ramblin’ ’round

New Year’s is coming. I tried to write about being curled in the dark at the Solstice, but I left the post hanging in my draft file.

It’s raining, pouring. Now it rains in December, November, October. No doubt it will rain in January. There are lots of nights when the temps drop into the teens and single digits; and yes, there are snowstorms and cancellations and hazardous driving conditions. I’m curled in my cold house, layers of clothing as if I lived in a stone castle. When did I start to dress like an old person?

This should all be snow. I hate this rain every year now. We all know it’s wrong, at least those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s and remember a snowy winter and never saw rain from October ’til April.

Some of the curling inward this year is because I am still struggling with injury—sprains, strains, arthritis; an unknown and un-diagnosible protrusion on my L clavicle. I can’t move as well as I’d like so I curl up. I am not depressed though. I am cheerful and well-rested for the most part.

I’ve thought of writing a post chronicling all the cool things I was privileged to do this year and maybe I still will. The music, the dances, the museums. I am surrounded by art and culture and I get to go to the ocean a fair bit.

I am also thinking I will do a post about resolutions.

Here’s a Calder from the Cleveland Museum of Art which we visited on a rare Thanksgiving jaunt to Ohio.

Once when we were in New York, the kids were still very young, we saw a Calder in one of the rooms at whichever museum (MOMA? MMA?) and we blew on it. You are not allowed to make the Calder move by blowing on it and we were chided by the museum attendant. It was the definition of irony.

Such whimsy and fun:

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mulling over where to put my vaginas

1. In trying not to get too far away from my blog, I present this post.

2. Ogunquit, Maine. Halloween decor:

I call him “Dashing Charlie”

3. Monday is the day I found a dead rabbit in the side yard, a part of our yard where none of us tend to go. I didn’t touch or disturb the body, but it looked large, an adult; and perfect. It seemed too big for the cat to have downed. Hubby moved it yesterday and indeed said it did not have any apparent marks or blood on it.

4. What do you think about the rabbit (multiple choice):

a. natural causes

b. zombie apocalypse coming just in time for Halloween

c. at least twice in the 13 years we’ve lived here, the cats have brought baby bunny tributes to the door. Their fur is always perfect and thick and beautiful.

d. sad, even haunting

e. where should one put such a large, dead animal?

5. Though not completely recovered from recent injuries, I am still here and much better. I am learning that setbacks are part of injury recovery. It’s not all I’M BETTER AND BACK TO NORMAL ACTIVITIES NOW, FULL OF VIBRANT GOOD HEALTH (FOR FUCK’S SAKE). It’s more like CRAP, I TRIED SOMETHING I USED TO BE ABLE TO DO, IT HURTS LIKE HELL, AND CAN’T DO JACK SHIT FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS.

JULY 2013

50th Birthday necklace, vintage

6. I know I talk about it all the time, but I have aged even more quickly due to my recent injuries (more rapid facial aging than from the last couple of years’ bouts with anemia). I offer the above photo as evidence. See the way I am not as present as usual, some part of me is withdrawn? That is the face of a body in chronic pain.

7. UGH

8. CRAP

9a. Though you think you know me well, the next item may overstep any previous TMI boundary.

9. As we were on our way out of Provincetown in late August (our two night, last hurrah of summer mad-dash to the Cape), I visited one of the public restrooms; you know, the one near the huge public parking lot in the town center. After I used the loo,

yes, that loo

I washed my hands and then cupped them to bring some water up to my mouth so I could gently rinse (see, TMI). I did so and spat in the sink. A woman (from New Jersey, mayhaps) standing near me said, barely audibly but definitely disapprovingly enough for my ears, REALLY?

Such a dare as that, how could I resist? So I said, very loudly: YES, REALLY!

New Jersey: That’s disgusting.

Me, Happy Valley: You’re disgusting.

or something like that. Let’s just say neither of us remembered our manners and the insults continued and heightened.

She “reported” me to the attendant and kept making quite the fuss even after I, head held high, exited the restroom.

The interaction was more in depth and lasted longer than what I have presented and I can’t remember much any more. Even immediately afterward, I couldn’t piece together the whole thing because I was shaken and stirred and triumphant and shocked and angry and embarrassed and righteous. L’il ol’ me, twinklysparkles, all of that, all rolled into one.

10. I really wish 40-something, overly-made-up women from New Jersey with big hair and clanky, not-inexpensive jewelry read my blog.

11. TRAGEDY STRIKES!

(some of you may have heard about this last week on Facebook)

All seven letters, perfect, ready for a 50-point bonus, but nowhere to place them on the board.

12. How would you feel if you didn’t have a place to put your vaginas?

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falling out of the blogosphere

Long stretches between posts are now commonplace for me.

I learned a new phrase (and concept): uncanny valley.

I love the sound of it tremendously, but I don’t like the meaning. It’s a theory, nothing provable, but certainly it sheds light on the way I am simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by plastic surgery.

I am glad to know that I can still learn new things. Maybe I’m not hip, that I never knew the concept uncanny valley. The world is too big for any one person to know. We keep chipping away at it, gaining knowledge in pebbles.

I fell away from my writing and into an uncanny valley

I notice that my sleep is very disturbed lately. This is due in part to the fact that I have to wake up every weekday morning at 6:30. I still get up to help support my kids in that transition between home and bus and school. I am happy to do it, but I hate my lack of sleep.

I’ve pretty much given up on cooking. I still clean the few rooms which are not filled floor to ceiling with clutter. I couldn’t even clean when I was in the worst of the pain and immobility.

I still love the laundry. I like my fridge to sparkle white and bright inside. I organize to an extent. But I don’t give a crap about cooking for the most part. I feel so burned out. Maybe this is only since I’ve been injured, maybe longer. I can barely remember a time before this injury.

Instead of my summer schedule when I may wake in the early morning hours and can fall back to sleep until as late as 9 or 10, I wake around 4 am, am up for an hour, then have to wake up at 6:30, but I barely fall back to sleep most nights. I am getting about 4-6 hours of interrupted sleep–that’s it. I’m not too happy until I have my coffee but I can fake it most mornings til then.

When I feel good from good and long rest, I forget that I’ll ever be a victim of my insomnia again; and yet after all these years, it still rears its ugly head.

It’s been 5 months since my initial injury and I’m still not able to do yoga or to bike or swim. It’s been draining, frustrating, painful, disturbing. I am getting better, but I have really bad hours and days and nights. Soon, I hope, soon, I will be back to my old self. I know the sleep will change once I’m not in pain throughout the night. I am seeing a new physical therapist who does a particular kind of work that is unlike most physical therapy. After one session, I was monumentally better, but now my body is fading back into the habit of injury. For the next 3 weeks at least, I will have 2 sessions per week and I am hoping that will turn the tide for a good long while.

This is only the beginning. I need to write here. I hate to have such a long body of text without any images to break it up. I hate to write about the minutiae of my life and subject you to it, though you read by your own free will and I am grateful for your presence.

I will try to do better from now on out. I think my active mind will calm if I write more regularly and I won’t wake up at 4 am thinking the words.

I have so much to tell you.

♥

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