it finally snowed! now, keep in mind that i never think it can snow enough, so despite the fact that we have a good solid 6-8 on the ground, i'm up for another foot or two. can't help it. i love snow.
last night we braved the weather and drove over to visit darin and cathy and their new little one, who's almost 3 months old now. devin's got a cold and sneezed a few times--these cute little baby sneezes that expelled more baby crap than i thought possible. the sneeze sounded so...small. and yet...large ew. who knew.
i find it interesting that there are some things that stay the same and some things that change, as you move along. the constant is my love of winter--i have an inane need to be buried under 3 feet of snow. i love the feel of the wind crisping my cheeks and the tiny flakes kissing my eyelids. it's beautiful, it's clean, it's cold.
the thing that has changed, with time, is my gross-out factor. i used to have a problem with people puking--i was a sympathetic puker. over time the reflex has died down some; the odor will still provoke a reaction, but it's manageable. snot has ALWAYS been repulsive to me--mine, anyone's. doesn't matter.
last night while holding small devin she heaved up a good sneeze on my face. i was lucky that there wasn't much in it; but what was in it ended up on my chin. i heard dan say, "kim can't stand mucus; i don't know why she wanted to hold the baby now." but i didn't have that first reaction of: drop baby and leap for shower.
i calmly reached over and selected a tissue, and wiped off my face and hers.
***
when i was a kid i didn't like a lot of things. i was honestly a horrid hypochondriac--i thought i had aids, i thought i had leprosy, i wouldn't drink from a soda can in the family car on road trips unless i drank first. i've always had a horrible fear of bees--that heavy hum--and centipedes.
i know i can handle these things logically--i know that i am thousands of times the size of a bug, i know that i haven't fondled any armadillos lately to infect myself and get shipped to a leper colony. is it maturity that allows you to take a step back and say, this is not a Big Thing.
the Big Things in life come at you like the jack in the box of a child--you open the box hoping for chocolate, and you get the four horsemen: pestilence, war, death and famine.
those are the Big Things. when i was young my mom used to tell me that i was "making mountains out of molehills" -- her way of telling me that i was overreacting. when i was seven or so i had a habit of hyperventilating when i was nervous. mom would hand me a paper bag and say, just breathe.
***
i'm still a bit of a germ fiend--i'm constantly after dan to wash his hands--but it's toned down enough that i'm not a fanatic about it. and i will freely admit that i tense up when i hear a bee--but i no longer run off screaming and waving my arms around wildly.
it is of interest to me that the constants in your life can be good and bad--helpful and detrimental, etc. this morning i'll put on my boots and tromp around outside until my nose is so cold that i cannot feel it. i'll make a snow angel, i'll leave some kim-sized footprints roaming around the townhouse area, i'll probably bring my younger cat, henry, outside and put his small pink toes in the snow, since he seems to want to explore so badly.
how does time soften the fear, but not the eagerness? logically i'm old enough to wonder why i have this obsession with snow and this season in general. logically, it's not one of the Big Things, so i put that fear aside--what will people say, what if they laugh and point at the grown woman grinning at suspended water.
the same way that i set aside my disgust of mucus and hold the baby close, hear her heart beat and smell her soft hair--she herself is one of the Big Things in life; her little sneezes are just that: little.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
tuesday
tuesday night was the memorial service for the mother of one of my coworkers. i felt compelled, for whatever reason, to attend, even though my coworker is very new to the office. it was just niggling at the edge of my mind--go, go, go.
so i went. the church was packed; one other coworker, a supervisor, showed up, and we sat on creaking, cold metal folding chairs at the back. our coworker spoke, her voice cracking a bit--to be expected.
three years ago, my friend cari's mom was killed in a car accident; she was about the same age as my coworker's mom--early 50s--and people said things about this other woman that applied to vickie very, very much.
i teared up during the service, but it was when i got in the car afterwards that it struck me that i felt as if i had finally attended the service for cari's mom. i think it was when they said that she invited strangers home, and made everyone feel comfortable.
i remember when i met vickie the first time--we played taboo late into the night, with her sister and brother in law, then a version of scrabble that i'd never seen. she was so ready to laugh, to hug--to embrace life, in general.
the pastor said, during his sermon, that it was a break from the day, that this woman's death offered us. a chance to review and breathe.
in the dark of the car, i thought of vickie, i thought of cari and her "god-bubble" that protected her that first year. i thought about how much i had wanted to be there--and yet, i had no idea of what to do.
i suppose that is always true, with grief, that it is as different as the weather. sometimes i think that depression, at least in my case, is like grief, unspecified. a general sadness about my life. can you grieve over your own life? is that what this is, this malaise that settles on me now and again?
even with the little pills i swallow each night, i still ride that wave, fluctuating between dark and light, between drenched and drought. perhaps others find the happy medium; they surf along, falling only when specified by some life occurance. for me it is not happenstance, to slide into the darkness, and climb out again.
i could see grief on many faces, on tuesday past, a group of people gathered to show support. i didn't know my coworker's mother. i was not there to grieve over her; i was there to hug her daughter, the living embodiment of how wonderful a being she herself had been.
the pastor was right; i needed that break in the day. i needed to remember vickie, i needed to cry and attend some kind of service.
sometimes the need to weep builds up within, the urge to sob, to hear my voice crack and gasp, to stretch my lips across my teeth as i keen, until they are swollen. it rises the same way that laughter rises.
i've been going through a dim area again. i remind myself that it is my lapse into depression. but really, is it a lapse, or just a change of the clouds that hang above? is it unnatural, to feel grief? who says that i must be joyful at all times?
dan read a book called lincoln's melancholy, a while back. the book talked about how in his day, lincoln's depression was accepted as just another part and parcel of his self. now a days, it is supposed to be quarantined to a tuesday night.
i suppose it is always tuesday night, somewhere within me.
so i went. the church was packed; one other coworker, a supervisor, showed up, and we sat on creaking, cold metal folding chairs at the back. our coworker spoke, her voice cracking a bit--to be expected.
three years ago, my friend cari's mom was killed in a car accident; she was about the same age as my coworker's mom--early 50s--and people said things about this other woman that applied to vickie very, very much.
i teared up during the service, but it was when i got in the car afterwards that it struck me that i felt as if i had finally attended the service for cari's mom. i think it was when they said that she invited strangers home, and made everyone feel comfortable.
i remember when i met vickie the first time--we played taboo late into the night, with her sister and brother in law, then a version of scrabble that i'd never seen. she was so ready to laugh, to hug--to embrace life, in general.
the pastor said, during his sermon, that it was a break from the day, that this woman's death offered us. a chance to review and breathe.
in the dark of the car, i thought of vickie, i thought of cari and her "god-bubble" that protected her that first year. i thought about how much i had wanted to be there--and yet, i had no idea of what to do.
i suppose that is always true, with grief, that it is as different as the weather. sometimes i think that depression, at least in my case, is like grief, unspecified. a general sadness about my life. can you grieve over your own life? is that what this is, this malaise that settles on me now and again?
even with the little pills i swallow each night, i still ride that wave, fluctuating between dark and light, between drenched and drought. perhaps others find the happy medium; they surf along, falling only when specified by some life occurance. for me it is not happenstance, to slide into the darkness, and climb out again.
i could see grief on many faces, on tuesday past, a group of people gathered to show support. i didn't know my coworker's mother. i was not there to grieve over her; i was there to hug her daughter, the living embodiment of how wonderful a being she herself had been.
the pastor was right; i needed that break in the day. i needed to remember vickie, i needed to cry and attend some kind of service.
sometimes the need to weep builds up within, the urge to sob, to hear my voice crack and gasp, to stretch my lips across my teeth as i keen, until they are swollen. it rises the same way that laughter rises.
i've been going through a dim area again. i remind myself that it is my lapse into depression. but really, is it a lapse, or just a change of the clouds that hang above? is it unnatural, to feel grief? who says that i must be joyful at all times?
dan read a book called lincoln's melancholy, a while back. the book talked about how in his day, lincoln's depression was accepted as just another part and parcel of his self. now a days, it is supposed to be quarantined to a tuesday night.
i suppose it is always tuesday night, somewhere within me.
Monday, February 19, 2007
breaking down
as in a car, folks. no worries.
yes, this weekend was The Weekend of the Car. or perhaps, The Weekend of Kim Being Late. Or maybe even The Weekend of Things Breaking. your choice, really.
friday's office party went well--which was good because i was one of the organizers. then saturday i got up, cleaned up after my pukey and poopy cats, and packed. dan and i ran to target for some last minute items, and then had breakfast, and then i was off on the road north for girly weekend in bemidji.
halfway between home and st cloud, i realized that i'd left my shirts--for that night's festivities, and for sunday's drive home--hanging on the back of the door. great.
then in st cloud, at the first stoplight, i glanced at the instrument panel. all good...except for the temperature guage, which was buried in HOT HOT HOT. i thought, oh, that's not good. then i looked up and saw smoke pouring from beneath my hood. even worse. i pulled into the nearest parking lot and called my dad.
dad called my brother, who rolled up a few moments later and looked at the car. his diagnosis was radiator hose leak. dad arrived, with my sister. it was like a family reunion in the grocery store parking lot. then we ran to the store for antifreeze, filled up the car, and drove it to my parents' house. ran it for an hour and nothing overeheated, however dad didn't want me driving so i borrowed my sister's car and drove north.
later than late--dinner was supposed to be at 6, but luckily the girls pushed it back to 730. it was a most excellent evening--all dressed to the nines, dinner at a fantastic italian restaurant, then drinks next door at the pub. my dear friend amanda rented a limo--for 4 girls in a town of 10,000. it was fabulous! we got chauffered to the next bar, had a few drinks and chatted, and then back into the limo for the final bar.
the last bar was a real winner--out in the middle of nowhere, and late enough that all patrons were one of two states: sobie-cab sober, or drunker than a skunk.
one of the skunks cornered me and cari at the bar and made conversation. it was all quite nice and good. then his three friends moseyed over, and the most foxed one, a guy named lee, was at the huggy stage. "jus a hug, plllllllleeease." "can i have anudder hug? just one more?" dear lord preserve me. he went on to tell us that his wife was actually Satan, which i'm sure may come as a shock to her, and that he was "like snowflakes," complete with a fluttery finger motion remniscent of snow falling, if snow could be drunk and clumsy.
sunday i drove back to st cloud. had dinner with the parents, chit chat with my sister. i broke a glass, whoops. dad showed me how to fill up the antifreeze if needed, and i started up the car.
then my sister backed her car up and planted her right front fender underneath my dad's truck's front fender. lovely!
luckily, getting out of the car to assess the damage allowed my mom to point out that my car was once again smoking and smelled like burning antifreeze.
thus, i am ensconced in my parent's den, typing this post as i await the call from the radiator shoppe, who will probably tell me that i need to replace my radiator, and that the bill comes to $8000.00 with tax.
*le sigh*
at any rate, dad's home, so i'm going to hang with my papa and wait for news. hugs all. (;
yes, this weekend was The Weekend of the Car. or perhaps, The Weekend of Kim Being Late. Or maybe even The Weekend of Things Breaking. your choice, really.
friday's office party went well--which was good because i was one of the organizers. then saturday i got up, cleaned up after my pukey and poopy cats, and packed. dan and i ran to target for some last minute items, and then had breakfast, and then i was off on the road north for girly weekend in bemidji.
halfway between home and st cloud, i realized that i'd left my shirts--for that night's festivities, and for sunday's drive home--hanging on the back of the door. great.
then in st cloud, at the first stoplight, i glanced at the instrument panel. all good...except for the temperature guage, which was buried in HOT HOT HOT. i thought, oh, that's not good. then i looked up and saw smoke pouring from beneath my hood. even worse. i pulled into the nearest parking lot and called my dad.
dad called my brother, who rolled up a few moments later and looked at the car. his diagnosis was radiator hose leak. dad arrived, with my sister. it was like a family reunion in the grocery store parking lot. then we ran to the store for antifreeze, filled up the car, and drove it to my parents' house. ran it for an hour and nothing overeheated, however dad didn't want me driving so i borrowed my sister's car and drove north.
later than late--dinner was supposed to be at 6, but luckily the girls pushed it back to 730. it was a most excellent evening--all dressed to the nines, dinner at a fantastic italian restaurant, then drinks next door at the pub. my dear friend amanda rented a limo--for 4 girls in a town of 10,000. it was fabulous! we got chauffered to the next bar, had a few drinks and chatted, and then back into the limo for the final bar.
the last bar was a real winner--out in the middle of nowhere, and late enough that all patrons were one of two states: sobie-cab sober, or drunker than a skunk.
one of the skunks cornered me and cari at the bar and made conversation. it was all quite nice and good. then his three friends moseyed over, and the most foxed one, a guy named lee, was at the huggy stage. "jus a hug, plllllllleeease." "can i have anudder hug? just one more?" dear lord preserve me. he went on to tell us that his wife was actually Satan, which i'm sure may come as a shock to her, and that he was "like snowflakes," complete with a fluttery finger motion remniscent of snow falling, if snow could be drunk and clumsy.
sunday i drove back to st cloud. had dinner with the parents, chit chat with my sister. i broke a glass, whoops. dad showed me how to fill up the antifreeze if needed, and i started up the car.
then my sister backed her car up and planted her right front fender underneath my dad's truck's front fender. lovely!
luckily, getting out of the car to assess the damage allowed my mom to point out that my car was once again smoking and smelled like burning antifreeze.
thus, i am ensconced in my parent's den, typing this post as i await the call from the radiator shoppe, who will probably tell me that i need to replace my radiator, and that the bill comes to $8000.00 with tax.
*le sigh*
at any rate, dad's home, so i'm going to hang with my papa and wait for news. hugs all. (;
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
danger, will robinson! danger!
i want one of those robots. no matter how cheesy, it'd be nice to have. people might point and laugh at my robot. but i'd be warned about things, before harm could befall me.
so here's your warning. you just have to follow these rules:
1. put your arms out at your sides, raise them over your head, jiggling them as if you are swatting at fifteen angry bees.
2. yell, "danger, dear reader! danger!"
3. and if you're feeling lucky, punk, keep reading.
i had a bad day at work. i find it no coincidence that it happens on a day of the year wherein we are celebrating the death of a saint, a guy who went against the grain and lost his head for it.
yes, valentine. he was jailed for being a bad boy, at least in claudius' eyes. during his time in the pokey, it's said that he wrote love letters to the jailor's daughter, with whom he was in love. and that is why kids hand out little cards with cartoon characters on them, and share chocolate, etc.
when i was a kid i hated valentine's day. in school, we always had to exchange cards. i always got the least cards. it's left me somewhat jaded towards the holiday. that and learning about the apparent progenitor of the day himself. who knows. i'm bitter, and it's leftover from 20 years ago.
i'm lucky that dan likes the day. he found the sweetest cards, and got me the special dread pirate roberts version of the princess bride. he makes it less icky, and over the years, it's grown on me, a bit.
today, though, was one of those days where i was glad i got to come home.
i'm a firm believer in the trickle down effect--the one that says that the shit rolls downhill. so those of us at the bottom of the office chain receive the crappy leftover bits of attention, and that only when the people higher up the stairs are prodded to action.
it just seems like the trickle is always dripping on my head; and then there is this sense of wonder from above, that i could possibly be annoyed by said drip. *sigh*
all in all, it's a much easier life i lead than that of some of my primate relatives. i don't have to club my dinner before eating. i don't have to wrap up in fur to keep warm. i don't have to fear lions, tigers or bears. i've got it better than valentine ever did--my head is still square on my shoulders, and that's an upgrade from his standpoint, i'm sure.
i just have this feeling of anger, twitching along my nerves like the shivers when you're chilled. the day started out so nicely--dan's cards, purring cats, a warm car. about an hour into work there was the first email--one accusing me of something that i don't remember doing, and can't imagine that i would have done, anyway.
this afternoon, it was the approach of my manager. "i have a question about the process..."
and then another email: "this is going to be a mess, if this client isn't happy."
first of all, i didn't do what i was accused of doing. second of all, the process is fine--it just needs to be a tad more flexible, because you're working with human beings, and they're not made of obsidian. and third, and probably most important, if it's going to be a mess, perhaps the client could have gotten her butt in gear last week, when the pressure was on, and not this week, when the office is winched tight enough to produce diamonds from pencil lead.
this, right now--this is when i need that robot with the flailing arms. this is when i need the robot with blinking lights and strident voice--"danger, kim, danger!"
or perhaps just some yellow "caution" tape would do. i'm not high maintenance, really.
you can't go through your life with a safety harness attached, or a life raft at the ready. there's just some days when it seems like it would be prudent to have some kind of warning system. brace yourself, bridget--that sort of thing.
today i was caught unawares. i was floating along, content and peaceful. i don't like to make waves--usually i do whatever it is in my power to avoid being at the epicenter, to keep all ships on top of the water and safe.
right now, i feel as if that is the problem--i am so busy trying to keep everyone else's ships secure that mine is suddenly sinking.
so here's your warning. you just have to follow these rules:
1. put your arms out at your sides, raise them over your head, jiggling them as if you are swatting at fifteen angry bees.
2. yell, "danger, dear reader! danger!"
3. and if you're feeling lucky, punk, keep reading.
i had a bad day at work. i find it no coincidence that it happens on a day of the year wherein we are celebrating the death of a saint, a guy who went against the grain and lost his head for it.
yes, valentine. he was jailed for being a bad boy, at least in claudius' eyes. during his time in the pokey, it's said that he wrote love letters to the jailor's daughter, with whom he was in love. and that is why kids hand out little cards with cartoon characters on them, and share chocolate, etc.
when i was a kid i hated valentine's day. in school, we always had to exchange cards. i always got the least cards. it's left me somewhat jaded towards the holiday. that and learning about the apparent progenitor of the day himself. who knows. i'm bitter, and it's leftover from 20 years ago.
i'm lucky that dan likes the day. he found the sweetest cards, and got me the special dread pirate roberts version of the princess bride. he makes it less icky, and over the years, it's grown on me, a bit.
today, though, was one of those days where i was glad i got to come home.
i'm a firm believer in the trickle down effect--the one that says that the shit rolls downhill. so those of us at the bottom of the office chain receive the crappy leftover bits of attention, and that only when the people higher up the stairs are prodded to action.
it just seems like the trickle is always dripping on my head; and then there is this sense of wonder from above, that i could possibly be annoyed by said drip. *sigh*
all in all, it's a much easier life i lead than that of some of my primate relatives. i don't have to club my dinner before eating. i don't have to wrap up in fur to keep warm. i don't have to fear lions, tigers or bears. i've got it better than valentine ever did--my head is still square on my shoulders, and that's an upgrade from his standpoint, i'm sure.
i just have this feeling of anger, twitching along my nerves like the shivers when you're chilled. the day started out so nicely--dan's cards, purring cats, a warm car. about an hour into work there was the first email--one accusing me of something that i don't remember doing, and can't imagine that i would have done, anyway.
this afternoon, it was the approach of my manager. "i have a question about the process..."
and then another email: "this is going to be a mess, if this client isn't happy."
first of all, i didn't do what i was accused of doing. second of all, the process is fine--it just needs to be a tad more flexible, because you're working with human beings, and they're not made of obsidian. and third, and probably most important, if it's going to be a mess, perhaps the client could have gotten her butt in gear last week, when the pressure was on, and not this week, when the office is winched tight enough to produce diamonds from pencil lead.
this, right now--this is when i need that robot with the flailing arms. this is when i need the robot with blinking lights and strident voice--"danger, kim, danger!"
or perhaps just some yellow "caution" tape would do. i'm not high maintenance, really.
you can't go through your life with a safety harness attached, or a life raft at the ready. there's just some days when it seems like it would be prudent to have some kind of warning system. brace yourself, bridget--that sort of thing.
today i was caught unawares. i was floating along, content and peaceful. i don't like to make waves--usually i do whatever it is in my power to avoid being at the epicenter, to keep all ships on top of the water and safe.
right now, i feel as if that is the problem--i am so busy trying to keep everyone else's ships secure that mine is suddenly sinking.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
the bottomless pit
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.
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.
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.
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