10 posts tagged “things on tuesday”

Today's gripe:

• The shoulder, which had gotten apparently all better after eight weeks of not doing big right arm gestures in dance class and five weeks of physical therapy, is very unhappy again after only one class of regular use.  Noooo.....

The good stuff:

• All of a sudden, I am travel-happy.  I actually want to get on a plane and then do road trips!  Next week is a too-short vacation where there will be good company and fireflies, followed by a drive to Oregon to interview a transit operator for work, followed by a visit to a friend in the Bay area who I haven't seen since her wedding five years ago, followed by a drive to Idaho to interview a transit operator, followed by a family trip back over the mountains ... and I am actually looking forward to all of these, especially the first one.  I'm now making noises at the home office back east that I want to come out again soon, and maybe somehow I can finagle a trip to the Austin office (around the time of Austin City Limits would be nice, though unlikely).  It's like some sort of switch has flipped inside of me.  I hope it lasts.
• Work has gotten much busier.  For the first time since I started the current job, I actually feel like I need to maintain a calendar.  (I prefer to be busy at my job, but on the down-side it is kind of getting in the way of my Vox life.) 
• Started Miranda July's No one belongs here more than you yesterday while waiting for my last p.t. session, and finished Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees this morning at breakfast.  I am smallstoryhappy.  (I can't seem to articulate that any more accurately right now.)
• Waiting for a good thing, possibly a tremendous thing, but trying not to think too much about that because it will only result in anticipatory fear.  Right.

I'm not going to make an unhappy list today.  If I did, the only thing I would mention is that Seattle is chilly and gray again.  However, since it was sunny and blue-skied for the previous three days, I won't mention it.  (Have you noticed that I never mention the greater problems of the outside world?  Occasionally I do manage to pull my head out of the sand and listen to the radio news which wakes me up on workdays.  What I hear almost always belongs on the downer list.)

The good stuff:

• joining LaidOutInLavender for a photo stroll this coming weekend
• three of her lovely photos will soon brighten my home
• my shoulder is getting better
• I'm working on a route map for a transit system in Maryland (I have a secret fantasy of being a cartographer, which now is no longer a secret.)
• starting to think about travel plans, even of they involve airplanes
• revealing truths, as scary as it is to expose my soft underbelly
• moving beyond the vestibule of my sometimes disabling insecurities

I do not like:

• Getting up at 5:30 a.m. to make a 7:00 physical therapy appointment.
• Wet shoes from the pouring rain.
• Having to interview intercity bus operators (nothing against them, only out of fear of talking to strangers on the phone).
• Most of the selections in the two short film packages I saw on Sunday.  This year’s shorts curators at SIFF have tastes very unlike mine.  Often disturbing tastes.  [The ones I did like were the lushly animated Far from Ural, Night Vision (though I did not “get” it, it has such beautiful imagery), the hilarious The Tourists, and the surprise-ending un certain regard.]  Dear SIFF marketers:  please do not describe a shorts package using the words “road to happily-ever-after” and include stories about children in Ecuador becoming guerilla soldiers who shoot other children, a pedophile violating a little girl while she is feeding calves, or a seal-hunter coming upon a bloody neighbor-on-neighbor murder in the tundra.  I feel scarred from seeing these two days later.
• The absence of crowd in the sculpture park on rainy Saturday, which I believe made small metal objects less effective than it would have been seeing it within a busy train station.
• Feeling so negative about the films and performance I saw this weekend.

I do like:

• My physical therapist, who has started me on the path the pain-free shoulderism and Audrey Hepburn posture.
• Finding a lucky breakfast of the stale peanut butter sandwich I failed to give away yesterday.  (I did give one away, but packed two).
• Remembering to pack a fresh peanut butter sandwich for today (which might not find any takers in all this rain, but there is always breakfast tomorrow).
• Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler and Jonathan Carroll’s From the Teeth of Angels, both of which I finished this weekend.  I started the Carroll book a couple of weeks ago, interrupted it to read the Calvino book, then resumed the Carroll book at a point where there was a coincidental parallel with the Calvino book – a woman exploring the book and music library of a man she loves in his absence.  Both books also contain stories within stories (though they are actually related in the Carroll book).
• The documentary American Teen, which I was fortunate to see during my Saturday SIFF ushering shift.
• Buying some wonderful photos.
• The songs of Juana Molina.

What's your favorite type of cheese? Or, if you don't like cheese, why not?
Submitted by Draegon Scribe.

Bleu. The mouldier and saltier the better.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

A list at the close of a foul-weathered Tuesday:

Ouf. This morning, I:

• cut my ankle shaving in the shower.
• dropped my coffee cup where dogs pee (fortunately it hadn't been filled yet).
• sliced my hand closing my umbrella (and somehow didn't notice until after bleeding all over Top Pot).

Small good things:

• not carrying the laptop again (and discovering the free-with-purchase Internet terminals at the coffee joint on the corner of my block for filling the monkeying needs).
• a seat on the bus this morning (too rainy for walking).  
• finally getting up the courage to venture into the fitness room in my building this weekend and brave moving under the influence of a machine, in lieu of dance class.  It was scary at first but I'm feeling more coordinated.  I am a control freak when it comes to moving my limbs around.  Tonight, though, I'm a bit afraid of the clutziness risk.
• crush songs.  They are rather hugely wonderfully things, actually.

I do not like:

• Rescheduled appointment for shoulder pain (must wait extra week and resist urge to do added damage during that time), but it’s still good to know it’s gonna be looked at eventually. 
• Muki’s breath.
• PMS.  I think I’m ready for menopause.  Bring it on.
• Feeling generally imbalanced.

I do like:

• The new Masterpiece Theatre production of A Room with a View.*  The 1985 Merchant-Ivory film is one of my all-time favorite movies ever, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this production very much.  In mine humble opine, the young lead actors in the new production have a better chemistry than those in earlier film, though the film trumps with many more elements including Maggie Smith, the glorious shots of the Tuscan countryside (especially the one just before the storm), and Julian Sands’s tush in the “come and have a bathe” scene.
• The sidewalk across the street has finally been repaired.
• Gentle reality checks.
• Divine-brand 70% dark chocolate (most divine in the 1.5 oz size bar).
• Kale-pepperjack enchilada.
• SIFF starts next week.  Yay!

*Forster is another writer whose stories I’ve tended to enjoy more on the screen than in reading, though now I’m in the mood to re-read this one.

It’s been an unhappy week.

The worst of it was learning how much something I had posted earlier this month had upset someone I used to care for quite deeply.  I now realize my thoughtlessness in violating this person’s privacy, even if I thought it was well-masked, and only one person who might read this blog would have any idea who he is.  I was also made some mean-spirited remarks in subsequent comments.  I am sorry for all of this.  I fucked up.  I’ve removed the post and am eating my remorse, but the damage is done.  Hopefully, I will at least move a little closer to becoming a kinder person from all of this. 

I’ve also realized I’ve been spending more time in Voxland than is healthy for me, and have decided to take a break for awhile (though probably won’t be able to resist reading neighborly updates and sincerely hope y’all don’t delete me from your ‘hoods out of inactivity, if you haven't already deleted me for my unkindness).

So, just to sign off for the time being on a positive note, at the risk of diluting the second paragraph, let it be known that I’m going to binge on the following comfort food.  Consider this a substantial portion of my desert island disc list, with the raucous and celebratory stuff missing.  I don’t deserve those right now.

The Clientele: Strange Geometry, God Save the Clientele
Glenn Gould edition of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier I & II
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci: How I Long to Feel that Summer in My Heart
John Wesley Harding’s New Deal
M. Ward: Transistor Radio, End of Amnesia, Transfiguration of Vincent
matt pond PA: emblems
Mojave 3: Spoon and Rafter
A mix of 23 songs co-/written and /performed by Joe Pernice and his various bands
Rachel’s: Systems/Layers
Robyn Hitchcock: A Star for Bram, + Egyptians: Queen Elvis
Sam Phillips: Fan Dance, A Boot and A Shoe
Ted Hawkins: The Next 100 Years
Yo La Tengo: Fakebook

Bye for now.

Stupidity

I do not like these words:

• groove, except 1) as joinery terminology, 2) in the context of phrases like long-playing microgroove, or 3) whenever my brother uses it.  I have also disliked the word groovy ever since Mr. DiPietro required me to sing the second verse of "The 59th Street Bridge Song" out loud in sixth grade English. (Mr. DiPietro also gave me poor marks for penmanship.  Beyond than these acts, he was a very nice teacher.)
• proper terminology for genitalia.  This probably stems from formative discussions with at least one parent as well as sixth grade sex education class.
• sphagnum, because I can't pronounce or spell it.  It was probably a vocabulary word in sixth grade.

[I also have quite a few other-than-verbal scars from sixth grade.  That was a year of wearing unbearably dorky and mostly oversized ("so you'll grow into them") clothes, hand-sewn with love by my hard-working single mom --  clothes which inspired frequent teasing from peers, and even Mrs. Szlosek, my homeroom teacher, remarked on the hugeness of a certain pair of pants (I was chubby but not that chubby).  That was also the year when, attempting a forward somersault, I lost both consciousness and control of my bladder in gym class, awakening beneath a circle of staring, snickering classmates.  The worst of these experiences came from telling my friend Mitzi in confidence about something I did as an inquisitive younger child. She did not keep it a secret, and it became even greater fodder for ridicule.]

Today I am especially fond of these words:

• elevenses, which I am consuming right now (please note that I first read The Hobbit in sixth grade)
• rhubard, though I can't spell that one either, because it is a key ingredient of today's elevenses
• primary, because it is nearly resolved
• coquette, for containing the /k/ sound in both syllables
• spackle

[I tried to think of some other positive word associations from sixth grade, but it was a pretty low year.]

Now it seems necessary to include this, with my apologies:

Not good:

My right shoulder.  About a month ago, after a pretty vigorous class with a combination that involved rolling from one side to the other on the floor and then pushing up into a sort of monkey hand-gallop (because this is the sort of thing that happens in a modern dance class, in case you ever wondered), it started hurting.  For the first week I figured it was just muscle soreness, carefully stretched it every night and morning, and then went through it all again after a second week with the same combination in class.  By the third week I realized it wasn’t going away and kind of backed off from the stretching and class exertions, but continued the heavy-laptop-in-backpack commute.  Now, after starting a new yoga class this weekend plus the same dance class (new combination though) I am experiencing searing pain pretty much every time I try to reach behind from resting.  I should have learned something from last year’s left hamstring attachment experience … but no, I am reluctant to see a medical professional.   I have health insurance, I don’t want another chronic injury perpetuated my own neglect/stupidity, but I also don’t want to see a doctor or stop dancing.  Note to self: accept that my aging body can’t just “push through” injuries, adapt movement, embrace post-class ice.

Good:

Doctor Who, Season One.  For the past 15 years or so (warning: self-righteousness ahead) my television viewing has been limited to 1) BBC/A&E adaptations of the novels of Jane Austen and Victorian writers, 2) the first two seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess, and 2) the first season of Flight of the Conchords, a very fine Xmas present from my friend Lucinda.  Plus the bootlegged Max Headroom I bought on eBay a few years ago, and this, um, squirrel porn, but only for my kitties’ enjoyment:

Cat Sitter DVD

I became aware of the new Doctor Who because the lead actress starred in the recent adaptation of Mansfield Park, and was curious since the first season stars Christopher Eccleston (who I happen to think is kind of hot.  Michael Winterbottom’s Jude, anyone?  I also wish to point out that the actress who plays Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale-North, had a supporting role in the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters, which also starred the actress who played BBC’s Tess of the D'Urbervilles … oh, what an incestuous little world British television is), and checked it out of the library, and now am hooked.  And more than a little embarrassed to admit it after ragging on G’s television talk in the thing I posted on five days ago, but feel I compelled to, perhaps as a form of penance.  Plus it’s Guilty Pleasure Tuesday.  And anything with alien zombies is all right by my book.

starting at the bottom and working my way up:

• public groping of fans by rockstars
• guilt
• someone (or some critter) has harvested the top two-thirds of the catnip I planted on Saturday.  perhaps somewhere, a cat is happily stoned.
• peas in the P-patch -- they are climbing!
• guilty pleasures
• by this time Thursday I will be far away from a big city or its immediate suburbs for the first time in ... I can't remember how long.
• Lorelei's post today

yay!:

• baby chard seedlings that haven't perished
• starting to feel recovered from the daylight savings time change
• the raveonettes
• peanut butter on salty rosemary bread
• potential for a new friend

oh, poo:

• heavy laptops. this business of carrying my office to and from on my back everyday is starting to take its toll on my knees and shoulders.
• discovering well-formed mold at the bottom of a brita filter pitcher I drink from every day
• the general state of my kitchen
• ditto my bathroom
• the rivet on the little coin pocket inside of the right hand pocket of the jeans I have on today. ouch.