Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: voice

Abandoned Draft Version:

God same voice as when depressed

Present Day:

So, when I was in junior high school I got in with the Baptists and became saved, born again, converted. It didn’t last past my father’s death. I had to reconsider all my beliefs after Dad died, given that he was not one of the elect. Just like what happened when Mom died. My beliefs were all re-evaluated and I did a deep cleaning of the basement of my soul.

So, after Dad died, the New Testament took the biggest hit. Any words of Saint Paul were winnowed out, plus any belief based on half a phrase (Rapture) or based on church convenience (Purgatory).

God stuck around though, because I had heard him. Not a voice, but I had heard my conscience — never so loudly as when the Baptists called for people to come to the altar and accept salvation. That “voice” was loud and external. Those weren’t my thoughts. Must be God, or a higher power, or whatever you like to call it.

That fundamental belief in God stayed around until I became depressed the first time. Then I heard the external thoughts again, but this time it insisted that I was not worthy of any kind of salvation. It was the manifestation of the Excessive Guilt bullet of the “Do You Think You are Depressed” quiz. 

I believe Tipper Gore had the same question when she became depressed, and her Mormon friends told her it was the voice of Satan. A convenient explanation, but Satan was tossed out of my belief system back in the Dead Dad Purge.

And now that I say all that, it seems I’ve said it all before. I did, almost a decade ago, albeit more briefly, and with less vulnerability, here.

Because

My MRI came back clean last week. No new lesions. Of course, that was useful before, but now I’m more concerned with brain volume, which wasn’t measured by this year’s MRI technician. 

I can tell you exactly the white matter I have lost. I have lost the neurons that allow me to spell the word “because”.

Somehow my hands have lost the ability to type the letters of “because” in the right sequence. It always comes out with the same two letters transposed.

I’ve never had trouble with this word befoer.

Uh-oh.

Looks like there’s a short in my “b followed by e” synapse.

I don’t have stellar typing, but it’s just so odd that my muscle memory has decided to fail on this particular word. It’s not the only word. I know to correct “form” to “from” every time I type that. Looks like I need to add “because” to the list of double-checks.

It might be because (did it again) I have begun to use “because” more often now that someone pointed out the distinction between “since” and “because” (again). I was using “since” exclusively, and now I’m just over-correcting.

Over-correcting doesn’t lead to auto-correction for some reason. Perhaps that’s all that has happened. Maybe auto-correct has been saving me up till now, but it’s sick of my lack of personal responsibility. Just because. Oh! I got it right this time!

Vaccine

Supposedly there’s going to be a U.S. Covid vaccine before the November election. I think this could happen. I mean, it would be salt water, and they would slap the appropriate labels on it and put it in syringes, but it will do no harm.

Much has been said of the 1970s swine flu vaccine, but because Mom had polio, my vaccination horror stories are polio-related.

In 1934 and 1935, Kolmer, described as a scientist, gave polio to monkeys, ground up the monkey spinal cords (more accurately killed the moneys and ground up their spinal cords) and then injected the concoction into children, which did not go well. Well, phase 2 of the trial went well, when Kolmer injected himself with monkey spine polio, but when phase 3 started some children ended up with with polio. Another scientist tried treating the monkey-spine fluid with formaldehyde to kill the virus. Surprisingly no one died from this concoction but he was still disgraced.

In 1955, the Cutter lab distributed dead-virus vaccines, only the virus wasn’t quite dead yet. 113 people got polio either directly from the vaccine or from contact with someone who had the vaccine.

Modern-day Polio vaccine: the polio vaccine given in third world countries is causing polio to spread.

I am not an anti-Vaxxer in any way. I think clinical trials are great. My big concern is that after trying the salt water, Trump’s lackeys are going to fill their syringes with Covid monkey spines dosed with Clorox and call it a vaccine, when real vaccines take ten years to make.

Based on my brief foray into Home Depot yesterday, what will work will be masks. Everyone had a mask, and except for the two Home Depot employees , the mask covered the mouth and the nose. I wanted to visit the cleaning aisle and clamp those two noses shut with clothespins.

I can wear a mask for ten years while they come up with something useful.

 

Neighbors are Moving

The neighbors across the street are moving because they have sold their house. (The Biden yard sign didn’t influence anyone, I imagine.) They’ve been our neighbors since 1988. I still don’t know their names. The husband is Gary ... something that starts with a V or an R. 

Here are the names of some of our other neighbors: 

• Neighbors over there (waves hands to the right)
• Cookie’s parents (Cookie the poodle has been dead for decades.)
• Witness Protection (nod to the left).
• Crazy neighbor
• Son of crazy neighbor

We do have a couple whose full names I actually know. And why do I know their names? Because they’re written down, one in a text and one in a letter permitting me to trim part of their tree. That letter even gives their last name. Wow. 

 I vow to speak to the new neighbors and write down their names.

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: man of the family

Abandoned Draft Version:

The first neuron feels an electric charge, and when the charge builds up enough that person discharges all the distress to the next neuron down the line. Eventually when enough energy is discharged, you will have activity: a muscle moves, an eyelid blinks.

Here's how most families work. Certain people are nerves. Certain people are muscles. The nerves pass electrical impulse betweem them. A charge builds up, it becomes too much for one nerve to bear, and the electical excitement is discharged to the next nerve down the line. The first nerve feels great then, of course, and takes a nap, leaving the next nerve to unload on nerve number three, and on and on.

Eventually the last nerve unloads on a muscle, and the muscle jumps from all the nervous energy that's been amplified down the line. The muscle does something - usually what the nerves tell it to do.

Gary's a nerve. There is no question.

Present Day:

... and I must be the muscle? I think this was a long way of saying that Gary believes “a problem shared is a problem halved.”

Shipt Call

We have been using Shipt to get our groceries. A few days ago we placed an order, and we didn’t pay attention and missed the Shipt text messages, so the shopper had to call Gary to ask a few questions. Gary apologized profusely for not being by the phone to get her texts, then gave the phone to me to authorize a bacon substitution, and then I apologized  as well, then I asked for Vidalia onions, if she didn’t mind, apologized again, and hung up.

When I took a moment to read her first text it said, “Hello, this is your Shipt shopper and favorite next door neighbor.” 

Months ago, when my neighbor recommended Shipt, she mentioned she delivered for them, but I had never seen her in action.

So that was odd. I felt I needed to go out and greet her at the door and entertain her to make up for my politeness and formality. Then her husband came out, and her three small children arrived and demanded to know why a mommy’s car was parked in the wrong driveway. 

Luckily I had already tipped 20% online, or else that would have been even more awkward.

Can I Take Another Year?

Dr Fauci says to hunker down. Life won’t go back to normal until the end of 2021. 

Doctor, I love you, but I cannot hunker any harder. I’m already doing extra hard hunkering. Way harder than a person with an immune system operating at 100%. 

But solidly at home for another six seasons? Is it possible?

 

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: sex lives of high school teachers

Abandoned Draft Version:

High school dq t c gay not gay

Present Day:

I did actually post the story of the high school teacher who got the student pregnant, denied it, and yet married her, losing his job (but probably avoiding a statutory rape charge).

I did not mention the other teacher, who hosted an event for students at his apartment, where he had an impressive display of Playboy magazines fanned out across his coffee table. I was accustomed to Playboys, given that Dad was a fan, but there were SO many, especially compared to how Dad squirreled his away. I was taken aback. The teacher shrugged it off. “It’s just a magazine.”

Years later I mentioned it to a man who had recently met the teacher in question, and that guy said, “I don’t know why a gay man would have Playboy magazines.”

”Oh, he’s not gay,” I said, thinking, did you not hear me? Playboys! Obscuring the entire coffee table!

My friend replied, ”Oh, he’s gay,” and then made a convincing case that was more than hearsay but less evidence than I’d want in the 90’s if my job were on the line.

The only thing the two stories have in common is that they gave me a peek into the sex lives of the common suburban high-school teacher. I don’t know that I needed those peeks. I know that I was a common suburban high school teacher at one point and I hope I was as neuter as the angels.

Celebrity Hat is Going to Suffer From Exhaustion If this Pace Keeps Up

Today marks the third time the Celebrity Hat has been out of Her box this year. First for Friend #2’s fundraiser, then for the Virtual Kentucky Derby, and this past Saturday for the rescheduled Kentucky Derby. 

Just a few nods given to 2020:

• Supposedly only the top ten percent were allowed to attend in person.
• The lyrics to My Old Kentucky home were bypassed by having it played on a trumpet. They needed something more beyond getting rid of the term “darkies” which was gone by the time I got there in 2011.

• Was no one else troubled by the swerve the winning horse made right out of the gate into the other horse’s lane? Didn’t we just have a horse controversy for that very reason a few years ago?

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: religion

Abandoned Draft Version:

Religion God doesnt listen to the prayers of a Jew bacon Mormonism is a cult catholics candle burners hooted probably be;lieve we have funny hats and saints poetry as part of belief

Present Day:

This is the abandoned draft that popped up when I searched for “bacon burner” as it does indeed contain “bacon” and “burner”.

All I can make out from this is that I was considering how some religions hate other religions. By their hate ye shall know them. A leader of the Southern Baptists I joined in my youth declared that God doesn't hear the prayers of a Jew. (Why is bacon there? I suppose because God only pays attention if bacon is involved?)

I believe the comment about God abandoning his chosen people came to my attention because another Baptist had recently warned that Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney belonged to a cult. 

One thing did make it into a post. A Southern Baptist boyfriend was the source of the next phrase, “candle burners” to describe Catholics. Gary hooted when I told him about that. “Did he think we all wear funny hats, like the pope? Do we sacrifice chickens to the graven images of the Saints?”

And then there’s the last line of poetry as part of belief. 

No idea. Really no idea. Maybe I was thinking that poetry is deliberately vague, and much of the Bible is written in poetry, and why can’t the Souther Baptists let other people have their own interpretation of the poetry? I don’t know. 

Why wasn’t this post fully born? I think what happened is I started to write it and realized it didn’t express how “religions” spend a lot of time hating each other, it worked out so it was Southern Baptists specifically monopolizing the hate. Perhaps I didn’t want to offend. 

The Novel: Lead Characters

I worked this week on having the novel’s main characters answer Proust’s Questionnaire. I only finished it for the male character, Joe. The exercise has made clear to me that even after Jerry’s multiple drafts of the novel, and the four decades of maturing in a cardboard box, Joe is actually a pretty thin character. Every answer goes back to his one personality trait. 

As I started answering the questionnaire for the female character, Maggie, something else occurred to me. 

Maggie Ryan was originally Aggie Lawless (yes, it still makes me wince, and I didn’t even choose it). She got the M for my mom, Margaret.

So, Maggie and Joe, right? Been Maggie and Joe for eight full months now.

So today at work, as I was making appointments with my boss, MAGGIE, and scheduling a meeting with MAGGIE’s boss, JOE, that my characters have the same names as my direct supervisors. 

It’s possible I realized that before, but I don’t think so. Would I forget that? You would think it would have been reminded of it every day. 

Bacon Burner

This pan was despised in Mom’s household.

We called it the Bacon Burner. I was well into my marriage before I learned it is officially called a broiler pan, and it usually comes with a new oven. It’s like an oven fetus you don’t expect when you buy a new oven, but there it is.

Mom hated it because it was entirely too heavy for her polio arms to pick up. (She would never have deliberately bought anything that heavy.) The weight meant if Mom wanted bacon, she had to rope one of the family into lugging the pan around. That meant they would also want bacon, and that would ruin everything.

I hated it because of Mom always picked me to be in on the bacon scheme because I ate less bacon than my father and brother.

Not only did I have to get the Bacon Burner out, I had to enrobe the bottom pan in aluminum foil, and then similarly swathe the top grill, and then take a knife and cut slits in the foils to correspond with the slits in the rack, because bacon would stick if you didn’t. 

Mom would lay out the bacon, and then I would put it in the oven, take it out, deal with the grease, and clean it, which was only a little easier because of the aluminum foil mummification.

As an adult, I’ve always fried up two strips of bacon at a time, but of late I have have desired a bacon burner of my own, having thrown out the one that came with the oven I bought in 2011. 

I bought one for fifteen dollars: non-stick, lightweight. It only held 2/3rd a package of bacon. It was fine the first four times I used it, and then the non-stick flaked off as I washed off the stuck, burnt bacon. Trash.

That’s went I invested in this.

Yes, a fifty (choke) dollar pan exclusively for cooking bacon. But people. People. I want to believe in God again so my mother will watch me from heaven using this dream of a pan. If you spray it with cold water right out of the oven, it does not warp, instead the burnt bacon vanishes. It slides off. If you let the pan sit until it’s cool, just apply a little light rubbing with a nylon pad and the burnt bacon comes off. It holds a full package of normal bacon and even thick-cut bacon fits with a little overlap. I’ve had it a year and it shows no wear.

My childhood bacon trauma is resolved with this pan.

Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before: drafts

I see other bloggers refer to posts they’ve found in their Drafts folder. I think, “I wish I had a Drafts folder. I publish everything, no matter how crappy it is.” 

Evidently not! A recent search to see if I have have yet bragged about how much I love my new bacon burner (broiler pan) pulled up an incoherent, unpublished draft post about religion. 

They were very drafty. Many posts I found in Draft status had already been merged as a bullet in another post, so I immediately deleted them when I saw them.

A number of posts were nothing but the title:

• fire and George - these were a pair of artists Gary and I encountered over thirty years ago.  Fire wrapped a silver wire through her coiffure. I know I’ve mentioned them before.
• Dog autism hard cuddle - this dates all the way back to when I had dogs. I think I was about to compare thunder shirts and weighted blankets to the deep pressure that soothes some people with autism. It must have occurred to me that is offensive, thank god, because it is.
• Striesandeffect / Aniston  efect? /hilary eggevt? - I know I mentioned the Streisand Effect. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention the Aniston Effect - “using heartbreak as a catalyst for growth.” And the Hillary Effect is the name of a book, that’s all I know.

Somehow, along with the dismissed or deleted, there are seven draft posts, and thus we have a Friday series called Stop Me If I’ve Said This Before. (I vaguely remember posting some of this garbage before, but the search says I haven't.) I will include the draft stream of consciousness post, and then a translation of what the hell it might have meant. We’re all about the process here. 

Well, not ALL about the process: you haven’t heard me learn to play the guitar.

Then again, publishing the draft posts is scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Perhaps someday I will record my plunky attempts to play “I Vow To Thee My Country,” the song I’ve been working on for five years.

Breathing Update

Well, last week I had work worries and brother worries weighing on my diaphragm, and I was unable to take a deep breath. You know, when you feel like your yawn impulse is suppressed. I know many people can’t catch a deep breath when they are stressed.

Anxiety, I said, and I did what I could to calm myself. Twice I traded dinner carbs and calories for a glass of Moscato. Did no good. Every few minutes I would bend over a chair and catch my breath. It’s a good trick, if you are so afflicted.

Well, let me report that the important work deadline has been met and evidently ...  that was the issue! All my breathing is back. My brother is not particularly better. Hah! Looks like keeping the stressors to one at a time is the trick.

Girls Night In: Covid Edition

Back in the days of the Girl’s Night Out, it seemed that every GNO had a theme. Girl’s Sabbath Out. Conservabration. Biblical GNO. Mormon Inquisition.

The GNOS have fallen off of late. Now that the Covid makes them impossible, of course, we want them.

Initially the Friends wanted a socially distant in-person get together. Six feet apart, masks on except when eating or drinking, so, masks off, essentially. I said unless you can put me in an iPad and prop me up on a table I am not interested.

So Saturday was the Girls Night Out / In / Covideo Conference. We covered the standard complaints, and then talk turned to our various Covid coping mechanisms. Friend #2 wins, because she’s occupying herself with charitable works, yoga and biking and other forms of self-care, and meditation. She didn’t put it that way, of course, but that’s the deal.

I mentioned I was being somewhat meditative when I paint or play the guitar, in that I’m not dwelling on negative thoughts, but it wasn’t like I was being helping myself or anyone else.

“But you’re creative,” they said, “That’s a form of self-care.”

“Well, it’s meditative, because it turns off my mind, but most of what I’m doing isn’t creative at all. I’m just plunking out a song that someone else wrote. I didn’t create it. I’m not even good enough to put a creative interpretation on it. And each painting is either a step-by-step copy of a painting someone else made, or a copy of a photo I took.” Try to compliment me, friends! Hah! I’ll show you! 

So what did I do the next day? I worked on the novel and created all kinds of nonsense.

 

100 Percent

So I’ve been having some shortness of breath. It happens every once in a while. It’s anxiety-based. 

”IT’S COVID!” Gary said.

“No, it’s not. It’s just Dave being sick and work stuff on top of the global pandemic —“

”CO! VID!”

After a few rounds of this, he went away and came back with his fingertip pulse oxygen meter. 


Like the image, my pulse rate was 75. But the blood oxygen? See how the image displays 99%? Like that’s a goal? Guess what my pulse oxygen was.

One hundred percent. 

“Like Apollo 1,” I said.

”What?” 

“I’m pumped full of pure oxygen. Don’t leave any tools near me. They could spark and I would spontaneously combust.”

He didn’t laugh, but I’m sure he was just grumpy because his pulse oxygen was only 95%.

Birthday Gift

This Amazon package of sugar-free candy was initially scheduled to arrive on my birthday. It came from a third-party seller, so this isn’t an example of Alexa spying on me to or Amazon being overly familiar. It’s probably a coincidence, but it still made me smile.

For my actual birthday gift, Gary got me my own grimoire. This is in keeping with his habit of finding something he likes and buying it for everyone he knows.

He also got me an inexpensive fountain pen. It’s not a fancy wooden one. It’s all matte and military-industrial and it can be dismantled. It makes a very satisfying snap when you put it back together.

The shaft is the kind with tiny nubs so it isn’t always flying off the back swing.

It’s like a fountain pen from some future where the pen is truly an alternative for the sword.

Fifty-eight

Yesterday I turned 58 years old.

In a strange incident a few days ago at work, my imminent birthday was mentioned and the Young People at work said, “You mean your ‘27th’ birthday, right, Ellen?” 

I was perplexed. Are people still doing that nonsense where you don’t acknowledge that you left your twenties? Plus, the joke is the eternal 29th birthday, not 27th. 

Then, later, because they are Young People, they texted me “Happy 27th birthday” wishes. 

I texted back, “I look really bad for 27.”  Which is true. God forbid a person in their thirties look like her face has slipped its tethers and is floating on top of her bone structure, soon to be dragged inexorably down by the repetitive swing of her wattle.

Balancing the sprouts of grey and the frown line are skills I never dreamed of at 27.

Progress and the Lack of It: Novel Edition

So, other efforts have been progressing at a rate of three-steps-forward-one-back, while Jerry’s novel has been a baby gripping the coffee table.

I’m not too concerned with how slowly it’s going. (You too can play the guitar in only 13 years!) Still, I wonder why the shiny new hobby isn’t taking the place of the painting and guitar hobbies.

I think the painting hobby appeals because it fills my head entirely. If I’m deciding what color to put where over and over for hours then there’s no room for anything else, and I find it very meditative. After a stressful day I run to the basement to dwell on nothing but runs of color decisions. Essentially, it’s an adult coloring book.

The guitar has the opposite appeal: it doesn’t require decisions at all. It requires muscle memory and just enough attention to follow notes in a page. It’s best for me not when I’m stressed, but when I’m stupid or sad. I just go from one note to the other without thinking about it. And then the notes float away, unlike the paintings, which mock me from their stack in the basement.

The novel, though, doesn’t help with stress or stupidity. It’s ... it’s like work, like programming, not a hobby. A thousand pieces that need to fit together, and you better start with an schema and specs or else you are doomed. 

In addition, I feel obliged to work on the novel, not free. It’s not a hobby if you have to work on it. Then again, I wonder, if Jerry had left a guitar, would I have felt obliged to play the guitar? (Of course I would.) Still, having the art supplies from my Aunt Dolores was a similar inherited obligation, and I got over it.

Then again, the only thing that remains of his original novel are the names, the settings, and the descriptions, so all obligations are gone. It isn’t as if I’m finishing his unfinished novel. It’s all mine now.

Hobbies are supposed to be fun. Are they really, though?

Progress and the Lack of It: Guitar Edition

Well, I have made some gains on my guitar. (And it only took thirteen years or so.) I find now that I get a better tone if I press lightly on the strings and play softer. I can very slowly play any song in six keys up through E Major — not quite the five-sharp pinnacle of B Major, but close enough. 

Of course, because I am perverse, any success makes me take a step back, because how else would I find that frustration that I evidently live for? 

All these new keys have been in the open position, which is limiting. (Open position means there are six notes out of seventeen you can play without doing anything with your left hand.) I really should start playing the more difficult positions.

Then again, instead of leaving open position, instead I could focus on playing a mix of chords and notes and see if I can make the chords sound less clunky. That does mean I probably won’t be able to play “Alcohol” or “I’ll Be That Girl,” which is a shame, but the other Barenaked Ladies songs will sound better.

So, as always, three steps forward, one irresistible step back.

Progress and the Lack of It: Body Edition

Process and progress seem to be my focus lately. 

I’ve been watching what I eat, because the early pandemic carbo load took a sixteen pound toll on my body. I am five pounds down, but no more than that. I reassured myself that I felt less blobby, Gary affirmed that I am less blobby, so I felt the de-blobbification had progressed enough that I could try on the clothing I wore eleven pounds ago. Specifically I tried on 1) the jeans I bought the week before the global pandemic, 2) the pants I bought the night before the global pandemic, and 3) the pre-pandemic fat pants. 

(My Global Pandemic Day Zero is the day we got the simultaneous text message / cell call / landline call from TeddyJ saying the office was closed and we should work from home.)

1) Jeans - stretchy, so they zipped up. Snug around the knees. 
2) Pants - I filled out the pleats but they came over my rear with some wiggling.
3) Fat Pants - fat pants fit, thankfully.

I need to remember Progress for me is three steps forward, one step back. Looks like I evaluated my progress on a day I was stepping back.

 

Plant Update

The stacked container herb garden has become very lush, though it is a challenge fighting through the growth to find the tags that show what I’ve actually planted. I’ve had some caprese salads that were partially made with mint in addition to basil. 

The three tiers of plants at bunny-level have all been nibbled away. The spinach next to the rabbit hole remains untouched, of course, bastards. I added some of “their” spinach to a salad I made yesterday.

I intended to plant some bare-root strawberries in the tower as well, and foolishly ordered strawberries without researching them first. I was mislead by the wild strawberries that infested Mom’s shady backyard. It’s a weed, I thought. All I grow are weeds. Bugleweed, Creeping Jenny, Trumpet vine. I can grow strawberries.

Yeah, no. Even plant experts have trouble growing strawberries. First, you plant them in the spring or fall, you plant them in special soil with a special Ph, you mulch them with pine needles, you amend the soil with sand, oh my god. 

But, I can try. So I planted the bare root plants into the special strawberry bags and planters, sans pine needle and sand and nitrogen. The next steps are sun and water, and if everything goes miraculously there may be strawberry flowers next month that I shall pinch off if I dream of getting strawberries next year. Which, frankly, I don’t.

Seriously. This is strawberry hospice. Lots of tending with no hope. 

In Which We Stimulate the Economy

Last week we learned the US Gross Domestic Product declined dramatically.

Do not blame me. I spent five hundred dollars on groceries last week. I am stimulating the economy as much as I can. 

There were some purchases that would be alarming in any circumstance, like when you have to replace the bottle of olive oil. I think the small bottle of olive oil is usually $12 a bottle, which is why I use the corn oil to clean the paintbrushes, but this time it was $15. Has to be done, I thought, and that bottle will last a long time.

I ordered cherry tomatoes and they substituted a fancy medley of orange, yellow, and dusky red cherry tomatoes, which were delicious, but a dollar more. Screw it, I thought, there’s a pandemic. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

The weekly eight ounce strip steak cost 16 dollars, though I believe it is usually under ten. But why not get it anyway? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we could quite literally die.

I have never paid six dollars for a box of butter before, but these are strange times.

Ten dollars for a package of bacon comes out to 84 cents per slice of bacon, which is not bad at all, right? 

Besides, Gary’s potato chips were more than than half off, and we stocked up. Four dollars of savings right there.

After all my rationalizations, the total with tax came to $440, and delivery was free, as one would think. When my heart resumed beating came the decision to tip the shopper the recommended amount, which was $63. Small price to pay, I thought, what else am I just going to spend my money on? Gas money? Vacation? 

Well, if it means that I can contain the Covid and stimulate the economy, I don’t mind being gouged. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

The Vote

Less than one hundred days until we vote. Here are my voting options in the state of Missouri:

Hold my breath and stand in a big cloud of Covid. People in my area don’t mask up. I am certain if a mask was required in order to enter the polling place it would be stripped off once inside, and if required inside, our residents would complain that masking was a new Jim Crow law designed to stigmatize loyal supporters of the President. Masks or not, they could argue that social distancing will create lines long enough to discourage in-person voting, where most of the covid-denying president’s supporters will be. It’s the reasoning I would use if our loyalties were reversed.

Vote with an absentee ballot. Absentee ballots require a reason. I was surprised to see that Vulnerability to Covid (over 65, immunocompromised) is a valid excuse this year. But of course, how do I prove I’m immunocompromised? If they just take it on faith, it could later be called into question. And of course, it doesn’t feel good that absentee ballots will probably be counted only after the race is called. It would be as if I lived in California or Hawaii - sure, my vote counts, but not for the purposes of the media and the “calling” of the election.

Vote by mail. This intrigues me. The governor signed a law for this year that if you order a ballot and get it notarized, you can mail it in. I’m pretty certain that will be contested too. And - doesn’t that negate the whole idea of a secret ballot? If it’s like other things I’ve had notarized, they have to witness you filling it in. I have no voting secrets, but it’s another irregularity that could end up putting the result in the courts. 

I’m worried that if the vote is contested, that will delay the results, perhaps past the day they certify the electors, thus keeping Trump in office. So it’s possible that the Safe Harbor rule they argued in Bush v Gore 2000 would keep him in office if he tries to drag it out, right? And he loves dragging things through the courts.

I just heard former Republican chair Michael Steele say that absentee voting and voting by mail are the same thing. The difference is that in my state (one of 16), you can vote absentee in person early, and absentee requires an excuse and generally mail-in requires a notary, though for the August 4th election I read that if you have an excuse you don’t need a notary. I think we’re just going to bundle up and vote in person. God, this is going to be awful.

Stuck in My Head

I decided I wanted to crack the code on the Key Signature With All the Sharps, so I searched the internet for the different fingering recommendations for all the key signatures. Couldn’t find it. Looked on the shelves and found a book I bought 13 years ago that contains nothing but that information.

So I spent two hours of practicing scales last night, and boy is my pinkie tired. Worse, I have do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do-ti-la-sol-fa-mi-re-do stuck in my head.

Usually the way I get rid of an earworm is to look up the words. Not an option. It’s still in my head, and I’m practicing more scales tonight.

Pershall Closure

The circled red condominium is where I lived from 6-12 years old.

The blue line is the radioactive creek a few blocks away.

The green line is Pershall Road, currently closed, because they are digging up all the still-radioactive soil, contaminated by the radioactive creek, itself contaminated by radioactive Manhattan Project byproduct that washed into the creek.

Usually I can ignore this. My brother can’t ignore this. He is very resentful.

Happily, last week a surgeon sliced him open for a non-cancer reason and - hurrah - saw no visible cancer in his abdomen. So, Mallinckrodt Chemical, he escaped. Right now I think he’s skeptical. I am sure when he recovers from the surgery he will be pleased.

Best Mask So Far

This was going to be one of Gary’s two raccoon masks. Too bad. It’s mine now.

I almost can’t wait to go out in this mask.

Zoom Makeup

I was on a zoom meeting with just one other person, and she was wearing makeup. Not cool. All the other women in our team have stopped wearing makeup or styling their hair entirely. But in the meeting was this one woman in her little screen panel all dolled up, while I was in the panel next to her, and I didn’t look like the same species. My face was doughy and pink, lips colorless, hair insane, no eyelashes. Worst of all, I only appeared to have the part of the eyebrow that slants up from the nose. My descending eyebrows were too washed out to be seen.

I spent half an hour staring at all the differences in our faces, until I excused myself to “visit the restroom,” where I did nothing but quickly draw on the descending half of my eyebrows. 

When I came back she said, “You go to the bathroom really fast.”

So I had to tell her that I was threatened by her eyebrows and I couldn’t take it anymore.

She said, “Mine are microbladed. It’s a semi-permanent tattoo. It lasts about a year. I got it done and then the pandemic struck.”

My mourning the two pair of work pants I bought the night before our office shut down is nothing compared to spending $500 on microbladed eyebrows. What about the people who bought perfume no one can smell, or shoes no one can see? Worse, what about people who spent money liposuctioning their thighs and now they’re never seen standing up? It’s just a little extra bit of sadness courtesy of the virus.

Trumpet Music

I have practiced all the tunes in the guitar books I bought thirteen years ago - the ones I can play, anyway. (Why does BNL write in the key that has five sharps? (Still don’t know the key names. Clearly I did not get very far in my music theory book.)) I needed new music.

Then, I found Gary’s trumpet sheet music books. Fascinating. There are three staffs - one for each valve, I guess - and there are no words, so it’s really exercising my ear. 

He came in and complimented my playing, and I said I was using his trumpet books.

”Sure you can do that, but you’re playing in the wrong key. The trumpet is B flat and the guitar is C. It’s okay, you’re just half a tone off.”

After I collected the brain matter that was flung about the room by the explosion, I said, “So, if you play the C note on your trumpet ... are you telling me it doesn’t sound like the C on my guitar?”

“Yes.”

”You LIE.”

He wouldn’t get out his trumpet and prove it to me. But my mind was blown, and I spent the evening asking him questions like:

”When a symphony orchestra tunes up and the piano hits a C, does everyone play a C, or do they go up or down and play the note on their instrument that is closest to a C, like do the trumpets play the B flat?” (He says - hesitantly - they play B flat, and that musicians can do that easily.)

”So if I want my guitar to play the same notes as a trumpet, can I just put the capo on the first fret?” (No, that makes it higher, not lower.) “Are there capos for trumpets to make them half a note higher?” (He says no, if you want that you have to buy an entire trumpet that is made in C. I don’t know if I believe this. It seems there could be something you could jam in somewhere to make it narrower to change the frequency.)

 ”If a guitar is C, and a trumpet is B flat, what key are people?” (He said C, but I think that was just to get me to shut up. Later on we decided that when singers ask the pianist to play a song in D, that’s because that’s the key their vocal chords are in.)

The best part was I remembered I had a capo, and if you put a capo on the first fret it is much easier to play all the BNL songs in the key of five sharps.

Unimaginable

I think back to the days when I was first married in the mid 80’s, when I realized someday it would be the year 2000. I remember I wondered if I would have a house in the suburbs when we rolled over to the new millennia. I wondered what grocery stores and technology would be like. I wondered if we’d do anything more with the space shuttle.

I must have had a pitiful imagination, because I could never have imagined that in 2020 I would see the TV images below in a span of 30 minutes.

Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, but it’s all unimaginable. 

Boy Scout Class Action Suit Commercial

When I see this solicitation to join a class action suit for abused Boy Scouts, I picture some writer — accustomed to starting with “If you’ve been injured in an accident” — typing out “If you were abused as a Boy Scout ... “ and pausing a moment to shake his head in disbelief. Just for a moment, though, because something so monstrous is now so commonplace. 

These Pandemic Numbers

This CNN image makes me think of the video they plan to play in case of the imminent destruction of the earth. Did they have a plan for possible pandemic coverage? 

I Thought This Would Be Coming, I Just Thought There Would Be Aliens

I was looking at the NASA page on my flat little computer that sits on my belly (that I also never imagined) and saw that not only is there an International Space Station like in 2001: a Space Odyssey, but it’s twenty years old.

The Thing That No One Saw Coming.

I mean seriously. Talk about the unthinkable being commonplace.

Do Re Mi

So, sometime last week I said I was going to try to up my guitar skills by training  my ear and perhaps learning some music theory basics, like why you never have an F sharp and a B flat in the same song. 

Somewhere buried in YouTube videos about megahertz and chord roots I saw an advertisement for this wonderful “long-lost technique” for learning music called the Kodály method. 

“Cool!” I thought, “That sounds great.” 

You know what the Kodály method is? It’s this:

... and ... 

This stunned me, because Wikipedia says that this method - all this ta - ta - ti / do - re - mi business - came about in the mid fifties. I can attest it was entrenched in the late sixties: I have a distinct memory of a music teacher giving me the Sol sign at shoulder height and saying “ti - ti- taa!” And clapping, lots of clapping.

What I find amazing is:

1) There was a time — evidently before the mid-fifties — when people learned to sing, and they did it without without any do - re - mis or  ti - ti - taas.
2) The Sound of Music came out in the mid-sixties, just ten years into this method, and already “do - re - mi” was enough of a thing to star in a song.
3) There is advanced do - re - mi. It is how you express the sharps and flats. Do - di - re - ri, etc. Go here for all the notes.

And, it’s no wonder that when I began reading music I asked, “What note is ‘Do?’” Evidently I learned “Moveable Do.” It’s “Fixed Do” that would answer that question, and I believe the answer would be C. 

I am skeptical that this method is out of favor. How else could you ever know what notes were?

Musical Influences

When I was about twelve, in 1974, I got a bright blue handheld transistor radio as a gift. I started at the bottom of the AM dial and the first station I found was KXOK, back in the day when it was a pop rock station, and the very first song I heard was Billy Don’t Be A Hero.

Dad only listened to KMOX conservative talk radio, and Mom came to their marriage with four Pete Seeger records, so I believe this was the first pop song I ever heard. 

I’ve been thinking of this lately, because I requested hounded piano-playing friend Dave to play it during one of his Facebook concerts. I was as obnoxious as the guy who yells “Free Bird.” So obnoxious that he eventually played it.

Of course, I haven’t heard the song in decades. Hearing it again made me wonder how much influence this song had over my opinions. Here are some of my personal preferences that may have been established by my first pop song.

Preference #1 - Anti-war. Billy Don’t Be a Hero has a strong anti-war message.  I don’t know if twelve year old me had any opinions on war or peace. My Dad had been in Korea, and Mom didn’t play her Pete Seeger albums when he was around. Perhaps BDBAH inspired me to begin challenging Dad’s view on the military.

Preference #2 - Pro key changes. I am just barely able to recognize a key change, but I like them. I like them a lot. I think that must be why the ends of musicals always, always make me cry. They must double down on the key changes at the finale. 

Preference #3 - Pro-plot progression. Billy’s alive, Billy ignores his fiancé’s advice, [spoilers!] Billy’s dead. There’s a tidy plot in there. I still like a song with a plot.

Preference #4 - (Barenaked Ladies foreshadowing) Peppy music with tragic lyrics. I don’t know why I find it so satisfying to have an upbeat catchy hook paired with subjects like clinical depression or addiction. 

So, did the song influence me, or was I already formed and that’s why I liked the song? Was there some baby-duck level of bonding that happened here? Did I imprint on Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods? What if I’d heard Don’t Rock the Boat first instead of second? Because I’d like to know where I got these notions.

 

Band of Brothers Vs The Pallisers

Gary reads this many books at one time:

Given that, I don’t know why it troubles me so much that I am binge-watching two shows at once. The two shows are as different as you can imagine: The Pallisers (50% romance and 50% political intrigue) and Band of Brothers (15% relationships and 85% battle scenes). 

I’m not all-in on either of them. I may switch to reading the Pallisers books instead, especially given that I have Mom’s copies and there’s a good chance that they will be annotated.

I was reminded lately that Mom and I watched A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and even though we’d read the book we sobbed like teenagers at the end. That’s added to the list of things to watch. Or, books to read. (Currently I’m in the middle of reading Devil in the White City, and as you can imagine, I’m not happy with the proportions of Architecture and Murder. Less architecture! More Murrrrrderrrrr!)

I think I would like Band of Brothers far better if they condensed each battle scene to a few shots. “I have no ammo!” “Who’s this new fella Fitz?” then: Bang! Whiz! followed by “Where’s Fitz?” “Fitz didn’t make it.”

I know it’s a true story, and that the men at the beginning are probably the older versions of the actual soldiers, and usually the documentary aspect would clinch it for me, but I just can’t abide taking up so much time with the Bullets flying and the plot at a standstill. I’m only on episode 4, though. Perhaps there’s more dialog and plot progression in later episodes.

Obstinate

I find that I have some sort of oppositional obstinacy that makes it so that if there is a chorus of people accentuating the positive, I cannot eliminate the negative.  I immediately pipe up with “But have you considered ____?”  [Fill in this blank with some dire, rare possibility.]

This does not make me popular at work, but recently I discovered that when people are negative at work, I can’t help myself from being Rebecca of Sunnybrook, Inc., supporting the company line and saying all will be well.

This doesn’t just happen at work. At home, there’s no way for me to escape the news that I’m classified as having Secondary-Progressive MS (whispered in most circles as “you know, the bad kind”) and yet somehow that negative news just cheers me right up. As always, I think,  “Sure, you say I have a fatal disease, but have you considered _____? [Fill in this blank with some convoluted logic about how future dire results are best predicted by past excellent performance.]

Evidently I’m not the only person in my family with this quality. My brother just spent a night in the hospital with liver failure, and it has cheered him right up. In fact, he’s very optimistic about his prospects. Of course I’m not saying anything to him, but I can’t find a way this is a good thing. Then again, how much of that is just my oppositional nature?

Wipe

I found this container of wipes in the larder when the pandemic hit us in March. (Only three months ago. Seems like forever, but still not many days before my country embraces the “death” part of “Give me liberty or give me death.”)

We have one wipe left. 

You don’t know how often I have reached for this wipe and talked myself out of using it. 

I do know that I can make my own, and I do have the requisite strength alcohol, but the CDC now claims that it is hard to catch from surfaces. 

So why am I holding on to it? It’s stupid, but I kind of feel like this little wipe is protecting our family in some supernatural way. (I SAID it was stupid.)

No doubt some time this month Gary will casually say, “Buy some more wipes. I used the last one.”

Parking at the Space Station

I am so delighted that we have a spaceship docked at the International Space Station. (I am also delighted that it is the newest, shiniest one, though I know that isn’t in keeping with the International Space Station mission of global cooperation.)

During the Dragon docking they mentioned that almost all the docks were filled up.

They were all filled up a few years ago. 

• HTV - Japan
• Progress - China
• ATV - Europe
• Soyuz - Russia, obviously
• Dragon and Cygnus - US

Party at the space station! This really tickles me. 

New Bathroom Addition

This new eBay addition to my Medical Bathroom makes me smile.

 
Dad had a similar towel labeled “Hotel Property.” I remember how scandalized I was at 7 when it dawned on me how he got it. 

Damian Lewis Day

I thought Sunday was going to star Damian Lewis.

In the morning I finished the last two episodes of The Forsyte Saga. I started to watch that earlier this month because I conflated it with The Pallisers, am adaptation Mom and I obsessed over in the early seventies. I only realized my regrettable error when — sorry, I get stuck in that cadence after watching British costume dramas.

Let’s say instead that “I knew I had the wrong show” when I realized the lead was a dead ringer for Bobby Axelrod on Billions. I was still so convinced the “two” stars were related that I headed to IMDB to see if perhaps there was an uncanny 1970s father/2020s son family resemblance. Of course, The Forsyte Saga was in the early 2000s, and Mom never watched it because she said “that man makes my skin crawl.”

IMDB told me he also starred in Band of Brothers, which along with The Pallisers is on my summer Pandemic watch list. I watched the first episode of that in the afternoon. (I did a lot of gardening over the weekend. I am resting up.)

Then I was prepared to wrap up Damien Lewis Day with the most recent episode of Billions, but turns out that has been delayed by the virus. 


Damn the virus. I could have had a Damien Lewis hat trick.

Herb Tower

Last year I grew some herbs in the backyard. Every time I crossed the 10x10 patio pad to pick fresh herbs I was annoyed they were ten feet away.

i’d been considering how I could have a garden of herbs right outside the patio door, so I could just lean out and snip off some herbs. On a table, perhaps, or hanging baskets.

Then, a friend got this fancy thing: four feet tall, composts and dispenses the compost out of a cunning little door,  spins on casters. Then I saw it was $350, and I got creative.

I bought a Mr, Stacky planter on eBay, and because they mis-calculated the height I got that for free, then bought another less expensive one on Amazon. I took an old cutting board and screwed in some casters I bought, oh, 30 years ago. I found out that online PVC fittings cost one twentieth online compared to the hardware store.

So this cost about $50.

The two colors don’t match, but that’s fine. Then I did this with screws and pvc glue:

... and drilled holes ...

... then this ...

... showing great strategic thinking to make it a) not glued but screwed in one spot and 2) make the top be the detachable part.

Gary said it would be top-heavy and the raccoons would climb it, so I should add some rocks ...

... so then I bought way too many herbs and started packing them in ....

I ended up with multiple varieties of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, and mint. There is one level of dianthus, which is not edible as far as I know, and some butterfly-attracting flowers. 

Then I tucked it right outside the back door so that I don’t have to hike across the ten feet of patio or even bend over to get to the basil on top.

All I’m probably ever going to eat is the basil, and the sage and rosemary with pork, but it smells lovely.

I ended up with some extra mint, and some hyacinth bean and spinach that had to be distributed in other spots. I planted the spinach right by the rabbit warren. Perhaps that will satisfy him. 

Guitar Progress

Following my miserable day in which I forgot how to play the low B note on my guitar, I seem to have leapt forward and found new challenges.

In the past, every once in a while, I’ll need to turn a page while I’m reading the music and I’ll know what the next note is and I’ll play it without having to read it or think about it. I think it’s the start of having an ear for music.

A few days ago I tried playing a song without reading the sheet music, just thinking what the next note should be, and if the notes were in two steps of each other I could do it, but if the jump was more than that I failed. I went back to reading the sheet music and found that after that little experiment I could clatter my way right through the piece almost without looking at the music, just thinking along with the tune and it came out through my fingers. It only works with songs I know, though.

So, looks like I’m taking another break to develop my musical ear. Maybe some music theory, too.