i'm already losing

I thought about those pesky New Year's resolutions today. I don't like making them and yet this year I went out on that limb. And a wobbly weak one it is. I almost have no plans to keep any of the ideas I thought were so fantastic a few weeks ago. Take Obama for instance. It's pretty exciting to me to hear all the good news coming from his camp. I believe in him the way people first believed in Bill Clinton. I was never swayed by that smoothe talker, but Obama looks like what our future should be. He's all shiny and pretty like a new penny. But, my working for him seems like a dream and a far distance wish. And yet the idea I had was simply somethink akin to making phone calls for him with a high pitched excited hope lingering through all those fiber optics and cell towers. I barely have time to shower these days. My world is spinning just a little too fast. It's not a bad thing, just a hurried thing and I can't imagine adding one more thing to the growing pile. It's time for things to slow down, for me to take time out and smell the fresh scent of new babies being born because it seems like they're starting to come out of people's ears, but I can't slow down and I don't really want to. We'll see about Obama, but for right now the writing has lost hope and exercise- what's that? It's why I don't make those resolutions in the first place. But then again, if I hadn't what would be lurking over my shoulder rather than bettering myself?

clear as mud

Of course nothing in my life is as easy as snapping your fingers. Take glasses for example. I learned that I would have to begin wearing them fulltime 10 days ago. I've kinda known this for a year, but my old quack doctor said I had nothing to worry about until the good eye went bad. I thought that sounded funny. So did my new eye Dr. one year later. It turns out that I have an astigmatism in one eye that should have been corrected 10 years ago. Funny, I've been going to eye doctors fairly regularly for 10 years. Hmmmm.

The things is, when I hear that I am blind in one eye, my mind starts to think that I am blind all over and I start to obsess and begin to think that I cannot, in fact, see anything. This is and was not the case, but I wanted my glasses and I wanted them yesterday. So, upon gaining access to my prescription I went about getting some "in about an hour" glasses last Thursday. And when I first put them on I thought the world was better, wonky, but better. It turns out- the world, was not better.

I had heard there would be an adjustment period and that my depth perception would change, but I just had a gut feeling that what was happening to me was not happening to the rest of the four eyed world. My bad eye was hurting, I mean hurting and my good eye could no longer compensate so that things from far away were clearer without the glasses on. Hmmmmm again.

I went back franctic to my eye Dr. this morning and after much attention to my whining he lessened my prescription and baby the world is better and not wonky. I love my gut instinct. I love that I was right, that glasses should make you have an "aha" moment and not and "aaaaaahhhhhh" one when you put them on.

Oh yeah- and I might have bought more pairs than I need and my everyday ones might have diamonds (faux) on them.

blind in one eye

It's big news to me. It's the confirmation that I am, in fact, getting older. My eyes have gone. Well, one eye has. I have to get glasses, all the time glasses. I've worn reading glasses for years. I like them. I like the idea of slipping on something that brings a book even closer to me and makes me look a little smarter too. And I like glasses. I think they are beautiful and a great fashion addition, but there is a difference liking glasses and truly needing them. My reading glasses are more of a psychological frill. They are such a slight prescription that they don't carry them in drugstores. I have to have them made and do I really need them, well, no. But now, now I know that one eye is 20/25 and the other eye is sooooo not. I've known actually for about a year, but the last eye person was a bit of quack and never figured out a true prescription to help me so she just sent me on my one eyed way. I wised up to her and this time I went to see a very caring eye Dr. and he was so patient and thorough and that little precious bearded guy fixed my one bad eye. God love him. So now is the task of finding the frames that ascert my personality, subtlely show my flair for whimsy and make me look brilliant at the same time. Right now there are three contenders and Lord help me if I can make a decision. When all is said and done I might even show you a picture of them.

w

"We HAVE Homer Simpson as our president."~ Jon Stewart

I haven't laughed that hard in a long long time.

why i haven't written

"Maybe he'll be a writer," said my friend's husband about their brand new baby boy.
"Why a writer," I asked.
"Don't most writers have really bad childhoods?" he asked.
He was joking about the horrible life his child would live if he didn't automatically love water. This river guide and whitewater daredevil assumes that a child of his who doesn't swim on command is down for some real disappointment and better learn to pen those frustrations. I offered my reading abilities. And then his sentiment coalesced in my mind.
I've just been so darn happy- so up that writing has no misery to nourish it. I'm sure that my contentment has even put some people on edge. It's hard for me to harbor sadness, regret or angst anymore. And sometimes I can't listen to other's. All was glistening and tinged with the music of the spheres. Then tiny things starting creeping in. Not all humanity is good. Not everyone serves to better this world. And this, this is what nourishes my melancholy now- the disillusionment of reality.

It's our duty and our right I think to go through pain, to live in it and survive it and when we come out of it we're changed so that we vow to "do no harm." And I caution this with the fact that I do not mean that you begin putting bumper stickers on your car about angels flying and whirled peas. I mean that you think before you speak, you include those you don't want to and you surround yourself with those you respect. And I do this and I did this and life was a giddy. And then it backfired. I won't be deterred from my hopeful selflessness. It's hopeful because it's not perfect. I will simply have to be more cautious and let the disappointment be penned rather than stabbed. And since it takes a sad and reflective moment to make me write, I can't help but as the question "What would I rather be; happy and wordless or melancholy and prolific?"

a new year, a new you

You guessed. The ubiquitous, but let's hope this one keeps you entertained. I usually don't do resolutions. I'm one to view the reality of the situation: that instead of a new year's resolution it's a new year's let down. I never keep to the list of ways to better myself and so I don't keep those lists, but this year feels different. I like the 8 at the end. It's all curvy and soft and even. I like even numbers. They remind me of symmetry and safety where no one gets left out. I like including everyone. And so, for 2008 I will make a wishlist and there will be no pressure, no self-induced panic over completion, no self-hatred for lack of completion and by no means will there be any "what if."

That being said in 2008 I wish to:
- publish
- read 30 books
- write every week
- buy something big
- love someone
- get small
- work for Obama
- fly somewhere fancy
- just be

And I also hope that you will embrace the 8 at the end of this year and be soft and suptle too and in your softness just be.