my november
a few pics from my november...
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Be Happy
Be Happy. It's okay to be happy- since when did being happy become a crime? I used to have this job; okay, it was a maid job, but in fact, I really enjoyed it (aside from the fact that they made me wear pleated polyester uniform pants. That's criminal, and I stomached down the putting on of said pant for the love of my fun job) but I worked for a woman who was obviously Unhappy, bitter and slightly evil. (Classic woman boss?) uh oh.
So every day i came to work smiling, happy. It didn't bother me that I was going to be cleaning pubes off of urinals, or lifting chair after chair to get the vacuum under tables. I made it my mission to hunt the stray macaronis that got away from their plates and mouths of children. They weren't in the clear yet...they'd have had to grow legs or a roachy passenger for that.
But when I walked in, ready to face the day, my boss would sneer. Some days, she would question me.
"Why are you so happy?"
"What are you, on drugs?"
Sheesh. Nowadays, a pretty good response to that would be chimpanzee smile. I see all these arrests made for meth heads on the news, and they have this uncanny resemblance to old granny from Beverly Hillbillies. Then you read they're 23, and you think, damn. No teeth.
So when they jealously made snide drug remarks upon seeing your happiness, just give em
Chimpanzee Smile.
I discovered myself doing something today that made me a hypocrite- though small in action, after catching myself in this act I'll have to change my ways. Walking through the kitchen, I opened the gummy vites, and when an orange one came, after two attempts putting it back, I got a pink and purple. However, I do not let my children have the same luxury. I'd have made them take the orange one. But I just didn't want it. So my new rule is "Get the flavor you want, then we'll eat all the orange ones at the end." Because the orange ones are pretty good when its all that's left.
The sun's come out. Have a cool day :)
So every day i came to work smiling, happy. It didn't bother me that I was going to be cleaning pubes off of urinals, or lifting chair after chair to get the vacuum under tables. I made it my mission to hunt the stray macaronis that got away from their plates and mouths of children. They weren't in the clear yet...they'd have had to grow legs or a roachy passenger for that.
But when I walked in, ready to face the day, my boss would sneer. Some days, she would question me.
"Why are you so happy?"
"What are you, on drugs?"
Sheesh. Nowadays, a pretty good response to that would be chimpanzee smile. I see all these arrests made for meth heads on the news, and they have this uncanny resemblance to old granny from Beverly Hillbillies. Then you read they're 23, and you think, damn. No teeth.
So when they jealously made snide drug remarks upon seeing your happiness, just give em
Chimpanzee Smile.
I discovered myself doing something today that made me a hypocrite- though small in action, after catching myself in this act I'll have to change my ways. Walking through the kitchen, I opened the gummy vites, and when an orange one came, after two attempts putting it back, I got a pink and purple. However, I do not let my children have the same luxury. I'd have made them take the orange one. But I just didn't want it. So my new rule is "Get the flavor you want, then we'll eat all the orange ones at the end." Because the orange ones are pretty good when its all that's left.
The sun's come out. Have a cool day :)
Monday, October 3, 2011
Hehe.
Again, it's been forever!
I just haven't been the same since the lobotomy.
(That's a joke. But only barely...)
So I apologize for not checking in; sometimes I'll think of something really interesting and blog worthy, but by the time I'm here I don't remember what that thing is.
What have I been doing? Have I read any good books? What have I learned this year?
I'm not that person that's going to awaken your spirit with some sorta great revelation.
Oh! Okay.
I guess I learned that scrunching your hair when it's wet does not make it curly. I also learned that towel drying your hair (basically towel-scrunching, so I'm just being repetitive) & then the non-combing of said hair also, does not make it curly.
For some people, it takes a long time to learn something like this. You might be one, I don't know. I might too. But I have adopted a hair brush when wet thing that is working out pretty well for me.
I learned that the phrase "If you can't do something right, don't do it at all" is not necessarily correct. A half ass job is still half. And that's better than none. Staring at a pile of magazines on the floor, going thru half the pile and trashing a little is better than walking past the pile. Washing half the dishes is better than no dishes. So my new phrase is
Again, it's been forever!
I just haven't been the same since the lobotomy.
(That's a joke. But only barely...)
So I apologize for not checking in; sometimes I'll think of something really interesting and blog worthy, but by the time I'm here I don't remember what that thing is.
What have I been doing? Have I read any good books? What have I learned this year?
I'm not that person that's going to awaken your spirit with some sorta great revelation.
Oh! Okay.
I guess I learned that scrunching your hair when it's wet does not make it curly. I also learned that towel drying your hair (basically towel-scrunching, so I'm just being repetitive) & then the non-combing of said hair also, does not make it curly.
For some people, it takes a long time to learn something like this. You might be one, I don't know. I might too. But I have adopted a hair brush when wet thing that is working out pretty well for me.
I learned that the phrase "If you can't do something right, don't do it at all" is not necessarily correct. A half ass job is still half. And that's better than none. Staring at a pile of magazines on the floor, going thru half the pile and trashing a little is better than walking past the pile. Washing half the dishes is better than no dishes. So my new phrase is
A Half-Ass job is still half.*
I have a class reunion coming up this month. Yay.
But my husband's smokin hot so I guess I have one thing going for me. The man is beautiful, seriously.
And I can always blame my lack of finesse in the area of smalltalk, my stumbling into the consistant wrong thing to say on brain surgery if I screw up too badly. But hopefully it'll not come to that.
Because both before and after brain surgery, I'm the same. I'm simple. I like to just put it that way rather than the derogitory phrase 'simple-minded.' It sounds better. Lynyrd Skynyrd made it into a bragging right somewhat. But I haven't been able to listen to LS since the mid-nineties; Years ago we saw them at the Tabernacle and the smoke, mullets and speaker throttling lack of volume control left me deaf for a few days. Freebird has never been the same. If you've been reading this for a long time, I'll have to turn to the Taterbug reference. If you haven't, back track. :P
Went to a potluck yesterday. Oh! But before the potluck, I went to the grocery store. So the girl asks me what's new when she's bagging my gro, and I say 'I'm going to a potluck!' And she says 'What's that?' So I tell her it's a thing where people bring food, then I'm trying to think of the words to explain it and all that came out was,
"You know when somebody dies and everybody brings a covered dish? It's like that without the dead person."
"Oh," she says. (If you've come to the conclusion that this person made me feel smart by not knowing what a potluck was, this isn't the case. Sometimes intelligence is purely a matter of life experience. If you know what a potluck is, that's probably cause you've been invited to one. Which doesn't make you smart, just lucky). :)
So the potluck in question was a UU (Unitarian Universalist) Potluck. UUers are pretty random but liberal types, and this UU group is like an extension of my family. I really do love them all, and though the faces change from potluck to potluck, they are familiar and warm, and the food is always good.
The New Guy. So there were maybe thirty or forty folks there, mostly that I knew, and then this one new guy. The new guy had become disgruntled with his previous UU group due to 'too much New Age talk,' stating he'd made a fuss about it and couldn't go back. I'd seen my mother set her lovely pie down, and knew doing the math, 30 or 40 heads versus 8 slices of pie, that my best option wouls be to go straight for the pie, because hell, the cheese slices and macaroni salad would still be there, but there were kids present, and this was my own mothers pie we're talking about. So I selected my pie, and then framed the pie with little bits of things; a meatball here, two spoonfuls of salad there, til it was folding over a little and Linda handed me a tray. (God bless Linda...She's too good for words).
So I sat across from Steven at a little table, and set down my pie. Then the new guy sat down beside me. He told me about how he'd been disgruntled with his old group. How he didn't see how they could carry on so. Growing up fundamentally Christian, he told me, what was the difference between listening to that hubub (Hubub is my word, not his, but I'm just trying to tell the thing) than going back to what he'd heard before? He wanted scientific proof behind anything in order to make it truth. So he brings up Stephen Hawking (?) and his new theory that because the conscious mind dies when the brain dies, there's obviously no afterlife. He is seeking debate. "I grew up with reincarnation, so it's a little different for me," I tell him. Then he begins with his evolution speech, and asks about apes. Did Apes reincarnate? So I'm trying to be polite but then he keeps asking me questions, and I say that I just always felt that our spirits seek higher consciousness, and that we will continue to evolve until we no longer need to, spiritually, and then we go back to being one with God- but that it was just one persons idea, and that I felt people have to find their own spiritual conclusions. But what I said in my head was, "I just want to eat my pie."
Damn! Let me eat my pie. F*ck, if you came to try to disprove other people's belief systems, maybe UU is not right for you. Or maybe it is exactly right, just not with me, and definitely not with me and my pie. I'm simple! Let it be.
Agnostics. So I get along well with athiests/agnostics, perhaps because believing in a bit of everything can be similar to believing in nothing. It is what it is, or maybe not/we'll see. (It's those people who believe in the one concrete thing that you have to worry about- those are the troublemakers, lol). So my mother asks me if I invited this friend I have to the potluck.
"No," i say, "She's athiest. I don't think she wants any part of a religious organization."
"Why?" she asks me, so I try to explain that sometimes when you don't believe in anything, you don't feel the need to look for it. If you don't believe in aliens, a shooting star will never be a spaceship.
So I'd brought up religion with this friend in the car, and she said she didn't really believe in anything in particular. Then, I said, 'So would you say your agnostic, or more like athiest?'
'I don't really like to label myself or people in that way.'
She was right. Darn it if I didn't take a look at myself later on and feel slightly like one of those Baptist ladies that ask you if your saved in the check out line. I was the New Age crazy person. But it's not so much I want to label people, but that I'm 'grouping' in my head. It's just a weird thing I do- which doesn't mean one group is better or worse, it's just a strange thing. Whatever you are is accepted, I just kinda want to know how you got there.
Which just brings me back to the new guy. Maybe he had what might've seemed a pushier way, but wasn't that what he was asking all along? :) It's odd how the train of thought often loops back to where it started. Much love, Kat
*unless you're getting paid for it. Then half-assed is truly half-assed.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Amy Winehouse
Huge Amy fan, so this is just the pits.
If you haven't seen this AW Valerie video, it's one of my faves.
Sending good thoughts to you, Miss Winehouse.
You were a treasure.
Friday, July 8, 2011
I have been crying for two hours.
Don't even look at me. Seriously. I have had it.
Ticketmaster Customer Service, you have done the equivalent of bashing my brains in with a rusty hammer. I can't take it!
Well' it's obvious I'm having a very very bad day. :(
So I waited one afternoon to buy tickets online for Adele (sweet sweet Adele!) at the Tabernacle. While it sold out in 30 minutes, I got through! And thrilled the girlies. We were going to Adele! Very cool. But Adele got sick, and it was postponed.
I recieved an email. Adele has been moved to the Fox Theater! Online Presale Only, use this number (which is my previous order number). Cool, I thought. Sounds easy enough. I'll sit a half hour early, have everything ready, and get Fox tickets. Not cool. :(
It would not let me enter my presale number. So I've called over and over. Finally what it amounts to is this...They see that I had the original tickets, and tell me it shows I have not purchased tickets to the Fox show. But it also shows that someone used my presale number and bought three tickets already, and only one purchase per presale number can be used.
"Who bought those tickets? What address are they going to?"
"We cannot tell you that."
"But you can see I did not buy those tickets! That's my presale number! How can someone that doesn't match my previous order name use my presale number???"
"We can't answer that."
Don't even look at me. Seriously. I have had it.
Ticketmaster Customer Service, you have done the equivalent of bashing my brains in with a rusty hammer. I can't take it!
Well' it's obvious I'm having a very very bad day. :(
So I waited one afternoon to buy tickets online for Adele (sweet sweet Adele!) at the Tabernacle. While it sold out in 30 minutes, I got through! And thrilled the girlies. We were going to Adele! Very cool. But Adele got sick, and it was postponed.
I recieved an email. Adele has been moved to the Fox Theater! Online Presale Only, use this number (which is my previous order number). Cool, I thought. Sounds easy enough. I'll sit a half hour early, have everything ready, and get Fox tickets. Not cool. :(
It would not let me enter my presale number. So I've called over and over. Finally what it amounts to is this...They see that I had the original tickets, and tell me it shows I have not purchased tickets to the Fox show. But it also shows that someone used my presale number and bought three tickets already, and only one purchase per presale number can be used.
"Who bought those tickets? What address are they going to?"
"We cannot tell you that."
"But you can see I did not buy those tickets! That's my presale number! How can someone that doesn't match my previous order name use my presale number???"
"We can't answer that."
Motherfuck.
So they say, "Wait by the phone and someone should contact you within the next 24 hours (while the tickets are selling out) to maybe resolve this and perhaps give you a new presale number, but Ticketmaster cannot." I'm screwed. And now I'm just a slobbery mess, my nose running down my shirt and no relief in site. Where are those little finder angels when you need them?
A long time ago I'd read that there were finder angels who helped you, say you lost your keys, you could silently call upon, 'finder angel, I can't find my keys again...' and then of course they'd turn up. Maybe finder angels were only a nice though all along. And if not, really, finder angels, i'd like you to search for whoever typed in random numbers until one worked (mine) and bashed they're brains in with that same rusty hammer. But a real one.
Oh, that's terrible. God help me.
I think I need some pie. Blueberry or blackberry. A la mode. I know food is not a remedy for mental stress, and that's such a crap solution. Honestly, I have a twenty year class reunion coming up. Pie shouldn't even be an option, that last ten pounds seems so damned content. The last thing it needs is pie. But this situation is special.
Sometimes I think of my cousin Jack when I think of angels. I think of car rides with my mom driving the old catalina, the felt hanging low on their heads in front; me laying across the backseat, with my legs dangling out...feet in the wind. I think about laughing back then, because everything was funny. I think about how now when I see feet dangling out a car window it reminds me less of those times, and more of the idea that someone will lose toes to a mailbox or something. I wonder if I googled it if any toe loss from dangling feet would come up. And I wonder if Jack is still funny, wherever he is. I wonder if he hears me when I think my silent conversations up or out to him. I think of Joust on Atari and ramen noodles and silver aviator glasses. I think of cards. Crushing cans in the stairwell.
But Jack is gone. And I'm having a bad day, or I wouldn't even be going back to that.
later.
:(
Thursday, July 7, 2011
observations
Stuff I observed this week..
The girls, talking in back while I was driving,
"Nationwide has it's own store? Wow! I didn't know that! Did you know that?"
"Cool! Progressive does too. I saw it the other day."
Hmmm.
I don't know how people without kids do it, how they make it without those random funny kid moments. You think your too grown up for your britches, shopping the Coldwater Creek store, then the kids'll pop up behind you, "Did you see that sign? It said 'Irregular!!!'"
Irregular. I think they watch too many commercials. Funny.
Last week when we took my man to eat Indian, I watched a woman finger-comb a fat guy's long hair. While I was eating. And I was disturbed.
Probably just jealous nobody was finger-combing my hair while I ate my paneer.
And then at the bookstore, there was this lady. So whenever I find a book, I always back away from the shelf, so I'm not in the way. because I'm nice. And lately I've thought I'd like to learn to draw caricatures, you know, the kind you find in malls and amusement parks. So I stroll to the Art and Drawing section, and there SHE is. Stuck to the wall like a Chiquita banana sticker on a refrigerator. Like a bug on a windshield. Guarding the wall like one of those dumb birds that lays eggs in your yard. SPRAWLED out ON the wall. She was literally making love to the wall. And as I walked around her to try and view books, her beady bird eyes watched me, never straying from her coital positioning. And it was just really weird, I was obviously intruding. So I walked away. I went back later. Didn't find anything.
Anybody know Contrary Guy? That guy who has a contrary opinion to everything you say? I was thinking of the neighbor the other day and it reminded me of that. Cause he hates blueberries. But he may really hate them, i don't know.
I hate to go to the dentist now. Super Excited! Wish I could stay and hang out :).
The girls, talking in back while I was driving,
"Nationwide has it's own store? Wow! I didn't know that! Did you know that?"
"Cool! Progressive does too. I saw it the other day."
Hmmm.
I don't know how people without kids do it, how they make it without those random funny kid moments. You think your too grown up for your britches, shopping the Coldwater Creek store, then the kids'll pop up behind you, "Did you see that sign? It said 'Irregular!!!'"
Irregular. I think they watch too many commercials. Funny.
Last week when we took my man to eat Indian, I watched a woman finger-comb a fat guy's long hair. While I was eating. And I was disturbed.
Probably just jealous nobody was finger-combing my hair while I ate my paneer.
And then at the bookstore, there was this lady. So whenever I find a book, I always back away from the shelf, so I'm not in the way. because I'm nice. And lately I've thought I'd like to learn to draw caricatures, you know, the kind you find in malls and amusement parks. So I stroll to the Art and Drawing section, and there SHE is. Stuck to the wall like a Chiquita banana sticker on a refrigerator. Like a bug on a windshield. Guarding the wall like one of those dumb birds that lays eggs in your yard. SPRAWLED out ON the wall. She was literally making love to the wall. And as I walked around her to try and view books, her beady bird eyes watched me, never straying from her coital positioning. And it was just really weird, I was obviously intruding. So I walked away. I went back later. Didn't find anything.
Anybody know Contrary Guy? That guy who has a contrary opinion to everything you say? I was thinking of the neighbor the other day and it reminded me of that. Cause he hates blueberries. But he may really hate them, i don't know.
I hate to go to the dentist now. Super Excited! Wish I could stay and hang out :).
Friday, July 1, 2011
To My Man on His Birthday
My moon, my man, so changable and such a lovable lamb to me.
Today is your birthday. Your birthday, and I have in my mind all the things that I want for you, the things I can't afford but give you as mental gifts. I want to give you the world!
I think back on our honeymoon and how Juliette wanted us to watch her Moorea house for the summer, and how the bartender and his sister wanted to teach us to spearfish. I had just bought a sofa, I said. A Sofa. And so we didn't. But you had that nasty giardia thing, so I guess it was nice to come home back then, and we don't look back in regret. (But if someone out there is reading this and can watch a house in Moorea, leave the couch.)
And you work long hours as a carpenter now supporting our little family, and then you come home and bust out the red wine and we watch travel shows and live vicariously through Anthony Bourdain and sometimes Samantha Brown and whoever is going anywhere at that moment, really. We unshelf our dreams for an hour, talk rampantly about what we'd do if we could do, and then I look over and your head has crashed on the couch, but not that couch, that one didn't last. but we did. :)
So today I'm giving you what I'd give you if I was giving you something, other than a trip to eat Indian and the used bookstore. What I would do. If I could do. And I feel that eventually we can.
I give you a restored El Camino, maybe painted red, or orange, or even a 'mysteriously black' black, as I know that you eye them often. (Okay, the kids won't fit in it, so for now it would have to be a weekend car, but it's only a mental gift, so go with it). The CD player works like clockwork, as does your Pandora connection, so well you really don't need the cd player that much.
We'd go here and there like a crazy gypsy family, three months here, a year there, and we'd learn a new language and wear comfortable shoes. Bake bread, but wait, you gave up gluten, so we'd make rice pudding. with rosewater, like the Indians do, but with little strawberries on top, and we'd sell it in a rolling cart, like foreign street vendors, and people would think we were uneducated, but really it was because our language skills were in need of more time. We'd run cobblestone streets and paint buildings and eat like starving dogs in foreign countries where the food is good. The girls would love it too. And we'd trade the camino for a boat, and sail back to Moorea where we started this travel adventure together, but with the kids and lots of unopened booze, not because we enjoy drunk boating with children, but because the people on the islands told us the tiny cool places habitants like to trade black pearls for whiskey, so we'll trade and eat fresh fish cooked on a little portable grill while the girls string pearls on the beaches in the evenings. We'll learn to spearfish after all, you leaping off the boat in polynesian clarity, me with a lifejacket, or two, or three...but you won't drink the water. And maybe I can't give you these things right now, but maybe it'll come, and if it doesn't... you are still my greatest adventure.
(four months til Barcelona!) Happy Birthday to my lunar love :)
Today is your birthday. Your birthday, and I have in my mind all the things that I want for you, the things I can't afford but give you as mental gifts. I want to give you the world!
I think back on our honeymoon and how Juliette wanted us to watch her Moorea house for the summer, and how the bartender and his sister wanted to teach us to spearfish. I had just bought a sofa, I said. A Sofa. And so we didn't. But you had that nasty giardia thing, so I guess it was nice to come home back then, and we don't look back in regret. (But if someone out there is reading this and can watch a house in Moorea, leave the couch.)
And you work long hours as a carpenter now supporting our little family, and then you come home and bust out the red wine and we watch travel shows and live vicariously through Anthony Bourdain and sometimes Samantha Brown and whoever is going anywhere at that moment, really. We unshelf our dreams for an hour, talk rampantly about what we'd do if we could do, and then I look over and your head has crashed on the couch, but not that couch, that one didn't last. but we did. :)
So today I'm giving you what I'd give you if I was giving you something, other than a trip to eat Indian and the used bookstore. What I would do. If I could do. And I feel that eventually we can.
I give you a restored El Camino, maybe painted red, or orange, or even a 'mysteriously black' black, as I know that you eye them often. (Okay, the kids won't fit in it, so for now it would have to be a weekend car, but it's only a mental gift, so go with it). The CD player works like clockwork, as does your Pandora connection, so well you really don't need the cd player that much.
We'd go here and there like a crazy gypsy family, three months here, a year there, and we'd learn a new language and wear comfortable shoes. Bake bread, but wait, you gave up gluten, so we'd make rice pudding. with rosewater, like the Indians do, but with little strawberries on top, and we'd sell it in a rolling cart, like foreign street vendors, and people would think we were uneducated, but really it was because our language skills were in need of more time. We'd run cobblestone streets and paint buildings and eat like starving dogs in foreign countries where the food is good. The girls would love it too. And we'd trade the camino for a boat, and sail back to Moorea where we started this travel adventure together, but with the kids and lots of unopened booze, not because we enjoy drunk boating with children, but because the people on the islands told us the tiny cool places habitants like to trade black pearls for whiskey, so we'll trade and eat fresh fish cooked on a little portable grill while the girls string pearls on the beaches in the evenings. We'll learn to spearfish after all, you leaping off the boat in polynesian clarity, me with a lifejacket, or two, or three...but you won't drink the water. And maybe I can't give you these things right now, but maybe it'll come, and if it doesn't... you are still my greatest adventure.
(four months til Barcelona!) Happy Birthday to my lunar love :)
Monday, June 13, 2011
So much news
So much news! So much news. But my head is riddled with sickness today and I don't exactly know how to write it all down to give it the excitement it's due. Not well today. But I won't go into that much except that the 'clearly I'm dying' thread running through my brain can't coexist with this other. Because this other needs it's space and teeny tiny fireworks just for It. I'll be going on a little trip...I can say that much. :D
Ha! Today I forgot how old I was when questioned by a nurse at my childs doctor appointment. I don't know what need they had for the information, but I started with an I don't know, and bounced back between 39 and 38 until i gave into 39, the less appealing of the two, but I knew I was close to 40 and my nature is choose humbler, and that may not even be a word, but then later Steven told me I was indeed 38. Then he added that he was only 37.
And it's already been over 100 degrees, and not summer yet. My mother has been buying french mustard at the TJ Maxx, this super delish mustard, for a buck fifty. What a great thing, french mustard. Not be confused with French's mustard. And I guess I was thinking about the mustard and just popped in with that last part. And I read this thing that said brown rice was only alkaline is you chew it 100 times. What is that?
be back soon.
Ha! Today I forgot how old I was when questioned by a nurse at my childs doctor appointment. I don't know what need they had for the information, but I started with an I don't know, and bounced back between 39 and 38 until i gave into 39, the less appealing of the two, but I knew I was close to 40 and my nature is choose humbler, and that may not even be a word, but then later Steven told me I was indeed 38. Then he added that he was only 37.
And it's already been over 100 degrees, and not summer yet. My mother has been buying french mustard at the TJ Maxx, this super delish mustard, for a buck fifty. What a great thing, french mustard. Not be confused with French's mustard. And I guess I was thinking about the mustard and just popped in with that last part. And I read this thing that said brown rice was only alkaline is you chew it 100 times. What is that?
be back soon.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Well I'm sitting on my bed leaning over the laptop, with a string cheese propped on my leg. It's really difficult, trying to type with string cheese. Laugh, but it is. But people don't often think of getting a plate for a string cheese. They are quick 'on the go' foods, grab and carry. And the plates are downstairs. And everything else up here is fabricy or fluffy and that won't do.
I'm not really taking this post too seriously. (Not my usual serious self. ?)
I'm not because the other day I came to blog, and I was on a real roll. I'd written several paragraphs about that day and about the neighbors blaring Chicago or Peter Cetera or maybe ever Peter Cetera and Cher, and how it reminded me of high school chorus and how that high school chorus voice is the only way to make Peter Cetera any worse, then more about the neighbors and how maybe they had a Peter Cetera Pandora station, but then that they were elderly so probably not, then I rambled for awhile about how I unconsciously exhibited age descrimination, possibly based on my own mothers refusal to learn how to use her remote control. It was golden. The brilliance that poured and the revelations I'd come across while in the train of thought were remarkable!... but in a weird and freak accident, deleted. Never to be seen again. Only summarized stupidly and prefaced by my discomfort of trying to type while hovering over a frayed and ragged string cheese. And then how I don't like when the string comes off uneven from the main part when you tear at a corner. I suppose uneven bits of string cheese are a pet peeve. But a minor one. It's all the same once eaten. Certainly Peter Cetera is worse. And while I'm mildly complaining, aside from the band Chicago, Boston and Reo Speedwagon also are pretty terrible. (But Air Supply is good! Remember them on Solid Gold?)
My stomach hurts. I'm going now. I'll see ya 'round. :)
I'm not really taking this post too seriously. (Not my usual serious self. ?)
I'm not because the other day I came to blog, and I was on a real roll. I'd written several paragraphs about that day and about the neighbors blaring Chicago or Peter Cetera or maybe ever Peter Cetera and Cher, and how it reminded me of high school chorus and how that high school chorus voice is the only way to make Peter Cetera any worse, then more about the neighbors and how maybe they had a Peter Cetera Pandora station, but then that they were elderly so probably not, then I rambled for awhile about how I unconsciously exhibited age descrimination, possibly based on my own mothers refusal to learn how to use her remote control. It was golden. The brilliance that poured and the revelations I'd come across while in the train of thought were remarkable!... but in a weird and freak accident, deleted. Never to be seen again. Only summarized stupidly and prefaced by my discomfort of trying to type while hovering over a frayed and ragged string cheese. And then how I don't like when the string comes off uneven from the main part when you tear at a corner. I suppose uneven bits of string cheese are a pet peeve. But a minor one. It's all the same once eaten. Certainly Peter Cetera is worse. And while I'm mildly complaining, aside from the band Chicago, Boston and Reo Speedwagon also are pretty terrible. (But Air Supply is good! Remember them on Solid Gold?)
My stomach hurts. I'm going now. I'll see ya 'round. :)
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
the zombie squirrel
I was driving yesterday and out of the corner of my eye I saw a squirrel. It was running parallel with the car, but on the other side of a fence, and I was on a fairly big road. For you city people, it would be a country road, for us it would be fairly big. A big road would be one that you'd not let your child fetch a beach ball out of, I guess. I'm off topic again.
So I spied this squirrel running. I suppose it was running after something. Probably another squirrel. I thought of how sometimes dogs chase cars. Then my kooky brain remembered that I'd just watched Ahh, Zombies! the other night and thought of that. And I'd thought of rabid squirrels before, and what people would do if there were some sort of rabid squirrel outbreak- like swine flu, only squirrel flu...but people wouldn't get it, they just couldn't go in their yards without squirrels pouncing down from trees. With teeth. But that was a thought from along time ago while watching them out the window. So my brain combined the old train of thought with the new one and then I thought, what if instead of human zombies, it was squirrel zombies, because then you couldn't kill them. And you could try, but their little deattached squirrelly hands would crawl and find you. You'd be getting ready to shower and your back would itch, and there'd be that squirrelly hand. Tiny little squirrelly hand.
And then I thought of this thing we do when we see a squirrel, how the kids will shout, "I call it!" and the person who calls the squirrel names it. How did that all start?
I think alot while driving. & I drive alot.
So I spied this squirrel running. I suppose it was running after something. Probably another squirrel. I thought of how sometimes dogs chase cars. Then my kooky brain remembered that I'd just watched Ahh, Zombies! the other night and thought of that. And I'd thought of rabid squirrels before, and what people would do if there were some sort of rabid squirrel outbreak- like swine flu, only squirrel flu...but people wouldn't get it, they just couldn't go in their yards without squirrels pouncing down from trees. With teeth. But that was a thought from along time ago while watching them out the window. So my brain combined the old train of thought with the new one and then I thought, what if instead of human zombies, it was squirrel zombies, because then you couldn't kill them. And you could try, but their little deattached squirrelly hands would crawl and find you. You'd be getting ready to shower and your back would itch, and there'd be that squirrelly hand. Tiny little squirrelly hand.
And then I thought of this thing we do when we see a squirrel, how the kids will shout, "I call it!" and the person who calls the squirrel names it. How did that all start?
I think alot while driving. & I drive alot.
What am I supposed to be doing?
And I'm sorry about unloading on my last post. It's been attached to me like an anchor, those words, and there's that part of me that must just be completely insecure to allow them power. If you have concerns about your worth and someone tells you you are worthless it just reaffirms those negative feelings. And I don't want to feed that part of myself. My mother mentioned that perhaps we could go once a month. My stance on that would be that if I am 'worthless to the people I live with, what good would I be too someone 6 hours away, and only for a few hours at that?' Maybe next spring; By then I'll have forgotten. :)
I'm grateful you stopped in. I hope you have a Squirrelly Day...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
bah.
I decided on a whim that I'd do something kind for Mother's Day weekend, so I opted to go to Lexington to visit the Grinch, who now lives in a hospital there. It's a 6 hour drive, of which I only drove half- my mother drove the other 3 and we took her Camry (better gas mileage!).
Halfway there on 75, we experienced a flat tire. A big rig pulled up behind us and changed it. Sitting on the side of the road I was thankful we had a cellphone in case we needed it. It reminded me of another time riding back with my mother from Kentucky. Our old car broke down around the same stretch of nowhere, and I watched my mother walk down the interstate. I was twelve, and I laid in the car waiting for hours. Night came and I thought of walking to find her. A big rig driver brought my mother back that night and fixed our car. While I don't like riding beside those things, I know that there's always going to be that random truck driver that'll change your tire or a belt on your engine. I'm off the subject?
So I spent my weekend half driving, half in a hospital room. I made small talk while the old man berated me, telling me that my husband should leave me, that I was biding my time, and each phrase begat one worse. I just sat, forced to listen. I knew it was one day. One day to be nice. So I talked about my garden. And so he shouted and told me how I was making excuses. The deer had eaten our little garden to the ground. Even a couple tomato plants had been topped. "NO SUCH THING!" he shouted. "Deer KNOW TOMATO PLANTS ARE TOXIC! EXCUSES EXCUSES!" he raised his arms up like great wings and flapped his hands in unison, "EXCUSES EXCUSES! EXCUSES EXCUSES!"
And though I'd seen hoofprints in my raises garden beds, and watched the herd pass through my drive each morning, I sat. One day to be nice. but really I was sad.
And I listened as he shouted at my mother on our mothers day, and I watched my daughters faces and watched the clock and I counted the hours. And about midnight I pulled into my drive, thankful. ...emotionally drained. & I never know when i'll make that trip again.
Halfway there on 75, we experienced a flat tire. A big rig pulled up behind us and changed it. Sitting on the side of the road I was thankful we had a cellphone in case we needed it. It reminded me of another time riding back with my mother from Kentucky. Our old car broke down around the same stretch of nowhere, and I watched my mother walk down the interstate. I was twelve, and I laid in the car waiting for hours. Night came and I thought of walking to find her. A big rig driver brought my mother back that night and fixed our car. While I don't like riding beside those things, I know that there's always going to be that random truck driver that'll change your tire or a belt on your engine. I'm off the subject?
So I spent my weekend half driving, half in a hospital room. I made small talk while the old man berated me, telling me that my husband should leave me, that I was biding my time, and each phrase begat one worse. I just sat, forced to listen. I knew it was one day. One day to be nice. So I talked about my garden. And so he shouted and told me how I was making excuses. The deer had eaten our little garden to the ground. Even a couple tomato plants had been topped. "NO SUCH THING!" he shouted. "Deer KNOW TOMATO PLANTS ARE TOXIC! EXCUSES EXCUSES!" he raised his arms up like great wings and flapped his hands in unison, "EXCUSES EXCUSES! EXCUSES EXCUSES!"
And though I'd seen hoofprints in my raises garden beds, and watched the herd pass through my drive each morning, I sat. One day to be nice. but really I was sad.
And I listened as he shouted at my mother on our mothers day, and I watched my daughters faces and watched the clock and I counted the hours. And about midnight I pulled into my drive, thankful. ...emotionally drained. & I never know when i'll make that trip again.
I internally wonder about it all and want to lay in the moss til the me is safe from its cellular recession and my spirit eases out of my stomach and reaches my outer pores again. And then an inch or more beyond that even.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Cold Coffee, Warm Toiletseat
A few months ago, back when it was cooler, I was thinking. (I did think back then, a little)
I was thinking about how often I get to thinking about stuff and forget I have a cup of hot coffee.
Then when I remember I have a cup of lukewarm or cold coffee. Which I don't like as much as I enjoy beautiful, beautiful hot coffee. Then later, When I went to the bathroom, the seat was cold. And I thought about the cold coffee, and that I like neither cold coffee nor cold Toilet Seat.
I was thinking about how often I get to thinking about stuff and forget I have a cup of hot coffee.
Then when I remember I have a cup of lukewarm or cold coffee. Which I don't like as much as I enjoy beautiful, beautiful hot coffee. Then later, When I went to the bathroom, the seat was cold. And I thought about the cold coffee, and that I like neither cold coffee nor cold Toilet Seat.
And then, I thought, I don't like warm toilet seat either.
Because that means someone sat on it. With their ass.
So I'm thinking about all this complex stuff, and then I realized that I'm admitting that I sit on toiletseats, & not just at home, but at the mall too. And that's just not something you tell folks. :P
But of course I never sit on toilet seats anywhere other than home, always squatting over them, and while using the toilet seat doily the entire time. Squatting over the doily. Of course.
And in airports and concert arenas, where you have to wait on a stall, I never sit on those either. But if I had, in a public place where everyone squats over the seat and uses the proper doily, I would mention that the seats at those places are warm, like they have been heated, perhaps. With someone's ass? Or maybe I did that once by accident.
So it goes Hot Coffee,
Cold toilet seat.
Unless I become one of those rich folk who get an electric toilet and the seat warms up for me. But then I may fear having water and electricity in the same sort of thing. Probably I'm too afraid of ass electrocution to own one of those.
And this reminds me of this time in middle school where some girls were sitting at lunch, and talking about stuff, and the conversation starting leaning towards the sinus canals. One girl stated, "I pick my nose." The others, me included, were aghast. The twelve years olds admission of nose picking was shocking, then leading to,
"Well, with a tissue. Not like with my finger."
That girl died a few years ago. But I never forgot that moment. Here's to you.
I pick my nose too.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Curry Pot
After thinking that my husband was taking me to lunch today (he's not) & this was our designated place of preference, I clicked on their website. To my surprise, there were some reviews that I didn't agree with. I decided to write my own. Yup. It's that good.
The Curry Pot on Lee Highway is the stuff. We drive an hour one way to eat there, and they have some items that have scorched such a memory into my foodbrain that I just have a hard time eating other Indian food, always comparing. Within a 2-3 miles radius, there are 3 Indian Restaurants on this same highway, all with lunch buffets. I'd been to India Mahal, but it's not Curry Pot. Reading the fuss about Sitar, we decided to see. It wasn't the Curry Pot either.
This is where I discovered the subtle things that make the Curry Pot stand apart.
Mint Chutney.
I could drink this stuff. I could devour gallons. It's magically minty and thick, green and spicy at the same time. (Sitar's chutney had a watery texture and a sweet onion taste).
Rice Pudding. Yeah, you probably had rice pudding, and it seems nothing to write home about, right? WRONG. The Curry Pot's rice pudding has a very noticeable essence of rose water. (Yeah, that's right. I not only plant roses- I want to eat them too. For reals).
And I want dal, chickpeas, paneer, tandoori chicken, Curry Chicken, Chicken Makini(?) & all the other spicy veg that's on the buffet. Even if I don't eat them, I'm comforted by their familiar faces. (The two things I might add to this already perfect buffet would be the sweet carrot dish, and changing out one of the daily soups to Mulligatawny. Then, it would be more than perfect.)
The buffet is big, and cheap. I read complaints on the decor, and can say that I like it. It feels cosy & swell. I prefer booths to chairs. It's well lit. Strip mall? So what. You'd pay more for someone else's high rent, then get food that was less inviting. And the other places are dark. And dank.
Joe. Always smiling, the kindest guy ever, Joe. He knows my table & he knows how far I drive. This is my place, and my food.
I'm a big fan of the Idea of Energy and how it carries through, and I sincerely feel it's a tangible force here. It's a happy place full of comforting Curry.
It makes me joyful; and it makes me sad that I'm not going today. Instead, I'll be pouring a bowl of Koala Krispies dreaming of my Go To lunch spot. :P
Monday, April 25, 2011
Four cow carcasses. Gutted, damn mess.
I'd been sitting across the farmer, the stoic farmers wife, and their son, a thirteen year old with a white boy fro who could play bass like he'd come out of the womb with it and a mad obsession with the Beatles catalog. For awhile, the kid and mine shared a guitar teacher, and when my daughter, eleven at the time, decided she wanted to learn Stairway to Heaven, the teacher figured it would be good to teach it to that kid too.
We switched teachers, and I heard all about it when my angel would lament, "I have to go in the band room in the morning and there he is! Playing my song!"
She hasn't gotten it yet, but seriously, she's twelve, and that kid practices daily for hours. My child maybe practices two of three times a week. Practice makes perfect?
But I'm off the subject. The subject was cow carcasses? So we were sitting across at a Cross Country gathering held at Ryan's with parents of Cross Country kids, which of course was awkward for me because 1. I am not a fan of Ryans, and 2. I'm not so much a fan of being crammed elbow to elbow with people you don't know while eating at an all-you-can-eat country buffet. I'm just not that good with people. Craziness.
So the farmer is talking about the thunderstorms that weekend, and how lightning struck an old oak, killed the oak, and spewed four cows that stood seeking shelter beneath it. And I marveled, as that was a revelation and perhaps the most enlightening thing I'd heard that day.
And this was months and months ago. But this morning while driving I passed thousands of cow filled acres, and as that question I often asked prior to the meal I shared with the farmer popped into my head-
Why don't they plants some trees in the fields and give the cows some shade?
I remembered the four cow carcasses. Gutted, damn mess.
have a really cool day :)
I'd been sitting across the farmer, the stoic farmers wife, and their son, a thirteen year old with a white boy fro who could play bass like he'd come out of the womb with it and a mad obsession with the Beatles catalog. For awhile, the kid and mine shared a guitar teacher, and when my daughter, eleven at the time, decided she wanted to learn Stairway to Heaven, the teacher figured it would be good to teach it to that kid too.
We switched teachers, and I heard all about it when my angel would lament, "I have to go in the band room in the morning and there he is! Playing my song!"
She hasn't gotten it yet, but seriously, she's twelve, and that kid practices daily for hours. My child maybe practices two of three times a week. Practice makes perfect?
But I'm off the subject. The subject was cow carcasses? So we were sitting across at a Cross Country gathering held at Ryan's with parents of Cross Country kids, which of course was awkward for me because 1. I am not a fan of Ryans, and 2. I'm not so much a fan of being crammed elbow to elbow with people you don't know while eating at an all-you-can-eat country buffet. I'm just not that good with people. Craziness.
So the farmer is talking about the thunderstorms that weekend, and how lightning struck an old oak, killed the oak, and spewed four cows that stood seeking shelter beneath it. And I marveled, as that was a revelation and perhaps the most enlightening thing I'd heard that day.
And this was months and months ago. But this morning while driving I passed thousands of cow filled acres, and as that question I often asked prior to the meal I shared with the farmer popped into my head-
Why don't they plants some trees in the fields and give the cows some shade?
I remembered the four cow carcasses. Gutted, damn mess.
have a really cool day :)
Monday, April 18, 2011
So I've wanted to blog for some time, but the formatting is off, and when I write, then publish, it all runs together, and that aggravates me, and I save it for later. (Notice my tiny bird poem turned into a cruddy paragraph). Ack.
Last week a woman in my town, only a few months older than me, died from a brain anneurysm. She was home with her kids on spring break. One of our employees went to her church. I really had to glance back at the past three years and all the chaos there's been.
The symptoms that led to my brain surgery were unrelated to me having the brain anneurysm, but yet I found it and, well, cut it out. ("I cut it out my head, man!")
Yep, that's the dork in me reemerging...
My doctor was inexperienced, but friendly and empathetic, and nobody knew any better at the time; so it was one of those things. If you're coming to this thing this far into it, you may need to float back to may or june 2009.
And maybe there was just this divine tapping on my shoulder that made me ill so I would find something that could've killed me. Divine tapping.
Ah, yes. The divine tapping of my Bitch-Ass Thyroid later we find. And I still don't feel too good. Ill. But I'm on some thyroid stuff and I go back in a couple months for monitoring my levels and I'll try to keep chipper about it all. Happy and Carefree.
Not easy when you feel like your mind's been slurped out threw a straw. A monster with a big badass bendy straw. A Republican monster, perhaps. (HeeHee!)
Also, I now postponed my morning coffee by an hour because thyroid stuff makes it so, so I become a slightly crankier me. My stomach aches. And my soul is off somewhere doing something fun. It left me behind.
What is new, what is new...
We went to the Lauryn Hill concert. On a school night. With the kids. Probably not the best idea. But it was Lauryn Hill, and my mind said,"In thirty years, the kids will being able to say they saw this phenomenal legendary singer as their very first concert!" and I followed that thought. There was the moment when I said, "Guess what? I got us Lauryn Hill tickets!!!" where I maybe should've taken the response of "Who's that?" as a signal- but I didn't.
She had not one opening band, but two...and didn't hit the stage until after 11. At one point I looked around me and there was this surreal realization of it all. All around me, these incredible attractive, well dressed black men and women. The style and energy were palpable. The base was vibrating the room. She starting singing Peace of Mind (one of my all time favorites- though she didn't do the acoustic version) so I'm amazed that she's playing and I'm there, and I look over and the other three members of my family are sound asleep. Third row center, amidst the dancing, I'm sitting in the middle of three sleeping white folk.
'How did I get here?' I thought. And then the realization came over me. I'm not one of those cool stylish black women. I'm actually a geeky mom, so far from style that I have a little Arby sauce on my green jacket, and I was only a wee self conscious of that before, but moreso now. And the beautiful people looked liked they all dressed from the Anthropologie catalog. When you go to Walmart and you're surrounded by idiots and you think, Where are all the cool people? The answer would be that they are at some Lauryn Hill concert somewhere. But don't take your children on a school night. We slept in and had a sick day the following day. And we got some cool tee shirts.
My plants are about to burst. I'd better go, but I'll be back. :) much love!
Last week a woman in my town, only a few months older than me, died from a brain anneurysm. She was home with her kids on spring break. One of our employees went to her church. I really had to glance back at the past three years and all the chaos there's been.
The symptoms that led to my brain surgery were unrelated to me having the brain anneurysm, but yet I found it and, well, cut it out. ("I cut it out my head, man!")
Yep, that's the dork in me reemerging...
My doctor was inexperienced, but friendly and empathetic, and nobody knew any better at the time; so it was one of those things. If you're coming to this thing this far into it, you may need to float back to may or june 2009.
And maybe there was just this divine tapping on my shoulder that made me ill so I would find something that could've killed me. Divine tapping.
Ah, yes. The divine tapping of my Bitch-Ass Thyroid later we find. And I still don't feel too good. Ill. But I'm on some thyroid stuff and I go back in a couple months for monitoring my levels and I'll try to keep chipper about it all. Happy and Carefree.
Not easy when you feel like your mind's been slurped out threw a straw. A monster with a big badass bendy straw. A Republican monster, perhaps. (HeeHee!)
Also, I now postponed my morning coffee by an hour because thyroid stuff makes it so, so I become a slightly crankier me. My stomach aches. And my soul is off somewhere doing something fun. It left me behind.
What is new, what is new...
We went to the Lauryn Hill concert. On a school night. With the kids. Probably not the best idea. But it was Lauryn Hill, and my mind said,"In thirty years, the kids will being able to say they saw this phenomenal legendary singer as their very first concert!" and I followed that thought. There was the moment when I said, "Guess what? I got us Lauryn Hill tickets!!!" where I maybe should've taken the response of "Who's that?" as a signal- but I didn't.
She had not one opening band, but two...and didn't hit the stage until after 11. At one point I looked around me and there was this surreal realization of it all. All around me, these incredible attractive, well dressed black men and women. The style and energy were palpable. The base was vibrating the room. She starting singing Peace of Mind (one of my all time favorites- though she didn't do the acoustic version) so I'm amazed that she's playing and I'm there, and I look over and the other three members of my family are sound asleep. Third row center, amidst the dancing, I'm sitting in the middle of three sleeping white folk.
'How did I get here?' I thought. And then the realization came over me. I'm not one of those cool stylish black women. I'm actually a geeky mom, so far from style that I have a little Arby sauce on my green jacket, and I was only a wee self conscious of that before, but moreso now. And the beautiful people looked liked they all dressed from the Anthropologie catalog. When you go to Walmart and you're surrounded by idiots and you think, Where are all the cool people? The answer would be that they are at some Lauryn Hill concert somewhere. But don't take your children on a school night. We slept in and had a sick day the following day. And we got some cool tee shirts.
My plants are about to burst. I'd better go, but I'll be back. :) much love!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
hello spring :)
I'm sorry I've been away. It's no excuse but I forgot my password.
But I'm maybe approaching a breakthrough? Amidst my medical journey, I stumbled across something that may be my fix. This month, a new doctor, a new approach, and it may possibly be that the entire time I've been sick (yes, even the symptoms that led to my having brain surgery) it may have just been a thyroid problem.
Because I tested positive for anti-thyroid antibodies (meaning my body is attacking my thyroid) & I've had a weird neck thing going on for awhile, I went for a thyroid ultrasound this week. And it turns out that all the brain mess that has been plaguing me may not be due to having brain surgery, and will probably be corrected. Really.
I'm a wee bit thrilled. & I'm looking up plants again because I have this mad hope that I'll be able to dig and play and read and write again. And remember and be a social butterfly. Well, not so much a social butterfly, I've never been that. But maybe I'll make a friend or something.
I don't really have much news aside from that, which is my big news.
Oh- here's something.
My daughter was talking on the way home in the car,
"Today's Pie Day!"
"Pie Day?"
"Yeah, it's a math thing. They probably didn't have it when you were in school."
But I'm maybe approaching a breakthrough? Amidst my medical journey, I stumbled across something that may be my fix. This month, a new doctor, a new approach, and it may possibly be that the entire time I've been sick (yes, even the symptoms that led to my having brain surgery) it may have just been a thyroid problem.
Because I tested positive for anti-thyroid antibodies (meaning my body is attacking my thyroid) & I've had a weird neck thing going on for awhile, I went for a thyroid ultrasound this week. And it turns out that all the brain mess that has been plaguing me may not be due to having brain surgery, and will probably be corrected. Really.
I'm a wee bit thrilled. & I'm looking up plants again because I have this mad hope that I'll be able to dig and play and read and write again. And remember and be a social butterfly. Well, not so much a social butterfly, I've never been that. But maybe I'll make a friend or something.
I don't really have much news aside from that, which is my big news.
Oh- here's something.
My daughter was talking on the way home in the car,
"Today's Pie Day!"
"Pie Day?"
"Yeah, it's a math thing. They probably didn't have it when you were in school."
Pi Day. :P
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Confessional
It's been too long!
I've long known my blog has made a change; and as much as I want to keep up appearances,
some days I feel as though I need to sit with my peeps and have my Confessional moment. I am not always what I was. My mind is different. My brain is different. And some days it makes me sad because I feel the need to appear as though I am completely connected or completely as I was. There is a pressure to be exactly what I was for the comfort of those around me.
And I'm trying :). But I am not connecting with people the way I once could. There's a part of me that needs to say that perhaps the brain that left the building in 09 did not come back completely normal, and when you try to tell me some long story, I may only mentally follow for three minutes, and maybe only about 45 seconds, and then really when I'm lost and it seems your not speaking the same language anymore, I don't really want to even try to maintain eye contact to pretend I understand what you're talking about. I just want to look at a magazine with pictures of tiles or something odd but non verbal.
And when people tell me the same stories over and over it makes me tired, because while I cannot remember everything, I remember that you told me the ages of so and so's new girlfriends kids and I now just want to see some nice tile.
This is completely wrong, I know, but since this space holds my name, no place to vent like this one. My secret room. And I know you won't mind just for today.
My mother has commented of the mental change since the surgery, and how she was discussing it with my brother but was afraid to talk about it with me. This presented itself as a moment of relief. I know. Feel free to mention it,beause I'm trying so hard to make you think I'm the same, if you know, let me not work so hard. Let me be that person and not try to make you think I'm the other one.
And I remember breezing through books, reading several over a weekend, and I know that now a few pages are a challenge. Things that I should do or have done seem confusing to me and I just want to be able to be grateful for a simpler person that holds this space. I don't want to feel like the placeholder for someone who was smarter than me. I guess I just don't want to feel the pressure to be someone that I may not always be. I want to eat thai food and search through junk stores, and if I write a thing to tackle, I want to tackle that thing (2 loads of laundry washed/folded/put away & a shower for today) and then I want to revel in the fact that I accomplished my goals, rather that feeling like I'm not amounting to anything. I want to feel empathy again and I don't always. And there are days I just can't express myself.
How come no one ever tells anyone Its okay to be tired? It's okay to be tired. & If you are here by way of Googling brain surgery, it's okay to not be the same. I give you permission. If doesn't make you an infant...
and don't worry, the spirit of 'you' is still in there somewhere, and whoever needs it will see it in your eyes. Speaking is overrated anyhow. Kindness trumps any of the unnessecary knowledge that sloughed away when you were 'honed and perfected'. Write stuff on your hands if you need too and just grow into your new self.
My dad is dying again.
And I had another birthday this week.
And the cat has been moving folded clothes around the house several floors and I find things out of place and she's scootched them to make me think I'm crazy. A folded shirt and folded pair of socks are the latest items, placed in the center of the living room. Steven says its not possible for her to do that, with two items that were side by side, to be moved and again be placed side by side- by a cat. But it makes me feel better than imagining the old dead owners of the house are moving my clothes. I'm going with the cat. But a little sage couldn't hurt.
Much love to you all. Really :)
I've long known my blog has made a change; and as much as I want to keep up appearances,
some days I feel as though I need to sit with my peeps and have my Confessional moment. I am not always what I was. My mind is different. My brain is different. And some days it makes me sad because I feel the need to appear as though I am completely connected or completely as I was. There is a pressure to be exactly what I was for the comfort of those around me.
And I'm trying :). But I am not connecting with people the way I once could. There's a part of me that needs to say that perhaps the brain that left the building in 09 did not come back completely normal, and when you try to tell me some long story, I may only mentally follow for three minutes, and maybe only about 45 seconds, and then really when I'm lost and it seems your not speaking the same language anymore, I don't really want to even try to maintain eye contact to pretend I understand what you're talking about. I just want to look at a magazine with pictures of tiles or something odd but non verbal.
And when people tell me the same stories over and over it makes me tired, because while I cannot remember everything, I remember that you told me the ages of so and so's new girlfriends kids and I now just want to see some nice tile.
This is completely wrong, I know, but since this space holds my name, no place to vent like this one. My secret room. And I know you won't mind just for today.
My mother has commented of the mental change since the surgery, and how she was discussing it with my brother but was afraid to talk about it with me. This presented itself as a moment of relief. I know. Feel free to mention it,beause I'm trying so hard to make you think I'm the same, if you know, let me not work so hard. Let me be that person and not try to make you think I'm the other one.
And I remember breezing through books, reading several over a weekend, and I know that now a few pages are a challenge. Things that I should do or have done seem confusing to me and I just want to be able to be grateful for a simpler person that holds this space. I don't want to feel like the placeholder for someone who was smarter than me. I guess I just don't want to feel the pressure to be someone that I may not always be. I want to eat thai food and search through junk stores, and if I write a thing to tackle, I want to tackle that thing (2 loads of laundry washed/folded/put away & a shower for today) and then I want to revel in the fact that I accomplished my goals, rather that feeling like I'm not amounting to anything. I want to feel empathy again and I don't always. And there are days I just can't express myself.
How come no one ever tells anyone Its okay to be tired? It's okay to be tired. & If you are here by way of Googling brain surgery, it's okay to not be the same. I give you permission. If doesn't make you an infant...
and don't worry, the spirit of 'you' is still in there somewhere, and whoever needs it will see it in your eyes. Speaking is overrated anyhow. Kindness trumps any of the unnessecary knowledge that sloughed away when you were 'honed and perfected'. Write stuff on your hands if you need too and just grow into your new self.
My dad is dying again.
And I had another birthday this week.
And the cat has been moving folded clothes around the house several floors and I find things out of place and she's scootched them to make me think I'm crazy. A folded shirt and folded pair of socks are the latest items, placed in the center of the living room. Steven says its not possible for her to do that, with two items that were side by side, to be moved and again be placed side by side- by a cat. But it makes me feel better than imagining the old dead owners of the house are moving my clothes. I'm going with the cat. But a little sage couldn't hurt.
Much love to you all. Really :)
Friday, January 21, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
If You Can Catch It
Watched Grizzly Man last night. It's a documentary about Timothy Treadwell and his life with Grizzly bears. If you can catch it, it's on Sundance this month. Quirky & Educational at the same time. Not for kids (language).
Other movies I've seen lately -
The Box (starring Cameron Diaz. this movie pleasantly surprised me).
Mammoth - I don't know, I just liked it.
Other movies I've seen lately -
The Box (starring Cameron Diaz. this movie pleasantly surprised me).
Mammoth - I don't know, I just liked it.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tools
Today I was thinking about how we train ourselves to do things unconsciously, and then the thought evolved into that old image of the discovery of monkeys using twigs as tools to get ants out of antmounds. It all surfaced because I'd grabbed a fork out of the dishwasher, then used the handle end to stir my coffee. I always do this.
But it started because a while ago, the spoons were all dirty, but the spoon my husband stirred his coffee with was sitting next to the coffee maker, with dried coffee residue. Rather than wash it, I used the handle end, then, the next time I couldn't find a spoon, I used a fork, but the handle end still, and now, the evolution of my usage of tools has me grabbing the fork regardless of whether a clean spoon exists, and still using the handle end. I think part of this came along with the discovery that we have twice the amount of forks as we have spoons. Since it makes no difference which I use, I conserve the spoons.
I wonder why Hubba Bubba quit making grape gum. The 80's were so simple and good :). Now the stores are all filled with 'Minty Melon' or Citrus Burst. Pie flavored novelty gum. (Which happens to be gross, by the way). But gone is the perfect, single flavored because it's all you need, Grape gum. Candy has seen better days. Jolly Rancher Sticks. Oh, and that gum with the zebra? The Striped gum?
But it started because a while ago, the spoons were all dirty, but the spoon my husband stirred his coffee with was sitting next to the coffee maker, with dried coffee residue. Rather than wash it, I used the handle end, then, the next time I couldn't find a spoon, I used a fork, but the handle end still, and now, the evolution of my usage of tools has me grabbing the fork regardless of whether a clean spoon exists, and still using the handle end. I think part of this came along with the discovery that we have twice the amount of forks as we have spoons. Since it makes no difference which I use, I conserve the spoons.
I wonder why Hubba Bubba quit making grape gum. The 80's were so simple and good :). Now the stores are all filled with 'Minty Melon' or Citrus Burst. Pie flavored novelty gum. (Which happens to be gross, by the way). But gone is the perfect, single flavored because it's all you need, Grape gum. Candy has seen better days. Jolly Rancher Sticks. Oh, and that gum with the zebra? The Striped gum?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Wishing you all your fingers & toes for the new year?
So I've not been here, not because I don't think of stuff, but when I do I'm usually somewhere cosy and tell myself I'll stop in when its morning. Then I just don't.
A couple months ago, I started to write about this guy- one of Steven's customers, and how he sawed his thumb off. "He shoulda retired a couple decades ago," Steven tells me. But he didn't, and recently sawed the end of his thumb off. He put it on ice and had it sewn back on. So Steven's talking to another guy (another customer) and that guy had sawed his finger off too. So apparently, they can 'Dry-Wrap' or 'Wet-Wrap' the thing after they mend it, but with dry wrap, it doesn't heal as well as wet wrap, so this guy had his finger in a wet wrap for a long time. But the finger turned out mostly okay. And it made me think of that guy on Oprah, who got his finger cut off, but then his brother gave him this stuff to sprinkle on, and he grew it back. (I'll see if I can attach a clip of that). But I decided not to write about it, because it just wasn't that interesting.
But then during Christmas break, the neighbor came and brought us some Pumpkin bread (not near as good as my pumpkin bread) but she came, and while she was over, she casually mentioned Nolan. Nolan is the man that worked on our house (the Mennonite guy that I turn the tv off for in a previous post). One day when Nolan was working on our house, the moment Steven pulled out of the drive, he watched the neighbor pull him aside to talk about her house. I'd bragged about him too much, and she'd hijacked him for herself. Then she recommended him to one of her friends.
So she tells me that Nolan just sawed his finger and thumb off with a hand saw. And I thought about how I started to write about the finger thing, and I felt bad for Nolan, because he's like our friend; well, we don't hang out or anything, but he's got this angelic quality about him, and has 6 kids and probably no insurance. Also, I'm going to need him to work on the house in the spring, but I wasn't going to mention that part because it really doesn't seem fitting...but then, when I know that something is not fitting but I think it I have to say it even more? Like I feel guilty for thinking something without saying it aloud? It's like those kids who blurt out swear words; what is that called? My old brain would've remembered the word for that. It's like confession, because maybe the energy of the thought is carrying as much weight as the very words, so I just blurt it out and get it over with. "Motherfuck!" And then I can go about what I was saying to begin with.
If you are just arriving here, I'm totally sorry about that- please visit an earlier dated entry and it'll be more to your liking. maybe.
But Nolan had his fingers sewn back on too.
Steven got a running injury last week, and while over icing his foot with an ice pack tied on, he froze his little toe and ended up with mild frostbite. Burning pain & swelling, along with discoloration and difficulty putting his shoe on. I Googled it. As long as he could feel the toe, we felt like we'd be alright. (He's up and running again).
But then my mom called my dad this week, and he was in the Lexington VA hospital...awaiting the removal of his toes. He's a diabetic, and his toes, ridden with gangrene, have to go. She's telling me to call him, and I'm trying to figure a way to do that sometime soon. Trying to muster it up, I guess. I never lived with my father. I have older siblings that did, and he called my oldest brother this week. My oldest brother- not related to my father- had his toes removed a few years ago due to gengrene from a blocked artery. So they discussed toe removal and had something in common, which seemed odd but nice.
But it's very strange, all of it. It's like in that movie the Secret, where they're talking about when you want a type of car, and you start seeing that car everywhere. But not so much, because I don't want my fingers or toes sawn off. It's just a small world?
I saw a flea on the cat. So I've been itching all week, not from fleas, but the idea of the flea. I like the face that Idea and Flea both end in ea but they do not rhyme. They do, however, look nicely together.
We are snowed in for the second day. And it's not so bad. This week, I introduced the kids to Darth Vader. We spent hours watching all 3 star wars movies. I'd say that that is almost educational- how would they get through without 80's Pop Culture 101? We also watched Shallow Hal, which is far from educational, and completely inappropriate. But Jack Black is such a good dancer :D.
Happy New Years 2011. Happy January. Happy Thoughts hopeful for unexpected good things for you.
'Cause your my friend :)
A couple months ago, I started to write about this guy- one of Steven's customers, and how he sawed his thumb off. "He shoulda retired a couple decades ago," Steven tells me. But he didn't, and recently sawed the end of his thumb off. He put it on ice and had it sewn back on. So Steven's talking to another guy (another customer) and that guy had sawed his finger off too. So apparently, they can 'Dry-Wrap' or 'Wet-Wrap' the thing after they mend it, but with dry wrap, it doesn't heal as well as wet wrap, so this guy had his finger in a wet wrap for a long time. But the finger turned out mostly okay. And it made me think of that guy on Oprah, who got his finger cut off, but then his brother gave him this stuff to sprinkle on, and he grew it back. (I'll see if I can attach a clip of that). But I decided not to write about it, because it just wasn't that interesting.
But then during Christmas break, the neighbor came and brought us some Pumpkin bread (not near as good as my pumpkin bread) but she came, and while she was over, she casually mentioned Nolan. Nolan is the man that worked on our house (the Mennonite guy that I turn the tv off for in a previous post). One day when Nolan was working on our house, the moment Steven pulled out of the drive, he watched the neighbor pull him aside to talk about her house. I'd bragged about him too much, and she'd hijacked him for herself. Then she recommended him to one of her friends.
So she tells me that Nolan just sawed his finger and thumb off with a hand saw. And I thought about how I started to write about the finger thing, and I felt bad for Nolan, because he's like our friend; well, we don't hang out or anything, but he's got this angelic quality about him, and has 6 kids and probably no insurance. Also, I'm going to need him to work on the house in the spring, but I wasn't going to mention that part because it really doesn't seem fitting...but then, when I know that something is not fitting but I think it I have to say it even more? Like I feel guilty for thinking something without saying it aloud? It's like those kids who blurt out swear words; what is that called? My old brain would've remembered the word for that. It's like confession, because maybe the energy of the thought is carrying as much weight as the very words, so I just blurt it out and get it over with. "Motherfuck!" And then I can go about what I was saying to begin with.
If you are just arriving here, I'm totally sorry about that- please visit an earlier dated entry and it'll be more to your liking. maybe.
But Nolan had his fingers sewn back on too.
Steven got a running injury last week, and while over icing his foot with an ice pack tied on, he froze his little toe and ended up with mild frostbite. Burning pain & swelling, along with discoloration and difficulty putting his shoe on. I Googled it. As long as he could feel the toe, we felt like we'd be alright. (He's up and running again).
But then my mom called my dad this week, and he was in the Lexington VA hospital...awaiting the removal of his toes. He's a diabetic, and his toes, ridden with gangrene, have to go. She's telling me to call him, and I'm trying to figure a way to do that sometime soon. Trying to muster it up, I guess. I never lived with my father. I have older siblings that did, and he called my oldest brother this week. My oldest brother- not related to my father- had his toes removed a few years ago due to gengrene from a blocked artery. So they discussed toe removal and had something in common, which seemed odd but nice.
But it's very strange, all of it. It's like in that movie the Secret, where they're talking about when you want a type of car, and you start seeing that car everywhere. But not so much, because I don't want my fingers or toes sawn off. It's just a small world?
I saw a flea on the cat. So I've been itching all week, not from fleas, but the idea of the flea. I like the face that Idea and Flea both end in ea but they do not rhyme. They do, however, look nicely together.
We are snowed in for the second day. And it's not so bad. This week, I introduced the kids to Darth Vader. We spent hours watching all 3 star wars movies. I'd say that that is almost educational- how would they get through without 80's Pop Culture 101? We also watched Shallow Hal, which is far from educational, and completely inappropriate. But Jack Black is such a good dancer :D.
Happy New Years 2011. Happy January. Happy Thoughts hopeful for unexpected good things for you.
'Cause your my friend :)
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