When I get my act together, this page will be the archive of the posts from my original blog that were saved as text files and, therefore, not completely lost when the previous server/hosting setup went “Poof!”

This page goes opposite to the current set of blog entries — oldest saved entry first, newest saved entry last. So here we go:

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Sept 11, 2006

Probably a common thought

Everybody’s doing it — “Where were you five years ago? What were you doing when you heard about it?” Where, what, how…it was all so normal, and so weird.

I live on the West coast, so I was asleep. Sound asleep. I didn’t have to be to work until late that afternoon, so I hadn’t even set my alarm clock. I knew I’d wake up long before it was necessary, and I did. Startled into an sudden open-eyed state because I thought I heard someone screaming. But it was quiet. Normal. Nothing. As well it should have been, since a glance at my clock told me it was only 4:57am. “Sheesh! A nightmare, maybe? I’m going back to sleep.”

Usually that’s wishful thinking — once I’m awake, I’m stuck with awake for a long stretch of hours, no matter how tired I am. This time I actually went back to sleep. Weird.
……………………………………………………………..

RING!!!!!

I *hate* it when the phone wakes me up!

“Mom, turn on the news. The Towers were hit. The World Trade Center is gone. It’s on the news.”

Huh? What tower? Is he kidding, because it’s not very funny… World Trade Center?
“Mom, it’s really bad…The Twin Towers were hit by airplanes. The Pentagon, too. They don’t know if there’s more…just turn on the news.”

Twin Towers? Pentagon? Okay, okay…find glasses…pad barefoot out to the living room…turn on the tv, he said news so I guess that means CNN…what the….?

To this day I don’t have any direct memory of what time the phone call came. I just sat there, horrified, disbelieving, believing, arms around myself, crying inside but unable to cry tears. How long? I don’t know, since I don’t know what time that call came.
But I remember the red numbers on the alarm clock — the clock that’s always a little bit fast.

4:57 here…7:57 there…that’s too weird, just forget about it, people will think you’re crazy…

It kept playing over and over in the back of my head, while my eyes were busy with the pictures that seemed like they had to be special effects because being real was too horrible…and knowing they were real. Watching the Towers punctured, watching them fall, seeing the ugly hole in the Pentagon, the destruction that looked like some improbable giant had stomped on one side of that famously geometric construction…Screams at 4:57…at 7:57…red numbers…red, the danger color…

The FAA had ordered all planes to the ground and none to take off again..and there might be a fourth plane still taking aim, because one hadn’t landed, they couldn’t find it…4:57, 7:57…There might be a plane down in Pennsylvania, but nobody knows for sure. It might be part of whatever is happening/has happened or might just be a plane crash, but nobody knows for sure.

..screams that didn’t wake up anyone else but me…4:57, red, 7:57, screams…stop it! You can’t hear screaming from 3000 miles away! It’s a coincidence, just a weird, unsettling coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. Crazy thoughts…

…………………………….

There was another phone call, much later. That call found me on the couch, still in my bathrobe, still not able to stop watching. My manager (he sounds like he’s crying inside and trying not to cry tears) telling me not to come in to work because the company was closing all our stores for the rest of the day. Because of the airplanes, the destruction, the death, the horror that made conducting business totally irrelevant. Maybe tomorrow we would sell newspapers and coffee and muffins, but not today. The news was too visual, too immediate for newspapers. Coffee and muffins were irrelevant.
And now I look at a clock again. Noon. Good thing I don’t have to go to work, since I’m not even dressed, let alone ready to smile and make coffee for strangers. Coffee, yeah, maybe that would be a good idea. How long have I been awake?

……………………….

That was the question everybody asked each other the next day, and for days after that. “Where were you when you heard? What were you doing when the Towers were hit?”

4:57, 7:57

“it’s weird. Something woke me up before 5, and I never wake up that early.”

“I think I heard something that woke me up really early, but I went back to sleep.”

“I thought I heard my sister/mother/baby crying and woke up, but it was quiet.”

Over and over and over…same thing, different people…I stopped counting when I heard it for the 50th time. Why at 50? I don’t really know all that many people, so that was a big enough number to end with, I guess. Maybe because there are 50 states. Maybe because I was feeling older, what with the news and the fear and all; I had stopped thinking of myself as generically “over 35″ and started counting down from my half century mark. “Less than 6 years till 50.”

Now it’s almost 50…and I’ve heard that same story from many other people. If I asked someone today, I’d probably hear it again.

………………………………………………………………………..

4:57, 7:57, screams, crying, explosions, nightmares, running, choking…

………………………………………………………………………

I’m not going to ask.

~~~~~

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26 Sept 2006

I want a day off.

I want a REAL day off.

Not a day when I don’t go to my paying job but I still have multiple obligations to assorted people.

Not a day when I don’t go to work and don’t find out that there are no obligations to others until halfway through the day.

Not a day when I don’t go to my paying job but I work my tail off taking care of all the things that somehow don’t get done on my work days. You know, like recharging the magic Brita, finding the sink under the dishes, making the transition from all towels in the hamper to all towels put away clean.

I want to look at the calendar and say, “I have Tuesday off, so I’m going to get my desk and my dresser organized, then I’m going to watch a movie.”

I want do for ME first — without any penalties.

There are always penalties, it seems. Even if all the obligations have been met, “me time” is a costly thing to invoke.

….
I tried to take an evening off a while back. Not a whole day, just a few hours at the end of a day of fulfilling multiple obligations to other people. I thought I had actually managed it, too. I made a drive through an area I had never been before to visit a friend I hadn’t seen in about 30 years. A beautiful drive, pretty scenery, just the radio for company. She made dinner and we chatted about high school, life after high school, marriages, kids, jobs…about things that had changed and things that hadn’t changed. And we talked about getting together again and including the other people in both our lives. As I was getting into my car, she told me her husband had next Monday off (as did I) and told me to call her if we could come up. Then I called home to let them know I’d be back in about an hour…

Mistake. Things were most definitely not cool at home. Instead of a peaceful, rejuvenating drive through the lovely countryside it was a tense “get there soonest” commute from “could be” to “is.” Heading back to tension, bitterness, uncertainty…and as sad as that realization was, even worse is that I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed.

I wanted to go home joyfully and pass on the invitation to barbecue and friendship. For a brief time, I had an old friend in the here and now, and I hoped to hang on to that small piece of being normal — hang on to it, share it, expand it.

I’ve hoped that kind of hope before, which is why I wasn’t surprised when I had to let it go. I’ve been there before.

“What happens to a dream deferred?” the poet asked…

But I’m not the exploding type, so I guess everyone around me is safe from that.

I don’t explode, but I feel like I’m slowly imploding, diminishing, shrinking.
Oh well, been there, done that, survived.

Everything is just fine, right?

Sure.

~~~~~

~~~~~

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30 Sept 2006

Influences, Part One

Okay, that may be a bit pretentious. After all, how can I say for sure there will be even a Part Two, let alone other numbers? But it’s one of those things that I ponder on frequent occasion, so chances are good I’ll think of more to say than just this.

-

“Never tease a weasel,

Not even once or twice.

The weasel will not like it,

And teasing isn’t nice.”

-

A very early “be kind to animals” and “good manners count” story. That it stuck with me can be measured by something much simpler than my general preference for the company of non-human animals over most of the human variety whom I have encountered over the years. I remember the rhymes, the smiles, and the feeling that even the funny parts were saying something important. Thank you, Jean Soule.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.”

and

“A person’s a person no matter how small.”

-

If you don’t recognize those quotes, please accept my sympathy for your deprived childhood. No child should be cheated of the joy of getting to know Horton the Elephant.

(How many thousands of children have been shaped by Dr. Seuss — and similar authors often included in a “Dr. Seuss Book Club” setup?)

Horton the Elephant…what a GREAT guy! Sweet, trusting, trustworthy, loyal, kind, brave — the list of admirable qualities could go on for quite a bit of text space.

“Horton Hatches An Egg” — he looked like a nice, dumb guy who gets pushed around by a brassy brat. Maizy, the reluctant bird mom who conned that big doof into doing all the work. But nice guys get rewards, too, and you have to respect his uncompromising persistence, his determination to live up to his given word, even when it turned out to be a choice that led to deprivation and ridicule.

And I can’t be the only one who encountered “Horton Hears a Who” and stalled out some time later looking at a bit of chalk dust, or a dandelion poof, or a dust bunny…wondering, “What if…?” Some of my favorite moments — be it a book, a movie, or just my own musings — start with “What if…?” And who hasn’t ever felt invisible, unimportant, and wanted to echo the residents of Whoville? To shout, “I am here! I am here! I am here!” and hear others shouting along? “We are here! We are here! We are here!”
Yes, I am here. And so is every other person who has ever felt very small.

————————

Today I will change the world.

Probably not a writer’s first thought when starting on a book for children. I suppose it shouldn’t be, since the arrogance that could fuel that thought would almost guarantee a lousy result.

But those authors are powerful. They change small, maybe not so unimportant as they seem bits of the future world.

Big things are made up of little things. From atoms to molecules to everything that is.

~~~~~

~~~~~

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04 Oct 2006

It’s about time

for me to say something about the cats, don’t you think? Anyway, cats are a much more pleasant subject than the other track my thought train was travelling. In order of age, as is proper in cat society, the five fur persons around here now are

Little Guy — Born into a feral colony, trapped at about 3 months old by a person who probably intended to feed him to her python(!), his traumatic kittenhood still affects his reactions, especially to humans. He’s gorgeous, plump, sturdy, frequently invisible, agoraphobic, and loves to be scratched. He’s also weirdly stubborn about peeing on anything cloth that stays on the floor longer than a few minutes. If you can get close enough for long enough, you realize he has striped whiskers!

Jasmine — The only survivor from a line of cats prone to respiratory infections, Jasmine is both sturdier and more fragile than she appears. She’s a harlequin-faced dark calico and probably the talkiest cat here. She’s an unabashed flirt with a definite preference for the company of the male of the species — any species! But she has so much love that she’s affectionate and warm toward most females, as well.

SamIam — Now about 6 years old, he was no more than 2 days old when he arrived at our door in the hand of a small girl. Bottle raising a new kitten is an iffy process, but his feisty nature gave him the necessary edge to survive. Sam is undoubtedly the most intelligent cat I’ve ever been privileged to know. He double-checks his grooming in the bathroom mirror, demonstrating a level of self-awareness many “experts” claim cats cannot reach. Properly phrased questions will be answered with actions that are too precise to be accidental, and he is not the kind of cat you can “train” to do tricks. He’s also somewhat psycho, perhaps due to conflicts between his human-parented upbringing and his inherently catly nature. Mr. Cuddles one minute, Hissing Devilcat the next. He really can be dangerous, but sometimes that’s when I love him the most. Hmmm….

Scampurrs — my furry little antidepressant. She also arrived at our door in the hands of a small girl. (Different door, different girl…odd coincidence.) She was probably about 7 weeks old at that time, but so starved she couldn’t stay warm on her own and didn’t have enough energy to chew food. Patient bottle-feeding of a mixture of kitten formula, rice cereal, and baby food lamb got her up and playing. She’s been a kitten for five years (and counting), in spite of being about 12 pounds of mostly not fat. Just the thought of losing her can put me in tears, so I try not to think about that very often.

~~~~~

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06 Oct 2006

I can count to thirteen

Not me, although I can, of course. That was what my 6-year-old grandson announced when he came up to my desk for the umpteenth time this afternoon. Then he demonstrated how to count to thirteen. He got it right; he really can count to thirteen.

Oh, excuse me, that’s firteen. (He lost his first baby tooth a few days ago.)

He also seems to have (for the moment, knock on wood, whisper into a jar and bury it in the back yard so it won’t get jinxed) given up on the “little monster” routine and is trying on the “neat little kid” persona again. He has two behavior charts, which probably provides a full explanation for the personality classifications. One chart for school, one for home; rules and consequences listed on the chart sheets and frequently reiterated to him. Frequently reiterated by him today.

Yesterday was, according to him, “a long day.” His behavior was gold star all the way; maybe that made it feel like time had stretched out for him. Today, on the way back from the bus he told me “Being good is hard work and I been working really hard on it and I’m gonna be good all day again.”

(Well, there was some weird head-butting, metaphorically speaking, with his teacher, but it seems he backed down in time to avoid losing his gold star. Now why was he so intensely arguing about which hand was his right hand? Silly kid.)

Anyway, that pronouncement occurred about 6-1/2 hours ago.

* Every time he sees me starting a task, he asks if he can help me. If I tell him it’s something I have to do for myself, he comes back later and asks me how it’s going. If I give him a task, it’s “Okay!” and off he goes.
* He asks me to change the tv channel. (The “Disassembled Remote” incident resulted in a ban on him touching assorted devices.)
* He’s not nagging when told he has to wait for {fill in the blank}.
* He’s not arguing when told it’s time to {fill in the blank}.
* He’s asking for snacks, not raiding the cupboards and refrigerator and only actually eating half of what he grabs. (Which means he’s not hiding illicit food portions in his bed, under furniture, behind furniture, in the laundry hamper, in one of the litterboxes, under the bathroom sink…)
* He asked me if he could read a book. When I said, “Sure you can.” he went and washed his hands before picking out a book. Without being told to.

Is this the same boy who literally had a screaming fit when told it was bedtime a few days ago? He looks like the same boy. His voice is the same (minus the sullen whine). He appears to remember everything–and more–than the boy who was here earlier this week. Short of performing fingerprint and DNA identity checks, it seems certain that he is the same boy.

Little boys are weird. (So are big boys, but that’s another subject for another time…maybe.)

I don’t understand them. Yes, I raised one myself. I suppose I helped raise my brothers to some small extent, as well. Doesn’t matter. I know how they behave, or misbehave, but not why. Sometimes I know how to counter the effects of the misbehavior, even some tricks to disrupt incipient misbehavior. But the why part continues to elude me.

“Being good is hard work.” I do remember being 6 years old, but I don’t remember ever thinking it was “hard work” to behave. Boring sometimes, annoying sometimes, even depressing sometimes, but hard? No.

I most certainly was not a perfect little angel, but even then I knew I sometimes did something just because I wanted to and not because it was right or easy. Following the rules was easy: learn the rule, follow the rule. Simple.

Figuring out how to break the rules, trying not to get caught, trying to find excuses after being caught, trying to find a way to not get punished, coping with the consequences of punishment, not the least of which was the embarrassment – now that was hard! No, it was much easier to just behave in a way that didn’t freak out the grown-ups in my childhood world, and my child-self knew it.

Wait a minute…is it that simple? A difference of logic and perspective? Do little boys really think it’s harder to “act civilized” than it is to be a selfish, sneaky, destructive little bipedal hominid? In spite of experience, do they really, truly believe that it’s harder to be nice than it is to be naughty?

But that just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t track. It’s illogical. It’s…irrational.

Little boys are weird.

Then again, an awful lot of big boys seem to think that way, too.
(Oops, another subject, another time. Right.)

~~~~~

~~~~~

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09 Oct 2006

If I can’t say it here, then where?

After all, it’s my domain, right? So…

WARNING: POLITICAL STUFF AHEAD!

Remember the Clinton impeachment proceedings? Remember the loud outrage expressed by Republicans (office-holders and voters)? Not to mention the near hysteria from the religious right? “Holier than thou” does not even begin to describe the attitude and tone of the flaming rhetoric during that episode of American history. To mildly suggest that it might be wise to suspend judgment until all the facts were in was to involve a flood of verbal abuse and impassioned lectures from relatives, friends (well, I thought they were…) and complete strangers.

Now there’s “Foley’s Adventures With Pages” in the news. Some of the most vocal of the “righteous” people from the aforementioned era are players this time around, too, but oh, what a difference time makes. Most are scrambling to distance themselves, claiming a lack of knowledge, asserting their fervent attempts to clean things up quickly.

Uh-huh. Except that the latest word is that there were those who knew the game back in 2000, and I’m wondering…

* Just how many of those who did so know about Foley then were working their butts off to make sure the public stayed focussed on Clinton’s zipper? Or Al Gore’s pedestrian speeches?

* Just how many of those who did so know about Foley were winning votes by touting their superior connection with “moral values” even while they tried everything–including blatant lies–to dull the image of John Kerry?

I had to listen to one twit at work go on and on and on and on {gag} about how happy she was with the 2004 election results because the most important thing for her was voting for people with “high moral values.”

* Citizens of multiple countries are dying in battles and ambushes. Too many people have been blown up, shot, kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded (sometimes on video) just for being in Iraq, even as non-combatants. It turns out the invasion was predicated on false information, but hey, there are other good reasons to send other people to die there, right? (Seems “flip-flop” is only perjorative when applied to a non-Republican.)

* The early military record of our Commander in Chief is spotty, conflicting, and dubious. His opponent for the 2004 election is a decorated veteran who spoke out against the war that got him his medals. Defend the dubious guy; trash the war hero. (It’s okay to lie, since it’s for the purpose of electing the guy with the high moral values.)

* Remember 9/11? All those ordinary folks in New York and D.C. who died just because they went to work that day? The heroes who brought down a plane in a field so that it couldn’t be used the way the other three planes had been used? Remember who was behind it? What happened to the hunt for that particular mass murderer? Oh yeah, we had to go “clean up” Iraq first because of the weapons of mass destruction there…

* Remember the budget surplus? If you don’t, then don’t worry about it. Sometimes you’re better off if you don’t know what you’re missing. In this case, we’re missing several billions of dollars. How much is a billion? If you start counting right now (”one, two, three, four…”) you won’t reach a billion before you die; that’s how much a billion is.

* No matter how you slant it, there something wrong with a party that battles bitterly to prevent the “perversion” of marriage (by allowing same sex marriages) while hiding prominent members who are, um, not quite as advertised. (Hello, Mr. Mayor of Spokane, have you met the esteemed member of Congress? You two have a lot in common.)

* And then there’s the school science curriculum silliness. Passing legislation to make PI equal to 3 didn’t work; passing legislation to make faith equal to fact doesn’t work, either. (Mind you, I’m not opposed to discussion and even teaching of all theories, but let’s not pretend that it’s all science. Some of it is science, some of it is myth, and a lot of it is too complex to be easily pigeonholed.)

Talk about your red herring issues…

This is NOT an anti-Republican missive. Rampant hypocrisy and a stubborn denial of reality are annoying from any person or group of people. It’s just that the Republican Party has been incredibly vocal about their superior morality. If you hang your tail from a tree branch, somebody is going to pull it.

I’m sure there are those who won’t believe it, but I have sometimes voted for Republican candidates. I have also voted for Democratic, Independent, Libertarian, Green Party, Socialist, Rainbow Coalition, and even a couple of O.W.L. candidates, for pity’s sake. (Hmmm….if you’re not from Washington State, you might not understand that last reference. Go look it up. It’s good to stretch your research skills and it’s even better to get a chance for a good laugh.) I have fond memories of the elections where the non-binding option of “None of the above” was offered.

Ethics, intelligence, practicality, honesty, fairness, rationality, reasonableness, and even “high moral values” are subjective subjects and individual characteristics; you have to examine the individual to assess these (and other) qualities. Plopping your butt down in a party chair and not looking past the crepe banners is for those unwilling or unable to perform basic critical analysis. The willfully stupid, the deliberately lazy, and the easily led will flock to political banners so that the crafty, the venial, and the charismatic in search of power can get what they want.

Yes, I know I just insulted a lot of people.

If you’re not among them, then you know it may have been unkind, but it was not untrue.

If you are, well…reality bites, doesn’t it? Cope.

~~~~~

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23 Oct 2006

The End of an Era (that never really was)

No point going over all the fatiguing things again, I guess. I’m the only audience I know of around here, and I already know every letter and nuance of the list of things that drain the joy out of my (alleged) life. But today I had a small epiphany — not a blinding flash of enlightenment…nightlight down the hall, more like.

It all hurts and infuriates and depresses because for a brief time there were all those oft-cited “little things” that made me feel like what I did was noticed, appreciated — like somebody gave a damn how I felt, what I needed. Coffee in the coffeepot, a friendly ear and possibly even conversation, someone to work alongside of on all those pesky household routine things, a reason to smile, an opportunity for laughter, a chance to relax, a chance to rest…

That’s gone (for the most part) and it’s kind of hard not to feel like that means that my efforts are not noticed or appreciated and that (for the most part) nobody really gives a damn or hoot how I feel or what I need. Oh, I keep on doing, but there isn’t much lightness, let alone actual happiness in most of what I accomplish. Probably the closest I’ll get to someone seeing my work is the chance to do it all over again because everything I get done today will be undone by tomorrow or the next day.

Yes, I know I’m not really totally alone. I know that at least part of this feeling is because I’ve been so tired for so long that up looks way too far away to even think about trying to climb out of the dry well of my days.

There are probably a very few who know where I’m at and how I feel and even a bit about what I actually need. There might be a few (less) who are willing to put what I really need ahead of what they merely want. Maybe. But I’m not seeing it today. And I’m realizing that (a) I haven’t seen much of it for a long time and, (b) I don’t really think I’ll see much of it in the future, either.

Has anybody noticed that I’ve been actually truly ill for the last week, that I’m in increased pain over the last few days? It doesn’t seem to matter that I’m so sleep-deprived that my vision is a blurry, my balance is off, and I’m just not capable of moving very fast.

Today is one of those horrible, vicious, gnawing days where I’m “off work.” I’m really beginning to dread my “days off.” Don’t go to work, sure…
I got home well after midnight from my (paid) work last night, tried to wind down quickly, but didn’t quite manage 4 hours of sleep before…

* The alarm went off and I got up and made sure small boy had breakfast, shower, teeth-brushing, dressing (without wearing clashing and/or ill-fitting and/or dubiously clean pieces), snack and note for school, and companship walking to the school bus in time (barely) to get on and get to school.
* Then it’s into the car (I really need to clean it, inside and out, in my spare time. Right.) I took care of some (depressing) money stuff, filled the gas tank, did some necessity shopping, battled my way back through traffic, arriving barely in time to put purchased items away, answer phone call (whee! a chance to sit for a few minutes), and get back up to meet small boy as he got off school bus. Then it’s listen to small boy’s day (a good one, thank heavens), feed small boy, answer small boy’s questions about toys, tv, teachers, friends, life, the universe, and everything.
* Next up, Mom’s Taxi Service, which I really don’t mind doing, but it’s a bit nerve-wracking when my vision isn’t optimal and the safety of one (grown) child and one grandchild rests completely on my aching shoulders while the traffic gets worse.
* Back home, more questions to answer, lots of reading to do (trying to click enough to cover the half the cost of a really cool raincoat), lots of laundry to do (one load in the dryer, one load in the washer, three more that need doing…), dishes to do, assorted parts of apartment to clean.
* Hmmm…forgot to eat, no wonder I feel so wobbly. It’s not fancy, or probably even healthy, but it fills the stomach and provides some level of fueling: a not-quite-stale bagel with the luxury of whipped cream cheese and a side of pepperoni slices. (Sheesh, my doctors would have a purple-spotted, green-striped herd of bovines if they knew how I usually ate.) Back to the usual deadly routine of a not-going-to-work day.

Even if I could go to sleep now and not get up until 3:00 Wednesday afternoon I would still be tired at work that night…

But there’s things to clean, things to plan, things to put away, small boy to watch (like a hawk…he’s still erratic on the behavior front…), cats to feed, pet, and avoid stepping on, phone calls to answer…It would be nice if there were things to read for fun, movies to watch, something to sew, some creative cooking to do, music to listen to, conversation to share…and a nap. More than anything, I wish I could just rest when I’m tired…

I don’t get to nap. Maybe the sky would fall or the Reds would invade or little green men would come and death-ray all of the Eastern Seaboard if someone else did some of this stuff, if someone else stood watch while I rested. There must be some reason why the rules are different for me than they are for everyone else in my world.

But what the heck, it’s my day off, I don’t have to go to work, so I’m resting, right?

Somebody told me long ago that “you’ll feel better if you just let yourself cry when you need to.”

Liar.

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

24 Oct 2006

Irrelevency Mode

That’s what I call it, anyway. It’s that mental state where everything triggers something else that seems to have little connection to the something that came ahead of the whatever, if that’s not too contorted to follow. Maybe you can figure out the connection later, but at first it’s “What on earth made me think of THAT?” It’s a useful mode for problem-solving and free-writing…and getting paid for wasting time, too.

I’ve been earning nickels and pennies and fractions of pennies doing the “Get Paid To” stuff.

* GPT read email (click on a link to verify reading).
* GPT look at advertisements (often for someone else’s Paid To Promote page full of banners, it seems) for a timed interval (5 to 100 seconds, depending on what it is and how much you’re getting paid).
* GPT search, which requires three steps:
* (1) click on the emailed link to a pay-per-click search engine
* (2) enter a search term in the search box, or more often, choose a search term from the options listed
* (3) click on a link in the page that comes up after your first search.

Simple enough, although the pages without search boxes seem to have the same deadly dull options. How often can you really try to be interested in a link to “California DUI Lawyer” or “Spam Filter” or “Work from home” or…well, you get the idea.But the pages with the search boxes, now those can take you to all sorts of intriguing, informative, or just plain silly pages, all for the effort of typing in a word or two. After 40 or 50 searches, though, you start to do some quirky free-association, pick a word out of the jar stuff, and then you find the unexpected, the unpalatable, and sometimes the too-weird-for-words stuff.

o Heartless led to some unusual, sometimes slightly appalling, sites. (I did bookmark one of them, though.)
o Quack ended up taking me to a sales page for a Polish movie.
o Cluck got me to some links for Washington Grown Chicken.
o Meep landed me at a page for what appears to be a now-defunct musical group.
o Moo went all over the place from internet user groups to art sales to a virtual dairy.

And just how did I get started on this free-association search engine playtime routine? It started somewhere in the middle of an overflowing inbox. One search after another and another and another…and most of them had all those same lame search terms referenced above. No, I don’t have to do each search, but I’m compulsive that way sometimes (okay, lots of times) and besides, it’s not like I had anything truly interesting to do. Just another {yawn} afternoon between wake up and go to work.

So….I open yet another page by clicking on the email link sent by the pay-me site, thinking, “Oh poop! Another dull set of choices again. Hmmm….there’s a little bitty search box at the bottom of the page.”

Yep, I typed in poop. What came up next on the screen was too much fun. For good and all, irrelevency mode searching had me hooked.

Why? Okay, sit up straight; wouldn’t want you to fall off your chair.

Ready?

Mangoseek: poop

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~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

20 Nov 2006

Okay, so I’ve been a bit busy lately…

It’s not that there’s all that much of huge importance taking up my time, but the little time-nibblers and energy-suckers seem to be multiplying.

There are the up-to-15-minutes things: loading/putting away dishes, bathroom sprucing, loading/putting away towels, fetching small boy from bus stop, supervising litterbox cleaning and post-cleaning clean-up, doing the trashes around the apartment, sweeping up stuff here and there, making little boy lunches and snacks, grinding and brewing coffee, run down to the corner store for {fill in the blank}. These are usually every day things, sometimes every other day.

There are things that take 30 to 60 minutes: shower and et cetera, getting ready to go to work, actually driving to work, being Mom’s Taxi Service, making dinner even if I won’t be home to eat it, really cleaning the bathroom, wading through the flat-surface pile up places one at a time, cleaning parts of the apartment that don’t get noticed often enough. Some of them are daily, but most are here and there, a few times a week, or even just a few times a month, or even less, to be honest.

The big time-eaters aren’t the big time-eaters, really. Working 30 to 40 hours each week is a time-eater, but at least it pays off in groceries and debt-reduction. Sleeping is a lot less of a time-eater than I wish it was; I’d like to trade my 4-1/2 hour average night for the 7 hour plan someday. Major shopping is sometimes a drag, sometimes fun, but not a regular drain on the clock. Economic reality takes care of limiting that one. Email, including all the GPT stuff, does take a lot of time, but it’s time spent between tasks or when I’m too darn tired to do much anyway–and it does pay off a bit, although obviously not at the level of a “real” job.

No, it’s the little things that chew up time, both the regular ones and the special occaision ones like voting. All the little “while you’re at it” add-ons like returning library books, zigging over to That Specific Store for That Specific Thing, stopping by the Post Office to actually send something via snail mail, running the car through the car wash, stopping by the storage place to pick up or stash something–those really add up. As do the small encumbrances: getting little boy in and out of car for assorted errands, using the walk-up ATM because the drive-up one is freaked out again, going into the bank because I don’t have a deposit slip so I can’t go to the drive-up window, and the seemingly endless road projects that delay traffic on an irregular and very unpredictable basis.

So the 20 little tasks that might consume up to 5 hours each get an extra 5 or 10 minutes added onto them. There goes another 2 or 3 hours. So an average day is 8 hours at work, 1 hour commuting time, 5 hours of tasks, 3 hours of delays and addons…which leaves just 7 hours for me to use for writing, reading, watching a movie, lingering over a cup of coffee, and sleeping.

When I consider my finances, I get a bit glum sometimes, although I think things are improving on that front. But time? Ack! I’m so overdrawn at the time bank I’ll never catch up now!

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

05 Dec 2006

Hey, Gramma!

I realized the other day that I was responding to that automatically, with a smile, even. I guess that means it finally sounds normal to me. Actually, it’s kind of cool.

“Hey, Gramma! Look at my cell phone I made.”

Lego. We made houses and sometimes cars and trucks. He builds computers, keyboards, cell phones, satellite tv dishes, and remote controls. Lots of remote controls. Sometimes three or four in one session. The boy is fascinated by remote controls. I don’t get it, myself, but it’s certainly better to have a living room full of Lego remote controls than a living room full of disassembled actual remote controls.

“Hey, Gramma! Look what my toy can do!”

Some strange thing that came with the Happy Meal. Roundish, something that kind of looks like a face, multiple protuberances that look like the offspring of a trumpet and an octopus–legs? arms? feelers? One of them lights up if the toy is squeezed, apparently. Odd.

“Hey, Gramma! Look! Now it doesn’t work.”

Seems there’s an off switch so that the light up protuberance won’t light up. Okay, why not?

“Hey, Gramma! Do you want me to take the trash to the dumpster?”

Umm, not right now. It’s only half full. Maybe later, okay?

“Hey, Gramma! I’m getting kinda thirsty…”

Water for now, something else after I go to the store, okay?

“Hey, Gramma! It sure was fast to do the litterboxes today.”

Litterboxes are his job. He even sometimes remembers them without a reminder. He’s getting better at not missing chunks and clumps in the corners, too.

“Hey, Gramma! If I do the litterboxes every day, it’s fast. If I do the litterboxes just sometimes, it takes a long time. And it’s stinkier. So I should do them every day.”

Smart kid. There’s a lot of adults who haven’t figured out that it’s easier to do a lot of little tasks than one big ugly task. Sure hope he remembers the “litterbox principle” as other tasks come his way in the future.

Sometimes being an in-house caretaker grandmother-substitute-mom isn’t fun, but it’s kind of neat to watch him catch on to things.

“Hey, Gramma!” isn’t the worst greeting to hear. It’s a bit repetitous at times, but no moreso than “Hey, Mom!” — which I have heard for years…and still do, for that matter.

At first it seemed really weird. Me? I’m not old enough for this, am I?

But it’s also my connection to tomorrow, through younger eyes, newer curiosity, fresher perspectives. It’s my reminder of being younger, feeling more optimistic, believing in things that I hadn’t figured out.

“Hey, Gramma!” means I’m still useful, that I’m connected to the world, that my listening and responding means something.

Cool.

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

26 Dec 2006

Boxing Day, Morning Reflections

Now that I can finally get here again… Having Windoze crack and shatter–and take a lot of other apps with it, of course–is somehow exceedingly appropriate to the last few weeks.

The Mighty Wind of 2006 took away the power for about 2 days here, although there are some folks out there who are still not back online. It’s expensive to survive without refrigeration or cooking facilities! It’s also increasingly cold, resulting in folks jacking the heat up WAY TOO HIGH for WAY TOO LONG once the electricity was once again available. That will result in another couple of rounds of sticker shock; first there will be the bill for the rewarming of water tank and living space and then will come the rate increase when PSE goes sniveling to the legislature about a decrease in profits. Poor little rich stockholders in a private energy company — wouldn’t want them to go without some luxuries once in a while, now would we?

* Parenthetical Observation: At this point in the functioning of Western so-called Civilization, it seems obscene for so few to profit on something so necessary to all. Yeah, I know all the nice Capitalistic arguments. Don’t care. A decent society shouldn’t let rapacious greed control vital services. Of course, a decent society wouldn’t do an awful lot of the things that are currently acceptable, so I don’t expect any maturing of perspective on the energy services questions.

Work was an oasis of normality, at least in the category of modern conveniences.

* Parenthetical Observation 2: Note that I don’t use that clunky, not-quite-a-word bastardization of the language so common to politicians and others of the windbag ilk. “Normalcy” — gack!

Many of our stores didn’t have power after the Mighty Wind, so my particular location was absolutely mobbed by customers from other stores plus all the folks who didn’t have power at home and/or couldn’t get to work because of trees on the road or no power at their businesses or whatever. A week after the power came back on (for most, that is) and the entire crew at my store is still exhausted from the heavy load. Sometimes a busy shift seems shorter, but those few days were the kind of busy that makes it feel like the shift will never end.

And then there’s the pre-Christmas craziness: crowded stores, creep-and-stop traffic, money dwindling, tempers fraying, children get more and more wound-up while adults get more and more harried. The Mighty Wind added to that part of the season, as well. Restaurants, libraries, and stores were crowded with shoppers and warmth-seekers — and I’ll bet the shoplifting rate spiked, too. Having so many traffic lights go dark certainly added flavor to the daily commute…my poor little car had a really tough time keeping its cool and I got very good at watching the road and the temperature gauge at the same time.

Health and happiness concerns far and near — another nice stress-induction routine. On the far side there are parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, a daughter and her family…each with their own burden to bear, which is hard to watch, even from a distance. How does Mama bear up with such grace to that continuing load? On the near side are things large and small…transient viruses with lingering effects affecting the human contingent of this living space, sleep troubles (sometime too much, sometimes not enough, depending on which person you look at), and bigger things (yes, plural) that have not really been discussed, but exist, looming and casting scary shadows.

A young woman of remarkable maturity and apparent serenity, with a fine mind and a perspective that makes her a pleasure to work with, recently complimented me on my calmness and adaptability in the face of the increased challenges at work lately. “I wish I could be so calm, so competent. I just want to scream!” I thanked her for the compliment and made some lightly humorous, slightly wise comment, and was rewarded with a smile big enough to be classed as a non-contact hug. Keep it light, upbeat, friendly, hopeful. She’s so young! She has plenty of time left to discover that sometimes it’s not that you’re calmer, more competent, more authoritative, more confident. Sometimes the load gets so heavy you can’t breathe deeply enough to scream, so you glide through the day wearing a cloak that looks like serenity, but is actually a sort of self-induced protective numbness.

My doctors tell me I absolutely have to quit smoking. They’re getting rather insistent about it, although I’m not really sure how much of that is specific medical concerns (yes, some of it is) and how much is the increasing societal disapproval that turns smokers into something less lovable than a second-class citizen. There’s a lot more understanding and real assistance out there if you choose an illegal drug or decide to participate in the world of alcoholism than there is for smokers.

* Parenthetical Note 3: One of the less appealing things about getting older is that you start collecting doctors and prescriptions.

I know I absolutely have to quit smoking. It would be better for me, better for the man of my heart (maybe then he could quit, too), better for my kids, my grandkids…better for the cats, for that matter. It would most definitely be better for my budget.

But… Every time I’ve tried to quit in the last two years, another blow has landed, something else to add to the stress load has come along and clamped it’s teeth on my throat. Sudden illness in someone dear to me. The slow decline of someone else I care about. Illness and injury to my own self. Financial blows. The troubles that come with rearing a small boy–a creature composed of cleverness, stubbornness, and mystery. Even an IRS audit, for crying out loud!

I know there’s not really a cause-and-effect thing going on with this, but it sure feels like there is. My logical mind tells me all the reasons why quitting would benefit me much more than not quitting; the little voice of atavism needles me with thoughts of what will happen if I try to quit again.

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

20 Jan 2007

It’s not fair, and who cares?

How long has it been since I’ve blown off pressures to do for others long enough to do something for myself? Check out the time lag from the last entry to this one. And the only reason I have the chance right now is I already did laundry, dishes, child care including meals, and taxi service, so I’m too tired to get up and run around any more when I have a full shift for standing up coming up this evening.

Who cares that I’m so tired the Wellbutrin isn’t working and I no longer care if it works or not?

Who cares that I damn near fell asleep at the wheel, literally, driving to work yesterday?

Who cares that any time I say I need some rest it’s suddenly impossible because that means there’s nobody to pay attention to small boy’s behavior?

Apparently I’m still the only person who uses dishes and towels — or at least the only one who gives a damn about doing the cleaning and putting away RIGHT. Haven’t quite figured out how I could be responsible for all those dishes and towels when I haven’t eaten two meals in a row at home more than once or twice in the past two weeks and I haven’t been able to get in the shower more than once every 5 or 6 days for ages.

So here I am, less than 2-1/2 hours until I have to be smiling and helpful to a bunch of customers — assuming I can stay awake on the drive to work, that is — and my one chance at a nap has been usurped.

Again.
As usual.
I’m so sick of this whole pathetic excuse for a life, is it any wonder that I don’t really care that the Wellbutrin can’t keep me out of the black pit of depression any more? Nobody else sees my pain, hears my voice, or dries my tears. Nobody except me.

Maybe tonight I’ll get lucky. Maybe tonight I’ll actually fall asleep while driving.
Probably not, though.

“And today is just like yesterday and like the day before,
And tomorrow will be like today or perhaps a little more.”

All I wanted was one lousy hour to rest without having to stay alert and be ready to jump up and take care of whatever happens. I didn’t even get 5 minutes.

I don’t like being me. I’m trying to do everything right, but there’s no payoff–and no day off–in sight. There’s nobody who likes me well enough to let me come first for a small portion of the day, so I guess that means I’m not the only one who doesn’t really like me.

Time to go do something for someone else again.

I wonder what it feels like to be able to depend on someone else always being available?

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

04 Feb 2007

Snippets

There was a recent scuffle in a so-called support forum wherein a lot of folks with more mouth (fingers? we are typing, after all, not talking…) than brain got up on their scruffy high horses and polluted the air with nasty opinions and uneducated pontifications, to the detriment of a decent, caring person. I was so disgusted by the whole mess that I added one–and only one–item to the thread expressing my disgust and saying, “Good-bye, good riddance, and I’m not gonna miss you.”

I’ve been informed recently that there are subsequent posts telling me that I was (1) doing the same thing I blasted others for doing, (2) only adding to the mess, and (3) full of it because it’s a certainty that I will return.

Re (3): I’m not going over there to find out exactly what’s been said. (There’s that Horton influence again. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”) I wouldn’t have deleted my account if I didn’t mean to stay away, now would I?

Re (2): Um, maybe, but if that thread is still active, then it really doesn’t matter, does it? The wailing and shrieking and blithering will continue as long as someone contributes. Since I haven’t been back, my former contribution is likely not a major influence on how long the squabble continues or how vicious it gets.

Re (1): Well, if swatting your kid for kicking a puppy is “the same” then I guess I’m guilty as charged. My personal take is that motivation counts, but some folks just have to see everything in a yes-no, on-off, black-white way. Humans are NOT binary, but some pathetic examples retreat into binary-ism to avoid the stress and confusion of sorting things out in their own heads.

~~~~~~~~

It’s been way too long since I’ve had half a moment to write anything…again. I suppose I could have written this Friday, since I was (allegedly) off work. (Not on the clock, but I didn’t have a chance to relax before the day was nearly over…) In addition to having most of my time spoken for by others, I was not about to come here on my birthday and wax eloquent on the import of my age and the emotional impact that accompanies an “important” date.

Bleah.

I am all too aware of my years.

I am continuously aware of how much I will never do, what I will never see, where I will never go.

I’m still trying to accept my own failures and the disappointments life has handed me.

And I don’t want to talk about it.

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

03 April 2007

Metaphor Mom

That’s how a family counselor described me, long ago, far away, in a previous life. She seemed to think there was something different about the way I thought, the way I connected the dots.

Doesn’t everybody see parallels and patterns in the world around them? I see them everywhere, constantly. They rise up in the midst of conversations, distracting a part of my mind from the subject at hand to something that appears unrelated to others, but makes complete sense to me.

Today it was the annual mammogram. (No history of or worry about breast cancer, just routine and I doubt it will ever be anything else.) Anyone who hasn’t had one probably can’t get the full visual imagery, but it’s a mildly uncomfortable process that involves compression of the breast tissue in order to get a detailed view of the tissue structure. The technician (female, in my experience — makes sense, since so many women are painfully self-conscious about their body parts) tells you where to stand, places the breast over the x-ray media, positions you with instructions and hands

“Feet toward the machine, hand on that bar, now turn a little.”
“Extend your arm a little more, this shoulder back a bit.” (pats shoulder)
“Now roll this shoulder in a bit and raise your chin.” (pats other shoulder)
“Honey, you’re so tense! You need to relax here.” (pat-stoke across chest just under collar bones)
“The more tense you are the more compression I have to use.” (heading back to the other side of the machine) “Try to be comfortable.”

Ding! And they’re off! The more tension, the more compression. Tension, compression. Stressor, pressure. The only way to compensate for extra stress is to add more pressure.

The old British cliche is “a stiff upper lip.” Have you ever really thought about that one? Do you have a gut-level appreciation of it’s full import? Want to understand it better? Okay, first make sure nobody is looking. Now try for your best close-lipped small smile. Not a big grin, just one of those “it’s polite to respond pleasantly when the boss cracks a joke” smiles. If you have a mirror handy, take a peek just to make sure you look like you’re politely half-smiling and not getting ready to sneeze. Make sure you haven’t started showing your teeth. Still no observers? Good. Now put down the mirror and hold that expression for at least a full minute.

Do you feel it? That sensation of slight, invisible downward pressure at the center of your nose? Hold it a little longer….longer….just a bit longer. Don’t let go yet. Check what you’re feeling. Increasing awareness of the corners of your mouth? Of the position of your tongue? teeth? lower lip? Is it just starting to seem like the center of your upper lip is slowly morphing into some life-like, not quite flexible bit of plastic? Now imagine holding that expression for an hour…a day…an evening…a lifetime…

How does your upper lip feel? Is there an almost-but-not-quite tingle at the very center nearer the teeth than the rest of the world? Are you are beginning to lose touch with the realness of you lip? Are your canines are trying to peek out, threatening to expose you as a snarling non-human animal and not a smiling human animal? Check the mirror…yes, the lip still there and there are no fangs in sight. Whew!

Okay, back to business. Hold that facial expression. No matter what happens around you, keep that expression of mildness & serenity, that mask over the turmoil and distancing in your mind.

THAT is a “stiff upper lip.”How do you cope when the pressure goes up? By the careful implementation of controlled and shaped pressure, compressing the turbulence of the mind into a mild mask for the face. The more tension there is, the more compression is needed. See? Patterns and parallels.

“Okay, honey, hold your breath.”

The machine whirs and clicks.

“That’s all.”

It’s amazing how far away the mind can run in a matter of seconds.

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

07 May 2007

Little Old Lady Who?

I usually work the night end of the day: start 3:30pm or later, done anywhere from 11:45pm to 1:30am. When I was hired, the company was referred to as a “retailer.” Over the last 8-1/2 years things have changed a lot; now the company is classified as a “quick service restaurant.” Personally, I see that as a diminishing of uniqueness, a lowering of our rank on the “classiness” scale. Whether or not it constitutes sacrificing being the best in favor of being the biggest is a subject many discuss (when the top dogs aren’t listening, if indeed they do), but that’s not where my head is at right now. I’ll keep working until physical realities force me out (likely) or until I can actually retire (unlikely). I’m not high enough up the food chain to determine what the company will be or what direction it will take; I’m just an aging nobody trying to avoid sinking in the dark financial waters that are the lot of the lower income levels. I didn’t make the world, I just try to live in it.

I rarely see people at the start of their days, except for the few who also work the darker hours. I see the folks on a last coffee break or heading home at the end of their day. There are moms with babies in strollers, either in between store stops or just out for a walkabout. There are dads carrying small children and herding big ones. Sometimes it’s grandparents who have been treating a kid or two to a bookstore trip–or even the other way around. I see plenty of business people meeting a prospective employee or counterpart from another business on more-or-less neutral ground, salesmen without actual offices who use our stores as a place to work on their deals–a huge percentage of them look like they’re talking to themselves, until they turn and you see that they are wearing those Bluetooth ear things for their cell phones. Later in the evening there are the high school and college kids doing homework or just hanging out for whatever reason.

I also see a few more marginals than is sometimes comfortable.

There’s a homeless encampment nearby; I’m not sure just where, but one of our regulars from the local police said it is “down by the river over there” while waving his had in a somewhat easterly direction. I’m glad we have a number of law enforcement regulars, because some of these people are not quite safe to have around.

There are drug users looking for something to steal–and succeeding far too often at times. Sometimes they’re after the tip jars; those have disappeared more than once. Sometimes they want to grab some piece of merchandise in our store and try to return it at another store.

There are those who have, through bad choices or bad luck, lost everything, including themselves. Usually they don’t stay in the area long. Some of them find help climbing back up into the world the rest of us inhabit, some move on to a shelter or a jail or a state-funded nursing home. Some die.

There are the mentally ill with no place to go; some of them have nobody who cares, some have left those who care far behind. Many are what I would call victims of our obsession with individual rights; they can’t really care for themselves and they have nobody to help them, but it’s “unconstitutional” to force them into some institutional setting when they aren’t dangerous to others, so the only place left is the streets. Our so-called civilization has some really huge holes in the fabric.

Every now and then these members of the lowest level of our supposedly “classless society” come in with some change they’ve collected, looking for a warm place to sit and a warm drink, or even something to eat if the panhandling has been good and there’s something left that isn’t too expensive; they would probably get more for their money at one of the fast food places nearby, but they get to sit inside longer at our place. Many times they come in to ask if we have any free samples–something that many of us behind the counter find both irritating and saddening.

And there is the little old lady with the fold-up personal shopping cart (full of assorted plastic bags full of stuff) that is quite obviously doubling as a walker. How old? Somewhere between 60 and 80, I guess, but it’s hard to be more precise. She always comes in near the end of our day. She’s small, frail-looking, with shaky hands, and an almost mouse-like quiet about her; she wears heavy, thick-lensed glasses that distort her eyes into huge pools with bottomless depths. She rarely speaks, never asks for anything–she just wants to use the bathroom.

I watch her struggle slowly through our door and try to open it for her if I’m not stuck behind the counter at that moment. She might as well be an illusion or a ghost for all the notice she gets from any of the customers near the door. Her steps are small and she moves as if every step, every slide of the cart, is painfully draining away her small reserve of strength. Her hair is short, roughly cropped off slightly below ear level, streaks of varying shades of gray and often looks plastered to her head as she comes out of the dark and into the light. When she exits the bathroom 15 to 20 minutes later, it’s obvious she’s made some effort to wash her hair; it’s damp and a bit fly-away, as if she had towel-dried it and missed a few spots with her comb. She never leaves the bathroom disordered–at times I have thought she may even have cleaned it for us. And she always smiles at me before she leaves, a smile that is almost childlike in it’s sweetness and obvious sincerity. One cold December night she spoke to me as she was leaving, a small voice without a hint of self-pity, “Thank you. Merry Christmas.”

I don’t know who she is or what her story is, but she haunts me. A small, worried voice in my head wonders if I’m looking at a preview of myself 10, 20, 30 years into the future. A louder voice worries about her, though, not the potential someday me. She is so small, so fragile, so undemanding… I used to see her almost every night that I worked, but lately she only comes in once or twice a week; she seems smaller and weaker now.

It’s a lovely, warm spring morning. There are pink blossoms and green leaves on the tree outside my window, dancing in the morning breeze, and the chatter of birds can be heard when the roaring of jets landing and taking off fades out. It’s my “day off” from the store and I’ve a fair amount of time to do as I please…but she haunts me.

This last week I didn’t see her at all… I want to think that she’s found a warm, safe, happy place to be and doesn’t need our bathroom now. But I don’t really believe in happy endings any more, and my thoughts turn back to darker, less comforting “what if” scenarios. If she never comes in again, I’ll never know why. Where does she go when she leaves my sight? Does she have a warm place to sleep? Where? Will she have food? If she gets hurt, who will know or care? Anybody?

If she is gone, am I the only one crying for her?

~~~~~

~~~~~

~~~~~

28 May 2007

An elegy for Annie

As much as I need to rest, I really don’t like sleeping, primarily because I don’t like getting trapped in vivid nightmares, waking up to feel like I’ve been dosed with some low-grade, not-quite-lethal poison. The less I sleep, the less I dream. If only it were that easy. Sooner or later the fatigue wins; at that point I’ll spend a number of sleeps trapped in a recurring/continuing nightmare. It seems so pointless. I understand all too well what my dreams are trying to tell me, I just can’t do anything about it.

Let me tell you about Annie. She is an adult female of indeterminate middle age.

Annie lives on a large boat that mostly stays near the middle of a lake. She doesn’t own the boat, isn’t really sure how she got there, and has no idea who is in charge, but she works hard to keep everything clean and in good working order. She enjoys the nighttime view of the distant shoreline and the quiet sound of the water rocking the boat like a giant cradle.

Anne doesn’t remember when the boat last docked at the lakeshore, although she sure it must have at some time and probably will again someday. She tried asking about when the boat would dock, and where, but nobody had an answer for her. A few that she asked looked distressed, as if they had eaten something that burned their stomachs; they spoke to her as if she were a child who had inadvertantly revealed an embarassing family secret. But they didn’t answer her. Some that she asked looked annoyed, as if she were being too stupid for words to ask such questions. They didn’t answer her, either. One man looked very angry and walked away without saying a word.

There seem to be a lot of people on the boat most of the time, but Annie is alone. She does her work and most people just go past her as if she were just another piece of furniture. Sometimes there are large parties on the boat. Annie doesn’t know who all the people are at the parties, although she does recognize faces of those who show up most often. Once in a while someone insists that she join the party. She’ll be handed something to drink and a small plate of food, then left to herself to watch the people and listen to the music and conversations flowing around her. She is not really part of this group of strangers and near strangers; she knows that, and so do they.

Sometimes, when there aren’t a lot of people around, Annie stands at the railing, looking at the distant shoreline. She looks at the chain manacled to her right ankle, wondering how and when it got there. She knows where it goes–to the bottom of the lake, anchoring her, not the boat, in place–but doesn’t know much else. Nobody else has ever mentioned the chain. Annie doesn’t know why. Does that mean that the chain is all in her imagination? It certainly seems real enough; it’s cold and heavy and makes it hard for her to move around and do her work. Sometimes, like after a storm, it seems shorter and it’s harder than ever for Annie to move around the boat and do her jobs. Once in a while the chain gets slack; at that point it’s easier to move around, although the chain is still very heavy. Nobody ever mentions the chain, even though it’s weight and discomfort mean Annie has trouble doing her jobs, that she has trouble getting to sleep, that when she wakes up, her leg and back will be stiff and sore.

One day she found she couldn’t get to the innermost areas of the boat. It was as if the chain had shortened overnight. She knew there were things she needed to do, but the chain stopped her from going through the doorways to get to her work. It had happened before; eventually, the chain slackened and she could move more freely again.

But this time is different. Every day the chain is shorter. Every day there are more things Annie has to leave undone. She’s tried asking for help, but people just hurry by, off to their own tasks, not noticing or not caring of her distress. The chain is getting shorter, so Annie has to stretch and twist to try and get her jobs done, but some things are completely out of reach now. The chain is getting shorter; the weight of it, and the weight of the knowledge that things are changing, wakes Annie after only a few restless hours of sleep.

The chain is getting shorter because the water is rising. Soon the boat will move to a different part of the lake; it hasn’t for some time, so it’s overdue for a new perspective. But this time Annie fears she won’t see the new shoreline. Already the water is trickling onto the deck, seeking a path to her feet. Annie has no tools to cut the chain, the manacle is welded closed, and nobody else has noticed that she’s in danger of drowning as long as the chain stays put. The water is rising and when the boat moves on, the chain will pull Annie right over the railing and she will disappear into the dark waters unnoticed, unmissed, and unmourned.

I’m used to waking up in intense physical pain and struggling to actually stand and take those first few steps. But the pain of waking from this nightmare is so intense I can do nothing but cry, burying my face in a pillow so as not to wake anyone else. When bedtime comes around again, after the day has heaped all its sorrows and indignities on top of the load that is nearly crushing me already, the dream will be there waiting to tell me what I already know, to create a visual rendition of powerlessness and despair, to turn up the pain before forcing me out in the the waking world once again.

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06 June 2008

Okay, that’s it.

It took WAAAAAAAY too long to finish and it’s only about 25% of what was there, but it’s 100% of what I had saved on my own computer. Guess that makes it a nice (long!) look at which words are important to me, although without the ones I didn’t care enough about to squirrel away, that may not be all that informative, I suppose. But these are the words I didn’t want to lose. Maybe you can see why I wanted to save them, maybe not. Either way, I really do want to get more words in place, so come on back sometime and see if I’ve managed it, and thanks for dropping by today.