post christmas indolence

well christmas is packed away and i have a new haircut. those are my accomplishments for the day. oh and i made some plans with some friends for friday, and i talked to a couple other friends on the phone. but that was basically it.

i didn't get over to exercise. i meant to, but being lazy appealed to me more. and lazy is the theme for my week. time to be industrious again, next week. no need to seize the day just now.

sometimes, i think it's quite a blessing that i've no real special gift in life that i need to feel guilty about wasting. i mean, there's no worry that if i take a day off, that cancer is not going to be cured or that world peace won't be declared. the world can afford for me to be couch vegetation. no one's going to die without me. what a relief.

however.

my dad worked almost every day of his life. he never really considered retiring. i marvel at that. but at the same time, i understand it. because if you take all the rest of your life off from doing something meaningful in some way, then what will you do with yourself all day, everyday? run charities? train for marathons? i'd rather rob banks and live under bridges.

so sure, having a few days off to treasure once in awhile is really nice, but all day, everyday? i think i'd sooner die. So i guess being in the middle is nice. not so valuable to the world so that i can't take off and be lazy at times- and not so useless that i can't find employment.

it's not my birthday

but my family was here this weekend, and i don't intend to be with them on my birthday, so we celebrated this weekend. they took me out to dinner. and my grandson bought me (with his own money) a gift card to steak and shake. score. i love the steak and shake.

and my mother gave me a fireplace set for my fireplace. which was a very welcome gift. as i have this fireplace here that i really enjoy, but i've never had the "tools."

and so now that they are all gone, i've fired up a duralog (which my sister in law gave me a case for christmas) and i've got a bowl full of sliced pears, and a glass of wine. and it's not my birthday, and i'm all by myself, but it's nice.

i've decided that i will make my New Year's Eve resolutions this year. i don't usually. i think they are stupid, mostly.

people always want to lose weight, stop smoking, stop being whomever it is that they are. whatever.

but all the same, i'm thinking that i'm not getting any younger, sitting here by myself. and i'm bored with myself. i need to change something or other.

but quite honestly, the things i want to change, i can't. the things i can change, won't make things any better, and don't matter that much to me, so why bother? so it's a little hard to set these goals for myself.

wouldn't it be great to be able to set goals for other people, instead? change the rotten things about them, instead?

something like "you will resolve to quit being an ass this year" or "you will resolve to not be so stubborn" or "you will resolve to listen to others for a change" or "you will resolve to quit doing the things that bug me this year."
"you will quit being so judgmental." "you will reflect, realize you were wrong, and apologize."

yeah. that'd be really cool.

i'll wish for that when i blow out my birthday candles this year. but it's not my birthday.
(-:

Many things is on my mind...

words in the way.

Happy Days after christmas. from sly and the family stone.

the alternate title for this post is "death by hallmark"

my mother tried to kill me this holiday. first by making me watch hallmark christmas specials on end. then by throwing a pillow at me. long stories. not interesting.

but it is a wonder that i'm alive. anyway, christmas is mercifully over for another year. all that's left -the credit card bills to pay. it's all good.

and i'm back home in my apt. where i belong now. and that's good. for my mental health. there's really so little of it left in reserve at the moment.

and i've got that feeling again. that something is about to happen. however, it doesn't feel like it's a good thing.

2014, about to happen. and many things is on my mind.

quote of the day

so i'm really not feeling so good.

hence, i'm really liking this quote i found today.

"sometimes i feel like the last cookie in the cookie jar."

a pre-christmas whine.

ugg. i don't feel well.

actually, i'd rather say, "i don't feel good" even if that's grammatically incorrect. i think if you're bordering on being sick, you should be allowed to say it however you'd like.

i feel like i haven't felt very well quite a lot this fall. none of it serious. but it's been a bit annoying. it really can't be stress causing it- as i've got, more or less, no stress these days. but it does seem like there have been quite a few weekends where i've been terribly glad to be able to vegetate. i'm really glad i can sleep in to heart's content in the morning.


so i don't know what it is. or why it is. but tonight, it's a mild headache. and just a general yuck feeling.

having served a small dinner party earlier tonight, i hope that i haven't got anything catching. i was feeling ok then. but after they left, and i was tucking the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, i found myself leaning against the counter and thinking, "wow, i don't feel good." anyway, i hope i haven't sent my guests home with anything.

and i hope it passes quickly. it would suck to be sick on christmas. and let's hope for a less puny new year.

it's the little things

things that make me happier:

paper bags with handles. who knew? how much better and easier they could make your life.

direct deposit for your paycheck. having just acquired this again after a year and a half, i'm delighted.

having all your christmas stuff done (ok, except one thing) a full 4 days before christmas.

discovering a wine that you really like a lot. a fairly cheap wine at that.

having two weeks off. sure, there's no paycheck, but love the free time.

that my neighbor across the way has a really pretty christmas tree.

running into a student at store and getting a big hug for changing her life.

having a trash dumpster that you can take trash to at any time. not having to haul the can out to the curb.

having a fire place.

the warm slippers that my daughter gave me.

that i don't have to go back out in the rain today.

that the only thing i forgot to get at the store is an onion.

seeing the handwriting of my dad.

leftovers.

my dog's better than your dog.

so there was a blind guy who blacked out and fell onto a subway track as a train was coming. his guide dog jumped down there and licked his face to get him to wake up and move. which i guess he did. yeah. blind guy saved by heroic dog. the rest of the story is that the dog was about to be retired. and i guess when a guide dog retires, he has to start packing. to make room for the new dog. but generous donations after the man's lucky and publicized fall, will now allow the man to keep his old dog and get a new dog.

at any rate, this little news item got me to thinking how awfully cruel this system of retiring service dogs is. i mean, yeah, i guess i understand that a service dog has to be helpful and not something to be taken care of, but gee, golly whiz- a dog like this is priceless. part of the family. how do you ship a dog whose meant this much in your life off to shady pines?

i like dogs. well, a lot of them, anyway. i actually think dogs are much like people. there are dogs you like and dogs you don't. i think i give dogs the dignity of being individuals rather than lumping them all together.

i guess i am a bit of a dog racist though, in that there are breeds of dogs i really don't like. for really no good reason, except that i just don't. for instance, poodles. hate them. and greyhounds. skeletons with skin. and yeah- labradoodles and chihuahuas. icky.

and on the flipside, i'm prone to liking beagles. and collies. and dachshunds. just because of their faces.

but on the whole, i think dogs are rather wonderful. and if i could find a dog who didn't depend on me for anything at all- walks in cold weather or being fed when i'm traveling or being kept company when i'm not home, i'd have a dog for sure.

i was back to the hometown for this weekend. and my son's dog greeted me royally. (my grandson had two friends over and one of them commented "wow, he didn't act like that when i got here. he must really like you.") and then sat on me, literally sat on me almost the whole time i was there. we are friends i'd say. he made me feel like "i never want you to go away. to make my point, i will sit on you. i like you that much."

i like him that much too.

brrr

everything seems mean.
icy fingers clutch my heart
winter's not my friend.

the best gift

yippee!

it is my plan to have all my Christmas shopping finished up tomorrow. and actually, i'm already through with all the hard stuff. yeah!

and with the exception of a few items that need to be wrapped beforehand, as they'll need to be given this week- i will have a whole week to wrap them up.

yeah! the holiday is almost in the bag here. meaning that after all this stuff is done, i can just enjoy the time off.

you must know- i do so love time off. not because i have exciting things to do really. but because i'm lazy. let's face it, i'm a slug when i can be. and now, i can be.

really, i don't even care if i get anything good for gifts now. my gift is that the holiday work is, for the most part, over.

i wonder

i wonder how it feels to know that your own happiness is at the expense of someone else's?

i would think it would be awful.

but then again, if you're the type of person who take that kind of happiness, well then you're just the sort for whom it wouldn't be awful.

what am i talking about? well, if it concerns you, you'll know.

anyway. to dwell on sweeter things. can i just say how wonderful i think that my son and my daughter in law are? honestly, i couldn't think any higher of the two of them at this moment.

i feel very blessed regarding both my children and their respective spouses, right now. i'm a very blessed and lucky mother. and quite undeserving. but blessed and lucky all the same.

i wonder.

All we are is all we are.

William Glasser wrote, “What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with what we are today.”

I think this true. I'd forgotten that I studied the work of William glasser way back in college. Reality therapy. Choice theory. All that. I'd forgotten it. Or maybe, I hadn't so much forgotten it, but rather I'd forgotten that it was something I'd learned about.

Anyway. I was reading about something else tonight, and saw this quote. And it kind of all flashed back to me.

Glasser was/is controversial. He believed that mental illness was more or less just caused by unhappiness. And that most of that unhappiness is caused by failed relationships. And that people have control over their thoughts and actions. But not their feelings or their physiology. And focus in therapy should be on helping people make better choices. In spite of how they feel or their physical functions.
Anyway. Some would say this is hogwash. That you don't have to find a way to live with your past. And that you need meds to fix a mental illness.

I don't know. I guess I just know that there are people that ain't right and that your surroundings and your past do affect you. I'm not a big fan of meds, I guess. I've seen too many kids prescribed into all kinds of confusion. I think they mask depression which I think needs to be dealt with rather than medicated. It seems to me that meds for depression just buries the problem rather than helping. I've not really found that burying things helps anyone feel better really.

So all that aside, I do believe this quote. I believe that painful things from my past have almost everything to do with who I am today. Not that they define me- but that they profoundly affect the way i see and understand the world.

And it's a circle.

So I got into somewhat of a set-to with a cab driver this week. I remarked on how many homeless people I saw. He said it was their own fault, that there were plenty of jobs for those who wanted to work. I said, "yeah, but I saw saw a woman today who was lying on the ground (temp was 28 degrees) with no shoes on. You think this is because she's lazy?"

He kind of chAnged the subject. I looked out the window. My uncle later teased me about it. My aunt said my heart was too tender. It didn't feel like a compliment.

The thought of the lady on the street with no shoes made me profoundly sad. But really? Shouldn't this make a person sad? Shouldn't it?

What kind of pain turns you into a woman lying on the cold ground with no shoes? But moreover, what kind of pain turns you into a guy who tells that woman "get a job.""

it's the most

depressing time of the year. for a great many people. i think it's because everyone else around seems super giddy. and you're expected to be wildly super-giddy even if you don't feel that way. it's just hard to be happy when you're not.

i'm actually ok this year. certainly not giddy, i don't do giddy. but i don't want to curl up into a ball and hope that i spontaneously combust or anything. there were years like that. but i'm better now.

so as i said. i'm ok. but across facebook came an article that noted that i live in one of the top ten depressing states of the union. i can attest to that. this is a dismal, conservative, right-wing, fundamentalist nightmare of a place. that is for sure.

but at least i've now moved to a section of it, that is a bit less so. there are actually smart, interesting people to be found here amongst the bible thumpers and the fiscally conservative right wing nazis.

but after i read the article and became a bit depressed thinking about where i live, i noted that there was an article underneath that one that was a listing of the top ten depressing vocations.

and wouldn't you know it? teaching was one of them. and although they didn't go into more detail, i would suspect that teaching special education would be considered a bit more depressing than that. and i'm imagining that the job i had for years upon years where i worked with medically fragile and/or physically impaired students (and their families) who quite often up and died on me, well, i kinda think that "hmm, it's a wonder that i wasn't more depressed than i was for a time."

anyway, i am glad for my own sake that i'm now out of that job. seriously, that really became too much. i do believe that i suffered from what they call "compassion fatigue."

yesterday when i was at work, at a break, i was talking to an older co-worker. we've only known each other for a year now. and she's retired from k-12 education as well. so we have a bit in common. so, we were actually trading some stories about our families. and i was telling her a story about some of my family members. and she said, "well, i'm sure that you handled that well; you're the most easy going, happy-go-lucky person that i've ever met. nothing ever seems to rattle you. you're always always calm."

ha ha, i thought. and i guess i am that, here and now. and actually i would say that for the most part, i used to be as well. however, back when there was crisis after crisis and problem after unsolvable problem, and children up and dying and stuff, i do think that while i might have been calm on the outside, that i was bleeding profusely on the inside. i think i was bleeding out in a manner of speaking. which can make a person quite depressed.

don't they say, "anger turned inward is depression?"
and so i think i might just have been depressed on top of depressed on top of depressed.

add to that a terrible person who didn't understand, and who broke my heart to smithereens. and well, you know? it's a wonder of wonder that i'm still here, and that i lived to tell the tale.

as for this time of year, i'll still never be giddy. it's still not the most wonderful time or place of the year. but i won't and don't feel like ripping my head off when i hear christmas music anymore. and sometimes, i'll actually hum along even. and that's something.

no good deed

they say that no good deed goes unpunished.

and so it is. a few years back, for Christmas, I put together a family calendar, made copies, and gave them as gifts to everyone in the family. and everyone loved them. so now it's more or less expected of me.

I use photos taken throughout the year, and i put them together into collages month by month. and i attempt to do 3 things. make sure if it's someone's birthday month that they are featured, make sure everyone in the family is represented in each month, and finally, i make sure seasonal or family events that occur in each month are featured.

and i pull pics from everywhere. people's sd cards, their facebook accounts, my phone, my ipad, from actual developed pictures.

and EVERY year, when i'm done, i say to myself, "DO NOT WAIT UNTIL DECEMBER OF NEXT YEAR TO DO THIS!" and yet, i always always always do. )-:

at first i used to use my pc. and i'd use publisher to make a collage of the pictures, which took days, and i'd print the pictures and the calendar pages off, and then put them together myself. that got old. so then, i started making the collages, and i'd save them on to a flashdrive, and take it into a store, and construct them on a photo kiosk, and i'd pick them up in a week or so.

and then i got my ipad and i started putting the collages together in pages. which still took days, but wasn't as aggravating as using publisher. BUT THEN, i beat my head against a wall trying to figure out how to turn a pages document into a jpeg file because the photo kiosks won't use pdf or pages files. grrr. it was maddening. i thought i was saving time by constructing in pages. only to be faced with this file dilemma. so it took me HOURS and HOURS to figure out a convoluted way of accomplishing this. but i finally did.

and then, by the next year i forgot my convoluted way. so then i devised another convoluted way. only to forget that this year. GRRRR!

but even more than that, last year when i took my flash in, the store called me in a couple days, and said they had them ready. and i went in, and they weren't ready. and so they told me to come back at a certain time, and i did. then when i got there, they still weren't ready, and i waited in the store for another TWO hours. (i did end up getting a 50 dollar compensatory gift card out of that deal though.)

so anyway, let's just say i wasn't looking forward to this year. but fortunately, there were more googleable directions of convoluted ways to turn pages documents into jpegs. and i found one that was only a 5 step process that didn't involve acquiring a new app or programs. so yeah! so i did that 5 step process, 12 times. well, actually 13 times- as i had to have a cover picture too.

and then i found a great discount (40% off!) on printing photo calendars online. only to be defeated because the website wouldn't work all the way with their ipad app. but then after gnashing my teeth for a few minutes, i hit on the solution of uploading my collage pictures via the ipad but using my pc to construct the calendar layouts and ordering. and so i did that, and then i hit send, and a mere two hours later, i picked up the order at the corner store. well ok, actually, i only printed two of the 7 calendars i needed to make. (just enough to get the discount, but since i always find mistakes after, i thought i could do the others tonight after i picked those two tonight.)

and so that's what i did. after work, i stopped, picked up the two calendars, came home and found the two mistakes , revised the pages, and then i revised a new order for the other 5.

SO tomorrow afternoon- i will pick up the other 5, and unbelievably, i'll have these blamed things DONE well before Christmas! and actually, even with the few glitches, it's really been the easiest year ever! but i'm SO GLAD, once again, that it's OVER for the year!

and while i'm sure i won't get around to making the collages until next year, i did do one thing good. i wrote down the 5 step process in a safe place! so- next year, it might be a bit more like a walk in the park.

but right now, i'm tired. and i'm still i'm thinking, "no good deed goes unpunished."

dream, dream, dream, dream, dream

arggg.

i can't remember a span of time when i've dreamed so much. yeah, i know, most of us actually dream every night. but honestly, i rarely know i've dreamed. only when i've had a terrible nightmare. or once in a great while, i will have vivid weird dreams. but usually when i'm troubled over something, and it appears that my brain is trying to work something out that's too troubling for me to work on while i'm awake.

but i'm not particularly troubled by anything right now. no more than what i've been troubled about. which is to say that there's nothing particularly new in my life right now. so nothing new to be worked out.

i can't say i really like waking up to dreams. they alter and color my mood, on waking up. and either they are bad or sad, and they make me feel bad or sad. or they are wonderful, and then they are not true on waking up. which is disappointing. i feel haunted by them.

so i've not been terribly happy about all these dreams i'm aware of lately. even while they've not been terribly disturbing. i just do not like them.

maybe because i don't have control over them. you see, that's been the key to my feeling better in my life. i now control everything. and i let nothing into my life now that i can't control. if you can control it, it can't hurt you.

and yet, i know i really have control over nothing anyway. i really do know that. that life lesson has been beat into me. that you can be good, honest, kind, well-meaning, and earnest, and none of that counts for anything in this life. well ok, maybe somewhere it counts, but it doesn't help you secure anything or keep anything safe and sound anyway.

all you really can do is dream about that.

but then you wake up to reality.

the blessings

my family is a small family. there just aren't many of us. my parents only had two children. i only had two children. my brother only had two children and now one lives east and the other lives west. i am divorced. my father is deceased.

so around our Thanksgiving table this year there were only 5 of us. my son, his wife, my mother, my grandson. and me. and then there was our sixth person at the table- my daughter via skype. she lives a world away. her husband was at work. but we caught her before she started work for the day. and she joined us in carving the turkey and saying grace at the table.

and that is how we gathered this year. and it was nice. my mother and i had stuffed and cooked the turkey while my son and his family went to his wife's family gathering. and all went well, even with the turkey taking much longer than expected to reach the 180 degrees of not poisoning us, temperature. and so, a little late, we all sat down at the table.

and as i said, we said our blessings together. very traditional. first we blessed our food. then, my son led us in saying what we were thankful for. he was thankful for his family. ditto my mother. my daughter was thankful for the technology that brought us together. i was thankful for my grandson and for my new son in law. my sweet daughter in law was also thankful for family. my grandson, he was thankful for football. (-: and i was silently thankful that he is so secure in and of the love of his family that he really doesn't even know how thankful he is for what the rest of us were all thankful for. that- being each other.

so i spent the night at my son's house. and hung out today with the grandson while his mother worked and went to see her grandmother in the hospital, and my son went to do a bit of shopping. we goofed off and he showed off his championship rocket math skills. i am amazed at them, having none myself. then during one of the most enjoyable parts of the day, the 8 year old and i went to get our hair cut. we decided that we both looked pretty good, and then i suggested we get some ice cream on the way home. but he really thought he'd rather go to subway and get a pizza sub. and cookies.

and he was so amusedly delighted with his sandwich and his 2 cookies for the price of 1 and he thanked me so profusely that i gave thanks again. for this nice life. with this nice family.

blessings galore.

days of anan

i'm reminded this morning (or hey, i guess it's afternoon) of the good old days of the internet. ok, i'm saying that facetiously. it really wasn't the good old days. it was the time of wanting to put your head through a wall.

do you remember back when you waited anxiously to dial up, praying that that screely noise would turn into success. and it sometimes taking all dang day literally to get a connection? do you remember when you'd finally achieve that success only to be booted off for some aggravating, unknown reason?

do you remember being tethered to a chair and position at your computer desk that likely was not comfortable and convenient or conducive to using the bathroom or getting a blanket or getting ready for work or getting a snack or looking up something in a book? do you remember all that? you were stuck right there. right where you were. unless you were a fast typist and a fast runner.

well, i'm reminded of it all this morning because apparently, i forgot to leave my ipad plugged in last night, and the battery was depleted this morning. and i sit now, tethered to this chair. and it's annoying as all get out to me. it brought back the not so good old days.

it's amazing how spoiled one can get in just a few short years. things we take for granted now, seem almost unbearable. i get the same feeling when i forget my smart phone now. i used to not even want a cell phone. it felt so intrusive. but now, if i'm without it, i feel unconnected to everything. i can't look up directions or ingredients for a recipe when i'm at the store. i can't text a friend to make sure of the place or time that we are meeting or just to share something funny that i see or think of. it's hell.

and vividly, all this reminds me of that time when i was in love. when most of my communication with that love was through internet chat. and i remember, although i don't believe he ever knew it, that it would usually take me hours to get that precious connection to him. i never wanted him to know that to talk to him for 30 minutes or so, it would take me on average about 3 hours of effort to get through. i never wanted him to know that i tried that hard.

i did try that hard.

and then, often times this entity named anan would break in and cut off our conversations. cursed anan. often, i wanted to kill old anan, whoever that was. i did not know who anan was. but oh, how i despised anan. (ironically, i now think i know who anan was. cursed anan.)

anyway, it is amazing to me how easy it is, most days to hop right on the old interwebs and make a connection with people. these days, however, i no longer talk to strangers. and i no longer am plagued by the likes of anan. i'm only plagued by my own silly mistakes of not seeing that i didn't plug in the charger. or something as silly as that. and my discomfort is relatively short-lived. these crazy devices charge up at almost lightening speed. already i am now able to move about the room freely after charging a few short minutes.

all is well again. but for the thought of cursed anan.

silly me

so, i planned my day around company coming this evening. some friends from back home had asked if they could come stay here overnight so that they could catch an early plane in the morning. and we were going to go out to a favorite place for dinner.

and so, i picked up, i cleaned a little. i put fresh sheets on the bed. found the sheets for the hide-a-bed. got out extra towels. since i was on a roll, i cleaned out a closet. ate lightly, so that i could fully enjoy the anticipated meal. read a bit, watched a lousy football game. watched some more tv. poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to wait.

and i waited. a half hour. an hour. an hour and a half.

and at first, i wasn't concerned. there really was no schedule. then i was mildly hungry. then i was thinking i really didn't want to have another glass of wine before i had dinner but good grief. then i was downright concerned. maybe they'd had an accident.

and so then i texted my friends. said "hey, i'm hungry, when you gonna be here?"

and that's when it hit me. that it wasn't today they were coming. it was tomorrow.

oh duh.

so i texted my friends back and said "duh. see ya tomorrow."

ha ha. silly me.

so now i have a clean apt. another glass of wine. and a sandwich. and i have the week off. and something to look forward to tomorrow. yeah.

or as the kids say now- "yay"

Never neverland

They say, "Never say, "never." They never say who they is.

all the same, there are some nevers that i'd like to propose.

"never spend an evening drinking kaluha and coffee with friends." it guarantees that you can't go to sleep until close to 4 in the morning. and that you won't get up until at least noon.

"never put off cleaning out your car or your shed until it's cold out." it guarantees that you will be doubly miserable when cleaning out your car or your shed.

"never believe anything a man tells you when you don't really believe it in the first place." it guarantees that you will be played for a fool.

"never ever try to talk to someone who has made up their mind." it guarantees that you will not be listened to and that you'll just want to put your head through a wall later.

"never ever try to enlist help talking to someone who has made up their mind." it guarantees that the person who has made up their mind will double resent you.

"never ever put your faith in anything or anyone other than yourself. in fact, never really put your faith in yourself." you'll just wind up being frustrated beyond your wildest nightmare.

"never pick up that first cigarette." a sizable percentage of you will never again not want one. a smaller percentage of you will become insufferable non-smokers, depending on your biology.

"never think you're better than anyone else." for obvious reasons.

what's in a name?

i was at work tonight. filling in for someone whose mother is dying. and i've got a little extra time, so i start looking for a file that i can't find.

and i'm digging in this "graveyard" box of old files. actually, it's a limbo file. where files go before they are disposed of. and i'm thinking maybe it got buried there by mistake. so i'm looking through this box. and i come across a file marked last name, first name. and of course i can't give the last name out, but it doesn't matter anyway. what struck me was the first name. Latrina. as in Latrine-uh.

so seriously. who the heck names their child Latrina?

names are funny things, i think. you know how people say that person either looks like their name. or maybe they'll say "well, he looks like a Robert," or a Bob, or whatever name they think he looks like.

not once in my life has anyone ever told me that i look like my name. i guess they've never told me i don't either.

but on the other hand, i've met or know lots of people who i do think look like their names. a couple of months ago, i met the boyfriend of one of the women who i work with. and of course she introduced us. later, during the afternoon, by mistake, i called him Jeff. Well Jeff was not his name. I was embarrassed and said "duh, i'm sorry." and he said "you know? the odd thing is that i actually get called Jeff a lot. people must think i look like a Jeff or something." i guess he did.

So, do you know anyone who looks like a Latrina? i'm hoping people don't think i look like one.

is the woman who is short happy?

was reading today about a film about Noam Chomsky entitled "Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?" If you don't know, Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist and professor at MIT. Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

and i'm reading this in light of my post yesterday where i declared all the things i might do if i were rich. and one of them was that i'd take classes in things that interest me. and one of the things that interests me is the field of linguistics. The study of the forms, meanings, and contexts of language.

of course, i didn't always know that linguistics interested me. and in fact, for a good portion of my adult life, i really didn't even know what linguistics was. up and until, i was sharing an office with one of our speech therapists, who had been "promoted" to an administrator.

this woman was very very bright. and i loved sharing the office with her because our conversations were always interesting and always lively and always thought-provoking. i'd often start a conversation with her saying "tell me where i'm wrong....." and then i'd propose whatever i was thinking about at the time and my thoughts on it. i learned much from this woman. and i liked her immensely, even while a lot of people did not. people thought she was too critical and not very nice because she was so bluntly and firmly honest. but i liked her, i suppose largely because a great many times, she'd tell me "well, you're not at all wrong and here's why...." but also she was never afraid to tell me "well, yeah, you are wrong, and here's why and here's where...."

i really don't mind being told i'm wrong if you can show me how or why and it makes sense to me. and i don't think it's a weakness to admit you've been wrong and to reverse or change course. in fact, i think it's a strength and it shows strength. so i didn't mind being told i was wrong from time to time by her because she was very good at pointing out exactly where my own thoughts or information had steered me wrong.

anyway, a small part of my job was to provide assistive technology to students who had deficits in communicating. it wasn't really my job, but because no one else in our system was doing it, i just started doing it and continued doing it informally until the administrators finally realized the value in what i was doing and they officially made it part of my job. and so anyway because her expertise, speech and language, promotes communication, and i did not have a speech therapy background, i'd also often run "solutions" past her to see if they made sense or not. and i think that together, both formally and informally, we helped a great many students.

anyway, one day i was telling her that i was really fascinated by speech and language therapy and in fact wished i could go back to school to become a speech and language therapist, but i bemoaned the fact that my hearing is not up to snuff and that it would be very difficult for me to ever deal with the "speech articulation" part of such a job. my hearing is such that i get understanding partly from what i can hear and partly from what i can see and partly from the context of any given situation. oh, and i say "what?" a lot. a lot of people are not even aware that i have problems hearing and have for years. i'm careful to watch expressions and to read a lot and prepare. i'm careful to place myself in position to people so that i can hear better. (interestingly, i can hear you better if i'm beside you rather than across from you.)

so back to my story, i asked my office/mate/friend that day, what could i be along these lines since i can't hear well? and she said, "what you want to study is linguistics, in fact, I think what you're really more interested in, in the first place, is linguistics. you should be a linguist."

and that is when i learned what a linguist was. and what they did. and i guess i always thought that perhaps one day if i were rich, i might study linguistics. and maybe that would make me happy.

a little aside to this story is that after a few years, my office mate and i got separated. Not because there was suddenly more office space available, but because the administration in place at the time, deemed the two of us too dangerous to be together. (i'm not making this up, one of the admins at the time told me directly later.) My office mate and i were vehemently opposed to some administrative decisions, and they found that when we were given time to talk together, we could develop arguments, and they simply could not defend their decisions in terms of what was best for children. in short, we made them look bad. sad for them, however, is that we continued to talk. only we now had to do our talking outside of work time and away from the office. it wasn't all to their detriment though. some years later, and shortly before i retired, she and i collaborated on a project that won one of our systems a great deal of competitive grant money. i know that made me happy.

if i were a rich man....

you might find this hard to believe, but i've really never given much thought as to what i'd do if for some reason one day i woke up rich.

sure, a few times some friends and i bought lottery tickets, and we fantasized a bit. but i can't say that i ever really took it seriously. it was too "out there."

but today i was reading about bill gates and then a hedge funder who wants to play at being called a philanthropist. and since i was disgusted by what all i was reading about how they are either wasting their money or using it to try to control others.

so, what would i do? if i were super mega rich?

ok, first i'd set aside oodles of money for my grandson to go to college or use to get started in a career.
then i'd pay off my son's house and buy he and his wife new cars.
then i'd spend an equal amount on my daughter and her husband.
then i'd make sure that my mother was taken care of for the rest of her life.
then i'd set up a retirement plan (a real one) for myself. and set up a will so everyone would know what they were getting when i up and croaked.

then i'd move. to an even bigger city. and get a really swanky apt. and i'd fly my friends in and out to visit.

then i'd make a list of all the vacations that i'd want to take and set aside enough money for all those.

then, i'd take language lessons and hire someone to push me to exercise and eat right daily.

then i'd set up every other day 2 hour massages.

then i'd buy paints and paint a little bit every day. just for the heck of it, because it's fun.

oh and yeah. i'd quit work. i mean, it's not like i have any real talents or abilities that the world would miss, so i'd quit work, and i'd start taking classes on whatever interested me.

i'd hire myself a math tutor. until i wasn't stupid anymore.

oh and i'd give all my closest friends a wish. and i'd make each of those wishes come true. remember, i'm mega rich and i would cover any wish up to 100,000 dollars.

i'd hire someone to clean for me. and to take care of a dog that i want, when i travel. and i'd maybe even hire a cook. who would not only cook, but let me cook with him or her if i wanted.

i have one friend that is already hired to be my personal assistant. and one of her duties would be that- she would go shopping with me, because she understands that i can only deal with shopping for so long, and then i just want to go have dinner and a glass of wine.

so i'd do all that, and of course i'd have already hired a financial advisor, who i'd have advise me about all the investments i should make so that my money grows, and so that i'd be able to promote the causes that i care about.

those causes would be: public education, libraries, homeless shelters, hunger programs, scholarships for scientists and doctors and engineers of useful things and writers. i'd choose just so many a year. but i wouldn't make the potential recipients of those scholarships write grants or proposals or essays. i'd just ask them to come and meet me. and i'd decide whether or not i'd fund them based on whether i liked them or not.

and do believe that i'd study politics. and i'd start in my own state and fund little guys that are fighting for the underdogs and those who can't fight for themselves.

and i'd pay my taxes. and i wouldn't bitch about it.

oh and you know what? i might buy myself a new car. but not much of one. just a modest one, that isn't red and has a stick shift.

judge not

so i really really really try to not be judgmental. i know you may not believe that, but i really do. i know "there, but for the grace of a diety, goes me." i also know that when you judge and it turns out you are wrong, your credibility is suspect. i know that oft times it's the things that you hate about yourself that you judge other for, so it points out your own flaws. and i know that it's just plain mean to be judgmental. i know,"judge not, lest you be judged."

i know all this. and i do try, when i think something judgmental, to keep it to myself. but sometimes, i just gotta say something. i just can't help myself. and so it is, today.

here it is, here's what i'm judging- when middle aged or semi-old people exhibit public displays of affection. and most especially when they post it on facebook or other social media. i'm sorry, but you look stupid. you look immature. you look ridiculous.

as ridiculous as the middle-aged man with a shiny little sports car. you look like a viagra commercial. and who the hell wants to look like that? and who the hell wants to look at you looking like that?

now, i'm not saying a hug after a long separation is bad. and i'm not saying posting a wedding picture is bad. or even a really flattering picture that someone takes of the two of you together, side by side smiling. and i'm not saying even that a quick handhold or a look across a crowded room is bad or that an arm around a shoulder occasionally, is all that bad. i'm a fan of these things, actually. but other than that, really, you're not 16 or in your 20's or even like 80 or 90 when i think it's ok again. i'm just saying "show some decorum, ok?" "don't leave me with the disturbing imagination of you going at it like rabbits as soon as the camera's off you, ok?"

it's just creepy ok? and it looks like you have no sense of class. and it looks like you are bragging about how you still "got it" after all these years. really. you just look stupid, ok?

so maybe i'm jealous. maybe it's just that i'm sad that i have no one to canoodle in front of a camera with or brag to my friends about. maybe. but you know? i don't think it's that. i really think it's that you just look stupid. because i don't find myself envying you, i find myself wondering, "what the hell is wrong with you?" or "what's wrong with your relationship that you can't give it a rest or that you think you have to show people how much in love you are."

so i'm judging you. and i know. judge not. but really. get a room. and shut the camera off, k?

time warp

i mentioned yesterday that i didn't feel very well. today, i am feeling ever so much better. that's what happens when you sleep for 15 hours. actually, i have slept much more than that. i do know that i fell asleep on the sofa around 4 in the afternoon when it was light out and woke up at 6 when it was only barely light out. in my confusion- for about an hour, i thought it was 6 in the morning. turns out it was 6 in the evening. i found i had a whole evening and night ahead of me. i won the time lottery.

but that nap didn't stop me from falling asleep again and sleeping until 9:30 in the morning.

when i felt well enough to go out and score some aspirin that i wanted yesterday. i came home, took it, and have felt pretty dandy after that.

but i've not been overly productive either. just done some light cleaning and chatted with a few people. i wrote for awhile. played some words with friends. and it never ceases to amaze me how time can just slip away from me, while i'm doing next to nothing. it especially amazes me when i think how jam packed my days used to be.

time is both so warped and so relative.

you'd think

that i had the flu. and maybe i do. it takes two weeks for a flu shot to be effective. and it's not been two weeks yet.

but if it's the flu, it's a mild flu. just great fatigue, a mild headache, some chills, an on and off fever. just enough to feel a bit crappy but not enough to keep someone home from work. i am, however, glad it's the weekend- and that i'm not forced to go anywhere. and glad to have a somewhat decent movie to watch, some green tea to drink, some warm sweats, sweaters, and socks and slippers to wear, and a soft afghan to cover up with.

my only wishes would be to have a new good book to start, some lo mien noodles to eat, and someone to pat me on the head and say "aw, poor baby" once in awhile.

i guess i can order a new book for the kindle and quickly get some take-out.

not sure i can entice anyone to come over here and pat me on the head though. it'd be nice if someone would start up such a business though. i'd probably pay 10 or so bucks for each pat. you'd think other alone people would pay a reasonable amount for this at times too.

except for the lump

just so you know. i feel much better than i did yesterday. and i thank those of you who seemed concerned. yes, it was a depressing day. and a depressing weekend. and yes, i was not exactly in the best of spirits.

but i just wanted to let you know that today i do feel better. my lovely daughter called me last night. then, it felt good to be at work this morning, where people seem to like me and appreciate me. and in the afternoon, i was able to get a few things done, that i'd been putting off. and it's always good to check things like that off a list. especially getting some flights booked. it's good to know i will be getting away. from. it. all. soon. oh, and the drugstore gave me bunches of free samples today (of shampoo, soap, and lotion, and stuff) free stuff, always good. then, i heard from another friend who I made plans with for the upcoming weekend. all good.

and so i feel better. except. for one thing i checked off my list today was getting my flu shot. and now, i have this weird lump on my arm. now this is not my first rodeo. i've had flu shots before. and i even had a reaction last year where a circle developed around the flu shot site that turned red and was warm and sore to the touch. for weeks.

but this year, in addition to that, i seem to have a lump. so just so you know- i feel pretty good and much better today. except for the lump.

and quite honestly, i'm not really even bothered all that much by that.

recipe for a depressing weekend

First spend Friday afternoon, listening to a bunch of assholes in suits and pantsuits behave arrogantly, and out and out lie and twist the facts and the truths about the profession you care the most about. While you are there, hear that a judge has blocked a challenge to their buffoonery with a technicality.

Next, spend your Saturday afternoon viewing the poetry and the artwork of someone who depicts great social injustices with heart-rendering clarity that makes you gulp down that lump in your throat. Next sift in your friend who tells you how upset her daughter was when one of her students died which creates a whole thickening mixture of remembered faces. sprinkle in just a dash of tears on their behalf.

Fold in a glass of wine and an evening at home alone, while friends are texting you "wish you were here" messages from sunny and warm places like florida. Don't forget to take a look at your meager bank account online.

Get up the next day and while trying to concentrate on researching the facts for your letter to the editor regarding the aforementioned assholes, which you know won't do any good- you watch your favorite football team lose, not by a little but by a horrible lot, to the team of a city that you can't even stand to think about right now. make sure the research you're doing is filled with the most horrific of facts that the assholes ignore flagrantly and blatantly for ignoble purposes.

Following that, flip the tv channel to watch perhaps one of the most depressing movies you've ever seen about a guy who seems to be living your life. It should be like looking in the mirror, except with all the exact details changed so that no one recognizes you but yourself.

Set the oven to turn on as the Sun goes down in the sky prematurely because an awful governor deemed it good for business over the needs of people.. Wrap it all up with a couple of broken memories.

and yes, i know- the key to turning away depression is to reframe everything positively. and i will. that will be how i occupy my evening. because i've learned to be a good cook by learning from all my kitchen disasters.

i fight authority

authority always wins.

and i have to tell that i don't even feel like i can do it anymore. how long can you care about something as it's being ripped apart.

i'm starting to believe that the good guys never ever win. apparently the universe is against the good guys winning. the universe hates the good guys.

excuses, excuses

"it's not an excuse, it's an explanation." so said an article i was reading about relationships between poor test scores and poverty.

because the counter argument, whenever one brings up that poverty is the best predictor of low test scores, is that you are making excuses. excuses for lots of things, they claim. excuses for bad teachers, excuses for failure, excuses for the horrible unions. excuses, excuses, excuses.

and so this article was seeking to anticipate that all-too-familiar cry with "no, Poverty is not an excuse for anything, rather, it's an explanation for lots of things. lots of things that contribute to children of poverty getting poor test scores.

but somehow, i don't think that those who don't get it, will discern this distinction between an excuse and an explanation. and while i could, it's not my intention at this time to debate those people about school issues, but instead, it's my intention today to discuss this inability to discern the difference between an excuse and an explanation.

because yes, this is personal to me. once upon a time in a land far away, an ugly monster, disguised as a handsome prince, hurled this at me- that i should not connect an apology (that i was trying to make) with an excuse. because the excuse rendered my apology not an apology.

ARRGGG! that's how i felt at the time, and truthfully that's how i still feel now. because i wasn't trying to excuse myself, i was TRYING to explain why i might have felt the way that i did, and how that might have caused me to act the way i did or to say what i had said. i was trying to EXPLAIN!

to me it came down to something like this: you're not supposed to scream outloud on a bus. it's rude. it scares other people, it distracts the driver. no question, you are not supposed to scream on a bus.

so one day, you're riding the bus, and you scream. really loud. and you are about to be thrown off the bus by the angry bus driver, until the passenger standing beside you notices that your hand is trapped in the door. and he makes the suggestion that perhaps the reason you are screaming is because you are in pain. so is that fellow passenger making an excuse for you? or is he perhaps explaining why you screamed.

so now, should the bus driver take that explanation as just an excuse by a couple of rowdy passengers? or perhaps should the bus driver consider that it was an explanation for the screaming and that he should seek to do something about it. like perhaps, listen to what's been said and then open the damn door to release your hand? and maybe, just maybe, even give you an apology for not understanding that your hand was caught in the door.

but no, ugly monster guy not only doesn't consider it an explanation, he calls it an excuse, that i'm making to what? to make excuses for what i said and how evil i was. and who else does that? he continues. that's right. abusers.

and that's about when i really lost it. SERIOUSLY? who the hell accuses someone of such a thing? really, who?
especially, who the hell accuses you of such a thing while you are trying your best to make an apology. if they supposedly love you? really, who does that?

ugly monster guy, that's who.

now in a fairy tale, disney-pixar movie type world, in the end, misunderstandings would have been cleared up with explanations, and love would have prevailed, and the ugly monster guy would have peeled off his ugly monster face to once again reveal, a sweet handsome one underneath those other two masks. but that's not what happened. instead he kept wearing the ugly monster face and walked away leaving me to behave as something of a banshee, myself. and this is not an excuse for my bansheeness, not because it's not an explanation, but because there is no excuse of that for myself. i sunk to new lows. and that is that. no excuses here. it is what it is. i was human. and so at times, i suck.

and the sequel to the story is that when he walked away, he slapped the handsome face back on and pretended it all never happened, and went on to live happily ever after with someone either better than me or luckier than me, or both. hakuna matata to you, darlin'.

me? well, yes, i've made improvements in my life, and i've done an awful lot (read: too much) of introspection about myself, and i've moved a bit forward. but even still, i feel that i'm the loser here. i'm the one who obsesses in a diary/blog about it all. and relates almost every experience i have or thing that i read against that now long-ago event.

and on this, i'm not making an excuse, but once again, rather an apology (to any reader)- hooked with the explanation that i've been able to come up with for myself. you'd think that i'd just be glad that my hand was no longer trapped in the door, wouldn't you? instead, i obsess. and i'm truly sorry.

but just so you know, dear reader- i actually am better through this obsession. the obsession helped me gain and helps me keep perspective. i AM glad that my hand is no longer trapped in the door. No longer do i shed tears or gnash my teeth or sob uncontrollably. no longer do i seek out counselors or therapists or divine intervention or death. no longer, am i truly unhappy. in fact, most of the time now, i am quite happy. i love my new life, my new apt., my new job, many new friends. i love my family.

but i gotta tell you, i still wish the whole thing- soup to nuts, good to bad, would have never ever happened. i'm MAD that my hand is damaged, ok? yes, i can use my left hand quite well, i'm adaptable. but i miss my right hand ok? and i'm not one of those who was glad she got cancer to teach her the meaning of life or that life is good and precious. i had a pretty good grasp that life was good before i met him. i had a pretty good grasp that i should be grateful for all that i had before i knew him. i did not need a lesson or even a wake-up call. i am better yes, but i am not a better person because of it all. so, i'm not willing to make that excuse for it all. but i might make that explanation.

fractions and smoking saves a life

so there really is rarely a dull moment at the center i work at on monday and wednesday nights. it's an inner-city site. some of our staff won't work there. it's too inner city for them. but i like it there. and i get along very well with our clients who are working to get their geds there. i actually always look forward to mon and wed. nights.

and the evening started with me subbing for the regular teacher. when he called to ask if i could cover for him until he got there, i said, "sure, anything particular you want me to cover?" and to my dismay, he said "anything with math, because i'm doing language arts when i get there." i said, "ok." but as you might well know, i hate math. i'm bad at math. no, i really truly suck at math.

but i'm a trooper so i go into the classroom, and i tell the class that the teacher will be late, and that i've been asked to work with them on math, so what i want to know before i pull out materials is what they'd been working on and what was giving them trouble, so we could jumble through it together.

and right away, they all agreed on fractions. they are struggling with fractions. and i'm thinking "yeah, i can do fractions. i get them! i can handle this! yeah!" so i go back to our storage cabinet and grab some materials to use to get us started.

and i start very simply. just review. and slowly, together we worked, and it's one of those great teacher moments when you actually see lightbulbs going off above their heads.

when the teacher got there an hour in, he tells them they can go take a break, and when they come back they'll work on the language arts. well usually, all of these people are smokers. and so about half of them went outside to smoke, and the other half came over to tell me how much they had appreciated my math lesson. and they told me how no disrespect to xxxxxx, but that they really liked it better when i was teaching math, because i was both funny, and i explained things so simply and step by step, that they actually got it. according to them, xxxxxxx goes too fast.

so i laughed, and said "well, that's because i suck at math, and i know exactly where a mistake can be made, so i slow it down, and break it down how i've always needed it broken down."

so part of the reason i'm telling you this is to brag. -that while i suck at math, it appears that i'm a great math teacher. but also part of the reason is to tell you that my flatterers did not get outside to smoke during this break.

so because they didn't, about an hour later, they asked xxxxxxx, if they could have another break to go out to smoke.
and he agrees, and i'm sitting at the computer doing my work, when xxxxxxx comes up, and says, "can you call for an ambulance, there's an old man out in the parking lot who has fallen down, and he thinks he broke his hip, he can't move."

and so i go to the phone and call 911 to have the ambulance come while xxxxxxx goes out to hold an umbrella over the poor guy who is lying on the ground in the rain.

and then i hear the story of how he was found. on the second smoke break, that was called for the nicotine-deprived smokers who spent their first break inside with me, the smokers found the guy on the ground and they came in to get xxxxxxx, who told me to call 911.

and the guy was an older man, in his late 70's i guess, who had been at a meeting upstairs at the center earlier but had left the meeting early because he needed to get home because he was preparing to go in to have a defibrilator placed in the morning. and the meeting he'd left was scheduled to go on for at least another hour. our class was scheduled to meet for another hour and 1/2. so potentially, the poor guy with a heart problem would have laid in the cold rain for 2 hours in all if my smokers hadn't discovered him. i can't think it would have ended well.

but discover him they did, 911 was called, and they came and took him to the local hospital, and it appears that all will be well, afterall.

and that's how fractions and smoking saved a life.

walls of brick

so there are just going to be people you disagree with. people you can't reconcile with. and ideologies that people hold that can't be squared with your own.

i used to think people could work things out, if only reason and facts and fairness and the right words were introduced to the situation. but now i don't. i just think that there are some chasms that can't be bridged or crawled or swum or flown acorss. sometimes there is just no meeting in the middle.

sometimes it's people that refuse to hear you. sometimes it's that their side of things is plain repulsive to you. sometimes it's that a person can't be forgiving. sometimes it's that a person cannot be trusted.

and i have to tell you that i've got less and less respect these days for people that pretend they can bring sides together. mediators, therapists, psychologists, lawyers, politicians. i mostly think these days, that the only thing accomplished by employing one of these folks is some commerce is transacted.


anyway, i think that the best you can ever hope for is that people who you disagree with are decent folk, who won't try to hurt you if you disagree. and that you can agree to live on other sides of the fence. peaceably.

the problem comes in though when public resources must be shared or agreed upon. and i guess that is why there are laws. sad though that some people won't respect those laws either by out and out breaking them or by buying their way out of them or by bullying or manipulating their way out.

anyway, it makes me sad. for about 3 weeks now I've been trying to get something written. A letter to some of the lawmakers in my state who have decided to circumvent the laws of our state and play games with public money and our votes. and if we still used paper, i can't even tell you how many trees i'd have destroyed by now, writing and then crumpling up the paper. i can't find the right words. that would get them to see what i so wish they'd see.

and it occurs to me, that the reason i'm having so much trouble is that there really are no words for these people. no words that will help them to understand. they are brickwalls. they simply do not want to listen or understand. they are being paid to have an opposite opinion. and i can't fight money with my puny words. puny words are no match for brickwalls.

and i might as well save my breath because there aren't words. and apparently there are no numbers i can use either.

because now it appears, according to a Yale study, that numbers (unless they are connected to dollar signs, as in bribes) won't help you change anyone's mind either. did you read about this study? listen to this, "it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability."

sigh. brickwalls. impervious to everything but money and sledgehammers.

the weekend!

i am so grateful that it's finally here! not that i'm doing that much besides meeting up with some friends for a bit tomorrow. but heavens to pete, what a week. and i'm SO glad to be home, sweet, apartment. with nothing more challenging than my laundry to do.

i worked every night this week. so roughly, i worked at least 8 hour days each day, even while the days are split up to a.m. and p.m. sessions.

now i know. it's beyond ridiculous for (especially) me to feel like that's a lot of work. i mean, good grief, i used to work close to 80 hours a week, all told. and i did that for years. upon years. and then each day came home and made a horrible stab at raising children and keeping a house. and wow, i even used to volunteer and chair committees on top of that!. and i realize that i would get maybe 4 weeks off in the summer. but still, i was running a sleep debt that was mounting up higher than the federal deficit. and making me next to insane, i think.

and my fatigue right now also seems crazy- because even while i worked more hours than usual this week, this job really has next to none of the mental and emotional stress that the old one did. when i look back on that stress now, i really couldn't tell you how i survived, how i was ever civil to anyone at all ever, or how i didn't either go postal or off myself. it almost seems something of a miracle, now that i look back on it. they really were NOT the good old days. at all. but even while it's nothing compared to what i used to deal with, i do have to say that last night presented a bit of a challenge, dealing with a crazy, rather intense situation. but still. that was nothing compared to the past. and it was one night of intensity. not the every night. and certainly not the "things hanging over my head all the time even while i was supposedly off work" kind of intensity.

so anyway, it seems ludicrous that i'd be so tired tonight. and so very glad to stay in doing nothing but sampling a glass of wine, watching some home & garden tv, while simmering a new recipe in the crockpot. it smells delicious, btw. not even sure i can wait the full six hours of simmmering before diving into it.

all the same- YAY! the WEEKEND!

i got a rock.

my favorite cartoon of all time is the Charlie Brown Halloween special, where they all go trick or treating and after each house compare the loot they are given. Each time Charlie Brown announces sadly, "i got a rock."

this is funny, because this so summarizes a common experience for a lot of us. however well meaning and sincere we might be, when everyone else reaps the rewards of life, we get rocks. (-:

that is not to say that i didn't have a part to play in the creation of many of my own troubles. i own up. i take responsibility for those things. however, what is distressing to me is that even while a great many or even most of my friends and acquaintances put no more thought or care into many of their own bad (or good) decisions, than i did, they someone always seem to get candy anyway. while i got rocks.

and at some point, you really can't do anything but be mildly amused at your own bad fortune. it's either laugh or cry. or just quietly comment with resignation at the contents of your trick or treat bag, as good old Charlie Brown does.

i had the best time yesterday with some good old friends of mine. two couples came down here to visit and hang with me for the day. and it struck me, as it always strikes me, how very happily married these two couples are. and how after all these years, and through thick and thin, their marriages have only grown stronger and better. even while i'd have to say that these two couples are in many ways strikingly different than each other. the commonality though, is that they really would never think of leaving the other, in good times or in bad. there is never any question about forgiving with them. forgiving of each other is a given. always.

i love that. i do. but it does strike in contrast to my own life. they got candy. i got a rock.

now, both these couples know my ex husband. and they were friends with him and they know him to be both a good person and a bad husband to me. they also know that i was not a perfect wife. anyway, i think they all like him still and will often ask me of his well-being. how he's doing, what he's up to. if i've heard from him. and in response, last night, i showed them a piece of sculpture that he'd recently given me. (he made it) and i told them how he'd called me recently to tell me that he hoped his recent endeavors to to promote public schools in the state he lives in now, would in some measure, make up to me for how he'd treated me. and that even if i, too, wasn't perfect, he still feels that he owes me something.

and quite honestly, they (my friends) (and i) find that very sweet. and so in the long run, i guess in the end, i got something more than a rock.

now the other interesting thing to me last night, was at one point in the evening, one of the husbands made reference to the other guy in my life, who turned out to be a rock for me. and it's interesting to me, because really all of my friends and my family absolutely know not ever to mention him to me in any way at all. they really all know tht it's too sore a wound for them to touch. but my friend last night, had the audacity to make a teeny tiny little joke about him.

and what's interesting to me, is that for once, this really didn't hurt. i didn't even wince. in fact, i actually laughed. because it occurred to me that the "joke" was said with the greatest of affection for me. somehow it conveyed to me, that i wasn't considered by my friends to be a "loser" in that relationship or in life, that i wasn't really a loser at all, that i was really was someone of value to them. and that he was indeed a rock. and that i didn't deserve that rock at all.

yes, i'm sure my friend didn't have any idea that his comment, meant all that to me. but just the same it did. and i guess i can say aloud now "yeah, i got a rock, but i sure didn't deserve it."

and it occurs to me today that if i look into my bag of candy here, that scattered in with the rocks are some really sweet things, such as the good friendship of some very wonderful people. and a great family, who loves me. it's really not all rocks at all.

a day without sunshine

from steve martin: a day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

today is not a day without sunshine. it's quite sunny out actually. it's a very pretty day. but oh, so cold. oh so cold. a day without warmth.

a day without warmth, is like, you know, cold.

and that it is.

but no matter, i have a new coat. not dead of winter coat, but a really nice warm fall jacket-coat. and it's the perfect fall day to wear it.

i am happy because i only have to work three hours today and then i'm done for the weekend. it's one of the great joys of my life now, that i work just enough to be happy when the weekend comes, but not so much that i'm so exhausted and want to collapse.

so it's a day with sunshine. i would wish it for all, except for a certain few who deserve no sunshine. for them i wish eternal days without sunshine and no warm coat. i would wish that because i'm just that mean.

a person without kindness is like, you know, mean.

Carrot juice

I do not like it.

I thought I would. I am a great lover of carrots. I am a great lover of tomato juice. But carrot juice?

Ick. Yuck. Disgusting.

Actually, with the exception of tomato juice, grape juice, and cran-almost everything juice, I am not a big lover of juice, in general.

But it's ok. But carrot juice.. Blech. Gag. Yick.

gladness

have i told you lately how very glad and happy i am that i retired and moved? and now i work part time and live in a city?

well, if i haven't, can i tell you how very glad and happy i am that i've retired and moved here to work part time at a job with next to no pressure.

i met up with some old friends tonight. and they asked me if i'd had any second thoughts about it all and without skipping a beat, i answered, "no, NONE!"

these people knew how much i used to work (they were actually my neighbors back in the old town) and they asked if i was ever bored now that i worked just part time. and of course, i answered, "no" again.

and then they asked "what do you do with all your time?"

and first i answered "you know, i couldn't really tell you. a little of this and a little of that. and a lot of nothing. but i've not been bored yet. there's always something to do or somewhere to go if i want to." and then i said "oh yeah, one thing, i know i do more of is sleep."

they looked at me quizzically. i said "back in the day, i never had any time to sleep. and i think it was killing me. i was exhausted all the time. and now i don't have to be to work ever before 9 and it's just wonderful. i feel so much calmer and less overwhelmed. sleep's kind of magical if you ask me."

and just now i read an article about research that suggests that your brain "sweeps" out toxins while you sleep and that there could be a link between lack of sleep and sleep disorders with alzheimer's.

another reason to be so glad.

besties

i've told you before how one of my besties is 20 years my junior. i mention it again, because i do constantly marvel at that. because you would think (or i would have thought) that a person might feel closer to people more of their own vintage. and in lots of ways, i do have that with many of my similar aged peers. i feel closer to them because they know the same histories, the same music, the same references. but on the other hand, my younger bestie actually "gets" me better than my same agers do.

striking evidence of that to me occurred this week. my niece, my mother, my sister in law and i went to one of those paint while you drink events where you all paint the same thing under an instructor's direction. and it was striking as all get out to me how very different all four of our paintings came out.

so i posted all four pictures on facebook and captioned that picture with "can you tell which one is mine?"

and my younger bestie friend replied "yes, it's somewhat calm, but still unique. it's the third one."

bingo. that was it.

and i was amazed. as i have been amazed over the years of knowing this friend that she almost always gets what i'm thinking without me having to say or explain anything.

i like this. and i like that she can also apply this talent to shopping. often she'll pick up something that she sees when she's out shopping that she knows "will be perfect for me." and she's NEVER wrong. everything she ever picks up becomes a staple in my wardrobe.

and i'll never forget one time when one of our mutual friends was confused about how and why i was so equally nice to everyone all the time, whether i liked them or not, her instant reply to them- "you don't get it, she really doesn't care about anything enough to distinguish her response between whether she likes someone or not or even really decide if she likes anyone or not in the first place- and so in laziness, she's just nice to everyone equally."

again, bingo. i'd never actually even thought it out that far- but she was exactly on the money. i really don't care to waste time on such things. i don't care enough about anything to.

anyway, back to the pictures- what also cracked me up, besides that she actually knew which picture was mine, was what she said "it's somewhat calm, but still unique." i guess, i don't honestly ever think of myself as calm, but it appears that other people do. at my new job, i just got asked to do something new because "you are so calm, you're the best person for this job because your calm makes other people calm." but i also think that the reason people think i'm calmer than i am is because i don't say outloud everything that goes through my head. and so what appears on the surface is calmness. and that's why i thought it was interesting that my friend adds the word "somewhat" in her thoughts about my painting. i think she gets that what i might express might have that element of calmness, but it's maybe not all the way calm underneath.

as for the word unique. it's hard to say that i do feel all that unique, because to me, i just feel like me. but i do often get that from people. they'll say things like "you always have a creative idea, so what are you thinking about this?" and i do know that i am often annoyed that other people will assume that i'm thinking what or how they are thinking, when i'm not thinking that at all. but that's kind of my own fault that they might assume something like that, because unless it really matters to me that someone knows i disagree, i won't speak up and say that i'm thinking about something differently. to me, it's not worth the effort, unless it really makes a difference to the outcome of something i care about that anyone knows what i really think. but on the other hand, i guess- woe to everyone if i do actually care, because then i will make the effort to speak up, because i will speak up emphatically then. i guess that's how you can tell that i really care about something- if eventually, i will speak up or not. otherwise, i'm quiet and that makes me appear calm.

so i didn't mean to navel gaze this much again today, back to the point- i'm just amazed that my friend could pick out my painting just from knowing me. i wonder if i could pick out a painting of hers from a field. i'd like to think so.

NOOOOOO!

one of the reasons i love to watch the home & garden network is i love to see how positively spoiled and whiny most of the couples on those househunter shows are. seriously, they cry about the dumbest things. "this isn't granite" "there is no soaker tub." "the backyard isn't the size of a football field." and woe to the world when the couple disagrees about what is important.

whatever. seems to me that if you love someone, you really don't care if you live in a trailer or under a rock, so long as you got to live with that person that you love. but that's just me.

anyway, so tonight, the couple (who are just engaged) in question is looking for a house, and they can only afford so much. and not enough to please the girl. she's wrinkling up her nose. except for the girl's parents have offered to give them more money so they can get something nicer. the girl clearly wants to take the money and get something better. but the guy is clearly uncomfortable with that.

and she's pressuring him. and i just want to scream "NOOOOOOOOOOO- don't give in to her whining!" if she can't be happy living where you can afford, then she won't ever be happy with you. if you are not enough for her- poor, then you should ditch her cuz she's a spoiled brat and she doesn't really love you. and she'll always be wanting more than you have."

now, yes, i did accept some help from my family once, but it was a need, not because i wanted something better. and it wasn't from my inlaws. and the other time in my life, i accepted substantial help from someone else, i will regret for the all rest of my life.

anyway, now i see he caved. and my head is screaming at him- "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! you FOOL!"

the pumpkin of shame

so, i just took a survey as part of a study. and basically, my results were that i have next to no morals. (-: ok. i have some morals, but i seem to have little respect for conventions or conventional authority. at the same time, i seem to favor fairness.

all the same, for no reason last night, i stole a pumpkin. in my defense, i did not steal it for myself. i stole it for a friend. and probably because i'd had a bit of wine in me. and my friend said "i'd really like to have one of those pumpkins." and my thought was "there are a whole bunch of pumpkins here, and they won't miss just one.

and today, i am really ashamed of myself. perhaps more so, because i actually ended up with the pumpkin, and it now sits on my patio. it's the pumpkin of shame. because really, i won't even steal a pen or a paperclip from work. and generally, i won't tell a lie even to get myself out of trouble. if i found a wallet on the street with a fortune it, i'd turn it in somewhere without taking a dime. that's who i am. but last night, i stole a pumpkin. shame on me.

i like it all the same. it's very orange and round.

oh and if you are wondering how i ended up with the pumpkin- here's the story. when my friend said "i'd really like to have one of those pumpkins" unbeknownst to me, one of our other friends also picked up a pumpkin for her. when we got to the car, we discovered we had two. and rather than walk the quarter mile back to where we took them to return the extra pumpkin, we laughed, and then we kept them both. and i was bestowed with the secondary pumpkin.

the pumpkin of shame.

what's wrong with me?

i had three things i could have done tonight. three different things.

but i decided i didn't want to do any of them. so i stayed home.

now i realize that tomorrow i have several things to do that i am committed to. and perhaps that seemed enough to me. but is there something wrong with me that i'd just as soon stay home and do nothing?

i realize that as a grown up i have the right to do or not do whatever i please, but i worry about myself, that i'd rather just do nothing sometimes. or i guess most of the time.

here i sit in a middling sized city chock full of things to do and people to hang with- and yet, i'd rather be home? by myself? am i a hermit?

hell is other people

ain't that the truth?

actually, it isn't. there are some really nice good people in the world. that i like. but then, there are so very many that i wouldn't be unhappy if they wandered over the edge of something and were never heard from again.

the republicans come to mind.

and then there are the people that i actually know that i wish would choke on something.

strange but true

when i was a kid, i had to get braces. and when i'd go to the orthodontist, i'd always have to wait around in the waiting room that seemed to have an enormous collection of comic books, one of which was entitled "strange but true." well, actually, i'm not really sure if that was it's exact name, that might have been a subtitle. but that's what i called them anyway. the strange but trues.

and they were reading candy for the pre-pubescent set. of which i was one. each one would tell tales of absurd, crazy, creepy, sometimes gross, and just plain wierd but supposedly true mysteries. anyway, they fueled my belief in that the world is quite a wierd place sometimes, chock full of things that just cannot be explained.

and so it goes today. remember i told you some time back that i had an inkling that something wierd was afoot somewhere? for no reason, i just felt that something was shifting or changing?

well this evening, i do believe i found out what that was. and what it was, is not important to you, and i'm not going to tell you anyway- but what i'm getting at and trying to tell you about is that i think it's completely wierd how i would feel that. so very strongly. and now i here i find out that something in fact has just occured that had to be in the works about the time that i started strongly feeling the wierdness. strange. but. true.

and as corny as it seems, when things like this happen- i sometimes think that i am just a wee bit psychic. not that i am psychic in anyway or to any degree that it could actually be of benefit to me. but all the same, it's just kind of intriguing to me.

anyway, i'll let you know if i decide to start learning to read tarot cards or tea leaves or packing a crystal ball.

wackaworld

isn't it weird when people who really ought to be mad at you- aren't.

yet- people who have no business being mad at you- are.

the world's wacky place, i tell ya.

no, i do not care to have the interpretation of that dream.

i get it. what my brain is trying to tell me.

so senator ted cruz. he's quite the jerk, huh? "green eggs and ham?" and he quotes it while completely missing the point of it. what a tool.

and yeah, i see flaws in universal healthcare. but seriously? this ted cruz guy's a tool.

read anything good lately? i'm reading something really strange right now that i got free off of amazon. i even forget the name of it, and i'm too lazy to walk back into the bedroom, to get it. anyway, it's about how rich people are screwing with poor people, although written some time ago about another time. but it surely could be now. i really need to download the new ravitch book. i can't wait to read that.

ha. omg. i just turned john stewart on. and he's reading "the bore-ax" - a parody of cruz's reading. ha ha.

anyway. so what else? my cold is better. my job is happy. and i'm still glad to be here.

tomorrow, in addition to downloading the book and going to work, i need to go to the grocery store and do my laundry. the cupboard really is bare. and i'm out of unmentionables. i've just been either too busy or too sleeping to get to those things.

so that's about it. i'm going to watch the rest of stewart, then colbert, and then read my strange book. and fall asleep.

and maybe i'll dream another dream that i do not care to have an interpretation of.

over the edge

last night dreamed this: i was scampering along a path. yes, i know scampering is a goofy word, but that best describes what i was doing. i was scampering- not running. not walking. not hopping. scampering.

so i'm scampering along this path and on the edges of the path, there is foliage. flowers, shrubs, etc. mixed in with rocks. and i'm happy.

i'm just scampering for no reason what-so-ever, down this path. happy.

then i become aware of my view to my right. it's a breath-taking sight across a canyon and down to a clear blue/white stream. and a mountain on the other side.

and just when i realize that i'm very close to the edge of the path- and that this edge drops down into this canyon- the ground breaks under my right foot.

and that's when i wake up. when i'm struggling to grasp something or regain my balance. on the crumbling ground. and there is that horrible fear that i'm going to fall.

and i wake up.

and i think "wow, i'm glad that wasn't true."

cooking once, cooking twice

cooking chicken soup with rice.

i actually am. cooking chicken soup with rice, that is. cuz i'm not going to lie, i kinda feel like crap. don't you hate the common cold?

and don't you hate how whiny people become when they've caught one?

well, too bad. i'm going to be whiny today. and in fact, i'm going to declare this "the worst sunday ever."

even if it's not that bad.

but, because i don't feel well because of this stupid cold, and having to drive 3 hours while sick, and because i saw someone's dopple-ganger today. and in particular, a dg who is disconcerting to me- I AM going to whine.

so i am home now. and i've turned the football game on, and i've had a cup of tea. and now i am actually cooking chicken soup with rice.

because i deserve it. i deserve something medicinal that skates the borders of healthy and comfort. and perhaps a shot of brandy too.

i'm not bullshit

that's the very nice compliment i was given tonight. (-:

i was subbing for another teacher. who i actually think is a very good teacher. and i think his students do too. but i was there tonight and since i wasn't left any plans due to the last minute arrangements, i proceeded as i thought best. and it seems i was appreciated.

it was a good evening. good questions, people contributing, people working together to come to solutions. lightbulbs going off above heads. and all that.

and i was out and out thanked by each of the students. for breaking it all down. for addressing individual issues. for allowing all to partcipate and practice without feeling threatened.

and one lady told me "xxxxx, thank you, you're not bullshit. i'm really started to get some of this stuff tonight. thanks to the way you took us through everything step by step. "

and it feels good. to not be bullshit.

a perfect me.

geez! i would like to say to myself "quit your whining xxxxx!"

upon re-reading the last post.

i do whine sometimes. i shouldn't. no one likes a whiner. in truth, i don't really either.

anyway, there actually are some other faults that i have that i would change if it were possible.

i would be more outgoing. i can force myself to be, i guess. but i'd like to be more outgoing without it being painful.

i would be quicker on my feet in an argument. i hate being a slow thinker.

i would be funnier. not that i'm never funny. but i'd like to be funnier, more often.

i would have a better memory. not for the icky things i don't want to remember. but for important things.

i would like to not be quite so lazy. that's a weird thing with me. i think because for so long i never had a single free moment to myself, where i wasn't crushingly exhausted and where at the very least some worry wasn't needling me- i actually enjoy doing absolutely nothing at all now. it has turned me into a sloth at times.

so more positive, more outgoing, smarter, funnier, and less lazy.

oh and i'd really like to be beautiful, charming, happy, and kind too.

then i'd be perfect. and you would like me. (-:

both sides now.

"Being sappy isn’t love. Telling someone you love them doesn’t mean that you do."

this from a facebook article expressing how love is a verb and talking about how that "in love" feeling is really more about yourself than it is about actually loving the other person.

ah. how true i think that is. these days.

i gotta tell you. (and long time readers well know) - that even while it's been a long time, i still struggle with a life episode where someone professed to love me and then when he was angry over something i expressed to him, suddenly up and didn't.

and i gotta tell you- that part of what has been hard about it was him leveling charges at me of motives and thoughts that i didn't have. and calling me evil. and all that for a very long time made me question myself. and whether or not i was some really worthless human being who really didn't care about other people at all.

i can't tell you how deep these charges penetrated my being. to the point where i questioned whether or not, i really had cared about my sister in law dying or was just upset because it roughly corresponded with the time of our break-up. and to the point where i also questioned whether my being upset about a student death really had more to do with the break up rather tha whether i really cared about the loss of the child.

i seriously questioned whether or not, i used these things as excuses or rationalizations for my grief or if i was just upset about my own life and being dumped. i seriously questioned whether or not i was really a horrible human being. i questioned my own degree of selfishness.

and over the years, i've struggled with these things. and even while i have felt for sometime now that i can be exonerated from these things- that i truly was just sad and struggling with grief and caring. and that he was obtuse enough not to understand- even while i felt that i had come around and resolved the issue of me, i have to say that it wasn't until something happened today that i realized for certain how wrong he was about me.

what happened today was this: one of our students came back to class after being out for a bit of time. and i told her that we'd missed her and that i'd wondered where she was. and she proceeded to tell me that she'd been absent because her sister's 5 year old child was in hospice. and she went on to explain that the child suffered from mitochondrial myopathy. and she started to explain what that was. and i stopped her and i told her that i knew exactly what that was. that i'd had a former student with it. and she asked me if this ex student of mine was still living. and how old he was. and i told her "yes, that he'd exceeded his life expectancy expectations and was actually now just starting his first year in college, but that there had been many times along the way where it was thought he might die. but then i added that while he was doing alright, that i was no stranger to children dying. that many of the students i'd worked with had died at severely young ages.

and that's when i burst into tears. and i hugged her and i said "please give your sister this hug from me because i have imagined a million time what that would feel like as a parent, even while i can never actually know. all i know is how very hard and sad it is to watch when you care about the child and when you care about the family. and there is nothing you can do." and then i said "and so this hug is for you too."

and then she cried. and thanked me. for understanding.

and she said "one of the hardest things is this whole concept of getting prepared for death. because this is not the first time we've prepared for it. and it's just worse almost when you prepare and then your hopes get raised. only to have those hopes dashed over and over again."

and i nodded "yeah, i know." and i was thinking about my x sister in law. and how that up and down and up and down experience took it's toll on us all.

and as i walked away from that encounter, with tears in my eyes, it suddenly became crystal clear to me that i am in fact a caring human being. and not the evil selfish bitch that he told me i was. because at the moment of this spontaneous gush of tears, he wasn't even in my thoughts at all. i was swamped instead with thoughts of my students who had died, completely. and their families. nothing about him, involved. i realized that i had truly cared.

and love is a verb. it's not when someone tells you they love you. that's only their selfish feelings. what it is- is when someone shows they love you by understanding. and giving you the benefit of the doubt, rather than accusing you and calling you disgusting and evil.

so then also today, while i was eating my lunch and sitting around here, i flipped on the tv to of all things- that i would never watch- "katie couric." and she announced that she is engaged again. and she spoke about how she never thought she'd find love again after her husband died. and i thought "don't be all encouraging, katie couric. like it could happen to any one of us. because someone in your position with your cute little looks and your money, sure it was easy enough to find new love. for the rest of us, it's not happening."

those were my bitter thoughts. but i stayed tuned for just one more part. the part where she said what made her fall in love with him. and she said "first, his integrity. most important to me is that a man have integrity."

and i thought "well, even though i can't deal with your happiness that's never possible for the rest of us, i do get that. i do get that if there ever is a next guy, he will have integrity. the next guy, if he ever will materialize will be dripping with that. and because he has integrity, instead of professing love, he will demonstrate that love is a verb."

because love isn't saying that you love someone. or feeling head over heels. or that the person makes you happier than sunshine. love is sticking with someone through anger and troubles and sadness. love is having the integrity to do that. love is a verb.

and sometimes now, i wonder now if i really loved him. or was i just all infatuated as well. i wonder that because i've felt complete hate for him. and i've told you before i can't forgive him. and you'd think if i really loved him, i could forgive him.

but i think what i really can't forgive is that i didn't see him for who he really was. i can't forgive myself for being so very very stupid that i didn't see that he lacked that integrity. i can't forgive myself for not realizing he wasn't who i thought he was at all.

and i think maybe i realized that i only loved who i thought he was. but i don't know.

and then this thought struck me: maybe love is just the blind leading the blind.

when i was a teenager, i think it was joni mitchell who sang "i've looked at love from both sides now, from give and take,and still somehow- it's love's illusions i recall, i really don't know love at all."

a pretty sappy song. for something that isn't sappy.