"Love the One You're With" -- Stephen Stills
"If you can't be with the one you love, honey / love the one you're with / love the one you're with...."
I was driving home today and this song came on the radio. I usually just make a face and switch the channel or make fun of it by singing in an irritating voice, but today I decided to blog it when I got home. Thus commences my list of songs I hate. Don't expect to see a lot of these or to see them pop up sequentially.....
What bothers me about this song is the whole message of it. It basically reduces love to a reaction to boredom. To me, it's like the guy is saying, "Hey, I'm horny and I'm bored. Oh, man! Bummer! My sweetie isn't here! What now?" (Looks around, sees miscellaneous woman, shrugs) "You'll do...." And if that isn't just the very SOUL of romance.....
I don't find the lyrics freewheeling and fun. I find them stupid and demeaning to everything love is supposed to be about. How about this: "If you can't be with the one you love....F'ing WAIT." How about that? Because call me crazy, but last time I looked up a definition of love in the book, that's what it sort of said, chief.
/rant
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
San Francisco Again
I simply stopped having time to blog. That's how good the trip got.
I'll talk about some of my favorite parts.
We went to a restaurant called Farallon. It's a 3.5 star restaurant built in and over the old municipal swimming pool. The decor alone was worth the trip. The arches are all cast iron and the ceiling is a tile mosaic. Those big lamps are glass sea urchins. It was gorgeous. The food was incredible, too, if expensive. That was to be expected in that sort of establishment. My one great regret was that I couldn't have a glass of wine to go with my meal since we were in a place that specialized in wine wonderfulness. I think everybody should eat in a place like this occasionally. It sort of offsets the airline food and $8 sandwiches one has to eat at the conference center from time to time.
Another major high point of the trip for me was the car tour we took. Two of the teachers who went with me met a gentleman who offered to show us around in a Town Car. We took him up on it, and we had a very awesome tour. He took us all over town and let us stop and get out to take pictures. He drove us up to Twin Peaks, out to the Sutro district, down Lombard Street, everywhere, really. He told us all about what we were seeing. He was originally from Louisiana, and he said he just wanted to make sure we didn't leave without seeing the city. Without his help, we would have, too. Our only other option would have been the "hop-on, hop-off" bus. We didn't see everything I wanted to; I didn't get to the Chinatown gates or City Lights bookstore, but we saw so much that I don't consider myself shortchanged at all. I am going to work on the pictures this afternoon, get them processed and uploaded if I can.
During that tour, I got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I have heard about it all my life from my father. He spent part of his growing-up life in California and did military training there, too. To see the bridge finally was to make something I had only a thousand stories for a tangible thing. The bridge itself is also a lovely thing. So often when you have longed to see something, it somehow fails to measure up; the image you've carried in your head is somehow larger or more grand than any real thing could ever possibly be. I don't think this could ever be the case with the Golden Gate. It was stately, imposing, inspiring, and grand as it stretched up into the sky. I think I could spend a hundred days with my camera trying to capture its elegance. They would be pleasant days, indeed.
I also got to go to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I didn't see all five floors, but what I did see was amazing. I don't respond to all forms of modern art; some of it does not move me at all. I find it interesting, though, to see what people decide to create. I did get to see several new artists that I loved and some pieces by some artists that I have never heard of that I really liked. I love De Chirico, and I got to see one of his that I didn't know about, The Vexations of the Thinker, that may be one of my favorites by him, several lovely pieces by Frida Kahlo, and an entire exhibition of early photography by Muybridge.
I loved the feel of San Francisco. It seemed in my short time there to be a city that appreciated beauty and art. If they built something, they took the time to put it together well and make it lovely. Their downtown was vibrant, their old buildings full and refurbished. The civic heart of San Francisco had in one mighty square in buildings of equal might and magnificence a City Hall, a Symphony Hall, a Library, and a Civic Theater. I always think you can tell a great deal about the soul of a city by how it treats the arts, whether it provides a place for them, ignores them, whether they are seen as a necessity or an extra. San Francisco very much is in that first class of cities. Its soul thrives on art.
I could have lived there quite easily. Even the clothing style suited me. The weather suited me. I could have melted into that city like liquid butter. I realize that part of my feeling was the fascination of tourism and that the day-to-day living there might be quite different, but so much of what I saw there was so much of what I wanted. California, of course, has the worst educational crisis of all right now, a state government that is completely bankrupt, so this is not the time to pull up stakes and move realistically.
I guess I'll have to say that I have a new dream city now, I guess, a new place to think of running. I don't think it's an accident that it is so close to Japan, that so many Japanese hands have helped to shape it. Maybe that's part of why I loved it. Maybe that's why it felt so secretly familiar to me. Maybe that's why I wanted to be there and that it was so hard to come home in the end. All I know is that of all the big cities I've been to in the U.S., it is the one that has called to me the loudest, and when I came home wearing my obligatory tacky tourist "I (heart) SF" tee shirt, I really meant it.
I'll talk about some of my favorite parts.
Another major high point of the trip for me was the car tour we took. Two of the teachers who went with me met a gentleman who offered to show us around in a Town Car. We took him up on it, and we had a very awesome tour. He took us all over town and let us stop and get out to take pictures. He drove us up to Twin Peaks, out to the Sutro district, down Lombard Street, everywhere, really. He told us all about what we were seeing. He was originally from Louisiana, and he said he just wanted to make sure we didn't leave without seeing the city. Without his help, we would have, too. Our only other option would have been the "hop-on, hop-off" bus. We didn't see everything I wanted to; I didn't get to the Chinatown gates or City Lights bookstore, but we saw so much that I don't consider myself shortchanged at all. I am going to work on the pictures this afternoon, get them processed and uploaded if I can.
During that tour, I got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I have heard about it all my life from my father. He spent part of his growing-up life in California and did military training there, too. To see the bridge finally was to make something I had only a thousand stories for a tangible thing. The bridge itself is also a lovely thing. So often when you have longed to see something, it somehow fails to measure up; the image you've carried in your head is somehow larger or more grand than any real thing could ever possibly be. I don't think this could ever be the case with the Golden Gate. It was stately, imposing, inspiring, and grand as it stretched up into the sky. I think I could spend a hundred days with my camera trying to capture its elegance. They would be pleasant days, indeed.
I loved the feel of San Francisco. It seemed in my short time there to be a city that appreciated beauty and art. If they built something, they took the time to put it together well and make it lovely. Their downtown was vibrant, their old buildings full and refurbished. The civic heart of San Francisco had in one mighty square in buildings of equal might and magnificence a City Hall, a Symphony Hall, a Library, and a Civic Theater. I always think you can tell a great deal about the soul of a city by how it treats the arts, whether it provides a place for them, ignores them, whether they are seen as a necessity or an extra. San Francisco very much is in that first class of cities. Its soul thrives on art.
I could have lived there quite easily. Even the clothing style suited me. The weather suited me. I could have melted into that city like liquid butter. I realize that part of my feeling was the fascination of tourism and that the day-to-day living there might be quite different, but so much of what I saw there was so much of what I wanted. California, of course, has the worst educational crisis of all right now, a state government that is completely bankrupt, so this is not the time to pull up stakes and move realistically.
I guess I'll have to say that I have a new dream city now, I guess, a new place to think of running. I don't think it's an accident that it is so close to Japan, that so many Japanese hands have helped to shape it. Maybe that's part of why I loved it. Maybe that's why it felt so secretly familiar to me. Maybe that's why I wanted to be there and that it was so hard to come home in the end. All I know is that of all the big cities I've been to in the U.S., it is the one that has called to me the loudest, and when I came home wearing my obligatory tacky tourist "I (heart) SF" tee shirt, I really meant it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
San Francisco, Day 1
Yesterday, mostly I went to conferences and walked. And walked. And walked. I saw very little that was of historic or touristy value. I endured.
Today, though. Today....
Even if I have to beat people with one of my friend's storybook "long handled spoons," I am getting out of that convention center some and going to see this city.
Because I think I like it here.
There is some indefinable energy about it I find really appealing. I was very nervous about coming to California, to tell you the truth. My experiences in Los Angeles were BAD. People here, however, don't appear to be made out of silicone and attitude. They are, in fact, friendly, smiling, helpful. And the mix of languages, cultures, ethnicities, is wonderful. It's so nice to be in a place where I can hear other languages, many other languages, washing around me like a soft sea, none of it more, of course, than the sound of Japanese which is everywhere. The architecture is jaw-dropping in places, but not so much that it is...rude, if you follow. The streets enclose and meander. It is walkable (testament to that borne in the blister on the bottom of my right foot; my Chucks failed me).
They have such a selection of things here. There is art everywhere in that casual, everybody-should-have-it way that I think all cities should embrace, and those lovely little specialty shops that sell things that bring joy to my soul. If they can exist here as they cannot at home, that means there are people here like me, people who also revel in them, too. I like the thought of that.
There is also the fact that I probably, quite literally, could walk out of the front of this hotel, throw a rock in any direction, and hit a museum. Not that I've had a moment to go in any of them, but how unusual. How charming. It makes me greedy for more time here.
I am eating breakfast as I blog, Nutella on an English muffin that I bought in a wonderful market in a downstairs food court in a shopping center nearby. I also started my day with two mikan from a big net bag from that same place. I'll stroll out on my way to the convention center and pick up a green tea latte from the Starbucks in the lobby (since, as in every major city, they are ubiquitous here). This is much more the way I'd like to live. Don't get me wrong; I'm not foolish enough to think this place is some sort of utopia with no drawbacks, problems, or sacrifices. It's just that sometimes while I'm struggling even to find fountain pen ink cartridges or a showing of a film that's won an Academy award but hasn't been deemed worthy to be shown in the august theater of Podunk, my little heart sort of yearns for living a little more like this.
Today, though. Today....
Even if I have to beat people with one of my friend's storybook "long handled spoons," I am getting out of that convention center some and going to see this city.
Because I think I like it here.
There is some indefinable energy about it I find really appealing. I was very nervous about coming to California, to tell you the truth. My experiences in Los Angeles were BAD. People here, however, don't appear to be made out of silicone and attitude. They are, in fact, friendly, smiling, helpful. And the mix of languages, cultures, ethnicities, is wonderful. It's so nice to be in a place where I can hear other languages, many other languages, washing around me like a soft sea, none of it more, of course, than the sound of Japanese which is everywhere. The architecture is jaw-dropping in places, but not so much that it is...rude, if you follow. The streets enclose and meander. It is walkable (testament to that borne in the blister on the bottom of my right foot; my Chucks failed me).
They have such a selection of things here. There is art everywhere in that casual, everybody-should-have-it way that I think all cities should embrace, and those lovely little specialty shops that sell things that bring joy to my soul. If they can exist here as they cannot at home, that means there are people here like me, people who also revel in them, too. I like the thought of that.
There is also the fact that I probably, quite literally, could walk out of the front of this hotel, throw a rock in any direction, and hit a museum. Not that I've had a moment to go in any of them, but how unusual. How charming. It makes me greedy for more time here.
I am eating breakfast as I blog, Nutella on an English muffin that I bought in a wonderful market in a downstairs food court in a shopping center nearby. I also started my day with two mikan from a big net bag from that same place. I'll stroll out on my way to the convention center and pick up a green tea latte from the Starbucks in the lobby (since, as in every major city, they are ubiquitous here). This is much more the way I'd like to live. Don't get me wrong; I'm not foolish enough to think this place is some sort of utopia with no drawbacks, problems, or sacrifices. It's just that sometimes while I'm struggling even to find fountain pen ink cartridges or a showing of a film that's won an Academy award but hasn't been deemed worthy to be shown in the august theater of Podunk, my little heart sort of yearns for living a little more like this.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Life on Other Worlds
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." ~ George Carlin
Friday, March 25, 2011
A Long Flight
I still don't like flying. Or rather, I like the sensation of flight, but I don't like the mechanics of getting on the plane, getting through security, fighting with the seats that are too small, and the "thousand natural shocks" that air traffic is heir to. We now even have to pay for food in-flight, and this tiny indignity bothered me more than it should.
I read most of the trip, my Kindle once again proving worth its weight in gold. Once we got on the ground and sorted luggage, shuttles, hotels, and so forth, we meandered around to the conference center, registered, found food, and bought a hat.
Now I'm tired, jet lagged, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. It seems utterly impossible that I'm going to wake up tomorrow on the other side of the country. Maybe it will be more real in the light of day. For now, I think bed is in order. Maybe I'll be more interesting tomorrow.
I read most of the trip, my Kindle once again proving worth its weight in gold. Once we got on the ground and sorted luggage, shuttles, hotels, and so forth, we meandered around to the conference center, registered, found food, and bought a hat.
Now I'm tired, jet lagged, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. It seems utterly impossible that I'm going to wake up tomorrow on the other side of the country. Maybe it will be more real in the light of day. For now, I think bed is in order. Maybe I'll be more interesting tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
All Things Change
I'm walking out.
I'm closing doors.
I'm not going to play
your game tonight.
I can see you now
clearly. Open eyes
at last. All your gold
chipped, flaked, and pyrite.
You're just a faded
photocopy, a
thing tarnished, broken,
a stereotype.
You smirk as you watch,
pretending concern
but, ah, you don't quite
bother hiding that knife.
And you want to say
I've not been patient.
Grumble and sulk that
I haven't been kind.
But if we're honest
You've feasted and grown,
taken advantage
And left me the rinds.
So ready yourself
because changes are
sometimes unsettling
storms that crash right through.
Why don't we phrase it
this way (politely)
Inversion of that
Well-Known Golden Rule
You need not expect
anything from me
that I have not learned,
wasn't taught by you.
I'm closing doors.
I'm not going to play
your game tonight.
I can see you now
clearly. Open eyes
at last. All your gold
chipped, flaked, and pyrite.
You're just a faded
photocopy, a
thing tarnished, broken,
a stereotype.
You smirk as you watch,
pretending concern
but, ah, you don't quite
bother hiding that knife.
And you want to say
I've not been patient.
Grumble and sulk that
I haven't been kind.
But if we're honest
You've feasted and grown,
taken advantage
And left me the rinds.
So ready yourself
because changes are
sometimes unsettling
storms that crash right through.
Why don't we phrase it
this way (politely)
Inversion of that
Well-Known Golden Rule
You need not expect
anything from me
that I have not learned,
wasn't taught by you.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
On Writing
"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment." ~ Josh Billings
Free
I feel better than I have in six months. I know it's tempting fate to say that, but it's true. After I got sleep last night and got the...um...giraffes to settle down somewhat (I know that last entry has got to be an all-time classic)...I feel wonderful. It's fantastic.
Other things are settling down, too. Certain issues that have been up in the air awhile now are resolving themselves. Peace is coming. It's a rare lull and I'm happy. I love it.
I've just put up a rather fierce-looking owl on my door as a part of a State-Testing incentive we're doing here, and while I don't know that he will encourage anyone to do better on that silly thing, he makes me grin. A friend of mine brought me a sweet small owl from a trip he went on, so two new white owls came into my life today. That, too, seems to be a harbinger of good change.
I am about to go get the necessary elements to make "happies" for my students tomorrow as they head into the writing test. It's still sunny out; I'm leaving the pile of papers, much diminshed by recent bouts of grading I've been able to do since I've been able to FOCUS my mind actually instead of simply sit with it wandering in misery or pain, for tomorrow.
I feel free and it's a delight. I hope and I pray that this lasts.
Other things are settling down, too. Certain issues that have been up in the air awhile now are resolving themselves. Peace is coming. It's a rare lull and I'm happy. I love it.
I've just put up a rather fierce-looking owl on my door as a part of a State-Testing incentive we're doing here, and while I don't know that he will encourage anyone to do better on that silly thing, he makes me grin. A friend of mine brought me a sweet small owl from a trip he went on, so two new white owls came into my life today. That, too, seems to be a harbinger of good change.
I am about to go get the necessary elements to make "happies" for my students tomorrow as they head into the writing test. It's still sunny out; I'm leaving the pile of papers, much diminshed by recent bouts of grading I've been able to do since I've been able to FOCUS my mind actually instead of simply sit with it wandering in misery or pain, for tomorrow.
I feel free and it's a delight. I hope and I pray that this lasts.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tiny Hooves
I have only slept for about two hours in the past twenty-four, so this is going to get weird quick. As my great role-model says, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." (God, I LOVE Bette Davis...)
The Topamax does NOT like it when I don't sleep. I need more sleep than usual anyway, and it makes me need an extra dollop. When it doesn't get it, it gets mad. In fact, it gets right pissy about it. Subtle, but really, really pissy. I was warned about this, but I don't think the doctor managed to convey quite the full array of it, somehow.....
It started last night about three when I finally lay down to try to get what sleep I could before my iPhone alarm started chiming in that silly, faux-cheerful way it has, safe in the knowledge that I would never smack anything I depend on as much as it off its charging cradle no matter what the provocation. My feet got cold and I could not get warm. I mean, icy. I tried everything. I had enough clothing and blankets. I even had assorted cattage on the bed. I was freezing.
This morning, or, as I like to think of it, "moments later when the alarm sounded," I got up, dragged myself into the shower, and I was still cold. The shower helped, but all day, I've been off on temperature. Worse yet, there has been this little rill of weirdness to accompany it. It's like there is a herd of ...something...with hooves...racing under the surface of my skin. I said earlier on FB that it was horses. I'm revising that to be giraffes. I think I can stand it if it's tiny delicate-legged giraffes. It's not normal, and I'm definitely in need of a LONG, good night's rest if that is the preferable option, but this feeling is just freaking me all the way out.
I'm going to go try to eat something a little more formidable than the two bits of nothing that composed my breakfast (ha -- the Nutella ran out, of course) and my lunch (I had...something...cottage cheese maybe?) and see if the giraffes will quit circling long enough for me to go to pottery and clean up that greenware figure I started before Spring Break. Maybe they'll....graze or something. Whatever it is that giraffes do when they're soothed.
Yeah. I told you it was going to get weird. I need a lot of sleep.
The Topamax does NOT like it when I don't sleep. I need more sleep than usual anyway, and it makes me need an extra dollop. When it doesn't get it, it gets mad. In fact, it gets right pissy about it. Subtle, but really, really pissy. I was warned about this, but I don't think the doctor managed to convey quite the full array of it, somehow.....
It started last night about three when I finally lay down to try to get what sleep I could before my iPhone alarm started chiming in that silly, faux-cheerful way it has, safe in the knowledge that I would never smack anything I depend on as much as it off its charging cradle no matter what the provocation. My feet got cold and I could not get warm. I mean, icy. I tried everything. I had enough clothing and blankets. I even had assorted cattage on the bed. I was freezing.
This morning, or, as I like to think of it, "moments later when the alarm sounded," I got up, dragged myself into the shower, and I was still cold. The shower helped, but all day, I've been off on temperature. Worse yet, there has been this little rill of weirdness to accompany it. It's like there is a herd of ...something...with hooves...racing under the surface of my skin. I said earlier on FB that it was horses. I'm revising that to be giraffes. I think I can stand it if it's tiny delicate-legged giraffes. It's not normal, and I'm definitely in need of a LONG, good night's rest if that is the preferable option, but this feeling is just freaking me all the way out.
I'm going to go try to eat something a little more formidable than the two bits of nothing that composed my breakfast (ha -- the Nutella ran out, of course) and my lunch (I had...something...cottage cheese maybe?) and see if the giraffes will quit circling long enough for me to go to pottery and clean up that greenware figure I started before Spring Break. Maybe they'll....graze or something. Whatever it is that giraffes do when they're soothed.
Yeah. I told you it was going to get weird. I need a lot of sleep.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
More War
I can't watch the news today. I just can't bring myself to click or view or even scan a headline. CNN is sending its little updates to my phone in urgent email dings, and I want to throw my trusty iPhone across the room, hide it in the back of my closet, run away from it.
Yesterday, when I came stumbling out of the MRI, my mother and another woman were staring at the obligatory waiting room televisions with something like dread on their faces. It took me some time to clue in to the rhetoric falling from the Commander in Chief's lips, but I put together with the help of the scrolling titles and labels that he was talking about Libya, saying that America would not lead a military action, that it was not our place to do that.
Today, as I woke and checked my email, the first messages that greet my eyes tell me that we are now engaged in bombing there.
I cannot say that the people of Libya don't deserve a government that does not oppress them. I cannot say that their current leadership is a good or just one. I just have to wonder why, when my own nation's military is dedicated to conflicts in at least two other active zones of conflict, we have stepped into a third. Is there nobody else in the entire world who can do these things? (Notice I am not getting into the issue of whether or not it was necessary or why we might really be doing this. I am not going to turn over that rock and watch all the little philosophical debates run around....)
I think about every single young man and woman who graduates out of my classes and goes into the military, every person I know who serves as a career part of the armed forces in some way, and every time we lift another banner, sally forth in another grand crusade, the chances of those people coming home in a flag-draped box goes up again, and again, and again. I know they know that when they sign up. I know they want to serve God, Country, and the Corps (or the Army, or whathaveyou), but I just can't help but feeling that this loyalty, honestly given and rare in this day and age, is being managed badly.
Just because you CAN do a thing does not mean that you SHOULD do a thing, does not mean that it is WISE to do a thing. I think that all too often, when history looks back on war, on the devastation that comes from it, the sons and fathers, the mothers and daughters who will never come home again, on the broken countrysides and the scarred landscapes, I think that the reasons why they start frequently begin to look like things that should have been taken care of some other way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Those rabid dogs who want to fight need to be taken and given a very sharp stick and put in a deep pit with slick, high sides. Let them stab each other to their hearts' content. Let them get as much blood and death and violence as they can possibly need. Let them howl and rage and rip and one another until there is a clear victor. Then put that bastard down. Let the rest of us get on with living. We have enough other problems out here among us to deal with without the warmongers adding to it, I think.
Yesterday, when I came stumbling out of the MRI, my mother and another woman were staring at the obligatory waiting room televisions with something like dread on their faces. It took me some time to clue in to the rhetoric falling from the Commander in Chief's lips, but I put together with the help of the scrolling titles and labels that he was talking about Libya, saying that America would not lead a military action, that it was not our place to do that.
Today, as I woke and checked my email, the first messages that greet my eyes tell me that we are now engaged in bombing there.
I cannot say that the people of Libya don't deserve a government that does not oppress them. I cannot say that their current leadership is a good or just one. I just have to wonder why, when my own nation's military is dedicated to conflicts in at least two other active zones of conflict, we have stepped into a third. Is there nobody else in the entire world who can do these things? (Notice I am not getting into the issue of whether or not it was necessary or why we might really be doing this. I am not going to turn over that rock and watch all the little philosophical debates run around....)
I think about every single young man and woman who graduates out of my classes and goes into the military, every person I know who serves as a career part of the armed forces in some way, and every time we lift another banner, sally forth in another grand crusade, the chances of those people coming home in a flag-draped box goes up again, and again, and again. I know they know that when they sign up. I know they want to serve God, Country, and the Corps (or the Army, or whathaveyou), but I just can't help but feeling that this loyalty, honestly given and rare in this day and age, is being managed badly.
Just because you CAN do a thing does not mean that you SHOULD do a thing, does not mean that it is WISE to do a thing. I think that all too often, when history looks back on war, on the devastation that comes from it, the sons and fathers, the mothers and daughters who will never come home again, on the broken countrysides and the scarred landscapes, I think that the reasons why they start frequently begin to look like things that should have been taken care of some other way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Those rabid dogs who want to fight need to be taken and given a very sharp stick and put in a deep pit with slick, high sides. Let them stab each other to their hearts' content. Let them get as much blood and death and violence as they can possibly need. Let them howl and rage and rip and one another until there is a clear victor. Then put that bastard down. Let the rest of us get on with living. We have enough other problems out here among us to deal with without the warmongers adding to it, I think.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Moon
More Fiction
__________________________________________
The world is a subtle palette of blues and greys. The air is soft, and the breath of Spring is in it, subtle, infectious, delightful. The moon is rising, perfect and pale, a disc of bone slowly manifesting to dominate the horizon. It is impossible to resist that ancient lunar pull, and I can feel it tingling through my blood like a surge of adrenaline. It is a night too perfect to stay inside, a night too perfect to spend in front of the endless reruns or sacrificed to other distractions.
If I step out the side door, I almost think I’ll see you crouched there, silvered by the surreal light, made into something not quite of this earth, if ever you can be said to be. You’d be in new-growing tender grass, idly plucking at the clover with your fingertips, waiting there for me to come out as if it had been a foregone conclusion, an inevitable thing that I would. And if I came to you there, felt the wetness of night’s dew clinging to my feet and ankles, slipped my hand into yours, I wonder what change would come, what magic would begin.
Because of course it is a night for magic. It is a night for transformation. Here while the stars spin above us, while the moon covers everything in a cloak of wonder, suddenly all things are possible. I might unfurl great black raven’s wings and fly away from everything that troubles me as I so often long to do, might soar to touch the face of the white sphere above us. Wisdom might be given to me. I might interpret the song of the wind in the leaves.
You’d look into my eyes, smile a little at my whimsy without ever a word having been spoken between us, touch my cheek gently. And that would be the truest magic of all, that you could know me, understand that a night of such natural wonder fills my soul to the fullest measure, fills my imagination with impossible things, and love me anyway.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
What I Want Right Now
A list presented in no particular order....
- a banana milkshake from Sonic -- even though all food is currently unappealing or actually "of the devil," this actually sounds good. I wish I didn't have to drive more today to get one because I also want....
- my head to stop hurting -- yes, indeedy. I have another damn migraine. Which leads me to my next request for....
- a migraine medicine that will actually make this stuff stop -- somebody somewhere has got to have something that will make my head stop hurting. Even if it's a bullet. And this of course leads me to thoughts of tomorrow and the fact that I also want....
- my MRI to show that there's nothing up there but what should be -- even if that's mostly rusted wires and dryer lint. And currently a poem that won't come out. So I guess I'd also like....
- this poem to come out right and be something worthy instead of crap -- because everything I've done lately has been flushable. Maybe I need to fall in love and have some drama to kick start the poetry engine in which case I guess I also need....
- The "You" I've been writing to (not in the bit about the past. Dear God, let's not confuse that one with the "You" I write to in my fiction pieces. Two separate second persons...) to show up at my door on this moon-sodden night with open arms, a heart full of passion, and....
- A banana milkshake from Sonic
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The King's Speech
I'm sure those films have a place. They are frequently big box office hits, after all. Some of them manage to be charming, entertaining ways to spend a little bit of time, have an evening out with friends (or a date...I seem to remember that being a use for them, too), or blur away a little of the world outside. None of those things in and of themselves are bad.
But a film can be more. It can be more than catharsis or slapstick jokes. It can be more than an excuse to hold a hand in the dark or have a big screen babysitter for a couple of hours. Really great film can show us something about ourselves, about the human condition, can inspire in the way that great literature does since they pull from the same core of experience and leave the viewer with the sense that he or she is better for having seen it in some way.
I think this type of film needs a chance to be seen here in Podunk, too. Our local theater owner does not show these, though. One usually has to go to another city more than an hour away to see movies that are "arty." Ironically, one of these, The King's Speech, just won the Oscar for Best Picture and it never even played here. Imagine that. A movie the industry thinks is so important that it was given its very highest prize (more than one, actually) and our little movie theater owners in their divine wisdom said, "Nope. Not any good. Not bringing it here." Fortunately, I got a chance to see it today at the beautiful old movie palace downtown. The management there agrees with me that people deserve a chance to see something other than the trite, the cliched, and the predictable.
The King's Speech is indeed a movie that leaves its viewers, if they are paying attention in the least, anyway, better. I don't think it can help but do so. As the story unfolds, as the characters unfold, we are drawn in; we feel with them. It is a story about fear and conquering it. It doesn't show that as something that is a simple process. It doesn't show it as a one-time thing, a switch-click solution with a shining hero who has nothing left to overcome at the end. Instead, it shows a beautifully complicated and layered quest that continues, and in that perseverance, nobility above and beyond anything bestowed by birth or title is revealed.
I will order this movie when it comes out next month on DVD. I think it is going to become a favorite of mine. It just made me feel good to see it. I can't imagine why our local theater made the decision not to field it, why they thought that it would not fare well here. I can't imagine anyone anywhere not responding to the hope that is in that film. Of course, if all you want in a movie is big explosions or gratuitous nudity, I suppose it might not be your cup of tea. In that case, they will, of course, be glad to take your money across town....
Out of Print Clothing's Book Madness
The voting mimics the NCAA tourney quite well. Some of the matchups are no-brainers. Who in their right mind would pick The Call of the Wild over Pride and Prejudice? You know Austen is going to wipe the floor with anyone she steps onto the court...er...shelf?...with.... And there have been some last-minute, down-to-the-wire heartbreakers, too, just as you would see in any lesser playoff that might be going on elsewhere. My beloved Their Eyes Were Watching God went out in the first round to On the Road, proof that when two teams...works...whatever....are evenly matched, anything can happen on a given day. (Boo, though. Very Boo.)
Right now, the 3rd round of preliminaries is going on. If you like books, I'd mosey on over and vote. Spend some time. Look at Out of Print's t-shirts and sweatshirts, too. They have wonderful stuff and this competition is a hoot. I find great amusement in it, as you can probably tell. Tomorrow's bracket promises to offer the toughest decisions for me. I'll have to choose between Slaughterhouse Five and The Scarlet Letter. Nobody should have to pick between those, right?
Back
I lost yesterday entirely. Another absolutely beautiful day slithered through the cracks of a migraine attack. I woke up late and already achy, tried to ignore it, tried to sleep it off twice, tried to medicate it, and ultimately failed on all fronts. The pain just kept getting worse and worse. I remember very little of yesterday except that at one point I laughed a lot at something. I wish I could remember what it was and whether or not it was really funny.
I finally took a phenergan and went to bed. Even the the light from my bedside clock was too much, but fortunately it has a dimmer switch. I didn't even like the green glow from the charging light on my Kindle. I pulled the covers over my stupid aching head, all the cats piled up on me, and the phenergan did its job and rendered me unconscious. I woke up about two, and all the little gears and levers in my brain seemed to have reset themselves. When I got up to start my day today, I seem to be mostly okay, or at least as much as I am lately.
I think today is going to be a good day. I am going to see a movie today, something I've been trying to do for two days now. I am going to assume I have turned some kind of magical "corner" with yesterday's headache as they always say and that I'm adjusting to this new dose now. Otherwise, well, this is just ridiculous, isn't it?
I finally took a phenergan and went to bed. Even the the light from my bedside clock was too much, but fortunately it has a dimmer switch. I didn't even like the green glow from the charging light on my Kindle. I pulled the covers over my stupid aching head, all the cats piled up on me, and the phenergan did its job and rendered me unconscious. I woke up about two, and all the little gears and levers in my brain seemed to have reset themselves. When I got up to start my day today, I seem to be mostly okay, or at least as much as I am lately.
I think today is going to be a good day. I am going to see a movie today, something I've been trying to do for two days now. I am going to assume I have turned some kind of magical "corner" with yesterday's headache as they always say and that I'm adjusting to this new dose now. Otherwise, well, this is just ridiculous, isn't it?
Monday, March 14, 2011
Dream Tree
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight
Japan is one of the great loves of my life. I spent two years there, and what is happening there now makes me cry every time I tune in the news or look online at new developments. Japan has certainly known the bitter taste of tragedy many times in its past, although this stands as one of the greatest it has ever known and is still continuing to happen. The Japanese people have known for so long that a quake of this type was coming, have lived with the constant daily shadow of it hanging over them. The lengths they have gone to prepare for it and the levels of innovation they have applied to that preparedness actually have kept it from being as bad as it might have been in many other parts of the world, something I don't think enough people are giving enough credit to them for. The incredible preparations they made probably kept Tokyo upright when, if it had happened to a comparable city in the US, it would have leveled it to the ground. Nevertheless, no amount of preparation can stop all the destruction of a natural disaster, and now that it has arrived with all its horror, I pray for that beautiful nation, and I grieve with them as event after event unfolds there. This pitiful little effort of mine is the fruit of that feeling. It is a work in progress. Its name, the name of this post, is a Japanese proverb I have always found inspirational in my own struggles, insignificant as they are when compared to what is going on there now.
________________________________________________
Rise, Great Sun, Rise
though you are tired and bleeding
though every constant
has crumbled into shaking uncertainty.
Morning must come at last
even though the night has been
long, dark, storm-filled.
Your heart is steel
tempered and folded a thousand times
forged according to the secrets of a hundred generations
supple and strong
made to take every blow
made to bend and never break.
Nature has ever been your fickle mate.
You courted her always knowing
that the same beauty that today
adorns herself in golden gingko fans
and tucks sprays of delicate cherry blossoms
into her hair like a shy and elegant bride
would one day claw and spurn
in the raging howling madness
of the demonic jealous lover
shaking the very foundations of the universe,
destroy the thing she prizes most.
Stand, Samurai, Stand.
And if this is the seventh fall,
then the eighth rising
is now at hand.
The brutal past has prepared you
all too well for what it is to pull yourself up
from the nothing that is left after
the passing of the hand of man
and the wrath of sea, sky, and earth.
Go now to the great still deepness inside you
nothing can ever harm or destroy.
Rekindle the heart of fire
burning low now, banked
but that can never be extinguished
as long as there is a grain of Nihon left. Turn your eyes to what remains
find strength in what you have been
in what you forever are
and begin again.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Topamax Again
All told, I've slept about 15 hours in the last 24. Food, anything that isn't liquid and very, very cold, seems like a supremely bad idea. Yeah. It's Topamax again. I'm up long enough to eat food my parents brought me and watch a little TV and then it's right back to bed for me. I hope I adjust to these new doses faster than I did to going on it originally.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Change Required
I got up this morning, put on comfortable clothes, and headed in to the doctor's office. On the way to town, I heard about the earthquake in Japan. Instantly, my heart was in my throat. All anybody would say at first was that there had been a massive quake and tsunami. They wouldn't say where. They didn't say anything about Japan except that Tokyo was in disarray. I couldn't get any news that didn't relate to how the mostly Japan-event was about to impact the United States. The mighty giant was once again busy gazing at its own navel. I know the wave was headed this way, but it had already happened there. There are people here with loved ones there. Would it have been so much to have shown us Japan, too?
My new neurologist is wonderful, just as calming and personable as my old one was. It's comforting when you're dealing with things to do with the inner working of your brain to have someone like that. I hope I can stay with this one. When my last doctor had his stroke and had to leave the practice, it was such a loss.
During the appointment, I had a couple of other unexpected pieces of news awaiting me. One was a relief. He believes the thing I saw in the cafeteria that day was a different kind of aura. Since I see halos around lights anyway before onset, and since I had such a severe headache that afternoon, he thinks it was not anything to be overly concerned about. He said he has patients who see things like that frequently. I hope I never do again. I do not want to see things that are not really present.
The other two things were not good. My blood pressure was quite high. Of course, I was stressed out, both because of the problems in Japan and not knowing and because of being in the doctor's office. Even with all that, it should not have been that high. I am afraid that it is just running high now all the time. He told me to buy a blood pressure cuff and keep track of it. Now I have stress because I'm worried about my blood pressure being high which is going to make my damn blood pressure high. I am not fond of this acronym, but it fits so perfectly here: FML.
He ordered blood tests and a new MRI since I haven't had one since 2007, so they'll roll me up inside the claustrophobia tube, let the monkeys bang their tin drums, and see if there's anything rattling around inside my empty skull this coming Friday. He gave me some drugs so I won't care that I'm basically in a big cylindrical coffin with a mask on. I barely remember last time. I think I slept through the whole thing. I know Mom had to drive me. Somebody will have to take me this time, too. Whatever pill he wrote me a scrip for will probably make me too goofy to drive; everything does, really. I have no tolerance to anything.
The second piece of news was that he is upping my Topamax, doubling it. I remember all too well the last time I was getting used to a new dosage. It made me sleepy, nauseous, sick, disoriented, a real festival of joy. I don't know if I will have those problems or not since I already have the stuff in my system. I guess we'll see starting tonight.
He talked to me about stress being a trigger. I have to do something to decrease the amount of stress in my life or this is going to keep happening to me and my health; all my health is going to get worse. My GP is worried about this, too. I just wish I knew how. So many things seem to be so far out of my ability to change. I feel dazed. I want to run away, but I can't. What do I do now? I know I have to resolve it all myself, but I could use a little deus ex machina right now in the worst way....
My new neurologist is wonderful, just as calming and personable as my old one was. It's comforting when you're dealing with things to do with the inner working of your brain to have someone like that. I hope I can stay with this one. When my last doctor had his stroke and had to leave the practice, it was such a loss.
During the appointment, I had a couple of other unexpected pieces of news awaiting me. One was a relief. He believes the thing I saw in the cafeteria that day was a different kind of aura. Since I see halos around lights anyway before onset, and since I had such a severe headache that afternoon, he thinks it was not anything to be overly concerned about. He said he has patients who see things like that frequently. I hope I never do again. I do not want to see things that are not really present.
The other two things were not good. My blood pressure was quite high. Of course, I was stressed out, both because of the problems in Japan and not knowing and because of being in the doctor's office. Even with all that, it should not have been that high. I am afraid that it is just running high now all the time. He told me to buy a blood pressure cuff and keep track of it. Now I have stress because I'm worried about my blood pressure being high which is going to make my damn blood pressure high. I am not fond of this acronym, but it fits so perfectly here: FML.
He ordered blood tests and a new MRI since I haven't had one since 2007, so they'll roll me up inside the claustrophobia tube, let the monkeys bang their tin drums, and see if there's anything rattling around inside my empty skull this coming Friday. He gave me some drugs so I won't care that I'm basically in a big cylindrical coffin with a mask on. I barely remember last time. I think I slept through the whole thing. I know Mom had to drive me. Somebody will have to take me this time, too. Whatever pill he wrote me a scrip for will probably make me too goofy to drive; everything does, really. I have no tolerance to anything.
The second piece of news was that he is upping my Topamax, doubling it. I remember all too well the last time I was getting used to a new dosage. It made me sleepy, nauseous, sick, disoriented, a real festival of joy. I don't know if I will have those problems or not since I already have the stuff in my system. I guess we'll see starting tonight.
He talked to me about stress being a trigger. I have to do something to decrease the amount of stress in my life or this is going to keep happening to me and my health; all my health is going to get worse. My GP is worried about this, too. I just wish I knew how. So many things seem to be so far out of my ability to change. I feel dazed. I want to run away, but I can't. What do I do now? I know I have to resolve it all myself, but I could use a little deus ex machina right now in the worst way....
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
(with apologies to John Lee Hooker)
I am not a Nervous Nellie when it comes to weather. I like thunderstorms. They are enervating, invigorating, and sometimes, depending on my mood, absolutely welcome. I have stood on the high wide-open porches of GulfShores (when they still were there, pre-Katrina) and welcomed a Gulf Coast tempest with open arms. I rode out hail and hurricane without being too frightened. I like to be at our country cabin when storms roll in.
All that being said, tonight is making me twitchy. The lightning is not that cloud-to-cloud kind. It's wide as the sky and striking straight down in white-blue flashes that linger just a little too long. My windchimes are clashing against each other on every side of the house as wind wraps around the house like the fingers of a hand.
The school, before I left it, was creaking in the wind, massive solid old brick building that it is. It was making those soft sounds I always associate with a large beast hunkering down on its foundations, curving its great back against the rain and storm. Until I heard that shifting, I didn't realize how bad the weather really was. That's when I decided I needed to come home, when I looked out and saw the huge oaks across the street bending and thrashing.
My small dog is hunkered behind my knees as I'm typing. When the weather gets bad, he goes everywhere with me, a constant little golden shadow. When I go to bed, he will wedge himself under it despite the fact that he doesn't quite fit. I will hear the gentle chiming of his collar tags throughout the night. The cats, all of whom will also be piled up on the bed trying to pretend they're not looking for comfort, will be annoyed by this.
It's a good night to look for comfort, actually. I am thinking of crawling into bed early if for no other reason than giving myself the childish refuge of warm covers that can be pulled over my head. Oh, sure, I'll tell myself that it's because I didn't sleep well last night and that the satellite is out so there's really nothing else to do. I'll tell myself it's because I'm going in there to read in comfort. But really..... really....it's to get away from this window so I don't have to watch the lightning hit this hilltop anymore...... (shudder)
I am not a Nervous Nellie when it comes to weather. I like thunderstorms. They are enervating, invigorating, and sometimes, depending on my mood, absolutely welcome. I have stood on the high wide-open porches of GulfShores (when they still were there, pre-Katrina) and welcomed a Gulf Coast tempest with open arms. I rode out hail and hurricane without being too frightened. I like to be at our country cabin when storms roll in.
All that being said, tonight is making me twitchy. The lightning is not that cloud-to-cloud kind. It's wide as the sky and striking straight down in white-blue flashes that linger just a little too long. My windchimes are clashing against each other on every side of the house as wind wraps around the house like the fingers of a hand.
The school, before I left it, was creaking in the wind, massive solid old brick building that it is. It was making those soft sounds I always associate with a large beast hunkering down on its foundations, curving its great back against the rain and storm. Until I heard that shifting, I didn't realize how bad the weather really was. That's when I decided I needed to come home, when I looked out and saw the huge oaks across the street bending and thrashing.
My small dog is hunkered behind my knees as I'm typing. When the weather gets bad, he goes everywhere with me, a constant little golden shadow. When I go to bed, he will wedge himself under it despite the fact that he doesn't quite fit. I will hear the gentle chiming of his collar tags throughout the night. The cats, all of whom will also be piled up on the bed trying to pretend they're not looking for comfort, will be annoyed by this.
It's a good night to look for comfort, actually. I am thinking of crawling into bed early if for no other reason than giving myself the childish refuge of warm covers that can be pulled over my head. Oh, sure, I'll tell myself that it's because I didn't sleep well last night and that the satellite is out so there's really nothing else to do. I'll tell myself it's because I'm going in there to read in comfort. But really..... really....it's to get away from this window so I don't have to watch the lightning hit this hilltop anymore...... (shudder)
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