Paralytic Hiatus

Stick with me, pals.

I've been smacked upside the head with the moody blues. Glum, foggy-headed funk.  Hot, humid, lethargic word-cement.

Inspired by Christy of Juvenescence and Lithia Writers' Collective, I'm going to attack the block from a different direction and attempt to put together a room of my own, physically and emotionally. One with a door I can close.  Click here for some excellent examples.

I may post a meme or two in the next few days, just to keep my fingers busy.  If you need things to read, do check out my blog links, as I've added a couple. Her Other Evil Twin is a true mystery woman. While I've never met the author of RedMolly Picayune-Democrat face-to-face, I figure -  in the blogosphere - one degree of separation qualifies. I attended public school with Old Roman Symbol from second through twelfth grade, but haven't seen him since 1977 (same with  What I Saw Today....maybe a reunion would shake things up?).

I think this is probably Texas' version of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I once read an article about summer sufferers, including one woman who went to bed each night with two-liter Pepsi-bottles full of water she'd frozen to keep the night sweats at bay.  Not a bad plan at all.

Removing my Rose Colored Glasses Glasses

A year or so ago, Nora Ephron published a book of essays titled I Feel Bad About My Neck. Mildly intrigued and acutely aware of my own advancing age, I ordered it and began to read. After the first few pieces I put it aside, as I'd grown tired of what I perceived as an obsessive self-focus.

"I am glad I'm not so concerned about my appearance. No, maybe it's that I'm glad I seem to be holding up fairly well. Good genes. Luck. Sunscreen. Anyway, enough with the 'woe over wrinkles' stuff!" I semi-gloated as I poured a glass of red wine and settled in with some other reading material.

Things have changed. I feel bad about my eyes.

Understand. My eyes are my one vanity, the single feature on my entire body I, without reservation, know are beautiful. I realize this sounds flippant, but I would be kickass hot in a chador. 

For several years, I've been using clics when I read. They are the greatest thing since sliced bread. But over the last 18 months or so I've noticed problems with ever-larger print and a need for help in the middle distance.

Yesterday, I endured a long postponed eye exam. Some folks dread the dentist's chair. Me? The optometrist's dim room. For a perfectionist, the simple question, "Which is clearer? This or this?" induces crippling anxiety.  I tend to answer, "Well, in the first one, the two letters on the far right are clearer, but in the second one, those two letters suck but the one in the center is much better and the two on the left are about 25% clearer."  It's a damned good thing this guy has known me for a long time.

Frame selection was its own fresh hell.

I purchased up a pair of prescription readers and the first thing I saw was not the crisp features of type on a page but the truly aged appearance of the skin on my forearm. Gasp. I will be using these over contact lenses, which I hope I will tolerate better than I did the last time I tried them a few years ago. Back then I could just give the lenses up. Now I'm not so sure.

It gets worse. If the contacts don't work, or during those periods when I choose not to wear them, I must sport that signal indicator of advancing age: bifocals.  I'm picking them up this afternoon, after I wake up from the depressed nap I'm about to take.

I feel bad about my eyes, Nora Ephron. Maybe now I'll feel better about your book.

Gift Night

I just returned from walking Large Dog. A line of thunderstorms moved through this afternoon and left things freakishly cool.  It's 63 degrees outside. 

Thank you, universe, for sending me a little bit of what I'm missing so much.

The Dark. The Wall.

The trip is off. I will be blogging from the hell that is Texas summer.  More about this when I cool off from the news.

The Light. The Tunnel.

I am now officially able to plot my departure for Oregon. At the oncologist's today, my mother received the bad news/good news talk that we've heard before. The tumors are growing again, and her tumor marker continues to rise. But two drugs remain in the arsenal, and she started one today. I was assured that the disease would make no radical downturns in the next two months, even if she did not respond to the first drug. 

As I told Mother today, "Don't forget: you had ten times this much cancer in you before you even knew you were sick."

The house is in high gear, what with route planning, Small Child's summer camp/activities selection (this all had to wait until we knew which state we'd be in), gear collection (where is my bike helmet?), and wardrobe organization. I'm paring down this year as there's a chance I'll be driving home in something less bulky than the Silver Minivan. If so, my cries of joy will ring from the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters.

My big decision? Dare I drive with Large Dog and Small Child? Or do I repeat last year's plan and find someone to fly out with her? Fuel prices are, alas, impacting the decision. I've been waiting all year long for those five or six days of solitary road bliss, with my dog's sweet sleeping head on my lap and the westbound road ahead.  Am I selfish because I don't want to spoil it with whining, even from the lips of one so dear?

Where a word leads: "abeyance"

This morning I planned to write about what is becoming an annual May event: the holding pattern. My brain kept bringing me the word "abeyance." This led to memories of a poem and a poet I studied in great depth long, long ago. I couldn't find a poem with the title I recall, "In Abeyance," but I found this one. I thought I understood it when I was twenty. I didn't. Not at all.

The Ache of Marriage

Denise Levertov (1923 - 1997)

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,

are heavy with it,

      it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,

each and each

It is leviathan and we

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of

the ache of it.

Back, with company

...in the form of some nasty virus. I think only two of us have been whacked, and our maladies may not even be related. But I have about as much energy as a wrung out dishcloth, so you'll have to wait a few days for a complete recap of the women's weekend.

Some points:

• We made collage necklaces, under the direction of Do You Realize? Curiously, I was even more anxious about necklace construction than I was about last year's painting experiment. I'm sure I drove DYR crazy with my constant need for pathetic reinforcement.

• After all that, I emerged with two pieces I love. And apparently left at the hotel. I called today and they had not been found. I keep telling myself "All is impermanence. All is impermanence." But I keep thinking "Damn it! I want to wear those suckers."

• We completed two writing prompts, and the results were grand. If I can collect the Moleskine books we wrote in, I'm going to put the pieces from one prompt up on the blog.

• Despite several bottles of red wine in the suite, most of us stuck to vodka and grapefruit juice. Go figure.

• Sunday I left the cocoon to get a spontaneous haircut and do a bit of shopping, and my Obama car magnet was stolen. Ripped right off the minivan in the mall parking lot. What a sad, sad thing.

• For the first time in my life, I fell asleep during a massage. And did so again after I turned over. That massage therapist is amazing.

• I do not understand how DYR can put that much brown sugar in her oatmeal and stay so skinny. It defies all logic.

June 2, 2008 update: The necklaces were tucked away in my suitcase after all!