I don't intend to make a habit of issuing broad proclamations about what Should and Should Not Be Done in Public Radio, but my extravagant daily work commutes have begun anew and the local NPR affiliate is probably the only thing keeping me from falling asleep and plowing into a ditch every day.
So I'm grateful, but...
The morning announcer for my public radio station sounds like he wants to kill himself. He sighs with crushing world-weariness in the middle of sentences, as though he's honestly considering throwing in the towel before the end of the period. He also leaves long, ominous stretches of dead air between his station ID's and the start of the NPR feed.
I wonder what he's doing in those blank moments. Staring at the insulated walls that bind him? I wonder this as I stare at miles of flooded corn crops, waiting for the monster 18-wheeler hauling farm equipment wider than the lane to bear down on me and pass me. Being and nothingness in rural Texas, all the intersections of life and death and the pititful in-betweens coming up fast behind you. No way to start a day.
And then there's the melodious afternoon woman, who would have the perfect neutral radio persona were it not for her annoying habit of bringing the flow of information to a screeching halt in order to pronounce foreign words and names with native authenticity. In a region of the country where language is pretty much half and half anyway, this makes for a tortured, Intro to Spanish-like delivery. Plus there's something a little too overeager about it, like someone from up north ordering their first "en-chi-lada and marrrrr-garrrrr-ita."
This is also the woman who does all of the classical programming, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays I get to hear her sprain her tongue on nearly all of the world's old school languages as she introduces German aurias performed by Czechoslavakian singers accompanied by Latvian orchestras performing in Israel. These are the people who make familiar names foreign again-- she adds a giant loogie to Bach and makes Debussy sound almost pornographic.
But these are minor quibbles. Some time I'll have to tell you about public radio in Mississippi.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Motorcycles and Divorce
I've been in kind of a writing slump lately. Days, weeks have gone by without something leaping up and stinging me, saying, "This! Something must be said about this!"
It's not like nothing's been going on. The dobermans disappeared suddenly one day like Latin American dissidents. My parents visited, igniting a streak of deliciously forbidden restaurant meals. My husband and I did a loop of Central Texas for Memorial Day and ate hamburgers the size of softballs in our favorite Austin bar, whose decor is based on the lower pits of hell.
But I've felt no urge to leave a word trail. In fact it's almost like I've been taking a certain pleasure in letting things go by, in wandering off the path for a while. Like all vacations, though, this one has its price.
I dream every night and I always remember my dreams. I've heard people say, "Oh, I wish I could remember my dreams, but as soon as I wake up they're gone." I want to kick these people in the shins and pinch them hard on the back of the upper arm where it really hurts. My dream life is exhausting and demanding, and it becomes infinitely more so a week before my period, during times of incredible stress, and when I've stopped writing. So, fairly often.
When I'm telling stories, I frequently have to stop and ask myself, "Did this really happen, or did I dream this?", and all too often I've already started the story and end up having to ask this question out loud, which just kills my credibility. I've held days-long grudges against my husband for things he did in dreams (most recently he passionately kissed a hippie girl all over her face after she told him he had a nice aura). I've called up acquaintances to check up on them after watching them be devoured by crocodiles in my head only hours earlier.
My dreams are also enormously self-referential, and thus almost completely useless in waking life-- like pretentious grad students, they adore alluding to other obscure dreams I've had, and the whole point to them seems to be to obscure the point. This is understandably frustrating when you remember each in detail, like having to watch French art films every night with the final the next day.
Last night was one of the nights when the bill for not writing came due. I dreamed all night and woke up tangled in sweaty sheets and thick images. I won't lay out the whole 8-hour plot, but the main themes were motorcycles and my parents divorcing, two things which terrify me beyond reason, and about which I feel compelled to say a few words.
First, motorcycles. These emerged as a dream theme only after I'd taken my first ride on the back of a Kawasaki Ninja a couple of years after I graduated college. It was my friend Larry's bike, and we wore helmets and he never went above 50, but the whole time I dug my nails into his sides and screamed inside my head. Originally I'd been excited to try it out, but after an hour of watching the pavement streak by mere feet below my face and picturing myself wrapped around the chassis of ever passing truck, I'd had enough. A dream metaphor had been born. I end up on motorcycles on dark highways in the rain, with no idea how to work the brakes, and no helmet, at times in my life when I feel like things are going too fast. Every time we move I get motorcycle dreams, and I wake up feeling like I've spent the night in a wind tunnel clinging to the walls.
The second theme is harder. All throughout childhood I grew up with the specter of divorce. It happened all around me, and some ways it felt like what I imagine the early days of polio were like-- no one knew how it happened, but when it did, things were never the same. Plus, most of my friends solemnly agreed that I was way more at risk, since my dad had an unusual job that required him to be away from home a lot. The ones it had happened to had lots of advice-- get separate toys for each house and play dumb on the old rules, incite a bidding war for your affections. My parents' "inevitable" divorce was an old, persistent fear, right up there with dinosaur attacks and the nuclear endgame. I had back-up plans for all three.
These two themes dovetailed nicely last night in an episode where I had stolen a motorcycle to sneak out of my parents' house and go to some huge concert, planning to be back in the morning. But I chickened out of the late-night, helmet-less highway drive and instead went to friend's house to sleep on the couch and await the inevitable explosion when my parents realized I had snuck out. Here's the twist, though-- my dad is already sleeping on my friend's couch, and casually tells me I would have been in big trouble were it not for the divorce proceedings occupying him and my mom right now. And then he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep! My dream response is to sit down in the meadow I suddenly find myself in and scream myself hoarse. Each scream is different from the one before it, one for anger, one for betrayal, one for sadness, one for complete and all-encompassing fatigue.
(I can picture my dad reading this and being deeply troubled, and doing that thing where he pinches his chin and juts out his lower lip. Clarifying here: fears are fears, and these have taken on metaphorical, totemic weight for me, meaning they no longer mean what they mean. Motorcycles don't mean motorcycles and divorce doesn't mean divorce. Both just mean fear. Now who sounds like a pretentious grad student?)
Anyway, this is often the cost of being lazy for me-- someone turns up the volume and color saturation on my dreams, and I have to find a way to balance things out again, to make my waking life heavier and more invested.
Mornin'.
It's not like nothing's been going on. The dobermans disappeared suddenly one day like Latin American dissidents. My parents visited, igniting a streak of deliciously forbidden restaurant meals. My husband and I did a loop of Central Texas for Memorial Day and ate hamburgers the size of softballs in our favorite Austin bar, whose decor is based on the lower pits of hell.
But I've felt no urge to leave a word trail. In fact it's almost like I've been taking a certain pleasure in letting things go by, in wandering off the path for a while. Like all vacations, though, this one has its price.
I dream every night and I always remember my dreams. I've heard people say, "Oh, I wish I could remember my dreams, but as soon as I wake up they're gone." I want to kick these people in the shins and pinch them hard on the back of the upper arm where it really hurts. My dream life is exhausting and demanding, and it becomes infinitely more so a week before my period, during times of incredible stress, and when I've stopped writing. So, fairly often.
When I'm telling stories, I frequently have to stop and ask myself, "Did this really happen, or did I dream this?", and all too often I've already started the story and end up having to ask this question out loud, which just kills my credibility. I've held days-long grudges against my husband for things he did in dreams (most recently he passionately kissed a hippie girl all over her face after she told him he had a nice aura). I've called up acquaintances to check up on them after watching them be devoured by crocodiles in my head only hours earlier.
My dreams are also enormously self-referential, and thus almost completely useless in waking life-- like pretentious grad students, they adore alluding to other obscure dreams I've had, and the whole point to them seems to be to obscure the point. This is understandably frustrating when you remember each in detail, like having to watch French art films every night with the final the next day.
Last night was one of the nights when the bill for not writing came due. I dreamed all night and woke up tangled in sweaty sheets and thick images. I won't lay out the whole 8-hour plot, but the main themes were motorcycles and my parents divorcing, two things which terrify me beyond reason, and about which I feel compelled to say a few words.
First, motorcycles. These emerged as a dream theme only after I'd taken my first ride on the back of a Kawasaki Ninja a couple of years after I graduated college. It was my friend Larry's bike, and we wore helmets and he never went above 50, but the whole time I dug my nails into his sides and screamed inside my head. Originally I'd been excited to try it out, but after an hour of watching the pavement streak by mere feet below my face and picturing myself wrapped around the chassis of ever passing truck, I'd had enough. A dream metaphor had been born. I end up on motorcycles on dark highways in the rain, with no idea how to work the brakes, and no helmet, at times in my life when I feel like things are going too fast. Every time we move I get motorcycle dreams, and I wake up feeling like I've spent the night in a wind tunnel clinging to the walls.
The second theme is harder. All throughout childhood I grew up with the specter of divorce. It happened all around me, and some ways it felt like what I imagine the early days of polio were like-- no one knew how it happened, but when it did, things were never the same. Plus, most of my friends solemnly agreed that I was way more at risk, since my dad had an unusual job that required him to be away from home a lot. The ones it had happened to had lots of advice-- get separate toys for each house and play dumb on the old rules, incite a bidding war for your affections. My parents' "inevitable" divorce was an old, persistent fear, right up there with dinosaur attacks and the nuclear endgame. I had back-up plans for all three.
These two themes dovetailed nicely last night in an episode where I had stolen a motorcycle to sneak out of my parents' house and go to some huge concert, planning to be back in the morning. But I chickened out of the late-night, helmet-less highway drive and instead went to friend's house to sleep on the couch and await the inevitable explosion when my parents realized I had snuck out. Here's the twist, though-- my dad is already sleeping on my friend's couch, and casually tells me I would have been in big trouble were it not for the divorce proceedings occupying him and my mom right now. And then he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep! My dream response is to sit down in the meadow I suddenly find myself in and scream myself hoarse. Each scream is different from the one before it, one for anger, one for betrayal, one for sadness, one for complete and all-encompassing fatigue.
(I can picture my dad reading this and being deeply troubled, and doing that thing where he pinches his chin and juts out his lower lip. Clarifying here: fears are fears, and these have taken on metaphorical, totemic weight for me, meaning they no longer mean what they mean. Motorcycles don't mean motorcycles and divorce doesn't mean divorce. Both just mean fear. Now who sounds like a pretentious grad student?)
Anyway, this is often the cost of being lazy for me-- someone turns up the volume and color saturation on my dreams, and I have to find a way to balance things out again, to make my waking life heavier and more invested.
Mornin'.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
In Bloom
Bored half to death on a breathlessly hot day in the tiny town, I've decided to explore the close-up functions of our kickass digital camera. Lucky for you, I'm feeling more Georgia O'Keefe in my sensibilities today and less Diane Arbus, though someday when I get up my nerve I've promised myself I'm going to photograph the proprietress of a local junk store, a large, bubbly bottle blonde who lies way up about her age (like Coco Chanel), and dresses up for the air shows with her horse as "Porker: Texas Ranger."
Today though, I've stayed close to home, stalking the wildlife of our backyard. Incredibly, our efforts at plant resuscitation have paid off, and not even the howling serenade of the miserable dobermans who linger on in their tiny shit patch of a yard, thoroughly abandoned by the exiled son of our neighbor, has discouraged the birds, butterflies, and homeless kittens from settling in our yard. It's a veritable toilet paper commercial out here.
This lovely guy is a Great Kiskadee from Northern Mexico, and the first time my husband and I saw one, we were in the car and nearly rammed someone's parked motorhome chasing brilliant flashes of yellow down the street. The not very flattering description in my nerd guide calls him a "big-headed flycatcher, sometimes feeding on small fish." Further killing the romance of his presence, I can only assume he loves it here because of the clouds of flies attracted to the nearby stockpile of doberman poop.
We're also blessed with random flowering vine-things that do their valiant best to class up the chain link fence. There are even some growing on the tractor and the 1950's dump truck parked in one corner of the backyard, but when we moved in, I promised a friend that the first picture of the broken down vehicles in our yard would have me on top of them, drunk and covered in Christmas lights. (I'm working on it, Lily.)
Possibly the coolest thing, though, is this wacky tree that grows right outside the kitchen window called a bottle brush tree. About two weeks ago, it let loose with a profusion of bizarre fuzzy red blossoms that smelled oddly like cake batter. The only way I know how to describe the blossoms is to compare them to severed muppet fingers, like if Elmo was tortured by violent extremists-- and the hummingbirds go nuts for it.
One night last week, my husband and I stood in awe on top of the picnic table on the back patio while at least two dozen hummingbirds zipped around in the canopy of this tree chirping at each other. We tried to get a few pictures, but it's understandable difficult capturing nature's tiniest crackheads on film. Nevertheless, we were able to pick out at least four different species, and again the nerd guide came in handy-- we've spotted the Buff-bellied, the Black-chinned, the Ruby-throated, and the impossibly tiny Anna's Hummingbird. Another priceless unflattering description pegs these speicies as "casual vagrants."
Unfortunately, a freak hail storm blew through last week and ripped off all the bottle brush blossoms and plastered them all over our house. (It also dinged up one of our cars and stranded Abby and I on the other side of town, where we had been enjoying a nice blazing hot afternoon stroll. Yet another interesting fact about the tiny town is that storm sewers apparently seemed like an extravagant extra, hence flood time in a strong storm is a short three minutes. The streets are just heavily cambered to channel water into the intersections, so at the end of every block, Abby happily waded and I angrily sloshed calf-deep in nastiness.)
Since the storm, we've tried to make it up to the hummingbirds by putting up feeders, and they seem amenable to the arrangement, except when we try again to get pictures. Their faces are tinier than the surface area of a dime, but I swear I can see an almost sarcastic look of shock when I try to slowly bring up the camera to capture a blurred shot of their retreat.
Today though, I've stayed close to home, stalking the wildlife of our backyard. Incredibly, our efforts at plant resuscitation have paid off, and not even the howling serenade of the miserable dobermans who linger on in their tiny shit patch of a yard, thoroughly abandoned by the exiled son of our neighbor, has discouraged the birds, butterflies, and homeless kittens from settling in our yard. It's a veritable toilet paper commercial out here.
This lovely guy is a Great Kiskadee from Northern Mexico, and the first time my husband and I saw one, we were in the car and nearly rammed someone's parked motorhome chasing brilliant flashes of yellow down the street. The not very flattering description in my nerd guide calls him a "big-headed flycatcher, sometimes feeding on small fish." Further killing the romance of his presence, I can only assume he loves it here because of the clouds of flies attracted to the nearby stockpile of doberman poop.
We're also blessed with random flowering vine-things that do their valiant best to class up the chain link fence. There are even some growing on the tractor and the 1950's dump truck parked in one corner of the backyard, but when we moved in, I promised a friend that the first picture of the broken down vehicles in our yard would have me on top of them, drunk and covered in Christmas lights. (I'm working on it, Lily.)
Possibly the coolest thing, though, is this wacky tree that grows right outside the kitchen window called a bottle brush tree. About two weeks ago, it let loose with a profusion of bizarre fuzzy red blossoms that smelled oddly like cake batter. The only way I know how to describe the blossoms is to compare them to severed muppet fingers, like if Elmo was tortured by violent extremists-- and the hummingbirds go nuts for it.
One night last week, my husband and I stood in awe on top of the picnic table on the back patio while at least two dozen hummingbirds zipped around in the canopy of this tree chirping at each other. We tried to get a few pictures, but it's understandable difficult capturing nature's tiniest crackheads on film. Nevertheless, we were able to pick out at least four different species, and again the nerd guide came in handy-- we've spotted the Buff-bellied, the Black-chinned, the Ruby-throated, and the impossibly tiny Anna's Hummingbird. Another priceless unflattering description pegs these speicies as "casual vagrants."
Unfortunately, a freak hail storm blew through last week and ripped off all the bottle brush blossoms and plastered them all over our house. (It also dinged up one of our cars and stranded Abby and I on the other side of town, where we had been enjoying a nice blazing hot afternoon stroll. Yet another interesting fact about the tiny town is that storm sewers apparently seemed like an extravagant extra, hence flood time in a strong storm is a short three minutes. The streets are just heavily cambered to channel water into the intersections, so at the end of every block, Abby happily waded and I angrily sloshed calf-deep in nastiness.)
Since the storm, we've tried to make it up to the hummingbirds by putting up feeders, and they seem amenable to the arrangement, except when we try again to get pictures. Their faces are tinier than the surface area of a dime, but I swear I can see an almost sarcastic look of shock when I try to slowly bring up the camera to capture a blurred shot of their retreat.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Mother's Day
"All women become their mothers; that is their tragedy. Men do not, and that is theirs." --Oscar Wilde
Ways I am Becoming My Mother
1) I have exposed my ass in public. One of my mom's best stories, and one I still can't top, is a lively montage of the times she has accidentally exposed her rear end in highly public settings. I'm beginning to appreciate the humanizing quality of telling embarrassing stories about myself, both to put others at ease and to learn to laugh at myself.
2) I love NPR and will turn it up to deafening levels to feel like I'm participating in the conversation. My mom did this as she drove my brother and I to school when we were little, and the blast of the "All Things Considered" theme music is now both haunting and comforting. My mom taught me to use my down time in the car as a time to reconnect with what's going on in the world.
3) I love putting M&M's or Nestle's semi-sweet morsels under my tongue, one on each side, and letting them melt while I watch TV late at night. When I couldn't sleep and had growing pains in my shins, my mom let me stay up and watch "Dallas" with her and she taught me this trick. I learned then to appreciate small pleasures slowly, and to share them.
4) I make cookies when I'm sad. My mom taught me the recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I've got it memorized now because I remember making them with her since I was very little. There's extraordinary comfort in this ritual, and it makes me feel less lonely.
5) I cultivate a healthy appreciation for the absurd. Whether she just bored or actually trying to teach me something, I don't know, but my mom always created voices and characters for every situation. Whenever she read aloud to my brother and I, each character had a distinct identity, style, and accent when they spoke. She had random voices and songs for cooking, driving, gardening, and cleaning, and I never thought it was anything but normal until I did the same thing around my college roommates and they thought I was nuts. Luckily, my husband also has whatever gene this is, so I don't have to stop singing the garbage disposal song.
6) I dance in the grocery store. God help us all, this is something I promised myself I would never do, but it's undeniable. Madonna's "Holiday" came on in the HEB yesterday and I danced by myself down the entire bread aisle, not giving a shit that people were giving me looks, until I caught sight of the ghost of my 7-year-old self riding on the side rails of the shopping cart and glaring back at her mother, who was defiantly dancing while she compared bunches of broccoli.
Ways I am Still Trying to Become My Mother
1) I'm still trying to master the grandiose way she tosses her head back and says, "Fuck it. I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch a little TV." This statement was borne of the incredible pressures of balancing an insane workload and still trying to have a home life, something I've failed at spectacularly at several points in my life. The "Fuck it" statement is a defiant act of self preservation, and a ringing call of "Halt!" to the pressures and expectations and perceived judgments that multiply exponentially all around her when she's under stress. My husband and I like to imitate the "Fuck it" statement, and when we do it might sound like we're poking fun at my mom, but at the same time it's a reminder to us that we're able to call a timeout. We're still working on this one.
2) In all things I am still trying not to take myself too seriously.
3) I am still trying to remember to stand up straight. My mother can conjure elegance and power simply by drawing herself up to her full height. Her acting background taught her the importance of how she carries herself, even when she's not actually feeling confident, and over and over again she's caught me revealing my mental state in my posture.
4) I'm still learning how to love someone with a demanding job that requires big moves and long absences. My mom has single-handedly moved our household to and from foreign countries in Britain and the Middle East, and whenever I start to compose the operatic lament of my next military move, I think of my mom sitting in coach with two infants on a transatlantic flight. When I think of my husband leaving for a three-month training school, I think of my mom and dad running up an $800 phone bill while he was in Saudi Arabia for a year and she was in Texas. I think of all the times she forced us to write my dad letters to stay connected, and let us cry when we missed him, and leave school early to pick him up.
5) I'm still learning grit, and class, and gallows humor, and the kind of unfailing loyalty that makes someone drive five hours to bring me a bed.
Love you, Mom.
Ways I am Becoming My Mother
1) I have exposed my ass in public. One of my mom's best stories, and one I still can't top, is a lively montage of the times she has accidentally exposed her rear end in highly public settings. I'm beginning to appreciate the humanizing quality of telling embarrassing stories about myself, both to put others at ease and to learn to laugh at myself.
2) I love NPR and will turn it up to deafening levels to feel like I'm participating in the conversation. My mom did this as she drove my brother and I to school when we were little, and the blast of the "All Things Considered" theme music is now both haunting and comforting. My mom taught me to use my down time in the car as a time to reconnect with what's going on in the world.
3) I love putting M&M's or Nestle's semi-sweet morsels under my tongue, one on each side, and letting them melt while I watch TV late at night. When I couldn't sleep and had growing pains in my shins, my mom let me stay up and watch "Dallas" with her and she taught me this trick. I learned then to appreciate small pleasures slowly, and to share them.
4) I make cookies when I'm sad. My mom taught me the recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I've got it memorized now because I remember making them with her since I was very little. There's extraordinary comfort in this ritual, and it makes me feel less lonely.
5) I cultivate a healthy appreciation for the absurd. Whether she just bored or actually trying to teach me something, I don't know, but my mom always created voices and characters for every situation. Whenever she read aloud to my brother and I, each character had a distinct identity, style, and accent when they spoke. She had random voices and songs for cooking, driving, gardening, and cleaning, and I never thought it was anything but normal until I did the same thing around my college roommates and they thought I was nuts. Luckily, my husband also has whatever gene this is, so I don't have to stop singing the garbage disposal song.
6) I dance in the grocery store. God help us all, this is something I promised myself I would never do, but it's undeniable. Madonna's "Holiday" came on in the HEB yesterday and I danced by myself down the entire bread aisle, not giving a shit that people were giving me looks, until I caught sight of the ghost of my 7-year-old self riding on the side rails of the shopping cart and glaring back at her mother, who was defiantly dancing while she compared bunches of broccoli.
Ways I am Still Trying to Become My Mother
1) I'm still trying to master the grandiose way she tosses her head back and says, "Fuck it. I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch a little TV." This statement was borne of the incredible pressures of balancing an insane workload and still trying to have a home life, something I've failed at spectacularly at several points in my life. The "Fuck it" statement is a defiant act of self preservation, and a ringing call of "Halt!" to the pressures and expectations and perceived judgments that multiply exponentially all around her when she's under stress. My husband and I like to imitate the "Fuck it" statement, and when we do it might sound like we're poking fun at my mom, but at the same time it's a reminder to us that we're able to call a timeout. We're still working on this one.
2) In all things I am still trying not to take myself too seriously.
3) I am still trying to remember to stand up straight. My mother can conjure elegance and power simply by drawing herself up to her full height. Her acting background taught her the importance of how she carries herself, even when she's not actually feeling confident, and over and over again she's caught me revealing my mental state in my posture.
4) I'm still learning how to love someone with a demanding job that requires big moves and long absences. My mom has single-handedly moved our household to and from foreign countries in Britain and the Middle East, and whenever I start to compose the operatic lament of my next military move, I think of my mom sitting in coach with two infants on a transatlantic flight. When I think of my husband leaving for a three-month training school, I think of my mom and dad running up an $800 phone bill while he was in Saudi Arabia for a year and she was in Texas. I think of all the times she forced us to write my dad letters to stay connected, and let us cry when we missed him, and leave school early to pick him up.
5) I'm still learning grit, and class, and gallows humor, and the kind of unfailing loyalty that makes someone drive five hours to bring me a bed.
Love you, Mom.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Plugged in, tuned out
I haven't had cable in nearly six years, not counting a brief mistaken glance into the full spectrum provided a shady cable guy in the last town we lived in (it lasted one mind-numbing week and the very first image I saw was from HBO's "Cathouse," a reality show about a whorehouse, wherein a midget woman, a fat male trucker, and a beautiful sad black girl were listlessly re-enacting one of the kama sutra's more challenging poses. I didn't know whether to laugh or weep for all humanity).
But one of the conditions of moving to a town whose length and breadth are walkable in an evening stroll was that we take the plunge and sign up for that most American of rights: the right to veg out to other people's drama. And God, have I loved it.
One thing I've noticed though-- ours is a culture obsessed with pop psychology and calling in The Expert to preach the gospel of our inadequacies before a national audience for the trade-off of a quick fix answer to the problem. We can't get enough of it. "Honey, We're Killing the Kids," "Wife Swap," "Shalom in the Home," "What Not To Wear," "Ten Years Younger," "Celebrity Fitness Challenge," "The Bachelor," "Extreme Makeover"... people will submit to incredible amounts of embarassment and an epic invasion of privacy just for the glimmering promise that "after this week of intensive therapy/shopping/exercising/shameless copulating/plastic surgery" they will finally be stamped "Acceptable" and paraded before their families and friends as such.
Not that they're not good shows.
What's interesting is that we seem to have exhausted most of the fixable problems and now we've turned to our pets. I saw one yesterday morning called "Barking Mad," which was pretty much the UK version of "The Dog Whisperer," and it tracked the lives of Giles, a cat who pissed on electrical outlets, and Honey, a hamster who chewed everything and bit people. The hamster was my favorite. Honey was psychopathically depressed and afraid of humans, which was unfortunate since her owner had just gone through a divorce and was fond of tracking and hunting Honey for extensive cuddling.
As a solution, the show's host built Honey an elaborate, interactive hamster mansion where she could hide from her owner and chew on bells, leather, seeds, plastic, all kinds of shit. Honey was thrilled with this arrangement but her owner lamented, "It's great for her, but now there's no relationship," to which the host of the show rather roughly replied, "Honey doesn't need you. Her brain's just not wired that way."
This exchange echoed back to me a short two hours later when I found myself in a nearby town's mall fifteen minutes before most of the shops opened. I'd decided to go try on evening gowns for the upcoming, attendance-mandatory, military ball. The plan was to stroll around a bit while the shops opened, but it turned out that forty aerobically-attired seniors had the same idea, and they wanted to go FAST. Around and around and around they went, some grimly silent, some chatting happily, all swinging their arms and keeping to the exact contours of the labrynthine mall layout. Overhead Fleetwood Mac kept pace at an inoffensive volume. I sat down on a bench and tried to smile pleasantly as wave after wave passed me by. None of them even gave me a second glance, even the silent ones. "Honey doesn't need you. Her brain's just not wired that way."
I guess it's a nice way to get exercise. It's air-conditioned, there's music. There's lots of glittery stuff for sale and people to look at. But I think I finally get the British woman's comment now. Life goes so fast and so many things get hopelessly broken along the way. So much of what passes for entertainment these days is the frantic insistence on fixing these things-- FAST-- so you can hurry and get on with the rest of your life! It's no wonder we look for the smallest amount of comfort in something like an angry hamster, and truly grieve that comfort's loss.
But one of the conditions of moving to a town whose length and breadth are walkable in an evening stroll was that we take the plunge and sign up for that most American of rights: the right to veg out to other people's drama. And God, have I loved it.
One thing I've noticed though-- ours is a culture obsessed with pop psychology and calling in The Expert to preach the gospel of our inadequacies before a national audience for the trade-off of a quick fix answer to the problem. We can't get enough of it. "Honey, We're Killing the Kids," "Wife Swap," "Shalom in the Home," "What Not To Wear," "Ten Years Younger," "Celebrity Fitness Challenge," "The Bachelor," "Extreme Makeover"... people will submit to incredible amounts of embarassment and an epic invasion of privacy just for the glimmering promise that "after this week of intensive therapy/shopping/exercising/shameless copulating/plastic surgery" they will finally be stamped "Acceptable" and paraded before their families and friends as such.
Not that they're not good shows.
What's interesting is that we seem to have exhausted most of the fixable problems and now we've turned to our pets. I saw one yesterday morning called "Barking Mad," which was pretty much the UK version of "The Dog Whisperer," and it tracked the lives of Giles, a cat who pissed on electrical outlets, and Honey, a hamster who chewed everything and bit people. The hamster was my favorite. Honey was psychopathically depressed and afraid of humans, which was unfortunate since her owner had just gone through a divorce and was fond of tracking and hunting Honey for extensive cuddling.
As a solution, the show's host built Honey an elaborate, interactive hamster mansion where she could hide from her owner and chew on bells, leather, seeds, plastic, all kinds of shit. Honey was thrilled with this arrangement but her owner lamented, "It's great for her, but now there's no relationship," to which the host of the show rather roughly replied, "Honey doesn't need you. Her brain's just not wired that way."
This exchange echoed back to me a short two hours later when I found myself in a nearby town's mall fifteen minutes before most of the shops opened. I'd decided to go try on evening gowns for the upcoming, attendance-mandatory, military ball. The plan was to stroll around a bit while the shops opened, but it turned out that forty aerobically-attired seniors had the same idea, and they wanted to go FAST. Around and around and around they went, some grimly silent, some chatting happily, all swinging their arms and keeping to the exact contours of the labrynthine mall layout. Overhead Fleetwood Mac kept pace at an inoffensive volume. I sat down on a bench and tried to smile pleasantly as wave after wave passed me by. None of them even gave me a second glance, even the silent ones. "Honey doesn't need you. Her brain's just not wired that way."
I guess it's a nice way to get exercise. It's air-conditioned, there's music. There's lots of glittery stuff for sale and people to look at. But I think I finally get the British woman's comment now. Life goes so fast and so many things get hopelessly broken along the way. So much of what passes for entertainment these days is the frantic insistence on fixing these things-- FAST-- so you can hurry and get on with the rest of your life! It's no wonder we look for the smallest amount of comfort in something like an angry hamster, and truly grieve that comfort's loss.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
And lo, the earth vomited chihuahuas
This is Abby. Tell me she is not beautiful and I will tell you, correctly, that you're a dirty liar.
Abby and I run together and it's the most heartbreaking experience. People will literally stop their cars and turn around to ask what kind of dog she is (Australian shepard mix) and then tell me how gorgeous she is. And it's not just the "Hey, cute dog" kind of comment. People stare into her mismatched eyes transfixed, murmuring the kinds of things you'd imagine old men say to strippers, "Oh, you're a pretty lady, aren't you? You're a little heartbreaker." That is, until she emits a piercing "FUCK OFF!" bark and tugs me on our merry way.
This is the kind of public awe and adoration that formed the entire plot of my seventh grade revenge fantasies. Lying in bed at night, all gawky limbs and braces and zits, I would construct elaborate fantasies about how things would be when I finally "blossomed" (my mother's promising term). As fantasies go, they were pitifully one-dimensional-- just one day I would blossom and everyone would be drawn to me like mosquitoes to a bug zapper, breaking themselves against the rock of my beautiful and absolute indifference.
So imagine, now, the irony of escorting around town someone who's achieved this level of careless, captivating beauty, and who doesn't give a shit. Someone who, in fact, takes a special glee in taking a dump in front of her admirers and baring her teeth when they try to pet her rabbit-soft gleaming fur.
This used to be torture when I'd take her running around Town Lake in Austin where glistening, shirtless hunks of chiseled man would trot by, and then skid to a halt to offer panting compliments on my sleek, gorgeous... dog.
Tonight we went on a long, brisk walk around the tiny, tiny town and as usual, Abby stopped traffic, drew strangers from their porches, led toddlers from their yards like the Pied Piper, and set every chained dog in town wailing from the sheer beauty of her dainty little trot. On the course of this walk, I finally understood what it must be like to be Ashlee Simpson-- an uninspired, talentless echo of the original who must nevertheless live in her beautiful sister's orbit because she lacks the strength to break free of Jessica's gravitational pull.
Towards the end of our walk I finally saw the dark side of being so strangely breathtaking. We rounded the corner on what seemed like a quiet street when all of a sudden the bushes on either side of us erupted with chihuahuas, more than I've ever seen before, a veritable pack of the miserable bastards, and they mobbed Abby like papparazzi, swirling around and beneath her in waves and chipping the air with their yips. At first I pulled her leash closer to me and firmly told her, "be good!" meaning, no biting, but by the time we'd gone two blocks with no apologetic owner in site to reign in the ear-splitting, snapping river of dog-vermin, I decided to give her some space in case she needed to throw down. When she didn't seem to get that I was giving her carte blanche to kick ass, I channeled my inner redneck and told her urgently, "Get 'em, Abby! Get 'em!"
To my disappointment, she opted out and instead kept her head high, focusing on some point in the distance until the last of the chihuahuas got tired of the 15:1 footstep ratio and peeled off.
Not only does my dog outshine me, she outclasses me now as well.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
My uterus causes ten strangers to mix vodka tonics without the tonic
I made ten new enemies today. Or rather, my uterus made ten new enemies. My fallopian tubes snaked across time, space, and state boundaries to antagonize seven women and one man in Texas and two women in Virginia. I am back to square one with the military when it comes to gaining access to the particular birth control I've been using for seven years, and ten people have gone home to yell at their spouses and pour a stiff drink after having dealt with me.
Coincidentally, this is also the week I've decided to kick my addiction to caffeine. I do this every now and then, embark on random, grandiose cold turkey purges and they're less an honest effort to become healthy than they are a test of internal willpower. After today, after having heard so many varieties of hold music and so many varieties of "no," I'm questioning my caffeine embargo.
Here's the long and short of it-- I caused an unforgivable backlog at CVS today establishing the following facts:
1) my birth control is not covered by the military
2) no one can provide any sort of clues as to why
3) at my last duty station, a tragic experiment with my mental health proved the necessity of NOT switching me to a far cheaper alternative medicine, and my access to the Good Shit was restored
4) documentation of this experiment exists in Texas, but not in Virginia, where the insurance people make their scaly nests and eat their young
5) documentation exists in only one town in Texas, and it's not the one I'm currently living in
6) refunding payment for a medication that should have been covered by insurance is many times more complicated than, say, discovering what went wrong on a failed shuttle launch
and 7) If I want this medication, I can get it for free if I drive sixty miles, but if I wanted it filled in the town where I live, it'll cost me $50.
My poor heroic husband got involved at the mention of $50, and between the two of us and ten grumpy people in two states, we've arrived at the following compromise: I will make a day trip to pick up a three-month supply of my Baby-B-Gone, but come July I'll be back, slashing my samurai sword through red tape and demanding that Uncle Sam regulate my hormone levels FOR FREE.
Coincidentally, this is also the week I've decided to kick my addiction to caffeine. I do this every now and then, embark on random, grandiose cold turkey purges and they're less an honest effort to become healthy than they are a test of internal willpower. After today, after having heard so many varieties of hold music and so many varieties of "no," I'm questioning my caffeine embargo.
Here's the long and short of it-- I caused an unforgivable backlog at CVS today establishing the following facts:
1) my birth control is not covered by the military
2) no one can provide any sort of clues as to why
3) at my last duty station, a tragic experiment with my mental health proved the necessity of NOT switching me to a far cheaper alternative medicine, and my access to the Good Shit was restored
4) documentation of this experiment exists in Texas, but not in Virginia, where the insurance people make their scaly nests and eat their young
5) documentation exists in only one town in Texas, and it's not the one I'm currently living in
6) refunding payment for a medication that should have been covered by insurance is many times more complicated than, say, discovering what went wrong on a failed shuttle launch
and 7) If I want this medication, I can get it for free if I drive sixty miles, but if I wanted it filled in the town where I live, it'll cost me $50.
My poor heroic husband got involved at the mention of $50, and between the two of us and ten grumpy people in two states, we've arrived at the following compromise: I will make a day trip to pick up a three-month supply of my Baby-B-Gone, but come July I'll be back, slashing my samurai sword through red tape and demanding that Uncle Sam regulate my hormone levels FOR FREE.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Romancing Decline
I've decided I really like the tiny, tiny town, and it's for precisely the reasons that I originally thought I would hate it.
Take the trains, for example. Long, rattling, rusty traffic obstructions have turned out to be rolling art galleries with their own compelling musical accompaniment. I've seen all different kinds of tags and graffiti from all over the country rolling by-- not just the angular, near-illegible stack lettering, but also vivid stencils, cartoon monsters, Tim Burton-esque meadow scenes dotted with crooked headstones, and massive, cryptic logos. Lying in bed at night I try to isolate the individual notes that form the chord of the train's warning horn. It starts out as a minor chord with at least five notes, two of them wedged too close together and forming an edge of dissonance. But then as the train passes, the Doplar effect flattens the chord into something almost major, and nowhere near as pretty.
The town itself seems to be suffering from that same flattening effect. Apparently revenue from the railroad and the oil companies peaked sometime in the late sixties and then took a steady, graceful swan dive. Most home improvement and construction projects followed the same trajectory, so in many ways driving into town feels like sinking slowly backwards into quicksand. Few places take credit cards and fewer take checks, scrub grass sprouts up from the cracks in parking lots, and even the good restaurants never seem to fill up on weekend nights.
I can't explain why, but this isn't as depressing as it sounds. It's a graceful decay. There are still stained glass sunsets and thunderstorms. Cactus plants and bouganvillias and giant shuddering honeysuckle bushes fill in the empty lots and shake petals and sweet scents loose. There's a creaky little old man who lives alone across the street from me, and he comes out to get his paper every morning. He walks with two canes and has to rest at the beginning, middle, and end of his ten foot journey. The whole thing takes him about ten minutes. Sometimes he sits by his front window and dozes off, and when I try to come up with a way to describe this town, I think of him, napping with the paper folded in his lap as the world goes by outside.
I also thought the podunk-edness of this place would get to me, but I have to admit to getting a bit of thrill when I see something as bizarre as a the fuzzy-haired man riding his rickety scooter down a darkened street last night, using a flashlight as a headlight and balancing a half-naked baby on one knee. Or the town drunk, a woman whose name everyone seems to know even though she refers to everyone, male or female, as "Babe," and spends her weekend nights doing saucy karaoke renditions of sixties folk songs in the pub by the tracks.
From one side, this could all look pretty bad-- a town in advanced economic decline whose residents are declining with it. But from another side, it could be a place in a rich, natural state of flux with the edges of nature closing in, a minor chord with a touch of dissonance.
Take the trains, for example. Long, rattling, rusty traffic obstructions have turned out to be rolling art galleries with their own compelling musical accompaniment. I've seen all different kinds of tags and graffiti from all over the country rolling by-- not just the angular, near-illegible stack lettering, but also vivid stencils, cartoon monsters, Tim Burton-esque meadow scenes dotted with crooked headstones, and massive, cryptic logos. Lying in bed at night I try to isolate the individual notes that form the chord of the train's warning horn. It starts out as a minor chord with at least five notes, two of them wedged too close together and forming an edge of dissonance. But then as the train passes, the Doplar effect flattens the chord into something almost major, and nowhere near as pretty.
The town itself seems to be suffering from that same flattening effect. Apparently revenue from the railroad and the oil companies peaked sometime in the late sixties and then took a steady, graceful swan dive. Most home improvement and construction projects followed the same trajectory, so in many ways driving into town feels like sinking slowly backwards into quicksand. Few places take credit cards and fewer take checks, scrub grass sprouts up from the cracks in parking lots, and even the good restaurants never seem to fill up on weekend nights.
I can't explain why, but this isn't as depressing as it sounds. It's a graceful decay. There are still stained glass sunsets and thunderstorms. Cactus plants and bouganvillias and giant shuddering honeysuckle bushes fill in the empty lots and shake petals and sweet scents loose. There's a creaky little old man who lives alone across the street from me, and he comes out to get his paper every morning. He walks with two canes and has to rest at the beginning, middle, and end of his ten foot journey. The whole thing takes him about ten minutes. Sometimes he sits by his front window and dozes off, and when I try to come up with a way to describe this town, I think of him, napping with the paper folded in his lap as the world goes by outside.
I also thought the podunk-edness of this place would get to me, but I have to admit to getting a bit of thrill when I see something as bizarre as a the fuzzy-haired man riding his rickety scooter down a darkened street last night, using a flashlight as a headlight and balancing a half-naked baby on one knee. Or the town drunk, a woman whose name everyone seems to know even though she refers to everyone, male or female, as "Babe," and spends her weekend nights doing saucy karaoke renditions of sixties folk songs in the pub by the tracks.
From one side, this could all look pretty bad-- a town in advanced economic decline whose residents are declining with it. But from another side, it could be a place in a rich, natural state of flux with the edges of nature closing in, a minor chord with a touch of dissonance.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Grows roses, relieves constipation, kills evil
That title reflects the three major achievements of epsom salts. I'm adding it to my list of lesser-known miracles of Jesus, right next to synthetic motor oil.
Here's how the toe scenario went down: I booked a same day appointment at the tiny, tiny town's military clinic, which turned out to be about the size of your average preschool (my own personal prejudice: buildings where you can potentially be cut or burned by strangers should be at least the size of a good grocery store, giving you ample running room in case you change your mind about the procedure), and limped in to see my new Primary Care Provider.
At all the military hospitals I've been to so far, you must first brave a gauntlet of young, virile enlisted men, rosy-cheeked innocents who are the very picture of health, and with whom you must EXPLICITLY discuss the details of your ailment. In my case, the young men were idle and bored, and, detecting my sky-rocketing anxiety, insisted that I prop my foot on the desk so that they could tease me about being out of anesthesia and how my toenail definitely needed to be "yanked." Maybe it was the color draining from my face, or the appraising way I gauged the distance to my car through the exit door, but they switched gears after a minute or two and assured me there were ample supplies of drugs in the building.
As it happened, God turned his broad sunny face on me and smiled-- my new doctor, all humorless West Texas twang and fierce competence (i.e. the polar opposite of my previous doctor), granted the toenail a reprieve on the grounds that partially removing it would only cause further wonky regrowth (the same wonky regrowth that got me into this situation in the first place), and I'd be in the same predicament six months from now. Instead, I was prescribed massive doses of an antibiotic and what the husband calls Vitamin M, as in Motrin, the military's magic cure-all, and finally, advised to soak my toe in epsom salts twice daily.
I've read several hilarious accounts of the tendency of families to ascribe mythic powers of restorative healing to particular products, far beyond the scope of what's promised on the label. My dad worships at the altar of Desitin, a diaper rash cream. My husband's grandmother recommends alka seltzer for ailments clearly unrelated to the stomach or digestive tract in any way. Chris Rock has a great bit about generic Robitussin, and the grandfather in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" swoons for Windex.
The United States military believes in Motrin, and I now take an oath of fealty to epsom salts. My toe is shockingly close to normal. Bedsheets can wisp over the top of it without producing searing pain, the grotesque bouquet of colors it was sporting has all but faded completely, and the cartoonish swelling and throbbing have greatly lessened. Plus, according to the helpful pharmascist at the grocery store, epsom salts help grow healthy rose bushes. (She thought that's why I was asking for them, and looked slightly embarrassed and disappointed when I said, "No, I just have a nasty toe to soak.") Further perusal of the product label revealed that the wonders of epsom salts go even further-- they're also a powerful laxative!
So the next time I find myself internally backed up and limping around on an infected toe AND needing to spruce up my garden, I'll rest assured that epsom salts have me covered.
Here's how the toe scenario went down: I booked a same day appointment at the tiny, tiny town's military clinic, which turned out to be about the size of your average preschool (my own personal prejudice: buildings where you can potentially be cut or burned by strangers should be at least the size of a good grocery store, giving you ample running room in case you change your mind about the procedure), and limped in to see my new Primary Care Provider.
At all the military hospitals I've been to so far, you must first brave a gauntlet of young, virile enlisted men, rosy-cheeked innocents who are the very picture of health, and with whom you must EXPLICITLY discuss the details of your ailment. In my case, the young men were idle and bored, and, detecting my sky-rocketing anxiety, insisted that I prop my foot on the desk so that they could tease me about being out of anesthesia and how my toenail definitely needed to be "yanked." Maybe it was the color draining from my face, or the appraising way I gauged the distance to my car through the exit door, but they switched gears after a minute or two and assured me there were ample supplies of drugs in the building.
As it happened, God turned his broad sunny face on me and smiled-- my new doctor, all humorless West Texas twang and fierce competence (i.e. the polar opposite of my previous doctor), granted the toenail a reprieve on the grounds that partially removing it would only cause further wonky regrowth (the same wonky regrowth that got me into this situation in the first place), and I'd be in the same predicament six months from now. Instead, I was prescribed massive doses of an antibiotic and what the husband calls Vitamin M, as in Motrin, the military's magic cure-all, and finally, advised to soak my toe in epsom salts twice daily.
I've read several hilarious accounts of the tendency of families to ascribe mythic powers of restorative healing to particular products, far beyond the scope of what's promised on the label. My dad worships at the altar of Desitin, a diaper rash cream. My husband's grandmother recommends alka seltzer for ailments clearly unrelated to the stomach or digestive tract in any way. Chris Rock has a great bit about generic Robitussin, and the grandfather in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" swoons for Windex.
The United States military believes in Motrin, and I now take an oath of fealty to epsom salts. My toe is shockingly close to normal. Bedsheets can wisp over the top of it without producing searing pain, the grotesque bouquet of colors it was sporting has all but faded completely, and the cartoonish swelling and throbbing have greatly lessened. Plus, according to the helpful pharmascist at the grocery store, epsom salts help grow healthy rose bushes. (She thought that's why I was asking for them, and looked slightly embarrassed and disappointed when I said, "No, I just have a nasty toe to soak.") Further perusal of the product label revealed that the wonders of epsom salts go even further-- they're also a powerful laxative!
So the next time I find myself internally backed up and limping around on an infected toe AND needing to spruce up my garden, I'll rest assured that epsom salts have me covered.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Nightmare Toe, or Why a Working Knowledge of Medical Terminology Can Be a Bad Thing
Something is Wrong with my big toe, Bad Wrong. I'm wasting no time with literary adornments or questions of relevancy because it hurts that bad. Internet, my toe is badly infected from a saga of injuries and various good-idea-at-the-time home remedies, and it has taken this-- nightmarish swelling, festive discoloration, and all-encompassing, whimper-inducing pain-- to erode my resistance to calling the doctor.
I am terrified of the doctor. It was not always this way. There was a time when I toyed with the idea of going to medical school, if not to become a practicing physician then to create sweeping, full-color, multilayered illustrations of the saddle joint or the free fall of neurotransmitters as they brave the synaptic gap. I love biology, I love anatomy, I love zoology. I love the epic stories of immune system battles and the mundane heroics of the excretory system. Algebra put an end to all that. X = a big fat fucking wall. So instead I write and I draw and I find gainful employment by other means.
Part of the reason I understood biology so well was that I could turn it into a story with characters and goals and birth and death and drama, and it all made sense. I was still interested in what goes on in the body and how problems are fixed, so I asked questions and read textbooks and pestered my doctors. BUT-- and this is one of those horrible over-arching themes I struggle with in almost every area of my life-- Imagination Must Have Limits.
For instance, Imagination is no longer helpful when it:
1) Renders one incapable of any degree of detachment when it comes to submitting to painful procedures (especially when Imagination insists that pain incurred under anesthesia is just pain delayed with nausea factored in as interest, and therefore, no procedure is ever "painless.")
2) Sparks a lurid fascination with any and all surgical procedures on television from breast implants to liposuction (which looks like someone fencing an unseen foe under the skin) to hip replacement (buzz saws, God help us) to removing a 2-inch-thick tree branch from a motorcyclist's neck.
3) Finds some sadistic pleasure in skipping straight to the worst case scenarios on self diagnostic tools like Web MD, and then constructing a detailed narrative around what life would be like as an amputee.
Just so my imagination doesn't take all the blame, I can also point to several significant instances of Bad Medical Care-- like the two eye doctors who have insisted on repeatedly testing my fainting reaction to a particular numbing drop. Or my shady auctioneer gyno. Or any of the surly rent-a-docs I saw at the Student Health Center in college.
And now I'm supposed to go and look up my third Primary Care Provider in two years, a person I will likely never see again, and show this stranger my horrific toe, knowing that the recommended treatment for infections at this stage involves knives and needles and, if I'm really lucky, LASER DEBRIDEMENT.
I've been working really hard to change my perception of this small town from barren, wind-swept outpost to quaint, opportunity-rich learning environment, but the prospect of offering up my throbbing nightmare toe to a stranger with a knife is really freaking me out.
I am terrified of the doctor. It was not always this way. There was a time when I toyed with the idea of going to medical school, if not to become a practicing physician then to create sweeping, full-color, multilayered illustrations of the saddle joint or the free fall of neurotransmitters as they brave the synaptic gap. I love biology, I love anatomy, I love zoology. I love the epic stories of immune system battles and the mundane heroics of the excretory system. Algebra put an end to all that. X = a big fat fucking wall. So instead I write and I draw and I find gainful employment by other means.
Part of the reason I understood biology so well was that I could turn it into a story with characters and goals and birth and death and drama, and it all made sense. I was still interested in what goes on in the body and how problems are fixed, so I asked questions and read textbooks and pestered my doctors. BUT-- and this is one of those horrible over-arching themes I struggle with in almost every area of my life-- Imagination Must Have Limits.
For instance, Imagination is no longer helpful when it:
1) Renders one incapable of any degree of detachment when it comes to submitting to painful procedures (especially when Imagination insists that pain incurred under anesthesia is just pain delayed with nausea factored in as interest, and therefore, no procedure is ever "painless.")
2) Sparks a lurid fascination with any and all surgical procedures on television from breast implants to liposuction (which looks like someone fencing an unseen foe under the skin) to hip replacement (buzz saws, God help us) to removing a 2-inch-thick tree branch from a motorcyclist's neck.
3) Finds some sadistic pleasure in skipping straight to the worst case scenarios on self diagnostic tools like Web MD, and then constructing a detailed narrative around what life would be like as an amputee.
Just so my imagination doesn't take all the blame, I can also point to several significant instances of Bad Medical Care-- like the two eye doctors who have insisted on repeatedly testing my fainting reaction to a particular numbing drop. Or my shady auctioneer gyno. Or any of the surly rent-a-docs I saw at the Student Health Center in college.
And now I'm supposed to go and look up my third Primary Care Provider in two years, a person I will likely never see again, and show this stranger my horrific toe, knowing that the recommended treatment for infections at this stage involves knives and needles and, if I'm really lucky, LASER DEBRIDEMENT.
I've been working really hard to change my perception of this small town from barren, wind-swept outpost to quaint, opportunity-rich learning environment, but the prospect of offering up my throbbing nightmare toe to a stranger with a knife is really freaking me out.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
So a rabbi walks into a bridge club meeting...
One of the interesting things about being married to the military is how often and how explicitly you are required to fill out various forms. For instance, (Dad, skip this sentence), during my "Well Woman" exam I was asked in the most professional way possible if I had engaged in any designated risk behaviors, up to and including paying for sex from a stranger, engaging in group sex, and/or allowing someone to insert their entire fist into my lady parts. From the robotic and bland-faced delivery of the enlisted nurse, I can only assume that everyone-- from the 21-year-old stationed in Bangkok, to the pregnant dependent, to the frail retiree-- is asked the same set of questions. Apparently not everyone laughs hysterically, though.
Today's form was a bit more disturbing. Apparently the military needs to know, in detail, *exactly* how you would like to be informed of your spouse's untimely death in a horrific accident. Cultural sensitivity abounds: are there any elderly relatives living with you, and could they be of help? "Granddad-- quick, fetch ice!" Would you like a chaplain present, and if so, what denomination? Considering that I don't go to church, it'd just be another stranger I'd have to introduce myself to, so no. Is there anyone you would NOT want there? Dick Cheney. Do you have any medical conditions that would require the presence of a physician in the event that you must be notified of an accident? Just that one where I love my husband and would collapse in spasms of colossal grief.
And man, are they thorough. I filled out an account of my daily schedule and phone numbers to reach me at any place I might possibly go (helpful prompt suggestions were "bowling, bridge, dancing, Service Clubs"). In one way, I suppose this is comforting-- there's a chain of command established now between the military and me and our extended family, and a set of considerations we've agreed upon that will minimize the possibility of confusion. But in another way, it's exceedingly bizarre to choreograph, in advance, the most tragic moment of one's life. I almost wanted to make it as weird as possible, just so that when a Hasidic Rabbi, a pizza deliveryman, and a military representative hunt me down at my bridge club, I'll know exactly what the score is.
What if every profession did this? What if accounting firms had action plans in place for reporting the tragic malfunction of a paper shredder to a distraught spouse?
I'm trying to imagine funny scenarios because the reality of filling out this paperwork has me deeply freaked out. Obviously these questions are born from experience, just like the emergency procedures I help my husband memorize for his training. Somebody actually had the World's Most Inappropriate Acquaintance show up with the group breaking the bad news. Someone else's trick lung started acting up in reaction to the shock and wouldn't you know it? No ventilator.
I'm still working on grasping the reality of my husband's job, and most days it seems like my hands are too small. I can either pick up and hold the part where he's passionately excited about what he's about to do and isn't it cool that he's been able to follow his dream-- OR -- I get to lug around the big tangly slimy part where I'm worried about his safety, resentful about another move, and often completely in the dark about what's coming next. Even more fun is trying to balance the tiny breakable part where I try to figure out how the hell I fit into all of this, how I continue to be me. So far I have not been able to master holding all three at once and getting a global picture of what's going on. I imagine that when I finally accomplish it, the feeling will be so calming, so completely zen, that it'll be like being a milk cow on heroin.
Today's form was a bit more disturbing. Apparently the military needs to know, in detail, *exactly* how you would like to be informed of your spouse's untimely death in a horrific accident. Cultural sensitivity abounds: are there any elderly relatives living with you, and could they be of help? "Granddad-- quick, fetch ice!" Would you like a chaplain present, and if so, what denomination? Considering that I don't go to church, it'd just be another stranger I'd have to introduce myself to, so no. Is there anyone you would NOT want there? Dick Cheney. Do you have any medical conditions that would require the presence of a physician in the event that you must be notified of an accident? Just that one where I love my husband and would collapse in spasms of colossal grief.
And man, are they thorough. I filled out an account of my daily schedule and phone numbers to reach me at any place I might possibly go (helpful prompt suggestions were "bowling, bridge, dancing, Service Clubs"). In one way, I suppose this is comforting-- there's a chain of command established now between the military and me and our extended family, and a set of considerations we've agreed upon that will minimize the possibility of confusion. But in another way, it's exceedingly bizarre to choreograph, in advance, the most tragic moment of one's life. I almost wanted to make it as weird as possible, just so that when a Hasidic Rabbi, a pizza deliveryman, and a military representative hunt me down at my bridge club, I'll know exactly what the score is.
What if every profession did this? What if accounting firms had action plans in place for reporting the tragic malfunction of a paper shredder to a distraught spouse?
I'm trying to imagine funny scenarios because the reality of filling out this paperwork has me deeply freaked out. Obviously these questions are born from experience, just like the emergency procedures I help my husband memorize for his training. Somebody actually had the World's Most Inappropriate Acquaintance show up with the group breaking the bad news. Someone else's trick lung started acting up in reaction to the shock and wouldn't you know it? No ventilator.
I'm still working on grasping the reality of my husband's job, and most days it seems like my hands are too small. I can either pick up and hold the part where he's passionately excited about what he's about to do and isn't it cool that he's been able to follow his dream-- OR -- I get to lug around the big tangly slimy part where I'm worried about his safety, resentful about another move, and often completely in the dark about what's coming next. Even more fun is trying to balance the tiny breakable part where I try to figure out how the hell I fit into all of this, how I continue to be me. So far I have not been able to master holding all three at once and getting a global picture of what's going on. I imagine that when I finally accomplish it, the feeling will be so calming, so completely zen, that it'll be like being a milk cow on heroin.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Guess who's retarded at posting pictures?
OK, you're going to have to bear with me here with the image posting. I'm new at this.
Here's a shot from this weekend that proves that even crystallized dirt appreciates a nice set of knockers.
And one of me making my parents proud.
And then this one, called "Soldier in the Hands of God" done by a guy whose brother is in Iraq. Did you see the incredible detail of the ribbon lying loosely around the base of the whole thing? Look again.
Here's a shot from this weekend that proves that even crystallized dirt appreciates a nice set of knockers.
And one of me making my parents proud.
And then this one, called "Soldier in the Hands of God" done by a guy whose brother is in Iraq. Did you see the incredible detail of the ribbon lying loosely around the base of the whole thing? Look again.
More gawking at dirt
So this is how it's going to be-- some shots will be forced upon you and others you can choose to view by clicking on them. I have decided to impose my artsy farsty shot of a rainbow kite on you. Just in case you're getting the impression that the event was at all gay friendly, let me point out that there were also plenty of Shameful Anachronisms--oops!--Confederate Flags riding the breeze and saying nothing and everything at the same time.
Meat on a stick is a more impressive feat.
Check it out: ARCHES bigger than CHILDREN. I couldn't believe how unimpressed this kid was. His dad kept pointing out the arches and saying, "Look, they actually got the sand to arch! See how there's nothing under it? Isn't that amazing?" And the kid just looked at him and said, "Yeah, but aren't we getting corn dogs?" Note to self: go to the Taj Mahal alone.
Oh my Goth!
Speaking of unimpressed kids, did you know that angst goes to the beach too? These two lovely tortured souls strained to illustrate dramatic contrast by scowling at the sun-leathered crowd, no doubt pitying us for the shallowness of exclaiming over sand at a beach. God!
Sandfest 2006
This past weekend, the husband and I went to the beach to watch people flaunt the laws of physics and laugh in the face of God as they sculpted fantastic things out of sand. Let me just be clear on that last part: all of this stuff you're about to see was made out of SAND. The most sophisticated thing I've done with this stuff is manage to wedge it deep into my ass crack after a weekend of camping.
And now, photographic evidence of my weekend (which has been so incredibly taxing to download that I'm copping out on all but the barest of commentary).
The ass crack sculptress stands next to a far superior creation.
This was part of a centerpiece for the competition which was over 20 feet tall. Vendors and sponsors had cleverly carved their names into every other facet, but because they far outnumbered the sculptures and because they actually sold THESE, I refuse to post their names.
This one actually kind of reminded me of a Rodin sculpture, if Rodin maybe moonlighted for Hallmark now and then.
And this one just looked edible for some reason, like those chocolate Easter bricks that you feel compelled to eat simply because it's huge and chocolate and not because it takes any good.
And now, photographic evidence of my weekend (which has been so incredibly taxing to download that I'm copping out on all but the barest of commentary).
The ass crack sculptress stands next to a far superior creation.
This was part of a centerpiece for the competition which was over 20 feet tall. Vendors and sponsors had cleverly carved their names into every other facet, but because they far outnumbered the sculptures and because they actually sold THESE, I refuse to post their names.
This one actually kind of reminded me of a Rodin sculpture, if Rodin maybe moonlighted for Hallmark now and then.
And this one just looked edible for some reason, like those chocolate Easter bricks that you feel compelled to eat simply because it's huge and chocolate and not because it takes any good.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Paradigm Shi(f)t
There's saying I like that goes, "When all you've got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." I've been hunting for the crappy things about this move just for the sheer joy of hammering them flat with my caustic wit, but then all this good stuff happened out of nowhere and I was left shuffling my feet, ashamed to admit that maybe I kind of like this place.
I had fun this weekend. We had people over and our initial suspicion that the house had a good social vibe and party layout proved accurate. In fact, the weekend had such a nice vibe that I actually got to hang out with my mother, my grandfather, my brother-, mother-, father-, and sister-in-law and the two-year-old nephew, and three guys my husband knows from the base, all at the same time without the universe collapsing in on itself in complete multi-generational chaos. White people just don't do this, hang out with different generations of multiple families, except maybe deep in Appalachia where they have no choice. But it was great and I felt really lucky to be there.
And we got a new-to-us bed. Carl Jung be damned, I will not dwell on the symbolism that this is my parents' old bed that my husband and I have inherited-- I'm just ecstatic that I can lie in one position for over an hour and not awaken to discover new and shocking muscles in deep spasm. The fact that I have to army crawl almost two feet to reach my husband's side of the bed is the smallest of inconveniences.
Even the dobermans are on their way out. Our neighbor, who I so thoroughly eviscerated in my last two entries, turns out to be the son of the true occupant, and in some epic biblical battle for supremacy, the rebel son has been cast out. With him go the giant broken down truck (towed away with little fanfare by a far lesser, sissy little foreign truck), the chopper, and the dogs. I don't know what fate awaits two attack dogs used to pacing around a tiny patch of mud in their own feces, but soon they won't howl and bay outside my bedroom window.
Hooray for paradigm shifts!
I had fun this weekend. We had people over and our initial suspicion that the house had a good social vibe and party layout proved accurate. In fact, the weekend had such a nice vibe that I actually got to hang out with my mother, my grandfather, my brother-, mother-, father-, and sister-in-law and the two-year-old nephew, and three guys my husband knows from the base, all at the same time without the universe collapsing in on itself in complete multi-generational chaos. White people just don't do this, hang out with different generations of multiple families, except maybe deep in Appalachia where they have no choice. But it was great and I felt really lucky to be there.
And we got a new-to-us bed. Carl Jung be damned, I will not dwell on the symbolism that this is my parents' old bed that my husband and I have inherited-- I'm just ecstatic that I can lie in one position for over an hour and not awaken to discover new and shocking muscles in deep spasm. The fact that I have to army crawl almost two feet to reach my husband's side of the bed is the smallest of inconveniences.
Even the dobermans are on their way out. Our neighbor, who I so thoroughly eviscerated in my last two entries, turns out to be the son of the true occupant, and in some epic biblical battle for supremacy, the rebel son has been cast out. With him go the giant broken down truck (towed away with little fanfare by a far lesser, sissy little foreign truck), the chopper, and the dogs. I don't know what fate awaits two attack dogs used to pacing around a tiny patch of mud in their own feces, but soon they won't howl and bay outside my bedroom window.
Hooray for paradigm shifts!
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
All the way live
Sweet, sweet internet lifeblood now flows into our 1960's chic rent house via a brand new cable slung artlessly from the corner of the back room, across the backyard, through the branches of the oak tree, and up to the telephone pole in the back alley. (An expedition down said alley revealed living room furniture abandoned during the Nixon era and glimpses into various backyard empires ruled by startled dogs.)
I'm putting off exploring the outer boundaries of the town like a starving man puts off wolfing down his last ding-dong. Once I reach the edge of town, there will be nothing else to explore, so I have to savor the process slowly. I'm starting with the immediate neighborhood today, and planning a long walk in the wake of a long awaited thunderstorm. On the way to the grocery store this morning I saw at least three houses surrounded by religious shrines, so I'm headed in that general direction.
Sadly, my next door neighbor continues to stomp the mudhole of my expectations even deeper. I'm now keeping track of the sleazy cliches he hasn't exhibited. Last night he fired up the molar-rattling chopper just to ride in ever-widening concentric circles around the town's residential streets. Round and round he went, and I could hear him the whole time, rev-rev-revvving his way to masculinity. I don't know whether this means his bike is too loud or the town is too small, but neither possibility is comforting. What is comforting is that now I'm certain I'm not the only one lying in bed thinking, "Is that thunder? Oh. No. Just that asshole again."
My family's coming to town for the weekend and I'm excited to give them the grand tour of our anachronism of a house. I don't know what it is about my generation but we seem to be drawn to kitsch like crows to tinfoil. I was delighted to find that the house came with a projector screen (for riveting slideshows of family trips-- "Look! Disaffected teens in front of the Grand Canyon/Lake Tahoe/Mount Rushmore!") and creepy mustard yellow curtain doors in two of the closets.
Lucky for me, the kitsch was gutted out of the kitchen and one bathroom, where cute anachronisms quickly turn to infuriating health hazards. But by and large I'm enjoying the house. There's an odd comfort in being in a place that was once so highly personalized for someone else. I thought it would weird me out, but now what really weirds me out is how thoroughly newer apartments can erase all traces of humanity for the next tenant. By contrast, this place drips people.
Off to explore, slowly.
I'm putting off exploring the outer boundaries of the town like a starving man puts off wolfing down his last ding-dong. Once I reach the edge of town, there will be nothing else to explore, so I have to savor the process slowly. I'm starting with the immediate neighborhood today, and planning a long walk in the wake of a long awaited thunderstorm. On the way to the grocery store this morning I saw at least three houses surrounded by religious shrines, so I'm headed in that general direction.
Sadly, my next door neighbor continues to stomp the mudhole of my expectations even deeper. I'm now keeping track of the sleazy cliches he hasn't exhibited. Last night he fired up the molar-rattling chopper just to ride in ever-widening concentric circles around the town's residential streets. Round and round he went, and I could hear him the whole time, rev-rev-revvving his way to masculinity. I don't know whether this means his bike is too loud or the town is too small, but neither possibility is comforting. What is comforting is that now I'm certain I'm not the only one lying in bed thinking, "Is that thunder? Oh. No. Just that asshole again."
My family's coming to town for the weekend and I'm excited to give them the grand tour of our anachronism of a house. I don't know what it is about my generation but we seem to be drawn to kitsch like crows to tinfoil. I was delighted to find that the house came with a projector screen (for riveting slideshows of family trips-- "Look! Disaffected teens in front of the Grand Canyon/Lake Tahoe/Mount Rushmore!") and creepy mustard yellow curtain doors in two of the closets.
Lucky for me, the kitsch was gutted out of the kitchen and one bathroom, where cute anachronisms quickly turn to infuriating health hazards. But by and large I'm enjoying the house. There's an odd comfort in being in a place that was once so highly personalized for someone else. I thought it would weird me out, but now what really weirds me out is how thoroughly newer apartments can erase all traces of humanity for the next tenant. By contrast, this place drips people.
Off to explore, slowly.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Why can't it be Christmas TODAY?
Total props to Mimi Smartypants for finding this site, which only illustrates my theory that the internet is a magical wonderland where my wildest subconscious wishes can be found, bought and shipped to me. Limbs & Things!
Having trouble with yours? Swap it out.
Cocktail stirrers for the edgy soiree.
Someone whose day is always guaranteed to have been worse than yours.
In case you run out.
Not only is it comforting to know that medical students get practice runs on dummies with names like "Nellie" and "Mr. K" for everything from suturing an episiotomy to detecting irregularities in the prostate (that one, by the way, comes with a carrying case on the off chance that you'd rather not be seen on the subway lugging around a realistic ass), but it's also wonderfully democratic that I, Jane K. Citizen, can purchase these things to spruce up my hum-drum home decor.
Oh, if only I had a few thousand dollars.
Having trouble with yours? Swap it out.
Cocktail stirrers for the edgy soiree.
Someone whose day is always guaranteed to have been worse than yours.
In case you run out.
Not only is it comforting to know that medical students get practice runs on dummies with names like "Nellie" and "Mr. K" for everything from suturing an episiotomy to detecting irregularities in the prostate (that one, by the way, comes with a carrying case on the off chance that you'd rather not be seen on the subway lugging around a realistic ass), but it's also wonderfully democratic that I, Jane K. Citizen, can purchase these things to spruce up my hum-drum home decor.
Oh, if only I had a few thousand dollars.
Grillin', dog fightin', and monster truckin'
I am savoring the hypocrisy in what I'm about to say like one savors those crappy mints from IHOP, which is to say that I'm getting no pleasure out of it, and I have to spit it out before it kills me: I think my new neighbors might be douche bags.
I don't even live in the new place yet-- I only dropped by today to sign the lease and unload a carload of breakables I don't trust the movers with-- and already I'm making sweeping character judgments. Yes, after neurotically swaddling wedding dishes in custom quilted containers, I am summoning the nerve to pass judgment on another. But bear with me a moment.
I think there's something about a 4:1 vehicle-to-resident ratio that points to douche baggery, especially when one of those vehicles is an ear-splitting, flame-covered chopper, and another is a truck with a lift kit that makes entry and egress a gymnastic sport. Now, sprinkle in two be-testicled dobermans in the backyard (right next to our bedroom window) and a driveway rotisserie pit (can't grill around the attack hounds apparently-- smoking blood drippins' rile 'em up), and you get pretty pungent New Neighbor Gumbo. Plus, the guy has gotten used to using our driveway as overflow parking for his vehicular menagerie. Considering that it only officially became our driveway today, I can let this slide, but I have to wonder where he's going to stash that extra pick-up and car come Wednesday.
Truthfully, my biggest beef is with the dogs, and here comes the hypocrisy: my dog is not friendly. She was not technically bred to tear the neck veins out of children or guard bank vaults, but she's very picky about who she meets and almost everyone gets a "go to hell" bark/growl combo for the first 1200 encounters. She doesn't cotton to most other dogs either, a fact which became painfully obvious when we tried to socialize her into an active dog park in Florida and I ended up feeling like the only mother whose preschooler channels the devil and stabs people for fun. I grew up around golden retrievers, the fluffy Buddhas of the dog world, and Abby's prickliness dismays me. Don't get me wrong, I love having a creepy-smart dog with a huge vocabulary and repertoire of parlor tricks, and I find it touching and reassuring that she guards me like I'm made of blown glass, but the trade-off of not knowing whether she's going to snap at someone is pretty steep.
Since she and I have done a few more military moves together, Abby's come to understand that packing up to move doesn't mean she'll be left behind, and she's actually made friends with one dog in this town and mellowed out a bit. But I'm worried that living next door to dobermans, and being separated from them by a waist-high chain link fence is a recipe for disaster. Even if she spends most of the time indoors, dogs still have to shit. It's going to be like West Side Story in my backyard.
I don't even live in the new place yet-- I only dropped by today to sign the lease and unload a carload of breakables I don't trust the movers with-- and already I'm making sweeping character judgments. Yes, after neurotically swaddling wedding dishes in custom quilted containers, I am summoning the nerve to pass judgment on another. But bear with me a moment.
I think there's something about a 4:1 vehicle-to-resident ratio that points to douche baggery, especially when one of those vehicles is an ear-splitting, flame-covered chopper, and another is a truck with a lift kit that makes entry and egress a gymnastic sport. Now, sprinkle in two be-testicled dobermans in the backyard (right next to our bedroom window) and a driveway rotisserie pit (can't grill around the attack hounds apparently-- smoking blood drippins' rile 'em up), and you get pretty pungent New Neighbor Gumbo. Plus, the guy has gotten used to using our driveway as overflow parking for his vehicular menagerie. Considering that it only officially became our driveway today, I can let this slide, but I have to wonder where he's going to stash that extra pick-up and car come Wednesday.
Truthfully, my biggest beef is with the dogs, and here comes the hypocrisy: my dog is not friendly. She was not technically bred to tear the neck veins out of children or guard bank vaults, but she's very picky about who she meets and almost everyone gets a "go to hell" bark/growl combo for the first 1200 encounters. She doesn't cotton to most other dogs either, a fact which became painfully obvious when we tried to socialize her into an active dog park in Florida and I ended up feeling like the only mother whose preschooler channels the devil and stabs people for fun. I grew up around golden retrievers, the fluffy Buddhas of the dog world, and Abby's prickliness dismays me. Don't get me wrong, I love having a creepy-smart dog with a huge vocabulary and repertoire of parlor tricks, and I find it touching and reassuring that she guards me like I'm made of blown glass, but the trade-off of not knowing whether she's going to snap at someone is pretty steep.
Since she and I have done a few more military moves together, Abby's come to understand that packing up to move doesn't mean she'll be left behind, and she's actually made friends with one dog in this town and mellowed out a bit. But I'm worried that living next door to dobermans, and being separated from them by a waist-high chain link fence is a recipe for disaster. Even if she spends most of the time indoors, dogs still have to shit. It's going to be like West Side Story in my backyard.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Nanopatience
A new word coined just for today! Nanopatience: (n.) the smallest measureable amount of patience, about the size of a few electron shavings.
I am a sweating, headachey powderkeg because I am grieving the loss of my grandmother and packing the entire household to move to a tiny, tiny town, one whose hot spot is the Super Walmart and where most people recognize each other, if not by name then by lines of kinship (i.e. "that's old Winston's daughter, the one who married the Bailey kid and lives over on the other side of the tracks"). Bustling anonymity is much more my speed-- my college was two and a half times the size of this entire town, which is a snooty-sounding fact I will have to do my best not to share.
All around me are islands of piled junk (which is what all of your stuff becomes, even the stuff you like, when you are required to pack it up and move it) strewn across the floor awaiting some kind of order and assembly. The urge to abandon it all and disappear is startingly strong. The house is quiet except for the sounds of the washer and dryer and the cat occasionally nudging something off a table. The terrain of his world just got infinitely more interesting and he's been alpine climbing towers of junk all morning.
I'm packing in disordered, profanity-laden spurts because I can-- the husband got another golden ticket from the military requiring him to be out of town for the whole packing process doing some obscure training exercise in a spring break vacation town. I calmly articulated my vein-searing jealousy last night, but it didn't make me feel any better. Here is where logic and communication are overrated, and a good five-year-old temper tantrum might have felt a lot better.
Recent bright spots: we found a nice, funky old house to rent in the new town, and it has a spare room with lots of sunlight where I can write; my husband's family is coming to visit in the beginning of next month and they're bringing the little two-year-old nephew who likes to be swung around upside down by his ankles; I got to have an exciting, challenging, four-star interesting conversation with a really smart girl I met about a week ago and who I hope will be coming to visit the tiny, tiny town often; and finally, the tiny, tiny town is a major migratory route for all kinds of crazy species of South American birds and butterflies, which really excites the Marty Stouffard in me.
I'm going to think of this instead of my solitude among the Junk Himalayas and see if it helps.
I am a sweating, headachey powderkeg because I am grieving the loss of my grandmother and packing the entire household to move to a tiny, tiny town, one whose hot spot is the Super Walmart and where most people recognize each other, if not by name then by lines of kinship (i.e. "that's old Winston's daughter, the one who married the Bailey kid and lives over on the other side of the tracks"). Bustling anonymity is much more my speed-- my college was two and a half times the size of this entire town, which is a snooty-sounding fact I will have to do my best not to share.
All around me are islands of piled junk (which is what all of your stuff becomes, even the stuff you like, when you are required to pack it up and move it) strewn across the floor awaiting some kind of order and assembly. The urge to abandon it all and disappear is startingly strong. The house is quiet except for the sounds of the washer and dryer and the cat occasionally nudging something off a table. The terrain of his world just got infinitely more interesting and he's been alpine climbing towers of junk all morning.
I'm packing in disordered, profanity-laden spurts because I can-- the husband got another golden ticket from the military requiring him to be out of town for the whole packing process doing some obscure training exercise in a spring break vacation town. I calmly articulated my vein-searing jealousy last night, but it didn't make me feel any better. Here is where logic and communication are overrated, and a good five-year-old temper tantrum might have felt a lot better.
Recent bright spots: we found a nice, funky old house to rent in the new town, and it has a spare room with lots of sunlight where I can write; my husband's family is coming to visit in the beginning of next month and they're bringing the little two-year-old nephew who likes to be swung around upside down by his ankles; I got to have an exciting, challenging, four-star interesting conversation with a really smart girl I met about a week ago and who I hope will be coming to visit the tiny, tiny town often; and finally, the tiny, tiny town is a major migratory route for all kinds of crazy species of South American birds and butterflies, which really excites the Marty Stouffard in me.
I'm going to think of this instead of my solitude among the Junk Himalayas and see if it helps.
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