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Tuesday, October 26, 2004 |
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Back on Course, Of Course You've heard it before. Well, it only took three changes of phone representative and a shift from one coast to the other, and surviving yet another lengthy grilling, to fix the Social Security SNAFU. Next month is screwed up but thereafter we'll be OK. Probably I should give up and go back to editing for the big guys (well, medium-sized guys) until the writing can gradually displace it. Except that editing just burns me out for writing at all, kills all my words. And I think I've blown my editing fuses anyway; I miss a lot of things nowadays I never would have missed ten or even five years ago. I've always wanted to publish my own periodical, literary / environmental (and we all know how much money there is in that...). And I have other ideas, if I can only remember what they are from minute to minute so I can start to move them forward. I give myself one year from now to pull it all together, one way or the other. I hope one of y'all will wish me luck. 3:32:48 PM  comment []
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Dr. Omed's Easter Egg Revealed... Here's the answer to the riddle I posed to the good doctor in response to his vulture/eagle puzzle. He's too busy to play, so it's time to bring it to a close.  The hints were "cups of tea" (figurines that come free in 100-count Red Rose tea boxes) and "a dream from long ago" (the owl on the tortoise's back). Recently I found these among my stowed-away knick-knackery and realized the sea turtle figure was the model--identical, actually--for the dream "tortoise," and the owl figure is posed the way the more realistic owl was posed in the dream. ***
Two eggs up, two chunks of toast with strawberry preserves, cup o' Red Rose tea--I think I'll just ax the paper and e-mails and go straight to the phone... |
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Dick Jones's post yesterday included lists as a topic, and invited commentary on the practice, and lists from those who indulge. I'll give him lists... Making them often is the only way I can get back to sleep at night after I've sat straight up suddenly wide awake with worry. Here are last night's lists, composed at 1:30am. Today I must remember to: write paper letters to * godmother Jeanne * ex-father-in-law and lonely guy Harry * Cousin Chuck, in prison * Aunt Karen * ex-neighbor Ardith * my accountant... write emails to * Zanna in Montana * Cousin Lisa * ex-neighbors-and-tortoise-owners Doug and Melissa * llama- and herb-compadre and raptor rehabber Tina * reader Mark B in NC * old friend Mark M in SF make (>gulp!<) telephone calls to * son Josh * son Jesse * my mechanic Ron Campbell--when will my pickup be done? * Frontier, my horrible phone carrier and ISP (change plan!) * Working Assets, my suddenly unaffordable LD carrier (cancel!) * Social Security... How I hate bureaucracies. "Hate" is a strong word, with "fear" as its truer aspect. The evil evil evil man I must deal with at our regional Social Security office (200+ miles away; I've been fretting about this phone call for a week) is an SS officer indeed, and has reduced me to tears on several occasions (I've filed written complaints and appeals but never to any effect) and us to penury now, yet again. Now my brother's simple change of address has given him an opportunity to reduce his benefits by nearly half, disqualifying him from the program he has qualified for since birth, on the basis of (I suspect purposely) skewed information... Aargh!! Just to make me have to hassle with government agencies from long distance, just to ensure we won't be able to pay rent for a while. I get my own wage, small but adequate up to now, but my brother's ability to cover his share of expenses is what makes it possible for him to live with me at all. In almost 20 years we had no problem, until we moved up here to remote Republican right-wing paranoia-ville, under the control of a Social Security guy who thinks these payments to the disabled are welfare, and that he personally is paying for it. Oy. How is it all my optimism and gratitude and "yes"-saying to the universe only keep bleeding us drier? More lists. I consider the winter months ahead, the inadequate size of the woodpile, already dwindling, the electric meter they switched out this morning because it barely functioned (hence my unrealistically low bills), the llama hay I've been buying a bale at a time instead of by the ton, beloved friends whom I owe and owe from back during the panicky stave-off-foreclosure period and who evaporate now by the dozen. I can waste no more time developing my purported craft, seeking a direction. I've used up that great luxury. Today I must get over my terror-generated paralysis, choose a direction, set a course, and go, or finally just give up and burrow underground. *** Wicked dreams of late. Night before last Angela Lansbury tracked down killer Robert Culp in episode after episode after endless episode of my personal all-night series of murder dreams. ("Culp"--culpable? guilty?)[ADDENDUM 11/25: In going through my journals recently I find that Robert Culp was a featured killer in a dream from almost 20 years ago. I think the Crone her was trying to prove that GUILT KILLS.] Last night I was taken deep into hard-core territory, approaching it again and again from every direction (so to speak) and gender. Whew. Must be a time-of-the-month phenomenon. 10:30am. It's begun snowing now. Hard. I'm glad I finally got all the hoses and garden equipment put away yesterday, and the firewood well covered. Better get this upstreamed before the power goes down again. I can't see--my distance glasses aren't to hand (life's rife with metaphors)--but through the window I spot a pair of birds, two soarers, gliding over just now, tilting toward and away and again toward each other as they come. Neither eagle nor vulture (see also Omed), they may be some smaller kind of raptor, or (my eyes are this far gone) perhaps they're ravens. A bullfrog croaks in the plant room for hours every morning. And I keep encountering other kinds of frogs in the bathtub and on the rex begonia leaves. 11:27:13 AM comment []
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