This isn't a commercial for anything, but I will say I heard the following quote on a show called "GriTtv" which is a stimulating and thought provoking show. I think, at times, it can make anyone throw a foam brick at the TV. I agree sometimes, wildly even. I angrily disagree at others, but it is always stimulating. If I could just challenge you, try watching something (Gritty) or something that just doesn't agree with your normal view, even if it means stocking up on foam bricks.
The quote: "who would have thought we would nationalize the banking system of this country before we nationalize healthcare?"
Hmm...yeah, who would have thunk it?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
What's in a day?
It's Monday. It's zero degrees Fahrenheit outside, with strong winds heading to the 50 degree below zero range tonight. Thankfully, this is Modern America and I am wearing shorts, a tank top and little slipper things. I have an excuse, I was overheated after brushing snow off the car. Some people have one thing they wear all day. I have three sets of garments I change in and out of all day depending on how warm or cold I am or if someone will actually see me, and then about three days later, I wash them all. It's the same, right?
I'm watching a television show about Helvetica. The history of Helvetica! The anti-Helvetica revolution of the '80s. That's a good way to spend a frigid Monday evening in shorts, right? Helvetica is back.
I had a few cups of flavored caffeine this morning (let's be honest -- the flavor is beside the point, it's the caffeine that really counts), and while waiting for it to kick in, I spun up my Xbox 360 and kept a planet from being destroyed by an asteroid hijacked by terrorists. After getting thanked by the people whose lives I saved, and stocking up on grenades and getting some great new red and black armor, I switched back to my normal life.
Later I got engrossed in the book in the bathroom, and broke the rules and took it into the bedroom to read a few more chapters (even though I'm reading a different book in the bedroom). I have yet another book in the living room. Books end up wherever is most comfortable, and the bathroom never wins. Many books start there, they just don't finish there.
Maybe it's time to admit that I should sign up for match.com or something? Except I love being able to wear teal shorts and a hot-pink tank top in the dead of winter and watch completely strange television after playing in the snow to get the car out of the drifts. Can't be serious all the time.
I'm watching a television show about Helvetica. The history of Helvetica! The anti-Helvetica revolution of the '80s. That's a good way to spend a frigid Monday evening in shorts, right? Helvetica is back.
I had a few cups of flavored caffeine this morning (let's be honest -- the flavor is beside the point, it's the caffeine that really counts), and while waiting for it to kick in, I spun up my Xbox 360 and kept a planet from being destroyed by an asteroid hijacked by terrorists. After getting thanked by the people whose lives I saved, and stocking up on grenades and getting some great new red and black armor, I switched back to my normal life.
Later I got engrossed in the book in the bathroom, and broke the rules and took it into the bedroom to read a few more chapters (even though I'm reading a different book in the bedroom). I have yet another book in the living room. Books end up wherever is most comfortable, and the bathroom never wins. Many books start there, they just don't finish there.
Maybe it's time to admit that I should sign up for match.com or something? Except I love being able to wear teal shorts and a hot-pink tank top in the dead of winter and watch completely strange television after playing in the snow to get the car out of the drifts. Can't be serious all the time.
Friday, January 9, 2009
On the Lighter Side
I was just visiting another blog and they mentioned their current favorite books. I could not just leave it as a comment. My most abiding lessons and friends have been books. Even the smell of books is intoxicating.
My favorite book is Dune, by Frank Herbert. I do buy collector's hardcopy editions of classics, but Dune was different. I had to buy a second copy because my paperback copy was so worn from re-reading that the first 12 pages are missing. Others threaten to fall out each time I open the book.
I have a favorite children's book that's great fun as an adult, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I also have enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I also enjoy reading the bible, another book that I own multiples of, and my favorite is missing pages due to wear. Good thing it's just the maps at the back.
There's nothing quite like sitting down in a chair with a throw, turning on some quiet music, and opening a book, having the hours slide away and losing yourself in the story, only to realize you've not only overshot your bedtime, but it's almost sunrise and you still don't want to put the book down, but you can't keep your eyes open any longer. It does not get much better.
My favorite book is Dune, by Frank Herbert. I do buy collector's hardcopy editions of classics, but Dune was different. I had to buy a second copy because my paperback copy was so worn from re-reading that the first 12 pages are missing. Others threaten to fall out each time I open the book.
I have a favorite children's book that's great fun as an adult, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I also have enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I also enjoy reading the bible, another book that I own multiples of, and my favorite is missing pages due to wear. Good thing it's just the maps at the back.
There's nothing quite like sitting down in a chair with a throw, turning on some quiet music, and opening a book, having the hours slide away and losing yourself in the story, only to realize you've not only overshot your bedtime, but it's almost sunrise and you still don't want to put the book down, but you can't keep your eyes open any longer. It does not get much better.
Social Insecurity Health Insecurity
All the buzz is about “economic stimulus programs.” I don't know if one can draw a direct line between plant care and economics, but I do know this much; if you want to revive a dying plant, you do not pour water on the top branches and hope some of it drips onto the ground. You pour water on the roots and let the roots feed the plant. If you give a dollar to every American, you will give away about $315 million. Most of that would end up at some store or another, or go to pay rent or gas or food (70-80% of it). If you gave $315 million to the ten richest people in the country, it would all go into savings, or in a drawer, and may or may not be spent soon. If you want to revive the economy, give money to the poorest people, people who can't make ends meet, and I guarantee it will all end up back into the economy immediately. They can't sit on their money because of lack of confidence. They HAVE to spend to make ends meet.
Many Americans have a problem with that, it seems. We would much rather give half-a-billion dollars to people who have the most (banks) and who are able to sock it away (because it isn't needed) and hide it (because their affairs are so complex), instead of the people who could use it to make a house payment or put another week's food in the pantry, or even buy a winter coat or a new tire for the car.
It isn't really an economic problem as much as it is one of perspective. We look at people who wear thousand-dollar suits as somehow morally superior to those who wear clothes they find at Goodwill. Somehow, we have been trained to think that a person's ability to make money is the same thing as a person's moral standing. We equate a big bank account with success, success being something that is earned by the Horatio Alger types. We believe that people who are down-and-out must have done something wrong, made major mistakes, been lazy, not tried hard enough, etc.
We miss the fact that the vast majority of people who are poor, also work. They work at least one job. Sometimes two. Sometimes more. They don't sleep enough. They don't have health insurance and cannot afford preventative medical care. They are one medical disaster away from homelessness. And we blame them for their poverty, if not overtly, than covertly.
Welcome to the wakeup call. Sometimes you don't do anything wrong. Sometimes you wake up in the morning young, healthy, employed, and with rising prospects, and go to bed the same day with an IV (intra-venous line) in your arm. The next day, you realize life as you know it is over. You're still young, but you are no longer healthy, you are going to be fired (because you're too sick to work) and your employer is going to be able to cheat you out of disability because, their lawyers have infinite resources and you don't. You are broke. Your fiance walks away that day because he can't handle it, so now you're alone. If you have a family that isn't supportive, well, it's a cold, hard world, baby.
We have to find a way to divorce health care and jobs. Because when you become too sick to work, but your diagnosis is a few months away, you will lose your health care when you need it most. And if you think there are government programs to help you out, you are in for a rude awakening. The level of poverty required before you qualify for medical assistance is truly staggering. Consider this, as you read...in order for medical assistance (in this state) to pay for any of your medical costs, you have to “spend down” your income so that you only keep about $650 a month. Everything else goes to the government. Only then do they pay for your medical. Think about living on $650 a month. Oh, and you can't have more than $3,000 in assets either, and an inexpensive car. Can you live on $650 a month?
The reality is, that we truly crush the poor before we help them. We only give food to the food shelves once it's inedible. We gladly donate canned goods that are three years past their expiration date, and cereal that has been on the shelf for a year or two past it's “best by date.” Yumm. If you haven't eaten truly stale cheerios, you just haven't lived.
But the guys in their thousand dollar shoes and three thousand dollar suits who dreamed up derivatives and CDO's (collateralized debt obligations) and other such mutated investment instruments; those guys are entitled to billions of our hard-earned dollars because, well, we trust them to be better stewards than those selfish, lazy infidels who are so ungrateful they don't appreciate five-year-old cereal.
We don't and cannot differentiate between those who are impoverished for reasons completely beyond their control, and those we believe are somehow undeserving. It's easier to paint everyone with a broad brush. If you're young and you're broke, you must have done something wrong. You should have saved for the possibility. I mean, don't people have the smarts to save enough for their retirement before thirty two? I sure didn't (someone even asked me that once). We are told to save 3 to 6 month's income for emergencies. But it takes an average of a year and a half to get disability. And MS is for life. What do you do when 3 or 6 months is up, and you're still young and single, so you don't qualify for anything. Family, right? Well, it's just not there for everyone.
I never imagined I would end up homeless at age 32 because I got MS and, within a week, I had no job, no fiance, no family that would help (that's a different story, I don't even want to go there), and no other resources. I called everyone, from my senator, to every “faith-based” organization, or community service I could find. I got the same answer everywhere. You're 32, single, with no kids, and we can't help you. Period. It didn't matter that I could no longer walk, stand, or hold a hairbrush or bathe myself. It only mattered that I didn't have kids, and was 32.
You have no idea how cold it is outside until you don't know how you're going to find shelter when you're sick and scared and alone.
I did get food stamps 4 months later. What I was supposed to eat in the meantime is still a mystery. I thank God for friends.
I never did ask “why me?” but I do ask this. How can the richest country in the world be so cold-hearted when people who, by no fault of their own, find themselves in such circumstances, but at the same time, we can hand out $billions to people who caused the biggest financial crisis since the great depression?
Yes, I do believe there were plenty of people who took advantage of easy lending. But I don't think anyone went from bank to bank, begging to be given a mortgage without providing proof of income. In fact, I know that banks and mortgage brokers refused to talk to people interested only in a fixed-rate mortgage. I tried to get one. But they wouldn't return my calls when I said I had VA benefits and wanted a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. It was the kiss of death. End of conversation. They had other things to market, all of them fancy adjustable rate mortgages that I could refi out of before they reset. I didn't bite. I still rent. Some people aren't as smart, or they're more gullible or they are a little bit greedy. But added together, each of those individuals cannot equal the culpability of the people who made such loans possible in the first place. It was all about making money.
But in this country, we water our plants from the top down. So it will be interesting to see if sending the bailout money to the richest and most culpable of institutions will be more effective than watering the tree from the roots. I know how it works with plants. We will see how it works in economics. Current indications are not promising.
One thing we as a society must also learn to do; and that is to value people by some other measure than the cost of their wardrobes and homes and cars. How much money a person can make or earn has nothing to do with whether or not they are good people, moral, or educated. We need to stop making moral judgments that people who have nothing deserve nothing, and people who have everything deserve it all. It simply isn't true. It is true that some impoverished people are lazy. It is also true that some uber wealthy people are good and moral. But to assume that one's net worth equals their human value is just as prejudice as any other prejudice. It is a fact-free assessment based on incorrect assumptions that need to be reexamined. Our society is desperate for a reevaluation of who is, and who is not, worthy of help.
Giving money to the (poor wretches) at the bottom would be like mainlining cash into the economy. People who cannot dream of saving are usually behind the 8-ball to the degree that a cash handout would get spent on immediate needs. They will spend. People will have to rehire to serve them. I do not understand how this can be so hard to see. Water the plant from the roots. - Rant off -
Many Americans have a problem with that, it seems. We would much rather give half-a-billion dollars to people who have the most (banks) and who are able to sock it away (because it isn't needed) and hide it (because their affairs are so complex), instead of the people who could use it to make a house payment or put another week's food in the pantry, or even buy a winter coat or a new tire for the car.
It isn't really an economic problem as much as it is one of perspective. We look at people who wear thousand-dollar suits as somehow morally superior to those who wear clothes they find at Goodwill. Somehow, we have been trained to think that a person's ability to make money is the same thing as a person's moral standing. We equate a big bank account with success, success being something that is earned by the Horatio Alger types. We believe that people who are down-and-out must have done something wrong, made major mistakes, been lazy, not tried hard enough, etc.
We miss the fact that the vast majority of people who are poor, also work. They work at least one job. Sometimes two. Sometimes more. They don't sleep enough. They don't have health insurance and cannot afford preventative medical care. They are one medical disaster away from homelessness. And we blame them for their poverty, if not overtly, than covertly.
Welcome to the wakeup call. Sometimes you don't do anything wrong. Sometimes you wake up in the morning young, healthy, employed, and with rising prospects, and go to bed the same day with an IV (intra-venous line) in your arm. The next day, you realize life as you know it is over. You're still young, but you are no longer healthy, you are going to be fired (because you're too sick to work) and your employer is going to be able to cheat you out of disability because, their lawyers have infinite resources and you don't. You are broke. Your fiance walks away that day because he can't handle it, so now you're alone. If you have a family that isn't supportive, well, it's a cold, hard world, baby.
We have to find a way to divorce health care and jobs. Because when you become too sick to work, but your diagnosis is a few months away, you will lose your health care when you need it most. And if you think there are government programs to help you out, you are in for a rude awakening. The level of poverty required before you qualify for medical assistance is truly staggering. Consider this, as you read...in order for medical assistance (in this state) to pay for any of your medical costs, you have to “spend down” your income so that you only keep about $650 a month. Everything else goes to the government. Only then do they pay for your medical. Think about living on $650 a month. Oh, and you can't have more than $3,000 in assets either, and an inexpensive car. Can you live on $650 a month?
The reality is, that we truly crush the poor before we help them. We only give food to the food shelves once it's inedible. We gladly donate canned goods that are three years past their expiration date, and cereal that has been on the shelf for a year or two past it's “best by date.” Yumm. If you haven't eaten truly stale cheerios, you just haven't lived.
But the guys in their thousand dollar shoes and three thousand dollar suits who dreamed up derivatives and CDO's (collateralized debt obligations) and other such mutated investment instruments; those guys are entitled to billions of our hard-earned dollars because, well, we trust them to be better stewards than those selfish, lazy infidels who are so ungrateful they don't appreciate five-year-old cereal.
We don't and cannot differentiate between those who are impoverished for reasons completely beyond their control, and those we believe are somehow undeserving. It's easier to paint everyone with a broad brush. If you're young and you're broke, you must have done something wrong. You should have saved for the possibility. I mean, don't people have the smarts to save enough for their retirement before thirty two? I sure didn't (someone even asked me that once). We are told to save 3 to 6 month's income for emergencies. But it takes an average of a year and a half to get disability. And MS is for life. What do you do when 3 or 6 months is up, and you're still young and single, so you don't qualify for anything. Family, right? Well, it's just not there for everyone.
I never imagined I would end up homeless at age 32 because I got MS and, within a week, I had no job, no fiance, no family that would help (that's a different story, I don't even want to go there), and no other resources. I called everyone, from my senator, to every “faith-based” organization, or community service I could find. I got the same answer everywhere. You're 32, single, with no kids, and we can't help you. Period. It didn't matter that I could no longer walk, stand, or hold a hairbrush or bathe myself. It only mattered that I didn't have kids, and was 32.
You have no idea how cold it is outside until you don't know how you're going to find shelter when you're sick and scared and alone.
I did get food stamps 4 months later. What I was supposed to eat in the meantime is still a mystery. I thank God for friends.
I never did ask “why me?” but I do ask this. How can the richest country in the world be so cold-hearted when people who, by no fault of their own, find themselves in such circumstances, but at the same time, we can hand out $billions to people who caused the biggest financial crisis since the great depression?
Yes, I do believe there were plenty of people who took advantage of easy lending. But I don't think anyone went from bank to bank, begging to be given a mortgage without providing proof of income. In fact, I know that banks and mortgage brokers refused to talk to people interested only in a fixed-rate mortgage. I tried to get one. But they wouldn't return my calls when I said I had VA benefits and wanted a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. It was the kiss of death. End of conversation. They had other things to market, all of them fancy adjustable rate mortgages that I could refi out of before they reset. I didn't bite. I still rent. Some people aren't as smart, or they're more gullible or they are a little bit greedy. But added together, each of those individuals cannot equal the culpability of the people who made such loans possible in the first place. It was all about making money.
But in this country, we water our plants from the top down. So it will be interesting to see if sending the bailout money to the richest and most culpable of institutions will be more effective than watering the tree from the roots. I know how it works with plants. We will see how it works in economics. Current indications are not promising.
One thing we as a society must also learn to do; and that is to value people by some other measure than the cost of their wardrobes and homes and cars. How much money a person can make or earn has nothing to do with whether or not they are good people, moral, or educated. We need to stop making moral judgments that people who have nothing deserve nothing, and people who have everything deserve it all. It simply isn't true. It is true that some impoverished people are lazy. It is also true that some uber wealthy people are good and moral. But to assume that one's net worth equals their human value is just as prejudice as any other prejudice. It is a fact-free assessment based on incorrect assumptions that need to be reexamined. Our society is desperate for a reevaluation of who is, and who is not, worthy of help.
Giving money to the (poor wretches) at the bottom would be like mainlining cash into the economy. People who cannot dream of saving are usually behind the 8-ball to the degree that a cash handout would get spent on immediate needs. They will spend. People will have to rehire to serve them. I do not understand how this can be so hard to see. Water the plant from the roots. - Rant off -
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A New Year's Wish
In just over an hour, 2008 will be over for me. It's a strange world passing away into 2009. A year ago I would not have imagined that things would look as they do tonight. We have had an historic presidential election, a spectacular financial meltdown, and more violence and war. Many pundits and bloggers will have far too much too say on all this, and since everyone has opinions already, I won't burden the world with yet another.
What lays heavily on my mind is that the world does not rest in peace tonight, and the number of wars and human-caused disasters is so numerous that it staggers the imagination. Zimbabwe, East Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Isreal, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, (and forgive me if I left you out)... sometimes it seems like whatever glue that holds civilization together has just fallen to dust. I'm not mentioning this to point any finger of blame. Rather, an observation I offer is that I wonder about the worldwide lack of forgiveness, humanity, kindness, compassion, humility and integrity. What ever happened to being the first person mature enough to say, “it doesn't matter that you've wronged me, I forgive you, let's end this before more innocents are hurt and killed.” Nobody seems big enough to do it.
What I wish for this world on New Year's Eve, while there is yet a half-hour left to 2008 (for me); I wish that everyone would put down their weapons. I wish that they would then extend a hand to their “enemy,” see their common humanity, put away their hatred, and instead offer each other some bread or a meal. I wish all people who had extra in their cupboards would open up the pantry and share with those who have gone to bed hungry recently. I wish that everyone who had an extra blanket would share it with someone who has none and is going to spend the night shivering. I want everyone to go to bed with a full stomach and a warm blanket, and get a good night's sleep. Maybe then, tomorrow will look different.
What I wish for is for each of us to put away our hate and our anger and our greed, and learn to love, and have compassion. I wish we could all stop evaluating the human worth of others in terms of their net worth. Evaluating people based on their net worth places a bank robber with his stolen loot at higher value than an innocent five-year-old girl. We need to rethink the way we value one another.
I especially hope that each of us finds a way to sacrifice a little of our own “justice” by acknowledging and loving and forgiving someone who has wronged us, especially if they do not deserve it. I want each of us to share our bounty with others; even if they don't smell good or we do not believe they “deserve” it. I do not think we know how to judge rightly anyway. We only assume we understand why people find themselves in need. But we are often wrong.
I wish everyone will have a good year, and maybe enough of us will spend the first day trying to give more than we take, trying to profit society instead of making a profit, and love one another for at least twenty-four hours. Especially if you have had enough to eat today and have a warm blanket and a secure place to lay down and rest tonight. For just one day, lets forget to hate.
For one year, forget about all the self-centered, self-involved resolutions. Let's resolve to love one another. Even better, take some extra time to learn about someone that deserves to be your enemy; find out if there is more to the story than you know. Focus on someone else. I wish for real peace, but it doesn't begin in the capitals of the world. It begins at the back fence. I won't hold my breath that world peace will break out tomorrow. But this is about wishing. I'm off to curl up in my soft, warm blanket. I am hugely grateful I can; there have been plenty of nights that I could not. I am grateful. Welcome, 2009.
What lays heavily on my mind is that the world does not rest in peace tonight, and the number of wars and human-caused disasters is so numerous that it staggers the imagination. Zimbabwe, East Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Isreal, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, (and forgive me if I left you out)... sometimes it seems like whatever glue that holds civilization together has just fallen to dust. I'm not mentioning this to point any finger of blame. Rather, an observation I offer is that I wonder about the worldwide lack of forgiveness, humanity, kindness, compassion, humility and integrity. What ever happened to being the first person mature enough to say, “it doesn't matter that you've wronged me, I forgive you, let's end this before more innocents are hurt and killed.” Nobody seems big enough to do it.
What I wish for this world on New Year's Eve, while there is yet a half-hour left to 2008 (for me); I wish that everyone would put down their weapons. I wish that they would then extend a hand to their “enemy,” see their common humanity, put away their hatred, and instead offer each other some bread or a meal. I wish all people who had extra in their cupboards would open up the pantry and share with those who have gone to bed hungry recently. I wish that everyone who had an extra blanket would share it with someone who has none and is going to spend the night shivering. I want everyone to go to bed with a full stomach and a warm blanket, and get a good night's sleep. Maybe then, tomorrow will look different.
What I wish for is for each of us to put away our hate and our anger and our greed, and learn to love, and have compassion. I wish we could all stop evaluating the human worth of others in terms of their net worth. Evaluating people based on their net worth places a bank robber with his stolen loot at higher value than an innocent five-year-old girl. We need to rethink the way we value one another.
I especially hope that each of us finds a way to sacrifice a little of our own “justice” by acknowledging and loving and forgiving someone who has wronged us, especially if they do not deserve it. I want each of us to share our bounty with others; even if they don't smell good or we do not believe they “deserve” it. I do not think we know how to judge rightly anyway. We only assume we understand why people find themselves in need. But we are often wrong.
I wish everyone will have a good year, and maybe enough of us will spend the first day trying to give more than we take, trying to profit society instead of making a profit, and love one another for at least twenty-four hours. Especially if you have had enough to eat today and have a warm blanket and a secure place to lay down and rest tonight. For just one day, lets forget to hate.
For one year, forget about all the self-centered, self-involved resolutions. Let's resolve to love one another. Even better, take some extra time to learn about someone that deserves to be your enemy; find out if there is more to the story than you know. Focus on someone else. I wish for real peace, but it doesn't begin in the capitals of the world. It begins at the back fence. I won't hold my breath that world peace will break out tomorrow. But this is about wishing. I'm off to curl up in my soft, warm blanket. I am hugely grateful I can; there have been plenty of nights that I could not. I am grateful. Welcome, 2009.
Monday, December 29, 2008
In the beginning
...was my first blog post, on this blog at any rate. I've entitled it "No Regrets." Actually, I have so many regrets; far too many to count, and they became so heavy and cumbersome I decided to leave them on some lonely back road and never look back. Time will tell if it was the right decision, but consider that airlines charge "extra baggage" fees these days. Maybe we each should consider the cost of carrying about too much of our own personal extra baggage? Is it really worth the cost? Well, that's what's in the name.
About me, the author. I'm in my late '40s. Female. "Retired" (why so will become evident further on). I live alone. My best companion has yellow feathers and a beak. I have wanted to be a writer all my life. I had the idea to write as early as age ten or eleven, as I was a devoted reader (and still am), but I have always lacked follow-through. I start things and often fail to finish them. Not always. But often enough. I've finished some quilts. But I didn't complete my college education albeit not for lack of trying. I got interrupted by Multiple Sclerosis. It cut me down, literally, in my early thirties. The best laid plans...
This is the blog about trying to live a normal life, while fighting personal challenges, and trying to end up in the playoffs, at least. But it isn't like those Christmas letters everyone gets where all the kids are making millions, and serving the homeless, and look like movie stars, and summitting Mount Everest. It's the letter we don't send, about the other things, the non-Everests, the managing to get by without the millions, about living with pimples and warts. I don't secretly hate the cousins and relations who do manage to climb Everest, or do make millions--more power to them--but they just so aren't the rest of us. Those people play hands from decks I can't imagine I'll ever catch a glimpse of. For me, life is more like trying to win at solitaire using a pinochle deck. But I have to play the hand I get, and more power to me if I can make something out of it at the same time. It makes for a far more interesting Christmas letter too, though my parents would doubtless disown me or wish I'd never sent it. Because I didn't become the doctor or the engineer they wanted me to be. My parents did not write glowing christmas letters about my wonderful achievements or the too-cute grandchildren I never gave them. I didn't get my PhD or make millions or even look like a movie star.
On living with MS. Today isn't bad. I took "mama's little helpers" today so I could get something done. I took the weekend off from them, and did nada. They're prescribed, don't worry. The so-called fatigue of MS is one of MS's worse dimensions. No idea why they named it "fatigue." It's more like wearing a lead wetsuit, added to staying up all day after working the overnight shift last night. I worked nights for years, so I claim intimate knowledge of that brand of tiredness. So today I chose to take my pill and get things done. The pills have side effects and taking meds is hard on the body, so I try not to take them unless I truly need them. But when I don't, the best I can muster is some reading and tv watching or maybe a game. Without them, I take multiple naps because I just can't stay awake. And when I'm awake, I feel like someone strapped me to my chair and I have to fight to move. It drains one very quickly. So I'm awake, and doing something I've promised myself I would start, a blog. The only other annoyance of MS, so far today, is the muscle spasms in my right hand which pull my thumb into my palm. Annoying and it feels weird. But the meds for muscle spasms make me sleepy so I'm going to live with it for now. Maybe tonight...
On writing. I have always asked, why should I, and who cares? But I stumbled upon some wonderful wisdom by Steven King, of all people, in his book "On Writing" where he suggests that if the imperative to write is there, just submit to it. The audience will look after itself. Now all I need to do is come up with the determination and stick-to-it-iveness that will make me spend time each day progressing toward some finished work that can be submitted for rejection to various publishers, and perhaps picked up by one. I have been published before, even regularly, so it's not as much of a stretch as it might seem. But I've got no formal schooling in this, other than the required English Comp classes that all college freshman are required to take. I have been considering going back for further education in this area.
I feel like I've been marking time here for the last decade. It doesn't feel like I've done much of anything, at least not purposefully anyway. Maybe the lack of goals is an issue. The long bounceback after my failed marriage. The depression I had to, and still must, fight. A succession of failed forays in different directions, or just uncompleted ones, some for lack of interest, some were just too painful, and more than once, I simply couldn't afford it. But, I refuse to spend the rest of whatever is left of my life regretting the lack of direction of the past ten years. There have been accomplishments. There have been lessons learned. There's been the invaluable time to simply think, ponder, wonder and wander. It's a luxury far too few get to enjoy; time to sit and consider.
One consideration that has repeatedly come to mind, I don't want to live the rest of my life simply reacting to what happens around me, like so much flotsam floating down a river aimlessly, washing ashore wherever it will. I see a lot of people around me doing just that. Like the Rabbit said to Alice,“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” At least I think it was the rabbit. I don't much relish spending what's left of my life so aimlessly. If I did, what point would there be to all I've experienced? It would be passed on to nobody and nothing will have been gained. So if I'm going to sit here isolated by a body that doesn't cooperate with my desires, then I can at least share before I'm gone and all the good stories (and bad) are wasted.
I finished "Robert Ludlum's The Arctic Event" by James H. Cobb this afternoon. It was a fun read. The characterization was the best part; I ended up really caring about the characters.
That's all for now. More on setbacks, challenges and joys in the future. Maybe ideas and cheerleading from the outside world will help me find the resolution to stay in the race no matter how wobbly my performance, rather than sitting on the sidelines and watching. Maybe just blathering in public will make me feel more responsible for the time I am allotted. I hope blogging can become a mutually rewarding exploration, just the way exploration is done in real time, one step at a time.
About me, the author. I'm in my late '40s. Female. "Retired" (why so will become evident further on). I live alone. My best companion has yellow feathers and a beak. I have wanted to be a writer all my life. I had the idea to write as early as age ten or eleven, as I was a devoted reader (and still am), but I have always lacked follow-through. I start things and often fail to finish them. Not always. But often enough. I've finished some quilts. But I didn't complete my college education albeit not for lack of trying. I got interrupted by Multiple Sclerosis. It cut me down, literally, in my early thirties. The best laid plans...
This is the blog about trying to live a normal life, while fighting personal challenges, and trying to end up in the playoffs, at least. But it isn't like those Christmas letters everyone gets where all the kids are making millions, and serving the homeless, and look like movie stars, and summitting Mount Everest. It's the letter we don't send, about the other things, the non-Everests, the managing to get by without the millions, about living with pimples and warts. I don't secretly hate the cousins and relations who do manage to climb Everest, or do make millions--more power to them--but they just so aren't the rest of us. Those people play hands from decks I can't imagine I'll ever catch a glimpse of. For me, life is more like trying to win at solitaire using a pinochle deck. But I have to play the hand I get, and more power to me if I can make something out of it at the same time. It makes for a far more interesting Christmas letter too, though my parents would doubtless disown me or wish I'd never sent it. Because I didn't become the doctor or the engineer they wanted me to be. My parents did not write glowing christmas letters about my wonderful achievements or the too-cute grandchildren I never gave them. I didn't get my PhD or make millions or even look like a movie star.
On living with MS. Today isn't bad. I took "mama's little helpers" today so I could get something done. I took the weekend off from them, and did nada. They're prescribed, don't worry. The so-called fatigue of MS is one of MS's worse dimensions. No idea why they named it "fatigue." It's more like wearing a lead wetsuit, added to staying up all day after working the overnight shift last night. I worked nights for years, so I claim intimate knowledge of that brand of tiredness. So today I chose to take my pill and get things done. The pills have side effects and taking meds is hard on the body, so I try not to take them unless I truly need them. But when I don't, the best I can muster is some reading and tv watching or maybe a game. Without them, I take multiple naps because I just can't stay awake. And when I'm awake, I feel like someone strapped me to my chair and I have to fight to move. It drains one very quickly. So I'm awake, and doing something I've promised myself I would start, a blog. The only other annoyance of MS, so far today, is the muscle spasms in my right hand which pull my thumb into my palm. Annoying and it feels weird. But the meds for muscle spasms make me sleepy so I'm going to live with it for now. Maybe tonight...
On writing. I have always asked, why should I, and who cares? But I stumbled upon some wonderful wisdom by Steven King, of all people, in his book "On Writing" where he suggests that if the imperative to write is there, just submit to it. The audience will look after itself. Now all I need to do is come up with the determination and stick-to-it-iveness that will make me spend time each day progressing toward some finished work that can be submitted for rejection to various publishers, and perhaps picked up by one. I have been published before, even regularly, so it's not as much of a stretch as it might seem. But I've got no formal schooling in this, other than the required English Comp classes that all college freshman are required to take. I have been considering going back for further education in this area.
I feel like I've been marking time here for the last decade. It doesn't feel like I've done much of anything, at least not purposefully anyway. Maybe the lack of goals is an issue. The long bounceback after my failed marriage. The depression I had to, and still must, fight. A succession of failed forays in different directions, or just uncompleted ones, some for lack of interest, some were just too painful, and more than once, I simply couldn't afford it. But, I refuse to spend the rest of whatever is left of my life regretting the lack of direction of the past ten years. There have been accomplishments. There have been lessons learned. There's been the invaluable time to simply think, ponder, wonder and wander. It's a luxury far too few get to enjoy; time to sit and consider.
One consideration that has repeatedly come to mind, I don't want to live the rest of my life simply reacting to what happens around me, like so much flotsam floating down a river aimlessly, washing ashore wherever it will. I see a lot of people around me doing just that. Like the Rabbit said to Alice,“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” At least I think it was the rabbit. I don't much relish spending what's left of my life so aimlessly. If I did, what point would there be to all I've experienced? It would be passed on to nobody and nothing will have been gained. So if I'm going to sit here isolated by a body that doesn't cooperate with my desires, then I can at least share before I'm gone and all the good stories (and bad) are wasted.
I finished "Robert Ludlum's The Arctic Event" by James H. Cobb this afternoon. It was a fun read. The characterization was the best part; I ended up really caring about the characters.
That's all for now. More on setbacks, challenges and joys in the future. Maybe ideas and cheerleading from the outside world will help me find the resolution to stay in the race no matter how wobbly my performance, rather than sitting on the sidelines and watching. Maybe just blathering in public will make me feel more responsible for the time I am allotted. I hope blogging can become a mutually rewarding exploration, just the way exploration is done in real time, one step at a time.
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