“There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me.’” ~ Virginia Woolf, from The Waves

“Snowbound” (nd, aquatint)
by Kenneth J. Reeve

                   

“This is why it hurts the way it hurts. You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache. You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much” ~ Iain Thomas, from I Wrote This For You

Tuesday, early evening. Drizzle and warm, low 60’s.

“Covered Bridge” (nd, aquatint)
by George Jo Mess

Well, in the last three days I have gotten the tree up and trimmed, the house decorated, and the Christmas cards addressed. Just waiting for a check so that I can buy Christmas stamps and pop them in the mail. I’ve also gotten almost caught up on editing a bunch of pictures that I hadn’t tended to, and now I need to take a disc to Costco to have prints made. The only pictures that I haven’t edited are the ones from Lex’s shower, so I suppose that I really shouldn’t be saying anything about her inability to get her thank you cards out to everyone.

The other thing that I finally took care of was to update the flash drive for Corey’s parents’ digital frame that we got them a few years ago. They hadn’t gotten any updated pictures in a while, so between the two of us, we tried to add more recent pix than the ones of Eamonn with his high school prom date.

Okay. So our entire family runs perpetually behind schedule.

“My nature
is a quagmire of unresolved
confessions.” ~ Robert Creeley, from “The Door”

“December Day” (nd, aquatint)
by Kenneth J. Reeve

This afternoon I had my long-awaited appointment with the new pain management group. I am reserving my assessment of them until after my next two appointments. Today’s was with a pain management specialist. Next one is with the neurologist in the group, and then after that with the anesthesiologist to talk about injectable treatment options. All I can say for sure is that this particular practice must have a bunch of drug addicts as patients because I had to sign a medication contract stating that I would take my medicine as directed and that I would not sell it (!), and I had to do a drug test and agree to submit to random drug tests at any point in the future . . . Really? Wow.

I commented to the intake nurse that they must have a lot of drug abusers, and she said that I had no idea. It’s kind of weird, and it puts me off the practice a bit, but I’ll withhold final judgment for now. I also had to complete reams of paper work, and they gave me a copy of everything even though I didn’t really want copies of anything. Lots of dead trees today.

I know that I’m used to my old pain management doctor, but we were at an impasse with my treatment, so not it’s time to explore other options, whatever those might be.

“How deep they drove themselves into me, the things it was impossible to say aloud.” ~ Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath

I thought that I’d do a post today instead of my usual Two for Tuesday, and then tomorrow I’ll start to wrap presents and get the house clean.

“Snow Drifts” (ca 1940, aquatint)
by George Jo Mess

I’ve been doing this odd thing the past week or so: I fall asleep around 10:45, but I wake up again around 11:30 and can’t get back to sleep for a few hours. Not sure what that’s about.Last night I woke up, and I was wide awake, so I watched some recorded episodes of “NCIS” until 3 and then tried to get back to sleep, but the dogs had me up again at 4.

Alfie (other Jack Russell) is also doing weird things. He has gone into the dining room three times and peed in the same spot. As far as we know, Alfie hasn’t been messing in the house for years. Shakes would do his revenge pees, but not so much for Alfie. I have a feeling that he’s going downhill as far as his health, and I feel so sad that he has always been the one to receive the least attention, mostly because of his psycho streak, which made it kind of hard to get close to him. But in the past few days he’s had the saddest look on his face, and it’s breaking my heart.

“Footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage we did not take
towards the door we never opened
into the rose garden. My words echo
thus, in your mind” ~ T.S. Eliot, from “Four Quartets”

I got a telephone call from my friend Rebecca this morning. She’s Facebook friends with Corey, who still maintains his FB page, and she saw the pictures from our cruise that Corey posted. She wanted to let me know that she thought I looked good in the pictures. That actually a very nice way to start the day. She moved to Midlothian (a few hours west) this past summer with her long time beau and her eight-year-old son.

“Hoosier Homestead” (nd, aquating)
by Kenneth J. Reeve

Rebecca is a wedding photographer and has quite a successful business. She used to work with me at the realty firm where I was marketing director. She’s done really well for herself in starting her own business and growing it more with each year, unlike some of us who just talk about doing things but never get around to doing them . . .

What’s ironic is that when I was doing the cards yesterday, I wrote a few letters to include with some cards to special people, and one of those was to her. We always seem to think of each other around the same time.

“There are days that walk through me and I cannot hold them.” ~ Katherine Larson

This morning as I was coming into consciousness, I had a poem. I had the title and the first part. I did not write it down, and now, now I cannot remember even one word.

My dreams last night included some kind of interaction with the FBI criminal profilers on “Criminal Minds,” but that’s about all that I can remember, and all of this makes me wonder if my memory has always been this bad. I don’t think that it has. I know that when I took the Topomax for my migraines that it seriously affected my cognitive abilities in a negative way, but I wonder if it did permanent damage to my memory. I just don’t seem to be able to remember anything from one day to the next. Corey, on the other hand, remembers everything (of course, he does).

Oh well . . .

A few things that I’m looking forward to in the next few weeks:

• Peter Jackson’s first part of The Hobbit is in theaters. Can you tell from reading this that I have a really insipid smile on my face just from thinking about this?
• The new film version of Les Miserables opens on Christmas day. The cast is stellar. Can’t wait for this one either.

  

  “Winter Moonlight” (nd, aquatint)
  by George Jo Mess

• The “Dr. Who” Christmas special airs on Christmas day. Really looking forward to this one as well (does it reflect badly on me that these first three are movies and a television show?)
• On December 22, I’m going to run outside and say, “The Doctor saved us from annihilation,” which is only funny if you’re a Whovian and/or if you think that the Mayans just didn’t finish their calendar.

A few things that I’m not looking forward to in the next few weeks:

• Christmas morning without Shakes to sit in the middle of the presents and beg for treats from his stocking.
• The entire Christmas without Olivia, even though I know that this year she really isn’t going to understand anything that’s going on.
• My mother telling me that what I got her is nice and then asking where I got it so that she can take it back.
• There’s something else, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is . . .

More later. Peace.

Music by The National, “You Were a Kindness”

                   

Late Search

All day on the radio flat static
filled the car as I took
the river road, deep
into Vermont. I knew you only
by the glint on the water, reflected
off some deeper, moving thing like clean
white bones, or fish.
Vermont, Late fall, the sun
backing off a bit each—it seemed a good
place to find you, heading north
into the dark.

I found an inn
by the river and lay all night, the wheels
still in my head and the river
and the river road stretching on like
your breath into my body but still

I could not dream you.
I saw only the vacant waves opening
and slamming shut, slamming shut some
floating door. And then from nowhere
your palm, cool
on my forehead, closing softly
like the last word.
Then I didn’t know
which side we were on—the water calm,
too close to set or else too far—
as if you’d wakened me
from my dream, into yours.

~ Robin Behn from Paper Bird: Poems

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