Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything else
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul Farmer
The suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.
There is no one right way to live. Daniel Quinn Ishmael
The only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Thursday, May 25, 2017

short notes

Short notes

I am taking charge of my grandsons for the summer.  We will have four week days to sleep in late, play, go to the trampoline place, wear out the parks, take miles of walks, do lots of artsy-fartsy stuff.  We made leather pouches last Saturday and all I did was to punch holes for the little one and thread both of their needles.  Older grandson used a real leather awl for the first time and did a great job.  No one bled, and the pouches are so cool.  I am still working on the leather case I began for my cell phone.

So, lots of art stuff and science.  We will have time to do larger projects for all the science things we already do and all of us have ideas for expanding, especially making rockets.  Yay.

They will go to daycare at their school on the day that I volunteer at the food pantry.  I could take them along, but I can see how ultimately boring that would be for them, even if they do not.

A week ago, after food pantry gig I found a letter from the IRS in the mailbox.  Seems that the folk who did my taxes last year forgot to include retirement payments and the taxes I pre-paid on those payments and I owe them $2200 in three weeks.  I can file an amended tax return, but they want the taxes due first.  It is not the first time that I have been cash-strapped, but it is still a pain.  I have never owed anyone anything.  Ever.  Temporary glitch, and the woman I spoke to at the government office was very helpful in figuring out what went awry.  Anyway, I scraped it all together and it will be mailed next week after I see the investment folk.

I am in the process of making changes in how I am living.  One of my friends at work asked me today if she could ask me some questions.  Well, sure.  She told me that she has noticed that I have been behaving differently for the past couple of months, and she is correct, I have been. 

She wanted to talk about it and I shared that coming to understand that this summer will most likely be the last time that my grandbabies will be of an age where they really want to spend so much time with me.  They are both going to sleep-away camp this year.  Thankfully they are not playing sports this season.  I am not sure my butt and back could handle another summer on the bleachers.    And, part of making this a summer of significance for all of us includes me, my health, my physical abilities and all that jazz. 

My daughter and I went out for lunch last week and I shared all of this with her, emphasizing my personal concerns.  Who knows what my poor heart is going to do next.  It has been behaving less than optimally; I am taking more meds and carry emergency meds with me at all times.  You know, by next summer I may want to move into a senior community, not drive so much and maybe even really and truly retire.  I just do not know and am smart enough to not blithely believe that things will not change.  I am truly old now and whilst I can do whatever I want, those abilities could diminish in ways not to my liking. 

Best to be aware and live in the moment more fully than I do now.  Part of that is letting go of a couple of friends, although, as I think of it, if I am willing and wanting to not be in relationship of any kind with them I guess that they are already not real friends.  Anyway, I am breaking up with them.  It feels good and healthy, which is the proof of it being the right thing to do.

I sign a new lease next week on this flat and as of today I was still looking for a new place to live.  Surely not what my landlord wants and I am going to try to explain to him that I am going to continue to look for somewhere else to live.  My health is bad enough that I could easily break the lease, but I want to reassure him that I will not bail on my financial obligation to a lease, but I am pretty sure that he will not be all that reassured.  Tough.

I am having periods of extreme depression and stabs of anxiety, so it is time to have another appointment with my internist to discuss meds again.  I need blood tests anyway, so might as well get it done all at once.  I am forgoing a mammogram this summer.  Just do not want the extra expense, but my feelings about that may change when I am once again properly medicated.

I am at a standstill with my therapy.  I have done so much freaking healing and growing this past year with my still new-ish therapist.  The stumble is that it is time to talk about the worst of the worst of that other life and I am so not willing to go there.  It just seems like going backwards to have to share any of that stuff.  Maybe I will.  Probably I will decide to not share.  To talk or even think about any of that takes me right back to those days, reliving them again and again.  There is no buffer, there is not any safe way to do that.  I sometimes think that I might be able to do it under deep medication, but then what do I do with all those memories back, and not simply back, but fully realized and smack dab in my daily life again.  I fought so hard to heal this far.  I am just not sure that I can, even though I understand that if I want to be truly healthy and fully recover that all that mess has to be addressed and dealt with.  Probably will not.

I am having all my hair cut off next week.  I want hair short enough so that I can shower, run my fingers through that clean hair and do nothing else.  The blow dryer is not my friend.  Conditioners and other products are not my friends.  I am not even all that crazy about my comb.


Monday, May 15, 2017

reading and books, but mostly reading

This came to me via another person, and I am sharing it because I sort of kind of only partly agree with the premise.




https://booksien.com/2017/05/15/about-wanting-to-read-it-all/

I agree that it helps to reduce angst by being choosy about what books I choose to read.  I read every day for at least a few hours and am recently reading all night to find out what happens next, what new twists and paths will be taken by the characters and reacting with wonder each time.  The book is Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett.  It has been recommended to me many times and the only reason I am reading it now is because I do not have time to pick up my reserved titles at the library, but I bought this copy for a dollar whilst I was volunteering at our library's recent book sale.

But, that is not my point.  Maybe it is, but one of the things the author was doing was no longer reading Young Adult books, and I think that is a damn shame.

That means she has missed the treasures that are:
Anna and the Swallow Man, by Gavriel Savit. 
With Malice,by Eileen Cook. 
Symptoms of Being Human, by Jeff Garvin.
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusaki.
Between, by Jessica Warman.
The Giver, by Lois Lowry.
I cannot leave out the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson.



When I do not fancy any adult books, I re-read the Newbery books.  I have read all of them and until I left that other life, owned a copy of each.  Many are out of print, some are no longer available even in libraries, but every one is worth reading, by people of all ages.  I have yet to enchant my grandsons with any of those books, except for one that my oldest grandson was required to read for a class assignment.

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal#20s

This is just the tip (and the only books that I can remember right now) that are just as important as re-reading Ulysses

If you are going to find and read books that will hold meaning or learning or help you to gain what you need to be the person you want to be, perhaps supposed to be, you have to be open to and kind of trust that books you never would have considered reading are going to do exactly that.  YA or something else, you just never know what will come along.

Do I end up with dreck?  More than I would prefer, but even those books have led me to similar topics, new authors, the rediscovery of old, favorite authors and absolutely new stuff that I never imagined what out there, just waiting for me.  And, I have long abandoned the belief that if I begin a book that I must finish it.  What an unexpected pleasure and relief that was!

As for classics, I know what and where they are and I have pretty much read all that I care to right now.  Who knows what next week will toss in my path.


This is only about fiction.

Rock on...we will, we will read you!