I dream about shoes more than a normal person.  I’m sure of it.  Last night’s foray into my subconscious was bizarre-ish. This is the part I remember (I know there was more as I do so much traveling in my dreams these days.)  I climbed some kind of ladder thing and when I got to the top there was a hanging (? from the sky?) wire shelf filled with shoes which I then threw to the ground one at a time.  Then I climbed over the last rung of the ladder thing and slid down an incredibly high slide.  It was summertime, which was nice.  I enjoyed the heat and a wardrobe that doesn’t involve corduroy and sweaters thank you very much.

I’m on Thanksgiving break already. No school tomorrow. YAY!  (oops. I shouldn’t say it that enthusiastically.  yay.)  We don’t go back until next Tuesday because of the whole deer slaying action.  yay.  I’m glad to live in a part of the state where we get a day off school so people can traipse around shooting Bambi.  And I’m even more excited because we are not doing our usual T-giving traveling.  We’re only hitting one set of parents this year.  So several days in my own house with my own people and one of those days we can do our own Thanksgiving spread.  Which I like to do.  First I have to get a turkey though.  Oops.

I have two silly cats.  They have a unique method of letting us know they want to come in.  They launch themselves onto my window screen.  It’s about 6 feet up, so impressive I think.  It cracks me up to see these varmints splayed out on the screen (I can’t seem to catch it with my camera).  For a while, it scared the bejeebers out of me to hear that sound.  Used to it now.  Not thrilled about it in the middle of the night.  But some bozo keeps letting them out at nighttime.

It’s funny what kids think is important.  Well, not funny, really.  Surprising.  When you think you know how they think, they say something unexpected.

I think there’s a very real possibility that someday I will be a crazy recluse.  There are days I don’t leave the house.  And I like it.  And if I didn’t have someone dragging me to something I wouldn’t go even someplace fun.  In a moment of weakness, I agreed to go to a holiday party.  Thank goodness it is two weeks away.  I think.  I know I have a Christmas Eve party to go to.  I’m kinda hoping a friend has her Christmas party, but half hoping she doesn’t too.  So, yup.  At some point in my life, I’m going to wear pajamas all the time and never leave my house.  Thank goodness, you all won’t know unless I tell you.

 

Today I am doing that: resting on my laurels.  In the only way that I can.  Which involves very little resting and very little plant life.

First event of the morning (aside from a glorious family sleep in- it was almost 9am before anyone in the fam moved) was LLO’s unloading of 6 weeks of pent up emotion.  Wow. That girl has some stuff.  Also, I see that I have taught her very well how to freak out about the holidays, because she is desperate to go shopping.  She has so many presents to buy and the world will end if she doesn’t get them today.  I suppose it’s like Hagrid says “better out than in.”  Especially since Spawn told me the other day that she was miserable in middle school.

Other major coups:  LLO spontaneously decided to take her dirty laundry out of her room and made noises that tell me she’s actually thinking about putting clean laundry away.  Spawn admits that she has homework this weekend.  It’s only Saturday morning, this usually doesn’t come up until Sunday late afternoon.

I’m upset.  On the one hand, I worked my butt off and I deserve to graduate.  But on the other hand, I do not know that my advisor read the final version of my paper before he approved it.  This bugs me.  I know he read the rough drafts because he had plenty to say about them.  Final.  Nuttin.  And I’ve written a heck of a lot of papers in these past 2-3 years and these profs just don’t say squat.  They promise comments and the only thing they deliver is an overall grade for the class.  I think you have an obligation that if you make someone write something, you ought to read it and say something.  Anyhow.  Back to the final.  Did he approve it because I submitted to the process or did he approve it because it was worthy?  Should it matter to me?

Is this the problem with my whole life?  That I care what someone else thinks?  That when I take measure it’s with someone else’s yardstick?  I need a new yardstick.

On that note, I’m going to go clean out my fridge which is disgusting.

Then we’re going to watch LOTR in the middle of the day (gasp).

 

I’m compiling a list of the things I want to do starting exactly then when I can.

• refinish the kitchen table which i have completely trashed with the assorted stuff i do at that table
• figure out how to fix the porcelain in what used to be a nice kitchen sink
• read a book every week
• go roller skating
• finish something
• figure out how to turn off the random commercials that start playing on the computer randomly
• write a poem worthy of publication in some random magazine
• read a book every week.  from start to finish.
• OH MY GOSH! teach spawn to drive.
• drink a lot
• read all the books i collected last year
• paint on a canvas
• get rid of stuff
• play more games
• go to parties willingly
• finish that bench i started painting in may-ish
• grow a plant
• figure out how to turn the tv on
• reacquaint my children with nagging mother
• figure out how i get to the beach this summer
• inherit a small fortune
• grow a pineapple
• crochet a tree cozy

ok. that should about do it.

execute: derives from Latin exsequi, “carry out, follow up; punish”

I’ve got something on my mind.  Truthfully, I can’t be bothered with things like facts.  I just know what I think is morally wrong.  This opinion is developing constantly as my gut feeling is confronted by what is related.  I’m not about influencing people:  your opinion is worth as much as mine. (at least to you) But mine is mine and I feel like talking about it.  Perhaps that’s enough preamble. 

I awakened this morning to the shocking news, which I hoped was just the creation of my bizarre and sometimes worrisome imagination, that there was an execution scheduled for this very day in the beautiful state of Pennsylvania.  I was stunned.  I hadn’t even known that my home state, where I have lived most of my life, in fact, had the death penalty.  Let alone that there was a death chamber (whatever it is, I do not care what method was chosen as optimal to kill somebody legally) not 20 minutes from where my children lay their sweet heads.  Perhaps we should cue patriotic music here or We Are The World or something.  How in the heck does a state founded by Quakers have the death penalty as an option?

Anyhow.  I was late to work so I did what I usually do for information.  Not google this time, but an obnoxious Facebook post whereupon I received confirmation that my state had scheduled this act of barbarism on this night.  (My mother’s birthday, incidentally.  Also my mother-in-law.  Although I doubt either one of them would have any qualms with the death penalty, both being fine church-going women. meow)  This thought rocked my faith in the world.  How in the heck do you justify the punishment of killing a human being for killing another human being?  I realize there are other sides to consider.  I realize that perhaps the family of the girl who was killed would sleep better at night knowing the animal who killed her was no longer on the earth.  I realize that some people can’t be rehabilitated.  But I just can’t accept that this is right.  My mind refuses to see how it makes sense for someone(s) to decide that a man (even an evil man) should not be alive because he made the decision that someone else should not be alive. 

And it makes my brain explode to think what this means.  Remember when Osama Bin Laden was executed?  I do.  People cheered.  Call me un-American, but I could not.  It made me sick to my stomach the joy that the crowd found in his death.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint.  I do not mind that his time on earth has ended.  But to cheer for another human being’s death does not sit well with me.  That someone deliberately targeted this person for death makes me feel a little dirty.  Yes, certainly, this decision probably saved thousands of lives and maybe retribution itself is sweet.  Which is what makes this issue so complicated.  

If I can’t stand the idea of killing someone who is guilty, what can I possibly think about wars and abortion, when innocent people are involved?  My father was in Korea, but he doesn’t talk about it with me.  He has with spouseman.  I’ve certainly run across people and heard about people who came back from wars.  And I watched Forest Gump.  (that was supposed to be humor)  And I’m sorry for them.  I can’t imagine serving my country that way.  I will call it that, no matter how much of a pacifist I am, because I understand that they have sacrificed much for what they believed in.  And I’ve never been in the position that I needed to choose an abortion, for which I’m very grateful.  I always suspected that a friend in high school had one, but I never asked and I never judged.  I wouldn’t want to make that choice is all.

Life is so freaking complicated.  

I was relieved that the execution was stayed.  Postponed maybe.  But it didn’t happen tonight and this just feels right.  Call me an idealist or a simpleton if you feel better doing so, but I think life is something far from disposable.   

• i cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.  at least not today.
• are you kidding me?  xanga double spaces everything except bullets?  what is up with that?
• i had to put real clothes on at 5pm (it was pajama day at work, but not anywhere in the real world)
• advisor essentially said my idea was good, but that i needed to change it to fit his.  and you know what, that’s ok too.
• i don’t care about that.  at all.  because it’s all bs.
• my fan club is awesome sauce.  i feel like i’ve got a cape.
• up until the point where i’m awake enough to actually do anything.
• i think i’m going to quit drinking coffee sometime soon. 
• have you noticed i really have nothing to say?  it’s true. i have nothing to say
• i was silly at work today. 
• it was light when the alarm went off this morning and pitch black at 7pm.  i hate that.  gimme back my summer.
• spawn told me today that the dad of a kid she knows died of a heart attack while changing the oil in his car. that just seems so wrong to me.
• lots of things are wrong, if you think about it.
• which is why i don’t.  no thinking here.

 

#whim sh 35. CREATE a mandala. This was fun and I must say pretty therapeutic.

1. Write a POEM in which socks and death are mentioned

I wore socks to a funeral today.

The barbershop chorus sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot

The dress code was casual and bright.

Actually I didn’t wear socks, I wore painted shoes.

The preacher sang a song about dancing at funeral.

The School Board Quartet mentioned The Music Man.

And how the man who died was uncomfortable with the

role of saying unkind words.

His last name makes me think of truth.

Death is sometimes a kindness.

He sang until two days before he died.

It wasn’t the cancer that claimed him,

but the cancer treatments.

Sometimes I believe in Heaven.

 

Whim sh 24. Write 22 HAIKU about animals. Ha. which I’ve been working on for freaking ever. Plus you will accept it as 2.13 #bluemooncat enormous thing write a children’s book.  There was going to be illustrations and stuff, but I lost interest.  Get over it. 

An armadillo

Acts attentive. After all

Ants are attractive.

 

Bandicoots burrow

By night best bugs and mammals

Big feet batter prey

 

Capybara chews

Coarse grass continuously

‘Cause they’re colossal

 

 

No dodo dances

Disappeared through human hands

Distinct but extinct

 

Elephants often

Erupt most eloquently

Horton hears haiku?

 

Fairest flamingo

Flits in flamenco fashion

Filter feed  fuschia

 

Garrulous gibbon

Goes gallivanting in trees

An agile swinger

 

Hippopotamus

Have hinges hovering high

Or harpsichord teeth

 

Iguanas hang out

In the canopy. Catch me?

 Chicken of the trees

 

Mighty Jag-u-ar

No difference where you are

Always wants more lunch

 

Kakapo parrot

Uncommon, can’t fly, owl face

Keeps climbing nightly

 

Little slow loris

Leaves toxic bite, hangs at night

Longer lived in wild

 

Mini  Marmosets

Make moves in the canopy

Germline chimerism

 

[which occurs when the germ cells (for example, sperm and egg cells) of an organism are not genetically identical to its own. It has recently been discovered that marmosets can carry the reproductive cells of their (fraternal) twin siblings, because of placental fusion during development.]

 

‘Ndangered numbat

Ne’er puts baby in her pouch

She doesn’t have one.

 

The otter oughtter

Occupy water and land

Only more of them

 

Pademelon puts a

Precious package in her pouch

Yup, marsupial

 

Querulous Quetzal

Quickly questions the quiet:

Admire my plumage

 

Rattlesnake rhumba

Is far less about dancing

Than a group might think

 

Serval sleek and smart

Softly slinks in savanna

Specialized searcher

 

Tuatara tricks-

Looks like lizard but is reptile

Crested tino-saur

 

Unusual Uakari

Undertakes lunch under trees

Bald is beautiful

 

A volt of Vulture

A vision of revulsion

Better than a wake

 

The wild Wildebeest

Wanders a willy nilly

Until he’s eaten

 

X-ray tetra swims

So exhausted we see bones

Here fishy fishy

 

Yester Yak yodelled

Yakkety yak, won’t come back

Great fur cow threatened

 

Ze size of Zebu

Zomehow keeps zis humpy cow

Zestful in ze heat

 

Wiki is my close friend as well as http://a-z-animals.com , which is written just as my level. 

#whimsh all righty then.  you’re lucky i didn’t try to throw in socks and death.

59. Write a POEM about your mother.

48. Write a POEM entitled ” Gravity’s Echo”

41. Write SOMETHING using the line ” Everything leaves a husk.”

29. Write a POEM using the following words: seed-pod, toes, dragon, syrup, membrane, ice

58. Write a POEM using the words zenith, ash, tiger lilies, breath, membrane, map.

Gravity’s Echo

As inevitable as gravity, the passage of time

Mother aging, relationship must change.

A membrane, delicate as ice. cold. hard.

On top of thousands of slights felt

For years beyond their need.

To this day she doesn’t know about green beans-

Those seed-pods turn to unpalatable glob of ash

Of how can you not know what your daughter dislikes.

The dragon of jealousy and non-forgiveness.

She did what she could as all mothers do.

Syrup on pancakes, dripping off and soaking in,

Sometimes the sweetness to the other

Waves as tiger lilies on a sultry August evening

And sometimes it’s the hot breath

Of the unfeeling sun at its zenith.

But then there was the strike of age

That made me see the future map

And I know that I am wrong to my toes-

That I must be the one to mend the membrane

Make it warm and strong because someday

I will know that everything leaves a husk.

The echo of intention replaces the

Loud thud of what was perceived

#whimsh 45. Write a FLASH FICTION entitled “Sonata”

She sat at the piano bench, short legs resting on a covered box.  The teacher taught simple songs and gave stickers for songs well played.  His hand gently reminded her of the correct hand position.  She practiced. 

Covered box no longer needed, reminders no longer required, but still received, she practiced.  Short excerpts from Beethoven added to her repertoire.  Stickers replaced by pats on her shoulder and soft y whispered, “Beautiful” close to her ear.  She stopped practicing, not wanting pats and whispers and touches.  And the piano was no longer a friend.

Until one day, she silently left her lesson.  Tears unshed.  And she never played another note.

(32. Write a STORY about rape that never actually mentions rape)  pushing it, I know.

My favorite sonata bit.  pathetique movement 3 (which again, i can’t play anywhere near that fast)

55. Write a POEM as a love letter you could never give to someone

What would you see looking in my eyes?

The shine of oil paints

The sparkle of laughter

The shimmer of unshed tears

What would you hear in my words?

The longing

Do you know how far I would go?

To know every one of your stories

To hear your voice

To feel you in the same space

Would you want me there?

Don’t worry.  There is none of that here.

One of the things I like to do (especially when I need some calm) is play the piano.  It quiets my head usually.  Gets my brain and fingers aligned with each other.  Just generally soothes.  I need some soothing this morning.  Feel free to send chocolate, hugs, and minis.

This morning, I was playing a song I’ve been working on for a long time.  It’s a tough one, boys and girls.  I know that I will never play it perfectly.  I can’t play even easy songs perfectly.  Which is what I’m writing about here.  I started playing this song and it was “perfect”.  Until it wasn’t.  That one measure that always gets me got me this time too.  And I stopped.  Because I wanted to know how far I’d gone on perfection.  13 measures for the record.  So I started over again and played terribly- kept making mistakes.  My head was focused on perfection instead of music. 

Then I let go the need for perfection.  And the music did its job.  What I can see is that those parts that are difficult are getting better and easier.  I see that what was once measures and notes and fingerings is more lyrical.  I feel the song curl its way around.  I look at the words on page 2, “con anima.”  I know enough about music to know this means with animation or with spirit. 

What else does it mean, though?  Jung, an important part of the message this year- as he is every freaking where in my world-, explains the anima as the the male’s feminine side present in dreams and also calls the anima the source of creativity.  Or possibly the true self.  From the Latin, anima means essentially soul.  My sad little memory was convinced it was mind.  Mentis.  Mens sana in corpore sano.  Not so much.  Anyhow, what high school Latin teacher is going to talk about souls?  Certainly not the plum and blue bewigged Mrs. (shoot, I had her name a second ago and it fell out of my head.)

Creativity is as necessary as air. 

My brain and I are not real connected this morning.

What a lovely video.  Music notes.  It doesn’t look that hard does it?  Sigh.