Flugue State
I do not have the energy
for walking
fast
quick
confident
I drift along
at the pace
of
a breath
I tell
myself
that it is
a moving
meditation
a chance
to reflect
on
the world
as it
goes by
But really
it is
just...
slow.
I spent the weekend sleeping, drinking fluids, and occasionally reading or watching tv.
I have the flu. My students gave it to me, along with their papers.
I did not get much grading done this weekend. This seems appropriate.
It has not been a "bad" flu, at least in the sense of symptoms. For the first couple of days my head (including face) and shoulders ached. I'm sneezing, but it's not much worse than my usual allergies. Mostly I'm just tired.
It is a bad flu in the sense that I have it at all. I had my flu shot, after all. My mother and I are people with robust immune systems, and most illnesses are mild inconveniences at best.
The flip side of that is that when we get sick, we get sick. The contrast between our usually lively selves and our ailing selves is pretty striking.
It is tiring walking up stairs. It is tiring walking down stairs. It was certainly tiring walking to campus this morning, and tiring discovering that the projector was not working in my classroom.
It was tiring walking to lunch.
It was tiring have it drizzle on my head.
I must lift my feet high and pound them down normally, because I felt very slow and light-footed today, as I drooped along, expending as little energy as I could while still moving forward.
I'm tired.
I'm going to go home and sleep.
Just as soon as I get up the energy to move.
Tired.
I have lived in seven different states over the course of my lifetime, in most major regions of the country.
You would think that once, just once, I'd get to vote in a primary before the Powers That Be have decided who the front runner is going to be.
You'd think that just once I'd have the chance to vote for my preferred candidate before the media blitz encourages him to withdraw early.
You'd think, in a year that has broken many of the usual media platitudes about election strategy and forecasting, in a year that has seen a massive compression of the primary schedule, in a year where I am in one of the states that votes earlier rather than later, I'd be able to vote for "my" candidate.
I was very excited about the chance to do this for the first time in my voting life.
DEE-nied!
Again.
Damn you, American primary system! Damn you! *shakes fist*
I apologize for the even more sporadic than usual posting. This semester I'm teaching two new preps, one of which has two sections (for a total of almost 80 students) and lots of lectures. Plus, for some bizarre reason, I thought having them write lots of little papers would be a good idea. I haven't really had any free time during the day except for maybe a couple of hours a week for pottery; at night I'm brain dead and watch too much tv (I am now addicted to Cash Cab).
I saw a hawk in a tree on campus a few days ago, the robins are out, and I heard a woodpecker this morning. So that's something...
I spent my New Year surrounded by friends and visiting one of my favorite cities; not a bad way to begin 2008.
I always seem to settle into a semi-hibernation when I'm here in the winter. I don't know whether it's the quality of the light, the damp chill, or the rain. This visit, I was doing well in terms of getting up early until today, when I fell back asleep for another two hours after waking.
The sunlight is shining on dripping leaves and moss, a patch of blue sky moving among clouds to let it through. The light is bright and clear, and all the trees in the valley are outlined against the darker ridge in shadow. Birds shake gleaming droplets free when they land upon the smaller branches, their whirring wings lit up by the light behind.
Moisture is a fact of life here, especially in the winter, so one lives one's life under its cloud, setting one's rhythms to the beat of the falling rain. One accumulates layers of fleece and microfiber and wool like a tree growing moss; one concentrates more on staying warm, than staying dry.
The light has broken through again, its clarity and strength catching the eye in the way a hawk's scream in the early morning hush startles the ear. The clouds drift, the clarion light fades into soft echoes, the glitter of water on yellow-grey lichen dulls into a subtle gleam. On the branch of an oak, a chickadee scolds.
Okay, so I was over at Shakespeare's Sister the other day, reading this post about the Supreme Court, and how important it is to not let it slide further to the right. I'm nodding my head in agreement, reading the comments thread, and then I hit this comment:
ANYONE who thinks there is no difference between the parties,
ANYONE who is tempted to waste your vote an a green candidate as a matter of principal [sic],
ANYONE who thinks Ron Paul makes sense and might be a better choice than an "establishment" candidate of wither [sic] party,. . . . .
. . . remember those three words. [The Supreme Court]
And I just lost it. (Obscenity-laden response below the fold.)
I like fennel. :)
c/o P/H.
Consider the following statements, and see if you can guess what might go in the blanks:
_____a_____ is encouraging people to be rude and selfish.
_____b_____ makes it possible for anonymous people to get away with being mean toward people they've never met.
Before _____c______ people only met each other through family networks and this sort of invasion of privacy didn't happen.
People who _____d______ have no sense of personal dignity and privacy. They let just anyone into their lives.
Or consider these:
People who _____e______ should not be surprised when total strangers bother them. What did they expect?
It is inevitable that if you ____f_____, bad things like are going to happen to you. I know; they happened to me.
It's part of the nature of _____g_____ that things like anonymous attacks, rudeness, harassment, and invasion of privacy happen. People who ______h_______ shouldn't complain; they knew this when they _____i______.
All people who ______j______ shouldn't be surprised when bad things happen; those sort of things are the point of ______k______, aren't they?
Ready for some answers?
...because I'm selfish: I want to read his book!
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