Weblog 1
November 20, 2005~2:00pm:
Today is Sunday. Every Sunday I take my mother food shopping and we have a late lunch/early supper. My mother is 85 years old, which amazes me. The fact that I am 54 amazes me. That life goes on and on- and that somewhere on the horizon is both our deaths yet the world will go on and on after us- all these things are points of consternation to me. I know it logically, but emotionally, the heart cannot take it in; it seems impossible, yet I know it to be fact. Life is confoundingly scary.........and wondrous.
November 20, 2005~7:40pm:
I bought 2 living room lamps while I was out. After 25 years of the same lamps, one of the sockets wouldn't release its burned out bulb yesterday, and I ended up having to twist and torture it until it came out, its aluminum housing with it. The shades of both lamps were pretty shabby as well- so the remaining working lamp will go upstairs to my nightstand, where I now have a "naked lady lamp"- very artisically done- doing a yoga or gymnastic pose and resting on her shoulders, legs pointed and up in the air, her toes holding a hurricane globe and a hundred watt light bulb. The lamp that used to be there is on a stand in front of the bedroom windows, its switch irreparably broken.
Though the lady is quite handsome...lol...I shall be glad to be less than blinded by my reading light. Things wear out. The past cannot be carried beyond a certain point-- and the lesson of these lamps is: it's important to know when to loosen one's grasp on what truly cannot be repaired, or we have outgrown--and that life is rebuilding after first saying goodby. Goodby lamps.
November 21, 2005 ~11:00pm
I hate Mondays. Today is Monday- almost over- but still hanging there like a damp washrag from the elbow of the evening. I guess most people hate Mondays, yet I can't help but think that my own misery is darker, more brackish and full of angst. I realize this gets worse the older I become because I am more keenly aware of the preciousness of time-- and how my hours are indentured to work I must admit I find tedious, and that the reward it brings is singularly monetary and nothing beyond that.
I can't kid myself about the 'meaning' of my work': it pays the bills. Barely. You see- as my salary increased over time- I did a really stupid thing and bought a house- a dinosaur of a house...an older home much in need of repairs because 16 years ago it was the only thing in my price range. (I'd been advised by a much wealthier friend that I was giving my money away to Uncle Sam by way of income tax and that I "really needed" to claim some of that for myself-- so he advised I find the false tax shelter of the common man...................."ONE'S OWN HOME"...lol)
Now I am equally yoked by creditors because energy costs have gone through the roof, it really IS MUCH more expensive to own than to rent, and it looks like everyone will have to labor beyond the usual retirement until death-- because no one can afford to recapture their lives while they still have hips that work. All this is depressing. Very.
And I'd better get off this computer now, so I can be up tomorrow before the crack of dawn to fight what is becoming an earlier and earlier traffic jam in the mornings.
What is it we're all getting a jump on? And why
...and anyone who either inherited their solvency-- or who got rich during the robber baron days of the eighties and ninties, willya stay off the goddamned roads please?-- ordinary Joes are trying to scrape out a living here. Take your winter-vacation tans and slither back to whatever tree you fell from because I ain't buyin; you're out here crowding us because you have a choice...
it's another form of bullying, is all.
November 22, 2005~ 8:30pm
Tuesday, and I felt happy today. No reason-but listen: I'll take any happiness I can get. Sometimes it just appears very un-annunciation-like and taps me on the shoulder. I think I was picking up some positive vibes from co-workers- probably because of the holiday Thursday and they anticipate the luxury of a long weekend. I look forward to the meal for sure, but I'm not off on Friday and that's o.k. One of my fondest memories- (and this is really dumb, but it's a memory that floods me with peace) is a day after Thanksgiving work day as I was driving through the Liberty Tunnels headed out Rt. 28. There wasn't a blessed soul on the road at 6:00 a.m., but there was such peace all around me.
In the car-- with the soft Christmas music on the radio, the morning so dark and still and the street lights making halos...I loved it, and I anticipate having a similar feeling again.
It was a day out of the routine, and maybe that's what unexpected gifts are made of and it makes me smile. So...good day today. For no reason. The very best kind. Hallelujah.
November 23, 2005~ 7:30pm
o.k.- I think it's time to talk about heros and how many of them are missed because they blend so well with the "ordinary, every day"--case in point, my sister: the one who will cook a meal tomorrow for 12 adults and 10 children, and who does this every Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving- and has done this for the past 25 years.
She's the same person took off in a Ford Falcon with its bumper drooping to the ground in 1960 as a newlywed with her husband Bob, a lieutenent in the U.S. Army, and drove across country to live in a small trailer just outside of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My mother cried, seeing that dragging bumper. It seemed to symbolize the heaviness of responsibilities in being an adult. (She was also going to miss her, very, very much.)
Three children, all boys spaced only a year apart and in her 30's- she decided to get a degree. It took her nearly 10 years of night classes and studying till all hours, but she did it. Microbiology. Then went on to work in local hospitals in their pathology labs for the next 20 years. Oh...and she got braces on her teeth. In her early 40's, lol....you see, it's always time to do the right thing for Kathy.
She's a good example, and lord knows, I need one. While I was spending early adulthood sobering up, finding myself, losing myself, finding me again, then leaving a marriage and having custody of the kiddoes only on alternate weekends and a few evenings per week, Kathy was doing all of above, plus the bigger challenge: finding herself WHILE STAYING in the same place- digging in and changing- right where she was planted. Amazing.
So at this time of thanksgiving, I thank God for the glue that keeps us all together. Yes, it's the 'glue' who wasn't happy until she'd read all of 'War and Peace' and learned Bridge- learned to drive with 3 boys in diapers, took up tennis, sking, golf...you name it, she's had a stab at it. All quite remarkably and quietly, without a fuss.
If I ever grow up, I'd like to have some of my big sister's integrity and drive.....but I doubt that time is coming soon. Tomorrow is thanksgiving. I don't even have a stove.
November 24, 2005 ~12:45pm
I'm up early for me on this Thanksgiving Day. Usually I sleep till about an hour and a half before I'm due somewhere- (for work, it's an hour.) Got it down to where I spring out of bed, wash up, slap on some make up and jump in the car for a 25 minute commute that will stretch to an hour, hour and a half- depending on traffic- for the ride back home. All this sans coffee, but pleased to have saved every last second of my own time before I give it up for 8 and a half hours.)
Time is the issue here. I'm very sensitive about time and am niggardly about giving it away: when I'm on someone else's time, I'm all there and when I'm enjoying my own time, I'm burrowed into it like a bunny in its hutch- and stay away- this part is mine and I'll protect it.
That said, I'm sitting here sipping a leisurely pot of coffee with three hours before I need to get ready to step out into the snowy day, scrape off the car, turn on the public radio station and drive 5 miles to pick up my mother and take her to Kathy's. What I feel now is comfort and a lack of hurry. I am grateful for the pause. I am thankful for all those times this past year when my spirit has been quietly unhurried and I am entirely in my own mind and skin. When I'm sitting at the computer and pouring some of me into the greater pool. Everything is a balance between privacy and blending-- and sometimes I get the formula just right. Today is such a day.
November 26, 2005 ~10:45am
Holiday is over, and yes, "a good time was had by all". And I ended up with a headcold- mostly because I refuse to dress for the season, which is no longer 'fall-like'. It dropped to a frigid 12 degrees yesterday morning after a stretch of days in the 20's when I was still wearing a light jacket
...stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.
And I noticed my image host was down. Two days now-- and that's two days too long. I'm uploading everything to another host: something I have done 3 times in the last 4 months and takes hours and hours of recoding and uploading, but it's worth it to me. I've used 'paid' services and honestly, their track record is no better, but the ANGER I feel when THOSE go down is Krakatoan! At least this way I figure I've had a good ride at no charge- and the work that has to be done to get things right is the same. (Even when they say they'll fix it, it means there are days of redoing ahead of me.)
When you've reached this age, you learn to pick your battles and you know how to keep the peace, and no, I haven't found it to be true that you "get what you pay for": free or bankrolled, you often get a good deal less than promised and I'm not jaded, just experienced. What comes with payment is 'hope'--and some kind of guarantee that you can wave around usually to fan the stink of broken faith that's gonna happen, dollar or not, so doing it this way, I don't feel I'm being 'robbed'; the only real result is that I've enjoyed a few months of smooth, lovely web that didn't hurt my pocketbook one bit. But it comes at another kind of 'price': you have to dig in when there's work to do, clean up after the messes, and keep on looking for green pasture to rest and enjoy the view-- the whole menagerie and me-- knowing it's the journey that's fun. And that I'm a rollin' stone....
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Today is Sunday. Every Sunday I take my mother food shopping and we have a late lunch/early supper. My mother is 85 years old, which amazes me. The fact that I am 54 amazes me. That life goes on and on- and that somewhere on the horizon is both our deaths yet the world will go on and on after us- all these things are points of consternation to me. I know it logically, but emotionally, the heart cannot take it in; it seems impossible, yet I know it to be fact. Life is confoundingly scary.........and wondrous.
November 20, 2005~7:40pm:
I bought 2 living room lamps while I was out. After 25 years of the same lamps, one of the sockets wouldn't release its burned out bulb yesterday, and I ended up having to twist and torture it until it came out, its aluminum housing with it. The shades of both lamps were pretty shabby as well- so the remaining working lamp will go upstairs to my nightstand, where I now have a "naked lady lamp"- very artisically done- doing a yoga or gymnastic pose and resting on her shoulders, legs pointed and up in the air, her toes holding a hurricane globe and a hundred watt light bulb. The lamp that used to be there is on a stand in front of the bedroom windows, its switch irreparably broken.
Though the lady is quite handsome...lol...I shall be glad to be less than blinded by my reading light. Things wear out. The past cannot be carried beyond a certain point-- and the lesson of these lamps is: it's important to know when to loosen one's grasp on what truly cannot be repaired, or we have outgrown--and that life is rebuilding after first saying goodby. Goodby lamps.
November 21, 2005 ~11:00pm
I hate Mondays. Today is Monday- almost over- but still hanging there like a damp washrag from the elbow of the evening. I guess most people hate Mondays, yet I can't help but think that my own misery is darker, more brackish and full of angst. I realize this gets worse the older I become because I am more keenly aware of the preciousness of time-- and how my hours are indentured to work I must admit I find tedious, and that the reward it brings is singularly monetary and nothing beyond that.
I can't kid myself about the 'meaning' of my work': it pays the bills. Barely. You see- as my salary increased over time- I did a really stupid thing and bought a house- a dinosaur of a house...an older home much in need of repairs because 16 years ago it was the only thing in my price range. (I'd been advised by a much wealthier friend that I was giving my money away to Uncle Sam by way of income tax and that I "really needed" to claim some of that for myself-- so he advised I find the false tax shelter of the common man...................."ONE'S OWN HOME"...lol)
Now I am equally yoked by creditors because energy costs have gone through the roof, it really IS MUCH more expensive to own than to rent, and it looks like everyone will have to labor beyond the usual retirement until death-- because no one can afford to recapture their lives while they still have hips that work. All this is depressing. Very.
And I'd better get off this computer now, so I can be up tomorrow before the crack of dawn to fight what is becoming an earlier and earlier traffic jam in the mornings.
What is it we're all getting a jump on? And why
...and anyone who either inherited their solvency-- or who got rich during the robber baron days of the eighties and ninties, willya stay off the goddamned roads please?-- ordinary Joes are trying to scrape out a living here. Take your winter-vacation tans and slither back to whatever tree you fell from because I ain't buyin; you're out here crowding us because you have a choice...
it's another form of bullying, is all.
November 22, 2005~ 8:30pm
Tuesday, and I felt happy today. No reason-but listen: I'll take any happiness I can get. Sometimes it just appears very un-annunciation-like and taps me on the shoulder. I think I was picking up some positive vibes from co-workers- probably because of the holiday Thursday and they anticipate the luxury of a long weekend. I look forward to the meal for sure, but I'm not off on Friday and that's o.k. One of my fondest memories- (and this is really dumb, but it's a memory that floods me with peace) is a day after Thanksgiving work day as I was driving through the Liberty Tunnels headed out Rt. 28. There wasn't a blessed soul on the road at 6:00 a.m., but there was such peace all around me.
In the car-- with the soft Christmas music on the radio, the morning so dark and still and the street lights making halos...I loved it, and I anticipate having a similar feeling again.
It was a day out of the routine, and maybe that's what unexpected gifts are made of and it makes me smile. So...good day today. For no reason. The very best kind. Hallelujah.
November 23, 2005~ 7:30pm
o.k.- I think it's time to talk about heros and how many of them are missed because they blend so well with the "ordinary, every day"--case in point, my sister: the one who will cook a meal tomorrow for 12 adults and 10 children, and who does this every Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving- and has done this for the past 25 years.
She's the same person took off in a Ford Falcon with its bumper drooping to the ground in 1960 as a newlywed with her husband Bob, a lieutenent in the U.S. Army, and drove across country to live in a small trailer just outside of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My mother cried, seeing that dragging bumper. It seemed to symbolize the heaviness of responsibilities in being an adult. (She was also going to miss her, very, very much.)
Three children, all boys spaced only a year apart and in her 30's- she decided to get a degree. It took her nearly 10 years of night classes and studying till all hours, but she did it. Microbiology. Then went on to work in local hospitals in their pathology labs for the next 20 years. Oh...and she got braces on her teeth. In her early 40's, lol....you see, it's always time to do the right thing for Kathy.
She's a good example, and lord knows, I need one. While I was spending early adulthood sobering up, finding myself, losing myself, finding me again, then leaving a marriage and having custody of the kiddoes only on alternate weekends and a few evenings per week, Kathy was doing all of above, plus the bigger challenge: finding herself WHILE STAYING in the same place- digging in and changing- right where she was planted. Amazing.
So at this time of thanksgiving, I thank God for the glue that keeps us all together. Yes, it's the 'glue' who wasn't happy until she'd read all of 'War and Peace' and learned Bridge- learned to drive with 3 boys in diapers, took up tennis, sking, golf...you name it, she's had a stab at it. All quite remarkably and quietly, without a fuss.
If I ever grow up, I'd like to have some of my big sister's integrity and drive.....but I doubt that time is coming soon. Tomorrow is thanksgiving. I don't even have a stove.
November 24, 2005 ~12:45pm
I'm up early for me on this Thanksgiving Day. Usually I sleep till about an hour and a half before I'm due somewhere- (for work, it's an hour.) Got it down to where I spring out of bed, wash up, slap on some make up and jump in the car for a 25 minute commute that will stretch to an hour, hour and a half- depending on traffic- for the ride back home. All this sans coffee, but pleased to have saved every last second of my own time before I give it up for 8 and a half hours.)
Time is the issue here. I'm very sensitive about time and am niggardly about giving it away: when I'm on someone else's time, I'm all there and when I'm enjoying my own time, I'm burrowed into it like a bunny in its hutch- and stay away- this part is mine and I'll protect it.
That said, I'm sitting here sipping a leisurely pot of coffee with three hours before I need to get ready to step out into the snowy day, scrape off the car, turn on the public radio station and drive 5 miles to pick up my mother and take her to Kathy's. What I feel now is comfort and a lack of hurry. I am grateful for the pause. I am thankful for all those times this past year when my spirit has been quietly unhurried and I am entirely in my own mind and skin. When I'm sitting at the computer and pouring some of me into the greater pool. Everything is a balance between privacy and blending-- and sometimes I get the formula just right. Today is such a day.
November 26, 2005 ~10:45am
Holiday is over, and yes, "a good time was had by all". And I ended up with a headcold- mostly because I refuse to dress for the season, which is no longer 'fall-like'. It dropped to a frigid 12 degrees yesterday morning after a stretch of days in the 20's when I was still wearing a light jacket
...stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.
And I noticed my image host was down. Two days now-- and that's two days too long. I'm uploading everything to another host: something I have done 3 times in the last 4 months and takes hours and hours of recoding and uploading, but it's worth it to me. I've used 'paid' services and honestly, their track record is no better, but the ANGER I feel when THOSE go down is Krakatoan! At least this way I figure I've had a good ride at no charge- and the work that has to be done to get things right is the same. (Even when they say they'll fix it, it means there are days of redoing ahead of me.)
When you've reached this age, you learn to pick your battles and you know how to keep the peace, and no, I haven't found it to be true that you "get what you pay for": free or bankrolled, you often get a good deal less than promised and I'm not jaded, just experienced. What comes with payment is 'hope'--and some kind of guarantee that you can wave around usually to fan the stink of broken faith that's gonna happen, dollar or not, so doing it this way, I don't feel I'm being 'robbed'; the only real result is that I've enjoyed a few months of smooth, lovely web that didn't hurt my pocketbook one bit. But it comes at another kind of 'price': you have to dig in when there's work to do, clean up after the messes, and keep on looking for green pasture to rest and enjoy the view-- the whole menagerie and me-- knowing it's the journey that's fun. And that I'm a rollin' stone....
(Return To Weekly Archives)
...
. or pay a visit to my Audio site to hear things
I've written- 
Some are just 'jotters', thoughts as they fly- going
nowhere but where they are. If you stop and read a few~ or post a
few~ thanks for
the perusal. Last of all, if you've a hankering for rants and raging,
try making a stop at my other blog- 
