Doctors who need to be shot

So, a good friend posted this last week. I had known she wasn't handling the meds well, but didn't realize the full extent of her problems.

Then I saw her Saturday and found her to be quite ill. Not sick. Sick is different from ill. Sick is the flu. Ill is...this sort of thing.

I offered to kneecap the doctor several times. She demurred, for now, because her focus is on getting healthy again. And she's not into the whole physical violence thing. She's also stubborn as hell and not real excited about medical "science" right now, so seeing another doctor was far down her list of Things To Do soon.

Fortunately, sometime ago I 'friended' her husband on Facebook. Yesterday morning I saw this update:

Today I took [artcat] to the hospital for some test[ing]. She will be there for two or three days. Please keep her in your prayers. Tue at 9:50pm

Artcat is not a hospital kind of person. I was VERY concerned. This update came through just as I went to bed last night:

[T]est and more test.....things are improving. [artcat] is in room [#]B at [hospital]. In May she had a blood test that registered her hemoglobin at 13.4. Normal is between 12.5 and 18. When the blood count gets as low as 8.0 it is transfusion time. Tuesday's test registered 4.3. Things look like they are improving with the first transfusion and they are still trying to find the reason for the blood loss. They have one more test in the morning to rule out internal bleed. Wed [at ~10:00pm]

From another source, I found out that one of the things they are checking is how well her bone marrow is doing.

And I've just realized that I've never gone over my sister Ellen's illness when I was a toddler.... Suffice to say that whenever I hear the words "bone marrow" I freak the fuck out.

I really really want to kill this doctor of artcat's. All I can hope for is that those in the hospital are REAL doctors who are able to put her back together again.

Thank you

...to all the veterans and those currently serving in the military. I appreciate your sacrifices, be they large or small.

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.

Freedom Is Not Free - Kelly Strong

EDITED to add: Go read this. Don't you dare get the fo0d out for the BBQ or turn on the TV or whatever before doing so.

Because I needed this today

Until we meet

About ten years ago, I met a man I'll call "Mark." He was the brother of a good friend and had just moved back to the area with his wife and 3-year-old son. Nice-looking guy, talkative, somewhat charming, rather opinionated, and an ordained minister who was currently not working in the field.

He was also one of the most challenging people I've ever known. He put PsychoBoss firmly in her place as a second-rate nightmare. There are names, pigeon-holes, to describe him which I won't use here. Even at the time I saw God throwing down the gauntlet with Mark: Here, deal with THIS!

The lesson was, I can't. I certainly couldn't have "Mark" in my life and keep my own emotional see-saw stable; the injection of him into any situation caused more difficulty and strife than anyone could reasonably handle without more skills than I had...or have now.

There was a series of other situations going on at the same time carefully set up by Someone to teach me this lesson over and over and over, but "Mark" was the Red Flag Waving at the top of the pile. I was in our pastor's office often in that period, in tears, broken, wondering why I couldn't fix stuff, make people understand, solve problems, etc. And the answer was, I can't. I can't without a great deal of external help. The further answer was that I don't have to; not everything is my problem to solve. Walk away.

Walk
Away

It's not easy to walk away when something breaks. I was raised to go find a broom and start cleaning up. "Don't just stand there, DO something!" My mantra with "Mark" eventually became, when I was not reacting emotionally to his games, "Don't just do something, STAND THERE!" And then walk away.

And so, I am. Again. For different reasons, and much sooner.

There is a relationship which was damaged several months ago by thoughtlessness. I've alluded to it online multiple times, obliquely. There was a further extraordinary appeal. It was further damaged by my chickenshittedness about dealing with the situation directly with the individual. But the damage caused me to open my eyes, and I looked around to find that I was only the latest collateral damage in the wake; there were other floaters. I started to dog paddle to the outer reaches of the wake where I have spent several months observing.

I don't like what I've seen. I don't like what seeing this is doing to me. I don't like that I've got a fish-eye lens on this person all the time, even when I claim irrelevance.

So I'm walking away. It takes epoxy to repair some things and I only have one side of the formula. Without the other agent, there's just no point.

I'm grateful for the good times, aware of my debts, but trying very hard not to be ashamed to admit that I just don't have the skills to deal with this situation. And so, I'll walk on without this person, at least for now.

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                        For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                                    Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                        For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

                                                      -- from "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot

---

What happened to "Mark"? Eventually--after several years of negative influence--he was formally requested by our church's leaders to leave our congregation. His wife and children left him and he degenerated both mentally and physically; he died about four years ago. I'm sure God has enfolded him into the Kingdom and "Mark" is whole and happy now in ways he could never achieve here. His sister and I remain friends.

Friday

Mood: meh
Hair: falling down French braid
Eyes: itchy and red
Listening to: the Golf network and Sparky eating carrots

It occurred to me today that for the majority of my life, I have been very tuned into medical 'stuff.' I can't remember for sure the first time I was in a hospital. I remember a couple of specific times when Ellen was ill, just faint impressions--I was somewhere between 2 and 4 or 5. My dad had a heart attack when I was 3. My eldest niece was born about 10 weeks after my 6th birthday and we visited her mom, Marie, in the hospital.

So hospitals don't particularly scare me or freak me out. They are, I think, the equivalent to my feelings about going to a department store or train station. In fact, I find medical procedures and schedules endlessly interesting.

One of the things I learned early on was how bruises work--and NO not (just) because I fell down a lot! The first indication Ellen that she was very sick was when she nicked her leg shaving and it wouldn't stop bleeding...for hours. I don't remember that at all, but I've known the story since before I was old enough to shave my legs. Anyway, for as long as I knew Ellen, she bruised really easily. Like, bumping her leg the way I do almost weekly on a corner of my desk would mean a 3" bruise. One time while at a miniature golf course, she got hit with a golf ball on her shin and you would have thought she'd broken her ankle the way she went down. People ran for ice (unavailable--cold can of pop was the best we could do) and it took her 10 minutes to get up on her feet again. The resulting bruise was enormous, stuck out about 1/2", and stayed black about a week. This was 15 years after she was pronounced 'healed' by the way.

So, I have watched my ugly leg closely this week for a couple of reasons. Early on, I was making sure I hadn't damaged any blood vessels so badly that they wouldn't be able to stop bleeding, which would show up as continuing darkening areas. I'm also just enjoying the color show. Yesterday was Yellow Banana Day. Really, not an attractive look. Today is Banana Bread Batter Day: much lighter but with clumps of darker stripes where the bruise is a little deeper.

Doesn't hurt as much either, except when I bump it (fairly gently) with something. Ow, but Weird Ow.

My white blood cells are getting a workout this week, my body is good at healing itself. That's pretty cool. Also, pretty damn amazing when you consider all the things that have to go right in the process!

Speaking of hospitals, I currently have three friends/family members in hospitals. Another friend was released yesterday. Kinda sux. Please, the rest of my friends, stay healthy and don't break any bones!!

Poetry Month

The Tale of Custard the Dragon
by Ogden Nash

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called hum Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
and Blink said Weeck! which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm,
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets, but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim.
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pirate.

But presently up spoke little dog Mustard,
I'd been twice as brave if I hadn't been flustered.
And up spoke Ink and up spoke Blink,
We'd have been three times as brave, we think,
And Custard said, I quite agree
That everybody is braver than me.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.

Custard is the ur-Opus? I love him regardless. At least some fo the reason is that I can always hear my dad's voice reciting this.

Psycho

I've only just realized that I've never explained PsychoBoss here. That's rather shocking; she was a major factor in so many of my work methodology decisions. So, here goes. I'll try to be as fair as I can. Believe me, if I wanted to be bitchy, I could go on and on and on about the daily weirdness that was my life for four-plus years.

When I graduated with my Master's degree about twenty years ago, I was working very part-time at the place where I'd done my internship. I interviewed a few places and was lucky enough (I thought) to be hired at a small public library about 15 minutes from our apartment. I started in early June.

Six months after I started work, the director went into the hospital. While it was clear that other staff members knew why, I had no clue. It was all very hush-hush. I concluded it must be "girl stuff." To make the situation weirder, the Board (with her direction) asked me to be Acting Director in her absence. I was the newest employee by years, there were two other older and longer-term librarians on staff...but I was Acting as Director on six months of experience, at age 25.

Any bells ringing in your head? They weren't, really, in mine. I was, disgracefully extremely 25, extremely sure of myself, extremely unaware of political undercurrents, and extremely stupid about what the hell was really going on here.

She was not hospitalized for "girl stuff." She was in a locked ward in a mental hospital, on suicide watch. Just before Christmas they started doing ECT to treat her. In January she came home, but wasn't able to work for several more weeks.

In the meantime, it was time to close out the annual budget. The municipal financial person forwarded the budget to the Board, and I was informed that we were hundreds (thousands?) of dollars over budget. The Board wanted to know why, but they were pretty kind: after all, the staff didn't know what the budget was so that must be why it had happened. The short answer was that we had overspent the book budget in a huge way. Somehow. Even though we had ordered nothing while the Director was gone. How had this happened? It made NO sense. And it was embarrassing for me to have to answer this, even if the Board was 'understanding.'

When PsychoBoss returned, she couldn't explain it either, except to say that we'd overspent while she was gone. My confusion increased. I asked questions. I was stonewalled, by a pro. And her attitude toward me generally chilled.

That year after she returned, the children's librarian left to become a Director elsewhere. A new children's librarian was hired and I fell further into pariah-hood while L--the new librarian, who had close to 20 years of experience in the field--became Queen.

Fast forward through disillusionment. Our book budget was 100% spent by the end of March every year. New people who didn't ask nosy questions continued to be elevated to royalty. I was told at one of my annual reviews that I was like a terrier when I had something in mind: I couldn't give it up and the implication was that this was bad. That was the moment when I realized everything she said was code. This was not about my job; after all, reference librarians are supposed to be about sticking it out until a solution is found. This was about my questions about her, the running of the library, etc. Another year, my 'review' was a notecard left on my desk with my COLA.

She was a clean freak: public desks had to be empty before we left for the day. All current magazines were to be retrieved and put on the racks in order and neatly. All shelves were to be "faced" (even edges). She checked. She left us notes when we failed to do everything. No quarter was given. When we complained about Sundays being incredibly busy, that we needed more staff--it was one librarian and 4 teenagers for the three hours we were open--she worked every Sunday for two months as a punishment for us, to prove it could be done. Some punishment! It was a great two months for us! One note--which I still have in my files--left stuck to the in/out board simply read "You are all trying to bring me down, but you won't succeed." (paraphrased) By the time this one showed up, I was photocopying notes and tracking every odd interaction. I called an employment hotline in tears at one point, looking for suggestions on how to deal with the work environment. I was in counseling for a year; thank God Beast had insurance I could work through for that!

Then she announced she hand found another job. She would be leaving! Hurrah. I think the Board asked me to step in again as Acting Director. I thought it over for a few days and turned them down. They asked the librarian who had been there longest to do so and she thought for a long time as well and quietly talked to the other two professionals; we committed to back her with the Board and PsychoBoss when things hit the skids, and she agreed to fill in till a new Director was hired.

The first day that PsychoBoss wasn't there, the support staff mutinied. They flat out refused to accept J, the Acting Director, as any kind of authority. This was communicated directly--"You aren't my boss"--and indirectly--refusing to discuss issues with J or the other librarians. We all had always had fairly collegial relationships, but now the workplace was split distinctly into "professionals" and "circ staff." It was bad. Very bad. We couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on. J talked to the Board about it; they said it was all in her (our) head(s), and things were FINE.

As part of her resignation, the Board had agreed to allow PsychoBoss to continue to organize the bills until the new Director was hired. So, one of the circ staff members would collect all the mail and deliver it to to PsychoBoss who would figure it all out and submit bills to the municipality. Or she would come in and work while the library was closed.

Can you say FUBAR?!

What we figured out rather quickly is that the circ staff was calling PsychoBoss regularly, sometimes four or five times a day, from work, to fill her in on what we librarians were up to. Then, as part of the bills, PsychoBoss would have a conversation with the Board Director that would include a comment or discussion about the workplace as a whole, thus poisoning the Board against us.

Finally, about a month before the new Director was hired, I called the Board President, who was a lovely woman with a heart of gold doing her best to keep the whole hiring process on track and doing all the right things with the assumption that everyone involved was on the same team. We had spoken multiple times over the years and she knew all of us pretty well. I called just before lunchtime, from the Reference Desk, and laid out the whole situation. Loudly. In tears. Sobbing. While patrons browsed the library, and probably looked at me in wonderment; I was crying too hard to notice. She was ... stunned, to put it very mildly.

Within a couple of days, PsychoBoss was no longer paying bills. The municipality had taken that over. I think she had to give up her key (fortunately, it was the kind of key that said NO COPIES ALLOWED on it, so she really had to give it up). She, finally, was out. Of course, the phone calls from our circ staff continued to fill her in on gossip, but her fingers were our of the day-to-day business. Life returned to semi-manageable. The Board hired a new director, someone very different from PsychoBoss in every way possible (though I'm sure that's not why they hired him).

At the end of that budget year, we were a h u g e amount in the red, more than any other year. The following year, I quit and we moved out of state. I heard through the grapevine a few years later that the Board had asked for an audit of the books during the PsychoBoss's tenure and found that there was a great deal of money that was unaccounted for, and some really bizarre places had received large checks that were difficult to understand.

I dunno about all that, except that she continues to be director of the same library she went to just after she left my workplace. Working for PsychoBoss was at once the most educational and the most heartbreaking job I can imagine. Over the years, I've come to understand that some of the issues over which I struggled are part of starting out in a career: high ideals meet the reality of the world. And I have said all along that working with this person taught me a great deal about how not to be a boss. She also taught me that politics exist, and CYA is a great career strategy. Let's see, other things I learned...well, a lot about mental illness, much of which I have omitted from this. Beast has warned be to be oblique.

There were certainly good times: one of my baby showers was hosted at the library, we ate huge amounts of PsychoBoss-subsidized M&Ms, we did a lot of awesome programming and provided great service a very complicated community. I learned how to hire and fire people--that was fun (hah)--even if they were just teenage pages. Although for many years, I looked upon that four-year period as a complete loss not to mention a nightmare, I've come to recognize that situations are what you make of them. Sometimes you have to make a beeline for the exit, which I really should have done sooner, and I certainly would do so now. Live and learn. PsychoBoss no longer haunts my every waking work moment, though I do track her movements on Google et al. ;-)


So, that's the PsychoBoss story. No, I'm not naming names (not a shock, eh?), locations, or dates.

Poetry Month

It's April. That means it's Poetry Month. I'm back to my random "hey cool" selection style.

Enjoy!
____________________________________
Binker
by A.A. Milne

Binker--what I call him--is a secret of my own,
And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.
Playing in the nursery, sitting on the stair,
Whatever I am busy at, Binker will be there.

Oh, Daddy is clever, he's a clever sort of man,
And Mummy is the best since the world began,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan--

But they can't
See
Binker.

Binker's always talking, 'cos I'm teaching him to speak:
He sometimes likes to do it in a funny sort of squeak,
And he sometimes likes to do it in a hoodling sort of roar . . .
And I have to do it for him 'cos his throat is rather sore.

Oh, Daddy is clever, he's a clever sort of man,
And Mummy knows all that anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan--

But they don't
Know
Binker.

Binker's brave as lions when we're running in the park;
Binker's brave as tigers when we're lying in the dark;
Binker's brave as elephants. He never, never cries . . .
Except (like other people) when the soap gets in his eyes.

Oh, Daddy is Daddy, he's a Daddy sort of man,
And Mummy is as Mummy as anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny,and I call her Nan...

But they're not
Like
Binker.

Binker isn't greedy, but he does like things to eat,
So I have to say to people when they're giving me a sweet,
"Oh, Binker wants a chocolate, so could you give me two?"
And then I eat it for him, 'cos his teeth are rather new.

Well, I'm very fond of Daddy, but he hasn't time to play,
And I'm very fond of Mummy, but she sometimes goes away,
And I'm often cross with Nanny when she wants to brush my hair . . .

But Binker's always Binker, and is certain to be there.

In my oldest copy of the book Now We Are Six--a gift when I turned 6, of course--my sister Jean annotated several of the poems. This is one of them. She asked loads of good questions about people in our family, including my own version of "Binker" named B.B. I can't read this without thinking about my Nan, or rather my Nans (I always got them confused).

Of course, at age 6, I did think my Daddy was a "clever sort of man" and my Mommy was as Mommy "as anybody can." The rhythms in this poem have stayed with me, and I actually still occasionally quote it without thinking. No wonder people think I'm weird!

Update, or Why I've Been Quiet

Aside from the obvious answer of "BUSY!" which has become rather an automatic response to anyone asking where I've been...

We are in a holding pattern right now.

The new floors are done, and we can't put the tree up until Advent starts (Mom sez!), and we are back to our regular work schedules more or less this week. I don't want to even THINK about Christmas cards, but I guess I had better...we received our first one Saturday.

So, the main holding pattern is around Beast's mom. She went in the hospital last Sunday with abdominal pain. After some tests--MRI, CT scan--they've discovered that there are some anomalies around her pancreas, her lymph nodes are also 'not right', and there's something funky going on in her lungs as well. She is going in today(actually, is probably there right now) for biopsy/ies. We should have a clearer picture of what is actually going on by the end of the week, or whenever the doctors get the results and can interpret them.

However, whatever the results are, as adults we all know that when three totally separate systems/organs are involved in something like this, it's not good. And the doctors have pretty much laid the groundwork for a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer which as probably metastasized to her lungs and maybe her lymphatic system.

Beast has been holding off on telling Sparky anything, and in my unfortunately common Magical Thinking rationale, I haven't wanted to deal with it here either. Saying it--and typing it--makes it real, right? So, the list of those "in the know" is small: Beast's family (of course), Amy (because she was here this weekend), my oldest sister and niece (who may have told my other niece), and...that's all. I need to call church and give them an update for the prayer chain. And I'll mention it to my boss tomorrow in case I have to leave precipitately.

To clarify what I said in my last post about this reminding me of Thanksgiving 1994: my dad died the Sunday before Thanksgiving that year, so this is just another reason to NOT 'celebrate' that particular day. Unfortunately, it frequently falls on either Beast's or my nephew Don's birthday, so we do tend to celebrate on that day...which is confusing. And it's harder again to find obvious things for which to be thankful this year.

25 years ago today

It was a quarter-century ago today that my college roommate, whom I'd known about a month at that point, turned 18. I still immediately think of you whenever I hear "Please Come to Boston."

When you turned 19, I was sure we'd be friends forever. When you turned 20, I wasn't as sure, but the following October--in our senior year--we were back to being tight.

My oh my, how things change. What lessons I learned from you! I wonder, did you learn anything from me? Did my life change you the way yours changed mine?

Happy birthday, oh Woman of Helsinki! You had my back, and I didn't know in October of 1982 what a balm that would be. I've been thinking about you a lot today, hoping you are happy, hoping your kids and husband are healthy and thriving. Life is strange, isn't it?

Times a-changin'

I'm at work, listening to Launchcast, and John Mellencamp came on doing "Pink Houses." I hated that song when it came out. It was stoopud. Twenty years later, I love it.

A similar thing happened to Fleetwood Mac. I hated their Rumours album when it was released; the only bearable song was "Tusk." Twenty-five years later, I discovered it's a pretty good album.

Ah, maturity. Or something.


Now John Prine is singing "Spanish Pipedream" which I've never heard, but I totally *heart* JP overall. And this song is funny. You can look up the lyrics yourself. I'm busy cataloging #(%&!-ing children's books.

Music

I haven't done a post about music in a long while. I've had the headphones on a lot this week. Tuesday was a good day: everything just flowed. Wednesday...well, it took me a couple of hours and a lot of flipping between all the "moods" in Launchcast to finally get something going. For awhile it was all comedy.

The original intention of this post was to list the good songs I heard, but they've all disappeared, one of the downsides of Launchcast is the playlists don't hang around very consistently. I don't know why. It would be a good thing to have them.

In any case, instead of that, I'm going to list some of the stuff I have rated highly because I heard it (as opposed to a lot of stuff I rated in hopes that I'd hear it eventually--which hasn't always happened). And I'm not including comedians. Keep in mind that I've rated over 6,000 songs. This little fact clearly marks me as clincal.

Erasure - Chains Of Love
I wish I could say why I like this song so much. In truth, the majority of the reason probably lies in the voice of Alison Moyet. If she toured to this area, I'd totally be at the concert. If I could choose how I sounded when I sing, I'd choose her voice.

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O'Mine
Yes, overplayed. Yes, possibly overrated. But this song has a great deal of emotional weight in my life: Jenny, clubbing, Harley-wear, James and Don (my nephews), a former co-worker, Sparky sleeping with this blaring in the car stereo, and my almost complete inability to stay seated when it plays. ...Must...Dance...

Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
Speaking of dancing...I don't dance to this. I remember when it was popular in the 70s (not that I "got it" since I was probably all of 9 at most). What puts this in my "best" list is the movie. Or rather, The Movie. If you don't know what Movie, nevermind.

Miriam Makeba - Sabumoya
C'mon, it's Miriam Makeba. It's fun. If you don't know her, you should, and this is as good a place to start as any. Also, another one hard not to dance to.

The BoDeans - Lullabye
I saw these guys playing in a bar in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1984. They transfixed and repelled and fascinated me. I'm still very confused about them, but I like this song, and a few of their others.

John Mellencamp - Authority Song
Hey, sue me: I love Mellencamp. And I loved this video. The lyrics are hysterical, and the kid in the vid...perfect. The end of the video, where he pulls up his sleeves: priceless. I want this to be my theme song. But it's totally NOT. I could only wish.

U2 - One
THIS is my theme song. When I die, play it at my funeral. Get Mary J. Blige to sing it, if possible.

Mary J. Blige - No More Drama
Speaking of whom.... This song always reminds me of 9/11. I'm pretty sure it was released in the weeks immediately following that day. Beyond that, though, there is no better call to accounting for yourself TO yourself that I've ever heard.

The Commodores - Nightshift
Speaking of funerals, and eulogies...what a great song about the Big Guys: Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye. "I know you're not alone...." I do hope they're still singing when I get there.

Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You
ONLY this version. There is no other version of this song. Not only will I always love you, but I will always cry when this song plays. Always. I love Dolly; can she adopt me?

The Seekers - Georgy Girl
According to my sister Ellen, when I was a baby she sang this to me all the time. I have known this song for as long as I can remember, and it makes me happy to hear it. "Swingin' down the street so fancy-free." OK, so very 60s, but...shit, I miss Ellen. She defined fancy-free for me.

Soul Asylum - Runaway Train
We appear to have cruised into Songs To Make Cat Cry. I liked this song, and then I saw the video and LOVED this song. And cried. And cry.

Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A.
There are 15-odd people for whom this song conjures up memories of a Pepto-Bismol-Pink basement bar in Irkutsk, where the bartender threw a tape with this song across the room at us in 1985. Fuck him; we danced to it repeatedly in St. Petersburg.
And, no, Mr. Reagan, it is not the song you thought it was.

Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Castle Of Louis De Lombard: "A Strange Person"
OK, one comedy track. "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries..."

C.W. McCall - Black Bear Road
My brother and I have this song memorized, along with most of the rest of the songs McCall recorded. "You don't have to be crazy to drive this road, but it helps." The house we owned in the mountains was in a town where "C.W." was mayor for several years, and Black Bear Road is a real road that "looks like a whole bunch of Zs and Ws all strung together.

John Denver - Annie's Song and Rocky Mountain High
While we're doing Songs From My Childhood, here are two others that I never tire of hearing. Lots more emotional baggage here. I listened, in tears, to a tape including these songs while sitting in a train compartment in Siberia. Or maybe Outer Mongolia. Somewhere around there. And for allowing me to listen to it, I forgave the Oprichniks a great deal of their annoying behavior.

Sara Groves - The Word
I know nothing at all about the singer, but I do like this song. It's probably because the lyrics are a paraphrase of the beginning of the most maddening and beautiful gospel: "And the Word was/And the Word is/And the Word will be/The old Word is the new Word is...." It just doesn't get any clearer than that, does it?

Angelique Kidjo - We Are One
The first time I heard this song, a couple of years ago, time literally stopped. I just sat, probably with my mouth open, amazed at the lyrics, the music, the whole package. I adore this woman. Where is she playing? I'll be there. Guaranteed.

The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (Long Version)
Sparky and I love these guys. What he doesn't know is that I was introduced to them by the guy I had an unrequited crush on throughout high school...when they were actually performing. THIS is rap.

Tsidii Le Loka - Circle Of Life
If you haven't seen The Lion King on stage, you have no idea of the impact of this song. It is simply astounding, and the woman singing it sells even the bits in Swahili...Xhosa??...I'm ignorant...so clearly that it doesn't matter what language it's in.

Africanism All Stars - Soul Conga
I can NOT sit still when these guys are playing! I challenge anyone to do so.

William Shatner - Common People
The funniest Dead Serious song I've heard in decades. Another one where my jaw was on the floor the first time I came across it (on XM radio, believe it or not). It renewed my admiration, which had been waning, of Shatner's talent.

The Proclaimers - D.I.Y.
In the same genre, among the angriest protest songs I've ever heard. How often are lyrics like these heard against a danceable beat: "Warmongers.../Make a big hole in your head with a shiny shell."

Balkan Beat Box - Bulgarian Chicks
A tonic to the last two, this is just pure silliness and fun. How can you not love the title of that song??

Melissa Etheridge - Piece Of My Heart
She simply knocked my fucking socks off when she performed this at whatever awards show that was. I've been a fan for years, and this song absolutely solidifies her standing in the Could Sing The Phone Book And I'd Buy It pantheon.

So, there's 25 of my Best of... list.

Don't worry: I won't do a Worst of... list. Most of the tracks there are ones I couldn't stomach long enough to finish listening to them once. Yaak.

Rambling about my career

It's not always easy to tell in reading this blog, but I really do like working in a public library. Choosing public was a conscious decision I made back in library school. I had fresh memories of how stultifying I had found life at college with such a small community of adults and "college-age" students. I remember feeling, in my second semester of senior year, as if I were starving for interaction with children and/or old people. Odd, since I had (and have) no interest in a career in dealing with rugrats or the elderly on a daily basis. I was tired of the same narrow worldview, though. Face it: most 20-year-olds, especially those at a small private college, do not do a lot of anything beyond belly-button gazing.

Anyway, a year later as I prepared to graduate with a Master's, that feeling was fresh, and I didn't want to 'lock myself up' in academia. Several professors knew of my interest in cataloging and told me that if that was where I wanted to go, I should drop public libraries and head directly--without passing Go or collecting $200--to a university or college library. My work-study job was in the archives department in the library at my university. It was an...interesting...experience. The work was fabulous (and beyond easy!), but my supervisors....
OH
MY
GOD!Crazy-time. Stereotype-time. Oy.

{I hasten to add that I know a lot of normal, sensible academic librarians for whom I have nothing but respect, two of whom share the same family tree as I do. But, I'm not interested, just as they have NO interest in working with the broader public.}

In any case, the profs were right: public libraries, especially small ones--the ones I was interested in, as I have no interest in joining a union--don't hire catalogers. They hire "general services" librarians. After 20 years, I now spend a few moments every day counting my blessings that I am doing what I love in a public library!

So. Why do I love public libraries? The main reason is because you literally never know what you'll get next: a wailing baby, a deaf and cranky old woman, someone wearing a mink and arguing about 40 cents in fines, members of the armed forces on leave, Mormons on their year-long missions, a teenager and her boyfriend...oh, but let's NOT go there! :-)

Some of our regulars are totally annoying, but the vast majority are interesting people:

• There is a gentleman who uses our public computers upstairs for about 2 hours every morning. He brings his own headphones (though I think he used to borrow a pair from us) and spends the entire time at an online teaching site. He is, I think, learning English, online. This has been going on for about three months. He never speaks to anyone, he never practices out loud, but he does smile if he catches our eye as we walk past.


• There is another guy using a different computer upstairs everyday. I think his mission is to watch EVERYTHING on YouTube. He is, literally, online for 5 or 6 hours a day. Since the computer he uses is right next to the door into the break room, he's hard to miss (and it's hard to miss what he's doing, too).
  
• There is a high school girl who has been using our library for at least 7 years. She is what my mother would call "a little slow" but up until recently I'm not sure she has been pigeon-holed by the school system. They are tracking her now, and trying to provide some life-skills classes for her. She used to come in and print off gabillions of coloring pages; she is actually pretty much responsible for our push to install printer controls on the internet computers. The other problem, alongside the printing, is that she would be in the library ALL DAY in the summer, alone: no parents, nada. And speaking of that, her parents don't really speak English, nor did she when she first started coming. She was one of those little girls who is an easy target: you can clearly see her getting pregnant at 13. She did avoid that, but she's not out of the woods yet.
  
• One of the unintentionally funniest women who uses the library has been coming for probably five years now. She is a real honest-to-God dingbat. My first interaction with her was when she was learning to use the internet, and paying her bills online. In the library. OK, weird, relatively unsafe, and she's not very bright: virtually announcing her PIN to the universe over the loudspeaker. Actually, it's not her intelligence I question so much as the aura of way too many tranquilizers in her system. We have constant issues with her checking out too many movies, returning them late, not bringing money for her fines, having trouble with the internet (still).... My favorite story related to her is when she told me I looked like one of the librarians at her 'old library' in a suburb of the Big City nearby and asked me if I'd ever worked there. No, I told her. "Are you sure?" she asked. Yeah, pretty sure I'd remember!
  
• My favorite kids are the those of a couple from our church. There are four kids in the family. The oldest kids are 4, the youngest is just about 2. The oldest are triplets, and they are absolutely a riot, in every sense. Cute as can be, they usually come in with "Gamma," who brings them to use the games on the kids computers (they don't have games at home). Gamma is kept busy helping, admiring, talking, shushing, calming...for the strictly enforced half hour they are allowed. And she smiles all the time. Gotta love it.
  
• Then there's the Smelly Guy. The less said about him the better. He smells. Really, really, a lot. If we had more patrons like him, I'd totally rethink this whole Public Library thing. This is not the usual "living out of doors, homeless, fireplace/B.O." thing. It's MUCH much worse and completely indescribable.


• We used to see a guy who would come in every single night. This was about ten years ago. He and his wife lived about two blocks away, and he would come over and search for songs he liked and then request the CDs so he could do the unmentionable thing that people do with CDs from libraries (in the days before downloading). This went on until about six years ago when, due to a confluence of reasons including the purchase of a computer of his own, he found another source for music. He could be really annoying about the CDs, but I always found him fascinating to talk to.

I can't tell you the number of people I have helped find information on medical issues when their doctor had been less-than-helpful after diagnosing them, nor can I number the people who arrive at the library in mid-crisis--usually family crisis--needing books on how to get an order of protection, how to get their ex-spouse to allow them access to the kids, what to do about the recent discovery of sexual abuse of their child, how to avoid getting evicted....

I've typed term papers that were due "TOMORROW and the computer just deleted it all!" and it's closing time. I've played Legos with five-year-olds, painted with pudding with two-year-olds, and made knot-necklaces with teenagers. I've delivered armloads of books to shut-ins (for THREE YEARS!!!), I've found the magazines I left in the door of one woman's house exactly where I left them--only to read her obit in the paper the following week: "found dead in her house." There have been innumerable big-eyed children whose parents had "gotten lost in the library." I have been called a bitch by people from age 13 to age 50. I've called the police only four or five times that I remember, and been fortunate enough never to have had to call the ambulance.

People, by and large, make me smile. Sometimes, they don't know how much I've enjoyed my interaction with them. Sometimes, I want to thump them over the head and say, "What are you THINKING?!" Mostly, though, I just enjoy the display of humanity and am glad I get to be around them.

Poetry Month

The Old Familiar Faces
by Charles Lamb

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly---
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces---

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed.
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

mmmm....cheery....

Midweek

Teenage girls are noisy.

Just thought I'd point that out.

OK, but do you ever have one of those times when you suddenly look at yourself from your 14-year-old self's eyes? And are amazed at the change in your life? Mostly for the better, may I add.

I was a train wreck as a teenager. Thank God I survived! Thank God I'm not (as much of) a train wreck anymore.

But I'm tired. So I'm going to bed.

Poetry Month

Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
  But sturdy and staunch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
  And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
  And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
  Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
  "And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
  He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
  Awakened our Little Boy Blue---
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
  But the little toy friends are true!

Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
  Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
  The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
  In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
  Since he kissed them and put them there.

I remember this from my childhood too. I have a whole book of Field poems...somewhere.

Dreamtime

OK, so "New" Blogger won't let you place an 'automatic' link in the title of the post. I'm irritated about the whole linking thing anyway, since I always get a reject from Microsoft about linking in "Edit" mode.

Anyway. Dreamtime is a concept I thought I remembered reading about somewhere. Unfortunately, the dream I was having this morning wasn't very optimistic about things. It was clearly a stress dream, though it was a funner stress dream than my usual one.

BACKGROUND:
Ask anyone who works closing anywhere public, be it store or library or whatever, and I'll bet you'd find they have the occasional dream about not being able to get the damn building closed up for the day. I used to have recurring nightmares about this when I worked for PsychoBoss. There were so many things she required beyond the basic "lock the doors, turn out the lights, make sure no one is left in the building when you leave" stuff: replace all magazines in the correct places on the displays, "face" each and every shelf throughout the adult area, count the money in the cash register/run a daily report/balance it out, have everything shelved that was returned that day, pull expired reserves off the shelf behind circ,... and the list went on. It was a fuckin' nightmare in real life much less in dreamtime.

So the recurring dream I had involved Sundays, which are notoriously chaotic because we are shorter-staffed and people seem to come in the same numbers as a regular day, except in only three hours instead of 10-12 hours. Closing on Sundays was hard because there are all those last-minute homework assignments. In PsychoLand, there was also only one adult working (all the circ staff on Sundays was teenage pages, no adults!) and that person was responsible for everything from answering reference questions to handling security issues (fights, broken things, flooding toilets, you name it) to supervising the circ staff and handling crises there to throwing people out the door at closing and making sure the post-closing stuff was handled. So that was reality. Usually it wasn't so bad, but worrying about it was all-consuming for each and every reference librarian.

The recurring nightmare itself involved people refusing to leave, finding people hiding in various places, disovering that people were getting inside after we locked the doors, not being able to find all the magazines, having 150 books left to shelve at closing time, not being able to balance the cash register...nothing terribly criminal or scary, just frustrating and annoying. I seemed to always wake up in the midst of a panic about making the pages work extra time (for which we didn't get paid--we only got paid till the minute the doors were supposed to be locked...any extra time was somehow "our fault"), sometimes amounting to hours and hours of extra time. Guilt? Yep; that was the era of it all being my responsibility, my fault, my problem to solve. I'm cured of that (mostly) now. Thanks, PsychoBoss, for that at least!

TODAY:
So I woke up this morning having the following dream:

I'm working a much smaller version of our current library with several of my current coworkers. Techie Librarian was there, as were several daytime circ staff. Techie and I were finding books for a lot of Large Print readers (no clue about that!), and generally winding down the day. The circ desk was smaller, and had just one checkout terminal, so there was a long line. Well, "long" for the library; it looked like a short grocery store line. And we were in sort of a grocery store building, similar to the smallest, family-owned, supermarket in town. There were lots of windows, and separate entrance and exit areas.

Then we closed. Except there were still people in line. Techie went home (actually, it being a dream, she just disappeared) [OK, in reality she does that quite often too.....hee...we joke about getting her a cat collar so we can find her] and suddenly the daytime circ people had morphed into the crew with whom I normally work Thursday nights: Alabama, Sout' Sider, Argentina et al. I was still helping people find things, and whenever I looked up, someone else was coming in the front door. There was no one free to lock the doors, so people just kept coming.

Suddenly, we weren't a library at all anymore, we were a grocery store! People were carrying shopping baskets (which we actually have at our library, by the way) and pushing carts. The line was going down: it was mostly one or two items at a time per person, but more people kept coming in. Someone finally managed to lock the doors, and I started herding people towards the front, but every aisle had people in it. I'd clear an aisle and go on to the next, only to find the first aisle had people in it again. I looked over to the entrance once and saw a very tall 'person' made of paper-clips ducking into the inner doorway. Then some antagonistic people came in to buy liquor and the checkers/circ people said they wouldn't let them: we were closed, sorry, go home, etc. Those customers got crankier, the desk staff just refused to do anything with them, and more paper-clip people (shorter than the first) were coming in because--I now noticed--one of the (glass-like-supermarket) doors was broken so it couldn't lock.

The last straw was three teens who came in to purchase the air hockey table (except it wasn't really air hockey, it was some other similar game that combined air hockey with foosball and basketball). Upon their entrance, everyone got very worried; they turned out to be nice guys, a little boisterous, but intent on what they were doing and not really troublemakers. They carried stuff (table, pucks and pieces, hoops) to the front, paid, and hauled it all out the door with my help, and I woke up.


What in the world!?!


Paper-clip people? I think that comes from listening to Inkspell; they reminded me of the glass man in that book.

Grocery store? OK, new marketing plots are swirling around the library, but hopefully we aren't aiming to be a grocery store just yet.

Panic about closing? I haven't had a dream about that for years. In fact, I've only really had that dream a few times over all the time I've worked at my current library (11-plus years) because it's so much less stressful than PsychoLibrary. Granted, I work until closing tonight, but I'm rarely on point for doing anything much about it beyond covering what others haven't gotten to. That usually means bathrooms and/or basement. No problem.

Where did this come from anyway? My shoulder hurting? Oy, so weird. The upshot is that there's tension at work, I think, but why it's coming out in such a bizarre dream I have no idea.

As I said, this was probably the funnest stress dream I've ever had (yes, I know it's not a word). I was kind of laughing when I woke up, and my heart rate wasn't up. Paper-clip people. Huh.

:-)

Appended: Just found that today's quote of the day is quite apropos: "Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it. - Jules Renard"

Twenty Years

Twenty years ago today, I had been married just about 9 months to Beast.
We were living in a minuscule apartment in a building built about 1910 (read: no closets to speak of) with 11 other apartments in it; I don't think we'd been hired as managers yet.
I was in library school, working on my Master's degree, in my second semester.
Beast was in his first year of full-time employment at The Tape Place, where he was earning the astounding salary of $28,000 per year.
We owned a 1978-ish Ford Pinto, which we parked a block away from the apartment building in a city lot because our building had no parking lot.
No A/C, carpet that smelled of cat pee in hot weather, a kitchen with no counters (none), and a loudly snoring next-door neighbor....we were directly across from a gas station/mini-mart, cattywampus from a delicious Chinese restaurant, and our dining room view--our only view, really--was of the back of a funeral home. In the summer, with all of the windows wide open for air, we had to suspend phone conversations as the city bus went by on the other side of the building.
We were both twenty-three-and-a-half. Sometime that year, I calmly got up one morning and threw up and we both wondered if I was pregnant. I wasn't.

The week before Easter, my dad and mom arrived for a visit. They stayed with my sister Ellen and her family about 45 minutes north of us in Quaint-Beyond-Words Town, an exurb of the city we were living three blocks north of; technically, we were in a suburb, really though we were in the city.

On that Thursday, Maundy Thursday, I was "working on a project" with Martha S. and Anne G. in the big workroom in the SLIS department; in reality, we were sort of messing around. Beast appeared at one of the doors, out of breath, tense. "I've been looking all over for you. We need to go. Now. Your dad's in the hospital." Huh? [The days before cell phones, email, and IMs....remember?]

Yes, Dad was in the hospital. Actually, he'd been at two hospitals that day: Ellen had taken him to St. Mike's--the nearest hospital (at 40 minutes from home, that's "near"??)--where the medical staff decided he needed more specific help than they could provide and transferred him by screaming ambulance to St. Mary's, about 20 minutes south of my campus.

I remember being stunned, looking at Beast in confusion, probably with the remains of a laugh draining out of my eyes. I don't actually remember packing my things, getting to the car, driving to the hospital, parking...but I do remember stepping off the elevator on the surgical floor just as my dad was wheeled past on a gurney. The nurses stopped long enough for me to say hi (goodbye?) and then they whisked him (that's just how it sounded too: "whisk" down the hall through the double doors and out of sight) into emergency heart surgery. He had, They had decided, suffered his third heart attack at some point in the past couple of days, and the arteries in his heart were occluded enough that if they didn't open him up N-O-W, he wouldn't make it to morning.

Ellen, Beast, Mom and I spent the next 6 or 7 hours on the plastic seats in the surgical waiting area. The nurses came out every few hours to update us, sounding cautious. Ellen was in the midst of a terrific head cold and was medicated for that, which I've always hoped accounted for the fact that she kept telling us Dad was going to die. Like clockwork, every half hour or so, she'd start crying and repeating that mantra. Then she'd drop back onto the sofa and sleep for another 20 minutes or so. Repeat ad nauseum. There was only one window in the waiting room, overlooking the parking lot. I don't know what we did for all those hours, besides try not to strangle Ellen. We must have talked. I don't know.

The surgeon appeared at some point, telling us that Dad had pulled through "so far" and we could see him in awhile "briefly." He had loads of details, but I don't remember how much or anything specific, just that Dad was alive, and that it was Good Friday, and that Ellen had been wrong.

Five years earlier, Dad had had his first heart surgery. This was number two. There would be no chance for a third--no veins left in his legs to be cut down and built into new heart suppliers.

Mom and Dad ended up staying at Ellen and Dean's for about a month while Dad recovered. He was released from the hospital by the Monday after Easter, we had our "Easter dinner" the following Sunday, and Dad got to see his grandson Don play some baseball games. Was that the spring that he also got to see Don take a fly ball in the eye, nearly breaking the orbital bone? I can't remember.

Dad was cleared to fly home, and he got back on the cardiac diet-and-exercise regimen. I graduated with a Master's (and a part-time job in a nearby library) in December.

Why I don't cook?

I had a sensory memory replay while prepping chili for the Super Bowl party.

Very odd.

When I was 10, my parents decided to get me a dog. I don't recall actually asking for one, not in the sense of "Oh, PLEEEEEEEZZZZZE can't I get a dog???! Please-oh-please-oh-pleeeezzze??" That's not to say I wasn't happy; I was over the moon about it. We went to the pound (actually, it was called the Dumb Friends League) and picked out a dog.

ANYWAY.

About the same time the dog arrived, I started learning to make dinner some nights. Mealtime was scheduled for the same time for the people as for dog. So I'd open the canned dog food--he wouldn't eat the dry stuff--dump it in his dish in the midst of cooking whatever simple meal I was doing for us. One of the early, easy meals was tacos. Every time I opened the can of refried beans, I'd do the standard double-take: didn't I already feed the dog?

Over the years, the smell of refried beans seemed to dissipate, or change. When we got our dog after we were married, the vet strongly suggested that we not feed her too much canned food; stick with the bags of dry food. Consequently, we didn't buy much canned dog food.

This morning, I opened a can of off-brand refried beans...and was transported back about 30 years.

How can I possibly enjoy eating these things as much as I do knowing that they smell like Alpo??

Things to think about at 4 a.m.

Two nights in a row I've ended up in the recliner in the middle of the night. No clue why. Last night--this morning--was just stupid, made more annoying by the track my train of thought chose to travel: what if? For the first time in at least 11 years, I was reliving our decision to pick up our lives and replant ourselves in another state in 1994.

What if we hadn't done that?

• Would life have been completely different? Emphatically, yes.
• Would I still be working at the same library? gack...I certainly hope not!
• How many other library jobs would I have had to date? At least two others.
• Would I be cataloging? Probably not.
• Would I even still be a librarian? Other options would have been harder to manage. We'd be too far for me to do coursework at MTS, and I'm not sure what else I'm qualified to do (or interested in pursuing) anyway.
• Would we have moved to a new house in the metro area? Probably. No way Sparky would go to NHS! And we probably would have done it much sooner than we built our house here. Everything costs less there, and we wouldn't have had to deal with the financial and emotional costs of moving out of state.
• Would we have had more kids? Doubtful.
• Would my bro-in-law have spiraled into complete alcohol dependency so quickly? Probably. Some things are not my responsibility.
• Would we have a closer relationship with his kids? God, I hope so!
• Would we have stayed members of IPC? Depends on where we ended up living. Maybe. Probably.
• Would Beast still have finished his MBA? Yes.
• Would he actually be using it? Who knows, but you'd think so, in that marketplace at least.
• Would Sparky have had an easier/better time in elementary school? Who knows. I suppose it could have been even worse. Somehow.
• Would Dad still have died that year? Yes. That had more to do with Ellen than with me.

And then I smacked myself, metaphorically, between the eyes. What a waste of time. I should be SLEEPING! Huh.