Should I stay or should I go

It's a beautiful day, and I just spent part of the afternoon catching up on work that fell behind schedule as a result of Friday's pain/Tylenol PM debacle, and now it's time to get out of the house for a bit.  It is Sunday, after all.

Maybe, though, I can just write something quickly and then go.  I had a great idea (well, I had an idea, anyway) during Mass this morning, but I can't remember what it was now.  I'm confident that the idea will return, because I do remember that it had something to do with one of my ongoing preoccupations; I just can't remember which of the many ongoing preoccupations it was.  I think that they revised the DSM because of me.

And just that quickly, I remembered what I was going to write about, but it will take too long to do today.  Preview: Frog and Toad.  Until tomorrow.

L'ete et l'hiver

I almost forgot to do this today.  52 minutes left of Saturday; just enough time to post something.  It will be brief because I'm very tired.

As much as I love summer, summer nights, especially summer nights that follow my favorite kind of sultry, humid day, have a quality that I don't like.  Artificial light seems much harsher on a summer night than on a winter night, and there always seems to be a lone mosquito buzzing around.  Maybe it's because I don't want to be inside that inside seems dreary and ugly.  This very room that I'm sitting in, which seems dingy and unwelcoming right now, is actually very cozy and pleasant on a winter night, or even on a cold, reluctant spring night.  The furniture and rug in this room seem more suited to winter.  Maybe I should redecorate each season.

Well, that was apropos of nothing.  Still, it's a paragraph on a page at 11:18 PM; now 42 minutes from the end of the day; a day on which I did manage to write something.  I don't hear any mosquitoes. Time for bed.

And what's the street name for this stuff?

I'm not cut out to be a drug user.

I woke up today with pain at the intersection of my neck and shoulder.  The pain grew worse throughout the morning, making it hard for me to turn my head, bend over, or really do anything at all other than sit still.  This not being a day on which sitting still is an option, I took a naproxen sodium, and then an hour or so later, took another one.  It didn't make the slightest difference.

Tylenol, I thought.  I can combine Tylenol with the NSAID and that should help.  I was out of Tylenol, unfortunately, so I ran to the store to buy some (and since when does CVS sell $50 face creams?  I digress, as usual.) Only after I arrived home (CVS is very close by, but there was no way that I was leaving the house again) did I realize that I had purchased Tylenol PM (or rather, a generic, CVS version.)  Desperate, I took two anyway, thinking that the sleep ingredient couldn't possibly be potent enough to make me really drowsy.

Wrong!  So wrong.  I wasn't drowsy at first, just verrrrrry slow.  I was watching myself type, and as I completed edits, I checked the clock and saw that I wasn't taking any longer than usual to correct this particular author's work.  I just felt as though my movements and thoughts and everything around me had been dropped into a vat of thick, viscous liquid.  Molasses, maybe?  A-ha!  I get that now; slow as molasses.

Finally, the urge to sleep became too overwhelming to ignore, so despite looming deadlines, I was forced to lie down for an hour.  I'm awake now, though groggy and dimwitted (more so than usual, I mean.)  Supreme irony #3,478: The sleep ingredient in Tylenol PM is actually exceedingly effective. My neck, though, still hurts like hell on fire.  

The perfect hostess

One day of poor concentration and difficulty with problem-solving: Isolated incident or symptom of early-onset Alzheimer's?

One very bad photograph, taken at 7:30 AM after a night of very fitful sleep: Isolated incident or proof that the irreversible descent into hideousness has already occurred?

Yes, the inside of my head is a non-stop party, and you're invited.  If you're smart, you'll send your regrets, claiming a prior commitment.  Meanwhile, I'll replenish the snacks and send one of these other poor suckers out to make a beer run.  Trust me, we'll need it.

Wild Kingdom

(A short post while I wait for an answer to a work-related question, without which I can't proceed.)

I saw two things today; A dead deer, covered with flies; and a snake.  The snake was alive.  I'm only slightly more fond of deer than I am of snakes, so I didn't really mourn the former, but had the choice been mine, the deer would be frolicking around Rock Creek Park right now, and the snake would be deceased.

Actually, I'm not particularly fond of any animal in the wild.  I was raised in the city, and 16 years in the suburbs have not made me accustomed to everyday encounters with wild animals.  I don't count squirrels, of course, which are more urban than mass transit, but I still can't get used to the sight of foxes on my front lawn at 6 in the morning, and the deer around here are have become overly comfortable with humans.  When I first moved into this house, ten years ago, I'd walk my then-little children around the neighborhood; one walking beside me and the other in his stroller.  The deer were still timid then, and they'd turn tail and run as soon as we got within 20 feet or so.  Although I have no empirical evidence to this effect, I feel sure that they have become bolder with each passing year.  They stand their ground now as I pass, and more than once I've seen an aggressive expression on a deer's face.  Within a year, I'll be backing away from them with my head down; in five years, I'll probably be running.

"Running," of course, should be read as "walking pretty darn fast."  If you ever see me actually running, you'd better run too.  Don't ask questions, don't turn around to see what's going on, just run.  Save yourself.  There might be another snake coming after me, or the deer might finally have turned predator.  It's only a matter of time.

Avoidance

So  I figure if I just ignore them, my pile of paperwork will straighten itself out, and my list of phone calls will dial themselves.  This approach has always worked very well for me, very well indeed.

I'm reading Eminent Victorians right now.  It's almost 100 years old now (not my actual edition, which is electronic), published in 1918.   A paper copy of this book had been sitting on my bookshelf for many years, but when I saw a 99-cent electronic copy, I decided to actually read it.

Apparently,  a contemporary of Lytton Strachey condemned the book as mean-spirited and cruel. I wish I could remember the context; it wasn't a review (because even I don't sit around reading 97-year-old book reviews); perhaps it was in an article for one of my history or English classes.  I don't find it either mean-spirited or cruel, only a little presumptuous.  Strachey seems to have invented a form of writing that became very important in the seventies and eighties.  His sketches (especially of Florence Nightingale, the only woman covered) contain a slightly smug undertone, suggestive of the author's apparent belief that his superior modern viewpoint gave him an understanding of his subjects' psychology that they themselves lacked.  It's as if Gore Vidal or Gail Sheehy had written Vanity Fair profiles of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan or some other iconic target of literati scorn.

I suppose that this was the point of Eminent Victorians; to take four of the most important people in Victorian England (truthfully, though, I had only heard of Cardinal Manning and Florence Nightingale when I picked up the book; I assumed, incorrectly, that the Dr. Arnold was Matthew Arnold, and I had no idea who General Gordon was) and cut them down to size.  So although Strachey's short biographies don't even approach the level of meanness that Internet-bred 21st-century readers have become accustomed to, I suppose that the whole project and its determination to destroy idols and humble the mighty was rather mean in itself.

General Gordon awaits.  I'll decide, after I finish with him, what other reading will keep me away from bills, files, and phone calls.

Placeholder

I wrote a newsletter article today.  That counts.

Whirlwind

Once again in a moving car en route from a party, the third in two days. Anyone would think that I live in a nonstop social whirlwind,  but anyone would be wrong.  

Memorial Day weekend always marks a sea change. I'm naturally introverted and would be a downright recluse if I didn't have children.  I do have children,  though, and I live in the friendliest and most social of neighborhoods. Contrary to my own nature,  I'm one of the friendliest and most social among my neighbors, and summer is high time for parties,  cookouts, and get-togethers of every sort. We'll be all but a commune until Labor Day, and as much as I love it,  I'm not quite ready. I wish I had another week to steel myself.

The drama. "Steel myself" for three months of swimming, margaritas, and picnics. It's possible,  perhaps, that there are a few people here and there who have bigger problems than this.  This too shall pass, and I'll be sorry to see it go,  as always.  Onward.

The mother of invention

I was about to give up on writing for today. We're en route from one party to another, and won't be home until after midnight, but I'll be in the car for at least 30 minutes and I have a phone, so here we go.  A moving car (which I'm not driving) and the slightest of beer buzzes will not deter me in the least.

These young people. I didn't know that anyone other than Women's Studies grad students and Jezebel writers actually used the word "agency" to refer to anything other than the offices of temporary placement specialists and travel brokers, but apparently, it's quite common in conversational use at birthday parties for two-year-olds. And when they're not upset about lack of agency among cartoon princesses,  they're determined not to "gender" their children too early.  Needless to say, I exited that conversation as soon as reasonably possible.  Feminism and gender theory are one thing, but use of "gender" as a verb was a step too far. Civilization has already deteriorated enough,  thank you.

I think that I correctly punctuated a three-paragraph post on a phone, in a moving car, while somewhat less than sober. Let's not push our luck,  yes?  Until tomorrow.

I never learn

So I said that I'd do this every day, and to my surprise, another day followed upon the previous one, and here I am.

I think that Mother Teresa once said something about leaning to endure the trial of being unpleasing to yourself.  I could find out for sure, but I won't, because that's not the point.  The point is that I'm enduring this particular trial right now, and I have been enduring it in one form or another for my whole life.  It's no fun.  Nora Ephron felt bad about her neck and I feel bad about my whole body (my neck, however, is fine for now.)

When you're young, you can just hibernate for a day or so when you get a bad haircut, or your skin erupts, or you face some other appearance-related disaster.  You know you'll recover and look just fine again in a day or so.  At almost 50, though, I'm realizing that pretty days are no longer a dependable and regular occurrence and that even the OK days are few and far between.  (And I just had to spell-check myself on "occurrence", too--will the cruelties of age never relent?)

I'm not going to hibernate, as much as I'd like to (even on good days, my avoid-all-human-contact instinct is rather strong) so I'll have to do as Mother Teresa did and learn how to endure the trial.  And really, she looked just fine.

Tous les jours

It's been so long.  In yet another supreme irony, I am now paid actual money for my writing skills, and I hardly ever write anything.  I've given up my amateur status, I suppose.  I'm going to return once again to daily writing, and whatever ends up on this page will be published.  Well, not WHATEVER.  I'll correct misspellings and incorrect uses of the semicolon.*

On Sunday, I was on my couch watching the last episode of "Mad Men."  I'd summarily dismissed the DB Cooper theory, but the Coke theory had seemed plausible, even likely.  So I liked the ending, and I scoff at the ridiculous idea that it exposed Don as completely cynical.  If advertising is intrinsically cynical, then so is all of commerce and by extension, almost all human endeavor.

And that's all, apparently, that I have to say about that.  I miss "Mad Men" already, both the show in particular and the absorption in a story in general.  I'm sure there's some other serial drama that I could become attached to available on Netflix, but the contemporaneous shared experience would be lacking, and that's the best part.  Binge-watching has very little appeal for me; even if I could overcome my belief that it's wrong to binge on anything, I just wouldn't have the time.

Memorial Day Weekend: Two days until the pool opens, five days before swim team practice begins, and just over a month before I start to panic about the fast-approaching end of a long-awaited summer.  Hyphens: even better than semicolons.  Discuss among yourselves.

* As if either of these would ever happen in the first place.  So unlikely.  Still, anything is possible.