omens and nightmares

Love is a universal migraine,

A bright stain on the vision

Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love

Are leanness, jealousy,

Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares—

Listening for a knock,

Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers

In a darkened room,

For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!

Could you endure such grief

At any hand but hers?

[Robert Graves, ‘Symptoms of Love’, from More Poems, 1961]

QANTAS doesn't fly to Los Angeles out of Cincinnati

1. Who is your favorite Musical Artist from when you were a teenager?
   since it's capitalized, I feel like Prince is the only answer I should give - and I was a pretty big fan of the unpronounceable symbol back in the day. But for true love and ridiculousness, the nod must go to Duran Duran, and in particular, Simon LeBon.
2. Who is your favorite game show host?
   Chuck Woolery
3. Who is your Favorite Blog hosting service?
   what's with the random capitalizations? I use Blogger (obviously) and have only tried to lurch away in the direction of Word Press a couple of times, to no avail.
4. If you could meet anyone again from your childhood, who would it be?
   my cousin R.
5. Where did you want to live when you were growing up?
   Boston
6. What is the most interesting piece of Trivia that you know?
   at the moment, I highly doubt that I know any trivia at all. My brain is either too full or too empty for that.
7. If you could live in any point of history when would it be and why?
   despite impressions to the contrary, I'll stick with what I've got. I'm fond of bathing and painless dentistry--and lots of more intellectually and emotionally vital issues!
8. What is the most interesting job you have ever had?
   during grad school, I transcribed audiotapes of psychological interviews with parentally-bereaved children and adolescents. They had been conducted by a research group at the large university nearby, as part of a longitudinal study of death.
9. Please share one middle school memory. It can be good, bad, ugly, funny. Pictures or words, I don't care, just share.
   one of my friends in junior high was a boy named Shawn. We were members of the same basic social group, but he was one of the "wild" kids and I was a "good" girl. Stop me if you see what's coming.... I developed a crush, which had no effect except to render me mute or effusive in his presence. On the last day of ninth grade--the day we received our yearbooks and spent all our time signing each others' and lightly misbehaving--he was in particularly good spirits. He agreed to sign my yearbook, and did so in a not-too-obnoxious fashion. He then acquiesced to having a photo taken with me, at the request of one of my friends. I was scared stiff, sure that it was a joke and that I was the punchline. Lisa grabbed my camera and Shawn sauntered over, threw his arm around me, and turned with a beautiful smile, ready for the picture. I just grinned like an idiot, determined to enjoy every second of being that close to him.
   
   When I got the film developed and saw the picture, I was beyond horrified: because I'd stiffened so much, it looked like I was bending away from him, awkwardly, ass-first. And my blissful smile was actually closer to a lunatic leer. He looks just as adorable as ever, sweet and charming, and I look like a gawky freak. And that's appropriate, since that's what I was.
10. What's your favorite Beatles song?
    "Norwegian Wood." I know, no one else gets it either.
    
    
11. If I asked you to describe your most comfortable outfit, what would it be?
    the men's navy blue with pinstripes PJ pants that I bought for my trip to Dallas, an ancient white tank from JJill, and various other snips & snaps as needed for propriety's sake
12. Would you rather host a party or be a guest?
    If I have to do one or the other, God knows I'd rather be a guest - I can leave at anytime, and I don't have to clean up. And if it all goes kablooey, it's probably not my fault.
13. Do you think we will move completely from traditional books to digital ones, and if we do, are you OK with that?
    no, we won't. There are plenty of books that don't read well in electronic form, and plenty of readers who prefer paper to devices. For that matter, there are people who prefer audio to visual, and among them, 'manual' audio to electronic forms. I am in a unique position from which I can literally see people reading newspapers in their original form (and sometimes even on microfilm!) for hours every day. Making the argument that "it's available online" to me is fatuous, because something's online-ness does not render it automatically, easily, or uniformly accessible, nor does that accessibility render other methods of access pointless. The highway might be the most direct route between here and the big city to the east, for example, but "most direct" and "fastest" are often NOT the same thing. Same goes for electronic media. Have you seen the wait-list for popular titles, some of which disappear from library e-shelves after a specific number of uses?
14. Do you learn best by reading, listening or experiencing?
    it depends what I'm learning. I learn spelling by reading. I learn music by listening. I learn cooking by experiencing. For example.
15. If you are (or when you were) single, what is the kiss of death for you concerning the opposite sex? (That is, what is one trait or behavior or habit or anything at all that immediately turns you off from considering that person a potential match for you?)
    there are so many. I suppose that's why I'm single, right? Because I'm so damned picky? Here's a short list:
    
    • yellow cars or Hummers
    • unfaithfulness
    • parent/child issues
    • intolerance for differences in taste
    • inattentiveness
16. Snacks. Salty or sweet?
    salty. I like sweet fine enough, but I'll only go out looking for salt.
17. Look around you in a four foot radius. What object is around you that you didn't realize was there or forgot was there? How long has it been there?
    there's nothing in that category in my dwelling anymore. Since Sunday, I have no furniture except a bed and a small chest of drawers; literally everything else in the entire place has been moved from the position that it had occupied prior to Sunday, so I'm all too aware of what's where. Most of it's somehow dramatically in the way, even.
18. What is your favorite Tom Cruise movie?
    Rain Man
19. You buy a bottle of shampoo and discover that you don't like what it does to your hair at all. What do you do with that full bottle?
    this does not happen to me
20. Your favorite spring comfort food?
    fruit, I suppose? If there's something "spring"-y and comforting, it would have to be fresh, and I'm not such a vegetable fan. I bought strawberries tonight that actually smell like strawberries and not plastic, so that's progress.

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is from Rain Man]

I never met a man who was so pretty inside

1. Have you ever lost someone without having the chance to say goodbye?
   yes. The timing for this is, as it probably always would be, rough--someone I met when I was thirteen years old passed away today, leaving behind a wife and small children. How can anyone be prepared for a loss like that? Hold tight to those you love, and be true about what's in your heart.
2. How do you feel about women in politics?
   politics is just politics, and has nothing to do with gender or race or age or preference
3. Would you rather have an indoor Jacuzzi or an outdoor pool?
   indoor--though the length of my hair combined with the jets in a hot tub make me a little leery
4. What things are you interested in that you study or read about regularly?
   poetry (mid- to late-19th century, mostly); history (WWII, Panama Canal); philosophy; psychology & neuroscience (don't tell); art
5. Would you consider yourself to be intelligent?
   I get by
6. Would you consider yourself to be wise?
   I have my moments
7. Have you ever given or received a lap dance?
   now, wouldn't this answer either make or break the last two?
   
   Not sure if this will come as a surprise to anyone, but I've done neither of those, though the issue's been raised more than once.
8. Have you ever spoken to a homeless person?
   um, yeah. (Who wrote this? Were they raised on an island?)
9. Would you ever creep into the subway tunnels to go exploring?
   God, no
10. If you could add 70 years to your life but only by making some random person die 70 years sooner would you?
    And Again: God, no. "Some Random Person" certainly does not fall within the utilitarian model. Besides, who would want to live to 140 years of age? That would be awful.
11. Can you identify any of the following lyrics?
    [blah blah blah] Nope, I could not. I know hundreds, maybe thousands, of songs from memory, and can Shazam or Google what I don't know, and I still didn't care to figure out what those three little bits were. It's funny, I think, how little I care about popular culture anymore.
12. Are you worried about North Korea?
    no. I think about South Korea now and then, though.
13. Would you rather be a world political leader or a talk-show host?
    "c", none of the above. There are those among us why would prefer not to communicate verbally, ever.
14. Have you ever given someone a love letter that you wrote?
    of course
15. Have you ever sent someone a surprise though the mail?
    yes. It has had a decreasing effect, though, lately, to the point that I think it's not worth the bother.
16. Are you looking forward to any dates right now? Vacation perhaps?
    let's don't even talk about vacations, shall we?
17. Of all animated movies, which is the best one you've ever seen?
    I really don't think that they can be compared. I loved The Lorax, which is about environmentalism, but I also loved Despicable Me, which features a very endearing anti-hero. And The Incredibles was a laugh-riot. Each was very good in its own way. I refuse to choose.
18. What are the best bands or songs to listen to while driving?
    though I have an enormous number of playlists and options from which to select, I nearly always revert to Sister Hazel and Vertical Horizon while making the IL to MN drive.
19. What do you think is the most amazing thing that anyone has ever accomplished?
    lately, I've been thinking a lot about Johnnie Walker, and how he managed to love me in spite of a whole lot of obstacles that fell in his path. I (obviously) didn't realize what that meant, then, or what it would mean a few years later, still. Amazing? Hell, yes.
20. What could a member of the opposite sex do to impress you?
    Stop thinking with your [&|^+], be honest, and respect yourself.

[from The Cat {as part of a multi-post set}, who got it here; the title quotation is from "Johnny Feelgood" by Liz Phair]

As a man thinketh in his heart so is he

Melancholy day--weekend, really. I packed until I could pack no more. I'm moving, you see, though I don't have a place to move to yet. A story in itself; a post for another day. For now, just the packing. There are a dozen boxes in the dining room. Another 15 in the living room. Probably 25 or 30 in the larger bedroom. A handful in the basement. I feel like I've been working nonstop for a month; every time I move, something creaks in my back or shoulders or neck. Or jaw. I think that I regularly fall asleep sitting up, which makes my short commute a particular blessing.

The melancholy part comes in where I realize that I'm moving again, by myself. I never wanted to do that again. There's an obvious practical reason: were I in a relationship at this point, I could likely rely upon my significant other to handle the back-straining, neck-crackling aspects of this process. There is also a milder, more esoteric reason: I'm just sick of being alone. It's not a great excuse to be with someone else (in fact, I can barely think of a worse rationale!) but that doesn't make me miss any less sharply the sensation of being involved. It sucks to be solely responsible for...everything. And to have to ask the same people a hundred favors, over and over, in order to get myself moved. I really didn't think I'd have ended up this way.

It probably doesn't help that I've been listening to a mix CD with this song on it, and it's run through my head for two days.
You said I should let go of your hand
But I don't even know if I can
You're the only one, you are the very sun to me
And you know it's not easy


[the title quotation is by Dean Inge, and reads in its entirety: "The right use of leisure is no doubt a harder problem than the right use of our working hours. The soul is dyed the color of its leisure thoughts. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he."]

only vegetables are happy

Early on Sunday, my left ear started to feel funny, but only when my head was straight up and down. When I would tilt it even a few degrees, the sensation would go away. It felt hot inside, and pressurized, as if there were fluid deep inside. I immediately set to drinking extra fluids and took my temperature a few times, to see if there was fever (evidence of infection), but the results were normal. I did notice that the pollen counts were extraordinarily high in this area (literally the highest that have ever been counted), so it would be understandable if my allergies were just ramping up for the season, though I've never before had ear symptoms from my regular seasonal allergies. As soon as possible on Monday, I made an appointment to see my doctor regarding the possibility of an ear infection. I didn't want it to go on too long (the sensation was really pretty bothersome) and other circumstances created an urgency as well.

The earliest available appointment was this afternoon. As almost always happens, I was seen very shortly after I arrived, and my doctor was genuinely happy to see me, and considerate and approachable. He looked in my ears and poked around at my face briefly before declaring that there is no infection in my ears at all. The problem is my jaw. I have the beginnings of TMJ, which more accurately called TMD: Temporomandibular Joint Disorder. The muscle at the joint of my jaw is clenched to the extent that it is swollen up toward my ear, forcing my ear canal closed toward the middle, both giving the sensation of a narrower pathway and also trapping some air and ear goo that would normally more easily pass. This is not the worst of my symptoms, but it is the one for which I shall be grateful, because it drew my attention to the problem at hand.

My doctor sat back and looked me in the eye. "Are you stressed?"

I laughed.

"All right.... What is particularly stressful in your life right now?"

I stopped myself from snickering, because it wasn't actually funny and I needed to actually help him to help me. But it was yet another unanswerable question, really, because there is so little about my life that is not stressful that it seemed it might be easier to answer his question in the reverse. I took a deep breath and explained the main issue, which really has two parts, neither of which I'm ready to make even vaguely blog-public yet. But trust me, they're serious.

And then he took a deep breath and said, "All right. Well. Try not to let it bother you." And then he laughed. And he closed that thought with, "And try to [make a huge life change]."

So, it's doctor's orders, then. I'm to relax, and take over-the-counter medications as needed, and get some exercise when I can, and also [change my life]. I can do that!

I nearly forgot the best part: I've lost nine pounds since last I visited my doctor's office. Apparently the TMD diet works.

[the title quotation is by William Faulkner, and reads in its entirety: "People need trouble--a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy."]

floating somewhere in between

I wrote a good omelet . . . and ate
a hot poem . . . after loving you

Buttoned my car . . . and drove my
coat home . . . in the rain . . .
after loving you

I goed on red . . . and stopped on
green . . . floating somewhere in between . . .
being here and being there . . .
after loving you

I rolled my bed . . . turned down
my hair . . . slightly
confused but . . . I don't care . . .

Laid out my teeth . . . and gargled my
gown . . . then I stood
. . . and laid me down . . .

To sleep . . .
after loving you

[Nikki Giovanni, 'I Wrote A Good Omelet', from Love Poems]

I'd love to spit some Beechnut in that dude's eye and shoot him with my ole forty-five

1. How did you meet your best friend?
   one of them was a classmate in a couple of my major classes in the first quarter of our first year of college. We were both "townies" living at home, fairly quiet (which is a funny way to describe us now), and without much research it was determined that we're basically the same kind of weird. I often ate Pop-Tarts during class that term, or grapes from margarine containers, and would flop hanks of my long, curly hair over the top of my head down onto my forehead to check for split ends. During class. She was a better student than I, but woefully easily distracted. I could convince her to skip class with just one poke to the forehead, and off we'd go to the Happy Chef, for chili-n-sticks or cinnamon rolls the size of our heads. Those really were the days.
2. Mother Winters used to say she loved all us kids equally, but at various times she liked one of us more than the others. Does your "friend ranking" ever shift? Or is the person you think of today as your best friend always #1?
   sure, the rankings sometimes shift. That's what makes it fun, I think. One person's particulars start to wear on you, so you spend more time with someone else, and then the first person's absence becomes less welcome. It's part of being a grown-up.
3. What makes you a good friend?
   good question, and one better asked of the recipients than the donor, I'd say
4. Think back to your childhood--what games did you and your friends like to play?
   I lived in the country. We played outside all day, every day, year around. If four girls could contrive a way to play it, we'd play it.
5. Would you rather lose your hair, or the little toe on your left foot? (Yes, you must commit to giving one up.)
   I'm pretty fond of that little toe, and it serves a purpose: Toes are necessary for balance! Take the hair, which is rather a pain in the ass a lot of the time anyway.
6. Think of the phrase, "like nails on a blackboard." What is your least favorite sound?
   one of my coworkers has a mindless, throat-clearing cough that I can only describe as "whiny". If I never heard that sound again, it would be too soon.
   
   Oh, but wait! Now I've got a better one. My %^&;*!# neighbor (who really ought not be described with that 'n' word) just moved his vehicle from outside of his garage to the inside. It is a process that, for a normal person, would be nearly silent and would take less than a minute. This impossibly rude prick went outside, got into the SUV, turned on the stereo FULL BLAST, blaring music so loudly that it was at an uncomfortable level inside my apartment with the windows closed, played the music until the song was over, then started the engine on the SUV, waited until a new song started (still at full volume, of course!), backed the vehicle into the garage (so that the noise was not only coming in through the crappy windows here, but also Up Through The Floor), let it play until the song was nearly but not quite over, and then shut it off. And then closed his garage door, and pounded his way up the stairs again, as if there is some sort of Olympic medal for foot stomping.
   
   THAT is the most annoying sound EVER.
7. Do you add fabric softener to your wash or place a softener sheet in the dryer?
   liquid, in the wash
8. Showtime, HBO, or neither?
   neither. If I could afford pay-TV, I'd be living someplace far from these inconceivably rude people, for whom torture and...yeah, no--no premium channels.
9. Have you ever fired a gun?
   I have, indeed

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Hank Williams, Jr.]

A blessing I didn't see

But what else should we try to fulfill? Work
And love. What else is out there? Nothing worth
Pursuing. I've seen men sidetracked by less,
Believing life's a trick, when it's a test
Of will. It's a world filled with temptation.
It's a world of adult situations.
It's up to me to figure out the path,
Whether with a wife or not, the road's wrath
Awaits me. Leaving South Dakota was
A blessing I didn't see because
I couldn't hear the message calling out
For me to stop acting a knockabout.
Where are the voices of expectation?
Of people in action? Their vibration?

[A. Van Jordan, from 'Int. Hotel Room, Chicago--June 1913--Day' in The Cineaste: Poems]