I've got no words right now. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.
But here are some photos of her in better days.
Monday, January 29, 2007
So much for 'Plan A'
We lost my Aunt Liz today. (See yesterday's entry, "The objective is to continue living," for more details.)
I've got no words right now. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.
But here are some photos of her in better days.
I've got no words right now. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.
But here are some photos of her in better days.
First, check for signs of life...
We interrupt this blog to bring you an important public safety message...
I had a CPR class today for the first time in many years. I don't know when the Red Cross made this change, but here's a little tidbit for those of you who, like me, are living with Old School ideas:
The new compression-to-breathing ratio is 30:2, not 15:2. That means you press someone's sternum 30 times in quick succession before giving them two rescue breaths.
In other news, the Red Cross no longer calls the Heimlich Maneuver "the Heimlich." It is now something generic, like "the pound-n-thrust." That's because when Heimlich kicked the bucket -- I assume he didn't choke to death -- his family decided that they wanted compensation for the name "Heimlich Maneuver." They demanded that the Red Cross and any other organization pay a fee *each time* the word "Heimlich" was uttered.
Well, at least they had a better justification for that bit of trademark action than back a few years ago with Donald Trump tried to trademark, "You're fired." (That made me sick.)
Anyway, for future reference, there's also been a little change to the "pound-n-thrust," as my goofy name implies. Before you go shoving your knuckles into someone's stomach, you're supposed to whack them five times in the back, right between the shoulder blades. And you should POUND THE SHIT OUT OF 'EM when you do it, too. Then, if the object blocking the airway has not dislodged, you go to the old Heimlich thrusting, where you bear-hug from behind and jerk those fists of yours upward into the choker's diaphragm.
Do that five times, then return to the back for five times and so on until they either cough up what they've swallowed or pass out and collapse (whereupon you start CPR).
This concludes this public service announcement. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress...
... and so, that's when I thought it would be nicer to stop fucking with him (and perhaps far better to just plain old fuck him). I'm just sayin'.
I had a CPR class today for the first time in many years. I don't know when the Red Cross made this change, but here's a little tidbit for those of you who, like me, are living with Old School ideas:
The new compression-to-breathing ratio is 30:2, not 15:2. That means you press someone's sternum 30 times in quick succession before giving them two rescue breaths.
In other news, the Red Cross no longer calls the Heimlich Maneuver "the Heimlich." It is now something generic, like "the pound-n-thrust." That's because when Heimlich kicked the bucket -- I assume he didn't choke to death -- his family decided that they wanted compensation for the name "Heimlich Maneuver." They demanded that the Red Cross and any other organization pay a fee *each time* the word "Heimlich" was uttered.
Well, at least they had a better justification for that bit of trademark action than back a few years ago with Donald Trump tried to trademark, "You're fired." (That made me sick.)
Anyway, for future reference, there's also been a little change to the "pound-n-thrust," as my goofy name implies. Before you go shoving your knuckles into someone's stomach, you're supposed to whack them five times in the back, right between the shoulder blades. And you should POUND THE SHIT OUT OF 'EM when you do it, too. Then, if the object blocking the airway has not dislodged, you go to the old Heimlich thrusting, where you bear-hug from behind and jerk those fists of yours upward into the choker's diaphragm.
Do that five times, then return to the back for five times and so on until they either cough up what they've swallowed or pass out and collapse (whereupon you start CPR).
This concludes this public service announcement. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress...
... and so, that's when I thought it would be nicer to stop fucking with him (and perhaps far better to just plain old fuck him). I'm just sayin'.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
"My objective is to continue living"
This is something that hasn't stopped tripping me out: Periodically, I'll call my Tia L's cell phone, and when she answers it, I learn she's in the hospital.
That happened most recently when I called on Dec. 27, after I had been unable to reach her or my uncle, El Capitan, on Christmas. Tia L has a rare form of lymphatic cancer and has been hospitalized a couple times. Sometimes, she's in the hospital because she's getting chemo. Other times, she's there because the lymphoma has rendered her immune system too fragile and she gets sick.
When I called today, I learned she's in the ICU. That tripped me out. I mean, who answers their cell phone in the ICU? Because of the tremendous amounts of telemitry equipment in your typical ICU, they normally don't allow cell phone usage. But Tia L had hers on, and she talked to me for nearly an hour on it.
It seems she has been in the hospital without intermission since our conversation in December. She's been in the ICU for the past five days because she has become critically ill. On Friday night, while I was out dining with friends, one of them -- I think it was Bubba -- inquired about Tia L's health. While that conversation was going down, Tia L was battling a fever of 106.8, with "bone-rattling chills," that caused so much shaking that she began to hyperventilate.
"The fever was bad enough," she said. "I was freezing and they were covering me in ice packs, but the part where I couldn't breathe really annoyed me. I said, 'This just sucks.' "
She's always practiced the art of the understatement.
A month ago, she told me she thought she would be trying a new form of chemo, but her doctors disagree over whether it would help and whether she is strong enough to take it, so the past month in the hospital has been all about treating various symptoms while doing nothing about the cancer itself. She's frustrated and trying to figure out how to get the chemo, which is her shot at surviving.
"The insurance lady came in the other day and said, 'What's the plan?' And I told her, 'Staying alive.' "
Well, under the circumstances, there is no Plan B, I told her. I'd prefer if you stuck with Plan A.
"Yeah, yeah. Plan A," she replied. "You're right. There is no Plan B."
Then she added, "When you're in the hospital for like 7 or 10 days, after you get out, everything in the world is so *beautiful.* When the only thing you have to look at is four walls all day and night, you start to forget what the outside world looks like. Before I ended up in the ICU, I could at least go down to the end of the hall. The hospital has a lanai at the end of each hallway, and I could sit out there and look at the buildings. Oahu is a lot like Miami; there are all these skyscrapers, but in between them, from up high, you can look down and see the old buildings. I like those the most, especially the ones with the Spanish tiles. But in here, they won't let me get up because they've got all this shit stuck to me, and the only think I can see is all this equipment."
During the conversation, I kept hearing the equipment beeping and buzzing. The nurse came in, and Tia L paused the conversation with me to ask some questions about a CT scan she was having this afternoon. To me, she said, "I'm really hungry, and it's hard to get food in the ICU because most of the people are on feeding tubes. So it bugs me when they bring me something to eat but then won't let me eat it. I'm afraid someone's going to come take it away before I get back from the test."
Being in the hospital creates a whole different reality, a strange set of concerns. "I've been here so long," Tia L said, "that I'm starting to get all institutionalized. It's making me crazy."
That isn't easy for anyone, but I think it's especially hard for Tia L. Not only has she been a highly energetic, motivated person for most of her life, but when she served in the Peace Corps many years ago, she ended up transforming the experience of patients who were locked away in a Third World mental hospital. She knows the negative effects of institutionalization, and it's a pet peeve, to say the least.
For a while, though, our conversation turned to things outside of the hospital. I told her about my trip over the holidays. We talked about the upcoming wedding of one of my cousins. And I inquired whether El Capitan had finally sold a shuttle bus he had acquired when he thought he was going to start an adventure tourism company (before Tia L was diagnosed with lymphoma). She said he had. We also talked about The Notorious M.O.M., El Capitan's sister, and her decision to go to Kona later this week for some sight-seeing -- and how Tia L is wondering if some of that sight-seeing might happen on Oahu.
From a family-support standpoint, that's one really fucked up part of this story. Because the Big Island of Hawaii does not have adequate medical care, Tia L is in a hospital on Oahu. That means that El Capitan and my cousins have to take a flight to visit her in the hospital, so she is spending a lot of time without the presense of her family, with whom she is very close. It is a stress on all of them, coming and going. (Frankly, I can't imagine The Notorious M.O.M. would not make the flight to Oahu, but then, the depth of her emotional ineptitude never ceases to surprise me.)
Anyway ... yikes!
I was not expecting *any* of this when I called. I thought perhaps she might be back in Kona and perhaps getting chemo. Instead, she was telling me she had signed a DNR order, much to the dismay of my cousins.
Several hours after I hung up the phone, I felt the weight of anxiety settling in for a visit, but I was having difficulty determining why.
I talked to S2, who always finds her way to the heart of a matter. "You know, with all the things you've been thinking lately about attachment," she said, "I guess I want to tell you not to underestimate the power of this particular relationship. This one is huge."
When she said that, it felt like a thousand images of my life with Tia L flashed through my mind in an instant. My Christmas stocking. Peppermint tea on the counter. Mask-making. Mardi Gras parades. Chicory coffee. A sweat lodge with eucalyptus water. An old Suburban. Cathy Bell at the kitchen table. The sailboats. The conversations. Crawfish etoufee. The sleigh bed that inspired my own. Crab meat crepes. Dancing at Tipatinas. Showing my knockers on Bourbon Street. Portraits of my ancestors on the walls. The bouncing check I gave her once. Haircuts. Both of us in black evening gowns on New Years Eve. The fierce light of her eyes. All the hugs and kisses. The endless hugs and kisses.
It was a like a flash flood, the way it came upon me. She was a significant source of warm, unconditional maternal love that sustained me through adolescence and college.
And then, for 14 years, nothing. She and El Capitan set sail to South America for a couple years, and we lost touch. We reconnected in May of 2005, and things resumed as if they had never stopped.
I suppose it's because in some ways, they never did stop. Tia L is one of those people I have carried around inside me since the day I met her. Death, no matter how crushing, won't take that away.
As I fine-tune the voices in my head, hers is one I should turn up a lot louder. It has always been about love. For me. For others. For adventure. For life itself.
"My objective," she told me today, "is to continue living."
That happened most recently when I called on Dec. 27, after I had been unable to reach her or my uncle, El Capitan, on Christmas. Tia L has a rare form of lymphatic cancer and has been hospitalized a couple times. Sometimes, she's in the hospital because she's getting chemo. Other times, she's there because the lymphoma has rendered her immune system too fragile and she gets sick.
When I called today, I learned she's in the ICU. That tripped me out. I mean, who answers their cell phone in the ICU? Because of the tremendous amounts of telemitry equipment in your typical ICU, they normally don't allow cell phone usage. But Tia L had hers on, and she talked to me for nearly an hour on it.
It seems she has been in the hospital without intermission since our conversation in December. She's been in the ICU for the past five days because she has become critically ill. On Friday night, while I was out dining with friends, one of them -- I think it was Bubba -- inquired about Tia L's health. While that conversation was going down, Tia L was battling a fever of 106.8, with "bone-rattling chills," that caused so much shaking that she began to hyperventilate.
"The fever was bad enough," she said. "I was freezing and they were covering me in ice packs, but the part where I couldn't breathe really annoyed me. I said, 'This just sucks.' "
She's always practiced the art of the understatement.
A month ago, she told me she thought she would be trying a new form of chemo, but her doctors disagree over whether it would help and whether she is strong enough to take it, so the past month in the hospital has been all about treating various symptoms while doing nothing about the cancer itself. She's frustrated and trying to figure out how to get the chemo, which is her shot at surviving.
"The insurance lady came in the other day and said, 'What's the plan?' And I told her, 'Staying alive.' "
Well, under the circumstances, there is no Plan B, I told her. I'd prefer if you stuck with Plan A.
"Yeah, yeah. Plan A," she replied. "You're right. There is no Plan B."
Then she added, "When you're in the hospital for like 7 or 10 days, after you get out, everything in the world is so *beautiful.* When the only thing you have to look at is four walls all day and night, you start to forget what the outside world looks like. Before I ended up in the ICU, I could at least go down to the end of the hall. The hospital has a lanai at the end of each hallway, and I could sit out there and look at the buildings. Oahu is a lot like Miami; there are all these skyscrapers, but in between them, from up high, you can look down and see the old buildings. I like those the most, especially the ones with the Spanish tiles. But in here, they won't let me get up because they've got all this shit stuck to me, and the only think I can see is all this equipment."
During the conversation, I kept hearing the equipment beeping and buzzing. The nurse came in, and Tia L paused the conversation with me to ask some questions about a CT scan she was having this afternoon. To me, she said, "I'm really hungry, and it's hard to get food in the ICU because most of the people are on feeding tubes. So it bugs me when they bring me something to eat but then won't let me eat it. I'm afraid someone's going to come take it away before I get back from the test."
Being in the hospital creates a whole different reality, a strange set of concerns. "I've been here so long," Tia L said, "that I'm starting to get all institutionalized. It's making me crazy."
That isn't easy for anyone, but I think it's especially hard for Tia L. Not only has she been a highly energetic, motivated person for most of her life, but when she served in the Peace Corps many years ago, she ended up transforming the experience of patients who were locked away in a Third World mental hospital. She knows the negative effects of institutionalization, and it's a pet peeve, to say the least.
For a while, though, our conversation turned to things outside of the hospital. I told her about my trip over the holidays. We talked about the upcoming wedding of one of my cousins. And I inquired whether El Capitan had finally sold a shuttle bus he had acquired when he thought he was going to start an adventure tourism company (before Tia L was diagnosed with lymphoma). She said he had. We also talked about The Notorious M.O.M., El Capitan's sister, and her decision to go to Kona later this week for some sight-seeing -- and how Tia L is wondering if some of that sight-seeing might happen on Oahu.
From a family-support standpoint, that's one really fucked up part of this story. Because the Big Island of Hawaii does not have adequate medical care, Tia L is in a hospital on Oahu. That means that El Capitan and my cousins have to take a flight to visit her in the hospital, so she is spending a lot of time without the presense of her family, with whom she is very close. It is a stress on all of them, coming and going. (Frankly, I can't imagine The Notorious M.O.M. would not make the flight to Oahu, but then, the depth of her emotional ineptitude never ceases to surprise me.)
Anyway ... yikes!
I was not expecting *any* of this when I called. I thought perhaps she might be back in Kona and perhaps getting chemo. Instead, she was telling me she had signed a DNR order, much to the dismay of my cousins.
Several hours after I hung up the phone, I felt the weight of anxiety settling in for a visit, but I was having difficulty determining why.
I talked to S2, who always finds her way to the heart of a matter. "You know, with all the things you've been thinking lately about attachment," she said, "I guess I want to tell you not to underestimate the power of this particular relationship. This one is huge."
When she said that, it felt like a thousand images of my life with Tia L flashed through my mind in an instant. My Christmas stocking. Peppermint tea on the counter. Mask-making. Mardi Gras parades. Chicory coffee. A sweat lodge with eucalyptus water. An old Suburban. Cathy Bell at the kitchen table. The sailboats. The conversations. Crawfish etoufee. The sleigh bed that inspired my own. Crab meat crepes. Dancing at Tipatinas. Showing my knockers on Bourbon Street. Portraits of my ancestors on the walls. The bouncing check I gave her once. Haircuts. Both of us in black evening gowns on New Years Eve. The fierce light of her eyes. All the hugs and kisses. The endless hugs and kisses.
It was a like a flash flood, the way it came upon me. She was a significant source of warm, unconditional maternal love that sustained me through adolescence and college.
And then, for 14 years, nothing. She and El Capitan set sail to South America for a couple years, and we lost touch. We reconnected in May of 2005, and things resumed as if they had never stopped.
I suppose it's because in some ways, they never did stop. Tia L is one of those people I have carried around inside me since the day I met her. Death, no matter how crushing, won't take that away.
As I fine-tune the voices in my head, hers is one I should turn up a lot louder. It has always been about love. For me. For others. For adventure. For life itself.
"My objective," she told me today, "is to continue living."
Forgive *this* dream
You'd have to know about a poem with which I've become a little fixated lately to really get that headline. But, nevertheless, I'm about to reveal a dream that may require some forgiveness.
It was all about Martha Stewart and my home.
Thus, No. 7 Dream:
Martha comes in with some guy I know. I couldn't tell you who, but I know him. She's also got a camera crew in tow. My home is in tatters. My kitchen is an abomination. My desk is an example of chaos and random order.
First thing she does is trip over an espresso-colored goose-down blanket that's on the floor. She clucks her tongue and then in a breathtakingly fast process, bends down, scoops of the blanket, expertly folds it and hangs it *just so* on the foot of my sleigh bed. She takes a moment to run her fingers on the scroll that adorns the foot of the sleigh and compliments me on my taste.
"If not your cleanliness," she says with so little affect that it's a nun-worthy type of scolding.
That aside, the real point of Martha's visit and her camera crew in tow seems to be my "special" bike trainer. She keeps asking me to take the bike off and put it back on, and asks me to narrate the process all along the way for this guy that's with her. She interviews me about the trainer, and I keep saying, Look, it's just a normal trainer. There's nothing special about it.
But Martha is having none of that. "I understand you can make it very compact for storage," she says.
Well, I don't know what you mean by 'very compact,' I reply, but it does kind of fold up like this. And I demonstrate.
And the next thing you know, Martha is having me demonstrate how both my trainer *and* my bike are somehow miraculously made to shrink down to a size small enough to fit in my refrigerator. But first, while Martha looks over my shoulder, I have to go digging around on all the shelves, moving tubs of margarine, bags of tortillas and whatnot, to make room for the bike.
I find a really old, limp, unbagged bunch of celery on one shelf, pull it out and hand it to her. I guess this is expired, I'd say.
" 'Expired' is not really the appropriate term for vegetables," Martha informs me. "But it does appear you need to eat more vegetables -- they should never go bad because you should be *eating* them."
(What a nag, huh?!)
I clear off some of the middle shelves before I remember: Oh yeah, the trainer and the bike usually go on the *top* shelf of the fridge. Duh! And then, I grab the whole bit, bike and trainer combined, and somehow compress it like an accordion and -- voila! -- it takes up only *half* of the shelf.
Martha is very impressed and pronounces it "a good thing."
Then she wants me to take it out and show the guy how easy it is to set up again. Unfortunately, while I have my back turned, Martha takes the trainer apart, breaking it down into pieces that do not easily nor obviously lend themselves to reassembly. She wants me to put it back together again in front of the cameras to "show how simple it is."
I am standing there with three pieces of something that don't look anything like my trainer. It's not simple at all, I replied. In fact, I think you've *broken* it.
.... Well, that's when I woke up.
Yesterday, one of my blog readers told me that this particular bit of the Internet constitutes "a direct line into your soul." Although I write about all sorts of personal foofaraw and otherwise give insight into my personal insanity, I'm not sure if it's a line to my soul. Rather more navel-gazing than soul-revealing, I'm afraid.
BUT, if any of you find the dream I have just recorded to be revealing in some way, perhaps you can share your analysis. I would be interested to know what people think it might mean. Because that? Is some funky shit.
It was all about Martha Stewart and my home.
Thus, No. 7 Dream:
Martha comes in with some guy I know. I couldn't tell you who, but I know him. She's also got a camera crew in tow. My home is in tatters. My kitchen is an abomination. My desk is an example of chaos and random order.
First thing she does is trip over an espresso-colored goose-down blanket that's on the floor. She clucks her tongue and then in a breathtakingly fast process, bends down, scoops of the blanket, expertly folds it and hangs it *just so* on the foot of my sleigh bed. She takes a moment to run her fingers on the scroll that adorns the foot of the sleigh and compliments me on my taste.
"If not your cleanliness," she says with so little affect that it's a nun-worthy type of scolding.
That aside, the real point of Martha's visit and her camera crew in tow seems to be my "special" bike trainer. She keeps asking me to take the bike off and put it back on, and asks me to narrate the process all along the way for this guy that's with her. She interviews me about the trainer, and I keep saying, Look, it's just a normal trainer. There's nothing special about it.
But Martha is having none of that. "I understand you can make it very compact for storage," she says.
Well, I don't know what you mean by 'very compact,' I reply, but it does kind of fold up like this. And I demonstrate.
And the next thing you know, Martha is having me demonstrate how both my trainer *and* my bike are somehow miraculously made to shrink down to a size small enough to fit in my refrigerator. But first, while Martha looks over my shoulder, I have to go digging around on all the shelves, moving tubs of margarine, bags of tortillas and whatnot, to make room for the bike.
I find a really old, limp, unbagged bunch of celery on one shelf, pull it out and hand it to her. I guess this is expired, I'd say.
" 'Expired' is not really the appropriate term for vegetables," Martha informs me. "But it does appear you need to eat more vegetables -- they should never go bad because you should be *eating* them."
(What a nag, huh?!)
I clear off some of the middle shelves before I remember: Oh yeah, the trainer and the bike usually go on the *top* shelf of the fridge. Duh! And then, I grab the whole bit, bike and trainer combined, and somehow compress it like an accordion and -- voila! -- it takes up only *half* of the shelf.
Martha is very impressed and pronounces it "a good thing."
Then she wants me to take it out and show the guy how easy it is to set up again. Unfortunately, while I have my back turned, Martha takes the trainer apart, breaking it down into pieces that do not easily nor obviously lend themselves to reassembly. She wants me to put it back together again in front of the cameras to "show how simple it is."
I am standing there with three pieces of something that don't look anything like my trainer. It's not simple at all, I replied. In fact, I think you've *broken* it.
.... Well, that's when I woke up.
Yesterday, one of my blog readers told me that this particular bit of the Internet constitutes "a direct line into your soul." Although I write about all sorts of personal foofaraw and otherwise give insight into my personal insanity, I'm not sure if it's a line to my soul. Rather more navel-gazing than soul-revealing, I'm afraid.
BUT, if any of you find the dream I have just recorded to be revealing in some way, perhaps you can share your analysis. I would be interested to know what people think it might mean. Because that? Is some funky shit.
One of those moments
I lead with my mouth. Almost always. One of my professors more politely describes it as "speaking to think," versus those who "think to speak." But I think it's really more of a troublesome here-and-now approach to communication than anything else.
And I can't stop doing it.
Of course, the interesting thing is that I am sometimes *very* surprised by what I say. I had one of those moments just a few minutes ago. If I bothered repeating it and putting it in context, I think the Internet might collapse. (Oh, the power I have!) So let's just say that I had a moment where I said something in parting and immediately asked myself, Did I really just say that?! And then laughed at myself in a way that can only be described as a mix of maniacle and delighted amusement.
All I can say to the charmer upon whose ears my most unexpected and bizarre words fell is: Oh well. Can't really take those back. Wouldn't want to anyway.
In other news, I did a stint with the Criminally Insane today that included the viewing of two movies, one of which was "American Beauty." That flick still has an effect on me.
And then this evening, I went with GameBoy to see "Letters from Iwo Jima," which left me seriously sympathizing with "the enemy." To the point that I actually teared up a little. (Touché to those of you who feign surprise at the idea of me getting a little teary-eyed.) I'm not just dealing with a world of grief these days, I also happen to be one of the ultimate saps of all time when it comes to movies.
This one was particularly wrenching, though. Full of the acts of humanity at war -- heroic and otherwise. And the film was desaturated so that most colors were muted toward grey. Only reds and yellows (and thus things like the Japanese flag and the fiery blasts of artillery) were highlighted. Quite a dramatic effect. If you're going to see a movie that doesn't have any sex in it, make it "Letters from Iwo Jima."
After the flick, I got to satisfy my curiosity about something new out there in the world. I played a few games -- tennis, bowling and golf -- on GameBoy's Wii setup. Wii allows you to use kinetic movements to control your video icons. So in bowling, you hold a controller in your hand and move your arm like you're bowling. You release the ball by releasing your hold on a button.
You also get to be these little characters, some of which have been created by Nintendo, and others which you can create yourself (called a Mii). GameBoy happens to have created a bunch of celebrity look-alikes, so in the games where we competed against each other, I was Uma Thurman, and GameBoy was Chuck Norris. Chuck kept winning.
Interestingly, my bowling scores and performance in Wii parallel my bowling in real life. My Wii golf game is a tad better -- but not much better. I triple-bogeyed a par 5. I started out with a nice drive that hooked to the right and landed in the rough, hit a great second shot, overshot the green on the third, fourth and firth shots, landed in the bunker on the sixth, before finally two-putting into the hole. That's just about where my golf game was when I last hit the links about two years ago.
Anyway, that was interesting -- and my curiosity has been satisfied.
Now it's time to say goodnight. It's been a LONG day for me, and I desperately need my beauty rest.
And I can't stop doing it.
Of course, the interesting thing is that I am sometimes *very* surprised by what I say. I had one of those moments just a few minutes ago. If I bothered repeating it and putting it in context, I think the Internet might collapse. (Oh, the power I have!) So let's just say that I had a moment where I said something in parting and immediately asked myself, Did I really just say that?! And then laughed at myself in a way that can only be described as a mix of maniacle and delighted amusement.
All I can say to the charmer upon whose ears my most unexpected and bizarre words fell is: Oh well. Can't really take those back. Wouldn't want to anyway.
In other news, I did a stint with the Criminally Insane today that included the viewing of two movies, one of which was "American Beauty." That flick still has an effect on me.
And then this evening, I went with GameBoy to see "Letters from Iwo Jima," which left me seriously sympathizing with "the enemy." To the point that I actually teared up a little. (Touché to those of you who feign surprise at the idea of me getting a little teary-eyed.) I'm not just dealing with a world of grief these days, I also happen to be one of the ultimate saps of all time when it comes to movies.
This one was particularly wrenching, though. Full of the acts of humanity at war -- heroic and otherwise. And the film was desaturated so that most colors were muted toward grey. Only reds and yellows (and thus things like the Japanese flag and the fiery blasts of artillery) were highlighted. Quite a dramatic effect. If you're going to see a movie that doesn't have any sex in it, make it "Letters from Iwo Jima."
After the flick, I got to satisfy my curiosity about something new out there in the world. I played a few games -- tennis, bowling and golf -- on GameBoy's Wii setup. Wii allows you to use kinetic movements to control your video icons. So in bowling, you hold a controller in your hand and move your arm like you're bowling. You release the ball by releasing your hold on a button.
You also get to be these little characters, some of which have been created by Nintendo, and others which you can create yourself (called a Mii). GameBoy happens to have created a bunch of celebrity look-alikes, so in the games where we competed against each other, I was Uma Thurman, and GameBoy was Chuck Norris. Chuck kept winning.
Interestingly, my bowling scores and performance in Wii parallel my bowling in real life. My Wii golf game is a tad better -- but not much better. I triple-bogeyed a par 5. I started out with a nice drive that hooked to the right and landed in the rough, hit a great second shot, overshot the green on the third, fourth and firth shots, landed in the bunker on the sixth, before finally two-putting into the hole. That's just about where my golf game was when I last hit the links about two years ago.
Anyway, that was interesting -- and my curiosity has been satisfied.
Now it's time to say goodnight. It's been a LONG day for me, and I desperately need my beauty rest.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
extended pyschosis: errors and omissions
It occurs to me that in all my complaining about my lack of attachment, I've been rudely overlooking a friend so significant that she has become in many respects "the sister I never had."
I'm talking about S2.
Of course there's attachment there. That has lately become rather obvious to me, not just because she helped me out when I was sick but because there is a depth of caring between us that can only be described as a form of attachment.
I have been on several occasions rather touched by the things S2 has done, not the least of which was giving a new life to some very "precious" stones my late brother gave me about 20 years ago. And there was the aforementioned help she provided to me last week when I was ill.
But S2's greatest contribution to my life has been her participation, perhaps unwittingly, in the resurrection of my trust in others. On Thursday, she made a funny little comment to me about the lack of certain exclusionary clauses in "the contract of our friendship," and I felt a deep and keen appreciation for how transparent she can be in her relating to others.
There is an evolutionary theory that we choose our mates -- and I think it stands to reason that we choose our friends the same way -- as a result of propinquity, which is just basically what's under our noses. We look around at whatever's nearby and select the best possible character from the pile. When it comes to mates, there's a lot of dispute about just what comes into play and why we select those that we do. No doubt there should be equally curious questions about how and why we choose our friends.
I like to believe that when it comes to friends, a guiding force is selecting someone who's good for us, but this hasn't always been the case for me. I've tended toward people who are deferential and polite and not terribly passionate, and I suspect my reasoning for doing so is the desire to find the opposite of the conflict and chaos of the FOO Fighters (FOO standing for "Family of Origin").
But S2 is different. She's incredibly compassionate, loving and generous, while also managing to be direct and occasionally confrontational. She puts up with a lot from me but doesn't suffer my bullshit. She is also magnificent in her interactions with children, and I have learned a lot from observing her.
I couldn't tell you what I give S2 in return. Some kind of supportive engagement? Food and chocolate in class? Intelligent, adult conversation with a classmate who doesn't mind the constant interruptions faced by a mom? A certain degree of personal whackiness that allows her to feel especially sane (a benefit enjoyed by many of my friends, I should note)? Who knows what....
In any case, it became obvious to me that in my whining about my lack of attachment, I had overlooked a significant friend. Friendships may not exactly qualify as the type of attachment which I have noted is missing from my life, but neither are the powerful ones to be dismissed as I managed to do in an earlier blog post.
S2 isn't the kind of person who would complain about the oversight. But I'm the kind of person who takes a second look at what I've written and corrects my errors and omissions. This was one of them.
I'm talking about S2.
Of course there's attachment there. That has lately become rather obvious to me, not just because she helped me out when I was sick but because there is a depth of caring between us that can only be described as a form of attachment.
I have been on several occasions rather touched by the things S2 has done, not the least of which was giving a new life to some very "precious" stones my late brother gave me about 20 years ago. And there was the aforementioned help she provided to me last week when I was ill.
But S2's greatest contribution to my life has been her participation, perhaps unwittingly, in the resurrection of my trust in others. On Thursday, she made a funny little comment to me about the lack of certain exclusionary clauses in "the contract of our friendship," and I felt a deep and keen appreciation for how transparent she can be in her relating to others.
There is an evolutionary theory that we choose our mates -- and I think it stands to reason that we choose our friends the same way -- as a result of propinquity, which is just basically what's under our noses. We look around at whatever's nearby and select the best possible character from the pile. When it comes to mates, there's a lot of dispute about just what comes into play and why we select those that we do. No doubt there should be equally curious questions about how and why we choose our friends.
I like to believe that when it comes to friends, a guiding force is selecting someone who's good for us, but this hasn't always been the case for me. I've tended toward people who are deferential and polite and not terribly passionate, and I suspect my reasoning for doing so is the desire to find the opposite of the conflict and chaos of the FOO Fighters (FOO standing for "Family of Origin").
But S2 is different. She's incredibly compassionate, loving and generous, while also managing to be direct and occasionally confrontational. She puts up with a lot from me but doesn't suffer my bullshit. She is also magnificent in her interactions with children, and I have learned a lot from observing her.
I couldn't tell you what I give S2 in return. Some kind of supportive engagement? Food and chocolate in class? Intelligent, adult conversation with a classmate who doesn't mind the constant interruptions faced by a mom? A certain degree of personal whackiness that allows her to feel especially sane (a benefit enjoyed by many of my friends, I should note)? Who knows what....
In any case, it became obvious to me that in my whining about my lack of attachment, I had overlooked a significant friend. Friendships may not exactly qualify as the type of attachment which I have noted is missing from my life, but neither are the powerful ones to be dismissed as I managed to do in an earlier blog post.
S2 isn't the kind of person who would complain about the oversight. But I'm the kind of person who takes a second look at what I've written and corrects my errors and omissions. This was one of them.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Fire in the sky
For the past few weeks, I've been engaged in an epic battle within myself. It is far too complicated to explain on this here blog, and a great deal of it is none of your business anyway.
But I'm writing about it, so let's just put it this way:
The trauma of my childhood, regrets about my adult relationships, annoyance with the unnecessarily heterosexist bias in my Couples Therapy class and a deluge of reading about Attachment Theory combined with a physical ailment that wore me down from its duration (nearly three weeks now), ruined my exercise habits, disrupted my dietary stability and left me feeling, for two days, too sick to take care of myself. Then, on Tuesday night after class, an unexpected interpersonal explosion added the last bit of psychological stress necessary to create what, in my experience, became The Perfect Storm.
A dream I had early Wednesday morning is telling:
I am at home in my loft and it's empty. No furniture. No clothing. No dog. I'm sitting on the floor in the kitchen, knees to my chest, crying. XGF comes in and asks what's the matter. I'm sad, I reply. I'm just very, very sad.
She says she's going on a business trip and is just here waiting for a taxi. She stands in the bay window and watches the street below. We are talking, but I can't remember what's being said.
The taxi arrives, and I walk downstairs with her. She walks across the street and gets into the taxi, and I am surprised by the fact that she doesn't seem to notice the wind. It is howling. It is pushing against the door so hard that I have to lean my whole weight into the door to close it. It won't stay closed. The wind keeps pushing it, the force so violent that it's knocking me off balance. I see bricks nearby and think I can pile them in the doorway to keep it shut.
My plan is useless. Before I can build a sufficient barrier, the door has broken and is swinging outward, slamming itself open and shut in the gale. I abandon my plan and head back up to my loft.
I enter my home only to find the wind is in here, too. All the windows and doors are shut, but there is a massive, frightening hurricane in my home. Invisible. Unstoppable. Pushing me around. Keeping me off balance. Sending me to the floor. It isn't safe anywhere.
... So that was the dream. Frightening, disturbing and filled for me, the dreamer, with tremendous despair. It was (and still is) a clear and accurate metaphor for the disturbance of my psyche.
The wind is highly symbolic. It is something I can see only by inference -- the door banging, trees bending, trash blowing in the streets -- but it is undeniably and powerfully present. It disrupts everything, knocks me off my feet, throws my entire world into chaos. It is also a force over which I have no control, and yet it surrounds me, flows past and through me, pushes itself against me without being something I can grab onto and wrestle properly and directly. There's no defense against it, and there's also no way to attack it. The wind, simply, is not fair.
Although this "perfect storm" was a few weeks in developing its strength, the wind finally blew at such strength on Tuesday night that it knocked me over and pinned me to the ground. It felt to me like there would be no getting up, and I totally succumed to the experience.
To my credit, however, I took some important steps to protect myself, told a few friends what was happening and managed, somehow, to go through a few important paces, such as going to class. There was also, in the middle of it, a rather peculiar attempt at "retail therapy" that resulted in me owning some "magic" locking cooking tongs. (I wish I could explain, but you've got to experience them for yourself.)
In any case, I was until this evening unquestionably lingering right at the event horizon of a psychological black hole. I spent two hours trying to persuade myself to get out of bed and go walk my dog. This included attempts at disputing my cognitive distortions, diaphragmatic breathing (yes, it was so bad, I went the Crosby route) and reminding myself of the importance of every single self-care tactic I could remember.
Finally, though, it was probably the phone call from YogaGirl, who told me, "Take your dog for a walk," that prompted me to sit up. And when I sat up, the dog came over and began to pester me with the type of imploring whine that made it clear he was not going to be one of those quiet, retiring dogs you see in the Cymbalta ("Who does depression hurt?") commercials. So I got up and walked him.
Although I'm not out of my psychological gutter just yet, something happened on that walk that shifted my state of mind a bit. I experienced a staggering insight: Something I have been secretly ruminating on for several months now came sharply into focus, and I gave words to it. I spoke them out loud and faced my own foolishness. I was devastated and worn out and fed up and crying.
I took a moment to compose myself. And then I turned the corner. (Literally, not figuratively.)
Walking up the street, I saw something curious about two blocks away. Bright lights were circling there in the darkness. Without my glasses, it took me a few moments of walking closer to understand what I was seeing. Someone was juggling fire.
Even in the haze of sleepy, tearful, grief-inspired depression, this spinning fire called out to me like a beacon. I was drawn to explore it, to know what was happening there down the street. I walked up to a scene of which, for a few minutes, I was the only observer. There, in the street, scantily clad in the cold night air, a woman engaged in a sensual dance to erotic-sounding trance music, spinning orbs of fire on the end of two chains. It was decidedly Cirque du Soleil-like in its spectacle.
I hadn't eaten but a Luna Bar all day, and as I watched the amber glow of the fire illuminate this woman's bare stomach, I considered the possibility that I was hallucinating. But I observed two things: My dog clearly saw the same thing I did, and cars began to slow as they drove down a nearby street, some stopping in the intersection to watch this curious performance.
As the woman's firey chains began to burn out, another woman in even less clothing approached with two handfuls of Freddy Kruger-like fingertips topped with balls that burst into flames when she touched them to the other woman's burning chains. She began to dance in the street to a different song.
I was captivated.
Especially when, with the start of a third song, the first woman returned to the street with a firey hula hoop and turned herself into an illuminated version of a whirling dervish. It was phenomenal. As I stood there, a woman rode up on her bike. Some other people walked up and stood near me. Collectively, we composed a mystified and appreciative group.
Perhaps it was the boldness of fire contrasting the dark night, perhaps it was the trance-like music, perhaps it was the delightful color of warmth reflecting on young flesh in the chilly fog, but as I watched this performance, my mood began to change. It was nothing more than serendipitous, but it felt in the moment as if this performance were being put on specifically for me.
I found myself contemplating a world in which such things happen, in which the most powerful grief can be challenged by the mystery of fire in the night sky, in which unexpected performance art and utter frivolity can find their expression without question.
I enjoy such a world. Like the wind that blows across its surface, it's unpredictable. Sometimes, it disturbs me and unhinges me and pins me to the floor. It devastates me and nearly destroys me. Yet it has such mystery that it keeps me curious. It holds the promise of something new, some possibility not yet considered.
And somehow -- somehow -- just when I've think I've had enough, it keeps me coming back for more.
But I'm writing about it, so let's just put it this way:
The trauma of my childhood, regrets about my adult relationships, annoyance with the unnecessarily heterosexist bias in my Couples Therapy class and a deluge of reading about Attachment Theory combined with a physical ailment that wore me down from its duration (nearly three weeks now), ruined my exercise habits, disrupted my dietary stability and left me feeling, for two days, too sick to take care of myself. Then, on Tuesday night after class, an unexpected interpersonal explosion added the last bit of psychological stress necessary to create what, in my experience, became The Perfect Storm.
A dream I had early Wednesday morning is telling:
I am at home in my loft and it's empty. No furniture. No clothing. No dog. I'm sitting on the floor in the kitchen, knees to my chest, crying. XGF comes in and asks what's the matter. I'm sad, I reply. I'm just very, very sad.
She says she's going on a business trip and is just here waiting for a taxi. She stands in the bay window and watches the street below. We are talking, but I can't remember what's being said.
The taxi arrives, and I walk downstairs with her. She walks across the street and gets into the taxi, and I am surprised by the fact that she doesn't seem to notice the wind. It is howling. It is pushing against the door so hard that I have to lean my whole weight into the door to close it. It won't stay closed. The wind keeps pushing it, the force so violent that it's knocking me off balance. I see bricks nearby and think I can pile them in the doorway to keep it shut.
My plan is useless. Before I can build a sufficient barrier, the door has broken and is swinging outward, slamming itself open and shut in the gale. I abandon my plan and head back up to my loft.
I enter my home only to find the wind is in here, too. All the windows and doors are shut, but there is a massive, frightening hurricane in my home. Invisible. Unstoppable. Pushing me around. Keeping me off balance. Sending me to the floor. It isn't safe anywhere.
... So that was the dream. Frightening, disturbing and filled for me, the dreamer, with tremendous despair. It was (and still is) a clear and accurate metaphor for the disturbance of my psyche.
The wind is highly symbolic. It is something I can see only by inference -- the door banging, trees bending, trash blowing in the streets -- but it is undeniably and powerfully present. It disrupts everything, knocks me off my feet, throws my entire world into chaos. It is also a force over which I have no control, and yet it surrounds me, flows past and through me, pushes itself against me without being something I can grab onto and wrestle properly and directly. There's no defense against it, and there's also no way to attack it. The wind, simply, is not fair.
Although this "perfect storm" was a few weeks in developing its strength, the wind finally blew at such strength on Tuesday night that it knocked me over and pinned me to the ground. It felt to me like there would be no getting up, and I totally succumed to the experience.
To my credit, however, I took some important steps to protect myself, told a few friends what was happening and managed, somehow, to go through a few important paces, such as going to class. There was also, in the middle of it, a rather peculiar attempt at "retail therapy" that resulted in me owning some "magic" locking cooking tongs. (I wish I could explain, but you've got to experience them for yourself.)
In any case, I was until this evening unquestionably lingering right at the event horizon of a psychological black hole. I spent two hours trying to persuade myself to get out of bed and go walk my dog. This included attempts at disputing my cognitive distortions, diaphragmatic breathing (yes, it was so bad, I went the Crosby route) and reminding myself of the importance of every single self-care tactic I could remember.
Finally, though, it was probably the phone call from YogaGirl, who told me, "Take your dog for a walk," that prompted me to sit up. And when I sat up, the dog came over and began to pester me with the type of imploring whine that made it clear he was not going to be one of those quiet, retiring dogs you see in the Cymbalta ("Who does depression hurt?") commercials. So I got up and walked him.
Although I'm not out of my psychological gutter just yet, something happened on that walk that shifted my state of mind a bit. I experienced a staggering insight: Something I have been secretly ruminating on for several months now came sharply into focus, and I gave words to it. I spoke them out loud and faced my own foolishness. I was devastated and worn out and fed up and crying.
I took a moment to compose myself. And then I turned the corner. (Literally, not figuratively.)
Walking up the street, I saw something curious about two blocks away. Bright lights were circling there in the darkness. Without my glasses, it took me a few moments of walking closer to understand what I was seeing. Someone was juggling fire.
Even in the haze of sleepy, tearful, grief-inspired depression, this spinning fire called out to me like a beacon. I was drawn to explore it, to know what was happening there down the street. I walked up to a scene of which, for a few minutes, I was the only observer. There, in the street, scantily clad in the cold night air, a woman engaged in a sensual dance to erotic-sounding trance music, spinning orbs of fire on the end of two chains. It was decidedly Cirque du Soleil-like in its spectacle.
I hadn't eaten but a Luna Bar all day, and as I watched the amber glow of the fire illuminate this woman's bare stomach, I considered the possibility that I was hallucinating. But I observed two things: My dog clearly saw the same thing I did, and cars began to slow as they drove down a nearby street, some stopping in the intersection to watch this curious performance.
As the woman's firey chains began to burn out, another woman in even less clothing approached with two handfuls of Freddy Kruger-like fingertips topped with balls that burst into flames when she touched them to the other woman's burning chains. She began to dance in the street to a different song.
I was captivated.
Especially when, with the start of a third song, the first woman returned to the street with a firey hula hoop and turned herself into an illuminated version of a whirling dervish. It was phenomenal. As I stood there, a woman rode up on her bike. Some other people walked up and stood near me. Collectively, we composed a mystified and appreciative group.
Perhaps it was the boldness of fire contrasting the dark night, perhaps it was the trance-like music, perhaps it was the delightful color of warmth reflecting on young flesh in the chilly fog, but as I watched this performance, my mood began to change. It was nothing more than serendipitous, but it felt in the moment as if this performance were being put on specifically for me.
I found myself contemplating a world in which such things happen, in which the most powerful grief can be challenged by the mystery of fire in the night sky, in which unexpected performance art and utter frivolity can find their expression without question.
I enjoy such a world. Like the wind that blows across its surface, it's unpredictable. Sometimes, it disturbs me and unhinges me and pins me to the floor. It devastates me and nearly destroys me. Yet it has such mystery that it keeps me curious. It holds the promise of something new, some possibility not yet considered.
And somehow -- somehow -- just when I've think I've had enough, it keeps me coming back for more.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Games they play in prison
Worked this evening. And as seems to be par for the course with this job of mine, I learned something new. Refresher: I've recently started doing on-call work as a house mom at Homes for the Criminally Insane.
Tonight, I was at a semi-independent living home (aka, Criminally Insane Lite). That means the residents are under considerably fewer restrictions than the other homes where I work. In this case, there is only staff coverage from 3 to 11 p.m. The residents are at various levels of reintegration into the community, and the main purpose of this set up is to help them get on their feet -- start working, volunteering, going to school, what have you -- as they prepare for independent living.
Tonight, however, was all about pinochle. And, according to the nightly staff logs, most evenings lately have been about pinochle.
Three of the five guys who live in the home are seriously into the game. A fourth plays regularly. (The fifth makes derogatory comments about medium- and light-roasted coffees -- "coffee for girls," he says -- but apparently spends most evening up in his room listening to heavy metal.)
Anyway, I don't know shit about pinochle. Or rather, I should say I *didn't* know shit about the game. They taught me. They also said I "picked it up pretty fast for a girl." (Let me assure you, that reads worse than it was intended. These dudes are a bunch of big purring pussycats. Except for the guy with the fixation on coffee. He's ... adversarial.)
So I learned to play, although I'm still confused about the bidding that goes on at the start and exactly how that affects your score -- if you "make your meld" or whatever they were saying.
At one point, I remarked that I never knew what a pinochle deck was, and one of the guys says to me, "I'm surprised, because it is probably the most popular card game there is."
The most popular? I asked. You think more than, like, poker or spades?
"Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm pretty sure it's the most popular. That and cribbage."
Pinochle and cribbage, huh? I never knew they were so popular.
"Well, in prison," the guys says. "In prison pinochle is the most popular for sure."
"Oh yeah," one of other players chimed in. "Pinochle is what you play in prison. You gotta keep your eyes on the table, lady, because the hands and the cards start moving pretty fast. Not here, because the meds make us a little shakey and slow. But in prison, pinochle is fast."
"It's also really popular in hospitals," the first added.
"Those are both places where you have a lot of time on your hands," said a third.
So true.
Sometimes, it's hard *not* to be charmed by these guys. My advice: If you ever go into a Home for the Criminally Insane, walk through the door with an open mind. You might learn something. Even if it's just how to play cards in prison. You never know when that lesson might come in handy.
Tonight, I was at a semi-independent living home (aka, Criminally Insane Lite). That means the residents are under considerably fewer restrictions than the other homes where I work. In this case, there is only staff coverage from 3 to 11 p.m. The residents are at various levels of reintegration into the community, and the main purpose of this set up is to help them get on their feet -- start working, volunteering, going to school, what have you -- as they prepare for independent living.
Tonight, however, was all about pinochle. And, according to the nightly staff logs, most evenings lately have been about pinochle.
Three of the five guys who live in the home are seriously into the game. A fourth plays regularly. (The fifth makes derogatory comments about medium- and light-roasted coffees -- "coffee for girls," he says -- but apparently spends most evening up in his room listening to heavy metal.)
Anyway, I don't know shit about pinochle. Or rather, I should say I *didn't* know shit about the game. They taught me. They also said I "picked it up pretty fast for a girl." (Let me assure you, that reads worse than it was intended. These dudes are a bunch of big purring pussycats. Except for the guy with the fixation on coffee. He's ... adversarial.)
So I learned to play, although I'm still confused about the bidding that goes on at the start and exactly how that affects your score -- if you "make your meld" or whatever they were saying.
At one point, I remarked that I never knew what a pinochle deck was, and one of the guys says to me, "I'm surprised, because it is probably the most popular card game there is."
The most popular? I asked. You think more than, like, poker or spades?
"Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm pretty sure it's the most popular. That and cribbage."
Pinochle and cribbage, huh? I never knew they were so popular.
"Well, in prison," the guys says. "In prison pinochle is the most popular for sure."
"Oh yeah," one of other players chimed in. "Pinochle is what you play in prison. You gotta keep your eyes on the table, lady, because the hands and the cards start moving pretty fast. Not here, because the meds make us a little shakey and slow. But in prison, pinochle is fast."
"It's also really popular in hospitals," the first added.
"Those are both places where you have a lot of time on your hands," said a third.
So true.
Sometimes, it's hard *not* to be charmed by these guys. My advice: If you ever go into a Home for the Criminally Insane, walk through the door with an open mind. You might learn something. Even if it's just how to play cards in prison. You never know when that lesson might come in handy.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
On being "unattached"
When, the other week, the professor in my Couples Therapy class asked us to introduce ourselves to the rest of the class by way of our relationship status, one of the words he used as a possibililty was "unattached." When it came around to me, I said, I'm single. Perhaps too single for my own good. (Although I'm not the only unmarried person in the class, I am the only one who is not involved in some way -- seriously dating, engaged, etc. -- with an "other.")
So I acknowledge that it's been a rough road for me, this single life, especially coming on the heels of a seven-year relationship. But it was in the readings for this week's class that I realized the depth of my lack of attachment. More than simply lacking a significant other as an attachment figure, I have absolutely no meaningful attachment figures -- described by Attachment Theorists primarily as "parents, children, spouses, lovers" -- in my life at all.
For those wondering what I mean by "attachment," psychologists define an attachment figure according to four features. It would be a person 1) with whom you seek and maintain physical proximity, 2) from whom you seek aid or comfort, 3) whose absence or separation from you causes you to feel some distress and 4) whom you use as a secure base for the exploration of the rest of your life.
These are well-established behaviors between children and their primary caregivers, but they are also the distinguishing features of intimate, committed relationships between adults. And, usually, there's sex involved in the latter type of relationship. At its core, such a relationship is one in which both partners allow the other to depend on them in some way.
Dependency is something of a dirty word, having been pathologized to the hilt in our culture. I am reminded in reading all this business of the urges within myself and some of my friends to believe that we can be self-sufficient, independent -- and that when we are lonely, it is personal shortcoming that I have heard described on more than one occasion as "something missing in our own company." (God, what *bullshit!*)
So maybe we prefer to describe our adult relationships as ones of "interdependency," which perhaps makes it look like we are "giving" something of ourself to another, but not necessarily admitting that we're not capable of total self-sufficiency.
Whatever the case, I don't have such a relationship. Nor do I have the other types of attachment relationships -- parents, children or even a lover -- that tend to sustain us, to give us a sense of connection, during those times when we are not attached to a significant other. (Yes, my parents are still alive, but they do not meet in any way, shape or form the four features of an attachment figure.)
According to the research, this leaves me without "protection from feelings of hopelessless and meaninglessness," which are major sources of anxiety and depression. It also has the potential to weaken my immune system and leaves me more susceptible to insanity, suicide and substance abuse/addiction.
I know. What an uplifting perspective!
But it explains a hell of a lot to me about what has been going on in my internal landscape for the past year.
Prior to my breakup with XGF, I felt considerably more confident about myself and my life than I have felt since parting ways. I have, many times on this blog, voiced insecurities and neurotic feelings that had not been a part of my life experience in many years. What has come to the surface has often felt unsettlingly childish to me -- it recalls the heart of the little girl I once was, seeking comfort from my dogs and stuffed animals in the absence of a trustworthy parent.
Beyond being psychologically traumatizing (as research shows the loss of adult attachment inevitably is), it has actually sometimes been a physically painful experience to find myself so unattached and feeling isolated in this swirling tide of humanity. I am fortunate to have a good friend or two who will dish up a hug -- and I am deeply grateful for the likes of S2, who has provided both aid and comfort in several ways, such as with my recent illness. But I have found that in moments of despair (crying over my aunt's terminal illness in the Kona airport, for example), neither the kindest of words nor the most powerful of self-soothing behaviors are a substitute for the simple act of having a loved one hold me. I cannot hold myself, no matter how hard I try.
Because I am a rather bold, amiable, adventurous spirit for the most part, the intensity of these feelings and the depth of my neuroticism over being "alone" has been both surprising and frustrating to me. Even as I have spoken and written rather openly about them, I have regarded them with an adversarial sense born of my own confusion. Essentially, I have been observing my own feelings, thoughts and even some of my behavior and constantly wondering: UCM! What the *fuck* is this about?! What the hell is going on here?
I don't know whether my closest friends (or my casual blog readers) have appreciated that particular nuance to my distress, but it has been an overwhelming, disorienting experience for me. The intensity of my feeling of loss and aloneness has been on par with the deepest grief I have known. And that has come as a shock.
But then, I'm reading all this business on adult attachment and the behaviors people engage just at the *fear* of losing it, and it becomes clear to me, suddenly, why I have felt the way I have. People fear losing their attachment figures for good reason. When you have NONE -- not a single one -- well ... words fail me.
So I acknowledge that it's been a rough road for me, this single life, especially coming on the heels of a seven-year relationship. But it was in the readings for this week's class that I realized the depth of my lack of attachment. More than simply lacking a significant other as an attachment figure, I have absolutely no meaningful attachment figures -- described by Attachment Theorists primarily as "parents, children, spouses, lovers" -- in my life at all.
For those wondering what I mean by "attachment," psychologists define an attachment figure according to four features. It would be a person 1) with whom you seek and maintain physical proximity, 2) from whom you seek aid or comfort, 3) whose absence or separation from you causes you to feel some distress and 4) whom you use as a secure base for the exploration of the rest of your life.
These are well-established behaviors between children and their primary caregivers, but they are also the distinguishing features of intimate, committed relationships between adults. And, usually, there's sex involved in the latter type of relationship. At its core, such a relationship is one in which both partners allow the other to depend on them in some way.
Dependency is something of a dirty word, having been pathologized to the hilt in our culture. I am reminded in reading all this business of the urges within myself and some of my friends to believe that we can be self-sufficient, independent -- and that when we are lonely, it is personal shortcoming that I have heard described on more than one occasion as "something missing in our own company." (God, what *bullshit!*)
So maybe we prefer to describe our adult relationships as ones of "interdependency," which perhaps makes it look like we are "giving" something of ourself to another, but not necessarily admitting that we're not capable of total self-sufficiency.
Whatever the case, I don't have such a relationship. Nor do I have the other types of attachment relationships -- parents, children or even a lover -- that tend to sustain us, to give us a sense of connection, during those times when we are not attached to a significant other. (Yes, my parents are still alive, but they do not meet in any way, shape or form the four features of an attachment figure.)
According to the research, this leaves me without "protection from feelings of hopelessless and meaninglessness," which are major sources of anxiety and depression. It also has the potential to weaken my immune system and leaves me more susceptible to insanity, suicide and substance abuse/addiction.
I know. What an uplifting perspective!
But it explains a hell of a lot to me about what has been going on in my internal landscape for the past year.
Prior to my breakup with XGF, I felt considerably more confident about myself and my life than I have felt since parting ways. I have, many times on this blog, voiced insecurities and neurotic feelings that had not been a part of my life experience in many years. What has come to the surface has often felt unsettlingly childish to me -- it recalls the heart of the little girl I once was, seeking comfort from my dogs and stuffed animals in the absence of a trustworthy parent.
Beyond being psychologically traumatizing (as research shows the loss of adult attachment inevitably is), it has actually sometimes been a physically painful experience to find myself so unattached and feeling isolated in this swirling tide of humanity. I am fortunate to have a good friend or two who will dish up a hug -- and I am deeply grateful for the likes of S2, who has provided both aid and comfort in several ways, such as with my recent illness. But I have found that in moments of despair (crying over my aunt's terminal illness in the Kona airport, for example), neither the kindest of words nor the most powerful of self-soothing behaviors are a substitute for the simple act of having a loved one hold me. I cannot hold myself, no matter how hard I try.
Because I am a rather bold, amiable, adventurous spirit for the most part, the intensity of these feelings and the depth of my neuroticism over being "alone" has been both surprising and frustrating to me. Even as I have spoken and written rather openly about them, I have regarded them with an adversarial sense born of my own confusion. Essentially, I have been observing my own feelings, thoughts and even some of my behavior and constantly wondering: UCM! What the *fuck* is this about?! What the hell is going on here?
I don't know whether my closest friends (or my casual blog readers) have appreciated that particular nuance to my distress, but it has been an overwhelming, disorienting experience for me. The intensity of my feeling of loss and aloneness has been on par with the deepest grief I have known. And that has come as a shock.
But then, I'm reading all this business on adult attachment and the behaviors people engage just at the *fear* of losing it, and it becomes clear to me, suddenly, why I have felt the way I have. People fear losing their attachment figures for good reason. When you have NONE -- not a single one -- well ... words fail me.
Atta boy!
I love Payton Manning!
And I so, so, sooooooooooooooooo dislike Tom Brady.
That makes this a very good day (despite the loss of my beloved New Orleans Saints).
And I so, so, sooooooooooooooooo dislike Tom Brady.
That makes this a very good day (despite the loss of my beloved New Orleans Saints).
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Is that better?
There were a few things I did not like about this new blog design, but I've fixed most of them.
Unfortunately, I am a know-nothing, near-Luddite when it comes to HTML. As a graphic designer -- and so few of you have ever seen my work (such as it is) -- I stayed away from the Internet and made love with Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign instead. So some of my HTML "fixes" to the template provided by Blogger were not exactly what I had in mind. Nevertheless, I think it looks a little better.
S2 complained about the text font not being dark enough. I think I've adjusted that. (If it's still too light, I can go a shade darker, but this is nice, I think.)
Mainly, though, it was the design of "extended psychosis" up there at the top that was bugging the crap out of me. There was that obnoxious box around it and whatnot. There's a pretty substantial difference in the display between Safari and Firefox -- to the point where the blog title is one deck in Safari, two in Firefox -- but I guess either of them looks better than the old way. I have no clue how it displays in Internet Exploder. Perhaps one of you could enlighten me.
Now, if I had my perfect world, that courier font would be a little eroded and look like it was actually *typed* onto good old-fashioned porous newsprint. But then, all of my blog entries would end like this, too:
-30-
Unfortunately, I am a know-nothing, near-Luddite when it comes to HTML. As a graphic designer -- and so few of you have ever seen my work (such as it is) -- I stayed away from the Internet and made love with Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign instead. So some of my HTML "fixes" to the template provided by Blogger were not exactly what I had in mind. Nevertheless, I think it looks a little better.
S2 complained about the text font not being dark enough. I think I've adjusted that. (If it's still too light, I can go a shade darker, but this is nice, I think.)
Mainly, though, it was the design of "extended psychosis" up there at the top that was bugging the crap out of me. There was that obnoxious box around it and whatnot. There's a pretty substantial difference in the display between Safari and Firefox -- to the point where the blog title is one deck in Safari, two in Firefox -- but I guess either of them looks better than the old way. I have no clue how it displays in Internet Exploder. Perhaps one of you could enlighten me.
Now, if I had my perfect world, that courier font would be a little eroded and look like it was actually *typed* onto good old-fashioned porous newsprint. But then, all of my blog entries would end like this, too:
-30-
Is this for real?
I was just about to knock off for the night and take my books to bed with me when I stumbled upon this and had to make a note of it *somewhere.* No better place than the blog for this.
It's from John Gottman's "7 Principles of Making Marriage Work," which S2 and I chewed some fat over earlier this afternoon. We were both remarking, from different perspectives, as how we find this stuff to be a bit ... superficial. That's despite the fact that this is supposedly the results of the first and most thorough bit of "scientific" research on the anatomy of marriage.
"You can see the shell-shocked look on the face of the typical young fiancé in any home furnishings store. He neither knows nor cares about the difference between taffeta and chintz. All of the china and silver patterns look remarkably alike to him. Most of all he's thinking that this is taking an awfully long time, and if he turns around suddenly he will do about $10,000 worth of damage since all of the shelves are made of glass and placed about two feet apart, probably just to intimidate guys like him. How will he react? If pretty soon he hears himself saying, "Hey, that's a great pattern," another emotionally intelligent husband has been born."
I cannot begin to count the ways that this single paragraph -- one among *many* such statements -- is an insult to both men and women. But ... really, is this the story men need to tell themselves? Gah! I can't even ask that question seriously, because it needs to be more narrowly focused: Just why the hell does John Gottman feel the need to tell this story about men? (He also talks about how foreign the notion of cleaning the bathroom is.)
He's consistently depicting them as rather fragile creatures, in this case stumbling around nervously in (usually) male-designed industrial spaces while at the same time desperately trying to navigate the big scary world of *relationships,* which themselves are designed by women and booby-trapped with all sorts of secret clubs and code words.
It can't just be the feminist in me -- nor just the woman-loving-woman in me -- that thinks this is a PATHETIC and limited notion of men. Nor do I believe that all a woman needs is her husband to say "that's a great pattern" to feel like he's "emotionally intelligent." If this is the story that heterosexual women are being sold about what they can expect of men in relationships ... oh, my SISTERS! Why in the fuck would you suffer that?
I'm sure we're all glad to know men who don't fall under this description. Some of them are even straight.
A few weeks ago, I went into the bachelor pad of a young man and saw he had a nicely upholstered Victorian-style chaise lounge. And although it was piled high with books and whatnot, he also had a round dining table with an Edwardian pedestal and a set of attractive wood and upholstered chairs that went with it. (I rather liked his taste, and many of you *know* how I am about furniture.)
I thought perhaps he'd gotten these pieces from family members, but when I inquired about them, he told me where he purchased them. Am I to assume he "chose" them under the watchful eye of a former girlfriend, but only did so after he survived bobbling nervously through the store, hoping not to tip over any vases or break any glass table tops? Because otherwise, how could this guy be getting on in the world?
Later, I went into his bathroom and noticed it was clean and tidy. And let me tell you: I peaked beyond the shower curtain -- I had to check out the claw-foot tub -- and the "clean" was for real. What to make of that?
He doesn't strike me as gay. Maybe he's just not really a man....
I mean: Must this allegedly science- and evidence-based psychology of men and marriage be so limiting in its notion of what is going on within those corporeal forms we humans call "men" and what women can expect from them in a relationship?
I'll acknowledge that I'm not a very good authority on this subject. I haven't had sex with a guy in 15 years. But I did live with one for two years in college, and I've had them as friends throughout my life. So I'm having a hard time believing that they are as paranoid and fragile (biologically) and as hopelessly emotionally and socially lost as Gottman paints them out to be.
If they are... well, thank the heavens I got no problem doin' girls. Because you could not pay me to put up with that shit, my girls. You just couldn't.
It's from John Gottman's "7 Principles of Making Marriage Work," which S2 and I chewed some fat over earlier this afternoon. We were both remarking, from different perspectives, as how we find this stuff to be a bit ... superficial. That's despite the fact that this is supposedly the results of the first and most thorough bit of "scientific" research on the anatomy of marriage.
"You can see the shell-shocked look on the face of the typical young fiancé in any home furnishings store. He neither knows nor cares about the difference between taffeta and chintz. All of the china and silver patterns look remarkably alike to him. Most of all he's thinking that this is taking an awfully long time, and if he turns around suddenly he will do about $10,000 worth of damage since all of the shelves are made of glass and placed about two feet apart, probably just to intimidate guys like him. How will he react? If pretty soon he hears himself saying, "Hey, that's a great pattern," another emotionally intelligent husband has been born."
I cannot begin to count the ways that this single paragraph -- one among *many* such statements -- is an insult to both men and women. But ... really, is this the story men need to tell themselves? Gah! I can't even ask that question seriously, because it needs to be more narrowly focused: Just why the hell does John Gottman feel the need to tell this story about men? (He also talks about how foreign the notion of cleaning the bathroom is.)
He's consistently depicting them as rather fragile creatures, in this case stumbling around nervously in (usually) male-designed industrial spaces while at the same time desperately trying to navigate the big scary world of *relationships,* which themselves are designed by women and booby-trapped with all sorts of secret clubs and code words.
It can't just be the feminist in me -- nor just the woman-loving-woman in me -- that thinks this is a PATHETIC and limited notion of men. Nor do I believe that all a woman needs is her husband to say "that's a great pattern" to feel like he's "emotionally intelligent." If this is the story that heterosexual women are being sold about what they can expect of men in relationships ... oh, my SISTERS! Why in the fuck would you suffer that?
I'm sure we're all glad to know men who don't fall under this description. Some of them are even straight.
A few weeks ago, I went into the bachelor pad of a young man and saw he had a nicely upholstered Victorian-style chaise lounge. And although it was piled high with books and whatnot, he also had a round dining table with an Edwardian pedestal and a set of attractive wood and upholstered chairs that went with it. (I rather liked his taste, and many of you *know* how I am about furniture.)
I thought perhaps he'd gotten these pieces from family members, but when I inquired about them, he told me where he purchased them. Am I to assume he "chose" them under the watchful eye of a former girlfriend, but only did so after he survived bobbling nervously through the store, hoping not to tip over any vases or break any glass table tops? Because otherwise, how could this guy be getting on in the world?
Later, I went into his bathroom and noticed it was clean and tidy. And let me tell you: I peaked beyond the shower curtain -- I had to check out the claw-foot tub -- and the "clean" was for real. What to make of that?
He doesn't strike me as gay. Maybe he's just not really a man....
I mean: Must this allegedly science- and evidence-based psychology of men and marriage be so limiting in its notion of what is going on within those corporeal forms we humans call "men" and what women can expect from them in a relationship?
I'll acknowledge that I'm not a very good authority on this subject. I haven't had sex with a guy in 15 years. But I did live with one for two years in college, and I've had them as friends throughout my life. So I'm having a hard time believing that they are as paranoid and fragile (biologically) and as hopelessly emotionally and socially lost as Gottman paints them out to be.
If they are... well, thank the heavens I got no problem doin' girls. Because you could not pay me to put up with that shit, my girls. You just couldn't.
Friday, January 19, 2007
a quick renovation
Obviously something has changed.
I finally broke down and, after months of repeated begging by Blogger, switched over to a new interface of some sort. At the same time, I decided to change the template. That green was getting to me. This is much more soothing on the eyes, I think.
I've always been partial to ochres. (And to Martha Stewart, as well. But that's more of a sexual thing.)
I might have to do some tweaking to this puppy, though. I'm not sure I like my blog name in all caps like that. For being psychotic, it looks rather formal.
You may weigh in with your thoughts. As always. (Or you can on keep being the bunch of Silent Bobs that you are.)
I finally broke down and, after months of repeated begging by Blogger, switched over to a new interface of some sort. At the same time, I decided to change the template. That green was getting to me. This is much more soothing on the eyes, I think.
I've always been partial to ochres. (And to Martha Stewart, as well. But that's more of a sexual thing.)
I might have to do some tweaking to this puppy, though. I'm not sure I like my blog name in all caps like that. For being psychotic, it looks rather formal.
You may weigh in with your thoughts. As always. (Or you can on keep being the bunch of Silent Bobs that you are.)
creepy thoughts
A glimpse in the mirror gave me a thought: I should get a portrait done of me and the pup. Except for the fact that his hair usually looks better than mine. Seriously. For a moment, all that concerned me about the idea was the hair issue.
And then questions of sanity came: A portrait of me and the dog...? Do I still have a fever?! Uh, no... Well, then clearly I've just lost my fucking mind!
What creepy thing will I think next?
I should buy a minivan.
Maybe next time, I'll vote Republican.
How can I say for sure I wouldn't look good in corn rows if I've never actually tried them?
And then questions of sanity came: A portrait of me and the dog...? Do I still have a fever?! Uh, no... Well, then clearly I've just lost my fucking mind!
What creepy thing will I think next?
I should buy a minivan.
Maybe next time, I'll vote Republican.
How can I say for sure I wouldn't look good in corn rows if I've never actually tried them?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
just funny
I followed a link on GameBoy's blog and found an article in which, after he broke a world record for playing a particular video game longer than anyone else, GameBoy was quoted as saying this:
"It is a skill, I guess. It combines a fast-reacting, highly integrated nervous system with a drive to do things that aren't necessarily that important."
That makes me giggle.
"It is a skill, I guess. It combines a fast-reacting, highly integrated nervous system with a drive to do things that aren't necessarily that important."
That makes me giggle.
owner of a lonely heart
I am experiencing a rather difficult combination of emotions as I make my way through the volumes of assigned reading for my Couples Therapy course.
Such as: anxiety, sadness, jealousy.
The worst, though, is that of feeling despondent and hopeless.
I had this thought the other week that perhaps I might be "lucky" to be single while going through such a class. My premise: I can still explore and mine my previous relationships for understanding, but I do not have to endure (along with a dating object or spousal equivalent) the act of putting a current relationship under what can no doubt be a rather cruel microscope.
It was a good idea at the time.
Now, it just feels like a "sour grapes" argument. I feel like an imposter. And not just because my relationships are queer and this is "primarily a class about relationships between men and women," as my teacher so deftly put it last week. (I'm sure that's part of it, though.)
Rather, I am being reminded of ways I have screwed up things in the past, and I have no context in which to consider new approaches. In fact, the more I read, the greater and more powerful the sense of foreboding is within me that I'm going to be single for a very long time.
I'm the kind of person who prefers a relationship. Apparently, I'm just not the kind who attracts them.
It's hard enough for me to win and maintain friends -- what with me being some kind of "intense" freak of humanity that it just too hard to tolerate and digest. When you add the prospect that someone has to find me attractive enough to want to spend time with me, in person, and get over whatever barrier it is to the idea of actually *touching* me in a sexual way, well... I keep wondering why I don't play Powerball. I feel my odds might be better there.
Seriously.
So I'm reading this stuff for class, and I'm thinking two things:
First. Well, even though I'm not prone to dishing out intense criticism and showing contempt for my partners, perhaps one of the problems is that I haven't actually had the experience of a loving, truly intimate relationship. So what the fuck do I know?
Second. If I remain single, is it possible that I could actually conduct decent couples therapy?
And then, there's this business in the back of my head: If I remain single....
I love graduate school. I love the whole idea of this profession I'm pursuing and what I think it can bring to people. But there are times when what my studies bring to light is painful -- to the point that I have to remind myself there are reasons to continue. (I also have to remind myself that the grass is always greener over the septic tank.)
Perhaps it's the fact that I'm still feeling sick; perhaps it's the fact that I'm ALONE in this life -- that it is, explicitly, a path of one -- and that it feels rather acutely so when I am studying the inner workings of couples; perhaps it's the fact that one of my teachers has twice in two weeks talked about us "going home and trying these techniques on your loved ones," when I have no such "ones" in my home; and/or perhaps it is the fact that I have constantly had the notion reinforced that I am mediocre dating material at best (because there is always someone prettier or more ... something). Whatever the case, I'm reading this stuff, and I'm FEELING LIKE SHIT. Like mother fucking shit.
Such as: anxiety, sadness, jealousy.
The worst, though, is that of feeling despondent and hopeless.
I had this thought the other week that perhaps I might be "lucky" to be single while going through such a class. My premise: I can still explore and mine my previous relationships for understanding, but I do not have to endure (along with a dating object or spousal equivalent) the act of putting a current relationship under what can no doubt be a rather cruel microscope.
It was a good idea at the time.
Now, it just feels like a "sour grapes" argument. I feel like an imposter. And not just because my relationships are queer and this is "primarily a class about relationships between men and women," as my teacher so deftly put it last week. (I'm sure that's part of it, though.)
Rather, I am being reminded of ways I have screwed up things in the past, and I have no context in which to consider new approaches. In fact, the more I read, the greater and more powerful the sense of foreboding is within me that I'm going to be single for a very long time.
I'm the kind of person who prefers a relationship. Apparently, I'm just not the kind who attracts them.
It's hard enough for me to win and maintain friends -- what with me being some kind of "intense" freak of humanity that it just too hard to tolerate and digest. When you add the prospect that someone has to find me attractive enough to want to spend time with me, in person, and get over whatever barrier it is to the idea of actually *touching* me in a sexual way, well... I keep wondering why I don't play Powerball. I feel my odds might be better there.
Seriously.
So I'm reading this stuff for class, and I'm thinking two things:
First. Well, even though I'm not prone to dishing out intense criticism and showing contempt for my partners, perhaps one of the problems is that I haven't actually had the experience of a loving, truly intimate relationship. So what the fuck do I know?
Second. If I remain single, is it possible that I could actually conduct decent couples therapy?
And then, there's this business in the back of my head: If I remain single....
I love graduate school. I love the whole idea of this profession I'm pursuing and what I think it can bring to people. But there are times when what my studies bring to light is painful -- to the point that I have to remind myself there are reasons to continue. (I also have to remind myself that the grass is always greener over the septic tank.)
Perhaps it's the fact that I'm still feeling sick; perhaps it's the fact that I'm ALONE in this life -- that it is, explicitly, a path of one -- and that it feels rather acutely so when I am studying the inner workings of couples; perhaps it's the fact that one of my teachers has twice in two weeks talked about us "going home and trying these techniques on your loved ones," when I have no such "ones" in my home; and/or perhaps it is the fact that I have constantly had the notion reinforced that I am mediocre dating material at best (because there is always someone prettier or more ... something). Whatever the case, I'm reading this stuff, and I'm FEELING LIKE SHIT. Like mother fucking shit.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
little things
As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I've had a cold. That's a nice term for whatever it is that I've got. A more apt one might be Tenacious Mutha-Fucking Virus (TMFV, for short).
Here's the thing about this TMFV: It has not been following the protocol. For two weeks, it's been a little bit here, a little bit there at times -- and then way too much here and there at others. There were four days of harmless post-nasal congestion. Then I thought I was better for a day. Followed by two nights of chills. One day, I awoke with a sniffle. The next day, with a fever of about 100. Friday, I thought I was on the mend, minus the cold that had developed. Saturday, congestion but I was fine to work and then play arcade games. Sunday, lots of sleeping. Monday, doing alright until around 5, when my battery suddenly ran out just as friend was coming for dinner. Dinner was pleasant, but my body was trashed. I also started to cough.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 7 and found that TMFV had bestowed upon me a fever that hit 102.4 by 8. (These fine details are courtesy of a thermometer S2 gave me a few months ago when she found out I didn't own one. At that point, I hadn't needed a thermometer in several years.)
Although 102 isn't the range where one becomes delusional, I was seriously tired, aching -- and a bit scared. See, I thought that, in addition to having a fever, this TMFV had rendered me deaf. My place was eerily silent. Instead of the normal morning rush of traffic on the street, all I heard was a LOUD, high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had an outrageous headache. It took me about 20 minutes to persuade my arm to reach the phone, and I was highly relieved, but also confused, when the voice that announces the number I'm dialing was clearly audible through the whine in my ears.
S2 answered the phone, and I told her I was having a problem. That's when I found out it had been snowing. Later, when she came by and opened my blinds, I could see three or four inches of snow on the steps and lawn across the street. That's when I understood why it was so quiet: Few people were driving, and those that were weren't making the normal noises.
All day, I lied inert in bed, only leaving it a couple times to hit the bathroom. That dear S2 came by twice, first to check me out, put some pills in me and make sure I wasn't too sick, then later for a re-evaluation of some sort. Both times, she took my dog for a walk.
Today, I woke up still fighting a fever, which has yo-yo'd around 101 today. The cough has become a bit of juicy misery as my asthmatic lungs do their best to expell this TMFV from my body.
I hate being sick. But I hate it even more when I'm alone.
When S2 came over to help me out and check on me yesterday, I felt like one of my worst symtoms -- fear -- was being addressed. Someone else knew I was ill and frightened by it. Interestingly, before I told her I was scared, she chose to assure me that I would not be "dying alone in your apartment today." No doubt those words were uttered as the result of previous concerns I've aired, but they sounded, in my fevered state, rather prescient and were quite palliative because I believed her. I was able to be just sick, rather than sick and scared.
This business of being scared goes back a ways.
In eighth grade, I got pneumonia and suffered a fever of 106. I was delirious and choking on my clogged lungs. I lived in a large house and had a bedroom upstairs, while everyone else but my sister had bedrooms downstairs. It was a Friday night, and my sister was out. Although I was hallucinating, I remember calling and calling and calling for help, coughing uncontrollably (and believing my pillow was trying to suffocate me by forcing me to find my way through a maze -- each dead end being another occasion to choke me). Eventually, someone came upstairs and heard me, but the experience left its imprint. (As did waking in a fevered state and rather than seeing a doctor at my bedside, there was an especially goulish priest giving me "last rites." The Notorious M.O.M. has never quite had her priorities straight....)
Years later, I was at a journalism conference in Washington D.C. when I got horrendous food poisoning that was mainly expressed by a near-paralyzingly high fever. I remember thinking I might die. Sometime in the morning, a hotel worker entered my room, and as I lie there unmoving on the bed, drenched in sweat, I squeaked out a plea for help. Rather than calling the desk for me, this person walked over to my bags, dug through my purse and *stole all my money.* Seriously. I cannot begin to convey the vulnerability in that moment.
Breaking my ankle was another low point. I wasn't actually alone when that happened; I was playing softball. But my teammates, including a college friend I had known for five years, handed me off at the hospital and went to a bar to drink. I waited in the ER by myself, then waited on a gurney by myself, got x-rayed, etc., and was alone when the doctor came in and abruptly said, "Your leg is broken here and here. It's going to be a while healing."
They put a temporary splint on me, and the nurse asked who was taking me home. I was new to town, and most of my "friends" were co-workers, one and the same as my softball teammates who were out drinking. I spent a long time -- two hours? -- trying to track down someone to take me home, to my second-floor walk-up. Eventually, I called the publisher's administrative assistant, who helped me. I was essentially housebound for the next several weeks, hopping down the steep flight of stairs to my place once in the morning and up them once in the evening. I couldn't carry anything in my hands, which complicated things.
I remember the pain of being alone in the ER rather acutely, but what I also remember with great affection and gratitude were the two women with whom I had become acquainted who came by once a week to collect my laundry and to brought me groceries when they returned it. I cannot imagine how I would have made it through without them.
Likewise, I still have gratitude for Morroco Mole, who dropped off a care package at my door when I had influenza 10 years ago. Because he has AIDS, he had to keep away from me. Frankly, this ailment was so vicious and my fever so high that I probably should have called 911, but I did not have the clarity of mind to do so.
That's the real kicker: When you live alone and get sick, things can get pretty hairy. If, as when I had influenza, you are too sick to call for help, you are at the mercy of those who choose to check in on you -- and even then, it can take a while before they realize you haven't called them back in a suspiciously long period.
Ah, just now, I'm having a memory of writing about a "mumified" single woman (unemployed) found in her home after several weeks passed before friends realized she wasn't returning calls. That was creepy, not least for how she became mumified. Turns out she was soaking some injured feet when she died, and the fluids escaped through her feet into the pan. With the desert heat and her air-conditioning, she ... was mumified.
But I digress.
Anyway, there's a bit of toxic stew in my history when it comes to being alone and sick. This time, I didn't have to suffer so much with that. I'm still fighting this TMFV but am feeling on the mend. Tonight, when I thanked S2 for her help, she insisted she hadn't done much. Driving over twice in the snow and walking my dog was no small thing, but the greatest help she gave was peace of mind. I'm no expert, but my bet is that some small sense of security, of being looked after a little, makes a huge difference in one's recovery.
So I hope anyway. I am *really* tired of this Tenacious Mutha-Fucking Virus. It's time for it to make its Final Exit. In any case, as S2 noted, I will *not* be making mine because of it. At least, I'll cross my fingers. And not soak my feet anytime soon.
(I also apologize profusely, by the way, if I've passed this nasty TMFV to any of you. If so, phone me; I'll make a house call.)
Here's the thing about this TMFV: It has not been following the protocol. For two weeks, it's been a little bit here, a little bit there at times -- and then way too much here and there at others. There were four days of harmless post-nasal congestion. Then I thought I was better for a day. Followed by two nights of chills. One day, I awoke with a sniffle. The next day, with a fever of about 100. Friday, I thought I was on the mend, minus the cold that had developed. Saturday, congestion but I was fine to work and then play arcade games. Sunday, lots of sleeping. Monday, doing alright until around 5, when my battery suddenly ran out just as friend was coming for dinner. Dinner was pleasant, but my body was trashed. I also started to cough.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 7 and found that TMFV had bestowed upon me a fever that hit 102.4 by 8. (These fine details are courtesy of a thermometer S2 gave me a few months ago when she found out I didn't own one. At that point, I hadn't needed a thermometer in several years.)
Although 102 isn't the range where one becomes delusional, I was seriously tired, aching -- and a bit scared. See, I thought that, in addition to having a fever, this TMFV had rendered me deaf. My place was eerily silent. Instead of the normal morning rush of traffic on the street, all I heard was a LOUD, high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had an outrageous headache. It took me about 20 minutes to persuade my arm to reach the phone, and I was highly relieved, but also confused, when the voice that announces the number I'm dialing was clearly audible through the whine in my ears.
S2 answered the phone, and I told her I was having a problem. That's when I found out it had been snowing. Later, when she came by and opened my blinds, I could see three or four inches of snow on the steps and lawn across the street. That's when I understood why it was so quiet: Few people were driving, and those that were weren't making the normal noises.
All day, I lied inert in bed, only leaving it a couple times to hit the bathroom. That dear S2 came by twice, first to check me out, put some pills in me and make sure I wasn't too sick, then later for a re-evaluation of some sort. Both times, she took my dog for a walk.
Today, I woke up still fighting a fever, which has yo-yo'd around 101 today. The cough has become a bit of juicy misery as my asthmatic lungs do their best to expell this TMFV from my body.
I hate being sick. But I hate it even more when I'm alone.
When S2 came over to help me out and check on me yesterday, I felt like one of my worst symtoms -- fear -- was being addressed. Someone else knew I was ill and frightened by it. Interestingly, before I told her I was scared, she chose to assure me that I would not be "dying alone in your apartment today." No doubt those words were uttered as the result of previous concerns I've aired, but they sounded, in my fevered state, rather prescient and were quite palliative because I believed her. I was able to be just sick, rather than sick and scared.
This business of being scared goes back a ways.
In eighth grade, I got pneumonia and suffered a fever of 106. I was delirious and choking on my clogged lungs. I lived in a large house and had a bedroom upstairs, while everyone else but my sister had bedrooms downstairs. It was a Friday night, and my sister was out. Although I was hallucinating, I remember calling and calling and calling for help, coughing uncontrollably (and believing my pillow was trying to suffocate me by forcing me to find my way through a maze -- each dead end being another occasion to choke me). Eventually, someone came upstairs and heard me, but the experience left its imprint. (As did waking in a fevered state and rather than seeing a doctor at my bedside, there was an especially goulish priest giving me "last rites." The Notorious M.O.M. has never quite had her priorities straight....)
Years later, I was at a journalism conference in Washington D.C. when I got horrendous food poisoning that was mainly expressed by a near-paralyzingly high fever. I remember thinking I might die. Sometime in the morning, a hotel worker entered my room, and as I lie there unmoving on the bed, drenched in sweat, I squeaked out a plea for help. Rather than calling the desk for me, this person walked over to my bags, dug through my purse and *stole all my money.* Seriously. I cannot begin to convey the vulnerability in that moment.
Breaking my ankle was another low point. I wasn't actually alone when that happened; I was playing softball. But my teammates, including a college friend I had known for five years, handed me off at the hospital and went to a bar to drink. I waited in the ER by myself, then waited on a gurney by myself, got x-rayed, etc., and was alone when the doctor came in and abruptly said, "Your leg is broken here and here. It's going to be a while healing."
They put a temporary splint on me, and the nurse asked who was taking me home. I was new to town, and most of my "friends" were co-workers, one and the same as my softball teammates who were out drinking. I spent a long time -- two hours? -- trying to track down someone to take me home, to my second-floor walk-up. Eventually, I called the publisher's administrative assistant, who helped me. I was essentially housebound for the next several weeks, hopping down the steep flight of stairs to my place once in the morning and up them once in the evening. I couldn't carry anything in my hands, which complicated things.
I remember the pain of being alone in the ER rather acutely, but what I also remember with great affection and gratitude were the two women with whom I had become acquainted who came by once a week to collect my laundry and to brought me groceries when they returned it. I cannot imagine how I would have made it through without them.
Likewise, I still have gratitude for Morroco Mole, who dropped off a care package at my door when I had influenza 10 years ago. Because he has AIDS, he had to keep away from me. Frankly, this ailment was so vicious and my fever so high that I probably should have called 911, but I did not have the clarity of mind to do so.
That's the real kicker: When you live alone and get sick, things can get pretty hairy. If, as when I had influenza, you are too sick to call for help, you are at the mercy of those who choose to check in on you -- and even then, it can take a while before they realize you haven't called them back in a suspiciously long period.
Ah, just now, I'm having a memory of writing about a "mumified" single woman (unemployed) found in her home after several weeks passed before friends realized she wasn't returning calls. That was creepy, not least for how she became mumified. Turns out she was soaking some injured feet when she died, and the fluids escaped through her feet into the pan. With the desert heat and her air-conditioning, she ... was mumified.
But I digress.
Anyway, there's a bit of toxic stew in my history when it comes to being alone and sick. This time, I didn't have to suffer so much with that. I'm still fighting this TMFV but am feeling on the mend. Tonight, when I thanked S2 for her help, she insisted she hadn't done much. Driving over twice in the snow and walking my dog was no small thing, but the greatest help she gave was peace of mind. I'm no expert, but my bet is that some small sense of security, of being looked after a little, makes a huge difference in one's recovery.
So I hope anyway. I am *really* tired of this Tenacious Mutha-Fucking Virus. It's time for it to make its Final Exit. In any case, as S2 noted, I will *not* be making mine because of it. At least, I'll cross my fingers. And not soak my feet anytime soon.
(I also apologize profusely, by the way, if I've passed this nasty TMFV to any of you. If so, phone me; I'll make a house call.)
Monday, January 15, 2007
& all that jazz
So. This has been a rather unusual day. Where to start? And what sense to make of it? And just what do I want to share, anyway?
I'll stumble through a highly edited version.
First, I was cleaning out my e-mail in-box (which, after extensive cleaning is now at 1,493 messages) and I came across some real gems in the process. If you people had any clue what I have put S2 through in the past year, you would realize you're only getting the smallest fraction of my ... whatever ... even if you are one of the people who actually gets e-mail from me. Let's face it, my e-mail is a whole other animal, compared to what I write on this here blog. And my personal journals? Well, suffice it to say that I've been contemplating lately just *who* I should give my personal and professional writings to in my will. Someone who knows how to burn shit? Or how to publish it? I couldn't tell ya....
So, along in this process, I found four e-mails that were sent from XGF and me while we were in Peru. They were colorful and descriptive, as you might imagine, but because they were typed on foreign keyboards that annoyed the shit out of both of us, they were not terribly long. I read them again and realized how much didn't make it into my travel journal, which is a rather colorful thing in its own right.
Reading these things made me sad about losing XGF as my travel partner. Interestingly, not too long after I read them, XGF e-mailed me and asked me to lunch.
So I met with her at the Tin Shed. Most of our rather fascinating conversation is not fit for public consumption. Suffice it to say, we talked for a good bit about what's going on with her and her boyfriend, then we talked a good bit about what went awry between the two of us. It was sad and cathartic and useful all at the same time.
We also talked about my very curious attraction to a particular person and what that meant, and XGF had a few useful things to say. Even when you have all sorts of strange and distorted things that go on in a relationship, sometimes it's those exes who know you best and have the most valuable thoughts. But that's only if you maintain good relations, which XGF and I have managed to do.
I felt bad, however, that I made her cry while we were waiting to pay. I have a tendency to cut straight to the heart of matters, and some people find that rather disconcerting. But it doesn't stop me. As Popeye was known to say: I yam what I yam.
After lunch, I spent the afternooon disinfecting my Germocile -- the place where I fear my freaky cold cooties have set up permanent residence -- in preparation for a visit from and dinner with The Shervinator. I have not seen her in several months. Not since the summer when I ate dinner with her at a Red Robbin in the suburbs.
Her dog was injured -- a freakish and difficult-to-heal broken leg -- and she dropped off the face of the earth. But then she resurfaced and we got together for dinner.
I like The Sherv. English majors and I tend to get along because we can always find something to talk about -- even if it's not English. I also have a fondness for those who drink wine in copious amounts, and as a consequence, we had a fabulous time talking about things all over the board.
I made a salad with pears and candied pecans. I also made a chicken tangine with lemon and olives. Word on the other side of the table is that it was delicious, but I am still too congested from my cold to have any clue what it tasted like.
If I was going to do something rather unsavory -- like eat grubs or lick a guy's balls (especially if he's not particularly hygenic) -- this would be the night. I can't smell anything. Nothing has any taste. I didn't even bother to taste the food before I served it to The Sherv. She reports that it was "yummy," but I have no way of verifying that.
However, there is *nothing* wrong with my ears -- if you ignore the fact that I can't hear speech very clearly at this point -- and so when I asked The Sherv what I should play for music, she delighted me by choosing my "Jazz & Blues" playlist in iTunes. Apparently, she loves Diana Krall -- and also never picked me for an Ella Fitzgerald fan. (How little we can know about people when we've only known them for five or six years!)
So all evening, I got to listen to some of my favorite music in the company of a friend, which is an uncommon experience. Most people find my taste in music a bit old-fashioned or something -- when they know what my taste really is. I love Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday and Ma Rainey and Ella and Sarah Vaughn, as well as more modern jazz and blues women.
It makes me a fuddy-duddy in the eyes of many of my contemporaries, but I could give a shit. Right? Those women had & have *voices.*
But then, I'm a gal who loves opera, too.
When no one's looking, I pop in Sylvia McNair singing Mozart's love sonatas (great music for sex if you're classically inclined) or Kathleen Battle singing spirituals. (If you're not classically inclined, by the way, I recommend Roger Waters' "Pros & Cons of HItchhiking" for sex. That? Was written for sex. But only if you and your lover (especially if he's a guy) have STAMINA, because it's a rather long album in comparison to the average length of heterosexual coitus.)
Speaking of which, I told The Sherv tonight that I suspect heterosexuals of having "bad" sex. By which I mean the woman gets seriously short-changed A LOT. She had some thoughts on this, mainly that there are *some* men out there in the world who are "generous" and know how to please a woman.
Her husband is one such man, she says, but that's because the average age of his lovers prior to marriage was 37 or so. "The Mrs. Robinsons of the world," she says, "are a gift to young women. When the guy is done, it's the Mrs. Robinsons who say, 'That's nice, honey, but this isn't over until you've pleased me, too.' "
Finally, when The Sherv was leaving, we were standing in the street in the BITTER FUCKING COLD talking for a few minutes, and Chin, the guy who owns the Thai restaurant downstairs, was smoking a cigarette while we stood near her car. He yelled at me, "You no sick now?"
No, I'm *still* sick, I replied.
"Want ginger candy?" he asked.
Sure! I said.
He went into his restaurant and returned with a small bowl of this ginger concoction he's whipped up. "Eat slow. Let it cover throat," he said. "Little bits."
This is the best thing about having a Thai restaurant downstairs. Thai cooks can seriously turn up the spice in their curries and create new nasal passages when you desperately need them. But as the author of the In-Flight Martini Vomit E-mail has told me time and again, Thai people are also really friendly, and when they see you sniffling and suffering and coughing, they try to do something for you. I have, in the past week, been the recipient of some green curry so hot that I've seen stars and trailers, as well as special teas and special ginger concoctions.
Chin takes an interest not just in my dog -- "taking baby for walk," he says to me nearly every day -- but in my problems with snot, as well. This is a good thing, because I otherwise would be on my own with this wretched ailment. I guess you find "community" wherever it presents itself.
Never, my friends and readers, should you turn down the "ginger candy." I don't know what the hell it is, but trust me: Eat it, love it, and let it heal what ails you.
I'll stumble through a highly edited version.
First, I was cleaning out my e-mail in-box (which, after extensive cleaning is now at 1,493 messages) and I came across some real gems in the process. If you people had any clue what I have put S2 through in the past year, you would realize you're only getting the smallest fraction of my ... whatever ... even if you are one of the people who actually gets e-mail from me. Let's face it, my e-mail is a whole other animal, compared to what I write on this here blog. And my personal journals? Well, suffice it to say that I've been contemplating lately just *who* I should give my personal and professional writings to in my will. Someone who knows how to burn shit? Or how to publish it? I couldn't tell ya....
So, along in this process, I found four e-mails that were sent from XGF and me while we were in Peru. They were colorful and descriptive, as you might imagine, but because they were typed on foreign keyboards that annoyed the shit out of both of us, they were not terribly long. I read them again and realized how much didn't make it into my travel journal, which is a rather colorful thing in its own right.
Reading these things made me sad about losing XGF as my travel partner. Interestingly, not too long after I read them, XGF e-mailed me and asked me to lunch.
So I met with her at the Tin Shed. Most of our rather fascinating conversation is not fit for public consumption. Suffice it to say, we talked for a good bit about what's going on with her and her boyfriend, then we talked a good bit about what went awry between the two of us. It was sad and cathartic and useful all at the same time.
We also talked about my very curious attraction to a particular person and what that meant, and XGF had a few useful things to say. Even when you have all sorts of strange and distorted things that go on in a relationship, sometimes it's those exes who know you best and have the most valuable thoughts. But that's only if you maintain good relations, which XGF and I have managed to do.
I felt bad, however, that I made her cry while we were waiting to pay. I have a tendency to cut straight to the heart of matters, and some people find that rather disconcerting. But it doesn't stop me. As Popeye was known to say: I yam what I yam.
After lunch, I spent the afternooon disinfecting my Germocile -- the place where I fear my freaky cold cooties have set up permanent residence -- in preparation for a visit from and dinner with The Shervinator. I have not seen her in several months. Not since the summer when I ate dinner with her at a Red Robbin in the suburbs.
Her dog was injured -- a freakish and difficult-to-heal broken leg -- and she dropped off the face of the earth. But then she resurfaced and we got together for dinner.
I like The Sherv. English majors and I tend to get along because we can always find something to talk about -- even if it's not English. I also have a fondness for those who drink wine in copious amounts, and as a consequence, we had a fabulous time talking about things all over the board.
I made a salad with pears and candied pecans. I also made a chicken tangine with lemon and olives. Word on the other side of the table is that it was delicious, but I am still too congested from my cold to have any clue what it tasted like.
If I was going to do something rather unsavory -- like eat grubs or lick a guy's balls (especially if he's not particularly hygenic) -- this would be the night. I can't smell anything. Nothing has any taste. I didn't even bother to taste the food before I served it to The Sherv. She reports that it was "yummy," but I have no way of verifying that.
However, there is *nothing* wrong with my ears -- if you ignore the fact that I can't hear speech very clearly at this point -- and so when I asked The Sherv what I should play for music, she delighted me by choosing my "Jazz & Blues" playlist in iTunes. Apparently, she loves Diana Krall -- and also never picked me for an Ella Fitzgerald fan. (How little we can know about people when we've only known them for five or six years!)
So all evening, I got to listen to some of my favorite music in the company of a friend, which is an uncommon experience. Most people find my taste in music a bit old-fashioned or something -- when they know what my taste really is. I love Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday and Ma Rainey and Ella and Sarah Vaughn, as well as more modern jazz and blues women.
It makes me a fuddy-duddy in the eyes of many of my contemporaries, but I could give a shit. Right? Those women had & have *voices.*
But then, I'm a gal who loves opera, too.
When no one's looking, I pop in Sylvia McNair singing Mozart's love sonatas (great music for sex if you're classically inclined) or Kathleen Battle singing spirituals. (If you're not classically inclined, by the way, I recommend Roger Waters' "Pros & Cons of HItchhiking" for sex. That? Was written for sex. But only if you and your lover (especially if he's a guy) have STAMINA, because it's a rather long album in comparison to the average length of heterosexual coitus.)
Speaking of which, I told The Sherv tonight that I suspect heterosexuals of having "bad" sex. By which I mean the woman gets seriously short-changed A LOT. She had some thoughts on this, mainly that there are *some* men out there in the world who are "generous" and know how to please a woman.
Her husband is one such man, she says, but that's because the average age of his lovers prior to marriage was 37 or so. "The Mrs. Robinsons of the world," she says, "are a gift to young women. When the guy is done, it's the Mrs. Robinsons who say, 'That's nice, honey, but this isn't over until you've pleased me, too.' "
Finally, when The Sherv was leaving, we were standing in the street in the BITTER FUCKING COLD talking for a few minutes, and Chin, the guy who owns the Thai restaurant downstairs, was smoking a cigarette while we stood near her car. He yelled at me, "You no sick now?"
No, I'm *still* sick, I replied.
"Want ginger candy?" he asked.
Sure! I said.
He went into his restaurant and returned with a small bowl of this ginger concoction he's whipped up. "Eat slow. Let it cover throat," he said. "Little bits."
This is the best thing about having a Thai restaurant downstairs. Thai cooks can seriously turn up the spice in their curries and create new nasal passages when you desperately need them. But as the author of the In-Flight Martini Vomit E-mail has told me time and again, Thai people are also really friendly, and when they see you sniffling and suffering and coughing, they try to do something for you. I have, in the past week, been the recipient of some green curry so hot that I've seen stars and trailers, as well as special teas and special ginger concoctions.
Chin takes an interest not just in my dog -- "taking baby for walk," he says to me nearly every day -- but in my problems with snot, as well. This is a good thing, because I otherwise would be on my own with this wretched ailment. I guess you find "community" wherever it presents itself.
Never, my friends and readers, should you turn down the "ginger candy." I don't know what the hell it is, but trust me: Eat it, love it, and let it heal what ails you.
bitter colds
It's cold up here in the Pacific Northwest. Normally, I could care less; I've got the clothes to deal with it. (Although I am *still* lacking a proper hat.)
But I also have a cold of my own, and that is making me feel miserable. I have to hoof it around the neighborhood twice a day or more with the pup, and I am quickly turning into a dehydrated, wind-chapped bag of leather. The dry 30-degree highs are bugging the tar out of my tender, congested, slightly asthmatic lungs, and my nose alternates between totally clogged and hideously runny.
What happened to my fair, temperate Oregonian winter? Why not rainy and 40 degrees?
I'm not asking for all that much, Mother Nature. Just a break, please.
But I also have a cold of my own, and that is making me feel miserable. I have to hoof it around the neighborhood twice a day or more with the pup, and I am quickly turning into a dehydrated, wind-chapped bag of leather. The dry 30-degree highs are bugging the tar out of my tender, congested, slightly asthmatic lungs, and my nose alternates between totally clogged and hideously runny.
What happened to my fair, temperate Oregonian winter? Why not rainy and 40 degrees?
I'm not asking for all that much, Mother Nature. Just a break, please.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
RIP: Kiska
I got a text message early this morning from Mr. Shineyhead, informing me that his beloved Kiska was put to sleep last night at Dove Lewis.
Kiska was the *ancient* (15 or 16 years old) deaf little "eskimo" dog with the degenerative hips who I sometimes cared for while Mr. Shineyhead was working.
Kiska was also the first dog of indistinguishable sex that I have ever known. Because of those bad hips, Kiska did not relieve him/herself in the usual ways. What's more, his/her coat was so thick -- and my curiosity so dim -- that I never explored the body parts to suss out whether it was a boy or a girl. At this point, I think it's probably rude to ask.
I make this note only because I was wanting to say "he" or "she" was a fine pooch who will no doubt be missed by his/her doting (and distinctively male) owner.
It sucks when dogs die. If you have one, give it an extra scratch behind the ears today in appreciation of the boundless affection they bring into your life.
Kiska was the *ancient* (15 or 16 years old) deaf little "eskimo" dog with the degenerative hips who I sometimes cared for while Mr. Shineyhead was working.
Kiska was also the first dog of indistinguishable sex that I have ever known. Because of those bad hips, Kiska did not relieve him/herself in the usual ways. What's more, his/her coat was so thick -- and my curiosity so dim -- that I never explored the body parts to suss out whether it was a boy or a girl. At this point, I think it's probably rude to ask.
I make this note only because I was wanting to say "he" or "she" was a fine pooch who will no doubt be missed by his/her doting (and distinctively male) owner.
It sucks when dogs die. If you have one, give it an extra scratch behind the ears today in appreciation of the boundless affection they bring into your life.
Down memory lane...
Sunday being GameBoy's birthday, he invited, like, 300 of his closest friends and classmates down to celebrate at a venue so '80s retro that I temporarily lost track of myself in the space-time continuum.
For a while, I thought I was in the grocery store in my old neighborhood in Houston, sometime between 1982 and 1986. I was playing Galaga, a shoot-'em-up space invaders-like video arcade, and my cocker spaniel was tied up out front. I'm pretty sure there was a half-eaten Butterfinger or Baby Ruth (my favorite candy bars) on the console.
If it hadn't been for S2 squealing every so often when I narrowly evaded death, I might have made the time travel complete. But her giggling every time I blew up brought me back to the present. (As did my low scores -- even though I secured the No. 2 spot on my final game of the evening.)
Even though S2 was not an arcade girl herself growing up (and thus was not able to release any excess stress by pounding the shit out of the firing button, as I did), she was having flashbacks of her own.
It was the music. There was a great DJ pumping out everything from the English Beat to Depeche Mode to Nina Whatsername of "99 Luft Balloons" fame to Madonna. There should have been dancing, but perhaps that just hadn't gotten started yet.
This little gem -- it's called Ground Kontrol -- is a temple to two things the '80s held dear: video arcades and music. But now that we're in our 30s and all, instead of jacking ourselves up on RC Cola and Red Vines, we were taking swigs of beer.
It's amazing how many memories that place evoked for me. Good thing I was around people I know in my current life. I could have easily become lost in my old one.
For a while, I thought I was in the grocery store in my old neighborhood in Houston, sometime between 1982 and 1986. I was playing Galaga, a shoot-'em-up space invaders-like video arcade, and my cocker spaniel was tied up out front. I'm pretty sure there was a half-eaten Butterfinger or Baby Ruth (my favorite candy bars) on the console.
If it hadn't been for S2 squealing every so often when I narrowly evaded death, I might have made the time travel complete. But her giggling every time I blew up brought me back to the present. (As did my low scores -- even though I secured the No. 2 spot on my final game of the evening.)
Even though S2 was not an arcade girl herself growing up (and thus was not able to release any excess stress by pounding the shit out of the firing button, as I did), she was having flashbacks of her own.
It was the music. There was a great DJ pumping out everything from the English Beat to Depeche Mode to Nina Whatsername of "99 Luft Balloons" fame to Madonna. There should have been dancing, but perhaps that just hadn't gotten started yet.
This little gem -- it's called Ground Kontrol -- is a temple to two things the '80s held dear: video arcades and music. But now that we're in our 30s and all, instead of jacking ourselves up on RC Cola and Red Vines, we were taking swigs of beer.
It's amazing how many memories that place evoked for me. Good thing I was around people I know in my current life. I could have easily become lost in my old one.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Infamous, famous, criminally insane, sex toys
As the headline suggests, this is a bit of blogging potpourri (and perhaps a bit more), but that increases the odds you'll find something that tickles you in the right spot or is otherwise interesting herein.
First, I've been sick. It started last week with a nagging but otherwise harmless post-nasal congestion that persisted through the weekend. Then, it went away. For a day, I felt like a million bucks. Then, came a new stage of ailment. Prior to recording a fever of any sort, I suffered two nights of *terrible* chills when trying to go to sleep. I'd wrap myself up in a mountain of blankets and shiver uncontrollably. It was more than an hour each night of trying to get to sleep under these conditions, only to wake at 4 or 5 in the morning sweating profusely. You know what thought: It's a fine time to quit heroin.
Then, I woke up Thursday with a fever. It sucked. I needed more than two hours to shower and get dressed for school. And I *had* to go to school. I suffered. But I tried not to get anyone else sick in the process. I was rather bummed that I had to skip the happy hour celebration of YogaGirl's 31st birthday. Maybe next year....
Moving on.... Yesterday, as the students were gathering for my Practical Skills class, the teacher -- whom I have *never* met -- looked at me and said, "It's the infamous UCM!"
Infamous? I inquired in my feverish state, then added, Oh no....
"Yes, infamous," she replied. "But don't worry. That's a good thing."
Weird.
Her partner is my academic adviser and taught a class I attended last term, so I assumed that was origin of her comment. I still think odds are good that it is. But this teacher gave the class a pretty substantial talk about the lengths she and her partner go through to not engage in "cross talk" about students. So, hmmm....
That covers the "infamous" part of the headline. Now for the "famous" portion. Famous requires quotation marks in this case, because some people are not so famous.
This morning I had breakfast at a joint across the street from where I live. I walked in with a book -- Susan Johnson's text on Emotion Focused Couples Therapy -- and had my nose it for the most part. But early on, I happened to look up and into the face of the woman sitting a the table next to me. I automatically recognized her someone on television.
I thought she was Linda Hamilton from the "Terminator" movies, but, that being highly unlikely and out of context, I realized it was Caprial Pence, a chef (and recipient of a James Beard Award) who owns a well-regarded bistro here in Portland. She is recognizable to me because I have been watching her cooking shows for more than 10 years on PBS. Sitting opposite from her at the table was her husband, John, who got some notoriety of his own when "Caprial's Cafe," her original show, expanded to include him and became "Caprial and John's Kitchen."
They split a burger.
Surprisingly, Caprial does look a little like Linda Hamilton in person.
Moving on.... Wednesday, I did my first stint as a Mrs. Garrett-like character (if you recall the house mom from "Facts of Life," with Tootie and all) in a Home for the Criminally Insane. The five residents -- in this case, all men -- have been found guilty of crimes except for reason of insanity. The program that employs me is designed to help them transition from the state mental hospital back into the community, even as they remain under the guardianship of what's essentially the state parole board for mentally ill criminals.
As part of the work I'm doing with them, I have access to a GIGANTIC binder kept on each person. It includes information about the crime they comitted, as well as their various diagnoses. It also contains extensive reports about their stay in the state mental hospital and, most disturbingly, synopses of their individual therapy sessions.
What's disturbing to me about the last item is that these guys have no privacy within the system. They are still protected from, for example, having me reveal identifying information about them on this blog. But anyone who works in that home reads the binders to get an understanding of the dynamics that may unfold in the home and are aware of potential problems.
Nevertheless, that does not explain why I or anyone else should know -- as popped right out of one page at a glance -- that one of the residents has had a single sexual encounter and regarded it as a drudgery. As a future practitioner, I question both the need to record such content on someone who committed a crime that was *not* sexual in nature and to make it accessible to people who have no need to know this.
The criminal justice system dehumanizes people in so many ways. Stripping them of their privacy is one of them.
I'll be looking at the binders in each of the places I work because I want to know certain things about the people who whom I'm dealing. But I'll be invoking some self-defined limitations and not reading more than necessary. Even though it's interesting as all get-out, it doesn't seem right to me.
On the upside, this job seems like it will be pretty mellow, for the most part. The residents in these homes are fairly motivated not to return to the state mental hospital. They do most of the chores around the home. I'll be involved in distributing their medications, ensuring they do their assigned chores, helping those who are less-than-capable to complete their chores, checking in and out kitchen knives, keeping track of their comings and goings and in engaging in positive relationships with them.
I have another shift tomorrow, at a different house (this one right in the heart of a trendy neighborhood). I'll be interested to find out if my first impressions of the job hold true in a different location. The woman who trained me on Wednesday warned me to stay away from one particular location, which is a home where the residents are both criminally insane *and* medically fragile. Currently, I'm not scheduled to train at that home, but I'll keep her warning in mind as I get the lay of the land.
Speaking of the lay of the land, I am still plodding along toward that unenviable anniversary of a Year Without Sex. However, I did manage, on my one healthy day this week, to finally replace the sex toys I lost in the divorce. That took me a while. But perhaps it is also a testament to what's *not* missing in my own company.
First, I've been sick. It started last week with a nagging but otherwise harmless post-nasal congestion that persisted through the weekend. Then, it went away. For a day, I felt like a million bucks. Then, came a new stage of ailment. Prior to recording a fever of any sort, I suffered two nights of *terrible* chills when trying to go to sleep. I'd wrap myself up in a mountain of blankets and shiver uncontrollably. It was more than an hour each night of trying to get to sleep under these conditions, only to wake at 4 or 5 in the morning sweating profusely. You know what thought: It's a fine time to quit heroin.
Then, I woke up Thursday with a fever. It sucked. I needed more than two hours to shower and get dressed for school. And I *had* to go to school. I suffered. But I tried not to get anyone else sick in the process. I was rather bummed that I had to skip the happy hour celebration of YogaGirl's 31st birthday. Maybe next year....
Moving on.... Yesterday, as the students were gathering for my Practical Skills class, the teacher -- whom I have *never* met -- looked at me and said, "It's the infamous UCM!"
Infamous? I inquired in my feverish state, then added, Oh no....
"Yes, infamous," she replied. "But don't worry. That's a good thing."
Weird.
Her partner is my academic adviser and taught a class I attended last term, so I assumed that was origin of her comment. I still think odds are good that it is. But this teacher gave the class a pretty substantial talk about the lengths she and her partner go through to not engage in "cross talk" about students. So, hmmm....
That covers the "infamous" part of the headline. Now for the "famous" portion. Famous requires quotation marks in this case, because some people are not so famous.
This morning I had breakfast at a joint across the street from where I live. I walked in with a book -- Susan Johnson's text on Emotion Focused Couples Therapy -- and had my nose it for the most part. But early on, I happened to look up and into the face of the woman sitting a the table next to me. I automatically recognized her someone on television.
I thought she was Linda Hamilton from the "Terminator" movies, but, that being highly unlikely and out of context, I realized it was Caprial Pence, a chef (and recipient of a James Beard Award) who owns a well-regarded bistro here in Portland. She is recognizable to me because I have been watching her cooking shows for more than 10 years on PBS. Sitting opposite from her at the table was her husband, John, who got some notoriety of his own when "Caprial's Cafe," her original show, expanded to include him and became "Caprial and John's Kitchen."
They split a burger.
Surprisingly, Caprial does look a little like Linda Hamilton in person.
Moving on.... Wednesday, I did my first stint as a Mrs. Garrett-like character (if you recall the house mom from "Facts of Life," with Tootie and all) in a Home for the Criminally Insane. The five residents -- in this case, all men -- have been found guilty of crimes except for reason of insanity. The program that employs me is designed to help them transition from the state mental hospital back into the community, even as they remain under the guardianship of what's essentially the state parole board for mentally ill criminals.
As part of the work I'm doing with them, I have access to a GIGANTIC binder kept on each person. It includes information about the crime they comitted, as well as their various diagnoses. It also contains extensive reports about their stay in the state mental hospital and, most disturbingly, synopses of their individual therapy sessions.
What's disturbing to me about the last item is that these guys have no privacy within the system. They are still protected from, for example, having me reveal identifying information about them on this blog. But anyone who works in that home reads the binders to get an understanding of the dynamics that may unfold in the home and are aware of potential problems.
Nevertheless, that does not explain why I or anyone else should know -- as popped right out of one page at a glance -- that one of the residents has had a single sexual encounter and regarded it as a drudgery. As a future practitioner, I question both the need to record such content on someone who committed a crime that was *not* sexual in nature and to make it accessible to people who have no need to know this.
The criminal justice system dehumanizes people in so many ways. Stripping them of their privacy is one of them.
I'll be looking at the binders in each of the places I work because I want to know certain things about the people who whom I'm dealing. But I'll be invoking some self-defined limitations and not reading more than necessary. Even though it's interesting as all get-out, it doesn't seem right to me.
On the upside, this job seems like it will be pretty mellow, for the most part. The residents in these homes are fairly motivated not to return to the state mental hospital. They do most of the chores around the home. I'll be involved in distributing their medications, ensuring they do their assigned chores, helping those who are less-than-capable to complete their chores, checking in and out kitchen knives, keeping track of their comings and goings and in engaging in positive relationships with them.
I have another shift tomorrow, at a different house (this one right in the heart of a trendy neighborhood). I'll be interested to find out if my first impressions of the job hold true in a different location. The woman who trained me on Wednesday warned me to stay away from one particular location, which is a home where the residents are both criminally insane *and* medically fragile. Currently, I'm not scheduled to train at that home, but I'll keep her warning in mind as I get the lay of the land.
Speaking of the lay of the land, I am still plodding along toward that unenviable anniversary of a Year Without Sex. However, I did manage, on my one healthy day this week, to finally replace the sex toys I lost in the divorce. That took me a while. But perhaps it is also a testament to what's *not* missing in my own company.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Pissy little blinking man
What's up with this professor I've got in my Tuesday night class? He *blinks* like he's got the worst case of dry eye that I've ever seen.
But maybe that's because I'm making him all tweaky like from ARGUING with him during class. The little weasly dude -- who seems likeable in many other respects -- told me that "marriage" and long-term, committed, intimate, romantic relationships such as we GAY PEOPLE have are *not* the same.
I take exception to that, I replied.
I have my reasons, obviously, and I let them trickle out in various aspects of the class discussion.
But, generally, I want to say: WHAT THE FUCK, dude?!
You know the saddest thing? I'm afraid some people I respect tremendously agree with him.
I guess, on some level, they're all right: How can it be "the same" when my queer brothers and sisters are not accorded the same standing in society, when we cannot (easily) procreate, when people discuss sex as an act of procreation (while I insist there must be room for "recreational sex" within an intimate relationship)?
Separate. But not equal. (Desperate. But not serious.)
Let me tell you something, people: I am MAD AS HELL! REALLY FUCKING MAD. I feel outraged, indignant and like I should be wearing pantyhose all at the same time! I feel like a rancid lip balm factory. Like a really disturbing version of Feminists Gone Wild (hairy legs and all).
I feel like slapping one of those "can't-blink-now!" eye contraptions from "A Clockwork Orange" on that professor and making him watch me do Liutenant O'Hura's freaky naked fan dance until he breaks down and AGREES with me: The *reason* so many queers were lined up outside the Multnomah County offices to get their effin' marriage licences is because they wanted social and legal recognition of what they already know to be true: OUR RELATIONSHIPS ARE JUST AS MEANINGFUL AS YOURS ARE, YOU GODDAMNED MUTHA-FUCKING PRIVILEDGED HETEROSEXUALS.
The SAME!
I love with just as much meaning, with just as much courage and bravery and desire for intimacy and sexual passion and dreams for the future as YOU, you arrogant fucks!
How DARE you tell me otherwise?!
But maybe that's because I'm making him all tweaky like from ARGUING with him during class. The little weasly dude -- who seems likeable in many other respects -- told me that "marriage" and long-term, committed, intimate, romantic relationships such as we GAY PEOPLE have are *not* the same.
I take exception to that, I replied.
I have my reasons, obviously, and I let them trickle out in various aspects of the class discussion.
But, generally, I want to say: WHAT THE FUCK, dude?!
You know the saddest thing? I'm afraid some people I respect tremendously agree with him.
I guess, on some level, they're all right: How can it be "the same" when my queer brothers and sisters are not accorded the same standing in society, when we cannot (easily) procreate, when people discuss sex as an act of procreation (while I insist there must be room for "recreational sex" within an intimate relationship)?
Separate. But not equal. (Desperate. But not serious.)
Let me tell you something, people: I am MAD AS HELL! REALLY FUCKING MAD. I feel outraged, indignant and like I should be wearing pantyhose all at the same time! I feel like a rancid lip balm factory. Like a really disturbing version of Feminists Gone Wild (hairy legs and all).
I feel like slapping one of those "can't-blink-now!" eye contraptions from "A Clockwork Orange" on that professor and making him watch me do Liutenant O'Hura's freaky naked fan dance until he breaks down and AGREES with me: The *reason* so many queers were lined up outside the Multnomah County offices to get their effin' marriage licences is because they wanted social and legal recognition of what they already know to be true: OUR RELATIONSHIPS ARE JUST AS MEANINGFUL AS YOURS ARE, YOU GODDAMNED MUTHA-FUCKING PRIVILEDGED HETEROSEXUALS.
The SAME!
I love with just as much meaning, with just as much courage and bravery and desire for intimacy and sexual passion and dreams for the future as YOU, you arrogant fucks!
How DARE you tell me otherwise?!
Monday, January 08, 2007
a confession
Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been more than 20 years since my last confession (which is probably a sin in its own right).
My greatest sin is that I've become hopelessly out of touch on a few things. The war in Iraq, the movement of the stock markets, the anticipated End of the World date based on the most recent Calamity Forecast. I'm admitedly out of it.
One of my truely mortal sins is the asset allocation of my so-called retirement plan. But we'll take that up some other time. There's too much penance to do on that front. I'm turning it over to my Mimi. If there aren't G&Ts and never-ending card games in heaven, she's jot time to pray my retirement savings out of the purgatory in which they've landed.
But here, father, is where my being hopelessly out of touch has come to bite me in the ass lately (and you, as a Catholic priest, will probably appreciate this): I've forgotten how to give a blow job.
Now, as a woman-loving woman (which you still count as a sin, but for which I refuse to seek absolution), it is not especially important to me, this blow job business. It would be an outrage if I ever forgot the art of cunnilingus, to be sure. But I'm finding myself needing an artisan's understanding of blow jobs these days, and ... well, let's just say some memories are too vague to mine.
Barring personal research -- which is never out of the question but also not terribly likely (despite the beautiful man I was eyeing the other night) -- I've had to turn to other sources of information. Fortunately, one of my classmates is utterly lacking in shyness on the topic of sex and has provided me with detailed and highly useful information. It also jarred my memory a bit.
Nevertheless, in writing about all this sexual activity, I find myself feeling a little odd. It's not that I'm unaccustomed to sexual fantasy. You and me both know, father, that the Church is just setting up people for failure when it instructs them not even to *think* about sex. Coveting? Really, father, who doesn't "covet"?.
But I'm not accustomed to having intact stories be delivered to my doorstep by my Inner Writer. Not in any way, not in any genre. Fiction has not been a part of my mind in many, many years. Why has it suddenly returned? And why, father, do you think it's come back in such a ... tawdry fashion?
I wrote something about two women a few days ago. As soon as I began to pen it, I was surprised by what I found being spoken by my Inner Writer. Not so much about the sex itself. It's of average salaciousness. What has proved a curiosity to me is that I can see more of them.
How can I explain this? Imagine the first story I wrote is represented in my mind's eye as a scene I'm viewing through window, a window unattached to a house, just hanging there against a blue blue but partly cloudy sky. I can see everything that is happening, I can know the minds of all the parties visible, I can see everything that's going to happen before it happens, but it is my writing of it that actually brings those events to pass. When I'm not writing, the scene in the window is a still frame, the story already complete, just waiting to be performed.
The story presents itself to me like that.
But here's the thing that's really making me wonder: As I look at that scene in window, I am distinctly aware of several others lined up behind it. Looking past the window, there against the sky, are lined up at least half a dozen stories.
As far as I can tell, they're all about sex.
So it begs the question, father, about what's going on? For years, no words, no thoughts, no imagination. I thought it had abandoned me. Is there some reason that when it returned, it came in a genre in which the greatest challenge is avoiding the use of cheesy synonyms? (See "erotica" enty for more about that.) I hope I will, in time, create better metaphors for "slick mound" and " stiff member," because cheesy is the bane of my existence. I can't stand it!
Perhaps I am simply sublimating, father. Having lost contact with loving touch for a bit too long -- and it being the doldrums of winter and all -- perhaps my mind has gone awry. Perhaps my unconscious is showing me unexpected things. Or perhaps something has shifted in my consciousness and untapped a creative spring.
All those stories lined up in a row confound me. Whatever their purpose, they're knocking. How many times will I answer? And just how sinful is this going to get?
For poetry was written before time was. And whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate that region where the air is music, we hear the primal warblings and attempt to write them down. But we lose ever an anon a word or a verse and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
My greatest sin is that I've become hopelessly out of touch on a few things. The war in Iraq, the movement of the stock markets, the anticipated End of the World date based on the most recent Calamity Forecast. I'm admitedly out of it.
One of my truely mortal sins is the asset allocation of my so-called retirement plan. But we'll take that up some other time. There's too much penance to do on that front. I'm turning it over to my Mimi. If there aren't G&Ts and never-ending card games in heaven, she's jot time to pray my retirement savings out of the purgatory in which they've landed.
But here, father, is where my being hopelessly out of touch has come to bite me in the ass lately (and you, as a Catholic priest, will probably appreciate this): I've forgotten how to give a blow job.
Now, as a woman-loving woman (which you still count as a sin, but for which I refuse to seek absolution), it is not especially important to me, this blow job business. It would be an outrage if I ever forgot the art of cunnilingus, to be sure. But I'm finding myself needing an artisan's understanding of blow jobs these days, and ... well, let's just say some memories are too vague to mine.
Barring personal research -- which is never out of the question but also not terribly likely (despite the beautiful man I was eyeing the other night) -- I've had to turn to other sources of information. Fortunately, one of my classmates is utterly lacking in shyness on the topic of sex and has provided me with detailed and highly useful information. It also jarred my memory a bit.
Nevertheless, in writing about all this sexual activity, I find myself feeling a little odd. It's not that I'm unaccustomed to sexual fantasy. You and me both know, father, that the Church is just setting up people for failure when it instructs them not even to *think* about sex. Coveting? Really, father, who doesn't "covet"?.
But I'm not accustomed to having intact stories be delivered to my doorstep by my Inner Writer. Not in any way, not in any genre. Fiction has not been a part of my mind in many, many years. Why has it suddenly returned? And why, father, do you think it's come back in such a ... tawdry fashion?
I wrote something about two women a few days ago. As soon as I began to pen it, I was surprised by what I found being spoken by my Inner Writer. Not so much about the sex itself. It's of average salaciousness. What has proved a curiosity to me is that I can see more of them.
How can I explain this? Imagine the first story I wrote is represented in my mind's eye as a scene I'm viewing through window, a window unattached to a house, just hanging there against a blue blue but partly cloudy sky. I can see everything that is happening, I can know the minds of all the parties visible, I can see everything that's going to happen before it happens, but it is my writing of it that actually brings those events to pass. When I'm not writing, the scene in the window is a still frame, the story already complete, just waiting to be performed.
The story presents itself to me like that.
But here's the thing that's really making me wonder: As I look at that scene in window, I am distinctly aware of several others lined up behind it. Looking past the window, there against the sky, are lined up at least half a dozen stories.
As far as I can tell, they're all about sex.
So it begs the question, father, about what's going on? For years, no words, no thoughts, no imagination. I thought it had abandoned me. Is there some reason that when it returned, it came in a genre in which the greatest challenge is avoiding the use of cheesy synonyms? (See "erotica" enty for more about that.) I hope I will, in time, create better metaphors for "slick mound" and " stiff member," because cheesy is the bane of my existence. I can't stand it!
Perhaps I am simply sublimating, father. Having lost contact with loving touch for a bit too long -- and it being the doldrums of winter and all -- perhaps my mind has gone awry. Perhaps my unconscious is showing me unexpected things. Or perhaps something has shifted in my consciousness and untapped a creative spring.
All those stories lined up in a row confound me. Whatever their purpose, they're knocking. How many times will I answer? And just how sinful is this going to get?
For poetry was written before time was. And whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate that region where the air is music, we hear the primal warblings and attempt to write them down. But we lose ever an anon a word or a verse and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A slow, do-nothin' kind of day
Mainly I lounged around, refusing to wake up completely until after noon -- and then amusing myself one way or another until about 2, whereupon I thought to shower.
The "morning" dog walk got underway at 3-something and was, consequently, a rather lengthy one. Which is just as well, because the evening dog walk the night before had been conducted around 2 and was brief because I got creeped out by the Sleepy Hollow-ness of wind rustling the trees in my neighborhood. I was up until 4 in the morning, working on a second piece of erotica.
Later in the day, I had a chat with S2 about finding a nanny who can win over S2's shrewd older daughter. The conversation reawakend old memories of a woman named Mrs. Sarah who was our caretaker when I was between the ages of 7 and 10.
Although my mother didn't work, we spent a lot of time with this woman. She was short and gnomish, and if there ever was a living human prototype of a crotchety old witch stooped over a brewing cauldron, Mrs. Sarah was it. She was probably a good woman, but she scared me. I recall spending many hours hiding in the magnolia tree in her back yard, avoiding her so she couldn't make me weed the clay tennis court nearby.
She claimed to know the "actual Colonel Sanders," of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. She told us he'd lost all his teeth and, "at the end of his life, he couldn't even eat his own chicken." She shared that tidbit several times, and when I finally inquired why, if he was rich enough, he hadn't just gotten some dentures, she smacked me.
Fortunately, there's been no such nonsense in S2's household. It sounds like your garden variety personality conflict. Although I didn't share the aformentioned details, I did tell S2 I'd had a creepy nanny. She asked, "Would you have wanted to be sent to see that nanny who was mean to you or to get someone else?"
I paused before answering, Well, I have a feeling that I just wanted something I wasn't getting anywhere.
The truth is that, creepy and troglodyte-like as Mrs. Sarah might have been, she was better than nothing. That was frequently the other alternative, as my mother at that point had taken to leaving my sister and I at home alone (we were 7 and 8) to care for our two younger brothers, one of whom was an infant when we first encountered Mrs. Sarah.
Sometimes, we would be at home alone for a while, run into trouble -- such as being hungry -- and call Mrs. Sarah to help us. She drove a clunker of a car -- and one of her many cats had destroyed the interior -- but she would come way out to our home in the countryside, pick the four of us up. She'd take us to her grand old house in town, which had been in her family "since before the war," (by which she meant the Civil War), and I'd retreat to the tree.
Well.
Things change. For better or worse.
I wish I had a magnolia to hide in still. One with big, fragrant blossoms. I wish, too, for a long stretch of honeysuckle along my walking route. And for better barbecue. And for more people in my life who like to sit around and tell stories.
Anyway.
After talking to S2, I went to the grocery store and did my shopping for the week. I'm going to make a version of that killer soup The Clairvoyant concocted last night. Everything in my cart looked amazingly healthy. I walked out of the store with a bunch of carrot greens sprouting from my earth-friendly cloth shopping bag. I felt a bit like a cliche of ... something. I don't know what.
At the bottom of that bag, however, was hiding a devilish little item. My new favorite snack? Pink lady apples dipped in macadamia butter. Praise you, jesus, for the fine vittles that cover this lonely planet. Amen.
The "morning" dog walk got underway at 3-something and was, consequently, a rather lengthy one. Which is just as well, because the evening dog walk the night before had been conducted around 2 and was brief because I got creeped out by the Sleepy Hollow-ness of wind rustling the trees in my neighborhood. I was up until 4 in the morning, working on a second piece of erotica.
Later in the day, I had a chat with S2 about finding a nanny who can win over S2's shrewd older daughter. The conversation reawakend old memories of a woman named Mrs. Sarah who was our caretaker when I was between the ages of 7 and 10.
Although my mother didn't work, we spent a lot of time with this woman. She was short and gnomish, and if there ever was a living human prototype of a crotchety old witch stooped over a brewing cauldron, Mrs. Sarah was it. She was probably a good woman, but she scared me. I recall spending many hours hiding in the magnolia tree in her back yard, avoiding her so she couldn't make me weed the clay tennis court nearby.
She claimed to know the "actual Colonel Sanders," of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. She told us he'd lost all his teeth and, "at the end of his life, he couldn't even eat his own chicken." She shared that tidbit several times, and when I finally inquired why, if he was rich enough, he hadn't just gotten some dentures, she smacked me.
Fortunately, there's been no such nonsense in S2's household. It sounds like your garden variety personality conflict. Although I didn't share the aformentioned details, I did tell S2 I'd had a creepy nanny. She asked, "Would you have wanted to be sent to see that nanny who was mean to you or to get someone else?"
I paused before answering, Well, I have a feeling that I just wanted something I wasn't getting anywhere.
The truth is that, creepy and troglodyte-like as Mrs. Sarah might have been, she was better than nothing. That was frequently the other alternative, as my mother at that point had taken to leaving my sister and I at home alone (we were 7 and 8) to care for our two younger brothers, one of whom was an infant when we first encountered Mrs. Sarah.
Sometimes, we would be at home alone for a while, run into trouble -- such as being hungry -- and call Mrs. Sarah to help us. She drove a clunker of a car -- and one of her many cats had destroyed the interior -- but she would come way out to our home in the countryside, pick the four of us up. She'd take us to her grand old house in town, which had been in her family "since before the war," (by which she meant the Civil War), and I'd retreat to the tree.
Well.
Things change. For better or worse.
I wish I had a magnolia to hide in still. One with big, fragrant blossoms. I wish, too, for a long stretch of honeysuckle along my walking route. And for better barbecue. And for more people in my life who like to sit around and tell stories.
Anyway.
After talking to S2, I went to the grocery store and did my shopping for the week. I'm going to make a version of that killer soup The Clairvoyant concocted last night. Everything in my cart looked amazingly healthy. I walked out of the store with a bunch of carrot greens sprouting from my earth-friendly cloth shopping bag. I felt a bit like a cliche of ... something. I don't know what.
At the bottom of that bag, however, was hiding a devilish little item. My new favorite snack? Pink lady apples dipped in macadamia butter. Praise you, jesus, for the fine vittles that cover this lonely planet. Amen.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
On being "unvarnished"
Thanks to a book S2 gave me as a Christmas gift, I've been giving a bit more thought lately to self-perception. I have two lines of thinking: First, how well do I perceive myelf? Second, just how accurate can self-perception be anyway -- and, as a consequence, what good is it?
I could get into this in great detail, but I won't.
I'll just say that I've got some work to do in the area of self-perception. However, I have observed that people who I feel know me pretty well (and still seem to like me anyway) understand certain character traits of mine in a similar way as I do. They see me not necessarily as I'd really *want* to be seen -- I can't help but desire I was a bit more "evolved" in certain ways -- but in their reflection of my character, I know they see a lot of the Me that I understand or believe myself to be. That is, perhaps, an indicator that my self-peception skills are doing alright.
But just how accurate can it be? My opinion: Not very. We all view the world with countless filters of experience, belief and genetic predispositions. Just as there's no way to know if we see the same exact shade of red -- that we perceive it in a truly identical way as does another -- none of us can remove all those filters and say about an individual, "This is the essential UCM or the essence of The Clairvoyant or the fundamental S2 or the core of The Asian's being."
Our lenses refract and distort and rewrite and slow down and speed up *everything* we experience. One e-mail can be read several different ways: The author can be firting or commiserating, and it can be hard to say which. We suggest that context is everything, but even context is construed in different lights depending on one's experience or even on one's understanding of vocabulary. (What does "sarcastic" mean to you?)
That vexing little problem (or gaping conundrum that undermines this whole essay) aside, I shall engage in some conjecture about a bit of feedback that people give me with some regularity. Everyone uses different phrases, but I will sum them up by saying they find me rather unvarnished. I don't bring a lot of pretense to my relationships, I don't engage in a lot of undue deference, and I am often willing to "put myself out there," in the words of many diverse and unrelated people.
This approach hasn't always gotten me where I'd like to be, but neither have my attempts to be who I am not. Part of the truth, my friends, is that I'm as "natural" as I am out of laziness. It takes too much effort to be something I'm not. (I like to think this may be because I'm a very powerful spirit. Why fight it?)
But regardless of *why* I am the way I am, I have started to believe something (and am open to the possibility, by the way, that every belief is little more than a delusion). I have started to believe that my being "unvarnished" is one of the great gifts I bring to those in my life. Because in the presence of people without a lot of pretense -- who also happen to be as open-minded and accepting as myself (for what that's worth) -- there is room for others to relieve themselves of their pretense as well.
I saw that play out when I had dinner with The Clairvoyant and The One at their home tonight. Following an exceptionally healthy and flavorful meal, we sat around the dining table and talked for a while. The Clairvoyant is a social creature like myself and a bit of a raconteur. But tonight, she carved up the table with some storytelling so theatrical and hysterically funny that I was floored. It has been *years* since I laughed so hard.
Later, I said told her, You know, TC, you should have a standup routine. That was out of this world.
"Nah," she replied. "I can't do that in front of most people. But you bring that out in me. Or you let that exist in me."
I think you let it exist in *yourself,* and are simply willing to share it with me, I said. You could share it with others.
"It's too hard," she said. "I can be that way around The One, too, but not most people. You're different, though. You're just ... yourself."
In truth, I don't know what that means. But I get similar feedback from a lot of people, and they generally mean it as a compliment.
However, there are plenty of folks who simply can't deal with me. I'm "too much" or "not enough" of something. I've suspected at times that I look out of control to certain people, too attached to the experience of the present to be predictable and ... sane. Some seem to find my approach inappropriate or lacking in class consciousness.
Others have used the term "disarming." This can sometimes be a compliment, but I see in the word an element of fear. If you take away someone's armament, they may feel exposed and vulnerable. They may feel manipulated and angry. They may feel frightened. A disarming person is one to be avoided or around whom they must work especially hard to maintain the cultivated veneer they use to get on in life.
Here's the thing: I don't really care which it is.
I often enjoy myself tremendously with people who drop the pretense around me, as I did with The Clairvoyant. But I also recognize that people do not have to drop the facade and reveal their "real self." Why should they make themselves unnecessarily vulnerable? Why should they trust the world with their tender being? And anyway, sometimes the facade is so deeply engrained that it *is* a representation of the "real self." The fact that this reality makes my heart ache a little notwithstanding, it seems best to me to accept people however they present themselves. It doesn't stop me from wanting to peak under the hood and find out what's going on inside them, but I do respect their choices.
I had a friend who often talked about what each of us "brings to the table." This is the self we have, the self we reveal to others, the self we keep to ourselves, the self who looks back at us in the bathroom mirror and knows all those other selves intimately.
"Unvarnished" may not be the kindest of words. It implies a bit of crudeness and a lack of concern about presentation. Both of these things are true about me, and both of them are false. (You may also call me "paradoxical.")
But the woman in the bathroom mirror seems to think "unvarnished" is accurate, and she takes it as a compliment. That's good enough for me.
I could get into this in great detail, but I won't.
I'll just say that I've got some work to do in the area of self-perception. However, I have observed that people who I feel know me pretty well (and still seem to like me anyway) understand certain character traits of mine in a similar way as I do. They see me not necessarily as I'd really *want* to be seen -- I can't help but desire I was a bit more "evolved" in certain ways -- but in their reflection of my character, I know they see a lot of the Me that I understand or believe myself to be. That is, perhaps, an indicator that my self-peception skills are doing alright.
But just how accurate can it be? My opinion: Not very. We all view the world with countless filters of experience, belief and genetic predispositions. Just as there's no way to know if we see the same exact shade of red -- that we perceive it in a truly identical way as does another -- none of us can remove all those filters and say about an individual, "This is the essential UCM or the essence of The Clairvoyant or the fundamental S2 or the core of The Asian's being."
Our lenses refract and distort and rewrite and slow down and speed up *everything* we experience. One e-mail can be read several different ways: The author can be firting or commiserating, and it can be hard to say which. We suggest that context is everything, but even context is construed in different lights depending on one's experience or even on one's understanding of vocabulary. (What does "sarcastic" mean to you?)
That vexing little problem (or gaping conundrum that undermines this whole essay) aside, I shall engage in some conjecture about a bit of feedback that people give me with some regularity. Everyone uses different phrases, but I will sum them up by saying they find me rather unvarnished. I don't bring a lot of pretense to my relationships, I don't engage in a lot of undue deference, and I am often willing to "put myself out there," in the words of many diverse and unrelated people.
This approach hasn't always gotten me where I'd like to be, but neither have my attempts to be who I am not. Part of the truth, my friends, is that I'm as "natural" as I am out of laziness. It takes too much effort to be something I'm not. (I like to think this may be because I'm a very powerful spirit. Why fight it?)
But regardless of *why* I am the way I am, I have started to believe something (and am open to the possibility, by the way, that every belief is little more than a delusion). I have started to believe that my being "unvarnished" is one of the great gifts I bring to those in my life. Because in the presence of people without a lot of pretense -- who also happen to be as open-minded and accepting as myself (for what that's worth) -- there is room for others to relieve themselves of their pretense as well.
I saw that play out when I had dinner with The Clairvoyant and The One at their home tonight. Following an exceptionally healthy and flavorful meal, we sat around the dining table and talked for a while. The Clairvoyant is a social creature like myself and a bit of a raconteur. But tonight, she carved up the table with some storytelling so theatrical and hysterically funny that I was floored. It has been *years* since I laughed so hard.
Later, I said told her, You know, TC, you should have a standup routine. That was out of this world.
"Nah," she replied. "I can't do that in front of most people. But you bring that out in me. Or you let that exist in me."
I think you let it exist in *yourself,* and are simply willing to share it with me, I said. You could share it with others.
"It's too hard," she said. "I can be that way around The One, too, but not most people. You're different, though. You're just ... yourself."
In truth, I don't know what that means. But I get similar feedback from a lot of people, and they generally mean it as a compliment.
However, there are plenty of folks who simply can't deal with me. I'm "too much" or "not enough" of something. I've suspected at times that I look out of control to certain people, too attached to the experience of the present to be predictable and ... sane. Some seem to find my approach inappropriate or lacking in class consciousness.
Others have used the term "disarming." This can sometimes be a compliment, but I see in the word an element of fear. If you take away someone's armament, they may feel exposed and vulnerable. They may feel manipulated and angry. They may feel frightened. A disarming person is one to be avoided or around whom they must work especially hard to maintain the cultivated veneer they use to get on in life.
Here's the thing: I don't really care which it is.
I often enjoy myself tremendously with people who drop the pretense around me, as I did with The Clairvoyant. But I also recognize that people do not have to drop the facade and reveal their "real self." Why should they make themselves unnecessarily vulnerable? Why should they trust the world with their tender being? And anyway, sometimes the facade is so deeply engrained that it *is* a representation of the "real self." The fact that this reality makes my heart ache a little notwithstanding, it seems best to me to accept people however they present themselves. It doesn't stop me from wanting to peak under the hood and find out what's going on inside them, but I do respect their choices.
I had a friend who often talked about what each of us "brings to the table." This is the self we have, the self we reveal to others, the self we keep to ourselves, the self who looks back at us in the bathroom mirror and knows all those other selves intimately.
"Unvarnished" may not be the kindest of words. It implies a bit of crudeness and a lack of concern about presentation. Both of these things are true about me, and both of them are false. (You may also call me "paradoxical.")
But the woman in the bathroom mirror seems to think "unvarnished" is accurate, and she takes it as a compliment. That's good enough for me.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I'm late for an important date!
There's a party going on upstairs, and it's loud enough to prevent me from sleeping.
In these wee hours -- although I admit this is close to my normal bedtime -- I find myself wondering just what it is that seems to make me sexually invisible.
I just don't get that.
Is it the fact that I'm so ... unvarnished? Is the power of my character such that I'm somehow intimidating (particularly to men)? Or is it just my body which puts off people from considering me worthy of physical attention (when no cash is being exchanged)?
Granted, I know that close-ended questions and the presumptive use of "or" (as in, you can choose from these three options and no others) limits the discussion a bit. But I'm just tossing out some questions.
Why does just about *everyone* who's taken by me in some way stick me in the "friend" box and leave my vibrant sexuality to rot on the vine?
There are some anniversaries which are *not* to be celebrated. A Year Without Sex is one of them.
It would be nice if someone would prevent that from happening. (And, yes, I'm talking to you. In other words, if you think I'm talking to you, I probably am. Why not?!)
P.S. On that note, I saw more testicles tonight than I think I've seen in my entire life. Thanks, GameBoy, for showing me a ... uh, a good time? ;-} ... By the way, you've got sweet digs. And you *are* a rock star. (If it's on the Internet, that means it's true. And true for-ev-uh. Or at least until the last server is crushed at the dump and the last cache file found and destroyed.)
In these wee hours -- although I admit this is close to my normal bedtime -- I find myself wondering just what it is that seems to make me sexually invisible.
I just don't get that.
Is it the fact that I'm so ... unvarnished? Is the power of my character such that I'm somehow intimidating (particularly to men)? Or is it just my body which puts off people from considering me worthy of physical attention (when no cash is being exchanged)?
Granted, I know that close-ended questions and the presumptive use of "or" (as in, you can choose from these three options and no others) limits the discussion a bit. But I'm just tossing out some questions.
Why does just about *everyone* who's taken by me in some way stick me in the "friend" box and leave my vibrant sexuality to rot on the vine?
There are some anniversaries which are *not* to be celebrated. A Year Without Sex is one of them.
It would be nice if someone would prevent that from happening. (And, yes, I'm talking to you. In other words, if you think I'm talking to you, I probably am. Why not?!)
P.S. On that note, I saw more testicles tonight than I think I've seen in my entire life. Thanks, GameBoy, for showing me a ... uh, a good time? ;-} ... By the way, you've got sweet digs. And you *are* a rock star. (If it's on the Internet, that means it's true. And true for-ev-uh. Or at least until the last server is crushed at the dump and the last cache file found and destroyed.)
Friday, January 05, 2007
erotica
So I wrote some erotica last night.
This may not come as a surprise to some of you, but it surprised the hell out of me. It's not a genre at which I have any practice. Most of my fiction, so to speak, has been limited to off-the-cuff pieces for my old writing group like the story of the real estate agent trying to sell the house where Hansel & Gretel were killed.
Steamy girl-on-girl action has existed in my real life, but it has never found its way into my fiction. I guess this has roots that can be psychodynamically dissected in several ways. Too sexually repressed or shy as a writer? Or just unwilling to engage in the search of synonyms for genitalia that is demanded by the genre? Hard to say.
Whatever the case, I've written my first piece of erotica. I've also penned my first piece of fiction in several years. (Yes, sad to say everything you read on this here blog is non-fiction.) It felt to my writer's soul like a curtain had been pulled back to reveal a story already complete and waiting to tell itself to me.
I know I have considerably greater ease in writing than do many people. If you ask me my secret, I'll always say the same thing: Write like you talk. But that does not make me any better at inventing believable characters and a complex plot in which to give them life. Rather, my work has tended toward the realistic. I've never known if I was drawn to journalism because I'm a realist or if journalism took an unformed writer and turned her into a realist.
Fiction has proven a foe, mainly because I "lack the imagination." (S2 debates me on this point.) Well, let's say she scores the points in this area of the debate: There certainly is no shortage to my imagination when it comes to sex. Perhaps on this topic, it is more a matter of releasing the being within than it is in developing a complex storyline. And being willing to conjure and *use* all those synonyms for genitalia, of course.
Because what happens in erotica? Well, bodies attract, begin to touch in some way or other (or other or *other* or other), and orgasm results. If there's a little depravity mixed in for good measure, that can add a certain unexpected and salacious quality to it.
Let's be clear, however, that this first piece of mine is far from depraved -- at least, according to my standards. (Can't speak for Pat Robertson. He might say what I've penned *is* the big calamity god told him was coming in 2007.)
I just think I've penned something kind of ... hot. (I've sent it to some fellow writers to evaluate whether that's actually the case.)
It is a work in progress, but what pleases me to no end is that it is a work at all. My imagination rarely sees the light of day. I am surprised at what chose to show up this time around, but I'm not going to question it.
In fact, I may just write some more of it.
This may not come as a surprise to some of you, but it surprised the hell out of me. It's not a genre at which I have any practice. Most of my fiction, so to speak, has been limited to off-the-cuff pieces for my old writing group like the story of the real estate agent trying to sell the house where Hansel & Gretel were killed.
Steamy girl-on-girl action has existed in my real life, but it has never found its way into my fiction. I guess this has roots that can be psychodynamically dissected in several ways. Too sexually repressed or shy as a writer? Or just unwilling to engage in the search of synonyms for genitalia that is demanded by the genre? Hard to say.
Whatever the case, I've written my first piece of erotica. I've also penned my first piece of fiction in several years. (Yes, sad to say everything you read on this here blog is non-fiction.) It felt to my writer's soul like a curtain had been pulled back to reveal a story already complete and waiting to tell itself to me.
I know I have considerably greater ease in writing than do many people. If you ask me my secret, I'll always say the same thing: Write like you talk. But that does not make me any better at inventing believable characters and a complex plot in which to give them life. Rather, my work has tended toward the realistic. I've never known if I was drawn to journalism because I'm a realist or if journalism took an unformed writer and turned her into a realist.
Fiction has proven a foe, mainly because I "lack the imagination." (S2 debates me on this point.) Well, let's say she scores the points in this area of the debate: There certainly is no shortage to my imagination when it comes to sex. Perhaps on this topic, it is more a matter of releasing the being within than it is in developing a complex storyline. And being willing to conjure and *use* all those synonyms for genitalia, of course.
Because what happens in erotica? Well, bodies attract, begin to touch in some way or other (or other or *other* or other), and orgasm results. If there's a little depravity mixed in for good measure, that can add a certain unexpected and salacious quality to it.
Let's be clear, however, that this first piece of mine is far from depraved -- at least, according to my standards. (Can't speak for Pat Robertson. He might say what I've penned *is* the big calamity god told him was coming in 2007.)
I just think I've penned something kind of ... hot. (I've sent it to some fellow writers to evaluate whether that's actually the case.)
It is a work in progress, but what pleases me to no end is that it is a work at all. My imagination rarely sees the light of day. I am surprised at what chose to show up this time around, but I'm not going to question it.
In fact, I may just write some more of it.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Yo, homies
The last day of the year, I lost my wallet. I think that was somehow fitting on several levels.
It reduced me to a level of depending on others with which I am rather uncomfortable. It also forced me to go through the mental exercises of letting go of something that *feels* very important but actually isn't all that. (Still, I'm bummed to lose that lovely leather wallet.)
Because I didn't want to be pulled over and found without a drivers license, I was also forced to drive no more than 5 mph over the speed limit -- on those rare stretches of interstate that were free flowing enough to do so, as I did rush hour across the entire stretch from north of Everett to just outside of Olympia, Washington (a huge swath of the drive).
And with the loss of my wallet was also the loss of a drivers license photo that was *much* more flattering than the replacement I received today.
S2 commented that the loss of the wallet almost seemed representative of a loss of identity. And that the loss of all my cash and plastic was "sending me back to the womb." (Of course, she laughed maniacally when she said this, but in some respects, she had a point.)
In the vein of the whole start-of-a-new-year thing, I like to note that I lost my wallet at about 4 o'clock on New Year's Eve -- that such a symbolic loss came at the end of *that* year, rather than at the beginning of *this* one.
When up at the cabin, I had plenty of time to think, as I knew I would.
I also had time sit on a comfy adirondak, cacooned and cozy my sleeping bag, read "The God of Small Things" and fall into a 3-hour-long state of blissful drowsiness in which I sometimes slept and other times watch the rain moving across the lake, the fog rolling in and out and the clouds climbing up the hills while listening to the drip-drip from boughs of the cedars around the cabin.
But there was, in and out, here and there, all sorts of little epiphanies. I saw my breakup in a new light. And with my nightly fireside reading of Irvin Yalom's "The Gift of Therapy" and Harrier Lerner's "The Dance of Intimacy," I also made some interesting perspective shifts on several other relationships in my life, probably including you. Yes, you. And you, too. But not you, don't worry.
I did some work re-envisioning the life plan that's gone MIA in the past several months. In fact, the more and more I think about it, the more inclined I feel to look into an internship with hospice or some other organization devoted to dealing with grief and loss. Aside from my own experience and a substantial depth of empathy for the topic, it also seems to be a natural fit for that little passion I'm developing for narrative therapy. At what time do we start trying to weave healing stories more than when we've suffered a substantial loss, especially a death?
Of course, I'm all about that sex and sexuality stuff, too. I'm not sure how I'm going to work with that, but things may come into better focus there over the next year. I've got couples and sexuality classes on the horizon. No telling what doors will present themselves for opening there.
Also, I reaffirmed the value I place on living in a city that has quick access to forests and lakes and mountains, to hikes in forested parks and short trips to the ocean. I am not completely anchored, but Portland is the kind of town I want to call home for a long, long time.
On that note, I *loved* Vancouver. LOVED IT. There is water everywhere. Harbors harbors harbors. Beautiful parks. Nice neighborhoods. Great shopping districts. A vibrant gay scene. Good food. The high percentage of sushi joints was encouraging, and the Indian food looked like it might be good. My friends have meat-and-potato palates, however, so that brought me face to face with a fabulous beef tenderloin topped by a large medallion of seared froie gras. *Delicious*.
The only downside to the city is the obscene number of Starbucks. At one point walking through West Vancouver, I found myself thinking of "Best in Show" and that scene where the couple with the Weimaraner talk about how they met because they went to Starbucks across the street from each other. I was standing at just such an intersection there.
I counted the number of Starbucks in the Vancouver white pages. There were 157. Not enough alternatives on the coffee there, folks! (I hate going to Starbucks and being corrected on my order of a cafe au lait with soy by someone in a green apron saying, "You mean a soy misto?" One of the Canadian Starbucks girls told me she'd "never heard that term before." Cafe au lait?! Jesus.
Every city has its shortcomings....
Vancouver, BC, nevertheless, is a marvelous one. If I have to run away from my status as a citizen of these United States, it's the first place I'd consider moving. (Or maybe the second, after some tropical, warm-water locale.) I love Canadians, and not just because I'm descended of them. They're really friendly.
Anyway, for the time being, I'm defining myself as a lover and fan of the Pacific Northwest. This region has called to me in mythological ways since I was a child. And I'm always impressed when it lives up to that mythology, as it does in the rainforest around the cabin. Now that I'm here, I intend to stay a while. S2 said today that my life -- having been carried out in nine different cities in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, California and Oregon -- has been like a prolonged "walkabout." Too true. In fact, Portland is the place I have lived longest. Good thing the world is big enough that my walkabout need never come to an end -- at least, not until *I* do.
But I've decided: This is home.
It reduced me to a level of depending on others with which I am rather uncomfortable. It also forced me to go through the mental exercises of letting go of something that *feels* very important but actually isn't all that. (Still, I'm bummed to lose that lovely leather wallet.)
Because I didn't want to be pulled over and found without a drivers license, I was also forced to drive no more than 5 mph over the speed limit -- on those rare stretches of interstate that were free flowing enough to do so, as I did rush hour across the entire stretch from north of Everett to just outside of Olympia, Washington (a huge swath of the drive).
And with the loss of my wallet was also the loss of a drivers license photo that was *much* more flattering than the replacement I received today.
S2 commented that the loss of the wallet almost seemed representative of a loss of identity. And that the loss of all my cash and plastic was "sending me back to the womb." (Of course, she laughed maniacally when she said this, but in some respects, she had a point.)
In the vein of the whole start-of-a-new-year thing, I like to note that I lost my wallet at about 4 o'clock on New Year's Eve -- that such a symbolic loss came at the end of *that* year, rather than at the beginning of *this* one.
When up at the cabin, I had plenty of time to think, as I knew I would.
I also had time sit on a comfy adirondak, cacooned and cozy my sleeping bag, read "The God of Small Things" and fall into a 3-hour-long state of blissful drowsiness in which I sometimes slept and other times watch the rain moving across the lake, the fog rolling in and out and the clouds climbing up the hills while listening to the drip-drip from boughs of the cedars around the cabin.
But there was, in and out, here and there, all sorts of little epiphanies. I saw my breakup in a new light. And with my nightly fireside reading of Irvin Yalom's "The Gift of Therapy" and Harrier Lerner's "The Dance of Intimacy," I also made some interesting perspective shifts on several other relationships in my life, probably including you. Yes, you. And you, too. But not you, don't worry.
I did some work re-envisioning the life plan that's gone MIA in the past several months. In fact, the more and more I think about it, the more inclined I feel to look into an internship with hospice or some other organization devoted to dealing with grief and loss. Aside from my own experience and a substantial depth of empathy for the topic, it also seems to be a natural fit for that little passion I'm developing for narrative therapy. At what time do we start trying to weave healing stories more than when we've suffered a substantial loss, especially a death?
Of course, I'm all about that sex and sexuality stuff, too. I'm not sure how I'm going to work with that, but things may come into better focus there over the next year. I've got couples and sexuality classes on the horizon. No telling what doors will present themselves for opening there.
Also, I reaffirmed the value I place on living in a city that has quick access to forests and lakes and mountains, to hikes in forested parks and short trips to the ocean. I am not completely anchored, but Portland is the kind of town I want to call home for a long, long time.
On that note, I *loved* Vancouver. LOVED IT. There is water everywhere. Harbors harbors harbors. Beautiful parks. Nice neighborhoods. Great shopping districts. A vibrant gay scene. Good food. The high percentage of sushi joints was encouraging, and the Indian food looked like it might be good. My friends have meat-and-potato palates, however, so that brought me face to face with a fabulous beef tenderloin topped by a large medallion of seared froie gras. *Delicious*.
The only downside to the city is the obscene number of Starbucks. At one point walking through West Vancouver, I found myself thinking of "Best in Show" and that scene where the couple with the Weimaraner talk about how they met because they went to Starbucks across the street from each other. I was standing at just such an intersection there.
I counted the number of Starbucks in the Vancouver white pages. There were 157. Not enough alternatives on the coffee there, folks! (I hate going to Starbucks and being corrected on my order of a cafe au lait with soy by someone in a green apron saying, "You mean a soy misto?" One of the Canadian Starbucks girls told me she'd "never heard that term before." Cafe au lait?! Jesus.
Every city has its shortcomings....
Vancouver, BC, nevertheless, is a marvelous one. If I have to run away from my status as a citizen of these United States, it's the first place I'd consider moving. (Or maybe the second, after some tropical, warm-water locale.) I love Canadians, and not just because I'm descended of them. They're really friendly.
Anyway, for the time being, I'm defining myself as a lover and fan of the Pacific Northwest. This region has called to me in mythological ways since I was a child. And I'm always impressed when it lives up to that mythology, as it does in the rainforest around the cabin. Now that I'm here, I intend to stay a while. S2 said today that my life -- having been carried out in nine different cities in Florida, South Carolina, Texas, California and Oregon -- has been like a prolonged "walkabout." Too true. In fact, Portland is the place I have lived longest. Good thing the world is big enough that my walkabout need never come to an end -- at least, not until *I* do.
But I've decided: This is home.
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