Hairy

Finally got Good Hair to watch. I am in equal parts appalled and amazed and amused (thanks to Chris Rock) and horrified. (Highly recommended, by the way.) I've had enough friends who've dealt with the issues of "black" hair to get the jokes. Racism is alive and well, and none more oppressive than the oppressed themselves. (Keeping their own in line to avoid censure.) The selling of "european" hair, which is actually Asian, specifically Indian, hair for weaves, plus toxic relaxer chemicals and the expectations of beauty and the high price of fashion. Honestly, I have always thought that natural black hair is lovely, and relaxed black hair looks like Barbie fake nylon hair. My thin, stringy hair would be considered "good" and I'm frankly shocked. On the other hand, I'm so glad I have decided to eschew all salons and "beauty" treatments for the rest of my life. This movie unsettled me as thoroughly as Bury Me Standing. About Roma (Gypsy) belief and culture, the superstition and self destructive values, odd and alien.

I've commented about Hair before, long ago. And I am still frustrated at how important the issue seems. Even considering that it is a symptom of genetic health, it's so overblown, so exaggerated and emotional.

So, I set in concrete my promise to myself. I will not get my hair cut, though I may trim it myself. I will wear no make-up, apply no dye, nor will I in any way support the industries that tell women that they are inadequate unless they do so. Easy enough looking at 50, I suppose. But I will be myself, and let anyone think what they may.

Genre

I have a weakness for historical fiction. Which is why I love Lindsey Davis (although the last two books have left me resigned to reading her no more.) Past Imperfect by Jullian Fellows has caught me today, given that I am only 46 pages in. I clearly remember The Death of Attila, by Cecelia Holland, gleaned from the shelves of a small branch library when I was perhaps 12, and part of my devotion to the genre. Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt were the only author (singular) whose romance novels I continued to read after gorging myself one summer with the Romance Shelf, and never going back.

Perhaps I just like stories, and history tells the best ones of all. Real history is full of holes and unknowns, and I like authors who try to fill in the gaps, while using everything they can glean from factual accounts. Maybe it's just my intellectual laziness, wanting it all pulled together for me, and call it good. Or I enjoy thinking that real people, like us, were the impetus behind the great changes, and who survived and loved and strove to live their lives through the ages. Not different, save in what they were taught, the assumptions they made, the choices available to them. That we would be much the same, given their circumstances.

Maybe we have changed, as a species, though. Maybe we are less irrational, more willing to question and challenge, abler to change.

Ultimately, I think I just love the idea of time travel, and historical novels are my time machines.

Front

Around ten this morning, the light changed as the front moved through. "Turning the swift air luminous and strange."*

Snow. Snow and rain. Snow and rain and wind and a perfectly marvelous day. Went for a long walk, lunch, and the watery snow iced down. Still falling, though to little measurable result, pouring along streets, puddling coldly. Days like this make me miss Boston, where it rained reliably and routinely, and I was out in it every day.

We watched Happy-Go-Lucky with the audio commentary before sending it back. Nothing new, really. But I found myself not wanting to let go of the characters, have one more cup of tea with them. Get to hear more of their stories, watch them grow a little more. The story is more a study of characters, and I love knowing that they will all be fine. Well, maybe not one, but that's his own doing. All of them will stay with me for a long time.

Practicing the ukelele. Slowly, so that I don't make my fingers so sore I won't practice tomorrow.

Moby content to knead the woollyness. (The fur is not quite grown back on his front legs, which they shaved for the blood draw & IV.)








*From a poem, but this is about all I remember of it, and will gladly give credit if I figure it out.

Cheerful

The universe may be trying to tell me something about being cheerful.

We watched Happy-Go-Lucky last night. Neither of us remembers putting it in the Nutflix queueue, or why it got on there, since we didn't realize until the opening credits that it is a Mike Leigh movie. And the description of the "plot" (like Mike Leigh films have any) would not have gotten to either of us. The main character, Poppy, has a rather irritating laugh and manner - or so it seemed at first. By the end I found her quite endearing, as her depth became visible, her sense, her bright and fluid intelligence slowly revealed. Her unflagging cheer and silly giggle are not just defenses, they are who she is. A reflexive happiness grounds her, grows out of a compassionate, all encompassing love.

Stealth zen.


Real spirituality gets belly laughs.

Black

Local

Being pretty good at boundaries, having grown up with a father with no concept of them, I rarely get seriously stuck in social embarrassment. I tend to either walk away, or go silent, or just smile ruefully. But there have been times when there was no escape. I don't consider the oddnesses of my patients to be conversations, since I never thought I had to do anything but listen kindly. It's only when I have had to respond that I count here.

The one that happened to mind this week was when I was ride share hostage to an elderly Mormon woman, not long after my moving to the Mecca of this particular church. Ok, I was only 22, which added to my shock. So, I buckle up, and we drive off, and she says, relatively casually, "You know, Jesus preached to the Indians here in those lost years." She may have also mentioned something about dinosaurs being planted by god as a test to her faith. Maybe that was another time. Now, I knew a bit about what the dominant church here teaches, but, Jebus made it to the pre-Columbian western US to teach natives? Really? Literally? You really believe this is factual? I think I managed an "Oh, well..." Worse than meeting a trekkie or a UFO believer, because she seemed so nice-old-lady mainstream.

And I grew up Catholic, which is full of damned odd corners. I mean, I was once taken to see a weeping statue of the BVM. Stood out in the cold saying the rosary with my mother, shuffled through to witness the miracle, saw nothing (nada, zilch, zero) and left feeling cheated and even more prone to atheism, or at least agnosticism, than before. I've seen weird. I've kissed the nailed feet of a statue of Jebus every Good Friday as a kid. I've had my throat blessed with candles on the Feast of St. Blaise, I grew up with a picture of a saint with stigmata in our LIVING ROOM. And this elderly, conservative woman assuring me of this peculiar fact, out of the blue, startled me badly. And made me want to get out and take the bus.

On the other hand, I was nearly as shocked when I heard about the local custom of flocked Christmas trees. Not artificial trees with artificial snow, I've seen that, tasteless, but sure, fine, whatever. But artificial snow on REAL trees. This struck me as obscenely funny, and peculiarly perverse.

So we choke on gnats and swallow camels, and maybe it would be better to think about what we believe in.

Bells

A number of bells have found their way into our home. None are up and ringable at the moment, due to the configuration of this apartment. But in most places, many, or all, have been up and ringing. In our first place in Boston, a pleasant brass bell hung near the stove.

When we first brought Moby home, he hid under the sofa, then the bathroom sink cabinet (about 6" clearance) finally under the bed, on an old pillow. Only gradually did he appear during the day, over the course of a week. The only way we knew we had a cat was because his tags jingled, and he chased a ball around late at night, food got eaten, litter box got used. He took his time trusting us, and we didn't push. I would reach under the bed to pet him, and he'd purr anxiously, and I let him stay there.

One night, we heard the bell near the stove jingling. A moment of consternation, we kept the kitchen doors closed. We got up, and Moby had gotten in, and up on the counter, and was licking the pan we'd cooked chicken in earlier. His back ringing the bell. We put him on the floor, but had no heart to do anything but giggle.

This tendency to be Under is part of how he got his name. A black cat named after a great white whale had to have a subversive trait or two.

Jokes

Watching The Gay Divorcee. Fred Astair's British accent is nearly as good as Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins. Ahem.


How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Two.

One to hold the lightbulb, one to turn the universe.

What did the Zen master say to the hot dog vendor?

"Make me one. With everything."

How many performance artists does it take to change a lightbulb? Two.

One to screw in the bulb, one to fill the bathtub with brightly painted machine tools.

How many absurdists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fish.

Wooly

I got a bit of sheepskin, for my metal back chair, and other moments needing comfort. With the intention of sharing with my fellow wool-loving friend here.

Other times, he's happy on the red wool, staring at me.


Obviously feeling much better today, chasing around madly. Caught the toy and dragged it to the scratcher to give it a good whatfor. The fur is growing back pretty well from the front legs.

Dress

(Some are just always ultra stylish.)

Now, I will admit one very girly fascination. Oscar fashion. I could defend it by adding that I had a costume history class that means I look at it as art and artifact, and that would be true. But it would be misleading. As a poor kid with either cheap, or homemade clothes, I have always loved good fabric and high style. I love swirling, draping, soft and lovely clothing.

And something is terribly rotten in the state of dress. When, at the event considered the epitome of elegance, and the personages considered the most beautiful by our culture, a large portion look ridiculous, something is broken. Oh, Bjork's swan dress was probably more eccentricity on her individual part, possibly an ironic commentary on the show. But when every year these decorated celebrities appear in extraordinarily unflattering gowns, either the designers or the aesthetic is screwy.

N suggested to me that this may be because High Fashion designers are more about the art of the creation of the dress. Whereas once, hollywood stars would be dressed by costume designers, many of whom where women, whose job it was to make them look wonderful on film. And pure fashion designers, with a large gay male representation, maybe just don't get what is attractive about women, so they make costumes that are more detached, more like festival/Mardi Gras/Halloween/fancy dress.

Not that evening wear was ever all that concerned about comfort, but it was meant to accentuate appeal, reveal the body, or create a silhouette and a line. The need for dress reform movement, to release women from heavy corsetry, speaks to the kind of restrictions put on women by that society. The exposure and ridicule of women today speaks to ours. It's not frivolous to see what is raised to an ideal, and try to understand what those symptoms indicate.

Sandra Bollock looked wonderful, though.

Budge

Small day at work, two ORs open, home by 1530. Scrubbed in with a doc that I can harass. As well as my favorite circulator, S. Even pleasant resident and fellow, another rarity. Plenty of help for turnovers. This is the week of a large medical conference that our medical staff attends, and not much has been scheduled, indeed Friday we are closed. Taking the time to slow down, get stuff done.

Poor dear, though, S had to hit the code button for the first time. Not the first code she helped on, but the first that was hers. Patient had a difficult airway, that got worse, and then the anesthesia machine did not work as expected for the anesthesiologist. He kept trying different approaches until he got the situation under control, patient is fine, but at one point he asked for a scalpel. Well, I was ready for an emergency trach, stood with my #15 blade in hand, ready to do as requested, hoping not to have to. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

But as the scrub, I protected the sterile field, ready to break scrub if I was needed. With so many people available today, I stood back. I stayed sterile myself. If that trach had been necessary, I had the means to keep it relatively clean.

One of the hardest things to learn when new in the OR is that sometimes, one's role is to just stand there and wait out of the way. It's second nature to me now, but that purposeful idleness is extremely uncomfortable at first. I used to have to clasp my hands tightly together, and repeat to myself to stay still, stay still.

So today, when the charge nurse (who should have known better) told me, in the middle of all the fuss, that I should break, we wouldn't be doing the case, I held firm. I'd heard the anesthesiologist say he'd wake him up, not cancel. Time enough later to break down. She was guessing, and had not heard anything new. In fact, after waking the patient up, telling him what happened, they did an intubation awake - after numbing his throat and sedating him, which went beautifully. And then we did the case. I still had all my supplies and an intact sterile field. Because I trusted my own ears, and didn't budge. I've been through more codes than I can count, in every OR nurse role. This one didn't even get my adrenaline going. S needed to go have lunch after, she was shaking so badly. Still, she was calm during, and that is what counts.


Stepped on the scale in Pre-op, and confirmed what I already knew. The winter of my inactivity has laid it's heavy hand on me. Must step up the activity, ease off the sugar, and stop kidding myself that I'm "pretty good for nearly 50." I can do better, and I need to, regardless of back issues. Can't afford new pants. Not to mention how much not fun it is to shop for pants.

Jolt

The weather is turning, here. Which leaves me a bit sad, not having had a winter worth the name. Still, more light, air to breathe while walking. We've walked the last few days. Didn't go so well for me yesterday, as my foot slipped off the edge of the sidewalk, jarring my back. Not so bad, until I did it again. Had to stop, stunned tears, jolting pain. Eased with a bit more walking. Soaked in hot water when we got home, drugs and ice and capsaisin patch overnight, and it's not much worse today. Stiff, but otherwise about the usual.

I think about after D smashed his elbow. About a year after, he had a fall, jarred it badly, and panicked, took himself into the ER for an x-ray. No new damage, but the fear of more breakage, after so much pain, overwhelmed. I could finally, really, understand.

Moby's been sleeping a lot this week, not playing much. A little off. We watch, try to get him to play, give him time. He's not old, but neither is he a young cat, and he may just need more time to recover. Give him until the fur is all grown back on his legs, before we worry.

Again

Another song worm in my brain the other morning, about singing and dancing in the streets. A cover version of it, no less. And the subject matter bothered me as much as the tune turning and turning and turning. I have long suspected that songs about singing were redundant at the very least.

"What is this song about?"

"Dunno. Ah, put down words about singing it. Yeah, that'll do."

Might as well just make it instrumental, or fa, la, la, la, rah. Not that it's bad, exactly. No doubt a tool to get past writer's block, write about anything, what you are doing right then, just to get moving.

It always feels like a placeholder to me, "Your Photo Here" or Lorem Ipsum. According to one resident I worked with, Oye Como Va is much the same, listen to us, we're a great band. Although there may be a bit more of a joke that doesn't translate well. Doesn't invalidate the music, or a great performance, but when the lyrics wax lyrical about the lyrics, it gets it's knickers in a knot. As it were.

Novels about writers writing novels. Poems about poetry. Movies about making movies. Plays about putting on plays. A movie about a play about producing a play - Noises Off comes to mind. On stage, it was amusing, the movie lumbered about in misery. Having taken a Self-reflexive Cinema course, I notice self referential movies acutely.

Even painters painting themselves painting. Actually, those can be rather clever, like Diego Velasquez



or Norman Rockwell,



who are conscious of the distancing. There is humor intended. Still, self portraiture in art is rarely considered the best work. The huge paintings of rooms of paintings, however clever, are also, ultimately, unimaginative. Etudes can be lovely. Scales do not a symphony make. It all gets very recursive.

Creating about the process is a useful tool. Only a master can turn it so completely inside out it can become art again.

Bad? Not necessarily. Useful exercise for the artist? Sure. Really imaginative and creative? A vanishing rarity. Mostly, no.

Got any other examples of ridiculous redundancy? Or when it is handled so well it becomes illuminating?




Speaking of rant. Found several new-to-me bloggers, who use Embedded below post comments. And although I've left my notes a few times, I will not continue. Anyone who makes it that difficult to comment should just shut the comments off completely.

Cookies

This will be blasphemy. I hate the very idea of Girl Scout Cookies. I remember selling them in my short stint in the scouts, which was a kind of torture, and which didn't get our troop out into the wilds. Even that long ago, it became an end in itself, instead of a means to get out of the city. For an inner city kid, the organization was anemic, quite unlike the image of getting urban children out among the trees learning to start fires - as it were. I did once attend a Girl Scout day camp for a few weeks, and I learned how to braid plastic lanyards and glue popsicle sticks - crappy crafts that I knew enough to hate at the time.

If the GSA had bake sales or other fund raisers to clearly send children off to camp, I would have no objection. That a commercial cookie is sold by "scouts" it means little girls are learning not scouting, but marketing. I don't care how tasty the confection might be, this is the whoring of small girls. Worse, pimping, because they don't even get to keep and use the proceeds.

Cranky of me? Take away your own lust for thin mints, nostalgia for what it was supposed to accomplish, and look at what is really happening. The Boy Scouts (of America) have their own issues, but they don't sell cookies, do they? Getting little girls mentors, all going out camping is a wonderful ideal. Focusing on coercing them to sell sugar, for no clear benefit, is a skewed kind of value to be teaching. Nay, demanding.

Ok, maybe some troops may actually have real outings. Mine didn't, and I expect many are the same. I did a year, and called it quits. Maybe the whole idea is obsolete. It's been going out of style for forty years.

Oh, yeah, I just remembered, I'm 48 as of last week. So long thinking, well, I'll have to add that number, and when the date passed, I rather forgot. But then, took me until the 4th of this month to adjust the date on my watch. February will mess you up.

Cheered

This cheered me rightthefuckup. This Too Shall Pass...

Grump

Being full grumpy.
Disappointment in mud month
Snarling at nothing.

Feets

I have most surreptitiously take this photo of D's new slippers. He wears them often, so it's worth getting good ones. He also thinks his feet too large, but I think them lovely, always have. He also complains of his sweat being caustic, but I disagree in silent affection. I blame the cloth and metal for being oversensitive and reactive.

While there, (at the shop with the various woolen and sheep related stuff including slippers) I became entranced with a bit of sheepskin. Intending to share it with Moby, and warm my own metal backed chair. In turn. He avoided it suspiciously, but when we returned with groceries, he was innocently stretched out on it.

One year, I was perhaps 13, 14 years old, for Christmas, received no less than three pairs of slippers. I tried, but never wore any for more than a few minutes before kicking them off, my feet boiling. Socks are about all I can stand, and even then often pull them off, much preferring bare feet at home. I wear shoes otherwise, not one for flip-flops, needing well structured edifices for long walking. Given the choice, my feet are naked, even cold.

Old peasant stock, shows in my wide, tough feet. Easily callused, most happy naked, sturdy, though turned in, malformed by birth and ballet, not by flat, well fitted shoes.

Itch

"Yeah, right there, good."

I've been finding dried bits of goo in his fur, mostly around his neck. Bit of damp cloth and I'm getting them out. No doubt whatever goo that got on him that they used the stinkybabywipes on in the first place. Also, I suspect his throat is sore, from the intubation. And sore muscles are also common after any procedure, possibly the drugs, positioning as well, and the IV left a bruise - also common. It's going to be a rather sucky week for our small furry friend, but it will get better. And he really loves being firmly petted. I'd say massage, which is what I do, but after that strange woman doing the cat massage video, I hesitate to use the word.

Gods, I'm such a nurse, worrying at every little thing.

Still, I also know it's the little stuff that can throw folks the most. Shaved hair growing back and itching can seem worse than that broken arm. The stain of prep or adhesives that won't wash off can seem far worse than the bruises. Hungry, thirsty and nauseated trump pain a lot of the time. Keep the prickles at bay, and the big stuff is easier to face.

Smells

Schmutz on his forehead, kitty litter dust. Not Ash Wednesday, and he's not Catholic, but he does have the smear on his brow. His focus is odd, although better than last night. He's chased a little, eaten a lot, munched grass. Spent a lot of the night in the dryer.

Still smells of what we finally think was a baby wipe used at the vet's to wipe some goo or whatever off of him. (The phrase, "stink like a two-dollar whore" kept coming to mind.) After a call to them to try to figure it out, and request that they stop doing that, used some spray on, waterless cat shampoo. Gotten long ago, it has a much milder, fruity scent that fades quickly. That helped, a far less drastic solution than giving him a full on B-A-T-H. That was the next step. He didn't like the spray stuff and brushing, but I can't imagine a dousing with water would have been better received. And he's not really licking himself much, yet. At least he's stopped sneezing since the dry-bath. And my headache from the perfume is easing as well.



He's sunning now, after having eaten everything we put out for him. Doesn't seem to care about the IV and blood draw shaved spots on his front legs. We did wind up taking the bandage off for him after the requisite hour.

Anesthesiologists will tell one that all the drugs clear out in a few hours. But in my own experience, and what I've seen with D, it's a good 24-36 hours before one feels normal, after. This seems to be holding true. Moby is not quite himself, yet.

Conundrum

As expected, all is well. Moby took the ride back home better than usual, nearly leaping out of D's arms in the hall on the way in. More alert than after the last anesthetic, a much simpler procedure, just a good teeth cleaning. The tech told us to leave the bandage (from the IV site) in place for an hour. We laughed, yeah, we won't be taking it off, but it's not like we could stop Moby worrying it until he removed it sooner than that.

He's in this conundrum, take off bandage, eat, take off bandage, eat, hmmmmmm.....


Eating won out. He's devoured two helpings, now to work on the bandage.


All afternoon until we could pick him up, we kept missing his presence, his stare, and felt rather alone. And we are worriers. This time, nothing wrong, just preventative care, and yet. We are immensely glad to have home our household god.

Update:
Unfortunately, he reeks of some kind of flowery perfume. We are not perfume people, and Moby has been sneezing since we picked him up. Unexpected, and unpleasant, since as a nurse, I am not allowed to wear strong smells - for very good reasons. A patient already nauseated and in pain should not also have to deal with unnecessary artificial odors. This had to come from one of the people holding him. I'm glad he was held so much, but not that we can still smell it now.

Further update:
He is in the dryer on an old sweater. Letting the drugs wear off. I'm impressed he was able to jump up there.

Four

At four in the morning, D is often awake, due to insomnia and accompanied by Moby. Or due to Moby alone. Food is given, or the cat gets company while eating the food already out.

At four this morning, there was no food for the cat. He walked on us, purred, sighed in exasperation at our inability to understand, nosed our faces, jumped up on the bed then down, ran toward the kitchen "Here, the food is in here." But we are large, slow, stupid beings, and he has to face this eventually, leaving us to our vivid dreams.

Less insistently hopeful at 0640, he did keep reminding us "You do have to feed the cat, you know. Hello?" Instead, with only a token struggle, we stuffed him in the bag.

"Unfair!"

He mwowed hoarsely the whole way.

"Total cheat!"

Scratching at the inside of his bag.

"I object!"

No car cat, he.

"This is not what I wanted."

We got him there on the dot of seven. We are timely people, often early. Once at the vet's office, no one else (especially not dogs) around, we let him pop his head up, and he decided the bag was a fine place to be. Just fine. The tech explained what would be done, what drugs used, most very familiar to me, but I stayed circumspect and nodded. Even D got a lot of it, having actually listened as I told him about work - omitting the squishy bits. (I think he's gotten much less squeamish over the years, but I still guard his sensibilities.) We said our goodbyes, stopped for a cinnamon bun on the way, and came home to our catless place.

sigh


Sorry for being cryptic, we took him to get his teeth cleaned and checked. Last time he needed two teeth extracted, one was abscessed. And one paw was chronically irritated -so they did a biopsy. Today should be much easier on him, hopefully no extractions, just the aftereffects of anesthesia.

Doughnut

Not for the first time, a case was delayed by a patient who didn't believe the instructions not to eat or drink before surgery. And when we meet these people, we are usually not terribly surprized. Not the brightest bulbs, the sharpest knives, the most complete decks.

Long ago, parents brought their young son to fix his hernia, and stopped on the way to get him a hamburger, because "He was hungry!" Yeah, well, now you can reschedule and try again. Felt terrible for the kid. Today, a young man stopped for a donut, and we really couldn't put him off, until whenever we could get him on the schedule again. Fractures are best fixed sooner rather than later. So, we took him at the end of our day. His name was a literary reference to an unsympathetic character, which amused me to no end. Even as I headed into overtime.

Why is this an issue? Food in the stomach plus anesthesia means food in the lungs. Likewise coffee, orange juice, milk, gum, none of it worth the risk, for a surgery that can wait for another day. In a trauma, something really urgent or life threatening, we don't delay, and there are precautions to minimize the risk, pressing down on the trachea to close the esophagus during induction and intubation, a technique also used for those with regular reflux. But even that does not eliminate the risk, and the consequences can be life threatening, aspiration pneumonia for instance. So, there are guidelines that the anesthesia department adheres to.

And patients are given instructions, both in writing and on the phone, and often in person in the clinic. Not like we keep it a secret. Donut Guy today apparently kept complaining to the pre-op nurses about how hungry he was. If he'd skipped the donut, he'd have had lunch by then.

Proof, if any is necessary, that no one can make anyone else do anything. Even if it is clearly in their best interests, and there are painful consequences.

We have to take up Moby's food and water at ten this evening. He's getting his teeth cleaned tomorrow, and we will follow instructions for him. He is not going to like us much. But this is our duty, to do right by him.

OK

"Every human being is a koan, that is to say, an impossibility. There is no formula for getting along with a human being. I am impossible to get along with; so is each one of you; all our friends are impossible; the members of our families are impossible. How then shall we get along with them?
If you are seeking a real encounter, then you must confront the koan represented by the other person. The koan is an invitation to enter into reality."
- Bernard Phillips
Via Whiskey River.

Learn From My Fail.

Oddly Specific.

Neatorama.

OK GO
Another great video from a band I saw opening for They Might Be Giants, many years ago. They were impressive then, they have continued to be.

Style

I seem to have lost my eyelashes. Noticed it as I recovered from the flu. They were never lush, but they existed. I can feel the short, faint brush of them, but they are invisible.


The design of this site is due to Moira. Far from wanting to update it, I would like some of the new gadgets without changing the look at all. I think she did a superb job, the font clear, the slightly grey'd black color of the text, against a slight cream background, easy on the eye. The chocolate brown for high lighted text. Nothing flashes, nothing distracts or sparkles. No busy ground that stays still while the body moves, no squee hopping bunnies or flittering snow. A home, not a posh hotel. I want to communicate, not dazzle.

Many sites with all those bells and whistles keep me away. Bright white text on all black backgrounds are the most common. Perhaps they have intelligent, insightful writing, but I am as barred from finding out as I am from eating at a restaurant with ceiling fans or fluorescents making the light flicker. My eyes ache, my stomach turns, then the migraine threatens. When someone I've read for years changes to something that keeps me away, I feel I must let them know why. Not to have them change it, but so they know why I cannot return. Would not want them to think it was anything they wrote, since I couldn't even read it.

I could follow along on the RSS feed, more or less. I've tried doing exactly that, but I still feel like I'm looking in through a window, not allowed in to join the conversation. Irrational, yes.

Here in the Blogosphere, I am remarkably normal. This is the only place I really fit. I don't mind at all that I'm not welcome in all corners. On one blog I once enjoyed reading, I never got any kind of reply to my comments, and I was often the only comment, or one of two or three. She replied to all the others. After a while, I assumed I had no place there, and deleted the link. Her space, fair enough.

Up at 0300, awake, mind racing, obsessing about the rude awakenings in my life. When I got caught for not doing my 3rd grade math homework, because I'd never learned my times tables, and learned hard that problems had to be faced and solved, not ignored. In my last year of the theater degree, after the supposedly pro forma audition for -- something, and the whole class was accepted, except for me and one other girl. Slapped down, I knew I needed a different path. This past year, when wild accusations were made against me, and although I was not the problem, I was the only one with the solution. Jarring lessons, the need to wake up, not complain or excuse, dream or wish, nor even hope. I once heard the story of Pandora's box explained, the ending is not a happy one. Hope staying is the way it works as an evil. The other evils spread, hope works it's poison by stringing us along instead of taking our lumps and becoming aware.

Bitter truth, sharp, piercing, acidic to scrape away the delusions and accretions and cancerous self comforting lies and evasions. Good strong beer, black tea, Turkish coffee, hot chili to counteract the cloying sweetness. February in it's season, to be loved for itself.

Chinese

Precision spiritual technology. A phrase heard on Discovery Channel, on a show about ancient Egyptian discoveries, concerning the obelisks.

We made it to the Chinese New Year event at the library yesterday. MUCH better than I expected. A Chinese Folk Music Orchestra could easily be tiresome, but they kept the pieces short enough, and the sound amazing, so that we were entranced. Folk music is often like Sacred Harp singing, folk dancing and other amateur endeavors, a lot of fun to DO, not at all to watch or listen to. Not so much in this case. Likewise the pair of 9 or ten year old girls with violins, we braced ourselves, but no cringe came, as they were accomplished musicians.

The best moment was during the tai chi demonstration, which was dull, but the previous little girl dance troupe, in shiny pink skirts, floaty sleeves, pink headdresses with plumes, bunched up at the door near the stage, and began leaking out in a crouched caterpillar of little girls. "They can't see us, because we are hunkered down!" Amused us to no end, as they sneakily snuck out to rejoin their families. The older girls, in blue, stayed backstage, save for their performance, that made me wonder about any historical sloshing back and forth between classical French ballet, and Chinese dance forms.

Loved the dragons at the beginning, though. Of the two, one had a real "butt actor" in the form of much excited tail wagging. The young children menaced by the jaw waggling, ear wiggling, eye batting dragons, laughed. And I wondered if their intentionally scary demeanor wasn't better than the clowns who try to be "happy" aren't more creepy? No crying babies, only a wonderment and desire to pet the fluffy faces.

One of the "sponsors" gave a speech, in what we finally decided was probably English. Not his native tongue, certainly.

I sort of hoped to see an old friend, who is half Chinese. Maybe next year.

All in all, we will be there next year.

Linguini

The Expectant Look, that says, "Well, you know what I want."

"No, what do you want?"

"Do I have to explain everything?"

I opened the door, and after much paw shaking he went out on the balcony for a minute, then came back in.

"No, that wasn't it."


I drifted out of a dream into a memory of a high school trip to Toronto. For reasons never completely clear to me, the planned excursion to a play fell through, to my great disappointment.

Instead we were taken to a relatively upscale restaurant. Upscale to a bunch of poor to moderate income Catholic kids. An unplanned expense, and a large group. Probably half or more of the score of us had never been in such a place, and did not know the custom. I struggled with the menu, and the waitstaff were not interested in us enough to be helpful. Not surprisingly, my linguini with clam sauce (aside from the clam bit, I had no idea what I was going to get, and the lack of obvious clam confused me) arrived late, and cold. I ate it because I was hungry, I was paying for it (calculating the cost exactly from the menu price, the cheapest item) and couldn't imagine what else I could do, like walk out.

Peer pressure in it's purest form, groupthink among the inexperienced. We had no concept of restaurant tax, automatic tips for large parties, the indifference (or antipathy) of waiters to students en mass, ordering. Complaining about bad, cold food in that confusion would have been less than useless.

The obvious followed. The bill added up much higher than planned, none of us had sufficient extra cash, and the chaperones wound up paying the tax and tip, and threatening to get the money out of us all later. (Which never actually happened.) I remember thinking at the time, 'this was your idea, your kind of treat, and I actually want my money back you idiots.'

The next evening, a bunch of us wandered off by ourselves and got a very nice, cheap, meal at a hole-in-the-wall Italian place, downtown on Yonge* Street (hey, we were from Detroit, seemed perfectly lovely to us.)

(Warming up after.)




*Known at the time as a rough area, not too far off from say, The Mission in San Francisco. Not bad exactly, but not a place for a bunch of teens to go wandering. Unless they happen to be from a worse neighborhood.

Happened

What happened in my birth year? Many really interesting things, some kitsch, a lot of assholes born. At one point, the question of the technology of today blowing my mind. I would have loved, loved the internet when I was a kid. Wikipedia, google, blogs, everything, I would have been such an internet addict, utterly adoring and entranced. I would have found the music I liked, instead of the crap forced on me. I would have explored the arts, and read everything I could find, and found a lot of porn. (I wasn't a saint then, am not now.)

Going to look up a few items, but aside from Sundays and Cybele. I have read the books, and seen the movies mentioned. I never heard the TV from upstairs, because I grew up in a WWI tract house, and there wasn't a television upstairs, only the one downstairs, and the old Muntz in the basement that went bright and quiet as it warmed up. I once sat in front of it with the flu, and fell asleep under the influence of cough syrup with codeine.

The world changes every minute, for good and ill and otherwise.

Penny

No even close to one-a-penny, two-a-penny, but the lovely aroma of hot cross buns. A good mile walk for me to the bakery and back, and got the car from an adjacent street. The parking for the building was full when we got home from Munchkin Night. I needed to make sure and move it this morning, or I'd've been very confused tomorrow morning when I left for work. It's been a lovely impromptu vacation, the civil holiday on Monday, the call off for low census Tuesday, and my scheduled day off today. Seems like I've been successfully staving off a mild cold, thanks to the rest and time.

Despite my disinterest in old rituals and abandoned religions, I will mark this season of Lent. To walk and practice. Though not to rub ashes on my brow, though I am aware of my own mortality, and grateful for it. I didn't go the extra block to the cathedral for the ritual. No need, it is part of me.

Shiny

I once watched everything Disney with the rapt admiration of a child for the shiniest object in view. I loved the smoothness of the animation, the emotions of little Dumbo cradled by his imprisoned mother, the creation of a more colorful world. But as I got older, I began to sense the deep misogyny, and the obvious racism, as well as the aggressive marketing. Stories of Disneyland and -world taking visitors, turning them over and shaking until all their money fell out were common long before EuroDisney's issues with poor treatment of their employees. (Not to mention abuse of artists right from the beginning of the Disney Studios.) Accidents hushed up, local takeover of law enforcement, surface gloss to cover cracking infrastructure.

These days, I resent the Disney takeover of classic children's books, turning them into sly and suggestive, and overblown, PG rated films. Selling crack to kids. Pushing the Princess ideal to little girls, when real princesses were political pawns, whored out to whatever noble could pay in influence. That it is now seen as a fairy tale in pink sickens me. That girls see this as what they should be, instead of pursuing intellectual, or even spiritual study, undermines our humanity.

Disney is a huge, multinational corporation out to get our money, and every child in the world's money. That some folks react to any criticism of it as though I were kicking a puppy, is just ridiculous. It's not harmless. We live by our stories, and when we give over our stories to the most mercenary, and effectively larcenous, company, is poisonous.

At least one reader, long ago, took umbrage at my calling the megacorp of Disney evil. She left in a huff. Didn't bother me.

I once much preferred the Disney Winnie the Pooh, baffled by the appeal of the E. H. Shepard drawings. I got a little older, and knew better. I came to appreciate not having all the lines colored in to perfection, allowing the space for my own interpretation and participation.

Romantic

This struck both of us as very funny. Antidote to romantic hogwash.

“If I Didn’t Have You (I’d Have Somebody Else)”




On the other hand, after nearly twenty years, we're pretty irreplaceable to each other.

Purty

*
Pretty is a trait I have always distrusted.

Not hated out of hand, but pretty better have a back-up, or it gains no ground with me. Several of the nurses at work betrayed to me how influenced they were by the pretty-boy scrub who left, using his sick time fraudulently. Even now that his obvious user traits are clear, they sigh over him, and think he was a good scrub 'anyway.' He wasn't, although he talked a good line, but dumped his work on others. Always the charm and smile and oil, but he struck me as shallow, vain, and a hypocrite. One of the anesthesiologists who floated through a few months ago was certain that pretty-boy was on steroids, as he himself had once used them and stopped. PB claims he never used drugs, but I know who I believe. I never bought it, felt none of the attraction, because it never seemed to go beyond his strut. I reacted to him the way I feel about gay men, an instinctive "meh" that meant they had no power over me. Fine if you are, so I'll leave you be. In this case, closeted, which screams a huge hole in his integrity, an absolute repulsion.

My dearest friend from Detroit was, and is, a gorgeous woman. She also has brains and a strong sense of self and humor. Initially intimidated by her looks, that vanished as I got to know who she really was. My beloved Moira is also a classically beautiful, tall, cool, blonde, who also has a wicked sense of humor and boundless capacity for insight and compassion. I dated one very good looking man, who treated me very decently under difficult circumstances. I will always remember him with fondness, although we had no chance to stay together. He was a good guy, though.

Pretty isn't a bad trait, unless it's all there on its own, trying to cover a deficient personality. But beauty is when it goes all the way to the basement, whole and sound.

D is not a typically attractive male, good thing or he wouldn't have been available when we met. He's always attracted me. I'm no one's idea of pretty. But I've been attractive to enough guys that I don't much care. We saw the thorough beauty in each other, the sparkling wit and thoughtful desire. We grow lovely together.

We hate the whole artificiality of Valentine's Day, preferring to simply love each other all days. So we ignore the flowers and balloons, cards and chocolate boxes. (Chocolate on every other day is fine, of course.)

I do miss the reasonably priced flowers available every day at Trader Joe's. Sometimes, we miss Boston so much, wanting to walk through the North End, or Faneuil Hall, take the ferry over to the USS Constitution, or along the Esplanade, or just to Downtown Crossing to be hectored by the Spare Change Guy and poke around Filene's Basement, and take the T back home. Not the work, not the whole situation, not the expensive tiny apartments, but the places to walk. We've always loved walking together. From when we walked around Colorado Springs, and Eskan Village, talking together.


*The sidewalk outside the Boston Latin School.

Sneetch

One OR used a Star on the assignment sheet to indicate a resource, or break staff not given a room to run. I riffed on it, and called myself a Star Bellied Sneetch, after the Seuss story. It never caught on, sadly. Floater always conveyed the meaning pretty well, as we float from room to room, homeless and harried. For some reason, in the current OR, the term is Co-ho. As in the core whore, the core being the central area around which the operating rooms open onto, where the instruments and supplies live. In this place, where we have a few people to care for instruments, help turn over rooms, run general errands, the scrub tech and nurse who give lunches and breaks have a real role getting supplies and keeping the whole show running. Running being the operative word.

Perhaps because I take the role seriously, knowing how valuable it is to have an extra pair of hands available, especially ones licensed to get meds and check patient records, I am given this assignment regularly. It's exhausting, done right. Ran my ass off today, for the second time as Sneetch this week. I make sure everyone gets a break, morning and afternoon, and lunches on time and as long as is possible. I organize rooms when I'm in there, trying to keep to the circulator's preferences, and never mind picking up mid-case. Learned this in Boston's Big Hospital, when this was the expectation. Good practice.

Next week we are not busy. The legal holiday on Monday, three cases for Tuesday, normal day off Wednesday, called off for Tuesday, and I'm looking a five days off in a row. Time to start some of the good habits I've been too tired to work on.

1. Ukulele, since I can't find a teacher, going to make D get me started with basics, as they overlap from guitar.
2. Clean the place to the edges.
3. Walk, sidewalk or gym, but walk. With recorded books on ipod in my ear if that seems to help.

Advantages

Would you give this woman beer?

I've found the killer ap. The big advantage of letting my hair go grey.

Went through the self-check-out at the grocery store. Usually, if I have beer, I avoid this because the one cashier for the 4 to 8 stations has to be alerted to any anomalies like checking ID, which can be a considerable wait if they are dealing with glitches elsewhere. But I gave it a shot today, my hair all aflutter. All I got was a cursory glance, and the cashier hit the button to ok the age check.

I do like the automated check out. I don't have to summon the energy to exchange any kind of pleasantry with an overworked checker. I don't have to stop a bagger putting heavy cans on top of the eggs. I don't get the dirty looks reserved for the annoyance of bringing my own, floppy, bags. Especially with D and I together, we are fast and efficient, and I know how to mute the apprehensive recorded instructions that prompt far too quickly, and in far too contemptuous a tone.

Some days, I'm just not up to human interaction in the midst of a large grocery store. And it's terrible karma to be less than polite to anyone in a public service job. Snarling at a computer is completely neutral.

So, life is good. And not ever being twenty again is the best of all.

Moods

He's in a Mood. Me too.

He got stuffed in a bag for a while yesterday, while the alarms went off. Work on the building lead to carbon monoxide accidentally getting into the ventilation, followed by quite intentional evacuation of residents by the fire department. D got home as this occurred, and got Moby out before they stopped him entering. Moby's been very head-rubby and hyperalert and wanting to be petted-but not picked up, chasy, but not interested in chasing any toys, today. He'd been edgy several days before, so it can't be only the excitement yesterday.

I was at work throughout. Two long days leaving me in rather a mood. Foggy and fallen into desuetude.

Spits

Moby's been an edgy cat. Very vocal a few nights ago. Mrrked at both of us when we were each up last night. More vocalization when we came home from shopping today, even after he got his wheatgrass, more later at the door to the hall. Lots of chasing, much affection, out on the balcony, in, out, up on the counter (unusual, he knows we hiss at him when he does that, and normally doesn't.) He's stretched on the bed, asleep but for the tip of his tail, that twitches and sways.

Mild day, vague spits of moisture, not enough to call rain.

Much needs to be done, and it continues to need to be done. Not eager to cease idleness. We got groceries, which is pretty good for us. We cannot shop for food on full stomachs, we wind up buying cookies and mustard, and not much else. So we shopped first and ate after. Still didn't get anything to make easily into lunch, which is one of our issues. D is a supertaster, and we have always had a fundamental difference in what we consider good eatin'. Add to that a mutual disinterest in food, especially in the preparation and clean up aspects, and it's amazing we ever share a meal at home. (We do, often, but it's always quite a chore.) We like a good meal, but prefer it with absolute minimum of effort. And we eat too fast. WAY too fast, comes of doing the army thing, having brothers, never having time to eat. We just don't savor.


My Aunt Alma claimed some people eat to live, others live to eat. She was one of the latter. We are both of the former. Not really going to change.

Easy

Funny, yesterday, never considered coming home early, despite discomfort throughout. A long day, all the rooms ran late, mine won for "latest." I had offers of relief, but really, simple discomfort is not enough reason to beg off, and that's all it was by then. Even when the back pain/herniated discs were at their worst (four years ago), until it brought me up short by clamping down on a bit of my spinal column and affected my gait, I kept going.

New scrub tech, first week, military guy (stereotypically so), sent home because he tried to tough it out while passing a kidney stone. They sent him to pre-op, gave him a liter of fluid through IV, probably a Rx for pain meds, and sent him home. We all discussed him, as we do, and nurse Sher, who has two children, mentioned she'd had a kidney stone. So I asked, "Would you have another baby, or a kidney stone?"

"Oh, baby, anytime, baby was EASY."

Says it all really.

Without

Migrainous and cold starting late yesterday, when I am these days so rarely cold. Usually too warm, wake up baked and throwing off the blankets. Yesterday, shivering, unable to warm up at all. Eyes swollen, ears ringing, drugs dulling my brain, guts swirling, I called in sick for today - last night before going to bed. For the second time, migraine and hormones together, last month on a weekend at least.

They didn't get the message, and called me to make sure I was alright. I couldn't get up when the phone rang, drifted back into odd dreams. Dragged myself up to find out who'd called, listen to the message, call back, explain, apologize. Although I had left a message, it just didn't take on that end.

Moby curled on D's robe on the couch, staring at me as I staggered in. Still there, completely crashed out cat.


Better now, or I would not be writing, put it that way. Hunkering, but not in distress because I'm not going to try to do anything. The world can go on without me today. Tomorrow I'll be back on.

Band

Went to hear a band last night. After a long day, I took a nap first. Didn't help much. Just a block away, a quick walk. Started at 9, rather the doors opened at 9, there was an unexpected, and unannounced opening band that began playing at 10. They weren't bad, their sound system was, all muddy and blaring. It's not that I need to "hear the words" as such, but I do like to hear the singer, and the keyboard, not just the drum and bass. By 1030, I was pretty much ready for bed. This is sad, but more related to my work/sleep routine for over a decade than just to my age.

Strange thing, though. Watching the crowd, a strange mix of people in this dive of a lounge, and I did not feel old or frumpy as I used to when I was closer to the median age. The young women seemed to be trying too hard, gawky and self conscious. I sat in my fitting and unremarkable clothes, uncut grey hair, and felt beautiful as I never really have before. Nothing so artificial as pretty, a rock in the stream and content to be so. Still very proud to accompany such a lovely guy as D. Even spotted a local celebrity.

The annoyance of a seedy venue, bad acoustics, obnoxiously drunk crowd, and my body insisting it was well past my bedtime at 11, nearly got us both to walk out. But we decided to at least stay for the band we'd paid to hear, and very glad we did. They were fun, smart, stylish interesting, very professional. On balance, they made the evening worthwhile, so good they cancelled out the irritation, if not by a huge margin. We stayed about an hour, and were in bed shortly after midnight, ears numb and clothes smelling funny. (Not cigarette smoke, much, because that's not allowed inside here, thankfully.)

We will not go back there for any band that would play at a place like that, though. D says, maybe if Pete Townshend* decided to do a solo tour of crappy bars... but that seems unlikely.

Happy Belated Groundhog Day.





*The guitar player D most admires, and wishes he could play like.

On

The Shade, off, then on.





The old little paper lamp in the bedroom. Got a new rocker switch for it, and it goes on and on.

Lamp

We looked at lamps today, with the usual result. "No way I'm paying that much." So, we didn't. Hadn't really planned to, but I have a certain fondness for lamps, they are shiny.

This lamp I found left in the trash room of the first place we lived in Boston. A common feature, people in apartments would leave items they didn't want in the trash rooms of the buildings, and others often took them. An informal version of "free" classifieds, casual recycling. We got some good stuff that way. Then, there was this lamp. I thought it the most hideous thing, baroque and blue and gold paint, ridiculous. But we needed a lamp, badly. So I snatched it, we replaced the socket, and as soon as I turned it on in at dim room, it turned rather lovely. When functioning, it's a pretty thing, with an air of gentile old money.




This one was very cheap, and the light shade didn't shade at all, making it impossible to look at. About as soft as a bare, clear bulb. Eventually, I got a sheet of very fancy paper, and fixed it.