Three months ago I brought a grapefruit to work.
It's still there. It's shriveled and not very grapefruit-looking anymore, and in fact more closely resembles a pathetic orange, but it's hung in there. Boss-Lady, in her crusade to make me eat more, found it on the table in the break room, and put it next to the coffee maker a couple of weeks ago, with EAT ME!!! written on it in green marker.
So I turned it around and drew x'd out eyes and a Mr. Yuk mouth in black ink.
It was all downhill from there. The next time I went up to pour myself a cup of coffee, the thing had paperclip ears. I found a kitchen knife and stuck it in the top of the head. A hook nose appeared. I added a coffee filter skirt. She gave it pencil legs. I decked it out in key-tab earrings.
So there she stands in macabre glory in the breakroom, our office mascot, whom I've secretly named Griselda. The grapefruit was so dried-out it didn't run any juice at all when stabbed with all the various things we stuck into it. (Glad I didn't eat it.) I think she's kind of endearing.
Obviously Boss-Lady and I have been under various pressures that lead us to take strange morbid vengeance on innocent fruit. Our office mascot can't be a nice fluffy puppy or a duckling. And we certainly can't display it in the front office. We showed the Boss-Man, after hours one day, laughing our heads off, and he looked worried. I took advantage of the opportunity to summarize the historical premise of Beloved.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
it's always funny
Last night while talking to my sister on the phone I watched a squirrel fall off a telephone wire.
She mentioned, and she was right, the similarity between this and the squirrel sequence from Disney's The Sword in the Stone. Except this squirrel wasn't being chased by anything. It wasn't even moving very fast. It was just sitting there, then it started to move slowly along the wire, and it just...lost its grip. It hung on for dear life by its front paws, its little back feet quivering, and then it fell. Into the tree branches directly below it, which yo-yo'd violently under its plump early summer weight while it scrambled for a hold and retrieved its normal squirrel heartrate and, I imagine, its normal squirrel dignity.
It reminded me of me trying to do a chin-up.
Why is someone falling always, always funny? Why is it even funnier when it's an animal? I always expect animals to be more graceful. They have those animal instincts, and those four paws, and that natural agility that we as humans are supposed to lack, and need all these tools and big cerebrums to compensate for. So when I watch Meg and Phillip's dog trip (with two more legs on the ground than I have), or Simon take a flying leap at the bed and ricochet off my leg, or a squirrel fall off a telephone wire, it's hilarious.
On Memorial Day Meg and Phillip and I saw a human act of amazing stupidity, however, which made the squirrel's internal balance, by contrast, look even and regulated. We headed up to Warren Dunes to watch the sun set, which of course involved climbing Tower Hill (entirely made of sand), which, however much eroded it's become since my friends' childhoods, is still a challenging climb (a good thirty-five degree incline toward the top). We then selected a smaller, isolated dune nearby from which to watch the sun and the water in privacy and peace, and were just settling in when, lo and behold, the evidently drunken driver of a white Jeep decided his automobile could make the climb up Tower Hill.
He made it about ten yards.
And got stuck.
And took about five minutes getting unstuck and back down the hill. Sand was flying in lovely graceful arcs from under his tires while his motor roared, in full view of everyone on the crown of the hill, and on the beach below.
As Phillip said, "It was worth the drive just for this."
As I said, "Do it again!"
But apparently he wasn't that drunk.
God bless America.
She mentioned, and she was right, the similarity between this and the squirrel sequence from Disney's The Sword in the Stone. Except this squirrel wasn't being chased by anything. It wasn't even moving very fast. It was just sitting there, then it started to move slowly along the wire, and it just...lost its grip. It hung on for dear life by its front paws, its little back feet quivering, and then it fell. Into the tree branches directly below it, which yo-yo'd violently under its plump early summer weight while it scrambled for a hold and retrieved its normal squirrel heartrate and, I imagine, its normal squirrel dignity.
It reminded me of me trying to do a chin-up.
Why is someone falling always, always funny? Why is it even funnier when it's an animal? I always expect animals to be more graceful. They have those animal instincts, and those four paws, and that natural agility that we as humans are supposed to lack, and need all these tools and big cerebrums to compensate for. So when I watch Meg and Phillip's dog trip (with two more legs on the ground than I have), or Simon take a flying leap at the bed and ricochet off my leg, or a squirrel fall off a telephone wire, it's hilarious.
On Memorial Day Meg and Phillip and I saw a human act of amazing stupidity, however, which made the squirrel's internal balance, by contrast, look even and regulated. We headed up to Warren Dunes to watch the sun set, which of course involved climbing Tower Hill (entirely made of sand), which, however much eroded it's become since my friends' childhoods, is still a challenging climb (a good thirty-five degree incline toward the top). We then selected a smaller, isolated dune nearby from which to watch the sun and the water in privacy and peace, and were just settling in when, lo and behold, the evidently drunken driver of a white Jeep decided his automobile could make the climb up Tower Hill.
He made it about ten yards.
And got stuck.
And took about five minutes getting unstuck and back down the hill. Sand was flying in lovely graceful arcs from under his tires while his motor roared, in full view of everyone on the crown of the hill, and on the beach below.
As Phillip said, "It was worth the drive just for this."
As I said, "Do it again!"
But apparently he wasn't that drunk.
God bless America.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Hint Half Guessed
I'm branching out a little bit.
As I'm finding, more and more, that thoughts and questions of God, Christ, the Bible, the church, Christians, Christianity, faith, and the way faith is lived out in the practical and the daily, as well as in the ephemeral and the mind, occupy space in my head, I thought I'd devote an entire blog to it.
As I say in my Welcome post there, I don't want to overwhelm anybody here, and there are times when I could post on four or five related or unrelated topics on the subject in one day. (Plus the part of me who loves your interaction, my faithful readers, is afraid of boring you, and seeing the "0" in the comments section makes me sad. Not that I'm an attention seeker or anything...) But nevertheless, a sanctified space (har har) to reflect upon these things, where you may comment or not as you will, may free everyone up a bit, and leave me to my thoughtful, random, funny, or whatever, personal anecdotes here.
Anyway, take a look-see whenever you like, I'm sure the posts will begin building up fast, though there's not much at the mo...and join in the conversations as you feel inclined! I've linked it on the sidebar, and you never know what you may find...HappyGirl, SadGirl, RantGirl, ThoughtfulGirl, AwedGirl, IrateGirl, JoyfulGirl...it could be surprising!
As I'm finding, more and more, that thoughts and questions of God, Christ, the Bible, the church, Christians, Christianity, faith, and the way faith is lived out in the practical and the daily, as well as in the ephemeral and the mind, occupy space in my head, I thought I'd devote an entire blog to it.
As I say in my Welcome post there, I don't want to overwhelm anybody here, and there are times when I could post on four or five related or unrelated topics on the subject in one day. (Plus the part of me who loves your interaction, my faithful readers, is afraid of boring you, and seeing the "0" in the comments section makes me sad. Not that I'm an attention seeker or anything...) But nevertheless, a sanctified space (har har) to reflect upon these things, where you may comment or not as you will, may free everyone up a bit, and leave me to my thoughtful, random, funny, or whatever, personal anecdotes here.
Anyway, take a look-see whenever you like, I'm sure the posts will begin building up fast, though there's not much at the mo...and join in the conversations as you feel inclined! I've linked it on the sidebar, and you never know what you may find...HappyGirl, SadGirl, RantGirl, ThoughtfulGirl, AwedGirl, IrateGirl, JoyfulGirl...it could be surprising!
if the brakeman turns my way
Conor Oberst, under his group's name, Bright Eyes, outdid himself with his newest, Cassadaga.
The kid has made himself a name for being brilliant, bitter, depressed, and prolific, but nobody's heard much from him since 2005, with the dual releases of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (one of my favorites) and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.
Cassadaga, so far, blends the best of both albums in a flavor that's digitally bluegrassy. I enthusiastically love it.
Listening to Bright Eyes is an experience like stepping out into an electric storm -- you're not quite sure if there's a center, and neither is he. He uses rich religious imagery wistfully, mockingly, angrily, reverently, and beautifully. The songs themselves, the rhythms, the chord changes, the melodies, are charged with something indefinable. Some kind of longing, enraged joy. It's an experience.
I haven't gotten past track 4 yet. There's so much buried in each song. So I listen to one, put it on repeat, and listen to it for a week. Over and over and over. (I can do this because it's a half-hour commute each way to work, and no one's ever in the car with me. I wouldn't do this to a passenger. Well, except for maybe Meg or Leigh Ann.) Then I move on to the next.
Sometimes I pop out the album and put in something else for awhile -- Sufjan, or Hem. Something soul-uplifting. Bright Eyes is one of those out-of-the-depths artists who can really drag you under after too long, but whose naked stare at the thing itself, wanting to know so badly what the thing is, is amazing.
And the beautiful thing about Cassadaga is that, after all this time of searching and raging and screaming, the first few tracks are about healing and peace.
Just so incredibly cool.
The kid has made himself a name for being brilliant, bitter, depressed, and prolific, but nobody's heard much from him since 2005, with the dual releases of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (one of my favorites) and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.
Cassadaga, so far, blends the best of both albums in a flavor that's digitally bluegrassy. I enthusiastically love it.
Listening to Bright Eyes is an experience like stepping out into an electric storm -- you're not quite sure if there's a center, and neither is he. He uses rich religious imagery wistfully, mockingly, angrily, reverently, and beautifully. The songs themselves, the rhythms, the chord changes, the melodies, are charged with something indefinable. Some kind of longing, enraged joy. It's an experience.
I haven't gotten past track 4 yet. There's so much buried in each song. So I listen to one, put it on repeat, and listen to it for a week. Over and over and over. (I can do this because it's a half-hour commute each way to work, and no one's ever in the car with me. I wouldn't do this to a passenger. Well, except for maybe Meg or Leigh Ann.) Then I move on to the next.
Sometimes I pop out the album and put in something else for awhile -- Sufjan, or Hem. Something soul-uplifting. Bright Eyes is one of those out-of-the-depths artists who can really drag you under after too long, but whose naked stare at the thing itself, wanting to know so badly what the thing is, is amazing.
And the beautiful thing about Cassadaga is that, after all this time of searching and raging and screaming, the first few tracks are about healing and peace.
Just so incredibly cool.
Monday, May 28, 2007
bookends
Thank God for three-day weekends.
Things have been insane on the work front. Unmentionably, and not because of my Unmentionable Screw-Up of last week. No, the office assistant has been, for months, causing undue amounts of stress with constant and quite important other mistakes, which one of the other staff members and I have been pulling our hair out to correct. Fortunately, said office assistant resigned, which has evened things out a little bit -- no new mistakes to deal with -- but I've taken over a number of her tasks, on top of the ones I'm already doing, and it's been, quite simply, wearing me out. I haven't been as sharp, as on top of things, as I usually am, more prone to slips of memory, and a little less energetic.
Argh.
The Boss-Man and his wife are both out on vacation this week, so I'm the boss in their absence, and in charge of the training of the new person we've hired. A little heady, at times, I'm sure, but not exactly a Relaxing, Cat's Away kind of week, where I get to take off my shoes and in a leisurely fashion tidy the office up a bit. So I need this Memorial Day like a fish needs water.
Yesterday I took a three-hour nap...then went to bed at nine, and didn't get up until eight this morning. I'm feeling close to human again, hooray of hoorays, and looking forward to a long shower and some time to clean the apartment. It's beautifully sunny out after a whole weekend of rain, which we certainly needed, but I'm planning on an afternoon outside, and it's much more fun to do that when it's 80 degrees and bright.
I'm still picking away at the guitar. I've named her Saturnina...don't know why, and I'm sure my parents' friends who indefinitely loaned me the guitar will get a hair-turn over that one. But it seems to fit. The lovely instrument stays beautifully in tune. I've taught myself how to play scales. Strumming is a joke still (my rhythm was always a fluid, organic thing; I was much more suited to Debussy than Bach on the piano), but I'm hoping to pick up lessons for that. Right now I'm learning the chords.
The two things I miss most in teaching myself tiny bits of guitar are my piano and all the theory books I hated so much when I was nine. My piano teacher, an old troll of a woman who used to make me cry at lessons (Laura and I would take turns as to who went first from week to week, and the weeks I went first and came out of the piano room with tears on my cheeks, Laura would take one look at me, and her eyes would narrow, and she would march in and deliberately play such an awful lesson that our teacher would come out with tears on her cheeks -- I love my sister), always had me filling in chords and transposing on music sheets and workbooks, and I always wanted to throw them in the trash, and now I'm glad she made me do it, and wish I had them right next to me, because guitar is all theory. I love picking out songs by ear, and it was so simple on the keyboard; I don't get it nearly as well on the guitar, because the execution of the theory is different, and so I have to do it all in my head.
Fortunately Meg and Phillip have an electric keyboard that I just found out about, so when I was at their house on Friday I picked out the chords to a newer rendition of a hymn I love ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"), and put it in the key of C -- so easy to work with -- and this morning I fiddled with it on the guitar, and it worked! It's far from perfect, because my fingers haven't learned the chords, so it's slow and fumbling, but the chords are right.
I love music. Writing is the world I live in, but it's a discipline, a craft, it's the work I do, the quest, the compulsion, the fire in my bones, the burden on my back, the blood in my veins, the place where the joy and the despair and the frustration, the succeeding and the failing and the trying are fused into one inseparable thing. Music is the kite, the wing, the wind, the thing that seizes me and lifts me away. When I step into a song, into the melody, the harmonies, the composition, there's no struggle, little effort, and no demand; there's just the listening, the hearing of the strains of harmony, and the joining; when I sing, I shed myself, I expand, I lose, for a few minutes, the burden, the consciousness of me; I go somewhere else, pierced by a joy beyond joy; I become fully alive: free. Writing is the journey (and I live and believe in the journey); music is home.
Things have been insane on the work front. Unmentionably, and not because of my Unmentionable Screw-Up of last week. No, the office assistant has been, for months, causing undue amounts of stress with constant and quite important other mistakes, which one of the other staff members and I have been pulling our hair out to correct. Fortunately, said office assistant resigned, which has evened things out a little bit -- no new mistakes to deal with -- but I've taken over a number of her tasks, on top of the ones I'm already doing, and it's been, quite simply, wearing me out. I haven't been as sharp, as on top of things, as I usually am, more prone to slips of memory, and a little less energetic.
Argh.
The Boss-Man and his wife are both out on vacation this week, so I'm the boss in their absence, and in charge of the training of the new person we've hired. A little heady, at times, I'm sure, but not exactly a Relaxing, Cat's Away kind of week, where I get to take off my shoes and in a leisurely fashion tidy the office up a bit. So I need this Memorial Day like a fish needs water.
Yesterday I took a three-hour nap...then went to bed at nine, and didn't get up until eight this morning. I'm feeling close to human again, hooray of hoorays, and looking forward to a long shower and some time to clean the apartment. It's beautifully sunny out after a whole weekend of rain, which we certainly needed, but I'm planning on an afternoon outside, and it's much more fun to do that when it's 80 degrees and bright.
I'm still picking away at the guitar. I've named her Saturnina...don't know why, and I'm sure my parents' friends who indefinitely loaned me the guitar will get a hair-turn over that one. But it seems to fit. The lovely instrument stays beautifully in tune. I've taught myself how to play scales. Strumming is a joke still (my rhythm was always a fluid, organic thing; I was much more suited to Debussy than Bach on the piano), but I'm hoping to pick up lessons for that. Right now I'm learning the chords.
The two things I miss most in teaching myself tiny bits of guitar are my piano and all the theory books I hated so much when I was nine. My piano teacher, an old troll of a woman who used to make me cry at lessons (Laura and I would take turns as to who went first from week to week, and the weeks I went first and came out of the piano room with tears on my cheeks, Laura would take one look at me, and her eyes would narrow, and she would march in and deliberately play such an awful lesson that our teacher would come out with tears on her cheeks -- I love my sister), always had me filling in chords and transposing on music sheets and workbooks, and I always wanted to throw them in the trash, and now I'm glad she made me do it, and wish I had them right next to me, because guitar is all theory. I love picking out songs by ear, and it was so simple on the keyboard; I don't get it nearly as well on the guitar, because the execution of the theory is different, and so I have to do it all in my head.
Fortunately Meg and Phillip have an electric keyboard that I just found out about, so when I was at their house on Friday I picked out the chords to a newer rendition of a hymn I love ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"), and put it in the key of C -- so easy to work with -- and this morning I fiddled with it on the guitar, and it worked! It's far from perfect, because my fingers haven't learned the chords, so it's slow and fumbling, but the chords are right.
I love music. Writing is the world I live in, but it's a discipline, a craft, it's the work I do, the quest, the compulsion, the fire in my bones, the burden on my back, the blood in my veins, the place where the joy and the despair and the frustration, the succeeding and the failing and the trying are fused into one inseparable thing. Music is the kite, the wing, the wind, the thing that seizes me and lifts me away. When I step into a song, into the melody, the harmonies, the composition, there's no struggle, little effort, and no demand; there's just the listening, the hearing of the strains of harmony, and the joining; when I sing, I shed myself, I expand, I lose, for a few minutes, the burden, the consciousness of me; I go somewhere else, pierced by a joy beyond joy; I become fully alive: free. Writing is the journey (and I live and believe in the journey); music is home.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
possibilities
While poking around in Pandora's books with Adam last week, I found a piece of Christian junk mail.
I seized on it like a treasure hunter in king Tut's tomb. I hate Christian junk mail. The envelope was already open -- scribbled on, in fact -- which I guess was kind of like discovering, as the openers of Tut's tomb did, that it had already been visited by grave robbers, but still, I unfolded the insanely long cover letter with relish to read, across the top, NATIONAL REPENTENCE DAY: SEPTEMBER 26, 1997.
This piece of mail is ten years old.
I was astonished at the poor taste. Here I've been thinking that the Christian approach has gotten worse over time, not better, but in reality it's not as bad as it once was. I was so offended by the big flier with an old lady's surprised face on it that said SHOCK YOUR MAMA: GO TO CHURCH THIS EASTER which I found in my mailbox this year that I set it on fire, right after the Kingdom Hall pamphlet illustrated by dragons and the whore of Babylon that I found fluttering in my door...and that church (with the shock-your-mama flier) had the excuse of my having once given them my address.
But this ten-year-old piece of exhibitionism appeared to have no preamble. Just a long diatribe about repentance to a pair of strangers. Enclosed was a piece of sackcloth, with a self-addressed, postage-prepaid envelope inviting the addressees to return the sackcloth if they wanted to participate in National Repentance Day.
The truly glorious thing is that this will be the tenth anniversary of this bogus holiday, which I can't find is regularly recognized or practised.
I'm trying to come with ideas for how to use it. I have to do SOMEthing with this little piece of sackcloth -- it's too perfect.
But what? I'm toying with the idea of mailing it in with some kind of note. Nothing horrible, mean, cruel, or nasty; just something funny.
Hm, maybe that Comcast flier -- which I also passionately hate -- about discovering the Buddhist secrets of the universe by getting cable.
I seized on it like a treasure hunter in king Tut's tomb. I hate Christian junk mail. The envelope was already open -- scribbled on, in fact -- which I guess was kind of like discovering, as the openers of Tut's tomb did, that it had already been visited by grave robbers, but still, I unfolded the insanely long cover letter with relish to read, across the top, NATIONAL REPENTENCE DAY: SEPTEMBER 26, 1997.
This piece of mail is ten years old.
I was astonished at the poor taste. Here I've been thinking that the Christian approach has gotten worse over time, not better, but in reality it's not as bad as it once was. I was so offended by the big flier with an old lady's surprised face on it that said SHOCK YOUR MAMA: GO TO CHURCH THIS EASTER which I found in my mailbox this year that I set it on fire, right after the Kingdom Hall pamphlet illustrated by dragons and the whore of Babylon that I found fluttering in my door...and that church (with the shock-your-mama flier) had the excuse of my having once given them my address.
But this ten-year-old piece of exhibitionism appeared to have no preamble. Just a long diatribe about repentance to a pair of strangers. Enclosed was a piece of sackcloth, with a self-addressed, postage-prepaid envelope inviting the addressees to return the sackcloth if they wanted to participate in National Repentance Day.
The truly glorious thing is that this will be the tenth anniversary of this bogus holiday, which I can't find is regularly recognized or practised.
I'm trying to come with ideas for how to use it. I have to do SOMEthing with this little piece of sackcloth -- it's too perfect.
But what? I'm toying with the idea of mailing it in with some kind of note. Nothing horrible, mean, cruel, or nasty; just something funny.
Hm, maybe that Comcast flier -- which I also passionately hate -- about discovering the Buddhist secrets of the universe by getting cable.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
the silent alarm
For over a year now, I've barely needed the electronic alarm clock that I nonetheless faithfully set every night. I have a failproof backup that no weather or blackout could fool: my cat. Or rather, his stomach.
He knows his breakfast time. So, anywhere from six o'clock to seven in the morning, I wake to the incredible heaviness of cat paws treading all over my back. (When he hits the right sore spots, it's like a very nice massage.) He lays his head on my shoulder and purrs in my ear. When I grunt and roll onto my back, he prances across my chest and flops onto me and rolls around with happiness. He shoves his head into my face -- his equivalent of a good-morning-I-love-you-I'm-so-happy-you're-awake-please-feed-me kiss. He mrrrows.
It's all very sweet. But lately it hasn't been as effective. Kind of like the radio alarm gets to be ignorable.
So he's invented the beeper setting: chasing his tail. On me. All over me. At six o'clock in the morning.
This is hilarious, but much less endearing. So I've invented the snooze button: a good swift scissor-kick under the covers, which effectively sweeps him off the bed. And five minutes later he's at it again. I can never decide if I'm furious or deeply amused.
I can see it in the history books: And the Breakfast Wars carried on well into the afternoons on Saturdays...
He knows his breakfast time. So, anywhere from six o'clock to seven in the morning, I wake to the incredible heaviness of cat paws treading all over my back. (When he hits the right sore spots, it's like a very nice massage.) He lays his head on my shoulder and purrs in my ear. When I grunt and roll onto my back, he prances across my chest and flops onto me and rolls around with happiness. He shoves his head into my face -- his equivalent of a good-morning-I-love-you-I'm-so-happy-you're-awake-please-feed-me kiss. He mrrrows.
It's all very sweet. But lately it hasn't been as effective. Kind of like the radio alarm gets to be ignorable.
So he's invented the beeper setting: chasing his tail. On me. All over me. At six o'clock in the morning.
This is hilarious, but much less endearing. So I've invented the snooze button: a good swift scissor-kick under the covers, which effectively sweeps him off the bed. And five minutes later he's at it again. I can never decide if I'm furious or deeply amused.
I can see it in the history books: And the Breakfast Wars carried on well into the afternoons on Saturdays...
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
off balance
My inner ear has gone AWOL. While I spent the morning getting ready for work, which usually involves a lot of darting through the narrow doorways of my historic home because I've forgotten to do three or four things in the same room at the same time before moving onto the next in a sensibly systematic fashion, the walls and doorframes and corners of my bookshelves kept lurching at me and catching me hard on the shoulders and shins. Mean old house, I thought. Has it in for me this morning.
But no, it's my inner ear that decided to curl up in bed and stay behind while I did the responsible thing and went to work. All the walls, doorframes, filing cabinets, and desk corners ambush me every time I turn around. So I'm going to arrive home tonight with some stunning new bruises. On the day I decided to wear a tanktop and skirt, too.
Maybe it's the earplugs. I wear them sometimes at night because the neighbors across the hall get noisy from time to time, and as my bedroom borders the stairwell, I can hear them stomping up and down the stairs as they come and go about their God-knows-what nighttime business (they appear never to sleep), and last night they were fighting. So in went the earplugs. But apparently the pressure inside my ear canals did my balance no favors.
But it does make for some funny moments. You don't realize how much you rely on your perception to line up with reality until your perception's out of whack and reality smacks you a good one. It's especially embarrassing to bounce off a wall that's quite obviously and solidly there in front of a client. I kind of half-spin a pirouette and laugh at myself and offer them more coffee.
In other news, I feel like I've taken another step toward settled adulthood. When Kevin moved out, he gave me his recycle bin. At any time during the past two years I could've asked the City for one of my own, but since the City is so lackadaisical and accepting about recycling -- they'll take it in trash bags -- I never bothered. (And, really, South Bend recycling is great. You don't have to sort anything, and they'll take everything. Plastic, paper, cardboard, dead rats, whatever you want. Well, not actually dead rats.) The recycling is so great that the garbage men are evil and won't take cardboard boxes. If you pack them carefully into the city-supplied bins, come Thursday morning, trash day, you'll find them tossed back, rejected, onto your lawn. Evil.
Anyway, since the garbage men come up and down the alley on Thursday, there's no need to go dragging the garbage cans around, and since I've been for two years without a recycle bin, I've just thrown my recycling into other people's bins or into a box or garbage bag and let the containers get recycled too. But yesterday was my first recycling day using Kevin's old bin, and when I got home from dinner with Meg and Phillip, there it was sitting by itself on the curb, and I thought, Oh. I have to bring in the recycle bin.
So there it was. Something that ordinary grown-ups do that I've never had to. And now I do. And I was excited.
But no, it's my inner ear that decided to curl up in bed and stay behind while I did the responsible thing and went to work. All the walls, doorframes, filing cabinets, and desk corners ambush me every time I turn around. So I'm going to arrive home tonight with some stunning new bruises. On the day I decided to wear a tanktop and skirt, too.
Maybe it's the earplugs. I wear them sometimes at night because the neighbors across the hall get noisy from time to time, and as my bedroom borders the stairwell, I can hear them stomping up and down the stairs as they come and go about their God-knows-what nighttime business (they appear never to sleep), and last night they were fighting. So in went the earplugs. But apparently the pressure inside my ear canals did my balance no favors.
But it does make for some funny moments. You don't realize how much you rely on your perception to line up with reality until your perception's out of whack and reality smacks you a good one. It's especially embarrassing to bounce off a wall that's quite obviously and solidly there in front of a client. I kind of half-spin a pirouette and laugh at myself and offer them more coffee.
In other news, I feel like I've taken another step toward settled adulthood. When Kevin moved out, he gave me his recycle bin. At any time during the past two years I could've asked the City for one of my own, but since the City is so lackadaisical and accepting about recycling -- they'll take it in trash bags -- I never bothered. (And, really, South Bend recycling is great. You don't have to sort anything, and they'll take everything. Plastic, paper, cardboard, dead rats, whatever you want. Well, not actually dead rats.) The recycling is so great that the garbage men are evil and won't take cardboard boxes. If you pack them carefully into the city-supplied bins, come Thursday morning, trash day, you'll find them tossed back, rejected, onto your lawn. Evil.
Anyway, since the garbage men come up and down the alley on Thursday, there's no need to go dragging the garbage cans around, and since I've been for two years without a recycle bin, I've just thrown my recycling into other people's bins or into a box or garbage bag and let the containers get recycled too. But yesterday was my first recycling day using Kevin's old bin, and when I got home from dinner with Meg and Phillip, there it was sitting by itself on the curb, and I thought, Oh. I have to bring in the recycle bin.
So there it was. Something that ordinary grown-ups do that I've never had to. And now I do. And I was excited.
Monday, May 21, 2007
turn, turn, turn
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Strangely, after Wednesday, things began to stand on their head, in the best way possible. The Anti-Midas got out a box of baby wipes and began to clean up after himself, while I peeked through my fingers from where I'd collapsed on my extremely comfortable easy chair.
First, after dragging myself through the thickest sludge of exhaustion I've endured since the crash-and-burn my sophomore year of college, I decided the problem was my medication schedule and went back to taking the antidepressant at night. I'd been taking it in the morning since my doctor put me on the new stuff, because it was giving me fitful sleep and the weirdest dreams I've ever remembered (fun, but really weird. Loony Tunes variety dreams). And for the past four days I've felt like a new woman. Chipper, perky, energetic, able to concentrate, able to do stuff again, able to eat, able to sleep, able to work, able to relax. Amazing.
Second, I got all my tax refunds back, paid all my bills from last month and this month, including the medical bills (just the monthlies, not all of them off altogether), and still have enough leftover to eat, and maybe buy some new clothes, for the first time in well over a year, next month -- hooray!
Third, I've been eating real food on a regular basis for the past ten or eleven days. I'm no longer starving. My hair is still falling out, but that should (I'm hoping) stop soon. I've greatly increased my protein intake, switched from soymilk to whole dairy milk, and no longer have cereal for dinner. At all.
I also cleaned the house this weekend, am becoming obsessed with my Dyson vacuum cleaner (it does BARE FLOORS, happy happy joy joy, bye-bye broom-that-never-picks-up-cat-litter-and-cat-hair), and washed all my dishes. I think I can keep the apartment clean. I am Very Happy.
Best of all, I had a perfect weekend spending time with a person I greatly enjoyed.
So while I had very little to do with the residue of the crap being alchemized into green pastures (which are, I think, much better than gold), I'm happy and exceedingly grateful.
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Strangely, after Wednesday, things began to stand on their head, in the best way possible. The Anti-Midas got out a box of baby wipes and began to clean up after himself, while I peeked through my fingers from where I'd collapsed on my extremely comfortable easy chair.
First, after dragging myself through the thickest sludge of exhaustion I've endured since the crash-and-burn my sophomore year of college, I decided the problem was my medication schedule and went back to taking the antidepressant at night. I'd been taking it in the morning since my doctor put me on the new stuff, because it was giving me fitful sleep and the weirdest dreams I've ever remembered (fun, but really weird. Loony Tunes variety dreams). And for the past four days I've felt like a new woman. Chipper, perky, energetic, able to concentrate, able to do stuff again, able to eat, able to sleep, able to work, able to relax. Amazing.
Second, I got all my tax refunds back, paid all my bills from last month and this month, including the medical bills (just the monthlies, not all of them off altogether), and still have enough leftover to eat, and maybe buy some new clothes, for the first time in well over a year, next month -- hooray!
Third, I've been eating real food on a regular basis for the past ten or eleven days. I'm no longer starving. My hair is still falling out, but that should (I'm hoping) stop soon. I've greatly increased my protein intake, switched from soymilk to whole dairy milk, and no longer have cereal for dinner. At all.
I also cleaned the house this weekend, am becoming obsessed with my Dyson vacuum cleaner (it does BARE FLOORS, happy happy joy joy, bye-bye broom-that-never-picks-up-cat-litter-and-cat-hair), and washed all my dishes. I think I can keep the apartment clean. I am Very Happy.
Best of all, I had a perfect weekend spending time with a person I greatly enjoyed.
So while I had very little to do with the residue of the crap being alchemized into green pastures (which are, I think, much better than gold), I'm happy and exceedingly grateful.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
is the alarm going to ring soon, or did this day actually happen?
Bad day. Really, really awful. I did a terrible screw-up at work -- I can't even articulate how bad it was -- and my boss was great about it, as always -- but I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and wished I could turn myself into something about an inch tall so I could hide under the copier or get eaten by the dog.
I knew it wasn't going to be a good day -- I woke up twenty minutes before I had to leave, so no shower, no coffee, drove to work in a blazing hurry through the dissipating fog of bad dreams, had this awful sense of forboding all day, the temperature plummeted forty degrees overnight and was windy and sour and overcast. N.g.
Won't know for another month how bad it really was. So I'll be kind of on tenterhooks until then.
I need something very strong to drink.
It was one of those days of which I like to say, "This one was planned at a board meeting in hell. And somebody got a promotion."
I knew it wasn't going to be a good day -- I woke up twenty minutes before I had to leave, so no shower, no coffee, drove to work in a blazing hurry through the dissipating fog of bad dreams, had this awful sense of forboding all day, the temperature plummeted forty degrees overnight and was windy and sour and overcast. N.g.
Won't know for another month how bad it really was. So I'll be kind of on tenterhooks until then.
I need something very strong to drink.
It was one of those days of which I like to say, "This one was planned at a board meeting in hell. And somebody got a promotion."
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
the horizontal compulsion
Gravity appears to be stronger at the center of my bed. I'm almost positive a close atomic inspection would reveal compacted matter approaching the density of a black hole, and, thus, an extremely strong gravitational pull. This has to be why it draws me to it straight upon walking through the door after work for ridiculous things like six o'clock naps, and why rising in the peaceful, birdsong-sweet summer mornings has become a feat worthy of Atlas. Maybe the poor guy shouldn't be sculpted holding the world anymore. In our modern era, that's almost too dramatic. Maybe he should be depicted holding a bed.
Monday, May 14, 2007
home, home on the range
Mom and Dad came out to visit this past weekend, and it was fantastic.
Visits in the past have been kind of touch-and-go, depending on how I'm doing, and as I haven't been at my best lately, there was, perhaps, some trepidation on all sides as to how this one would fly. But my parents were wonderful. I didn't have time or energy to clean the house, and they didn't care; Mom washed all my dishes, and they were happy just to sit around and hang out with me. And I really needed that cup o'parental love filled up. It was perfect.
Friday night we went out to eat with my bosses, and then went back up to their place to go shooting. Both my parents are good shots, and I did well, and everyone was proud of me, and we all had fun. (I learned a few more things about my style, as my boss bragged on me man-to-man to my dad. "Do you know what kind of revolver this girl likes?" he said to my dad. "An N-frame." "What's so special about that?" I asked. "Honey, that's the massive one. The biggest kind," my dad said." "Oh," I said. I had thought it was the one for smaller hands. Nope. And then my boss was laughing at me because, after shooting off a round of .38s, I said, "Gimme the .357s." He looked over at my dad and said, "Can you believe her? She's bored with the .38s!" I asked my dad later what a .38 is equivalent to in the semiautomatic world, and he said it's about a 9 mm, what you shoot from a Glock. A man-stopper. Oh, I said. Well, what about a .357? Dad said you can drop a deer with a .357. Ha! Heeeere, Bambi....)
Anyway, then Saturday night we had dinner with Meg and Phillip, and Saturday and Sunday we lounged around. Dad helped me reset the air conditioner in my living room, which was clogged with water, and they gave me some new toys: a Dyson vacuum cleaner (only in Western PA we say sweeper) and a guitar!!!! My furniture is already cleaner and my fingers are already blistered.
Pslightly Psycho Kevin moved out for good yesterday, so the drama begins as to what kinds of strange people the AL will rent out to, since evidently he has decided NOT to become the Live-In Landlord (Yikes!). But as I discussed it with Downstairs Neighbor Jim yesterday, I mentioned that I was going to learn the art of canning this summer, and he GAVE me a 22-quart pressure canner and wouldn't take a dime for it. SWEET!
So my summer is all set for learning new things, and getting my life back in order, and I have my cup running over with family love, which I desperately needed.
I'm hopeful for getting myself back. Work is going to be crazy for the next month while we search for a replacement for the office assistant, who left last week, and train the new person, who will (fingers crossed, prayers fervently said) be smart and competent and a fast learner, but I'm attempting to keep perspective and reserve some energy to myself so I keep a balance and start enjoying my life and my hobbies again.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
Visits in the past have been kind of touch-and-go, depending on how I'm doing, and as I haven't been at my best lately, there was, perhaps, some trepidation on all sides as to how this one would fly. But my parents were wonderful. I didn't have time or energy to clean the house, and they didn't care; Mom washed all my dishes, and they were happy just to sit around and hang out with me. And I really needed that cup o'parental love filled up. It was perfect.
Friday night we went out to eat with my bosses, and then went back up to their place to go shooting. Both my parents are good shots, and I did well, and everyone was proud of me, and we all had fun. (I learned a few more things about my style, as my boss bragged on me man-to-man to my dad. "Do you know what kind of revolver this girl likes?" he said to my dad. "An N-frame." "What's so special about that?" I asked. "Honey, that's the massive one. The biggest kind," my dad said." "Oh," I said. I had thought it was the one for smaller hands. Nope. And then my boss was laughing at me because, after shooting off a round of .38s, I said, "Gimme the .357s." He looked over at my dad and said, "Can you believe her? She's bored with the .38s!" I asked my dad later what a .38 is equivalent to in the semiautomatic world, and he said it's about a 9 mm, what you shoot from a Glock. A man-stopper. Oh, I said. Well, what about a .357? Dad said you can drop a deer with a .357. Ha! Heeeere, Bambi....)
Anyway, then Saturday night we had dinner with Meg and Phillip, and Saturday and Sunday we lounged around. Dad helped me reset the air conditioner in my living room, which was clogged with water, and they gave me some new toys: a Dyson vacuum cleaner (only in Western PA we say sweeper) and a guitar!!!! My furniture is already cleaner and my fingers are already blistered.
Pslightly Psycho Kevin moved out for good yesterday, so the drama begins as to what kinds of strange people the AL will rent out to, since evidently he has decided NOT to become the Live-In Landlord (Yikes!). But as I discussed it with Downstairs Neighbor Jim yesterday, I mentioned that I was going to learn the art of canning this summer, and he GAVE me a 22-quart pressure canner and wouldn't take a dime for it. SWEET!
So my summer is all set for learning new things, and getting my life back in order, and I have my cup running over with family love, which I desperately needed.
I'm hopeful for getting myself back. Work is going to be crazy for the next month while we search for a replacement for the office assistant, who left last week, and train the new person, who will (fingers crossed, prayers fervently said) be smart and competent and a fast learner, but I'm attempting to keep perspective and reserve some energy to myself so I keep a balance and start enjoying my life and my hobbies again.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
Monday, May 07, 2007
more of life
The cat's not feeling top shape again. Boss-Man's in court all day, so I took the morning to take Kitty Boy to the vet (saves me expensive ER visits -- 80 bucks just to walk through the door, plus whatever else they do for him, ugh), and they think he has lesions on his bladder that make litterbox use uncomfortable. So, more medications, new cat food, another hundred bucks kissed goodbye.
I'm tired. I spent most of the weekend sleeping, and I can't seem to get quite caught up. After a month and a half of The Cereal Diet, born of the Bill Catch-Up Financial Plan, a scramble to reintroduce red meat to my dietary intake has resulted in a digestive upheaval that had me in considerable gastrointestinal pain over the past week. Looks like I need to sit down and, for the first time ever, come up with something strategic in regard to my diet. More protein, starting with the white meats and fish, iron supplements, and a slow reintroduction of the red stuff. I'm pretty sure the fatigue, the weakness (carrying one of my air conditioners up from the basement yesterday was really hard), etc., all result from iron deficiency.
Ridiculous. This has got to change. Fortunately, with my Income Tax Return on its way, and my rigid frugality (my Scots ancestors would be so proud), and my upcoming paycheck, the next couple of weeks should see a leveling out of the financial worries that have plagued my waking and sleeping hours all year. I'm hoping that those are the reasons I've been so listless, and that the light at the end of the tunnel will see a happy return to my normal hobbies and activities -- cooking, cleaning, reading, writing, and getting a little more exercise.
I'm seeing my wonderful new doctor this Thursday, so I'll get to discuss all of this with him as well, to make sure I'm on the right track.
There has been some interesting new drama in Sarah's Apartment House of Insanity, so I'll be posting on that soon -- it's much more entertaining than my bank account and the dwindling numbers on the scales.
I'm tired. I spent most of the weekend sleeping, and I can't seem to get quite caught up. After a month and a half of The Cereal Diet, born of the Bill Catch-Up Financial Plan, a scramble to reintroduce red meat to my dietary intake has resulted in a digestive upheaval that had me in considerable gastrointestinal pain over the past week. Looks like I need to sit down and, for the first time ever, come up with something strategic in regard to my diet. More protein, starting with the white meats and fish, iron supplements, and a slow reintroduction of the red stuff. I'm pretty sure the fatigue, the weakness (carrying one of my air conditioners up from the basement yesterday was really hard), etc., all result from iron deficiency.
Ridiculous. This has got to change. Fortunately, with my Income Tax Return on its way, and my rigid frugality (my Scots ancestors would be so proud), and my upcoming paycheck, the next couple of weeks should see a leveling out of the financial worries that have plagued my waking and sleeping hours all year. I'm hoping that those are the reasons I've been so listless, and that the light at the end of the tunnel will see a happy return to my normal hobbies and activities -- cooking, cleaning, reading, writing, and getting a little more exercise.
I'm seeing my wonderful new doctor this Thursday, so I'll get to discuss all of this with him as well, to make sure I'm on the right track.
There has been some interesting new drama in Sarah's Apartment House of Insanity, so I'll be posting on that soon -- it's much more entertaining than my bank account and the dwindling numbers on the scales.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Gray-Painted Bus
There is, occasionally, a sort of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, that crops up in my neighborhood, in the form of an old school bus. It’s been repainted gray – even the windows, except for the front ones – boarded shut in the back, and has a cooking-stove pipe sticking out of one side. It appears to be inhabited by a Jesus-looking fellow, all in black, his two androgynous, half-intelligent, heavyset teenaged progeny, also in black, and a snarling pit bull.
I’ve noticed this bus over the course of the past year, as it tends to park itself on the street across from my friend Colette’s apartment, although last year it was emblazoned with the fading insignia of some Apostolic Church. This year it’s just lived in. The other night as she and I sat on her front lawn, talking, our conversation faded like the daylight as we watched the Boarders of the Bus coming and going between their dwelling and the lovely, trim, well-kept house that the Bus is usually parked in front of.
It was an intriguing kind of people-watching. The discrepancy between the house and the bus, and the frequency of the bus’s visits to the house, made for some interesting speculation. Colette says a woman lives in the house. The paint on the house is all new. There’s scalloped wood trim around the eaves. The landscaping is lovely. It has a fence and a gate. She drives a hybrid. She’s evidently earth-friendly. Then there’s The Bus. With cooking smoke pouring from the pipe. Noisy engine and gas fumes. Long-haired people living inside wearing jackboots. Where’s the connection?
Colette surmised the Jesus-looking Fellow is a boyfriend; I thought maybe a brother. She warmed to the theory – maybe the siblings took their earth-friendly natures in different directions, she to a more "upscale" environment, he to a more "hippie" one, working an "honest" job, kind of a drifting, Bob Dylan-style.
But the kids were weird. They looked like twins, and in the half-light you really couldn’t discern their gender. We swore at least one of them had breasts, but their voices cracked and soared, and they both were running around the bus playing hide-and-seek like they were four, when they were at least fourteen, and giggling these really off, strangely pitched goblin giggles. They went into The Bus and lit some kind of lantern, and then we heard the dog yelping. It was disturbing.
When it was fully dark the Jesus-looking Fellow came out, got into the front seat, started the engine, tried to pull out, got stuck in the brick ruts, got out, pulled down the hood, fiddled with the running engine, got back in, ground The Bus back and forth for a few minutes, then tore away. I found myself wondering what it would be like to live on a bus, driving off at night to some new place to park, and some Conestoga corner of my spirit grinned at the thought of the freedom, and the simplicity. But the childcare worker in me thought it had turned out pretty badly for the kids.
I’ve noticed this bus over the course of the past year, as it tends to park itself on the street across from my friend Colette’s apartment, although last year it was emblazoned with the fading insignia of some Apostolic Church. This year it’s just lived in. The other night as she and I sat on her front lawn, talking, our conversation faded like the daylight as we watched the Boarders of the Bus coming and going between their dwelling and the lovely, trim, well-kept house that the Bus is usually parked in front of.
It was an intriguing kind of people-watching. The discrepancy between the house and the bus, and the frequency of the bus’s visits to the house, made for some interesting speculation. Colette says a woman lives in the house. The paint on the house is all new. There’s scalloped wood trim around the eaves. The landscaping is lovely. It has a fence and a gate. She drives a hybrid. She’s evidently earth-friendly. Then there’s The Bus. With cooking smoke pouring from the pipe. Noisy engine and gas fumes. Long-haired people living inside wearing jackboots. Where’s the connection?
Colette surmised the Jesus-looking Fellow is a boyfriend; I thought maybe a brother. She warmed to the theory – maybe the siblings took their earth-friendly natures in different directions, she to a more "upscale" environment, he to a more "hippie" one, working an "honest" job, kind of a drifting, Bob Dylan-style.
But the kids were weird. They looked like twins, and in the half-light you really couldn’t discern their gender. We swore at least one of them had breasts, but their voices cracked and soared, and they both were running around the bus playing hide-and-seek like they were four, when they were at least fourteen, and giggling these really off, strangely pitched goblin giggles. They went into The Bus and lit some kind of lantern, and then we heard the dog yelping. It was disturbing.
When it was fully dark the Jesus-looking Fellow came out, got into the front seat, started the engine, tried to pull out, got stuck in the brick ruts, got out, pulled down the hood, fiddled with the running engine, got back in, ground The Bus back and forth for a few minutes, then tore away. I found myself wondering what it would be like to live on a bus, driving off at night to some new place to park, and some Conestoga corner of my spirit grinned at the thought of the freedom, and the simplicity. But the childcare worker in me thought it had turned out pretty badly for the kids.
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