My Semester Grand Finale

So, have I mentioned that I hit a deer on Tuesday night on my way home from Bemidji? Yep. Figures it would happen at the end of the last day of the semester - sort of a grand finale. The good news is that I don't have to do any driving on the Bemidji route for about six weeks. So, in some twisted way, this happened at the best possible time.

It was a little freaky, though. I hit one in the same car, about three years ago, and messed up the exact same part of my car (front drivers side). I am thankful for my clunky old heavy metal Jeep. If I had a fiberglass type car, I would've been toasted. Both times it was the same deal. Just past twilight (this is when they lurk in the ditches, gangs of deer chewing the grass and looking at each car that passes with a blank sort of disinterest). Early winter, with a fairly clear, but somewhat icy road. And - boom - all of a sudden, there is a deer in the middle of the road, standing pretty much on the yellow line. And I see her, and she sees me, and she jumps - right in front of my car. And I just take my foot off the gas, tighten my grip on the steering wheel, and (yes, I admit it) close my eyes. I hear, quite clearly, my headlight shatter, and it sounds so loud that I'm sure it was my windshield, or my window. And I'm thrown forward in my seat, and basically just try not to twist the steering wheel, but keep plowing ahead. There is another deer, standing on the shoulder, waiting, then frozen, a shocked witness. Then she bounds off into the trees. The sad thing is, that moment right before I hit her is the closest I've ever been to a deer, and then she's just gone.

And then the worst time - I feel like I should turn around, check on her. But it's dark and late and I'm in the middle of nowhere, about 20 miles into a seventy-five mile drive, with one headlight and no brights. And a car that appears to be running, but for how long I'm not sure. So I keep driving. That is hard.

But I got home in one piece. Also: I couldn't cry or freak out, because I had to drive. It was tricky. I haven't started the car since then, so I'm not sure it's still running, but at least it got me home. However, the Jeep is not looking pretty. The front fender is trashed, the headlight is missing and punched in (well, all the lights are), there is no grille. Ah, the joys of northern living. I do say this though, at least it wasn't a bear, like Jonathan and Natasha's recent run-in.

Beer Goggles - The Mystery Solved!

Set your minds at ease folks, the mystery has finally been solved. Researchers at Manchester University have come up with an equation to figure out the Beer Goggle Phenomenon. Variables include: alcohol consumed (of course), level of light, distance between the two people, smokiness, and drinker's eyesight.

Thank goodness, because I don't know about you, but this issue has been plaguing me.

Those crazy Brits.

Talk about Something Different, Dammit!

This is what I keep telling myself. Every time I go to the nifty "create post" area, I try to think of something else to write about. Not writing. Not school. Not headaches, or whining, or panic. And my mind goes blank. How pathetic is that? There just doesn't seem to be anything else right now.

I could write about another walk with my dog in the unseasonably warm weather this week. I could write about hauling scrap lumber down our yard to the firepit, and spending the afternoon presiding over a blazing bonfire all by myself. I could write about any of the movies I watched this weekend (and there were a lot).

But maybe I should just face facts. My life is boring right now. One-dimensional. Hopefully soon I will have something else to blog about. But right now its not looking good.

PS - this does not count as whining. Them's just the facts.

Miles Davis Saved My Life (Again)

I've been having a bit of a rough time lately, as you may be able to tell from the ups and downs of my posts. There's just an awful lot tumbling through my head right now: MFA applications, current classes, my assistantship, whether to get my MA, oh yeah, and my writing. I seem to be in a productive period right now, for which I am always thankful, but why when I am in the middle of so much other crap? Probably because my brain is on overdrive.

Anyway.

So, I've been stressed. I've seen the signs that point to panic mode, but I wasn't really paying attention. I should be learning by now. On Thursday I hit major panic, and had a small anxiety attack. I say small because I was able to control it, to push it down and get home to safety. I didn't hyperventilate, although it was a near thing. I am glad for this because when it happened, I was in Bemidji, just about to head home for the weekend, and I knew that if I couldn't control it, I wouldn't be able to drive home. My drive home is isolated, dark and winding, rife with deer munching by the side of the road. I generally do not mess around on the way home, drive carefully and slowly, and with a wary eye. I knew that if I could not put away the anxiety, or at least postphone it, I wouldn't be able to get home, which was what I wanted more than anything.

I can thank two artists for making this possible. The first is Van Gogh. I stood staring at the print of this painting that I have in my office. It never fails to comfort me. It's as close to being home as I can get sometimes.

But the bulk of my thanks goes to Miles Davis, hands down. This isn't the first time he has pulled me out of something, but it was definitely the most dramatic. Off and on, all day that day, I had been listening to 'Round About Midnight, possibly my favorite Miles Davis album. When I went into my office and shut the door, feeling the impending panic, I put 'Round About Midnight on again. But just the first track, 'Round Midnight, over and over. It soothes me like no other piece of music I've found. It's like a hand rubbing my neck, brushing my cheek, running down my hair. This feeling is so palpable that if I close my eyes I can almost feel fingertips on my cheek. It is, I am convinced, the only reason I was able to slow my breathing, and stop those awful herkyjerky sobs that hurt my chest (I am not a pretty crier, especially at times like these, when there are no tears involved, just dry sobbing noises and hiccups and little pitiful whines and sniffles).

Thank you, Miles Davis. I love you.

Tuesday Headache

I'm such a whiner. Feel free to stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.

Here it comes again. The Tuesday headache. It will now begin developing into a sickly feeling in my head and stomach that will have me waking up before dawn tomorrow. I will try to ignore it, to bury my head further into the pillow, to turn it over to the cool side, over and over, until there is no cool side.

Tuesday is not a hard day for me, in the grand scheme of things. It signals the beginning of my very short week, the beginning of my weekly stay in Bemidji, the beginning of the shuffle of bags and books and computers and clothes, from house to car to dorm to car to house (and to office and back in between).

But it always ends with this headache, this tightening of bands around my head, my shoulders, the taut cables running up my neck behind my ears. Tuesday isn't really the hard day. Wednesday is the hard one.

I have no classes on Wednesday. It is my homework day, my wandering day, my thinking pondering day. That part I like. But it always starts early, and with a battle. These headaches make my eyes hard and shiny, small and slitted against the light. My jaw is forever clenched on Wednesday. I am not myself. I am brittle.

There are some things that help: shopping at the thrift store, lunch with friends, a walk along the rocky little path on Lake Bemidji's shore. These are the therapies I use (along with copious amounts of Exedrin Migraine and my heated herb bag). Sometimes they work. But sometimes I just get tired of preparing for battle.

A Well-Balanced Meal

Hmmm... a dinner consisting of one box of Le Petit Ecolier cookies (damn I love those things), and a 20 ounce Coke. I think I can hear my stomach rotting.

Pssst! Wanna buy an almond - cheap?

So, as a break from worrying about the impending threat of North Korea, I've been reading about these almond heists that have been plaguing California. Yes, apparently robbers have been making off with almonds from farms in California, to the total tune of 1.5 million so far. They are calling them "nutnabbers" (which I won't even touch, as it's too obvious for even me to mock). These guys are not amateurs - they are not clipping the cyclone fence in black clothing and shoveling nuts into garbage bags, then sneaking away. They steal whole trucks filled with them - the last robbery was 44,000 pounds of nuts.

So the first thought that occurred to me - where does one find a fence for almonds? I mean, it's not like you can go downtown and sell them out of the trunk of your car under an overpass or something. We're talking a specific market here. The police say that they must have a buyer already lined up, someone overseas, because there's less paperwork. Sort of like lining up a buyer for the Mona Lisa before you steal it.

Anyway, that's it for the national news. Now, back to the latest impending threat to the world's greatest bully: the U.S. of A.

In Limbo About Limbo

Today, in a stunning move by the Catholic Church, Limbo was abolished. The Pope informed the public that there would no longer be a Limbo, that popular eternal resting place between heaven and h-e-double hockey sticks. While Heaven and Hell are reserved for the good and evil, respectively, Limbo traditionally is home to those who do not seem to deserve hell, but can’t get into heaven either: those born before Jesus’ resurrection, unbaptized babies, and the like.

Martha Jones, a Catholic resident of Baltimore, was shocked and appalled. “What’s going to happen to all those unbaptized babies now?” she sobbed. “Where will the refugees from Limbo go?” The Church has responded to these concerns, voiced by many, by stating that all current residents of Limbo will receive an upgrade to Heaven. “After all,” said a Catholic Church spokesperson, “they’ve been in Limbo long enough. It’s not really fair for them to keep paying for something that was not their fault.”

Critics have questioned this move, stating that the Pope has no authority to actually change the fabric of the universe. “This is not a question of politics. It’s not like reversing the Church’s stance on birth control,” stated Petula Smithers, president of PAPAL, Parents Allied to Prevent the Abolishment of Limbo. “Next they’ll be saying that they’re going to abolish Hell because no one is inherently evil, it’s all a matter of upbringing. For hundreds of years, they’ve said Limbo exists. Now, because they want a kinder, friendlier God to attract constituents, suddenly Limbo doesn’t exist? Would that I could shape my world and my God to fit my marketing concepts.”

**Author’s note: The Pope has not abolished Limbo, although the Church has apparently considering doing so for a while now. Said Author was overcome with mirth and a deep sense of irony when she discovered this. Here’s a link to NPR’s recent article about the issue. It was just too good to pass up.

reading the classics you feel like you've read but have never, in fact, read

Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I read it this week. I got it out of the library on the way to get a pint, because there really is not much nicer than sitting in a bar by oneself in the afternoon with a pint of Guiness and a good book. I headed to the library because I was in the mood for something I didn't have. I wanted Robert Louis Stevenson. Don't ask my why he popped into my head. I think I was just in the mood for an adventure story. A pirate story (Pirates, samurai, I don't know what this says about my swashbuckling state of mind lately, but at least I'm entertained). So I went into the library thinking I would get Kidnapped, not Treasure Island, because I read that one just one to many times as a kid. But I've only read Kidnapped a few times, and probably not since I was about twelve.

So anyway. I'm in the library, I find Kidnapped, and stashed right next to it is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I guess I knew Stevenson wrote it, but never really put it all together. Standing there looking at it, I realized I've never actually read the book, even though we all know the story. Right then, I was intrigued, and felt like I should remedy this omission. Plus, the book was palm sized, and hardcover. I opened it, and the text was set in one narrow column down the center of each page. At the beginning of each chapter, the first letter of the first word was scrolly, and fancy, and red. And every so often, there was a cool woodcut, with a caption underneath, things like "Dr. Jekyll's hand" and "Mr. Hyde's hand." How could I resist? I felt that somehow this was the perfect book to enjoy sitting at a polished wood bar with my favorite beer in front of me. So I checked it out and headed to said bar.

It was around three o'clock, and the place was empty save for one guy sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender. I settled in with my pint at the other end of the bar, and began reading. I expected a good story, but man, it was good shit. I was immediately engrossed - after all, the story is told through a guy named Mr. Utterance. I was about fifteen pages in when the bartender went outside for a cigarette. And the guy at the end of the bar, well, I could just feel his attention shifting to me. You know those people at the bar that think that everyone is there to be social, and being in the same room is invitation for random chatting? Yeah, like the people on airplanes, the ones that force me to immediately don headphones upon boarding, and to keep them on even when there's no music playing. So I sat, looking totally involved in my book, or at least trying to, when in fact the guy was already distracting me and he hadn't even said anything. But I knew it was coming, it was like the room was holding its breath, waiting for him to speak. Sure enough,

"What're you reading?"

I look up begrudgingly at him, then at the cover of my book, like I'm not sure (I don't know why I do this, but I always do).

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," I say, and look back down at it. After a minute he says,

"I've always thought there was a little of both in all of us."

This catches me off guard. I mean, duh. So I say,

"I think that's kind of the point."

What a bitch! I didn't mean to sound snotty, but come on. I felt bad about it, but not bad enough to keep talking to him, so I turned back to my book. It did shut him up pretty effectively, and allowed me to down two pints in silence, and get about fifty pages into the book. Man, I wish I could be a bitch on purpose - it would be so handy! Usually it's like this occasion, accidental bitchiness, which gets the job done, but can't be counted on to just appear when needed.