Ah Me

Fifty-seven feels like six like twelve like twenty. You are basically you from the age of six onwards, according to the child psychology courses in college; I agree. One changes and grows socially and emotionally, but it is still the same voice I have always heard in my head. Me.

My skin, however, is trying to get to the center of the earth and gravity is winning, pulling, continually down. If you leave a brick on a lawn, it eventually sinks in over the years from the ground softening with rain, temperature changes, and yep, gravity. This is why you have to watch This Old House so you know how to prep an area with ground cloth and crushed stone before laying a brick path.

I have salt that came from an ocean that once covered the mountains that are now the Himalayas before they were pushed up that high by India crashing into Asia. Got it from the health food store, advertised as pink, the purest on earth, blah and blah. Only thing, every oncet in a while, you get a bit of grit in there, as mined from the peaks by the natives. You bite down on grit and eventually your teeth will be like the ancient Egyptians, whose molars were flattened by the amount of stones in the bread flour back in the B.C.

I know you just read this blog for all the non-fictional nonsense so you can win the next round of Trivial Pursuit. You really want me on your team. Anyways, the point of the salt is that nothing stays the same, from oceans to the summits of mountains, earth roiling and folding onto itself.

That would be an interesting time lapse, a sped-up version of India smooshing into the larger continent on film. God film. Universal Pictures located in the real Universe. What would it look like, these immense pilates for tectonic plates? Would we cry when the oceans that once covered the Sahara receded? Applaud at the appearance of Hawaii, future home of President Elect? Flowing, liquid, converting back to magma, all this. And your little brick, too.

My son is coming into town for the weekend, and will be staying with me, I am so excited. Here it is the end of 2008 already, I just finished washing the baby food off his face, wasn't it? I see him aging, folding, flowing. Go for it kiddo, it's a great life.

Deedle deedle dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his stockings on.

Sleep well, sleep quiet, covers.

The Couch and Moi

Oh, Couch, my lovely couch, a pillow and thee plus a cuppa tey. Or maybe not, the laundry pile should be attacked and beaten into submission. Wham! Wham! Whack!! It's archaeology, with the circulating pieces like jeans on top and in rotation, with sedimentary layers of the rest of it in seasonal order descending. At the bottom are summer jammies or maybe a tank top. I'm not looking.

I dislike the laundry room. It's open, well lit, clean sort of, and the washers take big loads. Drawbacks are non-privacy, timing so you don't lose your good towels, and, it's not my couch under a comforter. Further, I am not in my glory. I should wear glasses only for the next two weeks, and the vertigo of switching from the usual contact lens has me teetering. Also, I think my hair is sticking up funny.

Today was like working at the pediatric developmental institution, would someone please send a large, coherent team of counselors, school psychologists, and social workers to this inner city school? We have none, we are lucky to have a librarian three days out of a six day rotation. Full moon at perigee. Believe everything that is said about the effects; my god, if the gravitational pull influences the oceans, it certainly affects organisms, including children baying at lunar changes.

Today my friend Sandra brought me a fish fry. A fishie fry!! Her church had one for a fundraiser, and delivered to the school at lunchtime. Nothing like a Baptist church fish fry. Nice piece of breaded haddock, homemade mac and cheese with sharp cheddar, green beans cooked with a ham hock, a cup of slaw, cup of potato salad, tartar sauce (which I skip), wheat bread, hot sauce, and a slice of pound cake. Your fork and knife are tucked under the paper that the fish is on inside the clamshell styrofoam tray. Oh heaven.

The wonderful thing is that it was a surprise; Sandra is a shyish, quiet woman who teaches resource to students that need an extra boost. Her area is right next to mine, and for one terrific year we worked together, she "pushed in" my classroom to work with the students assigned her. Things never stay the same. She trotted over today with the goods, and simply said, "This is for you." Frabjous. So you know that couch is looking good. I am full of the Lord's fish. Healed!!

Schedule tomorrow: laundry, dishes, and cookies for Christmas. There are new babies in the fish tank, Martian seems betterish, Oh I would like to put up the tree, but what a unholy job. I have a white plastic tree with purple lights and the best ornaments. Nah, it's just too much and I am going off for the holidays.

Well, as predicted, overcast sky this evening, but I can feel you Moon, I know you're there. Pull me up through neap and ebb, lullaby waves crash intertidal. Ocean, ocean, ocean. Oh waves, oh lune, oh fish. Sleep in comfort.

Nuts de la Nuit

I can't watch only parts of Silence of the Lambs, I have to see the part where Clarice shoots Jame Gumb dead. No matter what Ted Levine works in, that voice is one thin line away from telling you to put the lotion in the basket. I saw Flubber with Robin Williams one Saturday afternoon, where Levine plays a minor role but christ almighty, my lizard brain said to run up a tree and blend in with the foliage.

Don't like movies where people get hurt. Once they're dead I'm mostly okay and in fact wanted to be a medical illustrator when young but married and I let that dream just bump along the wall and finally get stuck under the couch. It is very gratifying to know that the actors are actually still alive mostly, with the final part of reassurance being to look them up on IMDB and see that they are fine and had been paid to behave that way.

There was a list in college of The Best Books Evah, according to the recent professor. Well, Blood Meridian was there, and in order to add to an already high level of literary sophistication, I got it in the bookstore. Made. Made myself read it to the end, where the poor bear is dancing, stumbling while turning because it is being shot by the jerks in the audience for fun.

It stayed on my bookshelf, for I wondered what on earth am I not seeing in this story, an allegory for some sort of shit or other, intending to reread, research, blah and blah. Every time the title hit my line of vision, a shudder gripped my innards because I know there are people out there just like Cormac wrote, as if the west were populated by borderlines out for a day with guns.

I don't remember if I left the book in the laundry room or if it got tossed, but I had Clarice Starling shoot it several times before disposal. I do enjoy anything that Stephen King writes except for his stories. Introductions, books on how to write books; I imagine he's a likeable cuss and wish him well but leave me alone with the images.

Part of my English minor involved "adopting" an author and dissecting the motives, career, underpinnings, bon mots. I chose Truman Capote and got snickered at as if I had said Rip Taylor. Henry James was suggested, The Portrait of a Lady was read, and I said that licking the sidewalk was preferable to reading anything further by himself. Torture. Slow. Ponderous, like a big lady with aching feet.

Really, fiction has little if any charm. Hand out facts, histories, recipes and science, now you're talking. What do you read? One of my little students had skipped breakfast and felt oogy. I keep cereal on hand for a sometimes lunch and gave her a pile on a kleenex to stave off pangs till lunchtime. I read the kids the cereal box, especially the snippet stating that this particular concoction helps lower blood pressure, a good thing for your teacher, kids. They laughed, but I wonder if a few won't read the boxes they have at home. A small hope.

The first person within my circle of adult friends unexpectedly lost her job today, the position was simply eliminated at the bank she worked at. Gone. One of the larger banks in the nation. Here we go.

See you in the funny papers. Good night.

This n that

The walking wounded is getting into the cat's meds again; I banged my toe two days ago resulting in an owie that is developing armies of white cells. Pus, kids. I found the remaining keflex from the vet, looked it up on the web and found it applicable for bacterial infections.

The coolest part is that the spectrum of this particular cephalosomethingorother was found growing as a fungus near a sewer in Sicily. Blow me down! Eat your mushrooms, darlings, and live long.

I have again changed hair color, leaning toward a warm iridescent light brown as compared to the deep red that has been the past year's statement. It won't stay brown for long, brown is so, well, pedestrian. I love the colors that I've seen the painted women wearing; the red orange yellow flamethrower tints just pop my pistons. Magenta. Aqua. Oh to be in my teens and twenties.

Personally, I am all for body art, you go and augment whatever you like, stick stuff under your skin to make a design, whatever floats your boat; thank god age has kicked in for me, or I would have been lizardtop zebrabottom girl. Even now, a giant red octopus on my back is ever so appealing, but nay. Other avenues call.

So far I am keeping up with a regime of increased fish oil, CLA, and calcium; so far, so good and energy is up. I can feel the vibes, keep sending them. Or is that my sore toe throbbing?

I tell you, last night I almost called every single one of you up to come over and Pound the rooty toot that lives downstairs. The man is a troglodyte with a vocabulary of one. He must work the second shift, I think the girlfriend left and he sure doesn't seem to miss her as he keeps bringing over buddies that yell "fuckin' A" as loud as he does. They begin at eleven p and were still yelling effin-ay at the video screen in the wee 3 a. NOOOOO, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, FUCKIN' AAAAAAAAAAA, as if each result shook the kingdom, bailed out the auto industry, changed water to wine, and cleared up my student loans.

Ah well, The Cake by the Lake doesn't like her fingers typing such drivel, but if little Mr. Stuff doesn't get a dictionary, maybe Santa will bring him one. Would he get the hint, do you think? I would be more forgiving if instead one heard LOVELY ROUND THAT WAS BY JOCULAR JOVE, which means effing-ay in English.

I am toddling off to bed with cat meds flowing through the veins, hurtling down the circulatory system to fight the bacteria in my toe. Maybe my toe will grow cat hair, and I will have a weretoe. I'll let you know if I find it digging through the litter box later.

Beddy bye, dream beyond belief.

Sagittariday Night

Hello, hello. The snow turned out to be a foof of nothing much for this area, yet I was awakened at 2 a.m. by the back up beeps of a parking lot plow. The turkey supply has whittled itself into the shape of one last casserole, and even the cat is sick of it. Try wiggling meat in front of an uninterested and probably insulted cat to feel like an idiot. Look! Turkey! Wiggle wiggle!

How are you today, my sunshines? I watched some supposed ghost videos online and even though I am a believer due to personal experience, these looked fakity fake fake, fake fake (intonation of Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits). Sure, it's possible, sure we have Photoshop, you aren't going to know unless you go through some event yourself, or trust someone deeply who has.

Well, I am giving myself the creeps again, so let's change topics. Last week I had purchased the bottom of a water bath canner to process fruits next season, the lid was missing. Today I went back and there was the top, so minor yay. Ran out for groceries before deciding which way the incredible clogged head was going with this cold that showed up yesterday.

I am currently working my way off of the antidepressant Prozac, after the primary care doc suggested it would be a way to get the extra weight off. So far, no weight loss, but I am doing this ever ever so slowly so as not to piss off the gods of mental machinery and hit serotonin syndrome withdrawal. I have tried going off the meds twice before with carny sideshow results, but did it throughout the short space of three months. No no no.

What was that movie, the one where Harry Hamlin ran around in a toga and had to kill this fantastic Ray Harryhausen Medusa? Well, that was me suddenly off meds; and here you thought it was stop-action puppetry. Prozac messes with metabolism and blood sugar, not good. Would really like to live without the stuff, going down from 40 to 20mg was a bit of a hoot, but now I am tapering from the 20 mg per diem.

We will see. There are all sorts of cleansing this and thats to help you get through withdrawal, I have good prescription coverage, but maybe I will be one of those people who need to be on the stuff for life. Dunno, but want to try. I have been prescribed a litany of meds at one time or another, and the side effects are not acceptable to me. Prozac is the least offensive, and staying on it when the physicians would like to toss the latest med at you has been an argument.

When it was needed, and it still may be, the fluoxetine works compared to Effexor, Cymbalta, Lexapro (oh not ever again), Zoloft, Paxil, Amitryptaline, Celexa, Trazodone, Ambien, Clonopin, and megadoses of Vitamin D. Whatever the drug company salesperson was selling that month was what Miss Doctor wanted me to try. Desperately, I did.

Well, I want to see what it's like, tapering off in hopes of bolstering energy. What tangled webs we weave, this medication business.

Sleep well, without worry, you know everything will be alright with or without the minor inconveniences of a pill or two. Bless you.