Virtuality

I know this is nothing new, but I've been thinking about connections and the Internet and my choices. Being sick has something to do with it: I have nothing to do but force liquids and process thoughts.  The thoughts are routine, as are the conclusions.  I am learning nothing, creating nothing worth communicating.  But, the urge to communicate, to write, and to share doesn't care about quality.  That urge is about connection, and it will not be denied.

 

We are so disconnected, with our virtual lives.  We can't sing together over Facebook, we can't hug.  Emoticons don't sound like love or hurt or joy or righteous indignation.  Clicking on an email envelope icon does not have that lovely crackly sound or give that feeling of anticipation. The email travels instantaneously over the airwaves, not through the air, through hands, through human agency. There is no planning, no effort in its transmission.  It is usually about news, and it is usually created casually, impersonally.  It is not savored over a cup of tea or saved in a bureau drawer. 

 

Of course, no form of letter takes the place of personal connection.  But something tactile is so much better than something electronic. I've re-learned since SC was incarcerated what a treat it is to open my mailbox and find a letter instead of bills.  It's like a birthday present, like chocolate, like hearing a favorite song, like Carbon greeting me at the door.  Like love.  I do miss going out to the mailbox with the expectation that something wonderful is waiting for me.  And I have started writing letters in order to give that pleasure to others. SC cannot get email, and E doesn't remember to, but I'm sending letters to others as well.

 

Don't get me wrong:  I'm immensely grateful for the immediacy of the virtual connection.  I don't feel so alone when I see a name on a post or a note in my inbox. This past week, when I have been so ill, the Internet has been my lifeline.  I check for messages.  I post photos and haiku complaints and receive pity and good wishes in return. I text V, asking for a grocery run, and she brings me home-made chicken soup as well.  So, the virtual connection keeps me from total isolation and, in a lot of ways, the sound bite nature of it works better for my energy levels. My responses can be written quickly and I don't have to worry about my penmanship.

 

In fact, I wonder if I really do miss the physical connection?  As I mentioned in a previous post, living with E taught me that I am indeed an introvert.  I have fought all my life against the deep exhaustion I feel when the inertia of staying in pulls against the desire to be social.  It's like trying to pick up a cat that doesn't want to be picked up.  It's heavy with resistance, limbs and head hanging lifelessly, almost impossible to move.  So, I have scheduled myself and made commitments to force the issue.  The consequence seems to be that  I  regularly get sick and collapse.  I didn't get this extended sickness the whole time I was with E.  It might be because I wasn't working with the public then, but I think it's because I need stay home with my books and my music and my time wasters.  A 40-hour traditional public-contact work week is anathema.  How much of my physical response is caused by depression, I do not know.  I don't feel depressed:   I am aware of serenity and sometimes joy.  The discontent seems to come more from the "shoulds" than my actual feelings.  I "should" be active and productive and social and creative.  I "should" get out and exercise.  I know that I'll be glad I did.  But I felt those "shoulds" up on the mountain, too.  Was it because my activities had to be severely limited and rationed that they did not overwhelm me?  Was it because my normal day was spent cooking and eating and doing crosswords?  E at 99 was more active than I at 55.

 

There is the contradiction. I like being alone.  But I miss my friends.  I like zoning out with my knitting and my pictures and my books and (god help me) my Netflix reruns.  But I miss the activities and connections.  In fact, I recently received a text from S, who is visiting Portland with his Seattle girlfriend, and I peppered him with names of restaurants and theatre groups.  It was so hard to decide which to fit into one short weekend.  I was so excited for them! I was virtually with them, and it felt great, but....lonely.

 

I don't know why I don't just move back to Portland and my tribe, but somehow all my choices keep me here with the dry air and the circle of juniper-clad hills, with the huge bowl of sky upended over the sage-filled fields.  Early in this week of illness, I walked out to get the mail, and a raven soared silently overhead, huge blue-black wings outspread, each feather distinct. (Did it follow me from the campus? What is it trying to tell me?)

 

There was nothing in the box.

 

 

 

 

 

Fragile

10/4/13.....I wrote this some time ago, posted it for an evening, decided it was too whiny, and took it down.  Today, after writing about my next steps in this weird journey of mine, I decided to glance through old posts. It was sort of an attempt to see just how I got to this place.  Now, this post gives the context better than any of the others.  I've been spiraling for years, it seems.  It appears that it's time to stop spinning and just be for awhile.  Be a musician.  Be a friend.  Be a caregiver.  Be lazy.  Be broke.  Be there.

Here's the context............................

Last night I attended a performance of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, one of their four Albuquerque run-outs.  It was excellent:  the auditorium acoustics were exceptional, and the players were simultaneously physical and sensitive.  And they played Brahms, which always works for me.  My companion is a fellow violinist, and she knew everyone in the audience it seemed, except for the woman with the intrusive perfume, sitting next to me.  She also had the chutzpah to spot 2 other seats, 3 rows ahead of us, and make plans to shift us there:  at intermission we moved to a place where I could breathe.  At the end, we were both jazzed and dazed by the performances.  We parted ways, promising to get together soon for duets and future concerts.  The future was enticing, full of promise.

It was also the first day in months that I was not exhausted at 2 pm, yawning at 3, and barely able to keep my eyes open at 4.  In fact, I was energized by L's visit the night before, and happy in my life.  I was re-applying myself to the search for a new job in a new place, and I was also figuring out how to continue to connect to the good things in my life here.

So, what happened over night?  When the alarm woke me at 6:45 am, I was prepared to start my routine.  Check out the e-mail and facebook, stretch, walk, shower, make coffee and toast, go to work, pick out the books for the daycare visit.  I read for a bit and then put away the ipad, poised to rise.  And then I realized:  all I wanted to do was sleep.  I didn't feel disgust for the job, I didn't feel stressed or want to avoid anyone or anything, but I didn't want to go in.  With very little pondering, I called in sick, asked J to call the daycare and cancel for me, and I went back to bed.

Except, I couldn't sleep.

So, I've been puttering all day.  Make bed, put away L's air mattress, rearrange the space, wash dishes, drink coffee.  The computer cord doesn't work, so I fuss about getting it replaced.  I finish a book. I notice that the cord started magically working on its own, and I call off the replacement and start editing pix and finishing up my blacksmith blog.  I hear from my realtor:  another roadblock to selling the house.  I talk to the lawyer.  T stops by with a DQ blizzard and keeps me company for a bit.  He leaves and I start reading another book and editing some more pix.

And....I don't want to do anything.  I feel twitchy and at loose ends.  I want to call in sick again, not because I'm physically sick, but because I'm sick of my scheduled, repetitive life.  Yet, I don't have anything better to replace it with, look at how I've spent today.  90 percent of success is showing up.  So I keep showing up.  I keep doing what I'm paid to do, people are generally okay with what I do, how I do it, who I am.  Why am I seriously considering not showing up?

I have managed that for years, and I'm like Jane Eyre, "I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"

T would say I'm tempting the bored angels again.  What is the point of a new servitude in a new place? I have a reasonably well-paying job, I'm living within my means,  I like New Mexico, I have friends, acquaintances, activities worth doing.  I've had enough change in that last few years to last a lifetime.  A new job is just a distraction from the real issue:  I don't like who I am.  I won't go into the self-hating litany (why give voice to it?), but it's there, nattering monotonously.

I turn on music to silence the thoughts while I continue to edit pix from my iPhone.  Listening to "Fragile," I think about D.  He sang it at our wedding, while I sang "My ship." Now I think, what odd choices those were.  It's almost like a foreshadowing of the collapse of our marriage. I sang that all the jewels in the world meant nothing without my own true love.  Dave sang that we (and our love?) are fragile.  And here I am, without my love, without a lover, without the beauty and joy.  Fragile.

People I saw in Portland talked about how strong and healthy and happy I seemed.  I wish it were true.  I'm so tired of this game face.

Medical reference

Last night I was at another UU SipNSup:  the monthly get-together of strangers, where each couple is assigned a dish, and one of the couples plays host.  This was my third.  The first is chronicled in an earlier blog (in which we try not to talk of pornography), the second was at T's apartment and I was co-host.

On this occasion, the host home was a lovely adobe with xeriscaping outside, waterfalls inside, tiles, fireplace, glass blown hanging lamps, open kitchen with a bar, and a view of the Sandias.  It was a stone's throw from the Embudo Canyon trailhead.  The host was of Norwegian descent, from International Falls (my mother's birthplace), so we talked about Minnesota and a Norse heritage for a bit.

One of the other guests sings soproano in the choir, so I knew her by sight.  Turns out she's a working musician, as are her four kids, and she is on the verge of her annual trip south, this time to Bogota, to teach violin for 2 weeks.  She's been doing this for 15 years, and has lived all around the world.

Two other guests were both doctors in private practise, and we had a rousing discussion of the potential effects of Obamacare.  The CPA husband of the gynecologist was fairly quiet for most of the everning, but, as I told T, there were 4 mouthy broads at table (that included me), and it was difficult for anyone to get a word in edgewise.

As per usual, I was impressed by the variety of life experience around the table, and fascinated by the paths people take.  And, also as per usual, I felt unaccomplished and unexperienced.  I want to tag along on their adventures.  I want to join Dr. T's daughter in Tanzania, working at an AIDs clinic for children.  It would be hard and depressing, but it would be worthwhile.  But I lack the practical skills that would make me an asset, and I lack the youth and strength for the grunt work.

So the wish is eager, rather than lasting.  And, I'm pretty sure that I need to avoid big change for the time being.  I really need to be satisfied with absorbing the body blows of the last few years, months, and days.  I need to enjoy quieter adventures.  As Mole discovered, I am a simple creature of the fields and hedgerows, which hold enough adventure, in their quiet way, for a lifetime.

Nothing makes that clearer than the way my body betrays me.  Last week it was the patella-bashing (still sore, especially on stairs, but doing nicely thank you.)  Last night it was a sudden onset of nausea, profuse sweating and dizziness.  I left the table and sat in the living room, but, threatened with increasing nausea, tottered into the bathroom where I lay on the cool tiles and felt simultaneously feeble and ridiculous.

T eventually came to the bathroom door:  "K-lou, are you okay?"  Umm, no.  He made my excuses and drove me home.  I crawled into bed and fell asleep, waking at 5:30 am.  I started googling my symptoms, even though I know I should use authoritative databases and, in my professional capacity, I speak sternly to peole who used DotCom medical sites.  But, it was early in the morning, I was groggy, and google was easy to use.

I found webMD and about.com and other reasonably authoritative sites, but I gravitated to the one wherein people detail their symptoms and other people share similar stories and they all say, "I've had this condition for YEARS and no one can find out what's wrong," and some people say it's gall bladder, and some diabetes, and some heart attack.  And you can still produce gallstones, even if you've had your gall bladder removed, and GO SEE A DOCTOR, and good luck.

hmmmm

Then I found Real Diagnosis, where you can list your symptoms and get matches with possible diagnoses.  So, I either have a heart condition, diabetes, meningitis, or syncope (which is a fancy word for fainting.)  I ruled out wine allergy.  The whole thing reminded me of Three Men in a Boat, where J reads a medical diagnostical  manual, discovers he is sickening for EVERYTHING (except Housemaid's Knee) and crawls over to his doctor friend who prescribes "beer, steak, and stop reading things you don't understand."

So, I posted the following to Facebook:
Researching symptoms
In the wee hours.  Tenebrous.
Not recommended.

And I went back to sleep.

Becoming an EMT

For the past 2 months, I have been subbing as a school secretary.  I knew that school libraries were in trouble, but now I've learned that all the professions are in jeopardy.  This is not a good thing.  IMHO, each school needs at least one full time librarian, one full time nurse, one full time interpreter, and special ed staff, in addition to the regular teaching staff.  The teaching staff, already overloaded with large classes and diverse needs, cannot adequately fill in these gaps.

The office staff don't need to deal with library issues, praise be, but the lack of nursing staff is a serious issue.  The nurse is itinerant, sometimes on contract with PPS, and never in one place consistently.  Because of this, I have become a de facto EMT.  Back in December, I was trained in the 5 R's of giving out medication:  Right student, Right medication, Right dosage, Right time, Right path. (Yeah team!)   Everything must be documented, hands must be washed, medicines must be in original wrappers.  It basically makes sense.  However there is so much more.

The first part of my day goes as predicted.  I come into the office, locate my desk, log into the computer, find the keys, and figure out how this school deals with tardiness, absences, signing out early, changes in after school plans, etc.  Up to 10 am, I am keeping current with the attendance, so that when the automated calls go out they don't include students that have merely come in late.  In some cases, I follow up the automated calls to be sure the kids are where they should be.  This is Kyron Horman's legacy, and not a bad one, IMHO.  I have yet to talk with a single parent who is upset about receiving unnecessary calls or being asked to provide ID.

On top of this, however, I am fielding the kids that have been sent to the office.  In the morning, we deal with those who are throwing fits or have stomach aches or shouldn't have come in to begin with.  Around noon, students who take meds show up, and the demands for ice begin:  the kids fall, run into things, get hit by balls, etc.  Some need bandages.  Some need a change of clothes.  They fall into puddles, spill milk on themselves.  After lunch, more stomach aches and fevers.

The thermometers are high tech.  I grew up with glass tubes stored in alcohol, red and black measuring lines, and a center red or silver mercury-filled tubule.  Mom or the nurse would give the thermometer a brisk professional shake to compact the mercury at the bottom of the tube.  She'd wipe off the alcohol and insert the cold tube under my tongue, cautioning me to not bite down on it.  The school thermometers are all electronic, with digital readouts replacing the rise and fall of the mercury.  Some schools have handheld thermometers that pass over the forehead to the temple, stopping above the ear.  Technical term:  temporal artery thermometer.   Others have a flat digital one.  It tapers to a rounded metal point that goes under the tongue like the old mercury ones, but this one gets a little plastic sleeve.  In both cases you press a button to start the process.

The big first aid rush ends around 1 pm, but there's afternoon recess and the trickle of medical intervention continues until the end of the day.

On this particular Friday we are dealing with a constant stream of nosebleeds and mud slides.  I have never been clear about the best way to deal with a nosebleed.  We wipe them up and have them squinch the nostrils shut, and sometimes give them ice to hold at the bridge of the nose.  Today there's a parent in the office who is also an EMT, and she tells me that it's best to have the kid lean forward so the blood can run out.  Okay.

The mudslides are more problematic.  We start running out of socks.  One 10-year-old boy could care less out how he looks:  he doesn't want to change his clothes and contents himself with wiping off the mud.  The rest are quite picky about color and style, and the socks are all too big.  At lunchtime the recess teacher is equipped with a bullhorn.  She tests it out:  "Stay. Off. The. Hill."  Works fine, but the mudslides continue, some quite impressive, some just involving wet feet.

I'm hoping I haven't caught all the free-floating bugs.  I'm subbing for a woman with a bad respiratory ailment.  She's supposed to stay out all week, but comes in on Thursday to do payroll.  She's pale, and her face is covered with a surgical mask.  She goes to check on one of the sick kids, who looks up from the bed with big eyes.  When she comes out, a parent does a double take and she says, "Don't worry, I don't have SARS."  The other secretary is there for two of my three days, and out on the third.  I'm recognizing the names of the kids who went out on Wednesday and are still out on Friday.  One teacher has lost 2/3 of her class. One child has a fever of 101.1, but most register subnormal.   Still, the number with imminent emesis is disconcerting.  I start obsessively using the anti-bacterial goo, knowing full well that most of these kids have viruses, hoping the placebo effect will kick in.

Towards the end of the day we start bargaining with the kids:  "Can you tough it out, or do we need to call your folks?"  Predictably, the parents I call have non-functioning cell phones.  I end up calling family friends and grandparents.  Meanwhile, the kids are wandering around the office:  too sick to sit in class, but not sick enough to lie down.  I find them paper and crayons and sit them at a little table.  One gives me my very own drawing.  Awww.

Awful serendipity

This morning I was reading Holly's blog.  She was talking about weeding through her notebooks and finding entries about Louie, written before she knew he was dying.  It was a place to vent about the irritating facets of elderly-dog ownership.  I started to write a comment about how I NEVER find Carbon irritating, even when she pees on the rug;  but I was running off to work and didn't have time to figure out how to post non-anonymously.

I actually almost didn't go in to work.  The sub line calls at 5:50 am, and I just don't function well at that hour.

He brings me my phone:

"You have a sub job, Sparky."

It woke him up too.

Plus, it was way out in St John's.  That's a lot of driving for a 4-hour gig.  So I waited, hoping that someone else would pick it up before the call cycle got back to me.  Vain hope.

Normally Carbon and I walk Holly part way to work on Wednesdays, so I send her a quick Mea Culpa message.  Then D says, "I'd like to walk with her."  An Addendum message goes out.  I make some coffee, have some home-made granola, wake D up (again), and I'm out the door.

An hour later, I'm feeling kinda smug, because it's my 4th gig, 2nd time at this school.  I know the players, my passwords all work, and I'm actually a little bored.  Then D calls:  he's at the vet with Carbon.  Apparently, after the walk with Holly he walked over to New Seasons on Division, and Carbon collapsed in the street.  She lay down, frothing at the mouth and panting heavily.  

Bus drivers apparently won't pick up men with sick pet dogs, even when the foam has been wiped away.  Taxi drivers are also not very responsive.  But sisters, thank god, do not have these flaws.

D is in the waiting room, and he's mainly calling to see about payments:  it's a $560 estimate just going in the door.  Oy.

A second call, letting me know the diagnoses, or rather the lack thereof.   They are still doing some tests and x-rays to rule out heart or other conditions, but they have no idea why she was foaming at the mouth.  They think the panting, and probably the collapse, is from a condition called laryngeal paralysis.  Surgery is over $2K, is very invasive, and can be fatal.  Three excellent reasons to not even consider it.  

The heavy breathing has actually become a Carbon leit motif in the last few months.  Normally she breathes heavily when she's excited or over-heated, but now she pants just sitting and watching us.  We thought she had asthma.  That would actually be preferable, I think.  This condition is harder to treat: they recommend no exercise, lots of water, keeping her out of the heat. 

Problem number 1:   She loves to walk.  When Holly comes in, she goes into her Lipizzaner stallion imitation, curvetting and leaping and running back and forth between us and putting her head between my hands and my shoe laces.  She manages to extend her docked tail into an energetic wag. She leaps out the door and promptly sits for the leash, looking up with an endearing mix of expectation and adoration.  I may need to have Holly wait at the gate from now on.  In Carbon's eyes, Holly = walk.

Problem number 2:  The more water she drinks the more she has to pee.  The more she has to pee, the more likely she is to revert to peeing in the house.  The more she pees in the house, the more I time and money I have to spend on cleaning.  And the more she's likely to think it's okay to pee in the house (nota bene:  it's not.)

Problem number 3:  When it's summer, I want to lie in my hammock.  When I'm lying in the hammock, she wants to be outside with me.  When she's outside, she wants to sit in the sun.  Maybe her old arthritic bones like the heat?  Anyway, she likes to be overheated, and she does not like to swim or get wet.

So now I'm fretting over the difficulties of keeping her comfortable and well.  I'm not irritated, but Holly's blog is starting to resonate.

We took advantage of the visit to have the vet look at her mouth:  one side has had a red sore for over a year.  Last year at this time, they took a biopsy while they did dental work, but I said I didn't want to spend $250 to find out if she has cancer.  (I know that makes me a bad pet owner.)  Today they didn't push the biopsy:  they think it might be bacterial and sent home some ointment and antibiotics.

So now she's home, happy as always, sleeping with her Dad while I work.  And I just hope this is not the beginning of the downhill slide.  Yes, she's old and her muzzle has gone from grey to almost pure white.  But she is too adorable and loving, and I have enough trauma and expenses for now, thank you very much.  She's just going to have to hang on.

It's always something.

Old dogs like to frighten us...

We both need a hug.

 

Haiku for a sick day

Yellow walnut leaves
Glow in the aqueous light
Of a rainy day.

He watches football.
A tree mascot dances, and
I fold some more cranes.

Sadness:  avoiding
Sugar and milk products, waiting
For my throat to heal.