THE Emotional Support STD Nitpicky Book Chat You've Been Waiting For

 It's a good thing we're not meeting for coffee because we'd be sitting for hours and hours, and you might get all jacked up on caffeine, whereas I--a decaf drinker--would probably be in and out of the bathroom a lot after having switched to Just Ice Water after my second cup.

Anyway.

I have a lot to talk about in no particular order, so let's get started.

You'll Be Glad To Know That I Do Not Have Syphilis.

So, I went to my superhero neurologist to try and figure out what the heck is going on. He ordered two dozen blood tests after a thorough exam. As the results came in--and some are still coming in--I was shocked to find out just how thorough Dr. B was being. He had my blood tested for all the hepatitises (hepatitisi?), various levels of vitamins and minerals and metals, and of all things, syphilis. I cannot wait to go back and see him next week for my EMG and to ask him Just What Kind Of Girl He Thinks I Am. So far, everything has been negative or within mostly normal levels. The initial diagnosis is Peripheral Neuropathy, but he is not sure of the underlying cause for it. I'm also getting a thoracic MRI to look at my spinal cord whenever the insurance gods/company says I'm allowed. In the meantime all I can do is take one day at a time. I cannot build strength or stamina; the condition does not allow for that. I miss my walks and my life. Honestly, I'm scared.

Pretend Kermit The Frog Is A Picky English Teacher/Editor And Sing! It's Not That Easy Being Me.

The book Orbital is beautiful and breathtaking on every page. As I read it, I felt transported and awed. The cadence of the book is somehow sweeping, yet measured. The language is poetic and majestic without being overwritten. I cannot tell you how many times I had to put the book in my lap and look up from it just to savor a moment of language.

Until I read this:

It's really something, this typhoon, Pietro says when he comes to join her. They watch it hone in on the Philippines and Taiwan and the coast of Vietnam. Its spiral flings clouds for hundreds of miles around a hole-punched siphoning eye. (p84)

My own eye felt hole-punched. With a big red-hot stabby thing. How could she? How could Samantha Harvey make this mistake? How did it get past editors? UGH.

Hone--to sharpen a blade or refine a skill

Home--to focus on a target or goal; to move or aim toward a destination with accuracy

This irritates me so mightily. It's right up there with the misuse of palette/palate/pallet (they're all different things, people!), and...well, to be honest, pretty much everything. 

Still, 99.999% of Orbital is wonderful. Consider this extract from a paragraph:

Our lives here are inexpressibly trivial and momentous at once. Both repetitive and unprecedented. We matter greatly and not at all....death is so close. Life is everywhere, everywhere.

I Can't Swim, But My School Wasn't A Boat

Speaking of books, I also finished The Wager, a terrific nonfiction book about a British shipwreck and mutiny in the 18th century. Engie reviewed it some time ago, and I was intrigued. I also discovered it was written by the same author who wrote The Lost City of Z, one of my favourite nonfiction books, so I knew it would be engagingly written. And it was. I have no quibble at all with the book, but there were several things that just astonished me. First of all, many, many of the career seamen on the ship DID NOT KNOW HOW TO SWIM. Apparently, this was not unusual among seafarers. How in the hell do men decide to join the navy or be a mariner, knowing they could be months or years on a boat that could be swamped by waves, fully cognizant that they could become shipwrecked or lost, and still say, "No problem. Swimming is not a skill I'll need when out on the seas with no land in sight"? 

I think you need to read this book to marvel at all the other incredibly ridiculous decisions these men made in the name of service to the crown, personal honour, and loyalty to their commander at the expense of their own personal safety and survival. I wanted to smack them so, so many times. And tell them to GET REAL FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE.

Walmart Needs To Make Up Its Mind About Aquatic Animals And Safety.

On a slightly related watery note, if you've been a longtime reader, you know that if there is an animal story in the news, I'm all over it; that is my vow to you. Credit for this one goes to Rick, who knew I'd be charmed by the headline. I think you will be, too:

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ALLIGATOR NO LONGER WELCOME IN PENNSYLVANIA WALMART

I want to thank David K. Li, the reporter on this important story, who provides us not only with this fantastic headline, but the story and video that I want all of you to go read and watch right now. In case you are hesitating, the alligator--leashed--sits in the shopping cart whilst wearing a dress and, in another scene, luxuriates contentedly in a fur collared sweater in her owner's arms. This alligator is about as dangerous as a bunny rabbit, yet Walmart has banned it. “The safety of our customers and associates is our highest priority,” Walmart said. “We welcome service animals in our stores, but it is unacceptable to expose members of the public to potential danger.”

Oh, really, Walmart? This is pretty ironic, coming from the place that sold radioactive shrimp to thirteen states. And if you bought a bag of that irradiated shrimp, don't return it for a refund, say officials. Simply throw it away! Share that radioactivity with the world as it rots in a landfill. Did you eat it? Are you having ill effects? Contact your medical provider. Will Walmart pick up the tab? Oh ha ha it is to laugh.

Maybe seek some solace from your emotional support alligator. Just don't take it shopping with you when you go get your prescription from the Walmart pharmacy.

And While I'm Feeling Snarky...

I don't get how college football is a bigass deal. Maybe it isn't in your state, but I'm in Ohio, and a lot of people here are huge Ohio State fans, and they are obnoxious about it. Here's what I don't understand:  how can you be such a big fan of a college you never even went to? I got my undergrad degree from Bowling Green State University, and I could not possibly care less how their football team does. Ever. Also? Why does Ohio State get all precious and persnickety and call themselves The Ohio State University? Why the The? It's stupid. And pretentious. I automatically refer to all the colleges I went to as The now:  The Lorain County Community College; The Bowling Green State University; The Ashland College (now University). I also took some grad classes at The College of Mount St. Joseph, but they legitimately have a The in their name. I urge all of you to add a The to wherever you went to school just to diminish Ohio State's use of it for prestige and to call attention to how positively ridiculous it is.

Okay! That was a lot. Tell me the The names of your schools and All Kinds Of Other Things in Comments.

image credits:

freepik.com

invaluable.com

letsloop.com

superstock.com

Rally For Thanksgiving: Something Romantic

In college I studied the great British writers. My area of specialization was Nineteenth Century, and I took a wonderful class in Romantic poetry from delightful Dr. Wolfe, whom I have written about here before. It wasn't long before I fell madly and profoundly in love with John Keats, both the man and his works.

Dr. Wolfe was sympathetically tolerant of my disdain for Wordsworth and my impatience with Byron. I was oddly singular in my staunch defense of Keats, and I'm not entirely certain that it wasn't with me in mind that my professor engaged a certain talented speaker for class one day, a young actor who was performing a one-man show as John Keats over the weekend in nearby Toledo.

The day John Keats arrived in class, I was transfixed. Dr. Wolfe had not said a word about the visit beforehand, so we were all taken completely by surprise. Of course, his dress and his accent were authentic, and he was in command of the finer details of Keats' life and sad death. He gave the class what was likely a relatively practiced lecture/show, an abbreviated but more academic version of his stage play. But one of the things I remembered so well was his voice, especially as he recited for us Keats' Ode to Autumn.

It was a golden, bright day in November, and our classroom had a whole back wall of windows overlooking the courtyard. Every time a breeze blew, a cascade of yellow leaves fluttered down. The dry leaves on the walkways skittered and rustled, and the soft brown smell of Fall was in the air. As John Keats recited the poem, his voice was like a purring cat on a warm lap. "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun...". I was lost; for the remainder of the class, I was in the nineteenth century, and John Keats was my companion.

When the time was over, I was incredibly sad. Hoping to prolong it somehow, I stayed behind for a little while, and I walked with the actor, asking a few more questions and getting the name of a great Keats biographer. He was enthusiastic, friendly, and very nice.

Stepping out into the glorious November day, I lifted my face to the obliging sun. Romantic Poetry was my favourite class of the day, and it was such a gorgeous day! I pulled my textbook out of my backpack and sat down on the steps to read, once more, while that voice was still strong in my mind.


Ode To Autumn

1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

image credit

Miss Independence

When I was eighteen I started out at the local community college; I was paying for my own education and I needed to work part-time as a bank teller to finance my degree. Like most college freshmen, I was sort of undecided: in my heart I knew I was born a teacher, but having had a string of furry pets during my teenage years made me flirt with the idea of veterinary medicine. Bravely, I enrolled in some science courses until I realized I had a tendency to faint at the sight of blood and that my hatred of math--present since birth--only intensified and deepened.

Never one to dawdle at decision-making, I quickly changed my major to secondary education, reasoning that I could become an English teacher and blend the best of both worlds: I could still work with animals, but there would be a lot less blood. (rimshot)

I was caught in such an odd, in-between world. I was in college, but I was living at home. I was working and earning my own money, but I was living at home and had a curfew. It was the strangest thing. I had always been self-motivated and independent, but it felt like I should be somehow different now. What was the answer?

Cigarettes.

That was the Big Blow I Struck For Independence. I started smoking.

Laughably, though, I couldn't really do it much. I couldn't smoke in the car, because technically, it wasn't mine, it was my parents'. And I couldn't really do it much in very public places because my mom and dad knew everybody. Mom was a teller for the same bank I worked for. Dad was a security guard at the steel mill in town and knew every person, every cop, every family, and everybody who went to our church. It was ridiculous. So, when did I smoke?

In class.

Back then, in the late seventies, we could smoke in class unless somebody objected. And no one did. So, for my eight o'clock Eighteenth Century British Lit. class--oh my god, what a yawner!--I'd stop in the cafe, get a huge coffee, grab my pack of Salem Light Longs or Kent Somethings (I forget, but they were in a silver and green pack, I think), and head to the back of the room. That class nearly killed me for a variety of reasons. Can you imagine drinking like 24 ounces of coffee and smoking probably 4-6 cigarettes while meandering through the likes of Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift--and let's not forget Dryden. Dryden. I mean, I was supposed to read Tristram Shandy for that class. (I never did, you know. I just thumbed through it, came across those odd blank, black, and swirly pages and did an essay on those. BS'ed my way through it and Dr. O. thought I was a genius. I did, at least, have the grace to feel guilty about that.)

But I digress.

Back to My Rebellious Smoking. I smoked like a smudgepot during all my classes and felt very professorial and beatnik and English-studentish. I even gestured with my cigarette and used my empty styrofoam coffeecup for an ashtray. How pretentious I probably--no, surely--looked. But I wasn't the only one. There were lots of us, but I bet I was the only one doing it for a sense of dangerous independence. The only one who had to do it there because if she didn't, her mother or father would find out and probably ground her or lecture her and make her feel like a disappointment. Sigh.

But it didn't last. In November I met a boy, and that made me quit cold turkey. Because there was one thing I really detested about me smoking and it was this: I hated the way I looked when I was smoking. I thought it made me look hard and cheap and tawdry and trashy. I hated the way my mouth looked when I would draw in, and no matter how hard I tried, I never looked cool or sexy or even smart when I let the smoke out. So, when I met this boy, I just stopped. And that was it. Because I knew if I didn't, sooner or later, he'd see me smoking and it would be awful.

The funny thing is, that was almost thirty years ago, and every once in a while, I still get a yen for a cigarette. I completely understand people who try to quit, over and over again. I get it. But it looks ugly. And you know me. That's enough.