Cats Trump Writer's Block

NOTE: A just discovered gem buried in the Drafts folder, dated 8 August 2012, 10:27 AM, Tête de Hergé Super Standard Time.  The "gem" is not the writing, but the cat photography.  I think this blog has been entirely too grim of late, so a CAT POST is just the thing.  And since I don't feel much like posting today, or perhaps ever again, finding something that claims to have broken through "Writer's Block" is terrifically helpful to the me of today, 21 January 2015.  And it's a darned shame that Tante Louise's video cameo appearance didn't make it to the page -- but she is surely getting all things aligned in Heaven (which is, as Townes Van Zandt reminds us, "where you find it.").  And I do also miss the original Crack Whore Organic Pig Farmer Lady, taken down by the Fugitive Squad/Aunt Louise. An unfortunate, but historic, Community Event. Memories are slippery things!

Enjoy this serendipitous break from an Excessively Somber Period of Blogging!

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Dobby

So,  when I made the masterpiece of a video about flushing PICC lines, the astute observer will have noticed that I dropped the recording device into a sink full of nice, hot soapy water.  Cleanliness, godliness!

I don't have much money.  I'm poor, in fact.  Not entitlement poor, more like, receiving 60% of my 2000 salary with no adjustment for cost-of-living or any inflationary trickeroos poor -- and using that money to support a household, pay a caretaker, fork out over $15,000 on health care (with insurance, even the blessed PCIP), and all the usual -- maintaining the sexiness of Ruby the Honda CRV, and keeping her legal, paying the mortgage, and having every animal in our care up to date in shots and vet exams.  Hell, the year of Little Boy (Uncle Kitty Big Balls), because of Fred's deep love for him, we payed close to $5,000 trying to save the dear soul's life.  I have to say, though, that had the vet involved been a better vet. a more honest vet, we might have stopped torturing him several thousand dollars earlier.

Lest you scoff at my "I'm poor" by pointing your pointy finger at my list of financial accomplishments, I should add that I never eat out, haven't been to a movie theatre, much less La Scala, in over a decade, and some claim that "generic" is my middle name.

Also, I make my money grow by playing the market.

That's right.  The socialist owns GOOG [but the rest of her portfolio is so deep in risk that she ain't revealing anything more, lest your mere scoffery turn to disgust].

Anyway, this is my way of explaining that I bought a new video camera.  It was a deal, a steal, and a good choice according to Fred's Bible, Consumer Reports, Tête de Hergé edition.  There was much ado about how easy it is to use, though I admit there was not a specific warranty of ease of use when the photog has one good hand, and a fumbling one, at that.

So far it is defeating me.  I don't get the zillions of icons offered on the LED screen.  Just tap!  It's easy! Without proof that one of those symbols won't launch an ICBM, I cannot willy-nilly start choosing picto-signifiers.  I have a conscience.

But this morning, which came too early, I thought I would at least try to take some still photos.  And then show them, describe them, say things, any things, to help destroy the iron bars behind which I pretend this writer is penned, blocked.

So... like many of my kind, after I inject myself with a few drugs, take 7 pills, go pee,and climb into the wheelchair, my first act of the day is to make coffee.  As you ought to know, we harbor three cats in our wing of Marlinspike Hall -- Captain Haddock issued orders that they no longer are free-ranging throughout the Manor, what with the claw-sharpening activity in the Tapestry Alcoves and all:  Marmy Fluffy Butt, Dobby (her son, the runt), and Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten (no one told us he was a Maine Coon).
These three insert themselves boldly, and sometimes rudely, into the coffee-making plan by performing intricate death-defying patterns around the wheels of this power chair.  "Feed us, feed us, feed us," they chant.

At which point the absurdity begins.  I manage to get three bowls filled with fresh and tasty kibble and on the floor, in the required layout.  Marmy will only eat out of the red plastic bowl;  Dobby and Buddy prefer the metal bowls, but then purposefully set out to eat from each receptacle.  The two water bowls must frame the three food bowls like parentheses.  Change that and one of them will make the subtle point of their dissatisfaction by, for example, eating with one paw in one water bowl, and filling the other water bowl with half-chewed bits of kibble.

But, finally, coffee.

Oh, here is a picture of my new kettle.  I broke my café press a few weeks ago.  Might have been the same day I killed the video camera.  So I dug out one of our many Melitta drip cones and went back to that most honest form of coffee-making.  In the process, I noticed that my Paul Revere kettle was leaking.  As in, the solder was breaking down, the seams were separating.  So I went online to my new favorite pastime -- FAB -- the rule in force being "no purchases allowed, because you are poor, no matter how well GOOG is doing."

But they had this kettle, and it was cute, and it was on sale, and it is now on my stove (in our private kitchenette, as it is hardly appropriate for the more demanding heat requirements of, say, the Medieval Kitchens).

New red kettle from FAB

If confession is truly good for the soul:  I also bought some stationary.  I have a weakness for good stationary, and may be the last person on Earth to continue to send handwritten letters and cards, delivered to brick-and-mortar, or daub-and-wattle, or hand-chinked stone domiciles.

Okay, so... it's heavy, the kettle.  I have already poured boiling water onto my lap, neatly missing the Melitta cone, because I couldn't hold the lovely shiny red thing up high enough to pour the water in over something not made of my flesh, like the counter.  But I will figure it out.  This morning, I put my coffee-making stuff in the sink, reducing the height requirement of the kettle heft.  [You will either understand that last sentence or you won't.  I can't help you.]

The video camera, when plugged into the limping-along computer, has lovely edit functions for my visual artistry.  Unfortunately, the red of the kettle was lost in the necessity to tone down the severely dominating whiteness of the stove top's enamel, even the whitey glare of the pitcher and old cookie jar that hold my cooking utensils.

The red, the red, it is not right.

Okay, so the cats are fed.  The coffee is made and, if necessary, burn balm applied to my upper thighs.
I turn the wheelchair in the direction of early morning television news, the computer, and a bed into which I can dive when pain spikes.

Dobby always disappears about five minutes before I make my slow journey to the bedroom -- slow because I'll be damned if any more coffee is leaving the mug, unless headed for my caffeine-starved self.

The photo at the top of this post?  That's what I find waiting for me on the bed -- without fail, and thankfully so, for it makes me smile like no body's business.  Dobby, laid out, and ready for his requisite ten minutes of loving.

He wants, first, a fierce belly rub, then a sensual ear massage, easy on the right one.  He then finds the comb and brush dedicated to his use, and his use alone, and knocks them on the floor.  Why we have to go through this particular part of the ritual, I dunno, but I don't change things because he's cute when he tries to get tough.

The grooming begins in earnest, and lasts as long as my right arm can wield the brush and comb.

After ten minutes, usually, of attention, Dobby is faced with three options:

• He can play with Buddy, who has taken his place at the foot of the bed, and is vocalizing like a loon.
• He can curl up and take his first nap of the day.
• He can grab the comb, freshly cleaned of his fine gray hairs, growl, shake it, and run off with it looking like a 19th century train robber who scored gold.

Okay, back to my pitiable photography.  Marmy has sworn me off.  She doesn't come to cuddle any more, she runs, in fact, when I draw near.  Oh, she is conflicted, that is for sure.  She talks at me when we're together in the kitchenette, and lets me pat her head.  She relies on me to clean up her hairball offerings, which have become frequent, because she won't let me help her with her decidedly difficult grooming.  (She's a long-haired beauty.)

My crime?  She has a recurrent eye condition -- herpes, actually -- which requires "gooping" with medication.  She managed to go several years without a problem but a few months back, poor thing, it returned with a vengeance in her left eye.  Now... Fred is a loving pet caretaker but he lacks finesse when it comes to administering pet medications.  As in, he scares the crap out of them because he believes they must be captured for the process to have meaning.  My philosophy is more one of waiting for them to come to me, then faking them out, but following my evil up with a good nuggle, a nice treat, something to confuse their nascent desire to hate me.

Marmy, though, has that incredible ability to read a human's mind.  Before you make a move to pick up the eye ointment, before you even allow yourself to entertain the thought of eye ointment, she's on to you, and she is GONE.

So we had to go with the Fred Method.  For some reason (a phrase I'd love to be able to eliminate from my life, or at least reduce its aptitude), he'd trap her, then carry her to me, and I would get to apply the goop to her eye.  

Now, I don't know, but it is my strong suspicion, having gooped other cats with this same medication, that Marmy is a bit, you know, Castafiore-esque.  She yelps, she cries, she squirms, she gives you the Look Of Death.  Every one else shakes their tiny feline heads, maybe gives a brief glare, and then they're over it.

Marmy Fluffy Butt has yet to forgive me.

This is how I get to see her first thing in the morning.  Peering at me, half-hidden behind the doorway, wondering if I am gonna drop the cherry bomb of a new kettle in order to swoop over, grab her by her Fluffy Tail, and stick some acid-like substance in her eyeball.  It's been months now.  I've decided to ignore her, and that is beginning to work, as, again like The Castafiore, she cannot bear the lack of attention.

Marmy Fluffy Butt, giving me the Evil Eye, and badly in need of grooming

It's unfair not to remind you that Marmy has her reasons -- we took her in when she was heavy with kittens, to the point where her belly almost dragged the floor.  She's tiny -- barely 8 pounds, and she had five little ones inside her.  She was only 8 months old at the time, or so figured the vet.  We figure that she started as someone's pet, and then was abandoned, and had been on the streets for a good bit.  

It's unfair not to note that we "took her in" by following one of Fred's Grab Scenarios, using a yummy bowl of kibble as bait.  Marmy will not eat wet food, something we wish someone would explain to us.  She refuses real chicken, etc.  Anyway, we kidnapped the poor, freezing pregnant soul and so began life with Marmy.  She was essentially feral for almost two years.

In the first few months of her stay, Fred had to CARRY my sweet Sam-I-Am (now deceased) past her to the litter box or she would beat him up.  Sammy weighed about 14 pounds.  It was ridiculous.

We don't know, beyond rape, what she endured out on the street, but it wasn't good.  When she decided we were okay, it was wonderful.  She made up for lost love time.  She domesticated as no cat has domesticated before her.

So when she reverts to her fearful state, it hurts my heart.  She and Fred were never nuggle partners, and he doesn't groom unless brushes are actually thrown at him with loud verbal encouragements, so their relationship is still stable.  

I hope my next photo of my girl is a pose of her purring and stretched out on my belly, all sleek and smooth, with fun, and not fear, in her eyes.  And God forbid that her eyes ever need treatment again.

O Lordy, Lordy!  Good grief.  Moving right along.  Those of you who have followed Buddy's growth, here's how big he is now, and still growing.  The vet says he will continue to grow for another two years, one of those weird bits of Maine Coon trivia.

Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten

Note Marmy sneaking in behind him, and actually eating out of a metal bowl and not her beloved red plastic thang.  Buddy has become her pal, for which we're very thankful, as he's the only living organism in Marlinspike Hall who can successfully defend against the swift application of her claws, or achieve the speed of light.  The two of them love to vocalize, and they streak by in blurs that even make Dobby look perplexed.

Well, after I conquer the "photo" mode on this bleeping camera, I will give the video mode another try.  

Fred was sorely disappointed in me a couple of days ago, when the Crack Whore Organic Pig Farmer Lady who lives across our country lane was raided by the Tête de Hergé Lone Alp West Fugitive Squad -- you would have bust a gut at the sight of Tante Louise in SWAT gear.  She had managed to move about a yard by the time her team had rushed the Pig Farm Cottage, captured the ne'er-do-well, thrown her into the back seat of the Fugitive Catcher Car, an orange Vega, dodged a few angry free-ranging hogs, wrapped a few muddy acres in yellow cop crime scene tape, and jumped back into the Fugitive Squad station wagon.

I had the camera out but it was just the second time I'd ever had it strapped to my quivering, spazzing right hand.  So we ended up with a lovely montage of light glinting off the moat, close-ups of hog jowls, and lots of footage of Tante Louise stuck in the mire.

It would have gone viral on YouTube.

© 2015 L. Ryan

Writer's Block and Its Detritus

NOTE TO THE READERSHIP:  After finding the dusty draft, just published, on conquering writer's block, I searched to see if I'd ever written myself out of that box before. Lo and Behold! Back on 10 January 2010, a more somber moi tried to scribble her way free of that writing snare. Just as self-centered and focused on pity as most of my posts, I don't get the feeling of resounding success that came from the "Cats Trump Writer's Block" posting.  There's a lesson there.  You should be getting a vibrating-cum-annoying-ring text message on your smarty-panted phone about now... and with every Pity Party Post published herein.  Yes, there was an app for that!  If you adjust your "Settings," you might be able to avoid future text alerts for depressing REPOSTS!

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Oh, my dahlink readers, I am so sick.

At least, this is a common, plebeian, ordinary sort of sick, as opposed to my usual krapola of unheard of neurological disorders and infectious disease firsts, auto-immune oddities and literally rotting bones.

You know that steroids weaken the immune system, right? That cheers me whenever I get some infectious process -- because when acutely ill, the first thing I am supposed to do is DOUBLE MY STEROIDS. Gee, let's take MORE immune-suppressing drug, especially now that the germs are attacking!

Okay, so here is the deal.

I have writer's block, I think. Plenty to say, that's not the issue. Hyper-awareness of my own worth is more the cause. When you know just exactly how little you matter, there's no point to yapping on and on.

Still, writing is invigorating and good for me. And, to be brought low by gunked-up stinky yellow mucus AND silence would be just too much to bear. Especially that "silence" part.

So I am going to continue this here post, this ode to bodaceous blogging, as a Live Blogging Event. Anything goes. The ridiculous shall be honored. No spell checks allowed.

No erasures, no deletions. Above all? NO CAVEATS. No breathy declarations of what-i-really-meant-to-say.

Here we go. Keep your fingers crossed in hope that, by the end of this process, I will have regained some sense of writerly purpose.

More and more, I am keeping the Boob Tube on, even when I am not watching it. This is typical, I believe, of people who feel lonely. Still, when I turn it off, I relish the silence and fuss at myself about the ridiculous waste of energy, and the pollution of noise and idiocy.

One of my Brother-Units was overly generous at Christmas time, and I used his excessive generosity to purchase a Wii system, with the Fit program and balance board, plus extra remotes and whatcha-ma-callits. I used it with great fun until New Year's Eve when the virus first made its concerted attack.

Shortly before Xmas, we turned the dining room into a library. Don't argue or fret, just accept it. Dining room? Now a library. Okay?

So we have a tiny old t.v. stashed in the new reading room, that no one likes to watch. In the bedroom, we have the main viewing machine, but Fred, especially, wants to replace it with a fancy-schmancy new one. The one in the bedroom is to be moved into the library (the tiny one already in there? I dunno its fate.).

The thinking behind these genius moves is that "We can Wii" better in there, since the center of the room is free. "Wii"ing in the bedroom, in addition to sounding like an odd excretory process, is a cramped endeavor.

I believe that fixing this situation will be my goal for today. This will entail sending The Fred to make the television purchase, slightly reworking the library layout, dealing with wires and connections and Semi-Technical Schtuff.

By the end of the day, The Library will have been humbled to the status of Room-With-A-Few-Books.

And maybe I can play a little Wii Tennis tonight. I confess that just playing tennis as a video game brings back most excellent memories.

My legs are on fire. The right foot is completely messed up, burning and twisting, bringing me down, pissing me off. In a nostalgic move, the shooting electrical charge that I associate with my first year or so with CRPS, is back, and the end point of the surge? You guessed it: all the way down the leg into the foot, culminating in fireworks within the spacious confines of my BIG TOE.

That first year (or so!), Fred was often treated to my loud hacking yells -- in the middle of watching a movie, eating dinner, deep sleep. Even though I knew that the sudden electrocutions of my feet were coming, anticipation did nothing to keep me from screaming with pain. I tried and tried to maintain silence, to not give a hint of distress, fear, or frustration. Most of the time, I failed. The instances of success were marked by an inability to breathe and palms gouged-- from digging nails, a failed fist. And here I am, nine years later, back at it -- a regular screech owl, talons sharp and at the ready.

I wake myself up, screaming.

Of course, I also occasionally wake up laughing my ass off.

In addition, I am often shaken back to consciousness by the weight of Dobby, Our Little Idiot, perched on my chest, a worried look on his face. It happens whenever I am so audacious as to put my arms under the quilt -- something I have been prone to do during this incredible cold snap. This triggers some large anxiety in him -- does he think I am being eaten by the quilt? Death by textile? [Dobby has a "thing" for threads, materials, weavings, tapestry and affects his evaluations so seriously that I can imagine him as a bent tailor, absentmindedly rubbing some fine cloth in between his index finger and thumb.]

It is unfortunate, though, this need to rescue me from my quilt.

I have just the one quilt that I am able to tolerate over my body. I sleep on top of another [lesser] quilt, and cover everything but my legs with this worn, beloved, rubbed-soft cotton handmade wonder... It is full of holes, stained [despite being washed twice a week] by coffee and, thanks to the seven major shoulder surgeries between August 2008
and April 2009, considerable blotches of betadine and -- sorry -- blood. It's as sanitary as can be... but is looking fairly sad.

I have tried other things and it is either a problem with weight or softness -- too much weight on this CRPS-afflicted body, and the pain levels and burning get out of control -- too little softness and the irritation to the skin also increases the burning sensations that are the hallmark of CRPS-type pain.

I miss getting between the sheets, though! Just like I miss shoes -- oh, God how i miss shoes!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it looks like the television scenario will extend into the weekend, as Fred is getting a slow start, and I don't feel like irking him with request upon request.

Over on Twitter (another universe, Twitter!), I am shocked by the frequency with which I see folks writing these exact words in response to the current humanitarian crisis in Haiti: "What about the people who need help in our own country?" It's my least favorite form of argumentation, if it even qualifies as such. The only thing I know to say -- though I would never take up the argument on Twitter -- is "well, we are not talking about those people right now..." There's not a reasoned response to be made to people who are looking for a fight or who wish to use others purely as something to stand on. And I mean that almost literally and with near good intentions.

Into my head just popped: chowder. Specifically, fish chowder. I watched a recent episode of Chef Bobby Flay's Throwdown show -- about Manhattan Fish Chowder, meaning simply that is has a tomato base. What can I say? I feel catholic on Friday. It sounds like dinner to me.

Cooking has become something I very much enjoy, even as the mechanics of getting it done have become complicated. We foresee a day when I won't be able to do it any longer -- mostly because of my hands and their unpredictability, as well as the situation with my shoulders. Ah... but until then? I am becoming quite the cook. I've always loved it, but as I have needed to concentrate and think my way through the process more and more -- imagine! I got better at it! Go figure.

I've decided to perform penance (get this catholic shit out of my head! out! out!) for my sinful thoughts about Fred's persistent participation in Wednesday night suppers over at the Existentialist Congregation -- yes, the place being run by Militant Lesbians. This penance has taken the form of making the dish he takes to these weekly potlucks. This week, they got to feast on my carrots. It's my own "recipe," though I don't write anything down -- I think this is actually a common presentation for carrots, though The Fredster ooohs-and-ahhhs like it is something special. Cooking for 10 people, I used 15 whole carrots, cut into 1/4 inch rounds. A bias cut would be fine, too. Just cut the suckers up however you want. The more surface area, the more of the sauce you will taste... Then steam them until just soft. I make my own curry "powders," as I am very picky about spices... Sometimes, they are the only thing over which I have quality control. Why? Oh... I would have to go into the intricacies of getting out of the house, going shopping, etcetera. hmmm. You know what? I *started* a post a few weeks back, like the very day I was getting sick. It remains a draft. I will tack it onto the end of this post -- this post that is rapidly spiralling out of control.

Back to the hot topic of carrots. Where was I? Ah, curry. Cumin, cardamom, mustard, cayenne, coriander, and turmeric -- best if all are in "whole" form, then toasted and ground, in proportions of your choice, as needed. I add other spices according to my mood, mostly. Chipotle. Cinnamon. Fennel.

I suspect that I use spices as a form of sexual sublimation. Exotic, passionate, rich, intense. And so forth. Ahem. Cough. Titter.

Peppers. Nutmeg. Various peppers. Fenugreek. Cloves. Saffron.

Find what you like. For these easy carrots, you want to complement their sweetness and the citrus that you will also be adding. In other words, it won't be the star of the show, so keep it out of the "smoky" range and more in the Arena of Simple.

So... to the carrots directly, or in a separate pot if you are kinda timid, start adding your curry, then some butter. Then salt (sea salt, kosher). Finally, add the zest of one large navel orange, as well as about a quarter cup of its juice. Serve immediately or in the time it takes to fly across town to your pseudo-religious Wednesday night Christian-bashing session. Cough. Ahem. Titter... Cloves. Garlic. Chiles...

The stock market, in its infinite wisdom, has taken back all the goodness it gave just last week. Pow! Boff! Bam!

Incredibly, I need to rest now. And I am soaked again from the fever breaking -- for which I am grateful. I am just tired of washing up and changing my clothes several times a day! Before I lay down under my previously mentioned quilt, I will start a load of laundry. Added incentive is the fact that Marmy Fluffy Butt decided to mark my softest hoodie, the little beyatch.

So has slapping all these words down managed to break through the walls of my writing block? I don't know. It doesn't feel particularly liberating, but then that could be due to a mounting sense of frenzy and fatigue -- a simultaneous combination that is soul-wearying.

As promised, and without prejudging whether it really "goes" or not with what I wanted to say about "control" of cooking ingredients.... here is the kernel of a post that never made it. I haven't altered a word of it, which may come back to haunt moi, eh? I also have no idea why that particular YouTube vid was tacked onto the end, although I remember thinking that I loved this child, and wanted her energy and happiness:

okie-dokie, so we are sick as dogs... although, where the meaning of that comes from, i dunno. dogs are not, by nature, "sick."

right?

this virus is cruel. i woke feeling pretty doggone (who let the dogs out?) good. no coughing. temp 98.4 (no shit!) just an aching head, with pesky swollen glands. for me? a big nada. no problem. gonna coast through the day, get some work done, mebbe write a little, do my wii, face cleaning the bathroom (procastination issue).

i was looking forward to showing off for fred. "how do you feeeeeellll, ffffred, dahlink?"

"moi? moi? i feel fuh-fuh-fine, ffffred!"

while waiting for fred to wake up, i did morning chores, and began to lag. yes, the energy did flag, and i, i began to fade. i was, in short, diminished.

sorry. i was briefly channeling t. s. eliot.

or yeats.

it's so hard to tell, anymore. i grow old.

eating the peach is not gonna be my issue. no, i think that monster slinking toward jerusalem is gonna get moi.

hey, i bought a new toothbrush the other day! wait, i didn't tell you i went out, did i? well, i did. grocery shopping. and i had an emotional meltdown right in the middle of the damned store. see... i hadn't left the house in 29 days. that's right. TWENTY-NINE FREAKING DAYS. that's how high my pain level has been, how miserable my legs, how very, very bad it has been. oh, poor moi {peeking to see if you pity moi, yet...}!

anyway, i had been begging to go to the store for days, but fred didn't put together my eagerness with the notion of going-to-the-store as a FUN activity. so when we entered said establishment and he announced, "let's split up, we'll get done faster"?
i started to boohoo. can you believe it? how retarded am i, and increasingly so, with increasing frequency?

poor man. in his mind, i go out whenever he does (pretty much daily, and at least twice a week for social engagements. he had not counted the passing of TWENTY-NINE FREAKING DAYS, nor did he really register the number of DIY amputations of my legs that i had undergone in fits of desperation at the increasingly increasing pain. he *cannot*, of course, and i don't want him to follow the bouncing ball of my suffering, anyway, poor soul. i've ruined his life enough, don't you think?

oh, hell, where was i? did i tell you i am spiking a way high, a mile high fever?

the toothbrush. oh, yeah. so we were in the market, en train de faire le marché, when i remembered i needed a new one. i pop a few wheelies and race down the toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, deodorant, and sundries aisle. fred is tearing after me, the shopping cart careening this way and that... he sees me stop in front of the pitiable selection of plaque-scrapers, and calls out: "wait! we have a supply of new toothbrushes at home!"

now... i don't know exactly why that sent me over the edge, but it did. i had not been out of the house for... well, you know. do you get how hard it is to run a household by sending a guy with adhd to do the necessary errands? have you tried making a detailed grocery list when you are only able to go to the store yourself but a couple o'times a year? i am a very visual person. back in the day (i.e., before crps, before avn, before ai, and so on)? i just took a mental stroll down the aisles, pictured what was there, made my lists in almost perfect synchronicity with the actual order of the products. i made a killer list, detailed but simple, a list on which even the most shopping-challenged could rely.

no more. oh no. now i am liable to hand my sweet man something along the order of:

apples, if they are under $1.39 a pound. and fresh. also, please don't buy them if the skin is even slightly loosened from the inner fruit. you know what i mean. like they'd been stored in a cold bin for too long. we're looking for très fresh.

keep an eye out for endive. gots to have my endive.

toilet paper
pasta

lowfat plain yogurt (7)
drain cleaner

get yourself something for snacking
bananas
ham bone

celery seed for me, ground celery seed for you
italian roast whole coffee beans for me; columbian blend for you; when will we go to farmer's market to get ethiopian beans, hmmm?

white onions, yellow onions, please don't buy pre-bagged





READERSHIP!  How fitting that this video "does not exist"!  It's Karma for all the narcissism displayed above.  I shall reincarnate as a worm.

© 2015 L. Ryan

dearest literate friends

Here follows a group email just sent to the people in my life whom I consider both important and of a literate, if not literary, bent.  It follows here because it occurred to me that some of my dearly beloved readers make up that group, but we don't habitually correspond.

Of course, some of you think I'm crazy, and I haven't been overly driven to dissuade you of that notion -- although this ought to do it:

dearest literate friends:

i am considering finishing the second chapter of my novel, after i rewrite the first, of course.  however, the monkey on my back is driving me batty.  therefore, this email, akin to a gentle overnight laxative made for women.

in reference to references some of you have repeatedly made (or thought), mostly in the form of formulaic admonitions, written in the guise or attitude of "wise, successful writer/person" to "naive, unpublished scrivener/person," i have found my own formulaic defense! 

to what references do i refer?  well, nicely put, my tendency to muddle and befuddle, to compound, to render complex what the poor reader needs reduced to the pure seasonal note of a finely reduced sauce, wherein what began as excess is reduced to mere teasing hints of possible meaning.  those references, spoken, written, smirked, thought, and printed on the occasional organic cotton tee.

why should i need a defense, as my detractors intend not to detract but to aid, smooth, glaze, and lovingly correct?  well, mostly because i am considering a return to a website fairyland full of know-it-all writers. i love them, they love me, but we will never, ever be family...

john dewey shall be my apologist, as foretold at my birth, and the announcement of his anachronistic endorsement of my efforts to creatively write will clear the cluttered path to my writing, and shoo away the nincompoops who cannot sit placidly in my messes of zen.

so here it is, my new signature "look," er, quote:

"I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context " --John Dewey

love,       

Clarice Lispector
(What? you were expecting John Dewey?)

lisa

loosa lee

profderien

monaghana

bianca castafiore

irene

eljay

© 2013 L. Ryan

Beware the chasmic gap

Strange, but I've not felt like writing in quite a while.  Not even emails to people I love, a quick note to people I like, not even, and this is worrisome, when communication was required to take care of Manor business.  I'm not lazy, I swear I am not.

It's Stephen King's fault.

When my Dad died in early July, I needed a new "main" book to read, as I usually keep several going at once, but concentrate on one in particular -- the one that goes with my midnight yogurt and the hope of sleep.  Don't laugh at my choice, please.

Tolkien's trilogy.  I'm mid-way through The Two Towers, as reading slow, and slowly, seemed important.  I had the collection stacked at the highest point of the hutch over my desk and needed one of the handy grabbers to get it down.  Even at the most familiar parts of the story, I did not skip a word, and The Fellowship of the Ring was a joy to reread.

Who knows what was going on between my ears.  Clear good, clear evil.  Honor.  Loyalty. World wars.  Treachery.  "Fly, you fools."

I got the series as Christmas gifts when I was 9, and immersed myself in them, escaped.  And that's all there is to say about that.

There came an opening in the book rotation, and in the pile of options was Stephen King's Rose Madder. The pile was a donation pile -- the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists will soon be holding their annual book sale, and I hate to donate something I haven't even read.  Snort. Let's just say I'm over that.

Confronted with my weird choices, the area of my brain in charge of rhetoric and composition just gave up the ghost, and there went my writing, such as it was.

Beware the chasmic gap between J. R. R. Tolkien and Stephen King.  I saved myself from a forced reading of a compendium of Henri Nouwen quotes by a swift sleight of hand that landed its uncracked spine about two-thirds of a way down in the charity stack.

The Eve of my Return to Relevance: This, There!

I'm lacking sufficient sleep, as yet, to return to writing as creation.  My fatigue serves as perfect foreground, however, for writing as demonstrative adjective -- indicating specific items in relation to myself -- and, on weird occasion, for writing as demonstrative pronoun, which is, I suppose, an assumption of the thing itself, far or near, in distance, in time.

One way is a dance; The other, a requirement. A requirement of attention.

Kim Stengel (to play Bianca Castafiore in Spielberg's
Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, scheduled
for December 2011 release)

Were I feeling creative, I'd transcribe the argument La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore put forth earlier this evening over a beautiful meal of roasted vegetables -- mounds of caramelized goodness, celery, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, new potatoes, three kinds of quartered onions, several heads of garlic, all tossed and drizzled with sea salt and good olive oil, left unmolested in a very hot oven -- bothered only by half-hearted, swift stirs every twenty minutes or so.  It is done when it's done.  It is done dependent on what you want roasted to be, there and then.

The Castafiore contends that the entire issue of verbal demonstration, be it blatantly dependent or pronominal in nature and style, is best explained by the state of one's lips, which is also in correlation with a certain ready tension of the mind.


French-speaking individuals, she points out, tersely, have thin, muscular, *ripped* lips.  And if they don't, she explains, they are supposed to.  On the other end of the Lip Buff continuum lie lisping and lazy English speakers, usually American English speakers, to be precise.  You will never catch a French phonetician begging students to make their lips round and soft, she crowed. The tongue, the jaws, the lips -- the French speaker holds their position for the life of the sound while the American English goof idles, lags, drones, and  vacillates -- eyes all vague, sometimes even crossed.  Oh, and they drool.  Frequently.  The big parasitic linguist lumps!


I had time to write a freaking treatise on the subject, or at least speak one, because the Milanese Nightingale burst into song at that point, ruining the pleasure of mushroom goodness exploding in my thirsting mouth.


Ah, je ris de me voir si belle en ce  miroir-oir-oir!


[In a linguistic side note, her once beautiful operatic vibrato has fallen into contrivances of trill and shrill tremolo.]  


Anyway, a remarkably wordy deposit for the normally reticent Bianca.  I hesitate to speculate, but ever since she began negotiations with Spielberg and Jackson over the terms of her nonappearance in the soon-to-be-released Tintin film, her English has remarkably improved, her French has grown weirdly circumspect, all while her Italian, Romanian, Russian and Hebrew have declined almost to the point of nonexistence. (Her Master Classes in Spanish continue apace, however.)  Prohibited from playing herself by odd media restrictions in Tête de Hergé entertainment law, Bianca calls the film "a nothing much of a petit  rien" and "an insult to opera lovers everywhere."


"It makes mustard go up my nose," she sniffs.


 Je perds le fil de mes pensées...


Okay, so there's a really neat hoity-toity* academic video that encapsulates the absolute enfer out of this whole titillating issue, but I cannot find it, of course.  It's an intense, slowmo, hot sweat of a black-and-white -- a languid, lingual scene, showcasing an American English speaker doing jitterbug lips with the word know, and a hep cat of a Français intoning -- with laser-like precision -- its homophone, the possessive adjective nos.


Like I said, I can't find it.


Ever-focused, however, I found *this* -- and it is sufficiently erudite to invite your trust as it breaks down the pedagogical complexities involved in "[l[earn[ing] to pout your lips and make French sounds."  Uploaded to YouTube in March 2007 by the inimitable Mickelino, whose video contributions to the world of social media are part of a "tentative de la Sorbonne" designed to level the academic playing field, it's a grand introduction to World Politics of the Lip.


What's that? You say I've lost more than that one particular fil de pensée?  Perhaps, perhaps.  Let's be kind, though, on this, the eve of my return to relevance.   Unless you absolutely chafe to faire la moue, to purse your lips in disapproval or skepticism, in which case, allez-y, mon ami, allez-y.                         


And so I wish you a pleasant Friday night, and good sleep with sweet dreams.  Language has been set loose and I am excited to see what tomorrow may bring.