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My attempt to Journal in public- I may get shy or not. Let's see. |
| I am searching for myself- anyone seen me lately? I have just turned 50 and feel like I am about to embark on a new journey. I have always kept a very secret and private journal of thoughts and ideas. Mostly, I have erratic memories and events jotted down with the occaisional sprinkling of philosophical thoughts spiced with ruminations. I am not always so willing to share. Twenty years ago I was in grad. school working hard. A stomach ache sent me to a doctor who eventually arrived at the estimation that I had about 8 years left to live (under the best conditions). I dropped out, buried myself in the mundane living of raising a family, savoring just about every minute. It is now 20 years later and I am going strong. So, what happens next? I guess we'll see. |
| Ok, maybe this is over for now. I keep not getting around to it for months at a time. I should just take this thing down or something. I don't want to do that... but you know, if I never get around to doing it, what is the difference? And, no it is not like I am spending anytime lately doing much writing. For the most part, I am hanging out, baking bread, and wishing the garden would clear itself. I seem to have finished a few books, all the way from James Rollins to Charles Delint to Alexander McCall Smith. Currently, I am in the beginning of Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. And, I even read a bit in the Orson Scott Card book, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (or something along those lines). That was a good book if you are actually putting words to paper ( or in this case electronic bits to cyberspace). Anway... got to head out for now... t'is the season and all that. |
| Ok, here I am out of work... sort of. I am wondering just how legal this is? My boss, the owner of a small company (less than 7 people) located in Georgia informed me that I am now on unpaid medical leave for two months. I have not asked for this. I have not even decided on being in a drug study... at least for sure. When it happened, I was not even in the drug study and didn't even have a set screening interview appointment. I was in limbo. In case you care, and didn't know, I have primary myleofibrosis, a chronic condition of the bone marrow that sometimes is an entry condition into leukemia. I have lived with this longer than I thought I would ( an longer than my initial hematologist thought I would). But, here I am, and lately, my presentation seems to be ramping up a notch- ie, more fatigue, more itching, more brain fog, more spleen... that sort of thing. Yeah, the spleen is what gave it away for me 28 years ago. I woke up in pain, right over my spleen. When I woke up the second day with the same sharp pain, I went to a doctor. It wasn't gas, or infection, or acid reflux. He sent me right away to a hematologist. I kind knew I might have something serious when my doc's second question to me was something along the lines of, "How good is your insurance?" Now here I am 28 years later, getting kind of worse for wear and not doing so well in a semi-high pressure job of database quality control for geographic systems. So, with pressure from my wife and my boss, I headed to the medical community. One thing lead to another and here I am being invited into a drug study for an experimental drug in development. I made the "mistake" of sharing this information with my boss. I say mistake in quotes, because it was really none of her business on one level. On another level, she just finished treatment for breast cancer and kept me (and other employees) posted on what was happening to her. So, I felt safe to clue her in on the possible drug study and potential consequences. I am now, not so sure that was the wisest move. I won't mention the drug or the study, as yet, I am only in the beginning stages of being accepted into the trial. What the potential risks is that for a short time, I will get worse, my platelets, already kind of low, will get lower, resulting in more anemia, more susceptibility to infection and disease, and less productivity. So, as she put it, I am to go on Medical leave until I an cured and more able to think clearly. Basically, when I am smart again, come back... until then, no work, no pay and no unemployment benefits because technically you still work here. To be fair to her, I had made mistakes in a delivery that could not be billed until it was sorted out and fixed. That took time, and she was very angry about it... and let me know in very clear, emotion-laden terms how angry she was with me. Her new "wonder-kid" was having trouble wrangling the data into acceptable form, which only made her seem more hostile towards me, as delivery slipped further and further into the future. And, now that I consider it, there has been a kind of pattern to the office over the last few years. One person in the office is the "cool" kid, able to leap tall buildings, etc. The other person, especially, if it was a male, was the goat, unable to grasp simple concepts that for some reason were never explained well. My old job was the "good kid", my new job was the goat...and now, I am not there anymore ( just like the old not "good kids" that used to work there). And, now, here I am in limbo, not fired, not laid off, not being paid with the order to get well under a severe financial pinch so I can go back to work "smart". I am not sure how this is supposed to work out, so I am open to suggestions. Until then, who knows? Georgia is a "Right to Work" state, I am sure to find something to do for a couple of months. |
| Ok, so it is now more than a month later. Now what to mention...oh yeah, I am putting off doing some work. No surprise to those who know me. I loved Douglas Adams for his putting into words how I feel about deadlines. It goes something like this, " I love deadlines, I love the whistling sound they make as they whoosh by your ear.", or something along those lines. I could go look it up and get it precise, but that is not what off the cuff writing like this expects. If you really want to get it right, feel free to go look it up yourself ( a line I got drilled in my head from 1st grade on... way back in the dark ages before Google and Bing and Yahoo!!!). The expectation was that you would head to a nearby bookshelf ( or library), find the biggest book there ( i.e., a dictionary), then open the book searching yourself through all the words. Or, in this case, the book of quoatations. Now, I have to admit, I do like the internet for some things. But, I am still not going to look it up for you... either trust me or come back later. How is my life going? At least the part that might do well in public. Which brings up another thing I should mention, the advice given me when very young, by my dad. "Never do anything you can't tell your mother." Now, that was kind of a nice guide word, and it makes me wonder how many Congress-critters have mothers? Yes, the Jim Hightower term may have given away how utterly disgusted I was with the past month on the national scene. And, what is amazing to me is how many people I vehemently disagree with on many topics... agree with me on this one. However, I don't need to head of a political rant or diatribe in a blog about self-absorption and my stuff... so on to the next me category. That is what seems to me to be the true American way... this IS ALL ABOUT ME...yes? I am not sure how to go about mentioning this, and I don't remember whether or not I have brought it up publicly or not, but I have a semi-terminal blood disorder. It isn't quite leukemia, just a very close cousin. I feel so "lucky" only about 4,000 people a year get diagnosed with it, and now for profit insurance companies give me a VERY wide berth. They behave a lot like ex-romantic partners you may have caught with a sibling or something. They don't call, they don't write, and they sure don't look you in the eye. I don't really blame them, they HAVE to make a PROFIT... and let's face it, some one who has a 10% chance of getting cured just isn't a future profit point for them. I could live a long time... in terms of myleofibrosis (the name of my thingy) I have lived a long time already. So, future statistics are not on keeping things affordable for anyone involved. Now, I don't need to feel sorry for myself... I am tempted, but I did make a decision to leave a corporate drone job for a small mom and mom operation that can't afford to provide insurance, but feeds my brain and soul with "right livelihood" - a more than just compensation. The work I do actually benefits society in ways that are not noticed until you are waiting for an ambulance to show up. The company I work for ( which shall remain sort of nameless here for now) helps that process behind the scenes. I am very glad to be working there. However, I am taking my chances with medical stuff and health. I get to walk a lot, I eat right, and I will die anyway... it is sort of a human condition we all face, the difference is I am reminded of it all the time. Anyway, time is about up for today, I really should get to work on my presentation. It will be more successful, if less entertaining, if I get it written out before hand. I was once told that when you are trying to write something, you house will never be cleaner... that is how I am feeling now. Also, all my other writing is about to get caught up... oh well, life does go on. I just wonder if it was just a coincidence that "Beyond Belief" came on when I was watching TV and talked about life after death, for a reason... |
| Funny how things just kind of keep flowing along, like time, days, months... stuff like that. I am continually grateful for the continued flow of life. I should not get all melodramatic on myself or anything, but my wife started it. I have been diagnosed with myleofibrosis for about 26 years now. Turns out the initial doctor analysis of 7-10 years just did not wash. I have been mostly symptom free for those two and a half decades. Then, my wife read Three Cups of Tea and got a little worried. It seems that one of the characters in the book was a donor to Greg Mortensen's schools project. The big money person wanted to see a school build before he succumbed to the ailment. He was on his last dying legs, and didn't make to the end of the book. We were reading in bed one night when she turned to me and asked what was that disease I had? I told her and she got kind of quiet. Then she told me about the character who had just died rather soon in the book. She wondered if I could go like that. And, well, I could, we just don't know. The Myleo Proliferative Disorders are kind of a rule unto themselves. Then present in a broad mix of types and symptoms, usually boiling down to the basis of your blood and circulatory system gets really out of whack. Some people have huge numbers of red blood cells that in effect turn their blood into a sort of sludge. Some folks get high white blood cell counts with the extra cells starting to look for anything to attack, even normal other cells or organs. Another aspect is the one I am more familiar with, fewer red blood cells that are not fully formed. The result of all that is that my spleen is huge, my blood tests anemic, and I sometimes have a really hard time with blood pressure and kidney function. But, so long as I don't try running marathons or swimming the English Channel, I am fairly well suited for normal life kinds of things. I have a new garden put in. Yes, that took some doing, and this year I did hire a couple of guys to come in and do the heavy lifting. Turns out one of them was really good and using power tools to build garden beds and lay walking stones. The new urban, organic peace garden has gotten a few attaboys from the neighbors... I guess they were as tired as my wife of the overgrown mound of weeds that earlier this year occupied the spot. The weeds were pulled and sent to the compost bin of history. The garden boxes were built around the mound, then the dirt was mixed with compost and redistributed into the containers... and the plants seem to be thriving. Not sure how the rest of all this will go, but the garden is off to a good start. And, of course, the other evil, time-sucking phenomenon in my life is FaceBook. I don't know about other folks, but that is one huge time sink. Fun, and then the afternoon or evening is just gone. I have caught up with the 300 or so friends I have who I don't seem to ever see anywhere else, and I have invited others into my attention span... but nothing else seems to come out of it, ever. Oh there is the occasional invite to some event or another, there is the numerous game invitations and the know yourself tests that allow marketing conglomerates to hook into your web browser for marketing research purposes... but actual connection? Not that I can see or make out. Maybe I am not doing something or I am too shy... and maybe, I won't ever stop using it. Let's face it, it is a benign chatty world wide water cooler experience that is always there. Hence, the appeal for me... at any odd hour I care to sign on, blips and notes and posts from actual people I know... sort of... are all there. Except for my sister in law who's son is at West Point and she kind of got tired of all my wife's War Resister's League kind of posts. It 's a thing. We'll get by... it might take a decade or so, but these kinds of things tend to pass at their own pace. Besides, I am carrying a much larger consideration... a bad infection, or flu, or spleen rupturing punch to the gut and I am on my way to a "higher frequency"... do not pass go. And, now, I am trying to hard to come up with a quippy ending... so maybe it is time to let it go for now. Besides, the rain didn't materialize today, so out comes the hose and nozzle... quick while the plants have time to dry off a little... but late enough the water won't be too hot on the plants. Later. |
| Ok, actually, no one is at fault. Nothing much happened which is the problem. Nothing much went on except I chose to do things that did not put words on paper. I have a lot of good memories, and many, many good pictures posted from the event which took up an entire week of November (about 10 days actually, from one Saturday to the Sunday following the following Saturday...ok, about nine days to be slightly more precise). I had decided to join in the NaNoWriMo event, and even started a really cool novel set over time and with dips into multiple dimensions. I even found a really cool title for it. Then, I went on a pilgrimage with a local Buddhist temple for 7 days only to end up at a huge rally over the weekend. I won't go into all the details, but I did stop writing on the novel. Yes, I want to blame the military industrial complex, after all it is they who maintain the facility the rally was organized to try to get closed. And, they are the ones that encourage the mass violence that the Buddhist walk and chant and pray to make an end to. But, it isn't anyone's fault... but my own. I chose to walk instead of write. I chose to shot 1200 photos that then need to be organized, filed, and uploaded to web sites or given to friends. I am the one who chose to sit out this entire Thanksgiving Holiday weekend with my wife and cabin. Let's face it we all have choices from time to time. And, mine did not move my book idea one word further along. So, is all lost? Well, for being a NaNoWriMo winner... yep, it is pretty much about all over. Being a participant, well, come to think of it, I did do that. I have multiple thousands of words and a very workable outline sitting on my hard drive. I have the skeleton of the story and 11 more months until the next NaNoWriMo... I have time to finish this novel, or at least, get it filled out and closer to ending. I can write 500 to 1000 or so words per week, I now know that about myself. I can train my writing brain for next November by keeping more writing discipline going for this year. Ok, sounds like a New Years resolution to put into place before the end of December forming here. Nothing like being out in front of these things to keep one's mind going. I think it will do well. And, heck, I have 48 more hours before the end of NaNoWriMo... if I can just crank out 1000 words or so an hour this could still be the year. I don't see that happening. I do see more writing happening before the end of December and January... then, lets see how the New Years thing plays out. |
| My how time flies, I must be having fun. I have managed to let this slide by about 45 days...give or take. That is a life time in some circumstances... hmmm, about 45 lifetimes in the circumstances around being incarnated as a fruit fly, for example. Here, it is just a blip of time since I was sitting here doing this. I would think I would be here more often, but I am not. And, it rolls around, usually, to having a blank space here and not to many minutes before something else is going on... stuff like that. I do wish it was because I was putting words down for something else, but it isn't. At least, not yet, it isn't. November is right about here, again. We've managed one more spin around the sun since last NaNoWriMo... I think I got about 1,000 words down before my standards got too high for more words to come out. I am not too worried, I am writing... sort of... I am daily at my computer putting computer code and scripts into form for work. Yes, it takes up a very similar part of the brain, so the last thing I want to look at on any give day is my computer screen... again. Yes, I could follow my wife's example and write everything long hand first... and no, my brain just doesn't want to be that linear so much. Here it is Sunday, the TV is off... so I have a moment... and some words come out. Oh back to the standards crack in the last paragraph. Yesterday, my wife and I went to hear Kathleen Norris speak here in Atlanta. One of the quotes she shared with us was from William Stafford (and I hope I got the spelling right... I guess I could Google the man... but you can, too... so go look it up if you want)... supposedly he said somewhere something along the lines of, "I never get writer's block, when words are not coming out, I just lower my standards." I have to admit that does hit a note of clarity for me... I often can't find "just the right word" so I never get started. And, over and over I see the wisdom give that I should simply get words on the paper, then edit later. It seems like such a waste of time if it isn't perfect to start with... but even when it is perfect to start with, I usually end up with a very different set of words after editing. All that work for not much return, and I usually have a huge amount of work with NO return... nothing to show for an hour of staring at the page... or in this case, the computer screen. A similar principle seems to govern the computer script writing... get something down... then play with it. With things saved and written, it, at least, looks like I have done something... or so my boss says. I am getting better at it, too. If I spent 40 hours a week here, I would get better at this, too. I know... I could set goals. Goals indicate some sort of deadline, and like Douglas Adams, I "like deadlines, I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." ( or cooler words that that effect). So, you might think I would like to set goals and deadlines for my self... and you would be wrong. I have no respect for them... at all. I set them, the go find ( if I have to make some up) 10 other things to do that seem way more important, and then can serve as decent excuses. Then, that moment comes when I have a few minutes, I check this e-mail account, and just have to start putting some thoughts on the screen. They don't have to be important, or meaningful, or, even, true... they just have to come out. I get into that mind set of grace or focus or flow (it goes by many names and I can still get burned at the stake or stoned using the wrong one in the wrong company) the words come. The thoughts are there. My fingers can't keep up... I am doing it. I don't have to show anyone... I don't want to show anyone else... I have just spent some time writing... sometimes here, sometimes in my journal, sometimes in my notebook. The pressure is off... now where was that last piece of cold pizza from last week? |
| I am just going to jot a word or two here... then stop. My high flying reason is that I am going to buy some time for a deeper, more thoughtful piece later... We all know it is just another procrastination moment, but my mailbox will stop filling up with these notices for a month... Rats, like all quick fixes, it is only temporary, at best. |
| Here we go with a new blog post. I am kind of wondering what might be interesting or appropriate. Ok, I don't live all that intriguing a life... or so I think. I am just going to work, coming home, watching weeds grow in my tomato patch... then I find myself watching almost ripe tomatoes disappear from the vines, overnight. It is the most bizarre thing I am noticing so far. Yes, squash vine borers wiped out much of my squash/zucchini harvest before it got going good, but the tomatoes are in a different catagory of bizarre. It seems that the local population of gray squirrels have developed a taste for vine almost ripened tomatoes. Never mind all those nice acorns from the huge oak tree in the back yard... those are so last fall. Now, here are these nice big juicy red things with seeds inside... darn you guys! Leave the tomatoes alone! Ok, take the ones close to the ground, you already have anyway, just, please, leave me the upper ones. I don't care if you guys have, maybe, 1 or 2 out of ten... but you have that ratio backwards. I am only getting about 2 out of 10... and only IF I get out there before the things are ripe. At some point, I am going to have to take sterner measures. I might have to build huge cages around the plants to keep the critters out. One of my neighbors has one of those traps that captures the little guys live... I am not sure what happens after he gets them...or if he even does... but I can't see killing them or taking the gas and time to re-locate them. So, I am stuck and frustrated. I may have to plant so many plants next year that I don't care... we'll see. At least I don't have to worry about any tomatoes going to waste. |
| Here I sit... inside. I am running the air conditioner and not being able to do much else outside of sitting here reading and writing. I feel like a dish rag all wrung out and hung up to dry... with about as much energy. I have myself to blame... if that would actually help. It usually doesn't but I can sort of pin the why and where for on my current condition. It is hot. I spent yesterday outside for the most part, putting some interesting touches on a pre-school playground in the back yard. My wife runs an in-home pre-school here at the house. Yesterday was my day to weed and fill in the play area with wood chips, it makes for a softer landing than dirt. Now, that might have taken the starch out of me, as it took most of the day... in 90 degree feels like 100 with the humidity here in Georgia. Yes, I drank plenty of water and took frequent inside breaks to cool off. What I think may have done me in was last night. As one of my avocations, I perform in a small dinner theater in town here. Last night, we did an evening of improv... lots of fun. The factor that is impacting me today is that it is on an outside porch setting. So, there we were acting our hearts out, and ending the evening drenched in that stuff that pours out of you body when it gets really hot. So, today, here I sit, inside, drinking plenty of water... ok, and coffee (what can I say, I am not quite addicted... but very close). And, I am thanking the "gods" of central air for their forbearance and continued grace. Maybe later, I will work up the energy to get the second generation beans planted and growing... yes, another wonderful side effect of living in Georgia, multiple times good summer veggies can be planted for a multiple season harvest. Maybe, if I can pull myself away from Facebook long enough, I can make some progress on a short story I am trying to write... or not. What I could, also, be working on is a paper I am going to deliver to a professional conference later this summer. We'll see... because, so many things are vying for my attention... I think I will take a nap. |
| I know, I just don't have time. I am saying that here now that I have another reminder that I have NOT written anything here in a month... or more. Ok... just a month, I am getting a tad better. But, is it my time lagging... or is it more likely, my choices lacking? I mean, here I sit tonight, with a chance to wordify (ok not a real word I just Bush- lagged from 2008, I guess). He did have a way with the English language. I am not sure which way... but a way. He apparently had some decent enough policies, even with my disagreement over many of them. I say that because his successor is continuing many of them. Yes, Obama has kept the wars going, the Executive Branch power grab going, and he played with the tax system just like Bush only from a different angle. I personally don't see what the Tea Party is going on about. Nothing has really changed in any significant way. They are accusing Obama of things I was saying about Bush... and we are both right in many ways. But, I digress. I was cranking about choices of time and how I was not using it to write. And, that is the case, I am using my time to not put words anywhere. Ok, there is an occasional jot or two in my pocket notebook. It isn't much, but it does have a word count... sort of. I am spending time taking an improv class. That has been fun... and helpful in day to day kinds of rolling with the relationship "punches". It even got me a part in a small play that was actually performed in front of people. I don't want to get carried away in the details, but it was fun. I'm still working at a geography job. I would not have thought that during college or for a long time after, either. But, here I am working with a small company that builds database repositories and translates them into whatever database language the client wants. And, we qc planimetric data... and no... go look it up. I have the garden in... mostly tomatoes and squash and stuff... we'll see. I am really great at getting it in, then I have problems telling other plants they can't grow there. Ok, it is a left over trauma from growing up. We moved every two to three years. My dad was not military, so there was no cultural overlay to lend stability to things... every place was just a little different from the last. I learned quickly that iron-clad rules shifted with location. So, I have a hard time telling the travelling plants to get out of my garden... it hits really close to home. I am getting better at it though. I did have a "crop" of multiple weeks of tomatoes last year. The other plants were kind of hit or, mostly, miss. But, heck, it is only a garden and I don't need it to survive... just to enjoy much fresher food if it happens. I built a play-set in the back yard. My wife has a home based pre-school that uses the Bank Street School of Education as her model and guide. The old one (20ish years old) was going slowly away one rusty piece at a time. So, she and I went out an bought a new one and it is now put together. It took me awhile, yes, I read the directions... man, that slows things down some. But, I think I got all the parts in place, held by the called for fasteners in the called for place. It feels good... but it wasn't writing. Anyway, that is about all for now... maybe next month. |
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