Not that depression yet

“All I can really remember is him crying, saying ‘I couldn’t even pay for her funeral.’”

I had asked Mom about her Dad. I remember him as rather cold and always outside in the garden, with his bees, or in the “fish room” with his coin collection. He used to give me a spanking each birthday–one swat for each year. Mom’s stories about him lately have mostly been along the lines of “I’m sure glad I had you, no matter what Dad thought.” He thought she was too old to be having a child at 40. But learning that he had cried made my heart ache for the stubborn old man.

I interviewed him for an oral history project in high school. He had a very hard time talking and constantly fiddled with his fingers while he spoke. He told me that for part of the Great Depression he’d sold Raleigh products. He’d go out and sometimes get orders, but more frequently did not. And sometimes he got the product to fill his orders, and sometimes he did not. He never talked to me about his wife’s death.

I had always pictured him as doing pretty well during the depression. I knew that he had taken in his future in-laws when they lost their home. It was odd to think of him doing something so generous, but when I was small his mother-in-law, my MeMe Sargent, was living with him again. Mom has reminisced about her mother always giving something to anyone who came by asking for work or food. Once a man picked up all their fallen apples and was given a few, plus a piece of bread with butter and sugar. At least that’s how I remember a story. So it seemed that they had more resources than some others.

My father never spoke much of the depression either. Sometimes he’d fix himself something that he had learned to eat during that time. He taught me to eat stale popcorn with milk and sugar for breakfast. And to eat crackers with jelly mixed with milk. He also taught me to eat bone marrow. He and his siblings would talk fondly of eating brains and such. They talked about being lucky to always have some sort of food around. Although, the lack of food caused the death of their pet squirrel: their neighbor lady shot and ate him.

Once while visiting the town Dad grew up near, he took Mom and me on a walk to show us the plaque commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debate held there. As we walked he pointed out numerous places where he had lived with his first wife. Mom asked him why they had moved around so much. Dad answered, “If you can’t pay the rent, you have to move.” There was such pain in his voice. We were all silent for a long time after that.

All I’m experiencing during this recession is a lack of employment opportunities and fewer meals out. I did just make soup out of an old rooster, but that was because it was given to me; not because that’s all I could afford to eat. Not having a good place to put in a vegetable garden makes me a little nervous. I don’t own a freezer, nor do I know how to can. So perhaps it makes no difference. For now I have health care, shelter, and food. I feel pretty lucky.

04/04/2009 correction after conferring with Mom:
My grandfather did not have his future in-laws move in during the Great Depression. He had an older couple move in and mom and her brother called them grandma and grandpa. But they weren’t related. How six people lived in that small one-level house, I don’t know. When I asked Mom about it, she just reminded me that they didn’t have the bathroom then. So they had a bit more space. Hmm. So they all shared a single outhouse? That sounds like a lot of fun.

She erupts as predicted

Minnesota’s T. Jam Honey is back in the news with the eruption this morning of Mt. Creativity.

As reported to friends back in February, seismic activity in recent weeks has suggested that an eventual eruption was likely.

Those predictions proved accurate early this morning. According to the Eddy and Mouse, regular T. Jam Honey observers, an eruption began at approximately 09:15 local time Monday morning. Over the next two hours, five large explosions were reported, and the eruption ash cloud had reached an estimated height of the roof top of the two-story home next door.

The National Weather Service issued an advisory for light ashfall Monday evening in the dining and bedroom areas. Thus far, winds have carried the ash away from the kitchen, but scientists are still monitoring this location carefully.

It’s really too soon to gauge the impact of the eruption on dinner plans or other daily activities. Initial reports were that most of the ashfall was confined to the immediate vicinity of the dining room table, and deposits of ash elsewhere were expected to be light.

Scientists at the 37th Avenue residence were taking the latest activity in stride, which is referred to on their Web site as an “episode of unrest.”

My husband is finally 30

I don’t think too much about my husband being younger than me. Many of my friends have married men younger than them. But I was very pleased that he finally turned 30. Now I’m just a woman in her 40s married to a man in his 30s.

I didn’t plan on marrying a man or someone so much younger. When I started dating men, it was mostly the younger ones who hit on me and who interested me. They had experiences and ideas to talk about instead of possessions to catalog for me.  I don’t think I would have dated a woman even 10 years younger than me. So I have to admit to having a double standard.

Honestl,y I think I’ve found my marriage to be stranger than most of my friends have. Sure I’m been mistaken for his mother several times, but we both usually  just let that go. We don’t want to embarrass the waiter or clerk and we just laugh at them later. When I told mom I was marrying a man 17 years younger than me, she just said “Well you’re the one who has to live with him. I just want you to be happy.” I recall a friend of mine asking about my “young lover” and whether or not it was going to lead to something more. I insisted that it would not.

I told HabMoo the same thing when he brought of the concept of becoming a couple. I thought he was crazy. Our relationship had worked so well up to that point because we could share anything with the other person without jeopardizing our future. We didn’t think we had a future to jeopardize. We could show our known flaws, and the other could point out our unseen faults, because we weren’t risking anything. We both figured that we’d lose interest in each other at some point, so we could just relax.

It turns out that being yourself is really appealing and even sexy. Nevertheless, once HabMoo brought up the subject of marriage I had to take up jogging just so I could think about the subject without hyperventilating.

I read about the risks. Apparently I should assume that he’ll be unfaithful. I don’t worry too much about that. I suppose he could find someone else to have sex with, but no one else is going to listen to him for hours on end like I do. I think his need for an audience is stronger emotionally than the need for sex. I’m sure that it’s more intimate. I think it’s funny that one Web site advising men seeking cougars instructs them to be sure to have enough to talk about, because older women are smart. It was never a problem for him.

Another warning I’ve heard is about the generation gap. What can you talk about? Well, I watched the first Star Wars movie in the theaters and so have been a fan for longer than HabMoo has been alive. But he can quote ten times more lines. So no problem there. Plus I’ve always been outside my generation. My siblings were 8 to 20 years older than me, and I frequently hung out with kids older or younger than me. The differences in what music we listened to or what TV shows we watched on Saturday mornings really don’t amount to much. Except that he’s now got me hooked on video games and I’ve introduced him to movies like Cool Hand Luke.  (Wait, that came out when I was five, so that’s not even of my generation.) I suspect that me growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home and him in an atheist one might have more of an impact on our marriage.

This fall will mark five years of marriage and maybe four or so more of friendship. I think we’re doing just fine. Those years included both of us being in other relationships. And one year of marriage while he was in Iraq. We did remarkably well during that year and I think we’ll make it through his next tour, too. That’s way more challenging than the age difference.

Week nine: Five lessons

I’m surprised to find that ending my relationship with myemployer, and the history leading up to that point, has been harder in many ways than leaving my previous 17-year intimate relationship. What I’ve learned seems pretty obvious. But it seems that the big life lessons always look simple.

Lessons

Leaving a work situation can be more like leaving a marriage than leaving a lover.
When my intimate relationship was over, I knew it was over and I gave myself time to take action. I steadily became less and less emotionally involved. Then I moved out, experienced a few weeks of explosive anger I didn’t know I possessed, and became quite interested in my new life. I no longer felt like I was responsible for the other person’s life, nor did I worry that she might really go through with her constant thoughts of suicide. In fact, after a few months, it was obvious that my leaving had been good for her. And while I wasn’t ready for another long-term relationship, I was ready to get out on the playing field.

Some of my partner’s family still spoke to me and invited me to events; one never wanted to speak to me again. I wasn’t sure how to keep my connections up with most of those family members. Some I didn’t mind losing and some I still think about, many years later. I have conflicted feelings about leaving that family.

My work relationship was with multiple people–some of whom I was happy to leave behind and several for whom I still felt some responsibility. If the people I supervised hadn’t all been laid off or left, I’d probably still be there. I had to become less and less emotionally involved with at least a dozen people before I was ready to leave. I knew that some would continue to be my friends no matter that I left. Others would stop talking to me–not out of malice or ill will, but simply because I was no longer attending the same meetings. Then there are others who were at the edges of my work family and who I’ll probably continue to run into. We’ll have to have uncomfortable conversions about the institution simply because we both used to work there and that’s all that we share; but it’s enough to make it impolite not to speak with each other.

You can’t make an institution return your feelings.

To get to the point when I could leave, I had to feel less involved with the institution. I cared deeply about it and wanted it to succeed. It felt like a recovering addict who just fell hard off the wagon. I knew that if it would just listen to me, it would be better off. But I could never get its attention. It does not feel like the institution is better off without me. I don’t think it really cares one way or the other. Honestly, I feel more like it left me many months ago and I spent my last year or so trying to convince it that it still loved me.

Time alone without a task at hand can be intensely beautiful and/or exquisitely terrifying.

It would take me at least five days into a vacation to stop thinking about work and how to solve the problems there. I still find myself probing that old sore from time to time. But some hours I feel immensely blessed. I spend time with my aged mother and am grateful to have this time to learn about aging from her. I write and feel creative and satiated. I cook and wonder why I can’t just follow a recipe. I feel like I’m discovering myself.

Then there are  hours when I just wish I’d go away. Strange and gruesome thoughts can come when you’re not diligently forcing them away with preoccupations. The truths you’re hiding from catch up with you. After I left my long-term relationship, that truth was my anger that my personal investment of years was not paying off. This time anger had been a unwelcome, but familiar, accompanist to my song and dance for many months. This time the gremlins are my own fears of being happy, experiencing joy, receiving assistance, and of expressing myself.

I’m stuck living with  my own personality type.

I eventually learned to believe that I was attracted to women not because of some sinful abandonment of or by god, but just because I am. I need to learn the same lesson about my personality type. It’s consistently been an INTP even though I’ve made several major life changes. I’d love to be more emotionally generous and sensitive. I’d be more content if I lived more in the world of object rather than ideas. Or at least that’s my fantasy.

I read this and try not to despair: “If the INTP is not able to find a place for themself which supports the use of their strongest abilities, they may become generally negative and cynical.” I have a lot of shame about becoming cynical and negative at work. I tried many times and many ways to find that supportive place but could not locate or create it once it vanished. I thought I was much stronger than I was. But if you hit me over the head with demotivating and irrational events long enough, I too will bow down.

I need to be supported; my bootstraps only go so far.

If I keep reading about my personality I see this: “When given an environment which supports his creative genius and possible eccentricity, the INTP can accomplish truly remarkable things.” That’s hopeful. I’m seeking out that environment, both at home and at a future site of employment. Being independent and stubborn, I don’t like to think that I need support from anyone or anything. But I do. If I didn’t, I’d probably have no reason to interact with other people at all. And I’d be much the poorer, both intellectually and physically.

Make it work or get rid of it

While the title of this post could refer to a car, either of my cats, or pretty much any piece of electronics, I am referring to our bodies. Last night as I lay on my side spooning with my husband, I was wishing I could just swing my one arm around to me back. It would be out of the way and offer another hand for pushing the cat away.

It got me thinking about how our bodies just don’t work as well as I’d like. For instance, auto-immune diseases shouldn’t exist. It’s as if there was some internal big brother who grabbed you and started shouting “why are you hitting yourself?” as he punches you with your own hand.

Wisdom teeth just make you wise to how much it can hurt to have something dug out of your gums.

I remember being very young and asking Mom why we have eyebrows and other hair. And why you get hair in new places when you get older. Why would you need hair at 16, but not at 6? She wasn’t able to give me a satisfying answer. At that same age I thought it would have been awesome to have had a prehensile tail. Why would apes and humans give up something so cool and useful? You could climb trees, swat away flies, carry an extra bag a groceries, and do all sorts of things if you just had that tail.

I’m not alone in my dissatisfaction. Darwin for one. According to Discover magazine there are all sorts of useless body parts. The first item on their list is the nasal sinuses. So true! I’d love to get rid of that snot swamp.

They also list the third eyelid. We have a third eyelid? That report that “a common ancestor of birds and mammals may have had a membrane for protecting the eye and sweeping out debris. Humans retain only a tiny fold in the inner corner of the eye.” Why did we give that up? I want it back for when I’m out in the wind and dust.

Another curious item is the subclavius muscle. “This small muscle stretching under the shoulder from the first rib to the collarbone would be useful if humans still walked on all fours. Some people have one, some have none, and a few have two.” Well that’s not fair at all. And I want to know my subclavius status. Then I’m going to start a Facebook group for whatever that status is.

I’m OK with men having nipples. They give some added visual interest to the male chest. And if you want to draw a half circle on a boy’s stomach, then the nipples can be the eyes.

Now the other sex-related body features they list just seem like some sort of a joke or poor housekeeping.

MALE UTERUS
A remnant of an undeveloped female reproductive organ hangs off the male prostate gland.

FEMALE VAS DEFERENS
What might become sperm ducts in males become the epoophoron in females, a cluster of useless dead-end tubules near the ovaries.

You can read more at “Useless Body Parts” on the Discover site.

I’m going to go contemplate the word epoophoron. Like the word caruncle, I think it has insult possibilities. Some dude has claimed the word for his MySpace page. So I’m thinking it could mean a dude who’s really trying to be manly and a stud, but is really just a useless dork.

I want my own moon

I’m feeling romantic today, but I don’t want someone to promise me the moon. I want my own moon. Planets have moons, asteroids have moons, and I should have one, too. Like Dactyl orbiting 243 Ida, I want my own orbiting satellite.

I’m not greedy like 87 Sylvia or 45 Eugenia. I don’t need two orbiting moons. But I do like how these asteroids are named. I think I should become 47 Xteen. Moons seem to be named from Roman or Greek mythology. I think I’ll go with a naiad and name mine Minthe. Yes, very nice and herbal. She should keep my hair spelling good enough to eat. “There goes 47 Xteen and Minthe. Take a look at them. Aren’t they a sight?” Yes, very nice.

The problem, as I see it, is how to get one. It’s likely that asteroid moons are formed from debris knocked off of the primary asteroid by an impact. I’m not really interested in having someone come along and knock off something I use, like my shoulder, for instance. Perhaps I could just toss some debris over me–mismatched socks, a gum wrapper, an old toothbrush, or something that comes in after with the cat after he’s been outside. Then I could have someone come along an make an impact on me. They could quote something profound, perhaps, or tell a really funny story. Just something to shake me up enough to scatter the debris.

Wait, I don’t really want an old sock revolving around my torso. Even a sock named Minthe. I don’t want to be that kind of a sight.

Maybe I could just be so magnetic that I pick something up in my orbit. Some small object could be overwhelmed by my gravity. Perhaps I could very somberly walk through downtown and pull someone’s diamond earring into my path to orbit me. But I suppose it’s just as likely that I’d pick up someone’s cell phone and it would circle me, repeating some terrible musical phrase I’d never get out of my head.

So maybe I don’t want a moon. Not a real one anyway. It’s a curse being so literally minded. Maybe someone could come along and knock some sense out of me. I think I would find the world entirely more interesting if I had less sense.

Small town living

Americans think that they’d prefer to live in a small town, according to a Pew Research Center study. I grew up in a small town–about 1000 people at the time. It’s now probably closer to 800. Last time I checked, Google Earth couldn’t provide a close-up view of the area. It’s just not that important. So why would someone want to live in the middle of nowhere?

It was great to be a kid in a small town, as long as you behaved well and your older siblings had behaved well. I recall a friend being called to the front of the room to demonstrate how we’d be using flash cards. All her sisters had had the same teacher and she announced something about how she knew my friend would do well because her sisters all had. It wasn’t so great for another classmate of mine. Our teacher knew his family, of course, and didn’t like them. She reminded him all the time of how he came from a family of losers. He learned to be a loser, too.

My sister-in-law’s mother could have been my 5th grade teacher and I was hoping that her aunt would be my 6th grade teacher. But we moved before that could happen. Her aunt had lived in our house at one time and told a wonderfully chilling story about how not two women had died in my sister’s bedroom. I treasured that fact.

I knew not only the people, but their pets. Actually my sister was the one who knew all the dogs by name. We would ride or drive our ponies through town and out into the country. You could ride right up to the ice cream shop and get the best old fashioned toffee sundaes. People sat out on their front porches and waved as you went by, or you sat on your porch and waved as people biked by. If a dog you knew ran by, sometimes you’d call to it, too.

I’m glad I grew up as a small child there because I could run all over town and walk the railroad tracks and only had to worry about being home by supper. But I’m also glad I left. As a teenager you were either a breeder or a boozer. Since I don’t enjoy alcohol, I would have been a breeder. I’m sure I’d have tried to prove myself by having sex early and often. I’d probably be divorced and taking care of my grandkids if I ‘d stayed. Hopefully I’d have a job. According to the town’s stats, it would probably be in health care. Egads to all that.

But I might also have had the opportunity to be a cheerleader. I was first chair clarinet when I left my village. When I started in my suburban/bedroom community school, I was last chair, and never made it past the third chair row. I would have learned to cook since there was no culture of going out for dinner. Maybe a Friday night catfish special once in a blue moon. And I probably would have learned how to can. I can tell you that it might sound romantic, but it’s a lot of sweat. It’s nice having labeled jars in the basement or cellar or cave, but it’s a hell of a lot of work. And it’s terribly messy when a pressure cooker blows up.

Entertainment options were bowling or roller skating. Forget theater, orchestras, dance, or museums. But I do recall horse shows, the county fair, and square dances. We had 4-H and Scouts. And at home we played a lot of cards. That part really lives up to the romance.

The belief that small towns support the family is probably true. You’re pretty much stuck with your family members. It might happen that the community will rally around you in a time of crisis or they might devour you. Gossip flies in a small town and if it’s not entertaining enough, people will embellish. Crime statistics are low, but personal emotional and economic attacks don’t make those stats. Our family made the editorial section of the newspaper when we got a donkey that woke up the editor with its morning braying. When we were moving because of my father’s job loss, the last rumor we heard was that we were moving the Kentucky to raise horses. That was a better story than the truth.

Driving through the small towns I used to know, I see huge homes in the middle of what used to be corn fields. And I’ve seen corn fields where there used to be homes. Neither seems healthy to me. The people moving into our small towns don’t seem to join the town. The people with money who build further and further away from the metro don’t buy houses with a sidewalk in front or an open front porch. They build new huge homes out where they can have plenty of land to separate them from the townspeople. They send their kids to private school. They don’t have homes where a kid is going to stop and knock on the door and ask the use the bathroom. Instead of a backyard vegetable garden, they have a landscaped front yard.

These new small town immigrants follow the romance of a close knit community, and they isolate themselves from it. They don’t know the embarrassment and pleasure of having your rooster get loose and chase people off the sidewalk in front of your house. They don’t know about being underage but trusted to buy cigarettes for your grandmother. I’ve romanticized the past, too. But I love the convenience of Chipotle and bookstores and a choice of plumbers too much to go back.

The dangers of random Web surfing

I began my reading with a random Wikipedia entry for the King Vulture.

Now here’s a creature I don’t want giving me the evil eye.

That thing over its beak is called a caruncle. I think that might be a my new insult for colorful, but creepy, people. “That Jack Nicholson is one freakin’ caruncle.”

I suppose the sentence really should be “That Jack Nicholson is one freakin’ vulture’s caruncle.” A caruncle is really the same thing as a wattle or other “fleshy naked outgrowth” per Answers.com. And wattles are just silly, not creepy or particularly flashy (except maybe to hens.)

I’m curious about this word and do a general Google search and things get disturbing.

I’m now learning of something know as a urethral caruncle. This can’t be good. Nothing that begins with the word “urethral” is ever pleasant. No vacation inn will ever be called the Urethral Breezes or Urethral Spa and Resort. According to eMedicine: “Urethral caruncles are benign, distal urethral lesions that are most commonly found in postmenopausal females.” Nice to know they are benign, but I’m about to enter menopause and now I have just one more thing to be scared of.

I continue reading and learn that “cases of urethral melanoma, tuberculosis, intestinal ectopia, and lymphoma, masquerading as urethral caruncle have been reported.” That’s one sick Halloween party. I wouldn’t want to make the costumes for that. So the caruncle is benign, but you can’t relax because it could really be something deadly in disguise. It good by some sort of super villain with his evil sidekicks, the Lesion League.

There’s an even worse description at WrongDiagnosis: “Urethral caruncle: a small, fleshy, sometimes painful protrusion of the epithelium at the meatus of the female urethra; it may be telangiectatic, papillomatous, or composed of granulation tissue.” Latin is a disturbing language, or maybe it’s just when we create our own words from the Latin. I don’t want to know that I have “meatus” in or on or around my urethra. I feel the need to go take a bath right now.