Programming Note: This week I’m challenging myself to shoot only with my fixed 50mm lens, since I rarely ever use it. Let’s see how long that lasts!
March is racing past us at a clip I’m uncomfortable with, and 2009 so far has kicked my ass in ways both good and bad. Last year was complete and all-encompassing madness from March until June, and it seems like that’s going to be the case again this year. I’ve been spending money like I’ve got it to spend (I don’t) and wasting time like I’ve got it to waste (I don’t), ignoring tooth aches and wonky ankles and sore backs, eating crap food, drinking like a fish that drinks, and thinking agonizing thinking GOD the thinking that never stops. I’m a whiny 10-year-old in checker-pattern spandex bike shorts, trying to get five kites into the air at once. Projects — for work, for myself, for other people, for no one — and things that feel like homework are stacked and teetering. It’s fine. It keeps me alive. I’m best when I’m busy. It’s just that I still haven’t done my taxes and I’m not sure I’ll ever really be in the mood.
Mom told me a couple of days ago that my dad found out at his heart-doctor checkup that he has apparently had a heart attack sometime in the recent past. Guhh? That’s at least what they suspect. Obviously my dad is such a hardcore badass that he didn’t feel said heart attack and probably just went on about his business, banging away at a post-hole digger or whatever it is he does all day busting his ass on that farm. He’s got to go back for an echocardiogram and a bunch of other tests to see if that’s actually what happened, and how badly his heart muscles may have been damaged. The doc put the whole household on a low-fat, heart-healthy diet, which is great and all, but will probably be impossible for my family to ever actually stick with long-term. You have seen my family. We are a hearty people with a hearty aversion to vegetables that haven’t been either fried or coated in butter. We do not generally eat meals that don’t include artery-clogging amounts of meat and/or cheese. To suddenly wake up to a world of steamed broccoli instead of broccoli-flecked Shells and Cheese is going to be a major adjustment for my dad. But he has to do it. He has to.
Last week my youngest nephew turned 12. The mind boggles, it really does. It happened on the day of the layoffs at work, so I was so distracted that I completely forgot to call him. Totally blew it. I called him the next day and he didn’t seem to care too much that I’d forgotten, especially when I’d told him I had something for him. I have nephews that are 12 and 13-soon-to-be-14. WHAT. THE. HELL. This crazy fucking globe just keeps slingshotting around the sun over and over again and with every trip I make to the mirror I notice the toll the journey is taking on me. It’s not all bad. It’s just actually happening and I’m powerless and hanging on and hoping for the best. And every now and again I have to check in and say that aloud or write it because it helps me convince myself that I’m okay with it.
I’m okay with it.
This is a wonderful piece of writing, even by your very high standards. You have a full life. Make sure you enjoy it. You ain’t powerless, you’re just not in control. Which is cool. People who are in control are assholes.
Tell your folks to press some garlic in the steamed veggies. Makes all the difference in the world, at least for me. Also, love that one of your Flickr photos is of me sweating like a whore in church.
@Gordon Rae
Thanks. :) I’m riding the wave, as long as I can.
@Cox
I’ll pass the word along. And try to dig up still more pics of you to scan!
NOOOOO! The tests were joking, right? Sometimes they go too far.