Paper (Photo)

We are settling in so well here.  Moby is happy.  We were having a  long spate of rain that was making getting out to get litter a massive, insurmountable chore. We decided to  order it delivered.   It was cheaper than a cab ride, put it that way.  Regardless,  the box and long strip of  packing paper has been a delight for creative cat play.  He got up on the footstool and leapt into it, like a kid on a diving board,  several times. Chases the erasermice through the labyrinth of the crinkles, hides under it, surely invisible.   Some people would think a few yards of brown paper in the living room is at best questionable decor.  I am not one of them.

Mirror (Photo)

Door (Photo)

Moby has, for the first time as far as we know, gotten to go outside, unbagged and unboxed, and willingly. We have a small courtyard, fenced. Not that he couldn't escape, but we do use a leash, and it is a relatively small risk - given his proclivity to run toward us when startled.

He now wants to go out all the time, especially since seeing a mouse by the fence the other night, through the glass. Oh, brother, he wanted mouse. Nor does he seem to mind the rain. Only when his tail plopped into the inch deep puddle did he seem to mind, slightly.

We take him for walks in the hall. Today he flopped down across from our neighbor's door, and lolled. I noticed the door was ajar, and I know their two year old little girl is frightened of cats, sadly including Gentle Mobius, so I reached to gather him up. And noticed the glorious aromas of Indian food wafting out at me. Aha, I thought. Smart cat.

Guilt

My mother often read me a storybook about a little girl who found a red purse. There may have been a doll in it. There was, I think, some money in it. After a page or so of wanting to keep the lost treasure, she decides to try to give it back. The little girl who lost it is very grateful, and our Heroine gets a reward, and best of all, a new friend.

I didn't much care about purses or dolls or money, so I could be quite virtuous putting myself into this story. Especially since I knew the end. Trade a stupid purse for a friend? Easy. Even a friend who wanted to play dolls all the time.

In grade school, there was a landing near the door where all the little girls would throw their little purses when we ran outside to the parking-lot/playground to torment each other. I threw my pot-holder loom purse (with a snapped flap and crocheted strap) on the pile as usual. And when I retrieved it, I was devastated that the contents had been stolen. I would never steal anything. I cried to Sister Jean, the principal, who was supervising the chaos. And was chastised sharply for leaving anything valuable just lying there, unwatched. I was deemed guilty of leading another into temptation, and told to suck it up - not in those words. It was a bitter lesson, that I in no way appreciated at the time.

(Sr. Jean was the woman who, while I was gulpingly reporting my granny being in the hospital, corrected my grammar.)

I took it in, though. Guilt is not a finite quantity, where more or less, all or nothing are meaningful. I can be the victim, and still share responsibility for the sin. My obligation does not take away blame from the perpetrator. I shared the sin of violence, by tacitly condoning the ex's behaviour toward me. It was a goad to me to leave - it was not just my safety, a selfish reason that seemed insufficient in the insanity of my world. It was the erosion of his already weak character that I was guilty of, when I allowed him to continue. Took nothing away from his culpability. He refused his burden, and his life is a shambles. I picked mine up, and my life flourishes.

D postulates that it is a construct of a litigious society, where blame is a concrete comodity, and justice parcels it out in percentages, or in a win/lose ruling. A rape victim must be wholly innocent, or the rapist is not guilty - or the rapist is wholly guilty, and no blame must be laid on the reckless stupidity of the victim. Both sets miss the point. Theft and entitlement, lack of concern and consideration, violence, carry their own independent burden, regardless of the naivety, impulsiveness, laziness and idiocy of the victim. Each carry their own penalty. Few victims are truely innocent.

I had a message relayed to me a few years ago, from a woman who had bullied me as a girl. She apologized, and regretted her meanness. I sent back utter, decades-ago forgiveness, and the acknowledgment that I was a little wet rag at the time, a juicy target. I felt badly that she was still carrying the guilt.

We get what we wish for others. In twisty ways, we get what we deserve.

Thankful as I am for the lesson, I wonder how many friends Sr. Jean has these days.

Friends (Photo)

Decoration (Photo)

I miss the desire and ability to decorate the ordinary. Like bleachers for a baseball field.

Harm

In response to Dale, Tuesday, June 13, 2006 ::: Answer to Dweezila, 3

My mother did not believe in hitting children. She slapped the end knuckles of my fingers with the tips of hers, on the rare occasions that she could not get my attention with words. It stung, but I never remember feeling it unfair. My mother always apologized and explained herself. Today, it reminds me of having my hand tapped in surgery, when the retraction is to be released, a startle, but not harmful. Proportional.

My father knew my mother's feelings about hitting. Or I believe we all would have been beaten. Instead, there were the spankings. I never understood where they came from, nor do I ever feel they were fair. They hurt. They humiliated. They terrified me. In part, that I was under the authority of a person out of control. But far worse, I was dependent on someone who could hurt me with impunity. They stopped, fairly early on. And I think my mother, quietly, behind the scenes, with the United Front intact, told him that was enough. Hitting was one of the few issues she would do battle with him on. She stated quite clearly, that if he ever hit her, she would leave. I am glad her bluff worked, because I know it is harder than that. For a shy, fervently Catholic woman, born in 1925, making this her rallying cry, this had the odor of radicalism. That she put up with everything else takes the teeth out of it.

I always remembered him hitting me. And I hated and resented him for it. I fantasize killing him, after all this time. The last time, when he came apart at me, I considered taking him by the throat and slamming him against the wall. But I was better than that. I cared more for the health of my soul, than for the catharsis of revenge.

I know that I intimidate people. Some of that violence, never indulged, must leak at the edges. I want there to be a glimmer of that danger, so that I never have to unleash it.

I can harm. I will not.

No secret.

Up (Photo)

Whisky River

"Nothing influences our ability to cope with the difficulties of existence so much as the context in which we view them; the more contexts we can choose between, the less do the difficulties appear to be inevitable and insurmountable . . . the more complexities, the more crevices there are through which we can crawl."
- Theodore Zeldin

Lawyers

Dewey, Cheetham & Howe. In Harvard Square. The fictional law firm for Car Talk

I honestly do not know if this is where they record, or if this is a real law firm with an unfortunate name. I can say that in the two years I have been visiting this corner of the world, I have never noticed this window before.

They (Photo)

...Might Be Giants.

Universal

Long ago, when I was a pretentious little theater student, I had discussions about what is Universal. Class discussions, theater party rants, directors having the stage and expounding. Shakespeare being the most cited example of what is Universal, because he wrote so specifically. Think Lear and fussing at a button. And the curiosity of why the Everyman in the Cycle plays seemed so abstract and remote. Popular for so long, no doubt because in performance, the actor added in local references.

I came to the conclusion that it is the closely observed details, seen clearly, that are what is really universal. Class Struggle, Good vs Evil, the Nature of God, are all Big Ideas that should speak to everyone. Yet, what people everywhere actually respond to is more like, When My Feet Hurt, That Buzzy Feeling When I Can't Get To Sleep, The Frustration When I Have Dropped That Little Thing Four Times In A Row What Is Wrong With Me.

Even when everyone's details are different. I wrote about liking ugly, comfortable shoes for wide feet, but I spoke just as clearly to those who love high heels and have narrow feet.

We are none of us average. As much as we want to be more or less normal, we really don't want to be like everyone else. Much as we think we want to be able to walk into a store, pick up the first thing in a color we like, and it will fit, flatteringly, (and be on sale) we prefer to be perverse, and unusual. The most perfect Ubermodel will complain about the shape of her nose, or the width of her fingers, not, I am beginning to think, because she thinks herself ugly. But because she does not want to be stamped-out-of-plastic perfect. In a mass produced world, we demand to be, ourselves, handmade. We want to be recognizable, but not identical, the same, but different.

Universal does not mean to be perfectly, exactly the same, everywhere. A smile is a universal human behaviour, fraught with different cultural meanings. But have Gromit roll his plasticine eyes at Wallace (yes, I did just see Curse of the Were-Rabbit), and the world smiles in recognition. Because, Happy is too Big. I Explained This And It's Quite Simple, Why Don't You Listen To Me is much more specific, and everyone can agree on how this feels.

My writing is where I strive to see clearly. To explain my experience trusting that, if I am deeply honest, brutally thorough, transparently enigmatic, then those who read this will say "I feel that same way, exactly!" Small observances, a color, my kitchen, a shoe. No point of view is less exotic than any other. Look through any peephole, and the infinite is there.

Pick any one of the ten thousand things, and really look.

Yellow (Photo)

Shoe

I was born with squashed up, turned in feet. Not quite bad enough to be in a cast, but enough for special shoes. Hard leather encasements that turned my feet outward, and provided me hours of cradle kicking, noise making fun. I still have a pair of those shoes, the toes cut out to extend the life of expensive orthopedic footgear for the rapidly growing baby of a strictly working class family. Poor mom, she stood 4'11", and I weighed in at 8 pounds 10 ounces (3.1 Kg).

I grew up with a pragmatic view of shoes. Fitting them was a trip to Allen Park, and a special shoe store for my Buster Brown shoes. I was fitted and fitted and fitted, with little regard for style. No, utterly no regard for style. But when the new shoes fit, they felt so good, I didn't much care. Some were even two-tone! I had good shoes for church, and school shoes for the rest of the week. I went barefoot whenever I could. Add in cheap pink ballet slippers, snow boots, and galoshes handed down from brothers.

Oh, there was that pair of white shoes for First Communion, bought too big so I would grow, but I didn't, and I found out the joys of heel blisters.

High school meant the same penny loafers that my mother had, genetically wide feet shared as well. But I kept growing, as did my shoe size. I would have knock-off Earth Shoes, and crepe soled Hush Puppies. Sensible shoes. Wide shoes.

Out on my own income, I got cheap cloth shoes. And let my arches fall. I had high heel character shoes as required by theater dance classes. Those would last me through two weddings, and every event seeming to need dressy shoes, amidst.

The Army gave me boots, and, used to trying on many shoes, and urged by my Drill Sergeant to make sure they fit, I bloody well did. No arch support, but they never gave me blisters. Cheap running shoes for PT.

White sneakers for nursing school, leather Avias that I could put white polish on, and keep going. Tried a pair of branded 'nursing' shoes that hurt, and were discarded in disgust for the waste.

I've had Birkenstocks and Tevas for summer and socklessness. All deteriorated now, long gone.

Today, I have a pair of light hiking shoes at work, that never leave, nor bring home OR contamination. I keep shoe covers on them, and they are always visibly clean, with good arch supports. Similar shoes for my daily walking.

And today, I have a pair of soft, wide, bright yellow shoes, with air holes. It's been a long time since I felt the childish delight of a brand new pair of shoes gleaming on my feet. But there they are. Inexplicably yellow, not a color I generally like.

Silly, but practical. Hey, the shoe fit. What else could I do?

Admire

A woman in her 80s, waiting for surgery, her husband waiting for her. The nurses in the room, out of her hearing, astonished at the idea of waking up next to the same person every day for 50, 60 years.

"Why would you want to do that?"

"No one would get married if it weren't for the insurance reasons!"

I stayed silent. How could I explain that 60 years is not enough. Not nearly enough, but I would take what I was given. That I felt blessed beyond words that I would wake next to a dear man, who loved me, every morning for the rest of our lives. That his faults and irritations were endearing expressions of character and eccentricity. That he seems to think the same of me.

"Well," I ventured, "If you admire someone, and there is much there to admire, it's rather easy."

"Oh, well, yes, my last boyfriend wasn't anything to admire."

"I guess I should stop dating ex-felons." She laughs, I'm not sure if she is joking.

I gave them margin. "Nor was there any much in my first husband. You can't have a good marriage with a bad person."

"I heard first marriages were a gimme."

Not quite sure what she meant by that, I imply agreement. "It's his first marriage. He seems happy with me still."

And I marveled, again, at the conflicting cultural imperatives, the ideal to marry, and to be unhappy with marriage.

I wonder if we speak the same language at all, and decide we do not.

Then I think about spending every day, for the rest of my life, beside such a funny, kind, intelligent, deeply courageous, and thoroughly genuine human being, and my face grins.

Homeward (photos)

It's a new walk home, past the Museum and it's Walker, the snapping turtle and her eggs, and home to a flat cat.

Name

When I was born, I was given a name very like the one you know me by. Joan. I hated it. It seemed such a thud of a name, unmusical, ugly, plain. Although, I am told, I decided when I was five that I was not to be called Joanie, but only Joan. This may have had to do with Joannes and Joanies in school, of which there seemed to be a great number. Although I was always the only plain Joan.

My mother had wanted Patricia, which I loved, but my father vetoed that, because of a "fat girl" he didn't like in school with that name. And in proper Catholic naming tradition, and by baptismal requirement, a saint, in this case St. Joan of Arc became my patron, and I her namesake. Silly martyr. Although reading the Twain biography reconciled me to her. A rather clever character, however much a nutjob. Still, I dreamed, unlike most other girls, of changing not my last name, but my first.

I wasn't very good at naming then. Not much for the dolls I was given, I usually didn't bother naming them. When asked by adults the name of my doll, I dubbed them all Theresa. Perhaps after St. Theresa, perhaps one came already named, and I just used it as a convenient catchall. Raggedy Ann came with her own name, as did Pooh and Tigger (not the Disney versions, but a bear and a tiger certainly.) Topo Gigio himself, from when I had my tonsils out, did not need my faltering imagination to be named. My brothers named our black cat Midnight. I chose Frances as my confirmation name, but it never quite fit, and it became a footnote in my lost paperwork. Likewise a host of other names, long forgotten. Nor was I was ever nicknamed.

Much later, bellydancing, I was peer pressured (at age 34) into listing a more exotic dancer name for a festival. I tried, I really tried to develop something like Sharavar, or Lalafalala, but they all slid off like an untied scarf. And I looked at my name. I knew how it was supposed to sound in French, after all my original last name was a mash of French into illiterate French Canadian, lots of extraneous letters. I had learned the phonetic alphabet long ago. So, out of that play, and a reckless disregard for proper spelling, I discovered an alluring shade of Joan.

Shortly after that, and with no discernible connection, I was dubbed Justjoan. And I started naming personalities that came to me. The bear Sebastian. The penguin George. The iBook Isabel, and iPod iCapod. Names that stuck.

When we brought Midnight home, we knew the name did not fit such a unique and powerful personality. We brainstormed and free associated. Then, on a walk, I remembered that D, with the middle name Israel, had, when we were in Saudi Arabia, asserted that if asked what his middle initial stood for, would say it was for Ishmael. He had read Moby Dick not long before. I reminded him of this, and asked if Ishmael might not be a good name for the cat.

No, not quite.

Well, how about Moby?

And for reasons not at all obvious, a black cat after all, it fit. Yes, he mostly stayed submerged under the couch, bed, bathroom cabinet. And at that point, we had not realized just how big a cat he was. When we call out his name, he looks at us, and his tail perks up. So, yes, he seems to agree.

I have found, unlooked for (and freakish for a chick with a pathetically poor memory for names) a talent for naming.

I believe now, that I was named very well. The prism of my life has found more color than I imagined as a child, in that simple name. I found that there is another St. Joan, a scholar. She lived a long time.

Watch (Photo)

The round tile is by Kathy Anderson.

Black

Black mood. Disturbed by the random, rhythmless drips of dead of night rainwater off the building onto the newly installed window air conditioner. Cramps, and a misery behind my eyes, always accompanied by denial, especially at 2AM, that I forced myself to medicate. Inky syrupy sleep, lingering along the new, longer walk to the train, in the rain. Standing, jostled, missed connections, fuzz in my dim, hungry, tea-less semi-consciousness.

Working with an anesthetist who is a chaos generator, who sees no good in me at all. A surgeon who is, outside the actual surgery, a careless human. A patient who needs a translator, had a daughter whose English is not as good as she thinks, a hopeless snarl of inadequate preparation, missed assessment, unavailable translators, lack of follow through, and it was all hitting me in the face like a wet fish dance.

Psychology calls it learned helplessness, when the rat gets shocked no matter what it does, it sits in the middle of the cage, twitching, essentially.

Cramps.

D met me at work, to go find small chairs. But the storm of horizontal torrent is harsh, and we snag a cab home. Another day.

The preferred ISP, after five attempts at connecting us, including two missed times, got us hooked up. Not quite working, because D'd already cancelled them when they showed up finally, appointmentless. He could not give all our numbers and stories one more time, nor could he remember how to pretend to be Bob Newhart and make it funny, so I took over the crappy cell phone that only got decent reception when I was sitting in the window, listened to static/hold music, drank tea, watched the drenching downpours, and relayed messages to the former Mac IT guy (D) at the computer. Moby came over and deigned to be adored, touching both of us with his feline bliss. He is not interested in chasing erasermice today.

We now have connectivity, a telephone. A decent, patched together dinner. Drugs working for me. We'll be fine, we'll be fine, we'll be fine. Poopie. Ow.

I'm up to grey.

Stuff

I spent the first 19 years of my life living in one house. There were summer vacations and visits to the homes of aunts and uncles to assuage my itchy feet. But that one, small, post WWI tract house was my sole abode for all my life. Until I escaped, and ran, and ran.

Funny, I'm not running anymore, but the momentum spins me on. For the third time in two years, I have shoved my life possessions in boxes, and listened to strange sounds that I know in a month I will no longer even hear. I know, with no end of squirming anxiety, that this will not be the last place. It will be fine, my life will spin on, and it's all fine because I get to live my life beside a wonderful soul who loves me. But.

But.

But, I'm tired, and I have too much stuff, which I want to both get completely rid of and utterly keep, and will wind up taking the middle path. I want a moment of respite given to me, and I know I must wrest it from the pit of myself.

I want the sores in my mouth and around my nose to heal, from having a miserable head-cold while packing. Or rather, from blowing my nose too much, despite the ultrasofsensitivewithaloelotion tissues. I want to know where everything is, and not have to stand in the kitchen trying to choke out of my memory where I put the rice. And the rice cooker. And where my tiny swiss army knife got to. I want to have cable, and stop sponging off the idiot who has wifi and has not even changed the name of the router.

I want to live in a place where I want to live for 20 years, and get likable jobs for both of us, and a little place on the earth to set a tumbleweed tiny home.

I want to stop moving stuff, then getting rid of it. The other way around makes more sense. I've lived with one carload of stuff, most of which had such a psychic stink I wound up throwing it away anyway. Sometimes I have to carry burdens a while before I realize how little they mean to me.

I walked Moby over from the old place to the new, my cousin walked with me, and we talked. Moby mewed, at first, then quieted down, not liking the bag, but not otherwise distressed. The mewing was occasional rote complaint, not the frantic, constant calls of panic, as when he's been in cabs. And when he was released into the apartment, he was calm and curious. I have dark purple bruises on my shoulder from the strap. Some burdens are not burdens at all, whatever the marks left.

If there was a fire tonight, we would stuff cat in bag, and have no regrets for material losses.

My home is carried with me. The stuff is just stuff, inconvenient and expensive to replace, is all. I have to remind myself to float, sometimes.

Reference

Accent: Detroiter with Canadianisms- eh? Some Utahn expressions and that ubiquitous vaguely southern military drawl with the persistent use of acronyms and Sir and Ma'am. Picking up some wicked Bostonian. Not to mention speaking in accents, some good enough to confuse. Chatted with a Brit, so I simply adopted his accent, thinking he was putting it on. He finally asked me where, exactly, in Britain I came from, as he couldn't quite place it. I said, flatly, "Detroit." He really was English.



Booze: No. Beer. Well, I don't go near vodka, having had it thrown up on me. I will have a G & T in the summer, occasionally. And I like a sip of tequila once every few years. I only like the really good stuff, and that in very, very small doses.

Chore I hate: I don't mind any chore so much. I just hate having to do it over and over and over. So, dishes/laundry/cleaning the kitchen after meals - that sort of thing when it's all the damn time.

Dogs /cats: I like both, but cats fit my life better. Anyone reading here knows about Moby.

Essential electronics: I am such a geek with this, but not in comparison with most of my in the business computer friends. So, iMac, camera, damntv.

Favourite perfume/cologne: Hate 'em all. Inherited my mother's bad reactions to scents. Noxema.

Gold/silver: N'eh. Used to care, but things have changed.

Hometown: Wherever I lay my head. See "Accents."

Insomnia: Rarely. I have to be hungry or in pain not to sleep. Cannot sleep during the day, as I found out trying to work night shifts. My life falls to bits, then.

Job title: Staff RN. Surgical. RN Circulator. Fall Guy. The one who dresses the surgeons funny.

Kids: Fairygodmother to the children of friends.

Living arrangements: Cozily with D, soon to be in a 1bdm, bsmt.

Most admired trait: Humor. In myself or others. Paired with integrity and kindness.

Number of sexual partners: Depending on how this is counted, about a dozen, or a half dozen, or as I now count it - one.

Overnight hospital stays: Tonsils at about age 5. Infection age 17. Gastritis in Saudi Arabia - age 29. Night shifts - as rarely as possible since. See "Insomnia."

Phobia: Swarms of insects. One of anything I can deal with, live and let live, observe even, kill if necessary. But a whole bunch of little creepy biters beating at my face- hear me scream. Car trouble freaks me beyond reason.

Quote: "I think that fish is nice. But then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?" - Douglas Adams.

Religion: My dogtags read "No rel pref." I think of myself as a Fortean. Or a pantheist. All of them are right, all of them are wrong.

Siblings: Not really. My brothers were so much older, they were not exactly children with me. But I have two of them.

Time I usually wake up: The alarm, a purple, original-iMac shaped clock, Big Ben Chimes, goes off at 0507. That is what it says, it is actually set ahead by I-don't-know-how-much, and I am easily fooled every morning by this. I hit the snooze alarm down, I often do not remember this. It goes off again 9 minutes later, 0516, 0525, 0534. I usually make myself get up here, but on Thursdays, when there are morning meetings, I wait until 0543.

Days I don't work, it varies from 0700 to 0943.

Unusual talent: I do funny voices. And puppets. Funny singing puppets.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Cabbage. Anything soaked in vinegar too long.

Worst habit: Picking. Picking at edges and zits and labels and whatever is loose or bumpy.

X-rays: When I had a tiny evulsion fracture of my big toe, the VA X-rayed me. I still had to walk all over the semi-mountainous campus of the U of U, but got out of having to do any more Army runs. Broke it getting out of bed.

Jammed my knuckle at work, walked over to talk with my D's orthopedic surgeon, he was working, so he told me to x-ray it myself on the mini C-arm in the room. He came over and looked at it, said, "Yeah, looks like you cracked it. Tape it to the next finger for the next six weeks, let me know how you are doing."

Yummy foods I make: I have a wonderful Bread Pudding with Rum sauce recipe. Mostly, I am an adequate cook, just learning to spice better.

Zodiac sign: Go Fish.

Childhood

I read a disturbing post at Simply Wait. About kids laughing more than adults, at a rate of 400 times a day for kids, and 15 for adults. And all through it, I kept wanting to shout, NO, no, it doesn't have to be that way.

I don't know how anyone gets through a day without laughing. I laugh when the cat almost trips me up on my early morning rush to the bathroom, til he flops down on us at night. I make D laugh whenever I have a chance. I make it a point to amuse my patients and the people I work with. Sometimes it is a quiet chuckle, sometimes a belly laugh, but life is a funny thing.

And as for kids "owning" other pure pleasures...

*Running for pure pleasure

Ok, granted my knees hurt too much to do it often, but I will do an arms in the air dance down any sidewalk when I feel good. Out walking with D, do a pirouette and a spin from his hand. I didn't much run as a kid, although I scraped my knees often enough. Probably to do with the hard orthopedic shoes. I enjoy moving fast through any space, which I why I have a cracked knuckle from 3 years ago, innumerable bruises and surprise scrapes that I find long after I acquire them.

*Climbing

Ah, well, there is the lack of good trees. But I will walk any wall.

*Cannonballing into cold water on a hot day

See, I never liked this when I was a kid. Water painfully up the nose, for one thing. But I am much more willing to walk in the rain, especially a thunderstorm. I don't mind the cold so much, and I am so much braver now.

*Playing dress up (without needing to shop for designer clothes and matching accessories.)

A talent of bellydancers. Gimme some tricot and a floaty scarf, and I'm swirling with the other bulgy women, feeling fancy. I've never paid full price for any "designer" clothing...thrift shops being what they are.

*Catching fireflies in jars.

Not the fault of adulthood. Pesticides have reduced the number greatly, there really are not many of them now. I would probably prefer to just enjoy a meadow full of them of an evening, not needing to trap them to see the wonder.

*Jump rope

Ok, knees again. Not fair to hammer on about it. I do better with hula-hoops now.

*Hopscotch

Always a boring game, and the neighborhood girls made me go last. Big deal, any kids that like it can have it.

*Skipping (tell the truth, when was the last time you saw an adult skip? Not that I'd particularly want to see it, but still...)

I skip. I skip with D, who stopped sometime in grade school- it being 'babyish'. We skipped for joy when first going out, while laughing, and never stopped.

*Playing make-believe and having no one question whether you plagiarized the characters or the dialogue.

I write. Instead of make-believe with other girls telling me how my story should go, I tell my stories however I feel. No more damn "Sleeping Beauty," ugh.

*Putting on a real baseball uniform and having your family watch you play--not because you're a superstar, just because it's fun.

Egads. Never did that in the first place. What kind of not-poor-like-me childhood are we talking? Not that I gave a rats about baseball.

I don't have to play house anymore, I have my own apartment, that I clean and decorate exactly the way I want. I can walk through mud puddles, which I do when I have my boots on. Instead of getting yelled at, and then having cold wet feet. I don't have to wash dishes after every meal to someone else's satisfaction, in my own home. I please my own sense of clean, to my own satisfaction. I do not have to drink a glass of milk with every meal. I don't have to iron my clothes, unless I want to. I can stand on my couch, if I feel like it. I can sulk if I am moody.

I get very angry at nostalgia about childhood. It was awful, and the laughter is in part a defensive stress release for misery and lack of control. A well lived adulthood beats childhood hands down. I do have to follow orders and comply with rules at work, but my bosses have to answer to the law, and their bosses as well. I chose my work. I can, after all, quit. I had no such choice as a child, no options, no escape of any kind. No safe place, nor any means to find one.

I shall have a cup of tea, and some chocolate, then go make D laugh.

Tourists (Photos)

Waiting by the U S S Constitution, to get a tour of a Nova Scotia ferry.


A new, and baffling way to tour the city. (?)


Photos of photographers. Glad they didn't ask me to take a picture of them with those cameras.


Guy walkin' his lobster. On a stick.

Grateful

I winge a lot. I complain about pains and irritations, stupidity and misplaced energy. It's a trap, of course, and I know it. So, well, I want to make more of a habit of gratitude. Because, I have deep wells full of reasons to be grateful.

I am grateful I was sent to catholic school. I got a solid education and subversive reasoning skills that inoculated me against irrational religious beliefs, and an appreciation for irony.

I am grateful for the manipulative and abusive ex, who taught me many invaluable negative lessons, and got me to Utah needing a second job. Which led me to D, with the eyes to appreciate an emerald in cammo.

I am grateful to have a good, living wage, secure job, that I enjoy more than not. A roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table. I do not take any of this for granted.

I am grateful, and deeply humbly so, that ours was one of only a few basement apartments in this building not to have our doors open, lights on, fans blowing sour fetid air, from saturated walls and flooded carpets, into the hallway at 0600 Monday morning. We did nothing to deserve to be spared. That we were largely packed for the move in two weeks would have made it, in some ways, easier for us. We did pass on the card of our beloved rental agent to our neighbor.

I am grateful to have a calm, mellow and affectionate cat, who sleeps on my ankles, and comes to sit close to us, or equidistant from us. That he has never scratched us, nor bit us, and that his worst habit is a bit of "thinking outside the box" usually in the tub or on the bathroom floor. Easily cleanable, and keeps him from being perfect. He has become the soul of our home, and keeps us both cheerful and calm.

I am grateful that although I have some painful problems, my health is actually fine, with no serious issues.

I am grateful that D and I amuse each other so. After 15 years, we are each other's favorite comedians. We have needed it. We know where each others buttons are, and only press the funny ones.

I am grateful for friends who are decent, honorable, kind and funny people. Beyond words I appreciate each unique, eccentric, dear one.

I am grateful for each breath.

Gosling (Photo)

The rain continues here in New England, with widespread flooding. This flock of geese along the Riverway look to be having a rough time of it. Especially that little bundle of non-wet-proof feathers in between the two geese conferring. I did not approach them closer, as they can be a bit bitey.

Umbillicus

A completely unsurprizing bit, from me, painfully edited.

Umbillicus

Shoes (Photo)

Cards

My family played cards, a lot. Euchre, Rummy, 500, Pedro, the quartet games, bidding and dealing, suits, partners and trumps, no betting. Rummy was played with a big old Oatmeal box filled with rubber washers, parceled out and collected back in at the end of the evening. As soon as I was old enough to play adequately, I was expected to join in.
Mostly, I actually enjoyed getting good at these games of strategy and luck, judgement and cooperation. I knew the rules. Stories of amazing hands, daring wins or ridiculous failures, were de rigeur. And if I kept my ears open, I heard hints of family secrets.

I was compared to my older brothers a lot. Not in the sense of "Why aren't you more like Dave?" More in the sense of "You have that same silly laugh, like when Dave is really touched." Or, "You sounded just like Bill when you said that." At home, this came from my mother. In the card evenings, aunts, uncles and granny would play this on me as well. How much I looked like one or the other, or was smart or funny like them. I took this all in with intense curiosity, and a bit of pride, because I adored those two boys, even as they baffled and frustrated me. I clamored for their attention, and sometimes got it. After they moved out and away, while I was still very young, I fantasized about them coming back to take me out of that house, out of school, out of my increasingly oppressive life, and enforced card games.When I was tired and didn't feel like dealing with adults, I had a habit of throwing games, although it would be thrown back at me if I was caught - and the excoriation would start in the car on the way home. That's when I heard from my father about how I was selfish like them, thoughtless and ungrateful. How he knew I would hate him, too, and treat him like crap, like they did.

The comparisons continued, and both compliments and condemnations were phrased in the form of a genetics proof. My mother would make a point of telling me how much I really was like my father, which was both why we should, and why we didn't get along. My father would fail to insult me by comparing me to my beloved aunt. The game became a bad habit, joyless and pointless, but hard to stop playing. I reacted against being like the father I so hated, but I could also see the faults of the family members I loved. I was fascinated with and repelled by the genetics I was dealt, and pondered what I got from whom and how.

I have come to accept that I am a lot of my father. I scrounge, nothing makes me happier than finding a perfectly good lamp/tv stand/chair in the recycle room. He loved to walk the alley and find bits of board that might be useful someday. I have his temper, although I train mine like a strong dog, to be safe around children. I have his black going grey hair, and I dye mine like he did. But I do not hide that I dye it, nor am I embarrassed to admit as much. I can lie straight faced, but only when necessary, to protect. Not just for the hell of it, as he would say he had a cold if he needed to skip something because he had a headache - puzzling lies that covered perfectly good excuses. I get his migraines, and his tendency to depression and despair.

My cousin, who I have recently gotten to know because I live near her for the first time, is an unexpected connection. I feel a similarity, a resonance, in her. I do look like my brothers. But I am also very like my friends, who share stunning similarities with me. D in particular. So much so that one of his friends asked, after first meeting me, him how he'd "Found a Female D****?" I remind new cow-orkers of other people that they know. So?

I am myself. I am all of the DNA gathered in my cells, the people who taught me and tested me, the hand I was dealt. And I am the unique game that I play out with those around me. I pour myself out and make my wager every day, and gather myself back in, to try again tomorrow. I avoid cheaters, but when I have no choice, I play as well as I can.

I still have a soft spot for Jokers.

Move

I had my own room, the only girl, the last child by 9 years. It was converted from a bathroom. When my brothers moved out, I got their room, and stuffed it with my brother's left behinds, which I treasured. I went through phases of collecting, like TV Guide covers. Eventually outgrowing and purging the crap. I never kept old school projects, with the sole exception of a paper mache whale. My 'own room' was an assumed essential quality of life.

I moved from my parent's house to Kalkaska for four months, a job, a failure. Back to their house until I reclaimed my scholarship and found an apartment to live near school, bad roommates and all. Still beat living under rigid long outgrown rules. Then another crappy apartment, other bad roommates. Then an apartment with the not-yet-ex. A move across the country. A move to a rented house while I was away in training. I voiced no opinion since I expected to move out first.

When I escaped from the ex, a medium box of childhood stuff and my Army gear was about all I had. Some clothes, not that I had much at that point. A single futon frame and a foam mat. I lived in friends' basement room for the two weeks it took me to find an apartment. The new place was bare, and I had my small piles stacked around the edges. Within two months, I would be back to two duffle bags and shifting at the whim of the US government.

I have moved more times than I can count. The long painful process of picking through and discarding or packing everything I own has been a constant theme of my life. Accumulating and thinning, examining and starting all over.

I could put in one medium box items I have had since childhood. High school yearbooks, (3), Raggedy Ann, a small decorative chest - a gift from my brother. A few small odds, mostly in those drawers of the sort : "That may be useful, so I will keep it." Most of my Christmas ornaments - which belonged to parents, grandparents, and elderly neighbors who gave them to the only family in the street with children, when they were no longer interested in putting up a tree. I wound up with most of the survivors. Adding a number of my own over the years.

D went through a similar series, from parents house to crap apartments with varying degrees of tolerable roommates. Then a room in a rooming house where he was afraid to actually sleep. I proposed, he said no. Although he wanted to spend his life with me, he was not keen on the wedding thing. So, he moved in, and the place filled with stuff, and we adjusted. It took time, and a yes, a very tiny wedding. I yearned for my own room, still. Another move to a new, huge apartment, several guests would visit in the back bedroom, and second bathroom. It was a shiny new place, badly built, with "issues." We had medical bills, we moved to an older, cheaper, and (not obviously) better place.

We lived in that well maintained, cozy two bedroom apartment for five years, then moved across country, shedding crap at an amazing rate. Then a large one bedroom for a year, a benefit of the traveling agency, accumulating items for useful reasons. Only to take a studio for solid financial and quality of life issues, and paring down again. Only to find out it was going condo, and at luxury prices. A third move in three years, and I have lost the ability to actually feel the annoyance, though it is there. Still, a better location, better rent, an actual bedroom again.

Somewhere along the journey, I stopped missing having my own room. Our lives slide along together, I do not need the space, because I am given privacy, without asking. We do not need more stuff, because we have each other.

Anyone need a glass lemon juicer?

Yearning (Photo)

Satire

I cannot make this a political site, I just can't.

But, please, if you feel that being liberal minded is an honorable position, and that many frightening actions are happening at the upper levels, thank Stephen.

Window (Photo)

Of course, he is not allowed in the kitchen window, since to get there he must paw the sink and counter. Still. Aw.

Dream

My essays have dried up, temporarily. They are lurking in my back-brain, wordless and busy-leave-us-alone-would-you? So I try to squeeze out what is left in the open tube, trying to make it last until the move, so I won't have to move more stuff. This month may be about making do with what I have not yet packed, and knowing I will find it again in the new place as the boxes are opened.
I point you toward
Chaos
And
Toys


I dreamed I was in the OR. Only it was all of wood, ancient place, smoothed and gleaming wood. I walked around to find supplies, and realized, though I had worked there before, that there was a nearby door to the outside, and it was a green and warm spring day. The air smelled fresh and sweet, and I promised myself I would go out the next chance I got.

I returned to the OR, and the case had finished. I thought it would be about 10 AM, but it was actually 4PM, and nothing else to follow, so I could take a break, or go home. I was delighted that the day had gone so quickly.

An old friend, W, picked me up, to drive me somewhere. I didn't know where, but I trusted him, and enjoyed talking with him as we drove. He picked up his wife, who began to ask questions about what I was doing these days. I said I was being sent to Europe with the Army Guard. She told me I would need a few large trunks to move all my stuff. I told her no, I would only be bringing two duffle bags. Then realized, they would also have to issue me all new gear, since I had turned all the old stuff in years ago. She asked me if I would go as an officer, and I said, no, then they could get me again and never let me go. I would go as an enlisted.

I awoke, convinced I would have to go to war, but only really concerned about the logistics. And feeling sad I had lost contact with W. And that having a door in the OR that lead directly outside was hardly good architecture. And that a large black cat was asleep on my foot.

Advice

I am one of those people who gives advice. In part, because it is my job. Although, I will hand scissors and pens so that they can be immediately used, which confuses most folks, the job mostly bleeds off the excess tendency to meddle, to offer unwanted help. I have a weakness for advice columns. Not to follow their advice, but to be nosy. Which is much of why I watch COPS! I can, actually, defend it, as lessons in dealing with difficult people - and I have learned much from the show. But really, it's just prurient entertainment. I spend time talking to the perps, "No, no, just stay there and be calm. Now, see, that cop knows you're lying, just shut up. Don't make armed people nervous." And they never listen to me. As I would expect. Which is why I watch. With my friends, I try not to imply any imperative in my suggestions.

So, let me share with you some really good advice. Not the usual stuff like, Don't smoke, floss your teeth, wear seatbelts. All good, but everyone knows it already. No, I mean the stuff I didn't know when I heard it, and have not heard it very often.

Ibuprofin (Advil, Motrin) has a maximum effective dosage of 800 MG per 6 hours. Exceeding this will not help more with the pain, but will increase the risk of bad side effects. And taking the stuff daily over weeks could well give you a headache, and you will need to wean off of it. It is not a good drug to commit suicide with, you will wind up alive and looking very stupid. (As a strange girl I went most of the way through Basic with found out.)

Keep your bellybutton clean. If you are taken in for emergency surgery, much of it today is laparoscopic, and they use the navel as a reliable anatomical landmark. We will make fun of you if it has more than a day's worth of lint. And if it is very encrusted, it increases your risk of infection.

Smoking is highly associated with bladder cancers, which are often misdiagnosed for years as bladder infections, leaving them a lot of time to grow well.

A bit of cayenne in a hot drink, like tea or cocoa, does wonders for a sore throat. A paste of it will heal up cuts and scrapes. Just go easy, and don't leave it on for more than an hour, and be careful not to get it in eyes. Which means, don't use it for kids.

Vanilla, even the cheap artificial kind, will take the smell of fresh paint out of a room. Just a small dish, or saucer of it, will work very well. A boon to my childhood, when the house was painted all the time, and I was ill from the fumes often.

Wheat germ, eaten daily, works as well as the commercial bulk fibers, but tends to cause less gas. Good in muffins and with cream of wheat.

Try to be positive in speech, rather than not negative. Amazing what it does for the attitude.

If you get a tattoo, that gel ice is great for taking out the pain, as well as the subsequent itch. Those gel ices can be stored in the freezer, and I earnestly tell you, for muscle pain, Ice is your Friend.

Avoid contempt, it poisons any relationship it touches. Even if it is your idiot boss. Contempt never allows change, and only elicits disdain. Bemused frustration is sufficient, and leaves wiggle room for improvement. Don't feed anger, by the same token. It is insatiable and will devour lives. Let it pass through like air through a net.

Call your friends, keep contact with them, even if you are busy. Especially if you are busy.

Elope.

Buzz all your hair off at least once in your life.

Rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle works great for flying insects. Well, badly for them.

No, you don't have to.

Block

mud blooming pollen
no words articulate
congestion smothers

Three

Three books that have shaken my worldview.

Gone-away Lake. This was the first non-picture book I read. I had been afraid to read so much text, daunted by the lack of colorful illustrations. For my reading level, I resisted reading a long book for a long time. But I plunged in, randomly picking this one from the shelves, and loved it. I became a reader that week.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe. Taking absurdity to an almost spiritual level, Douglas Adams broke open my over serious and rule ridden conscience. I finally got the Cosmic Joke.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I had tried to read it, on recommendation, but could not get through the many names and complexities. But there I was in Saudi Arabia, with little to do with my down time, and D coaxed me through his favorite book, and I kept at it. I can still read this one with great pleasure in the richness of the story and the wit of the dialogue and the depth of the insights.



Three movies that make me wish I'd written the script.

Murder My Sweet. Which is kind of cheating, being based on the incomparable smart-ass dialogue of Chandler from Farewell my Lovely. And Dick Powell delivers it so well.

The Big Labowski. The Dude never says anything he hasn't heard someone else say. I know these people. Every character has such a potent voice. Such amazingly particular humor that improves with every pass.

Young Frankenstein. I giggle just thinking about it. "He vasss...... my BVOYFRHIEND!"


Three things I like about myself.

I love my own sense of humor, and ability to come up with that most pointed comment that gets the best laugh occasionally. And making my friends laugh often.

I love my own ruthless nurse competence delivered with calm, kind reassurance.

I love that I can come up with the perfect metaphor so often, the one that elicits understanding, and if I am lucky, a laugh.


Three careers I could have been good at.

I could have been a Muppeteer.

I'd have made a good librarian. I spent so much time as the hands in libraries, I have an instinct for where stuff is. I like finding information for questers. I have never killed anyone for a stupid question. Yet.

I'd have been a good clinical massage therapist, as long as I didn't have to do the business and billing side of it.

Three things I say to myself.

Breathe.
Life is good.
It's quiet... . Too quiet.


Three things I know that I didn't three years ago.

Every stop on the Green Line.

How much the ADHD was effecting D.

How flexible I am, and how far I have come. Being a traveling RN for over a year was so difficult, but I am immensely reassured at my own ability to deal with so much change and challenge, with the Mighty Weapon of Cheerfulness.

Swear

I endured growing up under the authority of an angry man with a foul mouth. I was called all kinds of intentionally demeaning names. I heard the whole curse vocabulary of this father every time he got angry. There was the usual assortment, including racial slurs, and then there were the combinations that were conflated inventions. If I could hear it today, I might find it grimly amusing, in a mocking vein. Even then, as the target, after spending some time researching the meanings, I could appreciate and ridicule his stupidity and muddle. Small comfort. I took it all too seriously when he goddamned me to hell, and it cut deep when he called me a selfish brat. When he called me a son of a bitch, I hated it, but it rather rolled off the mark.

But my mother's reaction, to interrupt and correct him, excoriate his use of vulgarity, never worked. The violent opposite, as far as I could see. And by the time I was ten and checking the Scatological Dictionary at the library, she had been hearing him swear for well over twenty years without changing his habitual mouth.

Knowing my mother's extreme, and largely irrational, aversion, to any word impolite, made me hold my tongue very tightly indeed. She vocally and bitterly complained about any off color language in movies, and I could feel her cringe if a swear word came out in a social situation where she would never utter a reproach. She would not allow me so much as Crap, or even darn, if said with any real anger. My frustrations and any sign of it were not tolerated. I heard her say Hell once, and Damn once. I was shocked.

.

Mr. Novak talked about swearing, in ninth grade.

"These are powerful words, not bad ones. And as such, you have to treat them carefully. Obscenity is for obscene situations. Swearing is a reaction to powerful feelings. Control these words, it's not wrong to use them in the right conditions. It is wrong to use them all the time for everything, it takes the power out of them."

I'd begun to practice the words, swearing silently when alone and inside my head. This touched me, and relieved me of a great deal of guilt about learning the words. I vowed to know what they meant, and to use them consciously, and with intent.

By the time I was in college, I had gathered a reasonable vocabulary, though I still used cursing with some embarrassment. Nothing like a bunch of theater students to practice shouting out rude names. Except, of course, for Army folks. Obscene words for an obscene situation. I found myself, at 26, rather proudly in possession of quite the potty mouth. Partly because of the great flexibility of the f-word. (Fanfuckintastic, for instance.) My language became turbo charged and potent, surrounded by constant swearing. I think I needed it. I hated the choices I'd made, I hated what my life was becoming, I needed those toxic words to kill off the old assumptions, the old habits and fears.

And when I started toward nursing, working with elderly folks in a nursing home? That took some steely control to keep my language presentable, and not to shock nor dismay, nor get myself fired. After one of my Guard weekends, it was damn near impossible. I allowed myself "Shit," being knee deep in it. I know shit. I defend my right to say it. Being surrounded by very religious minded cow-orkers, I had to keep myself in clean words. I gained control over my own exclamations. I still do not swear at work, with one exception. (See above.) Well, and bugger, but that is because most Americans don't know what it means. I don't say it around our Brit surgeon.

My father, for all his years of practice, swore badly. I swear well. I acknowledge this inheritance, the anger, the hurt. But I grew my own cuss collection. I never use the term sonofabitch. I will never swear at anyone, nor damn anyone to anywhere. Color and culture are not fair targets.


The goddamnedpigshit fuckwits are.

Robot (Photo)

Blooming (Photo)

Art (Photo)

Found this in the Riverway. A Goldsworthyworthy attempt.

Abecedary

A is for Anonymous aching angel denouncing anger and anxiously awaiting answers.

B is for black brown hair, blues and bellydance, books and brooks.

C is for Catholic and catholic and cynic, clarity, clay and chocolate.

D is for dancing, dithering, doorknobs attacking.

E is for emotion and empathy and emptiness.

F is for fish flying and falling fortuitously, for friendships lost and found.

G is for grass stained and grateful and goofy and goobered.

H is for hopeful and happy and hiccups.

I is for instinct and itchy feet and ice.

J is for journeys and jobs, joints and joy.

K is for kisses, knees and knowledge.

L is for laughter and livers and love.

M is for muscles, music and mysteries.

N is for nuzzling and nothingness and North.

O is for opa! and orange peel flames, obligations and openings.

P is for purple and plainness and parades,

Q is for quizzical and quickness and queries.

R is for random ridiculous reasons.

S is for surgery, silly solutions and saving graces.

T is for theater, trains, tea and tabula rasa.

U is for uniform, and ugliness, unveiled and undercut.

V is for victory, voracious curiosity, variety varied.

W is for words wound wildly in wind.

X is for x-rays, and examination and exultation and extenuating circumstances.

Y is for yes, and yards of bright fabric.

Z is for sleeping.