| what I have to deal with (the light side) |
[May. 10th, 2009|12:27 am] |
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I am all but buried in papers and it has generally not been fun, but this terrible sentence in a paper about air pollution made me laugh: "People don't know but when they put a sprits or hair spray in their hair everyday from an arousal can harm the earth." |
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| work |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|10:40 pm] |
I'm teaching a summer class, and even though it means being out & about in the afternoon heat every day, I'm having a wonderful time. First off, since it's summer school, I'm getting paid really well for what I'm doing, which is rather a new experience for me. Second, since it's a remedial course and UNLV no longer officially offers remedial courses, this one is only offered through the community college during the school year. Therefore, there is no university assessment to contend with, no departmental syllabus, and no oversight. Which means I can approach the class from and with my own style and strengths, and teach the way I know best. I can be spontaneous and flexible, and tailor all assignments to the students' abilities.
Of course, some of the students are rather indolent. Most adolescents are not exactly chomping at the bit to spend the summer taking remedial composition. But some of them are genuinely excited. Every subject I bring up is met with enthusiasm. Today I asked whether they wanted me to give them next week's assignments ahead of time, and the answer was yes! Not only have I heard no complaints about giving homework every day, but a few students said they're enjoying writing so much that they've been getting their assignments done faster than they're due. Two new subjects for assignments that I mentioned today elicited cheers.
When you do what I do -- teach courses that students have to take whether they want to or not, and have to pay for (not cheap), and in this case don't get a grade for so can't use it to boost that gpa (it's pass/fail) -- it doesn't get better than that. |
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| transitions & repairs |
[Aug. 18th, 2003|02:14 am] |
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I'm going to be offline for a couple weeks, starting today. |
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| Au Revoir |
[Aug. 14th, 2003|01:39 pm] |
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I'm sorry -- I just can't do this anymore. I feel I have nothing left to offer or to learn in this medium, and I'm so tired. |
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| weight-bearing |
[Aug. 11th, 2003|12:16 pm] |
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In plain English, I'm not adequate for the amount of responsibility and stress I'm trying to handle. I lack sufficient understanding, and maybe a few other things as well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 28th, 2003|12:47 am] |
"Where there are machines, there will be machine problems."
--Chuang Tzu |
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| Return |
[Jul. 26th, 2003|03:57 pm] |
My Free Will Astrology horoscope for this week:
"Begone blame! Atonement and absolution must reign! Yes, Leo, this is the best time in many moons to declare amnesty. Forgive everyone who has ever hurt you. Purge yourself of simmering resentments and remorse. Swear off revenge forever, including both vindictive acts and nasty thoughts. It's especially important that you let go of the guilt you've felt about your own failures. Remember when you were "it" while playing hide-and-seek as a child? Remember yelling out 'ollie ollie in free' or 'ollie ollie oxen free'? Let that be your mantra this week. It means 'all who are out can come in free.'"
I just deleted a long somethingerother I wrote here pledging forgiveness to a long list of people with whom I shouldn't have gotten angry in the first place. No one has done me any harm that I played no part in. I just need to learn my lessons: to have healthy boundaries, keep my nose out of issues that don't concern me, create a life for myself that I can live with, and stop being foolish.
Peace. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 25th, 2003|09:34 am] |
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One of two songs that were playing in my head when I woke up this morning: "Don't you -- forget about me." |
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| Like Walkin in the Rain |
[Jul. 24th, 2003|10:43 pm] |
Big storms, as previously noted, don't last long here; often, by the time I've changed into rain clothes and stepped out, it's dry again, but not today. I was in a sad and gloomy mood this morning, but walking in the rain cheered me up. In nature's honor I wore a forest green shirt & blue jeans & leaf earrings. I meant to step over to Roma to share the joy of rain with whoever was there, but stopped at an impassable intersection and decided to return home. Then the rain really started pelting at me so hard that I laughed out loud. Loud cracks of lightning & thunder, wind that meant business. I got drenched! and was maybe shivering a bit by the time I got upstairs... When was the last time I was outdoors and cold??
I aired out the apartment, although it wasn't really cold outside, that was just a result of exposure to the elements, and as soon as the storm blew past, the temperature began to rise again.
Even with all that fun & nostalgic memories it brought to mind, I've been feeling uneasy today. Something's nagging at my brain -- a sense that something's wrong. I have to hope that whatever it is, just like the clouds it'll pass. |
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| sometimes |
[Jul. 21st, 2003|03:04 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  distressed | ] |
one just has to tell oneself,
"It doesn't matter."
(Even if it does.) |
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| Cryptology |
[Jul. 19th, 2003|05:21 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | serious | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | but not too | ] |
"Death is but a sleep and a forgetting."
There are many kinds of death, and many kinds of sleep.
Some things are best forgotten, because the remembering only brings pain that cannot be healed. Yet memories are stored somewhere, and the keeper of the door, though under orders to lock the bolt, secretly and slyly "forgets" where he put the key and leaves it a bit ajar. There are many kinds of death and many kinds of sleep, but only one kind of forgetting: partial. And it's not a bad thing, that. Because if we could ever entirely forget our true loves and deepest sorrows, we'd be prey to our own monstrosities. Time is an effective anesthesia. A scar along the cheekbone of the soul is the insignia of membership to which I wish to belong.
With love.
Update: all afternoon it bugged me, but not enough for me to give it my attention: that quote at the top. I knew it was wrong, but since it had served my purposes, I didn't want it to be. Then it just occurred to me while I was thinking about other things: it's "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." (Wordsworth, "Intimations of Immortality")
That's amusing me. Birth, not death...
Some morbid impulse in my psyche twisted the thing, I guess.
And I guess I had to take a peek: it's that time of year when I look back and look forward. Actually, it was a song I heard in my head this morning after an online conversation that reminded me of a dream I'd had I couldn't remember when but sometime in the last year that prompted me to have a look-see at my journal of a year ago. Not pleasant. At all. I feel so much better now than I did then. But also, I feel so much less now than I did then. Which is worse? In another online conversation I had recently in the middle of a dark night with a friend, I characterized myself as being "merely undead." My friend suggested that was better than going crazy. I'm sure he's right, but it's a high price to pay. |
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| this 'n' that |
[Jul. 19th, 2003|11:32 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | refreshed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | see above | ] |
Had a long day in the muggy heat on 5 hours' sleep yesterday, taking care of financial business and my father. My older sister and neice & nephew drove in from L.A. for a surprise weekend visit -- happy surprise!, and their being here gives me a slight break from total responsibility, which is nice.
Just before I went to sleep I noted something I wanted to write about today: "homeopathy = counterintuition" is what I wrote down. (I know that must seem radically cryptic, but I can explain.) If I have time & energy, I'll explore it, but with family in town, I may not.
Speaking of exploring, when I woke up this morning there was a song in my head that's (ernh?) never been there before & I'll have to figure out what its message is: "Riding along in my automobile ... with no particular place to go."
My automobile's A/C isn't working, its licence plate was stolen, and it won't go more than 45mph and/or about 5 miles' distance without running a bit of a fever, so in this weather particularly, driving around for the heck of it doesn't appeal to me.
Just kidding; I know the point isn't literal.
Comments on skidspoppe's entry about the storm:
"The clouds pass and the rain falls. All this means peace coming to the world." (The Creative)
"Thunder and rain set in: the image of Deliverance... when failings come to light he does not dwell on them; he simply passes over mistakes, the unintentional transgressions, just as thunder dies away. He forgives misdeeds, the intentional transgressions, just as water washes everything clean." (Deliverance)
The trace left by the storm (other than humidity) is that exhilarating smell of freshness and of earth with her sere surface gently touched into reopening. |
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| Why? |
[Jul. 17th, 2003|01:45 pm] |
Song I keep hearing in my head:
"Why don't you stay
just a little bit longer?
Please, please, please..." |
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| Grace |
[Jul. 16th, 2003|01:20 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | peaceful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Into White" - Cat Stevens | ] |
7/15/03 12:40 PM
Somehow I lost it. Two steps forward, three steps back...
I don't know how it happens. Maybe one can only be vigilant for so long. I had been feeling like I knew what my current situation required of me, and how to protect myself from danger, and how to walk a tight rope and keep my balance.
Today I feel as if just as I was finally nearing the whatchamacallit that the rope is attached to, I fell off.
10:20 PM
I fretted today, asked the I Ching a lot of questions -- I was "importuning" and am surprised I wasn't answered with Youthful Folly -- the good book was very patient with me as I endeavored to calm down and think things through, repeating itself a couple times so I'd get the point. I got Grace twice, with Joy (The Lake) twice in between.
Grace is one of my faves, even though Confucius didn't like it. Partly because it's one of three hexagrams I associate with someone I love, having drawn them so many times when asking about that person (the other two being The Family and Modesty). Partly because its image is "a fire that breaks out of the secret depths of the earth and, blazing up, illuminates and beautifies the mountain" -- visual images in the I Ching don't get much better than that! And partly because the essence of Grace is simplicity. "Simple grace. No blame." and "A white horse comes as if on wings.... White is the color of simplicity. In itself the intention of the approaching line is not quite clear.... However, there is nothing to fear...."
(Those are 2 of the 3 moving lines I got, along with "The roll of silk is meager and small" -- my worry that I haven't much to offer.)
I don't aspire to fame and razzle-dazzle. I would like to live a simple, peaceful life someplace green and temperate. I'd like to cultivate a garden and sit in it with my neighbors.
For the last three days I've been trying to attend to a mountain of paperwork, errands and bills for three people. Not that I've never thought this before, but modern life is ridiculously, absurdly complicated and fraught with red tape and busyness, stress and competitiveness. Everyone knows that, but it's difficult to extricate oneself. It's one of the prices we pay for our society's prosperity. Is it worth it?
So there's that, and then there's that other thing: the trust issue, which I mentioned just a couple days ago. I had a tiny bit of a dream about that yesterday or the day before. Due to circumstances, some beyond my control and others the result of my own blunders, I've had reason to be suspicious and sort of went overboard and became a little paranoid. Or a lot, maybe. So now, when people's intentions (and/or identities) aren't clear and obvious, mistrust is my knee-jerk response. In the dream I was told that some fuzzy, inscrutable messages I was receiving were loving and sincere.
To believe that would be a leap of faith for me after all that's come to pass, but I guess I can at least keep an open mind and not assume the worst. |
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| Moody Blues |
[Jul. 15th, 2003|11:39 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cautious | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "red is gray and yellow white" | ] |
The apartment complex I live in is pretty quiet. It's relatively rare to suddenly hear music blasting, so it catches my attention. This morning it was "Nights in White Satin," but in Spanish, with the purveyor singing along passionately for all the world to hear.
Made me smile. Firstly it's refreshing to hear someone singing loudly in public in a society that's so fixated on conformity and cool. Second, I don't know why but I'm often amused by translations of popular songs into other languages.
That I heard, the translation didn't include the spoken poem at the end of the song, but I thought of it, and that reminded me of a sentence I recently read in A People's History of the United States. I looked for it, carefully down every page I've read in the last week, but didn't find it, so I can only offer a paraphrase: Is there any position more difficult to be in than to be unable to distinguish between truth and illusion? |
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| More on the Subject of Licences |
[Jul. 14th, 2003|10:51 am] |
Someone took the licence plate off my car Thursday night or Friday morning. The timing seemed remarkable but I'm sure it's just coincidence. What a pain in the ass. I had to file a police report on Friday in the middle of an intense work day, and I'm going to have to go to the DMV and reregister the car. Plus my old licence plate had my birthday on it and the letters PBN which, I decided as a memory key, stood for Penis-Brained Ninnies.
Last year when it was this hot, the car was barely running and I didn't have the money to fix it, so I had to make several round-trips to the DMV by bus to get extensions because the registration had expired. Those were some wretched days. In Las Vegas summer, daytime outdoors absent shade is hell on earth. Now we're going for a heatwave record.
Nevertheless, I was in a surprisingly great mood all weekend. I think that's maybe just because the summer term has ended and I won't have to wake up at 7 a.m. anymore. |
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| Birthdays (more mellow yellow) |
[Jul. 13th, 2003|02:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | A Box of Rain | ] |
I'm taking a day off from stress today, of necessity, in between what I've managed to do and what I've yet to do. I intend to spend at least some of the day painting, but also want to keep in touch.
It's the time of year to say happy birthday to some of my favorite people. My daughter Zoë (LJ moniker shereminisces) is turning 19 in a few days. According to a dream I had many years ago, now's the time for her and me to become a little less dependent on each other. In the dream, she was 19 and mostly grown up (in waking life, she was still a little-ish girl). She had school books on her arm and was moving out on her own, and she was upset with me for not being heart-broken. "What do you think this is," she asked, "a licence to go hunting and fishing?"
"It's a licence to stop doing laundry and dishes *and* a licence to go hunting and fishing," I replied placidly, whereupon her lovely face broke into a wonderful, sunny smile and everything was a-okay.
In recent months, that phrase has caught my eye in print -- in the I Ching: "Fu Hsi made knotted cords and used them for nets and baskets in hunting and fishing." -- commentary on The Clinging, the hexagram of Fire, of radiance. Elsewhere therein: "A luminous thing giving out light must have something within itself that perseveres; otherwise it will in time burn itself out. Everything that gives light is dependent on something to which it clings, in order that it may continue to shine."
Burn-out, dependency, clinging, shining... This has been a year for me to ponder those things. Knowing I mustn't cling to *people* in a way that clips their heels, stresses them out, makes undue demands, lessens my own dignity, etc., and yet that I must cling to *something*, I've been searching and sifting.
I won't claim to have found The Answers, but I guess we all know that a little faith goes a long way at such times; if I can't muster enough faith to believe that a happyeverafter is at long last heading my way, I can at least refuse to succumb to doom and gloom. There are no guarantees anyway (either positive *or* negative) -- anything can happen and one doesn't know what will; and "fairy tales" are but corrupted versions of initiation stories that had nothing to do with princes & princesses, prom dresses & palaces.
..."sun and moon cling to heaven, and grain, grass and trees cling to the earth"... I can cling to those intangibles that do sustain my spirit, among them memories of the people and things that softened my heart to its fullest ripening, images of beauty, love of nature and organic life, morsels or goblets-full of information and insight that made sense of seeming chaos and showed me a path I can walk upon...
..."Human life on earth is conditioned and unfree, and when man recognizes this limitation and makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he ... acquires clarity without sharpness and finds his place in the world." Trust.
Remembering all the depth and wealth of love that has been in my life and in my heart in the past, and trusting that it will be there again in the future, when life wakes me up from this limbo; that every ending is followed by a new beginning... remembering the physical law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed...
"Once again, everything I have learned was due to love and nothing else." --Saul Bellow, *Henderson the Rain King* |
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| "Treading a smooth, level course" |
[Jul. 10th, 2003|11:55 am] |
Long day yesterday. On less than 4 hours' sleep I taught a class, graded papers and cooked a meal, wasting a lot of time in between activities trying unsuccessfully to take a nap. I guess there was too much stress coming at me from too many sources.
This morning, after returning from work, I measured the stack of unopened mail I need to sort out and deal with: 4 & 1/4 inches (for curiosity's sake -- I know it's a silly thing to do). These days I get mail for myself, my daughter and my father. I've been ignoring it. One can only do that for so long without consequences.
Tomorrow is the last day of this summer session. It'll be a long one, but it's the last day I'll have to get up at 7. I feel as though I've aged two years in the last five weeks from lack of sleep. I'm happy and grateful, though, for the much-needed income.
I don't mean to bore anyone with such mundane details and considerations; it's just that perforce, they're what my life has been about lately. And I've seen it as my task and challenge to accept such a life and not complain to myself or others or fate, like I used to, that it's unfulfilling. I was so focused for so long on everything I couldn't have that I wanted. It just made me miserable and not exactly a joy to be around. I've learned to accept the fact that I'm ordinary and my life is ordinary and still worth living. One's road through life has ups and downs and some long, flat stretches too. What can one do on those but continue putting down one foot after the other? |
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| There's Still Something Special |
[Jul. 8th, 2003|08:07 pm] |
about Espresso Roma Café. Within the limits of what might reasonably be anticipated, if I get the notion that I want to have a word or maintain a connection with a particular person I know here, I just walk over to the café with the thought of seeing that person held lightly in my mind, and it hasn't failed a single time: the person I'm looking for will be there.
Lord knows in these times, bits of synchronicity like that are a spoonful of sugar.
Reminds me of the business cards of an old friend of Zoë's and mine from northern California. It read, "Randy Riis -- If you need me, think of me and I'll be there."
(Unfortunately, in the long run, he wasn't able to live up to his promise; one day Randy Riis disappeared, never to be seen again. A few of his personal effects were found on the bank of a river in Utah near a new age settlement where he worked from time to time.
But before he managed to disappear, he did many amazing things and left a positive impact on the lives of many people. So here's to Randy and his soul's rest; he was a unique and unforgettable (abeit perhaps very unhappy) human being.)
Why do so many people disappear? |
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| Yellow |
[Jun. 29th, 2003|10:19 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  artistic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "The Lee Shore" --CSNY | ] |
Yesterday I finally spent a few hours working on a painting that I began in December or January during winter break and hadn't touched since.
I do love to paint. It gives me solace, and it's exciting just to look at a largish canvas beginning to fill up with images and colors. An excitement that can't be taken away or be proven by time and events to have been delusion.
A white canvas beginning to fill: perhaps that's the only sail I have right now to take me out to sea, but it's much better than none and it gives me hope.
These days when I paint I find it effortless compared to other things I've been trying to do. So, since my #1 resolution for this year was to stop struggling, I think I've found an endeavor I can stick with without coming to any harm.
When I took Beginning Painting (ten years ago, taught by Mary Warner), I was the worst painter in the large class at first and told Mary I wanted to drop out. I'll always remember her reply: "Deborah, compared to some students I've had over the years, you're Leonardo da Vinci. You can do this. Stop struggling, keep painting, and one of these days it's just going to click."
I took her advice and it unfolded exactly as she predicted: one day it just clicked and I understood everything that had so beguiled me before.
If only I could do the same in the areas of my life that have been such a struggle for me lately, such as my career and geographical and social directions. Perhaps if I practice smooth sailing on canvas, I'll get into the groove more generally. At least when I make a painting, I have a painting to show for the effort; that in itself is a huge boost to morale.
My favorite colors are red, blue & purple. In that area of the spectrum, I can produce whatever shade or tone I imagine without thinking twice. The colors around the yellow node have in the past been more difficult for me. I remember that back when I studied art, I didn't like yellow very much, and as I began to build up a palette, I neglected to obtain a bright yellow pigment. I thought I could use Indian Yellow exclusively; when later I also acquired Naples Yellow, I thought surely that was enough. Consequently the yellows in my paintings were all dull and pinkish. They didn't give sunlight, and I didn't understand why. Finally last year I bought a tube of Hansa Yellow. It's such a happy color that I can't imagine why I didn't like it before. |
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