.
it's something that i have to face, every day. my mother always said you have to pick your battles. i understand now that it's not only the battles you have with other people; more important are the battles we wage against our selves.
the truth of the matter is understanding that there really is no battle, just a simple question to be asked of your self. the question varies, as will your answer. it is the pause that is important, the pause where you question your behavior or action or thought, and hold it up and consider it, no matter how briefly. my therapist calls this "coginitive therapy."
whatever you call it, it does slow down the world a little. the questions i pose to myself are my own inner negotiator, feeling out reactions.
i cannot count the number of times that i have filed my nails; nor can i count the number of fears that i have come to live with, the number of times i have fought to a truce with my own thought process.
but if i think about it in the smallest of ways--my hidden math abilities, say--then it becomes more realistic, for everything else i face.
in some ways i look at this as a mystery, waiting to be solved, and that makes it easier to swallow. however i'm still jaded about word problems. for instance:
question: A pool is filling with water at the rate of 1/2 gallon per minute. It is emptying at one gallon an hour. How long until the pool is filled?
answer: PLUG THE FRICKING LEAK.
i get disgruntled, quickly.
this week has been a reminder of how far i have come, mathematically speaking. in my new position i just do a lot of checking off of lists, etc, versus my old position, where i assisted clients with their taxes and deductions and why something was not figuring correctly. at any rate, people still come to me for help with figuring out things that they cannot figure themselves. and not to toot my own horn, but usually i can solve them.
in fact, at one point, someone actually said that i was LOGICAL.
huh? me, logical? not usually! then again, perhaps i am more logical than i think, but less so than say, spock.
i think the problem i usually have with math is that i hare off on a different topic before i can complete the current function. therefore when i come back to it, i don't know what i just did, and voila! i'm lost.
i don't know what the difference is at work, where suddenly i become the Inspector Poirot of Numerical Crap.
it does give me pause.
why? because there are many, many things that i never thought i could do, but i have done. i remember when i was first learning to drive, and i had a moment of hesitation about stepping on the gas pedal. in fact i was such a cautious driver that i did not think i would ever drive in a big city.
scoot fifteen years down the line, and i love driving in the cities. driving itself is second nature.
and the same thing is true when i consider math.
i don't think that i will ever overcome my fear of math, my loathing for imaginary numbers. (if they are imaginary, does that mean that i can imagine that they're simply gone? hm?) i think that, like many other things, i have become accustomed to dealing with it.
i cannot count the number of things that i have encountered with fear, and now live with on a daily basis. but if i think of those things, even just a few, it makes me feel strong enough to handle the next one, or just continue to live with the fears i do have.
my fear of math, in the scheme of things, is small. i have much greater fears--losing loved ones, for example--but i have lost loved ones, and i know that life goes on, whether i will it or no.
when i was a young child and my parents yelled at me, i would do one of two things: hide in the back corner of my closet, or any dark small space, or go outside and run over to the park, and pretend that i was elsewhere on the planet.
when i was in my teens, my dad used to get frustrated with my math skills, or lack thereof. he would rail and shout at me, until he gave up and walked away. my reaction was generally to sit and try not to cry, because then i'd hear that wonderful phrase: "stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about." when he finally would storm off, i would give in and sniffle through the math problems myself, and then content myself with walking into the woods behind our house, alone, and trying to make the feelings go away.
it's something i carried, along with all those basic habits you pick up as a kid. when something happens that makes me want to cry, my first instinct is to run off somewhere and curl up, that if i make myself a small enough target, i will be forgotten and will forget.
it's something that i have to face, every day. my mother always said you have to pick your battles. i understand now that it's not only the battles you have with other people; more important are the battles we wage against our selves.
the truth of the matter is understanding that there really is no battle, just a simple question to be asked of your self. the question varies, as will your answer. it is the pause that is important, the pause where you question your behavior or action or thought, and hold it up and consider it, no matter how briefly. my therapist calls this "coginitive therapy."
whatever you call it, it does slow down the world a little. the questions i pose to myself are my own inner negotiator, feeling out reactions.
i cannot count the number of times that i have filed my nails; nor can i count the number of fears that i have come to live with, the number of times i have fought to a truce with my own thought process.
but if i think about it in the smallest of ways--my hidden math abilities, say--then it becomes more realistic, for everything else i face.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
i'm dreaming of a hypocritical christmas.
i'm feeling a bit jaded. so take this with two advil and comment later. (;
it's minnesota. it's two days from two-thousand-seven, and the grass outside my patio has the temerity to be GREEN.
we've had a few days of icy windshields, and some frosty lawns, and even some large, fluffy, beautiful snowflakes.
but the weather is being pretty damn hypocritical for a minnesota winter, and withholding the cold and snow that makes me love the state.
of course, being a minnesotan, i can glance outside, sigh, and continue with my day, because that's what being minnesotan is all about. usually.
and if any of the rest of this post makes any coherent sense, let me know. my man dan made me some kickin' coffee this morning and i'm kind of punchy. (;
***
perhaps i get frustrated this time of year because my workplace celebrates the holiday with wild abandon--cookies and gift exchanges, toasts of non-alcoholic bubbly--all while taking phone calls from the most ungrateful, ill-mannered group of public i've ever encountered.
for almost three years at work the holidays have been a time of overtime with a thin veneer of joy. here's why:
people forget that they are speaking to other people.
other people who are working double time and triple time, staying later than late trying to patch up a human error committed by one of their teammates, who probably ran out of coffee and wasn't able to run for a refill. other people who arrive at work three hours early, other people who are trying to make ends meet. other people that you probably brushed elbows with, at wal-mart, while edging in for the same cabbage patch doll.
i'm in a different position now; i no longer have to assist people on the phone who preach the Golden Rule to their kids but don't practice it with the rest of the planet. i still work a ton (workspeak: sixty hours or so) during year end (workspeak: December 15th through January 30th, no time off and weekends optional) and i help out a lot with my client service coworkers, because i cannot stand to see someone go without assistance. props and thanks to my mom and dad, who would give their last shirt to their neighbor.
at any rate, most of the people in my exceedingly short-handed office don't see their family a lot during the time of year when family is touted as the focus of the season. if our customers knew what the stress level was like in our office, would they take pity? would they not raise their voices, when they call about a problem that can be fixed? would they edit the swear words from their vocabulary, and perhaps treat their fellow humans with a bit of respect?
yesterday, at the height of the week's strife, i turned a corner to run into one of our managers, heidi. she was carrying a sheaf of files and paper, and from her direction, had been in a meeting with some irate client.
i'd never seen this bubbly girl cry. and i suddenly also knew what the term "big, fat tears" defined. i stopped in my tracks and asked if she was okay, if there was anything i could do. she shook her head and choked out no, she'd be fine.
the problems that cause people to explode like this, they are minor. the compassion that the season preaches gets lost.
my rule of dealing with an angry client is to remember that there are worse things that could have happened than the post office losing their payroll package.
i think of dan's brother, corey, and having lost him is much, much more terrible. it's not that i do not treat my clients with respect; it's just my way of keeping a calm head, when dealing with a ready-to-detonate person.
***
on top of the stress of work and being home long enough each day to shower and make sure the cats have kibble, my mom had a cancer scare, which has since been alleviated and found to be a fatty deposit. thank heavens for fat. never thought i'd say that again, except when i slip and hit the ice and then am thankful for the deposits on my ass, which protect said tailbone.
however one of my cousins is still in hospital, after a week and a half. she was being treated for an infection, and when rushed from the northern hinterlands to the Big City, it was found that she had cancer. they removed part of her stomach, her uterus, a lot of her colon. there are still three more tumors there. she's not much older than me; it's kind of scary, and it's much worse than anything that happens at work.
it's not that i don't care about my fellow man. i do. i have been in those shoes before, so frustrated that i can't do anything other than search for my tissues and a hershey's bar for solace.
i guess it just bothers me that halloween has passed and yet people wear the same hypocritical mask: love thy brother, love thy church, love thy family, but do not spare the verbage when you're angry.
my parents always used to preach the whole "do unto others" policy. dan's mom had a little plaque on her wall about not bitching about someone else until you have walked a mile in their moccasins. there's the wiccan rede: do unto others, an it harm none. the three-fold law: what you mete to others will return to you three-fold.
it's all the same message, backed by a god or quip-creator.
i'm not pissed off at the people who call and whose invoices pay my salary; i'm annoyed with their behavior. in therapy we talked about that difference, how you sometimes have to separate behavior and being.
i'm going to generalize here: everyone on this planet has the capacity and the ability to be hypocritical. and if they haven't been, yet, they will be, at some point, about something.
i know i have. i know i will, in future. it's inevitable. it's the two-faced nature of humanity, the yin and yang, night and day. if you walk far enough in one direction, there is the chance that you will meet your self, coming the other way. you might not recognize your own face, but it's you, meeting in the middle.
and if that is the case, i'd hope to meet me with open arms, and not show the same hypocrisy for which there is the potential.
it's minnesota. it's two days from two-thousand-seven, and the grass outside my patio has the temerity to be GREEN.
we've had a few days of icy windshields, and some frosty lawns, and even some large, fluffy, beautiful snowflakes.
but the weather is being pretty damn hypocritical for a minnesota winter, and withholding the cold and snow that makes me love the state.
of course, being a minnesotan, i can glance outside, sigh, and continue with my day, because that's what being minnesotan is all about. usually.
and if any of the rest of this post makes any coherent sense, let me know. my man dan made me some kickin' coffee this morning and i'm kind of punchy. (;
***
perhaps i get frustrated this time of year because my workplace celebrates the holiday with wild abandon--cookies and gift exchanges, toasts of non-alcoholic bubbly--all while taking phone calls from the most ungrateful, ill-mannered group of public i've ever encountered.
for almost three years at work the holidays have been a time of overtime with a thin veneer of joy. here's why:
people forget that they are speaking to other people.
other people who are working double time and triple time, staying later than late trying to patch up a human error committed by one of their teammates, who probably ran out of coffee and wasn't able to run for a refill. other people who arrive at work three hours early, other people who are trying to make ends meet. other people that you probably brushed elbows with, at wal-mart, while edging in for the same cabbage patch doll.
i'm in a different position now; i no longer have to assist people on the phone who preach the Golden Rule to their kids but don't practice it with the rest of the planet. i still work a ton (workspeak: sixty hours or so) during year end (workspeak: December 15th through January 30th, no time off and weekends optional) and i help out a lot with my client service coworkers, because i cannot stand to see someone go without assistance. props and thanks to my mom and dad, who would give their last shirt to their neighbor.
at any rate, most of the people in my exceedingly short-handed office don't see their family a lot during the time of year when family is touted as the focus of the season. if our customers knew what the stress level was like in our office, would they take pity? would they not raise their voices, when they call about a problem that can be fixed? would they edit the swear words from their vocabulary, and perhaps treat their fellow humans with a bit of respect?
yesterday, at the height of the week's strife, i turned a corner to run into one of our managers, heidi. she was carrying a sheaf of files and paper, and from her direction, had been in a meeting with some irate client.
i'd never seen this bubbly girl cry. and i suddenly also knew what the term "big, fat tears" defined. i stopped in my tracks and asked if she was okay, if there was anything i could do. she shook her head and choked out no, she'd be fine.
the problems that cause people to explode like this, they are minor. the compassion that the season preaches gets lost.
my rule of dealing with an angry client is to remember that there are worse things that could have happened than the post office losing their payroll package.
i think of dan's brother, corey, and having lost him is much, much more terrible. it's not that i do not treat my clients with respect; it's just my way of keeping a calm head, when dealing with a ready-to-detonate person.
***
on top of the stress of work and being home long enough each day to shower and make sure the cats have kibble, my mom had a cancer scare, which has since been alleviated and found to be a fatty deposit. thank heavens for fat. never thought i'd say that again, except when i slip and hit the ice and then am thankful for the deposits on my ass, which protect said tailbone.
however one of my cousins is still in hospital, after a week and a half. she was being treated for an infection, and when rushed from the northern hinterlands to the Big City, it was found that she had cancer. they removed part of her stomach, her uterus, a lot of her colon. there are still three more tumors there. she's not much older than me; it's kind of scary, and it's much worse than anything that happens at work.
it's not that i don't care about my fellow man. i do. i have been in those shoes before, so frustrated that i can't do anything other than search for my tissues and a hershey's bar for solace.
i guess it just bothers me that halloween has passed and yet people wear the same hypocritical mask: love thy brother, love thy church, love thy family, but do not spare the verbage when you're angry.
my parents always used to preach the whole "do unto others" policy. dan's mom had a little plaque on her wall about not bitching about someone else until you have walked a mile in their moccasins. there's the wiccan rede: do unto others, an it harm none. the three-fold law: what you mete to others will return to you three-fold.
it's all the same message, backed by a god or quip-creator.
i'm not pissed off at the people who call and whose invoices pay my salary; i'm annoyed with their behavior. in therapy we talked about that difference, how you sometimes have to separate behavior and being.
i'm going to generalize here: everyone on this planet has the capacity and the ability to be hypocritical. and if they haven't been, yet, they will be, at some point, about something.
i know i have. i know i will, in future. it's inevitable. it's the two-faced nature of humanity, the yin and yang, night and day. if you walk far enough in one direction, there is the chance that you will meet your self, coming the other way. you might not recognize your own face, but it's you, meeting in the middle.
and if that is the case, i'd hope to meet me with open arms, and not show the same hypocrisy for which there is the potential.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
the mating habits of electric deer
every year our townhome managers decorate for the holidays with pine boughs and red bows on the mailboxes and such. for the past two years, out by the big townhome sign on the street, they've put up these deer-shaped lighted deer.
last year, as we waited for traffic to ease up so that we could leave the house, i giggled to dan that wouldn't it be funny to move the deer around, perhaps having some type of discovery channel mating session? dan vetoed that; he said it would be like grafitti.
this year, same thing. decorations go up and i wonder briefly if i have the stones to go out in the middle of night and re-arrange the deer into as much of a compromising position as deer could be found. and then the notion is forgotten amid the detrius of work and mundane life crap, the never-ending list that runs through my head as i sit in my car at the stop sign: did i turn on the dishwasher? did i feed the cats? do i have my purse with me?
about two weeks ago i was doing just that. we were leaving, after dark, headed towards a bookstore foray. i was sitting in the passenger seat; we were chatting about something. as we turned, i looked over my shoulder and voila! someone had read my mind! there was a lighted, moving stag mounting his very own lighted doe.
how quaint.
the next day the deer were gone, moved back to the front area near the townhome office.
go figure.
***
those deer drive me nuts, during the holidays. they aren't painted to look like the real thing; they're just wire with white lights, heads bobbing up and down. they look frighteningly like golems of the real thing. i can almost hear the pinnochio-related thoughts: but i want to be a real ungulate! i want to graze on clipped suburban lawns! i want to nibble your nasturtiums to their roots!
i don't like being out by myself at night. in fact, i'm not so keen on it during the day, either, unless i am in a public place. for whatever reason, being in barnes and noble with nine hundred other people makes me feel safer than being in the local park by myself, with just one or two other hikers.
out of nine hundred bodies at the bookstore, i'm sure that there is a better chance that one of them will be a perverted person with mayhem, mischief and assault on their mind. but my imagination paints that lone jogger on the same hiking trail as myself as much, much more scary.
last night i was supposed to meet friends at the legion in richfield, for drinks and such. i arrived and could not find them; when i got back to my car i realized that my phone was dead, so i couldn't call for clarification or anything. i decided to do some retail therapy and drove to the local wal-mart to pick up a few items needed yet for christmas prep.
as i walked up to the store i thought about how easy it would be to just be gone--be mis-placed in the sea of bodies. dan thought i was having drinks; the people i was meeting thought i was probably home. my parents and friends would think whatever they would like to think about my present existence. in the end, how long would it take before someone even realized that i was gone?
i considered briefly getting in the car and driving somewhere, and staying the night, just to see if i was missed. it was a scary thought, that momentary urge to disappear amid the throng.
i thought about how easy it would be, how simple. i thought about how much i missed my northwoods, and the safety that i felt when i was in those woods, even if it was a sham and probably imagined security.
one of the things i used to dwell on, or perhaps cling to, when i lived by myself, was the fact that a tree, standing for years in the darkness outside, could not be scared of the night. it was rooted in ground. animals, too, could not be scared of the dark--they had no choice about flipping a switch and being ensconced into the wee hours by beautiful, lovely, safe light.
this year as i plodded back to my vehicle, shopping completed, i thought again about being alone in the dark. as i drove home i thought about those ridiculous deer that bother me so, thomas edison gone horribly awry. i thought about how they could subsist in the darkness, alone or in pairs, and not feel a thing about their situation.
were they luckier, those deer, than i, for their lack of brain cell? or were they aware of their own irony: that if they were real deer, they would stumble through tight forest and browse thickets for leftover buds, all in utter blackness?
apparently that is why i'm sitting in my house, warm and well-lit, and the lighted deer are plugged in down the street.
last year, as we waited for traffic to ease up so that we could leave the house, i giggled to dan that wouldn't it be funny to move the deer around, perhaps having some type of discovery channel mating session? dan vetoed that; he said it would be like grafitti.
this year, same thing. decorations go up and i wonder briefly if i have the stones to go out in the middle of night and re-arrange the deer into as much of a compromising position as deer could be found. and then the notion is forgotten amid the detrius of work and mundane life crap, the never-ending list that runs through my head as i sit in my car at the stop sign: did i turn on the dishwasher? did i feed the cats? do i have my purse with me?
about two weeks ago i was doing just that. we were leaving, after dark, headed towards a bookstore foray. i was sitting in the passenger seat; we were chatting about something. as we turned, i looked over my shoulder and voila! someone had read my mind! there was a lighted, moving stag mounting his very own lighted doe.
how quaint.
the next day the deer were gone, moved back to the front area near the townhome office.
go figure.
***
those deer drive me nuts, during the holidays. they aren't painted to look like the real thing; they're just wire with white lights, heads bobbing up and down. they look frighteningly like golems of the real thing. i can almost hear the pinnochio-related thoughts: but i want to be a real ungulate! i want to graze on clipped suburban lawns! i want to nibble your nasturtiums to their roots!
i don't like being out by myself at night. in fact, i'm not so keen on it during the day, either, unless i am in a public place. for whatever reason, being in barnes and noble with nine hundred other people makes me feel safer than being in the local park by myself, with just one or two other hikers.
out of nine hundred bodies at the bookstore, i'm sure that there is a better chance that one of them will be a perverted person with mayhem, mischief and assault on their mind. but my imagination paints that lone jogger on the same hiking trail as myself as much, much more scary.
last night i was supposed to meet friends at the legion in richfield, for drinks and such. i arrived and could not find them; when i got back to my car i realized that my phone was dead, so i couldn't call for clarification or anything. i decided to do some retail therapy and drove to the local wal-mart to pick up a few items needed yet for christmas prep.
as i walked up to the store i thought about how easy it would be to just be gone--be mis-placed in the sea of bodies. dan thought i was having drinks; the people i was meeting thought i was probably home. my parents and friends would think whatever they would like to think about my present existence. in the end, how long would it take before someone even realized that i was gone?
i considered briefly getting in the car and driving somewhere, and staying the night, just to see if i was missed. it was a scary thought, that momentary urge to disappear amid the throng.
i thought about how easy it would be, how simple. i thought about how much i missed my northwoods, and the safety that i felt when i was in those woods, even if it was a sham and probably imagined security.
one of the things i used to dwell on, or perhaps cling to, when i lived by myself, was the fact that a tree, standing for years in the darkness outside, could not be scared of the night. it was rooted in ground. animals, too, could not be scared of the dark--they had no choice about flipping a switch and being ensconced into the wee hours by beautiful, lovely, safe light.
this year as i plodded back to my vehicle, shopping completed, i thought again about being alone in the dark. as i drove home i thought about those ridiculous deer that bother me so, thomas edison gone horribly awry. i thought about how they could subsist in the darkness, alone or in pairs, and not feel a thing about their situation.
were they luckier, those deer, than i, for their lack of brain cell? or were they aware of their own irony: that if they were real deer, they would stumble through tight forest and browse thickets for leftover buds, all in utter blackness?
apparently that is why i'm sitting in my house, warm and well-lit, and the lighted deer are plugged in down the street.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
the ticking of a thousand clocks
yesterday while typing up a comment on dan's blog, i realized that i'd been sitting at my desk for a good solid two minutes, just listening to the clocks in our living room.
they both read the same time. but due to the fact that humanity had a part in setting that time, they are off, by just a second or two. they don't tick in tandem; they tick separately, never leaving a space between them wherein there is actual silence.
upstairs we have two ticking clocks, in addition to the myriad electronic alarms, but they are in separate rooms; if they do not track time at the same instant, you do not know. it's only in the living room that you hear these two.
i remember when i was a child reading a story about a puppy being just brought home, and how the father puts a hot water bottle and a clock in the little puppy's box, to soothe him. the clock is supposed to remind him of his mother's heartbeat.
truthfully, it doesn't sound that far off, if you muffle it with your pillow.
i also remember laying in the basement of my grandma's house. interesting that at my father's parents home we slept in the upstairs bedrooms, while at my mother's home we slept in the basement. it's all about area, i suppose, and a family of six takes up considerable space. anyway, in my grandma's basement the walls were painted a pale turquoise, almost white, and they leaned in, shoved by frost in the winter. there was a beer sign on the wall--budwieser, i think--that one of my uncles installed in their youth. the bar light was our night light, red and white neon against those turquoise walls.
my mom's home town is steam heated. when the heat kicked on at grandma's house, the radiators were silent. but in the basement, the pipes clicked and made odd noises. at least odd in the light of three am, i guess.
at any rate, being a light sleeper even as a child, i'd wake up at night and in wobbly sleep-vision, see those walls, pressing in and wavering. i'd hear the pipes clanging, a sound i never heard at home in the land of natural gas furnaces. i only hear with my right ear; the left is nerve damaged and deaf. so i'd put my good ear on the pillow, to drown out the pipe noises, and that is when i would hear the footsteps.
soft, at first. slow and steady. and then, as i panicked, they'd speed up. for hours i'd lay there, frozen, waiting for a man to come out of those bowed turquoise walls and step into the darkness of the basement, perhaps take a seat on the brown sofa from 1952 that felt like astroturf rather than fabric, or lean up against the three television sets stacked in the corner.
it wasn't until years later, after suffering through visits during which i'd play dead to avoid the man in the blue walls, that i realized that the footsteps i'd heard were the pulse of my own heartbeat, throbbing in my temple, pressed against the pillow.
***
i'm still a light sleeper. at night, everything wakes me, even though i don't hear well at all. perhaps that is the reason i am a light sleeper--during the day, i am always straining to hear things, so it stands to reason that that alert would remain through the night.
it also explains why hearing these clocks annoys me, but the other people in my house probably do not even notice. their focus on sound is very different than mine, more relaxed.
sometimes i have to take sleep aids, to keep me drowsy enough to fall back asleep. it annoys me to do so, because i sleep deeply but i wake drowsy and it takes quite a while for that feeling to wear off. this morning, when i am awake and my cats are starting their daylight nap, the noise surrounds me: the heater, clicking and whooshing to life, the cars on the street, the sound of a neighbor going down stairs. somewhere there is a high pitched whine, as if off a television. my fingers on the keys, and the ticking of those two clocks.
***
a thousand clocks regulate life. as a rule the one which we are most attuned to and yet most ignore is that of our own inner clock, our heart. it's not until the night, when you lay in the deep of your bed, that you focus and pay attention to your very own pulse, that you can hear your heart, thudding its own rhythm in a bony cage.
the clock inside--that is the clock to which i should listen, i think. and yet i am dominated by the clocks that tick in my house: the alarm, the wristwatch, time running down sun.
usually i am not constrained by the ticking of clocks. i like to pretend that i am free as lynyrd skynyrd's bird. but the clock winds down, at some point. i see that clock in my parents, and suddenly my life is all about the time remaining. it seems often that i have frittered away my life, living outside time in my own pretend land. i have time left, if i care for my body, during which i can make the most of the little lapse between the ticking of my two clocks.
they both read the same time. but due to the fact that humanity had a part in setting that time, they are off, by just a second or two. they don't tick in tandem; they tick separately, never leaving a space between them wherein there is actual silence.
upstairs we have two ticking clocks, in addition to the myriad electronic alarms, but they are in separate rooms; if they do not track time at the same instant, you do not know. it's only in the living room that you hear these two.
i remember when i was a child reading a story about a puppy being just brought home, and how the father puts a hot water bottle and a clock in the little puppy's box, to soothe him. the clock is supposed to remind him of his mother's heartbeat.
truthfully, it doesn't sound that far off, if you muffle it with your pillow.
i also remember laying in the basement of my grandma's house. interesting that at my father's parents home we slept in the upstairs bedrooms, while at my mother's home we slept in the basement. it's all about area, i suppose, and a family of six takes up considerable space. anyway, in my grandma's basement the walls were painted a pale turquoise, almost white, and they leaned in, shoved by frost in the winter. there was a beer sign on the wall--budwieser, i think--that one of my uncles installed in their youth. the bar light was our night light, red and white neon against those turquoise walls.
my mom's home town is steam heated. when the heat kicked on at grandma's house, the radiators were silent. but in the basement, the pipes clicked and made odd noises. at least odd in the light of three am, i guess.
at any rate, being a light sleeper even as a child, i'd wake up at night and in wobbly sleep-vision, see those walls, pressing in and wavering. i'd hear the pipes clanging, a sound i never heard at home in the land of natural gas furnaces. i only hear with my right ear; the left is nerve damaged and deaf. so i'd put my good ear on the pillow, to drown out the pipe noises, and that is when i would hear the footsteps.
soft, at first. slow and steady. and then, as i panicked, they'd speed up. for hours i'd lay there, frozen, waiting for a man to come out of those bowed turquoise walls and step into the darkness of the basement, perhaps take a seat on the brown sofa from 1952 that felt like astroturf rather than fabric, or lean up against the three television sets stacked in the corner.
it wasn't until years later, after suffering through visits during which i'd play dead to avoid the man in the blue walls, that i realized that the footsteps i'd heard were the pulse of my own heartbeat, throbbing in my temple, pressed against the pillow.
***
i'm still a light sleeper. at night, everything wakes me, even though i don't hear well at all. perhaps that is the reason i am a light sleeper--during the day, i am always straining to hear things, so it stands to reason that that alert would remain through the night.
it also explains why hearing these clocks annoys me, but the other people in my house probably do not even notice. their focus on sound is very different than mine, more relaxed.
sometimes i have to take sleep aids, to keep me drowsy enough to fall back asleep. it annoys me to do so, because i sleep deeply but i wake drowsy and it takes quite a while for that feeling to wear off. this morning, when i am awake and my cats are starting their daylight nap, the noise surrounds me: the heater, clicking and whooshing to life, the cars on the street, the sound of a neighbor going down stairs. somewhere there is a high pitched whine, as if off a television. my fingers on the keys, and the ticking of those two clocks.
***
a thousand clocks regulate life. as a rule the one which we are most attuned to and yet most ignore is that of our own inner clock, our heart. it's not until the night, when you lay in the deep of your bed, that you focus and pay attention to your very own pulse, that you can hear your heart, thudding its own rhythm in a bony cage.
the clock inside--that is the clock to which i should listen, i think. and yet i am dominated by the clocks that tick in my house: the alarm, the wristwatch, time running down sun.
usually i am not constrained by the ticking of clocks. i like to pretend that i am free as lynyrd skynyrd's bird. but the clock winds down, at some point. i see that clock in my parents, and suddenly my life is all about the time remaining. it seems often that i have frittered away my life, living outside time in my own pretend land. i have time left, if i care for my body, during which i can make the most of the little lapse between the ticking of my two clocks.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
siberia
during the past few years, dan and i have spent time in separate bedrooms. for many years prior to this, we shared a double bed. but neither of us are small people, and when we decided to merge bedrooms again last year, i just pushed together the double bed and my acquired single bed.
when dan saw it, the first thing he said was: "my god, it's like siberia...it just goes on and on." (;
it's actually quite comfortable--mainly because we're both thrashers, and on separate beds, you don't feel your partner shifting around and trying to get comfy. the exception is that if you want to cuddle you have to roll across the divide.
this morning i woke up a bunch--i think i saw every hour after 2 am, and then between 530 and 7 i just laid there, cocooned in my down comforter, listening to the white noise fan, the burbling vaporizer, and the feathers in the comforter crinkling, awake and drowsy. for a while i thought, "i should get up and exercise, since dan was kind enough to fix my exercise machinery." but i couldn't get up the gumption.
i thought about dan's blog, and how sometimes you can be so close to a person that it creates the biggest distance on the planet. i thought about the work on my desk and the time in which i had to complete it. i thought about devin and babies, buying a new house, renewing the lease on our current townhome, how much i wanted it to snow. i thought about the dreams i'd been having, strange and convoluted, not scary but for some reason unsettling. of course i couldn't recall any of them, just that i'd been unsettled.
suddenly i wanted to curl up next to dan, just to be close to him. i laid there thinking about all the things i'd been mulling. i remembered two things, right then:
1. one of dan's issues with me was that i always waited for him to make the first move
2. my friend cari saying that if you're having issues then you have to ask yourself: what are you going to do about it?
it seems like an aggressive stance toward emotional and mental items. but it's something that i think people like me, who wander between distraction and depression, need to do on a regular basis. perhaps everyone does; i don't know. but i suppose i avoid it, because to answer that question, to even take the first step, would mean that the problem would be on its way to being resolved.
resolution, in my world, exists only with dishwashers and sitcoms. it's not something in which i try to take an active part. i'll help it along, but i won't initiate it.
and i think asking that question is the R L Ermey of brain militia.
someone has to police my mental status, and it has to be me.
i'm still learning the ropes, mind you. i'm not able to all the time take control of the runaway train and route it correctly again. but i am trying. and that's something, right?
***
anyway, i lay awake, trying to excise the wandering of my mind and erase the odd sense that i just dreamt i was a half-dressed barbie doll, plastic tits and all.
trying to get over the need in my marrow to cuddle up to dan's sleeping warmth and leech some comfort from that heat.
the two thoughts ran like tandem hamsters through my head, endless circles: start something, kim! what am i going to do about it?
i rolled across the great divide and found a limb; felt like a knee, folded. i didn't much care. the frantic pace of my head slowed a notch. i could feel the heat radiating through the comforter. hear his breathing, smell the familiar scent of sleeping dan.
***
when i got to work this morning i thought about that morning, laying there next to an unconcious man who feels like an extension of my own body, but whose mind is often further away than any hands can grasp. and how mine often does the same to him--hiding, flitting about, crawling into the darkness.
i think about serena--the other day her birthday reminder popped up in my yahoo! mail. lingering there in memory is a dangerous place, especially when it's a memory of pain. i think of my dad's mother a lot too--when i wake in the morning and stand up, the first thing i see is her perfume bottle. then i think of the tender scent of her, wearing that perfume, and i think of her laying on her deathbed, lungs rattling.
it's like biting your lip again, just after you have bitten it the first time.
in the dark, at my desk, in the car, reading a book--those memories overtake me, pull me under. they are just as familiar, much of the time, as the feeling of love and calm, and they beckon me towards that dark end of the pool. can i stop them? can i keep them at bay? the question then becomes: what am i going to do about them?
laying on that bed this morning i wavered--i could have remained on my side, could have suppressed the need to roll closer to dan. it's what i would usually do, the litany of fears: what if i wake him? what if he's angry that i woke him? what if what if what if...
thinking those two things--i CAN start something, i CAN do something about this--that rolled me over, that silenced some of those clamoring thoughts. knowing that i can try--that even if i i fail, i have tried--that is to what i should cling. the other things--the doubts, the pain, the frustration and the apathy--they're still around, old relations i cannot remove from my blood. but i have the choice, i always have the choice, of whether i wish to allow my habitual responses to rule me, or if i choose to question them and martial some random order in my mind.
***
in siberia, i imagine that there is no time to dwell on these things.
i also imagine the alternate: that this morning some person woke and thought in another language something akin to my thoughts, felt like emotions, crossed the space within themself--their own personal siberia.
when dan saw it, the first thing he said was: "my god, it's like siberia...it just goes on and on." (;
it's actually quite comfortable--mainly because we're both thrashers, and on separate beds, you don't feel your partner shifting around and trying to get comfy. the exception is that if you want to cuddle you have to roll across the divide.
this morning i woke up a bunch--i think i saw every hour after 2 am, and then between 530 and 7 i just laid there, cocooned in my down comforter, listening to the white noise fan, the burbling vaporizer, and the feathers in the comforter crinkling, awake and drowsy. for a while i thought, "i should get up and exercise, since dan was kind enough to fix my exercise machinery." but i couldn't get up the gumption.
i thought about dan's blog, and how sometimes you can be so close to a person that it creates the biggest distance on the planet. i thought about the work on my desk and the time in which i had to complete it. i thought about devin and babies, buying a new house, renewing the lease on our current townhome, how much i wanted it to snow. i thought about the dreams i'd been having, strange and convoluted, not scary but for some reason unsettling. of course i couldn't recall any of them, just that i'd been unsettled.
suddenly i wanted to curl up next to dan, just to be close to him. i laid there thinking about all the things i'd been mulling. i remembered two things, right then:
1. one of dan's issues with me was that i always waited for him to make the first move
2. my friend cari saying that if you're having issues then you have to ask yourself: what are you going to do about it?
it seems like an aggressive stance toward emotional and mental items. but it's something that i think people like me, who wander between distraction and depression, need to do on a regular basis. perhaps everyone does; i don't know. but i suppose i avoid it, because to answer that question, to even take the first step, would mean that the problem would be on its way to being resolved.
resolution, in my world, exists only with dishwashers and sitcoms. it's not something in which i try to take an active part. i'll help it along, but i won't initiate it.
and i think asking that question is the R L Ermey of brain militia.
someone has to police my mental status, and it has to be me.
i'm still learning the ropes, mind you. i'm not able to all the time take control of the runaway train and route it correctly again. but i am trying. and that's something, right?
***
anyway, i lay awake, trying to excise the wandering of my mind and erase the odd sense that i just dreamt i was a half-dressed barbie doll, plastic tits and all.
trying to get over the need in my marrow to cuddle up to dan's sleeping warmth and leech some comfort from that heat.
the two thoughts ran like tandem hamsters through my head, endless circles: start something, kim! what am i going to do about it?
i rolled across the great divide and found a limb; felt like a knee, folded. i didn't much care. the frantic pace of my head slowed a notch. i could feel the heat radiating through the comforter. hear his breathing, smell the familiar scent of sleeping dan.
***
when i got to work this morning i thought about that morning, laying there next to an unconcious man who feels like an extension of my own body, but whose mind is often further away than any hands can grasp. and how mine often does the same to him--hiding, flitting about, crawling into the darkness.
i think about serena--the other day her birthday reminder popped up in my yahoo! mail. lingering there in memory is a dangerous place, especially when it's a memory of pain. i think of my dad's mother a lot too--when i wake in the morning and stand up, the first thing i see is her perfume bottle. then i think of the tender scent of her, wearing that perfume, and i think of her laying on her deathbed, lungs rattling.
it's like biting your lip again, just after you have bitten it the first time.
in the dark, at my desk, in the car, reading a book--those memories overtake me, pull me under. they are just as familiar, much of the time, as the feeling of love and calm, and they beckon me towards that dark end of the pool. can i stop them? can i keep them at bay? the question then becomes: what am i going to do about them?
laying on that bed this morning i wavered--i could have remained on my side, could have suppressed the need to roll closer to dan. it's what i would usually do, the litany of fears: what if i wake him? what if he's angry that i woke him? what if what if what if...
thinking those two things--i CAN start something, i CAN do something about this--that rolled me over, that silenced some of those clamoring thoughts. knowing that i can try--that even if i i fail, i have tried--that is to what i should cling. the other things--the doubts, the pain, the frustration and the apathy--they're still around, old relations i cannot remove from my blood. but i have the choice, i always have the choice, of whether i wish to allow my habitual responses to rule me, or if i choose to question them and martial some random order in my mind.
***
in siberia, i imagine that there is no time to dwell on these things.
i also imagine the alternate: that this morning some person woke and thought in another language something akin to my thoughts, felt like emotions, crossed the space within themself--their own personal siberia.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
passion, potlucks and pride
so last night, due to the fact that there was no Sci Fi Friday (sniff!), dan and i sat down and watched the two Netflix movies that had been taking up dust atop the tv. the second was one i'd highly recommend, Thank You for Smoking. excellent movie, very excellent.
first up was A Prairie Home Companion, which was good and amusing but disjointed. i wanted everyone to hear garrison keillor say, "not much is going on in lake woebegon these days..." and all that. but he didn't. it was interesting to see downtown st paul on the screen (another moment when we could both point and say "i've been there!") and to hear meryl streep and lily tomlin sing. but the plot was thin, if present, and it could have used a bit more...passion.
of course, it *is* the midwest, and we're not a passionate people up here, unless it concerns a few things: hunting, children, fishing, potlucks and snow boots.
i'm not making a mean-spirited comment about the midwest. perhaps more of a generalization, based on movies made, songs sung, tales told. midwesterners, minnesotans in particular, seem to take some inordinate pride on being dispassionate.
from where does this stoicism stem? perhaps that's not such a mystery. watching garrison keillor, spawn of lutheran norwegian ancestry, you get the idea perfectly: it takes patience to live here.
down south you can storm out of your house pretty much any month of the year, slamming the door on your spouse/parent/child/dog.
up here, nine months out of the year, you have to stay in the house, content with moving room to room, because storming out the door would mean a variety of things: jackets, scarves, gloves, fumbling for car keys, shovels, ice scrapers and kitty litter, so that your escape can be made with head held high, and not skidding on slippery sidewalk.
it's hard to maintain a good righteous anger when your ass hits the pavement and you need to ask for help to get up.
does the weather really shape us, that much? perhaps. culturally, the folks up north of the mason dixon line have to be more patient, in my mind, not just with the weather but with each other.
you can't fight as much, but it's not because the weather has pounded it out of you. it's because you know that you have to huddle together for warmth, it's that genetic code that says, don't antagonize your neighbor...you might need to borrow wood for the fire this winter.
perhaps the disjointed arena of that movie just pointed it out, at length. it wasn't lacking anything; it just wasn't like the majority of hollywood movies, with their heated arguments and wild actions.
i'm sure that long ago, before we had highways and electricity, people had to all get along in their own little caves. and the further north you went, the better you had to get along. the less passion you could cultivate, the more subtle it had to be, because the microcosm of your world was, for many months, the size of your cave.
are there less secrets here? nope. they're just better kept. less passion? no; it just doesn't stand out in the same way, it's not broadcast visually; it's radio waves, things you can't see, something you hear and you know and you internalize.
first up was A Prairie Home Companion, which was good and amusing but disjointed. i wanted everyone to hear garrison keillor say, "not much is going on in lake woebegon these days..." and all that. but he didn't. it was interesting to see downtown st paul on the screen (another moment when we could both point and say "i've been there!") and to hear meryl streep and lily tomlin sing. but the plot was thin, if present, and it could have used a bit more...passion.
of course, it *is* the midwest, and we're not a passionate people up here, unless it concerns a few things: hunting, children, fishing, potlucks and snow boots.
i'm not making a mean-spirited comment about the midwest. perhaps more of a generalization, based on movies made, songs sung, tales told. midwesterners, minnesotans in particular, seem to take some inordinate pride on being dispassionate.
from where does this stoicism stem? perhaps that's not such a mystery. watching garrison keillor, spawn of lutheran norwegian ancestry, you get the idea perfectly: it takes patience to live here.
down south you can storm out of your house pretty much any month of the year, slamming the door on your spouse/parent/child/dog.
up here, nine months out of the year, you have to stay in the house, content with moving room to room, because storming out the door would mean a variety of things: jackets, scarves, gloves, fumbling for car keys, shovels, ice scrapers and kitty litter, so that your escape can be made with head held high, and not skidding on slippery sidewalk.
it's hard to maintain a good righteous anger when your ass hits the pavement and you need to ask for help to get up.
does the weather really shape us, that much? perhaps. culturally, the folks up north of the mason dixon line have to be more patient, in my mind, not just with the weather but with each other.
you can't fight as much, but it's not because the weather has pounded it out of you. it's because you know that you have to huddle together for warmth, it's that genetic code that says, don't antagonize your neighbor...you might need to borrow wood for the fire this winter.
perhaps the disjointed arena of that movie just pointed it out, at length. it wasn't lacking anything; it just wasn't like the majority of hollywood movies, with their heated arguments and wild actions.
i'm sure that long ago, before we had highways and electricity, people had to all get along in their own little caves. and the further north you went, the better you had to get along. the less passion you could cultivate, the more subtle it had to be, because the microcosm of your world was, for many months, the size of your cave.
are there less secrets here? nope. they're just better kept. less passion? no; it just doesn't stand out in the same way, it's not broadcast visually; it's radio waves, things you can't see, something you hear and you know and you internalize.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
welcome
on thursday i stared in awe
the pale skin of your face, stretched
thin and new
friday i held you, nestled deep,
blinking dark eyes and restlessly
feeling out your
boundaries
watching her face,
perplexed
as you twist and swirl
onl y the night before
shrouded in mother
you slumbered
today the blanket rises
shoves at the crook of my elbow
one small foot
each nail a transparent crescent
pokes out,
heel tasting air
the pale skin of your face, stretched
thin and new
friday i held you, nestled deep,
blinking dark eyes and restlessly
feeling out your
boundaries
watching her face,
perplexed
as you twist and swirl
onl y the night before
shrouded in mother
you slumbered
today the blanket rises
shoves at the crook of my elbow
one small foot
each nail a transparent crescent
pokes out,
heel tasting air
Thursday, November 16, 2006
call it what you want
it's some sixth sense--not smell or taste or sight, and not hearing, especially for me. (;
my great grandmother read tea leaves for the police department. she saw things sometimes before they happened, or so the stories go. the only person who remembers is my uncle jed, who's immobilized by strokes and unable to speak.
*sigh*
when i first went to therapy one of the questions helene asked was about knowing the future, or having ESP. i grudgingly admitted that yes, i often had dreams that came true, or knew something before it happened. it's never anything life shattering--nothing that they'd make movies about, and helene just asked for some examples and moved on.
one of the examples i gave was years ago, when dan's parents got a german shepherd. i dreamed that they had a dog that looked like an elkhound but people kept telling me was a german shepherd. then his parents got gabe--who looks like he's been crossed with an elkhound.
another was a friend who needed to get into the doctor, but was on a long list. one day two months prior to the scheduled appointment i said, call now. and there was an opening that afternoon.
it's little things like that, daily bits, that enforce my belief that sometimes people are given, or people sense, things that you cannot predict. my sisters and i all call our mother on the same day. we send each other the same cards. is it esp? probably not--we all think a lot alike. but to pick out and send the same card at the same time was a bit odd, i will admit.
some dear friends of mine are due to have their baby next week, 11/25/06. due to the baby being bashful when it comes to ultrasounds, they've no idea of what the sex is, and they haven't told anyone what names they're considering, either. i had a silly dream months ago that it was a boy, with the same first name as last name. like, Smith Smith. personally, i had a very strong feeling that the baby would be a boy, for whatever reason.
anyway, this last tuesday night i dreamed i stood in the kitchen with my friend cathy. i dreamed she held a little girl in her arms, with wispy red-brown hair and cathy's gray eyes, named evan. the child was about 9 months old, sitting upright, with fingers in her mouth.
this morning i woke up at 3 am. i'd been dreaming about a hose, spraying water all over a crisp green lawn. i fell back asleep. at 4 i woke up, dreaming that dan was bringing me a cup of water that ran over the lip of the dark little cup. usually these dreams mean i need to go to the bathroom--it's my subconcious' way of reminding me, i suppose. but i didn't, when i woke.
later that morning, we got the email: cathy's water broke around 4, and they had a little girl named devin.
how much of this is coincidence? how much of it is random chance? how much of it is something else, that cannot be pinned to anything but the unknown ether that makes up this world?
just when i had given up on my gut instincts, and the dreams that seemed to have abandoned me as of late, i dream something that is so close to reality that it doesn't feel as random as it should.
my sister beth and i have discussed how dreaming feels just as real as being awake, and how sometimes the dreams mix so well with reality that you cannot separate them--they have fallen out of separate bottles, and swirl on the floor, reality melding into dreamscape.
my great grandmother read tea leaves for the police department. she saw things sometimes before they happened, or so the stories go. the only person who remembers is my uncle jed, who's immobilized by strokes and unable to speak.
*sigh*
when i first went to therapy one of the questions helene asked was about knowing the future, or having ESP. i grudgingly admitted that yes, i often had dreams that came true, or knew something before it happened. it's never anything life shattering--nothing that they'd make movies about, and helene just asked for some examples and moved on.
one of the examples i gave was years ago, when dan's parents got a german shepherd. i dreamed that they had a dog that looked like an elkhound but people kept telling me was a german shepherd. then his parents got gabe--who looks like he's been crossed with an elkhound.
another was a friend who needed to get into the doctor, but was on a long list. one day two months prior to the scheduled appointment i said, call now. and there was an opening that afternoon.
it's little things like that, daily bits, that enforce my belief that sometimes people are given, or people sense, things that you cannot predict. my sisters and i all call our mother on the same day. we send each other the same cards. is it esp? probably not--we all think a lot alike. but to pick out and send the same card at the same time was a bit odd, i will admit.
some dear friends of mine are due to have their baby next week, 11/25/06. due to the baby being bashful when it comes to ultrasounds, they've no idea of what the sex is, and they haven't told anyone what names they're considering, either. i had a silly dream months ago that it was a boy, with the same first name as last name. like, Smith Smith. personally, i had a very strong feeling that the baby would be a boy, for whatever reason.
anyway, this last tuesday night i dreamed i stood in the kitchen with my friend cathy. i dreamed she held a little girl in her arms, with wispy red-brown hair and cathy's gray eyes, named evan. the child was about 9 months old, sitting upright, with fingers in her mouth.
this morning i woke up at 3 am. i'd been dreaming about a hose, spraying water all over a crisp green lawn. i fell back asleep. at 4 i woke up, dreaming that dan was bringing me a cup of water that ran over the lip of the dark little cup. usually these dreams mean i need to go to the bathroom--it's my subconcious' way of reminding me, i suppose. but i didn't, when i woke.
later that morning, we got the email: cathy's water broke around 4, and they had a little girl named devin.
how much of this is coincidence? how much of it is random chance? how much of it is something else, that cannot be pinned to anything but the unknown ether that makes up this world?
just when i had given up on my gut instincts, and the dreams that seemed to have abandoned me as of late, i dream something that is so close to reality that it doesn't feel as random as it should.
my sister beth and i have discussed how dreaming feels just as real as being awake, and how sometimes the dreams mix so well with reality that you cannot separate them--they have fallen out of separate bottles, and swirl on the floor, reality melding into dreamscape.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
goliath, felled by one stone...
or kim, felled by one bacterium.
i'm here. existing. crawling out of whatever virus-infested hole i got sucked into.
will post more later. after much cat-enhanced napping. (;
i'm here. existing. crawling out of whatever virus-infested hole i got sucked into.
will post more later. after much cat-enhanced napping. (;
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
insomnia
in the dark
beneath the skin
i wake
lids peeling like oranges
eyes gritty with unslept dreams
in the dark
where i have prayed for release
from unending dawn
i sit up on edge of bed
curl one leg into the comforter
gray cat thuds against my side, purr
rumbling marrow
in the dark
your seige on slumber
rages on, you roll over
small countries shaped like
a green and purple crocheted blanket
breathe deep and deeper
in the dark
i surrender, my war
lost
i rise and pad on pink toes
running from my battlefield
i envy
your fight
beneath the skin
i wake
lids peeling like oranges
eyes gritty with unslept dreams
in the dark
where i have prayed for release
from unending dawn
i sit up on edge of bed
curl one leg into the comforter
gray cat thuds against my side, purr
rumbling marrow
in the dark
your seige on slumber
rages on, you roll over
small countries shaped like
a green and purple crocheted blanket
breathe deep and deeper
in the dark
i surrender, my war
lost
i rise and pad on pink toes
running from my battlefield
i envy
your fight
Monday, October 23, 2006
recess
the word recess always reminds me of elementary school: crisp autumn races around the cement playground, skimming across the monkey bars and swinging wildly, trying to see how high i could get, just flinging myself back and forth on steel chain and a slice of rubber.
recess also reminds me of holes in the wall--a recessed area, for example. when i was young i always wanted to find places to hide, always dreamed of secret passages and hidey holes, like a priest's hole: a spot designated for just little old me to shrug into, and hide from the world.
for the most part i remember this time with happy memories. i was a happy kid, for the most part, but that may have been because i was living about 85% of the time in my imagination.
like a recess in my brain, where i was permanently at recess.
does that make sense?
when i was in third grade my teacher was mr. zagorski. very nice guy--tall, with a good-sized belly, glasses, dark receding hair and a bushy mustasche. we read "call of the wild" by jack london, out of a big book with pictures. my parents went in for their annual conferences and he shared that if i could just pull myself out of my imagination, and apply myself, i could be a very good student.
i now wonder if that's a byproduct of this add, that the dreamer in me is just more focused than the reality-creator will ever be.
right now i'm on vacation--another kind of recess. a recess from work, where i spend weeks holed up in my fuzzy gray cube. i've got lots of plans, probably too many, and i'll probably accomplish only a fraction of what i feel i should be able to.
***
when we read jack london's shortened version of "call of the wild" i took that name and went to the library. i found the real book, and devoured it. i don't to toot my own horn, but by the time i was in fifth grade, i was reading james michener. the reality of that book scared me, probably more than any scary movie could--that people could have things like leprosy, something i'd never heard of.
i think that is when i started to become an anxious person. i've always been afraid of the dark--where i think the well of imagination is disguised, bushes piled up in front of an endless cave. the monster under the bed changed when i started reading things that were probably out of my league, morphed from a dark, toothy blob into germs and the unknown world outside my house.
i started doing things like checking to make sure doors were locked, and only drinking out the family water bottle in the car if i could drink first. when i was thirteen my parents went bowling one night and came home to find me sobbing, sure that i had AIDs. my mom sat me down and said: "kim, are you having unprotected sex? what about using dirty needles?"
when i look back i can see the silliness of it, the ridiculousness of my brain. the structure of school i always felt held me back, when in truth, it kept me in bounds...of some kind.
now that i'm without structure--ie, no work deadlines, nothing to keep me on the tracks--i'm scattered and lost. too many bright and shiny objects on which to focus.
too many projects, too many thoughts.
***
so maybe i'll regress just a little and go find a playground, and sit on the swings for a while. provided there aren't any kids around. (;
recess also reminds me of holes in the wall--a recessed area, for example. when i was young i always wanted to find places to hide, always dreamed of secret passages and hidey holes, like a priest's hole: a spot designated for just little old me to shrug into, and hide from the world.
for the most part i remember this time with happy memories. i was a happy kid, for the most part, but that may have been because i was living about 85% of the time in my imagination.
like a recess in my brain, where i was permanently at recess.
does that make sense?
when i was in third grade my teacher was mr. zagorski. very nice guy--tall, with a good-sized belly, glasses, dark receding hair and a bushy mustasche. we read "call of the wild" by jack london, out of a big book with pictures. my parents went in for their annual conferences and he shared that if i could just pull myself out of my imagination, and apply myself, i could be a very good student.
i now wonder if that's a byproduct of this add, that the dreamer in me is just more focused than the reality-creator will ever be.
right now i'm on vacation--another kind of recess. a recess from work, where i spend weeks holed up in my fuzzy gray cube. i've got lots of plans, probably too many, and i'll probably accomplish only a fraction of what i feel i should be able to.
***
when we read jack london's shortened version of "call of the wild" i took that name and went to the library. i found the real book, and devoured it. i don't to toot my own horn, but by the time i was in fifth grade, i was reading james michener. the reality of that book scared me, probably more than any scary movie could--that people could have things like leprosy, something i'd never heard of.
i think that is when i started to become an anxious person. i've always been afraid of the dark--where i think the well of imagination is disguised, bushes piled up in front of an endless cave. the monster under the bed changed when i started reading things that were probably out of my league, morphed from a dark, toothy blob into germs and the unknown world outside my house.
i started doing things like checking to make sure doors were locked, and only drinking out the family water bottle in the car if i could drink first. when i was thirteen my parents went bowling one night and came home to find me sobbing, sure that i had AIDs. my mom sat me down and said: "kim, are you having unprotected sex? what about using dirty needles?"
when i look back i can see the silliness of it, the ridiculousness of my brain. the structure of school i always felt held me back, when in truth, it kept me in bounds...of some kind.
now that i'm without structure--ie, no work deadlines, nothing to keep me on the tracks--i'm scattered and lost. too many bright and shiny objects on which to focus.
too many projects, too many thoughts.
***
so maybe i'll regress just a little and go find a playground, and sit on the swings for a while. provided there aren't any kids around. (;
Saturday, October 14, 2006
mirror mirror on the wall
i found a mirror at ikea (one of my favorite stores, if you couldn't tell from...well, most of my home...) it's a circle with all these little squares around a large center. the patterns are interesting, as the little squares around the edge are not all glued on perfectly, and pick up light and color at different angles.
then another, at a church rummage sale. and a few more on clearance somewhere else, squares that i have to figure out how and where to place on some vertical area.
at any rate, the garage sale mirror started this afternoon's Attack of the Re-arranging Spasms.
the boys are at a computer thing today, so i've had the house to myself since i got home from work. always refreshing, as i never have the house to myself--don't take this wrong, i've lived my whole life save eight months with two to 8 people, and i like the comfort of having others in the house with me. i think it's the vestiges of growing up in a larger family; i'm most comfortable in the house both when i'm entirely alone, and when i'm surrounded by other people.
the dichotomy is not lost on me.
at any rate, in fall and spring i go through these predictable phases in which i want to clean and junk old crap and rearrange the house. this year i thought i was going to wait until the week after next, when i'm on vacation and plan to take care of a number of appointments, etc, that just never occur during the week.
had to go to work this morning, had to have dan stop in and move a HUGE computer monitor (props to dan for doing so--thanks babe!!!) and then stopped at ikea on the way home. (it's right next to work, honest...) the only reason i stopped there was because the other day we'd been talking about how cold it gets over by the patio doors during the winter, and how much i despise putting plastic up, since the windows are the only source of good light in the living room. dan suggested hanging a blanket, or curtains, instead of our horribly ugly vertical blinds.
so i stopped in with the intention of picking up a curtain rod and such, and then working on sewing the curtains at a later date. of course in the as is section i found curtains marked 60% off, so they came home with me.
now, the garage sale mirror has been sitting in the foyer for weeks. months, perhaps? i can't recall when it made its debut. i was going to wait to put up the curtains until dan got home, since that's a tall person thing and i'm short. so i thought, heck, i'll just hang up the mirror. found a spot, leveled things, got the mirror cleaned up and hung. i think it looks very nice, if i do say so myself.
however after hanging up the mirror, i felt empowered, which is always a dangerous thing, when you're alone in the house with power tools at hand, in my opinion.
i had options: i could clean something, or i could hang up the curtains.
however, to hang up the curtains, i needed to move the kitty tree. to move the kitty tree i had to move shelving units, lamps, plants, and the occasional concerned cat, until things looked more or less the way i wanted them to look. so far i am enjoying the new look--it freshens and somehow makes the living room look more finished, even if it is such a hodge-podge of the new, the slightly used and, in the case of the couch, the broken.
then of course i had to make trips to the garage, to ditch extra stuff, and clean up the kitty poo zone by the back door...so on and so forth. when i finally sat down on the couch to survey the look, i realized that i had two mirrors in the living room, and recalled the others upstairs, awaiting installation.
hello, my name is kim, and i have a mirror problem. i think. i suppose the first step is admitting...
***
mirrors reflect the reality. memory and opinion shift that reality, warp it into something that resembles a real fun-house mirror--stretch me tall, wide, crazy swishes for a face and hands the size of old oak trees.
i've never really liked mirrors, mainly because i don't like looking at myself in them. that being said, i've done a lot of reflecting lately, while working copious amounts of overtime. what can i say, sometimes data entry is like meditation.
(that and i have this theory that stress is like juicing oranges--under pressure, the orange changes and produces something different...follow? if not, oh well. it's my theory anyway. last week my exec T and my old manager S got canned on tuesday morning, out of the complete and utter blue. needless to say the office has been in uproar since.)
anyway, back to relflections.
when i look back in pictures i can see the way that i see the world, at different times in my life. sometimes i took pictures of my feet or hands, sometimes a blurry shot of my self, mostly shots of trees and the outdoor world. lately i haven't done much picture taking.
if you face two mirrors together you get infinity; perhaps this is my inner spirit, reminding me that my reflecting is not done, that it never will be.
***
when i was leaning over the big mirror that started my empowered interior design fit, scrubbing at the sticker on it, i saw my face, determined. that is not the face i always see, in the mirror. i have many faces, many looks, many emotions. i suppose that life does have beginnings and ends to it, just like a length of string, but for the duration, reflecting is a mobius strip, from which i cannot remove my self.
so thus, there is a reason for my multitude of mirrors. at least i think there is. (;
then another, at a church rummage sale. and a few more on clearance somewhere else, squares that i have to figure out how and where to place on some vertical area.
at any rate, the garage sale mirror started this afternoon's Attack of the Re-arranging Spasms.
the boys are at a computer thing today, so i've had the house to myself since i got home from work. always refreshing, as i never have the house to myself--don't take this wrong, i've lived my whole life save eight months with two to 8 people, and i like the comfort of having others in the house with me. i think it's the vestiges of growing up in a larger family; i'm most comfortable in the house both when i'm entirely alone, and when i'm surrounded by other people.
the dichotomy is not lost on me.
at any rate, in fall and spring i go through these predictable phases in which i want to clean and junk old crap and rearrange the house. this year i thought i was going to wait until the week after next, when i'm on vacation and plan to take care of a number of appointments, etc, that just never occur during the week.
had to go to work this morning, had to have dan stop in and move a HUGE computer monitor (props to dan for doing so--thanks babe!!!) and then stopped at ikea on the way home. (it's right next to work, honest...) the only reason i stopped there was because the other day we'd been talking about how cold it gets over by the patio doors during the winter, and how much i despise putting plastic up, since the windows are the only source of good light in the living room. dan suggested hanging a blanket, or curtains, instead of our horribly ugly vertical blinds.
so i stopped in with the intention of picking up a curtain rod and such, and then working on sewing the curtains at a later date. of course in the as is section i found curtains marked 60% off, so they came home with me.
now, the garage sale mirror has been sitting in the foyer for weeks. months, perhaps? i can't recall when it made its debut. i was going to wait to put up the curtains until dan got home, since that's a tall person thing and i'm short. so i thought, heck, i'll just hang up the mirror. found a spot, leveled things, got the mirror cleaned up and hung. i think it looks very nice, if i do say so myself.
however after hanging up the mirror, i felt empowered, which is always a dangerous thing, when you're alone in the house with power tools at hand, in my opinion.
i had options: i could clean something, or i could hang up the curtains.
however, to hang up the curtains, i needed to move the kitty tree. to move the kitty tree i had to move shelving units, lamps, plants, and the occasional concerned cat, until things looked more or less the way i wanted them to look. so far i am enjoying the new look--it freshens and somehow makes the living room look more finished, even if it is such a hodge-podge of the new, the slightly used and, in the case of the couch, the broken.
then of course i had to make trips to the garage, to ditch extra stuff, and clean up the kitty poo zone by the back door...so on and so forth. when i finally sat down on the couch to survey the look, i realized that i had two mirrors in the living room, and recalled the others upstairs, awaiting installation.
hello, my name is kim, and i have a mirror problem. i think. i suppose the first step is admitting...
***
mirrors reflect the reality. memory and opinion shift that reality, warp it into something that resembles a real fun-house mirror--stretch me tall, wide, crazy swishes for a face and hands the size of old oak trees.
i've never really liked mirrors, mainly because i don't like looking at myself in them. that being said, i've done a lot of reflecting lately, while working copious amounts of overtime. what can i say, sometimes data entry is like meditation.
(that and i have this theory that stress is like juicing oranges--under pressure, the orange changes and produces something different...follow? if not, oh well. it's my theory anyway. last week my exec T and my old manager S got canned on tuesday morning, out of the complete and utter blue. needless to say the office has been in uproar since.)
anyway, back to relflections.
when i look back in pictures i can see the way that i see the world, at different times in my life. sometimes i took pictures of my feet or hands, sometimes a blurry shot of my self, mostly shots of trees and the outdoor world. lately i haven't done much picture taking.
if you face two mirrors together you get infinity; perhaps this is my inner spirit, reminding me that my reflecting is not done, that it never will be.
***
when i was leaning over the big mirror that started my empowered interior design fit, scrubbing at the sticker on it, i saw my face, determined. that is not the face i always see, in the mirror. i have many faces, many looks, many emotions. i suppose that life does have beginnings and ends to it, just like a length of string, but for the duration, reflecting is a mobius strip, from which i cannot remove my self.
so thus, there is a reason for my multitude of mirrors. at least i think there is. (;
Saturday, October 07, 2006
through the looking glass
can i just say this? i HATE being on all these drugs. i despise it. i'm sure that there are folks out there who take handfuls more, and i should be thankful that i just take this little bit, but i'm starting to feel like alice--drink this, eat this, grow tall, grow small.
are things better when i am on my drugs? i have to admit that yes, they are.
my blood pressure drug really does lower my blood pressure.
my hormone drug really does control my hormones.
my depression drug really does help keep my depression smaller.
and my favorite drug, my adhd drug, really does keep me focused.
the last time i was at the doctor i said that i didn't think that my cocktail was working quite right. my dr rocks; she pulled up all the visits we've had and went over the little test that i take whenever i go in. i didn't want to be on wellbutrin anymore, because i didn't think it was doing anything for my adhd.
then the world had to show me up. i got this thing from my perscription company stating that i needed to start buying meds thru the mail. why, you ask? because it cuts down on price for them. yay. the new rule was that i could get a refill twice but then after that, the refills would be normal price, and not the price that my insurance company covers.
fine. dandy. i order them by mail.
and in the mean time, i run out.
the pill that scares me the most is my blood pressure tablet. without it, my blood pressure ranges pretty far into the Ick Numbers--the ones where nurses take it and say, "are you feeling okay? you should be having a stroke." i actually stopped by the pharmacy and the pharmacist was kind enough to give me a few tablets to get by.
anyway, i didn't think that not being on wellbutrin would be a big deal. it didn't seem like it had made that big of a difference to me, while on it. however my doctor apparently didn't go to school for nothing: in combination with the lexapro (which is for depression and dysphoric disorder) the wellbutrin really does make a difference.
i think i was out of it for a good solid month. being stubborn i didn't worry, and i certainly didn't call the pharmacy looking for extra tablets.
and things slid down hill: my house kind of has piled up, work showed a lack of focus, and i really have been drifting again.
having since received mail refills and started back on my regular regimen, i can feel the difference. it's a difference that i don't want to feel--i want to be just fine, minus these little chemistry miracles.
i guess what it comes down to is that i'm not. the doctor agreed that next spring we will try to wean me off some of them, see where i'm at, etc.
it's a double edged sword, when and if you find the right combination for yourself. i've been lucky enough to do so.
the double edged sword part comes in when you realize that with this little white pill you feel better. and that you hate that pill, you hate yourself a bit, for needing that pill.
i am having trouble finding a good metaphor for this. it's like and dislike, sitting on opposite ends of the see-saw, having a grand old time.
but i suppose it's more like alice in wonderland than i would like to believe. i am handed a little cup and told to eat, and i eat. the differences are not so apparent as a giant blonde girl, or a shrinking one.
the girl in my head, the one who apparently needs the cup of pills, she is the one who changes, she is the one who orbits the looking glass, wondering which side she is on today.
are things better when i am on my drugs? i have to admit that yes, they are.
my blood pressure drug really does lower my blood pressure.
my hormone drug really does control my hormones.
my depression drug really does help keep my depression smaller.
and my favorite drug, my adhd drug, really does keep me focused.
the last time i was at the doctor i said that i didn't think that my cocktail was working quite right. my dr rocks; she pulled up all the visits we've had and went over the little test that i take whenever i go in. i didn't want to be on wellbutrin anymore, because i didn't think it was doing anything for my adhd.
then the world had to show me up. i got this thing from my perscription company stating that i needed to start buying meds thru the mail. why, you ask? because it cuts down on price for them. yay. the new rule was that i could get a refill twice but then after that, the refills would be normal price, and not the price that my insurance company covers.
fine. dandy. i order them by mail.
and in the mean time, i run out.
the pill that scares me the most is my blood pressure tablet. without it, my blood pressure ranges pretty far into the Ick Numbers--the ones where nurses take it and say, "are you feeling okay? you should be having a stroke." i actually stopped by the pharmacy and the pharmacist was kind enough to give me a few tablets to get by.
anyway, i didn't think that not being on wellbutrin would be a big deal. it didn't seem like it had made that big of a difference to me, while on it. however my doctor apparently didn't go to school for nothing: in combination with the lexapro (which is for depression and dysphoric disorder) the wellbutrin really does make a difference.
i think i was out of it for a good solid month. being stubborn i didn't worry, and i certainly didn't call the pharmacy looking for extra tablets.
and things slid down hill: my house kind of has piled up, work showed a lack of focus, and i really have been drifting again.
having since received mail refills and started back on my regular regimen, i can feel the difference. it's a difference that i don't want to feel--i want to be just fine, minus these little chemistry miracles.
i guess what it comes down to is that i'm not. the doctor agreed that next spring we will try to wean me off some of them, see where i'm at, etc.
it's a double edged sword, when and if you find the right combination for yourself. i've been lucky enough to do so.
the double edged sword part comes in when you realize that with this little white pill you feel better. and that you hate that pill, you hate yourself a bit, for needing that pill.
i am having trouble finding a good metaphor for this. it's like and dislike, sitting on opposite ends of the see-saw, having a grand old time.
but i suppose it's more like alice in wonderland than i would like to believe. i am handed a little cup and told to eat, and i eat. the differences are not so apparent as a giant blonde girl, or a shrinking one.
the girl in my head, the one who apparently needs the cup of pills, she is the one who changes, she is the one who orbits the looking glass, wondering which side she is on today.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
home
when i was a kid we used to drive 8 hours north to visit my mom's family, every other christmas, and sometimes in between. my grandma's house was small--i say my grandma's house because despite the fact that my grandpa was always there, his home was in his boat, which had a more lived in look than anything else that had his name attached. my grandma's house was exactly that: hers. and we didn't spend more time anywhere than in her kitchen.
the kitchen was, and still is, tiny. i can't imagine how she raised a family of 7 in there, baking bread by hand and creating food. my grandma is a strong woman; i have no doubts about that. there's this family story about when her and my grandpa were going to remodel the house so as to add a bit more room for all the kids. grandpa was dragging his feet, so my grandma took a sledgehammer to the wall herself and said, well, there's a hole in the wall, you better fix it.
she's one of those people about whom legends begin.
morgan lwellyn wrote a book that i love, called finn mac cool. in the book she delves into the humanity behind the irish legend of finn, basing the great feats that made him notorious in reality. the legend happens later, when the tales are told around fires and roasted turkey legs.
i can see how legends are born; i am proud to say that i am born of legends. my family is a bunch of tale-tellers--tales of our family, what happened yesterday while we were shopping, the what-if of science fiction. we tell tales because it's written in our genetic code to do so.
but i think it's written in everyone's code, to share experiences with someone else's ear. the telling is as important as the listening, the absorbing, because at some point you will have to re-tell that self-same tale.
i've told more stories about my family than i can count. there's too many of them, i often think, to write down, so many that they'd fill a book. why do i keep them around, these stories?
because they remind me of home. they remind me of that feeling i had when i was a kid, that if i got a hug from my mother, the world would be put at rights. that when i sat in my grandma's kitchen, i was safe.
grandma doesn't live in this house anymore. i won't ever hear her bedroom door, which was just off the kitchen, open up with that little creak. i won't hear her slippers slapping across old yellowed linoleum, or the swish of her aqua-flowered house coat as she putters around and starts the coffee. it's not because she's dead; it's because she has alzheimer's.
people with alzheimer's often wander. they say they're going home. i read an article not long ago concerning that search--that they're not really going to any certain place, that they're searching for the safe place that they remember as home.
my home has been in many different states, many different dwellings, with many different people. it makes me feel safe, knowing that home is where you take it.
it also makes me wither a little, to know that the tales i tell about my legendary grandma, who won a nail-hammering competition by burying the nail in one hit, will someday flit away from my mind. that her kitchen table and those bright curtains will be dimmed and lost. the inevitability of losing her, the woman, is already made manifest in my mind. it's the loss of the idea of home, the loss of security, that is hard to fathom.
this morning i sit in my own home, secure and warm, watching my white cat loll on the dark couch, little rib cage rising and falling. i will keep this thought of home safe inside me, for as long as i can. it's my refuge, wherever i am, whoever i might be.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
afraid of the dark
when i was kid i was always
afraid of the dark
the dim shadow beneath.
i'd leap from floor to mattress,
muffle the world with my pillow,
and if i woke at night,
i'd lay there imagining the shape
of my nightmares
later in life you realize
--while sleeping one night, next to your
snoring
bedmate--
that you are no longer afraid of the dark
that is sky lacking sun,
or moon behind cloud.
the dark that you fear, the darkest
of darks
is the pit of your own soul
which perhaps has been lurking along
for all these years,
disguised as the shimmery breath
beneath your bed.
afraid of the dark
the dim shadow beneath.
i'd leap from floor to mattress,
muffle the world with my pillow,
and if i woke at night,
i'd lay there imagining the shape
of my nightmares
later in life you realize
--while sleeping one night, next to your
snoring
bedmate--
that you are no longer afraid of the dark
that is sky lacking sun,
or moon behind cloud.
the dark that you fear, the darkest
of darks
is the pit of your own soul
which perhaps has been lurking along
for all these years,
disguised as the shimmery breath
beneath your bed.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
a different arsenal
henry is being a little feline shit this morning--attacking shiva, begging for the faucet to be turned on, biting when he's annoyed. so on and so forth.
however i have to give him credit--he is more aware of his landscape and his surroundings than i am. he uses his body better, and is in better shape. how much of this is due to species differences and how much is due to good kitty kibble, i don't know.
about a month ago i stopped at ikea on my way home. i'm a dedicated clearance bin shopper and the ikea as-is section is yet another red-stickered mecca for those in my cents-off bracket. for a while now i've been eyeing this stepstool, wooden and unpainted, of course. being the short person in a house of tall people is generally not an issue; but i don't like being totally dependent on the tall folks being around 24/7 to fetch items for me that seem out of reach.
so finding a host of stepstools in the as-is department, for 7.50 instead of the regular 19.99, was a boon.
i got it home and found it a home in the living room, within easy reach. i stood on it and considered the world from dan's height, and asked if he could always see the top of the refrigerator. he spent a goodly amount of time smiling at me, balancing atop the stool, pondering the vagaries of being so much shorter.
so i added a new tool to my household--a tool that is basically just for me.
friday i was in the kitchen, cleaning or something, and i looked up and noticed that there was a large amount of clutter that had gathered on top of my cupboards--pint glasses, a large stainless steel bowl that fits nowhere else, bits of pottery that i like but have no real useful purpose, some emtpy glass jars with lids for a fit of crafting.
i had just gotten that stepstool; if i wanted to, i could have used the stool to dust and sort and reimagine the upper realm of my kitchen.
but i didn't remember until this morning, when henry was careening around the living room after being shooed away from his squalling and angry feline roommate, and launched himself to the top of the stepstool, that i had the necessary tool to complete the job i'd considered only two days ago.
***
it's of interest to me how quickly thoughts pass in and out of people's brains. the sieve of your mind is not as thin and finely woven as cheesecloth; it's more like two hands trying to catch a bag of rice as it tips and falls off the counter. even the good ideas, each grain scattering on white linoleum--the ones you have as you fall asleep, or blearily search for your car keys before work--the ones that startle you into thinking that einstien is not the only genius in the world--they're often forgotten.
but just as easily forgotten are the simple things, like stepstools.
***
many many moons ago dan wrote a letter to my parents, asking for my hand in marriage. it was very charming and when i heard that he'd done this, i was sure beyond belief that my parents would be happy, that this would appeal to their post-WWII sensibilities.
instead dan got a response that we should wait, etc. perhaps they were right, perhaps they were just being protective, perhaps they were wrong. it's not been long enough, historically speaking, for me to be emotionally objective about their response. perhaps i'll never be able to be emotionally objective about it; i'm too close to the situation, too involved.
last weekend, however, my dad made a comment that has had me flummoxed, something to the effect of when would dan be his next son in law, he enjoyed his other son in law so much he would like another one.
it was something small in the conversation, but it overshadowed the whole weekend, and i kept coming back to it during the week.
i have had the tools, for a long time, to move past the original negative statement that my parents made about my choices. but i've never really used them. they've been as forgotten as my stepstool.
i could have picked up that stepstool years ago, when we first moved here, and cleaned comfortably and safely from the floor, instead of walking around on the counters and trying to keep my stocking feet secure.
for years i have chosen the harder road, the path of most resistance, the path that i felt was defining myself. i didn't use the tools available to me, i didn't see that there were tools i had. in retrospect, i could have made this leap of realization at any time.
why didn't i? i wish i knew. now that the stepstool has been revealed by my rambunctious cat, perhaps i will delve further, excavate the tools i have always had, my arsenal in plain sight.
however i have to give him credit--he is more aware of his landscape and his surroundings than i am. he uses his body better, and is in better shape. how much of this is due to species differences and how much is due to good kitty kibble, i don't know.
about a month ago i stopped at ikea on my way home. i'm a dedicated clearance bin shopper and the ikea as-is section is yet another red-stickered mecca for those in my cents-off bracket. for a while now i've been eyeing this stepstool, wooden and unpainted, of course. being the short person in a house of tall people is generally not an issue; but i don't like being totally dependent on the tall folks being around 24/7 to fetch items for me that seem out of reach.
so finding a host of stepstools in the as-is department, for 7.50 instead of the regular 19.99, was a boon.
i got it home and found it a home in the living room, within easy reach. i stood on it and considered the world from dan's height, and asked if he could always see the top of the refrigerator. he spent a goodly amount of time smiling at me, balancing atop the stool, pondering the vagaries of being so much shorter.
so i added a new tool to my household--a tool that is basically just for me.
friday i was in the kitchen, cleaning or something, and i looked up and noticed that there was a large amount of clutter that had gathered on top of my cupboards--pint glasses, a large stainless steel bowl that fits nowhere else, bits of pottery that i like but have no real useful purpose, some emtpy glass jars with lids for a fit of crafting.
i had just gotten that stepstool; if i wanted to, i could have used the stool to dust and sort and reimagine the upper realm of my kitchen.
but i didn't remember until this morning, when henry was careening around the living room after being shooed away from his squalling and angry feline roommate, and launched himself to the top of the stepstool, that i had the necessary tool to complete the job i'd considered only two days ago.
***
it's of interest to me how quickly thoughts pass in and out of people's brains. the sieve of your mind is not as thin and finely woven as cheesecloth; it's more like two hands trying to catch a bag of rice as it tips and falls off the counter. even the good ideas, each grain scattering on white linoleum--the ones you have as you fall asleep, or blearily search for your car keys before work--the ones that startle you into thinking that einstien is not the only genius in the world--they're often forgotten.
but just as easily forgotten are the simple things, like stepstools.
***
many many moons ago dan wrote a letter to my parents, asking for my hand in marriage. it was very charming and when i heard that he'd done this, i was sure beyond belief that my parents would be happy, that this would appeal to their post-WWII sensibilities.
instead dan got a response that we should wait, etc. perhaps they were right, perhaps they were just being protective, perhaps they were wrong. it's not been long enough, historically speaking, for me to be emotionally objective about their response. perhaps i'll never be able to be emotionally objective about it; i'm too close to the situation, too involved.
last weekend, however, my dad made a comment that has had me flummoxed, something to the effect of when would dan be his next son in law, he enjoyed his other son in law so much he would like another one.
it was something small in the conversation, but it overshadowed the whole weekend, and i kept coming back to it during the week.
i have had the tools, for a long time, to move past the original negative statement that my parents made about my choices. but i've never really used them. they've been as forgotten as my stepstool.
i could have picked up that stepstool years ago, when we first moved here, and cleaned comfortably and safely from the floor, instead of walking around on the counters and trying to keep my stocking feet secure.
for years i have chosen the harder road, the path of most resistance, the path that i felt was defining myself. i didn't use the tools available to me, i didn't see that there were tools i had. in retrospect, i could have made this leap of realization at any time.
why didn't i? i wish i knew. now that the stepstool has been revealed by my rambunctious cat, perhaps i will delve further, excavate the tools i have always had, my arsenal in plain sight.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
as the rooster crows...
the older i get, the earlier i like to get up. it's like internally my body is aware that there is only so much time left over between this exact moment and whenever it is my ticket gets punched, and most of the day is taken up with mundane things like scooping the litterbox and emptying the dishwasher.
last week i got up very early for most of the week, just trying to keep my head above water. this week i doubt will differ; there is just too much to do and not enough hours in which to accomplish said work.
i think back five years to tomorrow, the day the trade centers fell. i think of the lives that were snuffed out, and the people who probably got up early that morning to get to the office, get their days started. how many cups of coffee were brewed prior to the first plane hitting? how many reports printed, files filed, voicemails checked and deleted?
how many people had yet to arrive, that day? what twists of fate those spinners tugged, what weavings they wove, to keep bodies out of the dust that day.
i think of all the souls whose lives ended and i think of their mentality. they were feeling just like me: the work is at hand, and it needs doing. they showed up that day, not knowing what it held in store. ready to share gossip over cubicle walls and curse at the copier.
what of all those people who were not in the towers, for whatever reason? those lucky, blessed number who escaped? we remember the day, we remember the fallen, we remember our emotions.
i think of the sole survivor of that plane crash last week, the one man who lived through cartwheeling flames. i wonder at the feelings he is only beginning to process--does he feel guilty to still breathe?
in college one of my fellow students was a gentleman about ten years my senior. i can't remember his name now, but i remember that he was a quiet, quiet soul. quiet in humor, quiet in contemplation. just quiet. his face did not bespeak silence--you know some people, with their animated features, the way they look on the verge of mischief or great thoughts. that was this man.
i asked someone, one day, if he was okay; i didn't know him well enough to touch his shoulder as i would a friend and offer support. he just looked bereft, or lost, adrift in thoughts.
he was in a bus crash, in south america somewhere. like peru, i was told. out of the eighty-some people on the bus, he was the only one who lived. he's been different ever since.
you cannot experience these things--this disastrous type of event--without being changed. the heat melts your mentality like lake ice in spring: the middle buckles, and all the waves push it up onto the shore, jagged until it trickles back into the lake.
i think of the blessed many who count each day as a day of luck, for having missed the subway or seen the dentist or buttoned their six-year-old's jacket instead of showing up to work right away. or those who called in sick, or late, whatever their reason.
i consider how early i must rise, tomorrow, to begin my day. i cannot know what tomorrow holds. it probably will be the same menu as friday, as thursday, as last week and month and year, crowned with a gray cubicle.
those whose lives were lost, i remember you. but today, i raise my glass to you, you survivors. your existence reminds me daily to be grateful for the bumps and potholes in life, the endless jostling. i will be quiet, like my quiet college compatriot, and remember how glad i am to be.
just be.
last week i got up very early for most of the week, just trying to keep my head above water. this week i doubt will differ; there is just too much to do and not enough hours in which to accomplish said work.
i think back five years to tomorrow, the day the trade centers fell. i think of the lives that were snuffed out, and the people who probably got up early that morning to get to the office, get their days started. how many cups of coffee were brewed prior to the first plane hitting? how many reports printed, files filed, voicemails checked and deleted?
how many people had yet to arrive, that day? what twists of fate those spinners tugged, what weavings they wove, to keep bodies out of the dust that day.
i think of all the souls whose lives ended and i think of their mentality. they were feeling just like me: the work is at hand, and it needs doing. they showed up that day, not knowing what it held in store. ready to share gossip over cubicle walls and curse at the copier.
what of all those people who were not in the towers, for whatever reason? those lucky, blessed number who escaped? we remember the day, we remember the fallen, we remember our emotions.
i think of the sole survivor of that plane crash last week, the one man who lived through cartwheeling flames. i wonder at the feelings he is only beginning to process--does he feel guilty to still breathe?
in college one of my fellow students was a gentleman about ten years my senior. i can't remember his name now, but i remember that he was a quiet, quiet soul. quiet in humor, quiet in contemplation. just quiet. his face did not bespeak silence--you know some people, with their animated features, the way they look on the verge of mischief or great thoughts. that was this man.
i asked someone, one day, if he was okay; i didn't know him well enough to touch his shoulder as i would a friend and offer support. he just looked bereft, or lost, adrift in thoughts.
he was in a bus crash, in south america somewhere. like peru, i was told. out of the eighty-some people on the bus, he was the only one who lived. he's been different ever since.
you cannot experience these things--this disastrous type of event--without being changed. the heat melts your mentality like lake ice in spring: the middle buckles, and all the waves push it up onto the shore, jagged until it trickles back into the lake.
i think of the blessed many who count each day as a day of luck, for having missed the subway or seen the dentist or buttoned their six-year-old's jacket instead of showing up to work right away. or those who called in sick, or late, whatever their reason.
i consider how early i must rise, tomorrow, to begin my day. i cannot know what tomorrow holds. it probably will be the same menu as friday, as thursday, as last week and month and year, crowned with a gray cubicle.
those whose lives were lost, i remember you. but today, i raise my glass to you, you survivors. your existence reminds me daily to be grateful for the bumps and potholes in life, the endless jostling. i will be quiet, like my quiet college compatriot, and remember how glad i am to be.
just be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)