Snuffle, vacation, whine

Every year in college, without fail, for four years, I got a horrific upper respiratory infection the week before Spring finals. This was also two weeks before Crew Nationals--I was on the rowing team--so that meant we were studying and rowing twice a day and stressing the fuck out over everything. My body's response was to shut down, produce a lot of fluids in my lungs, and make it so I couldn't swallow for at least five days. Fun! The third time it happened I went to the infirmary early to catch it before it got too bad and some rookie insaneo n00b doctor squeezed my throat so hard that I cried out and made him leave the room and get me a real doctor. He said I didn't need drugs, that I just had a cold. The real doctor took one look at my chart, didn't even touch me, and started writing the script for whatever antibiotic I wasn't allergic to then. She saw what I'd had for the last two years and took my word for it. Not that I was looking for superfluous drugs--who gets high off of penicillin??--but she knew that I knew what the heck was going on in my own body.
The point? I'm getting sick. My throat hurts. I'm achy. AND I REFUSE TO BE SICK THIS WEEK because I'm going on a mini vacation at the end of the week that involves one of my best friends, trashy magazines, southern barbecue, and swimming pools. I will be at that swimming pool, as god as my witness.
So I'm medicating heavily with Ginger Ale. I fully believe in its medicinal properties. Whether or not Canada Dry actually contains any real ginger in it, I care not. But when I'm sick, I want Ginger Ale. And Saltines. And ice cream. And the Price is Right, but will settle for Buffy season two, which my co-worker lent me. Except I can't lounge on the couch because I have work to do.
Moral of this story: Don't get sick as an adult. You have to go out and get your own Ginger Ale AND still go back to work.
Sigh.

Re: Photo: State St., Brooklyn, June 2007.

Grace Paley: "All my habits are bad."

Boy howdy. I'm extremely listless today. NOTHING is getting done. And when you have 50 billion jobs (my choice, sorta, so yes, I know) and things you actually want to do (other than those jobs), being listless doesn't help in the getting of things done. All I end up doing is checking and rechecking the blogs I read to see if something inspiring will spur me into action. Pictures of celebrities and steampunk watches are not going to inspire me to read manuscripts, so it's an exercise in futility. Big surprise.

With this whole internet thing, lately, I've figured out why so many people comment on blogs and read livejournals and were part of all those message boards and such like the Bronze for Buffy fans. I don't read comments on blogs because so much of it is "OMG THat's the Cutestestest puppy i ever seen") (Yes, I read those sites.) And there's not really any comment in their comments, to paraphrase Joan Cusack. I'll read every word you comment here, of course, but still. What I figured out, ten years later than everyone else with a computer on the planet, was this whole reaching out into blank space for a connection thing. OH, now I see. People talk to me and then I can talk to them? Over the interwebs? And we don't know each other yet? And we might like ALL of the same stuff? OMGBBQWTF!

Yeah, I know. Sometimes things just take a while to rise to the surface of my brain. It's in there, but I haven't really heard myself yet. Like recently, I discovered running. As far as I'm concerned it's just me and Phidippides out there trying not to get run over by the aging peloton in Prospect Park. It, like, works. It makes you feel good and lose weight. This is freaking AWESOME. Why didn't anyone tell me sooner?

Where was I? Oh yeah, the listlessness. See how it goes? I try to start something and then I'm pulled down a hundred different paths. I know I'm not the only one who does this, of course. I'm not saying I'm anything special because of it. I just figured it out, you know, today. So I had to tell you. And show you this door to nowhere. Because that's where I'm headed this afternoon.

Re: Photo. Dumbo, Brooklyn. Spring, 2007

Juggling

I am going back down South soon to visit two dear friends from college who just had their first baby. This is the first baby had by my college friends, and even if this couple is a few (not enough) years older than me and live in the South where you're a freak if you haven't had kids by 28, this is skewing my world view. NOT because I think I need to be having babies post haste, as one would assume, but because I can't imagine having the brain and hands and life I have now with a baby in it. And it's not just a matter of "oh, if I just stopped drinking and got serious" kind of thing. It's "oh, I guess I should look both ways before I cross the street." The funny thing is--I was the omggottogetmarriedandhavebabiesbeforeit'stoolate! girl in college. I had it all wrapped up. And then it unraveled and I survived and I went to Grad school and moved to New York and never looked back. I can't believe I actually don't *want* to get married anytime soon now. It's like switching religions.

Sometimes I worry that I'm on the wrong track with this thinking--that I was attentive to it when I shouldn't have been and now that I've stopped caring (no, really, I have), it's going to pass me by. Then I think that the less I think about it, the more likely it's going to sneak up and surprise me. Which would be awesome because then I wouldn't spend weeks/months/years worrying about it. Of course, I'm worrying about not worrying about it, so there you go.

So what's a girl to do? Play football. Have as many jobs as my brain will hold. Start blogs. And novels. See where they all land. If I drop one, at least it's not a baby.

Re: the photo. Graffiti in Dumbo, Brooklyn. June, 2007

So I Decided to Add Another Thing to My Plate

My father has a series of black and white photos he took outside Cross Creek, FL sometime long before I was born. They're the only things I'll fight my sister and brother for when that time comes, a long time from now. One of them is almost completely black except for a keyhole shaped glimpse into the bright world. I imagine my dad younger and in cowboy boots (because I have a picture his best friend in high school took of him in a cowboy hat leaning over the hood of a car, the smoke from his cigarette in a stringy cloud hanging in the air) standing on the inside of an abandoned house in rural Florida, taking the picture through a large, old keyhole. I was amazed he could get it all in such sharp focus-- you can see the sunlight and grass and a bit of the horizon.

But he told me just a few years ago that it isn't a keyhole at all. He'd crawled into a concrete drainage culvert and taken the picture from deep within. The shank of the keyhole is the reflection of the light on few inches of water running out of the pipe. Instead of being close and immediate, the focus of the picture is distant and pushed away. I could make all these analogies about life and perspective and my father, but I won't. When I look at the picture now, I see both. And I think of two mes looking at the picture at the same time, seeing two different images. I'm glad I don't care which one is the right one.

I can't do anything with my hands--I can't drawn, sculpt, paint or anything like that. Photography is the only thing I feel like I get, impulsively and without stressing over it too much. I don't know if I'm any good, but I've stopped worrying about that. I'm just working on the doing part now.

And so. Another thing to do and think about(mostly) every day. This is going to be fun.

Re: The Photo. Trash/Art on State St., Brooklyn. June 2007.