P o c k e t CT

Haymarket, originally uploaded by c_texiera.

Sorry you can’t be here too.

I am a day late on this post. Why? Are you thinking that I went into a combo coma of tryptophane and carbs? Lost myself in the massive mound of mashed potatoes or sugar stupefied by Dawn’s French Apple Custard Torte? It is true, I was in peril of all these traditional Thanksgiving components, but the actuality was a little more serious.

My mom’s had been experiencing pain in her jawline which she didn’t see fit to contact her cardiologist about. Bad, I know, it makes me apoplectic to think about it. Wednesday it was accompanied by arm pain so thankfully, finally, she went to the ER. She likes to go to the closest hospital that has better food and some fixated reputation in her head as “good”. Unfortunately, they don’t have the cardiac care equipment or staff to fix anything – only diagnosis tools. So I got to go to that hospital, see all the hardworking, holiday sacrificing staff there, go back to my sister’s and eat fabulous food, then head to Boston to a different hospital that can quickly do what is needed to fix the problem. By 10pm she is all done, recovering and I get to drive home.

At one point when mom was about to get prepped for surgery there was suddenly a lot of activity in the room. Here is a conversation

man in scrubs: “so you are going to go in to for cardiac catheterization tonight right?”
mom: “yes”
man in scrubs: “and the cardiologist, who is the doctor…?”
mom: “He was just here. Not the young one, the tall one. He is wearing blue”
man in scrubs: “you mean he was wearing scrubs, like me?”
mom: “yes a little lighter than yours”
ct: “you know who it is now, don’t you?”
man in scrubs: “wait. Did he have a stethoscope around his neck?”
ct: “yeah that should make him easier to identify.”
A nurse comes in with a binder so mom is off the hook to give forth a name.

Now that you know what delayed my holiday post – here is a list of my profound gratitude:

My family – I am very lucky in this area, close calls recently in health remind me not to squander time with them
Outstanding long time friends – I never get to see them enough and miss day to day life together but am grateful for the connection we make even through the distances.
Inspiring new friends – I can’t get enough of all them
My body – can do yoga, dance and is my favorite toy
My house – I have the most awesome housemate, a cat named Funk who leaves me presents to step on barefoot and we are all in a place comfortable, warm and homey
Work – I adore working, it is the best combination of satisfying problems to solve and sharing.
Food – Roasted veggies are just rocking my world right now: brussel sprouts, butternut squash and carrots. Also mashed potatoes with a noteworthy butter ratio.
New England – what a beautiful autumn we have had even now with everything bare and heading to dormancy for the cold I am astounded with the beauty of where I live. Fog lifting over a lake, the first frosts in the pink light of morning, yellow ginkgo leaves strewn on a sidewalk, an arching stone bridge over a stream all take my breath away
Music – I am full of gratitude for the musicians that play while I dance, the energy that is created because to of the joy they impart to it is pure ecstasy.

I am also thankful for the myriad of music decking my ITunes. I made a new yoga mix for this morning. Here it is…
1. I Have The Touch, Peter Gabriel
2. Porcelain, Moby
3. Tantra, Waterbone
4. Into The Blue, Moby
5. Anthem, Moby
6. You Are We Am I (Red Mix), TJ Rhemi
7. Namah Shivaya, Krishna Das
8. Lebanese Blonde, Thievery Corporation
9. San Jacinto, Peter Gabriel
10. Block Party, CFM Band
11. Sea Songs, Doves
12. Bida Mariadu, Lura
13. Bridge To Manaslu, Waterbone
14. Jaya Jagatambe, Krishna Das
15. Your Feeling Shoulders, Ray Lynch

Happy leftovers day

I had a conversation a while ago with someone who said that he had his blog on facebook. A little lit from wine and feeling feisty I countered “That isn’t a real blog.” This conversation melted a bit into the sort of childish “yes it is” – ” no it isn’t” that only occurs in front of a copper polished platform designed to reflect the amber light of the delicious local brews and import wines.

Later I looked at the blog and saw a whopping two posts. Two posts of a paragraph each containing vignettes of being on campus and fast food disappointments. I would just give you a link to the blog but since it is on facebook, I think only those people who are his facebook friends can see it. Anyway the content is cute but only two posts. Does that make a blog? Not very public… does that make it not a blog? I can’t put it in my feed reader Does that make it not a blog. You can comment and other people can read it. Very blog like but is it. Look it doesn’t even have a blogroll.

Wait a moment. I don’t have a blogroll. Am I somehow diminished by my own “real blog” snobbery now.

Yes, and I need a blogroll asap.

Because I like efficiency I set up google reader, I don’t want to set up something else. At one point I tried to figure out a way to take the xml from the OPML file of the reader and turn it into a blogroll but I gave up. Now November 7th google, bless their geeky little hearts, has saved me from both the effort of maintaining a separate blogroll and from having a less than fabulous blog in the real blog standards of my own mind.

I have a blogroll.

This is almost all the sites I regularly read. I did not include my local news and weather, not the Rob Brezny feed that somehow made the blogroll not function.

It will update as I find new ones too!

If you know of any I need to add to this, because you know I’ll love it – let me know.

Today is Absurdity Day. Why? Know one knows, but it just is. Maybe we should all get used to it take it all in stride like good existential theater. Or maybe you prefer to run around mouth agape at all the over the top crazies you encounter. For me, I think I’ll try to just stay calm.

Some time ago I had a lovely cuddle date with my awesome friend, Diba. She got a bee in her bonnet that she needed more affection and started to frankly ask for it. “Can I have a hug?” “Do you mind if I hug you?” “Will you put your arm around me I am cold?” Sometimes she also coupled this forthright requesting with a mischievous desire to crack the shells of the shy folk around, or bring the aloof into her arena. It is all fun to watch. Lucky me, I get asked, “Can we have a cuddle date?” Yes absolutely. We plan to lounge, read short stories to each other, massage, hug, chat, snuggle … fantastic. The date was arranged.

At some point that day or maybe before Diba says “Jerry is coming too” She is a community builder by nature and can craft anything into bigger and bigger groups. In this way the little cuddle date turned into a cuddle threeway.

At first we talk about God, the structure of the universe, my distrust and disdain for pretentious new agey mumbo jumbo. Here is have to explain myself, Diba teaches Reiki does different kinds of work in that area, but doesn’t in the slightest trigger my snake oil salesman alarms. But that Aristotelean color coded level chart in The Journey of Souls turned me off. We chat about what we hope for out of various relationships in our lives what is happening with people we know. Then our conversation turns to sex, interesting experiences, how to communicate in bed.

And now I bring you to what I want to share with you on this holiday

D to J: there is this one thing I keep telling you about how to please me better and you never remember it

J scrunches his eyes up a little trying to recall

D: Can you remember it?

J: You know there is a perfectly good reason why I can never remember this

at this point Jerry starts getting animated. Too animated for a prone position on the outside of the bed and leans up

J: You see long long ago all the men would be out hunting together and they would kill a dinosaur and bring it back to the tribe. There would be big celebrations and feasting.

(J gets all the way at the end of the bed and waves his arms around in celebration, chest hair popping out of his unbuttoned shirt in a very caveman like way)

The women had been hungry for a long time and awaiting the men’s return. This would go on for a few days. Then the meat started to get a little rotten and the woman started to be a little dissatisfied. She would start her endless nagging. nahnahnahnahnahnahnah

(J puts hands on hips for nagging woman effect)

So the men quickly plan another hunting party. Happy to be away from the women for a few days they traipse around the jungle. (the hands are animated again)

After a few days the men start to get hungry and hungry for the women’s attention. They are thinking to kill another dinosaur and get back the arms of their people. One man could remember the nagging of his women and just took off – he never had any offspring but the guy who couldn’t remember what his woman said (eyebrows up past normal hairline) he bred.

D: What I told you was that you need to be a little gentle

There are so many issues with that story it is hard to begin. I could go on about hunter gatherer societies and how hunting was less important for sustenance than gathering (except in a few.) I could bring up that it is highly unlikely that man ever hunted dinosaur and more commonly chased buffalo over a cliff and feasted on the wreckage. I could playfully knock J off the bed for making that nagging sound about women with two of them in a bed. I could talk about how most lovers start with what their last lover liked but the better ones adjust and you just proved yourself intractably mired in a certain style. But this like good actors in theater of the absurd should be take as if completely mundane. Or like a good fable give it a nice moral at the end.

Moral: Caveman or not if what you are doing puts a woman’s nails deeply embedded into the popcorn ceiling, back arched like a cat screaming and ready to kick you because it is too intense – it is good to back off a little. A good reminder for all of us.

Enjoy your absurdity day. Let me know how you celebrate…

My November calendar page has this picture. This is one of the paintings done for a series of 50 women painted with a colorful background of paint and sand. If you count carefully you will see only 48. I forget if I moved on to other things or if I was tired of the sand texture ruining my brushes. Now the piece lives on Robin’s walls, I am glad to see her gracing my calendar in very un-autumn colors.

The painting drew my eye to the calendar this morning and then looking at today I saw a holiday. November 8th is Dunce Day. Upon Google search I find that this day commemorates the demise of Duns Scotus, a medieval scholar who introduced the word “dunce” into the English language. Apparently, this fabulously precise scholar of the 13th century thought altruistically to assist people in their learning capabilities with this device. Knowledge would centralize at the apex of the conical cap and funnel down to the mind of the wearer. Was it fashionable in the 13th century to consider knowledge something that could be channeled with physical assistance? A sort of medieval touchless version of the futuristic Vulcan Mind Meld. If I wear a the right shaped toque, knowledge will seep into my head through osmosis and not escape through the difficult to penetrate barrier that is my hat. Was paper in 1289 less permeable than skulls?

This far fetched notion of learning being facilitated by a physical funnel soon singled out who was deemed worthy of the dunce cap. These people ostracized, conspicuous and humiliated worked their tail off to get the hat off. The altruist aide turned quickly into a means to humiliate people into being motivated learners. The use of this persisted through the early twentieth century, in case you aren’t so quick on the math arena that would be seven hundred years.

Since dunce day is all about learning may I venture to say that here is what I get from all this. Even if your motives are good, if you add to the visibility of people’s shortcomings, it could be used against that set of people and for many many generations.

I would also like to point out that both princess caps and birthday hats bear striking similarity in shape to the dunce cap. I forgot exactly what I was going to draw from the fact that princess hats and birthday hats are the same in shape, maybe because I am not wearing a hat, the idea escaped out the window.