They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
Despite the fact that everything I write here, in these rarefied environs, is little but a hodge-podge of emotion, factoid, and self-reportage, now and again I will actually TRY to extract the loose ends of my brain.Ever since reading about Dumbledore's pensieve*, I have wanted one!
If you are unfamiliar with the Harry Potter series, you may be cursing me under your breath (for you are ever circumspect). This stone basin apparatus, covered in runes, is filled with a silvery fluid or gas, wisps of which are always swirling and threatening to escape its bounds.
Here is an elaboration that may help:
The Pensieve has multiple functions.
At times, when one's head is so
full of thoughts that one cannot hear oneself think, it is useful to be able to take some of those thoughts and literally set them aside. The practiced Wizard can extract a thought from his head and store it in a phial or in the Pensieve for another time. If it is in the Pensieve, it is possible to stir the thoughts stored there together and look for patterns. It appears that the wizard has the choice of extracting an entire memory, leaving no trace of it in his head, as
Professor Snape does in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, or extracting
a copy of a memory, retaining the original, as Professor Slughorn does in Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It is also apparently possible to edit these
extracted memories, though it is a difficult task and one which is often not
done well.
If one places one's head within the Pensieve, one becomes immersed in a memory that is stored in the Pensieve, and is able to relive it as if one was living that time over again. Harry experienced Professor Dumbledore's memories of the Wizengamot trials of several death eaters this way in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Professor Snape's memories of Harry's father in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
A thought or memory stored in the Pensieve can, with proper stimulus, appear to nearby viewers as if standing on the surface of the basin. Professor Dumbledore used this technique to show Harry the prophecy that had been made about him, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and it is used in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when full immersion in memory was not needed.
It is also possible to take another person's memories, place them in the Pensieve, and then enter them to relive them as if one were the person whose memories you have just added to the Pensieve. Harry and Professor Dumbledore do this a number of times in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in order to determine the salient points of the early history of Tom Riddle, or as he later styled himself, Lord Voldemort.
Most interestingly, the memories viewed by the person watching in the
Pensieve are more complete than the person's own observations. For instance, in
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bob Ogden visits the Gaunt family.
Morfin speaks to him only in Parseltongue, which Ogden does not know; yet Harry, reliving Ogden's memories, not only understands what the Gaunts are saying in Parseltongue, he is able to perceive things happening outside Ogden's range of vision.
Spacing out in front of the television this morning, I found myself weeping at the images and sounds of yesterday's inauguration, thinking of my friends who can finally look to the seat of this country's power and see someone who looks like themselves, someone who can reference black history with both the dignity of higher office and the intimacy of personal truth -- which surely extracts much of the paralyzing venom from our past that keeps us from addressing the persistent conflicts and politics of race.
The most astounding thing I've heard thus far? There were no arrests made at the event in Washington, D.C. yesterday. That is an incredible commendation of the security force that was so very apparent and of that huge celebratory crowd.
If it is true. I have a hard time believing that no one got drunk or high, then predictably stupid, in all the revelry -- that there were no instances of "terroristic threat" -- that John mumble-tongued Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was able to leave the area unscathed!
Between them, Obama and Roberts managed to absolutely mangle the Oath of Office. Fred and I were at the Infectious Disease Infusion Center -- he was asleep in the Magic Chair while I was having blood drawn and the PICC line dressing changed. It is a miracle that Christina, the nurse, didn't stick the slumbering Fredster by mistake, as her head was swiveling back and forth in an effort to watch the inaugural festivities on the T.V. mounted in the corner of the room. As noon approached, the room filled with doctors, nursing assistants, pharmacists, secretaries, and one ancient gentleman there for chemotherapy -- two, three people piled in each of those magic recliners (everyone glaring at the now loudly snoring Fred), twirling around on those round swivel stools, holding up the walls. We were all circumspect for the initial five minutes or so, and then the commentary started to fly, beginning with the aforementioned ancient gentleman patient, who said, "I have voted in every election since Truman and Dewey in 1948... and never have I wanted someone to be out of office as bad as I want Bush gone, today." I had the impression that we all relaxed after that pronouncement. I was surprised to hear the clearly partisan chatter become uninhibited, wild -- even woolly.** Christina made several lame attempts to be fair to Bush, but the crowd just wasn't feeling it, and she came clean, eventually.
The best comment about the screwed-up oath? From one of the I.D. doctors -- a severe woman whom I saw a few times in the hospital, with an equally severe jaw and angular Eastern European haircut:
"That's okay. He'll get it right next time."
Anyway (Choo choo! train of thought?) -- so there were no arrests reported. I wonder if there were any detentions or similar euphemisms for being tossed in the slammer.
big house, calaboose, can, clink, cooler, hoosegow, house of correction, jail, jug, pen, penitentiary, pokey, prison
So it turns out that the PA I so admired is perhaps as smart as a stick. And I pay for it. Shoot, you pay for it! My insurance company pays for it. Literally! For a reason we cannot fathom, she has decided to be resistant to the idea that the pus flying out of my joints and from the interior of my bones is the result of infection. She badly wants it to be an inflammatory process.
Last week, I let her do the "gout" dance, and order diagnostic tests -- despite a long, intervening conversation that included reading the operative reports where infection was clearly what was going on. She even said something like, "Okay, so it isn't just an inflammatory process... but when I attended that lecture [on gout] last week, I thought of you!" A friend wrote me Monday night, saying that she can't wait to find out what classes or lectures the PA attended last week, because she surely would test me for it!
Ah, but this scream rises from the depths of my soul, or the chambers of my large intestine: Who pays for the tests that she orders without knowing what she is doing? SHE OUGHT TO PAY FOR THEM! She even was told to refocus by her "boss," the head I.D. guy -- she spoke to him last week and again yesterday.
My problem, and it is my problem, is that I lack mental clarity to such an extent that I can no longer advocate for myself. Truly. I am not kidding. The PA could depart from the Path of Logic and Reason and I am so incapacitated by pain and lack of sleep that I don't catch half of it. Bring someone with me? I do! That guy over there asleep in the chair!
Hell, this post is not what I wanted it to be.
"My" CRPS is worse -- particularly on the right side of my body. I was ready to jump out of my skin while Christina was searching for a vein (my PICC wouldn't give any blood, darn it all). Like so many of her compatriots, and in spite of me telling her otherwise, she thinks that gentle stroking of my skin feels good. I will ask her to please not touch me unless it is part of the procedure. She will always ask "why." I will explain CRPS again to her. She will say something that she thinks is compassionate and empathetic and will simultaneously, while wearing gloves, pat and stroke my right arm. The gloves catch and pull on my skin... and it all sends me through the ceiling because of the ensuing pain. When Fred is awake to witness it (this weekly event), I swear that he is ready to kill. She also insists on rotating that right arm out and away from the body, despite my protestations and explanations about there being no shoulder, about the distinct sensation of tissue being torn and ripped, to which she always replies: "They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right." When I rotate the arm back to a less painful position, she insists I turn it out again, else she won't be able to properly dress the PICC line. She has a point, but barely.
"They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right." My sentiments, exactly, and perhaps my motto for years to come.
This morning I learned that I am developing quite the vocal dream life, judging not only by the yells reverberating in the chill air when I jolt awake, but also by Fred's faithful transcriptions. So this is what he does while I sleep!
The most recent pronouncements?
"Ears! There are two of them!"
"I can do it. I can do anything." [Said conversationally, after sitting upright and looking around the room]
"313 Fitzgerald. 8260 Southwest 145th Street." [Old addresses]
and my personal favorite:
"Excuse me, but Derrida is down the hall." [Well, he once was! His son, too.]
Conclusion? I am awfully boring, decidedly literal.
Of course, I cannot give proper shrift to the screams. The screeching scares the whole Marlinspike Hall household half to death. Cats scatter --save Marmy, who, oddly, advances. The Castafiore comes flying, the swirling hues of what can only be called a housecoat -- not so much a peignoir, really, as a kimono-inspired wrapper -- contributing to the squirrelly after-impressions of a pastel dream gone wrong.
So long as no one interrogates me about why I screamed, I usually settle back down. A few times, still caught up in the Terror of Whatever, all I perceived was a blacked-out figure bending over me and pretty much squealed -- but it was Only Fred Freaking Out [OFFO]. What a sweetie.
Hmmm. What else remains in the hodge-podge pile? Would you believe that I have at least three blog drafts written while hallucinating?
No elephants, by the way. Rather, dainty rhinos, and more aubergine than pink, with swirls of paisley in deep burgundy, offset by green forest tendrils, and small stray flecks of gold.
That's a lie!
It is not at all visual.
Rather, there seems to be a talk radio show ongoing between my ears. I suspect that I pick up the background noise of the television, the ambient noise from the street, the cats' purring, the coffee maker, the microwave.
I hear the darnedest things. Some of the broadcasts are in warm, familiar voices -- the Grader Boob's, for instance. The dulcet tones of my stepmother, I think I recognize, I am not sure. Content is the determining factor, and as I hear her recount afternoon teas and toast, being tossed in the gales, and swimming alongside our little overturned Sunfish sailboat as the dark clouds loom, thunder audible, with lightening just a promised thing -- as I hear these details, I welcome her, just as water laps against the shell.
Since my visit with Aunt Nancy a week ago, my stepmother has been almost constantly on my mind. Nancy, herself, peoples my day fantasies, these visions, my noisy dreams, as a young girl in petticoats, scared, lying under the bed, waiting for cruelty. No, no -- back to 301 Walnut Creek Drive, my glory days.
Mom reminds me how to make the toast. It matters. In the rushed early morning hour, two extra pieces of whole wheat toast are buttered, placed in that tired old pie pan recycled from the Sunday morning Sara Lee coffee cake. The bread sits for about an hour at a just warm temperature of maybe 200 degrees before we turn off the heat(never ever open the oven door before being ready to eat them, usually, Mom and I would surely agree, with afternoon tea). So we conveniently "forget" about those extra toast slices, and as we go running out the door into our day, turn the heat off. Don't dare open that oven door until you go there in surprise late that afternoon.
Crispy, aromatic, buttery, cut into triangles, served with Earl Grey or whatever was on hand. It felt civilizing. Better than Melba toast but not a telltale vice like a scone or... a cream horn. Cough. There was a bakery downtown, across the street (and believe it or not, the street was Main Street) from my stepmother's grandfather's jewelry store. This bakery made the most beautiful, light, slightly sweet cream horns and my stepmother and I would buy five -- eat two on the way home, have two with tea... and offer my father the leftover one, which he invariably refused and which we then tastefully halved! Ah, but the toast was still a wonderful accent to the day. 2.5 cream horns a day would've eventually worn us down...
Ugh. Fred just reported a "huge dead rat" in the front pasture, just beyond the Moat to Marlinspike Hall, where he was out cavorting with a friend's dog. Yes, to the three cats, he wishes to add a dog. I am a dog person, never even entertaining the thought of having cats until I met him. We had a dog together but that story is not one I wish to revisit today. Suffice it to say that I will never again subject a dog to the wiles of his temperament. He thinks he has changed and that were he to pick the dog, all would be well. I hope so, because if not, he may find himself alone in all kinds of ways.
It was only a week or so ago that I ever saw the show "The Dog Whisperer." Strangely enough, like The Boutiqueur, The Dog Whisperer advises, over and over, living in the now. I like that he does this without overburdening his subject with whatever that might mean. It may sound snotty, but it is what it is. Maybe it is not that radical a notion, eh?
"You live in the past, you get what you had in the past." I love Cesar -- when he speaks about humans, you can almost sense how frustrated the species makes him. Hence the blurb for the show "I rehabilitate dogs. I train humans."
Persistent patience. "Calm assertive."
Oh Mom.
Nancy was right, and I can no longer block what Mom said, nor should I. Why have I pretended that these things had never been said? To what end?
"[Future] Retired Educator, don't make me choose between you and your father, because I will choose him every time." And so it has gone.
Soon, in a matter of days, I am thinking, I need to honor this aunt of mine who has blown in and out of my path by allowing my mind to think about my grandfather, the sainted child abuser, the orphan who grew up knowing no one knows what. He and I rescued countless animals together
-- he helped me hand raise a blue jay that was deliberately pushed out of its nest. That bird stayed for about a year before being killed by a hawk. "Squawky" and I played outside, the jay hopping from tree to tree, yelling and laughing with me, but he usually came in at night, at least in the first months he could fly.
Oh, and if you did not know, teaching a wild baby bird to fly is perhaps the most humbling of activities. You are familiar with the scenario of a kitten up a tree? Substitute a baby blue jay who was taught to fly by hand flutter techniques, managed to land -- okay, more like crash land -- on this high branch, and now is stuck here with no notion what to do except to call for his largish and clumsy mother, who doesn't have a clue except to turn to her gently smiling grandfather, who quietly went and got a ladder.
My nightmares, my fevers, these hallucinatory days? I hope they will lead me to dream of Granddaddy as he might have been as a small boy -- intelligent, lovable, loving, and orphaned. Maybe I will understand how he could beat his children, but probably not. It's not something I am seeking to excuse or deny, but I know that it is important for me to accept that it happened, and to be less shocked by the many permutations it has had, as it rippled forward in time.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
They oughta do sumpthin' about that. That ain't right.
*A Pensieve is a stone receptacle used to store and review memories. Covered in mystic runes, it contains memories that take physical form as a type of matter that is described as neither liquid nor gas. A witch or wizard can extract their own or another person’s memories, store them in the Pensieve, and review them later. It also relieves the mind when it becomes cluttered with information. Anyone can examine the memories in the Pensieve, which also allows viewers to fully immerse themselves in the memories stored within, much like a magical form of real world virtual reality.
Users of these devices view the memories from a third-person-point-of-view, providing a near-omniscient perspective of the events preserved. This, of course, raises questions of how they are able to see things beyond what they have remembered. Rowling answered this question in an interview, confirming that memories in the pensieve allow one to view details of things that happened even if they did not notice or remember them, and stated that "that's the magic of the Pensieve, what brings it alive". The "memories" contained in the Pensieve have the appearance of silver threads. Memories that have been heavily manipulated or tampered with to alter perspectives, or are simply aged and gone-spoiled (such as Slughorn's), may appear thick and jelly-like and offer obscured viewing. Memories are not limited to just those of humans, since at least one house-elf (Hokey) provided Dumbledore with a memory as well.
** "Wild and woolly"
Meaning: Lawless and uncultured.
Origin: This expression is of American origin and came into being to describe the 'wild' west of the country sometime after the Californian Gold Rush era of the 1850s. The US publication The Protestant Episcopal Quarterly Review and Church Register, 1855, included a reference to the "wild and woolly-haired Negillo", which is almost there.
The first example I can find of the precise phrase in print is in the Missouri newspaper The Sedalia Daily Democrat, December 1875:
"W. A. Palmer, the South Bend, Indiana, murderer and paramour of Dolly Tripp, was for several years resident of Clinton. Bill always was one of the 'wild and woolly' kind and would associate with the demimonde."
[Hmm. From further reading, I presume that "negillo" means "negrito," a reference to "pygmy."]
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