by Karsun Designs (FCC)
“Although
the cricket’s song
has no words,
still,
it sounds like sorrow.” ~ Izumi Shikibu,”Untitled (Crickets)” (trans. Jane Hirschfield and Mariko Aratani)
Friday afternoon. Overcast and humid, high 70’s.
The air outside is liquid. Even though it’s not nearly as hot as it has been, just going to the trash can made me feel like I was wading instead of walking. I want autumn, which is kind of ironic as I wanted to spend my afternoons in the pool, and I haven’t done so since the baby was born. Will I ever achieve a happy medium?
by Elsie esq. (FCC)
I can finally check one thing off my list of broken things needing attention: my brakes. I asked Vic, who lives across the street, to take a look at them because the left wheel cylinder blew the day after Mike installed it. Turns out The brake shoes needed to be behind a plate on the assembly. Now that problem is solved I need to get the darned thing inspected, which is turning out to be more of a production than it should be. I need someone to follow me while I drop off the Rodeo at the garage. Apparently, that’s a big request . . .
Yes, I’m snippy. You would be too if you’d had the August I’ve had. Everywhere I turn I run into another hurricane-force storm. It’s exhausting.
Wednesday was the one-year anniversary since my m-in-law died. Hard. The boys and I visited Ann for a bit. Her house looks like a tornado hit it. I’m not criticizing. I know how crippling grief can be, and we all deal in our own ways. She has dealt with the double blow of losing both parents in one year by tuning out. I feel so bad for her.
“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” ~ Anaïs Nin
Actually, I can mark off two things. Yesterday a guy from the cable company did a service call. Our Internet speeds have been slower than slow, and the television in the living room wasn’t getting a signal. He replaced several lines, the connection at the pole, and the box thingy that controls everything (yep, technical, I know). As a result, our Internet speed increased 20-fold, no lie, from 1.5 megabits to 23 megabits, bits not bytes. That’s a real number.
by krystian_o (FCC)
Brett is happy. Eamonn is happy. I’m happy to have one more thing done.
I still haven’t tackled the washer yet as my back is one big knot. Add to that the fact that my stupid long-term disability carrier wants to do a home visit to see how I am. Seriously? I’m worse if anything. Whatever. I told the woman to send someone. I didn’t care. It won’t change anything, but for some reason they had in their records that I was receiving money from Social Security. Ha. Now that’s a fairy tale.
Anyway, my to-do list is long and full of things that I may or may not be able to do. Corey wants me to make two payments to my health insurance, and I’m really reluctant to do so because I know that as soon as I do, I’m going to need that money for some emergency. Forgive me if I don’t have more faith in the way in which my life unfolds, but as I mentioned before, I kind of live by the laws of inaccurate perceptions . . .
“Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?” ~ Stanley Kunitz, from “The Abduction”
So late last night, because this is the kind of thing that I do, I decided to clean the computer cabinet in the dining room. When the cable guy was working, I was mortified to see how much dust covered everything, that and all of the cables and cords were one big tangle in that area. So I untangled all of the lines, wrapped them with wires, and then pulled everything off the cabinet. It’s one of those computer tables with doors so that—theoretically—you can close off the mess when you’re not using the computer.
by mrpbps (FCC)
The reality, though, is that we’ve closed off mess in general since that particular computer died a horrible death about three years ago. It was Corey’s computer and his desk, so I never really did anything with it, that is until now. The dust was akin to the dust beneath the bed: heavy, thick, and massive. I found a box of Chantix that Corey got four years ago to try to stop smoking. He never took it. I also found a flash drive that I’d been looking for that no one had ever seen.
So an hour or so later . . . the shelves had been dusted and organized. I made a bag of things that Corey needs to look through when he gets home to see what/if anything can be chucked. There were computer parts that I have no idea as to the source, so now they’re in the bag. I think we’re going to move the desktop in Eamonn’s room into the dining room since he only uses his laptop, and (I hope) just bin the dining room computer. It would cost more to fix it than it’s worth, and now that Corey has his own laptop, it only makes sense to move the generic desktop into that unit.
All I know is that I gave myself another asthma attack, and I was covered in grime when I finished, but I suppose that makes three things, even though that wasn’t on my list, but I just hate it when a stranger comes into your house and ends up seeing messes that you’ve managed to hide from yourself . . .
“In writing as in speaking, the music of the word is never just a matter of sound. It does not result from the harmony of vowels and consonants. It results from the relation between the speech and its meaning. And meaning—content—must always lead.” ~ Boris Pasternak, interview with Olga Carlisle
Tomorrow is Corey’s birthday. We sent birthday cards with him, so he’ll be opening those tomorrow. I hope that he isn’t too lonely. We can’t call him, but I’ll e-mail him on the satellite account to send him good wishes.
by Karson Designs (FCC)
Since the ship’s cook hurt himself running with the bulls in the Azores (true story), Corey has taken on the galley. At first he was splitting meals with another AB, but everyone liked Corey’s cooking so much that they asked him to take on the duties temporarily until a new cook arrives. However, now they’re talking about letting him cook for the remainder of his hitch.
Corey really is a wonderful cook, and I know that he’s enjoying showing off his skills, but I also know that cooking so much for so many people can get old. It’s a nice change for him, and it gets him off day work like scraping and painting, but I don’t imagine that it’s something that he’d want to do all of the time. Anyway, the captain is trying to find out if Corey’s pay rate changes while he takes on these new duties as he’s working as both an AB and a cook.
We’ll see what happens.
“I am decutie. Worn thin. You know that word?” ~ Hélène Cixous
I’m tired, so tired. Weeks of going back and forth from Lex’s apartment to home and trying to take care of everything for everyone has finally caught up with me as I knew that it would. But more than tired, I’m bone-weary, decutie (what a perfect word)—I am feeling everything all the way down to my bones, and no amount of caffeine or chocolate is going to help this.
I wish that I had an answer, but I’m not even really certain as to what the question might be.
by KellBailey (FCC)
Everywhere I turn is something else waiting for action. It makes me feel almost helpless, and I really, really, really hate to feel helpless. You know that whole “hear me roar” mindset? Yep. That’s me. Except not so much, or at least not at the moment.
I just had a flashback: I was around 15, and my boyfriend (the boy who lived across the fence) came over, and I actually apologized for the way the house looked. The house did not look bad, but I was so conditioned by all of those commercials and television shows that a female should apologize for the state of the house. Now here’s the kicker: I knew, really knew, even as I said it, that I didn’t mean it and that it was a completely fatuous statement, but I said it anyway. I remember this same boy’s mother criticizing another neighbor for not keeping her house clean enough; she said something along the lines that the living room was clean, but if you went into the bedrooms, they were messy.
Long story short, I broke up with this boy a few months later when I realized (maybe not then, but later) that the person I was when I was with him didn’t exist. That person was someone else, a creation of expectations. No idea where any of that came from.
More later. Peace.
Music by Nickel Creek, “Out of the Woods”
Open Closed Open
I, may I rest in peace – I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive.
I don’t want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.
Wars with the old weapons – sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons – machine gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate.
I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophecy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.
~ Yehuda Amichai
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 