it appeals to me.
the temp is in the mid forties, it is raining and by all accounts nasty, but i like it. it is hunkering down weather. i am wet from loading and unloading groceries from the car and walmart. i picked a good time to go, for i knew the rest of the world would not be venturing out doing xmas shopping. i chose correctly.
stupid stuff got bought, and that is ok. i bought myself some much needed jeans and the cats got a bunch of stuff, including a new shedding brush and a xmas sweater to be shared by all and pictures taken. i also bought a laser light mouse, which was cheap and i had been looking for a laser pointer. they got food and kitty litter and i also bought some stuff to spray to keep them from shredding my sofa covers. likely won't work, but it was worth a try. i need a little levity around here. cats in xmas sweaters chasing laser lights sounds good to me...
my big job today is to run the sweeper and clean the kitchen floors. they are just nasty. the cats, in particular teddy, are tracking crap all over the house. they are also fighting and i keep finding little tuffs of someone's hair in the floor. freckles has a big chunk out of her back and teddy has a shred in his ear. olive is still recovering from the giant gash she got a month or so ago when she had a throwdown with freckles. the only smart one is olivia who does not engage in unladylike behavior. she is the only one actually playing with teddy. he and freckles have a no growl clause in their contracts, both being allies against the formidable olive. what a bitch she is!
once again i have purchased weird stuff to cook, none of it a particularly necessary choice for food consumption. i saw this recipe on DINERS, DRIVE INS AND DIVES that i liked. it is supposed to be wrapped in egg roll wrappers and deep fried. there were no egg roll wrappers at walmart (go figure), so i decided putting it in a burrito would probably do. or not. we'll see. i also bought more short ribs and i think i might make that into something different other than the beef soup i was surviving on all last week. pork and sausage also got bought. guy fieri says he is a POP...pal of pork. so be i.
xmas music of the new age variety is on the stereo and i have papers to read, food to cook, and the rest of the day by myself. i am getting a real taste of life alone and it isn't all that bad. tomorrow back to school and the next couple of weeks with holiday excited children.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
trying to sharpen the edges
this morning i decided i needed to do something, anything, to make myself feel a bit alive. so i got into my car with my wawa cup and just drove off. i ended up on cherokee road driving along the river west and on to old gun road.
i was taken with the quiet and the relaxed, calming look of those houses perched along the river's edge. it was upstream from the huguenot bridge and before the wiley bridge. one house was up on the ridge, looking down at the river field below it. there was a series of decks climbing down. the house itself was an older model, probably at least 40 years ago. the architecture reminded me of warnie and uncle harry's neighborhood in norfolk.
the houses were large and some were new, some were old. bellona arsenal was taking up a huge area along the river at one point around where cherokee blended into old gun road. that was what appeared to be a working farm, with cows and barns and trees. you couldn't see the river from the road, but it felt very civil war era-ish. the brick remains of the arsenal are in a curve along the road, with a huge house on the other side of the road looking down on the ruins. there were lots of huge houses, most of them almost of another era, but huge enough to be impressive...the way the other half lives. there are a lot of trees leafing over the road and surrounding most of those homes. some of the homes had long driveways and brick columns at the ends of the driveways. most of the houses were way to big to be lived in by me, but i kept thinking that if i had a lot of money, i would buy that red house with the decks and porch. i almost wanted to stop and take a picture of it. it seemed like it could have been the cover for a george winston album. at the time i was playing the "Christmas Blessings-Narada Xmas collection vol. 3" which is new age, ethereal kind of music.
once i left this area, i wandered back south into the area of southside that i grew up in in chesterfield. i ended up driving down roads that i drove around on a lot 35-40 years ago. i guess i was thinking that a trip down memory lane would make me feel better. instead, i was almost lost the whole way. the way i see the world is the imprint of what i see now over the picture of what it was. it is almost like there are 2 levels of viewing. but today, that wasn't happening, simply because the landscape had changed so radically that there was no connection between the views. i drove around to providence middle school, and for the most part that had not changed. i was reminded as i drove slowly past of my first kiss. a boy named randy white kissed me during the halftime of an afternoon basketball game, and we were leaning against the building next to the door.
i drove the back way into surreywood and got lost. this is because all that i was driving through had been nothing but thick woods, a place to explore, when i was a kid. we used to follow paths through the fields and woods with our pocket knives. there was a stream to cross where someone had built a makeshift bridge, and paths on the other side where they ran coon dogs at night. i used to listen to them at night in the winter, and it was a beautiful, bell like sound. that sound, combined with crisp winter air and the smell of leaves burning or woodsmoke from chimneys is one of my better enduring memories of childhood. in those days there were absolutely no houses and only a few, unpaved roads. there was a big old stone outcropping that we walked to and sat on a lot. now it is decoration in someone's front yard. how would they ever know that place in it's original form? we used to sled down that hill in the snow as well. even when i lived there, they were always carving out more and more roads, building more and more houses. but there were always woods and paths. you just had to walk a little further. but now, they don't exist, not at all. the trees that were young then are 40 years older now, more bark, bigger, more shady branches. but what is beneath them is no longer crisp, crushed leaves and blackened paths made by the feet of dogs and children wandering through the woods looking for something.
so i didn't really sharpen the edges much, and when i left, i went out of the world of trees and shaded homes into the glare of shopping centers and run down storage places, made over fast food places, garages, cheap junky places. i followed hull street into the city, and then turned back on to jahnke road to go to the apartment complex i lived in for 5 years. i had a hard time finding it because the trees had grown up, the apartment complexes were now surrounded by streets and homes that didn't exist 20 years ago. and st. john's woods is no longer a woods. it isn't even an apartment complex that i could see. it appears that the trees are gone, replaced by condos out shining in the light, so exposed. and i keep thinking about all of the wild and furtive things that so many of us did in that apartment complex. it was sort of a traveling social gathering, everyone knowing everyone else, moving from one apartment to another, one drama to the next. not there now, just like that life came and went. things were a lot fuzzier for me as i crossed back over the the river. for a while when i first started that trek, i was thinking that i wanted to go back there, but i realize that doesn't exist anymore and the person i was doesn't exist in that form either.
it kinda makes you wonder what makes you what you are. i find a lot of comfort returning to spots of that movie, and i plunge in with music and maybe watching old tv shows or slick 70's movies with the cheesy suits and god awful haircuts. the funny thing is that at the time, i wasn't really a part of that either, and i wasn't happy.
so when have i been happy? and the answer is i guess that i am still searching for that extended time. it has been brief in places. i spent so much of my life in depression, and then there were drugs. thank god for better living through modern chemistry. at least i have had the middle ground for a long time. but i think i am slipping below the line now, and i think i have been doing that for a long while. now i am at the point where i just don't care, which means i guess that i OUGHT to care. the lack of caring about just about anything is what is making me see that i have to find something to fix this. i am wasting a lot of light.
i was taken with the quiet and the relaxed, calming look of those houses perched along the river's edge. it was upstream from the huguenot bridge and before the wiley bridge. one house was up on the ridge, looking down at the river field below it. there was a series of decks climbing down. the house itself was an older model, probably at least 40 years ago. the architecture reminded me of warnie and uncle harry's neighborhood in norfolk.
the houses were large and some were new, some were old. bellona arsenal was taking up a huge area along the river at one point around where cherokee blended into old gun road. that was what appeared to be a working farm, with cows and barns and trees. you couldn't see the river from the road, but it felt very civil war era-ish. the brick remains of the arsenal are in a curve along the road, with a huge house on the other side of the road looking down on the ruins. there were lots of huge houses, most of them almost of another era, but huge enough to be impressive...the way the other half lives. there are a lot of trees leafing over the road and surrounding most of those homes. some of the homes had long driveways and brick columns at the ends of the driveways. most of the houses were way to big to be lived in by me, but i kept thinking that if i had a lot of money, i would buy that red house with the decks and porch. i almost wanted to stop and take a picture of it. it seemed like it could have been the cover for a george winston album. at the time i was playing the "Christmas Blessings-Narada Xmas collection vol. 3" which is new age, ethereal kind of music.
once i left this area, i wandered back south into the area of southside that i grew up in in chesterfield. i ended up driving down roads that i drove around on a lot 35-40 years ago. i guess i was thinking that a trip down memory lane would make me feel better. instead, i was almost lost the whole way. the way i see the world is the imprint of what i see now over the picture of what it was. it is almost like there are 2 levels of viewing. but today, that wasn't happening, simply because the landscape had changed so radically that there was no connection between the views. i drove around to providence middle school, and for the most part that had not changed. i was reminded as i drove slowly past of my first kiss. a boy named randy white kissed me during the halftime of an afternoon basketball game, and we were leaning against the building next to the door.
i drove the back way into surreywood and got lost. this is because all that i was driving through had been nothing but thick woods, a place to explore, when i was a kid. we used to follow paths through the fields and woods with our pocket knives. there was a stream to cross where someone had built a makeshift bridge, and paths on the other side where they ran coon dogs at night. i used to listen to them at night in the winter, and it was a beautiful, bell like sound. that sound, combined with crisp winter air and the smell of leaves burning or woodsmoke from chimneys is one of my better enduring memories of childhood. in those days there were absolutely no houses and only a few, unpaved roads. there was a big old stone outcropping that we walked to and sat on a lot. now it is decoration in someone's front yard. how would they ever know that place in it's original form? we used to sled down that hill in the snow as well. even when i lived there, they were always carving out more and more roads, building more and more houses. but there were always woods and paths. you just had to walk a little further. but now, they don't exist, not at all. the trees that were young then are 40 years older now, more bark, bigger, more shady branches. but what is beneath them is no longer crisp, crushed leaves and blackened paths made by the feet of dogs and children wandering through the woods looking for something.
so i didn't really sharpen the edges much, and when i left, i went out of the world of trees and shaded homes into the glare of shopping centers and run down storage places, made over fast food places, garages, cheap junky places. i followed hull street into the city, and then turned back on to jahnke road to go to the apartment complex i lived in for 5 years. i had a hard time finding it because the trees had grown up, the apartment complexes were now surrounded by streets and homes that didn't exist 20 years ago. and st. john's woods is no longer a woods. it isn't even an apartment complex that i could see. it appears that the trees are gone, replaced by condos out shining in the light, so exposed. and i keep thinking about all of the wild and furtive things that so many of us did in that apartment complex. it was sort of a traveling social gathering, everyone knowing everyone else, moving from one apartment to another, one drama to the next. not there now, just like that life came and went. things were a lot fuzzier for me as i crossed back over the the river. for a while when i first started that trek, i was thinking that i wanted to go back there, but i realize that doesn't exist anymore and the person i was doesn't exist in that form either.
it kinda makes you wonder what makes you what you are. i find a lot of comfort returning to spots of that movie, and i plunge in with music and maybe watching old tv shows or slick 70's movies with the cheesy suits and god awful haircuts. the funny thing is that at the time, i wasn't really a part of that either, and i wasn't happy.
so when have i been happy? and the answer is i guess that i am still searching for that extended time. it has been brief in places. i spent so much of my life in depression, and then there were drugs. thank god for better living through modern chemistry. at least i have had the middle ground for a long time. but i think i am slipping below the line now, and i think i have been doing that for a long while. now i am at the point where i just don't care, which means i guess that i OUGHT to care. the lack of caring about just about anything is what is making me see that i have to find something to fix this. i am wasting a lot of light.
another black friday in the foxhole!
i spent black friday in my house eating everything i could get my hands on and watching everything i could in my on demand files on comcast. nice, huh?
today, i hope to venture out of the house with no particular place to go and actually do something that leads to something fun. what does that mean?
i think a lot about doing stuff, like riding my bike, or talking a walk out in the woods behind the house. maybe sitting still on the deck at dusk. i think also about finishing painting the hall stairways so i could finish with the banister repair. i think also about cleaning my room, and cleaning the kitchen floors. i did take a shower and i do have clean clothes. however, i do also have a mound of unclean castoffs, and a lot of things that i should do.
considering my state of "blah" and considering my new found love of being in the foxhole, it is likely time to explore the possibility of more "ammunition" which for me means changing my medicine. i just don't think i can go into this xmas season without a few things to protect myself. attitude at xmas is everything, and if you are not prepared for the war, you will be surely shredded. considering my current cole slaw status, it is probably a good idea to force myself to get medical advice and to try and get myself a little bit up off of the ground. i am not depressed in the old way i was before drugs, but i think the reality is that i am somewhat depressed and i am starting to feel like a candidate for one of the depression on tv commercials. cimbalta anyone?
i think i could put up with most anything if i just had some enthusiasm for something, anything. i am not reading, i am listless, and i just don't care about even the basic stuff, like keeping my house clean, or looking terrific (like that every happens even in the perfectly drug balanced world!) i just can't get interested or excited about anything, and i am way too sensitive to everything. i can cry at the drop of a hat and get mad irrationally over things that i should just blow off. mostly i am feeling a lot unappreciated and devalued. i am not sure how to rectify this situation other than to get some medical help. i should have done that a long time ago, but like everything else, i just don't care enough to do anything about it.
however, it is xmas, my least favorite time of the year, and i just don't want to be a crushed cornflake when it is all over. i would like to want to cook or shop for people. right now, i don't. so off to a hopefully new doctor on monday. i will try and make the appointment with the doctor meg recommended to me and see what happens.
today, i hope to venture out of the house with no particular place to go and actually do something that leads to something fun. what does that mean?
i think a lot about doing stuff, like riding my bike, or talking a walk out in the woods behind the house. maybe sitting still on the deck at dusk. i think also about finishing painting the hall stairways so i could finish with the banister repair. i think also about cleaning my room, and cleaning the kitchen floors. i did take a shower and i do have clean clothes. however, i do also have a mound of unclean castoffs, and a lot of things that i should do.
considering my state of "blah" and considering my new found love of being in the foxhole, it is likely time to explore the possibility of more "ammunition" which for me means changing my medicine. i just don't think i can go into this xmas season without a few things to protect myself. attitude at xmas is everything, and if you are not prepared for the war, you will be surely shredded. considering my current cole slaw status, it is probably a good idea to force myself to get medical advice and to try and get myself a little bit up off of the ground. i am not depressed in the old way i was before drugs, but i think the reality is that i am somewhat depressed and i am starting to feel like a candidate for one of the depression on tv commercials. cimbalta anyone?
i think i could put up with most anything if i just had some enthusiasm for something, anything. i am not reading, i am listless, and i just don't care about even the basic stuff, like keeping my house clean, or looking terrific (like that every happens even in the perfectly drug balanced world!) i just can't get interested or excited about anything, and i am way too sensitive to everything. i can cry at the drop of a hat and get mad irrationally over things that i should just blow off. mostly i am feeling a lot unappreciated and devalued. i am not sure how to rectify this situation other than to get some medical help. i should have done that a long time ago, but like everything else, i just don't care enough to do anything about it.
however, it is xmas, my least favorite time of the year, and i just don't want to be a crushed cornflake when it is all over. i would like to want to cook or shop for people. right now, i don't. so off to a hopefully new doctor on monday. i will try and make the appointment with the doctor meg recommended to me and see what happens.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
thanksgiving 2008
it was a very easy day. i like thanksgiving. no gifts. good food. no pressure. just eat, jawbone, go home. i showed up with kale, made the gravy, carved the turkey, made mashed potatoes, and helped pam with the dilemma of what to do with the rolls...they were a little too wet. more flour, a bit more time to rise, and they came out fine.
austin had thanksgiving with his father and his family. i hung around at pam's longer than i thought i would. it is cold outside and the sky is clear. i love the smell of the woodsmoke coming from the wood burning furnace at pam's house. i downloaded pam's reb trip pictures, although i am missing a chunk (473-627) and it took forever. i talked a little politics with taylor and i rocked baby madelyn to sleep while everyone else ate. that, in itself, was a miracle, since i don't do babies. but she was sweet, sucking on her fingers because she is cutting some teeth. so she and i sat in the tv room watching football while i whispered to her "baseball!baseball!" and did a little reiki.
austin had thanksgiving with his father and his family. i hung around at pam's longer than i thought i would. it is cold outside and the sky is clear. i love the smell of the woodsmoke coming from the wood burning furnace at pam's house. i downloaded pam's reb trip pictures, although i am missing a chunk (473-627) and it took forever. i talked a little politics with taylor and i rocked baby madelyn to sleep while everyone else ate. that, in itself, was a miracle, since i don't do babies. but she was sweet, sucking on her fingers because she is cutting some teeth. so she and i sat in the tv room watching football while i whispered to her "baseball!baseball!" and did a little reiki.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
cold now in virginia
finally, the weather has gotten colder. while my bones feel pretty achy, my spirits are up. i like fall, and i like the cold. gloomy doesn't bother me, and the smells are very comforting.
baseball is over for now, and the focus has switched to basketball for the next couple of months. austin will continue with the pitching lessons the first weekend in december, and then back on a more regular basis after the first of the year. he is still in contact with various coaches and we are trying to start arranging for visits to the various campuses, including uva and clemson. unc probably will not sign him. unlv has offered him basically a full ride for everything. if he stays healthy, he should have some good options.
i am looking forward to this coming weekend, when i don't have to go out of town or down to prince george all weekend for baseball. while it has been sort of fun watching things snowball for austin, it has been way too exhausting for me. i have had exactly 2 unplanned weekends home since sept. 1. i need some down time along with some sleep. my house is a mess and is pretty reflective of my life, which is piles of this and that everywhere, with me just picking from the piles.
the windows are open in my room each night, the cats are all around, and the xm radio lulls me to sleep at night. while i am tired and i hurt all the time, i am ok. i am looking forward to thanksgiving and then i get to start dreading xmas....
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
the office...and the joys of a little dvd player
austin b is in my lst block class and every thursday he wears his dwight schute t-shirt. thursday is the day that THE OFFICE comes on tv. i happened to ask once i think about the shirt and thus ensued a campaign to get me to watch THE OFFICE so i would understand. the campaign ended with the season 3 dvd.
season 3 hung around my house for more than a month until i finally put it into my austin's dvd player one night a couple of weeks ago. it was like watching a train wreck! the lack of social skills of the characters is so appalling that you almost want to hide your face! i can only liken my fascination with this tv horror to my addiction to ROCK OF LOVE a couple of years ago. that, too was horrid...and i kept watching it. skanky, nasty, stupid chicks all competing to be bret michael's "rock of love" and, boy, the things women will do to cut each other out...
THE OFFICE...well, i am off to watch disc 2 of the set...
season 3 hung around my house for more than a month until i finally put it into my austin's dvd player one night a couple of weeks ago. it was like watching a train wreck! the lack of social skills of the characters is so appalling that you almost want to hide your face! i can only liken my fascination with this tv horror to my addiction to ROCK OF LOVE a couple of years ago. that, too was horrid...and i kept watching it. skanky, nasty, stupid chicks all competing to be bret michael's "rock of love" and, boy, the things women will do to cut each other out...
THE OFFICE...well, i am off to watch disc 2 of the set...
finally, election OVER!
i stayed home yesterday and i did vote. i didn't feel too good about it, and i still don't feel anything about this election other than i am glad it is over with, period. it has been one long, drawn out cat fight and i think we have all bled just a little.
my hope is that those who are happy that obama was elected do not gloat. i also hope that those who hate him do not stir the sparks of racism and create a greater schism between whites and blacks.
in many ways i wish that i could be excited by obama and what he may bring to the white house. i suppose i am just numbed out about everything political. i would like to believe, but i just can't. i guess i have turned into an old skeptic and a negative one at that. i fear, as do many, that some nutcase will take a pot shot at him. should he be killed, i cannot imagine the repercussions that would reverberate across this country. whatever has brought us together to this historic point could just as easily be taken away and reversed. but i guess i need to develop some faith, faith that people are basically good, as ann frank said in her diary. that somewhere in this crazy world people still believe in helping each other and working for a greater good than just the almighty dollar.
my hope is that those who are happy that obama was elected do not gloat. i also hope that those who hate him do not stir the sparks of racism and create a greater schism between whites and blacks.
in many ways i wish that i could be excited by obama and what he may bring to the white house. i suppose i am just numbed out about everything political. i would like to believe, but i just can't. i guess i have turned into an old skeptic and a negative one at that. i fear, as do many, that some nutcase will take a pot shot at him. should he be killed, i cannot imagine the repercussions that would reverberate across this country. whatever has brought us together to this historic point could just as easily be taken away and reversed. but i guess i need to develop some faith, faith that people are basically good, as ann frank said in her diary. that somewhere in this crazy world people still believe in helping each other and working for a greater good than just the almighty dollar.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
drama magnet, part I
i can't figure out how it is that i manage to offend people in such innocuous ways. i enjoy writing o this blog, but for the life of me, i can't understand how doing this could become a problem. in the years i have kept it, i have never gotten a comment, period. i made the name for the blog one that wasn't connected to me in any way, and one in which, unless you had the address, you couldn't find me. yet someone did, and complained about a post i made.
had it been just a stranger, then i would have probably blown it off. but it was some family member of bette's, and she and her family were appalled that i had written about bette on my blog for all the world to see. first, i can't imagine how in hell they would have been able to find my blog, or why they were even looking. secondly, i just talk to myself since no one knows i am here. bette's death was shocking and horrible. i wrote about it for myself. but i deleted it at the "family's request." and now i feel terrible. i didn't do anything to try and harm anyone. it was just for me, like a diary. the worst part of this is that i worked with bette for years, was aware of what was going on with her, tried to help her, have contributed to the fund for her, and was appalled at how her death was handled, both by the school people and the medical system that failed her. her family doesn't know me, except her sister, and i guess everyone deals with things differently.
i can't win. but i did go and remove the blog from any way to be viewed from the outside other than by invitation, and now i am not inviting anyone. i think only 3 people even know i have it out there, so i guess i will just put them on the ok list and let it fly.
had it been just a stranger, then i would have probably blown it off. but it was some family member of bette's, and she and her family were appalled that i had written about bette on my blog for all the world to see. first, i can't imagine how in hell they would have been able to find my blog, or why they were even looking. secondly, i just talk to myself since no one knows i am here. bette's death was shocking and horrible. i wrote about it for myself. but i deleted it at the "family's request." and now i feel terrible. i didn't do anything to try and harm anyone. it was just for me, like a diary. the worst part of this is that i worked with bette for years, was aware of what was going on with her, tried to help her, have contributed to the fund for her, and was appalled at how her death was handled, both by the school people and the medical system that failed her. her family doesn't know me, except her sister, and i guess everyone deals with things differently.
i can't win. but i did go and remove the blog from any way to be viewed from the outside other than by invitation, and now i am not inviting anyone. i think only 3 people even know i have it out there, so i guess i will just put them on the ok list and let it fly.
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