Ugh, I'm so embarassed that it's been 3 weeks since my last post. This blogger...someone should flog her. I have two good reasons for my being such a slacker. (Actually, there are lots of reasons, but they aren't very good, such as "needed to lay on the floor and stair at the ceiling for 2 hours.")
#1--I went to the eye doctor a couple of weeks ago. While there, I got a routine glaucoma screening and a surprise. Apparently my optic nerve on the left side is about 4 times the normal size. This fact gets me labeled as a "glaucoma suspect" and wins me another round of testing, which I also flunk.
This has dragged out over a couple of weeks and will probably drag out a couple more, so they can put me through the torturous "field of vision" test (also known as the anxiety attack generator) again, so I can flunk again.
Anyway, the reason this has negatively effected my blog-writing is that the time I would normally spend obsessing over my blog has to be spent obsessing about my huge, bulging optic nerve.
#2--Don't worry...this excuse is not so depressing: We've had the prettiest weather I've ever experienced in North Texas. Ever. I mentioned this to my dental hygienist and she said, "Don't you remember all those beautiful spring days from when you lived here before?" Of course, by then she had her hands in my mouth again, so all I could say was "uh-huh."
What I do remember about my first summer in Texas, back in 1998, was the 50 days in a row where the temperature was over 100 degrees. I remember trying to figure out where to hide when the tornado sirens blared their wizard-of-Oz warning. I remember getting hit in the neck by a golf-ball sized hailstone when the clouds were still 5 miles away.
So, when these San Diego-like days popped up, well, I really turned into a slacker. I even took up kayaking on Grapevine Lake. Some of you may remember a story I wrote last year about a fellow camper who drove me a little bit crazy, trying to get me to join her in some activities, one of which was kayaking.
Well, Joni came back to the campground, on her way from Florida to Colorado. When I saw her big green Monoco motor-home come lumbering into the park, I was filled with kayak dread. But even a stalwart boat-hater like me couldn't say no to the still-as-glass water, herons hunting at its edge, turtles ducking underwater as I passed in my big yellow kayak. Even if I might have glaucoma, especially if I have glaucoma, I had to get out on that water.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
I Miss My Phone
When my husband John and I decided to live in our RV, we knew we'd be giving up a lot, making changes of heroic proportions.
I was talking with my therapist, Jon Benigas, normally a pretty unflappable guy, while we were trying to extricate ourselves from the construct of home-as-we-knew it. What to keep with us in the motor home? What to put in a storage unit? What to throw in a heap on the front porch for the Craigslist vultures who were circling my neighborhood waiting for my next posting of free stuff? And what about the eight linear feet of winter coats, jackets, vests that we absolutely had to have to get through a Midwest winter? And don't even get me started on gloves, mufflers, mittens, hats, and scarves. Or Christmas china.
I swear, my therapist was about to have a nervous breakdown right along with me, just thinking about his own coat closet. But by the end of the session, he would reel us both back in. I remember him saying, "Bonnie, I don't think you're fully appreciating the enormity of what you are doing. What you are doing is huge."
And another time, "Most people only dream of making a change of this magnitude. You're actually doing it. Remember that."
"Right," I'd say. "It is huge." And thus, propped up by his empathy and that mysterious-whatever-it-is that makes good therapy good, I'd trundle off for a few more days of frantic sorting, choosing, packing, and giving away the one million or so items that had taken over our lives.
One of the things I gave away was a really nice set of three cordless phones. I loved those phones--one in the basement, one on the main floor, one upstairs--but I wouldn't be needing them anymore. No land line...no land line phones...and no land line bills. In the motor home, it'd be cellphones only.
Of all the stuff I shed in those months last year, I believe I miss my phone the most. My real phone--the one where I could hear the breath and words of my caller and not the gale force winds that surround her or the roar of a passing diesel truck.
Of course, I love my cellphone. How did I ever live without it? But it lacks something, something I can't quite put my finger on, something that has to do with timing mostly. Maybe it's the the ability to interject without interrupting that you have on a land line. That you can say something funny and hear your caller chuckling at the same time on a land line. But try to be funny on the cellphone and the conversations usually devolves into "What?" "What??" "Go ahead." "No, you go ahead." "Oh never mind; what were you saying?" Like that.
When we moved into our RV, we had originally planned to stay in the St. Louis area, where I would've continued my long lazy journey toward mental health with my beloved therapist. But then my husband was transferred to Dallas, and our already-topsy-turvy life became both topsier and turvier.
I think my therapist was almost as panicked as I was. Perhaps we had chosen too leisurely a pace toward congruence--I don't know. But I noticed that he tried to pack a lot into those last few sessions, tried hard to tie up as many of my loose strings as he could. He offered to continue my sessions via email or phone.
"Email??" I screeched. "Are you out of your frigging mind? It's taken us five years of talking to get to this point! I'll die of old age before we get anything solved via email." He knows perfectly well that I am a very slow writer.
"Well, what about by phone then?"
"I don't know," I sulked. "Maybe. I'll think about it. I'll have to see if I have any leftover money in my flexible spending account." My insurance company had already told me it would cover only face-to-face sessions.
Well, whatever was left in my flexible spending account got eaten up by my knee surgery. And I tried getting both a new cellphone and a new wireless company, hoping to improve my conversations enough to conduct the serious business of therapy. Neither was especially helpful.
One thing I have not tried is getting a new therapist. The idea of breaking in a new one gives me the hives.
I was talking with my therapist, Jon Benigas, normally a pretty unflappable guy, while we were trying to extricate ourselves from the construct of home-as-we-knew it. What to keep with us in the motor home? What to put in a storage unit? What to throw in a heap on the front porch for the Craigslist vultures who were circling my neighborhood waiting for my next posting of free stuff? And what about the eight linear feet of winter coats, jackets, vests that we absolutely had to have to get through a Midwest winter? And don't even get me started on gloves, mufflers, mittens, hats, and scarves. Or Christmas china.
I swear, my therapist was about to have a nervous breakdown right along with me, just thinking about his own coat closet. But by the end of the session, he would reel us both back in. I remember him saying, "Bonnie, I don't think you're fully appreciating the enormity of what you are doing. What you are doing is huge."
And another time, "Most people only dream of making a change of this magnitude. You're actually doing it. Remember that."
"Right," I'd say. "It is huge." And thus, propped up by his empathy and that mysterious-whatever-it-is that makes good therapy good, I'd trundle off for a few more days of frantic sorting, choosing, packing, and giving away the one million or so items that had taken over our lives.
One of the things I gave away was a really nice set of three cordless phones. I loved those phones--one in the basement, one on the main floor, one upstairs--but I wouldn't be needing them anymore. No land line...no land line phones...and no land line bills. In the motor home, it'd be cellphones only.
Of all the stuff I shed in those months last year, I believe I miss my phone the most. My real phone--the one where I could hear the breath and words of my caller and not the gale force winds that surround her or the roar of a passing diesel truck.
Of course, I love my cellphone. How did I ever live without it? But it lacks something, something I can't quite put my finger on, something that has to do with timing mostly. Maybe it's the the ability to interject without interrupting that you have on a land line. That you can say something funny and hear your caller chuckling at the same time on a land line. But try to be funny on the cellphone and the conversations usually devolves into "What?" "What??" "Go ahead." "No, you go ahead." "Oh never mind; what were you saying?" Like that.
When we moved into our RV, we had originally planned to stay in the St. Louis area, where I would've continued my long lazy journey toward mental health with my beloved therapist. But then my husband was transferred to Dallas, and our already-topsy-turvy life became both topsier and turvier.
I think my therapist was almost as panicked as I was. Perhaps we had chosen too leisurely a pace toward congruence--I don't know. But I noticed that he tried to pack a lot into those last few sessions, tried hard to tie up as many of my loose strings as he could. He offered to continue my sessions via email or phone.
"Email??" I screeched. "Are you out of your frigging mind? It's taken us five years of talking to get to this point! I'll die of old age before we get anything solved via email." He knows perfectly well that I am a very slow writer.
"Well, what about by phone then?"
"I don't know," I sulked. "Maybe. I'll think about it. I'll have to see if I have any leftover money in my flexible spending account." My insurance company had already told me it would cover only face-to-face sessions.
Well, whatever was left in my flexible spending account got eaten up by my knee surgery. And I tried getting both a new cellphone and a new wireless company, hoping to improve my conversations enough to conduct the serious business of therapy. Neither was especially helpful.
One thing I have not tried is getting a new therapist. The idea of breaking in a new one gives me the hives.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Why Was I Resisting This?
From Steven Pressfield's The War of Art:
And Bubba, I know what Resistance is. It has kicked my butt a thousand ways: procrastination, perfectionism, distraction, vanity, self-loathing, addiction. Sometimes Resistance resorts to controlling me with heart-stopping terror, but most of the time it gets off cheap, with nothing more than slight fluttering fears. But not today; today, I win.
How do I know I've won? Because in about 5 minutes, come hell or high water, I'm going to click the button that says "Publish Post." I will. I swear I will.
But first, I have to tip my hat to Resistance by fiddling around with the font size and format, by proofreading 12 times, by wigging out about who will read this and what they will think, by dinking around with every comma and semicolon, by patting myself on the back one more time for being a good speller, and then asking the spell-checker to confirm this fact, just in case. Plus, I'm getting a little hungry for lunch and there is a nice piece of pot roast calling my name from the fridge. Okay, maybe it'll be more like 20 minutes, tops, before I click "Publish."
No, no. It will be now, here, this minute. I win.
Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance....Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
And Bubba, I know what Resistance is. It has kicked my butt a thousand ways: procrastination, perfectionism, distraction, vanity, self-loathing, addiction. Sometimes Resistance resorts to controlling me with heart-stopping terror, but most of the time it gets off cheap, with nothing more than slight fluttering fears. But not today; today, I win.
How do I know I've won? Because in about 5 minutes, come hell or high water, I'm going to click the button that says "Publish Post." I will. I swear I will.
But first, I have to tip my hat to Resistance by fiddling around with the font size and format, by proofreading 12 times, by wigging out about who will read this and what they will think, by dinking around with every comma and semicolon, by patting myself on the back one more time for being a good speller, and then asking the spell-checker to confirm this fact, just in case. Plus, I'm getting a little hungry for lunch and there is a nice piece of pot roast calling my name from the fridge. Okay, maybe it'll be more like 20 minutes, tops, before I click "Publish."
No, no. It will be now, here, this minute. I win.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Changing Blog Address
Oh...silly me...I just realized that I started this blog for my lost pet recovery business, which, I see now, is entirely too narrow. I need a big wide river in which to wash, to wade, to cast a line for bright sparkling fish. Thus, the name/address change.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Straight But Not Narrow
I've always said that I have a hard time making friends. I'm prickly, standoffish, and have a hard time keeping a pleasant look on my face. I've known this all my life.
Yet, I suddenly noticed the other day, that I have 5 new friends who say they love me every time we speak. One is the husband of my friend, Vicki. Maybe I shouldn't say that Bill is a new friend--I've known him for 5 years now--but I just noticed the I-love-you thing. He also calls me BonBon, a true sign of friendship.
Another is Chris, a woman who lives across the street from the campground where we're parked. Chris is a little gnome of a woman who befriended me when I trespassed (just a little) on her property because my dog could not resist the delicious scent of mice that inhabit her land. Chris and her husband, "The Buzzard," just celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. First we waved. Then we chatted. Then we exchanged phone numbers, and now we love each other.
Friends #3 and #4 are Nan and Leota, an older gay couple whom I fell in love with immediately. My husband and I spotted them right away when they pulled into the campground in their motor home.
"Do you think they're nuns?" John said.
"I doubt it," I said. "One of them is drinking a beer. At 10 a.m."
"Nuns drink," John said.
I gripped him by the shoulder and said, "Honey, they aren't nuns."
"Oh."
It's almost impossible to find fellow Democrats in any campground. But especially here in the Bush-land of Texas, it's almost solid Republicans. I thought I spotted an Obama t-shirt on one of them, probably Nan, and since I think of myself as straight-but-not-narrow, I found the first excuse to mosey through their campsite. Now we love each other.
My newest friend is Seth, the grandson of another fellow camper. I would've guessed he's no more than 25, but I hear he's in his forties. It's too bad that the term "simple-minded" is out of vogue--it describes Seth perfectly. I don't know what the right term is, but you get the idea.
My husband is comfortable with people like Seth and greeted him warmly. I sort of ducked around the corner. But Seth sidled up to me anyway, put his big arm around my shoulder.
"Seth loves blondes," his grandpa joked. And apparently he doesn't care how brassy the blonde or that its wearer is nearly 50.
Later that day, he wrote me a note:
Hi Bonnie,
I am glad you're here.
I love you.
You are special.
You are my friend,
from Seth
Maybe I should stop saying that I don't make friends easily. Maybe it's just one of those lies I've been telling myself all my life.
Yet, I suddenly noticed the other day, that I have 5 new friends who say they love me every time we speak. One is the husband of my friend, Vicki. Maybe I shouldn't say that Bill is a new friend--I've known him for 5 years now--but I just noticed the I-love-you thing. He also calls me BonBon, a true sign of friendship.
Another is Chris, a woman who lives across the street from the campground where we're parked. Chris is a little gnome of a woman who befriended me when I trespassed (just a little) on her property because my dog could not resist the delicious scent of mice that inhabit her land. Chris and her husband, "The Buzzard," just celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. First we waved. Then we chatted. Then we exchanged phone numbers, and now we love each other.
Friends #3 and #4 are Nan and Leota, an older gay couple whom I fell in love with immediately. My husband and I spotted them right away when they pulled into the campground in their motor home.
"Do you think they're nuns?" John said.
"I doubt it," I said. "One of them is drinking a beer. At 10 a.m."
"Nuns drink," John said.
I gripped him by the shoulder and said, "Honey, they aren't nuns."
"Oh."
It's almost impossible to find fellow Democrats in any campground. But especially here in the Bush-land of Texas, it's almost solid Republicans. I thought I spotted an Obama t-shirt on one of them, probably Nan, and since I think of myself as straight-but-not-narrow, I found the first excuse to mosey through their campsite. Now we love each other.
My newest friend is Seth, the grandson of another fellow camper. I would've guessed he's no more than 25, but I hear he's in his forties. It's too bad that the term "simple-minded" is out of vogue--it describes Seth perfectly. I don't know what the right term is, but you get the idea.
My husband is comfortable with people like Seth and greeted him warmly. I sort of ducked around the corner. But Seth sidled up to me anyway, put his big arm around my shoulder.
"Seth loves blondes," his grandpa joked. And apparently he doesn't care how brassy the blonde or that its wearer is nearly 50.
Later that day, he wrote me a note:
Hi Bonnie,
I am glad you're here.
I love you.
You are special.
You are my friend,
from Seth
Maybe I should stop saying that I don't make friends easily. Maybe it's just one of those lies I've been telling myself all my life.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
I Hate Writing
Oh...I just had the greatest conversation with my neice, Jenny, on the topic of filling our creative void, finding our creative voice.
I told her (in confidence of course) that I am a really good writer, but that I hate writing.
Jenny said, "I never knew that."
"No, it's true," I said. "It hurts me to write. It hurts my shoulders and my hands. It hurts my neck...Once, my husband called me at home while I was working on my master's thesis. He called me at 9 a.m. to ask me how it was going. I told him I was stuck on this one idea--I don't remember now what it was--and that I had been pounding away on this one sentence for, like, an hour."
I told Jenny that he called me two hours later to check on me and I had only written two sentences since then and I was really no closer to finishing my thought than I had been when he called before.
"I get all sweaty," I told Jenny. "I bite the inside of my lip until it's raw. I'm really good at it, I told her, but it hurts."
It's not like painting, I told her, where I enjoy the process (sort of), where there is a logical progression from thinking and looking to sketching and drawing, then (heavens open) and color is applied, light is brought to paper and heaven is brought to earth.
"Writing's not like that," I told her. "It's excruciating."
But I am a good speller, a very good word picker, and an excellent orderer of words . I can do it, it's just very painful.
Jenny said, "I never knew that. That must be terrible."
It is. Trust me, it is.
I told her (in confidence of course) that I am a really good writer, but that I hate writing.
Jenny said, "I never knew that."
"No, it's true," I said. "It hurts me to write. It hurts my shoulders and my hands. It hurts my neck...Once, my husband called me at home while I was working on my master's thesis. He called me at 9 a.m. to ask me how it was going. I told him I was stuck on this one idea--I don't remember now what it was--and that I had been pounding away on this one sentence for, like, an hour."
I told Jenny that he called me two hours later to check on me and I had only written two sentences since then and I was really no closer to finishing my thought than I had been when he called before.
"I get all sweaty," I told Jenny. "I bite the inside of my lip until it's raw. I'm really good at it, I told her, but it hurts."
It's not like painting, I told her, where I enjoy the process (sort of), where there is a logical progression from thinking and looking to sketching and drawing, then (heavens open) and color is applied, light is brought to paper and heaven is brought to earth.
"Writing's not like that," I told her. "It's excruciating."
But I am a good speller, a very good word picker, and an excellent orderer of words . I can do it, it's just very painful.
Jenny said, "I never knew that. That must be terrible."
It is. Trust me, it is.
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