Nausea: thought it was from the acidic food.
TERRIBLE HEAD AND NECK PAIN: thought I'd aggravated the pretty-much-healed sprained neck by hanging over the sewing machine for five hours.
Terrible body pain: see head and neck pain. But the tablecloth is all kinds of gorgeous, I am telling you.
Horrible wracking cough: just thought I had one lungful too many.
...But that wouldn't explain why I was still coughing--and coughing worse, with a mighty BURNING AND ACHING which jostled the head and aggravated the headache--this morning, and am also congested. Or why, on retrospect, my voice was excessively sore/tired after choir practice, Monday. Or why I've been randomly and lightly coughing for, oh, a week, now (thought it was just the great local air quality), and have had occasional stabbing pains through the ear. Or why I woke up with a 102˚F fever, this morning, after the dream where I'm trying to produce the great new spiritual doctrine on a triangular tablet (..Idunno).
.. . I swear. I've never been properly ill THREE TIMES in TWO MONTHS before. And I'm worried that this one's a doozy. I don't remember the last three hours.
...Four hours.
Hm.
Well, Chris is walking over to the store for chicken soup, for me (I think). I obviously managed to move, but now I'm going to crawl back into the nook where I presume I have whittled away all this time since I woke up. I'm going to fall behind, again, on your journals and lives, and I will quite probably STILL not be around for the emailing/messaging/etc. I'm sorry. :(
This sucks. But see y'all again when I come out of the coma? :) LOVE
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Update: Mischief Managed
Boxlid harvest managed--handful of underaged carrots for the devouring, handful of cooking greens (was able to dig up the chard and trim some leaves off of the kohl rabi), a handful of the lettucey greens that might be okay despite having been frozen a few times. Transplanted the kohl rabi and some unlikely-to-survive-but-I'm-giving-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt carrot babies, and (as mentioned below) a fistful of cilantro into a pot. Tomorrow or the next day, the extra dirt and a couple feet of compost go into my spot, and I get to get plotting.
Whoof. I feel good, I tell you. And I deserve. . .
2 oz Creme de Banana liquer
1/2 tsp Triple Sec
2 tbsp milk
1 fat or 2 regular drops of red food coloring
...which = Bubblegum. Because I got tired of waiting, and got started with the mixing. I Am Triumphant.
Whoof. I feel good, I tell you. And I deserve. . .
2 oz Creme de Banana liquer
1/2 tsp Triple Sec
2 tbsp milk
1 fat or 2 regular drops of red food coloring
...which = Bubblegum. Because I got tired of waiting, and got started with the mixing. I Am Triumphant.
Cilantro is the Überlord.
Cilantro is like. . .
- Cilantro is like paratroopers, bravely dropping down into the jungles and planting itself down behind the lines until it's established a base camp from which to send runners and do battle.
- Cilantro is like Rasputin: It will not die, no matter how many times something tries to kill it.
- Cilantro is also like morning glories, in this way: You believed that it was dead, but it's just moved fourteen feet from where it was with no explicable means of having gotten there, surviving, or reproducing, and there's more of it, now.
- Cilantro is thus like cochroaches, and termites: You never actually have just one.
- Cilantro is like carrots, too; at least, it looks enough like carrots that when it's hidden amidst carrots, you don't necessarily realize that you no longer really have a row of carrots so much as a field of cilantro with some carrots in it.
- This is because cilantro is like in vitro fertilization: It wants to be sure it reproduces, so it tries 16 times, and instead of getting one healthy baby, it gets septendecaplets.*
- Cilantro is, finally, like a good thing: You can never have too much, until you do. And then comes madness.
If you hadn't guessed, I'm taking a brief break from working in my garden. We hit the nursery (awww, babies!) and the OSH a couple of days ago, and I've planted hollyhock seeds, parsley seeds (in with my parsley), a ton of pansies (food plant--really!) and some stock (which smells like jasmine and clove--I'm in love, ell-yoo-vee). I also planted all the spider plant babies I was rooting (my house plants went with us, away from this wicked poisoned place), and we indulged me in a gorgeous little fern called a Single Maid (a type of Maidenhair fern, adiantum), with which I am in love. Today, I've been pulling down the chicken wire the former residents had up, and which I thought would be useful, but is turning out to bother me. I staked the bouganvilla without it, and rehung all my windchimes and hanging candle-holders, and am going to hang my copper lanterns soon. I cut down, with great regret, my poisoned peas, and dug out the poisoned chervil (got the rest of them yesterday), and trimmed down the poisoned lisianthus, which hopefully will recover. I've also been trying to resurrect parts of the veggie garden, and have been most recently thinning my volunteer cilantro a little bit. I would like to make it clear that I planted none of this cilantro; I inherited one plant, and I believe its properties, as I have illustrated in simile form, above, will give you a good idea of what happened since then.
Now I'm going to go back out and see if I can remove what's left of the few veggies that survived the trampling, so that I can work in more dirt and new compost. And then hopefully get some of the poor things back into the healthier dirt. I've got seeds for sugar snap peas, a different kind of carrot, a different kind of swiss chard, and the same lovely kinds of lettuces (Grand Rapids and a nice spicy mix), and about twice as much space, now that I've cleared out the cinder blocks that were housing all those Black Widows with dime-sized abdomens** (which I've cleaned, bleached, and am soon turning into media shelving--the blocks, not spiders), and the large pots on top of them. And this year, I intend to have some freaking bell pepper plants. .. .. Maybe even a lot of them. I want to spoil myself on bell peppers. I want to roll in peppery goodness. Mmm....
*Cilantro is also like magic.
**Not an exaggeration.
- Cilantro is like paratroopers, bravely dropping down into the jungles and planting itself down behind the lines until it's established a base camp from which to send runners and do battle.
- Cilantro is like Rasputin: It will not die, no matter how many times something tries to kill it.
- Cilantro is also like morning glories, in this way: You believed that it was dead, but it's just moved fourteen feet from where it was with no explicable means of having gotten there, surviving, or reproducing, and there's more of it, now.
- Cilantro is thus like cochroaches, and termites: You never actually have just one.
- Cilantro is like carrots, too; at least, it looks enough like carrots that when it's hidden amidst carrots, you don't necessarily realize that you no longer really have a row of carrots so much as a field of cilantro with some carrots in it.
- This is because cilantro is like in vitro fertilization: It wants to be sure it reproduces, so it tries 16 times, and instead of getting one healthy baby, it gets septendecaplets.*
- Cilantro is, finally, like a good thing: You can never have too much, until you do. And then comes madness.
If you hadn't guessed, I'm taking a brief break from working in my garden. We hit the nursery (awww, babies!) and the OSH a couple of days ago, and I've planted hollyhock seeds, parsley seeds (in with my parsley), a ton of pansies (food plant--really!) and some stock (which smells like jasmine and clove--I'm in love, ell-yoo-vee). I also planted all the spider plant babies I was rooting (my house plants went with us, away from this wicked poisoned place), and we indulged me in a gorgeous little fern called a Single Maid (a type of Maidenhair fern, adiantum), with which I am in love. Today, I've been pulling down the chicken wire the former residents had up, and which I thought would be useful, but is turning out to bother me. I staked the bouganvilla without it, and rehung all my windchimes and hanging candle-holders, and am going to hang my copper lanterns soon. I cut down, with great regret, my poisoned peas, and dug out the poisoned chervil (got the rest of them yesterday), and trimmed down the poisoned lisianthus, which hopefully will recover. I've also been trying to resurrect parts of the veggie garden, and have been most recently thinning my volunteer cilantro a little bit. I would like to make it clear that I planted none of this cilantro; I inherited one plant, and I believe its properties, as I have illustrated in simile form, above, will give you a good idea of what happened since then.
Now I'm going to go back out and see if I can remove what's left of the few veggies that survived the trampling, so that I can work in more dirt and new compost. And then hopefully get some of the poor things back into the healthier dirt. I've got seeds for sugar snap peas, a different kind of carrot, a different kind of swiss chard, and the same lovely kinds of lettuces (Grand Rapids and a nice spicy mix), and about twice as much space, now that I've cleared out the cinder blocks that were housing all those Black Widows with dime-sized abdomens** (which I've cleaned, bleached, and am soon turning into media shelving--the blocks, not spiders), and the large pots on top of them. And this year, I intend to have some freaking bell pepper plants. .. .. Maybe even a lot of them. I want to spoil myself on bell peppers. I want to roll in peppery goodness. Mmm....
*Cilantro is also like magic.
**Not an exaggeration.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Mine eyes have felt the glory of the Chloropicrin burn...
I was going to try to make a whooooole parody off of that, but I have not the power, today. So I'm just going to lay it out. Have patience: this will be long.
So, I have been gone for a few/several days, now. Dress rehearsal, concert, and then leaving the place because they were fumigating it (against our wills, I will remind). The place we stayed at, through the deep kindness of a friend of Chris's on campus, kept us warm and dry and allowed us to cook for ourselves, watch Babylon 5, and keep the cat in a safe, friendly, larger-than-his-office place while we were waiting for the fumes to leave our house, on the last day (had we been at a motel, we'd have been screwed--check out at 11, and hope they let us in before 5--charming!). It did not, however, have a phone, phone line, or internet--someone nearby had an unprotected network that we were able to catch for the first morning, but we suspect they were the ones who we saw move out that afternoon, leaving us internetless. Thus, my radio silence/near silence.
On to the fumes we had to wait on to clear:
So, apparently the company subcontracted to by Clark (Clark was the company who had actually sent someone to talk to us, who had seemed competent and sensitive, who was available for questioning, etc), which was not Clark at all (but Your Way Fumigation), gave the all clear around noon, tested the levels of the sulfuryl flouride (trade name: Vikane!™) and they were fine, etc. So, we were glad--we found out around 3, so we booked it over there, cleaned up the place we'd been staying at (forgot the frozen vanilla vodka and corn--but we'll go back for them), settled back in at home. I didn't feel comfortable about possible gas levels, yet, so I opened everything up again, to let more air blow through.
This is when I went out to check on my garden.
The representative from Clark had given me a warning of "one foot from the house." Because they'd need room for the sandbags. So, I moved my potted plants, my seeds, my potting soil, my gravel, my pots, everything, about a foot and a half to two feet from the house. I stretched the house away (couldn't get it unhooked) and set the mass of it some three feet from the house. Everything was away. I'd transplanted what I could from my garden that was that close to the house, and put up some of my garden stakes to give the rest of it a little border, as protection against stray feet, tent, etc. I moved the racks away from the house and fence, and tucked them at the edge of the patio. I left the grass clear, because this complex has people come through most Tuesdays to mow, and I thought they might still. I watered the dirt near the house within an inch of its life, because the gentleman from Clark had said that that should keep much of the Vikane™ from penetrating the soil, as it's not water soluble. (The big problem would be the sandbags, if there was vegetation in the way, he said. Not to worry too much, he said.)
So, imagine my compliant surprise when I came out to fine my nice away-from-the-house square separated, shoved out in two different directions. With most of the plants towards the house--and the dirt, the seeds, the pots, and the rocks--and the other half outside of it, the patio furniture on the lawn, and the hose disconnected. See, the house makes an inverted corner there, and rather than go in along the corner, they cut the diagonal across my patio. With most of my outdoor potted plants under the tent. With the gas that will kill bugs, mammals, plants, etc, and penetrate . . . everything, really, inclusive of medicinals and food, so it all had to be protected or moved out. Verily, a miracle technology, meant to be able to get into the pores of the wood to kill the poor buggy bastards (which I'd like to remind you, we had no signs of--it was one or two of the other units connected to us).
Well, apparently I'd watered most of it pretty well, because some of the wildflower brush survived (but the Columbines and chervil sharing a pot with them were dead as little whispy doornails). The (Corrected:)lisianthus (Echo Blue strain!) sort of made it, though it's looking a little. . . well, beige. A little of the cilantro looks okay. The snow pea plants were okay, though they looked funny. The shallots look all right. . . But the mint was a crispy brown dead brush.
. . . Now, hey: did you notice a theme to most of the plants that wound up under the tent?
Could it be "food"?
Well, the peas haven't grown on the plant, yet, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the cilantro? The shallots?
They poisoned my fucking food plants. And have put pesticides into my dirt. Though, Vikane™ is supposed to dissipate completely! Maybe it'll be okay!
Maybe.
All right, all right, you say. it's just a some cilantro and shallots and mint you're really losing. At least the garden's okay, right? The veggies? The mums?
Except that when they disconnected the hose, they threw it onto my fragile little vegetable plants. Not onto either of the spaces of open dirt next to it. Not onto the patio. Not onto the lawn. Onto my little rows of vegetable plants. All 20 feet and several pounds of hose. And they took more than a foot, with the sandbags, so there went more of the carrots and cilantro. And some of it was under a boot print. The little stakes were knocked over and crushed down so far that they were buried inside the dirt. And they apparently had some reason to heave another shovelful or so of dirt onto the little transplants (three feet away) that I'd tried to save from near the wall, because they were, little tops and all, completely buried. Oh: and they had to throw my mop bucket and more dirt at my just-barely-planted mums, too. And completely sever the one plant. And crush another of the others.
In short, my rosemary is unpoisoned. And the pot of snow peas that was fifteen feet from the house, and a little parsley (and some still more cilantro and a shallot.) Some more flower plants and one of the cacti seem to be relatively okay, and a few of the hardier clumps of mums.
But of all the food plants. Of all the root vegetables in the ground, and the herbs, I've got some leggy parsley and half of the peas I started with unscathed.
My kohl rabi is mangled probably beyond repair, but I suppose there's a chance for one of the heads. The chard is snapped and mashed. The tiny little carrots are crushed (maybe a few will make it..?). Maybe the mangled greens and lettuces will seed, maybe they won't.
But in even shorter short, they destroyed my garden. They destroyed my fucking garden. My localest of local food. My formerly pesticide free, home grown with love in season, food.
But it gets better! Really!
Remember the heading to this monster?
Well, we finally closed everything up, after we'd done various things and I'd called my mother to sniffle and bitch about my garden. We went to pick up Chinese food and sat down with the movie Capote. We turned on the heat, because it was 55˚F inside, from the windows being open and the wind blowing through.
After the movie ended, I reported conversationally to Chris (though it had been bothering me for about an hour): "Wow, my eyes really hurt."
". . . Mine, too," he says, suspiciously. ("Oh, really," I think.)
"Thinking what I'm thinking?" I say.
"I thought it was just the hot" (spicy) "food. . . " he says.
"I didn't have the spicy food, and mine are really angry," I says.
So we open back up the windows, and let the fan for the heat keep blowing. And as I look at the informational materials Clark gave us, and the paper Your Way Fumigation taped to our door, I see mention of the "Warning Agent"--Vikane™ is odorless/colorless/etc, you see, and will kill you horribly and instantly if you get a big lungful, so it's important to have something more immediately unpleasant to alert you to its presence, in case you get near it.
The warning agent in this case is chloropicrin. A tear gas. That is, a caustic agent that will make your eyes burn, and follow with your sinuses, upper respiratory system, and finally (with enough of it), your gastrointestinal system. So we look up chloropicrin, and find that it is also a pesticide. And that it IS water soluble. And that it is mostly a soil fimugant. So even if the sulfuryl flouride isn't in my dirt, the chloropicrin is. And the fuckers SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS.
But more importantly, for the moment, the fucking chloropicrin is in my fucking eyes.
Our theory runs like this: As they opened up the place to air it out but didn't turn on the fan for the AC/heat, and as this stuff penetrates everything, some of it was left in the ducts. When we closed the place up and turned on the heat, the last vestiges of it were pushed out into the air with us. Hopefully it was just the tear gas poison rather than the swift and terrible death poison. And the tear gas poison will cause eye burning at terribly low levels--that is, levels at which it won't do you lasting damage, or cause your respiratory system to collapse, or cause vomiting and diarrhea and so forth. And at such low levels that if the swift and terrible death poison won't cause you a swift and terrible death. The early warning signs on the other are difficulty breathing and lightheadedness and strain of that sort, which--of course--I was experiencing, but I suspect that was just being so fucking stressed and so fucking upset and SO FUCKING READY FOR THIS TO BE OVER.
So. My eyes are still burning on and off, the next morning. Especially when the heat has just come on, and when I've gone more than an hour without flushing them out with water and putting drops in them.
I bet irritability is a sign of these things, too, just because irritability is a sign for everything. But it's also a sign for PMS (I hope that's part of this, anyway) and being fucking pissed off.
So. I will probably not be around today. We have no food, pretty much, so we need to go out for Big Market trip, so it's going to be the Big Modesto Trip, to hit Trader Joe's and BevMo and whatall. And I wouldn't be good company, anyway. Because my food plants, my babies (and I'm not going to hear any more criticism over being emotionally attached to them, okay? Please?), have been mangled and I have got poisons in my system and my eyes still fucking hurt.
P.S. I don't want to hear about me being neglectful, either. At least not today. Good natured razzing can resume next week.
UPDATE: Manager (sweet Candie) gave our number to the guy from Clark, who called us and was very nice, but.. confirmed that, yes: the tear gas can hang around. His advice: air it out some more. Aaaaaagh. He also wanted to set up an appointment for me with someone from the other company, so that they could go "look into" the damage, and asked about a dollar amount.
I'm like, ". . . ? I grew it all from seeds, it didn't hardly cost me anything, it's just. . ." . . . Gah, I don't want to have someone tromping back through it again. And I don't actually want any money. And I want to get it back together and heal it, not have to sit there with it. I've already started in on undoing this damage, what of it I can. I want to get my garden back together. I want them to be a little more fucking careful, in future. That's all.
Also, the Clark guy says to toss the food plants and seeds for food plants that were inside the tent. All of them. So. It's off to OSH, tomorrow.
I suppose I'll start clean. I feel officially defeated, so, it's up from here, eh? Feeling much better since the trip out and about. No longer irritated wth Every Human Being. Love to all.
So, I have been gone for a few/several days, now. Dress rehearsal, concert, and then leaving the place because they were fumigating it (against our wills, I will remind). The place we stayed at, through the deep kindness of a friend of Chris's on campus, kept us warm and dry and allowed us to cook for ourselves, watch Babylon 5, and keep the cat in a safe, friendly, larger-than-his-office place while we were waiting for the fumes to leave our house, on the last day (had we been at a motel, we'd have been screwed--check out at 11, and hope they let us in before 5--charming!). It did not, however, have a phone, phone line, or internet--someone nearby had an unprotected network that we were able to catch for the first morning, but we suspect they were the ones who we saw move out that afternoon, leaving us internetless. Thus, my radio silence/near silence.
On to the fumes we had to wait on to clear:
So, apparently the company subcontracted to by Clark (Clark was the company who had actually sent someone to talk to us, who had seemed competent and sensitive, who was available for questioning, etc), which was not Clark at all (but Your Way Fumigation), gave the all clear around noon, tested the levels of the sulfuryl flouride (trade name: Vikane!™) and they were fine, etc. So, we were glad--we found out around 3, so we booked it over there, cleaned up the place we'd been staying at (forgot the frozen vanilla vodka and corn--but we'll go back for them), settled back in at home. I didn't feel comfortable about possible gas levels, yet, so I opened everything up again, to let more air blow through.
This is when I went out to check on my garden.
The representative from Clark had given me a warning of "one foot from the house." Because they'd need room for the sandbags. So, I moved my potted plants, my seeds, my potting soil, my gravel, my pots, everything, about a foot and a half to two feet from the house. I stretched the house away (couldn't get it unhooked) and set the mass of it some three feet from the house. Everything was away. I'd transplanted what I could from my garden that was that close to the house, and put up some of my garden stakes to give the rest of it a little border, as protection against stray feet, tent, etc. I moved the racks away from the house and fence, and tucked them at the edge of the patio. I left the grass clear, because this complex has people come through most Tuesdays to mow, and I thought they might still. I watered the dirt near the house within an inch of its life, because the gentleman from Clark had said that that should keep much of the Vikane™ from penetrating the soil, as it's not water soluble. (The big problem would be the sandbags, if there was vegetation in the way, he said. Not to worry too much, he said.)
So, imagine my compliant surprise when I came out to fine my nice away-from-the-house square separated, shoved out in two different directions. With most of the plants towards the house--and the dirt, the seeds, the pots, and the rocks--and the other half outside of it, the patio furniture on the lawn, and the hose disconnected. See, the house makes an inverted corner there, and rather than go in along the corner, they cut the diagonal across my patio. With most of my outdoor potted plants under the tent. With the gas that will kill bugs, mammals, plants, etc, and penetrate . . . everything, really, inclusive of medicinals and food, so it all had to be protected or moved out. Verily, a miracle technology, meant to be able to get into the pores of the wood to kill the poor buggy bastards (which I'd like to remind you, we had no signs of--it was one or two of the other units connected to us).
Well, apparently I'd watered most of it pretty well, because some of the wildflower brush survived (but the Columbines and chervil sharing a pot with them were dead as little whispy doornails). The (Corrected:)lisianthus (Echo Blue strain!) sort of made it, though it's looking a little. . . well, beige. A little of the cilantro looks okay. The snow pea plants were okay, though they looked funny. The shallots look all right. . . But the mint was a crispy brown dead brush.
. . . Now, hey: did you notice a theme to most of the plants that wound up under the tent?
Could it be "food"?
Well, the peas haven't grown on the plant, yet, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the cilantro? The shallots?
They poisoned my fucking food plants. And have put pesticides into my dirt. Though, Vikane™ is supposed to dissipate completely! Maybe it'll be okay!
Maybe.
All right, all right, you say. it's just a some cilantro and shallots and mint you're really losing. At least the garden's okay, right? The veggies? The mums?
Except that when they disconnected the hose, they threw it onto my fragile little vegetable plants. Not onto either of the spaces of open dirt next to it. Not onto the patio. Not onto the lawn. Onto my little rows of vegetable plants. All 20 feet and several pounds of hose. And they took more than a foot, with the sandbags, so there went more of the carrots and cilantro. And some of it was under a boot print. The little stakes were knocked over and crushed down so far that they were buried inside the dirt. And they apparently had some reason to heave another shovelful or so of dirt onto the little transplants (three feet away) that I'd tried to save from near the wall, because they were, little tops and all, completely buried. Oh: and they had to throw my mop bucket and more dirt at my just-barely-planted mums, too. And completely sever the one plant. And crush another of the others.
In short, my rosemary is unpoisoned. And the pot of snow peas that was fifteen feet from the house, and a little parsley (and some still more cilantro and a shallot.) Some more flower plants and one of the cacti seem to be relatively okay, and a few of the hardier clumps of mums.
But of all the food plants. Of all the root vegetables in the ground, and the herbs, I've got some leggy parsley and half of the peas I started with unscathed.
My kohl rabi is mangled probably beyond repair, but I suppose there's a chance for one of the heads. The chard is snapped and mashed. The tiny little carrots are crushed (maybe a few will make it..?). Maybe the mangled greens and lettuces will seed, maybe they won't.
But in even shorter short, they destroyed my garden. They destroyed my fucking garden. My localest of local food. My formerly pesticide free, home grown with love in season, food.
But it gets better! Really!
Remember the heading to this monster?
Well, we finally closed everything up, after we'd done various things and I'd called my mother to sniffle and bitch about my garden. We went to pick up Chinese food and sat down with the movie Capote. We turned on the heat, because it was 55˚F inside, from the windows being open and the wind blowing through.
After the movie ended, I reported conversationally to Chris (though it had been bothering me for about an hour): "Wow, my eyes really hurt."
". . . Mine, too," he says, suspiciously. ("Oh, really," I think.)
"Thinking what I'm thinking?" I say.
"I thought it was just the hot" (spicy) "food. . . " he says.
"I didn't have the spicy food, and mine are really angry," I says.
So we open back up the windows, and let the fan for the heat keep blowing. And as I look at the informational materials Clark gave us, and the paper Your Way Fumigation taped to our door, I see mention of the "Warning Agent"--Vikane™ is odorless/colorless/etc, you see, and will kill you horribly and instantly if you get a big lungful, so it's important to have something more immediately unpleasant to alert you to its presence, in case you get near it.
The warning agent in this case is chloropicrin. A tear gas. That is, a caustic agent that will make your eyes burn, and follow with your sinuses, upper respiratory system, and finally (with enough of it), your gastrointestinal system. So we look up chloropicrin, and find that it is also a pesticide. And that it IS water soluble. And that it is mostly a soil fimugant. So even if the sulfuryl flouride isn't in my dirt, the chloropicrin is. And the fuckers SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS.
But more importantly, for the moment, the fucking chloropicrin is in my fucking eyes.
Our theory runs like this: As they opened up the place to air it out but didn't turn on the fan for the AC/heat, and as this stuff penetrates everything, some of it was left in the ducts. When we closed the place up and turned on the heat, the last vestiges of it were pushed out into the air with us. Hopefully it was just the tear gas poison rather than the swift and terrible death poison. And the tear gas poison will cause eye burning at terribly low levels--that is, levels at which it won't do you lasting damage, or cause your respiratory system to collapse, or cause vomiting and diarrhea and so forth. And at such low levels that if the swift and terrible death poison won't cause you a swift and terrible death. The early warning signs on the other are difficulty breathing and lightheadedness and strain of that sort, which--of course--I was experiencing, but I suspect that was just being so fucking stressed and so fucking upset and SO FUCKING READY FOR THIS TO BE OVER.
So. My eyes are still burning on and off, the next morning. Especially when the heat has just come on, and when I've gone more than an hour without flushing them out with water and putting drops in them.
I bet irritability is a sign of these things, too, just because irritability is a sign for everything. But it's also a sign for PMS (I hope that's part of this, anyway) and being fucking pissed off.
So. I will probably not be around today. We have no food, pretty much, so we need to go out for Big Market trip, so it's going to be the Big Modesto Trip, to hit Trader Joe's and BevMo and whatall. And I wouldn't be good company, anyway. Because my food plants, my babies (and I'm not going to hear any more criticism over being emotionally attached to them, okay? Please?), have been mangled and I have got poisons in my system and my eyes still fucking hurt.
P.S. I don't want to hear about me being neglectful, either. At least not today. Good natured razzing can resume next week.
UPDATE: Manager (sweet Candie) gave our number to the guy from Clark, who called us and was very nice, but.. confirmed that, yes: the tear gas can hang around. His advice: air it out some more. Aaaaaagh. He also wanted to set up an appointment for me with someone from the other company, so that they could go "look into" the damage, and asked about a dollar amount.
I'm like, ". . . ? I grew it all from seeds, it didn't hardly cost me anything, it's just. . ." . . . Gah, I don't want to have someone tromping back through it again. And I don't actually want any money. And I want to get it back together and heal it, not have to sit there with it. I've already started in on undoing this damage, what of it I can. I want to get my garden back together. I want them to be a little more fucking careful, in future. That's all.
Also, the Clark guy says to toss the food plants and seeds for food plants that were inside the tent. All of them. So. It's off to OSH, tomorrow.
I suppose I'll start clean. I feel officially defeated, so, it's up from here, eh? Feeling much better since the trip out and about. No longer irritated wth Every Human Being. Love to all.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
I'm reduced to gibbering. Oh my FUCK.
AAAAAAAAGH
This is reprinted without permission from the local rag's Letters to the Editor section. Let me repeat that, in a different way: the newspaper actually printed this, as their top letter to the editor, today. I'll take it down or hide it or whatever, later, but I thought it might be helpful, for those of you unfamiliar with my little area of the world, to understand some of my feelings towards it.
The letter is as follows:
King encouraged racial violence
The only thing good about celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday is that it's a holiday for schools and some businesses. He was not a gentle man. Everywhere he preached, a riot followed. He caused a lot of people to get physically hurt and a lot of property damage was done also.
No, there should not have been bondage or segregation. We are all God's children.
But I know what happened. I used to live in Kentucky. We could not even let our children outdoors while he was there. Cars would go through neighborhoods and people in them would throw rocks and bricks at houses and break windows. If any whites would be outside, they would hit them also.
So please, don't glorify this man. He was not a saint.
[Witholding Lady Fuck's Name]
[The bigger town just north of here]
AAAAAAAAAAGH.
Right. Of course. Because the foremost American activist for peaceful protest and passive resistance should be held personally accountable for violent acts committed by others.
Now, I'm making my own assumptions, here, but, given the demographics of the valley, the content of the letter, and the woman's name, she is 9 chances out of 10 a Caucasian Evangelical Protestant Christian, and I'm sure she'd love to hear about how, for an example, Jesus should be blamed for the many lynchings committed by his devout followers, in our modern era. And how the Prince of Peace wasn't "gentle," because, feeling they were following his example, some people have decided that "turn the other cheek" means "bomb someone."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
...I want to go back to Long Beach. :(
This is reprinted without permission from the local rag's Letters to the Editor section. Let me repeat that, in a different way: the newspaper actually printed this, as their top letter to the editor, today. I'll take it down or hide it or whatever, later, but I thought it might be helpful, for those of you unfamiliar with my little area of the world, to understand some of my feelings towards it.
The letter is as follows:
King encouraged racial violence
The only thing good about celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday is that it's a holiday for schools and some businesses. He was not a gentle man. Everywhere he preached, a riot followed. He caused a lot of people to get physically hurt and a lot of property damage was done also.
No, there should not have been bondage or segregation. We are all God's children.
But I know what happened. I used to live in Kentucky. We could not even let our children outdoors while he was there. Cars would go through neighborhoods and people in them would throw rocks and bricks at houses and break windows. If any whites would be outside, they would hit them also.
So please, don't glorify this man. He was not a saint.
[Witholding Lady Fuck's Name]
[The bigger town just north of here]
AAAAAAAAAAGH.
Right. Of course. Because the foremost American activist for peaceful protest and passive resistance should be held personally accountable for violent acts committed by others.
Now, I'm making my own assumptions, here, but, given the demographics of the valley, the content of the letter, and the woman's name, she is 9 chances out of 10 a Caucasian Evangelical Protestant Christian, and I'm sure she'd love to hear about how, for an example, Jesus should be blamed for the many lynchings committed by his devout followers, in our modern era. And how the Prince of Peace wasn't "gentle," because, feeling they were following his example, some people have decided that "turn the other cheek" means "bomb someone."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.
...I want to go back to Long Beach. :(
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
How I spent my early evening (cross-posted.)
I am pissed.
In the, ah, UK sort of sense.
This is because I played a joint State of the Union address/NHL All-Stars Skills Competition Drinking Game. See, we heavily modified Adam Felber's 2007 State of the Union Drinking Game: Lame Duck Edition (which you should read). We modified it because we were playing with just the two of us, rather than a group, and rathered to drink heavily (listening to Bush requires some kind of numbing agent) than compete against one another, and we added in the caveats of: if any of the boys in the NHL fell on their face during the Skills Competition, or made the four targets they were trying to aim their pucks at in four shots, we'd have a shot (we listened to the speech on the radio and watched the competition on TV). Well, Ovechkin fell on his face, but the most of it was our Commander in Chief.
We drank if. . . :
...the President referred to something/someone as "evil"
...there was a package referenced that was $1 billion or more (unmet!)
...the suggested fix for a problem was a tax break or tax incentive (this was based on the "Fuck the Future!" section of the game)
...the President mentioned Iran in some kind of dangerous capacity (or referred to a use of force against Iran)
...the President mentioned one of those out-of-nowhere fixes that we were confident he'd never bring up again and had not brought up previously (the "Hyodrogen Car" section)
...he said "noo-kyah-luhr", instead of "noo-klee-uhr"
...he said anything about "bootstraps" (unmet!)
...he said "Nine-Eleven"
...he mentioned NCLB (FUCK YOU BUSH MAY YOU DIE AMIDST THE UNDEREDUCATED YOU ARE HARMING DAILY)
And, so, I'm done in. My Love was drinking first bourbon, then vodka (he sipped very lightly, each time), and I was drinking a mix of Rum, buttershotch liquer, and creme de cacao (in gulps). So you'll have an idea of the speech, if you didn't see it. I have a pretty high tolerance, and I can hardly see, now.
...It was, ah, pretty bad. But at least Sidney Crosby made a few pretty sexy goals...?
Ah, well. I am underfed, and shellfish await me.
In the, ah, UK sort of sense.
This is because I played a joint State of the Union address/NHL All-Stars Skills Competition Drinking Game. See, we heavily modified Adam Felber's 2007 State of the Union Drinking Game: Lame Duck Edition (which you should read). We modified it because we were playing with just the two of us, rather than a group, and rathered to drink heavily (listening to Bush requires some kind of numbing agent) than compete against one another, and we added in the caveats of: if any of the boys in the NHL fell on their face during the Skills Competition, or made the four targets they were trying to aim their pucks at in four shots, we'd have a shot (we listened to the speech on the radio and watched the competition on TV). Well, Ovechkin fell on his face, but the most of it was our Commander in Chief.
We drank if. . . :
...the President referred to something/someone as "evil"
...there was a package referenced that was $1 billion or more (unmet!)
...the suggested fix for a problem was a tax break or tax incentive (this was based on the "Fuck the Future!" section of the game)
...the President mentioned Iran in some kind of dangerous capacity (or referred to a use of force against Iran)
...the President mentioned one of those out-of-nowhere fixes that we were confident he'd never bring up again and had not brought up previously (the "Hyodrogen Car" section)
...he said "noo-kyah-luhr", instead of "noo-klee-uhr"
...he said anything about "bootstraps" (unmet!)
...he said "Nine-Eleven"
...he mentioned NCLB (FUCK YOU BUSH MAY YOU DIE AMIDST THE UNDEREDUCATED YOU ARE HARMING DAILY)
And, so, I'm done in. My Love was drinking first bourbon, then vodka (he sipped very lightly, each time), and I was drinking a mix of Rum, buttershotch liquer, and creme de cacao (in gulps). So you'll have an idea of the speech, if you didn't see it. I have a pretty high tolerance, and I can hardly see, now.
...It was, ah, pretty bad. But at least Sidney Crosby made a few pretty sexy goals...?
Ah, well. I am underfed, and shellfish await me.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
"Chowchilla: A Unique Way of Life."
(So I'm late. I'm sorry!)
The drive back up from Los Angeles on New Year's Day was the least painful one we've had, at least as far as scary meth addicts, rude people in trucks, rubbernecking at the inevitable pile-ups, and "OHAAAHOHMYGODTHERE'SACURVE WHATDOWEDOOHNO" are concerned. But, perhaps because of the gentleness of the ride, I was noticing more of the charming roadsigns that start turning up north of Bakersfield.
The first set I noticed (at least, after the "I Am Thy Lord and God, Repent. --Jesus" signs) were buy-a-home signs. "Say goodbye to rent, say hello to a new home!" and "Break the rent cycle, buy a house!" which cleverly featured a man trapped inside of a front-loading washing machine, pressed desperately to the glass.
Yes! Yes, low-income, under-educated, likely-to-be-given-a-bad-loan with no information locals! Say goodbye to the days of scraping together your monthly rent check on minimum wage, and say hello to a mortgage! For more than what you're paying for that apartment, each month! Oh, and hello to homeowner's insurance! And the inevitable smear on your credit score that you'll never be able to get rid of, once the interest-only loan you've been sucked in by shifts into paying-down-the-principal mode, doubling your monthly payments and leaving you with no equity in the house when you have to default, move, or take out a new loan, and things go to hell! Hello, bankruptcy!
My next favorite sign was this: "Labels and seals on the outside don't change what's inside. Milk is Milk: why pay more?"
Hey, guys, do you know any elementary school teachers? Ever talk to them? You should! Go talk to a fourth grade teacher. Or, hell, try third! You know, people who teach eight and nine year old girls. Now go on, ask them about their students. You know, how interesting it is that the little girls are already on their periods, and have breasts bigger than the teachers do, when the average age for sexual maturation used to be 14--you know, an age slightly more likely to be associated with some actual maturity. And when sexual selection leans towards women who are tall and lanky--attributes far more likely to occur in women who matured later (that is, didn't start diverging from the more unisex path until later, and thus went further in the way of upward growth and the dissolution of baby fat than other girls).
Let me put that another way: in a culture that values willowy women, suggesting that those with the genes tending towards later sexual maturation will have had a somewhat stronger chance at breeding than those who don't, there is still a backwards trend in maturation. The likelihood of a girl maturing between 9 and 11 now far outweighs the likelihood for a girl to mature later.
It couldn't be that the hormones in our food are affecting children, though. Oh, no. Those "no rGBH growth hormones" or "Cows raised with no rBST" labels are meaningless!
And all those stories? You know, the ones that Monsanto sued American media outlets and reporters to repress the dissemination of, about how cows being treated with hormones are overwhelmingly ill and puss-ridden? Please. Whatever. Or how that little rule the FDA has, about how a food animal has to be sick to be given antibiotics, has led some to believe that cows raised in mass feedlots on corn they can't digest--the ones producing almost all of the nation's milk and beef, who are all being given antibiotics so their livers don't completely rot away from the impossible, grassless diet--are literally sick? You know, the ones whose organs and waste are actually toxic, and whose manure, thanks to agricultural farming runoff, has poisoned water and food supplies (silly little E. coli epidemics!), remember them?
Fah. Who cares? Why should I want to know these critters haven't been on antibiotics? Or have been fed grass, and allowed exercise? What effect could that possibly have on me?
Those studies on how the increase of antibiotics in our systems, and being used in our day-to-day lives, are actually destroying our natural ability to fight off disease on our own are probably useless, too, come to think.
So, right. Of ways to economize, the food we eat should be number one. Not smaller cars or fewer cable channels or fewer cigarettes or cheaper booze, no. Let's save by drinking the milk squeezed out of puss-filled udders. Cow-puss has plenty of health benefits just waiting to be discovered, I bet.
"Chowchilla: a unique way of life" is a long-standing favorite, but in a different way. It just gets my imagination moving. Mostly because when I called my mother from there, one day, she said, "Like the Chowchilla Massacre?* Where the guy drove the schoolbus into a ditch and buried all the kids?" I thought, unique, indeed! This time, the sign that caught my eye was the one advertising all of the amazing, affordable antiques in Chowchilla. You know, all the neat things abandoned, in good shape, by dead people.
*But to be fair, there was no massacre. Everyone came out safe and sound. Just a little buried!
The drive back up from Los Angeles on New Year's Day was the least painful one we've had, at least as far as scary meth addicts, rude people in trucks, rubbernecking at the inevitable pile-ups, and "OHAAAHOHMYGODTHERE'SACURVE WHATDOWEDOOHNO" are concerned. But, perhaps because of the gentleness of the ride, I was noticing more of the charming roadsigns that start turning up north of Bakersfield.
The first set I noticed (at least, after the "I Am Thy Lord and God, Repent. --Jesus" signs) were buy-a-home signs. "Say goodbye to rent, say hello to a new home!" and "Break the rent cycle, buy a house!" which cleverly featured a man trapped inside of a front-loading washing machine, pressed desperately to the glass.
Yes! Yes, low-income, under-educated, likely-to-be-given-a-bad-loan with no information locals! Say goodbye to the days of scraping together your monthly rent check on minimum wage, and say hello to a mortgage! For more than what you're paying for that apartment, each month! Oh, and hello to homeowner's insurance! And the inevitable smear on your credit score that you'll never be able to get rid of, once the interest-only loan you've been sucked in by shifts into paying-down-the-principal mode, doubling your monthly payments and leaving you with no equity in the house when you have to default, move, or take out a new loan, and things go to hell! Hello, bankruptcy!
My next favorite sign was this: "Labels and seals on the outside don't change what's inside. Milk is Milk: why pay more?"
Hey, guys, do you know any elementary school teachers? Ever talk to them? You should! Go talk to a fourth grade teacher. Or, hell, try third! You know, people who teach eight and nine year old girls. Now go on, ask them about their students. You know, how interesting it is that the little girls are already on their periods, and have breasts bigger than the teachers do, when the average age for sexual maturation used to be 14--you know, an age slightly more likely to be associated with some actual maturity. And when sexual selection leans towards women who are tall and lanky--attributes far more likely to occur in women who matured later (that is, didn't start diverging from the more unisex path until later, and thus went further in the way of upward growth and the dissolution of baby fat than other girls).
Let me put that another way: in a culture that values willowy women, suggesting that those with the genes tending towards later sexual maturation will have had a somewhat stronger chance at breeding than those who don't, there is still a backwards trend in maturation. The likelihood of a girl maturing between 9 and 11 now far outweighs the likelihood for a girl to mature later.
It couldn't be that the hormones in our food are affecting children, though. Oh, no. Those "no rGBH growth hormones" or "Cows raised with no rBST" labels are meaningless!
And all those stories? You know, the ones that Monsanto sued American media outlets and reporters to repress the dissemination of, about how cows being treated with hormones are overwhelmingly ill and puss-ridden? Please. Whatever. Or how that little rule the FDA has, about how a food animal has to be sick to be given antibiotics, has led some to believe that cows raised in mass feedlots on corn they can't digest--the ones producing almost all of the nation's milk and beef, who are all being given antibiotics so their livers don't completely rot away from the impossible, grassless diet--are literally sick? You know, the ones whose organs and waste are actually toxic, and whose manure, thanks to agricultural farming runoff, has poisoned water and food supplies (silly little E. coli epidemics!), remember them?
Fah. Who cares? Why should I want to know these critters haven't been on antibiotics? Or have been fed grass, and allowed exercise? What effect could that possibly have on me?
Those studies on how the increase of antibiotics in our systems, and being used in our day-to-day lives, are actually destroying our natural ability to fight off disease on our own are probably useless, too, come to think.
So, right. Of ways to economize, the food we eat should be number one. Not smaller cars or fewer cable channels or fewer cigarettes or cheaper booze, no. Let's save by drinking the milk squeezed out of puss-filled udders. Cow-puss has plenty of health benefits just waiting to be discovered, I bet.
"Chowchilla: a unique way of life" is a long-standing favorite, but in a different way. It just gets my imagination moving. Mostly because when I called my mother from there, one day, she said, "Like the Chowchilla Massacre?* Where the guy drove the schoolbus into a ditch and buried all the kids?" I thought, unique, indeed! This time, the sign that caught my eye was the one advertising all of the amazing, affordable antiques in Chowchilla. You know, all the neat things abandoned, in good shape, by dead people.
*But to be fair, there was no massacre. Everyone came out safe and sound. Just a little buried!
Monday, January 1, 2007
Brief cross-post:
I am alive. I am back in Cali. I am, in fact, back at home base. I have spent so much hectic, broken-up time in Los Angeles and Holland, Ohio (next to Toledo). Celebrated so many holidays in various ways. Gotten so many hugs. Had a frickin' nasty cold. Which I got from (I think) Andy, in Long Beach, and passed on to Chris's dad in Ohio (and who knows how many others), but which is getting better. Met the gorgeous little angels that are apparently now my great-neices, and the people my age and several years older who are now basically my neices and nephews (Chris is much younger than his eldest brother, and his eldest brother's wife is older than him, and started early, to boot--some of her kids are Chris's age). I was pinned Tinsel Princess/Tinsel Fairy by the aforementioned angels (they were sticking tinsel in my hair), and I am absolutely in love, 'kay, thanks. I walked (well, ran) and washed dogs, I have comforted the cat, I have played more hands of cards than your mother, and probably more rounds of a domino game, too. I read, I sang, I danced, I flew more hours on more planes than is legal, and was identified nervously ("Byerly?") by one of the flight attendents, which may have to do with my likelihood-to-be-a-terrorist score, as the young man in front of me was also identified, and had been particularly harassed going through security (and attributed his own check-up-by-stewardess to the same). It's a possibility, anyway, fun fun.
I am partway through the catching up phase, but only partly. I'm considering putting on pants and going over to the movie store to rent Little Miss Sunshine, to make an attempt on liquifying my brain into some kind of calm.
I have laughed a lot. And had a very good time.
And I love my moose. Chris's folks gave us this little fellow they picked up at a grocery/farm-equipment/candy/kitsch/etc. store near them, and he has not left my side since. And I have been on an unholy streak of game-winning terror since (attempts have been made on the well-being of my moose, in fact!)
I love him, and loved him just as vibrantly before I whispered to him, "I need the blue nine, moosey" and drew the blue nine immediately after, and won three rounds in a row before anyone else had a chance to lay down a card. I loved him on sight, with his big soft nose and soulful black plastic eyes, and then loved him even more trying to find a name for him (loopy at 2 am). And it is as thus: His name is BonBon. Also, Super BonBon. But his proper name is Baba, BonBon being a nickname therefrom. Baba au Moose, or Baba au Moosey, the Moose, the Inimitable, Indomitable, Inabominominabable Snow Moose, the Moose [Stuffed]. (The end bit is read "Moose, Brackets, Stuffed, Close Brackets.") He is also sometimes called Moosey. And I sing him, "Teenage Mooseland! It's only teenage MOOSEland. . ." and "Super Bon Bon." I love this moose.
And as I have been long looking for some way to swear and express surprise without bringing someone's religion into it (OH MY GOD, Jesus CHRIST) or a neutering-to-avoid-blasphemy of the same (Oh my gosh! Jeeze! Jeezopeets!), I am officially taking to OH. MY. MOOSE.
There'll be something (in the blogspot journal) about "Chowchilla: A Unique Way of Life" and other infuriating/absurd roadsigns tomorrow, I think, once I've finished catching up on the wonderful smut what awaits me in the slash communities I adore. And then maybe I'll get around to finishing some smut (well, fic) myself.
Bleeding. And drinking very buttery mint-and-tarragon tea. And must find pants, for to go retrieve a movie.
LOVE.
I am partway through the catching up phase, but only partly. I'm considering putting on pants and going over to the movie store to rent Little Miss Sunshine, to make an attempt on liquifying my brain into some kind of calm.
I have laughed a lot. And had a very good time.
And I love my moose. Chris's folks gave us this little fellow they picked up at a grocery/farm-equipment/candy/kitsch/etc. store near them, and he has not left my side since. And I have been on an unholy streak of game-winning terror since (attempts have been made on the well-being of my moose, in fact!)
I love him, and loved him just as vibrantly before I whispered to him, "I need the blue nine, moosey" and drew the blue nine immediately after, and won three rounds in a row before anyone else had a chance to lay down a card. I loved him on sight, with his big soft nose and soulful black plastic eyes, and then loved him even more trying to find a name for him (loopy at 2 am). And it is as thus: His name is BonBon. Also, Super BonBon. But his proper name is Baba, BonBon being a nickname therefrom. Baba au Moose, or Baba au Moosey, the Moose, the Inimitable, Indomitable, Inabominominabable Snow Moose, the Moose [Stuffed]. (The end bit is read "Moose, Brackets, Stuffed, Close Brackets.") He is also sometimes called Moosey. And I sing him, "Teenage Mooseland! It's only teenage MOOSEland. . ." and "Super Bon Bon." I love this moose.
And as I have been long looking for some way to swear and express surprise without bringing someone's religion into it (OH MY GOD, Jesus CHRIST) or a neutering-to-avoid-blasphemy of the same (Oh my gosh! Jeeze! Jeezopeets!), I am officially taking to OH. MY. MOOSE.
There'll be something (in the blogspot journal) about "Chowchilla: A Unique Way of Life" and other infuriating/absurd roadsigns tomorrow, I think, once I've finished catching up on the wonderful smut what awaits me in the slash communities I adore. And then maybe I'll get around to finishing some smut (well, fic) myself.
Bleeding. And drinking very buttery mint-and-tarragon tea. And must find pants, for to go retrieve a movie.
LOVE.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Ten Weird Things About Me
I got this at an Alternate Journal and did it there, but realized I'd tagged Chris and not actually put it up here on Blogspot. So I'll repost it slightly edited, here, but be warned that there's a little bit of TMI ahead:
The rules: "Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tagbacks!" (I already did that bit. But Carl! Christina! Raechel! Go for it!)
1. I have only 25 teeth, and it'll be 24 whenever I can manage to get that last lousy wisdom tooth out. I have had more dental surgery than your mother.
2. I have to eat in pairs, one of whatever thing to each side of my mouth, preferably at the same time (I most prefer to eat six of very small things). My little neuroses are quite plentiful, actually, but generally harmless to others.
3. I am horribly reluctant to shower alone (see above). Scared like a four year old. Luckily, Chris and I have been showering ONLY together, for a while, now. And we only do that about three times a week. Pheremone heaven, happy skin, and water conservation in one, mmm.
4. I'm one of those people with the cilantro-tastes-like-soap allele, and I like it anyway. Other genetic quirks: I can roll my tongue, I am blood type AB+, and I sneeze when I look at very bright lights.
5. I am allergic to the Whooping Cough vaccine. But am naturally immune to Chicken Pox.
6. I have a serious fetish for horizontal stripes in high contrast (and things that mimic that look). ...My fetishes are quite plentiful, too. And, ah, mostly harmless.
7. I have gotten off to "Happiness is a Warm Gun."
8. Pink carnations turn me into goo. Especially if you throw some pink ribbon in there.
9. I like peeling dead skin off of others. And myself, of course. I actually kinda' like sunburns.
10. I am a little farsighted! But originally thought I was rather nearsighted, on account of my astigmatisms being so bad that they warped the distance way worse than the foreground. (I also have a ton of floaters, and tinnitus to match, spiritually speaking.)
I left off some favorites, hoping to avoid the better known.. (e.g. I don't shave, don't drive anymore, favorite number is 64, can whistle in tune, etc). And tried to not much repeat those from whom I got this thing (I am another inveterate hold-full-conversations-with-myselfer and keep myself up thinking too loudly). And, of course, I could've filled this list twice over with just neuroses, or just fetishes or whathaveyou, but I tried to be broad. And not too vulgar. ;) Tempting as it is.
So, there's that!
The rules: "Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tagbacks!" (I already did that bit. But Carl! Christina! Raechel! Go for it!)
1. I have only 25 teeth, and it'll be 24 whenever I can manage to get that last lousy wisdom tooth out. I have had more dental surgery than your mother.
2. I have to eat in pairs, one of whatever thing to each side of my mouth, preferably at the same time (I most prefer to eat six of very small things). My little neuroses are quite plentiful, actually, but generally harmless to others.
3. I am horribly reluctant to shower alone (see above). Scared like a four year old. Luckily, Chris and I have been showering ONLY together, for a while, now. And we only do that about three times a week. Pheremone heaven, happy skin, and water conservation in one, mmm.
4. I'm one of those people with the cilantro-tastes-like-soap allele, and I like it anyway. Other genetic quirks: I can roll my tongue, I am blood type AB+, and I sneeze when I look at very bright lights.
5. I am allergic to the Whooping Cough vaccine. But am naturally immune to Chicken Pox.
6. I have a serious fetish for horizontal stripes in high contrast (and things that mimic that look). ...My fetishes are quite plentiful, too. And, ah, mostly harmless.
7. I have gotten off to "Happiness is a Warm Gun."
8. Pink carnations turn me into goo. Especially if you throw some pink ribbon in there.
9. I like peeling dead skin off of others. And myself, of course. I actually kinda' like sunburns.
10. I am a little farsighted! But originally thought I was rather nearsighted, on account of my astigmatisms being so bad that they warped the distance way worse than the foreground. (I also have a ton of floaters, and tinnitus to match, spiritually speaking.)
I left off some favorites, hoping to avoid the better known.. (e.g. I don't shave, don't drive anymore, favorite number is 64, can whistle in tune, etc). And tried to not much repeat those from whom I got this thing (I am another inveterate hold-full-conversations-with-myselfer and keep myself up thinking too loudly). And, of course, I could've filled this list twice over with just neuroses, or just fetishes or whathaveyou, but I tried to be broad. And not too vulgar. ;) Tempting as it is.
So, there's that!
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Just because it makes me happy to think about. . .
. . .and I am a vain little fucker. I don't know what to do about that. Oh, well.
All right. There are plenty of studies/catalogues of regionally based dialects. You know, whether something is "soda" or "pop," in some place, or a couch or sofa, and so on. But I get the feeling that my family, specifically my mother's side, being large and starting out its recent history isolated (sort of) on a man-made island in Long Beach that was populated by recent immigrants, the uneducated, the self-educated, and gangsters, has developed a fairly peculiar dialect of its own. Some of it is Southern Californian in general, but some of it is just pigheadedness. Despite not being actually cut off from the outside world, we are a somewhat persistent bunch, and if Grammy Jane (the Matriarch) calls something the heater, you ain't breaking the rest of us out of the habit, even if it's a matter of wild over-generalization on our part.
Chris makes me aware of it all. Delightfully, I swear. But I wield these findings at my mother and it sounds like she's been put on the Teacups. Positively dizzy.
Here is a partial list of places where Chris and I speak at odds:
Heater/Furnace
Barbecue/Grill
Light socket/Electrical outlet
Butter knife/Table knife
Sink/Countertop
Electric bill/Light bill
(e.g.)"The 99"/"99" or "Hwy 99"
"Shut over the door" or "close over the window"/"Leave it open a crack" or "?"
(Mine are on the left, his on the right.)
Now, the problem is that the things I say meaning one thing are not only different from the words my Love would use, but they often have alternate meanings, for him. Sometimes it's just a matter of being foreign to him, but most of the time it causes confusion. When I cave and say, "All right, you can turn on the heater," he thinks I could actually be talking about one of the little space heaters. Rather than the furnace. Ha! But a heater, he says, is not the same as a furnace. Central heat is a furnace, and "the heat" can be the furnace, but a heater is a concentrated heat source. I.E. not what I'm calling a heater.
Apparently, my mother's mother's house has an actual heater, rather than a furnace. So this is probably where we get it. She is the Mighty Mighty Matriarch, after all.
"Barbecue," also, is not the grill on which one barbecues. Barbecue (he claims) is the style of grilling that involves pork and heavy sauce, or the product that comes out of it. I suppose, to me, his version of barbecue is "BBQ." I still claim to barbecue shishkabobs. He grills them. He would eat barbecue. I would not so much.
Light socket is just wrong, I know. Because the light socket is the socket that the light bulb goes into, not the outlet the plug for the lamp goes into. But, habit. I heard "look like you stuck your finger in a light socket" so many times that I associated it with the much more accessible outlet. (My mother calls the outlet "the plug.")
Butter knife is what my folk call any non-steak and non-chopping knife. That is, table knives. I don't know that any of us actually has a proper butter knife, but we use table knives mostly for butter. This is yet another one where Chris is officially right. But, eh.
Sink is, I suppose, objectively wrong, too. This is the point around which Chris accuses my family of speaking its own language. "Would you put that on the sink for me?" "You want it in the sink?" "No, no, like over there by the coffeepot." "On the countertop." "Yes." "Not the sink." "Well. . . " Because, while once in a while my family refers to that tiled area around the faucet area and above the cabinets as "the counter" (never the countertop), it's almost always also the sink. We differentiate with "in" or "on." At least half of the surface space in a kitchen is "the sink."
Now, light bill is his thing: Pittsburgh pickup. For once, I get to pretend to have some high ground, but then I have to let go, because that at least has a proper origin, and is supported by more than 20 people. As the bill covers all electricity, however, it is, strictly, less correct than electric bill, as far as energy usage is concerned. However, "Electric Bill" implies a bill which is electric. So I suppose the most proper would be the TID (Turlock Irrigation District) Bill, the Electricity Bill, or the Bill we Pay to Keep the Lights On. Still, I'm a little righter.
The freeway thing Chris thinks is SoCal, rather than just strictly my family, but he's never heard it outside of my homeland. It's likethis: I will never, NEVER say, "Take I-5 North" or even "Oh, you take 99 down to Merced. . ." God forbid I ever utter the words "California Route 4" or "Highway 1." Oh no. They are Entities, apparently. "You take the 110 up to the 405. . ." (Oh, and while we're at it, "up" consistently refers to North and "down" refers to South, regardless of whether one is going towards the center of the city or away or whatever the usual meanings for up and down are, around towns. Screw that.) It's even THE Pacific Coast Highway. THE Harbor Freeway. I know it's just one silly little article, but I'm committed.
And "close (sthg.) over"/"shut (sthg.) over" are just.. . Idunno. They're perfect. This one came to light when Chris would ask something like, "Do you want me to shut the door?" And I would say, "Oh, no, just shut it over." Hilarity ensues! Ah, well. I know that generally something is closed or not--i.e., if it's a little open, it's open--but my family once again operates contrary to this. If it's not all the way open, for us, it's partly shut. If we're opening something, goddamnit, it is going to be OPEN. If you remove it from that wholly open to the hinges position, at all, you've shut it over. Maybe this is rooted in my family never actually closing doors or windows completely. If it's really, actually cold enough, we will maybe close them over (move the door towards the closed position, still leaving it several inches open). But it's something like pulling teeth to get us to actually shut anything properly.
Well. So. That's that.
Now that anti-climax is achieved, I'm going to go upstairs and fiddle with recording some vocals for things Chris has laid down guitar tracks for. It should be fun!
All right. There are plenty of studies/catalogues of regionally based dialects. You know, whether something is "soda" or "pop," in some place, or a couch or sofa, and so on. But I get the feeling that my family, specifically my mother's side, being large and starting out its recent history isolated (sort of) on a man-made island in Long Beach that was populated by recent immigrants, the uneducated, the self-educated, and gangsters, has developed a fairly peculiar dialect of its own. Some of it is Southern Californian in general, but some of it is just pigheadedness. Despite not being actually cut off from the outside world, we are a somewhat persistent bunch, and if Grammy Jane (the Matriarch) calls something the heater, you ain't breaking the rest of us out of the habit, even if it's a matter of wild over-generalization on our part.
Chris makes me aware of it all. Delightfully, I swear. But I wield these findings at my mother and it sounds like she's been put on the Teacups. Positively dizzy.
Here is a partial list of places where Chris and I speak at odds:
Heater/Furnace
Barbecue/Grill
Light socket/Electrical outlet
Butter knife/Table knife
Sink/Countertop
Electric bill/Light bill
(e.g.)"The 99"/"99" or "Hwy 99"
"Shut over the door" or "close over the window"/"Leave it open a crack" or "?"
(Mine are on the left, his on the right.)
Now, the problem is that the things I say meaning one thing are not only different from the words my Love would use, but they often have alternate meanings, for him. Sometimes it's just a matter of being foreign to him, but most of the time it causes confusion. When I cave and say, "All right, you can turn on the heater," he thinks I could actually be talking about one of the little space heaters. Rather than the furnace. Ha! But a heater, he says, is not the same as a furnace. Central heat is a furnace, and "the heat" can be the furnace, but a heater is a concentrated heat source. I.E. not what I'm calling a heater.
Apparently, my mother's mother's house has an actual heater, rather than a furnace. So this is probably where we get it. She is the Mighty Mighty Matriarch, after all.
"Barbecue," also, is not the grill on which one barbecues. Barbecue (he claims) is the style of grilling that involves pork and heavy sauce, or the product that comes out of it. I suppose, to me, his version of barbecue is "BBQ." I still claim to barbecue shishkabobs. He grills them. He would eat barbecue. I would not so much.
Light socket is just wrong, I know. Because the light socket is the socket that the light bulb goes into, not the outlet the plug for the lamp goes into. But, habit. I heard "look like you stuck your finger in a light socket" so many times that I associated it with the much more accessible outlet. (My mother calls the outlet "the plug.")
Butter knife is what my folk call any non-steak and non-chopping knife. That is, table knives. I don't know that any of us actually has a proper butter knife, but we use table knives mostly for butter. This is yet another one where Chris is officially right. But, eh.
Sink is, I suppose, objectively wrong, too. This is the point around which Chris accuses my family of speaking its own language. "Would you put that on the sink for me?" "You want it in the sink?" "No, no, like over there by the coffeepot." "On the countertop." "Yes." "Not the sink." "Well. . . " Because, while once in a while my family refers to that tiled area around the faucet area and above the cabinets as "the counter" (never the countertop), it's almost always also the sink. We differentiate with "in" or "on." At least half of the surface space in a kitchen is "the sink."
Now, light bill is his thing: Pittsburgh pickup. For once, I get to pretend to have some high ground, but then I have to let go, because that at least has a proper origin, and is supported by more than 20 people. As the bill covers all electricity, however, it is, strictly, less correct than electric bill, as far as energy usage is concerned. However, "Electric Bill" implies a bill which is electric. So I suppose the most proper would be the TID (Turlock Irrigation District) Bill, the Electricity Bill, or the Bill we Pay to Keep the Lights On. Still, I'm a little righter.
The freeway thing Chris thinks is SoCal, rather than just strictly my family, but he's never heard it outside of my homeland. It's likethis: I will never, NEVER say, "Take I-5 North" or even "Oh, you take 99 down to Merced. . ." God forbid I ever utter the words "California Route 4" or "Highway 1." Oh no. They are Entities, apparently. "You take the 110 up to the 405. . ." (Oh, and while we're at it, "up" consistently refers to North and "down" refers to South, regardless of whether one is going towards the center of the city or away or whatever the usual meanings for up and down are, around towns. Screw that.) It's even THE Pacific Coast Highway. THE Harbor Freeway. I know it's just one silly little article, but I'm committed.
And "close (sthg.) over"/"shut (sthg.) over" are just.. . Idunno. They're perfect. This one came to light when Chris would ask something like, "Do you want me to shut the door?" And I would say, "Oh, no, just shut it over." Hilarity ensues! Ah, well. I know that generally something is closed or not--i.e., if it's a little open, it's open--but my family once again operates contrary to this. If it's not all the way open, for us, it's partly shut. If we're opening something, goddamnit, it is going to be OPEN. If you remove it from that wholly open to the hinges position, at all, you've shut it over. Maybe this is rooted in my family never actually closing doors or windows completely. If it's really, actually cold enough, we will maybe close them over (move the door towards the closed position, still leaving it several inches open). But it's something like pulling teeth to get us to actually shut anything properly.
Well. So. That's that.
Now that anti-climax is achieved, I'm going to go upstairs and fiddle with recording some vocals for things Chris has laid down guitar tracks for. It should be fun!
Monday, December 4, 2006
Update.
I should have prefaced the last entry with my being okay. But I can't resist the urge to tell something in story form.
The hot shower helped marvelous much, though it's going to be an effort to keep on the better side of things if I keep typing with this damn thing (beautiful thing, darling thing, treasure of my material possessions) in my lap.
I have developed a healthy fear of the stairs.
I knew, shortly after getting here, and I expressed it somewhat loudly (so maybe someone can back me up), that I would, eventually, fall down the stairs to injury. Sometimes I said "and kill myself," but I didn't mean that. What I guessed would actually happen was that, as I had a big bad habit of leaping/tearing/jumping down the stairs, I would land badly on a step and break my ankle. Or at least twist it good, again. I have had a total of at least 6 sprains, between my two ankles, a couple of them serious, as they used to just fall over and sprain with no provocation. They don't twist, anymore. After all that, those tendons are made of elastic. Or molten steel, I'm not sure.
So this was more and less serious. I'm kind've sad that my love affair with tearing down the stairs is on hold/coming to an end in this way, so soon!, as I gingerly tread those steps. I had sort of hoped it'd be a bigger, stupider, sillier injury that would leave my more important bits alone--that I would earn my fear of stairs in a blaze of dumbass glory. I quite like crutches. This whole sitting back with my neck at a gentle recline and doing delicate stretches is not my bag. This impairs writing (can't you tell? By my radio silence?), which is a far graver offense than impairing walking/climbing/kicking.
. . .What the hell am I complaining about, anyway? I should get my ass up and clean off my poor, poor desk, and sit at it like a proper ape-descendent. But I love this cushy nook in the bedroom so much. It's in the Sun. It's lined with pillows. I Made It. There's a cat on the sill.
If I can rig (that should be "wrig") myself a handy tray-table for this height (doubtful), I shall return to this sunny, cozy spot. If not, it's into the Room of Requirement.
Love--
The hot shower helped marvelous much, though it's going to be an effort to keep on the better side of things if I keep typing with this damn thing (beautiful thing, darling thing, treasure of my material possessions) in my lap.
I have developed a healthy fear of the stairs.
I knew, shortly after getting here, and I expressed it somewhat loudly (so maybe someone can back me up), that I would, eventually, fall down the stairs to injury. Sometimes I said "and kill myself," but I didn't mean that. What I guessed would actually happen was that, as I had a big bad habit of leaping/tearing/jumping down the stairs, I would land badly on a step and break my ankle. Or at least twist it good, again. I have had a total of at least 6 sprains, between my two ankles, a couple of them serious, as they used to just fall over and sprain with no provocation. They don't twist, anymore. After all that, those tendons are made of elastic. Or molten steel, I'm not sure.
So this was more and less serious. I'm kind've sad that my love affair with tearing down the stairs is on hold/coming to an end in this way, so soon!, as I gingerly tread those steps. I had sort of hoped it'd be a bigger, stupider, sillier injury that would leave my more important bits alone--that I would earn my fear of stairs in a blaze of dumbass glory. I quite like crutches. This whole sitting back with my neck at a gentle recline and doing delicate stretches is not my bag. This impairs writing (can't you tell? By my radio silence?), which is a far graver offense than impairing walking/climbing/kicking.
. . .What the hell am I complaining about, anyway? I should get my ass up and clean off my poor, poor desk, and sit at it like a proper ape-descendent. But I love this cushy nook in the bedroom so much. It's in the Sun. It's lined with pillows. I Made It. There's a cat on the sill.
If I can rig (that should be "wrig") myself a handy tray-table for this height (doubtful), I shall return to this sunny, cozy spot. If not, it's into the Room of Requirement.
Love--
Sunday, December 3, 2006
"You know what they say about concussions: Just go with it."
Last night, while the lovely Christina was over for a night of carousing and Firefly, I stopped at the top of the stairs (on my way back down) to look at Lancelot, to see if he was about to do his usual, delightful mad dash down the stairs by me. He likes to race us down, you see.
Well, imagine my surprise when, as I turned, my extremely soft (slippery, you might say), red and white striped socks lost purchase at the edge of the step, and I fell down the stairs.
I fell down the fucking stairs.
Not too far, at least. I caught myself less than halfway down, and had the good fortune (I think) to maintain a roughly upright, seated position, as my feet had gone forward out from under me. You could call it a violent, painful slide, if you wanted. With screaming. And banging. And narrowly catching the banister--which I had been holding, at the top, I swear. Christina, who had been further down the stairs, and bless all ninety pounds of her, had been ready to break my fall. I imagine it would have broken her worse than me. Luckily, the brakes caught before I could barrel through her. But I feel very, very loved.
But now, imagine my almost-as-great surprise when, though my tailbone--and hips, and, frankly, ass--were also very sore, from taking the brunt of my collisions, there was pounding pain radiating through my neck and skull. I hadn't even hit my neck or skull. My tail is fine, now, it's my neck that's bitching.
My first impression was that the force with which the bottom of my spine had hit the steps had just gone ahead and pushed it up into my head. Not through my brain, but I figured there was some really unpleasant compression happening in there, anyway. That it had squeezed the vertebrae in my neck together. That it had banged up my skull on the way up. That I'd maybe knocked my brain into the top of my skull.
Brain. Knocked. Skull.
By the time I had let go of the cat I was clutching (he must have wandered close enough for me to get him--Christina said he was checking on me), and had assured the (worried!) Chris and Christina that I was sort of okay-just-hurting-a-lot-in-the-top-parts, and had sort of inched my way to the bottom of the stairs, the word "whiplash" had been thrown out there. My shoulders and back hurt, but most especially my neck. I didn't think that fit, though, since I didn't think I had done the classic back-forward whip--I was going down, suddenly, not back--and it didn't feel quite muscular. It felt too central. Too radiant. I have since learned, of course, that whiplash can come about from any good jarring, and concerns all of the delicate little soft tissues in there.
We made it down into the kitchen. I was shaken to no end, but I was walking and remaining upright. Somewhere in between sitting for a while and standing for a while, and sitting again, and standing, and sitting and, I was sitting on the floor eating crackers in a particularly urgent way, but I'm not sure what order it went in. I went for the crackers twice, though. Comfort food, and all.
Now, there's something that happens to me, sometimes, when I'm in the supermarket or similarly loud, crowded, bright places. I get dazed and a little panicked, and I latch onto Chris, who gets the task of piloting me through the rest of the trip, because I cease to have any very meaningful sense of what's going on around me. I see everything, sort of, but without it making an impression, if that makes any sense. Everything's a little blurred, surreal, and I can't actually look at anything. There's noise, but I can't really identify it. I don't usually walk into anything or anyone, because Chris looks out for me, but it's often a pretty narrow shave. My impulse is something like wanting to just stop where I'm standing and sink into the ground. Getting me to keep up is probably something of a chore. I slow down and can't keep pace. I'm not afraid, but I'm not really functioning, either.
But this has never happened in my own kitchen, before. And has never been coupled with the nigh unto overwhelming want to droop into the table and sleep. Or with a good jarring to my brain.
The word "concussion" came along, at some point. I'm not sure whether Chris or I posed it. I figured, maybe, spine jamming at my brain, or maybe my sudden downward momentum (more likely) had my grey matter floating in its cushion of fluid to be banged against the top of my skull. Christina doubted this, I think on account of there not being the old blow to the head. (I have since had confirmed that while concussions are mostly from direct hits, they can result from--tada--whiplash. I believe we have a winner.)
I wanted so badly to curl up and make sleep with the table. With the word "concussion" in my head, I did manage to avoid it. Chris and Christina kept talking, and that helped, but I don't have any particular recollection of the conversation, except for Chris asking if I was okay, and telling me that my body language was very strange, which I knew. I remember somewhere along the way there was the comforting assertion that even if there was a small concussion, the issue was just not clocking out right away, and not hitting my head again any time soon, and I should be fine. I really was mostly fine.
My neck stopped hurting, for a while, while I felt the most disoriented, and hurt more when I was clearer, and this pattern has been holding. I slept like a stone, last night, and it took a hell of a lot of effort to get out of bed this morning, but I got up and functioned. I've gone back and forth between being in pain and being a little out of it, but the latter is definitely improving. The former is fluxing, but more towards increase. My next order of business is a good hot shower, after which My Love is going to rub my shoulders. They need it. Because, radiating out from the base of my skull, the ache has spread through my neck, and down into my shoulders. And back. And as it ebbs, I notice the Piddly Shit™. I get the feeling I bruised side pretty good, my ankles are angry with me, my legs banged around a lot, the small of my back is achey. . . my wrists. . . a lot of things, really, but the worst of the pain is decidedly hanging out at the foramen magnum.
But. I have a full range of movement. Nothing is numb. My circulation is no worse than normal. No movement hurts so badly that I can't do it. Decidedly, slouching over my laptop is an aggrevator. But most of the time I've been okay. And I get to say, "I fell down the fucking stairs. And I was concussed." And I love the word "concussed."
Anyway, I'm'onna' go shower. But some tidbits from on the phone with Raechel, as a parting gift. After I told her I'd stayed home--"We figured I just shouldn't clonk out, and should avoid, you know, banging my head, not much to do with a concussion 'cept just go with it" she came out with, "You know what they say about concussions: Just go with it."
It turned into One Of Those kinds of conversations. Thank you, Raechel:
"You know what they say: cats'll kill ya'."
"Well, you know what they say: perverts are the fruit of life."
"You know what they say about that?"
"What?"
"Idunno."
"They know all. You should ask Them."
Well, imagine my surprise when, as I turned, my extremely soft (slippery, you might say), red and white striped socks lost purchase at the edge of the step, and I fell down the stairs.
I fell down the fucking stairs.
Not too far, at least. I caught myself less than halfway down, and had the good fortune (I think) to maintain a roughly upright, seated position, as my feet had gone forward out from under me. You could call it a violent, painful slide, if you wanted. With screaming. And banging. And narrowly catching the banister--which I had been holding, at the top, I swear. Christina, who had been further down the stairs, and bless all ninety pounds of her, had been ready to break my fall. I imagine it would have broken her worse than me. Luckily, the brakes caught before I could barrel through her. But I feel very, very loved.
But now, imagine my almost-as-great surprise when, though my tailbone--and hips, and, frankly, ass--were also very sore, from taking the brunt of my collisions, there was pounding pain radiating through my neck and skull. I hadn't even hit my neck or skull. My tail is fine, now, it's my neck that's bitching.
My first impression was that the force with which the bottom of my spine had hit the steps had just gone ahead and pushed it up into my head. Not through my brain, but I figured there was some really unpleasant compression happening in there, anyway. That it had squeezed the vertebrae in my neck together. That it had banged up my skull on the way up. That I'd maybe knocked my brain into the top of my skull.
Brain. Knocked. Skull.
By the time I had let go of the cat I was clutching (he must have wandered close enough for me to get him--Christina said he was checking on me), and had assured the (worried!) Chris and Christina that I was sort of okay-just-hurting-a-lot-in-the-top-parts, and had sort of inched my way to the bottom of the stairs, the word "whiplash" had been thrown out there. My shoulders and back hurt, but most especially my neck. I didn't think that fit, though, since I didn't think I had done the classic back-forward whip--I was going down, suddenly, not back--and it didn't feel quite muscular. It felt too central. Too radiant. I have since learned, of course, that whiplash can come about from any good jarring, and concerns all of the delicate little soft tissues in there.
We made it down into the kitchen. I was shaken to no end, but I was walking and remaining upright. Somewhere in between sitting for a while and standing for a while, and sitting again, and standing, and sitting and, I was sitting on the floor eating crackers in a particularly urgent way, but I'm not sure what order it went in. I went for the crackers twice, though. Comfort food, and all.
Now, there's something that happens to me, sometimes, when I'm in the supermarket or similarly loud, crowded, bright places. I get dazed and a little panicked, and I latch onto Chris, who gets the task of piloting me through the rest of the trip, because I cease to have any very meaningful sense of what's going on around me. I see everything, sort of, but without it making an impression, if that makes any sense. Everything's a little blurred, surreal, and I can't actually look at anything. There's noise, but I can't really identify it. I don't usually walk into anything or anyone, because Chris looks out for me, but it's often a pretty narrow shave. My impulse is something like wanting to just stop where I'm standing and sink into the ground. Getting me to keep up is probably something of a chore. I slow down and can't keep pace. I'm not afraid, but I'm not really functioning, either.
But this has never happened in my own kitchen, before. And has never been coupled with the nigh unto overwhelming want to droop into the table and sleep. Or with a good jarring to my brain.
The word "concussion" came along, at some point. I'm not sure whether Chris or I posed it. I figured, maybe, spine jamming at my brain, or maybe my sudden downward momentum (more likely) had my grey matter floating in its cushion of fluid to be banged against the top of my skull. Christina doubted this, I think on account of there not being the old blow to the head. (I have since had confirmed that while concussions are mostly from direct hits, they can result from--tada--whiplash. I believe we have a winner.)
I wanted so badly to curl up and make sleep with the table. With the word "concussion" in my head, I did manage to avoid it. Chris and Christina kept talking, and that helped, but I don't have any particular recollection of the conversation, except for Chris asking if I was okay, and telling me that my body language was very strange, which I knew. I remember somewhere along the way there was the comforting assertion that even if there was a small concussion, the issue was just not clocking out right away, and not hitting my head again any time soon, and I should be fine. I really was mostly fine.
My neck stopped hurting, for a while, while I felt the most disoriented, and hurt more when I was clearer, and this pattern has been holding. I slept like a stone, last night, and it took a hell of a lot of effort to get out of bed this morning, but I got up and functioned. I've gone back and forth between being in pain and being a little out of it, but the latter is definitely improving. The former is fluxing, but more towards increase. My next order of business is a good hot shower, after which My Love is going to rub my shoulders. They need it. Because, radiating out from the base of my skull, the ache has spread through my neck, and down into my shoulders. And back. And as it ebbs, I notice the Piddly Shit™. I get the feeling I bruised side pretty good, my ankles are angry with me, my legs banged around a lot, the small of my back is achey. . . my wrists. . . a lot of things, really, but the worst of the pain is decidedly hanging out at the foramen magnum.
But. I have a full range of movement. Nothing is numb. My circulation is no worse than normal. No movement hurts so badly that I can't do it. Decidedly, slouching over my laptop is an aggrevator. But most of the time I've been okay. And I get to say, "I fell down the fucking stairs. And I was concussed." And I love the word "concussed."
Anyway, I'm'onna' go shower. But some tidbits from on the phone with Raechel, as a parting gift. After I told her I'd stayed home--"We figured I just shouldn't clonk out, and should avoid, you know, banging my head, not much to do with a concussion 'cept just go with it" she came out with, "You know what they say about concussions: Just go with it."
It turned into One Of Those kinds of conversations. Thank you, Raechel:
"You know what they say: cats'll kill ya'."
"Well, you know what they say: perverts are the fruit of life."
"You know what they say about that?"
"What?"
"Idunno."
"They know all. You should ask Them."
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
I think that twenty-[three] is gonna' be a good year. . .
Claw-grip-drag--
It's time for it to be Friday. I am ready. I've been ready. I am about an hour and a half from the exact anniversary of my birth--1 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, on the dot, the 22nd of September (which was the first day of Autumn, the hottest day of the year, and the last day of Virgo, in 1983--the appropriate year). And I was done with 22 somewhere back in April, or so. Done, done, done. Ready to be 23. Not sure why. Prime number, odd number, odd number. Half of 46, the transposition of 64, my favorite number of all. .
But pulling at it, biting at it. . . I've never been so impatient for a year change, silly number change. So, so ready to be twenty-three. So ready I changed the number in the profile blurb a week ago. So ready I told the teller at the market. And the one at the fish counter. And the fruit stand. Champing.
So ready I didn't want to have anything to do with Thursday, usually my favorite day of the week (I don't know). So ready I wanted Wednesday to be Friday. So ready I wanted Thursday to be Friday. So ready I can't get it out of my head. Waiting for the reality of it to line up with my sense of it.
This is the first year in my life I've anticipated rather than had to find my way into later. That is, I've been 23 since I was 22 and a half. At 18, I still thought I was 15 or 16 ("jailbait" was a common defense mechanism, for me). At 20, I didn't remember I could rent porn. At 22, I didn't remember I could buy liquor. Or vote. Though I still remembered to vote. But never did I think at 14 and 3/4 that I was as near as 15. 17 and 340 days was not 18.
I suppose it's not very surprising.
I was told it would happen. Things would change. Is this my turning point? The famed time in one's life where one stops being "n and 1/2" or "x and 3/4" and such, and starts becoming either precisely the year one is (and nothing else) or the year marker one is nearest?
I suppose so.
It's becoming that kind of year.
My luck with even numbered years has been suspect, so I'm ready for an odd one. 8 was the downhill for my dad and I. 14, he'd just passed away. 20 was a very poor birthday, indeed, for utterly mundane reasons, and 22 was strange. And the last two years have felt like transition--wonderful and terrible, stressful and exalting, and it feels like it's finally coming into itself. It? Itself? Maybe my life, I mean. I'm not too sure.
But two is supposed to be the magic number of years. After two years in a relationship, they say, you stop seeing the glamour and start seeing the person. Or the worst. You know, your lot--the scales coming off of the eyes and all. And after two years, maybe, the sting and edge comes off of tough times, too.
Lately, remembering tough stuff has felt. . distant. It's been just long enough, maybe, finally. Enough time has elapsed that I don't feel so sore, so tender. I can see things in a more fuzzy abstract. I'm forgetting.
And starting into the third year, my lover feels absolutely, wonderfully right.
Is this what getting comfortable is like? I don't know that we've ever hugged so much, kissed so much. Just. . . warm and tight and perfect. I feel right. Hopeful. Steady. Good. Coming up against him and pushing my arms under his, stretching my forearms up his back, my palms between his shoulder blades, my face at his collarbone, his arms snug, bellies close, just fitting. Inspired.
I'm ready for the third year.
I've been living with Chris for two years, two months, and a few weeks, now. Everything annual now is the third. The third time we celebrated his birthday, or mine. The third school year starting. It'll be the third Halloween, the third Thanksgiving at my family's, the third Christmas.. The third Autumn, the third Spring!
I can't explain why that delights me so much.. . . but something about it does. The third is magic. 23 is magic, good juju.
I'm ready to be 23.
I feel arrogant.
No, not arrogant, but. . beautiful. Capable. I am in my best time.
I refuse to let my youth be wasted on me, if that makes sense. I was 40 when I was 14 (and was also very much 14). My age felt discordant in both directions--I forgot my chronological age had progressed and felt my emotional age was vastly forward, but I feel a kind of nexus, now, a kind of focus--I am feeling absolutely correct.
I am in some kind of best time, I think. I am young and know I am young--I know I have progressed through the physical maturation and into the pool of stasis before the charm of decay. But I am an adult and know I am an adult--I have, potentially, a lot of life left to look forward to, a vastness of experience and change. Somewhere within the next 80 years, or so, sooner or later, I will die, and be dying, and this time will become "before"--isn't that a strange thought? I am young in the way that will still be young when I look back from age, but which is not so young as child, as before.
This is the time of my life that my body will be best. Statistically speaking. But I feel it, too. This is the strength and beauty portion of our show. 23! It can come at any time, I know, but this is mine; not pubescent, not fading. I am in bloom.
I look at pictures of my mother, my aunts, everyone's mother and everyone's aunt, when they were "young," and see beautiful people, perfect and lovely, just by virtue of being caught in that moment, that loveliness that people have in them.
A few months ago, I caught it in myself.
I looked at myself, and knew it, somehow. I was as beautiful as I was ever going to be. I was the most lovely I had ever been.
It wasn't a smashing kind of beauty, nothing someone would put on TV or any nonsense like that, but exalted; I have my beauty, now. This is the time that someone will take a picture of me, and twenty years from now, my neices and nephews will go, "Wow, that's Aunt Lu? Dude. . . " because it will have been that time, for me. I think everyone has it. But how many out there can say that they knew how good their bodies were when they were best? I think I will. And maybe in another year I will still be as lovely, and maybe in forty years I will be that kind of older lovely, but I have an idea that actually appreciating my body and my face and self, now--and that it will change and fade and that that, too, is fine and natural and good--will do me unspeakable good. It cannot hurt me. If in a year I'm an even sexier bitch, so be it. I have never liked myself well enough. I have never thought I was good enough. I will.
I will now.
I will not look back in a year from now and regret the vastness I have missed. In twenty years I will not be one of the masses who wonders why I didn't realize what a wonderful thing I had going when I was younger, who didn't realize how cute I really was or how I really wasn't so bad at things as I thought. Why the fuck should I? I am not flawless, I am not infallible, I am not blind--I'm not that kind of young, I am not hateful of the future and invincible--and I'm not out to burn myself out or destroy myself. But I am not going to live waiting for the shift, either. I have it in my hands.
From 12 years old, my joints have been achey and weak. When I am 60 my joints will be achey and weak. But I am strongest, now. I am stablest, now. I am prime, somehow. My knees are not giving out on me, now, like they did and will. I have at least a few years of that owed me, and I think they are now. I owe it to myself to take care of them. To enjoy them, use them, exalt them. I am learning. I am growing. I can more clearly envision the consequences of my actions and surroundings than I have ever been able. I know I'm going to fall down these stairs, because I fling myself down them too carelessly. I can tell when I'm ovulating. For two weeks, now, I have been able to cook and bake at will, and get pretty much exactly what I want from it. Whatever I want to cook or bake! For a month I have been starting into the time where I will be able to grow food. I can create beauty in my surroundings. I am in synch.
23 is my magic. For now. Next year there will be a new balance, a new weight, but this is what I have for this year. A Major Arcana year. A seeing year.
I am ready. I am well.
Post-scripts:
23 is the age at which 40-60 year olds will stop being surprised at my actual age, and my age relative to my partner's. 22 sounded too young to them--23 is just young. 23 is what they expect. Wink.
Christina is coming over for movies and a delightful birthday dinner, tomorrow. We're having sustainably raised lamb, halibut, salad (including peppers and cucumber from my own garden) with homemade blue cheese dressing, and blue potatoes. And a strawberry tart without so much rat in it.
This is the first birthday I have (a) told people about beforehand, (b) thought about at length, (c) been pleased at the thought of since I was probably. . . seven years old, or so.
I am very, very happy.
Even the battery power on my laptop is lining up: I have plotted my time absolutely precisely.
Edit: No, really. It hit zero percent and fell asleep the very second after Blogger said it had published. Things have just been happening that way (see the previous post). Oh, and (for the moment) I measure a whopping 5'4". That fits in this post, somehow, too.
It's time for it to be Friday. I am ready. I've been ready. I am about an hour and a half from the exact anniversary of my birth--1 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, on the dot, the 22nd of September (which was the first day of Autumn, the hottest day of the year, and the last day of Virgo, in 1983--the appropriate year). And I was done with 22 somewhere back in April, or so. Done, done, done. Ready to be 23. Not sure why. Prime number, odd number, odd number. Half of 46, the transposition of 64, my favorite number of all. .
But pulling at it, biting at it. . . I've never been so impatient for a year change, silly number change. So, so ready to be twenty-three. So ready I changed the number in the profile blurb a week ago. So ready I told the teller at the market. And the one at the fish counter. And the fruit stand. Champing.
So ready I didn't want to have anything to do with Thursday, usually my favorite day of the week (I don't know). So ready I wanted Wednesday to be Friday. So ready I wanted Thursday to be Friday. So ready I can't get it out of my head. Waiting for the reality of it to line up with my sense of it.
This is the first year in my life I've anticipated rather than had to find my way into later. That is, I've been 23 since I was 22 and a half. At 18, I still thought I was 15 or 16 ("jailbait" was a common defense mechanism, for me). At 20, I didn't remember I could rent porn. At 22, I didn't remember I could buy liquor. Or vote. Though I still remembered to vote. But never did I think at 14 and 3/4 that I was as near as 15. 17 and 340 days was not 18.
I suppose it's not very surprising.
I was told it would happen. Things would change. Is this my turning point? The famed time in one's life where one stops being "n and 1/2" or "x and 3/4" and such, and starts becoming either precisely the year one is (and nothing else) or the year marker one is nearest?
I suppose so.
It's becoming that kind of year.
My luck with even numbered years has been suspect, so I'm ready for an odd one. 8 was the downhill for my dad and I. 14, he'd just passed away. 20 was a very poor birthday, indeed, for utterly mundane reasons, and 22 was strange. And the last two years have felt like transition--wonderful and terrible, stressful and exalting, and it feels like it's finally coming into itself. It? Itself? Maybe my life, I mean. I'm not too sure.
But two is supposed to be the magic number of years. After two years in a relationship, they say, you stop seeing the glamour and start seeing the person. Or the worst. You know, your lot--the scales coming off of the eyes and all. And after two years, maybe, the sting and edge comes off of tough times, too.
Lately, remembering tough stuff has felt. . distant. It's been just long enough, maybe, finally. Enough time has elapsed that I don't feel so sore, so tender. I can see things in a more fuzzy abstract. I'm forgetting.
And starting into the third year, my lover feels absolutely, wonderfully right.
Is this what getting comfortable is like? I don't know that we've ever hugged so much, kissed so much. Just. . . warm and tight and perfect. I feel right. Hopeful. Steady. Good. Coming up against him and pushing my arms under his, stretching my forearms up his back, my palms between his shoulder blades, my face at his collarbone, his arms snug, bellies close, just fitting. Inspired.
I'm ready for the third year.
I've been living with Chris for two years, two months, and a few weeks, now. Everything annual now is the third. The third time we celebrated his birthday, or mine. The third school year starting. It'll be the third Halloween, the third Thanksgiving at my family's, the third Christmas.. The third Autumn, the third Spring!
I can't explain why that delights me so much.. . . but something about it does. The third is magic. 23 is magic, good juju.
I'm ready to be 23.
I feel arrogant.
No, not arrogant, but. . beautiful. Capable. I am in my best time.
I refuse to let my youth be wasted on me, if that makes sense. I was 40 when I was 14 (and was also very much 14). My age felt discordant in both directions--I forgot my chronological age had progressed and felt my emotional age was vastly forward, but I feel a kind of nexus, now, a kind of focus--I am feeling absolutely correct.
I am in some kind of best time, I think. I am young and know I am young--I know I have progressed through the physical maturation and into the pool of stasis before the charm of decay. But I am an adult and know I am an adult--I have, potentially, a lot of life left to look forward to, a vastness of experience and change. Somewhere within the next 80 years, or so, sooner or later, I will die, and be dying, and this time will become "before"--isn't that a strange thought? I am young in the way that will still be young when I look back from age, but which is not so young as child, as before.
This is the time of my life that my body will be best. Statistically speaking. But I feel it, too. This is the strength and beauty portion of our show. 23! It can come at any time, I know, but this is mine; not pubescent, not fading. I am in bloom.
I look at pictures of my mother, my aunts, everyone's mother and everyone's aunt, when they were "young," and see beautiful people, perfect and lovely, just by virtue of being caught in that moment, that loveliness that people have in them.
A few months ago, I caught it in myself.
I looked at myself, and knew it, somehow. I was as beautiful as I was ever going to be. I was the most lovely I had ever been.
It wasn't a smashing kind of beauty, nothing someone would put on TV or any nonsense like that, but exalted; I have my beauty, now. This is the time that someone will take a picture of me, and twenty years from now, my neices and nephews will go, "Wow, that's Aunt Lu? Dude. . . " because it will have been that time, for me. I think everyone has it. But how many out there can say that they knew how good their bodies were when they were best? I think I will. And maybe in another year I will still be as lovely, and maybe in forty years I will be that kind of older lovely, but I have an idea that actually appreciating my body and my face and self, now--and that it will change and fade and that that, too, is fine and natural and good--will do me unspeakable good. It cannot hurt me. If in a year I'm an even sexier bitch, so be it. I have never liked myself well enough. I have never thought I was good enough. I will.
I will now.
I will not look back in a year from now and regret the vastness I have missed. In twenty years I will not be one of the masses who wonders why I didn't realize what a wonderful thing I had going when I was younger, who didn't realize how cute I really was or how I really wasn't so bad at things as I thought. Why the fuck should I? I am not flawless, I am not infallible, I am not blind--I'm not that kind of young, I am not hateful of the future and invincible--and I'm not out to burn myself out or destroy myself. But I am not going to live waiting for the shift, either. I have it in my hands.
From 12 years old, my joints have been achey and weak. When I am 60 my joints will be achey and weak. But I am strongest, now. I am stablest, now. I am prime, somehow. My knees are not giving out on me, now, like they did and will. I have at least a few years of that owed me, and I think they are now. I owe it to myself to take care of them. To enjoy them, use them, exalt them. I am learning. I am growing. I can more clearly envision the consequences of my actions and surroundings than I have ever been able. I know I'm going to fall down these stairs, because I fling myself down them too carelessly. I can tell when I'm ovulating. For two weeks, now, I have been able to cook and bake at will, and get pretty much exactly what I want from it. Whatever I want to cook or bake! For a month I have been starting into the time where I will be able to grow food. I can create beauty in my surroundings. I am in synch.
23 is my magic. For now. Next year there will be a new balance, a new weight, but this is what I have for this year. A Major Arcana year. A seeing year.
I am ready. I am well.
Post-scripts:
23 is the age at which 40-60 year olds will stop being surprised at my actual age, and my age relative to my partner's. 22 sounded too young to them--23 is just young. 23 is what they expect. Wink.
Christina is coming over for movies and a delightful birthday dinner, tomorrow. We're having sustainably raised lamb, halibut, salad (including peppers and cucumber from my own garden) with homemade blue cheese dressing, and blue potatoes. And a strawberry tart without so much rat in it.
This is the first birthday I have (a) told people about beforehand, (b) thought about at length, (c) been pleased at the thought of since I was probably. . . seven years old, or so.
I am very, very happy.
Even the battery power on my laptop is lining up: I have plotted my time absolutely precisely.
Edit: No, really. It hit zero percent and fell asleep the very second after Blogger said it had published. Things have just been happening that way (see the previous post). Oh, and (for the moment) I measure a whopping 5'4". That fits in this post, somehow, too.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The world has conspired to do me a very good turn.
One of my favorite things in this world is singing.
I am, admittedly, a depressive. It just happens to me, sometimes, and the habit of it sneaks back in on me before I can quite tell it's there. And when I get depressed, I get tired and complacent; I stop writing. I stop wanting to walk and romp and play. I stop singing.
Unfortunately, writing, walking, romping, playing, and singing are some of the best wards I have against depression. Thus begins a cycle, you see.
Now, I was encouraged to come join one of the local choirs, after I graduated. Other choir members, my Lover, my mom. . . It would keep me singing, it would give me some kind of post-partem structure, it would be fun, I'm good at it, etc. I couldn't/wouldn't afford tuition at my alma mater for one or two classes, so the Stanislaus choral ensembles were out, but MJC has one (and has low enough rates for their courses that it'd be affordable tuition), and Modesto has a Symphony Chorus that performs with their Symphony Orchestra. I didn't feel I had much hope for the latter, but I wondered. But they both meet evenings, once a week, up in Modesto.
In addition to being a depressive, I am also a little agoraphobic (can you be a little phobic of something? Is that paradoxical? If it's irrational and crimps your life, but maybe only comes on sometimes, or very particularly? In and out with the seasons?), which means I can't stand to leave home alone, most of the time, especially for unfamiliar surroundings. And I am anxious. And car-fearing. And road-fearing. Which means the prospect of driving to Modesto--alone, at night, in the season that will devolve into such thick fog I almost couldn't find my way to the freeway, the last time I tried it--is terrifying. And also means that I very gladly sent my Focus back down with my mother to LA for my brother to drive, and have not sought out insurance since I was removed from hers. Which furthermore means it would be illegal for me to drive, anyway--something that I find highly favorable, as it gives me a strong excuse not to do it. Sure, I have my moral objections to much car use, too, but I do understand that there is an element of "crutch" in there, somewhere, in inventing the system whereby facing my fears could put me in jail.
Anyway, given all of those little charmers in my personality, I declined to join any choir whatever in Spring. General self-doubt and fear of responsibility put in their two cents per, as well, to that end. And it frankly didn't look as though I would be joining one, soon.
That is, until Daniel, the choir director of both the Stanislaus choirs I had been in and the Modesto Symphony Chorus I didn't think I probably ought audition for, ran out on his meal when he saw me from a cafe window to call after me, catch me, tell me I should come sing for him in the Modesto Symphony Chorus I hadn't thought I should audition for, and (since I'd be unable to get there on my own, as Chris has a night class at the same time) even offer me a ride with him and another few of us here in Turlock every Monday to get there and back.
Well.
Invited.
No driving? No driving.
Familiar persons.
Once a week, when I wouldn't have Chris home, anyway.
A virtual demand that I keep a sort of schedule (a plus in fending off depression), interact with other human beings (another plus in fending off depression), and sing, goddamnit, sing (etc.)?
I didn't have to do anything. I didn't even have to come up with the motivation or confidence to go seek it out. This FELL INTO MY LAP. We were just out walking to pick up milk, cilantro, and rice noodles. And you know I was still trying to come up with some reason I couldn't.
But I failed gloriously.
So, as of tomorrow, I'm going to start spending Monday night singing. I will be terrified, self-doubtful, shy, anxious, and probably guilty if I can manage to work it in somehow. I know that because I'm already working on it. But it's free therapy for all of the above.
I will also be thrilled, excited, exalted, enriched, and invigorated. And I'll get a boost to the old self-confidence. I know that, because I'm already working on those, too.
I am moved. I am disproportionately flattered and generally overwhelmed. I feel very silly, and very happy, and very sheepish. And I am duly surprised that I can still hit the G an octave and a half above middle C pretty reliably, because I wasn't exactly operating under the assumption that I'd be going to join an operatic chorus, rather than just continuing to sing folk songs in my living room.
Och, I have a lot of practicing to do. But that is wonderful.
I am, admittedly, a depressive. It just happens to me, sometimes, and the habit of it sneaks back in on me before I can quite tell it's there. And when I get depressed, I get tired and complacent; I stop writing. I stop wanting to walk and romp and play. I stop singing.
Unfortunately, writing, walking, romping, playing, and singing are some of the best wards I have against depression. Thus begins a cycle, you see.
Now, I was encouraged to come join one of the local choirs, after I graduated. Other choir members, my Lover, my mom. . . It would keep me singing, it would give me some kind of post-partem structure, it would be fun, I'm good at it, etc. I couldn't/wouldn't afford tuition at my alma mater for one or two classes, so the Stanislaus choral ensembles were out, but MJC has one (and has low enough rates for their courses that it'd be affordable tuition), and Modesto has a Symphony Chorus that performs with their Symphony Orchestra. I didn't feel I had much hope for the latter, but I wondered. But they both meet evenings, once a week, up in Modesto.
In addition to being a depressive, I am also a little agoraphobic (can you be a little phobic of something? Is that paradoxical? If it's irrational and crimps your life, but maybe only comes on sometimes, or very particularly? In and out with the seasons?), which means I can't stand to leave home alone, most of the time, especially for unfamiliar surroundings. And I am anxious. And car-fearing. And road-fearing. Which means the prospect of driving to Modesto--alone, at night, in the season that will devolve into such thick fog I almost couldn't find my way to the freeway, the last time I tried it--is terrifying. And also means that I very gladly sent my Focus back down with my mother to LA for my brother to drive, and have not sought out insurance since I was removed from hers. Which furthermore means it would be illegal for me to drive, anyway--something that I find highly favorable, as it gives me a strong excuse not to do it. Sure, I have my moral objections to much car use, too, but I do understand that there is an element of "crutch" in there, somewhere, in inventing the system whereby facing my fears could put me in jail.
Anyway, given all of those little charmers in my personality, I declined to join any choir whatever in Spring. General self-doubt and fear of responsibility put in their two cents per, as well, to that end. And it frankly didn't look as though I would be joining one, soon.
That is, until Daniel, the choir director of both the Stanislaus choirs I had been in and the Modesto Symphony Chorus I didn't think I probably ought audition for, ran out on his meal when he saw me from a cafe window to call after me, catch me, tell me I should come sing for him in the Modesto Symphony Chorus I hadn't thought I should audition for, and (since I'd be unable to get there on my own, as Chris has a night class at the same time) even offer me a ride with him and another few of us here in Turlock every Monday to get there and back.
Well.
Invited.
No driving? No driving.
Familiar persons.
Once a week, when I wouldn't have Chris home, anyway.
A virtual demand that I keep a sort of schedule (a plus in fending off depression), interact with other human beings (another plus in fending off depression), and sing, goddamnit, sing (etc.)?
I didn't have to do anything. I didn't even have to come up with the motivation or confidence to go seek it out. This FELL INTO MY LAP. We were just out walking to pick up milk, cilantro, and rice noodles. And you know I was still trying to come up with some reason I couldn't.
But I failed gloriously.
So, as of tomorrow, I'm going to start spending Monday night singing. I will be terrified, self-doubtful, shy, anxious, and probably guilty if I can manage to work it in somehow. I know that because I'm already working on it. But it's free therapy for all of the above.
I will also be thrilled, excited, exalted, enriched, and invigorated. And I'll get a boost to the old self-confidence. I know that, because I'm already working on those, too.
I am moved. I am disproportionately flattered and generally overwhelmed. I feel very silly, and very happy, and very sheepish. And I am duly surprised that I can still hit the G an octave and a half above middle C pretty reliably, because I wasn't exactly operating under the assumption that I'd be going to join an operatic chorus, rather than just continuing to sing folk songs in my living room.
Och, I have a lot of practicing to do. But that is wonderful.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
BOOKBOOKBOOKBOOKBOOK
Okay, sorry I've been so scarce. It's frankly been a really busy summer. But maybe I'll get back into this, one of these days!
For now, we amongst the Faithful Felber Fans™ have been asked to plug, and when Adam Felber says "Plug!" I say "How high?!"
Well, no, not really. But it did occur to me that I hadn't yet pumped this book, and that I have been meaning to, and that it is the book I've read in the last several years that I believe most deserves it. It's not that I haven't read other great books, because I've read some pretty great books, but most of them, frankly, have been serial jobs with pre-established fan bases and well-established authors and publicity and the deck generally stacked in their favor, by the time I got to them, rather than an author's first novel with an alarmingly green cover and the promise of perverted physics, sex, geeks, lunchmeat, and the strangely undiminished dead thrown in.*
So, I feel plugging is more than deserved. Adam Felber's Schrödinger's Ball has become one of my all-time favorite books. Please, go check out the website, check out the book, get ahold of a copy, and don't let the spectre of quantum physics scare you--it was a fantastic read, incredibly weird and funny and warm and delightful, and I absolutely adored it. It was refreshing! It was surprising! It was silly and touching and dark and terribly light.
As I value you all as intelligent people with senses of humor, I'd like to think that you'd all like it, too. (Sorry, was that too shameless an appeal? Ah, well.)
Anyway, I do strongly suggest you pick it up, it was truly a delight.
*In that sentence, I now realize, the adjective "perverted" could just as easily be read to apply to all nouns in the series, rather than (as I had intended) just "physics," but I suppose that that vagueness is also appropriate.
For now, we amongst the Faithful Felber Fans™ have been asked to plug, and when Adam Felber says "Plug!" I say "How high?!"
Well, no, not really. But it did occur to me that I hadn't yet pumped this book, and that I have been meaning to, and that it is the book I've read in the last several years that I believe most deserves it. It's not that I haven't read other great books, because I've read some pretty great books, but most of them, frankly, have been serial jobs with pre-established fan bases and well-established authors and publicity and the deck generally stacked in their favor, by the time I got to them, rather than an author's first novel with an alarmingly green cover and the promise of perverted physics, sex, geeks, lunchmeat, and the strangely undiminished dead thrown in.*
So, I feel plugging is more than deserved. Adam Felber's Schrödinger's Ball has become one of my all-time favorite books. Please, go check out the website, check out the book, get ahold of a copy, and don't let the spectre of quantum physics scare you--it was a fantastic read, incredibly weird and funny and warm and delightful, and I absolutely adored it. It was refreshing! It was surprising! It was silly and touching and dark and terribly light.
As I value you all as intelligent people with senses of humor, I'd like to think that you'd all like it, too. (Sorry, was that too shameless an appeal? Ah, well.)
Anyway, I do strongly suggest you pick it up, it was truly a delight.
*In that sentence, I now realize, the adjective "perverted" could just as easily be read to apply to all nouns in the series, rather than (as I had intended) just "physics," but I suppose that that vagueness is also appropriate.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
It's official!
We're a band! Paper Cats! That's us. (I am, by the way, proud of myself for that name.)
And we've made it onto their folk charts! The songs Chris and I have posted on our blogs are up there (he's posted a few I never got around to, actually!), as well as a couple more of Chris's solo songs. This is so, so, so much fun.
In other good news, I've got the bug for writing again. I'm in the smut fanfic mode (and, strangely, the non-smut fanfic mode, which is entirely new for me) and hopefully that'll translate into feeling like working on original fiction, soon. But we'll see.
In still other good news, we're moving in less than two weeks! TWO WEEKS! AAAAAAAAAH! (It's about two blocks away, but it's a little bigger, a townhouse--complete with stairs, stairs, stairs!--and a little yard, very exciting.)
Maybe I'll write a few substantive blog entries, soon. But probably after we're moved in. :)
And we've made it onto their folk charts! The songs Chris and I have posted on our blogs are up there (he's posted a few I never got around to, actually!), as well as a couple more of Chris's solo songs. This is so, so, so much fun.
In other good news, I've got the bug for writing again. I'm in the smut fanfic mode (and, strangely, the non-smut fanfic mode, which is entirely new for me) and hopefully that'll translate into feeling like working on original fiction, soon. But we'll see.
In still other good news, we're moving in less than two weeks! TWO WEEKS! AAAAAAAAAH! (It's about two blocks away, but it's a little bigger, a townhouse--complete with stairs, stairs, stairs!--and a little yard, very exciting.)
Maybe I'll write a few substantive blog entries, soon. But probably after we're moved in. :)
Monday, May 22, 2006
The less danceable, sweeter songs.
If this was a truly, evenly schizo serious-fluffy journal, I would've spaced out lyrics and song and lyrics with something about. . . Idunno, my cavities or that funny swollen lymph node and the inequities of the American systems of marriage and insurance, bigotry, etc. But Lancelot is licking plastic and attacking spider plants, so it's time to buck up and post his lyrics, instead. I can carry a musical theme for five whole posts, see? Not bad, that.
Since we put up our shaky copy of "the Only Living Boy in Turlock," let's see if I can't persuade my lovely Lover to put up the first runs of Lancelot's Song and the Late-Afternoon Lullaby, while we're at it. . . Since, as I said, they're not at all the same without the music!
Edit: In fact, he was persuaded! Click here to hear Lance's song, and click here to hear the Late-Afternoon Lullaby--which is my favorite, I think, of these three.
And here're the lyrics:
"Lancelot's Song"
Watch them, see them, hear them
Strange and loud and fuss and laugh and
Running fast
Very fast!
Singing out loud in the sunshine
Sleeping too long in the dark
Tearing around in the Sunshine!
Running to and fro and
fro and to and to and fro and--
Jumping high
Very high!
They tearing around in the sunshine
they Singing out loud in the dark
they Sleeping too long in the sunshine
(Instr.)
And they call and grab and
clutch and hold and love and cry out--
all my names
Many names!
They soaking all day in the sunshine
They tearing around in the dark
They singing out loud in the sunshine!
. . . .which would all make more sense if everyone knew our boy (The Boy, Shtinkertoy, Bunky, Lanceamaphone, Lance without Pants, Lancelot sans coulots, kitty fricasee, etc) and how we are with him. The lyrics are from his perspective; we were going for a sort of anthropological observation Lance-a-pot style.
Now, this one was to music Chris was going to pitch because he didn't like it (which I still can't believe). I told him it sounded like dapplied sunlight, late afternoon, and that I loved it, and he kept playing it for me but didn't really get what I meant 'til I sang the words for him. I think he likes it better, now. :)
"Late-Afternoon Lullaby"
On the side of some old desert road
Lying in the sand
Staring up at red rock cliff face
Hand in dusty hand
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams
Dappled sunlight through old birch trees
On a fading porch somewhere
You lying with your head in my lap
My hands in your hair
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams
Dream, dream, sweet dreams. . .
(Instr. bridge)
I'll sing to you
in a voice rough with age
And you'll play for me
hands old sweet and sage
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams . . .
. . . the first version of that I wrote (and lost) on a bus to Monterey on a zoology class field trip. Listening to a couple of girls in the seat ahead of me, one of whom actually happened to be a student of Chris'. In one breath criticizing him for her not participating in class, and in the next talking about dogs: "Eugh, I don't want a girl dog, girl dogs are so stupid. . . always having babies and stuff. . . " Hm.
Sometimes Turlock hurts. But that was a couple posts ago. The apricots are trickling in, now, and soon it'll be peaches. Out on the verandah, three of my five tomato plants are flowering or bearing green fruit (well, one of them is actually indoors on the desk in the War Room--doing better than a lot of the others, we get more sun there than outside, somehow), my radishes are growing, my bell pepper from last season, which has now self-resurrected from near death two or three times, may or may not produce something resembling buds, this year. Basil, parsley, chives, and cilantro, chervil from seeds, a few weak sprouts of pansies (also for food, also from seeds, also scraggly, also growing best on the desk, the touchy little bastards). . . Two cacti (a weak aloe, a strong little funky crossbreed that's sort've green and lavender), two kinds of columbines, two kinds of daisies, mums, azaleas, fuschia, most of which are in between bouts of flowering but looking happy. . . Inside (with one of the tomatoes and some of the pansies), two "tropical plants," two Wandering Jews, three Pothos, 8 spider plants in pots and 6 rooting in a bowl, two different kinds of ficus, and one pot of ivy. Most of which I/we cloned/rooted.
There is green everywhere.
Not bad for an apartment and verandah with difficult light!
It feels so, so good to be surrounded by plants.
Oh! And there's a green plant living in with the fish. I forgot about that one, since I consider it more like FishFish's pet, I suppose. Fishfish, who, a year and a half later, is still alive. Through fin rot and fussy eating. . . despite the white bubble growing on his head. . . That is one tough fish, there. That's why he's FishFish the Ferocious. Keep swimmin', FishFish.
Since we put up our shaky copy of "the Only Living Boy in Turlock," let's see if I can't persuade my lovely Lover to put up the first runs of Lancelot's Song and the Late-Afternoon Lullaby, while we're at it. . . Since, as I said, they're not at all the same without the music!
Edit: In fact, he was persuaded! Click here to hear Lance's song, and click here to hear the Late-Afternoon Lullaby--which is my favorite, I think, of these three.
And here're the lyrics:
"Lancelot's Song"
Watch them, see them, hear them
Strange and loud and fuss and laugh and
Running fast
Very fast!
Singing out loud in the sunshine
Sleeping too long in the dark
Tearing around in the Sunshine!
Running to and fro and
fro and to and to and fro and--
Jumping high
Very high!
They tearing around in the sunshine
they Singing out loud in the dark
they Sleeping too long in the sunshine
(Instr.)
And they call and grab and
clutch and hold and love and cry out--
all my names
Many names!
They soaking all day in the sunshine
They tearing around in the dark
They singing out loud in the sunshine!
. . . .which would all make more sense if everyone knew our boy (The Boy, Shtinkertoy, Bunky, Lanceamaphone, Lance without Pants, Lancelot sans coulots, kitty fricasee, etc) and how we are with him. The lyrics are from his perspective; we were going for a sort of anthropological observation Lance-a-pot style.
Now, this one was to music Chris was going to pitch because he didn't like it (which I still can't believe). I told him it sounded like dapplied sunlight, late afternoon, and that I loved it, and he kept playing it for me but didn't really get what I meant 'til I sang the words for him. I think he likes it better, now. :)
"Late-Afternoon Lullaby"
On the side of some old desert road
Lying in the sand
Staring up at red rock cliff face
Hand in dusty hand
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams
Dappled sunlight through old birch trees
On a fading porch somewhere
You lying with your head in my lap
My hands in your hair
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams
Dream, dream, sweet dreams. . .
(Instr. bridge)
I'll sing to you
in a voice rough with age
And you'll play for me
hands old sweet and sage
And we'll dream
Sweet dreams . . .
. . . the first version of that I wrote (and lost) on a bus to Monterey on a zoology class field trip. Listening to a couple of girls in the seat ahead of me, one of whom actually happened to be a student of Chris'. In one breath criticizing him for her not participating in class, and in the next talking about dogs: "Eugh, I don't want a girl dog, girl dogs are so stupid. . . always having babies and stuff. . . " Hm.
Sometimes Turlock hurts. But that was a couple posts ago. The apricots are trickling in, now, and soon it'll be peaches. Out on the verandah, three of my five tomato plants are flowering or bearing green fruit (well, one of them is actually indoors on the desk in the War Room--doing better than a lot of the others, we get more sun there than outside, somehow), my radishes are growing, my bell pepper from last season, which has now self-resurrected from near death two or three times, may or may not produce something resembling buds, this year. Basil, parsley, chives, and cilantro, chervil from seeds, a few weak sprouts of pansies (also for food, also from seeds, also scraggly, also growing best on the desk, the touchy little bastards). . . Two cacti (a weak aloe, a strong little funky crossbreed that's sort've green and lavender), two kinds of columbines, two kinds of daisies, mums, azaleas, fuschia, most of which are in between bouts of flowering but looking happy. . . Inside (with one of the tomatoes and some of the pansies), two "tropical plants," two Wandering Jews, three Pothos, 8 spider plants in pots and 6 rooting in a bowl, two different kinds of ficus, and one pot of ivy. Most of which I/we cloned/rooted.
There is green everywhere.
Not bad for an apartment and verandah with difficult light!
It feels so, so good to be surrounded by plants.
Oh! And there's a green plant living in with the fish. I forgot about that one, since I consider it more like FishFish's pet, I suppose. Fishfish, who, a year and a half later, is still alive. Through fin rot and fussy eating. . . despite the white bubble growing on his head. . . That is one tough fish, there. That's why he's FishFish the Ferocious. Keep swimmin', FishFish.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
I posted the lyrics not long ago, but. . .
Now we've gone and done it. We've made a little recording of "The Only Living Boy in Turlock," not much tampered with or fixed up, yet, so be kind, and there's an extra accidental chorus thrown in, somewhere. Other than that, though, it works okay! You'll get the idea!
So, CLICK THIS to hear the recording!
Please! ©, etc. Don't make a nice girl cry. Chris wrote the guitar music, I wrote the lyrics/melody line. Of the songs we brought down to my mother (the others of which we also made little first run recordings of, tonight--Lancelot's Song and the Late Afternoon Lullaby), this was m'mom's favorite, the one she demanded we make her a recording of. So, for my mama and all.
Thinking I'll cross post this at my fiddly bit journal, too, though. . . 'cause, y'know, I'm curious. . .
So, CLICK THIS to hear the recording!
Please! ©, etc. Don't make a nice girl cry. Chris wrote the guitar music, I wrote the lyrics/melody line. Of the songs we brought down to my mother (the others of which we also made little first run recordings of, tonight--Lancelot's Song and the Late Afternoon Lullaby), this was m'mom's favorite, the one she demanded we make her a recording of. So, for my mama and all.
Thinking I'll cross post this at my fiddly bit journal, too, though. . . 'cause, y'know, I'm curious. . .
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
"The Only Living Boy in Turlock"
(The song came from a warp on Paul Simon title and associated chords. Teasing, but lovingly. These are the "wrote all at once and they're fun to sing" lyrics evoked in the last post. Presume the nonsense syllables to be guides representing scatting. To music by Chris, and it's not the same without it. But he was surprised I hadn't posted them, so. . . . Here's a little piece of Turlock, CA. © 2006 Lauren Byerly and Chris Nagel, etc, thx.)
Can't catch a bus through the cars, but the cows
come closer than people--won't talk--
Two hours from the nearest place without lights
Two hours from the nearest place with life
Tell me, why am I here?
I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not in this little town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi za za di da
Doom, ba da dadida la tsow zada bida
gadda ba la tsi da da
boom, La ladadidow,
Zat zatta da lee zat zatta bop dee zat zatta rah ta ta tee za
-- zat dadida dow
--zat Li La Li Lie
People shouting in print, but I think people thinkin's
Fewer and further between than us hippies,
long haired and hiding out behind guitars
and run to the coast when there's a little
Time to breathe. . .
I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not many'n this town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi za za di da
Doom, ba da dadida la tsow zada bida
gadda ba la tsi da da
boom, La ladadidow,
Zat zatta da lee zat zatta bop dee zat zatta rah ta ta tee za
-- zat dadida dow
--zat Li La Li Lie
(Bridge)
Eating peaches and getting pickled on rum
and juice in the hot hot sun and then
dancing 'round in the rain and watching the muck
come out of the air and pretending We
the only ones here, today. . .
Then I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not in this little town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi just me and peaches,
today, a da dadida la tsow zada bida
Keep your guitar out the rain and
boom, La ladadidow
--Da lie la li lie. . .
Can't catch a bus through the cars, but the cows
come closer than people--won't talk--
Two hours from the nearest place without lights
Two hours from the nearest place with life
Tell me, why am I here?
I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not in this little town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi za za di da
Doom, ba da dadida la tsow zada bida
gadda ba la tsi da da
boom, La ladadidow,
Zat zatta da lee zat zatta bop dee zat zatta rah ta ta tee za
-- zat dadida dow
--zat Li La Li Lie
People shouting in print, but I think people thinkin's
Fewer and further between than us hippies,
long haired and hiding out behind guitars
and run to the coast when there's a little
Time to breathe. . .
I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not many'n this town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi za za di da
Doom, ba da dadida la tsow zada bida
gadda ba la tsi da da
boom, La ladadidow,
Zat zatta da lee zat zatta bop dee zat zatta rah ta ta tee za
-- zat dadida dow
--zat Li La Li Lie
(Bridge)
Eating peaches and getting pickled on rum
and juice in the hot hot sun and then
dancing 'round in the rain and watching the muck
come out of the air and pretending We
the only ones here, today. . .
Then I duck and I wave and beg and I try to find someone else who smiles but
Not in this little town
No, not in this town!
La t-da dadida ta da bada didow,
latasi just me and peaches,
today, a da dadida la tsow zada bida
Keep your guitar out the rain and
boom, La ladadidow
--Da lie la li lie. . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)