Bird Dream

This may be a mental process that is unique to me, but I feel like I need to come to a crisis. I am still up and at the computer at 12:58 a.m. That may not sound so late, but I know I will have trouble forcing myself to get up in the morning. I am pretty wired and it will be an hour or more before I can settle into sleep. This morning I let the alarm--tuned to talk radio--run out its hour and I remained in bed. Then I had a dream that woke me to tears. It included the demise of a pet bird--death by reckless treatment at the hands of a member of my family. My thought process did not improve upon waking. I ruminated over resentments, a total waste of time and effort. Something is going on and I cannot recognize what I need to do to get through the current mood. I am staying busy. I plan at least a couple tasks/errands each day and I am reading two books, a mystery and a drawing instruction book. That last involves exercises with pencil and paper that I am enjoying. I fear my current state is one of those situations I will not understand until I have weathered the storm. Why can I not step outside of myself and observe? If a friend were having these difficulties, I would probably be able to offer advice. Now that I write this, I realize that my reaction to the dream was not so much sadness over the bird's death but it was rather my frustration that someone in the dream did not understand my being upset.
So, are birds symbolic? Should I be perusing Jung?

Some More on Christmas P.M.

With children letting dogs out of cages, fighting over the one oversized Nerf gun, and running in and out of the 20 degree weather with no attention to door closing, Bevin, my 27 year old daughter, who is childless and usually willing to ignore others' children, stood up at the table where she had been seated and asked, " Should I be in charge of applying corporal punishment?" It was so appropriate. Many of the adults in the room had been wishing they could smack one or more of the over stimulated monsters, all except the parents of course. And my 24 year old daughter Colleen, also unmarried and childless, proceeded to drink at least 6 glasses of wine. Her debriefing about the whole situation when we got back to my house was pretty succinct as well. And the gift exchange for the adults was basically reach in the box and pick something. I have to admit we just gave out Bread Company gift cards. Maybe we should rethink the whole concept and go bowling.

Christmas and Blahs

Now for the post-Christmas blahs. I thought I had some of the holiday rush issues licked this year. While I was recuperating from the second knee surgery, I crocheted and sewed some of the gifts, and I did both early antique mall shopping and timely online purchasing. But I neglected to consider the physical efforts involved with a son graduating on the 18th of December and preparation for the annual Christmas open house which fell this year on the 23rd. Then there was the anxiety of the gift opening. Will everyone be pleased? Were we fair in distribution among the kids? Will the grandkids like what I made? At least Christmas Eve Mass was calming. We sat in the 2nd pew--Terry and I did not fit in the 3rd with the rest of the family. Coats and sleeping children take up lots of room:) No one else sat as far forward as we, so it was very like the Mass and the readings were directed to us. It was a thoughtful high point to the holiday. After Communion, I went to the back of church and took the sleeping Leo to relieve Bridgett for a moment. I could not describe better than she did (in South City Musings) how peaceful the new cry room area is. With child gates instead of glass, it seems less removed than more traditional cry rooms. And it's downright comfy. Then was the frenzy of gift opening at our house and another late night. I have to admit that everyone at least appeared happy with the seasons spoils.

Tired and slipping into anticlimax mode, Terry and I took Bevin and Colleen to Terry's sister Paula's house on Christmas afternoon. That was exceedingly uncomfortable for me, and I am still not sure what it was about the gathering that disturbed me. The truth is probably that there were many things. Terry's mom is still recovering from a year of terrible health problems. She is better than in July or September, but she is not nearly back to her level of activity at this time last year. There are also old issues that I believe I am more cognizant of now than ever before. Three of Terry's brothers were MIA, each with personal and family reasons. The children who were there, the under 12 year old set, are not so like the generation before. A couple are feral, and others have so much baggage at a young age that their behavior is bizarre. And the adults all looked more than a year older than they did this time last year. Again, I may just be more aware of the change. My current drug regimen does not numb me as some of the previous cocktails did.

After all of the rest of the pleasant events, including a highly successful party, I keep coming back to the ennui of Christmas afternoon. Maybe it is only fatigue and being alone with my thoughts. I think I will get busy, go to Target, maybe buy a pocket calendar for 2010. That should help.

Karma?

What exactly was I thinking when I began this blog? I want to be at least a little into the 21st century. I like to write for cathartic reasons. Two of my daughters have blogs. I need one more thing to hang over my head so I can feel uneasy about not getting to it. Maybe I could show off what a swell writer I can be. Is at least one of those a good reason? HMMMMM.
Recovery from knee replacement sucks. Pain fools you and your mind can go to places it probably shouldn't. I have done a lot of thinking about death and about how alone I am in the universe although I have a husband, four children and their spouses or significant others, four grandchildren, various aunts and uncles and cousins, and at least a hand full of friends. Funny thing about pain that keeps you from sleeping is that none of those warm beings bring comfort because they are either not present or irritatingly asleep and thus removed. Self pity, on the other hand, is omnipresent at 3 a.m.
Most of the major experiences, as well as a few minor ones, in my life have come with LESSON written all over them. Whose pain have I not comforted? To whom have I shown impatience rather than sympathy or empathy? The person who leaps to mind is my mom. I cannot fix that now--she is over 10 years dead. Maybe this is what karma means. I get to experience some of the pain I did not acknowledge. I have to deal with my own and it makes me realize I could have been better with her. And now I want to fix it but cannot. Maybe I can reach out to someone else. I will have to be wary. People have reached out to me but I have not trusted enough to believe their sincerity. More family of origin issues.
As I write this, tears well up in my eyes. Some of that is fatigue and some of it is allowing myself to feel.

I have taken a vacation of sorts from the blog. After this 2nd knee replacement (the 1st was back in July) I have avoided the computer. Its location on the 2nd floor makes it difficult to just casually use when it is so hard to maneuver the steps. I also was feeling a nagging antipathy toward all things technological. I have joined Facebook, have an email account, and I occasionally blog, all of which sound like good ideas. However, Facebook has come with invitations to Mafia Wars and requests for Farmville while the email account includes some newsletters I should probably drop. They tend to aggravate more than inform. At the same time, the blogging began to feel like an obligation. None of that sounds like fun, does it? On the other hand, I suffer from chronic depression and the pain after surgery certainly did not help. Writing would be a possible relief. Anyone out there who has experienced clinical depression knows that opportunities for relief are not necessarily the choices a depressed person makes.
So here I am after being away for awhile. The currently prescribed antidepressant, Pristiq, seems effective as a leveling agent and we are into the cold of winter, something I enjoy. The house has grown messy during my recovery from surgery, so I am plunging into long overdue vacuuming today--things like baseboards. That should cheer me. Maybe after a few hours of housework, technology and computing will look oh-so-much better.

Ex-cons

I was genuinely pleased to see someone gave Michael Vick a chance. From personal experience with ex-offenders I have taught in college, I know that having a felony record makes job hunting a nightmare. Just imagine what a boost Vick's story will be for this marginalized group. They can look at him and take heart, especially the males. All they have to do is get into really good shape--preliminary planning like playing football in a college setting and maybe being drafted by the NFL before being arrested would be helpful--and then upon release or parole there will be the opportunity for a job with benefits in the NFL. As long as the ex-con can make the franchise money, there is no limit to the possibilities. And what is even better is that this chance is not only for the nonviolent offenders. Heinous crimes like rape, murder, and egregious cruelty to animals do not make make the NFL nor the NBA squeamish. Fame and infamy are blurred in those worlds.
I can see it now. there will be a whole new area of nonprofit training programs in the prisons. Classes like "How to Turn Your Felony into Fasttrack Football" and "Creative Fiction in Sports Resume Writing" will be taught at maximum security institutions. Best of all, the society is finally achieving some real justice. Pulpits and political forums have been the venues for preaching that prisoners can be rehabilitated, so we should all be open to hiring ex-offenders. Practice has never followed the preaching closely until now. The benevolent NFL has stepped up to take the selfless lead.
I can hear the rallying cry: "We don't care what you've done/just so you can catch an' run!" And enrich the franchise, of course.

Six Weeks

It is already mid-August. How did that happen? Actually, time stood almost still for much of July for me. I had my right knee replaced on the first of July and it has been a rocky road since. I suffer from chronic depression and I am very driven to be the best student (or patient, in this case). That combination made me do everything the doctor and the physical therapist wanted me to do. The trouble is that I do not have any frame of reference. How healed should I be at 6 weeks post-op? The PT said I was doing very well and the doctor says the same when I see him, but are they just humoring me? The suspicion is counterproductive. I might as well bask in their praise and continue my efforts.
I am not working this fall. It will be the first semester since our move in March of 2000 that I will not be teaching or at least tutoring for over 20 hours a week. This should be another interesting journey.

Pain in the . . .

I have been dealing with chronic pain for a while now. I looked back at my daily calendars and realized this arthritic right knee has been giving me hell for about 2.5 years. The left one had orthoscopic surgery and some relief in 2003, but it too is painful again. I have had a run of poor luck with doctors. Several have hedged further surgery while offering ineffective half measures. That is another story, one that involves the bad mixture of medicine and a business model. The pain, however, has at least been a shadow in my life for a long time. If I am with people or on the phone, I get to forget it for some time. I also take Aleve and ibuprofen which take the edge off the aching. I have a fear that I will become my mother, bless her. She had issues, so I am not throwing blame her way. She did complain of aches and pains for about as long as I could remember. She is no longer physically with us, but her complaints and her managing to be ill for major functions, like weddings and Christmas and Tuesdays, are shadows in my own life. I therefore attempt not to bitch about my own pain. My children and husband might beg to differ, but I really try not to whine. I try so hard that I probably let myself suffer rather than admit to the problem and seek help. Of course this is way more complicated than I am expressing here. For instance, add to the mix that my 82 year old mother-in-law was still cutting her own grass up until this summer, that she grocery shopped on the way home from the hospital after having her 4th or 5th child of 8, and I feel like a wuss if I mention I am suffering from anything less than a major head trauma--and that better be an open wound to impress my ex-emergency room nurse husband.

Life is so interesting. I have fought depression for a couple of decades, and recently the various drugs have not helped much. Could it be the physical aches that constantly nag me? Hmmmm.

More to come, maybe solutions, but at least changes.

So, it's like this--I don't like my blog or much of anything else right now. There are the kids and grandkids and husband, but not much else is 0f interest. Maybe I will find my way out of the funk soon.

Socrates Don't Work Here

As I tried to settle in to Good Friday's solemn, sad, but hopeful afternoon, I made the mistake of checking my email and just glanced at a higher education news flash that appeared in the viewing window. A couple of groups, one a community college organization, are announcing a partnership with somebody in Africa to strengthen curriculum and improve job prep, blah blah blah. Having worked in community colleges for the past nine years, I can only laugh at the same old jargon. How about we just teach some concepts, allow the students to prepare themselves to be thinking adults, and then let them find their way in the work force? The idea of an apprenticeship or on the job training is anathema to higher ed now. Think of all that revenue out the window, or off the bottom line. Expectations at the college level have fallen to such a low that we might as well admit that thousands of the students at the Associate Degree level are only glorified high school graduates--finally--after two years of remedial work. They now might be able to understand a conversation with or decipher a note from their counterparts--the high school grads back in the middle of the previous century. I am guessing that an eighth grade graduate of the century before that may have had similar knowledge. When did we decide to relinquish opening minds and preparing critical thinkers to history and instead just train in technology, and not do that all so well? There are some amazing thinkers out there in their early adulthood, and they may have been exposed to some rigorous college courses, but the watered down pabulum available to so many college students today or else the desperate efforts to make up for wasted high school days does not make for an educated work force. Education is learning about how to learn and how to live life. Work is about training. Today's education system is confused and driven by the bottom line and teachers who fear for their jobs if they dare to think out loud. What a shame.
And don't get me started on the nationalization of education.

New Broom Sweeps Clean

I am not ok with all of the moves we have undertaken during our marriage. Saying that makes me feel like I am somehow betraying my husband. I could have stopped any one of the twenty minor and major changes of address if I had chosen to not allow it. Consequences would have ensued, and then I could have dealt with that. But much of my adult life has been my allowing life to happen to me. There were a couple of exceptions, like going back to graduate school. Use of those graduate degrees has been thwarted and I have allowed that to happen as well. That cannot have been good modeling for my children. I know choosing not to be proactive has not been healthy for me. I am also keenly aware that I am a product of every place I have been, of all the accumulated circumstances. By extension, not turning down one of those roads would have meant different results in me. I have been told that I should be grateful for all of my history because it has made me what I am today. That axiom only works if I am happy with what I am today.

I have been avoiding my blog. I have pretty much been avoiding my life the last couple of weeks. I would explain more except that 1) there is just too much, and 2) I really do not understand the funk myself.

A Tree in the Forest

So, if I post a blog and nobody reads it, does it still use up ink? How about space? Is there any limit to cyber space? What about gravitational pull?

Tell Me Why This Can't Work

I am not an economist, nor am I a financial wizard, but I wonder sometimes if the simplest solution might just be the best. Some of the people in trouble with their mortgages may have overextended themselves thinking their house value would go up or their income would increase. What then happened is an adjustable rate mortgage adjusted and the payments are too much. At the same time, they cannot sell since they would have to come up with money at closing. Maybe they even anticipated refinancing but could not since they owe more than what the house is now worth in this market. Why could they not re-amortize what is still owed over 35 or 40 years? Payments would go down at least a little, and if they stay in the house for ten years or more, they may be able to eventually sell at better than a loss. The lenders would continue to have income and the collateral, the homes, would have an opportunity to gain in value so that the loan to value ratio might actually improve over time. The only place I see in this scheme for any government bailing would be to bring some of the ridiculous A.R.M.s down a point or two.
Folks who invested in houses just to flip them in a year or so for a profit would not gain by this plan, but they are really in business rather than occupying a primary residence. They are not my concern.
People might have to stay in "starter" houses a decade instead of a couple of years, but wouldn't that be better than suffering foreclosure or spending my tax money to save them from bad decisions they may have made?
Then we look closely at when and how we got into this mess. Who thought that 100% financing was a good idea? And about this bundling of mortgages to spread risk. . . it got spread right into all of our living rooms. Let's look long and hard at the regulations over the past 10+ years and make sure the congresspeople and other decision makers who were in the lobbyists' pockets have to look for other work soon.

Time Marches

Almost March. . . I can't believe it. One of the Denver newspapers bit the dust this week, makes me sad. Will the internet really take up the slack? Slack, hmmmm. Slacking in their responsibility to report the news could have been what killed the newspaper business. Trying to be everything to everyone is not a successful business plan.

Sleepy

I am at about stage three of exhaustion. That's when I become what I refer to as "honest." Friends and relatives have pointed out that "cruel" or "nasty" might be more appropriate. I will be making some offhand comment like, "This bitch who sits in the last row in class had the audacity to say. . ." and I catch myself. Whomever I was addressing either has assumed an expression of horror or just stopped listening.
I really need sleep. Most other deprivations do not phase me, but lack of sleep drives me crazy, or should I say crazier? But here I am at 10:30 at night finding so many ways to occupy my time.

3rd Rock

So I was watching Third Rock From the Sun. Yeh, I admit I watch way too much late night, rerun TV. Anyway, as an alien, Dick (John Lithgow) is able to spout such pearls of wisdom. What freedom with a character. And Jane Curtain's character is such a perfect foil. She was angry at Dick for his having been honest at a meeting he attended in her stead. So she says, "Since you value honesty, I'll be brutally frank." He replies, "All right. I'll be Genuine Dick." I need to watch that show more often.

On the Information Highway

I just watched a video on one of my daughters' blogs and it occurred to me that we bloggers are really street musicians. Instead of making music for passers-by, we throw down words for readers-by. We are all just hoping to find an audience who clicks, someone who understands. . .

Fine Whines

My, my, poor whiny me. I need to write more in the middle of the day. When I am alone and cold after midnight in the big hallway where the computer sits and I feel the weight of the day on my shoulders, I am often not hysterically happy. Go figure,

Pay Attention to ME

OK--I am having one of those moments when I am sad because everyone just does not see the world the way I do. I think the sadness comes from their suggesting I am too old, too Catholic, too conservative, too out of touch to really understand the world today. So far I am sad. Sometimes I want to scream. No homicidal thoughts. . .yet.

No Two Alike

Snow has always held some magical power over me. The muffling of sound, the purification of the landscape, the ceasing of mindless bustle combine to quell any and all misgivings. St. Louis is enough of a stranger to the stuff, with only sporadic storms, that life is different when the white stuff falls in quantity. Most of life fails the litmus test of importance against the crystalline accumulation. As though we realize we cannot fight Nature, we join her celebration armed with sleds and warming fires, abandoning modern conveyances in favor of boots or snow shoes. Flowing with Nature's choices feels strange but exhilarating.

Tired

I have to remember to do this blog thing earlier in the day. I get sucked in late at night reading my daughters' blogs and then I forget to go to bed or I start fighting back tears or I just think too much to sleep. I should know better.

Inertia

I am lonely tonight, missing some people and places and circumstances, feeling guilty about others. I do not know how this cloud develops over me sometimes, but I realize, often suddenly, that I am sad. Maybe the cloud metaphor is all wrong. Quicksand would be more appropriate.
Of course, I have no right to own this self pity. My life is full of wonder and light. People are good to me. I have wonderful, talented children. My grandchildren are perfect.
The quicksand doesn't care. So I try to move through the day mired and foggy. Movement, especially emotional, comes slowly and only with great exertion. And that cloud or fog makes perception impossible.

Soap Box

Colleen mentioned, in a comment, the Vietnam era and the anti-war movement. I remember being anti-war, but I never understood the people who spit on returning soldiers. So many were young draftees, changed forever by a tour of duty in hell. I was angry at the government's mismanagement. Initially, and remember I was very young, I thought that we entered wars to win, but we would not do what was necessary to triumph in Southeast Asia. Then I saw pictures like the famous one of a man (North Vietnamese sympathizer?) being shot in the head by someone in charge (a South Vietnamese officer?). The details of who was shooting whom did not strike me, but the frame of the moment of impact is indelible. For whom or what were we fighting? The domino theory fell woefully short. Then there was the picture of the young girl running naked down the street toward the camera holder. She had been struck with napalm and had peeled her clothing away from the seared flesh. I now realize such pictures were published by people who probably had agendas of their own, but does that matter? War is an excuse for human beings to revert to inhumane acts. Now we use terms like collateral damage. I cannot weep for crazy men like Saddam Husein or terrorists we have detained. I would like to see us uphold our standards of justice no matter who the offender, but I prefer to see the names and possibly the faces of the now dead who were only last year or the year before walking in a village in Iraq or down a mountainside in Afganistan. Names make people real, no matter the side. I believe the president, when he or she asks young people to fight/defend/die for their country, should be the one to make the personal phone call to the surviving family. A few "Hello, Mrs. Jones, this is the president of the United States. I put your son (or daughter or spouse) in harm's way. I regret to inform you. . ." conversations would be very sobering. That conversation, however, must be the priority each day, before fixing the economy and selling senate seats and ordering lobster from room service and getting together with chums in the oil business. If I were president, that is what I would do. And as long as our troops are dying in any part of the world, I would wear a black arm band.
More about Vietnam later. . .

Memories and Showers

I just commented on my eldest daughter's blog. There had been a reference to being a hippie, and I was reminded of a complaint I have. Today, when a ratty haired, jeans wearing, smelly, young person walks down the street, besides jaywalking to avoid the specimen, many people classify him or her as a hippie. Just when did that become the categorization of "I'm too lazy to shower or comb my hair"? When I was young (yeesh, I am my parents), going braless, growing hair long, and sporting badly patched jeans all went with a political, or possibly an apolitical, world view. And even when we stayed the night in some old trailer with a bunch of ski patrol members, everybody showered. Hippie had a lot to do with freedom, but not necessarily freedom from personal hygiene. I still have beads, for god's sake. I refuse to let current day, so called hippies defile my memories. So there.

First

The first post of 2009. I begin with a fragment. Why exactly are fragments such anathema to English teachers? In and of themselves, fragments are just bits and pieces, not quite finished but often bearing meaning. Then there is the infamous comma splice, an unpardonable sin of stringing independent clauses together with only the meager comma to separate them. So I guess stringing fragments together using commas as barriers would not constitute the comma splice error. This situation would only be compounded fragmentation. All of this grammatical sifting appears to be elitist fantasy, and making fun of the grammar police provides a few fun moments. I must, however, continue to defend the rules because they give us order and allow our musings to make sense to others. Readers bring so much to the text that can color their understanding. Writers might as well strive for clarity so at least some of their meaning will survive.