La La La Lies

So -- let me tell you a little story.  It's about me.  That is, it's about my sudden understanding of something I've known for years and was just never actually aware of.  I don't know whether these small epiphanies that I keep having as I age are standard human behavior, and therefore nothing I need to worry about, or whether I am showing myself to be a strikingly obtuse individual who merely thinks she is intelligent (also, no doubt, standard human behavior.)

This is an example of how a person with a fully functioning brain can go through life looking at fact A, and also at contradictory fact B, and merely whistle a happy tune.

You may already know the story of the stalker I had when I was young and living on my own for the first time. It was a very frightening thing for me, also for my Loved Ones, and resulted in my moving several times in rapid succession, in nailing my bedroom window shut, and pushing my dresser in front of my bedroom door every night. It wasn't until my third move put me on the second floor of a lovely old building with only one outside door and very creaky stairs, that I calmed down enough to put the butcher knife (under the edge of the bed) back in the kitchen drawer.

Okay. So after I had moved from the second location, and was busily pounding nails into the woodwork, a young woman (we'll call her Shmeesa) whom I had known from her babyhood but hadn't seen in many years, turned up at my door with my sister Rose. It seems that Shmeesa was also being stalked and it seemed to be by the same person. He had apparently told her on the phone that he was someone who had known me since my childhood. This sent the whole thing suddenly from “Random Nutjob” into “Beyond Terrifying Psycho”, especially since the childhood we had shared had been a rural American Christian one, and Religious + Wacko = RunRunRun. It's one thing to have voices telling you what to do, but when that voice is the Supreme Being, it's a whole other ballgame.

Anyway. Shmeesa ended up moving in with me for several months, bringing me up to date on the strange and dramatic life she had led, and confiding in me about her rape and her brain tumor and her car accident. She convinced me that since the police were not "doing anything" about the stalker, we should get a private investigator (and that's a whole other story, o my god) and just generally kept me fearing this obsessive psychopath.

Fast-forward several years, to me finding out from three or four independent sources that young Shmeesa was a Dreadful Liar. That she had no brain tumor. That her claims of nights spent in the hospital were no doubt merely nights spent on the tiles. That no one else seemed to think she had been raped. Etc, etc, etc. This was, to some extent, corroborated by Shmeesa herself. ("Oh, yeah, I guess I lied a lot when I was younger.") I was pretty much stunned, but eventually allowed myself to accept it and move on.

This all happened about thirty years ago. And yet! It was only last week that it dawned on me, in an absolutely shattering way, that this also meant my stalker was merely some random guy on the telephone who finally broke in to my house, and was then stymied by my moves. Frightening, yes. Years-long psycho-religious obsession carefully nurtured over time and finally acted upon, rendering every relationship I had ever had with any male potentially life-threatening? No. NO!

So -- I guess this is a happy ending. I'm mostly feeling stunned chagrin, but I will probably feel happy about it eventually!

A Used-Up World

There is a chill in the air this morning!  42 degrees here at the coast, where I'm once again sitting up in the World's Best Bed.  It is so much nicer to wake to this freshness, this feeling of a new start and a new atmosphere to start in, than this past summer's sensation of a used-up, leftover, worn-out world, when the morning dawning only brought fat, hot, listless air, warmer than your body, and smelling stale and re-used.

Dishes and Sheets

I'm at the Retirement Home, sitting up in The Best Bed with a cup of strong, hot coffee, and some cinnamon toast (fresh potato bread!) listening to the occasional bird call overlay the deep silence.  It's not that it's really silent, if you concentrate you can hear the distant surf, but in general the constant same sound of surf sort of wipes out the smaller sounds of distant car engines and makes the air feel silent.  If that makes sense.

Mom and Dad have left for Mom's daily radiation treatment -- in Longview,  An eighty mile drive for a five minute treatment  (tooth grinding noises.) 

Fortunately, tomorrow is the last day of this particular round of treatment, and when the next one starts, there will be a radiation treatment center in Astoria, which is less than an hour away.  Mom is beginning to show signs of the treatment -- sort of a wobbliness that is new, and a tendency to lapse into waking-coma -- that is, staring with out-of-focus eyes at nothing until you speak to her.  Could be merely weariness, I don't know, but I'm very sensitive to every little thing -- she's my mama!

I offered to drive her to her appointment today or tomorrow, but she instantly turned me down -- then recollected herself and thanked me politely, but said that she "needs Daddy" to be there with her -- it keeps her able to bear it!  I was hoping that with the passage of time, she would be getting more accustomed to it, and thus more able to bear it, but no.

Even with the worry of Mom and the Cancer Treatment, relaxing at the Retirement Home is so much more relaxing than relaxing at home in the apartment.  Something about the bed, perhaps?  Or the stillness? No traffic noises?  I'm feeling very calm and peaceful.

I've got some dishes to wash, and some sheets to fold, so I'll be on my way rejoicing.

Heroes and Villains

So I'm at the Retirement Home, for the first time in MONTHS, since I've had car difficulties and scheduling difficulties and all -- I think the last time I was here was in April.  And now I have my new Toyota Camry, Opal Whitely, which I was thrilled to drive up here in, and thrilled to show my parents.  

When I arrived, it was still very bright outside, and we began unloading the car, while my dad was looking at various aspects of it and asking questions, and my mother was admiring its cleanliness and beauty.  She sat down in the driver's seat, and awkwardly thunked her elbow against the door frame.  And broke her humerus clean through!

Leaving aside the feeling that her bones must be made of barley sugar, and how can she walk around?  and all that sort of thing, it was a big hairy deal, since a) we did not know what had happened, just that she immediately passed out, and b) when she came to, she was incapable of telling us what was wrong, and she didn't know, anyway; and c) their car was not running, due to a split radiator.  

So, on the one hand, it was perfect timing that I was there, with a new car which had been recently minutely inspected by Mechanic Bob, and was able to assist my dad in getting her up and into the car.  But on the other hand, if I hadn't been there, it would not have happened at all!  So am I the villain or the hero of this piece?

Forty-five Degrees

In the library where I now am, not my regular-home-library, nor even my every-weekend-and-occasional-other-times library, but a nearly-new-and-almost-foreign library, there is a corner, just one, with two long thin windows on each side of it, sort of facing one another, at a forty-five degree angle, or some sort of degree angle, I guess I don't actually know what the facing-each-other angle is, but the corner is a forty-five degree corner, so I was just guessing.  

Anyway, a few inches beyond the outside edge of each tall thin window is the ten-inch wide end of a bookshelf, standing out from the wall.  It makes a great little sitting and reading spot, which, if I were forty years younger (O my god) I would immediately take advantage of and never leave.  

I would sit cross legged completely inside this little space, lit by two tall thin windows and enclosed by two bookcases, and read to my heart's content.  Even now, forty years older and forty million pounds heavier, I am still tempted to give it a try.  Pretty sure I would fit, but the thought of attempting to arise from my cross-legged posture -- dear me, no.  Horrible idea.  I wouldn’t be able to lever myself properly, and would get completely stuck, or my dislocatable knee would dislocate when I was halfway up, and freeze me, bravely trying not to shriek, in a ridiculous and extremely undignified position.

Sigh.

Dentists and suchlike

I don't remember if I told you or not -- my longtime and beloved dentist retired, and sold his practice to a younger man.  I like the system they have there, but I'm not sure about the actual dentistry.  Perhaps I should say, the actual dentist.  

The man has very large hands!  (he's a very large man, easily six foot six or so). He is very careful and asks me frequently if I am numb, or if I am experiencing pain, (which can only be answered with a yes or no, by the way) but I think the difficulty is with his hands.  He has very large hands, with thick fingers. I'm sure they are very good for all kinds of things, but not for fitting into the mouth of someone, along with a drill, a spray of water, a suction device and his assistants's fingers.  It's been over five hours, and the dull ache in my jaw, face, nose and cheekbones has increased to a dull throb.  I feel I should go home and take anti-inflammatories.

I know most people have far worse stories to tell of their dental experiences, but I have been utterly spoiled by Dr. Belusko, who had thin hands with long skeletal fingers, and who never hauled on my cheeks, facial muscles and tongue, ("Can you get ahold of her tongue and hold it out of the way?") while doing his careful and beautiful dentistry.  Whaa-aa-aah!

A lovely Saturday

It is the perfect Spring morning!  Warm and breezy, nothing like the chill buffeting winds of yesterday, delicate sunshine, high blue sky, new pale green everywhere... So perfect that no one is on the library this morning!  Of the thirty computers here, five are occupied, and that includes me.

Had a bad night last night -- I haven't been sleeping well for several weeks, but that's usually more or less okay -- but last night was a misery of wakefulness.  At one point, at about two am, I turned the lamp back on, and read for awhile, but so sleepy was I that I mostly just held the book with my eyes closed.  Still could not drop off.  I think it was because I wasn't well in my little tum, and that gave a rather nauseated flavor to all my thoughts, so they all felt bad and anxious and worrisome, and as though today was going to implode into a dreadful day of distress and disaster.

However, when the alarm went off, and I woke, the day was perfectly friendly, and everything that has occurred has been quite lovely. 

I would like to know what the problem is with my sleeping, though.  I mean, I have always had the occasional white night, but as a rule, twice a year was the most frequently that occurred. Not since my bout of insomnia in college has it been this long without an uninterrupted night. 

In any case, it is a beautiful Spring morning, tra-la, tra-la!  My Norwegian friend Marit is already on her Easter holiday, as apparently everyone in her country has two weeks off at Eastertime.  Why don't WE?