juxtaposing

life is hard
and it can tear you apart
and disappoint you

life is sweet
and it can make you complete
and anoint you

life isn't easy or smooth or straight
life's not authentic without a complaint
life is not unencumbered delight
but if you pay attention
to life
you just might
find that

life is sweet
and it can make you complete
and anoint you

lah-huv

maybe love isn't complicated per se; rather, it's our language that's too simple. loving your car and loving your spouse aren't the same thing. why don't we have different words for these? we say brotherly love, agape, platonic relationship, passion, lust... all those amd more, and they all mean something different and all relate to love, but they're weird or archaic or stilted. they're not for everyday use and they don't cover all our everyday uses for love.

i mean, can you really venerate or adore, empathize with or feel kinship with... your car? your smartphone? a packet of crisps? nobody truly loves french fries. c'mon.

we act like saying I LOVE YOU is some profound relationship milestone, then we turn around and devalue it. respect the love, people!

we could use at least one more word -- a word for intense feelings of enjoyment induced by things which cannot reciprocate: inanimate objects, places, concepts, circumstances. new words are difficult to introduce, but i have faith in us. let's introduce lah-huv.

i lah-huv that dress! i lah-huv those kicks! i lah-huv your car, my car, this park, that chess set, her eyes, your haircut, those curtains, these pillows.... peanut butter, crayons, cats, dogs, basketball, paris, rainy days, bow ties, long talks, long walks, long sleepless nights.

i think you get it.

lah-huv /lă həv/
noun
an intense feeling of deep affection for a thing, place, or concept.

verb
to feel a deep affection or adoration for something that cannot return the feelings.

and now it's tuesday evening.

it snowed friday, and they closed the office. saturday... sunday. on monday it was a holiday, and on tuesday it snowed again. five days out of work, and now it's tuesday evening and what do i have to show for it.

we hung some small shelves, rigged up a pulley system for the bird feeder, and put together the drain for the outdoor sink. we worked out, went to the grocery, and took his sister to eat for her birthday. we drove up to the city to retrieve his hat. we sorted the mail. we did the laundry. we took his mom a piece of pie. we went to the dry cleaners and to walgreens and to get a smoothie.

just a mess of piddle. the only task of any substance that we accomplished was to give a sackful of krystals to a couple who were begging in the verge.

it was when we went to retrieve his hat, which he'd left behind when we were out last wednesday evening. exiting the parking lot from there, we saw a man and woman sitting on the culvert beside the intersection, and i asked, did he want to give them any money. he said, no, let's get them something to eat, let's get them some krystals. seemed like a good idea until we sat at the drive through window for like 20 minutes (what the hell, krystal??), but they sure were happy to get some warm food. they were all "bless you, bless you" and i was all trying not to actually touch them. i mean, they were REALLY dirty.

so it felt pretty good to do that, and we agreed we should do it more often. we talked about how a structure like welfare depersonalizes the transaction and opens it to decay into a place where the giver starts to resent it and the receiver starts to expect it. it's easy to feel animosity towards an anonymous stranger, to judge them as greedy or lazy or selfish or heartless.

we talked about how, even at publix where they are just trying to make it easy and to increase giving, they aren't really helping. we talked about how it used to be that you would pick out some canned goods and whatnot, and deliver them to the food pantry. then, it got to where you could pick out the food and drop it into a box there at publix, and then publix started having pre-loaded bags of food where you just picked that up and scanned it and dropped it in the box. now they have pictures of grouped food selections hanging by the cash register and if you want to give, you point to the grouping that looks good to you and they scan the appropriate bar code. it's easy, it's fast, it's accurate. no one has to separate the jumble of tuna from the mass of mac & cheese, and very few trips have to be made to the food pantry. all the jars of peanut butter are the same brand and same size and fit in the box just like they are supposed to.

the transaction is completely depersonalized, no one on either side ever has to each other, and no one is ever in danger of brushing someone else's hand.

so, anyway, we talked about that, and now it's tuesday evening.

2018

here we are, two years away from the iconic 2020. where is my hovercraft?

resolutions. resolutions. what do i want to change... you know what i'd really like to change? the list of things i want to change. it's always the same: write more and run more. obvs, the only way to change the list is to accomplish what's on it, i suppose, but i am beginning to think these two are a lost cause. especially running more, since the better i do at that, the quicker i end up injured. maybe the key to running more is actually running less. interesting.

vague resolutions aside, there are a few things i want to accomplish in 2018.

- renew my lifeguard certs
- collect (some of) my poetry into a volume
- clean out my closet in a very real and meaningful way
- get my home office organized and feng shui'd

stay tuned to see how all this turns out!

not i - the flip side of #metoo

when I was a child, none of the boys in the neighborhood tried to show me their penis. in elementary school, no boy tried to hold my hand, none chose to sit next to me on the bus, none offered to carry my books, no boy tried to kiss me. in junior high, a boy tied my jumper sash to the chair in study hall, but he never tried to touch me and he grew up to be gay.

i was smart, but not popular. i was cis, but not sexy. i did not get invited to parties or to dances or on dates. as a high school senior and beyond, i had boyfriends, relationships, broken hearts, but i didn't get put in situations where i felt powerless.

boys and men have always treated me with standoffish respect. i've never been cat called. i've never been made to feel uncomfortable. my colleagues invariably shake my hand - they don't hug me or touch me in other ways. they don't say inappropriate things.

i am not subject to harassment.

not i.

do i have more control over these things than the #metoo crowd? i doubt it. i don't think it works that way. i don't know how it works. was i too ugly to attract attention? too smart? too androgynous? too snarky?

who knows.

the thing is, tho... all this #metoo and i can't help but wonder why #noti.

books 2017

clearly, i have forgotten how to read....


print
voyager - diana gabaldon
the content trap - bharat anand
harry potter and the cursed child - jk rowling
drums of autumn - diana gabaldon

audio
wise man's fear - patrick rothfuss
ready player one - ernest cline
the name of the wind - patrick rothfuss
the thing about luck - cynthia kadohata
the hundred lies of lizzy lovett - chelsea sedoti
the rest of us just live here - patrick ness
the secret place - tana french
broken harbor - tana french
fate of the tearling - erika johansen
invasion of the tearling - erika johansen
the learners - chip kidd
sebastian darke, prince of fools - philip caveney
dancing barefoot - wil wheaton
furthermore - tahere mafi
bossypants - tina fey
no you cannot touch my hair - phoebe robinson
stories i only tell my friends - rob lowe
scrappy little nobody - anna kendrick
a great and terrible beauty - libba bray
define normal - julie ann peters
i was here - gayle forman
bones on ice - kathy reichs
a great reckoning - louise penny
the nature of the beast - louise penny
the long way home - louise penny
how the light gets in - louise penny
the beautiful mystery - louise penny
hex hall - rachel hawkins
the snow queen - michael cunningham
trick of the light - louise penny
harry potter and the deathly hallows - jk rowling
bury your dead - louise penny
the girl in the red coat - kathy hamer
the brutal telling - louise penny
the content trap - bharat anand
harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban - jk rowling
harry potter and the half-blood prince - jk rowling
emerald green - kierstin gier

the sound of wellness

hello statbike, my old friend.
i've come to ride on you again.
when the foot pain comes softly creeping -
metatarsals arching and creaking -
but this time you won't get the best of me
you will see:
this time it's sounds of wellness.

in restless nights i bike alone
in the basement of my home.
'neath the halo of fluorescent lamp
turning pedals like a cycle champ,
and my eyes are stabbed by the flash of the teevee light
that split the night
and touched the sound of wellness.

and in the teevee light i saw
ten thousand hours maybe more -
hours in motion without moving,
hours peddling without propelling.
hours cycling on a bike that doesn't move -
what's the use:
it is the sound of wellness.

“fools” say i, “you do not know
metatarsals are your toes.
hear my words that i might teach you:
i'll ride forever and might not reach you,
take good care of appendages -
they are the well of wellness.

and you people bow and pray
to the running god you've made.
still the sign flashed out its warning
in the words that it was forming,
and the sign said
“the sage of the statbike
is staring at the basement walls,
'cause after all,
it is the sound of wellness."














----
with utmost respect to
sound of silence
by mr paul simon