Friday, July 31, 2009

Wasn't That Unexpected?

I got up this morning with a day's worth of little chores on my checklist. I got my hair cut first; I'm back to a shorter, more shaped cut a la Indiana. I scheduled appointments for "back to school," including a manicure my parents are treating me to as an indulgence.

After I left the salon, my next "to do" items were both at the car dealership, scheduling two long-overdue major maintenances and trying to get a burned-out turn signal replaced. Of course, nothing is ever simple, and after a two-hour wait, the turn signal turned out not to be burned out at all. During the time the car was sitting up while I was recovering from my knee surgery, apparently a rat had lunch on the wiring leading up to the turn signal, and now it will have to be rewired.

This wasn't what I wanted to hear, but the news was somewhat softened by the incredibly cute mechanic who came out to deliver it. Despite the fact that it's the place I usually get my oil changed, I've never seen him before, and I would remember. The funny thing is that he wasn't really any of the "types" that usually catch my eye, dark eyed where usually it's the blue ones that snag me, bearded where I usually go for clean-shaven, and a little shorter than me when I usually have a huge issue with that. I don't know what it was. It was unexpected and nice, especially in light of the impending repair bill when the part comes in and I have to go back to get it fixed next week at the regular dealership service center. I guess if the bill is too shocking, I can always walk over to the quick oil change section and see if I don't feel better with some cute-guy-therapy. (I'm also thinking they have lots of luscious Dodge Chargers on this lot, too. If we could just put these two things together somehow....wicked, wicked grin....)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Taking Care of Business

I'm in an Elvis-y mood tonight, as you can probably tell from the title...

Anyway, after sleeping almost all day yesterday and until about 10:30 today because of feeling so horribly yesterday, I got up today with plenty of energy to take care of some long-overdue work. I called BellSouth and DirecTV about service issues I'm having and got those two things lined up for repair, and then I started the monumental effort of cleaning this house. Since perfect strangers will be coming to the house to do things, Southern Guilt dictates that the house must be clean. Never mind that it never looks like this at any other time of the year/week/will not look like this thirty minutes after they leave....

I swear, even though I know it's probably not a needed expense, if I could somehow squeeze it into my meager budget, a cleaning service would be the first luxury I'd spring for. I hate having to do heavy cleaning by myself. The little stuff is bad enough, fixtures, vacuuming, and whatnot, but the big cleaning, steam cleaning, bucket mopping, dusting, furniture polish, etc., is a nightmare. If I had the money, I would gladly, happily, gleefully give it to somebody else for the privilege of getting out of this stuff or even having help. Maybe this is why people have kids? (just kidding...don't throw things...)

I don't do it nearly as often as it probably needs, just to be honest. Once the school year gets rolling, I just try to keep a path through the house so the piles don't fall over and crush me or the animals, and survival becomes the order of the day. During the school year, in fact, I don't even want people to come in the house because it's such a horrid mess.

Right now, it's a little better than half done. I got the heavy vacuuming and steam cleaning done today, and that's one of the worst of the big jobs. Tomorrow, I'll start the day with the mopping and get the worst of what's left done first, and then everything that's left will just be finish work. I'm just grateful I've got enough flexibility back in my leg to allow me to do all this myself now and enough energy to be able to take care of my business myself. When it's all done, I'll be able to sit back and bask in how nice everything looks for the five minutes it lasts until a cat and/or a dog mess it up.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Rain and Tired

I feel ick today. I woke up feeling bad, and I almost didn't go to therapy. Perseverance won out, though, and I dragged myself in. It took longer than usual today because she added new exercises. Since I was feeling so nasty, I don't think I did as well as usual. Everything was so hard today. I could hardly do all my reps. I left feeling drained and weak.

I came home, ate whatever I pulled out of the freezer first, and fell asleep on the couch for a couple of hours by accident. When I woke up, I still felt horrible and was stiff from sleeping on the couch to boot, so I got up and went to the sunroom to sleep more comfortably. Yoda apparently wasn't feeling well herself today because she came and curled up next to me, something the Empress of Cats never deigns to do, and we slept the day away.

Rain fell, I woke up sporadically, and dozed back off, and finally got up in time to feed all the animals and myself again. I've been up a few hours now after watching a movie, and I was hoping that I was cycling out of the nastiness, but now I think I'm going to turn in for the rest of the night. A migraine seems to be brewing, and maybe if I sleep it won't strike. I hate feeling like this. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Changes

Yeah, you're in the right place. I just redecorated a little. Have no fear....

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Chesterton Quote

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid. -- G.K. Chesterton

Philosophy for Living, Rife with Irony

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. ~James Dean

Another quote, and yes, before you ask, I'm on a quotes kick. I was browsing through one of my favorite sites looking for something specific when I stumbled across the Cummings quote in the previous entry and this one. The supreme wisdom and heartbreaking irony of this one deserved a brief comment, though.

What does it really mean to live as if you'll die today? It certainly means to take advantage of all those little opportunities we all too often let go, the chance to do the thing that requires courage, daring, stepping outside our routine or our perception of our regular self. Too often, I think we fail to appreciate the brevity of our time here. This quote puts it into a tidy perspective.

I think it also needs to mean, though, living in a way that recognizes the incredible wonder of life, the preciousness of everyone we're surrounded by, and the relationships that connect us. It should also mean making sure that there is no unfinished business, that peace is made, both with our fellow man and with God so that when it comes time to step away from this place we can dust off our hands, job finished, and move on to what comes next.

I think about the image of James Dean as the eternal Rebel in the leather jacket, and I think about how he died in a twisted mass of metal, and I wonder which definition he embraced and what it ultimately meant to him.

Another Cummings Quote

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

This one will be going up in my classroom somewhere this year. The man just said everything well.

The Reunion

It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days. ~Isabel Waxman

And so I went. Of course it wasn't as simple as all that....

Yesterday my phone rang about 8:00, and Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to go in for an early breakfast in town as family eat-together-thing. I managed to get my sleep-deprived brain together since I'd gone to bed some time after 2:00 am, and got up and dressed. We went in, forded the masses at Cracker Barrel, and had the traditional log-rolling breakfast. All meals at Cracker Barrel will enable you to roll logs, after all.

When I got home, I let Roux and Yelldo out and started working on cleaning out my closet. About 5, when it was time to get ready for the reunion, there was still no sign of Roux. I went out looking for her and thought I heard her yelping in the woods. This prompted a massive 45 minute search in the deep woods, hills, and hollows behind my house. She eventually came up covered in mud but otherwise okay, and I came back to the house with a sore knee and very little time to get ready for the reunion.

I did get ready and go, though. It was really good. Only a small portion of our class was there. We were a really small class to start with, and I know there were a lot of people who had other big obligations this weekend and couldn't make it. There were some people who I was really hoping were going to come but didn't, and there were people there who I haven't seen since graduation. There were a couple of surreal moments, as I suppose is to be expected, but on the whole I think for a class that graduated quite literally in the middle of a thunderstorm, we managed to escape without any damage.

It was wonderful to see everyone and also to meet everyone's spouses. To me, it was as nice to see who everyone finally wound up with as it was to see them personally again. It was sort of like seeing finished paintings, if that makes any sense.

It also astonished me how much we all still looked like us. I don't know why that was a surprise, but it was a bit. I mean, I look in my own mirror at least when it can't be avoided, and I know that face hasn't altered that much over the years, but I guess I thought for some reason 15 years would make us look different. It really didn't. Maybe we were getting a little gray in the hair or a couple of little lines. Maybe we were a little more...um...curvy... than we used to be in some cases (okay, my case), and certainly some of our guys had come into their own since graduation, always to be expected since teenage girls usually have it mostly together while their male counterparts usually still have quite a ways to go yet, but nobody was radically different.

I also enjoyed talking with everyone and finding out what everybody was doing. We have really high number of teachers in our class. I wonder what conjunction of stars reigned over the year of our birth that caused that curse to befall us all.... I was so proud to hear what everybody was doing. We have small business owners, professionals, people who have incredible talents and skills, and all from our one little class.

The whole time I was there, I was viewing the reunion through dual lenses, those of a member of my senior class and those of a senior class teacher. I kept thinking of my seniors, the ones I've taught already and the ones who are upcoming, and seeing bits and pieces of them in the faces and situations that surrounded me. It was an odd sort of duality. I wish for all my darlings the kind of connection we still have after fifteen years.

I don't know if we'll do a reunion at twenty. I hope so, and I hope that even more of our far-flung classmates will come. If I can come to one and survive it, I think anybody could.

Friday, July 24, 2009

So, Anyway, Yeah, I'm Going

I talked, or rather texted, with my best friend last night, and she convinced me that I could handle the reunion. I am still not quite sure about it, but I think that I'm going to try. At least she'll be there for moral support.

I tried to figure out what I'm going to wear, and the whole time I was sorting through clothing, I was more or less hating the cliched nature of that activity. Part of me really just wants to put on old jeans, whatever t-shirt happens to come to hand when I reach into the closet, my Chacos, and go. And yes, I would, of course, have my hair pulled up into the ubiquitous ponytail...

Another silly part of me wants to find the vampiest, trampiest items in my wardrobe and combine them in odd ways. Curl all my hair into ringlets. Wear a lot of blue eyeshadow (I think I'd have to buy some of that...) and Cleopatra eyeliner. Find some fishnet hose. Get out those really, really big silver hoops I have and some of my grandmothers' old costume jewelry. See if I can balance in heels without my knee giving out. You know, that sort of thing. I have a very warped sense of humor these days, and just the thought of going in like that amuses the hell out of me. "Hey, y'all. It's me! Have I changed much?"

In reality, I will undoubtedly look just exactly like what I am, "the schoolmarm." It's okay. I can pull that costume out of the closet with relative ease. It's socially acceptable, it's fairly tidy and modest, and I'm comfortable in it. I wear it about nine months out of the year, anyway....

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Pie and Casserole

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. ~ Unknown

Today, I went to PT and did a grueling hour and a half of work on my knee. I upped my reps and weights, and by the time I was done, my knee felt like Jell-O. I make more progress every time I go. I stayed on the Rocker board for a full five minutes today and then did twenty squats. I think I'm going to get one of those things just to keep around the house for fun while I'm watching TV. I get a kick out trying to keep it absolutely still, and I have often wondered if I could balance on one foot with it at all.

When I got home, I went and got groceries. I bought stuff to cook with for the first time in a long time. This afternoon, I made easy key lime pie with that Real Simple recipe that I like so much. I always forget how much it makes. It fills two crusts and then there is always a little bit of filling left over. What to do with those leftover spoonsful? Hmm.... Or perhaps the sound to make is, "Yumm..."

The pies are currently firming in the freezer, and for dinner, I made a favorite Mexican casserole. It's an old recipe that's extremely easy, and even though I'll have leftovers for days, it was great actually to stand at my stove and prepare food again rather than microwave something.

In a little while, I'll go and slice one of the pies. I may also break out my cheap copy of the Goonies I picked up from the sale bin at Wal-Mart. It has been a peaceful and good day full of simple little things.

I Knew I Loved E. E. Cummings

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."
- e e cummings

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Blue

Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue. ~Andre Gide
"Oh, had I wings I would fly away and be at rest..." "Ecstasy" Traditional Spiritual

Blue again. Shimmering in my ears are the notes of Ella and Billie to accompany the rain falling outside. It's not the rain that brought this on. I love the rain.

Maybe it's the upcoming reunion, my 15th. I've almost decided not to go, and since it's Saturday, I think I'm about out of time to change my mind. I can't bear the thought of having to have the same brief conversation about being single with no kids over and over again with all those married and fecund people and seeing that blank, vaguely pitying stare. No matter what I think of the choices I've made in my life, I just know it's not going to quite measure up to four hours of that. I have no pictures of my toddlers to show off. I have no "precious" stories to share about toilet training or pregnancy. I don't even have an engagement ring or a steady boyfriend to take.

I need to get out of here. More and more, I feel the bars of my cage pressing down on me, especially when I hear from friends living in other places. Only my job and my family keep me here. I just keep staring up at the sky, ruffling my feathers in frustration and indecision and pretending that I don't remember what it was like to fly.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Learning Lincoln


Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. ~Abraham Lincoln

This year marks the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Until I went to Washington at the end of last month, I really didn't pay much attention to Lincoln. He was just another one of those presidents we learned about in school, a carving on a coin or a drawing on a bill, flat, cold, and without much interest. Yes, granted, he was the leader for our country in one of its greatest times of crisis, but for whatever reason, possibly for the very reason of those early school lessons in which we were exposed to him and to Washington as almost cartoon-like, mythic icons instead of real individuals, I've never wanted to know more about the man behind the caricature.

When I went to Washington, I had the chance to visit Ford's Theater. We didn't get to take the guided tour, but while I was there, I sat in the lobby for quite some time waiting for the tour to begin (because I was on crutches and couldn't stand up in the line outside with the rest of my group). In the lobby, one of the artifacts on display is the coat Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated. It was made by Brooks Brothers, and it has an elaborately embroidered inner lining. For some reason, that coat was the beginning of my interest in Lincoln.

I started thinking about him getting it as a gift, and what he thought about that eagle pattern on the interior. I wondered if he'd paused when he was getting dressed and run his fingers over the pattern and thought about the war that was just over. I wondered if he'd been happy to be able to go out to the theater with his wife and just enjoy it without the horrible burden of ongoing battle looming behind him like a blood-soaked spectre. In that moment, the cartoonish image of an overtall man in a stovepipe hat became somehow a real person to me, and I wanted to know more about him.

Since I got home, I've seen two specials on the History Channel about him, and I'm also reading a really wonderful biography about him simply called Lincoln. The more I know about him, the more I admire him. He was an extremely complex man, which, I suppose, is probably something of a "duh" statement, but as I learn, I feel both admiration and sympathy for him at different times in his story. It is compelling.

I look forward to continuing my new line of research. I feel that learning about him is a way of learning more about the country as a whole as well, something I need to do. It's time now as an adult to put away the childish understanding of my nation and its past and try to understand it more fully.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Huxley Always Knows

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."
- Aldous Huxley

Friday, July 17, 2009

Windchimes

I love the sound of windchimes. As long as I can remember, they've been a part of the soundscape of my life, a sound I've associated with safety and comfort. We never had them at my parents' house because repetitive noises of that type drive my father crazy. The windchimes of my childhood were always the ones hanging on my Granny's and my Nana's porches.

I remember those endless summer afternoons and evenings sitting in rocking chairs talking and watching the day fade out while whatever slight breezes there were stirred the metal, glass, or ceramic chimes into song. The simple notes mixed with the tree frogs and other country night sounds. Whether I was sitting and talking with family or alone and reading, they made the backdrop for peace and serenity.

When I went to Japan, I was delighted to find that windchimes were a part of the summer culture there, too, beautiful glass ones painted with scenes, china and porcelain ones shaped like maneki neko, and cast iron ones shaped like temple bells or whimsical animals. I collected enough of those to keep my tiny apaato filled with wind music, and I brought them home. Most of the fragile glass ones are gone now, but I still have enough of them left to stir good memories when the sound in Mississippi breezes.

I now have chimes hanging from three of my four porches. I also have placed one here on this blog, just in case you haven't noticed the gentle chiming. I am keeping the music alive, tranquil and sweet.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Bitstrips: Skully Appears

Bitstrips: Skully Appears

A web 2.0 tool that I'm playing with. Interesting possibilities for school assignments. Not hard to use, and it comes out looking nice, my example aside.

Lunge

And, yes, I know that most people won't care, but it's a big deal to me. If you're looking for earth-shattering philosophy or words of divine inspiration, you've been in the wrong place for quite some time now....

Today, my therapist added yet another new motion to my recovery: the lunge. This was the first time I've made this motion since I did my last yoga class back in February. The lunge is a critical motion for me. It gave me endless problems in fencing, not being able to reach full fluid extension and recovery without having a hitch in my movement. It is also part of several very common and wonderful-feeling yoga poses. I have to admit I was nervous. Those last few yoga classes if I did any sort of lunges, particularly the Warrior poses, my knee would lock or weaken despite all my best efforts to control it. I can still remember the burn and the pain, that disgusting clicking feeling inside. It was one of the main indicators that told me I had some serious problem going this time.

When the PT told me that I was going to be lunging, I was afraid it would fold under me even though I knew it shouldn't. What a wonderful feeling when it bent strong and steady and pushed back firm and trustworthy! Although it is still sore when it's the off-leg, I now have real confidence that I'm going to be able to do yoga again. It's the difference between being told you can do something and then actually having it proven through doing it yourself.

The PT pushed me hard today. More new exercises were added, my weights on all the machines were increased, and I upped my reps on some things. This added to the lunges left my knee tired and tingling when I left the gym. It was all worth it. I left with a smile and private laughter in my heart. I am really, truly, actually going to make it back from this after all.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Musical Velvet Elvis

Songs to accompany your voyage into kitsch,

Whispering on Twitter

A couple of my very favorite authors and musicians lurk about on Twitter. I both love and hate this. If you follow my Twitter feed at all, you know in addition to the totally useless things I write about (going to vacuum the floors now, oh look! have found apples in fridge, etc.), I also like to tweet about what I'm listening to or reading about at the moment, sort of a review in 140 characters or less. It's awfully hard to do that comfortably when you know the person you're writing about is sort of standing in the corner listening....

I ran into this the other day when I finished Good Omens. My first response was to tweet loudly and long about its merits, but then I remembered that Neil Gaiman is practically the King of Twitter. His followers are legion. I shuffled my feet (metaphorically), made some sort of weak comment about how much I liked it, and saved my commentary for the safer backwaters of blogland, this shallow pool where no one but you and I, gentle reader, ever wades.

I haven't always been this cautious. In fact, when I first joined Twitter and was discovering its vagaries, I was also reading American Gods for the first time, and I was tweeting the lines I liked best. Imagine how stupid I felt when I found out that @neilhimself had several thousand avid followers running around out there.... I shut up pretty fast. I felt like I was caught talking about somebody at a party and was overheard. Not that I was saying anything but good things, but still. It was unnerving.

There are several musicians I love that I had the same experience with. I was tweeting along about how I liked this one or that one, and bam, there they were.... I have gotten almost gunshy about the whole system. In one way it is an amazing chance to interact, even in the shallowest of ways, with creative people whom one admires. And that's something I'd very much like to do.

However, this is where the shy (as in socially inept, not the previously mentioned gunshy) comes in, even over a computer buffer, and especially once I know I've been caught out talking like some starry-eyed worshiper (which, in most cases, unless Elvis shows up, I think I can say I am not), I just don't know what to write. I can't imagine anything I type being useful, interesting, or amusing to those Twitter Titans, and I feel sort of embarrassed about being there. It's exactly the same feeling that drove me out of a concert hall before I could even get my copy of Punch signed by Chris Thile and company, but that was real life. Ah, but talking about the unreasoning weirdness I feel about asking another person to scrawl his or her name across an object may be a subject better left for another blog....

Well, I'm off to take one last tour of the Twitterverse before bed. I will skulk through quietly, wading gently, and making as few waves as possible. I don't think anybody will even know I'm there....probably....surely....right?....

Speaking of Poetry

I've been writing lately. Little trickles in the desert sand, not the torrent of true inspiration I'd love to feel. I've gotten three things down on paper. One and a half of them need to be thrown out. I'll put them in the notebook to chew over. Maybe something good can come of them if I turn them over in my hands long enough and wear away some of the stupidity and rough edges. My notebook as a giant rock tumbler, I guess....

One of them came out pretty well. It still needs considerable revision, but the ideas in it don't make me want to pack in my pens and swear off writing for the rest of my life. I need an editor so badly, somebody who I can share this stuff with who can tell me what's crap and with whom I can bounce ideas back and forth until some of these poor broken-winged birds can heal and fly again. I've got some things that aren't terrible, but again, I really need somebody else's eye, somebody I can trust.

Maybe one day I will make it to that meeting of poets in town. I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for, actually, but maybe it's a place to start.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Beautiful Poet Boys

God save me from the beautiful poet boys, especially the ones who swing a guitar or other instrument in their hands. I swear, I think they're sent just to distract and destroy me. This fascination is rooted in my love for intelligent men. There is nothing sexier than a smart man. Add to that native attractiveness a gift with words and music, and it's lethal. However, there is always a sadistic twist to these guys that I flee in my saner moments. There is no such thing as a healthy, functional relationship with a beautiful poet boy, especially the musical ones, because, apparently, they have all been screwed up beyond all reclamation by somebody else. They also usually seem to be looking for somebody else to screw them up further, are flinging themselves sacrificially on the altar of some great pyre to some woman who doesn't even notice or who gets a kick out of it. Maybe this is because it makes for good poetry and/or lyrics? I'm not quite sure of the philosophy there.... I'm going to develop my own version of the sign of the cross for this particular brand of temptation, my own lucky charm to ward them off. Since I'm a screwed-up poet girl (who can lay no claim to the title beautiful) myself, I think this is the best scenario all around.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett


I finished reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett today. I've had it on my "to read" shelf for about six months now, I guess, bought sometime after I finished American Gods. With school finally being out, time to read things not related to teaching has returned, and I started it Saturday and finished it today. I loved it. As always, the writing was flawless, but as one might expect with the addition of Pratchett to the mix, the humor was even more present than usual. I frequently found myself laughing out loud, not something one would expect given the subject matter.

I read the articles at the end of the novel about how it was written, and I found myself thinking about how much fun the two of them must have had working together on the book. There are rare pairings in music and literature when really gifted people get together and just play for the love of it, just tinker around to entertain themselves, and sometimes we mere mortals down here on the ground get blessed with the results.

I'm not trying to romanticize authors and musicians; I know they are people who have to get up and deal with all the issues of life, mundane and serious, but they also do things the rest of us don't or can't. They create these wonderful pieces of beautiful stuff that they are then kind enough to share. I think that's a fabulous thing, personally, and I'm really grateful to them for taking the time and effort to do it, especially because I don't believe even for half a minute that creating the things they do, despite the fact that it may look effortless in the finished product, is an easy thing.

Good Omens is one of those lovely things Gaiman and Pratchett were nice enough to share with the rest of us. I know I'm going to reread it repeatedly, and I'm looking into getting it in my traveling library on Kindle. I don't know if I'll ever be able to present my copy to get it signed or if I'll ever have to hold it together with string, duct tape, or place the water-damaged pages in a large ziplock bag, but rest assured, it's loved nonetheless. If you haven't tried it yourself, find out more about it by clicking here.

Friday, July 10, 2009

School Supplies


Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. ~Author Unknown

I have often thought that one of the key reasons I became a teacher is so I could keep buying notebooks, pens, pencil pouches, and other spiffy school tools every year. The beauty of the first clean page of a new notebook is a lovely sight to me. I have more colorful and decorative ring binders than even the most industrious of filers could fill.

There's just something cheering and somehow hopeful to me about walking down that aisle of unsharpened pencils and unbent folders. Each new eraser and sharp crayon is a wish for a good school year, for a student to find his or her path, for the love of knowledge to be kindled and fanned to flame. I guess that may be an awful lot to expect out of a plastic pencil bag or a package of pens, but from those small tools and symbols of my trade, I think great miracles can happen. Maybe it's a little like a magician and a wand....

Life Is a Highway

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond. ~Edward McDonagh

I did my first driving over the past three days. Today was my first trip to town as I took myself in for therapy, and I felt as proud of that short jaunt as any teenager leaving the house without supervision for the first time. Two days ago, I got out in the late evening and drove around Podunk to test my reflexes and ability. I even drove over to a small town near here to get a fast food burger and enjoy the feel of the vehicle on the road again.

None of that compared with being independent in truth again today, though. I got up on my own schedule (and was, of course, almost late without the goad of making sure I wasn't keeping someone else waiting), and when I was ready, walked out, cranked up my own vehicle, and drove to the hospital. I found a parking place rather than being endlessly dropped off like an invalid, and walked in. I had a set of car keys to keep up with in a meaningful way instead of just to open the door when somebody else dropped me off home. It was good.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed cranking up my stereo and turning the Cruiser into a flying karaoke machine. One of the local radio stations had a "Flashback Lunch" full of great old songs, and on the way home, I sang and sang. It's good that nobody could hear me, probably, but it was great fun. Most music is better when it's loud (at least when you're happy, I guess).

While it may seem like a lot to be placing on just being able to drive, it's amazing what just having that one thing back gives to my quality of life as a whole. Now I don't have to be such a burden to everybody else. If I need something, I can go get it. If I have an appointment, I can keep it without having to disrupt my entire family's day. It's nice to feel like a grownup again instead of like that hellish pseudo-preteen state I've been stuck in since I had to stop driving. It's reinvigorating.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Crutch-Free

I'm listening to the re-released Thriller album and getting ready to do some heavy-duty reading. Today is the day of MJ's memorial, which I totally missed seeing because I had PT this morning and spent the day in town. I guess I missed a landmark event for my generation, but I prefer to remember the music.

I am more than willing to have sacrificed my viewing time in any case because this morning my PT cleared me, albeit reluctantly, for walking without a crutch. For the very first time since mid-February, I don't have to have any form of support, no cane, no crutches, just me to walk around. It's intoxicating. I want to jump up and moonwalk around my living room, but that might be pushing it just a little bit right now.

My PT is picking up, too, exponentially. Today, the therapist put me on a rocker board as a new exercise, and I had to laugh a little privately. I think she and everyone else expected the big tall goofy girl to fall down with that, but it wasn't all that hard after doing tree pose on one foot for so long. I miss tree pose, too... Some of the other new exercises kicked my butt, though, and my knee is telling me about it now. I have new things to do at home, and I will keep working through.

Most importantly for me, though, is that I was also cleared to drive. I didn't jump off the table and turn cartwheels, but mentally, I was howling with unholy glee. Freedom, ladies and gentlemen. Sunday night trips to Newton for an unhealthy but delicious treat after playing the organ. Road trips to Jackson to see my best friend. For that matter, grocery runs to Meridian just to walk up and down the aisles of Wal-Mart and stare at plastic bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. Anything, anything, anything but being trapped here on the hill like a burden on others. Bring it. I've been more than ready for awhile now. I'm going to hook up my little iPod shuffle, crank my stereo and fly down the road like a bird rediscovering healed wings....

Well, MJ and I are going to have a night of reading as I await tomorrow to start all my new range of motion. I find myself much more patient now that I know I can do things. Just knowing the cage door is open is keeping me from throwing myself against the bars so much, I guess.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Things Not to Do

Restless, restless.... Midsummer is come and gone. The moon is almost full. I'm trapped again in this house waiting on clearance to be able to drive, and the joke of that, of course, is that even when it comes, there's nowhere to drive to anyway....

Schemes and ideas that certainly fall into the category of "Things I Shouldn't Do" flicker across my bored brain like flashes of heat lightning. I think about writing a letter to somebody I haven't written to in years, breaking that wall of conscious silence. I have an address; I just haven't felt compelled to use it. There hasn't been anything to say. Is there now, or is it just the humidity, the boredom, the almighty press of the living summer stirring the bottom of that settled pool up and muddying the waters? Leave it alone, leave it alone....

But what if I don't want to? What if I wanted to write that letter? What if I wanted to do one of the other things on that list of reckless things, too? Would the world grind to a halt, really? The simple truth of it is that not one other person in the entire universe would care, I might get an interesting story out of it, and at least I would feel like I had done something other than walk to the door looking north and stare, walk to the door looking south and stare, walk to the door looking east and stare.....

Restless, restless.... The moon will be up and full in a couple of hours. My satellite is out; the constant error message says it's looking for a signal. I am tired of reading. I guess I'll have to figure out something to distract myself with, or I really will wind up doing something unwise after all.

Longing

Spending last week in Washington has reawakened those longings I try so hard to keep dormant or dead. I really did like what I saw there, and I didn't expect to. The city felt livable, navigable, and the sheer luxury of being able to get on the Metro and arrive at the ridiculous wealth of one of the many free museums almost made me lightheaded. It was like a feast of fairy-tale proportions, and I've been starving for a long time now.

Just the architecture alone made it worth it. I could have taken my Nikon and spent days walking and shooting the details on common buildings without ever approaching anything like a national monument or historically-significant building. There was such a great blend of styles and a preservation of buildings that pleased me.

From the time I got off the plane, there was the wonderful sound of other languages everywhere. This, of course, is no surprise in the nation's capital, but it was wonderful to me to see other languages written, to hear them spoken, and to see restaurants and services catering to other cultures. I wanted to take time to quietly explore all of them and revel in it.

History, too, was an ever-present friend. It was impossible to turn the eyes or take a step without it tapping me on the shoulder or whispering in my ear. Things and places I'd heard about all my life suddenly were laid out before me like jewels on display. Again, there was far too much there to take in during a casual excursion such as mine. It needed a much deeper exploration.

And what shocked me, ultimately, as I got on the plane to leave, was how much I wanted that deeper exploration. I wanted very much not to be leaving Washington at all. I know that living in a place is never the same as vacationing in one, and I certainly heard enough "natives" complain about it while I was there, but I can't help but thinking that at least for a little while, I would have enough to dazzle me that no matter how bad it was, the positives would outweigh the rest.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

A Song for the Fourth



I heard this song today in a mix of songs put together by NPR. It came from a Ken Burns documentary soundtrack, the one for The War. It is melodic and lovely, but the lyrics are what set it apart from the other songs I listened to today in the five-hour playlist. It is a powerfully thought-provoking song about what it means (or perhaps, should mean) to be an American.

It reminds me a little of Kennedy's famous "Ask Not" speech in its focus on giving back and giving of one's best to the nation. It's beautiful in the elevation of its sentiment. We live in times in desperate need of grand sentiment and of the fulfillment of and dedication to those noble ideals. What if we did all give our best to our nation, to our fellow man, to each other? Can you imagine what changes could happen here if we lived this way? It's something to consider as we celebrate the birth of our nation and its future.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR



How long has it been since you've really listened to or read the words of the Declaration of Independence? For me, I have to say that I haven't read it or paid much attention to it since whatever my last history or government class was ended. That's a shame. NPR has an annual tradition of reading it as the Fourth approaches, and I think this is a beautiful thing because it brings our attention back to those reasons why we became a nation, the very serious and dangerous issues the founders of our nation were willing to lay their lives on the line to fight against for us. If you haven't heard or read it lately, I encourage you to click the link below and take a moment on this holiday weekend to refresh your appreciation of our nation. Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR