One year ago, it was clear and golden and dazzling, and I was holding the hand of my friend as she died. And then I was watching them disconnect her, de-intubating her, taking her finger out of the monitor, settling her arms and head and sheets. It was quiet, the beeping done with.
I came to work today. There seemed no point in not coming. I don't know why I did.
That day, I went home, after being with her husband, her friends, her family. Witnessing one brother's pain, because he missed her last moments. I sat on my couch, insensible to the Poobahs, and I knew they smelled her on me, smelled the hospital, smelled death. They were subdued, and I was inert to even their gentlest, inquiring, sweet attentions. The next night, my mom came over with food, and we ate, and we gave out candy to the neighborhood kids. I am grateful.
Jesus, babe. I miss you. My girl.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Morning walk
The alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. instead of 5:40, and I rolled over out of habit, then found I actually felt like getting up. Pum came to the bedside in the dark, her ritual morning greeting, and I felt the strong, tight curl of her tail on my wrist as she padded away again, back to her bed.
Dressed and hair wrestled down, the kit and pup kibbled, I pulled on a sweater coat and light gloves, and we were off.
Penelope is a good girl on walks, and today was so quiet I had time to notice the tall oak to the southeast was not lit from below, as it usually is on autumn and winter mornings. Against the fathomless teal just outside the bare halo of sunrise, its bent branch and filigree were achingly lovely. I had time to muse - is that quiet sound, of minimal sand on damp asphalt under my soft shoe, is that a crunch, or something gentler? I had the time to muse, but did not find the word.
Just last night, talking with mom about her puppy and my now older baby girl, I'd said how funny it is: dogs' communication is most chancy not in the dark, but at twilight and dawn - when light is there, but they can't quite see the cues dogs signal each other with. This morning, we passed a shepherd going our way briefly, but across the street, and though she clearly saw the other dog, Penelope had no response at all. No pulling, "Mom, I want to go see the other dog - and thereby make friends with its person."
Dark, still, when we got home, Pum had her sniffs and her business done, and I had all my shoulder and back muscles intact. Seven years old now, she's powerful and big enough, this still is important.
***
One week from today, it will be the first anniversary of my best friend's - my sister's - death. Someone who loved her hard has gone to a place the rest of us who love her can't join him, and it is heartbreaking. Two of us - two of the three who made up our little Musketeers - cling to each other, and count ourselves blessed we ever had her. We are angry still, and yet able to laugh at the ways she haunts us.
Mostly by sending Def Leppard songs at incongruous - or entirely TOO congruous - moments. She remains an inveterate smartass. And she remains with us.
I will mark her passing in a couple of ways, across the miles with our third sister, and alone - and in figuring out exactly how to dress for Hallowe'en. She always LOVED Hallowe'en, and if dressing up is memorial to her now, it is a joyous celebration.
***
The dark season has begun, and that means not just winter's advent. It means not just cooling and sweatering and cozying and contemplating. It means BOO, it's Hallowe'n. It means grappling and reckoning with her loss. Trips to the cemetery, and always, always down memory lane.
Dressed and hair wrestled down, the kit and pup kibbled, I pulled on a sweater coat and light gloves, and we were off.
Penelope is a good girl on walks, and today was so quiet I had time to notice the tall oak to the southeast was not lit from below, as it usually is on autumn and winter mornings. Against the fathomless teal just outside the bare halo of sunrise, its bent branch and filigree were achingly lovely. I had time to muse - is that quiet sound, of minimal sand on damp asphalt under my soft shoe, is that a crunch, or something gentler? I had the time to muse, but did not find the word.
Just last night, talking with mom about her puppy and my now older baby girl, I'd said how funny it is: dogs' communication is most chancy not in the dark, but at twilight and dawn - when light is there, but they can't quite see the cues dogs signal each other with. This morning, we passed a shepherd going our way briefly, but across the street, and though she clearly saw the other dog, Penelope had no response at all. No pulling, "Mom, I want to go see the other dog - and thereby make friends with its person."
Dark, still, when we got home, Pum had her sniffs and her business done, and I had all my shoulder and back muscles intact. Seven years old now, she's powerful and big enough, this still is important.
***
One week from today, it will be the first anniversary of my best friend's - my sister's - death. Someone who loved her hard has gone to a place the rest of us who love her can't join him, and it is heartbreaking. Two of us - two of the three who made up our little Musketeers - cling to each other, and count ourselves blessed we ever had her. We are angry still, and yet able to laugh at the ways she haunts us.
Mostly by sending Def Leppard songs at incongruous - or entirely TOO congruous - moments. She remains an inveterate smartass. And she remains with us.
I will mark her passing in a couple of ways, across the miles with our third sister, and alone - and in figuring out exactly how to dress for Hallowe'en. She always LOVED Hallowe'en, and if dressing up is memorial to her now, it is a joyous celebration.
***
The dark season has begun, and that means not just winter's advent. It means not just cooling and sweatering and cozying and contemplating. It means BOO, it's Hallowe'n. It means grappling and reckoning with her loss. Trips to the cemetery, and always, always down memory lane.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Paradise, Sugar, summer, and X-ness
The time was gone when we'd actually sit in someone's family room and watch MTV, but Paradise City's images still made up a big part of listening to that song. We knew Axl was a jerk, but the *song* was still summertime. That was the year we cruised DMV drive.
Val had taken me to Grace Street before, and I was used to venues, dating my rock star at college, going to gig after gig with him and all our musician friends. So cruising really seemed pointless to me, just driving around a wide block, traffic at a standstill, and only one stretch of it really populated. It was usually impossible to get a spot on that stretch; so you'd crawl through the crowded, merc-lit street, and then it was half an hour around a boring circuit to get back again. If you *could* get a spot, though ... it was a fun way to blow an hour before actually going somewhere.
That year, it was Paradise City - Axl in his white jeans; the ageless avatar of Slash stripped out of black and hat, actually sexy under there - and Pour Some Sugar On Me. Every idiot with a too-large spoiler and giant speakers rigged in a hatchback serenaded the entirety of the cruising audience, and I can't remember a single other track that dominated. Those two songs were THAT. SUMMER.
Valerie died to the strains of Paradise City. And Def Leppard was her favorite band.
It is my punishment, and my poignancy, that Axl's damned white jeans will make me cry forevermore.
I miss my girl. She was my sister. Her husband, now - I guess he's my brother.
The orangey light outside the huge HQ building for the Division of Motor Vehicles. Me and Val being cute and using fake names. I was Sabrina because I'd liked that cartoon as a kid, and the name seemed exotic to me. Valerie used Penelope.
Sometimes, now, loving on my dog Penelope, it's not just her I am hugging. She's my girl too.
I never did know why she used Penelope - just, it amused her. It was so unlikely. And boys. Boys trying anything will believe anything. I mean - Sabrina? We both dared 'em to disbelieve. They never bothered to; honesty beside the point, when you are cruising.
Pour Some Sugar On Me.
Both the songs are anthemic, and impossibly catchy. Cryin' is playing at me right now - and we loved us some Aerosmith. (Val had a story about being a groupie and chewing gum.) But Sugar and Paradise, that was all anyone ever heard. When your car was inching forward, and the heated dark breeze of a Richmond summer night carried the distant strains of either of those songs back to us on the long slog through the boring 75% of the circuit - that was the promise. "You're almost there." Almost to the relevant part. The part that is lit, and full of people (boys) and music. The interesting bit.
Scent of hot asphalt hanging in the air, and not a little exhaust, including diesel. Voices, shouting, unrestrained singing. That kid on the skateboard, the first person I ever TOLD I was named Sabrina.
Valerie's laughter.
My girl.
We'd make a few turns. Or park, if we could. Then the lateral move, more parking, more crowded blocks, and The Jade Elephant, or Newgate Prison (hilariously, a dive bar unbeloved by Virginia Commonwealth University Police - now their headquarters - I guess they won). Dirt Woman sitting on his porch. "You can get the dirt off Donnie, but you can't get Donnie off the Dirt!" The Lee X theater, I think defunct already by the early 90s. Grassy scrub lots. The 7-11, maybe convenient for some, but impossibly distant and useless for those of us in heels.
That guy who made his friends drive him around in an old limo. He was cute. He'd give us rides to our cars. Every boy Val ever dated, or was thinking about it. The night I brought The Elfin One, and she laughs to this day about how I zeroed in on someone and said, "I want THAT one" and got his attention. It's all in the wrist - you just pick the one who appeals and is most likely *to* pay you some attention. He was tall. Dilliest smile you ever saw. He was ... unfortunate. Sigh.
My Val.
It's funny. Since she died, I talk to her - "Vally" I call her. I NEVER called her this in life. Some part of it is necessary now, and some part of it almost offends me for being unprecedented. Too cutesy, perhaps. But she's so dear. She was so damned small, in her hospital beds. I miss her.
Summer nights.
Right now, it's so humid in Richmond you just feel WET. Even walking the dog at 6:45 a.m., the humiture is intense. Even at ten o'clock at night, letting her out for the last time, dark - maybe even breezy - it is HOT outside.
Summer used to be what my dad called "soft" nights. Oh, it was still warm, even back then. But it didn't seem punishing. Maybe nothing does when you're half the age I am now, healthy, and ignorant of the future. Not that our future was bad. Val found the best husband she ever could have had. She had joy and SO much love. She and he knew what could come, and agreed.
No regrets.
That summer. Not regrettable. Not even a guilty-pleasure memory. I'm not ashamed we were hair-band chicks, into that kind of guy, brash, loud, laughing. As much as Val's laugh still rings, I never ever faded beside her. Neither of us ever did second-fiddle. We were the Cinderella twins from their old videos. We were catty, and open, and good in our skin, and interested and interesting. We were the 80s. We were the 90s. We were good with it all (and, no - neither of us was ever into the big-hair thing for *ourselves*).
The one time V ever faded into the background around me.
She was with me when I met Mr. X. It actually took about a year or two, that meeting.
It was the crack of the new millennium, and as an 80s throwback we went up to a bar in Springfield, to see the Bullet Boys, who sucked and had ZERO crowd. It wasn't even any fun for making fun of those who'd never gotten the memo that the 80s were over, because almost nobody was there. One other table - us two girls, maybe three guys. I don't remember most of them, because a *CLICK* happened. Mike. It wasn't sexual, but I've rarely experienced chemistry like that. He was fun to talk to, we stayed in touch on email and by phone, tried dating ever so briefly, then he met his wonderful, gorgeous, immensely generous wife.
November, 2002. I've just broken up with the "should be good on paper" guy with the SOUL PATCH (good grief, I though I was getting old at 34, and shouldn't be "picky"), and Mike's band is playing that same club, opening for - I think - Blind Guardian. The line this time wrapped around the building, and it. was. cold. Val and I get out of the car and end up in an alley around back, walking by hundreds along our way, wondering why the doors haven't opened, and hearing lots of grumbles. Only one attractive guy in the whole lot, and he's probably way too young. We take our places. And wait. And wait. I actually sent her back to the car at one point, to get my big wool coat. I hadn't wanted to wear it in the bar, but out here, waiting interminably, a little plastic jacket is not doing the job. The cold stabs from below. Val and I are shivering, miserable.
It turns out, BG's equipment was not compatible with American electrical systems. Which one might have thought could have been solved before several hundred people ended up stranded in the cold, but so-eth these things go-eth. Once we are inside, I go to touch up my face, and find the blackberry lipgloss in frozen shards, bleeding, and recalcitrant about remediation. I feel annoyed and Of Constrained Attractiveness for the rest of the night. And just as well, for the most part I can't find that hot guy anyway. We hang with Mike and the lovely (seriously - she gave me a FOOT MASSAGE, that wonderful woman) Mrs. Mike, and the night ends up being a lot of fun. Good company goes a long way.
At the end, coming out of the venue itself, there is an outer bar. Pool tables, flourescent lighting for my already not-so-flossy-feeling self, and ...Val pulls on me, "Diane, get a load" - and it's that guy. Definitely too young.
I dither and linger, Val takes a bathroom break, I'm on my own by some pool table, make eye contact, smile. He still doesn't come over. When she comes back, I grab her and make a beeline because it is late and we've got a hundred miles to go.
And, not being but so selfish, I leave the opportunities (between chicks hitting on him) open. "We just have to know. Are you single?"
"Sure!" he says.
And, Val told me, she might as well not have been there. "He lit up." "He was only looking at you."
I got his email and we booked it.
That's how I met Mr. X. Who turned out not to be 25 after all. What his age *was*, relative to my 34 at that time, we shall not discuss, because he's a coy one. But I won't say I wasn't glad he wasn't a baby.
Ahh, my Vally.
She was fun.
Val had taken me to Grace Street before, and I was used to venues, dating my rock star at college, going to gig after gig with him and all our musician friends. So cruising really seemed pointless to me, just driving around a wide block, traffic at a standstill, and only one stretch of it really populated. It was usually impossible to get a spot on that stretch; so you'd crawl through the crowded, merc-lit street, and then it was half an hour around a boring circuit to get back again. If you *could* get a spot, though ... it was a fun way to blow an hour before actually going somewhere.
That year, it was Paradise City - Axl in his white jeans; the ageless avatar of Slash stripped out of black and hat, actually sexy under there - and Pour Some Sugar On Me. Every idiot with a too-large spoiler and giant speakers rigged in a hatchback serenaded the entirety of the cruising audience, and I can't remember a single other track that dominated. Those two songs were THAT. SUMMER.
Valerie died to the strains of Paradise City. And Def Leppard was her favorite band.
It is my punishment, and my poignancy, that Axl's damned white jeans will make me cry forevermore.
I miss my girl. She was my sister. Her husband, now - I guess he's my brother.
The orangey light outside the huge HQ building for the Division of Motor Vehicles. Me and Val being cute and using fake names. I was Sabrina because I'd liked that cartoon as a kid, and the name seemed exotic to me. Valerie used Penelope.
Sometimes, now, loving on my dog Penelope, it's not just her I am hugging. She's my girl too.
I never did know why she used Penelope - just, it amused her. It was so unlikely. And boys. Boys trying anything will believe anything. I mean - Sabrina? We both dared 'em to disbelieve. They never bothered to; honesty beside the point, when you are cruising.
Pour Some Sugar On Me.
Both the songs are anthemic, and impossibly catchy. Cryin' is playing at me right now - and we loved us some Aerosmith. (Val had a story about being a groupie and chewing gum.) But Sugar and Paradise, that was all anyone ever heard. When your car was inching forward, and the heated dark breeze of a Richmond summer night carried the distant strains of either of those songs back to us on the long slog through the boring 75% of the circuit - that was the promise. "You're almost there." Almost to the relevant part. The part that is lit, and full of people (boys) and music. The interesting bit.
Scent of hot asphalt hanging in the air, and not a little exhaust, including diesel. Voices, shouting, unrestrained singing. That kid on the skateboard, the first person I ever TOLD I was named Sabrina.
Valerie's laughter.
My girl.
We'd make a few turns. Or park, if we could. Then the lateral move, more parking, more crowded blocks, and The Jade Elephant, or Newgate Prison (hilariously, a dive bar unbeloved by Virginia Commonwealth University Police - now their headquarters - I guess they won). Dirt Woman sitting on his porch. "You can get the dirt off Donnie, but you can't get Donnie off the Dirt!" The Lee X theater, I think defunct already by the early 90s. Grassy scrub lots. The 7-11, maybe convenient for some, but impossibly distant and useless for those of us in heels.
That guy who made his friends drive him around in an old limo. He was cute. He'd give us rides to our cars. Every boy Val ever dated, or was thinking about it. The night I brought The Elfin One, and she laughs to this day about how I zeroed in on someone and said, "I want THAT one" and got his attention. It's all in the wrist - you just pick the one who appeals and is most likely *to* pay you some attention. He was tall. Dilliest smile you ever saw. He was ... unfortunate. Sigh.
My Val.
It's funny. Since she died, I talk to her - "Vally" I call her. I NEVER called her this in life. Some part of it is necessary now, and some part of it almost offends me for being unprecedented. Too cutesy, perhaps. But she's so dear. She was so damned small, in her hospital beds. I miss her.
Summer nights.
Right now, it's so humid in Richmond you just feel WET. Even walking the dog at 6:45 a.m., the humiture is intense. Even at ten o'clock at night, letting her out for the last time, dark - maybe even breezy - it is HOT outside.
Summer used to be what my dad called "soft" nights. Oh, it was still warm, even back then. But it didn't seem punishing. Maybe nothing does when you're half the age I am now, healthy, and ignorant of the future. Not that our future was bad. Val found the best husband she ever could have had. She had joy and SO much love. She and he knew what could come, and agreed.
No regrets.
That summer. Not regrettable. Not even a guilty-pleasure memory. I'm not ashamed we were hair-band chicks, into that kind of guy, brash, loud, laughing. As much as Val's laugh still rings, I never ever faded beside her. Neither of us ever did second-fiddle. We were the Cinderella twins from their old videos. We were catty, and open, and good in our skin, and interested and interesting. We were the 80s. We were the 90s. We were good with it all (and, no - neither of us was ever into the big-hair thing for *ourselves*).
The one time V ever faded into the background around me.
She was with me when I met Mr. X. It actually took about a year or two, that meeting.
It was the crack of the new millennium, and as an 80s throwback we went up to a bar in Springfield, to see the Bullet Boys, who sucked and had ZERO crowd. It wasn't even any fun for making fun of those who'd never gotten the memo that the 80s were over, because almost nobody was there. One other table - us two girls, maybe three guys. I don't remember most of them, because a *CLICK* happened. Mike. It wasn't sexual, but I've rarely experienced chemistry like that. He was fun to talk to, we stayed in touch on email and by phone, tried dating ever so briefly, then he met his wonderful, gorgeous, immensely generous wife.
November, 2002. I've just broken up with the "should be good on paper" guy with the SOUL PATCH (good grief, I though I was getting old at 34, and shouldn't be "picky"), and Mike's band is playing that same club, opening for - I think - Blind Guardian. The line this time wrapped around the building, and it. was. cold. Val and I get out of the car and end up in an alley around back, walking by hundreds along our way, wondering why the doors haven't opened, and hearing lots of grumbles. Only one attractive guy in the whole lot, and he's probably way too young. We take our places. And wait. And wait. I actually sent her back to the car at one point, to get my big wool coat. I hadn't wanted to wear it in the bar, but out here, waiting interminably, a little plastic jacket is not doing the job. The cold stabs from below. Val and I are shivering, miserable.
It turns out, BG's equipment was not compatible with American electrical systems. Which one might have thought could have been solved before several hundred people ended up stranded in the cold, but so-eth these things go-eth. Once we are inside, I go to touch up my face, and find the blackberry lipgloss in frozen shards, bleeding, and recalcitrant about remediation. I feel annoyed and Of Constrained Attractiveness for the rest of the night. And just as well, for the most part I can't find that hot guy anyway. We hang with Mike and the lovely (seriously - she gave me a FOOT MASSAGE, that wonderful woman) Mrs. Mike, and the night ends up being a lot of fun. Good company goes a long way.
At the end, coming out of the venue itself, there is an outer bar. Pool tables, flourescent lighting for my already not-so-flossy-feeling self, and ...Val pulls on me, "Diane, get a load" - and it's that guy. Definitely too young.
I dither and linger, Val takes a bathroom break, I'm on my own by some pool table, make eye contact, smile. He still doesn't come over. When she comes back, I grab her and make a beeline because it is late and we've got a hundred miles to go.
And, not being but so selfish, I leave the opportunities (between chicks hitting on him) open. "We just have to know. Are you single?"
"Sure!" he says.
And, Val told me, she might as well not have been there. "He lit up." "He was only looking at you."
I got his email and we booked it.
That's how I met Mr. X. Who turned out not to be 25 after all. What his age *was*, relative to my 34 at that time, we shall not discuss, because he's a coy one. But I won't say I wasn't glad he wasn't a baby.
Ahh, my Vally.
She was fun.
Monday, June 24, 2019
I miss ... and therein lies everything
I miss her. She and I weren't truly close until our twenties, but we knew each other from the age of twelve. In high school, we shared that certain world of boys we liked (I have never been famed for liking the same boys as everybody else, so this actually does have specific meaning). She seemed brave to me, more daring. Once we got out of school, and were together because we wanted to be, we were daring together - more and more often, until she was my sister.
Sister.
She's in my DNA. And she is gone. And I hate that. Even practicing gratitude, even counting the blessing that she was - that she IS, dammit. Even being glad I got to love that girl, and was loved by her. Nope. It's not enough, because I was only good enough on my own schedule. I was too little, and too late, and we both did that, but the last too-late was mine.
She's left us all to deal with these scurrying circles. She, bless all of her ashen bones, is at peace, I pray.
Today, I listen to old music, and Dokken seems to be transforming to make me think of her. Alone Again and Heaven Sent, no longer cis/het/sexual love songs, but longing strains of my lost friend.
I miss her.
She was SO alive.
***
I miss him.
Even in a dream, all I have left is "that you ARE" - telling myself in a dreaming brain, that it is enough only knowing he exists, and telling myself that by way of "telling" a chimera of him: "just knowing you exist."
It *is* enough - knowing whom I have loved, knowing I was loved. But distance. Depression. Distortion. They make it hard. He's a Daemon of air and darkness, and I miss him. It's all we have, to make life bearable.
If only he could be alive as she was. I pray it for him. Never sure if it does any good.
He's in my heart and head and soul. He isn't "gone" - not dead; only curved into himself; too distant. I can't even know whether to love that or hate it. The wall I am pressed against is blank.
Scurrying circles. Small ones. Vicious.
I shift to Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - and it is nothing like him. And its drawn-out softness, its langour and melancholy and desolate gorgeousness transform me. And I am quiet.
I miss him.
***
I miss writing.
It means so much, and it means nothing. Gets me through, and on the other side of "through" I find nowhere.
Even so.
I miss writing.
Sister.
She's in my DNA. And she is gone. And I hate that. Even practicing gratitude, even counting the blessing that she was - that she IS, dammit. Even being glad I got to love that girl, and was loved by her. Nope. It's not enough, because I was only good enough on my own schedule. I was too little, and too late, and we both did that, but the last too-late was mine.
She's left us all to deal with these scurrying circles. She, bless all of her ashen bones, is at peace, I pray.
Today, I listen to old music, and Dokken seems to be transforming to make me think of her. Alone Again and Heaven Sent, no longer cis/het/sexual love songs, but longing strains of my lost friend.
I miss her.
She was SO alive.
***
I miss him.
Even in a dream, all I have left is "that you ARE" - telling myself in a dreaming brain, that it is enough only knowing he exists, and telling myself that by way of "telling" a chimera of him: "just knowing you exist."
It *is* enough - knowing whom I have loved, knowing I was loved. But distance. Depression. Distortion. They make it hard. He's a Daemon of air and darkness, and I miss him. It's all we have, to make life bearable.
If only he could be alive as she was. I pray it for him. Never sure if it does any good.
He's in my heart and head and soul. He isn't "gone" - not dead; only curved into himself; too distant. I can't even know whether to love that or hate it. The wall I am pressed against is blank.
Scurrying circles. Small ones. Vicious.
I shift to Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - and it is nothing like him. And its drawn-out softness, its langour and melancholy and desolate gorgeousness transform me. And I am quiet.
I miss him.
***
I miss writing.
It means so much, and it means nothing. Gets me through, and on the other side of "through" I find nowhere.
Even so.
I miss writing.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Sturm und Traum
This morning, it was one of those utterly implausible, plausible, detailed dreams. I was shot in a mass shooting - four times. My right flank, side (right in the imaginary tattoo - though I do have one on my left), shoulder, and right below my eye. As happens in dreams, I was initially terrified of death, but my dream kept going. Something about getting to my house (the one I grew up in, but now mortgagetually "mine"; that address seems to have appeared more, through the past year, hmm), getting to my mom, protecting someone else, and failing, failing, failing, failing to get ME to a hospital. At some point I was driving myself, again through the old neighborhood, not apparently to get care.
In the dream, the medical upshot of my injuries was unclear apart from bruises rising up from each bloodless bullet hole. One wound, indeed, couldn't be seen for the bruising and the tattoo. Even in the dream, I dismissed the caliber as a small one, since I could keep moving. For what seemed like hours.
The thing is, the real impact of the dream was that first moment: that fear of death. The shock.
The stunning truth of it.
I'm not special. ANY of us is subject to dying this way, in the United States. Land that I love. Sigh.
2019 has not been the worst year, for me, in recent memory. Yes, we still endure under the increasingly authoritarian and demented regime of the puppet Drumpf. Yes, there is much still to do. But even with that, much is happening, too. HR8 passed last week, and in a time of inured sensibilities, Cohen's testimony was scathing. (His redemption narrative, I could personally live without, but perhaps the benedictions he has received are not positivities best dismissed.)
And but personally, so far this calendar year is kicking 2018's ass.
The time I have taken off (quite a bit, so early in the year) has been for VACATION, not illness and death and mourning. So far.
I have spent time with far-flung friends, and family-by-adoption, people I love, and a new puppy I don't have to train. Mom's doing better, and my house has not fallen down around my ears. Yet.
Three four-day weekends in, I have celebrated a birthday, a bar mitzvah, and a long-distance visit.
2019 ... well, to quote something I said about 2009: it's been better than it had a right to be.
Breathing is good.
Now if I can just avoid being shot.
In the dream, the medical upshot of my injuries was unclear apart from bruises rising up from each bloodless bullet hole. One wound, indeed, couldn't be seen for the bruising and the tattoo. Even in the dream, I dismissed the caliber as a small one, since I could keep moving. For what seemed like hours.
The thing is, the real impact of the dream was that first moment: that fear of death. The shock.
The stunning truth of it.
I'm not special. ANY of us is subject to dying this way, in the United States. Land that I love. Sigh.
2019 has not been the worst year, for me, in recent memory. Yes, we still endure under the increasingly authoritarian and demented regime of the puppet Drumpf. Yes, there is much still to do. But even with that, much is happening, too. HR8 passed last week, and in a time of inured sensibilities, Cohen's testimony was scathing. (His redemption narrative, I could personally live without, but perhaps the benedictions he has received are not positivities best dismissed.)
And but personally, so far this calendar year is kicking 2018's ass.
The time I have taken off (quite a bit, so early in the year) has been for VACATION, not illness and death and mourning. So far.
I have spent time with far-flung friends, and family-by-adoption, people I love, and a new puppy I don't have to train. Mom's doing better, and my house has not fallen down around my ears. Yet.
Three four-day weekends in, I have celebrated a birthday, a bar mitzvah, and a long-distance visit.
2019 ... well, to quote something I said about 2009: it's been better than it had a right to be.
Breathing is good.
Now if I can just avoid being shot.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
Collection
I am a fifty-one year old woman, and this very blog reflects that experience. Take a look at the history of the vanity tag; it tells a story.
Yep. This is, more and more, informative of my spirituality.
My personal favorite Hawai'ian deity is Kamapua'a, but this guy actually does hang on one of my walls. (My print is definitely worth less than $5k.) Another interesting tale of repatriation and also a story about provenance.
Sigh. When you check your stats, and all the Russian and UAE bots seem to be swarming to the post you wrote about your best friend, who just died. The post you wrote in 2015, when that wasn't even conceivable.
Ahww, man. Guilty ...
A reduced sense of visibility does not necessarily constrain experience. Associated with greater empathy and compassion, invisibility directs us toward a more humanitarian view of the larger world. This diminished status can, in fact, sustain and inform—rather than limit—our lives. Going unrecognized can, paradoxically, help us recognize our place in the larger scheme of things.
Yep. This is, more and more, informative of my spirituality.
My personal favorite Hawai'ian deity is Kamapua'a, but this guy actually does hang on one of my walls. (My print is definitely worth less than $5k.) Another interesting tale of repatriation and also a story about provenance.
Sigh. When you check your stats, and all the Russian and UAE bots seem to be swarming to the post you wrote about your best friend, who just died. The post you wrote in 2015, when that wasn't even conceivable.
Ahww, man. Guilty ...
In this moment of political division, Garry sees a spiritual test. The temptation to discard others has always been strong, and in some ways it is stronger than ever. But this is an old problem, maybe the oldest, he says. The Bible is all about overcoming the temptation to discard, to dismiss, to unfriend. If it were always easy to love your neighbor as you love yourself, it wouldn’t be a commandment. “We trust anger. We believe anger gets things done,”
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
I have eaten the plums
The sun is back out. America's midterm elections are over. My friend V ... well. Losing her is awful, it's cruel. But she is not hurting now. Doctors can't use her body to experiment now. And those who love her - I am humbled they embrace me. Her husband, her family, her beloved friends: beautiful, beautiful, wonderful people.
This time has been hard. Like so many families, the remains of our nuclear unit - just me, mom, and my brother now - endure terrible political strain in these times. But, just for this morning, it's virtual hugs and three courses of "I love you." Because these strains have everyday, real consequences - this has, in some ways, been even harder than watching my lifelong friend die. Or, perhaps, it only got in the way of comprehending and mourning. I only know this has been the hardest thing to bear, over this past week.
We are all enduring a confluence. My brother is traveling to the memorial of a friend of his, and beautiful V's will be remembered on Saturday. As her kids do this, my mom is now watching her own oldest friend in town "giving back", as some say in the South. It may be we all suffer the loss of our dear Deebo, my stepfather - and each of our dear friends.
The light of inspiration peeked out not too long ago - unsurprisingly, after The Conference, but also very much under the influence of other friendships. Leila, especially, uniquely lights my creative way. She and I have so much in common, but we write such different works, and about the time I did a recent beta-read for her, I also happened to find the ENDING for a short work we began an embarrassing number of years ago in our writing group. It's been drafted two different ways, I let it settle in a certain direction, and for now it is sitting quietly, resting, rising, awaiting both her feedback and my final attentions.
Writing. Feels. So. Good.
There truly is nothing else like writing.
And so, with voting done and the sun out and my family whole ... I open up the WIP, the big dog, the "real" work. The novel. Just open it. I shall scroll about in it, find something to alight upon, and read a little bit.
Research feels like a good way to go. I fear it may have to be, at long last, the pogrom. (Yes, now, of all moments.)
Sometimes, the way writing feels "good" is different from other times. It's not always pleasure.
Sometimes, it's memorial.
This time has been hard. Like so many families, the remains of our nuclear unit - just me, mom, and my brother now - endure terrible political strain in these times. But, just for this morning, it's virtual hugs and three courses of "I love you." Because these strains have everyday, real consequences - this has, in some ways, been even harder than watching my lifelong friend die. Or, perhaps, it only got in the way of comprehending and mourning. I only know this has been the hardest thing to bear, over this past week.
We are all enduring a confluence. My brother is traveling to the memorial of a friend of his, and beautiful V's will be remembered on Saturday. As her kids do this, my mom is now watching her own oldest friend in town "giving back", as some say in the South. It may be we all suffer the loss of our dear Deebo, my stepfather - and each of our dear friends.
The light of inspiration peeked out not too long ago - unsurprisingly, after The Conference, but also very much under the influence of other friendships. Leila, especially, uniquely lights my creative way. She and I have so much in common, but we write such different works, and about the time I did a recent beta-read for her, I also happened to find the ENDING for a short work we began an embarrassing number of years ago in our writing group. It's been drafted two different ways, I let it settle in a certain direction, and for now it is sitting quietly, resting, rising, awaiting both her feedback and my final attentions.
Writing. Feels. So. Good.
There truly is nothing else like writing.
And so, with voting done and the sun out and my family whole ... I open up the WIP, the big dog, the "real" work. The novel. Just open it. I shall scroll about in it, find something to alight upon, and read a little bit.
Research feels like a good way to go. I fear it may have to be, at long last, the pogrom. (Yes, now, of all moments.)
Sometimes, the way writing feels "good" is different from other times. It's not always pleasure.
Sometimes, it's memorial.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Getting the hang of Thursdays
Publishing late because ... that's how writing (even a blog) goes at times like this ...
Before me lies a sea of irritations. The thing I see is that they all ebb and flow in three currents, and all of these currents sway and merge, and the three are related.
On Tuesday morning, one of my oldest friends died. She has been there for me in situations where no other fried, not even Mr. X, could stand behind me. She has been quietly present, she has been raucously beside me, she has been kind and crazy and tolerant and irrepressible. She died with a hundred health issues, a good husband, a heart of gold, still fizzing electrically even after, really, our girl was gone from us.
Yesterday, I donned mourning - for a girl who loved Hallowe'en, I put on my looks-like-a-comic-character-makeup, and changed the dress to black. It was a hard day, but leavened by good people all around me (it will never stop being a blessing, how overwhelmingly human my colleagues and employer are), a good meal with my mom, and trick-or-treaters.
Today was harder.
Reaching the point, by 2:30, where I could not comprehend that the day was moving so slowly, I could barely pick up another envelope to open it. It took me all day long to open the incoming pile. Something far beyond "fatigue" pressed down on me, and I succumbed, I let it press. Exhausting and torturous. And it's strange, because last night and the night before, I have slept. Going to bed pretty early, indeed, and not getting up at the crack of 5:40.
I was putting off calling one of my guys. I knew he wanted to put me on a new project, and at the same time I was fighting off some niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center, and - did I mention about that succumbing thing?
My boss needed me to set up a call, so I toddled to his office, and the few steps that took, the conversation with a human, woke me up a little bit. So I called the guy back, and ... it turns out that he's fighting some niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center.
And a month ago, I was fighting a very related form of? Niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center.
Is it weird, that talking with my frustrated guy out in Texas, telling him that this is an "opportunity" for Operations wasn't even me taking a bullet or making a joke?
There is a sea of irritations, and there are three currents, and the currents are swirling in niggling persnicketude. And I can, perhaps - at least learn enough about the niggles to begin to deal with them.
I was in the hospital with V and her husband W two and a half weeks ago, when it looked like she might be dying. That afternoon, they "saved her life." She was transferred to a new hospital after that, maybe-diagnosed and then not diagnosed with yet another shockingly rare and dangerously mortal disease. They found a surgical complication we knew was a problem was worse than previously known. More surgery. More life support.
Really, though, no more *life*.
On Tuesday barely after four a.m., W called me and I caromed around my bedroom putting some clothes on my body and thinking what I would need at the hospital. I got there at five. And we sat. Watched the sun rise. Family and friends came.
It was the first I have been with V in too long. All these hospital visits; I have been a poor friend over the past year. And it is too late. Except to be there for her family, for W.
She died with music playing.
I still can't believe she is gone.
I still can't believe she is gone ...
Before me lies a sea of irritations. The thing I see is that they all ebb and flow in three currents, and all of these currents sway and merge, and the three are related.
On Tuesday morning, one of my oldest friends died. She has been there for me in situations where no other fried, not even Mr. X, could stand behind me. She has been quietly present, she has been raucously beside me, she has been kind and crazy and tolerant and irrepressible. She died with a hundred health issues, a good husband, a heart of gold, still fizzing electrically even after, really, our girl was gone from us.
Yesterday, I donned mourning - for a girl who loved Hallowe'en, I put on my looks-like-a-comic-character-makeup, and changed the dress to black. It was a hard day, but leavened by good people all around me (it will never stop being a blessing, how overwhelmingly human my colleagues and employer are), a good meal with my mom, and trick-or-treaters.
Today was harder.
Reaching the point, by 2:30, where I could not comprehend that the day was moving so slowly, I could barely pick up another envelope to open it. It took me all day long to open the incoming pile. Something far beyond "fatigue" pressed down on me, and I succumbed, I let it press. Exhausting and torturous. And it's strange, because last night and the night before, I have slept. Going to bed pretty early, indeed, and not getting up at the crack of 5:40.
I was putting off calling one of my guys. I knew he wanted to put me on a new project, and at the same time I was fighting off some niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center, and - did I mention about that succumbing thing?
My boss needed me to set up a call, so I toddled to his office, and the few steps that took, the conversation with a human, woke me up a little bit. So I called the guy back, and ... it turns out that he's fighting some niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center.
And a month ago, I was fighting a very related form of? Niggling persnicketude from our "Services" center.
Is it weird, that talking with my frustrated guy out in Texas, telling him that this is an "opportunity" for Operations wasn't even me taking a bullet or making a joke?
There is a sea of irritations, and there are three currents, and the currents are swirling in niggling persnicketude. And I can, perhaps - at least learn enough about the niggles to begin to deal with them.
I was in the hospital with V and her husband W two and a half weeks ago, when it looked like she might be dying. That afternoon, they "saved her life." She was transferred to a new hospital after that, maybe-diagnosed and then not diagnosed with yet another shockingly rare and dangerously mortal disease. They found a surgical complication we knew was a problem was worse than previously known. More surgery. More life support.
Really, though, no more *life*.
On Tuesday barely after four a.m., W called me and I caromed around my bedroom putting some clothes on my body and thinking what I would need at the hospital. I got there at five. And we sat. Watched the sun rise. Family and friends came.
It was the first I have been with V in too long. All these hospital visits; I have been a poor friend over the past year. And it is too late. Except to be there for her family, for W.
She died with music playing.
I still can't believe she is gone.
I still can't believe she is gone ...
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Knowing, and not knowing
2018 spent, so far, wrapped up so tight in my own family, in our loss ... I only just found out a friend has been, essentially, widowed. The last time I saw her, late in May, was the last time she worked where I knew her.
Tears fall on my chest, and I think of Mr. X - about whom I have not even blogged now, maybe in years - and my whole soul begs ... please. Don't let this be us. Him *or* me.
It is a bruise, it is a guilt.
It is horror, the truest sense. Guilt must be the greatest horror.
A friend told me, "She was always excited to see you."
I had no idea. It means ... too much.
Tears fall on my chest. This brick, this fat, this bone, this blood.
Life is so brutal, and short. Surely, that is to some point.
Surely.
?
Tears fall on my chest, and I think of Mr. X - about whom I have not even blogged now, maybe in years - and my whole soul begs ... please. Don't let this be us. Him *or* me.
It is a bruise, it is a guilt.
It is horror, the truest sense. Guilt must be the greatest horror.
A friend told me, "She was always excited to see you."
I had no idea. It means ... too much.
Tears fall on my chest. This brick, this fat, this bone, this blood.
Life is so brutal, and short. Surely, that is to some point.
Surely.
?
Saturday, August 19, 2017
This is what I have
Right now, I am sitting on my little loveseat with Gossamer, as he sleeps. He's doing that cat thing, where he's got one paw up against my leg. Just touching me. I reach down and take one of his little back feet in my hand, and his body is utterly relaxed. There is trust with him so complete that having his foot grasped in his sleep doesn't even faze him.
Most people know, it's no small thing to get this level of trust with a puddy. And it's not just me that he trusts; this isn't just a bond between two creatures. This is a boy so secure in his safety in his world that he just doesn't worry about little things like a random touch when he is *asleep*. The most vulnerable possible moment. And his relaxation is that complete.
Penelope used to be the sort of pup who would wig out and bark if there was an unfamiliar car parked in the neighborhood when we took our walks. I mean, her back would go up, she was afraid of everything. And a bit of a protector, even then.
She is still wary of the unfamiliar, and will always be exciteable with new people. She is a dog. But the animal she is now, compared to the little baby bag of wiggles I adopted? She is magnificent, and I love her more all the time.
The things I am proud of in this life have always related to the people I love, and who are generous to love - and even respect - me in kind. It means the world to me that any animal I was ever blessed to live with felt safe like this. When Sweet Siddy La used to try to live in my armpit because she was afraid of storms ... this big, strong, brave girl - was turning to ME when she felt fear? I was the thing she trusted to keep her safe?
Holding a limp, warm cat's paw in your hand is so much more than a little gesture of affection on a Saturday afternoon.
Loving my pets. It's not just an "aww they're so cute" thing in my life. It is an honor. It is the deepest kind of pleasure.
It's also fun, pretty much every day of our lives. Little Poobahs.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Lolly
Five years ago right now, I was alone. More alone than I'd been for nine years, nine months.
Sidney. Sweet Siddy-la, my Lolly, my Lolly-ya, Stinky Tuscadero, Funky Monkey, pup-head. Bebe'. Gooderest t'ing.
La was about four when I adopted her, and she was, as I still say to the Poobahs currently livening up my life, a particular favorite girl of mine. By the age of fourteen, she was still fairly spry and healthy, but she'd had some setbacks in the months before she died.
I remember all the lead up, I remember the way she lay on her bed next to the couch (a large old ottoman, I brought it downstairs while I tapped on my laptop and answered emails and such; the floor looked so hard, and she was closer to my touch) and put her head on a pizza crust I gave her - loving it, but unable to eat it.
She never got up again.
My mom came, with the new Buick she and my stepfather had bought, and she and I lifted Sidney lock stock and big bed into the back of it, and we drove to the vet. I know she was with me while Siddy died, and we spent time together after, but I do not remember the after.
I remember going back to the vet when ... she was taken care of. To pick up her ashes. I still have them, though never have really known quite what to do with them. She lives in the guest room. (My dad's ashes do not. Today was perhaps not a good day to read this. But then ... maybe so.)
One memory wraps around another, and one love skeins through others, never necessarily comes to an end.
And now I get to love Gossamer and Penelope.
And still hope I will ever be good enough for either of them.
Thursday, June 15, 2017
"I don't live by the river"
Editing at the top to add this curious note. One of the people at this concert dropped into my brother's life briefly, pretty much at the moment I was inspired to write this post. I hadn't gotten around to posting it yet when he told me about the encounter, days later.
Curious thing, life.
Should've worn the Chris Crafts.
But, I mean, it was a concert. It was The Clash. The little Asian cotton Maryjanes were the thing. I wore The Thing. And my nerdy jeans and beige socks, yeah. But then the cool top, it was kind of new wave. Vivid turquoise stripes, cool puffed sleeves.
As cool as *I* got in 1982.
I was fifteen.
My brother asked me to go to a concert with him. It was weird, but with his girlfriend's little sister going, maybe he kind of had to. Or maybe he was just being cool with me. It was about this period in our lives that sort of thing began to happen here and there.
Whether he had to bring me, or wanted to ... Didn't matter. We were excited. I remember us spotting other cars as we got closer to Williamsburg, "Bet they're going." Seeking shared anticipation.
Fortunately, for a change: not seeking boys. This isn't because I was with my brother, though usually he terrified any boys I might find interesting, event he other punks. No, it was because Joe Strummer with a mohawk looked too much like my big brother.
So I enjoyed the whole show without dreary old sex interfering mentally, and actually experienced the concert.
That unique smell - of The Reagan Years ... of the ozone-crackled electricity that was the music itself (mountains of speakers and amps) ... of that much youth packed into a venue. The incredible, the ineffable scent and sensation and sight of youth, in the early 80s. Angry youth, but exultant too.
The crush was intense at the front. I was with the other kid sister, against the barricade; barely more than a child. Some guy saw me (us?) and got concerned. Or maybe he just wanted my spot. But ... it was after ... Maybe he really was scared for me. He signaled the roadies, they pulled me out of my cherry position. My memory has failed, in 35 years, as to her being pulled up to, but probably so. Dragged up onto the stage, shooed off it, shepherded around - and ended up out of the crush. I was annoyed.
Where my brother and his girlfriend were, who knew - I didn't care, there was nothing to be afraid of. Not even death by general admission. Safe. Wherever the older sibs were, they were never farther than the walls of the venue. Nobody in the crowd was out to hurt us. There was a show to go on.
And so, I wormed my way BACK up to the front, once again causing annoyance, but this time to the guy who had ordered us "saved" from the crowd. Maybe the other kid sister and I did this together. I just remember I was there.
I latched onto the barricade like a tick.
The Clash. Front row. Sea of kids, strange adulation and imperative demand. It was sensational.
At some point, we pulled ourselves back out - noise-fatigue, or the desire to find the others, or maybe they found us. I have some recollection of standing on the seats, scream-singing, bopping.
I had lost one of my flimsy cotton shoes, either in the dragging moment of my salvation, or stomped off during the second round, surrounded by combat boots. Stuck the other shoe in my back pocket - heaven knows why. Maybe I thought I'd find the lost one after the show. Maybe I even did. History and memory have failed in this detail.
Standing on a seat, beer-sopped socks, the muck of spit and sweat and beer and cigarettes. Just a few hours of a life; a meeting of four people. Of thousands.
Then a drive home, on an autumnal night. Ears ringing.
"Rock the Casbah" was the big deal that year, and it was pretty great. But even today, I maintain that "London Calling" is one of the great tracks in recording history. It echoes in a way beyond the mere sonic definition.
The weekend before that concert, The Clash appeared on SNL. Little Opie Cunningham was the host (this was before he disappeared completely *behind* cameras). He drank a beer live on camera, protested his Little Opie Cunningham-ness, and got ribbed by Eddie Murphy.
The ineffable scent of the 80s. The sound of soaring, roaring, echoing, raw music. GOOD music, but raw in a way that's really only synthesized anymore.
I really did see all the good concerts.
Curious thing, life.
Should've worn the Chris Crafts.
But, I mean, it was a concert. It was The Clash. The little Asian cotton Maryjanes were the thing. I wore The Thing. And my nerdy jeans and beige socks, yeah. But then the cool top, it was kind of new wave. Vivid turquoise stripes, cool puffed sleeves.
As cool as *I* got in 1982.
I was fifteen.
My brother asked me to go to a concert with him. It was weird, but with his girlfriend's little sister going, maybe he kind of had to. Or maybe he was just being cool with me. It was about this period in our lives that sort of thing began to happen here and there.
Whether he had to bring me, or wanted to ... Didn't matter. We were excited. I remember us spotting other cars as we got closer to Williamsburg, "Bet they're going." Seeking shared anticipation.
Fortunately, for a change: not seeking boys. This isn't because I was with my brother, though usually he terrified any boys I might find interesting, event he other punks. No, it was because Joe Strummer with a mohawk looked too much like my big brother.
So I enjoyed the whole show without dreary old sex interfering mentally, and actually experienced the concert.
That unique smell - of The Reagan Years ... of the ozone-crackled electricity that was the music itself (mountains of speakers and amps) ... of that much youth packed into a venue. The incredible, the ineffable scent and sensation and sight of youth, in the early 80s. Angry youth, but exultant too.
The crush was intense at the front. I was with the other kid sister, against the barricade; barely more than a child. Some guy saw me (us?) and got concerned. Or maybe he just wanted my spot. But ... it was after ... Maybe he really was scared for me. He signaled the roadies, they pulled me out of my cherry position. My memory has failed, in 35 years, as to her being pulled up to, but probably so. Dragged up onto the stage, shooed off it, shepherded around - and ended up out of the crush. I was annoyed.
Where my brother and his girlfriend were, who knew - I didn't care, there was nothing to be afraid of. Not even death by general admission. Safe. Wherever the older sibs were, they were never farther than the walls of the venue. Nobody in the crowd was out to hurt us. There was a show to go on.
And so, I wormed my way BACK up to the front, once again causing annoyance, but this time to the guy who had ordered us "saved" from the crowd. Maybe the other kid sister and I did this together. I just remember I was there.
I latched onto the barricade like a tick.
The Clash. Front row. Sea of kids, strange adulation and imperative demand. It was sensational.
At some point, we pulled ourselves back out - noise-fatigue, or the desire to find the others, or maybe they found us. I have some recollection of standing on the seats, scream-singing, bopping.
I had lost one of my flimsy cotton shoes, either in the dragging moment of my salvation, or stomped off during the second round, surrounded by combat boots. Stuck the other shoe in my back pocket - heaven knows why. Maybe I thought I'd find the lost one after the show. Maybe I even did. History and memory have failed in this detail.
Standing on a seat, beer-sopped socks, the muck of spit and sweat and beer and cigarettes. Just a few hours of a life; a meeting of four people. Of thousands.
Then a drive home, on an autumnal night. Ears ringing.
"Rock the Casbah" was the big deal that year, and it was pretty great. But even today, I maintain that "London Calling" is one of the great tracks in recording history. It echoes in a way beyond the mere sonic definition.
The weekend before that concert, The Clash appeared on SNL. Little Opie Cunningham was the host (this was before he disappeared completely *behind* cameras). He drank a beer live on camera, protested his Little Opie Cunningham-ness, and got ribbed by Eddie Murphy.
The ineffable scent of the 80s. The sound of soaring, roaring, echoing, raw music. GOOD music, but raw in a way that's really only synthesized anymore.
I really did see all the good concerts.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Droppin' Science
On Saturday, I went to the March for Science in Washington, DC.
Though I am the kid of a physics professor, my own field of study was Theatre (sic/ugh) and Dance (also sic; it was that small a department), and I became a secretary. But dad's influence in my life endures, of course. And also I care that our country should not impose upon itself the very Dark Ages I'm always saying are a myth.
The day before the March, I drove up to Maryland to stay with my dearest and oldest friend, The Elfin One, and her family. She and I went on our own, but not before enjoying some pretty wonderful family adventures. Starring rather a lot of science!
TEO was always the smart one between us. No very great trick when it comes to ME, of course, but she is and always was natively brilliant, and is a teacher (not of science).
Almost within minutes of my arrival at their home, the heavens burst forth, and we had a ten-minute, torrential storm. After eight-ish traffic jams making a 100-mile trip drag on for upwards of four hours, I was glad I'd missed being IN it, by that much. Still, I do enjoy a good storm. And this one came with HAIL.
Younger son and mom and I went outside to investigate the hailstones when it subsided and gave way to more sunshine than I'd seen all day. I was the one who explained the rising/falling cycle of updrafts and accumulation creating the layers of a hailstone, almost like dendrochronological rings. I also pointed out to them how the steam was rising off the street, using the spiff sunglasses TEO had commented on. Because they are polarized glasses, they cut glare. I didn't explain the mechanics of light waves and the glasses' control of same via polarization, but they're still a gee-whiz exemplar of science.
For the evening, we had a wonderful meal prepared by TEO's husband (science has proven, men can cook), and then he read one of the kids' books out loud for a while as we made our signs. I got a bit of permanent marker on my nail. It is still present, three days on. Science!
The next morning, I wore a shirt of my dad's from CEBAF - the original name of Jefferson Labs (or "Jeffy Labs" as the geeks I personally knew liked to call it when they changed the name), the national Accelerator. The shirt is a double-bonus for me, as it dates to 1991, and is Star Trek themed. Well, Star Trek: The Next Generation (probably my least favorite of the series), but it was all we had at the time.
I also wore a necklace with a few charms on it, one of which is the companion to a pair of rutilated quartz charms I once gave to my nieces. TEO thought at first this little bauble might be a tiny bottle with something in it, perhaps something of my dad (she may have feared I had his ashes with me, come to think of it, but I would not have brought that into their home, they are Jewish and that would be unguestmanslike of me). So we showed this to the boys, and I explained inclusions and we talked about how rocks have veins, something like our bodies do.
So before we even got to the march, we were SEEING (and spontaneously - we did not have to force science into the visit; and kids do get into these odd and neato things) plentiful wonders courtesy of scientific understanding.
On the Metro, TEO and I immediately found companions with the same destination. We chatted and shared signs, and this went on all the way into the city.
Off the train, it was immediately mucky. So it goes. We headed along the wide walkways I haven't trod in probably thirty years, joyously surrounded by others going the same way. That the one guy who liked our signs and suggested we get our pictures taken with the sole religious protester we saw all day looked like Pretty Caucasian Jesus was a good laugh, and of course that's my type anyway, so we enjoyed a little irony and I got to enjoy a pretty face to boot.
As for religion ... well. My dad told me all my life, he was a scientist precisely BECAUSE what G-d had built was so exciting to him he felt it was worthy to study it. Take that, kids I went to grade school with, who used to tell me my dad couldn't believe in G-d because he was a scientist. Also: ugh.
In fact, I think there were many people of faith (read: not just Protestant Christians) there. More than anything else, there were people of integrity. Belief in something greater than themselves, whether that wears the face anyone recognizes as G-d or not. We were photographed many times, and we photographed others. We saw a Nichelle Nichols sign and a Carrie Fisher sign (interestingly, I saw no male Trek or Wars character/actor signs - but I do not call my study of these signs any indicator of conclusions to be drawn; the minuscule sample would not stand up to peer review). We saw only one Lorax, but it was a good Lorax, complete with his sign, "UNLESS" ...
TEO and I were there for hours, and in the cold and rain we heard the voice of a child from Flint, Michigan, the passion of Maya Lin, good music - many voices. Our signs wilted and drooped, but stayed intact for us bravely throughout the deluge and beyond. We finally "retired" them at The Castle at the Smithsonian. Our feet were profoundly wet, and pants up to the knees. Mine were wet down to the knees as well, and my jacket (unfortunately covering up that CEBAF tee) was all but pointless by the end of the day. TEO recalled ruefully the science of wet denim and rolled up her jeans, to minimal effect. My own pants grew from about a 31" inseam, weighted down by water and textile fatigue, to something on the order of a 34". My shoes were not even dry by the time I returned home late that night. My socks were sodden. But Penelope (and her inquiring scientific nose) was fascinated by the scents of Washington, of rain, of the thousands of people's footsteps we had shared, and the several dogs we saw as well, all collected in my clothes.
But we had a brave and a reaffirming few hours. We were inspired, and people said nice things to us about our signs, and just generally. People can be lovely things, sometimes.
And so, because there was no food inside the officially-barriered confines of The March itself, when we grew hungry, we reviewed our feelings about what we'd set out to accomplish, and agreed: "we've checked the boxes." It was time to leave, even though the actual marching part was about to begin. New troops were still arriving. We exited, to leave them space. We went back up the Metro a ways, and found a good, warm sandwich to eat. And then made our way home, to shuck wet things and have a lie-down.
This is the first event I have gone to, since the election. TEO had been to the Women's March, with that younger son of hers, and many of my friends and my beloved family have been to many. I shared this event with all of them, cities away, even a continent away (one Washington and another; nicely bookended?), and perhaps most importantly my oldest, OLDEST (hee) friend and I were able to embark on this together.
Though I am the kid of a physics professor, my own field of study was Theatre (sic/ugh) and Dance (also sic; it was that small a department), and I became a secretary. But dad's influence in my life endures, of course. And also I care that our country should not impose upon itself the very Dark Ages I'm always saying are a myth.
The day before the March, I drove up to Maryland to stay with my dearest and oldest friend, The Elfin One, and her family. She and I went on our own, but not before enjoying some pretty wonderful family adventures. Starring rather a lot of science!
TEO was always the smart one between us. No very great trick when it comes to ME, of course, but she is and always was natively brilliant, and is a teacher (not of science).
Almost within minutes of my arrival at their home, the heavens burst forth, and we had a ten-minute, torrential storm. After eight-ish traffic jams making a 100-mile trip drag on for upwards of four hours, I was glad I'd missed being IN it, by that much. Still, I do enjoy a good storm. And this one came with HAIL.
Younger son and mom and I went outside to investigate the hailstones when it subsided and gave way to more sunshine than I'd seen all day. I was the one who explained the rising/falling cycle of updrafts and accumulation creating the layers of a hailstone, almost like dendrochronological rings. I also pointed out to them how the steam was rising off the street, using the spiff sunglasses TEO had commented on. Because they are polarized glasses, they cut glare. I didn't explain the mechanics of light waves and the glasses' control of same via polarization, but they're still a gee-whiz exemplar of science.
For the evening, we had a wonderful meal prepared by TEO's husband (science has proven, men can cook), and then he read one of the kids' books out loud for a while as we made our signs. I got a bit of permanent marker on my nail. It is still present, three days on. Science!
The next morning, I wore a shirt of my dad's from CEBAF - the original name of Jefferson Labs (or "Jeffy Labs" as the geeks I personally knew liked to call it when they changed the name), the national Accelerator. The shirt is a double-bonus for me, as it dates to 1991, and is Star Trek themed. Well, Star Trek: The Next Generation (probably my least favorite of the series), but it was all we had at the time.
I also wore a necklace with a few charms on it, one of which is the companion to a pair of rutilated quartz charms I once gave to my nieces. TEO thought at first this little bauble might be a tiny bottle with something in it, perhaps something of my dad (she may have feared I had his ashes with me, come to think of it, but I would not have brought that into their home, they are Jewish and that would be unguestmanslike of me). So we showed this to the boys, and I explained inclusions and we talked about how rocks have veins, something like our bodies do.
So before we even got to the march, we were SEEING (and spontaneously - we did not have to force science into the visit; and kids do get into these odd and neato things) plentiful wonders courtesy of scientific understanding.
On the Metro, TEO and I immediately found companions with the same destination. We chatted and shared signs, and this went on all the way into the city.
Off the train, it was immediately mucky. So it goes. We headed along the wide walkways I haven't trod in probably thirty years, joyously surrounded by others going the same way. That the one guy who liked our signs and suggested we get our pictures taken with the sole religious protester we saw all day looked like Pretty Caucasian Jesus was a good laugh, and of course that's my type anyway, so we enjoyed a little irony and I got to enjoy a pretty face to boot.
As for religion ... well. My dad told me all my life, he was a scientist precisely BECAUSE what G-d had built was so exciting to him he felt it was worthy to study it. Take that, kids I went to grade school with, who used to tell me my dad couldn't believe in G-d because he was a scientist. Also: ugh.
In fact, I think there were many people of faith (read: not just Protestant Christians) there. More than anything else, there were people of integrity. Belief in something greater than themselves, whether that wears the face anyone recognizes as G-d or not. We were photographed many times, and we photographed others. We saw a Nichelle Nichols sign and a Carrie Fisher sign (interestingly, I saw no male Trek or Wars character/actor signs - but I do not call my study of these signs any indicator of conclusions to be drawn; the minuscule sample would not stand up to peer review). We saw only one Lorax, but it was a good Lorax, complete with his sign, "UNLESS" ...
TEO and I were there for hours, and in the cold and rain we heard the voice of a child from Flint, Michigan, the passion of Maya Lin, good music - many voices. Our signs wilted and drooped, but stayed intact for us bravely throughout the deluge and beyond. We finally "retired" them at The Castle at the Smithsonian. Our feet were profoundly wet, and pants up to the knees. Mine were wet down to the knees as well, and my jacket (unfortunately covering up that CEBAF tee) was all but pointless by the end of the day. TEO recalled ruefully the science of wet denim and rolled up her jeans, to minimal effect. My own pants grew from about a 31" inseam, weighted down by water and textile fatigue, to something on the order of a 34". My shoes were not even dry by the time I returned home late that night. My socks were sodden. But Penelope (and her inquiring scientific nose) was fascinated by the scents of Washington, of rain, of the thousands of people's footsteps we had shared, and the several dogs we saw as well, all collected in my clothes.
But we had a brave and a reaffirming few hours. We were inspired, and people said nice things to us about our signs, and just generally. People can be lovely things, sometimes.
And so, because there was no food inside the officially-barriered confines of The March itself, when we grew hungry, we reviewed our feelings about what we'd set out to accomplish, and agreed: "we've checked the boxes." It was time to leave, even though the actual marching part was about to begin. New troops were still arriving. We exited, to leave them space. We went back up the Metro a ways, and found a good, warm sandwich to eat. And then made our way home, to shuck wet things and have a lie-down.
This is the first event I have gone to, since the election. TEO had been to the Women's March, with that younger son of hers, and many of my friends and my beloved family have been to many. I shared this event with all of them, cities away, even a continent away (one Washington and another; nicely bookended?), and perhaps most importantly my oldest, OLDEST (hee) friend and I were able to embark on this together.
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Rabbit Holes
Today, I was talking with my oldest friend, The Elfin One, and she asked how my mom and stepfather are doing. He is the one to whom I've alluded a time or two, who has for some years now been slowly dying. A part of this has been deterioration of his cognition. ... and my mom has endured a chronic, profound disruption of her sleep patterns, as he loses track of time completely. The result is she's not quite the woman of stunning recall I have always been used to her being.
TEO asked me whether this is stress or some reflection of an organic problem. I think it's the sleep issues, the fear and unceasing demands. But it's so easy to forget ... that she forgets. With my stepfather, we've grown used to his lapses.
Last week, she came to my house and thought she had never seen the painting I did in my upstairs bathroom ... six months ago or more.
My mom is fully down the rabbit hole with my stepfather. And honestly, she's getting a little rabbity.
The next question is, "Diane, how are you?"
My response to this tends to be some combination of bewilderment and dismissiveness. I'm *aware* this is hard on me too, but I'm much more aware how much easier it is for me than it is for my mom. There's a tendency to push off sympathy so people will spend it, and their prayers, on my mom instead.
Not with TEO. With my oldest, best friend, I can be honest (with my brother too). And I realized where I stand.
I'm like standing guard at the entrance to the rabbit hole.
G-d has been especially kind to me of late. A few months ago, it was stress helping them do their taxes, and for the past few months I've been doing all I can to be not only on call if they need me, but also to just spend time as much as I can. To be an escape valve and a social distraction that is NOT demanding for them.
There's been a lot of social distraction for them lately - family, after family, after family - and my mom is incapable of not *hosting* her family. So for some weeks, as much as we LOVE them, visit after visit has had her fretting over what to cook, had her shopping, had her squiring loved ones around, had her socially "on" in a way that alone can be demanding. As someone who's lived alone for the bulk of my adult life, over twenty years now, I know how exhausting joy can be. Simply smiling all day - it is a pleasure to be with people, but I come home absolutely shot, and aching for my solitude, my home, the furbabies.
For me, there's been a lot of work distraction lately. Three solid weeks now of quite HIGH productivity - prep for our annual meeting, onboarding an exec I've been waiting for over a year and half, and this past week has been an apple pie hubbub. Multitasking extraordiaire.
I'm the lucky one: I'm not down in that rabbit hole, my world is still the real world. I get to sleep normally. And I have a job with the most extreme level of satisfaction I have ever enjoyed - which is saying something very significant.
So now my own question.
How do you hope your mom can have a life like that - productive, healthy, stimulating ... knowing what has to come for her to have that?
Yeah.
TEO asked me whether this is stress or some reflection of an organic problem. I think it's the sleep issues, the fear and unceasing demands. But it's so easy to forget ... that she forgets. With my stepfather, we've grown used to his lapses.
Last week, she came to my house and thought she had never seen the painting I did in my upstairs bathroom ... six months ago or more.
My mom is fully down the rabbit hole with my stepfather. And honestly, she's getting a little rabbity.
The next question is, "Diane, how are you?"
My response to this tends to be some combination of bewilderment and dismissiveness. I'm *aware* this is hard on me too, but I'm much more aware how much easier it is for me than it is for my mom. There's a tendency to push off sympathy so people will spend it, and their prayers, on my mom instead.
Not with TEO. With my oldest, best friend, I can be honest (with my brother too). And I realized where I stand.
I'm like standing guard at the entrance to the rabbit hole.
G-d has been especially kind to me of late. A few months ago, it was stress helping them do their taxes, and for the past few months I've been doing all I can to be not only on call if they need me, but also to just spend time as much as I can. To be an escape valve and a social distraction that is NOT demanding for them.
There's been a lot of social distraction for them lately - family, after family, after family - and my mom is incapable of not *hosting* her family. So for some weeks, as much as we LOVE them, visit after visit has had her fretting over what to cook, had her shopping, had her squiring loved ones around, had her socially "on" in a way that alone can be demanding. As someone who's lived alone for the bulk of my adult life, over twenty years now, I know how exhausting joy can be. Simply smiling all day - it is a pleasure to be with people, but I come home absolutely shot, and aching for my solitude, my home, the furbabies.
For me, there's been a lot of work distraction lately. Three solid weeks now of quite HIGH productivity - prep for our annual meeting, onboarding an exec I've been waiting for over a year and half, and this past week has been an apple pie hubbub. Multitasking extraordiaire.
I'm the lucky one: I'm not down in that rabbit hole, my world is still the real world. I get to sleep normally. And I have a job with the most extreme level of satisfaction I have ever enjoyed - which is saying something very significant.
So now my own question.
How do you hope your mom can have a life like that - productive, healthy, stimulating ... knowing what has to come for her to have that?
Yeah.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Collection
Happy St. George's Day! Please join J.V. Cullen for a few minutes' fun with facts on April 23. He's always witty, easy reading - plus, Star Wars references and the phrase "Bring out the kittens." *Snort!*
Leila Gaskin has a GREAT post on women (or men) who read books. And I'll be needing the WWRB t-shirt she's designing.
THIS JUST IN: Lilac Shoshani has an interview with Donna Everhart, author of The Education of Dixie Dupree. Neato-spedito!
In the very last link here, we took a look at the stunning preservation of a seventeenth-century silk gown. Now we have an idea as to whose gown that was. I'm completely taken away when we can find owers and stories and histories of artifacts which are interesting enough in their own right, but can be deepened with this kind of provenance.
Gary Corby on The Beatles and stadium gigs even older than Shea. Who wouldn't want to hear an ancient Grecian trumpet-blowing contest?
Proving that The History Blog has more to offer than fascinating silk dresses - how about the intriguing finds at an archaeological dig at Malcolm X's house? From the eighteenth century to 1959 records (you can listen to at a link provided), get a load of where Mr.X (not mine) grew up.
Here is magnificent writing, including a grabber of a first sentence. Whipchick, on the times she's been on fire ... "Burn wards are full of children." *Shudder*
Leila Gaskin has a GREAT post on women (or men) who read books. And I'll be needing the WWRB t-shirt she's designing.
THIS JUST IN: Lilac Shoshani has an interview with Donna Everhart, author of The Education of Dixie Dupree. Neato-spedito!
In the very last link here, we took a look at the stunning preservation of a seventeenth-century silk gown. Now we have an idea as to whose gown that was. I'm completely taken away when we can find owers and stories and histories of artifacts which are interesting enough in their own right, but can be deepened with this kind of provenance.
Gary Corby on The Beatles and stadium gigs even older than Shea. Who wouldn't want to hear an ancient Grecian trumpet-blowing contest?
Proving that The History Blog has more to offer than fascinating silk dresses - how about the intriguing finds at an archaeological dig at Malcolm X's house? From the eighteenth century to 1959 records (you can listen to at a link provided), get a load of where Mr.X (not mine) grew up.
Here is magnificent writing, including a grabber of a first sentence. Whipchick, on the times she's been on fire ... "Burn wards are full of children." *Shudder*
Saturday, April 9, 2016
(Born Naked) and The Rest ...
It has been a hard, hard week, and a good one.
My stepfather didn't come into our lives until I was thirty-seven or so. Like any family, we had natural resistance to change. But, over time, he has become very dear to us. Indeed, at this point I find myself unexpectedly tender and protective toward him. I love him VERY much, and now the very fact we didn't see that coming means that loving him is very gratifying.
An astute reader will guess: it is his health which has for so long been an obliquely-referenced sadness when I blog about personal feelings.
This post is not about my stepfather.
His decline has put my mom into the position of caregiving. The difficulties and challenges don't require explaining. But the particulars, for us, are no less acute for being shared by so many others.
This week, I SLAYED IT at work. I was sick'ning. I was FEE-ACE.
The three statements above are consciously and intentionally pointed thievery, mainly from RuPaul (and a little bit from Tyra Banks).
At work, I killed a graphical map presentation. I helped give birth to an initiative which stands to save my company quite a lot of money. It felt good.
And at my mom and stepfather's house, I helped them do their taxes.
Most of the time someone we love is in difficulty, we are impotent to DO anything.
The impulse is to fix. The impulse is to give advice. The impulse is to anything but passive receipt of bad news, sadness, fear, bitterness. We can't hear a problem without wanting to respond to the problem.
The secret of my life has been in responding to the person. It is why, since I was thirteen, I have been the one friends - even family - turn to. It is that saying I don't understand is a better response than fixing, advising. Thinking we do understand.
Because, even when we've been there, we never quite understand another's heart.
And so, the opportunity TO fix - TO actually, practically and concretely help - is a rare and special opportunity.
This week, I got to help.
It doesn't change the health picture. It doesn't change the fact that the secondary help I may be able to offer - to perhaps make it possible for my mom to go somewhere else and help someone else herself - is in answer to someone else's crisis. It doesn't untangle the way death creates a spiderweb that crosses more than one stand across us at any moment.
But my mom called me yesterday morning and said, "I slept."
So. What's Ru got to do with it?
Ru is my present to myself.
Drag Race has a live show, and Cute Shoes and I will get to go together. We'll get to dress up. I will meet her Gay Best Friend; someone else I know may be there with her husband, who may himself be in drag.
There will be ooh-ing and aah-ing over shoes, over wigs, over clothes and makeup.
There was already that one moment when my BROTHER got into the drag-planning and said, "You should do that greyscale makeup" and I realized I have corrupted him, and that was awesome.
Sometimes, you need something to look forward to.
I look forward to seeing the girls in the video above. I look forward to doing Pearl's "HULK SMASH" dance and loving it. I look forward to Ginger Minj's accent and sense of humor. I look forward to just looking at Violet, who is so young and so adorable and so deadly brilliant. I cannot even DEAL, that I will get to see Alaska T********** - the only thing named or remotely to do with Alaska that I ever loved (and I adore her completely).
I'm excited, excited.
And don't we ALL need that?
My stepfather didn't come into our lives until I was thirty-seven or so. Like any family, we had natural resistance to change. But, over time, he has become very dear to us. Indeed, at this point I find myself unexpectedly tender and protective toward him. I love him VERY much, and now the very fact we didn't see that coming means that loving him is very gratifying.
An astute reader will guess: it is his health which has for so long been an obliquely-referenced sadness when I blog about personal feelings.
This post is not about my stepfather.
His decline has put my mom into the position of caregiving. The difficulties and challenges don't require explaining. But the particulars, for us, are no less acute for being shared by so many others.
This week, I SLAYED IT at work. I was sick'ning. I was FEE-ACE.
The three statements above are consciously and intentionally pointed thievery, mainly from RuPaul (and a little bit from Tyra Banks).
At work, I killed a graphical map presentation. I helped give birth to an initiative which stands to save my company quite a lot of money. It felt good.
And at my mom and stepfather's house, I helped them do their taxes.
Most of the time someone we love is in difficulty, we are impotent to DO anything.
The impulse is to fix. The impulse is to give advice. The impulse is to anything but passive receipt of bad news, sadness, fear, bitterness. We can't hear a problem without wanting to respond to the problem.
The secret of my life has been in responding to the person. It is why, since I was thirteen, I have been the one friends - even family - turn to. It is that saying I don't understand is a better response than fixing, advising. Thinking we do understand.
Because, even when we've been there, we never quite understand another's heart.
And so, the opportunity TO fix - TO actually, practically and concretely help - is a rare and special opportunity.
This week, I got to help.
It doesn't change the health picture. It doesn't change the fact that the secondary help I may be able to offer - to perhaps make it possible for my mom to go somewhere else and help someone else herself - is in answer to someone else's crisis. It doesn't untangle the way death creates a spiderweb that crosses more than one stand across us at any moment.
But my mom called me yesterday morning and said, "I slept."
So. What's Ru got to do with it?
Ru is my present to myself.
Drag Race has a live show, and Cute Shoes and I will get to go together. We'll get to dress up. I will meet her Gay Best Friend; someone else I know may be there with her husband, who may himself be in drag.
There will be ooh-ing and aah-ing over shoes, over wigs, over clothes and makeup.
There was already that one moment when my BROTHER got into the drag-planning and said, "You should do that greyscale makeup" and I realized I have corrupted him, and that was awesome.
Sometimes, you need something to look forward to.
I look forward to seeing the girls in the video above. I look forward to doing Pearl's "HULK SMASH" dance and loving it. I look forward to Ginger Minj's accent and sense of humor. I look forward to just looking at Violet, who is so young and so adorable and so deadly brilliant. I cannot even DEAL, that I will get to see Alaska T********** - the only thing named or remotely to do with Alaska that I ever loved (and I adore her completely).
I'm excited, excited.
And don't we ALL need that?
Friday, April 1, 2016
My April Fool
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| Possibly my favorite pic of Penelope "I WILL EAT YOU, SUNSHINE!" |
Today is Penny-dopey's made up fourth birthday. Stay tuned for May Day kittay ...
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Not My Week
Last Sunday, I had my talented and delightful friends Leila Gaskin and Kristi Tuck Austin over for a mini writing retreat. It was wonderfully evocative rainy day, and stories were read, research and writing were done. I felt low grade dizzy all day, and had a headache, but the company and the work were much to be grateful for.
By Tuesday, it was clear to me I had a migraine. The dizziness actually overwhelmed the pain, and I stayed plastered in bed until about one o'clock. Penelope and Gossamer, being the astonishingly forgiving wee and timorous beasties that they are, never even nudged me for breakfast or walkies. They curled up around me, and let me sleep and sleep and sleep.
On Wednesday because The Voice of G-d (or was that "mom"?) Hath Said It Must Not Be that you ever, ever, ever take two days off of work in a row for illness, I went in to work. And realized that this time the pain was overwhelming the dizziness, and I was miserable. My head has a grave disliking of tornado warnings, and we had more pink and red on the weather forecasts than I have ever seen in my life, and I spent years in the Midwest, y'all.
Thursday, and blessedly, I enjoyed The Final Symptom of some migraines - that physical and emotional euphoria that follows the release from bone-crunching pain - and I was very, very happy indeed.
I had planned for a while to take Friday off, do some cleaning and some other things around the house, and then go out for the evening to a Bowie event I thought would be fun.
My mom, forgetting I had taken the day off, called me right around five - and told me that there's been a certain health crisis in our family.
Who needs Bowie, I needed my family, so I hit the Italian place for penne pasta with marinara, a large Greek salad with light feta, and went over to spend the evening with her.
At 3:30 this morning, all I could hope was that the projectile issues sapping my body of all nutritional intake since the Reagan era were "just" food poisoning. Because heaven help my mom and stepfather, if I've got the flu ... and probably brought it over with my wonderful company last night.
Sadly (... um), this morning it transpires that mom had no problems last night, so our supper was not a source of food poisoning.
Also sadly, and yet kinda hilariously too, I am so dehydrated at this point, I went to lick my lips when I came downstairs, and my tongue stuck.
Sigh.
This seems very much not to be my week.
And now to contemplate, do I go to the doc-in-a-box and get a flu test and possibly Tamiflu, or do I hope like Hell this is "only" the 24-hour death, and curl back up with the furbabies and whinge at a friend to drop some ginger ale off on my back stooop?
What would you do? I'm addled and honestly unsure.
By Tuesday, it was clear to me I had a migraine. The dizziness actually overwhelmed the pain, and I stayed plastered in bed until about one o'clock. Penelope and Gossamer, being the astonishingly forgiving wee and timorous beasties that they are, never even nudged me for breakfast or walkies. They curled up around me, and let me sleep and sleep and sleep.
On Wednesday because The Voice of G-d (or was that "mom"?) Hath Said It Must Not Be that you ever, ever, ever take two days off of work in a row for illness, I went in to work. And realized that this time the pain was overwhelming the dizziness, and I was miserable. My head has a grave disliking of tornado warnings, and we had more pink and red on the weather forecasts than I have ever seen in my life, and I spent years in the Midwest, y'all.
Thursday, and blessedly, I enjoyed The Final Symptom of some migraines - that physical and emotional euphoria that follows the release from bone-crunching pain - and I was very, very happy indeed.
I had planned for a while to take Friday off, do some cleaning and some other things around the house, and then go out for the evening to a Bowie event I thought would be fun.
My mom, forgetting I had taken the day off, called me right around five - and told me that there's been a certain health crisis in our family.
Who needs Bowie, I needed my family, so I hit the Italian place for penne pasta with marinara, a large Greek salad with light feta, and went over to spend the evening with her.
At 3:30 this morning, all I could hope was that the projectile issues sapping my body of all nutritional intake since the Reagan era were "just" food poisoning. Because heaven help my mom and stepfather, if I've got the flu ... and probably brought it over with my wonderful company last night.
Sadly (... um), this morning it transpires that mom had no problems last night, so our supper was not a source of food poisoning.
Also sadly, and yet kinda hilariously too, I am so dehydrated at this point, I went to lick my lips when I came downstairs, and my tongue stuck.
Sigh.
This seems very much not to be my week.
And now to contemplate, do I go to the doc-in-a-box and get a flu test and possibly Tamiflu, or do I hope like Hell this is "only" the 24-hour death, and curl back up with the furbabies and whinge at a friend to drop some ginger ale off on my back stooop?
What would you do? I'm addled and honestly unsure.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
"WIP"
This morning, in a discussion at Janet Reid's blog, Donna Everhart pointed to a post at Rachelle Gardner's blog, which got me poking around there, and I found an exercise I'd love to try with Kristi and Leila in a few weeks. We're planning a writing mini-retreat, a few hours of time just to parallel play, undistracted except for the helpful tips of Gossamer the Editor Cat and Penelope the Publishing Pup and perhaps some tea and coffee, then spending a little time sharing or working out a snag or whatever comes up while we're writing.
Some know, but I have not blogged about it much, that my WIP was actually conceived very early in the writing stages of The Ax and the Vase.
In no way a sequel (and thank Maud, given that Ax has been put on hiatus), the WIP is about a relation of Clovis I. It takes place in a different world, and centers on a wider cast, and a diverse one. But I found the inspiration early in the going with Ax ... and so the WIP has been around for many years.
For a long time, I might pop over from my "real" work to this WIP, an unformed plan/idea resolutely left on a backburner, but I refused all temptation to hop after it and let it become an actual Plot Bunny. I would plug in research that did not fit in with Ax, but not allow myself to *work* on it in earnest.
And then work began in earnest, this past spring.
In short: the WIP has been with me for a long, long time.
And it has never had a title.
It took years for me to realize The Ax and the Vase kind of had to have that title. When it came to me, I felt almost like a moron, because, DUH, that had to be it. I was open to being told it could not survive, but I was also really skeptical anything else would work so well.
I want to have that "duh" moment now, for the WIP.
Poor thing, it deserves a title. It has been my focus now for long enough, calling it "WIP" seems dismissive at this point.
Also, I am excited to get together with Kristi and Leila.
Some know, but I have not blogged about it much, that my WIP was actually conceived very early in the writing stages of The Ax and the Vase.
In no way a sequel (and thank Maud, given that Ax has been put on hiatus), the WIP is about a relation of Clovis I. It takes place in a different world, and centers on a wider cast, and a diverse one. But I found the inspiration early in the going with Ax ... and so the WIP has been around for many years.
For a long time, I might pop over from my "real" work to this WIP, an unformed plan/idea resolutely left on a backburner, but I refused all temptation to hop after it and let it become an actual Plot Bunny. I would plug in research that did not fit in with Ax, but not allow myself to *work* on it in earnest.
And then work began in earnest, this past spring.
In short: the WIP has been with me for a long, long time.
And it has never had a title.
It took years for me to realize The Ax and the Vase kind of had to have that title. When it came to me, I felt almost like a moron, because, DUH, that had to be it. I was open to being told it could not survive, but I was also really skeptical anything else would work so well.
I want to have that "duh" moment now, for the WIP.
Poor thing, it deserves a title. It has been my focus now for long enough, calling it "WIP" seems dismissive at this point.
Also, I am excited to get together with Kristi and Leila.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Funny the Way a Day Can Go
Today was the first day back in the office for an awful lot of the Eastern Seaboard, and I made it an especially early day, getting right to it by 7:15 this morning and starting off running.
It wasn't a bad day, but after leaving early and getting home with a scrap of afternoon left to me, I read a long and especially disturbing article (blog post on THAT to follow, but I don't want to contaminate this post with a link), did a little more shoveling, did the pet thing, and ... kind of found myself mired in a place of dread and fear.
Hormones'll do that to ya, when they don't take you to the lush, weepy place. If something honestly disconcerting gets into your brain, it can leave you seriously upset, sometimes without even quite realizing why. It gets worse when you are alone: the other heartbeats in my house do go a long way to keeping me from going completely hermit-daft, but Gossamer and Penelope can't TALK with me, they can't laugh.
Thank G-d for good friends.
Cute Shoes called me around eight, and pulled my head out of my navel, and we laughed and rolled our eyes about a few things, and she let me off the phone in a better mental place. Cute Shoes is pretty OSUM like that (including when she induces me to evil, pointing out the sale at American Duchess, and then joining with me in the "I own a pair of American Duchess shoes" club). And, indeed, she's OSUM in other ways as well.
It put me in such a better mood I was able to call my mom, and she and I laughed for a while too. I turned on the episode of Fixer Upper she had on, and watched what ended up turning out to be about my favorite design of theirs they've EVER done, a mix of modern and cozy, light and warm, family memories and new design. And Fixer Upper stars a couple who do make me laugh.
Mom and I got off the phone to keep watching, and then I had to call her to laugh that the unfinished natural cedar planks they were using on one wall looked like bacon strips. Then she called me at the end (while I was resisting the urge to call her and ooh and ahh over how beautifully the house turned out) to ooh and ahh over how beautifully the house turned out. It MUST have been gorgeous, because mom and I don't really have similar aesthetics.
Friends are a good thing. I am so grateful.
Even so, I wouldn't have minded having Mr. X around to improve my mood. He's probably my favorite person in the world to watch laughing. And to *make* him laugh - well, just even thinking about it makes me happy.
Hooray for hormones!
It wasn't a bad day, but after leaving early and getting home with a scrap of afternoon left to me, I read a long and especially disturbing article (blog post on THAT to follow, but I don't want to contaminate this post with a link), did a little more shoveling, did the pet thing, and ... kind of found myself mired in a place of dread and fear.
Hormones'll do that to ya, when they don't take you to the lush, weepy place. If something honestly disconcerting gets into your brain, it can leave you seriously upset, sometimes without even quite realizing why. It gets worse when you are alone: the other heartbeats in my house do go a long way to keeping me from going completely hermit-daft, but Gossamer and Penelope can't TALK with me, they can't laugh.
Thank G-d for good friends.
Cute Shoes called me around eight, and pulled my head out of my navel, and we laughed and rolled our eyes about a few things, and she let me off the phone in a better mental place. Cute Shoes is pretty OSUM like that (including when she induces me to evil, pointing out the sale at American Duchess, and then joining with me in the "I own a pair of American Duchess shoes" club). And, indeed, she's OSUM in other ways as well.
It put me in such a better mood I was able to call my mom, and she and I laughed for a while too. I turned on the episode of Fixer Upper she had on, and watched what ended up turning out to be about my favorite design of theirs they've EVER done, a mix of modern and cozy, light and warm, family memories and new design. And Fixer Upper stars a couple who do make me laugh.
Mom and I got off the phone to keep watching, and then I had to call her to laugh that the unfinished natural cedar planks they were using on one wall looked like bacon strips. Then she called me at the end (while I was resisting the urge to call her and ooh and ahh over how beautifully the house turned out) to ooh and ahh over how beautifully the house turned out. It MUST have been gorgeous, because mom and I don't really have similar aesthetics.
Friends are a good thing. I am so grateful.
Even so, I wouldn't have minded having Mr. X around to improve my mood. He's probably my favorite person in the world to watch laughing. And to *make* him laugh - well, just even thinking about it makes me happy.
Hooray for hormones!
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