LOL (Photo)

I've gotten hooked on lol cats. This is just one I made, it didn't get chosen for the site. Made me laugh, though.

Fuzz

A day in fuzz.

Medications work, but leave me cranked up and zoned out at the edges. Better living with migraines through chemistry.

Moby has come to sit beside me several times today. Woke me at the usual time (0518) by walking on me and purring with intent, which is good, since being awake when it starts makes the drugs much more effective.

Um. Rather, being awake when the migraine starts means I take the stuff then. Which in a way makes it more effective than when it is still in the package...

Laundry sits. Dishes half done. D made dinner.

As the Mythbusters say, Failure is always an option.

I'm ok with this.

Too

I'm up too early,
internal alarm, headache
and cat insistence.

Metal

When the anesthesiologist insists on his iPod full of head banger heavy metal right next to my desk and the phone where I have to convey orders and talk to patient's families, as well as coordinate with everyone else, there is a problem. When he turns it up before he leaves the room, I have a toehold. While he was out of the room, I turned it off. He came back in, "If we want to have a good day in here today..."

"You turned it up and left the room."

"I can put it up near me." This dripping with sarcastic disdain.

"Fine." I said, instead of -You have crap taste in music, and if I want a good day in here, I'd just as soon you scream in my ear all day, because that would be better than eight hours of Slayer. Moved, it was background rumble. I could tolerate.

If I can't understand the words (Yobitchho lemmefuckyou!), I would actually prefer rap. Not a favorite, but nowhere near as obnoxious in general sound. We were at a gathering recently where Guitar Hero ran the whole time. Noise and commotion, which makes me edgy and angry. To each his own, of course. But when I am trapped into listening, AND it interferes with my job, my tolerance ends.

Kept on call, three extra hours. Snowed yesterday afternoon. Car did fine, but folks here drive like they've never seen the stuff before.

Then, this morning, after I got to work, I realized I had a holy sock.

Quoth

"Drinking from the fire hose."
-D

"We'll finish this project when we give up."
-R

"The more I get used to this space, the harder it is to work in."
-Z

Sauna (Photo)

The bright northern sunlight through the windows warms a black cat. After the sauna, the cool hallway for a while.
(No, he doesn't move when we step over him.)

Seventeen (Photo)

We celebrate our anniversary today. We have spent every day of the last seventeen years together, or at least talking. It's not a specific date, but the Friday after Thanksgiving. Because seventeen years ago, we packed to be sent off for Gulf War I the day after Thanksgiving. We got on the busses to Ft. Collins on the Sunday at 0dark30. The first date.

He still makes a fuss thanking me for the Martin guitar. I asked him if there was anything more recent that means as much.

"You mean, like all the years of love and care?"

oh.

Thanks

A while back Pilgrim/Heretic offered an Assigned letter which inspired this post/meme. Since in the US this is the day people give thanks, stuff themselves, fail to get caught up on the thesis, and pity anyone who is not at a big family chow down.

In Canada, it's earlier, and not much celebrated, at least not in my mother's generation. Third Thursday in November for me meant watching the parade on TV, and the day mom never cooked, (leftovers or pb&j sandwiches only) her version of Canadian protest against creeping Americanism, even though we lived in Detroit. I never minded, and never laid much importance on the holiday thereby.

Still, gratitude enriches my life, like joy and cheerfulness - it needs to be practiced to be felt, not necessarily felt to be practiced. If only that would have been explained to me when I was ten.

So, ten T's.

T-shirt. Such a grand and simple invention of stretchy decency, political statement, offensive humor, dozy comfort and casual insouciance.

Tofurkey. That turkey that makes vegans happy, and actually tastes pretty good, much less dry than many an overcooked fowl.

Thumbs. Moby is frustrated at his lack of opposable ones, especially when on the wrong side of a door, or if we are slow about the can opener.

The. As in TPC. The evil organization from the The President's Analyst. The joys of English spelling. The word that is rarely alphabetized. When I worked in a library, I wanted to write a book titled "The the" just to mess with the cataloguers.

Trains. I love trains, love riding them, love the idea of them. Wish I could be on a train today. Miss the Boston trolly trains.

Thor. Well, the one from The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. Never miss an opportunity to be grateful for Douglas Adams.

Tongue. Another much-spelled word, that has a taste all it's own. A baby's window on the world. It gives tea and beer and chocolate meaning.

Tides. First seen on a New Brunswick beach, the stranded kelp, under-sand creatures bubbling, warning signs and times posted to keep tourists from drowning. The whole world transformed as the sea returned. A glimpse of immensity.

Tesla. What a weirdo. The new electric car by the name looks cool. I like to think it sounds like a Theramin.

Thanks. A word that once seemed so heavy to carry on Halloween trick-or-treating, or on Christmas morning, especially on my birthday, that now provides buoyancy. Much appreciated.

Policy (Photo)

It's a policy of mine, that if I can help with a scheduling problem, I will. Getting anyone to take a rotation shift the evening before a holiday is well neigh impossible. So, when K sighed about having to drive out of town on Thanksgiving morning, instead of the evening before as planned before the schedule came out, I sighed as well. Traded my 7-3 shift for her 3-11.

Good karma. I got groceries this morning instead, got to sleep in, making my beleaguered gut happier.

Tomorrow, thankful in T.

Stop

I stopped drinking coke after two times feeling very ill and dizzy closely following the imbibing. Ending a persistent habit of three decades. I'd known the sugar water was bad for my teeth, my bones, the excess fat bad for my heart, acid reflux.

But.

But, it was energy and caffeine, convenient, available, easy. I'd cut down, only having the stuff at work, only one can a day at most. But getting myself to zero took immediate illness, twice. I am no longer tempted.

I thought it would only take the once for hot wings. That was a bad, bad night. hot sauce on the rebound, with power. But I was hungry at work today, a rep had brought in hot wings. I hesitated, but free food... Like a dog with an interesting thing on the floor, I put it in my mouth and swallowed.

I regret it. It's still down there, for now.

Resolutions, even strong self preservation instincts, weaken with hunger and exhaustion. Thus are habits made and broken.

Compromise

We got lemon cake instead of chocolate. D thanks me for my compromise.

Oh, man, like I am suffering with yummy lemon cake. I do prefer chocolate.

As D prefers lemon, but hardly suffers with chocolate.

This is the kind of good compromise, giving way on pleasures and preferences.

With the ex, I compromised on myself, wore ragged clothes when he got himself a leather bomber jacket. Ate little for a year so he could buy a computer. As examples. At the divorce hearing the Judge asked me why I wanted the divorce.

"He drank too much."

"Aha."

"He stole money from me."

"Aha."

"He was hitting me."

His head drops, he signs the papers.

There are compromises and being compromised. I'll gladly give up a bit of chocolate to please D. He takes care of me.

Cool

An odd moment, for a nerdy girl, to have the conversation turn to cars, and to be found to have the coolest car in the room. To begin to believe, that in my middle years, I have, just by staying aware and open, true to myself, become cool. A certain flavor of cool, no question, but a genuine kind of hipness. The cool around the far edges of the bell curve.

I grew up on the margins of poverty, though I never felt really poor, knowing kids poorer than me. My parents had grown up in deeper poverty. Now that I live closer to the middle incomes, I feel quite rich - still only feeling I need roof over my head, food on the table, clothes on my back, the rest is gravy.

A few years on East Coast nurse wages, for two unextravagant people, upon return to a place requiring a vehicle, meant we were able to buy a car outright. An inexpensive, but well made wee LEV car. I took it around a curving turn and through an underpass faster than I would like to admit. Unlike the old Neon, which would have gone "ohmygodohmygodohmygodnonononono!", the Fit just said "weeeeeee!" This gives me more sheer entertainment than I can say. I admire how well designed it is, appreciate how much thought went into it's creation. That 36-38MPG helps.

Moby is coming to terms with the sofa, after five months.

Sit

I sit here, propped up, knowing the twinges in my back should be relieved. I should move, put down the pewter, join D in sleep.

I sit here, dithering, listening to Venus in Copper. Stories to help us both sleep. I resist like an overtired child.

I sit here, prompted by an idle question, where does "sleep of the just" come from? And I have to look it up.

Bible, book of Samuel.

Then I have to find "no rest for the wicked."

Then I have to check my email. Then my site.

Moby has just hopped up, trying to settle on my feet.

I have to lie down. let sleep in.

Quiet (Photo)

Last evening, hanging out in the surgeon lounge, waiting for eleven pm, glad the add-on list is empty, trying not to say the Q-word.

Happy (Photos)

Revised a huge section I'd been holding onto in original form. Written last year, buffed up repeatedly, needed to be stripped to the bones and rearranged. Feeling better.

Meanwhile (Photo)

D took a photo of the wild party that I am missing at our place.


Thanks, guys.

Fissures

I'm at work.

I didn't write today. I cleaned.

Last week sucked mightily.

I have the next three days off.

This is not a poem. This is how my brain is working now.

I want D to be happy. I want Moby to be happy.

Moby is easier. He got to lie in the sun on a curl of red wool today. He was happy.

I am happier than the patients I cared for tonight.

My po feet ache all the way to my knees.

I have fissures abutting the nails on both thumbs.

This could be a hundred words.

Hints

Pale brown creases over bulging braidwork of veins, calluses for pads on her fingers. Draping knits of dark, rich green covered her bony back, falling to swollen enpurpled ankles. Grassy woven shoes covered wide sock-free feet shuffling against the trailing green leaves and twigs, flowers and fruits. Her world, pruned down to human size, where once she planned ecosystems for all human kind, engineered enclosed growth systems and nutritional patterns for continents. She stopped to gaze lovingly at the glass above, enjoyed the tepid warmth of the low sun on this cold autumnal morning. She breathed in the complex scents of herbs and citrus, medicinals and vegetables.



These excerpts will stay up a week, then disappear. Based on my shaky understanding of publishing, I'd hate to screw it up before I even start.

Cunning

I have a cunning plan. I will write, on the novel, 1K a day, when I don't work a 12 hour shift (or am kept on call more than an hour.) I will post about 100 words of what I write here (not an exact count.) This provides a stiff enough goal, shares with you who have so generously supported and encouraged me. This is like a chocolate at the end of the maze, for me, knowing I am not writing into the ether.

It may get a bit odd, but there will be Moby photos for joy.

Very fatigued today, depleted in every way, save for plenty of story sloshing around my brain. Still, wrote 1K. Will post that sample tomorrow. Have to set my own goals, make my own plans. And start contacting places that may, in time, publish me.

There is a glimmer in the gloaming. Need another cup of tea, while I wash dishes.

Nope

I should have saved. I should have plugged in, because I know this laptop shuts down when the power is low and I'm not plugged in. I should have saved first. I thought about it when I closed it, but too late. After this week, being exhausted and about 6K words behind, I lost about 1500 words of text. I don't feel able to re-write that, now. The exhaustion came crushing down as I realized what I'd done. What I'd failed to do. I hate failing, frustrated and sad. My own damn fault.

I will keep writing, the novel will happen this year, published or no, it will be written. I just can't do the bulk of it this month. I give. Uncle.

Enough, for now.

Tired (Photo)

Twelve hours. Eleven hours (kept on call). Eight hours. Twelve hours.

Groceries, dishes, laundry.

Have barely managed to write, will not make it at this rate. It's a silly non-contest that is my way to force myself to learn to write. The only kind of writing school I will have. As important to me as any college course, in my desire to eventually supplement our retirement income with my paltry words.

This is depressing enough to consider, for a long painful moment, just forgetting it all in a self destructive rush of despair.

Instead, I finished my work, am re-baking yams with pineapple, scheduled a modest spa date with D, calmed my furious rage at frustrated dreaming, gave Moby a bit of ham, and will pick D up after his late class. Work has been stressful, for reasons that I cannot go into without risking my job. Suffice to say, moving sucks, even for those who stay behind. And, funny how when the kids move out, they wind up moving back for a while.

Bangs (Photo)

Trying to write a little. Kept on call, pooped.

Sofa (Photo)

Rabbit-ears. (Photo)

Lucy
An Udge and a Wink, doing Nablopomo.
Jean doing Nablopomo.

Anyone else?

No new words tonight. I got a stream in my head, just to tired to type it all out. Involves a potter and an alligator in the bath. Trying to have characters die without murdering them, a fine, but important line.

Muntz (Photo)

The TV is a 1952 Muntz. Still running in 1978, if not audibly.

Nanowrimo, 8,266 at 7PM.

Tat (Photo)

More clearly, the official, 2006 Nanowrimo temporary tattoo.

Writin' (Photo)

4,952


At 1852, 5,606

Crown (Photo)

Blow (Photo)

An Udge and a Wink, doing Nablopomo.

Jean doing Nablopomo.

Anyone else?

770 words.

9PM, 3,640 words.

Post

An Udge and a Wink, doing Nablopomo.

Jean doing Nablopomo.