brightsideblog.com

I’ve been the worst blogger ever, which is to say I’ve not written at all.   Frankly, I’ve been neglecting my journal, too, but it seems that’s what I do.  When one part of my routine is altered the rest of it tumbles like dominoes.  This is one of many things I’m trying to fix in this journey towards ultimate perfection I call my life. (more on that another time)

As I wrote in my last entry, over a month ago, turns out my foot was indeed broken.  Doc told me to walk on it, but slowly and gently, which was great news since I was leaving for Chicago w/my BFF Mel the following week and when I’m exploring a new city I must walk it.  I can’t say I was always gentle and I probably didn’t take as many pitstops as I ought to have, but I certainly didn’t race around the city.

So, yes, since that entry I’ve been to Chicago and LOVEd it.  I also spent 5 days at Lake Como, Italy.  Surprise!   A nice surprise, but again, something that threw me off my mental course.  It’s taken me some time to get back on top of things.   I met with my Orthopedist when I got back and he told me the break is 80% healed, but still advised no working out for another month, at least.  I’m going to need a whole new wardrobe; I can’t fit in my clothes!  Augh.

Anyhoo, that’s it, I just wanted to check in to say hi, and I’m not dead yet.  !!!  More on above-mentioned trips in entries soon.

Since I’m still in so much pain, I decided to visit a specialist about my foot. On Monday I called the Orthopaedic surgeon my nurse recommended. Lucky me, he had a cancellation that very day. So I went in and he called up my x-ray on his computer. He saw almost immediately that there was a break. It was something he said a GP could easily miss, but to his “eagle eyes” was very apparent.

I effin’ broke my foot!!! My friend Susan at work, the same one who lent me her crutches, has a model of a foot in her office. The foot has so many bones, it’s just mind boggling!

He turned the computer monitor around, magnified the image and showed me with the tip of his pen where the break was. Third metatarsal and part of the fourth. Huhn. Well that would explain the pain then, wouldn’t it?

To be brief, I must continue to “baby” it, although he told me when I got off the examining table that I landed hard and need to watch that. The break will heal itself, but it could take up to 8 more weeks. !!! The good news is that he wants me to walk. Slowly, of course. He advised against walking fast for 20 minutes and suggested walking slowly for an hour or so instead.

He also told me to get a cane. Not only would it ease some of the pressure on the foot, but it will indicate to others that I am disabled. Terrific.

I only wish I had a better story for this trouble than I do. When Chris tells it, he is able to highlight the slapstick and whimsy of the events as he is quite the storyteller. But when I say what happened I merely sound pathetic. The only alternatives I’ve come up with involve skydiving and landing poorly or …. no, wait, that’s it. Little help?

I love Cash Cab!! It’s brilliant and so much fun!

Wait, what? You’ve never seen it? Cash Cab is a TV game show that takes place in a New York City taxicab. Unsuspecting patrons get in the cab, settle in and get startled by a noise and flashy lights all around the interior. Driver turns and tells them they’re in The Cash Cab, explains the rules and they can decide if they’d like to do it or not.

He drives and asks you questions. As you get them right the meter shows all the money you’re winning. During the course of your ride, if you feel you don’t know an answer you have both a mobile shout-out and a street shout-out. For a mobile you call anyone you think would know the answer. For the street you pull over and pick someone on the sidewalk you think might know.

There’s also red light challenges (when you’re stuck at a red light) where he’ll ask you to name, for instance, 4 of the Star Wars movies and you have 30 seconds to list them. (Phantom Menace, Empire Strikes Back, Clone Wars, Return of the Jedi) You get it right you win another $250, but if you don’t get it right, you don’t lose anything.

If you reach your destination having gotten fewer than three wrong, you have the option to take the cash you’ve won and be on your merry way or go for double or nothing on a bonus question. I LOVE IT!! <Chris and I were thinking we’d go for it only if we’d won less than a $1,000. Who knows what would happen if we actually ended up there…>

What a terrific concept, right? Win-Win!! Say you don’t win any money, but you’ve reached your destination for FREE. And you got to enjoy a good trivia game and I’m always up for that. I wish I’d come up with this. BTW, kudos to Ben Bailey as the excellent driver/host. He’s unassuming, funny and not over-the-top.

I took another spill last week and hurt my foot pretty badly.  Did it in the comfort of my own home, of course, on my slippery clean floors.  Made a turn too quickly and twisted up my left foot as I crumpled to the floor.  It hurt like hell, but I’ve never really injured myself in such a manner so it didn’t occur to me to ice it or anything.  Plus I had no idea I’d done any real damage so I just went to bed in pain and finally fell asleep.  Figured I bruised it.  Silly Roo.

When I awoke to my bloated and swollen left foot I realized I may have done more damage than I initially thought.  I called in to work and got an appointment with my nurse knowing she’d just instruct me to get x-rays.  Which I did.  AFTER having a courier retrieve my friend Susan’s extra set of crutches from work.  Very kind of her to lend them, I don’t know how I’d have gotten anywhere w/out them.  She also texted me to let her know if I needed anything, but at that point I didn’t know which end was up.  (Wait, do I know now?….)

X-rays showed no breakage so that would make it a sprain, right?  In any case I still couldn’t walk.  I was stuck on my couch all weekend.  My friend Joie called me from Target asking if I needed anything; she’s so sweet!  She brought me a twelve pack of my favorite cherry coke zero.  YAY.  And she had a look at my puffy foot and gave advice.

So I didn’t go in to work for five days, but once I felt up to it my friend Terri offered to give me a ride.  It was so nice!  I took the T home that first day, but I hadn’t realized just how much walking would be involved.  Mistake.  That night my band had a gig and I made another mistake standing instead of sitting at the microphone.  The next day my foot was bruised and in a new kind of pain.

The next day Terri drove me again.  She’s driven me in just about every day.  Even when I know she doesn’t have to be up that early, she’s gotten herself over to my place at 7:30 and driven me downtown.   Wow, right?   What a peach!  Can you imagine?  She’s driven me home a couple times, too, and not only that, her girlfriend (also a friend of mine) has driven me home, too.

This is what I’m saying, my friends are the best!  I’ll repeat a little mantra I’ve got going in this little bloggy blog which is I am very lucky.  No, falling down and spraining my foot wasn’t lucky.  Not being able to walk around a ton, something I love to do, isn’t lucky.   Not working out in three weeks isn’t lucky, all true.  But I’m about counting blessings and looking at the bright side, so that’s what I’m doing.  I’m a lucky girl.

I love Snickers candy bars.   Yes, I love many a chocolate bar, ’tis true.  I go through phases where different ones are my favorite; sometimes it’s Twix, then $100,000 Bar (please note I refuse to call it “100 Grand” as it has no ring to it - “hundred thousand dollar bar” is perfect), then maybe M’n'M’s or Mounds, but Snickers is a consistent fave, a go-to chocolate bar that really is the bomb and definitely satisfies.  The new Snickers billboard ad campaign, without mincing words, sucks.

These advertisements, billboards mostly, consist of bewildering, puzzling, made-up words supposed to indicate that Snickers bars hit the spot and, well, satisfy.  These inscrutable words are showcased in the same font and frame as “SNICKERS” is on the bar itself - how clever.  ?!?   I find myself consistently puzzled and read the “word” aloud hoping to enunciate out some meaning.  Nine times out of ten it remains a mystery and the one time I do understand it, I’m disappointed.

Who came up with this awful ad idea?  I can’t help but think that brainiac should be fired immediately and fired hard.    Frankly, aren’t Snickers so delicious and so woven into the fabric of American consumer society as to be omnipresent that they need no advertising at all?  Maybe it’s just me.

You may have noticed an overarching preoccupation of mine with death.  When I was four years old I had the realization that we will all one day die.  Being only four you could suppose this epiphany frightened me, but it had quite the opposite effect.  I felt comforted by the idea that everything is temporary and saw how we are all in this together, us humans.   Everyone who is alive goes on this journey called life.  (No, I’m sure you’re right, my four-year-old thoughts were hardly so eloquent or lucid, but it’s a feeling I’ve since worded.)

Dying and everything about it has been a fascination of mine since then, I guess.   In re-examining things I like and have liked throughout my life, I have found many roots and reinforcing influences, the above-referenced realization being the first.

So the other morning NPR’s On Point had a program about poetry and committing entire poems to memory.  I knew I had to have at least one memorized poem rattling around in me noggin.  (Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies doesn’t count, though I do know it by heart.  “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears…”)  Rinsing conditioner through my hair I mentally sifted through pages.  Excluding “T’was the Night Before Christmas” and William Carlos Williams’  “This Is Just to Say”  and “The Red Wheelbarrow” did I know any other poems by heart?

Suddenly I remembered one of the poems my mother would read to me from this book called “One Hundred Famous Poems.”  It’s one of my absolute favorites ever, and looking back, I see how it’s quite morbid and sad, yet empowering.  I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember.  It’s called Solitude, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has troubles enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air,
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Morbid may not be exactly the word I was going for, but… acceptance?  To me this poem speaks to my personality.  This isn’t to say that no one ever wants to hear or see me be sad or that my friends will turn and go anytime I need an ear.  Far from it.  But I do my best overall to not focus on the sad and negative side of things.  Bright side, right?  When speaking about circumstances I’m dealing with directly, like my cancer, I will do my best not to bitch and moan.  I naturally gravitate towards seeing beyond the problem.  That’s all.  Well, that and I try to remain aware that everyone’s personal experience is theirs alone and to respect that.

I already ranted about this, but what is wrong with people up here in New England? (I say this will all due respect as I feel, having lived here 20+ years that I am a New Englander now, albeit a Southern one….) The forecast today said to expect it no warmer than 45 degrees, TOPS, and possibly showers later in the afternoon.

When I left for work it was 36 degrees. Why did I see so many businessmen walk by hugging themselves as they leaned into the wind - again - and were clearly cold. Just because it’s April doesn’t make 36 degrees any warmer. It’s still just above freezing, my fellow worker bees. You can’t will the temp to go up by defying the forecast and underdressing.

Maybe they already packed up their winter clothing and they don’t want to dig it out and stink of mothballs. First of all, this is New England. Don’t pack up your winter togs till May. Secondly, do people still use mothballs? yeeeech, so nasty.

Here’s one for you - you wanna piss me off?  Tell me to smile.

Say you see me at the coffee shop, the pub, a club, at my desk, or wherever we happen to be.  I don’t care what my face is doing, do not say “smile.”  You mean well, sure you do, but shut it.  Seriously.

If you know me, you know I’m overall a happy person.  Look at the name of my blog for crying out loud!  So I don’t happen to be smiling.  So what?!  You don’t know what’s up.  I could be deep in thought.  Something awful could have just happened.  Some bad news might have come my way.  Maybe I’m thinking of an answer to a trivia question.  You can’t know from just looking.

I’m more aware of the expression on my face than most people probably are.  I make a concerted effort not to give people on the street dirty looks or even looks that could be interpreted as dirty.  I would like my face reflect my open mind.

And by the way, lack of SMILE doesn’t equal frown.  You wanna see me frown?  Tell me to smile, I dare you.

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned here that I’m going to write my own book (maybe an extended pamphlet-sized bound product) on modern etiquette.   Etiquette, the classic tome by Emily Post was updated fairly recently to figure in more up-to-date social mores and practices, so I gave it a look at the bookstore.  Not only does it have the size and bulk of an encyclopedia, to my mind it’s a little quaint.  It’s not wrong in any way, it doesn’t give bad information, quite the contrary.   It just doesn’t address the subjects I want addressed, for instance how to comport yourself in a heavily-populated urban area.  I found no mention of cellphone use or conduct on public transportation, subjects I would like to give attention.

The bag maker extraordinaire Kate Spade put out a sweet, wee book called Manners.  Frankly, when I first saw it at the bookstore I got pissed because I wanted mine to be an original idea.  It’s very Kate-Spade-cute, though, and it’s good enough that I bought it.  Think I’ll use it as an outline or guide for my own book called “Essential Civility” which will be longer and answer even more questions about how to conduct yourself in public.  (I may include a subtitle like “courtesy in the city” or something.  OOH, I just came up with that and me likey!!)

Some of you may already know about this title and book idea because I came up with it about two years ago and it has inspired some heated discussions with friends.  Not heated as in we argued, but heated because we worked ourselves up in a froth describing the rude and thoughtless people we seem to encounter every day.  I swear, when I allow it to bother me I get the pedestrian equivalent of road rage.  What am I supposed to do with that?!?  No horn to honk and no car in which to remain anonymous as I do so.  I either confront this rude rube and risk who-knows-what or swallow it down and begin work on an enormous ulcer.

Since I can’t live my life a furrowed-brow and clenched-jaw away from a heart attack and I certainly can’t spend all my time on the whys and wherefores of retarded social behavior, this will channel my energy creatively.  My hope is that focusing this rage into a book will help me avoid the ulcer option.

I’m thinking as I write I’ll post bits and pieces here.  I’ve no doubt that I’ll receive comments that disagree with me on one point or another, but that’s fair.  If your arguments or suggestions sway me or give me ideas for chapters or topics you’ll get listed in the credits of the book.  Win-win!

Now please wait for me to exit the train before boarding and give me three more inches of personal space in line at the supermarket, mmmkay?

March 20.  The first day of Spring.  Crocuses, daffodils and tulips poking their noses out of the ground testing the air, checking if the time is right.  They’ll come on out no matter what, of course, they have no choice.  Their blooming must stick to a pre-determined schedule, snow on the ground be damned.

We humans have the intellect and tools to determine the temperature, wind-chill, precipitation amount, etc,…  Ergo we can choose our outfits according to the weather.  People don’t go out in jeans and a t-shirt without a jacket if there’s snow in the forecast, right?  Or do they?

Yes, it’s the first day of Spring, but come ON.  As I left the T at State Street station I was greeted by a bitterly cold wind.  Looking around I saw relatively scantily-clad ladies and gentlemen whip by me in the blowing air wearing nary a scarf or coat and looking none-too-happy.  This is not to say that no one I saw was dressed properly for the cold, but my eyes were drawn to the ones who weren’t, and there were plenty.  My mothering side was aghast and in my head I admonished them all with a “what were you thinking?!” and “put on a hat, fella, you’re gonna catch your death!” and “don’t you watch/listen/read the weather forecast?”

That last one there reverberated inside me as I realized not only do people not pay attention to the forecast, but even if they had, this is New England and if you want any confidence in the forecast you can only pay attention to the last one before you open the door because they change as fast as you can turn around and say “abracadabra.”  Not to mention the fact it seems as though every radio station, tv station and newspaper has a different idea of what the day’s weather holds in store.

But there’s more to it than that, and in my opinion a large percentage of people dress for the weather they think it should be instead of what it is.   First day of Spring is ideally sunny and warm, sure, but this is Boston.   That’s just not gonna happen.  In truth it cracks me up to see dudes in their capri shorts and flip flops and girls in their sundresses when it’s no more than 38 degrees out.  The word March or April in the date must = beach day! to them.  It’s as though they think they’ll collectively will the weather to warm up and do their bidding if they just break out their summer gear.

I’m learning to fight my motherly instincts now as I observe these poorly-attired, sadly-optimistic souls shivering and shaking at their bus stops and hugging themselves tight as they lean into the wind.  Frankly, I feel much the way I do when faced with someone’s undying belief in an almighty god.  I just laugh.  HA!  You can’t win.  None of us is going to win.  And I can’t help you, so I’ll watch you from my cozy hat, coat and boots-wearing perspective and let you go off on your merry way.