Better Than Dead

Random quote of the day:

“Old and young are more alike than grown-up. Grown-up is a different planet.”

—Patricia A. McKillip, Solstice Wood

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Random quote of the day: 

“Young people hate grown-ups for many reasons. One of the reasons is that they feel grown-ups’ minds are fixed and limited. Whenever they meet a man or woman who does not always say what they expect, who tells them novel stories about strange aspects of the world, who throws unexpected lights on what they sadly know as ordinary dull life, who seems as completely alive, sensitive, energetic, and zestful as they themselves, they usually admire him or her.”

—Gilbert Highet, The Art of Teaching

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Feb 15
And then there’s my shredded Achilles tendon…People grimace when they see me limping down the hall.

Feb 15
“Seek simplicity and distrust it.” —Alfred North Whitehead said. Simplicity is sounding real good right about now. Mom’s escalating pain issues have led to a rush MRI this afternoon, maybe a bone scan.

Feb 15
New favorite indie bookstore name: Libros Schmibros

Feb 16
Back in the ER with Mom. I think I’ll start bonking my head now.

Feb 16
They admitted her. Not life threatening, I don’t think.

Feb 17
Is life anything more than a series of disappointed hopes?

Feb 17
I turn on the TV to distract myself and the first thing I hear is Sally Kirkland saying, “She died at 97.” The opening to Paper Hearts.



Feb 18
Medicare not seizing our asset vibes would be nice, too. I’d rather not be homeless.

(Note: I got this wrong. It’s MediCal/Medicaid that seizes your assets.)

Feb 19
Mom is going back to the rehab today, perhaps permanently. They finally found that her terrible pain is from severe spinal stenosis. They may try to do an epidural nerve block if nothing else helps. Her spirit is good, her fighting spirit undiminished, so we’ll see how things go.

Feb 21
I’ve been sitting here all afternoon saying “Oh my God” over and over to myself. Rollercoasters suck.

(Note: I learned that my house might be protected after all.)

Feb 24
It may be a measure of my worry that I was seriously listening to Joel Osteen this morning. Not any crazier than my previous money making scheme: buying Lotto tickets. Both Lotto and Osteen require unfettered faith, something I sometimes have in microbursts.

Feb 25
No matter how bad it gets, my life is not as bad as Fantine’s…or millions of other people around the world. Everything is relative.

Feb 28
Heard Jimmy Cliff driving to work so “The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all” is the theme of the day.

Feb 28
There’s a difference between taking off your shirt while running to show off your manly chestal pulchritude and taking off your shirt while running and having manly chestal pulchritude. We can tell the difference, guys. And not just cynical old broads like me.

Mar 1
I am so tired of grown up stuff.  Can I run away now?

Mar 2
At home nursing a strained back. Life is good.

Mar 2
Why is it in movies and on TV when a scientist sees something unbelievable he removes his glasses? It’s become a total visual cliché.

Mar 3
The strain has progressed to spasms. I’m at urgent care.

Mar 3
Back still very unhappy and so am I. Two muscle relaxers at least make things bearable.

Mar 4
Back doing better but I’m still spending the day with my heating pad and my drugs. What part of driving with a strained back is not good did I not get? Pass more muscle relaxers.

Mar 5
I’m beginning to think the main job requirement for weather “girls” is “Must wear at least a C cup and adore tight clothing.”

I’m definitely watching too much TV since the back injury.

5 Mar
OMG the political phone calls the last week!  Once or twice an hour sometimes on two phones and me a couch prisoner! Just got another an hour before the polls close. Argh! Very hotly contested mayoral campaign.

8 Mar
Since hurting my back and unable to reach the floor without pain I’ve turned into a ham-handed bumbler constantly dropping things on the floor.

11 Mar
*sigh* I’m sitting at my desk at work with a pillow and a heating pad tucked behind my still-spasming back.

12 Mar
My new favorite bumper sticker: “What would Scooby do?”

12 Mar
I don’t want to be a grown up anymore. Can I crawl into a hole instead?

13 Mar
White smoke… Bring on the papas and beer.  Always thought it amusing that in Spanish and Italian pope/potatoes are the same, with only the article differentiating. Las papas de El Papa.

13 Mar
The Queen of Clueless Privilege strikes again: http://bit.ly/WnGOex   Yes, Amy F. Grant and Katie F. Couric are also queens of clueless privilege, but Gwyneth Paltrow is the original Clueless F. Queen.

14 Mar
Mom called twice this morning to check the time of her doctor’s appointment and once for me to tell her how to fold boxes from paper. Both equally important.

15 Mar
They found the violin that Wallace Hartley played as the Titanic sank:  http://yhoo.it/10XBK4u 

15 Mar
Some good news yesterday: Mom is responding so well to therapy she won’t need an epidural and may be coming home soon.

Also, my back is slowly getting unstrained. Driving still remains a painful challenge, but I can sit at my desk with only occasional spasms.

With all the drugs I’ve been taking for the back my Achilles tendon isn’t hurting at all anymore.

It turns out being an adult isn’t any of the things I imagined during my prolonged and protracted adolescence. I thought of it as a long, slow slide into boringness and complacency, a death of whimsy and dreaming. Frankly, I declared with pride that I would never grow up.

I never imagined there could ever be anything positive about it, and sometimes it’s No Goddamned Fun At All, but it’s not without it’s satisfactions and honor—and even puckish moments. True, those are often few and far between. Dreams have to be put on hold or parsed into small, bite-sized increments because there isn’t the energy for much else. It means taking those disappointments on the chin because there isn’t room enough to be the hurt child or the mopey kid. Life demands that we do what must be done. Often being an adult means doing the things that nobody wants to do because somebody’s got to do them, and the bottle spins around to empty space after empty space until it reaches you, the only one left. It means that procrastination will have to wait because there’s no time for it, and that hard decisions have to be made because . . . there’s no choice, really.

It also means that you get closer to your authentic self than you’ve ever been, the real grit at the bottom of the barrel. I loved my years of playing, my extenuated puberty. I hope to get back to some form of it someday—although I know that some doors, once passed through, cannot be exited through again. You’re no longer the same person who first crossed the threshold. You might reverse and try to go back the way you came, but the world you step into will not be the one you left. You can’t go home again. I understand that now. The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns…

I expect that everyone’s pathway to adulthood is different, nuanced in varieties of ways, and some people never make it there no matter how old they get. For some, adulthood is as much an undiscovered country as death. For all of us, it is the eternal way forward, no turning back. The discovery of what it means to be human, what it means to take responsibility for your actions, and . . . for the things and people you love who need you, finally, to be the grown up.

Random quote of the day:

“The great man is he who has not lost his childlike heart.”

—Mencius (Meng Tzu)

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”

—Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“You grow up the day you have the first real good laugh—at yourself.”

—attributed to Ethel Barrymore

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable.  But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

—Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we stop saying ‘It got lost,’ and say ‘I lost it.’”

—Sydney J. Harris, On the Contrary

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.