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.