Spitting in the Face of the Void

A friend wonders in his FB status update "if blogs are dead." Nah. I don't think so, but they've "moved on". Few people really comment here-- I import my blogs to FB and most of my comments happen there. So perhaps the technology of blogs w/ Twitter w/ FB w/ whatever has shifted and people have a 200 letter attention span. It's possible. But I deny the end until it's over.

But I do read a couple of blogs that I am not connected to on Facebook. The Writing as Joe blog, for example, seems a vibrant and wonderful as ever. I long to write more like Joe, to go to a quiet retreat at a lovely monastery once a year, to take such amazing photos. But I'm not as good a blogger as she is, I don't have her amazing rock star life. But I can aspire. :) Maybe that's why her blog lives on-- because she is the kind of writer that inspires us to be better (writers, people, etc.)

I have always written my blog for me. It's my journal, my record of days. For a while, people other than myself read it on a daily basis. And that was kinda fun. And that's mostly over, here, yes. And I probably have put things too personal up on it sometimes because it feels like a personal thing, and I probably have sometimes seemed really self-centered (because right here IS about me if nothing else in life is). But daily life is sometimes fun, sometimes boring, and sometimes worth writing about. *

I'll keep this going until I am bored with it, but since I like the daily or weekly (sometimes) grind of thinking about things I doubt that will ever happen. I don't think, like I once did, about certain events in my life "I can't wait to blog about that". But I do still like this space.

Keep watching. Or don't. I'll be here one way or another.

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* these links are to my old blog, from the "golden age" of blogging.

Weird Googling

So, for some reason, a bug to google former professors of mine from days of yore hit me tonight. I found a few; one has a super duper cool website that makes me want to tweak the heck out of my professional vitae/portfolio page. Looking at pictures of some of whom I haven't actually seen in years (almost 20 for one) and seeing the changes time has wrought, and the things that are exactly the same. Seeing time having been kind, or cool. What books have been written, lives have been lived.

I looked at the Honors Program page that I was a huge part of (president of the student organization, in fact) at the first University I attended. They looked so young and yet so familiar. Back when I was first in school, the Internet was not what it is today. I played a lot of Carmen SanDiego in the Honors office, and a lot of Tetris. But today, what are they up to?

Next thing you know I'll be googling former students whose names I remember. There aren't a ton of the ones who I can totally remember first & last names of from the top of my head, but there are a couple. I mostly remember faces, and that doesn't help.

But why am I feeling so nostalgic and weirdly googlish?

The Eyes Have It

So last Friday I finally had the LASIK surgery I've been thinking about for a while. I had intended to get it back when I finished the PhD finally but put it off. Not for any particular reason, just mostly lazy.

It was really cool. Jokes about getting Jedi Laser surgery, my friend Michael joking about getting "eye boobs" from the eye steroid drops. The surgery itself took about ten minutes per eye, and was not any more traumatic than getting a quick dental surgery. I could probably have used one more Valium because I didn't really feel too anxious beforehand but during the actual procedure I was a bit nervous/freaked. I used some meditation strategies & recited "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" (the part I can remember which is just the first stanza) in my head whilst being lasered. I ignored the slightly burning smell (kind of like when your dentist is drilling your teeth and you can smell that, too). Thought hard about the light I was supposed to be looking at. By the time I thought they were just getting started, they were done. It was just that fast. And I got a t-shirt, so there you go.

And almost instantly my eyes were 20/20. I had some minor irritation the first day-- like an eyelash in my eye. And it was kind of hazy/cloudy. The best comparison I can give is like if you have opened your eyes in really salty Gulf of Mexico water for a few minutes and then afterwards gotten some sand in there. Not too bad!

It's been three days and I've had to keep up with eye drops & wear these super fashionable eye shields taped to my face when going to bed. Oh boy do I look ever cool with those. My eyes are still kind of droopy and I have a creepy red blood blotch in one of them (Hello 28 days later!) Heh heh. I'm still having "halo" effect around bright lights but to tell you the truth, even if that never goes away (and that is one possible danger of the surgery) I would be good with it. Considering how my vision was, and that my night vision wasn't awesome to begin with, I can totally live with it.

All in all, I am super duper happy. If anyone is considering doing this, I recommend it. But make sure you research your doctor and like them and take TWO Valiums.

I will still likely have to wear reading glasses in the next ten or so years as I get older but I'm good with that. I wore glasses for close to 30 years! I am all fine and dandy with not having to wear them now.

I am not super duper vain but I like the fact that I don't have to worry about scratched eyeglass lenses, or searching around like Velma on Scooby Doo when I can't find the glasses that have fallen to the ground. It will really help with my crime-solving activities with those darn kids and their meddling dog.

Pointless Blogging & 20 years of living

So I really have nothing to post other than a general feeling of tiredness & nothing to say. So does that stop me!? NO! I don't let not having anything to say stop me! That's the mark of a true blogger! Hah!

Anyway. I was thinking about 20 years. I am turning 40 soon, and it's been 20 years since a lot of things. I could make a list but I'm just too lazy & kinda tired. But I can't believe how fast that much time can go by.

Inside I feel pretty much the same person, with a few softer edges here where worn down, a few harder, sharper edges there where things have rubbed the angles and ridges into me. I'm sometimes kind of startled when I see myself in a mirror and I look different from my own mental image of myself. Who is that person? I mostly like her, but there are a few things I would change, if I could. And I know that this happens to everyone, and I think about the things I know are rubbing or wearing other people and sometimes I can help, sometimes I can't.

I hope, though, that when I'm looking back at 20 more years I have done more help than not. Making the world a better place, even if only a little bit, is STILL my goal, even if I'm not as blasé about how easy it will be to do so.

Pet Peeves

I, like everyone, have a few of these. Buttons that if you push can make me kind of crazy. I'm not going to list the one that is currently pushing my button because. Just because. Maybe it validates the irritation, maybe it points out to said button pusher that it's a thing for me.

But I will say that when one of these things that bug me happen, it's very difficult to be a grown up. I want to say rude things and devolve into an immature kid. I, therefore, resolve to get over it and be a grown up. However, I kind of hate being a grown up sometimes.

So "there" in honor of one of my biggest pet peeves.

Seasonal Blah

I love Fall. It's the time of year of my birthday, and cool weather & sweaters. I am not a "shorts wearing" kinda gal and love layers of long lumberjack shirts and wearing my hair down where it doesn't get all sweaty and gross on my neck.

It's finally Fall here. I even am fine with the copious amounts of Fall rain. Fall rain isn't as annoying here as Summer rain cause Summer rain just makes it hotter & muggy. Fall rain makes me want to make crock pot soup & drink warm beverages while reading & sitting under a cozy soft blanket.

HOWEVER. Right now, I'm totally in the blahs about it. Last week Sean was sick and today Maia is home with a croupy cough. Last night she had a fever, and she just is whiney and full of "whys". (Why is the deer's antler's white? Why do I have to take the WHOLE medicine? Why Why Why?)

And also, I think whatever bug both kids are wrangling with I have a touch of, myself. I'm a little achey, and tired, and have just the slightest tickle of a headache that never quite fixes with normal headache meds. I would just like to lie in bed & veg, which I can't really do with a kiddo home from school, supposedly sick. (But too energetic, really, and wanting to sit on my lap while I type, something I cannot abide.)

And I have chores to do and a doctor's appointment for my later this week LASIK surgery. (Yay! But still, a thing that is harder with a kid around).

So I have the blahs. They will pass. And we will have cozy firepits and warm cups of stuff to drink and many, many delicious soups. And soft fuzzy sweaters, too magical to touch. Just Not Today.

(and while it doesn't look nearly as cool and autumny as in the picture above, it will, here in La, eventually. We actually get seasonal leaf changes, unlike in Texas where the seasons are Hot and Not Quite as Hot.)

Meyers Briggs Type

Have you ever taken the Meyers Briggs test? A real one, not the facebook style ones you can get, which I am not sure are completely done right. I took my first one when I was in college many moons ago, and I am an INFP.

A lot of the times, I fit just fine into this profile. Sometimes, I suspect my blog personality is not as "I" as it could be, and I think that's because for the most part, especially lately, I tend to consider the blog a private place (I know; that's silly because it IS NOT actually private. It's a disconnect of blogging for me). The big difference is that generally, if it's on this blog, it's not really something that reveals that much of me, in reality. I've put details on past blogs like parts of my body that were sore or getting into an argument with a friend over drinks or something that might seem super private but those are details that, to me, don't mean all that much about who I really am. I can be super-sensitive, and get my feelings hurt (and sometimes never totally get over it) over small things to other folks, and I think, because I don't always talk about it and definitely try to not bring it up every single time we fight, people forget about this aspect of my persona.

Anyway, the main point of this post is to talk about my hubby & I. Andrew tends towards a flip flop on the first two categories, but then on the last two is a TJ. Totally opposite of me, and sometimes we rub up against friction for those reasons. I don't particularly notice the teeny tiny toys scattered all over the floor; Andrew sees them and goes nuts about it because he worries about whether someone will fall & hurt themselves on them. I would worry about the falling part if I thought about it, and that's a really good way to point it out to me because then I DO care, and will, from then on, attempt to fix the issue.

I suspect that if we really looked more deeply into descriptions of this kind of thing it would help, at least me, be more aware of how to compensate for those moments in marriage, (or even in friendships) when personality type issues make us fail to see each other's points of view. I want, very much, to make things better, and try most of the time to be an ideal of myself, and try very hard to be kind, as often as possible. But when I do FAIL, I'll bet it's because something just hasn't registered as important to a bigger picture, and that teeny detail (to me) seems huge to someone else.

I take comfort in the fact that AA Milne, the man who wrote Winnie the Pooh, is supposedly an INFP. Yeats, Shakespeare, and Keats are supposedly INFPs too. So a lot of writers, and good company to be in, apparently. I wonder how often Shakespeare's wife yelled at him for leaving his quills all over the place.

Breath of God

I feel poetry stirring,
delicate white feathers with a gentle touch of
lavender on their tips.

Sweetly soft music plays, colors swirl...

Then my son flings an entire ream of paper into the air.
he laughs and twirls and scatters it across the floor.
twirls, lies his entire body in the papers,
eats a quick snack.

This has happened before.

My delicate feathered Muse
flits, hummingbird like, away in horror;
she is not a "kid person." Decidedly not.

My daughter wants to sit on my lap.
Begs for a mama snuggle,
asks me to draw her a pumpkin.

The Muse locks her door, refuses to come out.
Renews her resolve to never marry, have children.
Shakes her head and purses her lips at my ineptitude as a rule-maker.

I know that there are people out there with hardier inspirators
that roll up their sleeves and write Nobel-winning books
with children on their laps.

I know that it only takes time
and energy and
perhaps
a good set of earplugs.

But for the life of me, I can only coax my Muse out to write poems
about writing poetry and
this
moment
of simply not wanting to clean up a floor full of empty
white
paper.

KAW Oct 09