Area 151

By my count, I’ve been writing this blog for 2 years and 7 months—-first as “Personal Pasta” over on Typepad, then as “Area 151″ over on Typepad, and now at my own “net” domain-name (something I was always a little unhappy about, since I’d rather have a dot-com address). And I’ve been feeling some growing unease about it of late.

I’ve been making fun of myself for many many months about how many categories I have, about how all-over-the-place my topics are, and also about some of those categories represent elements or projects that are no longer a partof my life. I don’t really want to delete any of those categories: they were real and relevant in their time. But as I’ve written these last several weeks, I’ve felt more and more out-of-sync with this site that—if it does nothing else—represents me.

And I’ve also wondered (blame the two digital media moguls in my circle of acquaintance) if I wouldn’t have more fun with a cluster of sites, each themed in a slightly more focused way than this beast has become.

So that’s what I’m trying. As of now, there are three five (!!!) new URLS with my fingerprints on ‘em:

• The Danger of the D-Cup: The diary-stuff.
  
• Invisible Ursines: My “encounters with creativity”—both my creative pursuits (stitching, comedy, etc.), and my exposure to other (concerts, books, films, etc.)
• 21st Century Victrola: Doing the old-school Alphabetic CD Crawl in a new media way.
• Bardic Obsessions: Following Scott’s example and blogging all things Shakespeare.
• Memories of Minerva: A piecemeal resurrection of my very-first blog, sometimes footnoted with current thoughts on the me-I-was-then.

Right now there isn’t much more than empty Wordpress templates on them, so I’ll only make each link live once the first post gets published. At that point, I might also add a brief blurb detailing what each site’s anticipated focus is. And if I ever get super-galactically inspired to expand my Internet acreage, I’ll post new names and links (and maybe blurbs). Links now live, extra links added, blurbs provided for all. Wheeee!
My current intention is to leave this site up indefinitely as an archive, if for no other reason than to have the capacity to (when appropriate) link back to things I wrote between September 2004 and April 2007.

So come drop on by: the new place is just around the corner. Multiple rooms in a real grown-up abode, instead of that old studio apartment of mine. I’ll fix a cup of tea and you can hang for a while.

I pretty much hate April Fool’s Day. There’s something about the mean-spiritedness of playing jokes on someone else that just squicks me the hell out. So instead of being joking and frivolous and whatever-else, here’s just a partial end-of-Q1 report on various 2007 resolutions.

1. Weight loss. Ow. I am making zero progress with this. I’ve traversed the range from 167 and 163 more times than I can count, but there’s nothing going on as far as sustained weight loss in concerned. I think I’m at 166 today? Whatever. There’s something about all the effort and self-discipline it took for last year’s 27 pounds that just has me worn down and worn out. I’ve temporarily reset my mental sense of my goal. If I get down to 155, I’m in the “healthy” BMI range, and so that’s all I’m aiming for. Not that I’m really aiming for it, what with all that zero progress. With the continuing uncertainty in my relationship with Matt, my self-esteem is pretty well tanked, so I just can’t bring myself to do much about weight loss. I’ll be unattractive and unlovable no matter how much I weigh, so why bother?

2. Finances. Ow the second. This weekend was tax time, and oh-my-goddess that was an unhappy exercise. It’s the down side of prosperity: I jumped a tax bracket, and the sizable tax refund I’m used to getting and socking away into savings as a huge piece of next year’s property tax…. It doesn’t exist this year. I didn’t end up owing anything, but I got all of $40 back. And that’s not the property tax cushion I’m used to getting, which means I’m going to have to sock more of my take-home pay against that. Which means all my prior efforts at austerity and curbing my spendthriftiness will have to continue even stronger and more disciplined. And the efforts were already beginning to depress the hell out of me.

But, anyhow, I’ve started working extra evenings at the museum—helping out with all the corporant rentals for an extra bit of cash for each event I work—and I’ve got an event tonight. Time to get dressed and get going.

Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

Not with everything, but after weeks of thinking I was nearing the point where “something’s gotta give,” something finally gave.

Choir is Tuesday nights. I haven’t been to rehearsal since some time in mid-January. Once the pre-Tut events started kicking into gear, I had an insane stretch of Tuesday evenings where I was at work till 8 PM at minimum—often much later. Then, once that was finally over, I got my recent case of bronchitis, which knocked me out for another couple weeks.

As of tonight, I still don’t have any voice for singing. But I do have enough health that I could go pick up my music and listen and learn it, and I didn’t have to work past 6 today. In other words: I was more than capable of attending rehearsal.

Except I didn’t.

When I left the office, I has every intention of going. I came home and quickly reheated some leftovers for dinner. I walked the dog. I sat down, looking at the clock and precisely calculated how many minutes I had before I needed to change into casual pants and head out the door again.

And then I sat. And I could not in any way shape or form manage to bring myself to get up and head out to rehearse.

I feel quite guilty about this. Also resigned to the inevitability. I have been feeling overtaxed and overtired. I’ve assuredly been more vulnerable to illness because of all that exhaustion and overwhelm.* In some small corner of my mind, I think it’s probably best to cut myself some slack and to deliberately build some empty time into my schedule.

Still, I feel incredibly guilty about crapping out on my commitment to the group.

And I hate hate hate running face-first into the brick wall of my limitations like this.

* I still blame the NyQuil, too.

Reading Tally: January/February 2007Originally uploaded by Philanthropoid.

Yeah, it’s kinda far into March to be finally reporting on January and February, but I’ve been sick, so there.

Anyhow, the paltry few books with which I started my year:

• Nicholas Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun
• Christine el Mahdy, Tutankhamun: the Life and Death of the Boy-King
• Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian
• David Silverman, Josef Wegner, and Jennifer Houser Wegner, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: Revolution and Restoration

Anyone notice a bit of a trend?

Anyhow, the math to meet the goal is similar to last year’s failed attempt–two books per month, plus a few extra along the way. I’m somewhat pleased to see that at least I managed the two books per month. I’m not yet sure when and how I’ll manage the “few more along the way” part of the plan.

Now, the sharp-eyed observer might notice that the book on the left of this grouping is not, in fact, Nicholas Reeves’ The Complete Tutankhamun. That ‘cos I took the Reeves into the office as soon as I was done reading it. It’s been a useful source to make sure I and my colleagues sound somewhat well-informed when we say and write things about the Big Exhibit. The book pictured is, in fact, the exhibit catalog from the 1970s King Tut tour. My family had misplaced the copy we bought in New Orleans all those years ago, so I was thrilled to find a copy recently down at The Book Trader.

I’m also thinking the one non-Tut book in the grouping might carry a clue as to why I find it so difficult to meet these reading goals that are based on numbers of books. ‘Cos I keep picking tomes to read. Last year, it was a huge honking Ben Franklin bio, Sophie’s Choice, and Voyage of the Beagle—this year’s 656-page debut novel just continues the trend. If I read shorter books, I could easily be one or two titles closer to my goal in the time it took me to read the Kostova.

But I guess that’s just not the way I roll.

I am once again sick. It’s been quite the winter for that on my part—even if you leave holiday knife-slips off the scorecard and concentrate on regular sorts of illnesses.
First, there was December’s bout of bronchitis, then January’s run with the evil cruise-ship tummy flu, and now 4 days of something-or-other.

Sunday and Monday I had fever with flu-like muscle aches and a dry hacking cough. By Tuesday morning, the fever seemed to have broken, but the congestion had begun, and the congestion is continuing merrily apace, with that unhappily familiar sensation of settling into my lungs. I won’t see the doctor till Friday morning, so no report till then about whether this becomes a full-blown case of bronchitis or if it stays on the friendly side of the antibiotic line.

Either way, this winter has been astonishingly worse for me than prior years—the worst, I think, since that 2003-2004 stretch during which I enjoyed a case of pneumonia.

And perhaps there are many causes for this. Overwork, exhaustion, stress, just plain bad luck. I’m choosing to blame one:

They changed my NyQuil.

Times were, I had a failsafe regimen of treating colds when I got ‘em. Advil Cold & Sinus for the days, NyQuil (cherry-flavored death) to knock me out and clear my head at nights. But now that you have to put pseudoephedrine behind the counter, Advil Cold & Sinus is scarce as hen’s teeth, and my NyQuil, well…

It isn’t even my NyQuil anymore. And if you’ve ever heard Denis Leary in No Cure for Cancer, you know what I’m saying.

Dear _______ ,

Shame on me for trying to count on you.

Ruefully,

me

I am unexpectedly and uncomfortably on tenterhooks with Matt this week.

Yesterday morning, he asked me if I really truly didn’t ever want to have kids.  I guess something I said during the weekend made him aware of that in a way he hadn’t been before.  “I knew you didn’t want to physically have children,” he said. “But I thought that adopting or doing something like that was okay with you.”*

I cleared up this confusion with a more definitive statement.  It’s not the issue of physically birthing a child or not.  I have no desire to be a parent.

And with that clarification, he and I have run up against an unexpected impasse.**  Matt has always assumed that he’d have a family and children eventually.  He’s never really thought through when he wants that to occur or what he thinks parenting will be like.  He’s pretty sure he has a romanticized idea about what being a Dad would be like.

So it’s entirely possible  that further reflection will reveal that he doesn’t actually want to have kids and it was just an expectation he drifted into because he was raised to believe “it’s what people do.”  On the other hand, it’s also entirely possible that further reflection will reveal that he does sincerely and consciously want to be a father.

Which would be a dealbreaker for our future together.

I’ve asked him to do a gut check and figure out what he honestly, consciously wants from his life—as far as this question of parenting goes.  ‘Cos if he really and sincerely wants to have children, then he needs to be with a woman who wants that too.

And that’s not me.

I have no idea how long it’ll take him to decide where he stands.  I can’t imagine it’s a quick thing to figure out.  So here I stay in limbo for an uncomfortably intederminate length of time.

Meanwhile, I can already feel myself trying to prepare for the hurt that would come if he realizes he wants to be a father.  When he moved to kiss me good-bye today before leaving for work, I could feel my instinct to pull away, to not be too affectionate, to shield myself against a parting of the ways.

* I’ll admit I’m puzzled by that interpretation on his part.  I think I’ve been quite unambiguous about this issue for quite some time—certainly for as long as we’ve known each other.

** At the very least, it’s unexpected to me.  Like I said above, I had sincerely thought I’d been perfectly clear about my desire to remain childless.  And so I’d assumed that Matt’s willingness to move in with me signalled an understanding and an acceptance of that status quo.

Overworked.
Overtired.
Overwhelmed.
Overweight.
Overtaxed.
Overloaded.

Nine days ago, I got a big laugh from my improv classmates when I showed up wearing my I [heart] irony T-shirt.  Well, if it weren’t still waiting to be folded after this past weekend’s laundry festival, I’d be wearing that shirt once again while I type here.

This flap of skin that my doctor and I have been struggling with for seven weeks, trying to get it to heal over and knit itself down?  It fell off this morning.

And my thumb looks at least 20 times better than it did before that occurred.  One my coworkers exclaimed today “It actually looks like a normal finger!!”

Using as clinical a gaze as I can muster, I’d point to two small details that are slightly different than normal.

1.  I can see a small dent where the initial cut occurred.  Of course, I recall my mother having a similar dent on her index finger for some years after a knife accident.  It healed over—in time.  I’m assuming mine will too, eventually.

2. The newly-exposed skin is a bit pink and tender.  It reminds me of when I’ve gotten blisters that popped, and that tender new skin that gets revealed when that happens.  It’s something to treat with some care right now, but, again, it’s the kind of thing that has always healed over in the past, and so I have every expectation for healing in the present.

So after some telephone consults with the medical professionals, all my follow-up and specialist’s appointments have been cancelled.  If something new and troubling occurs, I know where to reach them for a new appointment.

Till then, I’m not quite all the way to normal, but I am immensely relieved at this dramatic resolution of my wound troubles.  I almost have my second thumb back!  Halle-fucking-lujah.

Of course, I can’t help thinking ruefully back on all these weeks of trying to make this piece of skin and flesh heal.  The doctor and I mighta done better to just take some fingernail scissors and clip it away a month or so ago….

And that’s ironic.  (Don’tcha think?)

Well, although there are still no signs of infection, I reached the point where I was sufficiently unhappy with the slow pace of my thumb’s healing that I made a follow-up appoinment with my doctor for this afternoon.

It was entirely possible that she’d simply say: “It’s doing fine, you’re just not used to wounds like thuis. Give it a little more time.” I’d reached the point where I needed to hear that from a doctor and not just in my own head.

Except someone forgot to pass my doc her copy of the script.

First there was the frowning, then the head shaking. It should be all the way healed by now. She wondered if this was a sign of adult-onset diabetes—which as I’m guessing you’ve heard, can cause some problems for wounds healing.* So the nice nurse pricked my finger for a glucose test to rule out that possibility.**

Aside from quickly eliminating one possible cause, the doc didn’t have much to say.

So next week, I get to visit a vascular wound care specialist.  Sounds mighty official, n’est-ce pas?

Maybe if I’m lucky, this specialist will examine my case with the wealth of tremendous more experience than is possessed either by me or my regular doc, and simply say:

“Give it a little more time.”

A girl can dream.

Meanwhile, I’m just working to regain my equilibrium and a sense of grace under pressure.

* And wouldn’t have been so horribly ironic if, after my efforts at weight loss, and after losing more than 25 pounds, now would be the time to get Type 2 Diabetes?!?

** Glucose levels fine: irony deferred.