“My Autumn” (1929, oil on canvas) by Georgia O’Keeffe
All Saints
It’s one day past the Day of the Dead, and this has been
a bad year, six funerals already and not done yet.
But on this blue day of perfect weather, I can’t muster
sadness, for the trees are radiant, the air thick as Karo
warmed in a pan. I have my friend’s last book spread
on the table and a cup of coffee in a white china mug.
All the leaves are ringing, like the tiny bells of God.
My mother, too, is ready to leave. All she wants now
is sugar: penuche fudge, tapioca pudding, pumpkin roll.
She wants to sit in the sun, pull it around her shoulders
like an Orlon sweater, and listen to the birds
in the far-off trees. I want this sweetness to linger
on her tongue, because the days are growing shorter
now, and night comes on, so quickly.
~ Barbara Crooker
Music by Matthew Perryman Jones, “Canción de la Noche”
“Winter, Kragero” (1912, oil on canvas) by Edvard Munch
“I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.” ~ Virgina Woolf
Saturday evening. Drizzle and cold, 45 degrees.
Not feeling that much better, but feel the need to write. I’ve turned down the brightness on my monitor to 50 percent, and at first I thought that might be bad for my eyes, but then I realized what a ridiculous concern that was as my eyes are terrible anyway, and at least the glare from the screen wasn’t so painful.
“City Roofs in Winter” (nd, medium unknown) by Ivan Shishkin
Today I awoke with a headache again, but very, very dizzy as well. Yesterday I had Corey give me one of those wonderful new self-injections of Sumavel (sumatriptan). Let me pause here: that wonderful air forced delivery method? Jay-zus it hurts, much, much worse than a needle. Give me a needle any day. The first time we did my thigh. Yesterday we used my belly for the injection site, which didn’t hurt quite as much, probably because there is more fat on my belly than on my thigh. Anyway, the headache went away, but the nausea and dizziness . . . egads.
I don’t know if I can do this new regimen, but I’m willing to give everything a bit longer for my personal test period. I have an appointment in about a month for Botox injections for my migraines. I guess I’ll know by then if this new combination of meds is or isn’t working.
“I didn’t know what to do, there was a feeling of time running out and a loss of momentum, of opportunities wasted.” ~ Jon McGregor, from If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
Last night I had very strange dreams. In one of them, I was at a department store buying Christmas presents. First I was in the music section, and I was looking for classical cds, only there were still albums on the shelf, you know, vinyl, and I was very confused. Then I wanted to go to the shoe department, but I ended up in the jewelry, and I found all of these great buys on watches. I was picking out watches with different face shapes and different colored bands, but when the associate wrung up my purchase, it came to over $6,000, and I knew that I didn’t have that much in the bank. So I asked what had cost so much, and she said that she charged me $34.95 for each watch, but I told her they were only $9.95 and $13.95, and there was no way I had bought enough to hit six thousand.
“View of Roofs (Snow Effect) or Roofs under Snow” (1878, oil on canvas) by Gustave Caillebotte
Very strange. And then it turned into a Walking Dead dream, and there was a cave, and some kind of sea creature like the Creature from the Black Lagoon and two turtles, and a character from the Harry Potter stories.
Is it any wonder that I awaken with headaches each morning? My brain does not rest during sleep; rather, it appears to go into some kind of overdrive, warp speed of thoughts and ideas, if you will. So greeting the day with pain seems to be the price I pay for a very active, but strange, dream state, and even though I would rather not wake up with pain, I also know that I really don’t want to have boring dreams.
“Y. That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over.” ~ Marjorie Celona, from “Y”
So thanks for hanging in during this latest bout of maladies. I’m still trying to keep the content lively and relevant. You would be amazed what pops up when you enter such a generic search term as headaches in Google images.
“Roofs. Winter” (1876, medium unknown) by Arkhip Kuindzhi
I heard from Titirangi Storyteller that she cannot watch the Hulu videos that I post, which are usually my selections from “The Daily Show.” Does anyone know if Hulu has country restrictions? It never occurred to me that the ability to stream a video might be geographically limited, which just reflects my ignorance about these things. In my mind, everything, I mean absolutely everything is connected and interconnected now so that we can all call up the same information, have the same access to things, can link and unlink to our hearts’ collective desires, but I guess not so much.
That being said, I still don’t understand why, with the being that is the world wide web, some parts work everywhere and still others only work somewhere. Obviously, I do not have a technical mind and cannot begin to understand concepts such as coding, applications, and such, and why, when I give it any thought at all, I am so impressed by those individuals for whom such oblique ideas in my way of thinking are as easy as the two column in the times table in their way of thinking.
And perhaps the previous paragraph would best be left alone to suffer its convolution quietly.
“I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living.” ~ Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
I had so many ideas on what I should write about today, but none of them are here at the moment. Could be they are repressed behind my squinty eyes, my half-hearted attempts to block out the whiteness of the page on which I am composing. I will not use the word creating as I don’t believe that I am being very creative here at the moment, merely composing, moving from one word to the next in an attempt to get to the full stop.
“Kaunas Houses at Kaukanto Street” (1931, medium unknown) by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
All of which is to say that I fear that I do not have much to say, or perhaps I have something to say but do not currently have the wherewithal with which to say it, and all of this reminds me of this terrible phase I went through in the 8th grade in which I composed these tortured missives that began with the following: “If today were tomorrow yesterday, then tomorrow today will be yesterday, and . . .” and I would follow it with any manner of nonsense and then, very pleased with myself, I would force Bobby (one of my male friends) to read these bizarre creations, and because he was nice and he tolerated me, he would read them or at least pretend to read them, perhaps raise his eyebrows, and only occasionally tell me how weird I was.
And I suppose what I’m getting at here is saying thank you for not mentioning very often how very weird I can be.
“Her mind was like a wound exposed to dry in the air.” ~ Virginia Woolf, from The Voyage Out
And the sad thing is, really, that I would just like to sit in bed and eat some Ben and Jerry’s as my eyes aren’t working well enough to start a new book, and I’m craving chocolate, specifically in ice cream form, preferably something with caramel, chocolate, pecans, and maybe peanut butter, but I’m not going to give in to that craving, and before you think I’m being admirable, I will admit that I am not going to give in to that craving only because last night I gave in to my chocolate craving and ate a big box of Raisinets that Corey had put in my Christmas stocking and which I had hid for just such an eventuality. I ate the entire box, and I didn’t give in to my desire to turn over the box and look at the calorie content because that might have prevented me from eating the entire box, and I had already decided that an entire box was called for, especially in light of the week that I have had, and by god I was going to eat it all.
“Roofs of Paris” (1900, oil on canvas) by Francis Picabia
And why, oh why, does my list of suggested related posts contain three about being pregnant and having headaches? Un-pregnant women have cravings, too, you know.
Perhaps I should go back to posting videos and reposts from tumblr, eh?
(Don’t know why, but all images are of rooftops in winter.)
More later. Peace.
Music by Muse, “Madness”
More and More
More and more frequently the edges
of me dissolve and I become
a wish to assimilate the world, including
you, if possible through the skin
like a cool plant’s tricks with oxygen
and live by a harmless green burning.
I would not consume
you or ever
finish, you would still be there
surrounding me, complete
as the air.
Unfortunately I don’t have leaves.
Instead I have eyes
and teeth and other non-green
things which rule out osmosis.
So be careful, I mean it,
I give you fair warning:
This kind of hunger draws
everything into its own
space; nor can we
talk it all over, have a calm
rational discussion.
There is no reason for this, only
a starved dog’s logic about bones.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 