Thursday, December 31, 2009

I will yell Happy New Year in the morning?

There are Trader Joe’s “Mini Morning Buns” in the oven. I suppose the morning is as mini as any. It’s 8:40, and I’ve barely done more than get the buns going and start the elliptical for Jeff. What it means to start the elliptical is 1)Turn on the TV to CNBC. Harder than you think. One remote to turn it on, and adjust volume, another to aim at the cable box for channel selection. And both subject to disappearing in couch crevices. Then I push the green button on the elliptical console, twice, and invite him to climb aboard.

Trader Joe’s mini morning buns come in an awkward packaging size for the current crew-in-residence. 12 minis/box. One box means I should only eat 2. Two boxes means I can eat 4 or 5, but there will be leftovers to dry out. Easy call: 2 boxes.

It’s 10:55 am, and my left shoulder is holding me accountable for having slept on it last night. Darned if there’s a position that works, without repercussions, anymore. I may look into stringing a hammock across the room this year. Seriously. Could work. Meanwhile, Jeff is about to be scooped up by his sister for a kindly social call to an old friend of his late mother, and I’ll visit the grocery for some last minute peanut butter cake ingredients, since I’m supplying New Year’s day dessert.

1:00. Eating leftover Indian food, in our usual scavengy way. Happily, there’s enough rice to dilute the chickpeas channa masala, which smart a bit straight. Then Jeff and Helen return, mission accomplished. Jeff is wearing a brown leather shoe on his left foot, and a mahogany suede shoe on his right. I point the discrepancy out, but he is baffled, so I take his suede shoe upstairs and swap it for the other brown one. I hand it to Jeff, and he reaches to remove the other brown shoe from his left foot. “No,” I say, “put on this shoe.” He remains baffled. “Where?” “Put this shoe on this foot.” He struggles with the laces. Olivia catches my reflexive movement and verbally holds me off. “He can do it he can do it!” she chides. He more or less does.

3:30. I am presently vegging on the living room couch. My macbook battery indicator suggests a re-juicing. At the kitchen table, four of us take turns plugging into to one AC adaptor, like the mermaids at Weeki Wachee sucking on the air hose so they can go about their underwater business. It is my AC adaptor. I am, consequently, only wired about 25% of the time when girls are home.

Girls are scuttling about, embroiled in the processes of getting ready to go out for the evening and/or head back to St. Mary’s County. Nail polish, heels no reasonable person could walk in, and the guinea pig...waiting patiently on the kitchen table while its ride takes a shower. Hazel-cat is intrigued, rolling around on top of the cage. The message is clear: I could really play with this animal if you’d let me. I busy myself with nonsense--Tiki Towers on the iPhone, Facebook stalking, anything. I’ve got chickenless nuggets in the oven for Gabe and Jeff, but I can’t relax and reheat more leftover daal for myself until the girls have launched themselves. I inform Gabe that he will be required to vacate the TV with dvd player in a while, as I plan to watch the film (500) Days of Summer which Becca has kindly left behind.

15 minutes ‘til movie time. It’s 6:40. Some combo of my glass of sauvignon blanc and general flaggedness at having launched the 3rd and final girl out the door has stripped me of any remnant of patience. I have a nonsensical conversation with Jeff about whether it’s ok for him to sit in his chair (it is) while the cat is sitting in the other one. (yes, still ok.) But I sound cranky. I wonder if I could have an email penpal, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, but agree never to meet.

Halfway into the movie Gabe gets a call. He’s going to Matt’s house for the night. Goodbye Gabe. The movie was ok. Sort of sad, but the protagonist got things straightened out in the end, maybe. Me, I’m still stuck in the part where he declares it all b.s. and quits his greeting card job.

Jeff tried to go to bed. It didn’t take. It is 9:10pm. Lately, in the morning, he lies in bed until I finally stop hitting the snooze button, then pops up exactly as I do. And bedtime is increasingly unlikely until I have also succumbed. I was warned about shadowing. I know what behaviors are likely to be coming. But, if you’ve ever played Sims, and bought the sad clown painting...you know what comes next. Yes, it’s like that, but without the sobbing. The clown begins to follow you around. Something like a heavy shadow that never quite gives you privacy, but never quite intrudes either.

So, we’re having tea. Tea is the answer, if there’s no other. This is called “Organic Easy Now,” and purports to ease tension and stress. ‘Tis a pleasant brew. Well...I’ve just hatched a plan: Tonight, just after I post this, I will start a new Pages document. Over the course of the year, I will fill it with good thoughts. Every time a little lost wandering good feeling wafts by, I will place its imprint upon that page. The little lost wandering good feeling won’t mind. They like to do things like that.

It’s 9:30. I won’t make it ‘til midnight. I rarely do. ; )

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

(heading added later...a fish couldn't do that.)

Blogging from the iPhone? As if that can do anything to sharpen my content. I know...maybe it will make my posts shorter. Snappier? Crisper? Posts like garden-fresh string beans? Or merely symptomatic of my koi-like attention span...

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Reel? or no real.

Of course the new film It’s Complicated is entirely realistic in positing a middle-aged protagoniste as the object of the competing affections of two eligible (or, not so,) suitors. I hold out hope. All the fun cannot have been passed, like a baton, to the next generation. I won’t have it.

As for the supposition that the character, played by Meryl Streep, could a)run a successful cafe/bakery, b)maintain a well-appointed house, stocked full of homemade food, and c)cultivate a beautifully groomed kitchen garden? Nonsense. But this is the movies we’re talking about.

I have selective suspension of disbelief, as required.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Partly sage, but nary the time.

I am holding this book, The I Ching for Writers, by Sarah Jane Sloane, which my friend Katherine gave me for Christmas. Now, it is normal, when I consult the regular i ching books, for the proffered advice to chide me for my need-to-know. The i ching does not care for neediness or clinginess, and when you ask a similar question too many times, it responds with the taoish equivalent of “because I said so.”

But the I Ching for writers...now this is a side door knob I haven’t yet jiggled, so just maybe I can--if not outsmart the Sage--at least take it a little by surprise, and shake out a more definitive answer. Confucius would probably say “impatient dweeb should fold laundry,” but there’s no harm in having a go at it, is there?

So, I’m going to open with a question: Is the story I’m ever-so-glacially crafting completely useless pixelation? And now to go pester the cosmos for either a) a nod, or b) a smackdown.

My coins are a mismatched set--two bronze, one silver--of hole-in-the-center, small bit pieces that came home in my father-in-law’s pocket, from China, roughly 22 years ago. They spend most of their time happily tarnished, in a small black jewelry pouch that something came in from Sundance catalog, and they’re always ready to come out and play their role in a reprimand from the Sage.

Six tosses. And it’s heaven over water (whatever that means): 6, with a changer on toss #4, making the future potential a 59. Don’t try to understand this. Just trust me. I’m sure I’m convincing. So, excuse me momentarily, as I read the interpretation...

...Ok. So, apparently, the Sage is advising me to burn something down in my story. As a means of risk-taking. Just let me say it now: If--upon its completion--you ever read this book, and think to yourself, not bad, except for the part where the city was consumed by flames,...you must blame it on the Sage, and not me.

On to 59, where the so-called moving lines have carried me: I see. Tie up the loose ends. So, first burn something down, then tidy up. It has just occurred to me that this advice may actually be intended for my fireplace, which is badly in need of a good sweeping out. But, for want of better inspiration, I will first squirt it, like powdered graphite, into the joints of my story...and just see...

One last, and not entirely welcome thought: What was my original question? Oh, right: Is the story I’m ever-so-glacially crafting completely useless pixelation? I don’t suppose the answer hits the question in a very direct way, now does it? Or does it? Fire and tidy up? Throw the whole thing into the virtual furnace? That could be what the i ching is saying, you know. But perhaps the text should reassure me. The consulted chapter advised “Writing Dangerously,” not packing it in irretrievably. So, tally ho....or FIRE! (as the case may be.) Onward.

but no scree tea.

Hmmm...what was it? One Christmas stocking pb-filled chocolate maple leaf? Or was it the homemade candy ball, straight from the land of old-fashioned food goodness, Tazewell, Virginia, that pushed my touchy head into the ibuprofen zone this morning?

I am looking out at the shlorpiest of Saturday mornings, where the the constant splat of rain has turned what seemed to be insurmountable heaps of snow into the great dismal slush swamp. We will need to go out in it. There are leftovers in the fridge, to be sure, but Jeff ate the last of the cinnamon-raisin Trader Joe British Muffins, toasted in two extremely uneven halves, this morning. As he cannot be retrained to initiate a different breakfast, I will set out to obtain more, and some milk and o.j. in the bargain.

One Subaru emerged from the snowfall with wipers unwilling to function. I certainly erred in not bearing at least one child with mechanical inclinations, so we will need to throw a bit more money in the direction of Annapolis Subaru on Monday. The rivulets of water in the basement I will not worry about. One can hardly expect a 62 year old foundation to hold this much meltwater at bay.

I wonder: Is it ever possible for humans to be as content as a kitty snuggled up in a new RocketDog deluxe black microfiber, size 8M, ankle-boot box? I would happily give each of my children--and anyone else for that matter--such a box, sized just for him/her, if it would keep them happy in the face of a world where slush-swamps and chocolate headaches, but especially the vagaries of forging important long-term relationships, are often making the path a skid zone. Well ouch. I’d keep the headaches, and sweep up all the scree.

I think tea is our security blanket. It’s warm. It steeps. You can make it with cute equipment. And it does not, as far as I know, contribute to headaches.

Monday, December 21, 2009

On the hike, I will burn wood.

There are times when the simple pleasures really are. Melancholy ebbs and flows, washing in or out an assortment of tidal flotsam, and sometimes when you’re looking at a typical evening with the increasingly usual wry acknowledgment that life ain’t always all it’s cracked up to be, (but, then again, maybe it is...or more,) the best option is to add a java log to the fire, and an inch or so to the scarf you’ll be knitting forever. (Because you only add an inch about twice a year. And yes, I did check to make sure all the bathroom exhaust fans were off before lighting the pseudolog.)

Jeff wanders in to see if I have any interesting television plans for the night. Oh, possibly a crappy Hallmark Christmas movie in an hour or so. More than likely, he will tire of his chair soon, and--as it is too late for the usual distraction of coffee--go to bed. Gabe wanders in to admire the bogus uniformity of a flame born of compressed wax, coffee grounds, and who-knows-what-else, and challenges me with the following query: Who would win in a fight between someone whose superpower was telekinesis, and someone who could teleport? I predict that it would be difficult for the teleporter to lose, but...then again...it might be equally difficult for him to win. I should hope that if I ever find myself gifted with either skill, a fight to the death will remain unnecessary. But, at the very least, I would have an easier time acquiring real wood as needed, for burning.

I’ve got a wad of cotton, infused with liquid “Bio-Ear,” tucked into my left hearing appendage. It’s some sort of concoction of herbal extracts, designed to scare off the nascent ache in my eustachian tube. This will do nothing to impair my enjoyment of the badly written dialog I’m fixing to experience shortly, on cable tv.

Did I mention I’m sitting in a rocking chair? I really am. That’s another comfort. Odd though--to observe oneself a)knitting, b)watching the fire, and c)rocking, at a life interlude when other relatively uncontrollable facets of life have left you thinking they accidentally switched you with an 85 year old, is another one of those things you can merely observe with the aforementioned wry acknowledgment. Well. I hope that 85 year old is having lots of fun, and maybe even hiking the Continental Divide Trail! Actually, I’m going to assume, right here and now, that this is the case, because it makes me feel good to think so. I very much hope, in fact, she will send me a letter that I can keep, until one day, possibly at 85, it’s me.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

hard to tawrrrrrrggggrrrrkkkkk.

I think I need a vocal coach. Not for singing, in particular, (though that could hardly hurt,) but for just regular speaking. This is not ordinarily a problem as, in day to day life, I am of a sufficiently taciturn nature that I rarely need to speak except in short bursts. But, in the event that I do need to utter more than a few sentences without a vocal break, my voice begins to grind like brakes without pads, or knees without cartilage. It’s uncomfortable, and probably doesn’t sound very nice to boot.

Lately this is troublesome, because I read to Jeff. There is not much excitement in a day of chair-sitting, and patio-sweeping, so, if we can break it up with a chapter of Bill Bryson, everyone benefits. Currently, we’re working on The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, and Bill is putting his unique spin on a dinner of “ineffable crappiness” in Virginia. Jeff likes it. I enjoy the opportunity to get the inflection just right on every sentence, and employ my best thespian flair to maximize his otherwise-impaired comprehension.

But when, a couple pages in, my voice begins to acquire the timbre of E.T. in his death scene, or Linda Blair with her head on backwards, I can’t help but wonder whether I simply don’t use my vocal equipment properly.

When I was 19, I took a basic music theory class in college. The professor had us meet with him in small groups, to practice hitting notes with the one instrument we’d have with us at all times--our voices. One exercise went decidedly higher than my comfort level, and I said so. “Any female worth her salt can hit that note,” he said. So I did. I hit it, (and higher ones, a good many more times years later when I took a voice class at the Community College.) And I remember one other thing that professor said. It was an observation, that I speak in a tone that’s lower than my “natural” speaking voice.

Why would I do that? Because I learned early that my “real” voice, as revealed by the cassette recorder/player that we kids got one Christmas, was (to my ear) babyish and squeaky? Maybe, after that, I developed a habit of trying to lower my voice. Perhaps, if I actually spoke “correctly,” I could get through a few more pages of Bill Bryson without rolling off the road into the vocal gutter.

But I don’t know how you do that. So, if we speak, and you notice my tone becoming oddly light and airy, just know--I’m merely recalibrating.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

a blustery, only slighty frustery, day


How hard is this to open? The fact that I took the picture with my MacBook’s built in camera, which shoots (and displays) in mirror image and is, therefore, damnably hard to hold correctly when aimed at an object, and therefore gave me this nice “vertigo view” notwithstanding, that is.

Why do I ask? Because it is a timely case study to use in considering how neuronal pathways fail. I imagine that you would insert your fingers, from below, behind the semicircular convex object at center-top, and pull toward yourself. Correct. That is the simplest technique.

But what if you’d spent 40+ years using and selling hardware (including pulls of this very sort,) and in fact, installed this particular mailbox yourself and had been using it for the past 10 years, and this happened: You couldn’t open it one day. You completely missed the visual fact that it has a pull, and instead grasped fruitlessly at the sides, bottom, and rear of the box, not even thinking to pry the door down by its front edges. Luckily, in this case, “you,” are oblivious enough that you do not object when your wife takes over and gets the mail out.

Gabe reports that he happened to see Jeff trying to exit, via the front door yesterday. Jeff opened the door, stepped outside, then attempted to find a means of pulling the door shut again. He grabbed the tongue part of the latch mechanism that pops in and out, but realized he would shut his hand in the door if he continued pulling, and instead, stepped inside and pulled the door shut using the inside handle. Then, discovering he was not on the side of the door he intended to be, he tried again, this time pulling, correctly, on the exterior handle.

It’s a remarkable failure to try to comprehend. As Gabe said, it would be funny if it weren’t sad.

I realize, progressively, that these things are catching up to us, and we will, increasingly, feel the limitations. Today, Jeff and I took a field trip to Ellicott City, to walk the 18th Century mill town’s historic Main Street, visit the train museum, and have lunch. We entered a curiosity shop, of knick knacks and antiques, displayed in 9 rooms, on all 4 levels of a former duplex, now merged into one building. At each end of each level, was an ancient wooden staircase--the type where the treads are narrow, and twist at irregular points. (Clearly these were the homes of humble mill-workers--no grand entrances into the drawing room from elegant stairways here.) I was uncertain, as stumbling is becoming a consequential concern. But, we made it up and down, with minor missteps, although I changed sides of the house, as needed, to avoid the possibility that any calamitous falls would sweep a mother with small children down the stairs as well.

But it was a nice day. Cold. A little blustery. But sunny, and pretty, and--with a hat, scarf, and gloves, I felt perfectly equipped.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Maybe I am a green field?

Among the mysteries of my early education is this: Why did our elementary school music books contain the song “Marching to Pretoria,” and why did we sing it so much? I discovered much later that it was a marching song, sung by the Afrikaaners during the Boer war, but this would certainly have meant nothing to me in second grade, and, frankly, has little significance to me now. I remain confused.

It’s strange that the song would be a standout point in my memory. But stand out it does. Along with the textbook: Greenfield U.S.A. Of all the textbooks, in all the classrooms, in all the gin joints of public education of the late 60s, why I would specifically recall that book remains an unresolved question. Even now that I’ve acquired a copy.

Yes, I did. It’s one of the marvels of the internet age, that the title Greenfield U.S.A. needed only flit through my head at an Amazon moment, for me to discover that I could get one. For 19¢ + shipping. “Aha,” I thought. “Here is my opportunity to discover why I am so indelibly marked by blandness that my college art professor decreed my efforts to be trite, except for the one where I accidentally smudged the chalk, and gave the child-subject an evil glint.”

Surely it all goes back to Greenfield U.S.A. Or, at least, Greenfield U.S.A. must serve as a token--a representation encapsulating all that shaped my developing aesthetic into something that now struggles, blandly, to break free of its cultural tupperware.

I examined the book. It was smaller than I remembered. (surprise!) Copyrighted in 1964, by D.C. Heath and Company, this particular copy was stamped by the Board of Education, Pittsburg, Kansas, which probably only retired it a couple years ago when they discovered it makes no reference to intelligent design.

I continued to explore the text, determined to discover--now, with my razor-keen insight--the insidious presumptions foisted upon my young brain, which doomed me now to eternal blandness.

And I think I found the key. Like it or not, Greenfield U.S.A. is a perfectly pleasant book, exploring life in front of and behind the scenes of the classic, Main Street-focused town, which we’d all like to live in, but scarcely exists. And was very rapidly going out of business even in 1964. Of course I opened the book with questions and expectations related to gender-identity and ethnic diversity; all those things that hit an assortment of fans in the decades following the book’s publication, and I will highlight a few.

I wondered if women in Greenfield U.S.A had jobs. Ever. Suffice it to say that in most of the book's vignettes, they were moms, and wore uncomfortable clothes. However, there were minor exceptions. A female store clerk did sell Mary a red raincoat, there were female nurses in starched white dresses when that idiot Fred fell out of a tree and broke his leg, and there was this: Proving that those skills learned by eager girls in their Future Homemakers of America clubs still could come in useful, even if one didn’t find Mr. Right. Most reassuring.

Meanwhile, I discovered something that I had possibly not noticed at age 7: Policeman Bill was quite a studly muffin,
and it was therefore no wonder that the teen-girl-squad pictured below walked straight into oncoming traffic against the green light in order to elicit his intervention.
Most likely, however, they got more face-time with the same starched nurses who’d helped Fred with his leg.

I wondered if every person in Greenfield U.S.A was, by decree, of Euro-heritage, whitebread stock. And the answer is, mostly. Look closely, however, at this parade scene, and you’ll note that a man of possibly African/Asiatic heritage has sneaked into the background, catching the eye of the red-haired woman who is visible between the tuba and trumpet players. She is intrigued. The rest of the town is, fortunately, too distracted by the parade to be appalled.

So, no. Not too many people of color in Greenfield, but, if you keep reading, a very small chapter at the end of the book discusses “living in other places.” One of those other places is A City Neighborhood. Here, apparently, Tom could learn to swim in an ethnically diverse crowd, and--remarkably--seems none the worse for it. Did you ever wonder what happened to the “skinny guy” from your old comic books after he used the Charles Atlas method and punched out the bully? Well, now you know. Here he is, teaching Tom and the other boys to swim at the Boys’ Club in the Big City. Do not ask me what they are doing at the Girls’ Club. You already know: They are learning to wash heads of lettuce.

Well, anyway, at least I now know what’s wrong with me. Greenfield U.S.A presented life as it “should” be, and I--apparently--believed it. More or less. I don’t know. Maybe if Mary had said, “No. I don’t want a red raincoat, I want a lab coat, like Dr. March.” Or maybe if Mike had said, “No Dad, I don’t want to go fishing, I want to wash lettuce.” Maybe then, just that one slightly unexpected twist would have--like the butterfly effect--launched my immature neurons into a lifetime where feats of the imagination are easy, fresh, and unexpected.

But that didn’t happen. So, like acquiring a second language post-childhood, I continue to attempt to acquire creative spark, and a mind inclined that way. And Greenfield U.S.A has supplied a clue. I am bland because I was raised in abject blandness. I know now why thinking outside the tupperware box--to a mind forged in Greenfield--is as tough as learning Japanese.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

being mobile's not so bad for la donna.

I wish I could work at a coffee shop. (and by “work,” I mean “write.” I realize one could well quibble with my definitions, after seeing what I write and how I don’t get paid to do it. But for purposes here, I mean “write.” Ahem...)

I wish I could work at a coffee shop. (doesn’t La Donna e Mobile start something like this? Yes, I’m inspired by Verdi. He looked just like our plumber, Yank. Ahem...)

I know it’s a cliche, the whole shtick of the earnest scribe, with laptop, in coffee shop. I’ve seen it plenty of times myself, and I always think, that’s cute...look at you...what a cliche...hope you have better luck than I have. But I’ve also tried it. More back in the day when I had two conditions present--children in school, and husband at work. Now that I am a companion almost 24/7, you would think that--at the very least--such circumscription would afford me ample freedom to write. And it does, in theory. But as almost everyone who has tried to work at home knows--sometimes home is just not the easiest place to achieve mental clarity. It is true that, with writing, you cannot let lack of mental clarity be a stumbling block. (If it were I would have scarcely written a word by now.) But the weird thing is...writing in a coffee shop really works. Maybe it’s a combination of factors: You’re out and in public which brings a fresh sharpness to the thinking process, yet it’s a comfortable setting where most distractions can be safely ignored. I have had some breakthrough moments in that setting. Not that you would know, reading my stuff...Show me, please...just where is it that you broke through?...Well, that could be the wrong metaphor. Maybe they were more like finally getting my rubber rain boot yanked out of the mud moments. It may not have yielded something pretty, but at least I could stick my foot back in and resume trudging. And drink coffee.

Friday, November 20, 2009

eReading

Let’s deviate from existential angst and situational bellyaching for a spell, and give 3 cheers for technology.

I’m aware that not everyone--self-proclaimed Luddite friends, and frustrated relatives being notable exceptions--will want to cheer, but I’m going to do it anyway. Ok, I know that Amazon is big and unwieldy, is taking over the world, and will soon change it’s name to Buy-N-Large (or Monsanto...not sure which,) but--for the moment at least (or until I notice they’ve implanted a chip in my brain via “Whispernet,”)--I’m delighted by my newly discovered ability to share already-purchased Kindle books between the Kindle itself and my iPhone. Using free-to-download Stanza software.

Here’s why I experienced a minor note of insignificant frustration prior to this discovery: Kindle downloads are roughly $10, minus a cent or two. Certain ones--sometimes very large files or very new and popular titles can exceed this amount, and others (such as the complete Les Mis) can be dirt cheap. But, having acquired Stanza software free on my iPhone, I observed--upon scanning the online catalogs for books of interest--that most ebooks that are not public domain, are carrying a price tag in the $26 echelon.

So today, as I was scouting for a downloadable edition of something that has caught my eye: Fingerprints of God, by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, I was also contemplating whether I’d prefer to Kindle it, or try it out on the iPhone reader (which has the advantage of being with me at, essentially, all times, but would not serve well as distraction on the elliptical trainer. That is the Kindle’s job.)

For $9.99 I could instantaneously download the title onto my Kindle. For $27 I could get it on Stanza. Not such a tough call, but a curious dichotomy that set me to googling why. And I google-stumbled across the previously-unknown-to-me fact that Amazon bought Stanza, and if I simply download (free) Kindle software onto my iPhone, then I can also access everything I’ve already purchased for Kindle. (seems fair, true.)

Anyone who’s wondering whether this kind of stuff is all I have to worry about maybe doesn't know me. What this kind of stuff provides is a fun distraction from the other stuff, and I share it here with the tootly fanfare of a digitized trumpet, as is appropriate given the subject matter.

Yes. I admit in all dorkiness and apologetic contrition and tendency to create redundant phrases just because they sound cool that I’m an iPhone junkie now. (who, for example, could not love a device on which you can play a game called "Ragdoll Blast," where you complete physics puzzles by shooting ragdolls out of a cannon?)

Regrettably though, even if I turn out to like the new book, I have no way to share it with you.

Monday, November 16, 2009

potluck...

Nihongo is a no-go for next semester, I know. The vital energies are just being demanded elsewhere, it turns out. In fact, I’m about out of juice already in the mental kana generator. Oh, for sure, I’ll keep it from totally rusting with a bit of Rosetta Stone here and there, but sometimes you’re like a shrub, hunkering through the dry season, and you’ve gotta know where to lop the excess branches.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to sleep. I’m pretty good at the basics, mind you, but the game is getting a bit more complex, what with aging equipment challenges, and I’m finding myself faced with decisions other than just how early to bed and how early to rise. I was a stomach sleeper up through the child-bearing years. As a kid, balling up face down gave me a sense of virtual carapace, and stuff (you know, stuff) couldn’t get me. When my back started to hurt, I compromised and went with side sleeping. A 5 foot body pillow has been my helper for years, but now the shoulders say no. Bursitis? Rotator cuff? I don’t know, but a little online research suggested that by careful placement of 3 pillows, I could fashion myself a sort of arm and shoulder channel, thereby taking the crunch off. Tried it. Maybe it’s just that I’m in an acute phase with the shoulder pain, but it still hurt. The best solution seems to be on my back, 2 head pillows, and a chest pillow for my arms, to keep the shoulders in unstressful alignment. As for the gradual segue to more “vulnerable” positions, (back up, side up, belly up?) I guess I may have to just get a scary pillowcase for my chest-top pillow.

Here’s what’s funny when your person is in the Medicare Part D “donut hole.” You go into the pharmacy requesting the bare minimum of pills to carry you through to January 4 (the first business day of 2010, when the health plan resets,) and even though you’re only trying to obtain a month and a half worth, the counter lady still looks at you pityingly, because she knows how much each of those stinky little pills costs. And you explain that it’s okay--that’s why you’re only getting the bare minimum, and not 3 months worth.

Highlight of the day: The owners of the Good Life Organic Market now have daal and rice on the hot bar! It was lunch. Yum.

Friday, November 13, 2009

maybe?

Weirdness. I’m actually looking, with potential interest, at a service called “Comfort Zone,” currently being promoted on the latest Alz. Assoc. email. Makes your AD person (who, of course, has to have the transmitter on him) trackable online via GPS and a mapping site.

Not that my person wanders off. As of presently, this has not been a problem. But I’m interested in the technology’s potential to be employed in “travel” mode, when--should we become separated in a place other than our hometown--I could googlemap him.

Well...let’s see if a) Gabe has a situation for next Fall, and (if “a” is true,) b) it actually appears that we may accomplish travel. Other than to a college dorm and back. There are also “safe return” bracelets, which are imprinted with info needed to contact a nerve center, whence the responsible party may be contacted. I never did this with my kids. (didn’t exist.) Well, we’ll see...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

where to go, where to go...

Paul-san and I had the briefest of pre-Japanese class conversations on the matter of whether we’d be signing up for semester 3 in the Spring. We wondered jointly about why--of all things--we’re studying Japanese. He does not figure that he, at roughly 70, will do much traveling to the Orient. (I don’t know why not--we didn’t get into that,) but he supposed that I was young enough that I might indeed have such a future. Again, we didn’t get into it, but I merely demured that I can’t see it. And I can’t. I would not choose Japan as the user-uber-friendly kind of excursion I’m willing to take Jeff on.

I think there are plenty of good relatively low-stress options, and I’m looking forward to trying a few, but surely a place where they have special subway people whose job is to push on commuters so they’re more compacted (so as to get the car door shut,) is not our number one choice. Small towns of New England? Maybe.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

anchors aweigh...but only if there's wind

please, s'il vous plaît, por favor, doozo...someone from a college which Gabe could possibly function at--especially Mitchell--tell us something. Tell us you have all his stuff. (because I don't even know if you do, and have no other way of finding out.) Tell us you want him. Tell us anything. My Myers-Briggs J is doing a little berzerker dance all around the kitchen floor.

See, I don't want a next year that is the same as this year, and that means moving things (and by things, in this case, I mean Gabe) along. Plus, once I have a clue what next year could possibly entail for him, I can latch onto that like a terrier onto a pants-leg, and plan and plan and plan. Planning, you see, is the opiate of the perpetually anxious. You can overplan, you can triple plan, you can make plans A,B,and C thru Z, and it feels like doing something.

Indeedy, I am a ship which has utterly lost its ballast, and that is why we stay busy--we are busy getting lunch/running errands/studying Japanese--because if you just weigh anchor and float, then...whoaa (not to mention avast...) you notice you are listing heavily to port or starboard, or perhaps just taking on a bit o' water. Whereas if we skitter about with the bilge-rats, we're less inclined to notice that the crows are about to fall out of the crow's nest.

Anyway, those college peoples would be doing me a big fat favor in terms of serotonin bursts to drop me a tantalizing piece of acknowledgment, and I'd be as grateful as a rat can be!

Monday, November 02, 2009

such a gifted avoider

I’m thinking I can’t take Japanese and get writing done concurrently. Hence I think I will have to decide to give myself a chance to get the writing done after this semester. Why? Isn’t it silly? Probably, but the condition of silliness does not exempt it.

Or maybe it’s the flagging and revival of my enthusiasm and its shifting emphases. Sure I like Japanese. I like languages in general, but the story wishes to get writ, and I know I throw myself obsessively into language acquisition the same way that (at other times) I heave into a crossword puzzle. It’s escapism. Not writing saves me from writing crappy. But crappy will do. And no...I do not want a 5 night stay at the Marriott Singer Island resort for the special price of...whatever the special price was. Don’t call back. Thanks.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Ok, now I go watch Comedy Central.

Jeff could tell me, approximately, nothing. Was there any good stuff? Did Bill or anyone come by? Did you get dinner? To the first two questions, I got a definitive ”ummmm” To the second, ”yes,” but there were no available details as to what and where.

Gordon, Jeff’s brother, and now the sole “Mr. Hardware,” had bought out the inventory of a small South Baltimore corner store when the long-time owner’s health collapsed, and yesterday he took Jeff on a field trip to “help” collect the unknown grab bag within.

For my purposes, here is what was so illustrative about the day: It was long. Gordon collected Jeff at 6:15 a.m, and returned him at 9:30 p.m. I wondered how Jeff would hold up. Apparently tolerably well. But there was, in fact, company, and company--in this case--constitutes help. Help with the task at hand, and help with the Jeff-sitting. In the form of Bill and John, who did take time off from their personal SoBo efforts to help Gordon spend the day loading the panel truck and sorting the wheat from the chaff. The wheat went into the truck. The chaff--sets of dishes and other flotsam which Clement Hardware doesn’t bother with--went on the sidewalk with a big “FREE” sign, which attracted a multitude of better-than-flea-market minded SoBo residents. Occasionally, such a guy would stick his head in the door and holler “Got any wrenches?” At which point he’d have to be disabused of the notion that anything highly desirable was to be put in the “free” pile.

A full and colorful day, based on the briefest of synopses I got from Gordon today. Jam-packed with the sort of stories that, seven years ago, Jeff and I would have laughed and chatted about over our evening Chenin blanc. But now, I get ”ummmm” and ”yes.”

Nor does it help if I initiate. I can tell stories about the girl in Japanese class who reminds me of a wallaby in the headlights, or wax incisive about the pluses and minuses of Lulu versus XLibris, and I get a blank, uncomprehending gaze which wants to process what I’m saying, but utterly cannot. And, to be fully disclosing, doesn’t actually want to that badly, because it’s forgotton what it ever cared about.

There is no Alzheimer spouse who does not hate the disease with all the resigned, pathetic, punch-in-the-face, simmering abhorrence she/he can register. So, here’s the thing. I would go on a date. And the purpose of the date would be as simple as dinner and conversation. So, yes...it’s cheaty, and completely out of the realm of the possible or available, but I’d totally do it. Or at least I’d totally want to. Don’t worry mom.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

this is awkward.

Fiddler on the Roof is always poignant, no matter how you slice it, but the current tour--and Topol’s farewell run, as I understand it--hit me at several particularly vulnerable spots, such that bare finger skin had to suffice, during Act 2, for the tissues I forgot to bring. There’s the whole 3 daughters on the verge of flitting thing, their interactions with Tevye, the father, and the moment where the parents--married 25 years--evaluate the meaning of love. (How long ago was 1984?...25, right.) Ouchy. It probably didn’t help that I’d been having a run of ring dreams. Ring dreams are when I’m just drifting into REM and something/someone/somethings swoop in to rip my wedding and engagement rings off. I don’t exactly wake up, except just barely...enough to realize I must remove the rings and place them on the bedside table. This, of course, is where dream logic and logic-logic do not coincide: How the table is safer than my fingers, I cannot say, but apparently it’s the taking of rings from me that is pertinent, as opposed to mere taking. And it’s just occurred to me that to take the rings off, but keep them, is a perfectly adept metaphor for the “emotional divorce” advocated by counselors to Alzheimer spouses. It’s a sort of emotional cantilevering, without a nice sturdy iron I-beam. Rather awkward for years on end. But life is, in general, awkward. Awkward is not entirely bad. I’ve liked many an awkward creature.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

hmmm...

What dumb thing did Emily say 5 minutes ago? She said to the dog, (while helping Jeff pet said dog, because--heaven knows--one person is never enough,) "Fredfred, you should get a job. Help earn your keep. Become a tv mascot."

Here's the thing: Never, never, never talk about getting jobs with Jeff in earshot. Because then he'll say, most decisively, "maybe I'll get a job. Yeah, that's what I'll do. What do you (meaning me) think about that?"

And then I (meaning me) will make a funny non-committal face to match my funny non-committal utterance, which basically sounds like this: "Huuh." With a slight shoulder shrug. Because I cannot, in good tactfulness, say "that probably won't work, seeing as how every psychomotor skill a person needs to perform work has pretty much flown the coop...your brain being the coop, that is."

This is, of course, what "huuh" means, but as long as I don't provide a translation it can mean anything a person wants it to mean. It is also correct to read the following shade of meaning into "huuh:" It's probably good that you'll forget this job idea by 5 o'clock glass o'wine time.

Emily is dumb, Part 2:

Jeff did not drop it, and wanted to know what I thought...what I really thought...as we waited to pick up Gabe. Well, silly me. It's going to take more time yet, apparently, before I fully realize that, in the face of Alzheimer's, you lie. Or at least you evade, with whatever Clintonesque panache you can muster. But, owing to my deep respect for what was our relationship, and mindful of a preference for honesty, I admitted--when pressed--that his cognitive limitations were unlikely to make any kind of job a successful endeavor. Hence, I got cranky sullenness for most of the evening, and an unmistakable blamatory vibe. I made up that word, but it fits.

The best one can then do, is wait for the short term memory to reset.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

I (do not) regret that I have but one life to give a swift kick to...

One can discern that Gabe doesn’t especially want to go away to college next Fall, but one is completely unable to conjure up a good reason for him to stay here.
And, forgetting one for a moment, I can think of a good reason for him not to stay here: Life, and the fact that burrowing in the computer room while Jeff snoozes in a chair and I try to buck myself up on St. John’s Wort and mental distractions does not constitute it.

I mean, life is weird, but you might as well try it. What else are you going to do?

In that light, our trek to New London to visit Mitchell College seemed a valuable distraction. A less valuable distraction was Janet the GPS, who was bound and determined to lose her suction and plummet off the windshield as a way of marking miles. Between that and...recalculating...every time we got within the shadow of a NYC bridge tunnel, she was a fun(?) companion.

As for Jeff, and do-it-yourself hotel breakfast bars, I am recalculating. He was extraordinarily resistant to help this weekend, in direct proportion to his increasing inability to distinguish between a bagel slicer and a toaster. Hence, he ate little for breakfast, and I think it might go over better if we all three just sit down and order.

Additionally, I have every intention of recalculating any route that takes me within shouting distance of the George Washington Bridge in NYC. Cross between 10 am and 4 pm? Yes. Then you’ll only add 1 hour of traffic-sitting to your trip, instead of 2 or 3.

There is something that impressed Gabe at Mitchell. It was the statue, situated mid-campus, of Nathan Hale. Of course he wanted it to be Moses Cleveland, who “invented” Cleveland. (Sorry, I can’t help you, other than to suggest you look up “Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video” on Youtube.) But since it was not Moses Cleveland, he was still pleased to meet a statue of the main character in one of his favorite PS3 games, Resistance: Fall of Man. The thing is, I’m pretty sure that that Nathan Hale, being a video game hero, does have more than one life to give for his country.

Anyway, let’s hope they take Gabe. There are 36 slots in the program to which he applied (“he,” meaning “we,” which really means “I.”) But he really did write the essay. And it’s not bad. And seriously, would you rather live near a statue of Nathan Hale, or have your mother ship you off to the Merchant Marines?

Monday, October 05, 2009

wakarimasen!

I pretty much never say "why me?"...just not my way of thinking. But I am almost saying it as of last week's random "Japanese culture project" groupings. For Japanese class that is.

Truthfully, I foresaw this before it happened, but--due to a random draw from a bag of colors, in which I selected むらさき (murasaki), otherwise known as violet, I found myself in a group with the following 2 individuals: A quiet guy who may be completely participative if I can get him to speak or return emails, and...oh my goodness...crazy girl.

Can you picture Little Orphan Annie's face, with anime girl eyes? Of course you can't. But try. Then add overly processed hair (dyed black) that reminds me of a doll that went through the dryer, too much makeup, and (the crowning touch, so to speak,) a plastic tiara. Throw in strangely erratic impulse control, such that she blurts tangential thoughts out mid-class on the days when she speaks. The other days she comes in late and says nothing. And, she told me with the expression of a stunned bushbaby--she doesn't email. But she texts. Ok. So, I've typed up two proposals for what we might present in our allotted 10 minutes, and how we might divide duties. I will give them to these children tomorrow. They will think I'm a pushy old middle-aged person. But here's the thing. They can either communicate and do something, or they cannot. And if they don't--oh well, I'm auditing, they're not.

Meanwhile, I do enjoy everything else about Japanese class. I am a bit befuddled, this chapter, by the introduction of a page-load of adjectives. It's not that adjectives require conjugating in Japanese, I can deal with that. It's just that Japanese vocabulary doesn't adhere to my brain in the way the more familiar Euro-based lingos do. Japanese adjectives all look something like this: hagazukimurasagii. (except in hiragana, like this: はがずきむらさぎい。) Only you can take the syllables, shake them up in a bag, and reassemble in any configuration that pleases you. And it all seems meaningless to my Euro-cooked mind grid. I realize that, in some way, this must be good for me, because my brain hurts.

info junkie.

I confess: I got an iPhone, and I like it.

The thing is, I wanted to be different, and have a phone that would not be instantaneously recognizable by 90% of the population. So I looked and looked, but nothing would do quite all the things I wanted the phone to do...and here was the clincher: The problem with my Palm Centro was that the screen and buttons were too small and too hard for presbyopic eyes to see. iPhone is screen from head to toe, and it runs my Ultralingua conjugating dictionaries, budgeting software, Scrabble, a good calendar, a functional Wifi browser, an excellent note-keeping program, Googlemaps, and get this--a built-in compass! How could I not want that? Ironically, the feature I don’t make good use of, seeing as how this is an iPhone, is the iPod music thingy. Maybe if it plugged into my car I would, but it doesn’t. And I’m just not an ear-buds kind of person. Too visuo-kinetic dependent. My ears need to follow the lead of eyes and body, or I go nutso. It’s why I like speakerphones. The ears don’t operate well on their own. They get cranky.

Tomorrow, we lose our backdoor. Only for a week or so I hope, as the water-rotted threshold gets replaced with something that won’t allow rainstorms to backwash into the kitchen. Chessie will be perplexed by not being able to stare at us through the door’s window panes. Fredfred will have to adapt to exiting through the garage. We will lose some sunlight. I hope the job will go swiftly. This, in case you wondered, is why I don’t hire someone to paint the upstairs hallway. Because there’s always something else that must be done.

I am pleased to report that I’ve added at least 3 paragraphs to Bea and the Smart Kids. Seriously. This is progress for me.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

not yet, but soon

Maybe the next place I live will not hide a tiny interdimensional portal. You cannot imagine the advantages of this set-up, from an ant colony’s point of view. Who cares if the house has been laced--foundation and yard--with anti-ant substances? Your workers materialize in the 2x4 framing, completely bypassing the dangers of ordinary entrance, march to their little heart-tube’s content toward the Terro, and shlurp it up by the thorax-load. As for the boric-acid content? No problem. Something about interdimensional travel, apparently, totally neutralizes acid. It’s a neat arrangement. I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it.

I will not tell prospective buyers that the house contains such a wormhole, anymore than I will tell them about the little girl ghost in the basement. (She doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the ants anyway.) I’m simply hoping I can find ways of keeping the woodwork from disintegrating between now and when an appropriate time to divest myself of home ownership arrives.

There is a question of where I will put people. That, and the economy, will keep me in place for now. Some people in similar situations realize that they’re old enough to take advantage of senior housing options. But I will not realize this, since I am not.

But it is, chronology notwithstanding, clear as Terro liquid ant bait that I do not have the temperament for house ownership. I had the temperament when I wasn’t doing it alone, because relationships are like that, in a chemical equation-ish way. You can be one thing as a free-standing human ion, and something quite different, with surprisingly unexpected properties, when you become part of a relational molecule. Then, (splish), someone pours on the solvent and you realize that the personality characteristics you thought were yours were not--they were, in fact, properties of JfEm, which is a rather stable, sane type of substrate, capable of supporting many types of life, whereas the free-floating Em+ is a somewhat cranky ethereal ion which is disinclined to bond with many other elements, and tends to try to osmose through whatever container you put it in.

Hence, I will not have a house. I am too troubled by being personally responsible for a building, but--note this kids--I will try to have a little extra space for comers and goers. Not sure what/where yet. Stay tuned. Well, no actually, don’t stay tuned...it’s going to be quite a while, but at least be forewarned.

Friday, September 18, 2009

it's not always what you need, maybe.

I am questioning the value, at least in our case, of a support group.

Theoretically, it would be worthwhile if Jeff came away feeling buttressed against the isolation of being “the only one,” or was simply happy about the social interactions afforded.

In practice, he says yes, he had a “good time.” But, the aftermath does not feel so worthwhile. Driving was a dormant, and seemingly peaceful, subject until--riding home Wednesday night--he reported that “everyone else” in his group drives. Practicing my most tactful efforts at fielding and responding, I suggested that it’s not really true--some of them do, some of them don’t, but all will be giving it up soon. He has forgotten that he no longer has a license (it’s an i.d. now,) and that the insurance company will not insure him (he’ll “call and find out about that.”)

Meanwhile, this morning’s activity was brooding rumination as he tries to process why he is now labeled “a guy with Alzheimer’s.” “What,” he asks me, “are my symptoms?”

Well there’s a fun topic. I can’t imagine any efficacity in my running down a list of cognitive failings, but--after trying to steer the discussion off it--I allow as how he has some difficulty with the connection between what the brain wants to do and the body’s ability to enact it.

”No,” he says. He doesn’t have any kind of problem like that. I can only say ok. But he still wants to recall why he is in this category--person with Alzheimer’s--and he tries to recreate the scene of diagnosis in his memory: Dr. Moses saying, with a curt lack of padding “You have Alzheimer’s and you’re going to die from it.”

I cannot remember Dr. Moses’ exact words, but Jeff certainly recalls the man’s bedside manner aptly. What he doesn’t remember is the hours of testing at Johns Hopkins to assess his cognition, and the PET scan (which, to this day, I will look at if I have no other reason to say “holy shiznit.” Usually I have other reasons.)

Ultimately though, for all my carefully selected replies, the best was something along the lines of “whatever is or isn’t, it’s your life...just live it.” Which made sense to Jeff, fortunately. But I have to wonder if following that advice will be easier in the long run if we don’t put ourselves in the face to face position of acknowledging the Alzheimer’s specter any more than necessary. i.e.: “Support Group.”

A useful premise if one has no choice but to think about it, and finds the group helps process the unfortunate truth. But if one’s mind provides the loophole of conveniently forgetting that one is anything but normal, why not take that offer?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

the same boring stuff, remixed?

The text portions of 3 spanking new book covers are printed and ready to roll. But next is the dicey part: Adding ink and watercolor illustrations in the white space. I sat in the Alz. support group meeting last night sketching practice faces of my people, and it may not--if all goes well--be an unmitigated disaster.

Jeff, btw, was bored. At the meeting. He says not much happened in his group, and that he tried to chat up a couple of guys without much luck. It is entirely possible that this means that those couple of guys were still able to attend to the broader conversation, and were attempting to do so, whereas Jeff likely took minimal notice of any multi-way discussion that may have been occurring. Whether we keep seeking this type of support...I don’t know. Jeff has to like it. Personally, I’m not an extraordinarily support-groupish type of person, and I find myself losing patience with the people who do like to talk...at length.. Myers-Briggs be danged--counselor material I’m not.

Gabe is set to take ACTs next week. At which point--provided I can prevail upon him to put more than half an iota of creative thought into his application essay--he’s got everything lined up to apply to any and all of several schools by year’s end. I cannot describe the apprehension I feel relative to his readiness for anything post-secondary. I am hoping, in big-fat doses of hopefulness, that we at least pretty much like Mitchell College’s pre-freshman year concept.

According to the Farmers' Almanac, we’re in for a colder than average winter. And you know what? Remarkably, I’m okay with that. Really, for the first time since the onset of motherhood, I think I may be returning to my cold-tolerant youth. Or maybe it’s just the fringe benefit of realizing that the ants and bees who’ve decided we’ve built a pretty cool clubhouse for them here are about to get their little thoraxes frozen off. I am prepared. I have a coat. I can deal.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Posey Rosie goes splat.

Sometimes, when I’ve spent most of the day trying to ascertain where--in the minutiae of web site creation / file uploading / manuscript formatting--I’m botching it, I end up with sore shoulders.

For some weird reason, for example, my uploaded copies kept having the letters "ele" in the header. I didn't want the letters "ele." I had to assume, having recently watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, that the Evil League of Evil was trying to give my story its stamp of approval, but I wasn't really wanting it.

Still, I got it. Yes, you can format stinkin’ MS Word so your file’s the same dimensions as a 6 x 9 trade paperback. And it probably wouldn’t even take you all day to figure out a) what you need to do, and b) how to do it.

The good thing about this tedium is it makes me anticipate with a bit of pleasure that the next job is art. Even if I’m crappy, MS Word has nothing to do with it. And neither do FTP servers.

The only trouble is, my posable wooden artist’s model person likes to fall down unless I carefully place her in a very balanced position. Not to mention that, for all her joints, she’s worse at yoga than even I am. Her legs only spread to about 30° , which is quite hopeless for someone whose job is positions. Perhaps, given her poor balance and lack of flexibility, she should have gotten a job in customer service with Verizon. Yes, we’re mad at them.

Japanese class is cool. What a bunch of geeks. I like it.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

I think the quantum foam got big.

It’s funny that I only discovered the value of TextEdit this year, when I had to do ftp uploads. I’ve had some silly old floppy disks sitting around in files of old, containing--in an obsolete format--the book I’ve been tediously retyping chapter by chapter. Because, no, Pages 2008 cannot interpret 8 year old AppleWorks documents. Neither can Office Mac 2004. BUT....TextEdit, that little bare-boned, no nonsense, friend of file-transfer-protocols? It’s the little engine that could. Then, one need simply cut and paste from TextEdit to Pages, and--voila--maybe I don’t have to retype the entire remaining 15 chapters. Edit, yes. Check for discrepancies between the saved copy and the hard copy, yes. But type it all? Maybe not.

Ants...have I mentioned them? They like the pears Ollie brought from his yard. Quite a bit. I cannot rinse them all off--they must go inside, like James and the Giant Peach. So, I put the pears on the front porch, and am offering the ants Terro instead. What is it with ants this year anyway? I hope it’s a fluke.

I need art. Can I do my own? Iffy. Maybe. If I stare at Quentin Blake illustrations a bit more, perhaps I’ll absorb a smidge of creative zest.

The ground feels shaky lately. There are surely some subtle seismic shifts shuffling the latest status quo, and what the shape of the new landscape will be, I cannot guess. Probably won’t even hold still enough to take a reading. Hold onto your hats, boys and girls, and get comfy with regression, and pouring the orange juice, because this escalator only goes one way.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

liquids--in and out

Weird. I just found the post (pasted below) in my drafts folder. Not sure how it never made it to primetime, but it was an interesting retrospective in light of current concessions in the public health-care battle.

To update: Jeff is on Medicare. I (and the kids) do have different, cheap, extremely high deductible coverage. It'll do for now. Fortunately the five of us have managed to be reasonably healthy specimens. But I sure have not, in my adult life, been in that corporately well-covered camp from which it's so comfortable to assume that "choice" (?...i.e. the current mess) = decent coverage for all.

...paste...from a couple years ago...

The coffeepot gurgles. Again. Lots of coffeepot gurgling around here because making coffee is what Jeff does.

This morning we went to Labcorp, for fasting blood draws. We both were overdue, but Jeff’s workups for the Alzheimer’s vaccine suggest that an Rx to manage triglycerides and cholesterol might be a good idea after all...it’s just that I hate sitting around a waiting room with 15 other people, waiting to be called. As I waited, with 15 people ahead of us, in a crowded waiting room, for bloodwork farmed out by the primary care office which doesn’t do that type of thing anymore, I read (without missing the irony) an op-ed in Investor’s Business Daily fussing about how “socialist medicine” (his words,) was going to make us have to wait for stuff. Maybe that guy has a medical staff in his pocket, but I don’t.

And in fact, I’m a little bit on edge about my switch to private health insurance this summer. Not that Coventry--our current company--doesn’t suck. They do. But at least I’d hope we’d be covered for catastrophic. Jeff will have Medicare in August, and I will have_________? Let’s hope I don’t turn up with any “pre-existing conditions” between now and then, because my sense is that if they can exclude you they will.

It was a tricky morning. I reminded Jeff throughout the getting up, getting dressed, and feeding treats to the dog process, that he must not consume anything but water. I put a pink post-it on the refrigerator door. I decided that was inadequate and put two more post-its--yellow, star-shaped ones--directly at eye-level. They said “WATER” and “ONLY.” So just as I’m about to hustle us out the door I sense someone in front of the open fridge, and dash into the kitchen just as Jeff is tipping a full 12 oz glass of orange juice toward his gullet. I stopped him in time.

After our Labcorp visit, we hit Grump’s Café and breakfasted to our hearts’ content.

Here’s what I’m hoping--that I’ll find some sort of insurance company that will take me on with a ridiculously high deductible just for long enough that I can switch to the guaranteed program which I hope will be available within the nearish future. For now--college student policies for the girls, and Gabe as an appendage on mine.

Jeff’s glass of o.j. is waiting for him in the fridge. More likely, he will go for coffee.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

whoosh.

It’s been a summer of barely stopping. In fact, I’m not sure why I’m taking time to actually write a blog entry. I could be doing plenty of useful things, such as chopping 60 sheets of Concert Association tickets into individual units, vacuuming the dog fluff off the floor, pestering Gabe to finish his summer book reports, or....folding laundry. (nah...forget that.)

But, I am feeling so very unrested as the Fall onslaught looms, that I can only wonder at how it feels for someone who has genuine, immutable obligations about to strike.

There is rumbly thunder outside tonight. This makes Freddi feel obligated to scratch obsessively at the floor, which is bad for the floor.

Hazel is contentedly ensconced in her partially-chewed Converse shoebox, and Jeff is dozing blankly in the kitchen chair. I can hear that Gabe, in the computer room, is watching scenes from "A Very Potter Musical" on Youtube. (check it out if you're curious.) I am looking forward to bed and tomorrow's coffee.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Those guys...I mean THEM!


A²C² canceled our evening section of Japanese 112. Tomorrow I will try to switch into the day section. The bad thing: I will not be taking Japanese with Gabe, who will be busy doing 12th grade during the day. The good thing: I will not be taking Japanese with Gabe.

Today, the third installment in our sequential progression of ant-sizes invaded in the usual spot--through the window sill by the kitchen sink. These ones were the biggest I’ve seen in multiple warm seasons of ant encroachment. Generally we have tiny little things, which--upon discovering my artfully presented Terro™ ant bait on cardboard squares--call about a million of their comrades, and swarm for roughly a day and a half. This year, after the first round of tiny ones, we got a set which was a little longer, and a little bigger. They still liked Terro™. But members of latest incursion are big--almost rice grain big--and they come more slowly and in smaller numbers. But they still like Terro™. The only advantage I can see to this stepping up in ant size, is that when the giant ones from the 1954 horror classic Them! come a’calling, there is little chance they’ll be able to squeeze between the wall outlet plate and the bead-board. They’ll have to settle for waving their antennae at me through the window, at which point I’ll bring out a five-gallon bucket of Terro™, and they’ll still be stuck shlurping one at a time. We aim to please, but I can’t lug a bathtub.

Monday, July 20, 2009

books with feet

I am working on my booksite. That is to say, an author web page on which I can put links to eBooks, hard copies, and (the only deal that I can really recommend) free online editions, by the chapter.

Still, I don’t care what they say about WordPress being “easy to use.” They are assuming a level of familiarity with FTP clients, cloud hosting, CSS, and RSS, and I don’t know what all, that I for one lacked.

But now I have WordPress for Dummies, and a little vacation time. The only danger is that all Dummies books look approximately the same, which means that the risk of my book walking off with Jeff, who is always on the lookout for his misplaced Accounting for Dummies is at about code orange.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Rotorooter for humans?

If I put patio furniture on the patio will we want to use it? I doubt. Not just because of mosquitoes though, or the lack of a focus such as a pool (I don’t want one) or a pleasant vista. If I could somehow get my heart into wanting to serve as an anchor home in the family circle, I could probably summon the momentum and imagination required to pep up the backyard atmosphere with plants (we’d still kill them,) and maybe an attractive if slightly tacky garden ornament or several. Then, instead of thinking: I’d sure like patio furniture. Too bad all “discretionary” funds have been used for car repair, educational consultants and tuition, I’d instead think: [the same thing], but hey, it’s worth it, right? But I could put a little fire chimney thingy out there for Fall. But I could put a little fence around the muddy spot by the tree where the sump pump outlets with a sign that says: Warning--Hog Waller. But nope. My gumption, apparently, is wallering with the hogs.

On the brighter side, I have evidently successfully patched two copper hot water pipe leaks with rubber and hose clamps. And I will call the junkmen. Soon. Jeff’ll just have to watch. No way around it. It is possible that in a world where my basement no longer feels in need of a high colonic, I will feel a lifted spirit about the yard. I have ideas. Mosquito-repelling scary torch-like apparatuses jabbed about in the ground, the aforementioned freestanding chimney deal, a grill for the first time in roughly 20 years, and places to sit. I can dig it. I just can’t do it yet.

Speaking of “can’t do it,” and (I hope) “yet,” I was going to apply the word “lumpen” to Gabe. As in What do we do with a lumpen Gabester? But it turned out that the actual definition of “lumpen” does not support that usage at all. Here it is:

Lumpen: of or pertaining to disfranchised and uprooted individuals or groups, esp. those who have lost status: the lumpen bourgeoisie.

He is not disfranchised (I so want to put an “en” in there though,) and he is most definitely not uprooted, except with extreme effort. Then he reroots quite easily. Usually to the chair in the computer room. If he lacks the status normally appertaining to a youth of 17, it is no fault of mine, except perhaps in terms of genetics. I’m probably feeling especially disappointed today because I spotted, in the Fourth of July parade this morning, a couple of former preschool/kindergarten classmates of Gabe’s, both showing signs of being living human boys. One was fancy-footing a soccer ball in a cluster of his school team-mates, and the other (cooler) was playing bass guitar on a float. I had also spotted the latter in front of Safeway, grilling and selling hotdogs as part of some promotion or other. A chappie who participates in life, I thought, as I recognized him. I asked Rachel if she thought Gabe is even smart enough to become a functioning human, and she shrugged. Because you can’t tell. Because until a person actually does actions that indicate a spark of thought, or a whiff of initiative, you simply cannot tell. Hence, I am still open to back-up plans for boys who need to somehow be airdropped into life.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Shock and awe...

I was almost about to say that I have a confession to make. But I think I’ll change my phraseology since I have come, after all, not to see the act as confessable. So I will simple state it as an interesting fact: I participated in dumpster-diving a few days ago. Actually, I merely drove the get away car, and this was after Rachel and I had actually done veritable shopping at the store in question--Trader Joe’s.

I remain both appalled and amazed by the vast quantity of perfectly serviceable food that is tossed in the interest of fresh turnover. Rachel has told me about it. She and her band of college and grad students, doing their best to live on a shoestring with minimal impact, have a habit of making use of surplus which would otherwise be landfill-bound.

Trader Joe’s is particularly attractive as a source of cast off food. Their turnover is quick, and their produce is ridiculously packaged in plastic cartons which are then--at discard--placed in plastic garbage bags, tied at the top. The net result is that, however you feel about dumpsters, don’t fret--the goods didn’t touch it.

As of the night of the haul we had scads of stuff waiting for processing in the kitchen. As of now, there are multiple ziplocs in the freezer of bananas, strawberries, nectarines...and we’ve pretty much downed a couple of pies and a peach cobbler made from the fruit + a cake mix. Tomorrow Rachel will return to her compound with the frozen stuff plus a passel of instant oatmeal, banana bread mix, assorted muffins, potatoes, onions...and oh, we ate the perfect avocados already. They were perfect. I’m not kidding. And personally I’m only about 35% hippie.

The foremost question I am left with: How screwed up is a system where the supply available in affluent groceries must be replaced at a rate that causes at least half to be tossed? Is there a way to rewrite the rules by which we do things such that all of this excess can go where it’s most needed? Rachel says that the problem is that while there are organizations which distribute grocery excess to food banks and shelters, there are not enough of them. And the shelters and banks themselves cannot always handle the amount of perishables which may be available at a given moment.

I am thinking this one through. I do not have the solution, nor could I rubber-stamp it into existence if I did--but it surely bears thought.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

clean face/cluttered mind

Today my face went through the automatic carwash. Or at least the “medical esthetics” equivalent. Part of a regimen recommended by the dermatologist for the purpose of keeping years of solar carelessness at bay. See, when I was a youngish person we didn’t have the Surgeon General and everyone else pushing spf--the higher the better--on us. In fact, a popular product was “tanning oil,” designed to increase the helio-impact of beach time. Not that I bothered. I was into neither products nor baking. By a same or similar token, neither did I exercise any care or avoidance. Hence, today’s heavy-duty exfoliation, scraping, stingy lactic acid stuff, spritzy spritz thingy, and a whole bunch of lotions and hot towels. I felt like one of those snobby rich ladies with cucumbers on their eyelids, except that I was not wearing the appropriate bling, and my car--parked by myself--was a Subaru. Will this be of use? I don’t know. But it sure felt like the skin equivalent of having your teeth worked over by the dental hygienist.

Meanwhile, the MacBook work space is surrounded by a teetering stack of college guides (all full of kitty claw and tooth pricks,) and a workbook full of suggestions from the post-secondary advisor-lady. I’m paying online visits to school sites, gap year sites, parent forums...and the kid himself is, essentially, clueless. I do not know what we will do. Send him to some sort of pre-freshman year preparatory program where he’ll be surrounded by underachievers for whom this was their last best option? Send him--rather blindly, I’d say--into the world of real college expectations with the hounding (I hope) support of a built-in LD support team? Prepare a roster of back-up options should plans A or B founder? Yes. But it’s a short roster at this point. Very short. I need a fail-safe plan. Suggestions will be entertained.

Monday, June 22, 2009

ouch

Ouch. I have a headache. I think it’s because I ate one of Becca’s zucchini cupcakes with cream cheese icing. The problem is that real cream cheese frosting, made by real people using real cream cheese, has real cream cheese in it. Yep. It’s a cheese headache.

Still, I got six 33 gallon garbage bags full of Becca and Olivia’s cast off clothing (dating back about 6 or 7 years) hauled to the Salvation Army for redistribution. But I didn’t do much else.



It is hard--no matter how anyone else reassures you--to get used to the idea that when someone with Alzheimer’s sits in two different chairs all day doing little other than dozing, that he is probably ok with that. But I haven’t really gotten used to any other part of this weird trip.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

glorp

Emily is very sorry that she has not had much to say lately. She is in a dither. Actually, Emily is a little too phlegmatic to be dithery. It's more like she is mired in gloop.

Oh crap! I used to have that dream when I was a kid, and I'd completely forgotten about it until just this minute! The mired-in-gloop dream. Sometimes you couldn't even see the gloop, you just couldn't move. Most likely there'd be something coming after you, such that running would be an auspicious choice, but you couldn't because some horrible substance was inhibiting all attempts at stepping. Maybe it wasn't even a substance...maybe the lower half of your body had suddenly gained mass by a factor of 10 or so, and gravity simply would not be defied.

Ick ick ick. It makes you feel icky and anxious. How strange that I pre-dreamed the gloop. Fie on gloop. Bah to discernible talent and accomplishment. Perhaps one needs to stand up to it. Off my case gloop. I am the best worst trite nonsense writer of unmarketable phluff, and I will embrace it to the end. Yes. Gloop indeed.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

I panic.

I panic quite often actually.

This morning I drew two clock faces, assigning myself random times to make them read: 4:45. 11:10. A couple days ago I got back into counting backwards from 100 by 7s. Gabe could do it quite well, but in his case I have no concerns about deterioration. Fortunately I am still quite apt. At that trick, anyway.

I’ve been watching The Alzheimer’s Project, a series of HBO documentaries, which are, luckily, available to stream from HBO.com since I do not subscribe to an HBO-containing level of cable service. So, as the film depicts various people jumping through those very familiar cognitive testing hoops, I cannot help playing along. For reassurance. Yes! I say. I remember how it goes: Anna Thompson is a school cook who was robbed of $56 on State Street. Right? And yes, I’m right. Furthermore, those three words were table, penny, and apple. But still I panic. Because sometimes my brain won’t give me the name of the neighbor 3 doors down whom I never see...at least not right off the bat. First name: Jan. Last name:___________. I’m going to look it up if it doesn’t come before I get to the end of this entry. And that will make me mad.

Hendra. Thanks brain. It might really be perimenopausal fog-brain that is making me all ocd about cognitive reassurance measures. This is one reason I will keep studying Japanese. Present me with a page that looks like this: ねこはうるさいですね。My first impulse is to panic. My brain protests: What are you, nuts? it thinks, or something very close to that. But, if I relax and look at it, I can, calmly, decipher that into: neko wa urusai desu ne? and then the next step: The cat is noisy, isn’t it?

But my state of mind re minds nowadays, is to recognize them as fragile, maybe ephemeral, things. I will be much indebted to mine if it hangs around as long as I need it.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Good thought: I can write crappy for the rest of my life.

Visit 2 with the college consultant today, and a delightful homeward drive during which I had the pleasure of listening to Gabe outline which other middle-aged females I look older and wrinklier than (most, it turns out.) Jeff, checked out as per normal, had no helpful defense to add to the equation, so I simply had to bite my tongue so as not to inform the punk he’s doughy and lazy and I’m tired of raising him.

But that’s the point of these appointments...to find some setting in which he can--removed from my burned out decrepitude--mature and grow some life-enhancing strengths.

As for me, I am certain I am mature enough. Though the fates don’t appear to agree, and think that I need more practice in the areas of self-reliance, patience, and a zen-informed coolness with the prospect of a life devoid of success in creative ventures. And woohoo--I like a life that aims to hone. Whee.


Meanwhile, I am to that truly plodding stage in the book-creation process. The stage during which the initial zing of the concept has worn the rubber off its shoes, and you must scrape brain dregs for the next sentence, hoping it will be magically infused with a whiff of inspiration which must come from someplace to which you personally have no access. Clarence, you there? Have some coffee if it will help.

Then, eventually, there will come a point where (I hope) I can say...this ball, it’s a’rollin’!, and from there the process feels a darn sight less forced.

Actually, the nicest thing about Clarence is, he’s completely neutral on the subject of how old I look.

Friday, May 01, 2009

I hope tree clumps make good lawn mulch.

The trees over the garage are dropping leafy sprigs, and fluttery bunches of fluffy brown stuff as if from buckets. All over the back patio, which is experiencing its first Spring. Gobs of vegetation and a tribe of carpenter bees are giving the area a special character only enhanced by the leyland cypress bowing oppressively over it all.

edit: And cripes! A tree just fell down in the back yard!

It is, like the basement, just a small part of one family habitat, demanding upkeep. So, I do what I can, without the spirit for it, because the house is not about what the house was supposed to be about for me. Hence, in order to avoid thinking about what the house was supposed to be about, I dream of the Airstream. It represents--in the dream--a retreat where I’d go to shove off the sense of trying to keep a two-person life afloat with only one person.

Man, do I hate fussers and mopers. And there is a self-indictment. Plus, the ball may not be dropped, and now is not the time to relinquish the position of hearth-keeper. ‘Tis disconcerting and disorienting if the mother-ship downsizes to a Jetsons-sized bubble car too soon.

But frankly--and I say this with all the humor I can muster, and completely in the interest of honesty and disclosure as opposed to bellyaching--this is a bit of a ridiculous position. You cannot be an adequate companion to someone with Alzheimer’s. This is because his receiver is broken. All you can do is be there. He will still feel left out, and under-companioned, because he knows he’s missing a no-longer-extant relationship. Because you, the other person, cannot have the former relationship all by yourself. And, even if you could simulate it, his receiver would still be broken. So, you keep being there, as seemingly useless as it is, and hope that maybe at some point you’ll get a chance to do something at which you might actually succeed.

Anyway, sorry ‘bout the fussy-pants stuff. I’m actually very pleased that I successfully removed the old, and installed the new casement window sash, even though it’s a bogus knock-off rather than being an actual Hurd replacement part. It is nice to watch the clumpy leaflets rain from the trees, NOT through a rock-sized hole in the glass.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

surreality is my only option.


We liked a college, and that was new.

Now, “like” and “dislike” are terms that we have to keep in the strange and other-worldly perspective of tree-roots, zombies, and presence of treadmills in rec centers. But--keeping our somewhat clueless point of view in mind--we decidedly liked Manhattanville College. But, man was it a long trip for a short trip.

Trial By Keys: Helen (Jeff’s sister and our NYC host,) had Thursday obligations, so she left a set of keys (3) for us with her Upper West Side door people. We duly elevated to the 15th floor and spent the next 15 minutes trying all possible combinations of 3 (clockwise top, center widdershins, bottom clockwise, etc.) I don’t know why this was so difficult. Yes, I do, at least in part. It’s because Jeff didn’t like that I only allotted him a couple minutes to attempt to insert a key upside down and at a 45° angle, before I went back at it myself. The solution involved using Gabe’s ears to discern which deadbolt was giving off the telltale “locked” rattle and completely disregarding Helen’s handwritten intructions. So we got in. And it was a lovely day to walk across Central Park to our first school visit with Jeff trailing me and Gabe by 15 paces as his nose slowly got back into joint.

I increasingly perceive the two people for whom I’m primarily responsible as a couple of freighters, drifting at snail’s pace in opposite directions, but--for now--at a roughly similar (though not matching) latitude. Gabe can insert a key into a lock correctly, and discern whether or not it has turned. Jeff knows that we live in the town of [insert town name here ;)], and not Annapolis. Not so, vice versa. Gabe perceives (correctly, I believe) that Jeff attempts to interact with small children at an adjoining restaurant table in a way that is slightly creepy and intrusive. Jeff perceives (again, correctly) that Gabe is apt to insert “humorous” questions at awkward and not-ideal moments in the campus tour. They both rely on me to an almost burdensome and disconcerting extent. Neither wonders whether I know what I’m doing when we get off Amtrak at New York Penn and I lead us toward signs for the “A” subway line. They trust me unquestioningly and blindly. Were it up to Jeff, he would be lost in the confusion. Were it up to Gabe, he might very well say “ok...so what city are we in?” Neither can deploy his subway ticket at the turnstile magnetic strip reader correctly. Jeff cannot understand the concept at all, and I position him, slide his card, then pull him through. Gabe slides his through the one to his left instead of his right. Luckily it is not crowded and I am able, from the other side of the turnstiles, to redirect him through the now-unlocked lane.(The phrase which pops to mind when I think about Gabe--”What’s the frequency Kenneth?” Because the brain clearly works. But the wavelength on which its tuner is fixed? Unknown.)

The major thing that differentiates the two is this: One can be taught, and will--sooner or later--bumble into the shipping lane known as “growing up.” The other is drifting, albeit at glacial pace, into the seas of oblivion. In the meantime, if I could momentarily split into particles and waves, I’d like to test whether I would feel more alone with these two or without them, as in actually alone.

It is my hope that by sending Gabe away to college, he’ll stop defaulting to the assumption that I’ve got it covered, and recognize that there are a few more facets on the polyhedron of life he needs to take heed of. As for Jeff, I will be turning on the tv for him for as long as he remains interested in tv. (This remote is for the tv. Tune it to channel 3, then take this other remote, aim it at the cable tuner, and hit 053 for CNBC. Right.) Meanwhile, I am learning not to mind his hours in the kitchen chair, dozing or doing nothing.

But, as for the take home points most pertinent to the ostensible reason for the trip: Manhattanville College has a strong support program for LD students. They also have (in no particular order of importance) treadmills in the gym, nice not-so-preppy people, black squirrels, creative writing, a good-smelling cafeteria, and Japanese classes.

Oh, and we won a red and white pop-up chair from the admissions guy because I knew--in a quick q & a contest--that the school has 1600 undergrads.

Friday, April 03, 2009

At least there are cats in the box.

There seems to be something horribly--even morally--wrong with being bored. Thankfully, most of the time I am too busy to notice.

The thing is, as much as I’ve studied and learned and compared notes, I cannot help thinking--when there’s a person who does, really, nothing all day and all night apart from reading the paper and 3 different books (again)--that I should be providing an activity. But the thing is--he, apparently, is not bored. Me, keeping him company? Bored.

But you can’t leave a person alone all day. So I do stuff. I be a writer even though the world has its fill of them, as far as I can tell. I think, actually, the world has its fill of almost everything a human could possibly contribute. Except for Concert Association database keeper. So I do that too. And study Japanese. Even though chapter 3 in the textbook is really getting on my nerves in being legible only to people younger than 35 and ants who might be literate. I fiddle. And I sponsor errands.

Tonight I decided to try something new, so I rooted through the chest of drawers in the computer room where games are stashed, and pulled out Railroad Rush Hour. It’s a puzzly thing where you set the little plastic engines, boxcars, and cabooses in a frame in such a way that the red engine can’t escape until you’ve slid the other cars out of its way, sequentially. I’m not so great at it. Even using the “beginner” cards to set things up. But I did get Jeff to sit down with me. It was clear that he was humoring me and had zero interest in trying to free the red engine. I fooled around with it a bit. Reminded me, unfortunately, of those dumb little sliding number frames you’d win as a consolation prize, and which I more or less detested. Rush Hour was better. But only a bit. Still...I guess if a puzzle doesn’t stimulate the slightest interest in a person, there’s not much I can do about that.

So I feel like I’m living in a box, sort of. It’s a relatively nice box, with some things to play with. I guess I’d like a slightly bigger box with a few more people in it.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

No. I will not get a neckchain.

I hate glasses.

To be fair to the whole concept of optical devices, I really do appreciate them in theory. But it was easier to be impressed with the instantaneous improvement afforded by a pair of mild nearsightedness correctors, which had the magical property of instantly dispensing with the nuisance of myopia at the slight trade-off of a frame on your nose.

This was all that I needed, and only in certain situations at that, until a couple or so years ago. But now I believe that I’m in need of some sort of specs-on-a-hinge device, where two pairs of glasses, joined at the earpieces, would flip to the top of my head, or down to eye-level, depending on whether I intended to see the wipe-off board in Japanese class (that’s where they used to have chalk boards--up front,) attempt to differentiate “hi” from “pi” in hiragana in my textbook, or read the impossibly, ridiculously miniature lettering on the back of a shampoo bottle at the grocery store. There would be three options: distance glasses, no glasses, and 1.50+ magnifying.

I understand that it is the purpose of “progressive” lenses to address all of these conditions in the convenient package of a single (or rather 2 single) lenses the size of dried prunes.

I got a pair maybe 1.5 years ago? But see...I can’t read out of the bottom part like I’m supposed to. If I hold the book at a distance of about arm length, then yes...I can read with the glasses. But I’m better off without them entirely. And when it comes to that tiny tiny tiny stuff, it’s magnifiers or forget it. So I don’t know (and please help me if you know the answer to this question) whether the problem might be that my prescription of 1.5 years ago, which apparently wasn’t exactly up to date as of January this year, is maybe just not strong enough.

The question is whether it’s worth sinking a few more hundred dollars into an updated prescription, or whether I should just learn to love pushing glasses up and down my face in class, and fishing out the magnifiers in the grocery store.

Because the real nasty thing about presbyopia is it just doesn’t correct with the delightful alacrity of myopia. It’s kind of picky.

Anyway, I think that if I had any gift for synthetic parts manufacturing, then Lifetime Guarantee Flexilenses® which you get implanted could be a really big seller. In the meantime...(crap)...I will be that dork handing objects to my children and saying “what does this say please?” And they will tell me. But Gabe will pronounce it weird.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Maybe you clap the hand against your foot.

I would say our road trip to Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey was good. Good in the somewhat interesting, we found food, and Janet the GPS did yeoman duty sense of good. The college visit itself has derailed me into all sorts of side ruminations about Gabe, college fit, and what the heck we should do with the kid.

(As an aside, I will say that I’m never so happy to see my bed as when I’ve just spent the last night in a hotel. Not that the Holiday Inn Express was bad. It was fine. Good even. But the disorientation experienced by Jeff, who gets up at night, can’t find the bathroom, turns lights on, then can’t figure out how to get back in bed always means my sleep is pretty patchy. Threw into focus for me exactly why I don’t go out of my way to plan trips anymore. And the coffee was weak. But you’d expect that.)

But, back to Gabe. Answering the question What should Gabe do after high school? feels like a restatement of What is the sound of one hand clapping? Like trying to answer the koan, you must--in trying to answer the Gabe question--actually think of an answer where it appears none exists. Maybe you can throw away the koan as stupid, but you can’t throw away the kid. And here’s where the usual objections or words of counsel, from the well-meaning, hit the bricks and go splat.

Doesn’t the kid need to figure this out for himself? Well, yes, ideally. But this kid isn’t even motivated to do the usual things, like drive a car or, um, move, sometimes. As far as I can tell, he would, if left unattended, default to eating Honey Nut Joe’s O’s and finding intriguing new animes online. All day. All night. It might not ever occur to him that he was now out of high school and in need of a plan.

Maybe you’re just a control freak. Let’s get this straight, right now. I don’t want to control anyone. It is my greatest wish that each person control him/herself. But, like a medium-ranked canine which will assume alpha rank if there’s a vacuum, I am keenly aware that there are things in need of controlling and absolutely no one stepping up to the plate.

So maybe if he didn’t assume you’d take care of it, he’d step up himself. Voila. Exactly. It’s my only hope. Which is why the default thought that you can send an undermotivated kid to the community college for a couple years falls flat. Gabe must go somewhere else. Somewhere where it’s good and clear that I’m not there to back him up.

But I doubt if that place will be Fairleigh Dickinson. Of my many impressions, the one that has filtered out most strongly is that it is not a school of non-conforming odd-ducks. Gabe would be the marginalized figure he more or less was at Summit. Baltimore Lab, where almost everyone is uniquely weird, has been a refreshingly better fit. Hence, it is my latest line of thought that, like the ugly duckling and the swans, Gabe must be dropped amongst a freaky dorky weird collection of creative types in order to have a hope of finding the inspiration to be who he is.

Which leads me to Columbia College. The son of Gabe’s carpool driver/teacher, a Lab 12th grader, has discovered a most appealing atmosphere at this school of arts and media in...Chicago. Chicago? I said. That’s so far away! Indeed, it made no sense to me at all until I checked their web site, watched a couple of their videos, and was quickly awash in the remarkable realization that here was a school full of students who are--each in his/her way--as weird as Gabe. It was a crazy wake up call, which highlighted what a wrong environment FDU--with its girls in Ugg boots and baseball team boys--was for Gabe.

FDU has a great LD program. But here is, perhaps, the second most important take home point I took home from our FDU visit, and it was made by the counselor presenting the program to us. That is: Do not pick a school with the LD program--no matter how fine--as the primary focus. Pick the school first for whether it fits the kid. The program is icing. Nice icing, but icing.

Still--don’t worry mom--it is not my plan to send the kid to Chicago. (I may show him the video...but, seriously. Don’t worry.)
It is my plan though, to look for something that looks like that. Because, here’s the thing:
What do we know about Gabe? What has he put any effort into and what makes him proud? Here are a few things that come to mind: He likes...hypnotism, sleight of hand, moonwalking, weird right-brain cartooning, unicycling, the rare work of fiction or poetry he actually sits himself down to do, ideas and notions that drift in from somewhere left of left field. He needs focus, motivation, and inspiration. But he’s not going to get it by being the weird kid among preppies. But maybe, in a place where the arts of all sorts--drama, writing, game creation, storyboarding--are being performed by better-focused kids all around him...maybe in such an environment he will catch a glimpse of what he wants to be. And maybe I’m stupid. But maybe one hand can clap, I don’t know.