Grrrrrrrrrr!!!
I mean it!
What IS it with people who feeled compelled to justify themselves or exhault themselves by commenting against another's opinion? There are contrasting opinions, surely, that urge further development of a topic and perhaps encourage interesting discussion; and then there are just juxtaposed assertions that people make to contradict what you JUST said.
Does this make them feel better? What is the angle of thought that brings them to those conclusions?
Speaker 1: Is that the one you're talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: (knowing full well of speaker 2's blatant feelings on the matter) I've never had a problem with her
Speaker 2: *silence*
Okay, so then it's just a matter of opinions, but there was a whole dialogue of facial expression and body language to lightly pepper the whole verbal exchange with other-meaning-ness. The order of comments would be redone as follows:
Speaker 1, eyebrows raised, curious but focused eyes, face rigid: Is that the one you're talking about?
Speaker 2, leaning in, head tilted slightly: Yeah.
Speaker 1: with former knowledge of speaker 2's blatant feelings on the matter, corners of mouth back, as in half smile or bitter taste, speaks through teeth: I've never had a problem with her. Recovers with smile.
Speaker 2: *silence*
What is really going on is that I am biting my tongue. To keep from saying exactly what, I'm not sure, but I feel so instantly terrible. I am bitten, defensive, and then puffed up just as fast, like a blowfish of post-indignation and fuming incredulousness. I mean WHO says these things? Why? I figure the answer is people who are looking to make themselves feel good and cover their own arses for the things they've said or done before. I suppose so. Reading back over those words even now, they seem unconvincing on virtual paper.
It's like an underlying jab, You cant handle HER? This reaction by a person I barely know making me feel though I am this underdeveloped thing--it tends to suggest who the real contestant for growth should be, even though every last moment and every last trial of my entire adult life has gone into refining and readjusting my perceptions so that I am very much a world-is-my-oyster kind of person.
I would maybe just chaulk this up to how I read things. I've been known in the past to read too far into things (this being a general theme for the way I've emoted throughout my life), but this really takes on a new theme. I have been very aware of my ability to stretch the meaning of a look, facial expression, posture, so I've kept them in check, but I need perspective.
23 February 2009
22 February 2009
So, let me fill in the story some more.
I am not a bitter woman. I don't really even believe I was bitter back then. I was just overwhelmed. It was the third time Kyle was in the thick of diagnosis and treatments for cancer. The girls were so little, the oldest was two, the youngest 6 months and I felt like I had so much to catch up on, catch up to, and couldn't do it. Always behind or ill-equipped or underpaid or young or all of those and doing what I had to out of blank necessity, rather than marked choice.
And then it came to be that the head of our household came under fate's fire, even before we had a chance to establish "a household." While you don't have a choice when that kind of thing happens to a family, there was another, entirely different span of life as a single mother I had just gotten out of to compound what emotions I already had about our current situation. Matters of an undefined sort, relating to years prior to getting married, cycled through the brain which I had not seperated, understood and resolved before jumping into marriage, moving out of the country, and facing expat life with a sick husband.
I am not a bitter woman. I don't really even believe I was bitter back then. I was just overwhelmed. It was the third time Kyle was in the thick of diagnosis and treatments for cancer. The girls were so little, the oldest was two, the youngest 6 months and I felt like I had so much to catch up on, catch up to, and couldn't do it. Always behind or ill-equipped or underpaid or young or all of those and doing what I had to out of blank necessity, rather than marked choice.
And then it came to be that the head of our household came under fate's fire, even before we had a chance to establish "a household." While you don't have a choice when that kind of thing happens to a family, there was another, entirely different span of life as a single mother I had just gotten out of to compound what emotions I already had about our current situation. Matters of an undefined sort, relating to years prior to getting married, cycled through the brain which I had not seperated, understood and resolved before jumping into marriage, moving out of the country, and facing expat life with a sick husband.
So there we were then, living as urban nomads between cities and people's homes, possessions literally stored in the garages, basements, and schools of people we had just met in order to answer to the demands of Kyle's prognosis. In the middle of that, I had decided to move in, against the wishes of my in-laws, with his aunt who had her own ideas of how to be helpful; and it just didn't go smoothly at all. In fact, it was the farthest thing from smooth OR amicable. It would eventually turn into something of a disaster in micro-epic proportions.
21 February 2009
To all cooks, you have my endearing heart
From the first of the morning,
To the last off the grill,
You set out the food,
ne'er to chill.
The peppers and onions,
the panfries and gravy,
and all of the food stuff
so scrumptious and savory.
You make this all happen
with a flick of the wrist,
with a pinch of green onions,
and, well, you get the gist.
From chicken sans bones
To special du jour,
Your plates come out steaming,
Your saucer's couture.
From pasta al dente
to denvers with cheese,
we only see part of
what the cook sees.
You re-do our orders,
you fix our mistakes,
you give us the job,
you do what it takes.
We know you are special,
a little whacky, too,
but it's because of your breed
and how you make do.
We take off our hats
and tip them to you
because you're our cooks
and in our own ways, we love you, too!
To the last off the grill,
You set out the food,
ne'er to chill.
The peppers and onions,
the panfries and gravy,
and all of the food stuff
so scrumptious and savory.
You make this all happen
with a flick of the wrist,
with a pinch of green onions,
and, well, you get the gist.
From chicken sans bones
To special du jour,
Your plates come out steaming,
Your saucer's couture.
From pasta al dente
to denvers with cheese,
we only see part of
what the cook sees.
You re-do our orders,
you fix our mistakes,
you give us the job,
you do what it takes.
We know you are special,
a little whacky, too,
but it's because of your breed
and how you make do.
We take off our hats
and tip them to you
because you're our cooks
and in our own ways, we love you, too!
19 February 2009
I remember being SOOO angry at her every time I went down the stairs. If it wasn't for me being on the computer late at night, it was for the way I did the dishes or disciplined (or didn't discipline) my girls or borrowed hangers or cleaned the house or fed my then-6-month-old. I had HAD enough. Every. Single. Time. I did something, I heard about it.
She had missed the polo vaccine by a year. Her limping gait was painfully pulled to one side and she had the gall to wear shorts in April, which revealed gargantuan scars from multiple corrective surgeries. She waddled her way around everywhere she went, including a house she could barely maneuver in, and did her best to live the most normal life she could live and gaining everyone's sympathy doing it.
But she was the closest thing to the antichrist.
If she wasn't aimlessly waiting to find some weird, piddling chore for me to do or craft for her to make herself, she was rearranging her cupboards for the fifty-millionth time or eating Honeycomb cereal dry in a bowl. Think little old lady in the gingerbread house with OCD.
I am not making this up.
One night, she was so intensely into her rearranging that she fell off the stepstool she should have NEVER been on and laid passed out on the kitchen floor. I was thinking, good, she's dead, but her daughter's face was crumpled with fear at the sight of her mother, so we called an ambulance. Neither of us were about to lift her to the car ourselves. Especially when we would have had get my girls in the car along with a heavy, passed out woman.
In the hospital late that night, she cried to me with contrived quivering. She was "so" sorry and was I mad at her. Mad at her? MAD at her? For what? Falling off the stool? For using absolutely zero common sense to stay off it when she had problems balancing at the best of times? For making my life a living hell when my husband, HER nephew, was sick with cancer in the hospital? For making me drag my two little girls out of bed at that late hour? For scaring the bejeezus out of me when the last thing I wanted to do was give a shit? Hell yeah, I was!
But I just swallowed it. No, I said, I'm not mad and how could I be mad, it was just an accident.
But seriously. What was one more thing going to do? One more incident? Drama session? What MORE damage could possibly be done that hadn't been done by ONE more thing? What single thing could have caused any more discord, heartache, and resentment than there already was? I was beyond exhausted. Beyond seasoned. Beyond the flip out point. Beyond recognition of all things congnitive. I was fucked.
* * *
She was also the assistant director of an inner city-type daycare. The very same one that SHE suggested my girls went to during the day so that I could be at the hospital with Kyle. I really don't know how someone like her gets a job in that field. You can preach a love for kids all you want and then straddle a 6-month-old, whose poor neck can only take so much, on your decrepit hip. Or enforce spoon feeding. Or coloring. Or building with blocks. If the kid is disinterested, he's disinterested. You can't make him interested by continuing to shove that spoon, that toy, that crayon down their proverbial throats.
Somehow, I let this happen. I let myself believe that enrolling them there would at least provide them with some normalcy while I spent the day at the hospital. At least that's what I figure because it bothered me deeply to leave them there alone--"alone" as in, without me and yet, I did it anyway. It didn't feel right, but maybe that's because I just hated her. And I never hated anyone. I needed to know they would be well taken care of, I needed proof, and I just didn't trust her. The daycare worked, though. The girls got to spend the days surrounded by toys, activities, scheduled meals, naps, friends, and a staff that didn't necessarily always include her while I sat in a sterile hospital room with an alien husband watching re-runs of Three's Company, Northern Exposure, and MacGyver with him.
Plus she was allergic (allegedly allergic) to just about everything: nuts, milk, bananas, lotion, medical tape, sitting, standing, wool, cotton (I think; a few of those I just made up, but then so did she, so I guess we're even?), common sense. When she wasn't spending my $650/month rent payments on craft crap from Michael's, 32-inch television sets, new computers, bedroom sets for their daughter or more, she was "helping" me to the hospital, carrying my 6-month-old, head bobbing side-to-side to the erratic rhythm of her lopsided steps.
Everything about her dichotomous ways curdled my blood.
She had missed the polo vaccine by a year. Her limping gait was painfully pulled to one side and she had the gall to wear shorts in April, which revealed gargantuan scars from multiple corrective surgeries. She waddled her way around everywhere she went, including a house she could barely maneuver in, and did her best to live the most normal life she could live and gaining everyone's sympathy doing it.
But she was the closest thing to the antichrist.
If she wasn't aimlessly waiting to find some weird, piddling chore for me to do or craft for her to make herself, she was rearranging her cupboards for the fifty-millionth time or eating Honeycomb cereal dry in a bowl. Think little old lady in the gingerbread house with OCD.
I am not making this up.
One night, she was so intensely into her rearranging that she fell off the stepstool she should have NEVER been on and laid passed out on the kitchen floor. I was thinking, good, she's dead, but her daughter's face was crumpled with fear at the sight of her mother, so we called an ambulance. Neither of us were about to lift her to the car ourselves. Especially when we would have had get my girls in the car along with a heavy, passed out woman.
In the hospital late that night, she cried to me with contrived quivering. She was "so" sorry and was I mad at her. Mad at her? MAD at her? For what? Falling off the stool? For using absolutely zero common sense to stay off it when she had problems balancing at the best of times? For making my life a living hell when my husband, HER nephew, was sick with cancer in the hospital? For making me drag my two little girls out of bed at that late hour? For scaring the bejeezus out of me when the last thing I wanted to do was give a shit? Hell yeah, I was!
But I just swallowed it. No, I said, I'm not mad and how could I be mad, it was just an accident.
But seriously. What was one more thing going to do? One more incident? Drama session? What MORE damage could possibly be done that hadn't been done by ONE more thing? What single thing could have caused any more discord, heartache, and resentment than there already was? I was beyond exhausted. Beyond seasoned. Beyond the flip out point. Beyond recognition of all things congnitive. I was fucked.
* * *
She was also the assistant director of an inner city-type daycare. The very same one that SHE suggested my girls went to during the day so that I could be at the hospital with Kyle. I really don't know how someone like her gets a job in that field. You can preach a love for kids all you want and then straddle a 6-month-old, whose poor neck can only take so much, on your decrepit hip. Or enforce spoon feeding. Or coloring. Or building with blocks. If the kid is disinterested, he's disinterested. You can't make him interested by continuing to shove that spoon, that toy, that crayon down their proverbial throats.
Somehow, I let this happen. I let myself believe that enrolling them there would at least provide them with some normalcy while I spent the day at the hospital. At least that's what I figure because it bothered me deeply to leave them there alone--"alone" as in, without me and yet, I did it anyway. It didn't feel right, but maybe that's because I just hated her. And I never hated anyone. I needed to know they would be well taken care of, I needed proof, and I just didn't trust her. The daycare worked, though. The girls got to spend the days surrounded by toys, activities, scheduled meals, naps, friends, and a staff that didn't necessarily always include her while I sat in a sterile hospital room with an alien husband watching re-runs of Three's Company, Northern Exposure, and MacGyver with him.
Plus she was allergic (allegedly allergic) to just about everything: nuts, milk, bananas, lotion, medical tape, sitting, standing, wool, cotton (I think; a few of those I just made up, but then so did she, so I guess we're even?), common sense. When she wasn't spending my $650/month rent payments on craft crap from Michael's, 32-inch television sets, new computers, bedroom sets for their daughter or more, she was "helping" me to the hospital, carrying my 6-month-old, head bobbing side-to-side to the erratic rhythm of her lopsided steps.
Everything about her dichotomous ways curdled my blood.
18 February 2009
Tonight I was taking care of the dining room while my co-closing partner-in-crime waitress-friend, K, was covering my back with all the side chores when "SHE" comes in.
I barely notice her, I'm around and around with the coffee, getting drinks, taking orders, punching them in, covering everyone. She comes in with someone I assume to be her boyfriend. I've seen them together before. She is pregnant. Not that that matters. Except I could never roundhouse her grouchy ass if my life depended on it.
Take one: I stop at the table, ask for drinks. The snotface boyfriend straightens up and orders a chicken burger. I have my hands full. I say okay. I smile. I am still trying to commit other requests to memory and think if I could just get over to the till, set these down...
"Just plain. But with pickles."
Say what? Back up, dishes, cloth and coffee pot. "What's that?" What I mean: "what the fuck do you want NOW, you whiny, bitter, unhappy little prick?"
At that instant, I am in danger of forgetting table 6's request. Pie. Platter. No. Ice cream? No, cheese, but... gotta put these down. Just give me two seconds, please. I'll be right back.
No dice. He's not reading the dish-laden pleading in my eyes OR hands, probably because it's overlaced with sheer albeit momentary hate. In fact, he's not even looking her eyes. They look scowled and disconnected. Was he bitterly caught up in this pregnancy? Did she have him by the cranky, snotty, sour-faced balls? Has every moment in their lives been one trapped moment to another?
I don't hate anyone. I also don't care. They deserve each other for all I can tell. A match made in the respites of hell.
I say, "so you just want chicken and pickles?" This is not the strangest request I've heard. And I say in a way that means "just the chicken burger and pickles. No lettuce, tomato, or mayo."
"No. I just want---" blah, blah, blah, his voice fades. I get short.
Me: "Let me set these down 'cause otherwise I'll forget." I say this with my own trickling snotiness. I call it attitude. I walk away.
I've waited on this unhappy miserable couple before. She is usually the only female among two or more males accompanying her. Who really knows why, but I'm just sayin'... Maybe she is the cool, one-of-the-guys girls, but she is just too snotty to be cool. And they all seem as snotty as she is. So when I figure THAT just can't be, I figure the obvious opposite. I mean, she IS pregnant.
Yes, that wild snickering you hear is me.
I was warned about her the first time I waited on her. She didn't seem that bad. I've worked with worse. My mission in life is to take what seems impossible and work it over to a possibility. I walk away from the experience unscathed. I say this so you can know how much worse it gets...
I don't have time to think about how to better deal with this table. I have six other tables on the go and the coffee crowd is trickling in. They are my first stop every round I make. They'll survive. Put in all the orders, drop off my dishes, regain my brain, go around with the coffee again. I am ready, I brace myself to confirm Thorn In Ass-Man's order.
Take two: "Okay," smile, "you wanted a chicken burger with pickles?
TIAM: "Myeah-s."
Me: "Okay." Half-smile. Nod. Around I go again. Everyone is happy. It is somewhere around nine. Anyone coming in to order food is chatting and content, even the picky coffee-crowd food orders are happy.
Or at least I try to go around.
"And could I get a glass of water?" She Devil blurts out.
Hmm? Again, back up, pause, double check.
Me: "Water? Sure." Around I go. Note to self: GET WATER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE!
I go around, put the chicken burger into the system, check on everyone, get to the back. I forget the water. Chicken burger comes out, I coffee the other male to have joined the table. I still don't bring water. Let me side note by saying this is NOT the kind of woman who is appreciative of good service in the best of moments. And this was a lesser moment for me.
I begin to make another pass of coffee, water not even on the brain, go by Miserable Bitch's and TIAM's table. As I go by, she barks at me.
"Could I GET my water?" I systematically feel bad for forgetting, then it passes. She is snippy and sneery and I feel like slapping little hoochies like this across the face at the best of times. There's no reason for that kind of attitude. Didn't your mama teach you? No? Okay, I'll do it, I'll slap your face, I'll knock you clean off your ass, b****!
I think about spitting in her water, horking a loogie in it. I go back to the kitchen to hide for a moment.
Let me back up and say that it is important to note that I have an instant temper in this very exact kind of situation. Actually, that is an understatement. I actually feel muscles in my body recoil and patience snapping like a bow string, and everything goes into some kind of Joker-like senselessness in my brain. I'm not going to go apeshit or fly into a murerous rage. It DOES make me want to start backhanding assholes. Just backhand them so hard they feel knuckle, head bobbling backward, lips hitting their teeth, their reactions stunned, maybe a little trickle of blood because obviously their mamas didn't teach them how to be good little boys and girls.
I grunt. K laughs because she knows what I am going through. I go back and get two waters. I'm thinking about which cup is hers, not wanting to fill one, not wanting to bring it to her, not WANTING... her to get her way. Her snotty, snotty way. I fill it anyway. I don't spit in it. I don't even stick my dirty, bleachy, greasy finger in it.
I bring it to her table and slam it down. I do not go by their table again. They leave and they don't tip. All I can think of is...
"Don't F*** with the people who serve you your food!" (Don't watch past the kitchen scene if you gag easy.)
Disclaimer: This does not, nor will this apply to anyone else, any other customer, anyone else I have ever waited on or will wait on. This is just for my sick, sick amusement.
I barely notice her, I'm around and around with the coffee, getting drinks, taking orders, punching them in, covering everyone. She comes in with someone I assume to be her boyfriend. I've seen them together before. She is pregnant. Not that that matters. Except I could never roundhouse her grouchy ass if my life depended on it.
Take one: I stop at the table, ask for drinks. The snotface boyfriend straightens up and orders a chicken burger. I have my hands full. I say okay. I smile. I am still trying to commit other requests to memory and think if I could just get over to the till, set these down...
"Just plain. But with pickles."
Say what? Back up, dishes, cloth and coffee pot. "What's that?" What I mean: "what the fuck do you want NOW, you whiny, bitter, unhappy little prick?"
At that instant, I am in danger of forgetting table 6's request. Pie. Platter. No. Ice cream? No, cheese, but... gotta put these down. Just give me two seconds, please. I'll be right back.
No dice. He's not reading the dish-laden pleading in my eyes OR hands, probably because it's overlaced with sheer albeit momentary hate. In fact, he's not even looking her eyes. They look scowled and disconnected. Was he bitterly caught up in this pregnancy? Did she have him by the cranky, snotty, sour-faced balls? Has every moment in their lives been one trapped moment to another?
I don't hate anyone. I also don't care. They deserve each other for all I can tell. A match made in the respites of hell.
I say, "so you just want chicken and pickles?" This is not the strangest request I've heard. And I say in a way that means "just the chicken burger and pickles. No lettuce, tomato, or mayo."
"No. I just want---" blah, blah, blah, his voice fades. I get short.
Me: "Let me set these down 'cause otherwise I'll forget." I say this with my own trickling snotiness. I call it attitude. I walk away.
I've waited on this unhappy miserable couple before. She is usually the only female among two or more males accompanying her. Who really knows why, but I'm just sayin'... Maybe she is the cool, one-of-the-guys girls, but she is just too snotty to be cool. And they all seem as snotty as she is. So when I figure THAT just can't be, I figure the obvious opposite. I mean, she IS pregnant.
Yes, that wild snickering you hear is me.
I was warned about her the first time I waited on her. She didn't seem that bad. I've worked with worse. My mission in life is to take what seems impossible and work it over to a possibility. I walk away from the experience unscathed. I say this so you can know how much worse it gets...
I don't have time to think about how to better deal with this table. I have six other tables on the go and the coffee crowd is trickling in. They are my first stop every round I make. They'll survive. Put in all the orders, drop off my dishes, regain my brain, go around with the coffee again. I am ready, I brace myself to confirm Thorn In Ass-Man's order.
Take two: "Okay," smile, "you wanted a chicken burger with pickles?
TIAM: "Myeah-s."
Me: "Okay." Half-smile. Nod. Around I go again. Everyone is happy. It is somewhere around nine. Anyone coming in to order food is chatting and content, even the picky coffee-crowd food orders are happy.
Or at least I try to go around.
"And could I get a glass of water?" She Devil blurts out.
Hmm? Again, back up, pause, double check.
Me: "Water? Sure." Around I go. Note to self: GET WATER BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE!
I go around, put the chicken burger into the system, check on everyone, get to the back. I forget the water. Chicken burger comes out, I coffee the other male to have joined the table. I still don't bring water. Let me side note by saying this is NOT the kind of woman who is appreciative of good service in the best of moments. And this was a lesser moment for me.
I begin to make another pass of coffee, water not even on the brain, go by Miserable Bitch's and TIAM's table. As I go by, she barks at me.
"Could I GET my water?" I systematically feel bad for forgetting, then it passes. She is snippy and sneery and I feel like slapping little hoochies like this across the face at the best of times. There's no reason for that kind of attitude. Didn't your mama teach you? No? Okay, I'll do it, I'll slap your face, I'll knock you clean off your ass, b****!
I think about spitting in her water, horking a loogie in it. I go back to the kitchen to hide for a moment.
Let me back up and say that it is important to note that I have an instant temper in this very exact kind of situation. Actually, that is an understatement. I actually feel muscles in my body recoil and patience snapping like a bow string, and everything goes into some kind of Joker-like senselessness in my brain. I'm not going to go apeshit or fly into a murerous rage. It DOES make me want to start backhanding assholes. Just backhand them so hard they feel knuckle, head bobbling backward, lips hitting their teeth, their reactions stunned, maybe a little trickle of blood because obviously their mamas didn't teach them how to be good little boys and girls.
I grunt. K laughs because she knows what I am going through. I go back and get two waters. I'm thinking about which cup is hers, not wanting to fill one, not wanting to bring it to her, not WANTING... her to get her way. Her snotty, snotty way. I fill it anyway. I don't spit in it. I don't even stick my dirty, bleachy, greasy finger in it.
I bring it to her table and slam it down. I do not go by their table again. They leave and they don't tip. All I can think of is...
"Don't F*** with the people who serve you your food!" (Don't watch past the kitchen scene if you gag easy.)
Disclaimer: This does not, nor will this apply to anyone else, any other customer, anyone else I have ever waited on or will wait on. This is just for my sick, sick amusement.
When I was 21, I walked into Kyle's hospital room by myself, ahead of the girls by either a few steps or my mother-in-law keeping them in the hall, and timidly approached the corner of the in-room bathroom wall, relieved to be near Kyle again.
The girls were little. Aurora was two and a half, Celia just 6 months old and still needing to be carried. We'd trekked the two hours it takes to get from where I was living with friends in Brandon to the city of Winnipeg, over to Health Sciences, parked in the parkade, baby brigade stuffed, into the elevator, up to D6 (cancer ward), down the hall, through the double doors that locked on one side until the other side was shut, and down the everlasting hall towards Kyle's room.
It was the second visit since moving him into the hospital. He was going to be staying there a whole long while the plans were to chemo the hell out of him and then do something-can't remember-something when he was something-something-better.
But nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see as my legs carried me around the corner and my husband, 24 and with a full, thick head of hair the last time I saw him, was bald as a baby's behind. His beard was gone, his eyebrows were gone, his moustache was gone, even his smile was gone, but it wasn't that which catapulted me forward and threw me backwards all at once. It was his eyes. They were stark and sunken and very, very wide. I realized his eyelashes were gone, too, and it made his eyes look very, very bulging and very unfamiliar.
I didn't want to react. I didn't want him to see my face or feel my reaction or read negativity or feel inadequate in any way, even though it was spurning. This could not have been my husband. Did I step into the wrong room? I would have looked back to check, except if it hadn't been, Linda wouldn't have been outside the door. I was in absolute shock. I wasn't repulsed, but I had fleetingly wished I could do the moment over, wished someone would have told me what I was going to see. He looked at me with strange eyes and for having been an eye-girl my whole life, this was deeply unnerving. I wanted to cry.
But I didn't. In a flash and without them fully forming in my mind, thoughts of how could I have-- what if he doesn-- look at him!-- married-- really??-- how can we-- how are we-- is there-- what if this doesn't-- how can you-- crossed my mind. I had no idea, no creative way, no place to think of something more concrete, more positive or a way to deal with what I had just seen, what I was still seeing, this situation, the unbelievable course our lives were taking, and the whole unknown of Kyle's outcome--when and if he'd heal, if he would live, what kind of state or quality of life he'd have if he did survive all of that, all of what had already made him...
...that starkly hairless.
I didn't even know that I didn't know which thoughts exactly I was having. But without any sense of acceptance or bracing myself, I went to the next moment. This is how my life went in those days. One dramatic moment to the next, no time to chew, digest, accept and move on in between. No chance to heal or completely grow (or at least grow more than just a mere fraction) from one thing life flung at me to the next and I was just so, so young and the furthest thing from being an "old soul."
* * *
I just did what I had to. A lot of where I'd been in my life before this was a culmination of results directly related to choices I had made. And while that seems obvious, it wasn't to me. Rather than see the bigger picture for what it was and where I needed to go while doing for myself, I just made these partitioned decisions, out of those specific moments, thinking of immediate consequences, those solo sections of time, and from an emotional place; and when I did think of the future, it was with removed, idealistic, and marginal concept from where to perceive or relate to some unreachable, unknown future date.
As I discover (remember) more of my childhood over time and as I listen to Enigma's "Return To Innocence" right now and wonder how it ALL... just ever... went so wrong.... I put it together. I recall the rollover we were in where I suffered a major concussion. To this day I don't know the extent of damage, but it bothers me that don't know. It bothers me that I was in ICU for three days, but released without full report. Hell, I would have taken a partial report. I don't know what the doctors told Kyle, my mom, my dad. Anyway, I have major difficulty in remembering these things, remembering things I've learned time and again, and I think it's just me, but then I talk to Kyle and he says I was never that way before the accident.
So. It begs the question which lobes were affected and what do each lobe of the brain control? Is this why I am having such difficulty keeping a hold of the things I have learned? Is there any relation to this head trauma--trauma I thought I'd healed from--and these weird jostlings of memory?
For some reason, there is just this entire seperate chunk of remembering my childhood, hearing and seeing things that remind me of if and remembering things I have long forgotten, and the entire seperate chunks of my life after leaving home, having a child so young, the accident, cancer, even moving to Canada without so much as a second thought, and all the transitional agonies in between. Why do I feel so at odds with myself in these fleeting moments? It is embarrassing to move on, go through the stages of moving on, feeling resolved and then regressing back to those, as though I've never put the issue away.
It's just all so confusing. Even as I write this, my brain is wanting to go off in a million directions. There's gotta be a reason for this, for thinking here, there, then back over here, then over there, and back again. After a while, a gal starts to realize that not even female hardwiring can make a brain jump around like that and remember odd memories that may or may not even be memories, just dreams, or random thoughts.
*Sigh. It's time to get ready for work now.
The girls were little. Aurora was two and a half, Celia just 6 months old and still needing to be carried. We'd trekked the two hours it takes to get from where I was living with friends in Brandon to the city of Winnipeg, over to Health Sciences, parked in the parkade, baby brigade stuffed, into the elevator, up to D6 (cancer ward), down the hall, through the double doors that locked on one side until the other side was shut, and down the everlasting hall towards Kyle's room.
It was the second visit since moving him into the hospital. He was going to be staying there a whole long while the plans were to chemo the hell out of him and then do something-can't remember-something when he was something-something-better.
But nothing could prepare me for what I was about to see as my legs carried me around the corner and my husband, 24 and with a full, thick head of hair the last time I saw him, was bald as a baby's behind. His beard was gone, his eyebrows were gone, his moustache was gone, even his smile was gone, but it wasn't that which catapulted me forward and threw me backwards all at once. It was his eyes. They were stark and sunken and very, very wide. I realized his eyelashes were gone, too, and it made his eyes look very, very bulging and very unfamiliar.
I didn't want to react. I didn't want him to see my face or feel my reaction or read negativity or feel inadequate in any way, even though it was spurning. This could not have been my husband. Did I step into the wrong room? I would have looked back to check, except if it hadn't been, Linda wouldn't have been outside the door. I was in absolute shock. I wasn't repulsed, but I had fleetingly wished I could do the moment over, wished someone would have told me what I was going to see. He looked at me with strange eyes and for having been an eye-girl my whole life, this was deeply unnerving. I wanted to cry.
But I didn't. In a flash and without them fully forming in my mind, thoughts of how could I have-- what if he doesn-- look at him!-- married-- really??-- how can we-- how are we-- is there-- what if this doesn't-- how can you-- crossed my mind. I had no idea, no creative way, no place to think of something more concrete, more positive or a way to deal with what I had just seen, what I was still seeing, this situation, the unbelievable course our lives were taking, and the whole unknown of Kyle's outcome--when and if he'd heal, if he would live, what kind of state or quality of life he'd have if he did survive all of that, all of what had already made him...
...that starkly hairless.
I didn't even know that I didn't know which thoughts exactly I was having. But without any sense of acceptance or bracing myself, I went to the next moment. This is how my life went in those days. One dramatic moment to the next, no time to chew, digest, accept and move on in between. No chance to heal or completely grow (or at least grow more than just a mere fraction) from one thing life flung at me to the next and I was just so, so young and the furthest thing from being an "old soul."
* * *
I just did what I had to. A lot of where I'd been in my life before this was a culmination of results directly related to choices I had made. And while that seems obvious, it wasn't to me. Rather than see the bigger picture for what it was and where I needed to go while doing for myself, I just made these partitioned decisions, out of those specific moments, thinking of immediate consequences, those solo sections of time, and from an emotional place; and when I did think of the future, it was with removed, idealistic, and marginal concept from where to perceive or relate to some unreachable, unknown future date.
As I discover (remember) more of my childhood over time and as I listen to Enigma's "Return To Innocence" right now and wonder how it ALL... just ever... went so wrong.... I put it together. I recall the rollover we were in where I suffered a major concussion. To this day I don't know the extent of damage, but it bothers me that don't know. It bothers me that I was in ICU for three days, but released without full report. Hell, I would have taken a partial report. I don't know what the doctors told Kyle, my mom, my dad. Anyway, I have major difficulty in remembering these things, remembering things I've learned time and again, and I think it's just me, but then I talk to Kyle and he says I was never that way before the accident.
So. It begs the question which lobes were affected and what do each lobe of the brain control? Is this why I am having such difficulty keeping a hold of the things I have learned? Is there any relation to this head trauma--trauma I thought I'd healed from--and these weird jostlings of memory?
For some reason, there is just this entire seperate chunk of remembering my childhood, hearing and seeing things that remind me of if and remembering things I have long forgotten, and the entire seperate chunks of my life after leaving home, having a child so young, the accident, cancer, even moving to Canada without so much as a second thought, and all the transitional agonies in between. Why do I feel so at odds with myself in these fleeting moments? It is embarrassing to move on, go through the stages of moving on, feeling resolved and then regressing back to those, as though I've never put the issue away.
It's just all so confusing. Even as I write this, my brain is wanting to go off in a million directions. There's gotta be a reason for this, for thinking here, there, then back over here, then over there, and back again. After a while, a gal starts to realize that not even female hardwiring can make a brain jump around like that and remember odd memories that may or may not even be memories, just dreams, or random thoughts.
*Sigh. It's time to get ready for work now.
17 February 2009
Myspace import: October 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
The word "nice"
Category: Writing and Poetry
When I hear the word "nice", I want to write. Nice, as per agreement to those discussing it in the staffroom today, is far too general a word. It is barely a descriptive thing as it only compares to what is NOT nice. And so, what is that? It drives me crazy that it is so general when there are thousands (well, okay, maybe just a mere 'several') of other words and ways to term an object, describe the emotion, paint the picture.
Points should not be given for a descriptive paragraph that reads "she had a nice bike." Well so what? Nice in the quickest sense that it wasn't a piece of crap. Well good. NICE-ly done. But WHAT? about it? What MAKES it nice? Is it nice because it has handle bars at all when others do not? Would "nice" be the lines or the color of the bike? The type? The brand? Could "nice" be that it was from the store as opposed to the junkyard? Could a bike from the junkyard BE nice in the sense that it was built from scraps and therefore implies PRIDE which can be considered "nice"?
Furthermore, how do we get kids to care? To GIVE a crap about writing? To submit and produce works of art, of ethic, and of pride? In today's generation, it's a do-what-I-can-to-just-squeeze-by lazy fair, even though the earliest generations of our time and further back produced great works of prose, poetry, narrative, and novel--treasures for us, the younger generation to compare ourselves to, to aspire to, to find inspiration, truth, opinion, imagination, and most of all freedom.
To defend these slackers somewhat, the number of humans in the world has not doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in one hundred years, when Teddy Roosevelt was in office, but has risen nearly 670%! That is a staggering boom of human minds to be born and thusly compete for the light of recognition in a contemporary society where 'letting the other guy have it' has become more popular, if not banal, concession to working really hard to achieve something actually worth merit, praise, and to this end, good marks in school.
It makes sense in a very consumeristic culture, where the volume of humanity is crowding itself out, that we are losing steam, finding the lazy way out, and being content to simply let someone else take care of it, write it, paint it, create it, develop it. There ARE many others out there willing to do it for you, for someone else, for those unable, but especially unwilling to do it and enabling this atmosphere of blaze-ness. It is undoubtedly creating a sterile apathy in the younger generations, where the numbers of kids in classrooms are ever-oozing into barely-manageable crowds, and undoubtedly establishing a dichotomous society.
http://www.infoplease.com/year/1908.html
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
But, if this is any indication where we could be headed, it is also another just-is era of many eras to have dominated the cultures and societies of our time and the times which existed along time ago.
The word "nice"
Category: Writing and Poetry
When I hear the word "nice", I want to write. Nice, as per agreement to those discussing it in the staffroom today, is far too general a word. It is barely a descriptive thing as it only compares to what is NOT nice. And so, what is that? It drives me crazy that it is so general when there are thousands (well, okay, maybe just a mere 'several') of other words and ways to term an object, describe the emotion, paint the picture.
Points should not be given for a descriptive paragraph that reads "she had a nice bike." Well so what? Nice in the quickest sense that it wasn't a piece of crap. Well good. NICE-ly done. But WHAT? about it? What MAKES it nice? Is it nice because it has handle bars at all when others do not? Would "nice" be the lines or the color of the bike? The type? The brand? Could "nice" be that it was from the store as opposed to the junkyard? Could a bike from the junkyard BE nice in the sense that it was built from scraps and therefore implies PRIDE which can be considered "nice"?
Furthermore, how do we get kids to care? To GIVE a crap about writing? To submit and produce works of art, of ethic, and of pride? In today's generation, it's a do-what-I-can-to-just-squeeze-by lazy fair, even though the earliest generations of our time and further back produced great works of prose, poetry, narrative, and novel--treasures for us, the younger generation to compare ourselves to, to aspire to, to find inspiration, truth, opinion, imagination, and most of all freedom.
To defend these slackers somewhat, the number of humans in the world has not doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in one hundred years, when Teddy Roosevelt was in office, but has risen nearly 670%! That is a staggering boom of human minds to be born and thusly compete for the light of recognition in a contemporary society where 'letting the other guy have it' has become more popular, if not banal, concession to working really hard to achieve something actually worth merit, praise, and to this end, good marks in school.
It makes sense in a very consumeristic culture, where the volume of humanity is crowding itself out, that we are losing steam, finding the lazy way out, and being content to simply let someone else take care of it, write it, paint it, create it, develop it. There ARE many others out there willing to do it for you, for someone else, for those unable, but especially unwilling to do it and enabling this atmosphere of blaze-ness. It is undoubtedly creating a sterile apathy in the younger generations, where the numbers of kids in classrooms are ever-oozing into barely-manageable crowds, and undoubtedly establishing a dichotomous society.
http://www.infoplease.com/year/1908.html
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
But, if this is any indication where we could be headed, it is also another just-is era of many eras to have dominated the cultures and societies of our time and the times which existed along time ago.
Geminian postables
Gehhhhht up.
Get up.
Get up, get up, get up. Go. Now. Get up and go to the gym. Get up and go now.
Gehhhhht up, gettin' up. *even tone*
--But I don't WAN-NA
Get up. You can feel your belly resting on its own self, can't you?
--Yeahhhh. But I don't wahhhh-na.
I know. So get up. You know you feel better when you've been going.
--Yeahhh, but it's harrrd. I don't have the time. I don't wannnnna.
Make the time. You've been working evenings. You have time in the mornings. You knowwwww you feel better in the mornings and your overall day.
--Yeahhh. True. I do. But that means giving up sleeping in.
Well that's a tough one. We DO like to sleep in.
--Yeah.
Yeah.
--Well.
Well.
--Well maybe we could just this once. But then what about when my work schedule changes? 'Cause you KNOW we hate change. Hate reaccomodating.
Yeah. It's too bad, hey? I used to think I adapted easier.
--Yeah, me, too.
But look at the overall picture. Wouldn't you rather lead by example? Show your daughters how to take care of themselves?
--Absolutely
And you have a pass already. You found Kyle's pass today, so you know the number to sign in at the gym.
--Yeah.
--Okay fine.
*Gemini post #1
Get up.
Get up, get up, get up. Go. Now. Get up and go to the gym. Get up and go now.
Gehhhhht up, gettin' up. *even tone*
--But I don't WAN-NA
Get up. You can feel your belly resting on its own self, can't you?
--Yeahhhh. But I don't wahhhh-na.
I know. So get up. You know you feel better when you've been going.
--Yeahhh, but it's harrrd. I don't have the time. I don't wannnnna.
Make the time. You've been working evenings. You have time in the mornings. You knowwwww you feel better in the mornings and your overall day.
--Yeahhh. True. I do. But that means giving up sleeping in.
Well that's a tough one. We DO like to sleep in.
--Yeah.
Yeah.
--Well.
Well.
--Well maybe we could just this once. But then what about when my work schedule changes? 'Cause you KNOW we hate change. Hate reaccomodating.
Yeah. It's too bad, hey? I used to think I adapted easier.
--Yeah, me, too.
But look at the overall picture. Wouldn't you rather lead by example? Show your daughters how to take care of themselves?
--Absolutely
And you have a pass already. You found Kyle's pass today, so you know the number to sign in at the gym.
--Yeah.
--Okay fine.
*Gemini post #1
15 February 2009
Yo. *click click* She-Bitch. Let's go.
I know I'm PMSing. I know it because this kind of grumpy doesn't just get reasoned away. I am beyond reasoning. It's never seemed that extreme, but I know I must have been downplaying it for years because I've always put the filter on between my brain and actually broadcasting it.
One. Everyone and everything pisses me off when I'm PMSing. There are exceptions, but I will get irritated by everything. I don't know WHERE this comes from or WHY, but I know that I become a sight-losing, objectivity-thrown-out-the-window, perceptiveless she-bitch. I try and steer Kyle clear of this She-Hulk metamorphasis, but sometimes he gets caught in the crossfire, poor guy.
Two. It's gradual and blindsighting. For Kyle. For everyone else, there's Mastercard. (Or is it VISA?) Okay, comedic flitting break done. It's gradual and blindsighting and creeps in like the plague, unaware, unassuming, and then BAM! it, that, those, them... are culprits in everything. People. Dummies. Co-workers. Acquaintances. Former high school classmates. A scheming circle around me to somehow fall out of the Stupid Tree and crawl under my skin. As though fate has nothing better to do than spite me. Psh. Whatevs.
Three. I am beyond reasoning. Far beyond. Trying to put things in perspective, context, reality---gone. All gone. The ability TO reason and to be reasoned WITH leave and float to a place of magic and mystery that I still have yet to chance upon in my journies, extract, GRAB... and pull back, rendering me a useless bulk of hideous transformation with no ETA of my sanity. Experiences that have made me a better person are forgotten and experiences that could make me a better person or matter don't even make the radar.
Not really that bad, you say? Shyeah! You try living in this head. I'm hungry, I'm tired, have to get up early, and am watching an old replay of The Bodyguard on CMT. I'm just not really helping myself here. Will check in another time soon...
One. Everyone and everything pisses me off when I'm PMSing. There are exceptions, but I will get irritated by everything. I don't know WHERE this comes from or WHY, but I know that I become a sight-losing, objectivity-thrown-out-the-window, perceptiveless she-bitch. I try and steer Kyle clear of this She-Hulk metamorphasis, but sometimes he gets caught in the crossfire, poor guy.
Two. It's gradual and blindsighting. For Kyle. For everyone else, there's Mastercard. (Or is it VISA?) Okay, comedic flitting break done. It's gradual and blindsighting and creeps in like the plague, unaware, unassuming, and then BAM! it, that, those, them... are culprits in everything. People. Dummies. Co-workers. Acquaintances. Former high school classmates. A scheming circle around me to somehow fall out of the Stupid Tree and crawl under my skin. As though fate has nothing better to do than spite me. Psh. Whatevs.
Three. I am beyond reasoning. Far beyond. Trying to put things in perspective, context, reality---gone. All gone. The ability TO reason and to be reasoned WITH leave and float to a place of magic and mystery that I still have yet to chance upon in my journies, extract, GRAB... and pull back, rendering me a useless bulk of hideous transformation with no ETA of my sanity. Experiences that have made me a better person are forgotten and experiences that could make me a better person or matter don't even make the radar.
Not really that bad, you say? Shyeah! You try living in this head. I'm hungry, I'm tired, have to get up early, and am watching an old replay of The Bodyguard on CMT. I'm just not really helping myself here. Will check in another time soon...
12 February 2009
Ooogey boogey
Not happy. No, no, no. I just came from a meeting I organized to TRY and get as many piano players in one spot as possible and organize a schedule of sorts (only for the willing--I wasn't going to suck someone in and/or staple their feet to the floor) for, at the moment, the churches in the community who are lacking for steady players. Namely, the ones that call me repeatedly and a few others, who are also repetitively called (bombarbed, lambasted, guilted... okay, okay, not really.)
It wasn't going to be to sucker anyone in. I SWEAR. When I vocalize my idea, it sounds a lot better. It sounds more casual than it looks. It wasn't to conjole, bribe, pull, or remove anyone sitting behind the keyboard in existing accompanist arrangements. It wasn't to conjole, bribe, pull, or remove anyone hesitant about trying. Or anything in between. At all. JUST bulk. It was only about getting a bunch of people together to rotate services. Hell, anyone. Anyone at all interested in playing piano. I'd teach you piano just to have people in a group who play piano. (Wait, let's not go that far.)
All right. I'm defensive. Because there was no one at the meeting. No one. No one showed, no one came. It was just me and the maintenance lady out in the hall, listening to me bang my head numerous times on the piano in bitter annoyance and defeat in the bandroom down front over the top of her vacuum like a ragdoll bobble clown.
I am also not without understanding **SIGH** as it IS (was) a school night, a weeknight, busy with activities around the community in which people are involved, and scheduled against Dinner Theatre (WHICH I did not know.)
It wasn't going to be to sucker anyone in. I SWEAR. When I vocalize my idea, it sounds a lot better. It sounds more casual than it looks. It wasn't to conjole, bribe, pull, or remove anyone sitting behind the keyboard in existing accompanist arrangements. It wasn't to conjole, bribe, pull, or remove anyone hesitant about trying. Or anything in between. At all. JUST bulk. It was only about getting a bunch of people together to rotate services. Hell, anyone. Anyone at all interested in playing piano. I'd teach you piano just to have people in a group who play piano. (Wait, let's not go that far.)
All right. I'm defensive. Because there was no one at the meeting. No one. No one showed, no one came. It was just me and the maintenance lady out in the hall, listening to me bang my head numerous times on the piano in bitter annoyance and defeat in the bandroom down front over the top of her vacuum like a ragdoll bobble clown.
I am also not without understanding **SIGH** as it IS (was) a school night, a weeknight, busy with activities around the community in which people are involved, and scheduled against Dinner Theatre (WHICH I did not know.)
11 February 2009
MySpace Import: Nov '08
Friday, November 28, 2008
Bass flute
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
I can't help it, but here we go again with the music scene thing. I'm leaving rehearsal tonight when I notice that *C* left her cello bow on the pew to be buried under all the choir folders. Folders that should not have been allowed to go there, I mean, I'm just sayin'...
I pick it up, being the gracious observer that I am, and give a shout out to its owner in the back of the church, who positively identifies her possession. My sole and solitary purpose is to unearth the delicate bow from under the folders where it lay, place it on top of the piano in the church, right there, one step away from where I am standing, and remove it from harm's way.
Now, let me side track by saying that in this moment, I recall a story from the recesses of a high school band concert where I was allowed the play the bass flute for a winter piece we played. After our concert, we all had to take our chairs and stands off the stage in the auditorium and put them back in the band room, which was through the door at the back of backstage. In wanting to be efficient, I set both my flute and the bass flute down. On the floor. Of the bandroom. Where people (60-piece band, namely) are walking back and forth. With stands. On tiered floors. Jumping, flying, wrestling, scuffling, scurrying, and all other various sorts of banging around, trying to clang and clunk their way into reassembling the band room.
Without warning and coming through that upper band room door with a stand and chair in each of my hands, the first chair flute player (we'll call her KG), starts reaming me out from down in front, in the presence of all, about having the bass flute on the floor. She is unglued and her tirade comes out in peals of maniacal outbursts that mention expense, irresponsibility, et al.; and with anger that 'might' have made someone wonder, at that moment or even now, what her investment was. Embarrassed for being dumb and pissed as hell for the censure, I move the flute ipso facto and put it in its case. Then I go home.
I was so pissed at her absolute lack of tact and ability to deal with it in a way that we could both keep our dignity, but in the end she was right. I left a multi-hundred (maybe thousand?) -dollar instrument on the floor in a moment of poor judgment to get stepped on, crushed, maybe bent. And who would have had to pay for it? It was completely reckless. But I learned my lesson.
Fast forward to the current story. This bass flute story flashes through my mind in a fleeting milisecond as I turn around with the bow in my hand. The husband of said bow owner is there, just there, in a moment, in between me and the piano. Just as momentarily, I am stopped in my tracks of realization, realizing I have his wife's bow in my hand and knowing it is an expensive piece that I really have no basis in holding.
I offer a piddling, half-instantly-intimidated explanation. I am just about ready to get worked up in my mind about this. This is the same Super Talent of the north, who is known "far and wide" for the music he has written, the instruments he has played (namely, the piano), and overall ability to wow the crowds with his alleged greatness; and who, in the matter of one and a half years, I've been able to work with alongside (and in spite of) and learn a great deal from.
I also really enjoy the change and challenge of working with him when I have the opportunity to as I always push myself more than I would on my own when I know he's right there and several steps (and years) ahead of me; but this element is lost when the territorial superiority comes creeping in and I am "reminded" that I am just an insecure peon in the life and wake of the who's who in the musical community. In other words, I let it get to me at ALL and read far much into things that no one else does and just figure that everyone else buys into his diplomatic b.s.
Yes I know.
But as I offer explanation to the husband (*Y*), I also regain (remember) my confidence, set the bow on the piano, and get a less-than-there "ok" from him. Actually it sounds more like a half-laugh at a less-than-pathetic joke.
And then I notice everyone is quiet!
Super quiet. Like if everyone is watching me; and then suddenly I'm aware that they may or may not be waiting for me. So I book it. But I'm just as instantly aware that I was half-lingering, just gathering up papers and books that other people had left laying around, and making sure I had all my own stuff; and it makes me self-consious and feeling loser-ish. I have just executed a move that I have laughed at other people for, dwelling after practice because they have nowhere to go or want to get invited to stay or whatever or however it works.
So it adds up in my head faster than a locomotive gaining speed and the half-laugh "ok" combined with people waiting for me to go, people who have been in this group, a group I fleetingly expressed an interest for once upon a time, people I've associated with, people I've mingled and associated with musically and socially who, although reasonably wait for me to leave, somehow make me feel not good enough. Ousted. And even though I wouldn't have time to be in that specific group nor would I be so unreasonable as to think I could join them so close to the concert or be of accompanying assistance when they have *Y* there, I can't help but feel inadequate or unnecessary just the same.
That being said, it's over. Situation done, gone, and past. Life goes on. I just can't help feeling unappreciated or pushed aside because this is not the first time this has happened. It makes me doubt my ability and gives me justification to be angsty, which I don't like and is cause for me to eat crow when I go back into these kinds of groups, made of up of the same people, in a small town, where there is rarely any deviation from the status quo, and where deviation is met with the same kind of reaction a bitter cashew might have; and where none of that kind of negativity has any place in who I am right now or ever. This rant has far more to do with reaction (of others) than it does my sense of self and ability. But maybe it has to do with how I read into things, too. I just know I sense things others do not, even though it gets me into trouble when I take it too far.
End of rant.
*** I'd like to comment here that it's crazy what the mind will do to itself. Especially mine. I think it's even crazier to illustrate it on paper (or virtual space, as it were) because writing in a style or a way that will help people understand makes my craziness all that more concrete, but it still doesn't generally make sense to the general whole and it's still left out there not making sense to the average person; but my point is that the main point THEN was about being in this ridiculous, absolutely heedless position of having this bow in my hand because I was trying to take care of something the other gal should have been taking care of. It was ludicrous. And as my friend, Celia, pointed out, it should have never been left there to begin with as any competent string player knows damn better than to leave their bow unattended and at risk.
Bass flute
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
I can't help it, but here we go again with the music scene thing. I'm leaving rehearsal tonight when I notice that *C* left her cello bow on the pew to be buried under all the choir folders. Folders that should not have been allowed to go there, I mean, I'm just sayin'...
I pick it up, being the gracious observer that I am, and give a shout out to its owner in the back of the church, who positively identifies her possession. My sole and solitary purpose is to unearth the delicate bow from under the folders where it lay, place it on top of the piano in the church, right there, one step away from where I am standing, and remove it from harm's way.
Now, let me side track by saying that in this moment, I recall a story from the recesses of a high school band concert where I was allowed the play the bass flute for a winter piece we played. After our concert, we all had to take our chairs and stands off the stage in the auditorium and put them back in the band room, which was through the door at the back of backstage. In wanting to be efficient, I set both my flute and the bass flute down. On the floor. Of the bandroom. Where people (60-piece band, namely) are walking back and forth. With stands. On tiered floors. Jumping, flying, wrestling, scuffling, scurrying, and all other various sorts of banging around, trying to clang and clunk their way into reassembling the band room.
Without warning and coming through that upper band room door with a stand and chair in each of my hands, the first chair flute player (we'll call her KG), starts reaming me out from down in front, in the presence of all, about having the bass flute on the floor. She is unglued and her tirade comes out in peals of maniacal outbursts that mention expense, irresponsibility, et al.; and with anger that 'might' have made someone wonder, at that moment or even now, what her investment was. Embarrassed for being dumb and pissed as hell for the censure, I move the flute ipso facto and put it in its case. Then I go home.
I was so pissed at her absolute lack of tact and ability to deal with it in a way that we could both keep our dignity, but in the end she was right. I left a multi-hundred (maybe thousand?) -dollar instrument on the floor in a moment of poor judgment to get stepped on, crushed, maybe bent. And who would have had to pay for it? It was completely reckless. But I learned my lesson.
Fast forward to the current story. This bass flute story flashes through my mind in a fleeting milisecond as I turn around with the bow in my hand. The husband of said bow owner is there, just there, in a moment, in between me and the piano. Just as momentarily, I am stopped in my tracks of realization, realizing I have his wife's bow in my hand and knowing it is an expensive piece that I really have no basis in holding.
I offer a piddling, half-instantly-intimidated explanation. I am just about ready to get worked up in my mind about this. This is the same Super Talent of the north, who is known "far and wide" for the music he has written, the instruments he has played (namely, the piano), and overall ability to wow the crowds with his alleged greatness; and who, in the matter of one and a half years, I've been able to work with alongside (and in spite of) and learn a great deal from.
I also really enjoy the change and challenge of working with him when I have the opportunity to as I always push myself more than I would on my own when I know he's right there and several steps (and years) ahead of me; but this element is lost when the territorial superiority comes creeping in and I am "reminded" that I am just an insecure peon in the life and wake of the who's who in the musical community. In other words, I let it get to me at ALL and read far much into things that no one else does and just figure that everyone else buys into his diplomatic b.s.
Yes I know.
But as I offer explanation to the husband (*Y*), I also regain (remember) my confidence, set the bow on the piano, and get a less-than-there "ok" from him. Actually it sounds more like a half-laugh at a less-than-pathetic joke.
And then I notice everyone is quiet!
Super quiet. Like if everyone is watching me; and then suddenly I'm aware that they may or may not be waiting for me. So I book it. But I'm just as instantly aware that I was half-lingering, just gathering up papers and books that other people had left laying around, and making sure I had all my own stuff; and it makes me self-consious and feeling loser-ish. I have just executed a move that I have laughed at other people for, dwelling after practice because they have nowhere to go or want to get invited to stay or whatever or however it works.
So it adds up in my head faster than a locomotive gaining speed and the half-laugh "ok" combined with people waiting for me to go, people who have been in this group, a group I fleetingly expressed an interest for once upon a time, people I've associated with, people I've mingled and associated with musically and socially who, although reasonably wait for me to leave, somehow make me feel not good enough. Ousted. And even though I wouldn't have time to be in that specific group nor would I be so unreasonable as to think I could join them so close to the concert or be of accompanying assistance when they have *Y* there, I can't help but feel inadequate or unnecessary just the same.
That being said, it's over. Situation done, gone, and past. Life goes on. I just can't help feeling unappreciated or pushed aside because this is not the first time this has happened. It makes me doubt my ability and gives me justification to be angsty, which I don't like and is cause for me to eat crow when I go back into these kinds of groups, made of up of the same people, in a small town, where there is rarely any deviation from the status quo, and where deviation is met with the same kind of reaction a bitter cashew might have; and where none of that kind of negativity has any place in who I am right now or ever. This rant has far more to do with reaction (of others) than it does my sense of self and ability. But maybe it has to do with how I read into things, too. I just know I sense things others do not, even though it gets me into trouble when I take it too far.
End of rant.
*** I'd like to comment here that it's crazy what the mind will do to itself. Especially mine. I think it's even crazier to illustrate it on paper (or virtual space, as it were) because writing in a style or a way that will help people understand makes my craziness all that more concrete, but it still doesn't generally make sense to the general whole and it's still left out there not making sense to the average person; but my point is that the main point THEN was about being in this ridiculous, absolutely heedless position of having this bow in my hand because I was trying to take care of something the other gal should have been taking care of. It was ludicrous. And as my friend, Celia, pointed out, it should have never been left there to begin with as any competent string player knows damn better than to leave their bow unattended and at risk.
BORING. Boring, boring, boring.
It's hard to blog in a small town. If even one person knows you blog and has the slightest amount of interest in passing the link on, your news is spilled out and all over the table like sputtering coffee beans and the 6 o'clock news. You have to find a balance. The balance of giving a shit and not giving a shit. Alas, my people-flitting skills and enormous pride fit me in the Give Too Much Of A Shit category. Besides that and the fact that I'm a mother of two, very perceptive, not-so-little girls whose lives suffer the ramifications of the tentative, theoretical antics of "that woman" should I decide not to exercise discretion. That sucks.
There have been so many things I've wanted to specifically (and might I add humourously) (look at that--Canadian spelling) spill the beans over, rant, vent, label, whatever and I'm finding that I just can't. I feel very limited as to what I can post and regret being too candid or liberal when the whiplash comes from me not thinking beforehand. And why would I just not think beforehand? Because I'm just tired at the end of the day and what fun is sensible reading of sensible minds?
I guess this would contradict this earlier post somewhat, at least in my mind, the point of starting this TO have a place to freely digest in the form of spewage. I.e. online rantfest, diatribe dolings, epistle-like ponderings, and the like. But I just can't bring myself to spit it out, no matter how much I want to, because even when I say I don't care, I still do.
Okay. I will try again tomorrow. I'll try to blog about work or stupid people. Or both.
There have been so many things I've wanted to specifically (and might I add humourously) (look at that--Canadian spelling) spill the beans over, rant, vent, label, whatever and I'm finding that I just can't. I feel very limited as to what I can post and regret being too candid or liberal when the whiplash comes from me not thinking beforehand. And why would I just not think beforehand? Because I'm just tired at the end of the day and what fun is sensible reading of sensible minds?
I guess this would contradict this earlier post somewhat, at least in my mind, the point of starting this TO have a place to freely digest in the form of spewage. I.e. online rantfest, diatribe dolings, epistle-like ponderings, and the like. But I just can't bring myself to spit it out, no matter how much I want to, because even when I say I don't care, I still do.
Okay. I will try again tomorrow. I'll try to blog about work or stupid people. Or both.
08 February 2009
Some of my favorite, or favored, posts
Since I can't retro-date posts on here, I am uploading random oldies from my MySpace.
* * *
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Bagging each other's nuts
Category: Pets and Animals
If the 2.5 of you who read these blogs have ever noticed, I usually enter a category for most of my entries. Please note this one.
Upon completion of my last entry just minutes ago, I was comparing verbal notes of interest with my husband, when he lept into a diatribe of the stupid things kids do at school. It had become a point of staffroom discussion, of which I have been howling this entire entry.
Apparently, some of the junior high boys have taken to punching each other in the "lower extremities" for sport. Kyle has witnessed this in the halls and shared the concern, albeit unsympathetically, with his colleagues.
WHAT?
They DO this for FUN?
I guess they just haul off and go for the gold, laughing like maniacs in the process. Sometimes as hard as they can--punching, that is. I've seen pre-teen boys do stupid stuff, but this takes the cake. At the same time I was shocked and abhorred, I was wildly amused.
So, does this mean that not only is this younger generation lazy and apathetic, but they are taking themselves out, too? Right on! Darwin right at work. Confusious say "man who break ball..."
Are these the pubescent nightmares that will (I hope?) grow up to be leaders and gainfully employed in a world that my poor, unsuspecting daughters will also have to be a part of? At least my daughters will have the grace, the fortitude, and the sense of self to snort at them and walk away.
What in Sam hell does this mean? Are these dumbass boys going to be in the world I live in? What if they survive long enough TO be a part of the real world? What if I survive long enough to see them? Yikes.
The sheer irony of my last entry and this news in its momentary turn is far from lost on me.
* * *
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Bagging each other's nuts
Category: Pets and Animals
If the 2.5 of you who read these blogs have ever noticed, I usually enter a category for most of my entries. Please note this one.
Upon completion of my last entry just minutes ago, I was comparing verbal notes of interest with my husband, when he lept into a diatribe of the stupid things kids do at school. It had become a point of staffroom discussion, of which I have been howling this entire entry.
Apparently, some of the junior high boys have taken to punching each other in the "lower extremities" for sport. Kyle has witnessed this in the halls and shared the concern, albeit unsympathetically, with his colleagues.
WHAT?
They DO this for FUN?
I guess they just haul off and go for the gold, laughing like maniacs in the process. Sometimes as hard as they can--punching, that is. I've seen pre-teen boys do stupid stuff, but this takes the cake. At the same time I was shocked and abhorred, I was wildly amused.
So, does this mean that not only is this younger generation lazy and apathetic, but they are taking themselves out, too? Right on! Darwin right at work. Confusious say "man who break ball..."
Are these the pubescent nightmares that will (I hope?) grow up to be leaders and gainfully employed in a world that my poor, unsuspecting daughters will also have to be a part of? At least my daughters will have the grace, the fortitude, and the sense of self to snort at them and walk away.
What in Sam hell does this mean? Are these dumbass boys going to be in the world I live in? What if they survive long enough TO be a part of the real world? What if I survive long enough to see them? Yikes.
The sheer irony of my last entry and this news in its momentary turn is far from lost on me.
06 February 2009
I've been wanting to post something here to soften the blow of my religious-ey explosion, to act as a buffer between what you see when my page first pops up and the rest of my blog, but there are just TOO many things I could pick from and I can't even decide if I'm going to wear jeans today.
I read a blog I follow called "Sarah Says" and maybe it was because I was so tired yesterday by the time I read it or because I had had the giggles earlier in the day (and at work, no less!), but I laughed hard. She talks about lemons being hurled at her to desribe her experience with trying to find a job in her field and refers to a past entry in her rant that further explores the lemon metaphor. It's the writing style. It's the way she delivers what she has to say, her feelings about it, and the imagery comparison (analogies) all involving some sort of stoning that makes me howl out loud (hol, instead lol now?)
Of course, I've always been an imagery kind of girl. I always laugh MORE at people's reactions or the reference to a visual (sometimes unpleasant) than I do the actual joke content. Unless, of course, the joke content has a punchline that involves reaction from within the joke. Long way to go for a laugh, I know.
This has also made me appear "slow" in getting jokes. I realized this working at the crusher where the safety guy would read a joke at the end of the safety meeting (always paycheck Thursdays!) and there would be a 1.3 second delay from the other guys' laughing to mine. I've always known that I laugh more at the way a person responds to a joke than the joke itself, but being able to perceive that I laugh (and I bust out--like a BWA HA!) about a second or two behind everyone else has made me realize that I am just about a second or two behind everyone else.
And yes, sometimes it takes me a second to get a joke. If it reaches too far to get a punchline and I have to logically or numerically walk from the tag to the punch (BOH-REENG!), then I'll just look at you with a 'huh?-you-think-that-was-funny' look or I'll just laugh politely. And then I'll laugh because you'll look at me like I'm stupid--and THAT is funny. The facial expression.
But this is just how I am. Hard-wired to respond this way to jokes and I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly sure I get this from my aunties. Well, ok, and my mom, too. Duh. But it makes my world that much richer because not many people I know react that way and so it makes the chance of mass production for my kind of laugh far lower and I'm left laughing alone or at least with you for completely different reasons. And you'll still think I'm laughing about the joke...
I read a blog I follow called "Sarah Says" and maybe it was because I was so tired yesterday by the time I read it or because I had had the giggles earlier in the day (and at work, no less!), but I laughed hard. She talks about lemons being hurled at her to desribe her experience with trying to find a job in her field and refers to a past entry in her rant that further explores the lemon metaphor. It's the writing style. It's the way she delivers what she has to say, her feelings about it, and the imagery comparison (analogies) all involving some sort of stoning that makes me howl out loud (hol, instead lol now?)
Of course, I've always been an imagery kind of girl. I always laugh MORE at people's reactions or the reference to a visual (sometimes unpleasant) than I do the actual joke content. Unless, of course, the joke content has a punchline that involves reaction from within the joke. Long way to go for a laugh, I know.
This has also made me appear "slow" in getting jokes. I realized this working at the crusher where the safety guy would read a joke at the end of the safety meeting (always paycheck Thursdays!) and there would be a 1.3 second delay from the other guys' laughing to mine. I've always known that I laugh more at the way a person responds to a joke than the joke itself, but being able to perceive that I laugh (and I bust out--like a BWA HA!) about a second or two behind everyone else has made me realize that I am just about a second or two behind everyone else.
And yes, sometimes it takes me a second to get a joke. If it reaches too far to get a punchline and I have to logically or numerically walk from the tag to the punch (BOH-REENG!), then I'll just look at you with a 'huh?-you-think-that-was-funny' look or I'll just laugh politely. And then I'll laugh because you'll look at me like I'm stupid--and THAT is funny. The facial expression.
But this is just how I am. Hard-wired to respond this way to jokes and I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly sure I get this from my aunties. Well, ok, and my mom, too. Duh. But it makes my world that much richer because not many people I know react that way and so it makes the chance of mass production for my kind of laugh far lower and I'm left laughing alone or at least with you for completely different reasons. And you'll still think I'm laughing about the joke...
04 February 2009
Heavy
Okay. I that's it. I believe in God. Okay? I shy away from this overt statement for fear of being perceived as a bumple-thumping scripture monger, especially on the ground that I believe in Him very strongly, believe in miracles, believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our indescribably generous savior, and that his mother was (is) holy and immaculate. With EVERY fiber of my being. But you know what? Most times, as in my whole inner core with or without words, testimony, and the like, I can truly say I don't care how I might be perceived. It just such a personal thing to be modest about HOW MUCH I believe in Him because the relationship I have with Him feels private and protected. It's not FOR anyone else and it is even less for show or for demonstration via the pulpit. It is SO incredibly personal, it's hard to fathom. Hard to explain. It's so incredibly personal to share these things and show belief such as in capitalizing the "h" when using what I think is a holy pronoun or reciting His presence in my life when the world is FULL--and I know it is full--of cynics, but how on earth did I get from there to here; and how is that we have moved so far away from God as a people and a race?
My own journey is not open for public spectacle, and I say this, yet I see no wisdom in keeping it all to myself. I see the wisdom in sharing what I've been through so as to be a comfort to others, offer them words of resolve, of understanding, of empathy, and most of all love. But I don't feel like spattering it all over everything because people get sick of that, too, and it that's not helpful in the least.
So then, what of this compounded need to get this out? Well, for starters, I've been "quiet" and "observant" for far too long. In trying to tip toe around others' sensitivities and not be too bible-thumpey (which I could never be because I don't know enough scripture TO quote and have not read the bible cover to cover), I've almost become complacent for a red-blooded, impassioned hot-head like myself. It's just not me. (Besides the fact that I don't want to be judged by God as having fallen asleep at the wheel.)
Especially when it comes to the point of standing up for someone or something. If there is one thing in this life I loathe, or at least have heavy, temperamental disdain for, is idle hands, lukewarm attitudes, standing idly by in the face of injustice or just plain spinelessness. And for me to make all these concessions about what I will say or not say in public or to others to avoid embarrassment (embarrassment of possibly contradicting myself more than in people's opinions) just makes me a candidate for hypocracy. The whole thing is kind of (quite a bit of) crazy. I mean, there IS ... balance to be had. I'm not going to go screaming about Mohammed at the top of Sipple Hill tomorrow because there's just no grace in that, nor am I the type to stand on any soap box, but I think if I said something here, where I air just about every other thought I have, then it might complete the circle of rambling.
So standing up for what? Standing up for what I believe. Standing up for the qualities and lessons and morals Jesus taught us to live by on earth. I am Catholic, but I don't buy into everything the Catholic church sells. I also try very hard to put what is doled out into perspective. I believe that there are enormous possibilities that we can't even imagine as to what really transpired before, during, and after the Bible was written, but I don't believe that the stories in the Bible were "just" stories. I believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason, especially when we can't understand it; and even if that much is by human error, it is, has been, or was allowed to transpire by God himself because he gives us free will. I believe that we make up or shun the things that are difficult to believe because it's easier to laugh than to try to believe in something that has no concrete, human-registered value. I believe that God DID send his most precious son down here to earth, that his name was Jesus, that he was born in ways too miraculous to understand, to live life just like us--or the "us" of the times, those times, back then, that culture--and suffer a most excruciating death so that we could never say to Him "you don't understand". I believe that he did come back to life, did raise up, did go to Heaven, and now lives among us as an invisible soldier, friend, confidante, brother, and intercessor who is trying to get us all up to heaven; and as someone who TOTALLY understands.
I believe Jesus wants us to live through him and him through us (you know, like when you tell a friend "I'll live vicariously through you"), both in the heavenly and afterlife sense, but also in the sense of now; but so that we could have a piece of Heaven because he suffered the ultimate price, he suffered more than we could ever know, more than we could ever endure. He can tell us in our hearts and in those moments of quiet peace that He knows and understands our woes and burdens and triumphs and reliefs; and that will make us want to listen. Share our pain, our joy, our sorrows, or delights. I believe that His love is so thorough and so pure that we cannot possibly fathom its endurance. I believe science and religion are intrinsically connected, even though they cycle around each other in this duel for the title of dominant force because science is the discovery and explanation of miracles, given to humanity as gift; and religion (or spirituality) is the cause to believe. We need desperately to understand that cockiness on either side of the debate is still cockiness and it's getting us nowhere. In that instance, we are still like kids, locking horns on the playground because one thinks they're better than the other. A reponsible person might say, "it's not LIKE that" to them after pulling them apart and why? Because adults generally understand that in the bigger picture, there is give and take, compromise, resolution and balance. But right now, no one is saying anything. And for those that are, there tends to be a top-heavy imbalance of self-righteous posers blabbing at the top of the stack.
Maybe I am one of them, but I hope not. The point is there is a part of me telling me I'm not saying enough. It's not a guilty feeling, it's a half-impatient feeling, as though I were asking myself 'what's taking you so long?' I also fight the feelings I have of others when I read or hear the overused "god" word in their vocabulary. The sad reality is that the "G" word has been overused and used in a near-abusive way, to the point that it's almost gimick or trendy, which is awful. We need to take a moment and shed all the crap, the toys, the gadgets, the electronics, the words, the talking and purge the air, purge our personal environments, just for a second and breathe the simplicity.
My own journey is not open for public spectacle, and I say this, yet I see no wisdom in keeping it all to myself. I see the wisdom in sharing what I've been through so as to be a comfort to others, offer them words of resolve, of understanding, of empathy, and most of all love. But I don't feel like spattering it all over everything because people get sick of that, too, and it that's not helpful in the least.
So then, what of this compounded need to get this out? Well, for starters, I've been "quiet" and "observant" for far too long. In trying to tip toe around others' sensitivities and not be too bible-thumpey (which I could never be because I don't know enough scripture TO quote and have not read the bible cover to cover), I've almost become complacent for a red-blooded, impassioned hot-head like myself. It's just not me. (Besides the fact that I don't want to be judged by God as having fallen asleep at the wheel.)
Especially when it comes to the point of standing up for someone or something. If there is one thing in this life I loathe, or at least have heavy, temperamental disdain for, is idle hands, lukewarm attitudes, standing idly by in the face of injustice or just plain spinelessness. And for me to make all these concessions about what I will say or not say in public or to others to avoid embarrassment (embarrassment of possibly contradicting myself more than in people's opinions) just makes me a candidate for hypocracy. The whole thing is kind of (quite a bit of) crazy. I mean, there IS ... balance to be had. I'm not going to go screaming about Mohammed at the top of Sipple Hill tomorrow because there's just no grace in that, nor am I the type to stand on any soap box, but I think if I said something here, where I air just about every other thought I have, then it might complete the circle of rambling.
So standing up for what? Standing up for what I believe. Standing up for the qualities and lessons and morals Jesus taught us to live by on earth. I am Catholic, but I don't buy into everything the Catholic church sells. I also try very hard to put what is doled out into perspective. I believe that there are enormous possibilities that we can't even imagine as to what really transpired before, during, and after the Bible was written, but I don't believe that the stories in the Bible were "just" stories. I believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason, especially when we can't understand it; and even if that much is by human error, it is, has been, or was allowed to transpire by God himself because he gives us free will. I believe that we make up or shun the things that are difficult to believe because it's easier to laugh than to try to believe in something that has no concrete, human-registered value. I believe that God DID send his most precious son down here to earth, that his name was Jesus, that he was born in ways too miraculous to understand, to live life just like us--or the "us" of the times, those times, back then, that culture--and suffer a most excruciating death so that we could never say to Him "you don't understand". I believe that he did come back to life, did raise up, did go to Heaven, and now lives among us as an invisible soldier, friend, confidante, brother, and intercessor who is trying to get us all up to heaven; and as someone who TOTALLY understands.
I believe Jesus wants us to live through him and him through us (you know, like when you tell a friend "I'll live vicariously through you"), both in the heavenly and afterlife sense, but also in the sense of now; but so that we could have a piece of Heaven because he suffered the ultimate price, he suffered more than we could ever know, more than we could ever endure. He can tell us in our hearts and in those moments of quiet peace that He knows and understands our woes and burdens and triumphs and reliefs; and that will make us want to listen. Share our pain, our joy, our sorrows, or delights. I believe that His love is so thorough and so pure that we cannot possibly fathom its endurance. I believe science and religion are intrinsically connected, even though they cycle around each other in this duel for the title of dominant force because science is the discovery and explanation of miracles, given to humanity as gift; and religion (or spirituality) is the cause to believe. We need desperately to understand that cockiness on either side of the debate is still cockiness and it's getting us nowhere. In that instance, we are still like kids, locking horns on the playground because one thinks they're better than the other. A reponsible person might say, "it's not LIKE that" to them after pulling them apart and why? Because adults generally understand that in the bigger picture, there is give and take, compromise, resolution and balance. But right now, no one is saying anything. And for those that are, there tends to be a top-heavy imbalance of self-righteous posers blabbing at the top of the stack.
Maybe I am one of them, but I hope not. The point is there is a part of me telling me I'm not saying enough. It's not a guilty feeling, it's a half-impatient feeling, as though I were asking myself 'what's taking you so long?' I also fight the feelings I have of others when I read or hear the overused "god" word in their vocabulary. The sad reality is that the "G" word has been overused and used in a near-abusive way, to the point that it's almost gimick or trendy, which is awful. We need to take a moment and shed all the crap, the toys, the gadgets, the electronics, the words, the talking and purge the air, purge our personal environments, just for a second and breathe the simplicity.
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