Tag: Random

The shameful hiatus

This respite has been unmerited and irresponsible. If one has the occasional reader, then respect is due and I have been remiss. I apologize.

I am no longer employed. Since I last wrote, I do not think I had committed to retiring. But, the deed is done and I am no longer a teacher. I am happy, fearful of my financial future, but I do not live in Syria and I should count my lucky stars each and every day.

Because I am no longer employed, it is important to do something worthy every day. It would be easy to stay in my pajamas and watch movies on my iPad all day, with a nap in between films, but I have restrained from doing that. I have begun writing a fictionalized memoir which I began in 1984 but left off when I let someone read it and they were frighteningly enthusiastic. This time is different. I write a couple of pages a day. I write with a pen. When the ink from a good pen flows properly, the story is just as fluid. I use a lined black and white composition book which says Composition Book on the outside.

A couple of pages feels right. Nothing too obsessive, nothing that feels compulsory. I have no idea what I will write, as pen moves to paper. That is a wonderful feeling, like the open road, like a photo of Robert Frank that I have in my head. I tell stories that are made up but based on an element of truth, something I have heard. Sometimes the strange events that occur there make me laugh.

frank_med

And, now, it is time to visit with my husband as he is employed and he deserves my attention.

1.5.14

I probably have spent one hour outside in the last week. I mean, outside, fresh air outside. In the car, in the grocery show, in TJ Max, in the post office: none of them count. People talk about cabin fever and it might hit me any time but so far, I’m good. Monday Land of Cogs did not happen because of snow. I hope Tuesday Land of Cogs gets cancelled, too.

“Hi, I’m Laura Linney and this is Masterpiece Classic.” I love to say that along with her. Whenever I am watching PBS on my iPad, I stare into the screen during the introduction and try to imitate the eyes and lips like Gillian Anderson, Keira Knightley, and Helen Mirren. I can see my reflection on the screen and I have no dramatic eyebrow movement like them, absolutely none. I try but I look a little more like Bea Arthur, without any eyebrow movement, other than a Groucho up-and-down forehead stretch.

I started Downton Abbey, Season 2. I have been avoiding it, because I knew it would be another addictive commitment; but, I succumbed because I am weak, weak, weak, a pleasure hound.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 40 to 50 degrees below zero. I may go out tomorrow, out of sheer perversity.

1.03.14 Random, totally random

What an odd morning.

That said, I cannot sit in front of the computer screen in my pajamas any longer. Snow and cold cannot deter me from stirring the stumps because I think my muscles will seriously atrophy.  After this post, adios.

I got some interesting emails today and a post from a fellow artist on FB with the Justin Timberlake SNL skit called Dick in a Box. If you have not seen it, watch it on Vimeo or YouTube. My education was so incomplete without this.

https://vimeo.com/79860874

American humor is curious. It is self-deprecating and, when not totally stupid, derives some of its absurdity from British humor which is tops. I like Justin Timberlake even more.

My cockatiel Doofus, the gray companion of yellow Goofus, has learned to say “Good Morning” so well enunciated that it is impressive. Goofus sings the Cubs anthem, though, so he’s not an underachiever.  They are males, about 15 years old, and get on very well. I have never had any bird live this long. They like the light in the room, I feed them good stuff, and keep them clean. They do not fly around or leave their cage. Once one got out by mistake. We both almost had strokes.

Someone posted on FB something about an odd Japanese fad among teenagers called Oculinctus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculolinctus

Where do people come up with these things? Whether it is a tabloid hoax or not, it was put out there for people to consider. Then there are Japan’s “hikikomore” hermits.

“They’re mostly disaffected teenagers and twenty-somethings, withdrawn almost completely from society. There is no precise explanation to account for the rise in hikikomori, though there are several known contributing factors, including the rise of the internet, intense academic pressures, and parents willing to shelter their children well into adulthood.  Psychiatrists (many of whom are forced to make house calls to visit their patients), have only recently set upon the task of helping the group dubbed by some as “the missing million.”

There’s more.

“There is a growing trend among young women for yaeba (literally “double tooth”) caps on the canines, which lends their smile a kind of crowded appearance. ” Orthodontists, pack your bags.

Sources:

http://listverse.com/2013/05/26/10-bizarre-aspects-of-japanese-culture/

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/130615/japanese-eye-ball-licking-trend-could-spread-disease

I am not singling out the Japanese but there seem to be as many crazies there as here or in North Korea.

December 23, 2013

Welcome to this reconditioned space, like a freshly painted living room, for my thoughts about photography, random images that have no place on my website, fun things I find, and whatever I want to share with you.

It is also a space for me to write. I love to write. Stories come to my head and I let them free before committing them to text; they are like hummingbirds flying to the shiny red feeder on my porch, here and then gone.

Aging is on my mind these days. I will turn 65 in one week. My Dad turned 98 two days ago. He looked at me, as he was about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. Straining forward, he exclaimed in awe, “Ninety eight! How can that be?”  I could not answer him. I feel that way and I am 33 years his junior. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see myself as I think I look. Other times, I see something quite different. Photographs of me are horrific. FaceTime on my iPad is great to use with close family but I feel so self-conscious with others. The screen does not do me justice and I am not ready for my close up, not ready at all.

Every time I see myself it stuns me. That is a considerable amount of stunning going on throughout the day; like being shell-shocked, each time my reflection blasts my view of myself to pieces. I am not particularly vain, but if Obamacare could kindly take care of non essentials, I think I would like a LifeLift, my lips done, some liposuction and a personal trainer, preferable a cranky woman in her 30’s. In the meantime, I will content myself with getting my hair colored, my handy nono hair remover, an occasional facial, and comfy flannel nightgowns.

Until later.