When I started this blog it was intended to keep me writing occasionally throughout the summer. Nothing worse than starting a new semester when you haven't written a thing for months. It was also to be a lighthearted commentary on my life and life in general. Hence the name, the looking glass files. Now, however, I think it's time we stepped through the looking glass for a moment.
Recently my Grandfather passed away. A slough of memories soon followed. Memories of rooms filled with cigarette smoke and something hedonistically bad for me frying in the cast iron. Conversation flowing around a kitchen table and CNN blaring in the background. Handmade birdhouses adorning doilie-covered shelves and end-tables. The candy drawer, always filled, and always accessible much to the dismay of my dentist and four molars. Trips to K-mart in Fargo, my Grandmother surreptitiously adding to her stockpile of Christmas ornaments (much to the dismay of my Grandfather).
It wasn't all fried food, candy and birdhouses. Memories of my Grandpa yelling at someone on the phone while I watched my Grandma cry. My Uncle taking his girlfriends car on a high-speed chase on Easter. Finding out that my Grandma had lung cancer and only a few months to live. Watching as her hair fell out. The same hair that I would brush for her on sleepover nights. The same hair that her daughters would dye either red or blond for her occasionally. When she was blond she was Dolly Parton, when she had red hair she looked like Ann Margaret, to me at least.
The mind's eye can contort your memories, making them more fantastic or worse than they actually were. That time period seems magical now. The moments spent with my Grandpa and Grandma have taken on a Disney-like quality. Getting up for 4:30 AM breakfast while my Grandpa got ready to drive truck for the day. Going back to sleep, then waking up for another breakfast later that morning. Now of course 4:30 AM seems like a horrendous hour to be up at but I'll take the two breakfasts.
My Grandma may not have looked like Ann or Dolly (she was better looking), most places disdain large amounts of cigarette smoke in the air, excessive amounts of sugar are bad for your teeth, numerous documents and studies try to steer you away from fried food. Knowing that now would I would do it differently? Would my small hands have not groped for whatever morsel I could dig out of that drawer, would I have not gotten up at 4:30 to get extra sleep that experts say is the key to a long life? Would I have declined to stay at my Grandparents house because they smoked inside?
All of these memories, these experiences are unique. There is nothing that could be changed without something drastically altering in me. I wouldn't change anything. I looked through the looking glass and saw the other side. No fried food, no political arguments around the table, no one lighting up a Basic. What I saw was something inhuman. A sanitized version of life that only machines and robots should experience. Give me it all. The good, the bad, the fried, the smokey, the sweet, etc...
This is dedicated to my Grandparents and the memories that they gave me. One day we'll all be together again at that big table in the sky. Certainly not a feast of saints, just regular people enjoying each others company.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Battlestar Mathematica: Update
I have vanquished my foe. I defeated Math but it was a fierce battle. It came out swinging, throwing formulas and theorems that I'd never seen before. But I countered its attack. Know thine enemy. I studied Math's every move. I was prepared for the final battle. However because I was unprepared for earlier battles I only ended up with a C in the class. But I passed and I'm thankful that I lived to tell the tale.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Balancing Act
I remember countless times watching gymnasts during the Olympics on the balance beam. They'd delicately place their bound feet upon the bar and begin a dance with (what I can only imagine as) excruciating pain if they missed a step. I've never been so bold as to contemplate doing a flip on a bar only four inches in width and four feet off the ground. In fact, the visions of me attempting such a feat end in broken limbs or paralysis. Yet each day I live life...it is a balancing act.
A few weeks ago I wasn't on a balance beam or walking a high wire above kids hopped up on cotton candy and methane from the elephant crap. I was simply walking through my house, feeling secure that both my feet were planted on the ground. Then an encounter with a doorway shattered those illusions of safety. I thought if I didn't leave the house nothing bad could happen to me. A crack to the skull, a flurried call to my Aunt (the husband was out of town), and an emergency room visit later...I found out the oak-hard way that even in your own house, you're not safe.
It's not that I don't try dangerous things once in a while. I'm not always cloistered in my house waiting for the sky to fall. I've snorkeled in the Pacific (only briefly but I did it), bicycled down the extinct volcano of Haleakala in Maui, flown across both oceans, and I took the ultimate plunge and got married to someone of Norwegian ancestry. When I was snorkeling I fully expected to look down and see Jaws swirling beneath me while Richard Dreyfus tried to shoot the mighty beast with a harpoon. I also expected the volcano to awaken from its four-hundred year slumber and make me look like Anakin Skywalker in the last scenes of the Revenge of the Sith. What I didn't expect was that I'd injure myself on a door, in my house, while still in my pajamas with happy little Scottish Terriers on them.
Every time a gymnast sets foot onto a balance beam they are trusting not only their instincts and training but the hands of fate to guide them safely through the routine. Sometimes they fall, probably when they least expect it. The beam comes flying up at their face and they lay there stunned like a fish for a few seconds. Life is like that. A beam or a doorway to the face. What is important is that I know now what a bird feels like when it truly believes they can pass through that window. The initial shock, taking in the pain, wondering what happened. I'll hold onto that experience. Life is indeed a balancing act and if you're not paying attention there are a multitude of objects creeping around, waiting to teach you a lesson.
A few weeks ago I wasn't on a balance beam or walking a high wire above kids hopped up on cotton candy and methane from the elephant crap. I was simply walking through my house, feeling secure that both my feet were planted on the ground. Then an encounter with a doorway shattered those illusions of safety. I thought if I didn't leave the house nothing bad could happen to me. A crack to the skull, a flurried call to my Aunt (the husband was out of town), and an emergency room visit later...I found out the oak-hard way that even in your own house, you're not safe.
It's not that I don't try dangerous things once in a while. I'm not always cloistered in my house waiting for the sky to fall. I've snorkeled in the Pacific (only briefly but I did it), bicycled down the extinct volcano of Haleakala in Maui, flown across both oceans, and I took the ultimate plunge and got married to someone of Norwegian ancestry. When I was snorkeling I fully expected to look down and see Jaws swirling beneath me while Richard Dreyfus tried to shoot the mighty beast with a harpoon. I also expected the volcano to awaken from its four-hundred year slumber and make me look like Anakin Skywalker in the last scenes of the Revenge of the Sith. What I didn't expect was that I'd injure myself on a door, in my house, while still in my pajamas with happy little Scottish Terriers on them.
Every time a gymnast sets foot onto a balance beam they are trusting not only their instincts and training but the hands of fate to guide them safely through the routine. Sometimes they fall, probably when they least expect it. The beam comes flying up at their face and they lay there stunned like a fish for a few seconds. Life is like that. A beam or a doorway to the face. What is important is that I know now what a bird feels like when it truly believes they can pass through that window. The initial shock, taking in the pain, wondering what happened. I'll hold onto that experience. Life is indeed a balancing act and if you're not paying attention there are a multitude of objects creeping around, waiting to teach you a lesson.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Battlestar Mathematica
For nearly two decades I have struggled. Struggled against a faceless, shapeless entity. It has, at times, taken various guises. It's been a long blond-haired woman, a short blond-haired woman, a dark-haired man, a gray-haired man. This entity has been tall, short, skinny, old, and young. Throughout its transformations one thing has remained a constant. It's unbridled, consuming hatred for me. The enemy I speak of can subtract, it can negate, it can add, it can multiply and divide at will. This is a battle of epic proportions. Math is its name and dividing me into equal parts is its game.
When I was a wee lass Math was just another subject to endure as I waited for the end of the school day. I treated it with ambivalence and that was the first of many mistakes. I didn't realize that at the age of 30, as I tried to finish my degree, it would come back with a vengeance.
In 8th grade I remember the first blow Math dealt me. It was a sucker punch to the gut. Miss T. (those who were there will remember this particular mistress of pain) had called on me to complete a problem on the board. Nervously I approached the inky blackness. The streaks of white on the board took on the forms of the Tolkien Ring-wraiths. The room was spinning as I shakily grasped the chalk in my awkwardly pubescent fingers. I was wholly unprepared for this battle and Math knew it. Pun intended...it had my number. It ended quickly. I failed and returned to my seat. The walk of shame.
The second encounter with my eternally-bound nemesis occurred but a year later. Ninth grade saw me put into what Math's minions termed as pre-algebra. This time Math sent someone who would finish the job. Mrs. F's reputation preceded her. She was known for anything from yelling at students to throwing textbooks. I prepared as best as I could. I suited up and rode in. What I endured that year I still cannot talk about. To this day I can only recall images of a snarling face and the screams, the screams still echo in my mind.
Now I find myself facing an old enemy. It seems determined to break me. It is one of about 5 classes I need until I can consider myself a holder of an English (with an emphasis in writing) degree. Math has evolved yet again into a middle-aged man from a country of unknown origins. Sometimes he sounds Arabic and sometimes I sense a mixture of Pakistani and Russian. It matters not where he comes from but that he too will try to layeth the smacketh down on me. It will try to square my root and hold my feet to the fire of truth tables. Math may have won the battles but this time I am determined to win the war.
When I was a wee lass Math was just another subject to endure as I waited for the end of the school day. I treated it with ambivalence and that was the first of many mistakes. I didn't realize that at the age of 30, as I tried to finish my degree, it would come back with a vengeance.
In 8th grade I remember the first blow Math dealt me. It was a sucker punch to the gut. Miss T. (those who were there will remember this particular mistress of pain) had called on me to complete a problem on the board. Nervously I approached the inky blackness. The streaks of white on the board took on the forms of the Tolkien Ring-wraiths. The room was spinning as I shakily grasped the chalk in my awkwardly pubescent fingers. I was wholly unprepared for this battle and Math knew it. Pun intended...it had my number. It ended quickly. I failed and returned to my seat. The walk of shame.
The second encounter with my eternally-bound nemesis occurred but a year later. Ninth grade saw me put into what Math's minions termed as pre-algebra. This time Math sent someone who would finish the job. Mrs. F's reputation preceded her. She was known for anything from yelling at students to throwing textbooks. I prepared as best as I could. I suited up and rode in. What I endured that year I still cannot talk about. To this day I can only recall images of a snarling face and the screams, the screams still echo in my mind.
Now I find myself facing an old enemy. It seems determined to break me. It is one of about 5 classes I need until I can consider myself a holder of an English (with an emphasis in writing) degree. Math has evolved yet again into a middle-aged man from a country of unknown origins. Sometimes he sounds Arabic and sometimes I sense a mixture of Pakistani and Russian. It matters not where he comes from but that he too will try to layeth the smacketh down on me. It will try to square my root and hold my feet to the fire of truth tables. Math may have won the battles but this time I am determined to win the war.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Thirty is Emphatically Not the New Twenty.
This is my attempt at blogging. I've pondered starting an actual website but I thought I'd begin with this and see where it goes. I used to blog quite frequently on my Myspace page. But no one is really on that site anymore and the format was a bit rudimentary for my tastes. Yes my nose is sticking up in the air as I type that.
So let's begin, shall we? I recently turned 30. I truly believed that nothing would change except my driver's license on my birthday (and that I'd acquire copious amounts of presents) but I was gravely mistaken. I thought I'd wake up the next morning and still want to play World of Warcraft, I thought my memory would be the same, I thought I wouldn't feel older at all. I know some will accuse me of hyperbole but the weeks after my birthday have been plagued with memory problems, cracking knees, and I've hardly played WoW at all. I can't remember the last time I sat down and did the daily quests or even ran a dungeon. I've actually contemplated starting crossword puzzles and learning how to knit. But for all the MMORPG's I'm not playing I do have a lovely flower garden to show for it.
What troubles me is the expediency of the aging process. It didn't help my mental state when my Grandma told me that at 30 your body stops producing enough calcium. She recommended that I take two 500 mg tablets of calcium per day. I'm sure more recommendations will be forthcoming now that I seem to have crossed the threshold into what I call preventative death measures (pdm). It's all about maintenance now. Making sure I don't end up with chalk bones and broken limbs.
As for my memory. There is a noticeable lag in my brain. I used to banter and bicker quite effectively. Now there is a significant pause in my responses. I can feel the neurons exerting themselves to form into some sort of answer. I'm wondering if it's this bad at 30 what will I be like at 40? Will minutes pass instead of seconds? Will people look at me and wonder why I'm not speaking? Will they just leave me standing there, in the rain (rain fits the imagery of this moment), and hours later I find the words to say?
I was assured by a good friend of mine (who had turned 30 about two months before me) that I had nothing to worry about. In fact I have textual evidence to support this assertion. I literally have a text from her that says, "30 is great". I carried those words around in my little heart, they bolstered me, they made me get out of bed in the morning. The reality, however, falls far short of great. Tony the Tiger would give it just a grrr. No additional letters or an exclamation point. Just grrr. Thirty, quite frankly, sucks ass. Yes, I said it. It sucks ass. I think there has been a whole campaign waged to make people feel like 30 is the new 20. If I followed the money trail it'd probably lead back to the companies who make money off of Appletinis. Don't ask me why, I don't have it all worked out yet. It has something to do with the emergence of the Appletini coinciding with the 30 is the new 20 b.s.
As I sit here with my bones flaking off into my body, worrying that bone shards will push through my skin at night, causing me to bleed to death, I recall better times. Days without two calcium pills a day, spending endless hours at online gaming and retorting at the speed of sound. Indeed, 30 is not the new 20, it is the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship April, welcome to my blog.
So let's begin, shall we? I recently turned 30. I truly believed that nothing would change except my driver's license on my birthday (and that I'd acquire copious amounts of presents) but I was gravely mistaken. I thought I'd wake up the next morning and still want to play World of Warcraft, I thought my memory would be the same, I thought I wouldn't feel older at all. I know some will accuse me of hyperbole but the weeks after my birthday have been plagued with memory problems, cracking knees, and I've hardly played WoW at all. I can't remember the last time I sat down and did the daily quests or even ran a dungeon. I've actually contemplated starting crossword puzzles and learning how to knit. But for all the MMORPG's I'm not playing I do have a lovely flower garden to show for it.
What troubles me is the expediency of the aging process. It didn't help my mental state when my Grandma told me that at 30 your body stops producing enough calcium. She recommended that I take two 500 mg tablets of calcium per day. I'm sure more recommendations will be forthcoming now that I seem to have crossed the threshold into what I call preventative death measures (pdm). It's all about maintenance now. Making sure I don't end up with chalk bones and broken limbs.
As for my memory. There is a noticeable lag in my brain. I used to banter and bicker quite effectively. Now there is a significant pause in my responses. I can feel the neurons exerting themselves to form into some sort of answer. I'm wondering if it's this bad at 30 what will I be like at 40? Will minutes pass instead of seconds? Will people look at me and wonder why I'm not speaking? Will they just leave me standing there, in the rain (rain fits the imagery of this moment), and hours later I find the words to say?
I was assured by a good friend of mine (who had turned 30 about two months before me) that I had nothing to worry about. In fact I have textual evidence to support this assertion. I literally have a text from her that says, "30 is great". I carried those words around in my little heart, they bolstered me, they made me get out of bed in the morning. The reality, however, falls far short of great. Tony the Tiger would give it just a grrr. No additional letters or an exclamation point. Just grrr. Thirty, quite frankly, sucks ass. Yes, I said it. It sucks ass. I think there has been a whole campaign waged to make people feel like 30 is the new 20. If I followed the money trail it'd probably lead back to the companies who make money off of Appletinis. Don't ask me why, I don't have it all worked out yet. It has something to do with the emergence of the Appletini coinciding with the 30 is the new 20 b.s.
As I sit here with my bones flaking off into my body, worrying that bone shards will push through my skin at night, causing me to bleed to death, I recall better times. Days without two calcium pills a day, spending endless hours at online gaming and retorting at the speed of sound. Indeed, 30 is not the new 20, it is the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship April, welcome to my blog.
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