DAYS OF REST
Dr. Omed has not been himself of late. Faithful pilgrims will have noticed that I haven't been posting much the past couple of months, and that His Loveliness the Pope (SDAABS) has not been pouring forth his blessings with his accustomed brio. But, as Sister Mehitabel would say, there's a dance or two in the old cat yet. Overtime at the day job, seeing red and feeling blue about the election, the usual death march from Thanksgiving through Christmas to the New Year, and a SAD assisted Bipolar downswing all combined to lay me low. Very low. When I say haven't been feeling myself, I mean I haven't been at myself--nobody home. Numb. Blank. Really, it's worse than feeling bad. More than one person has said they've been missing me, well, I've been missing me too. I've been diving deep into my bellybutton and finding no lint. Since my work consists of not much more than artful arrangements of my bellybutton lint, I've been spreading it pretty thin here at the Tent Show. As I said in a note to Sam, sometimes I wonder if I was ever here. My wife Elspeth of course has been bearing the brunt of all this, and has threatened me with citizen's arrest on a charge of aggravated self-absorption. I plead nolo contendere. When Els accuses me of being self-absorbed, I don't think she realizes the extent to which that is true, or the extremity of that truth. I tell her not to take it personally, I haven't been here for anybody, not even myself. This is part of the manic life cycle, a dangerous part. There's always the possibility I'll leave and not come back. In spite of better living through chemistry, dancing in the lithium chorus, I am still a slave of my temperament.
So, if it's all about Dana, as Els oft opines, the good news is that I feel more myself, or rather I can feel myself, and Dana is (once again, and slowly) making a comeback. Soon there will be Dana with Dana in it, and a born-again Dr. Omed at the Revival. I've taken it pretty easy at work now that our work volume has subsided a bit, and I've had a pleasant and relaxed weekend--that's why the title of this post is "Days of Rest." On Friday, I took off a little early, and drove over to Shadow Mountain to do a little fossil prospecting. Shadow Mountain is a prominence in South Tulsa topped by three huge water tanks and surrounded by suburban tract houses, which, like Turkey Mountain, is a long slope shouldered hill, a horizontal alp rather an alpine crag. Between the houses and the water tanks is a zone of waste space, a scrubby wilderness of thickets and weeds, one of those little places almost no one but me has any use for, what I call a Kingdom of Beholding. Here and there the rippled sandstones that were once the beds of swampy watercourses near to a sea are exposed.
My luck was good. I found a good sized chunk plus several bits and pieces of what I believe is Calamites, a kind of giant horsetail or scouring rush. Considering such sphenopsid fossils are not uncommon in sedimentary rock laid down in Pennsylvian time (320 to 290 million years ago) in Oklahoma and elsewhere, I was quite absurdly pleased with myself.
On Saturday, old friend Jonah drove up from Oklahoma City on pilgrimage to the Papal See. He and I wandered around Tulsa, passing the hues and objects of the world, as Whitman says, to glean eidolons, while we may.
Jonah strikes a pose.
We were blessed with blue sky and sunshine, but the wind was brisk and had a bite to it, so we ended up doing our strolling indoors at a couple of flea markets, a used bookstore, and at the Salvation Army Thrift Store, rather than doing, say, a walkabout down by the river. An odd bit of synchronicity occured while we were out trying to catch the hem of the cargo goddess' dress. We experienced a epidemic of accordions. It seemed to us that the spirit of Fiona was stalking Tulsa.
Last thing before he left for the drive back to OKC, Jonah got out his guitar, and treated Els and I to a mini concert. He just gets better with age, and he has a way with old Leonard Cohen tunes. A fine day was had by all.
Sunday morning, Elspeth left to celebrate the birthday of her old friend Noel. After I did my papal duty and posted the Nun of the Week, I drove my 16 year old stepdaughter Leila out the Yahola Park to give her lessons driving a car with stick shift. She did well; only a few rabbit jumps. Later in the afternoon, I dropped her off at the Tulsa Zoo, where she is volunteering as a "Zoo Teen." Annie Beagle and I then went scouting road cuts, quarries, and other fossil sites. Got a nice sequence of pictures of a heron while I was at the park.
The heron is at the water's edge under Annie's nose.
See?
I get out of the car and approach quietly...
Off he goes.
Fly, fly away.
11:59:24 PM 
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