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....)

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.

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.

Changes

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

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.

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....

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

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.

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.

Huxley Always Knows

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

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.

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.

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.