Tag: time

Not squeezing more in

I was having some sort of claustrophobic panic attack.

On a Saturday morning, we were scheduled to go to the Wizard’s Wardrobe to do a little cleanup, then onto New Paltz to see one of my oldest friends.

My wife, announced that she was going to go to the store to pick up a few things. My heart sank, just a little bit. This would take her longer that she thought – it almost always does. This would make us late for appointment #1, which would make us tardy to appointment #2.

Then, abruptly, she decided to stay home and relax for a few moments before we had to go. I was pleased but shocked. And I had nothing to do with this. She was downstairs, and I was upstairs, and I had only responded to her initial decision with a neutral-sounding “O.K.”

Another story: I was relating something at work about someone who used to be there – for reasons of privacy, I won’t say who – but the problems we were seeing she related to problems she was seeing in her workplace. And it gave me a whole new perspective.

Another story: sometimes her husband is crazy, and she more or less accepts that. We were at the MacHaydn Theatre about 40 miles away. She was going to wait for a lot of the other cars to get out of the parking lot before she tried, even though she had had opportunities.

Well, I was having some sort of claustrophobic panic attack, and she accommodated my irrational need to get out of that parking space. She puts up with a lot.

The blurry picture, BTW, was taken by me on my tablet on May 15, our anniversary. Yes, I suck at this; tell me something I DON’T know. But most of the pictures of her in this blog were taken years ago, some before we even met.

Happy birthday, honey. I love you.

October #1 rambling: recovery mode

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will commission 36 playwrights to translate all of Shakespeare’s plays into modern English.

wrong reenactment
Still on the mend, wearing this band around my waist, until at least November 9. I will write about this eventually.

I’ve managed to watch more baseball in the past week and a half than I saw the entire regular season. Great to see former Met Rusty Staub after his heart attack. Rooting for the Mets, or if they get eliminated, the Cubs. Just realized that the World Series Game 5 would be November. If it’s the Dodgers in the Series, I’m rooting for the American League team.

ALSO, my office is moving this week. Note to self: do NOT pick up anything over 20 pounds.

Understanding Mass Incarceration and Bringing It Down: An Interview With James Kilgore.

John Oliver: rips GOP candidates for blaming gun violence on mental illness in absence of a plan, and Migrants and Refugees.

Color film was made for white people.

The War on Science, even in Canada.

Seth Meyers explains that ridiculous Congressional hearing over Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood’s “Government Funding”: The Same Kind Your Doctor Receives.

What the Speakership Battle is About.

Pope Francis met with an openly gay couple — and unlike Kim Davis, who ambushed him, he did so intentionally, and Was Pope Francis Actually Swindled into Meeting Kim Davis?

If we gotta honor a Christopher…

“Sick of hearing about the damn emails.”

Analysis Ranks Presidential Candidates By Their Supporters’ Grammar.

It costs you $43 every time you wait for the doctor.

What Happens When There’s No Internet. Presented By BuzzFeed & Hyundai – is it real?

Sweden is shifting to a 6-hour work day.

Shakespeare in Modern English? “The Oregon Shakespeare Festival… recently announced that over the next three years, it will commission 36 playwrights to translate all of Shakespeare’s plays into modern English.”

Chaz Ebert reviews the play BlackWhite Love, about Roger and Chaz Ebert.

How to Make a Sandwich. It only took 6 months and cost $1500.

K-Chuck Radio’s Sunshine Pop includes rare music from Mary Hopkin and Victor Garber.

New 2015 remix and video of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson’s 1983 international smash hit single ‘Say Say Say’.

Van Morrison and the Thirty-One Songs about Nothing But a Bad Contract.

Mark Evanier continues to list the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968, including Hans Conried (Snidely Whiplash), Don Messick (Scooby-Doo) Alan Reed (Fred Flintstone), Jack Mercer (Popeye), and Gary Owens (Space Ghost, Roger Ramjet).

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

It’s so very nice that Eddie the Renaissance Geek wished me well after my surgery, given the fact that he’s had much more serious health issues of his own.

Albany High hosts tours in advance of vote on improvements.

What’s the last comic book or graphic novel you picked up at a comic book store? Also, The Big Event effect.

SamuraiFrog: Ant-Man and the Book Light Lady.

Donna’s quote resonated.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

New national role for Biscovey head teacher. “Roger Green is one of 70 heads across the country…”

Time passages

I’ve read old journals/diaries of mine from the 1970s and 1980s, and much of it is cringeworthy.

from the Oddity Mall
from the Oddity Mall

I read this book last year, Thinking in Numbers, by Daniel Tammet, and discovered that I had something in common with American philosopher William James, who noted that “the same space of time seems shorter as we grow older.” He cites a mathematical explanation by contemporary French mathematician Paul Janet, who noted:

our experience of time is proportional to our age. For a ten-year-old child, one year represents one-tenth of his existence, whereas for a man of fifty, the same year equates only to one-fiftieth (2 percent). The older man’s year will thus seem to elapse five times faster than the child’s…

I came to that same conclusion at least thirty years ago; it’s all math.

Someone on Facebook noted that the TV series The Twilight Zone – Season 1, Episode 1 – “Where Is Everybody?” was presented 55 years ago this month, October 2, 1959. Another commented, “I can hardly believe it.” This response seemed strange. Things that happened 50 years ago (Beatles, ML King, Vietnam) feel like a long time ago to me.

Whereas, when the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the TV show Friends made Jaquandor feel old, that seems more understandable to me. (Not that he’s old, but that he feels so.) Because looking back 20 years doesn’t feel like twenty years when you’re over 40; it’s all math.

Friends isn’t that chronological linchpin for me, as I watched it only about half the time. But the band Nirvana is; the band, with Dave Grohl as its final drummer, just before stardom, got together 24 years ago. Now THAT makes ME feel old.

Looking back can be kind of uncomfortably yucky. Ken Levine listened to tapes of radio programs he DJed in the 1970s and cringes a bit. The Coverville is celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall, but host Brian Ibbott said on that program, “Don’t listen to the first year,” when he was figuring out the format. I know that feeling.

For some obscure reason, I’ve read old journals/diaries of mine from the 1970s and 1980s, and much of it is cringeworthy. The only reasons I keep them are these: 1) I could use some of it to cull out family and FantaCo history; 2) all the terrible stuff I could throw together as a roman a clef.

 

What to do with the stuff after they die

Attempting to immortalize your loved one by leaving everything “just as it was” or storing away boxes to go through at some later date may prolong your grieving process, preventing you from moving forward with your life.

ref0009sMy eldest niece has a friend named Jessica McKimmie. Jess has a blog called Peace Through Grief. The first post, dated, coincidentally or not, on September 11, 2013:

After the sudden loss of my mom last year and the loss of my dad eleven years ago, I’m beginning to consider that maybe, just maybe, I’m here on this earth to talk to others about grief.

And she does, through communing with nature and writing a letter to her late mom.

She had a post a few months ago, Saying Goodbye to Stuff: Six Steps for Letting Go After Loss I found particularly wise, useful, and, oh, so true.

The first idea: “Allow yourself time.” And in particular:

Beware of extremes.

Attempting to immortalize your loved one by leaving everything “just as it was” or storing away boxes to go through at some later date may prolong your grieving process, preventing you from moving forward with your life. On the other extreme, you may have impulses to purge everything right away, wishing yourself to push through or quickly “move on” . This too can be a sign of denial of the magnitude of your loss.

It reminded me of a specific situation that I think played out badly, that might have been avoided with a bit more mutual understanding.

There’s a couple I’ll call Jack and Sandy. They met online, fell in love, got married in fairly short order, much to the dismay of Jack’s family. When Jack died of cancer less than a year and a half after the wedding, Jack’s family asked Sandy for some stuff of Jack’s to remind them of Jack, pretty much right after the funeral. Sandy was quite resistant; they had had him for over 40 years, while she had had him less than two, so their demands seemed insensitive and unfair.

My sense is that if Jack’s family had given Sandy more time to grieve, their requests for some of Jack’s mementos would have been better received.
***
The Art of Presence

Looking forward to NEXT month

There were a lot of deaths in the families of people I know in the month of February.

It’s not the warmer weather that I’m longing for, it’s a bit of sanity. February was Black History Month and is always brutal for me at church. I try to fawn off responsibilities to others, but, like a boomerang, they keep coming back to me. Lining up speakers, getting approvals, making sure equipment is set up, putting information into the church bulletin, etc.

Sunday, February 24 was a prime example. Go to the 8:30 a.m. service to make sure the guest preacher has shown up. Afterward, accompany him to a place for him to rest until the 10:45 service. Make sure the 9:30 adult education speakers are there and make sure they are set. Make at least some of the choir rehearsal, which starts at 9:30, but my cloning ability is frayed. Sing in the choir at 10:45 service, and also do the presentation of the ceremonial kente cloth, and read prayers of the people.

Thank goodness my wife has taken responsibility for the luncheon. But then there’s the clean-up afterward.

I would have been happy to have gone home then, as I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the husband of one of the choir members had died that week, and choir people support their own. So we sang at the 3 p.m. service.

Not that it was a BAD day, mind you. I thought everything went well. The guest preacher was good, the adult ed presenters were well-received, and the dinner was fantastic. I thought the music was fine; in fact, if I’m doing this correctly, you should be able to hear I’ve Been in the Storm So Long [LISTEN]; yes, there’s a one-second recording glitch at the end.

There were a lot of deaths in the families of people I know in the month of February. Our choir’s soprano soloist lost her father; him, I hadn’t met, but the rest of the people I knew. The former treasurer of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, Peg, passed away. So did the wife of the former president of the Friends; Len and Naomi Tucker had been married for over 70 years and were such a sweet couple. My friend Broome’s dad Michael died; he was always an interesting and entertaining guy. Our former secretary at work had her mother die in the early morning, then had to bring her father to the hospital for treatment of his heart that same day.

March means working on an initiative my church is supporting with Giffen Elementary School in Albany; my wife is even more heavily involved than I. There’s a church musical, and I have a part in that, on March 17, which means some rehearsals as well. And of course, there’s Holy Week, which church musicians and singers think of as hell week. (Someone suggested that was a sacrilegious sentiment – well, when you think about the betrayal, whipping, and crucifixion stuff prior to Easter…)

So I’m looking forward, more than usual, to April, when our office has a presentation to prepare by the end of the month; a piece of cake.

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